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When Nixon ran against Pat Brown for Governor of California in 1962, Tuck popped up everywhere like a bad sprite. Nixon would no sooner throw him off the campaign train than he would sneak back on again. At a rally in Los Angeles' Chinatown, Tuck gave a banner to some children, who waved it aloft when Nixon appeared. "Let's have a picture," the candidate suggested. At that point, some of the Chinese happened to read the inscription, WHAT ABOUT THE HUGHES LOAN?—a reference to the $205,000 that Howard Hughes had lent Nixon's brother Donald. In a rage, Nixon tore up the banner before TV cameras.
At the 1964 G.O.P. National Convention, Tuck wandered around creating havoc by spreading phony stories about rival candidates and setting one against another—a tactic not too far removed from some of Segretti's machinations. Once Barry Goldwater was nominated, he replaced Nixon as Tuck's chief victim. The prankster smuggled a comely girl onto the Goldwater train; every six hours until she was caught, she put out a newsletter ridiculing the campaign. Two years later, Tuck turned serious about politics—or so it seemed. He ran for the California state senate. He professed to be mortally afraid that Nixon would endorse him. In fact, Nixon sent him a good-humored letter threatening to return to California to vote. After he lost, Tuck gave a concession speech: "The people have spoke—the bastards."
He became subdued. In 1972 he attached himself to the McGovern campaign, but only halfheartedly. McGovern did not seem to appreciate a good joke much more than Nixon. When the President and some fat cats were about to pay a visit to John Connally's ranch, Tuck proposed sending a Brink's armored car to the scene followed by a Mexican laundry truck. But the McGovernites vetoed the suggestion.
Just when the prankster's bag of tricks was practically empty, the White House decided to imitate him. There was talk of "developing a Dick Tuck capability." Says Tuck: "It sounded like a missile strike. It dawned on me that they would probably have given the job to Lockheed, gone through two cost overruns and the thing still wouldn't fly." Crash it did. Recently Tuck and Haldeman came face to face in the Capitol. "You started all of this," said the ex-chief of staff of the White House. Replied Tuck: "Yeah, Bob, but you guys ran it into the ground." It is true that, after Watergate, political tricks may never be funny again.