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Episode 3: Nixon's Midnight Vigil at the Lincoln Memorial · Most Fascinating Stories

• 0:02
  [Rebecca] Welcome to Most Fascinating Stories, where we uncover the real, well-sourced, and lesser-known tales behind history's most prominent figures.
• 0:11
  [Rebecca] I'm your host, Rebecca.
• 0:13
  [Rebecca] Today, we enter the shadowy corridors of the White House in the turbulent spring of 1970 with President Richard Milhis Nixon.
• 0:21
  [Rebecca] History remembers Nixon in sharp, unforgiving contrasts.
• 0:25
  [Rebecca] The brilliant geopolitical strategist who opened relations with China and the paranoid politician whose presidency unraveled in the Watergate scandal.
• 0:34
  [Rebecca] He was known for being intensely guarded, aloof, and suspicious of the media and the youth culture of the late 60s.
• 0:41
  [Rebecca] Yet on one bizarre, chilly May night, at the peak of the Vietnam War protests, Richard Nixon did something so shocking, so utterly reckless and unscripted, that his closest advisors believed he had completely lost his mind.
• 0:56
  [Rebecca] Here is George with the full, dramatized story.
• 1:10
  [George] Just five days earlier, on May 4th, four unarmed college students had been shot and killed by the Ohio National Guard at Kent State University during protests against Nixon's secret expansion of the Vietnam War into neighboring Cambodia.
• 1:25
  [George] The nation exploded in fury.
• 1:27
  [George] Over 400 colleges and universities shut down in nationwide strikes.
• 1:32
  [George] Now, on Friday, May 8th, more than 100,000 anti-war demonstrators, mostly college students, draftage men, and young activists, were flooding into the District of Columbia for a massive demonstration on the National Mall.
• 1:47
  [George] Around the White House, the atmosphere was suffocating.
• 1:50
  [George] To protect the president from angry crowds, the district government parked dozens of city transit buses bumper to bumper around the perimeter fence, forming a giant wall of steel.
• 2:01
  [George] Inside the adjacent executive office building, troops from the 82nd Airborne Division were bivoualked in the hallways, rifles stacked against marble walls.
• 2:11
  [George] Inside the Oval Office, Richard Nixon was under siege.
• 2:15
  [George] He had delivered a tense, combative televised press conference earlier that evening, defending the Cambodian incursion.
• 2:23
  [George] But behind closed doors, his staff noticed disturbing signs of physical and emotional exhaustion.
• 2:29
  [George] Nixon had barely slept in forty-eight hours.
• 2:32
  [George] His eyes were bloodshot, his speech was rapid and disjointed.
• 2:36
  [George] He was deeply wounded by the hostility directed at him, convinced that the media and the universities were determined to destroy his presidency.
• 2:44
  [George] By midnight, the White House grew quiet, but the president could not rest.
• 2:49
  [George] Nixon retreated to his personal sitting room on the second floor, wearing an old sweater and dress slacks.
• 2:56
  [George] Between midnight and four in the morning, telephone logs record that Nixon made over fifty phone calls.
• 3:02
  [George] He called his national security advisor Henry Kissinger eight times to reanalyze diplomatic cables.
• 3:09
  [George] He called his daughter Julie, his press secretary Ron Ziegler, his friend Bibet Ribozo, and various cabinet secretaries, repeating the same anxious question Did the press conference go well?
• 3:21
  [George] Did we get our message through?
• 3:23
  [George] Between calls, Nixon put a recording of Ratchmaninoff's piano concerto on the phonograph, turning the volume high, pacing the floor.
• 3:32
  [George] Outside on the national mall, campfires flickered in the darkness.
• 3:36
  [George] Thousands of young people, wrapped in sleeping bags and army blankets, were sleeping under the trees, singing peace anthems, preparing for the massive march at sunrise.
• 3:44
  [George] Nixon walked to the window and stared out into the dark park.
• 3:50
  [George] An obsession began to form in his restless mind.
• 3:53
  [George] Why did these young people hate him so fiercely?
• 3:56
  [George] Why couldn't they see that he wanted peace as much as they did?
• 4:00
  [George] At four o'clock in the morning, an extraordinary impulse seized him.
• 4:04
  [George] At 4:15 a.m., Nixon walked down the hall to the bedroom of his personal valet, Manilo Sanchez, a loyal Cuban American who had served Nixon for years.
• 4:15
  [George] Nixon knocked on the door and entered.
• 4:17
  [George] Sanchez sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes in confusion.
• 4:21
  [George] Manilo, Nixon whispered, Have you ever seen the Lincoln Memorial at night?
• 4:26
  [George] Sanchez blinked, bewildered.
• 4:28
  [George] No, Mr.
• 4:29
  [George] President, he replied.
• 4:30
  [George] Get your clothes on, Manilo, Nixon said with a boyish grin.
• 4:34
  [George] We are going to go right now.
• 4:36
  [George] Down in the Secret Service Command Center, alarm bells went off.
• 4:41
  [George] Special agent in charge Robert Taylor stared in utter disbelief as President Nixon walked into the basement, accompanied only by his valet and his personal physician, Dr.
• 4:50
  [George] Walter T.
• 4:51
  [George] Catch.
• 4:52
  [George] Taylor scrambled forward.
• 4:54
  [George] Mr.
• 4:55
  [George] President, you can't go out there.
• 4:57
  [George] The city is packed with demonstrators.
• 4:59
  [George] We have no advanced security.
• 5:01
  [George] I am going, Bob, Nixon replied calmly, slipping into his heavy blue wool overcoat.
• 5:07
  [George] Either you come with me, or I'm going alone.
• 5:10
  [George] Desperate, Taylor rallied three nearby agents.
• 5:13
  [George] There was no time to organize a motorcade.
• 5:16
  [George] Nixon, Sanchez, Dr.
• 5:18
  [George] Tatch, and three stunned Secret Service agents piled into a single unmarked black limousine, slipped through the south gate, and vanished into the Pradon mist.
• 5:28
  [George] At 4:35 a.m., the black limousine pulled up along Constitution Avenue beneath the towering silhouette of the Lincoln Memorial.
• 5:36
  [George] A light fog hovered over the reflecting pool.
• 5:39
  [George] Nixon stepped out of the car.
• 5:41
  [George] With hands thrust deep into his overcoat pockets, the President of the United States began climbing the marble steps into the shadows.
• 5:49
  [George] Beneath the colossal marble statue of Abraham Lincoln, asleep on the cold stone floor, were about thirty antiwar student demonstrators.
• 5:58
  [George] They were bundled in sleeping bags, surrounded by acoustic guitars, peace signs and backpacks.
• 6:05
  [George] Nixon walked directly into the center of the memorial.
• 6:08
  [George] He looked up at the statue of Lincoln, then turned to Sanchez, pointing out the carved words of the second inaugural address on the wall, with malice toward none, with charity for all.
• 6:19
  [George] The sound of leather shoes on marble echoed through the monument.
• 6:23
  [George] A student from Syracuse University, 19-year-old Bob Moustakas, woke up, sat upright, and rubbed his eyes.
• 6:31
  [George] Standing five feet in front of him, backlit by the monument floodlights, was a man with a sloping nose, heavy jowls and a familiar dark suit.
• 6:40
  [George] Moustakas nudged the friend sleeping next to him.
• 6:43
  [George] Hey, look, isn't that Nixon?
• 6:47
  [George] The friend groaned, You're dreaming, go back to sleep.
• 6:50
  [George] Nixon smiled, walked over, extended his hand, and said in his deep, unmistakable baritone, Good morning, I'm Richard Nixon.
• 6:59
  [George] Where are you boys from?
• 7:01
  [George] Within minutes, the entire group of students was awake, sitting in their sleeping bags in stunned, paralyzed silence.
• 7:08
  [George] Word quickly spread down the steps: Nixon is up there.
• 7:12
  [George] Nixon is at the monument.
• 7:14
  [George] Dozens more students came sprinting up the marble steps, surrounding the president in the chilly pre-dawn darkness.
• 7:21
  [George] The Secret Service agents had their hands inside their jackets, gripping their sidearms, terrified that someone would pull a weapon.
• 7:28
  [George] Instead, an extraordinary, surreal 90-minute conversation unfolded.
• 7:34
  [George] Nixon did not scold the students, nor did he hide behind prepared talking points.
• 7:39
  [George] He spoke in a rambling, stream of consciousness style, searching desperately for common human ground.
• 7:45
  [George] I know you hate the war, Nixon told them, looking into their eyes.
• 7:49
  [George] I know you think I'm a hawk, but I want peace just as badly as you do.
• 7:54
  [George] The difference is how we get there.
• 7:56
  [George] Remember Neville Chamberlain.
• 7:58
  [George] Appeasement doesn't bring peace, it only brings a bigger war later.
• 8:02
  [George] He asked the students where they went to school.
• 8:05
  [George] When one student mentioned Syracuse, Nixon immediately pivoted to football, debating the university's running back strategies.
• 8:13
  [George] He asked others what they were studying.
• 8:15
  [George] Then he began talking passionately about the architecture of Prague, the grid of Warsaw, and the spirit of the Russian people.
• 8:22
  [George] Travel while you're young, Nixon urged them with intense earnestness.
• 8:27
  [George] Don't let yourselves become bitter, don't hate.
• 8:30
  [George] When you hate, you destroy yourself.
• 8:33
  [George] A female student from California stood up, looked Nixon dead in the eye, and spoke with blunt, devastating clarity.
• 8:40
  [George] Mr.
• 8:41
  [George] President, you don't understand us.
• 8:43
  [George] We don't care about football or monuments or Prague.
• 8:46
  [George] We care about our friends being killed.
• 8:49
  [George] We want the killing to stop.
• 8:50
  [George] Nixon stopped speaking.
• 8:52
  [George] His shoulders slumped.
• 8:54
  [George] In the shadows of Lincoln's statue, the president looked at her, nodded slowly, and whispered, I know, I know you do.
• 8:59
  [George] By 6 a.m., the sun was cresting the horizon.
• 9:05
  [George] A crowd of several hundred demonstrators had gathered around the base of the monument, and the mood was turning hostile.
• 9:12
  [George] Chants of peace now began echoing off the marble.
• 9:15
  [George] Agent Bob Taylor grabbed the president's arm.
• 9:18
  [George] Mr.
• 9:19
  [George] President, we have to leave right now.
• 9:21
  [George] Nixon reluctantly agreed.
• 9:23
  [George] As he was led down the steps toward the car, a student called out, Thank you for coming, Mr.
• 9:29
  [George] President.
• 9:30
  [George] Nixon waved, ducked into the limousine, and sped away.
• 9:34
  [George] Back at the White House, Chief of Staff H.R.
• 9:37
  [George] Haldeman woke up to learn that the president had been roaming the National Mall alone in the dark.
• 9:42
  [George] Haldeman was terrified.
• 9:44
  [George] When he confronted Nixon in the Oval Office, Nixon was strangely energized, insisting on visiting the empty House of Representatives Chamber, and then stopping at the Mayflower Hotel for corned beef hash.
• 9:56
  [George] Haldeman recorded in his diary that night.
• 9:59
  [George] It was the weirdest day of the entire administration.
• 10:04
  [Rebecca] Richard Nixon's pre-dawn vigil at the Lincoln Memorial remains one of the most astonishing moments in American political history.
• 10:11
  [Rebecca] It stripped away all the machinery of state power, revealing a deeply isolated leader who, in a moment of acute national crisis, simply wanted to look his young adversaries in the eye and explain his troubled soul.
• 10:23
  [Rebecca] History rarely affords us such raw, unvarnished glimpses behind the presidential mask.
• 10:28
  [Rebecca] Thank you for listening to most fascinating stories.
• 10:31
  [Rebecca] I'm Rebecca.
• 10:32
  [Rebecca] Join us next time for another forgotten chapter of history.
• 10:36
  [Rebecca] Until then, stay curious.