Ronald Reagan Says He Supports Richard Nixon in the 1972 Election, As the Thought of Liberal, Anti-war Candidate George McGovern Becoming President Is “Unthinkable”

Originally a New Deal Democrat, Reagan campaigned for several Democratic candidates, including President Harry S. Truman. He served on the board of a union, the Screen Actors Guild, and then later became its president. However, as the 1950s progressed, his views became increasingly conservative. His second wife, Nancy Davis Reagan, had grown up in a conservative household, and GE’s executives, who were then employing him, supported conservative principles of limited government, free markets, and anti-communism. By 1962, Reagan had changed from a Cold War liberal to a Republican when he famously remarked, “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The party left me.” By July 1963, Reagan was already delivering talks promoting Conservatism, and had even selected a title for them: “A Time for Choosing”. He focused on the importance of a strong defense against Communism, and the need to create peace in the world through American strength. He said that a government could not control the economy without coercing people. He also talked about the high tax burden of Americans and the increasing national debt. In the 1964 presidential election – his first as a Republican – Reagan supported a staunch, old-fashioned conservative Senator from Arizona named Barry M. Goldwater. In fact, Reagan was co-chair of California Republicans for Goldwater and stumped his state for Barry. Then, on October 27, 1964, he delivered his speech for Goldwater before a national audience, and his charisma electrified conservative Republicans. He was encouraged to run for governor of California in 1966, and he defeated two-term governor, Edmund G. Brown, who had beaten Richard Nixon just four years earlier.

In 1968 Gov. Reagan’s name was placed into contention for the Republican presidential nomination, but he never announced. When Nixon was nominated, he supported him. In 1972, Reagan was serving his second term in Sacramento. President Nixon was the obvious and unanimous Republican nominee. On the Democratic side, Ted Kennedy would have been the choice, but he refused to run in the wake of the Chappaquidock scandal. The next likely candidate was Edmund Muskie, but by late February 1972 his candidacy was imploding. South Dakota Senator George McGovern was already in the race as an anti-war, progressive candidate. He was able to pull together support from the anti-war movement and other grassroots support, and by March he stood a good chance of winning the nomination. Conservatives were horrified, and among them was Gov. Reagan.

Theodore Humes was a longtime politician in both Pennsylvania and Arizona, and the future director of the Securities and Exchange Commission under Nixon. In 1964 he was a campaign aide to Barry Goldwater, and he had known Reagan for years. Frank McCarthy was a producer. For some time he considered making a film about Gen. Douglas MacArthur, and in 1977 did so, producing MacArthur, an account of the General’s life. In both the planning and execution of the film, MacArthur’s famed Farewell Address at West Point played a part. In it, he stated, “The shadows are lengthening for me. The twilight is here. My days of old have vanished…They have gone glimmering through the dreams of things that were… I listen then, but with thirsty ear, for the witching melody of faint bugles blowing reveille, of far drums beating the long roll. In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield. But in the evening of my memory I come back to West Point. Always there echoes and re-echoes: Duty, Honor, Country.”

Typed letter signed, on his State of California, Governor’s Office letterhead, Sacramento, California, March 20, 1972, to Humes, expressing his feelings and also praising Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s famed farewell speech given at West Point. “Thanks so much for your good letter, and you are absolutely right – the speech I made reference to was that magnificent farewell at West Point. I’m glad Frank McCarthy is considering that for a picture. As you no doubt know, I’m committed to Richard Nixon for ’72. I believe the alternatives are unthinkable, and only a united, all-out effort can return him to office.”

Nixon went on to defeat McGovern, but two years later resigned as a result of Watergate. The Republican Party was in need of a new leader to sweep it again into power, and it soon found one in Ronald Reagan.