Did You Know That President Nixon Had A Prankster Messing With Him For Years?

by N/A, 10 years ago | 2 min read

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The world of politics is not one free of a few insane practical jokes, as Richard Nixon knows all too well.

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Dick Tuck was a Democrat, and he was a prankster. He worked on Nixon's Senate campaign and just pranked the living daylights out of him. And the fun didn't stop there...when Nixon ran against John F. Kennedy, Kennedy hired Tuck to keep the pranks comin'.

The man had all sorts of tricks up his sleeve. After a debate that a lot of people felt that Nixon had one, he had an old woman go up to him afterwards and comfort him on television, expressing her sorrow that he'd lost the debate.

Once, he even hired pregnant women to show up to a rally wearing shirts that read "Nixon's the One"!

He once dressed up as a conductor when Nixon was giving a speech from a train, and actually pulled the train out of the station while Nixon was speaking!

Another time, he actually had Nixon pose with a bunch of children holding a sign that said "Welcome Nixon" in English, and then had a bunch of words in Chinese. Nixon took the photo smiling before he realized the sign read "What about the Hughes loan?" which was alluding to a loan received by Nixon's brother. The loan had been SUPER controversial and Nixon ripped up the sign when he discovered what this meant.

It was in order to up the ante and improve his "Dick Tuck capability" that Nixon started hiring people to do some dirty work for him and try and oust the democratic party. But we all know how that ended...

When Nixon turned a blind eye to his staff approving a break-in to the Democratic Headquarters at Watergate, one of the greatest political scandals in American history was unleashed, and some investigative reporting by Bob Woodward and Cal Bernstein of The Washington Post eventually led to Nixon's resignation.