TN: So, I'll introduce... HP: You, you gotta, you gotta... TN: I'll get us started. Hi, I'm Timothy Naftali. HP: Hi. TN: I'm director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.
We're in Yorba Linda, California. It's October 25, 2007, and I have the honor and privilege to be interviewing Hubert Perry. Hubert, thank you for joining us today.
HP: Thank you. TN: When did you first meet Richard Nixon? HP: Probably when I was a
junior in high school, I guess. That's the first I have any recollection of seeing
him, and that was in 1929. TN: Tell us about your high school. HP: Not very, not very, nothing very much to talk about. I was just a mediocre student, average student at least, and he
was, he was a year ahead of me, and he was a junior. He went to Whittier his junior and senior year in high school. He came from Fullerton, and he was very well known as a speaker. He got into
speaking and, and ran for student body president, came within a few votes of getting it, but he didn't, didn't get it. He wasn't too well, he wasn't too well-known at that time, but he was a great debater. Debating was the thing in high school; the American Constitution, I think, was the thing that they were talking about, and he was, he was the number two man in, number two man in his class graduating from high school. HP: Do you remember that, that campaign, that, his first campaign? HP: Not really. He was up
against a fellow who was in sports and who was a very popular, and Dick was,
didn't have much time to give to, to, to extracurricular activities. So, he, he
wasn't too well-known. TN: Do you remember, and I know it's a long time ago, but do you remember the, the issues? What were they, what were they
campaigning about? HP: No. Who was the most popular. It was, it was not very... TN: Did, did Richard Nixon go out for any of the sports teams in high school? HP: No, he didn't go out for
any, any sports. He didn't, he didn't have much time to do
anything except just be in the, be a good student. TN: Tell us a little bit, please,
about 1929 Whittier. Where did the Perrys live, and where did
the Nixons live? HP: We lived in the old part of town up on Friends Avenue, and they
lived, it just, it, it could have been 50 miles away from Whittier, because they lived in East Whittier, and if you lived in East Whittier, you didn't come into Whittier.
You didn't, didn't much, they went to the little church, Quaker church, in East Whittier near the store, across the street from the store, and that was about five miles, four or five miles. TN: But it sounds as you said as if it were on a different planet. HP: Well, it was, because Whittier was a tight little community. It went out as far as College Avenue, and East Whittier was just country. TN: Did you go to visit him when he
was, at that time? HP: No. Not in high school. TN: Not in high school. Were you in any clubs together? HP: No. TN: So, you just remember seeing him? You weren't really friends? HP: Yeah, we weren't, he didn't have much time to socialize with anybody,
and we were, we were, those of us from the city were, they could have been on a different planet almost. TN: Tell us some of the great high school teachers that he might have had? HP: I, I don't think anybody in high school that was particularly great. Certainly, there was nobody I remember. I don't, I don't
remember who taught history, but certainly, he didn't develop an
interest in the political scene until he got to Whittier College and got into
Paul Smith's influence, who was the history professor at Whittier College, and
Paul Smith, I think, stirred an interest in him, stirred up, got him interested in history and interested in American, American history and in politics, perhaps. TN: Can you tell us a little bit more about Paul Smith? What do you remember of him? HP: Paul Smith was a great history professor, a poor college president, but, one of the worst Whittier had, ever had, but certainly, he was an
influence, because of his enthusiasm and his interest in history, on Dick Nixon and
Dick Nixon's interest in politics, I think, because of, and, and politics and, and, and
political figures that he would, he would spend a lot of time talking about. So, it, Dick, I think, because of his taking so
much history, got interested in, in, in the subject from Paul Smith, who was quite
contagious in his speaking ability or his interest in, in characters. TN: Do you remember Richard Nixon actually telling you this about Paul Smith? HP: No, no, because I never, I
never had any classes in American history with Dick. I was taking business
courses, which were, they didn't have very much, but I didn't take any of American history. Didn't take any sort of subjects Dick took. TN: How did you become friends
with him at Whittier? HP: Well, I guess the football team. We both spent a lot of time on the bench. He never got a letter, and I got a letter
my senior year as manager of the team. So, I got one letter and
he got no letters but every night, he would come out for the team, and the coach was a big influence on Dick, Chief Newman, and although Dick was underweight and not able to carry on his duties as, as a lineman, he
was nevertheless very enthusiastic, and his greatest contribution to the team
was, was in between, when somebody would come out of the game, he'd go over and sit by him and talk to him and, and pep him up, and, but he never got into a game. I don't
think he ever, very seldom at least, ever got into a game, and he never, never, never was a serious enough player to ever get a letter. TN: He didn't play football in high school.
HP: No. TN: So, he tries out for the football team in college? HP: He goes out, I don't know whether it was on freshmen team or not, because that was the year before I was in college,
but he was on the varsity team, that's my second year, and at 155 pounds,
he, he didn't have a much of a chance against fellas like Clint Harris,
who was, played opposite him on the line, and Clint weighed 220 pounds or
something like that. TN: I'm surprised that Chief Newman put him on the team. HP: Well, he had, he had two or three
small fellas, and I don't think, I don't think
Newman had a choice. He, he had to take anything he could get at Whittier College,
because he didn't, he didn't have any professionals on the team. He didn't have anybody who was really that big. And so, he had, he had let, he let him take, let him practice, and, and he tried to encourage him to, to be better, but he was, he just
didn't have the speed or the weight to do it, do the job. TN: Can you tell us a little
bit about Chief Newman, please? HP: Chief Newman was a driver, and he, he only knew one thing: that you got to, you got to drive, if you're on the line, you got to,
you got to, you got to get to the other guy before he, he gets out, he moves, and Newman was not a good loser, which may be, uh, particularly against outfits like
La Verne. He, but I think, I think he inspired
Nixon to, who was never an athlete, to be
aggressive and to be a good sport. He, he never, he didn't quit. He could have quit, but he, knowing that he wasn't gonna make it, he nevertheless came out every night for
practice. He practiced, he gave it everything he could, but he, he was
probably the most inspirational guy, or inspirational player on the team,
because he, he was always giving the fellas that were pulled out of the game
or got hurt, he was always giving them the pep talk, that they gotta, he was always encouraging them, and he was, he was really kind of the spark plug of the team and, in some ways, was the most popular fella on the team, because he was always encouraging everybody to do a good job. TN: Why was the coach called Chief? HP: Chief was, he was Indian, part Indian, and, uh, and I think he was, he was, he came to Whittier from Covina. He was Chief over there, and I
don't think he was, I don't think he had, and he was probably
only fifty percent Indian, I guess. He'd gone to USC and had been very
aggressive as a coach. He did a great job for Whittier. TN: In, in the interview that
you did with, for the Whittier oral history, you, you, you, you said that Chief Newman
was not the most popular. He was a, he was very hard. HP: Well, he, he was, he never
gave anybody any credit for trying hard, and he was always driving them, which is, I
guess, another way of bringing out the better. If football is, if it's a
contact sport, and it is, I don't think I ever heard him ever congratulate anybody,
but he, he'd get the most out of his players of any coach I've ever seen. He
was, even though sometimes they, they were even, they were fighting him. TN: But, but Richard Nixon liked him, right? HP: I think Dick liked him, and he liked Dick, and, uh, he never picked on Dick, because I don't think he ever anticipated too much
of a football player out of Dick, but he, but Dick was still the, if you'd asked anybody on the team who
they, who their favorite was, they'd have probably said Dick Nixon, because he was,
he always had a good word to say to everybody when they, when they'd come off the field. TN: To your knowledge, did Richard Nixon and Chief Newman stay in touch afterwards? HP: You know, I think, I think, I
think they did. I'm not sure if Chief was a Republican or a Democrat, but I think
he always, we had a meeting in Brea or Yorba Linda or someplace three or
four years before the Library was started, and the whole team came out,
and they gave Dick a letter that day, and the fellas all came out because Dick
Nixon. TN: This is in the 1980s? HP: Yeah. TN: Tell us a bit about, he, he runs for student body president and wins. HP: Mm-hmm. TN: What do you remember of that campaign, if anything? HP: Well, he was, the only thing I remember in the campaign is he nominated me for treasurer, and his speech was the
shortest speech in history. "Honest Hubert Perry." That was all he said, and that was it. And so, I had no competition. So, that's a very very, very, very inexpensive campaign, and very unpolitical campaign too. It, but for a fellow who didn't have much time, unlike
the rest of us, who were, a lot of us were from Whittier, so we would, we would spend a good old time on the campus
talking and just killing time, I guess. Dick didn't have any time to spare. He, he
got up early and went to, into LA to get vegetables or meats or whatever he
was buying for the store and get back to campus, and so he had very little time to
kill or waste in trivia and small talk and that sort of thing.
So he didn't, he didn't politicize himself very
much, but he, but when it came time to, to select the president of the student body, he, everybody recognized his ability. He was
so much smarter than the rest of us. TN: When you're ready. Off-camera voice: We're rolling. TN: Hubert, you went to Whittier during the
Depression. How did that affect your college years? I mean, how hard was
Whittier hit by the Depression? HP: Well, it depends whether you were in the, if you were in the citrus business or in the farming business, that, that was pretty
slow going during the 30s. But Whittier had had the, there were a lot of people in
Whittier that had money, and, because of Santa Fe Springs. J. Paul
Getty, in his autobiography, says that my dad gave him his start in a deal he made for some oil property in the middle of Santa Fe Springs, and the other people who owned land in Santa Fe Springs all became rich. The, there were people in town who were blacksmiths who became manufacturers of oil well products, so that we had during
the 30s some people with lots of money, and then we had, we had people in the
banking business who had no money, just to salaried people like my dad. So, Whittier was a, was a, being a small college town too, it attracted people that were above average in, in ability, and like the
Murphys who owned the Murphy Ranch, which now has become Friendly Hills,
an upper scale subdivision. They and Standard Oil were
partners in this development. And so, Whittier had, was quite influenced by
Santa Fe Springs and the money that was, that came out of that, that era, and
previous to that, Whittier Hills had been, were all oil well at one time. TN: So, you had a real disparity between rich and poor in Whittier? HP: Yeah. I didn't, nobody thought themselves, themselves as being poor. We
didn't, we, unlike today, it's fifty percent Mexican-Americans but, in that time, there were no Mexicans, there were no Blacks in Whittier, just a middle-class white school. TN: The Nixons, though, didn't, were not doing that well financially. HP: No. TN: Did you visit the store
at that time? HP: Well, we'd stop in there once in a while, but it was way out in
the country, three miles east of Whittier, and, and people, everybody came to
Whittier to shop, and that was all, that was all country. That was not part of the city of Whittier. So, they had their own, kids that went to Whittier from East
Whittier would come in by bus and, and leave by bus. You wouldn't see them again.
So, they were, they were, if you lived in East Whittier, you
probably didn't do anything in Whittier. TN: Could you tell that they were from
East Whittier by the clothes they wore? HP: No, I don't think so. TN: But they were,
but they were considered country? HP: Well, they were considered, a lot of fellows came in who lived on ranches out in East Whittier would come into school, but they were, you didn't know whether they had money or didn't have money. TN: Tell us about the societies at Whittier.
You're a member of Franklin. HP: Mm-hmm. TN: Tell us about it. How was it?
HP: Well, when I went to Whittier, when I first went to Whittier College, they, they had only one,
one club. They didn't, no fraternities. They didn't have a house or anything like that, but the Franklins were the one club that were in business, and then Dick Nixon came along, and he got most of the fellas on the football team, who would been passed over by the
Franklins for one reason or another, and he started his own group called the
Orthogonians. And so, I don't know whether he was ever president of the
Orthogonian club or not, I don't think he was, but he was the instigator
of the club. He was the spark plug of the club, and he got them, got them going, and
they, they thought they were very smart, because they, we, we were all, we all had
tuxes, because we were in the glee club, we all had tuxes. So, we'd have our pictures taken in our tuxes. So they had their pictures taken in white shirts and no ties,
and that was, that was the thing that they thought that was pretty smart. TN: But the clubs, they, they were just social clubs, right? HP: Social clubs. They'd meet
once, once a month, something like that. TN: For dinner or drinks? HP: No. Drinks? No drinks. TN: No drinks. Was this a dry? HP: It was, it was dry. I didn't have a drink until I went into the
Service. TN: So you met for dinner? HP: We'd have dinners.
We'd have, usually a cheap dinner, spaghetti or something like that. TN: Now, why would the people have been passed over? What, what, what did you need to be a Frank- member of the Franklins? What did you need? HP: Well, there were a lot of good fellows that were just not included. I suppose it was, I don't know, I don't remember who it was,
somebody, somebody had to sponsor me, and I don't know. I suppose the city guys were, uh, we've got people that we knew from Whittier, and there were a lot of good
fellows who were not for football that came in from other places, Fullerton or Los Angeles, and great guys, but they were, they were, they just, there wasn't, there wasn't room in the club for any more people. TN: When... HP: But the clubs weren't,
were not that important, but much more important to be involved in glee club
or in football team, than on a, in a club. TN: Richard Nixon also did some acting, right? HP: Yes. TN: Did you see him in a play? HP: Yeah. I don't remember too much, plays he was
in, but the drama at Whittier College was I'm
gonna say not that important, but it, it was, they had the, they had the, they had
the third floor of the, of the old building that, the old brick building that we,
we occupied, and they put on plays, and Dick was in two or three plays that I
can remember, but I don't remember any, I don't remember specifics, how many of them. TN: Did, did he help at all with the Acropolis, with the yearbook? HP: No. TN: Tell us a bit about classes at Whittier. Were they large? Were they small?
I mean, were there lecture classes? HP: Well, everything was pretty small. There were only 400 students in the school. So, your classes were 15, 20. 25 would be a big class, and they... I went to school, it cost me $1,000 for
four years. $250 dollars a year. TN: Well, but in in the 30s, that was a lot of money. HP: That was a lot of money. TN: So, that would have been a lot of money for Richard Nixon's family. HP: Yeah. He may have had, he may have had a scholarship, I don't know. TN: Did he ever talk to you about how he almost went to Harvard? HP: Well, that was, that was, that was for law. TN: That was for law? HP: That was after he, that was after graduation. No, because I was at Stanford then, and, um, I guess he just didn't figure he could
ever make it, financially. TN: Tell us about, you were on campus in 1932. A big election in this country. Do you remember anything about the, you know, the Roosevelt against Hoover? HP: No. Whittier was a, very much of a Republican town in those days. TN: You met Herbert Hoover, though. HP: Yeah. TN: And he talked to you about Richard Nixon, didn't he? Do you remember that? Years later, of course. HP: Yeah. I don't
remember what he said but he was impressed with
Richard Nixon, because my dad was very much impressed with his ability as, he
figured his character and everything else. Yeah, I guess he figured he was gonna go someplace, so he, my dad, was one of the great boosters of Dick Nixon. Of
course, his, his parents had to come in to Whittier to do their banking. So, he was
their banker. TN: Oh. So, is that, is that how Richard Nixon met your parents? Or if he
met your father was through the banking that Frank and Hannah did? HP: It probably was. It may have been through East, East Whittier Methodist Friends Church, because my grandfather was a preacher out there one time. TN: Oh, because you didn't go to the
same church? HP: [Shakes head no] TN: You went to the Quaker Church in the city. HP: In the city of Whittier. TN: Tell us what you remember of the famous story of the committee of 100 and the letter
to Richard Nixon. Did you encourage your dad to think of Nixon as a candidate?
HP: No, I, no. He had been in, he had his offices in the
Bank of America building, my dad, on the first floor, and, and
Tom Bewley, who was Dick's partner, his partner, was on the fourth or fifth floor,
and my dad had seen Dick a lot of times when he'd come to our house
for connection with the glee club, and he was impressed by Dick. He was not only impressed with his, how smart he was, but he was, he'd been on the board when Dick had appeared before them to sell the idea of having dances at, at college affairs. That was, that was a big plus, as far as Dick was concerned, because at Whittier, there was no
dancing at Whittier College, no socializing, not much socializing
anyway, and he was able to convince the board that they should allow dancing at, not on the campus, because they had no, no facilities for that, no place for it,
but at the Whittier Woman's Club, and that was kind of the maybe it, maybe it made my dad think that
Dick had some political ability, because he was able to sell these old
Quakers on the fact that they should allow dancing. Anyway, they, they did, they
had dancing. And so, my senior year, junior-senior year, we got the benefit of
Dick's taking on the board. TN: Was that part of his, his sort of campaign promise, that he had promised to do that? Or where did this come from? Because Nixon, Richard Nixon wasn't a dancer. HP: No, he wasn't, wasn't a dancer, but I guess enough of his friends were dancers that they, they probably convinced him that it should be done. I don't know whether this was, this came out of the efforts of the Orthogonians or just where it came from, but it probably, probably came from the Orthogonians. TN: So, your dad was persuaded by Nixon to support dancing? HP: Well, my dad was on the board then. TN: Yeah. So he voted for dancing. Tell us about Mr. Bewley. What was he like? HP: Well, he was from an old Quaker family, and, uh, he was, his offices are still in business, he's still in business now. He's not. He's no longer,
but Tom Bewley was from an old Quaker family, and, but he divorced his wife and married a young woman, and that kind of got people like my dad unhappy
with him, because he, people just didn't do that in those days in Whittier. It was just a little town where everybody knew everybody else, and they, you just didn't fool around like that, but he
was a good lawyer, and Dick could have stayed there in Whittier and had a good
law practice. TN: But did you see when you knew him as a, as a, as a college student,
did you see an ambition to go elsewhere and do more than stay in Whittier in Nixon? HP: Well, yeah. We' used to sit on the bus going to different engagements we had around Southern
California, and Dick, we'd sit and, Dick would, would ask you
questions, and I remember one thing he said is you never try to be a city councilman in your own town, because he said that, he says if you gotta go for something
better, bigger than that, because you get involved in all this minutiae, and you just, you just don't, you don't think big enough, and he was right.
City council is a killer of all the minutiae that they get, they they,
they, they talk about and they do, and the conniving that goes on, and I think that,
not that there isn't, not, not that the, some of the senators and congressmen
don't, don't allow themselves to get involved in it, they sure do, but they do it
on a bigger scale than certainly at the local. TN: Tell us a little bit about your father.
He's an important player in the story of Richard Nixon. Richard Nixon was very
grateful to him. I've seen some letters that he wrote to your dad thanking him
for being an early booster. How, how politically active was your dad? HP: My dad was a frustrated congressman. He wanted to run for Congress one time I remember,
and my mother wouldn't, wouldn't, wouldn't, everybody was Republican in the Whittier area, and that was years ago, and my mother didn't, didn't want any part of it. And so,
my dad was, I, I think he saw in Dick Nixon his own dreams of, that he couldn't make happen. So, he, he was content to be a a small-town banker and, and not go for political, but he, but
he always wanted to go to law school. He didn't have the benefit of a college
education but he worked in the bank all his life, by the time he was 20. So, but he,
but he, he wanted to be a lawyer so badly that I went to, back to law school when,
after, after the Service, after I was in the Navy, and for-- No, before the Navy, for three years to Loyola, nice school, just to please my dad, I guess, because I thought he'd be interested in my being a lawyer, but I'm
kind of glad I didn't do it now. TN: What did you study at Stanford?
HP: Finance. TN: Finance. TN: When did you first meet Thelma "Pat" Ryan? HP: Well, she was a teacher at Whittier High School, and I don't think I ever met her, met her
before, before she started going with Dick. I never, I never knew her at the high
school; although, some of the people in Whittier were teachers with her and
knew her, but I, I don't, I don't think I ever knew until she became, she was married to Dick and was in Congress. TN Did you go to their wedding? HP: No, I don't think so. TN: Did you double-date with them? Did you go... What were they like as a couple in this early period? Did you interact with them at all? HP: Well, the only, we went east to Washington once and saw them, but they were, they were on a different planet. They were in politics and I had no interest in politics. So, I just, I didn't, when he would, I had no
interest in his campaign that when he ran for Congress. My dad was very
interested, and they just lived day by day through his arguments or debates with his...fella was the incumbent there? TN: Voorhis. HP: Voorhis. And the only time I got interested in politics was when Dick came back after, after being on the Hill, the, I forget the guy's name who was, who
was the, he was a Harvard man, and he was... TN: Alger Hiss? HP: Alger Hiss, and he gave us a talk for an hour and a half out at one of the homes out in Eastern, around the point of the hill in Whittier, and no notes, no nothing, and you couldn't help but be
impressed with the details that Dick had on this fella,
and we were all convinced from Whittier that this fellow was guilty, and I
kind of think that that's one of the things that turned the, the Harvard graduates against him, because he took after one of their favorite professors. TN: Did you go with the
group from Whittier to the White House when President Nixon had a reunion there?
HP: No, that was, that was his class. TN: Was just his class. HP: Just his class. TN: Did you visit him in the White House? HP: Yes. I was a, I, um, a member of a hospital group, and we had,
we had, held meetings in Washington, DC. So, I had chance to get to several church
services, and, and several of the activities that he had
in the White House through that, but I... TN: Did you see the family quarters in the White House? HP: No. TN: Would you say you'd stayed, stayed in
touch with Richard Nixon after, well, after he went to Washington? HP: Well, we decided we wanted to have the Nixon Library in Whittier. And so, I worked very
hard on that thing, and, and Whittier College just turned its back on him, and
when, and when the city of Whittier said that we'll give, we'll give some 30 acres of land up in the hills, Whittier College, the board, the management, the old college, turned its back on him and said, 'We don't, we don't want the Library in Whittier,' which was a dumb, dumb thing to do. In the meantime, I had, I had kept in contact with him. As a matter of fact, he called me up, he
called me up and said, "I want to, I want to bring our attorney out on a
weekend, the next weekend, and I want to talk to you about the Library in Whittier," and, he didn't call, he, he, Rose Mary called, and he was in the
background, I could hear him talking, and I had to, I had to turn him down, because
Whittier College said no, and that was a terrible, terrible thing to do. It was, it was just dumb for Whittier College, because they turned their back on, on the Library, which
would be in business forever, you know. TN: We hope so.
HP: Yeah, you know, with the government involved, it, it's, it... TN: This is while Richard Nixon was still President? HP: Yeah. TN: Was this, was, had the
Watergate scandal started by then? HP: I don't remember that or not. TN: Were there antiwar demonstrations on the campus of Whittier at that time? HP: No, I don't think so. It was just, it was the board and the president at that time who couldn't see the opportunity that this gave the institution. TN: Had Whittier become a
Democrat, I mean, I'm just, this is during the presidency, Richard Nixon has
not resigned yet, and they said no. HP: Well, I can't, I can't remember whether, whether, whether he had resigned at that time or not. TN: You were part of the Nixon Foundation in that period. HP: Yeah. TN: As you are now. Tell us, why did the Nixon Foundation
wind itself up, the first one, in 1974? Why did you close it down? How did you
decide to close it down? HP: Oh, the original, the original group? I
don't know. They had some pretty good people on it. Ross Perot and a lot of money and, and the president of I can't remember the... TN: It also, didn't it have Abplanalp and Bebe Rebozo, the first one? HP: No, I don't think, I don't think it did.
I don't remember. TN: Did you ever meet them? HP: No. TN: One other question. Your father passed away just after Richard Nixon became Vice President. I think your dad died in '54. HP: Mm-hmm. TN: I was reading about how your dad was planning to go to the inauguration and your mom died, which is a terrible blow, obviously, for
your family. Do you remember your dad talking to you about, because he was
alive to see Richard Nixon become Vice President, how he felt about the fact
that the man that he promoted became Vice President? HP: Well, he, we did get a chance to take him back to Washington once, um, when, when Dick was Vice President, Dick, and, but he never got to see him President. TN: No, no, he didn't. How was the trip to Washington? Do you remember any of it? HP: Well we, yeah. Dick was very thoughtful, and he arranged for my, my dad to go up to New York and see Herbert Hoover in
his apartment at Waldorf Towers, and that was a surprise to my dad, because he
didn't know anything about, I'd arranged that for him, and Dick was very nice while he was Vice President. He'd take us out to dinner a couple of times in
Washington before we went up to New York, and he really went out of his way from my dad
to, to show my dad how much he appreciated
being involved with him. TN: Was your dad, why did he choose a meeting with Herbert Hoover? Was it your dad was a great fan of Herbert Hoover's? HP: Well, he was a fan of
Herbert Hoover's, and Mrs. Hoover had been a board member at Whittier College board. And so, he, he wanted, he'd never met Mr. Hoover, so he wanted to meet him. TN: And you were at Stanford. TN: Well, that was too, that too. TN: Tell me, did, when your dad sent the
letter to Richard Nixon to invite him to compete, did your dad already know that
Richard Nixon was the fella he wanted to run against Voorhis? TN: Mm-hmm. He'd selected him, and he asked him, I guess, in the letter if he were Republican. He knew, he knew
what, he knew, he knew, he knew what the answer was, but he, but he was so
convinced that Dick Nixon was the proper fellow to beat Jerry Voorhis that it was
kind of a one-man band and selling that idea to the people over in Pasadena, and
there was a man in San Francisco that, that I think was vice president
of Standard Oil, who furnished the money to, to bring Dick out here
to, to appear before them. TN: Did your dad arrange that? HP: Yeah. TN: Is that the man who, because Richard Nixon had no money. HP: No. TN: How did he pay for that campaign? TN: Well, this man, Whittier and Standard Oil were very much tied in together. Murphy Ranch was a partner of Standard Oil. Standard Oil
had its, one of its headquarters in Whittier, early headquarters, going back
to 1905 or something like that. And so, they, they had always been a
very good relationship, and my dad knew these people and they knew him. And so, he got his kicks out of, he couldn't do things himself, because he worked for a big bank,
but he, he could get money from Standard, and on a personal basis, and if he said
that, that Dick Nixon was a good man, why they, there was no problem of getting
the money from them to support him. TN: Do you remember the name of the guy from San Francisco? HP: No. I think if I heard it, I'd remember it.
TN: Last two questions: how important for people who want to understand Richard
Nixon was his Quakerism, the fact that he was a Quaker? TN: Well, I think he is... The Quakers don't believe in war,
and Dick went in the Navy, and I went in the Navy, both of us against the, not the
wishes of our parents, but against the feeling of the people in the church, And
so, yeah, I think he had a strong, always had a strong conviction, or a strong peace motivation behind him, and I think all the things he did in, when he was President in the Vietnam War were, were
indicative of his attempting to find a solution in a peaceful way. Dick was raised... We didn't, we didn't have
any liquor at Whittier College, and I think maybe some people had some beer every once in a while but it was a pretty dry
institution, and I think his, Dick's feeling of liquor and everything, he didn't, he didn't learn about liquor until he went in the Service. I'm sure he didn't have,
sure he didn't have a drink when he went to Whittier College. I didn't either, and I went in the Navy and... TN: So, you're saying that the trouble he had may be, been because he didn't drink in? HP: No, I'm saying he had a very high standard of, of what was right and what was wrong from his education and his Quaker
background, and I find it kind of hard to reconcile that with, with Watergate. TN: Did you ever talk to him about it? Watergate? HP: No. TN: Have you ever listened to the tapes?
HP: No. TN: So, how do you, how have you tried to reconcile it? HP: Well, I haven't, I haven't attempted to
reconcile. I, I think there's more, they're more players than Dick Nixon in the, in
the Watergate, and I think John Dean is more than a bit player according, at least he is according to the biography that the English... TN: Aiken? HP: Aiken. John Aiken wrote. TN: As we finish up, is there an anecdote about Richard Nixon you'd like to preserve? A story that you remember
about him that we haven't touched on? HP: Well, I'd like to see the, I'd like to see
the Watergate thing not be so politicized, because I'm sure that it's,
it's no worse than what's been done by other presidents, but, but they were out
to get him, and I think the, they were out to get him
from the get-go from the fact that he wasn't an Ivy League graduate, and he picked on Alger Hiss, who was an Ivy League graduate, and I think from that point on, they, they, they were, they were really out to get him. TN: Was this the sense that you, your friends had and your fellow Whittier graduates? That when they looked at what happened to Richard Nixon, is that how they
explained it to themselves? HP: No, I don't know, I don't know what, I don't know what they, I don't know how they, I don't know, I don't know if they know
enough about the whole history of the thing to, to feel. I'm, I'm not even sure
that the story's been told, but I just I think between John Dean and Dick's
trying to protect his Attorney General, there's something missing in the thing. TN: When was the last time you saw Richard Nixon? HP: Well, we had, we had a couple meetings down at the Western White House, down in San Clemente, of the Library committee. I guess that's probably the last time I'd seen him. TN: So, you, you didn't see him when he went to New Jersey, when he was out in New Jersey or after that? HP: New Jersey? TN: When he moved out to New Jersey in the latter part of his life. HP: No. TN: Was there an attempt to bring the Library to Whittier at the end again before it went to Yorba Linda, or was the Whittier idea gone after the end of the White House years? HP: Well, when Whittier turned its back on, Whittier College turned its back
on him, we gave up, because just too embarrassed. The city had given, it had done its part and Whittier
College hadn't done anything. TN: And who was the president of Whittier College at that time? HP: I don't know. I'm not sure who it was. TN: Hubert, thank you for your time. HP: I enjoyed it. I'm sorry, I perhaps haven't
been... TN: It's been very helpful and, you know, I asked you about things that happen in
the late 20s and 1930s. So, over 70 years ago, well over 70 years ago. HP: Well, that's a few years ago, years for me. TN: So, you're allowed to forget. Anyway, thank you, Hubert. Thanks a lot.
HP: Thank you, thank you very much, Tim.
