From: Robert S. Thau (rst@ai.mit.edu)
Date: Sun Nov 19 2000 - 06:16:28 PST
Chuck Murcko writes:
> Remember, in 1960, Nixon and Eisenhower decided together not to pursue
> fraud investigations into Cook County IL because the recount (it was
> claimed) would take a year. Tables were reversed then, and the dead
> voted early, and often.
Not this again. The actual facts, once again are here:
http://www.senate.gov/learning/learn_history_oralhist_shuman4.html
(The 1960 election is one subject in a long interview, but search for
"recount" and you'll find it in a hurry).
To summarize: there *was* a recount in Cook County, at the request of
Republican officials. When the gains it produced for Nixon proved to
be negligible, they got it extendeded to Republican suburbs of Chicago
--- where they actually *lost* several thousand votes. And it was
only after that that they abandoned plans to seek recounts state-wide.
A historian's broader overview of 1960 Republican efforts to change
the outcome --- in several states, not just Illinois --- appeared in
an L.A. Times column which isn't on the paper's main site (they expire
after seven days), but can still be found in their archives, starting
with the original URL:
http://www.latimes.com/news/comment/20001110/t000107675.html
But I prefer primary sources myself.
Nixon and Eisenhower both publically distanced themselves from these
activities of the Nixon campaign officials, but particularly in the
light of Nixon's... ahem... subsequent career, I think reasonable
people might suspect that he was being disingenuous.
rst
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