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Bennett CerfBennett Cerf
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facts about it. Nixon is a very nice man when you meet him and he's very sincere when he talks to you. I'm going to tell you right here and now that I think that he'd make a good President. I think that once he's elected he'll drop a lot of his subterfuges. He's so anxious to win that he's sacrificed many of his scruples and he'll do anything to win. That's what's made him “Tricky Dicky,” but basically this is a man who knows his job and is dedicated and works like a fool.

He was head, when I met him, of this committee investigating subversive activities. They were getting nowhere. They were worried that they weren't going to get any appropriation for the next year. The whole thing was going to collapse when along came a possible saviour. There was some talk about Chambers accusing Hiss of being a Communist. Nixon suggested to his committee that they call Alger Hiss. The committee said, “You can't mean it!" At this time Hiss was Mr. Stettinius' right hand boy. He was head of the Carnegie Foundation. Everybody thought that he was ticketed for big things in government and he had been taken up by society. But Nixon said, “What have we got to lose? We'll get a headline anyway. We'll call Alger Hiss.”

So they called Alger Hiss to the stand, expecting to get nowhere. Hiss came on the stand, and Nixon said that he thought he'd be there about five minutes. Nixon began, “Do you know Whittaker Chambers?" Nixon told me, “The first thing that I discovered then was that Alger Hiss never answered a question immediately. He always gave a slight pause to think it over.”





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