Murray M Chotiner (October 4, 1909 – January 30, 1974) was an American political strategist, attorney, government official, and close associate and friend of President Richard Nixon during much of the 37th President's political career. He served as campaign manager for the future president's successful runs for the United States Senate in 1950 and for the vice presidency in 1952, and managed the campaigns of other California Republicans. He was active in each of Nixon's two successful runs for the White House in low-profile positions.
Chotiner was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; his father moved the family to California and then abandoned his wife and children. Murray Chotiner attended UCLA, and graduated from the Southwestern School of Law. He practiced law in Los Angeles, and branched out into public relations. Involving himself in Republican politics, he played an active part in several political campaigns and made an unsuccessful run for the California State Assembly in 1938.
Nixon retained Chotiner as a consultant to his first congressional campaign in 1946. In an era when the perceived threat of communism was a major domestic issue, Chotiner advised the future president to link his liberal opponent, Representative Jerry Voorhis, to a political organization which was believed to be communist-dominated. Nixon was elected, and hired Chotiner to run his 1950 Senate campaign against Representative Helen Gahagan Douglas. Chotiner used a similar strategy in that campaign, stressing Douglas' liberal voting record and printing the accusations on pink paper to hint at communist sympathy. Nixon eventually defeated Douglas by nearly nineteen points. Chotiner next managed Nixon's 1952 vice presidential campaign. He counseled Nixon through allegations of antisemitism and revelations that there were privately run funds to pay Nixon's political expenses—revelations that the candidate decisively overcame with his televised Checkers speech.
After Congress investigated Chotiner in 1956, suspecting he was using his connections to Nixon for influence peddling to benefit his private legal clients, the vice president and his former campaign manager temporarily parted ways. Nixon recalled him to work on his unsuccessful 1962 campaign for Governor of California, and again for his successful 1968 presidential bid. After Nixon was inaugurated in 1969, Chotiner received a political appointment to a government position and, in 1970, became a member of the White House staff. He returned to private practice a year later, but was involved in Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign. Chotiner described the Watergate break-in that occurred during Nixon's 1972 campaign and that eventually brought down the Nixon administration as "stupid", and when a newspaper accused him of organizing it, he sued for libel and won a substantial settlement. He remained an informal adviser to Nixon until he died in Washington, D.C., following an auto accident in January 1974, and Nixon mourned the loss of a man he described as a counselor and friend.
Early life and career Chotiner was born on October 4, 1909, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Albert Hyman Chotiner and Sarah Chotiner. The family moved to Columbus, Ohio, soon after Murray's birth, and relocated to California in 1920. Albert Chotiner, a cigar maker by trade, managed a chain of movie theaters in California, and soon abandoned his wife and children.
After attending the University of California, Los Angeles, Chotiner enrolled at the Southwestern School of Law, graduating at age 20, the youngest graduate in the school's history. However, he had to wait until he was 21 to be eligible to take the bar exam. He initially practiced law with his older brother, Jack—they had a general practice in which they defended a number of bookmakers—but eventually the Chotiners dissolved the partnership, and Murray Chotiner opened a law practice on his own in Los Angeles. He later described many of his clients as "unsavory, to say the least". In the early 1940s, he branched out into public relations.
Chotiner initially registered to vote as a Democrat, but soon switched parties, joining the Republicans. He involved himself in Republican politics, working on Herbert Hoover's unsuccessful presidential re-election campaign in the 1932 presidential election. In 1938, the young attorney ran against longtime Republican incumbent Charles W. Lyon for the California State Assembly. Lyon cross-filed and secured his re-election by winning both primaries, defeating Chotiner in the Republican poll, and narrowly beating Robert A. Heinlein (who subsequently turned to writing science fiction) in the Democratic contest.
When Earl Warren successfully ran for Governor of California in 1942, Chotiner served as his field director. However, he alienated Warren when, hoping for a favor in light of his 1942 support, he asked the newly inaugurated governor to decline to approve the extradition of one of his clients to another state. Warren had Chotiner thrown out of his office, and the future chief justice refused to let him have anything to do with his re-election campaign in 1946. According to Nixon biographer Earl Mazo, Chotiner stated that while people remembered him for "making" Richard Nixon, "the real man I created was Earl Warren".
Chotiner served as counsel to state committees investigating violence in motion picture strikes and conditions in children's boarding homes and in homes for the elderly. In 1944, Chotiner was elected president of the conservative California Republican Assembly, a grassroots organization of party activists; he had previously served as president of the Los Angeles Republican Assembly. In addition to his political involvement, he was active in the Los Angeles Jewish Community Relations Committee.
Rise of Richard Nixon (1946–1952) Congressional races
One of the first professional campaign managers; Chotiner was retained as a political consultant by Nixon's 1946 campaign for Congress against incumbent Representative Jerry Voorhis. He advised linking Voorhis with a political action committee, believed to be communist-dominated, run by the Congress of Industrial Organizations. The consultant was only able to devote a limited amount of time to the Nixon campaign since he was the Southern California campaign manager for the successful re-election bid of Republican Senator William F. Knowland. Chotiner coined the campaign slogan, "We will not surrender" for Knowland, implying that Democratic challenger Will Rogers Jr. would permit communism to take over the country. Both Republican candidates defeated their opponents. Two years later, Chotiner served as Southern California campaign manager for the unsuccessful 1948 presidential bid of New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey.
In September 1949, Nixon hired Chotiner as campaign manager for his upcoming 1950 run for the United States Senate. Helen Gahagan Douglas defeated Manchester Boddy for the Democratic nomination in a primary that badly splintered the California Democratic Party, while Nixon had little effective competition for the Republican slot. Chotiner realized that Nixon could not beat Douglas by advocating more social welfare programs, so he advised his candidate to attack Douglas on the issue of communism, seen as a Democratic vulnerability. Echoing a theme used by Boddy in the primary, Chotiner linked Representative Douglas with leftist Congressman Vito Marcantonio of the socialist American Labor Party, listing the matters in which the two had voted the same way in a leaflet printed on pink paper—the "Pink Sheet"—and popularizing a label for Douglas which had been first coined by Boddy—the "Pink Lady". However, the Northern California campaign chairman for Nixon, John Dinkenspiel, and his paid assistant, Harvey Hancock, declined to use the Pink Sheet in their territory. With the Korean War raging, Douglas also tried to depict Nixon as soft on communism, stating this in her first speech of the general election campaign, but that strategy was not successful, and Chotiner noted, "She made the fatal mistake of attacking our strength instead of sticking to attacking our weakness."
Chotiner had parted ways with Governor Warren, and the popular governor, who was running for a third term, "wanted no part" of the Nixon campaign. Nonetheless, Chotiner sought to maneuver the future chief justice into an endorsement of Representative Nixon. Chotiner instructed Young Republicans head and future congressman Joseph F. Holt to follow Douglas from appearance to appearance and demand to know who she was supporting for governor. Douglas repeatedly avoided the question, but with four days to go before the election and the Democratic candidate "close to collapse" from the bitter campaign, she responded to the latest Holt needle with her "hope and pray[er]" that Democratic gubernatorial candidate James Roosevelt would be elected. A delighted Chotiner had a reporter ask Warren about Douglas's reply, and the governor commented, "In view of her statement, I might ask her how she expects I will vote when I mark my ballot for United States senator on Tuesday." Chotiner publicized this response as an endorsement of Nixon, which Warren did not deny. Both Warren and Nixon won overwhelming victories on Election Day.
Chotiner's strategy in the Nixon congressional races remains controversial. Former congressman Voorhis dubbed himself "the first victim of the Nixon-Chotiner formula for political success". Democrats labeled him a master of dirty tricks who ruthlessly destroyed Douglas's political career by intimating that she was soft on communism. Chotiner's son Kenneth later stated, "I think he really believed [Douglas] was evil ... He would equate a liberal or a Democrat with a communist." Chotiner himself said of the campaign against Douglas, "We only stated the facts. The interpretation of the facts was the prerogative of the electorate."
1952 campaign
In 1952, Chotiner served as campaign manager for Knowland. Knowland cross-filed and won both major party primaries, virtually assuring his re-election. The strategist also served as Holt's campaign manager in the California 22nd Congressional district Republican primary. Senator Nixon endorsed Holt over State Senator Jack Tenney, and Chotiner asked Nixon to supply him with Tenney's House Un-American Activities Committee file—the state senator had once had communist leanings, though he had long renounced them. Nixon arranged for Chotiner to get the file, which was supposed to be for Congressional use only, though he apparently made no public use of the file in the campaign. Holt defeated Tenney in the primary, and went on to win the general election.
With the primary completed, Chotiner's attention turned to the 1952 Republican National Convention in Chicago. While the California delegation was pledged to Governor Warren, (who hoped to gain the Republican nomination for president in a brokered convention), the strategist realized that Nixon's best chance for advancement was in the nomination of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was in a close battle with Senator Robert A. Taft for the party's nomination.