Checkers Speech: Resources

Exactly what it says on the tin. The Nixon Library has everything you want to know about the guy and his story.

A history prof at Texas A&M has been publishing the Nixon tapes as they became available. You can binge-listen to the tapes or read the transcripts.

He really was a crook.

Nixon did some cool stuff while he was in politics. There's a website devoted to his positive legacy, too.

Yes, there is a Presidential Pet Museum, at which we learn that Checkers lived to see the White House.

A decent overview of the Checkers Speech and its continued significance.

A solid summary of the speech and its surrounding context, as well as a look at why it's still important.

On what would have been the 100th birthday year of Richard and Pat Nixon, The New Yorker magazine lays out two ways of looking at the Checkers Speech.

In 2012, Douglas McGrath wrote a play about the whole Checkers affair.

Forgive the potato quality; it was 1952 after all.

Here's an interview discussing the case that started Nixon's career: his prosecution of Alger Hiss, suspected Soviet spy. The site has a blog with lots of other podcasts, mostly positive, about Nixon.

Someone did.

The type of propaganda that the Nixons produced in order to keep up their perfectly happy all-American family image.

Here's Pat Nixon watching her husband give the Checkers speech.

It was totally worth it.