Nixon 1972 Campaign: Appealing to Voter Racism through the Busing Issue

Here is a document* from Chuck Colson, Nixon aide, suggesting that Nixon's 1972 campaign spread false information in the South that could generate a "word of mouth campaign" saying that McGovern supports white flight. The irony being, of course, that it was Nixon who pursued a Southern strategy that brought southern segregationists into the Republican Party en masse.

In addition, Nixon staff were well aware that playing to anti-busing sentiment meant playing to voters' racism. Dick Scammon, author of The Real Majority, advised as much through his clandestine support for the Nixon administration (see document** here). Any belief that Nixon was pro-civil rights but anti-busing should be dispelled by that document, in which Colson tells the President that busing "is only a code word for the real issue, which is black/ white relations."

*Box 3, Folder 33, Contested Materials: White House Special Files, Nixon Library-Yorba Linda, National Archives and Records Administration

**Box 2, Folder 1, Contested Materials: White House Special Files, Nixon Library-Yorba Linda, National Archives and Records Administration