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the chops necessary to be acceptable to the American Right. And Nixon always talked a tough talk—bashing commies, liberals, and others whom he had once called members of the “Cowardly College of Communist Containment.” The conservatives who made up the base of the Republican Party in the 1950s and 1960s generally liked Dick Nixon. The same could not always be said about the leadership of various conservative groups.
    Nixon undertook his spadework with the American Right beginning in 1965. He met with conservative groups, individuals, and writers. He also hired a young editorial writer from the St. Louis Globe-Democrat named Patrick J. Buchanan. Buchanan was a committed conservative who possessed a stiletto for a pen and a bellicose public manner that was belied by a genuine private shyness and sincerity. Nixon also hired a talented young lawyer from Indiana, Tom Charles Huston, who shared his understanding of the importance of conservatism in the context of the Republican Party. Goldwater’s early endorsement of Nixon in 1965 for the 1968 nomination clearly helped Nixon’s cause with the Right.
    Nixon continued to work assiduously for the 1968 GOP nomination. The “New Nixon” model, which was unveiled in 1966, contained one interesting and telling change. For virtually his entire political career, he was referred to in public and private as “Dick Nixon.” He even signed letters, “Dick Nixon.” But the repackaged product became known as “Richard M. Nixon.”
    Roger Stone, a GOP consultant, had known Nixon for years and would later befriend the old President during his years of seclusion and derision. Stone helped with Nixon’s partially successful reemergence after Watergate and was once asked by an acquaintance to ask Nixon to autograph four magazines featuring Nixon on the cover. Stone complied and several weeks later returned the magazines to his friend. But much to his surprise, only two of the four were autographed. “What gives?” asked the friend. Stone replied, “The two he autographed were from his Presidency and the two he didn’t were from his Vice Presidency. Nixon totally blacked out that period in his life. He then thought of himself as ‘Dick Nixon, political hatchet man.’ But after that, it was ‘Richard M. Nixon, World Statesman.’ And only people who knew him from that period were allowed to call him ‘Dick’ and only to people from that era would he sign his name ‘Dick.’” 19
    By 1968, Nixon had both a new image and the lion’s share of conservative support heading into the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach.
    Despite their ideological differences, Nelson Rockefeller and Ronald Reagan worked together to try to stop Nixon’s nomination. As fellow Governors of the two most populous states, they were actually good friends who could cooperate when it served their purposes. Rockefeller and Reagan disagreed with each other’s politics, and each thought his own ideology was best for the future of the GOP. But both men shared a deep concern about Nixon; they saw him as a deeply flawed man who had the capacity to wreck the party. While it was apparent that Nixon was on his way to a first ballot nomination, both men floated eleventh hour candidacies, if only to stop Nixon. “For a ‘rigid’ and ‘unimaginative’ ideologue, Reagan could be quite pragmatic and obviously ambitious when it suited his purposes,” said David Keene, a key aide in Reagan’s eventual 1976 bid. 20
    Although Reagan and Rockefeller both held out hope of a brokered convention and worked behind the scenes to stop Nixon on the first ballot, they did not succeed. Ultimately, Nixon won the blessings of the delegates. And when the Wisconsin delegation put Nixon over the top, Reagan went to the lectern at the convention and asked the delegates to make Nixon’s nomination unanimous. The California Governor’s 1968 attempt to win the Republican nomination was ill-conceived, ill-timed, and too