She doesn’t give a shit for anybody.” —Richard Nixon1 In the same way their political partnership was draconically cobbled together in a dark, “smoke-filled room” by high-powered GOP minds, Eisenhower and Nixon’s personal relationship often existed the same way. A secretly wise, publicly aloof Eisenhower used Nixon as a hatchet man to handle some of the “messier” tasks of Washington and his administration. Dick had to do some of the GOP’s most negative campaigning against the Democrats during the 1952 presidential campaign, and similarly, he was also often given the job of dealing with the Eisenhower administration’s “dirty” work throughout his years as vice president. “He [Eisenhower] was a military man and he believed that people who are subordinates were to carry out what the chief wants,” Nixon said years later. “It didn’t bother me a bit. That was my job. A vice president, a member of the cabinet, a member of Congress is a member of the president’s party.
