John Aloysius Farrell, author of biographies of former House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill and defense lawyer Clarence Darrow, is now working through Richard Nixon's papers for his next project on the former president to be published by Random House.
At the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in California, he came across the first-ever meeting of the Nixon family and the future Jacqueline Kennedy. Here's Farrell's note to Secrets:
"In 1952, after surviving the Checkers crisis and winning the vice-presidency as Dwight Eisenhower's running mate, Richard Nixon was a pretty famous guy. An editor at The Washington Times-Herald thought to send its 'inquiring photographer' out to Tilden Street N.W. to interview Nixon's neighbors.
"The ambitious young photographer caught five-year-old Tricia on film, and asked what she thought about her dad's election. 'He's always away,' Tricia said. 'If he's famous, why can't he stay home?' Pat Nixon forgave the intrusion of privacy, it appears, because she kept the article in her personal files. The name of the ruthless paparazza: Jacqueline Bouvier."
