"Checkers" Speech, by Richard Nixon: List 1

In September 1952, Richard Nixon, then a young senator from California, was nominated to run for vice president. Days later, however, he was accused of accepting funds from campaign donors to use for personal expenses. Nixon chose to use the new medium of television to defend himself. In a televised speech, he admitted to receiving one gift — a cocker spaniel named Checkers. He explained that his two young daughters loved the dog and would not give it up. The speech was a tremendous success, and Nixon went on to serve two terms as vice president. Ironically, another television performance, a debate with John Kennedy in 1960, cost him the presidential election that year. Nixon was elected president in 1968, but ultimately resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal.

This list covers vocabulary from the first paragraph to the paragraph beginning "And let me say I am proud of the fact..."
13 words 74 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. integrity
    moral soundness
    I come before you tonight as a candidate for the Vice Presidency and as a man whose honesty and integrity has been questioned.
  2. smear
    a false attack on someone's character
    I have a theory, too, that the best and only answer to a smear or to an honest misunderstanding of the facts is to tell the truth.
  3. defray
    bear the expenses of
    And I said you will find that the purpose of the fund simply was to defray political expenses that I did not feel should be charged to the government.
  4. campaign
    a race between candidates for elective office
    And third, let me point out, and I want to make this particularly clear, that no contributor to this fund, no contributor to any of my campaigns, has ever received any consideration that he would not have received as an ordinary constituent.
  5. constituent
    a citizen who is represented in a government by officials
    And third, let me point out, and I want to make this particularly clear, that no contributor to this fund, no contributor to any of my campaigns, has ever received any consideration that he would not have received as an ordinary constituent.
  6. behalf
    as the agent of or on someone's part
    I just don’t believe in that, and I can say that never, while I have been in the Senate of the United States, as far as the people that contributed to this fund are concerned, have I made a telephone call to an agency, nor have I gone down to an agency on their behalf.
  7. finance
    obtain or provide money for
    The taxpayers should not be required to finance items which are not official business but which are primarily political business.
  8. critical
    marked by a tendency to find and call attention to flaws
    Let me say, incidentally, that my opponent, my opposite number for the Vice Presidency on the Democratic ticket, does have his wife on the payroll and has had her on his payroll for the past ten years. Now let me just say this: That is his business, and I am not critical of him for doing that.
  9. stenographer
    someone skilled in the transcription of speech
    I have found that there are so many deserving stenographers and secretaries in Washington that needed the work that I just didn’t feel it was right to put my wife on the payroll.
  10. unbiased
    characterized by a lack of partiality
    I am so far away from California and I have been so busy with my senatorial work that I have not engaged in any legal practice, and, also, as far as law practice is concerned, it seemed to me that the relationship between an attorney and the client was so personal that you couldn't possibly represent a man as an attorney and then have an unbiased view when he presented his case to you in the event that he had one before Government.
  11. expose
    make known to the public information previously kept secret
    And so I felt that the best way to handle these necessary political expenses of getting my message to the American people and the speeches I made — the speeches I had printed for the most part concerned this one message of exposing this administration, the communism in it, the corruption in it — the only way I could do that was to accept the aid...
  12. conscience
    conformity to one's own sense of right conduct
    I am proud of the fact that not one of them has ever asked me to vote on a bill other than my own conscience would dictate.
  13. subterfuge
    something intended to misrepresent the nature of an activity
    And I am proud of the fact that the taxpayers by subterfuge or otherwise have never paid one dime for expenses which I thought were political and should not be charged to the taxpayers.
Created on Wed Jun 04 14:54:53 EDT 2025 (updated Wed Jun 04 16:13:53 EDT 2025)

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