Speaking of History : Ex-Gov. Brown Chats About 1962 Campaign With Former Rival Nixon

Curious about how his political archrival would recount their acrimonious 1962 gubernatorial race, former California Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown Sr. toured the Richard Nixon library Monday and spoke briefly, by telephone, to the former chief executive for the first time in more than 20 years.

“This goes back quite a way in history,” said the 86-year-old Democrat as he entered the library’s marble and glass foyer. “They don’t have any building like this for me and I beat him.”

A lively and humorous Brown recalled as he toured the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace that the 1962 campaign was quite close--and quite bitter. “He accused me of being a communist, and I told him I was not,” Brown said.

But Monday--nearly 30 years after Nixon said in his famous concession speech, “You won’t have Nixon to kick around any more”--Brown said he maintained no animosity. He even lauded his former nemesis as “one of the great presidents of the United States.”

“You know, when you’re in politics you say some things that weren’t really kind,” said Brown, who was followed into office by his son, former Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr., and daughter, state Treasurer Kathleen Brown. “Calling me a communist didn’t make me feel too kindly toward him. . . . But I think time and the elements change things.”

For the first time since Nixon was in the White House, Brown spoke with the former President.

“I have a picture in my living room of our debate and we both look so young,” he told Nixon. “. . . We’ll have to get together again and have lunch or something.”

Asked what else the two men talked about, Brown said: “It was just a pleasantry between two old rivals.”

The library’s display of Nixon’s 1962 campaign loss, which led to his self-described “wilderness years,” is contained in a brief one-panel exhibit that includes a “Nixon for Governor” bumper sticker and a child’s scrawled letter wishing Nixon well.

In a one-paragraph narrative, Nixon blamed the media for his loss. He “felt that his proposals for California--boosts to education, freeway construction, water projects and tougher police forces--were largely ignored by the media.”

At the same time, the exhibit says reporters focused attention on a controversial loan to Nixon’s brother, a disavowed endorsement by the John Birch Society and accusations that he wanted the governor’s office only as a steppingstone to the White House.

But Brown, who wore a brown suit, brown tie and brown checkered shirt, did not critique the exhibit. Instead, he said he was also continually forced to defend himself against attacks during the 1962 campaign. In particular, he recalled Nixon’s charge that he was soft on criminals because he granted a temporary reprieve to Death Row inmate Caryl Chessman in 1960.

“Every place I went I was booed,” Brown said. “It looked like I had raped those people.”

Brown and Nixon were well acquainted long before their 1962 gubernatorial race. Brown campaigned heavily for John F. Kennedy in his 1960 presidential race against Nixon. And in 1950, they shared the statewide ballot when Nixon won a seat in the U.S. Senate and Brown was elected state attorney general.

Looking at the library’s display of the Senate campaign, Brown spotted his name in a photograph of an election-night score card that Nixon was keeping. “I was the only Democrat elected that year,” he said.

In the final exhibit of the library--a videotaped question-and-answer session with Nixon--the former President said he might never have reached the White House had he beaten Brown in 1962.

As California’s governor, Nixon said, it’s likely he would have been drafted into the 1964 presidential race against incumbent Lyndon Johnson. “Nobody was going to beat Johnson in ‘64,” he said. “So if I’d have run again in ‘64, I would have been a two-time loser in the presidential race. . . . It would have been kaput.”

In their telephone conversation, Brown told Nixon: “I think we both won. I happen to have won that (1962) campaign, but you (came) back to be President of the United States.”