By Ross Eric Gibson

Born in Santa Cruz, I was 5 years old in 1960, living in Olivehurst, north of Sacramento. It was a village settled by Dust Bowl migrants only a generation before. My father was the Methodist minister, and we lived in a parsonage made of boxcar siding. We had frequent mild earthquakes, watching with fascination as ripples of shockwaves crossed the sheet linoleum flooring in the living room. Mom said the house was dreaming of its youth when it rode the rails. It wasn’t an affluent community, but the sons and daughters of the migrants were the first generation to be literate, and they gained a level of middle-class achievement that exceeded their parents.

This became evident one day in October when my family dressed in our Sunday best to join our neighbors likewise attired, and drive out to park in a field beside a cow pasture. I asked, “Is this really the place?” Mom said, “Just a little farther.” So nicely dressed Oliveites hiked out onto some railroad tracks, as women in their high heels struggled over the gravel, rails and ties to stand on the tracks. My sister slept in mother’s arms, and as the crowd pressed together, I told Daddy “I can’t see!” So he picked me up, and put me on his shoulders. Everybody was looking at the back of a train parked on the single track, an observation car with a rear balcony on which men in suits were gathered. A young man gave a short speech, which was applauded several times. When the speech concluded, the train started departing and I waved goodbye to the man. As we were leaving, I showed my ignorance in the electoral process by asking: “Is he president yet?”

These memories are quite vivid, and while I thought the man was Sen. John F. Kennedy, I was told when I grew up that nobody was doing national whistle-stops in the 1960s in California. I assumed those childhood memories belonged to some local candidate. Then I found an internet posting of Kennedy doing a whistle-stop in Fresno on the same line that went through Olivehurst.

Teddy Roosevelt

Dad was an FDR Democrat, and Mom was a Teddy Roosevelt Republican. Teddy visited Santa Cruz in 1903 on his Conservation Tour of the West, promoting the concept of protecting America’s wild places. Mom’s father, Poppy (later a Santa Cruzan), reminded her that their family had helped establish the Republican Party, to free the slaves, promote equal rights and preserve the Union. Poppy had gone to a rally for Roosevelt in 1912, who at the time was on the Bull Moose Party ticket to promote progressive and conservationist causes. Poppy and his friends arrived to a crowded ballroom, which had no stage. With standing room only, his companions stood at the back while Poppy pushed forward into the crowd. At last in the front row, Poppy found a couple vacant seats left and took one.

Then Roosevelt entered, and to Poppy’s surprise, he sat down right next to him, while an orator introduced the president. Poppy suddenly realized the room had been so crowded that he was on the end of a crescent of seats for special guests facing the crowd. Poppy was expecting to be ejected when Roosevelt turned to him and asked, “I’ve forgotten where we met.” Poppy was a graduate of Harvard, and so he said “Harvard, sir?” And Roosevelt replied, “Oh, yes-yes-yes-yes! So nice to see you again!” Overhearing this, none of the officials would eject Poppy because he had unwittingly become the personal guest of the president!

During the 1960 campaign, Mom and Dad watched the televised presidential debate. Kennedy was relaxed, casual, and easygoing as if he’d been president his entire life. Nixon was pale, nervous and frowning, his 5-o’clock shadow made him look gaunt, and he was sweating like a guilty man. Nixon was vice president to Eisenhower, a man whose simple “I like Ike” slogan promoted the mantle of likability in a fearful Cold War era, where we knew the hero of D-Day could keep us safe. But likability was not in Nixon’s wheelhouse. And Mom was torn concerning loyalty to her party. There were rumors JFK’s father was a bootlegger who bought his nomination. Yet Kennedy’s brother-in-law and campaign worker was Sargent Shriver. As a child, Mom met the children of Sargent Shriver, who were her playmates one summer, and she thought Shriver was among the most intelligent, compassionate, and progressive men she knew, and followed his impressive career when she grew up.

Santa Cruz County votes went to 24,858 for Nixon to 16,659 for Kennedy. Nationally, Kennedy won the popular vote by 112,827 (a margin of 0.17%), and the Electoral College chose Kennedy 303 to Nixon’s 219. As a writer of sermons, Dad loved Kennedy’s speaking style. Mom would always call us kids to hear Kennedy speak on television, for either his wonderfully phrased speeches, or his press conferences, where he was spontaneous, insightful, and witty.

He was the president from central casting, being how Hollywood thought presidents were supposed to appear, but seldom did.

Nixon in Santa Cruz

Meanwhile, a trounced Richard Nixon decided he could get a presidential rematch with Kennedy later in 1964, if he first got elected California Governor in 1962. Following World War II, California had been a reliable Republican stronghold, with all its postwar governors and senators being Republicans, until 1958 when Democrats Pat Brown became governor and Clair Engle senator. The key was, California had a Big Tent Republican Party where conservatives, moderates and liberals felt at home. Nixon crisscrossed the state in 1962, with a Telethon in Sacramento Oct. 16, several rallies in the San Francisco Bay Area Oct. 17, ending the day at Pasatiempo Inn outside Santa Cruz, where he set up a press office, and spent the night. (Nixon itinerary, Nixon Library).

The morning of Oct. 18, Nixon went to Beach Street opposite the Boardwalk Casino, where he would launch a whistle-stop campaign aboard the Nixon Express down to Los Angeles. It started with a half-hour Santa Cruz rally on the train. In the 1962 gubernatorial primary in June, Nixon became the Republican nominee with 11,015 Santa Cruz votes, and 735 Nixon write-in votes from local Democrats. Brown became the Democratic nominee with 9,984 votes from Santa Cruz Democrats, and 117 write-in votes from local Republicans. After the Santa Cruz Nixon rally, local officials exited the Nixon Express, which chugged to Watsonville for another rally. Nixon then arrived in Salinas, attending a three-hour Telethon on KSBW-TV, then went down the coast to San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, before touring Southern California. Polls showed Nixon was favored to win, and Pat Brown got a late start in campaigning.

In the drive-up to Election Day, the Cuban Missile Crisis was disclosed Oct. 16, 1962, when Soviet nuclear missiles were discovered in Cuba. Most people believed when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev said on Nov. 18, 1956 “We will bury you,” that it was Russia’s foreign policy. The missile crisis caused a panic, as people started calculating what the Cuban striking range was to where they lived. Kennedy’s advisers wanted an air strike on Cuba, followed by an invasion. Richard Nixon publicly advised Kennedy that we needed a small war to forestall a larger war. Instead, Kennedy chose to avoid a declaration of war, calling a military blockade of Cuba a “quarantine,” to avoid implications of a State of War. The tension lifted Oct. 29, when Kennedy and Khruschchev agreed the missiles would be removed in exchange for a pledge not to invade Cuba.

Nixon was still the frontrunner in the run for California governor, clear up to election day on Nov. 7, 1962. But to everyone’s surprise, Nixon lost by a 5% margin. Nixon blamed the press, and said bitterly, “You won’t have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore!”

It was a family treat to go and see “PT 109,” the story of Kennedy’s harrowing World War II experience in the Pacific. It came out in June, 1963. Five months later, class was interrupted by a messenger. Our teacher conferred quietly, then said to the class that Kennedy was shot in Dallas. He was hospitalized with possibly life-threatening wounds, so school was closed and students were sent home. At home, we all listened to the news updates until the horrifying moment Walter Cronkite said through suppressed emotions, that Kennedy had died.

Eisenhower

In 1964, I was 9 years old, living in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada near Auburn. The Jonas Salk polio vaccine in sugar cubes was a miracle of prevention. When I got a mild version of polio, I was told without the vaccine I would likely have been crippled. I had to be homeschooled for a year, but my Boy Scout troop met at my house, so I could still participate in activities. I entered a national scouting contest, an essay on why I love America, saying: “I love to dream, and draw, and explore. I am free to learn of the wonders and mysteries around me. And I can grow up free, to try to make some of my dreams come true.” To my surprise, I won the George Washington Honor Medal, awarded by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. (Auburn Journal, Jan. 28, 1965). But I was even more impressed when Walter Cronkite read my name to the nation on CBS News.

Gov. Pat Brown tapped University of California president Clark Kerr, as the key figure in developing the “California Master Plan for Higher Education,” which passed in 1960. It was necessitated first by the large number of returning veterans seeking an education on the G.I. Bill, and then the Baby Boom of new Californians that followed. Ronald Reagan became an anti-Communist around 1947 as president of the Screen Actors Guild, yet a Truman Democrat. In 1962 Reagan was dropped as a spokesperson for General Electric, and he registered as a Republican. In 1965, he decided to oppose Democratic Gov. Pat Brown, running a law and order campaign against things like the 1964-65 Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley, feeling “Academic Freedom” was propaganda from a University of California full of Communist teachers.

Reagan held a fundraising dinner in Santa Cruz Dec. 10, 1965, returning in 1966 to give a political speech to the Ice Cream Retailers Association, at the Riverside Inn Restaurant on Barson Street. That year, Reagan told UCSC planners that “We shouldn’t be subsidizing intellectual curiosity,” and “there are certain intellectual luxuries that perhaps we should do without.” (George Von der Muhl in “Seeds of Something Different—Vol. 1, p.172). Donald Clark said “He kept talking about higher education as a privilege.” (Ibid). Reagan offended liberal Republicans, but defeated Pat Brown in the Nov. 8, 1966 gubernatorial election. Reagan wanted UC president Clark Kerr to expel the Free Speech protesters, and when Kerr wouldn’t, Reagan fired him, which drew protests as much from faculty as students. Reagan visited UCSC campus in May 1967, staying at the Dream Inn.