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Truman Hits Nixon

Sept. 12, 1962 - Former President Harry S. Truman said today that Richard M. Nixon planned to use “every device and means of political demagoguery” in his campaign for Governor of California. Mr. Truman told a partisan Democratic group that Mr. Nixon was “no match in experience” for Governor Edmund G. Brown. Mr. Truman never once mentioned Mr. Nixon by name, referring to him only as “that fellow,” “this fellow,” and “that other fellow.” But there was no doubt about the target of his speech at the Hollywood Palladium. Afterward, Mr. Truman was asked about Mr. Nixon’s description of President Kennedy as “a carpetbagger.” Mr. Nixon had used the term when President Kennedy appeared in California earlier this year to speak at the University of California in Berkeley. “Nixon doesn’t know what a carpetbagger is,” said Mr. Truman. “If he did, he’d be one.”

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