Mon, Apr 05, 2004 page8

• Lien should seek US role model

  • By Wang Chien-chuang 王健壯
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  The late US president Richard Nixon had to swallow two bitter pills in his life: the Watergate scandal that drove him out of the presidency and the 1960 presidential election that was stolen from him.

  In the hotly contested 1960 election, John Kennedy claimed 22 states while Nixon won 26, with the rest gained by the third candidate Harry Byrd. However, in terms of the popular vote, Kennedy's 34.2 million ballots beat Nixon's 34.1 million by a narrow margin of around 115,000 votes. Despite losing the election by a tiny 0.17 percent margin -- a margin even less than the 0.22 percent between President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Chinese Nationalist Party Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) -- Nixon still phoned Kennedy to congratulate him, conceding defeat. Nixon also refused appeals to challenge the result, adding that "a recount will trigger a constitutional crisis."

  In fact, the 1960 election was plagued with fraud and foul play. Before the day of the election, rumors that Kennedy's father Joseph had been buying votes for his son clouded the proceedings. Especially in Mafia-plagued Chicago, vote-rigging was widely speculated about and reported on. Nixon later jeered, "even a tombstone in Cook County can go to vote."

  Although Nixon is usually ridiculed as "Tricky Dick," his refusal to call for a recount and his prioritization of national interests over personal gain earned him another nickname, "Noble Dick." How-ever, watching Kennedy snip off the fruit of victory right in front of their eyes, Nixon's outraged supporters launched bids for recounts and investigations in 11 states. Despite the fact that Nixon distanced himself from all these suits, everyone knew "Tricky Dick" was pulling the strings behind the curtains.

  Yet it is a story rich in irony. The recount showed the original figures to be overgenerous in favor of Nixon, even in the hotly disputed Cook County. For lack of any hard evidence, neither the state nor federal courts saw a reason to overturn the results, despite the trivial, occasional negligence in the counting of votes. Despite the rumors of vote-rigging, Nixon's supporters had no choice but to swallow their bitter defeat.

  Forty years on, speculation on whether Kennedy stole the 1960 election keeps coming. In his book The Dark Side of Camelot,published last year, the prominent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh pinpoints several suspicions. Using FBI wiretaps, Hersh claimed that the votes for Nixon in Chicago were rigged. Hersh also wrote that the director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, believed Nixon actually won the presidency. But in deciding to follow administrative procedures and referring the FBI findings to the Attorney General, Robert Kennedy, Kennedy's younger brother, Hoover had actually buried the case. The truth is still shrouded in fog.

  Until the day he died, Nixon firmly believed that Kennedy had stolen the election. Nevertheless, when his secretary Monica Crowley asked him in his later years if he still believed a recount would have torn the country apart and sunk America into chaos, Nixon still gave an emphatic "Yes."

  There are four "stolen elections" in American history, including the one in 1960. The disputes over the 1824 election, when John Quincy Adams challenged Andrew Jackson, and the 1876 one, when Samuel Tilton confronted Rutherford Hayes, were taken to the House of Representatives. In another case, the 2000 election contested by then-vice president Al Gore and George W. Bush was finally heard by the US Supreme Court.

  Despite various means of settlement, the four losers share one thing in common -- they all called on their supporters to remain calm and wait for the results, in line with the Constitution. No one ever incited supporters. Although Tilton's supporters once threatened to recapture "the stolen power" by violence, Tilton sternly rejected such attempts. If these four losers had not relied upon constitutional procedures, the history of American democracy could have been rewritten four times.

  Given his doctorate in political science, Lien should know the history of the four "stolen elections" in the US. No matter whom Lien chooses as his role model among these four, he can easily find a rule to guide him. But if he looks for models in the Philippines or in other underdeveloped countries, then he is wrong for degrading himself and underestimating Taiwan.

  Wang Chien-chuang is the president of The Journalist magazine.

  Translated by Wang Hsiao-wen
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