Nixon in New York: How Wall Street Helped Richard Nixon Win the White House

Law, Culture and Humanities

by Victor Li

Richard Nixon's loss in the 1962 gubernatorial election in California was more than just a simple electoral defeat. His once-promising political career was in ruins as he dropped his second high-profile race in as many years. Nixon, himself, rubbed salt in his own self-inflicted wounds by delivering a growling, bitter concession speech that made him seem like a sore loser. In the months following his defeat and self-immolation, he left California to move to New York so that he could work for a prestigious Wall Street law firm. His new career only seemed to confirm what everyone already knew: Richard Nixon was finished as a politician.
Except, he wasn't. Nixon's political resurrection was virtually unprecedented in American history role, and he had his law firm to thank for paving his way to the White House. His role as public partner at Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie & Alexander was the ideal platform for him as he looked to reinvent himself after his back-to-back losses in 1960 and 1962. Nixon's firm gave him access to deep-pocketed clients, many of whom became donors when he decided to take the plunge in 1968. Furthermore, working for so many international clients allowed him to travel the world and burnish his foreign policy credentials - a vital quality that voters were looking for as the Cold War raged on and the Vietnam War showed no signs of slowing down. Nixon's time at the firm also allowed him to build a formidable campaign staff consisting of top-notch lawyers, researchers and writers - a staff that did just about everything for him when it came time to ramp up for the 1968 campaign.

368 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2018

About the author

Victor Li is an author, journalist, editor and former lawyer. He is the author of Nixon in New York: How Wall Street Helped Richard Nixon Win the White House (2018). His second book, Supreme Pressure: The Rejection of John J. Parker and Birth of the Modern Supreme Court Confirmation Process is expected to be published in February 2026.

He is an assistant managing editor with the ABA Journal, where he covers the business of law and legal technology. His work has earned numerous journalism awards and honors.

He also hosts The Legal Rebels Podcast, a program that looks at people who are remaking the legal profession and changing the way law is practiced.

Previously, he worked at ALM Media Properties in New York City for over three years, serving as a staff reporter for Law Technology News and The American Lawyer. His work has also been featured in The Utica Observer Dispatch, The Huffington Post, The Columbia Journalist, Amherst Magazine, Soccerlens and The Berkshire Eagle.

A native of Pittsburgh, he now lives in Chicagoland with his wonderful family.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the first things that readers seeking a book about Richard Nixon will find is that there are no shortage of options available to them. Soon after his emergence on the political scene in the 1940s Nixon received enormous attention, resulting in a considerable and ever-growing library of books about him. Yet the sum total of these works provide an uneven examination of his life, concentrating mainly on his early years in politics, his campaigns for the presidency, his time in the Oval Office, and his ignominious fall from power. The result is that some periods of his life are surprisingly fallow, awaiting attention for the insights they might offer.

Victor Li's book is an example of what bounties lay with such a focus. In it he examines Nixon's life between defeat in the 1962 California gubernatorial election and his election to the presidency six years later. These were years in which Nixon had ostensibly forsworn further runs for public office and went back to his earlier profession as a lawyer. Moving to New York City, he became a public partner at Mudge, Stern, Baldwin & Todd (subsequent renamed Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, & Alexander), a respectable legal firm that was regarded as stuck in its ways. Drawing upon his political contacts, Nixon soon brought in new clients who admired the former vice president and who calculated that association with a possible future president might pay dividends later on.

Theirs was hardly a gamble, as Nixon soon demonstrated that he still harbored presidential ambitions. Li traces Nixon's ongoing campaigning, from his positioning to emerge as a compromise candidate at the 1964 Republican National Convention to his appearances on behalf of candidates in the 1965 and 1966 midterms. Here he demonstrates how this provided Nixon with ideal opportunities to collect favors and test out campaign themes, receiving credit for victories won while accruing no blame for candidate defeats. These efforts were supported by his firm, who benefited from the increased profile he supplied. When it came time to assemble his own campaign staff for his second attempt Nixon then drew from the ranks of the firm to staff it, most notably by naming a new partner, John Mitchell, as his campaign manager.

By focusing on Nixon's employment on Wall Street Li demonstrates the role that the firm and his time there played in Nixon's life and political career. As a lawyer himself, Li brings to the book an understanding of the world of legal firms that is lacking from other coverage of Nixon's life during this time, which helps to clarify many otherwise obscured or ignored details. The result fills a longstanding gap in our understanding of the life of America's 37th president, and should be read by anyone interested in learning about it or how he recovered from defeat to win the nations highest office.

[Sarah Chait · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fear I see the small, vengeful, bitter and wronged of Nixon within myself sometimes