Presidential Pet Scandals: Richard Nixon's Checkers, the First Dog that Never Was

Presidents are no strangers to scandals, and neither are their pets. Sometimes the President's four legged friends even cause the scandal, and help land their master in hot water. One such scandal involved Richard Nixon and his pet dog, a Cocker Spaniel named Checkers.

Richard Nixon is known to history as the only President to ever resign from office. The scandal that did him in was Watergate, a plot to secretly wiretap the Democratic headquarters. Nixon resigned before he could be impeached, in 1974. Most people are familiar with Watergate, but it was a previous Nixon scandal, involving his dog Checkers, that most people are surprised to learn.

Back in 1952, when Richard Nixon was candidate for Vice President under Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Republican ticket, he was accused of hiding a secret slush fund and accepting inappropriate gifts during the campaign. Nixon denied all charges, except for one. On September 23, 1952, he went on television and gave what later became known as his "Checkers speech," in which he denied having a slush fund, but he owned up to accepting a gift for his daughters: a black and white Cocker Spaniel, which they later named Checkers. Checkers, technically, was an inappropriate gift, but Nixon stood by his dog.

"There is one thing that I did get as a gift that I'm not going to give back," said the dog loving Nixon in front of a television cameras. Before this speech, Eisenhower was considering dropping Nixon as his Vice Presidential candidate. But the "Checkers Speech" helped Nixon turn around public opinion in his favor. According to an article by Anne Emig, "Presidential Pets of the Past," by the next morning after Nixon's Checkers Speech, hundreds of thousands of telegrams arrived at the Republican National Headquarters, urging Nixon's continued spot on the ticket. Even Eisenhower's wife, Mamie was convinced that Nixon was a warm person because of his dedication to keeping Checkers. Nixon was kept on the ticket under Eisenhower, and served two terms as Ike's Vice President.

In 1960, Richard Nixon ran for President against Democrat John F. Kennedy and lost. But Nixon went on to become President in 1968, and won re-election in 1972. He served until his resignation over the Watergate scandal in 1974. But unfortunately, Nixon's dog Checkers never got to be First Dog. He died in 1964, four years before Nixon was sworn in as President. He is buried in a Pet Cemetery in New York.