1972 presidential election.png) | |
  Nominees Nixon and Agnew | |
| Convention | |
|---|---|
| Date(s) | August 21–23, 1972 |
| City | Miami Beach,Florida |
| Venue | Miami Beach Convention Center |
| Keynote speaker | Anne Armstrong |
| Candidates | |
| Presidential nominee | Richard M. Nixon ofCalifornia |
| Vice-presidential nominee | Spiro T. Agnew ofMaryland |
| ‹ 1968 · 1976 › | |
The1972 Republican National Convention was held from August 21 to August 23, 1972, at theMiami Beach Convention Center inMiami Beach,Florida. It nominatedPresidentRichard M. Nixon andVice PresidentSpiro T. Agnew for reelection. The convention was chaired by House minority leader and future Nixon successorGerald Ford ofMichigan. It was the fifth time that Nixon had been nominated on the Republican ticket for vice president (1952 and1956) or president (1960 and1968). Nixon's five appearances on his party's ticket matched the major-party American standard ofFranklin D. Roosevelt, aDemocrat who had been nominated for vice president once (in1920) and president four times (in1932,1936,1940 and1944). Nixon was the first Republican to be nominated three times for president.
The convention was the first Republican convention scheduled for only three days since 1944, joining the2012 Democratic National Convention as the only conventions in modern convention history to be scheduled for three days.
San Diego, California, had originally been selected as host city for theconvention on July 23, 1971, with the event expected to take place at theSan Diego Sports Arena. ColumnistJack Anderson discovered a memo written by Dita Beard, alobbyist for theInternational Telephone and Telegraph Corp., suggesting that the company could pledge $400,000 for the San Diego bid if theDepartment of Justice would settle itsantitrust case against ITT.[1][2] Fearingscandal, and citing labor and cost concerns, the GOP transferred the event—scarcely three months before it was to begin—toMiami Beach, Florida, also the host city of theDemocratic National Convention. It was the sixth and last time that bothnational party conventions were held in the same city;Chicago had hosted double conventions in1884, 1932, 1944 and 1952, andPhiladelphia in1948.[3] The Republican convention did not come to San Diego until1996.
The convention set a new standard, as it was scripted as a media event to an unprecedented degree.[4]
Thekeynote address byAnne Armstrong ofTexas, was the first national convention keynote delivered by a woman.[5]
First LadyPat Nixon became the first Republican First Lady, and the first First Lady in over 25 years, to address a party's national convention. Her speech set the standard for future convention speeches by political spouses. Republican First LadiesNancy Reagan,Barbara Bush,Laura Bush andMelania Trump, among others, have all followed in this tradition. Democratic First Ladies Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, and Jill Biden have also followed in this tradition
Nixon easily turned backprimary challenges from the right, in the person of RepresentativeJohn M. Ashbrook ofOhio and, from the left, RepresentativePete McCloskey ofCalifornia. However, underNew Mexicostate law, McCloskey had earned one delegate, which the convention refused to seat, fearing that the delegate might put McCloskey's name in nomination and deliver an anti-war speech. Congressman (and delegate)Manuel Lujan of New Mexico, a staunch Nixon supporter, honored state law by voting for McCloskey himself. The final result was that Nixon received 1,347 votes to one for McCloskey and none for Ashbrook. Throughout the precisely scripted convention, delegates chanted "Four more years! Four more years!"[6]
Spiro Agnew was renominated for vice president with 1,345 votes against one vote for NBC television journalistDavid Brinkley and two abstentions.[7]
The convention was targeted for widespread protests, particularly against theVietnam War,[8] and the Nixon administration made efforts to suppress it. This tension was captured byTop Value Television in the independent documentaryFour More Years, which juxtaposes shots of the protests outside the convention with the internal politics of the convention. A day after the convention,The New York Times reported that 900 demonstrators had been arrested, and the police reported that 52 people, including 12 policemen, had been injured.[9]
In 2005, files released under aFreedom of Information Act lawsuit revealed that theFederal Bureau of Investigation monitored formerBeatleJohn Lennon after he was invited to play forYippie protests. The surveillance of Lennon later concluded that he was not a dangerous revolutionary, as he was "constantly under the influence of narcotics."[citation needed] TheJustice DepartmentindictedScott Camil, John Kniffen, Alton Foss, Donald Perdue, William Patterson, Stan Michelsen, Peter Mahoney and John Briggs—collectively known as theGainesville Eight—oncharges ofconspiracy to disrupt the convention, but all wereexonerated.
Oliver Stone'sfilmBorn on the Fourth of July, based onRon Kovic's autobiography of the same name, depicts Kovic and fellowVietnam Veterans Against the War activistsBobby Muller, Bill Wieman and Mark Clevinger being spat upon at the convention.[10] The scene did not appear in Kovic's autobiography but was taken almost directly from a documentary film created the 1972 Republican Convention titledOperation Last Patrol by filmmaker and actor Frank Cavestani and photo journalistCatherine Leroy.[citation needed]
| Preceded by 1968 Miami Beach, Florida | Republican National Conventions | Succeeded by 1976 Kansas City, Missouri |
