The journalist believed to be the subject of Richard Nixon’s famous 1962 comment “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore”, Richard Bergholz, has died.
Bergholz was a political reporter for the Los Angeles Times. He had a stroke and died on December 26, aged 83.
The Los Angeles Times had given Nixon favorable treatment until a change of management in 1960. Berholz was the journalist who questioned Nixon in the 1962 gubernatorial race about Nixon’s allegations that his opponent, Pat Brown, was soft on communism.
After he was defeated by Brown, Nixon gave a famous “last press conference” in which he delivered a rambling speech with the “kick around” remark.
Nixon was portrayed as bitter and graceless, an attitude Al Gore was called upon not to copy a few weeks ago when conceding to George W. Bush.
