The silent majority

By Bruce Kennedy
CNN Interactive

"And so to you -- the great silent majority of my fellow Americans -- I ask for your support."

With that phrase, delivered during a televised speech, President Richard Nixon coined a term that many Americans still use to define themselves politically.

That address, on November 3, 1969, came two weeks after the "Vietnam Moratorium" in Washington. During that event, about 250,000 anti-war demonstrators flooded into the capital -- calling for an immediate end to U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam. More large protests followed several weeks later.

In his memoirs, Nixon admitted being troubled by the protests. "The Vietnam Moratorium," he wrote, "raised for the first but by no means the last time in my administration a basic and important question about the nature of leadership in a democracy: should the president or Congress or any responsible elected official let public demonstrations influence his decisions?"

Using television, Nixon appealed directly to his constituents -- mostly Republican, essentially conservative voters who felt they had no voice in influencing events -- to let him continue his government's commitment to South Vietnam.

"Nixon understood the power a single presidential speech could have," says Monica Crowley, a foreign policy assistant to the president during the final years of his life and author of "Nixon In Winter." "He decided to craft an appeal to those who elected him, above the voices of the anti-war demonstrators."

Crowley, who took extensive notes on her conversations with Nixon, says he played a pivotal role in writing his own speeches.

"The silent majority speech was probably my greatest speaking triumph, apart from the ["Checkers"] speech which saved my political career," Crowley quotes Nixon as saying in 1992. "And I knew I would have to write much of it myself, particularly the end, if it were carry any weight."

Nixon's appeal to the silent majority worked. Following the address, the White House telephone lines were flooded with positive calls -- as well as about 80,000 supportive letters and telegrams. A survey after the speech showed Nixon's overall approval rating at 68 percent.

Given that mandate, Nixon was able to continue his Vietnam policies -- progressively withdrawing U.S. troops from the conflict while negotiating a "peace with honor."

"What Nixon was doing was playing to the mass of the society and trying to invoke patriotic sentiment," says Robert Dallek, history professor at Boston University and author of "Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961-1973."

"He doesn't want to be influenced by the dissenters who he despises, and who drove Johnson from office. The chord he struck was: 'I'm doing the right thing, getting the boys out [of Vietnam], and here are these unreasonable people trying to do damage to the United States.'"

The phrase "silent majority" can still be found in editorials and essays by those who feel under-represented by their government -- or simply not seen by a trend-seeking media.

"These were people who felt their traditional values were under assault at the time [of the anti-war protests]," says Crowley. "Nixon was their savior, and when he fell in '74 they were disappointed in him. Once evidence of Watergate started coming in, that's when the silent majority coalition fell apart."

But there's evidence that the silent majority has become much more outspoken in the years following Nixon's resignation. The 1980 election of Ronald Reagan, who for many voters personified traditional conservative values, brought a large portion of the silent majority into the political mainstream -- if only to speak out against the controversial issues of the day, such as abortion rights and affirmative action.

"The silent majority says, 'Why are they ignoring me?'," adds Dallek -- who believes the silent majority is very much alive in the current U.S. political landscape, having sparked the careers of many current Republican leaders.

"This is their base," he says, "their jumping-off point -- to represent the silent majority, to stand up for American values."

And that leadership, according to Dallek, has in part focused on Bill Clinton's presidency because of what he represents -- the counterculture generation.

"He's not only of that generation," Dallek adds, "not only smokes pot and is against the war, but gets oral sex from a groupie. This a continuation of the 'kulturkampf,' the cultural war Nixon was struggling with."