Source:Daniel J.B. Mitchell– U.S. Senator Robert J. Dole (Republican, Kansas) Chairman of the Republican National Committee (1971-73)

Source:The New Democrat 

“Republican Senator and Republican National Chairman Robert Dole castigated anti-war Democrats regarding the Vietnam War in this excerpt from a radio newscast. WOR, New York City, March 27, 1971. Dole was later the Republican candidate for President in 1996.”

From Daniel J.B. Mitchell

President Richard Nixon was very paranoid about the anti-war movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. He thought these New-Left protesters were not just being influenced by the Communist Party, but that Communists were running this movement. Even though his own White House couldn’t find any evidence linking the Communist Party directly with the anti-war movement. President Nixon’s own staff like Bud Krogh admitted as such.

Senator Robert Dole who of course is better known as Bob Dole, was Chairman of the Republican National Committee in 1971-72. What he was doing here assuming the WOR radio report is correct was expressing the views of the President of the United States about the anti-war movement in the country.

Bob Dole, was one of the most partisan people in Congress back then and almost had to be as Chairman of the RNC. And was also one of the most skillful politicians that has ever served in Congress. You almost have to be to lead your party in the Senate for eleven years both as Leader and then Minority Leader. And this is well before he even came President Gerry Ford’s vice presidential nominee in 1976 and before he became Chairman of the Finance Committee in 1981 after Senate Republicans won back the Senate in 1980.

By the time Dole is elected to the Senate in 1968 he moves up very quickly: Chairman of the RNC in 1971, reelected to the Senate in an awful Republican year in 1974, becomes Ranking Member of the Finance Committee in 1977 and just continues to climb in the Senate after that.