When 39-year-old Don Young first went to Washington, D.C. he ended up on Nixon's tapes

Three weeks before the 1972 election, Alaska Congressman Nick Begich and House Majority Leader Hale Boggs of Louisiana died when the Cessna 310 carrying them from Anchorage to Juneau disappeared and was never found.

President Richard Nixon learned of the lost plane from newspaper accounts on the morning of Oct. 17, 1972. He said it reminded him of a famous Alaska crash that had happened when Nixon was a child.

“I read it in the paper this morning. I thought of Will Rogers and Wiley Post,” Nixon said to Press Secretary Ron Ziegler in a conversation captured for posterity on the secret White House taping system. “You remember that?”

“No, I don’t,” said Ziegler.

“Before your time, years. Of course you remember Will Rogers?” Nixon said.

“Sure,” said Ziegler.

“Used to write a little squib,” Nixon said of Rogers, the actor/comedian/columnist who died when Post’s plane crashed on the North Slope.

Boggs was a major figure in Congress. It was his name that caught Nixon’s attention. The president knew there was a second Congressman on the flight, but he had forgotten the name.

“And an Alaska congressman, I don’t know the name of. But we've got a candidate in Alaska. I hope to Christ we've got a candidate in Boggs's district. If we haven't, we're stupid.”

The candidate in Alaska, State Sen. Don Young, lost the general election to the missing Begich, whose name remained on the ballot. No one in Alaska at that point could have guessed that Young would go on to win election to Congress 24 times.

Young defeated Democrat Emil Notti in a special election the following March to replace Begich.

Before that election, Sen. Ted Stevens brought Young to the White House for a five-minute visit in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 1973.

They didn’t sit close enough to the five microphones concealed in Nixon’s desk for a clear recording, so the tape is hard to decipher. Young mentioned the “bush vote,” a term that generated some laughter. Here are the notes from the Nixon Library.

From that conversation and others recorded that day, we know that Nixon told Young his slogan in the special election should be “No Bonanza for Bureaucrats” and that he should repeat it whenever possible.

Nixon later that day told his aides “I put it to this Young guy” about his bonanza plan.

“Why don’t you just use the term, ‘We’re not gonna have a bonanza for bureaucrats?’ In Alaska that’s very tough, no bonanza for bureaucrats, we’re going to get the money for the poor folks, rather than for the damn bureaucrats,” Nixon told his aides after Young had left.

Young won the election March 6, 1973 and flew back to Washington, D.C. to start his 49-year career in the U.S. House.

One of the first things he did, accompanied by campaign manager Jack Coghill, was to meet with Nixon for 21 minutes in the Oval Office. This was the day after he was sworn in.

The Watergate scandal was closing in, but Nixon loved to plot strategy against enemies real and imagined. He told Young what should be in his first newsletter to Alaskans and he also said Alaska Democratic Sen. Mike Gravel was a “rat,” who didn’t belong in the Senate.

Nixon greeted Young with, “You won!”

“Now sit down and talk a little bit about it,” Nixon said.

Rep. Don Young, President Richard Nixon and Young campaign director Jack Coghill in the White House the day after Young was sworn into office in 1973. The meeting was recorded on the five microphones hidden in Nixon’s desk. (White House photo)

An aide served what Nixon called “special ice tea” and the hidden microphones picked up much of what they said.

Young told Nixon that Notti “ran against you.”

“He really did,” said Nixon.

“He really did,” said Young.

Young said instead of being defensive about the Nixon administration, he went on the offensive and talked about getting money back to Alaskans.

“We took the idea of the revenue sharing program and to get it back down to people, cut out the mid. . ., remember you told me we were going to say the bureaucrat pays the bureaucrat? I used that time and time again,” said Young.

“Is that right? You used that line?” asked Nixon.

“I used that line. And I used it over and over. And people liked that,” said Young.

Young had forgotten Nixon’s “No Bonanza for Bureaucrats” line, but Nixon hadn’t. He brought it back up again and told Young he should mention in his first newsletter a program started under President Johnson in which 80 percent of the money went to bureaucrats.

“Rather than a bonanza for bureaucrats, let’s have a bonanza for people we’re trying to help,” said Nixon.

“Sounds like our campaign, Mr. President. That’s exactly the approach we took,” Coghill said.

“They brought Ted Kennedy in on television. And he came on and he called ‘Alasker’ and ‘I want you good people in ‘Alasker’ to know that my friend Emil Notti, and he went on your cuts and what a devastating thing this was gonna happen,” said Coghill.

Coghill said “we had our people posted” at the stations and they checked out the Kennedy ad. They got Wally Hickel to cut a counter-ad.

“He came back on and he says Ted Kennedy is for Emil Notti, but Ted Kennedy is also for gun control,” Coghill said.

Nixon guffawed. “Gun control!” he said.

Nixon perked up when Young mentioned Sen. Mike Gravel, who was up for reelection the next year. Nixon hated Gravel for a variety of reasons, with the release of the Pentagon Papers near the top of the list.

Nixon either said, “I owe that state now” or “I own that state now,” the recording is unclear, but he added, “That fellow can be beaten, he’s a little off his nut.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” Young said.

“I would never say it, but Gravel is a rat, let’s face it. He’s not a credit to Alaska. That’s the point,” Nixon said.

Addressing Young, he said, “You’ll be seen as a credit to Alaska. Stevenson (Stevens) is a solid—not spectacular—but a solid guy. And that’s what Alaska wants. And Gravel, Gravel’s an attractive guy, good-looking guy, the rest. But I don’t think that Alaska, Alaskans want a man they can be proud of. And frankly, his Senate colleagues don’t think a hell of a lot of him.”

“This is our big challenge right now, Mr. President,” Coghill said. “Not only that but we also have the governor.”

Coghill said the national Republican organizations sent three people from Outside Alaska to help the campaign, but “nobody knew they were here.” He said they were identified as Anchorage staff whenever the topic came up. Nixon was pleased to hear that, saying it “would be terrible bringing outsiders in.”

“We brought them in and put em in the back room,” Coghill said.

Nixon said “we ought to get this story told.” Not about the backroom operators, but about the mechanics of the campaign, the issues and how the GOP managed to get a win.

Young said he was a Republican running in a Democratic state, but “we never changed that whole round, who we are.”

His election was an unlikely event, taking place after an unexpected death that shocked Alaska.

Young’s stamina, stubbornness and staying power made his death at 88 seem like a shock. Because of the short period between now and the special election and the general election, I imagine there are many politicians scrambling right now to see who will emerge from the crowd as Young’s unlikely successor.

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