But at home, Nixon’s anti-Communism reeked of political cynicism, earning him the nickname “Tricky Dick.” He smeared his opponents with reckless abandon, labeling them as Reds or “dupes” or, in the case of his 1950 senatorial opponent, Helen Gahagan Douglas, a woman who was “pink down to her underwear.” Nixon never proved that Hiss was a card-carrying Communist or a Soviet agent, but, with typical hyperbole, he treated him like
