Richard Nixon served as vice president under Dwight Eisenhower, lost the 1960 presidential election to John F. Kennedy, won the presidency in 1968, and resigned in 1974 during the Watergate scandal. His administration included diplomatic openings to China, détente with the Soviet Union, domestic policy changes, the continuation and eventual winding down of direct U.S. combat in Vietnam, and extensive abuses of presidential power.
Issue #17 places a fictional Nixon in a White House briefing with Frank Capra and Lee Harvey Oswald. Once he hears that mass belief might make a designed image physically true, he asks whether the method can change Vietnam, elections, and Kennedy’s legacy.
The characterization uses documented ambition, resentment, secrecy, and Watergate-era memory, but the meeting and Department succession plan belong entirely to the story.
Nixon receives a Department briefing, hears the Apollo operation, and proposes Lee as Capra’s successor.
The fictional president treats consensus reality as a tool for elections and war. His dialogue is not a historical transcript or admission.
Nixon’s public career and Watergate record are documented through presidential archives. No evidence establishes the supernatural briefing depicted in issue #17.
Power and image
Nixon’s career was shaped by anticommunism, televised campaigning, the narrow 1960 loss, political recovery, and a presidency preoccupied with enemies and information control. These facts make him a powerful fictional audience for the Department’s doctrine.
The comic exaggerates the logic rather than inventing the historical concerns: political communication becomes literal reality revision.
Apollo and succession
The real Nixon spoke with the Apollo 11 astronauts and occupied the presidency during the landing. Issue #17 turns that proximity into a hidden transfer of authority.
Its Nixon wants ownership of an inherited national achievement. The story thereby asks whether a public image belongs to the people who planned it, performed it, watched it, or later govern its meaning.
References
- Richard Nixon Presidential Library — President NixonPresidential biography and administration overview.
- The Department of Truth #17Primary fictional source; White House briefing, Apollo, and proposed Department succession.