Dick Tuck

In the later years of his life, Tuck lived in retirement in Tucson, Arizona. Tuck died on May 28, 2018, at an assisted living facility in Tucson. He was 94.

Virtually every great prank Dick Tuck claimed to have pulled or was associated with has been disputed in some way. Tuck often confessed and later denied his actions. He admitted to making up some of his pranks to author Neil Steinberg, who covered Tuck in his 1992 book If At All Possible, Involve A Cow: The Book of College Pranks.

However, Tuck is mentioned in an October 1972 Oval Office tape when Nixon, speaking to H. R. Haldeman about the Segretti disclosures, said, "Dick Tuck did that to me. Let's get out what Dick Tuck did!" Nixon went on to describe egged limousines and staged violence in San José, Costa Rica. According to a 1997 article in The Washington Post by reporter Karl Vick, Nixon was not the first to confuse Tuck's record with Tuck's legend.

White House tapes also record Nixon speaking with John Connally on October 17, 1972, saying Tuck had all of Goldwater's speeches in hand before they were spoken because, Nixon presumed, Tuck had an informant in the Goldwater campaign. Tuck denied this, but his reputation earned him the nickname "Democratic pixie of the 1964 race."

In 1968, Tuck utilized Republican nominee Nixon's own campaign slogan against him; he hired a heavily pregnant black woman to wander around a Nixon rally in a predominantly white area, wearing a T-shirt that read, "Nixon's the One!"

Tuck was a key adviser in Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign. After Kennedy was shot in Los Angeles, he rode in Kennedy's ambulance as the mortally wounded candidate was rushed to the hospital.

In 1966, Tuck ran for the California State Senate. He opened his campaign with a press conference at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, claiming that just because people had died doesn't mean they don't still have (voting) rights.

Tuck's most famous prank against Nixon is known as "the Chinatown Caper". During his campaign for Governor of California in 1962, Nixon visited Chinatown in Los Angeles. At the campaign stop, a backdrop of children holding "welcome" signs in English and Chinese was set up. As Nixon spoke, an elder from the community whispered that one of the signs in Chinese said, "What about the Hughes loan?" The sign was a reference to an unsecured $205,000 loan that Howard Hughes had made to Nixon's brother, Donald. Nixon grabbed a sign and, on camera, ripped it up. Later, Tuck learned, to his chagrin, that the Chinese characters actually spelled out "What about the huge loan?"

After the first Kennedy–Nixon debate in 1960, Tuck hired an elderly woman who put on a Nixon button and embraced the candidate in front of TV cameras. She said, "Don't worry, son! He beat you last night, but you'll get him next time."

Tuck first met Richard Nixon as a student at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 1950, Tuck was working for Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas, who was running for a seat in the U.S. Senate against Nixon. In a 1973 Time magazine article, Tuck stated, "There was an absent-minded professor who knew I was in politics and forgot the rest. He asked me to advance a Nixon visit." Tuck agreed and launched his first prank against Nixon. He rented a big auditorium, invited only a small number of people, and gave a long-winded speech to introduce the candidate. When Nixon came on stage, Tuck asked him to speak about the International Monetary Fund. When the speech was over, Nixon asked Tuck his name and told him, "Dick Tuck, you've made your last advance."

Richard Gregory Tuck (January 25, 1924 – May 28, 2018) was an American political consultant, campaign strategist, advance man, and political prankster.