Julie Nixon weds David Eisenhower, Dec. 22, 1968
On this day in 1968, Julie Nixon, the second daughter of Richard Nixon, the then president-elect, and his wife, Pat, wed David Eisenhower, the sole grandson of Dwight Eisenhower, the 34th president. The Rev. Norman Vincent Peale officiated in a nondenominational rite at the Marble Collegiate Church in New York City.
The couple met in 1956 at the Republican National Convention in San Francisco when they were both 8 years old. At the time, David’s grandfather was being nominated for a second term while Julie’s father was being nominated for a second term as Eisenhower’s vice president.
Subsequently, they grew up in much the same social circle — often under the glare of national politics. They started dating in 1966, when they were both college freshmen, and became engaged a year later. Their respective colleges, Amherst (David) and Smith (Julie), are located a few miles apart in Central Massachusetts.
Tabitha Warters, who has written about presidential offspring, noted that Julie and David offered Americans the ideal image of a “wholesome, all-American couple” at a time when the nation was undergoing a countercultural revolution and traditional family and relationship roles were being challenged. She quoted Nixon as describing his daughter and her fiancé during his 1968 presidential campaign as “front-line troops in the battle to reestablish … traditional virtues.”
Prior to her marriage, Julie graduated from Sidwell Friends School in Washington. Having obtained her undergraduate degree, she went on to receive a master’s from The Catholic University of America in 1972.
David Eisenhower graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1966. He received his B.A. in history cum laude in 1970. After college, he served for three years as an officer in the U.S. Naval Reserve as a junior officer on the USS Albany, a guided missile cruiser, in the Mediterranean. He then earned a law degree from The George Washington University Law School in 1976.
He is currently a teaching adjunct and public policy fellow at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, and a published historian. David was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in history in 1987 for his work “Eisenhower: At War, 1943-1945,” about the Allied leadership during World War II. David and Julie, who are now both 68, have each written several books about their well-known relatives.
The couple live near Philadelphia, where they have reared three children: Jennie Elizabeth, 39, an actor; Alexander “Alex” Richard, 37; and Melanie Catherine, 33.
SOURCE: “THE PRESIDENTS CLUB: INSIDE THE WORLD’S MOST EXCLUSIVE FRATERNITY,” BY NANCY GIBBS AND MICHAEL DUFFY (2012)