success, only $2,200 could be raised from November 1951 to July 1952, and an engraving bill was unpaid pending a hoped-for contribution of $500. Fund crisis In 1952, the Republicans chose Dwight D. Eisenhower as their presidential candidate, who then selected Nixon as his running mate, while the Democrats nominated Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson for president and Alabama Senator John Sparkman for vice president. The California delegation to the 1952 Republican National Convention, including Nixon, had been pledged to the state's "favorite son" candidate, Governor Earl Warren, who hoped to gain the presidential nomination in a brokered convention. Warren failed in his attempt to gain the nomination, and his supporters alleged that Nixon had worked behind the scenes to nominate Eisenhower despite his pledge to support Warren, and accused him of political opportunism for accepting the vice-presidential nomination. A disgruntled Warren supporter from Pasadena leaked the Fund story to several reporters. Nixon had campaigned for public integrity in his time in the Senate, even calling for the resignation of his own party chairman, Guy Gabrielson, when the latter was implicated in a loan scandal. By using such "indignant rhetoric," Nixon had "weakened his own position" when the Fund crisis erupted. Development of the story On September 14, Nixon was asked about the Fund by reporter Peter Edson of the Newspaper Enterprise Association after the senator completed an appearance on Meet the Press. Nixon told Edson that the Fund was set up by his supporters to pay political expenses, explained that he had made no effort to find out the names of the donors, and referred Edson to Smith for further information. Edson, and other reporters, did contact Smith, who answered questions about the Fund. Three days later, Nixon's campaign train, the "Dick Nixon Special," left Pomona, California, on a whistle-stop campaign tour of the West Coast and Rocky Mountain states. Edson's column on the 18th, which included lengthy quotes by Smith on the supposed safeguards in the Fund, was later called by Nixon, "fair and objective". However, Leo Katcher of the New York Post interviewed Smith and wrote a story under the headline "Secret Rich Men's Trust Fund Keeps Nixon in Style Far Beyond His Salary" and referred to the Fund donors as a "millionaires' club". Nixon later praised Katcher's younger brother Edward, also a reporter, for his objectivity, but told him, "your brother Leo is a son of a