was further limited when, while en route to California from Washington D.C. in August, he was forced to have surgery for hemorrhoids in Ogden, Utah. He spent two weeks in an Ogden hotel recuperating from the operation. Nixon alleged that a vote against Voorhis was "a vote against the P.A.C. Political Action Committee, affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), its Communist principles, and its gigantic slush fund." The Nixon campaign distributed 25,000 thimbles labeled "Nixon for Congress/Put the needle in the P.A.C." Voorhis's supposed involvement with and endorsement by the CIO-PAC, which was believed to be a Communist front organization, was a major issue in the campaign. Nixon's campaign manager claimed to have proof of Voorhis's involvement with the group. On September 13, the two candidates met at a debate at South Pasadena Junior High School. When Nixon was challenged to produce proof of the allegation, Nixon took from his pocket a local bulletin of the National Citizens Political Action Committee that contained an endorsement of Voorhis. That was a different group, also affiliated with the CIO. While Voorhis's staff was aware of the endorsement, no one had told the representative. Voorhis, confronted with the bulletin, noted that they were two different groups. Nixon responded by reading the names of the boards of directors of the two groups, with many names in common. After the debate, Voorhis asked Congressman Chester E. Holifield for his view of how it had gone, and Holifield responded, "Jerry, he cut you to pieces." Voorhis had been successfully linked with "the PAC", though he had refused to accept the endorsement of any PAC unless it renounced Communist influence. Nixon defeated Voorhis by over 15,000 votes, and Time magazine praised the future president for "politely avoid[ing] personal attacks on his opponent". The day after the election, Voorhis issued a concession statement, "I have given the best years of my life to serving this district in Congress. By the will of the people, that work is ended. I have no regrets about the record I have written." In his 1947 book, Confessions of a Congressman, Voorhis attributed his defeat to tremendous amounts of money supposedly spent by the Nixon forces. When Nixon read the book, he commented, "What I am wondering is where all the money went that we were supposed to have had!" Nixon's defeat of Voorhis has been cited as the start of