 Nixon celebrated the anniversary of the speech each year . The future president disliked the fact that the address soon became popularly known as the " Checkers speech . " In his 1962 book , Six Crises ( the Fund crisis being one of the six ) , he would object to the term , " as though the mention of my dog was the only thing that saved my political career . " Nixon preferred to call the address " the Fund speech , " and made it required reading for his speechwriters . As time passed , the Checkers speech became denigrated , and Nixon biographer Earl Mazo suggested that much of the attitude of " I don 't like Nixon , but I don 't know why , " which contributed to the failure of his 1960 presidential run , can be traced to the Checkers speech . Other commentators suggested that had he not made the Checkers speech , Nixon might have won in 1960 . Nixon retorted that without the Checkers speech , he would not have been around to run in 1960 . 
