Having lost the 1960 presidential election by the slimmest of margins, Richard Nixon retreated home to California where he practiced law at Adams, Duque & Hazeltine and wrote his memoirs. Believing he needed to hold elective office in order to facilitate another White House bid, Nixon made a hasty and half-hearted run for California governor in 1962. Here he is playing piano shortly after casting his ballot.

Nixon was decisively defeated by Democratic incumbent Edmund “Pat” Brown. What followed was a bitter and infamous press conference where Nixon came off like a sore loser while telling the press that “you won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.” With his political career seemingly over, Nixon and his family moved to New York, where he joined the Wall Street firm of Mudge, Stern, Baldwin & Todd—soon to be renamed Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie & Alexander.

Nixon in New York is the first book written by Victor Li, an assistant managing editor at the ABA Journal.

Read an excerpt from Nixon in New York in the May 2018 issue of the ABA Journal.