“Dirty tricks” was a term used to describe the behavior of operatives within the Nixon administration to smear the reputations of opponents and undermine the appeal of certain politicians.
Fifty years ago, these dirty tricks included a false allegation that Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson, D-Wash., had fathered an illegitimate child with a 17-year-old girl and the break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., when Nixon…