Nixon tapes: Ruthless, cynical, profane

[underpants]

Source: MSNBC

From NBC’s John Rutherford
Richard Nixon's reputation takes a fresh pounding every time the National Archives releases another batch of audio tapes from his presidency, and today's opening of nearly 200 hours of Nixon White House recordings is no exception.

Again and again, Nixon comes across as ruthless, cynical and profane in conversations with staff members.

Here are some examples:
-- On July 1, 1971, Nixon instructs Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman to have someone break into the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.:

"I can't have a high-minded lawyer ... I want a son-of-a-b----. I want someone just as tough as I am. ... We're up against an enemy, a conspiracy that will use any means. We are going to use any means... . Get it done. I want it done. I want the Brookings Institution cleaned out and have it cleaned out in a way that has somebody else take the blame."

-- On April 4, 1972, Nixon discusses the press with Haldeman:

NIXON: “Return the calls to those poor dumb bastards ... who I know are our friends. Now do it ... We made the same mistake Eisenhower made, but not as bad as Eisenhower made, because he sucked the Times too much ... G-d damn it, don't talk to them for a while. Will you enforce that now?'
HALDEMAN: "I'll try."

-- On May 18, 1972, Nixon talks to Henry Kissinger about the National Security Adviser's meeting with Ivy League college presidents regarding the war in Vietnam:

NIXON: "The Ivy League presidents? Why, I'll never let those sons-of-b------ in the White House again. Never, never, never. They're finished. The Ivy League schools are finished ... Henry, I would never have had them in. Don't do that again ... They came out against us when it was tough ... Don't ever go to an Ivy League school again, ever. Never, never, never."

Read more: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/12/02/16954...

---

Turns out Nixon was a a-hole

[Parche]

1. I am not a crook

run nixon run

[Milspec]

17. And this is news?

[jeff30997]

30. Er..

Are you talking about the OP or only replying to post #1?

[GodlessBiker]

2. Wow. He was just nuts. Cookoo. A card or two short.

[noonwitch]

71. Brilliant and paranoid is not a good combination of traits for a president

He could have been a good president if he hadn't been so paranoid about everything and everyone.

[Hepburn]

3. What a shock....

...Richard Nixon was a major POS!

[pjt7]

4. When do Bush & Cheney's

tapes come out?

[Hepburn]

9. Hopefully, just like Nixon...

...AFTER IMPEACHMENT!

[jeff30997]

31. Or...

only after over 30 years like in that case.

[LiberalFighter]

46. Don't believe Presidents record their telephone or other conversations anymore.

[roguevalley]

15. his conversations with Billy Graham are horrible and anti semitic.

Billy Graham is a POS too.

[AngryAmish]

5. Name the president who installed the tape-recorders!!!

[XemaSab]

8. Uhhh....

J. Edgar Hoover?

[Truth2Tell]

13. jfk nt

[Mz Pip]

16. Nixon

If I remember correctly, he had them installed. Pretty amazing that he would say stuff like he did knowing that he was being recorded.

[jeff30997]

33. I believe you're right.

I never heard of JFK tapes so...

[kurtharp]

39. check this then.

http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&tag=mozilla-20&index=bl...

I have read several of these, here are some in MP3 format, as well as others.

[NorCalDem]

41. you are correct, Nixon installed the recorders n/t

[Truth2Tell]

62. Kennedy installed the bones of the system and began the taping.

Nixon only upgraded it.

http://tapes.millercenter.virginia.edu/pages/tapes_jfk....

On Kennedy's instructions, during the weekend of July 28-30, 1962, the Secret Service installed a taping system in the Oval Office and Cabinet Room as well as installing a separate Dictaphone system. From that time Kennedy could use hidden switches to activate the recording system and secretly record the meeting in progress. He could also direct his secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, to activate the recorders.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

45. johnson had a wire system that came from the admin he replaced.

recording devices once used actual wire, leaving a magnetic signature that could be replayed. That's part of the beginnings of the term "to wire" someone came from.
Wire recordings were inherently time limited and never of archival quality. (the differences in magnetic signals would actually interact, be affected by outside sources, and generally fade over time.

[defendandprotect]

57. Didn't LBJ have some taping going on ...?

As I understood the story, when Nixon came in that taping system --

activated only when LBJ wanted it on -- was dismantled and Nixon

was advised it was a bad idea. However, later on Nixon installed

a more sophisticated taping system ...

I think automatic when anyone spoke---????

[AngryAmish]

65. Kennedy installed it, LBJ used it too --Listen to LBJ ordering pants

<http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/pres... >

[defendandprotect]

69. Right -- and I think even FDR had some limited taoing stuff in WH --?

[happyslug]

70. Even seen a recording device from the 1940s?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictaphone

These devices used wax cylinders decades after music had shifted to records. About the time Dictaphones switched from Wax Cylinders in 1947, the music industry was again shifting, this time to "long playing" vinyl records.

What we would call tape recording was not available till the 1950s and the widespread adoption of magnetic tape (The reel to reel tape was invented in the 1930s and introduced into the music industry in the 1940s when it also started to replace old dictaphone systems but as a hole the switch was slow on the Government level, Eisenhower could have but never adopted it but Kennedy did). Thus it is only with Kennedy administration that you see tape recordings, on magnetic tapes (and these were Reel to Reel tapes NOT the later 8-track or cassette tapes).



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reel-to-reel_audio_tape_re...

One last comment, LBJ had a state of the art system, which included a cut off switch. The cut off switch permitted LBJ to shut down the recording system anytime LBJ wanted to shit off, which he did if LBJ decided he did NOT want something recorded. Nixon took that system out as to intrusive i.e. Nixon did not like the idea that he had been recorded when he had talked to LBJ in the White House. Nixon quickly overcame his opposition to recordings for he wanted to be able to point out ot people what they did say in his office when they went to the Media and said something else. Nixon's system had no cut off switch, it was NOT state of the art, it was inferior to the one LBJ had installed years before. Furthermore Nixon saw the tapes as his personnel property that he could use to write his memoirs when he left office, so even when Connelly told him to burn ALL of the tapes, Nixon refused to. Nixon's greed was his outdoing.

[defendandprotect]

6. "The press is the enemy" --"The professors are the enemy" ---

repeated over and again to Haldeman --

Nixon talking anout a "conspiracy" against him as he plots new crimes--??


see the video at yahoo --

[NYC Liberal]

19. Not to mention if you look at any of his interviews after he resigned

He always says he won't be kindly by history because the "historians are all left-wingers."

[JDPriestly]

56. Seriously studying history does cause one to lead to certain conclusions . . . .

[foo_bar]

7. Nixon would have loathed Obama on two accounts, then

Who knew Nixon's death came too soon? He could have endorsed McCain and his non-Ivy League running mate, completing the circle of Spiro "Nattering Nabobs" Agnew.

[Grinchie]

10. This the the same guy that Made Cannabis a Schedule I narcotic

Which basically made millions of dollars for Black Budget operations, the CIA and OBL.

Legalize this plant and you defund most Black Budget operations with a flick of the pen, as well as bankrupting nearly every Police department when i comes to Helicopter flights, mandatory confiscation of assets, and releasing hundreds of thousands of people from incarceration.

[bemildred]

21. Against the advice of his own commission appointed to study the problem.

At deity only knows what continuing cost to the taxpayers and to dopers.

[jeff30997]

35. I totally agree with you Grinchie. n/t

[NorCalDem]

42. Oh no, we can't have that!

People might get high, and do nothing or play video games for a few hours!!

/shudder

[defendandprotect]

47. Oh, what a lovely day that would be ....the viciousness of Nixon & Erlichman ...

-- and I believe this is recorded on tape ...? --

as I recall it they make plain this is a way to ensnare African Americans --

NIXON --- Prescott Bush's boy --

Some of the most disgusting people to ever walk the earth.


There was a video around recently where .. I think it's either a British or

Canadian officer in Afghanistan -- is commenting on how much the US government

loves to sell cocaine.

[LynnTheDem]

11. That's what Republic Party members are.

Those who vote for the Republic Party are either super rich...or super dumb.

[COLGATE4]

12. Who every would have thought???

Who ever would have thought that Nixon would turn out to be Nixon??!!

[Deja Q]

14. So are most DUers* these days, so what?

* myself not excepted; I'm a good reactionary to flaming trolls.

[pacalo]

18. Thanks for this!

I just hope there will be something, someone that/who will give us the inside scoop on the boy king's ramblings. I think Nixon, as vile as he was, would look like a boy scout compared to this in-your-face evil dictatorship.

[underpants]

23. The RW is fighting the inevitable comparison

http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/12/02/jpinkerton... /

Bush = Nixon? Not So Fast, Says FNC’s Chris Wallace

[pacalo]

24. Hahaaa! Just when you think brazenness has reached its peak, the Republics take it notch higher.

[w4rma]

34. Bush < the worst of Hoover and the worst of Nixon. (nt)

[bemildred]

20. Goodness me! Could this be why Bush doesn't want to release his Daddy's stuff?

Who knew that politicians were not all like Henry Fonda?

[Taverner]

22. Nixon an asshole? Say it ain't so!

[fascisthunter]

25. He was Crazy, just Like His Support

real whack jobs who have no principles at all.

[jmowreader]

26. Still, given the choice, I'd rather have Nixon in the White House than any Bush

Bush's greatest feat, as I have said before, is rehabilitating the legacy of Richard Nixon.

[xxqqqzme]

27. The biggest difference, I can see

between dicky & * is - nixon was a paranoid whack job...the current administration makes all of us paranoid.

Nixon, the most powerful man in the world, figured everyone was out to get HIM and he was powerless to stop 'them'; the current crop of criminals, cutting their teeth during nixon's last months and getting their feet wet during ford's tenure, learned their lessons well. They have spent the last 8 years scaring the hell out of all of us and advancing our paranoia.

[underpants]

29. Yes the Unitary Executive nonsense stems directly from Nixon's fall

and the power that was returned to the legislature. Cheney was there in the building when it all happened and worked his entire miserable life to get back inside that building and turn back the clock.

[scytherius]

28. He was a Republican. What did oyu expect? n/t

nt

[Initech]

32. To quote the late great Frank Zappa - "Dickie's such an asshole!!!"

Nixon was an evil fuck. Reagan was an evil fuck. Bush I was an evil fuck. W is an evil fuck. Is it me or are the GOP just a bunch of evil fucks?

[jeff30997]

36. It's just you...

The GOPers are non-selfish,sweet and nice peoples.

BTW,Do I really have to put this on?

[John1956PA]

37. Nixon's musing about firebombing the Brookings Inst. was reported 15 years ago.

Nixon's idea was to firebomb the place and have thieves disguised as firefighters go in and steal the documents.

[underpants]

38. Nixon Watergate and Howard Hughes

Alternative theories

Further information: Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories

Although the purpose of the break-in of the DNC offices has never been established, some theories suggest that the burglars were after specific information. The likeliest of these theories suggests that the target of the break-in was the offices of Larry O'Brien, the Chairman of the DNC <26>. In 1968, O'Brien was appointed by Vice President Hubert Humphrey to serve nationally as the director of his presidential campaign and by Howard Hughes to serve in Washington as his public-policy lobbyist. O'Brien was elected in 1968 and 1970 by the DNC to serve nationally as its chairman. With the upcoming Presidential election, former Howard Hughes business associate John H. Meier, working with Hubert Humphrey and others, wanted to feed misinformation to Richard Nixon. In late 1971, the President’s brother Donald Nixon, was collecting intelligence for his brother at the time and was asking Meier about Larry O'Brien.

Meier told Donald that he was sure the Democrats would win the election because they had considerable information on Richard Nixon’s illicit dealings with Howard Hughes that had never been released, and that Larry O’Brien had the information, <27> (O’Brien didn’t actually have any documents but Meier claims to have wanted Richard Nixon to think he did). Donald then called his brother and told him that Meier gave the Democrats all the Hughes information that could destroy him (Richard Nixon) and that O’Brien had it. This theory has been proposed as a motivation for the break-in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal

Clifford Irving guessed at this when he wrote his HOAX of a book about Hughes. Irving pretty much got it right.

[defendandprotect]

49. Yes..but also there's the threat of Larry O'Brien having some JFK coup ...

evidence -- maybe the tramp photos and other stuff --

I can see where info would be sent in that direction 'cause our "press"

protected the official myth.


Though, true re Donald Nixon who was given $200,000 by Hughes.

That info did come out --


Hughes became involved in politics and was a secret supporter of Richard Nixon. In 1956 the Hughes Tool Company provided a $205,000 loan to Nixon Incorporated, a company run by Richard's brother, Donald Nixon. The money was never paid back. Soon after the money was paid the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) reversed a previous decision to grant tax-exempt status to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKhughesH.htm

[defendandprotect]

58. Some details on WHY .....

This is all part of the HUSTON PLAN by Tom Huston in Nixon's White House ...

In 2007, author James Reston Jr. will call the Huston plan “arguably the most anti-democratic document in American history… a blueprint to undermine the fundamental right of dissent and free speech in America.”

The first operations to be undertaken are using the Internal Revenue Service to harass left-wing think tanks and charitable organizations such as the Brookings Institute and the Ford Foundation.

And here are some of the reasons for planned Brookings breakin ...

Reasoning behind Attack - Colson wanted to firebomb Brookings because former Kissinger aide Morton Halperin, a Brookings fellow, may have had classified State Department documents at the Institute that the White House wanted back. A fire at the Institute would cover up a burglary of Halperin’s office.


Huston writes that “making sensitive political inquiries at the IRS is about as safe a procedure as trusting a whore,” since the administration has no “reliable political friends at IRS.” He adds, “We won’t be in control of the government and in a position of effective leverage until such time as we have complete and total control of the top three slots of the IRS.” Huston suggests breaking into the Brookings Institute to find “the classified material which they have stashed over there,” adding: “There are a number of ways we could handle this. There are risks in all of them, of course; but there are also risks in allowing a government-in-exile to grow increasingly arrogant and powerful as each day goes by.”

The Brookings Institute is a Washington think tank which Nixon believes has copies of the Pentagon Papers. As secretly recorded, Nixon tells Haldeman: “I want the break-in. Hell, they do that” . “They have a lot of material. I want—the way I want that handled, Bob, is get it over. I want Brooking. Just break in. Break in and take it out. You understand.”

We’re up against an enemy, a conspiracy. They’re using any means. We are going to use any means. Is that clear?”

Another planned breakin involves stealing documents from the safe of the editor of the Las Vegas Sun, Hank Greenspun, who has relationship with Howard Hughes.
Nixon’s close friend and political financier Charles “Bebe” Rebozo had just gotten $50,000 in campaign cash from Hughes, and O’Brien is earning $13,000 a month lobbying for one of Hughes’s corporations.

During a conversation on how to best use the “Pentagon Papers” to their own advantage (see June 17, 1971), President Nixon asks chief of staff H. R. Haldeman and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger why they could never prove that former President Lyndon Johnson halted US bombings of Vietnam for political reasons. Haldeman has suggested that they could use such proof to blackmail Johnson. “G_ddamnit, I asked for it,” he says. “I said I needed it.” Kissinger replies: “Bob and I have been trying to put the thing together for three years. We have nothing here, Mr. President.” Then Haldeman interjects, “But there is a file on it.” Nixon pounces. “Where?” Haldeman replies that White House aide Tom Charles Huston is sure that such a file exists at the Brookings Institute. Nixon suggests that someone break into the Institute and take the files (see June 30-July 1, 1971). “I want it implemented.… G_ddamnit, get in there and get those files. Blow the safe and get them.”

[Hannah Bell]

40. There WAS a conspiracy against Nixon.

And he returned fire w/ fire:

"have it cleaned out in a way that has somebody else take the blame"

Conspiracy = SOP.

In your workplace, in your government. Anywhere people have secrets; in-groups & out-groups, i.e. everywhere.

Nixon wasn't "paranoid".

[defendandprotect]

54. Widespread political scandal involved every gov agency to steal election ----

There was hardly room for a conspiracy vs Nixon unless his corrupt backers --
Prescott Bush and other GOP money men wih Nazi connections were concerned about
how much more might come out .. like the fact Nixon only agreed to take their job
if the paid a slush fund every year ABOVE his Congressional salary ...

Everything is Interconnected -
Everything—surveillance operations, illegal campaign finances, campaign “dirty tricks”—is interconnected, Felt says. The Segretti story is just the tip of the iceberg: “You could write stories from now until Christmas or well beyond that.” The two men have been alternately standing and sitting in the unlighted parking garage for hours; dawn is approaching, and both are exhausted. Woodward knows he needs specifics, the names of these higher-ups. How is he to know if he is not being railroaded down investigative dead ends by White House media manipulation operations? How about the “Canuck letter” that destroyed the candidacy of Democratic presidential hopeful Edmund Muskie? “It was a White House operation,” Felt replies: “done inside the gates surrounding the White House and the Executive Office Building. Is that enough?” It is not, Woodward retorts. Are there more intelligence and sabotage operations still to come? Woodward angrily says that he is tired of their “chickensh_t games,” with Felt pretending he never provided primary information and Woodward contenting himself with scraps of disconnected information. Felt replies: “Okay. This is very serious. You can safely say that 50 people worked for the White House and CREEP to play games and spy and sabotage and gather intelligence. Some of it is beyond belief, kicking at the opposition in every imaginable way. You already know some of it.” Woodward lists the many examples that he and Bernstein have been able to unearth: surveillance, following people, press leaks, fake letters, campaign sabotage, investigations of campaign workers’ private lives, theft, campaign provacateurs. Felt nods. “It’s all in the files. Justice and the Bureau know about it, even though it wasn’t followed up.” Woodward, despite himself, is stunned. The White House had implemented a systematic plan to subvert the entire electoral process? Had used fifty people to do it? “You can safely say more than fifty,” Felt says, and walks up the ramp and out of the garage. It was 6 a.m. Woodward uses Felt’s information to help create one of the most devastating stories yet published about Watergate (see October 10, 1972).

There was hardly room for a conspiracy vs Nixon unless his corrupt backers --
Prescott Bush and other GOP money men wih Nazi connections were concerned about
how much more might come out .. like the fact Nixon only agreed to take their job
if the paid a slush fund every year ABOVE his Congressional salary ...

[Hannah Bell]

59. There was plenty of room for a conspiracy v. Nixon. There's always

room, there are always conspirators.

[defendandprotect]

60. Nixon was the Chief Conspirator ....

Those who were aware of his crimes tried to get info out --

Mark Felt "conspired" against Nixon evil criminality --

[Hannah Bell]

64. Nixon wasn't the only conspirator, nor the only criminal.

Personally, I don't believe the standard storyline.

[defendandprotect]

68. Right -- Nixon surrounded himself with criminal types --

You don't believe Nixon demanded criminal breakins ...???

Or approved the Huston Plan and then carried it out secretly --

Maybe he didn't bomb in Laos, either--?

[Hannah Bell]

72. sure i believe it. but it's not the whole story.

don't believe in "deep throat" & the brave boy reporters, though.

[defendandprotect]

74. Obviously, it isn't the whole story ...some assassinations also surround Nixon ----

either side of his presidency, paving the way.

And he was certainly THERE at the famous get-together at the

Murchison house the night before the assassination.

[Hannah Bell]

75. "some assassinations" surround every president who ever held office.

however, nixon made enemies of important ruling-class factions, & they steered the watergate investigation & takedown.

nixon's "crimes" = sop in the halls of ruling class governance.

[defendandprotect]

77. BS -- Nixon was Prescott Bush's boy --

and made deal with Bush's elie Repugs for Congressdional salary

PLUS a large funding on the side to be paid to him by "the boys" ...

[Hannah Bell]

79. prescott bush's "boy"? hardly.

Let's see, you read that nixon "answered an ad," & it was prescott bush, wanting someone to run for congress against jerry voorhis - & bush's "committee of 100" bribed nixon to do so. something like that, yeah?

too bad it's not true.

[defendandprotect]

80. Nixon was operating for Nazis in GOP ... he delivered for Prescott --

Yeah...I also read how much time was spent in Nixon White House studying

Nazi propaganda --

peace ..dream...peace ...dream

[Hannah Bell]

81. some documentation of said "facts"?

[defendandprotect]

82. Funny how you miss these things --

Try High Treason I by Groden/Livingston, for one --

At all book stores and prob your library --

[Hannah Bell]

83. I don't "miss these things." There's plenty of original data on the web,

Nixon tapes, TIME magazine & nyt archives, google books, annotated articles - enough to show, at a minimum, that P. Bush & Nixon had a funder/funded relationship.

Prove it, lazybones.

[windoe]

43. Makes you wonder what the Bush tapes would sound like...

they would make ultimate legal (and comedian) fodder for all time.

[roamer65]

44. The more tape that is released, the more accurate Oliver Stone's 1994 movie becomes.

[unkachuck]

48. Nixon, another fine Republican Party specimen....n/t

[Solano]

50. Reminds me of a recent president

very, very recent. So recent he's STILL president.

[muntrv]

51. In other news, water is wet.

[Libertas1776]

52. ...

Psychopathic egomaniac he may have been...

But at least he got us out of an un-winnable war (after the tet offensive of and cambodia of course and plenty of death)but still an improvement over Bush nut.

Plus, when Pres #43 leaves, Nixon's may not be the absolute worst pres anymore.

[Blue_Tires]

53. i read somewhere that the pope is a catholic, too....

[defendandprotect]

55. Here's an interesting outright LIE at Wiki re .......

the book The Ends of Power, President Richard Nixon's chief of staff H. R. Haldeman claimed that the term "Bay of Pigs," as used in a tape-recorded White House conversation,<4> was used by Nixon as a coded reference to a CIA plot to assassinate Fidel Castro during the John F. Kennedy administration.

No ---- Haldeman said "Bay of Pigs" references by Nixon were code for JFK assassination.

****************************************************************************************


fULL QUOTE ....
Numerous theories have persisted in claiming deeper significance to the Watergate scandal than that commonly acknowledged by media and historians. On the "Smoking Gun" tape, Nixon mentions E. Howard Hunt's ties to "the whole Bay of Pigs thing" as the reason the CIA should put a stop to the Watergate investigations. In the book The Ends of Power, President Richard Nixon's chief of staff H. R. Haldeman claimed that the term "Bay of Pigs," as used in a tape-recorded White House conversation,<4> was used by Nixon as a coded reference to a CIA plot to assassinate Fidel Castro during the John F. Kennedy administration. The CIA had not disclosed this plot to the Warren Commission, the commission investigating the Kennedy assassination, despite the fact that it would attribute a motive to Castro in the assassination.<28> A theoretical connection between the Kennedy assassination and the Watergate Tapes was later referred to in the biopic, Nixon, directed by Oliver Stone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate

[MarinCoUSA]

61. Nixon is pure & true EVIL. We can not despise him enough

Get the details in Rick Perlstein's Nixonland.

[superconnected]

63. Nixon is small potatoes compared to GW and Cheney.

Even Reagan didn't do as much damage as those two.

You can bet the tapes won't be there on GW and Cheney.

[cali]

66. bullshit. Nixon was just as bad as fucking bushco

the genocide in Cambodia can be rightfully laid at his feet. And he certainly did do as much harm.

[Hannah Bell]

76. kissinger works for - who?

[defendandprotect]

78. Agree ...and imagine still a lot of stuff we haven't found out about ...

yet--????

[Bake]

67. W's henchmen are destroying the tapes, documents, etc. as we speak.

He won't leave behind a single trace.

Bake

[JimboBillyBubbaBob]

73. Hey.....

He was a "Dick" then and he's still a "Dick!"