Nixon on Kennedy: 'If he get's shot, it's too damn bad'

[deminks]

http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/08/nixon-on-kennedy-if-he-gets-shot-its-too-damn-bad/

President Richard Nixon considered Ted Kennedy such a threat that he tried to catch Kennedy cheating on his wife, even ordering aides to recruit Secret Service agents to spill secrets on the senator's behavior.

"Do you have anybody in the Secret Service that you can get to?" Nixon asked his aide John Ehrlichman in a stark series of Oval Office conversations about Kennedy before the 1972 election. "Yeah, yeah," Ehrlichman replied.

"Plant one," Nixon said. "Plant two guys on him. This could be very useful."

Nixon made clear that the Secret Service protection afforded Kennedy before the 1972 election would be rescinded after. Then, said the president, "If he gets shot, it's too damn bad." His aides disdainfully referred to Kennedy supporters as "super swinger jet set types."

(end snip)

Ok, my utter disgust of Tricky Dicky had sort of mellowed the last 8 years. No more.

[saltpoint]

1. What is astonishing and distressing is that Nixon sought the esteem of

men around him the great majority of whom believed without objection or resistance that what he said and did was acceptable adult conduct.

[polichick]

2. There's a straight line from Nixon to Reagan to Bush to the insane haters of today. nt

[MineralMan]

3. My loathing of Nixon is something of very long standing.

I was once just six feet from him, during a war games simulation at an agency commonly referred to as No Such Agency. I was a lowly Sgt in the USAF and was busy doing what I was assigned to do when he and some flag officers came up behind my position. I didn't acknowledge any of them and just put my head down and got really, really busy. They didn't want any acknowledgment from me, anyhow. I was just another prop in a Class A uniform. I could see them in the glass of the terminal display I was working at.

We had been told that Nixon would be there and that we were to just continue what we were doing and not stand or look at him. Uff da!

Long time ago...gave me a sick sort of chill down my spine at the time.

[ellie]

4. I admire your restraint!

I was a child when he was in office. I very clearly remember him stepping down. I thought he was evil then and I still do.