What I found stunning about the Nixon piece was the parallels between then and now. The impeachable offenses, the surveillance, using the IRS to target enemies, are all apparent in this administration and noting is done. Thus the title of this post was born. On top of that, the Nixon administration did not torture as far as I know.
Another surprise of the program to me was the way in which even now at this late hour the conventional narrative regarding the man is proven to be a distortion. That is not to say he was an angel, but when one better understands the domestic power structure of AmeriKa, then and now, one begins to realize there is more to what happened at Watergate than what we have been taught, told, and allowed to hear and see.
"In ‘Nixon by Nixon,’ the man speaks for himself" by Mark Feeney | Globe Staff August 02, 2014
His antipathy for the press is legend, and “Nixon by Nixon” reminds us that this legend was fact. “The press is the enemy,” he tells Kissinger. “The press is the enemy. The press is the enemy. Write that 100 times on a blackboard and don’t forget it.”
They are now, and it is their own fault.
The Nixon on display here is almost unrelentlingly dark and duplicitous.
“The Jews are, are born spies,” he says of Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers (and whose parents were Christian Scientists). “You can’t trust the bastards. They turn on you.”
See:
The Israeli Spy Ring
The Dancing Israelis
Oh, Nixon turned out to have recognized the threat after all?
Mexican-Americans, he says, “do have some concept of family life, at least. They don’t live like dogs, which the Negroes do live like.”
“Plant two guys on him,” Nixon says in response to Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s request for Secret Service protection. “We just might get lucky and catch this son of a bitch and ruin him for ’76.”
Seeking government documents said to be at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, Nixon orders their immediate retrieval. “I want it done on a thievery basis. Goddammit, get in and get those files. Blow the safe and get it.”
“A thievery basis”: At least the man is honest in his dishonesty. Except that he isn’t. We hear him telling Kissinger he wants dikes in North Vietnam bombed. Then at a press conference, he replies to a question about such bombing. “We have orders out not to hit the dikes.”
Yeah, so? He's just doing what every president does.
This is one of several instances of Nixon saying one thing in private and the opposite in public. It’s a shortcoming of the documentary that no dates are given for the statements. What period separated them? People do honestly change their mind over time — Nixon going to China being a highly pertinent example.
There are moments of wonderful, if inadvertent, comedy.
I did find myself chuckling a time or two. There are to be no Washington Post reporters in the White House ever.
Nixon asks Mitchell if William Rehnquist, whom he’s going to nominate to the Supreme Court, is Protestant. The attorney general says yes, then jokes that perhaps Rehnquist could be baptized — presumably, as a Catholic — right away. “Well, baptized and castrated — no, they don’t do that,” Nixon mutters. “Circumcised — no, that’s the Jews. Well, anyway, whatever he is, get him changed.”
For anyone of a certain age, hearing all this (right down to White House counsel John Dean’s deathless Watergate formulation “We have a cancer within — close to — the presidency”) is like old times. For younger viewers, it must be revelatory. They just don’t make presidents like this anymore. Which is a good thing — mostly.
Mostly? A larger shortcoming of the documentary is that it shows Nixon in an almost unrelievedly unflattering light. His presidency had substantial achievements to go with the failures and fiascoes, and he was a far more complex man than the relentlessly grim bozo seen and heard here....
I noticed that, too, and it goes into my calculation regarding my respect for the man. I can't believe I'm saying that about him.
Related: Tape sheds light on surreal meeting between Nixon, protesters
It may have been bizarre, but at least he showed a conscience.
Did George W. Bush ever meet with antiwar protesters?
Has Obama met with anyone from Occupy?
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I found it interesting that the Globe didn't focus on his frustration with the lack of bombing in Vietnam or his zealous prosecution of such.
Did George W. Bush ever meet with antiwar protesters?
Has Obama met with anyone from Occupy?
--more--"
I found it interesting that the Globe didn't focus on his frustration with the lack of bombing in Vietnam or his zealous prosecution of such.
"Recordings reveal final days of Nixon White House" by Gillian Flaccus and Krysta Fauria | Associated Press August 06, 2014
YORBA LINDA, Calif. — Almost a decade after Richard Nixon resigned, the disgraced former president sat down with his one-time aide and told the tale of his fall from grace in his own words.
For three decades, that version of one of the nation’s largest and most-dissected political scandals largely gathered dust — until this week.
To commemorate the 40th anniversary of Nixon’s resignation, portions of the tapes will be published daily by the Nixon Presidential Library & Museum and the private Richard Nixon Foundation. The postings begin Tuesday, with Nixon recalling the day he decided to resign. They end Saturday, the date of his last day in office, with the 37th president discussing his final day at the White House, when he signed the resignation agreement, gave a short speech, and boarded a helicopter for San Clemente, Calif.
The segments were culled from more than 30 hours of interviews that Nixon did with former aide Frank Gannon in 1983. The sections on Watergate aired publicly once, on CBS News, before gathering dust at the University of Georgia for more than 30 years.
‘‘This is as close to what anybody is going to experience sitting down and having a beer with Nixon, sitting down with him in his living room,’’ said Gannon, now a writer and historian in Washington, D.C.
That would have been a fascinating experience.
‘‘Like him or not, whether you think that his resignation was a tragedy for the nation or that he got out of town one step ahead of the sheriff, he was a human being,’’ he said.
Nixon, who died in 1994, had hoped that providing his own narrative would help temper America’s final judgment of him.
Perhaps with that in mind, he didn’t shy away from the tough questions, commenting on everything from the threat of impeachment to the so-called smoking gun conversation that included evidence he participated in a Watergate coverup.
‘‘This was the final blow, the final nail in the coffin. Although you don’t need another nail if you’re already in the coffin — which we were,’’ Nixon said in a segment about the June 23, 1972, tape.
Nixon said when he decided to resign, he faced such strong resistance from his wife that he brought a transcript of the ‘‘smoking gun’’ tape to a family meeting to show her how bad it was.
‘‘I’m a fighter, I just didn’t want to quit. Also I thought it would be an admission of guilt, which of course it was,’’ he said. ‘‘And, also, I felt it would set a terribly bad precedent for the future.’’
The tone of the tapes contrasts with the sometimes-adversarial tone of the well-known series of Nixon interviews done in 1977 by British journalist David Frost.
Nixon appears relaxed in the tapes. He smiles occasionally, speaks fondly about his two daughters and wife, and seems emotional while recalling the final days of his fraught administration, as pressure mounted for his impeachment over a 1972 break-in at Democratic headquarters by burglars tied to the president’s reelection committee who were trying to get dirt on his political adversaries.
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To really get into it we would have to get a room at the Watergate, beloved readers.
