What did Nixon mean about W. Mark Felt Being "Jewish" (on tape)?

[displacedtexan]

Here's the transcript excerpt (from Slate):

Nixon: Well, if they've got a leak down at the FBI, why the hell can't Gray tell us what the hell is left? You know what I mean?...

Haldeman: We know what's left, and we know who leaked it.

Nixon: Somebody in the FBI?

Haldeman: Yes, sir. Mark Felt. You can't say anything about this because it will screw up our source and there's a real concern. Mitchell is the only one who knows about this and he feels strongly that we better not do anything because--

Nixon: Do anything? Never.

Haldeman: If we move on him, he'll go out and unload everything. He knows everything that's to be known in the FBI. He has access to absolutely everything ...

Nixon: What would you do with Felt?

Haldeman: Well, I asked Dean ...

Nixon: You know what I'd do with him, the bastard? Well that's all I want to hear about it.

Haldeman: I think he wants to be in the top spot.

Nixon: That's a hell of a way for him to get to the top.

Haldeman: You can figure a lot of--maybe he thought--first of all, he has to figure that if you stay in as president there's a possibility or probability Gray will stay on. If McGovern comes in, then you know Gray's going to be out ...

Nixon: Is he Catholic?

Haldeman: (unintelligible) Jewish.

President Nixon: Christ, put a Jew in there?

Haldeman: Well, that could explain it too.

Link: http://slate.msn.com/id/1003301/

And what why did Nixon ask if Felt was Catholic?

Frankly, Nixon's "Christ, put a Jew in there?" comment reminds me of the brothers in "Trading Places" talking about the Eddie Murphy character.

I don't remember any buzz about Nixon hating Jews or Catholics. Did he think religious groups were plotting against him?

[Reverend_Smitty]

1. I think at that point...

Nixon thought everyone was plotting against him. But that is an interesting transcript

[CottonBear]

2. I believe that Nixon made many remarks about Jews on the tapes.

He was a mean-spirited bastard.

[swag]

3. As somebody mentioned last night,

you can barely read a page of the transcripts without coming across an anti-Semitic remark by Nixon, or a paranoid rant about the "Jewish cabal" that he felt was out to get him.

It's entertaining reading, available at many thrift stores, the transcripts of those tapes.

[displacedtexan]

8. I read the transcripts when they first came out...

but I didn't focus on the religion references.

I was amazed by the profanity and the glib remarks about payoffs.

[swag]

11. Certain friends and I over beers often attempt to reenact the

phone conversation with Bebe Rebozo wherein Dick tells Bebe of the mining of Haiphong Harbor.

Bebe chuckles lowly at the information and intones, "Beautiful. Beautiful."

[Wright Patman]

4. A few years ago Billy Graham

had to apologize when one of the Nixon tapes came out with him and Nixon agreeing that Jews were running the country through the news media and destroying the culture through Hollywood and the music industry.

Graham claimed he didn't remember the conversation, but obviously since it was his voice on the tape, he had to ask forgiveness.

[tishaLA]

5. Nixon famously hated Jews

We found out from the Nixon tapes that anti-Semitism was one of the things Nixon and Billy Graham share, in fact.

But he liked "good Jews" like Kissinger.

[Wright Patman]

9. Great minds think alike

I just managed to get my post in a split second before yours. ;)

[agingdem]

14. Remember...

Fred Malik was Nixon's Jew counter.

[WI_DEM]

6. Nixon's WH tapes are full of similar anti-semitic comments

actually full of hate filled venom about almost every race as well. He was a man full of hate and rage and it was his downfall.

[itcfish1]

7. Catholic?

Remember how much he hated the Kennedy Boys? That would explain his fear of Catholics.

[JDPriestly]

10. I think he was anti-Jewish

Wasn't there some transcript in which he made and Billy Graham were making anti-Jewish remarks?

http://www.counterpunch.org/vestgraham.html

Billy Graham, Tangled Up in Tape

By David Vest

. . . .
We knew, long ago, of Nixon's own anti-Semitism. We heard his voice on the first wave of tapes, wanting to know how his daughters were being deployed in his re-election campaign. When staffers told him they were scheduled to appear at functions in support of the arts, he protested, "No, no, that's Jews and queers."

Nixon himself has long since lost the power to shock us, even when we hear him proposing to drop nuclear weapons on Vietnam.

But this conversation with Billy Graham is something else again. Here is the most admired and influential religious leader in America complaining to the president of the United States about the Jews and their "stranglehold" on the media, and blaming them for "all the pornography."

Even when Nixon replies that he agrees but "can't say that" in public, Graham presses the point: Yes, right, but if you get elected to a second term, then we could do something about the problem.
. . . .

[AntiCoup2K4]

15. Billy Graham blamed Jews for pornography?

Never heard that before. I wonder which one of the 12 tribes Bob Guccione was from?

[fryguy]

12. racist and an anti-Semite

Nixon is heard on numerous tapes making racial and anti-Semitic slurs. Don't believe or be fooled by the whitewashing of his image that the conservatives have been conducting with the help of the MSN, he was a mean and nasty individual.

[bullimiami]

13. nixon was a bigot.

he played nice in public.