Eleven Hours of Nixon Tapes Released

[Penndems]

By NEIL A. LEWIS,The New York Times
Posted: 2007-07-12 17:35:11

WASHINGTON (July 12) — The National Archives made available on Wednesday more than 11 hours of tape recordings that show President Richard M. Nixon maneuvering in 1972 to remake the Republican Party in his image, crush South Vietnamese opposition to his efforts to end the Vietnam War and dole out patronage to ethnic groups based on how much they supported his re-election.

<snip>

The documents span a wider period and include a memorandum that may intrigue students of Nixon’s character. In the document, written in December 1970 to H. R. Haldeman, a top aide, Nixon expresses both anger and pain that his aides have not been able to establish an image of him as a warm and caring person. He makes several suggestions about how this could be accomplished, warning frequently in the single-spaced 11-page document that it must appear that the examples of his warmth were discovered by others and not promoted by White House aides.

<snip>

Shortly after trouncing Mr. McGovern in his re-election bid, Nixon is heard on a Nov. 19, 1972, tape criticizing two men who would go on to be president: Ronald Reagan and the elder George Bush. He tells Charles W. Colson, a senior aide, that the Republican Party is in trouble and needs to be reinforced with a coalition of working-class Democrats. "Basically, your leadership in the states is so bad," Nixon says. "Frankly, in California, it’s Reagan. You can’t do it around him. He’s got to do it, and he is a drag." Nixon talks in the same conversation about replacing Mr. Bush as representative at the United Nations, saying: "That whole staff up there is violently anti-Nixon, and Bush hasn’t done one damn thing about it. He’s become part of it."

<snip>

A proposal to name Walter Washington, the first black mayor of the District of Columbia, to the post is dismissed during the conversation. "We don’t owe the blacks a damn thing, anyway," Nixon tells Mr. Colson, who notes that African-Americans had contributed little to his landslide victory. Nixon esponds: "After all, pampering the blacks isn’t good. I think you’ve got a good point there."

Story link: http://news.aol.com/dailypulse/_a/11-hours-of-nixon-tapes-released/20070712124309990001

That Nixon. What a guy. :sarcasm: :puke:

Absolutely amazing that one of his political advisors thought that John Kerry would be a "prize recruit for the Republican Party".
























(Edited to add link.)

[terrya]

1. God...the more you hear the private Nixon...

the more odious he is.

Racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic to the extreme...and he was worried that he wasn't seen as a "warm and caring person"? :eyes:

[Penndems]

3. If Nixon's staff could've pulled off a PR campaign protraying him as "warm and caring"

it would've been the marketing miracle of the twentieth century.

That man was about as warm and caring as a hungry alligator, and paranoid to the point of needing serious psychiatric help.

[IChing]

2. Does it mention what he did with the 5 million e-mails of the Bush

Administration?