yet more venal, racist, anti-Semitic, vicious Dick Nixon on tape!

Remember when we took God out of the Schools, Killed of Santa Claus, eradicated the Easter Rabbits, and kicked Nixon out of the White House.

Best-ever Nixon document?

A meandering 11-page memorandum (PDF) that Nixon sent in 1970 to his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, urging that White House staffers talk up what a warm human being "RN" was. ... Nixon cited "warm items" (Page 3) such as "the calls that I make to people when they are sick, even though they no longer mean anything to anybody" (Page 4).

... "We have gone far beyond any previous president … in breaking our backs to be nicey-nice to the Cabinet, staff and the Congress … around Christmastime," Nixon groused (Page 3). "I have treated them like dignified human beings and not like dirt under my feet" (Page 4), he continued. ...He never did persuade the American people "with regard to the whole warmth business" (Page 6), and the 1970 memo, which appears below and on the following 10 pages, stands as a poignant illustration why not.

LOLZ:

On a small note, I called Fr ed Cia lles the ot her night who was going under the knife for a cancer op eration, which will probably end his life. Fred Cia lles has had it in Chic ago politics but he has be en my
friend for years. I didn't t ell anybody ab out the ca ll and won't, but I put his nurse on also, and urg ed her to give a lift to a ll the other patients, but that was the most important thing she could do. Rose will remember an incident where I took dolls out to a couple of children at a hospital, when I w as pr es iding over the Senate, who were dying with leukerrria. We deliberately didn't have publicity. The hand­
written letters that I wroteto Mrs. De Gaulle after DeGaulle' s death and the hand-written note I wrote to De Gaulle when he was defeated, are examples. All of this must be handled subtl¥ and under no
circumstances am I going to sit d own with anybody and start telling them all the good de eds I have done. Again, such things, to be believable, have to be discovered, and one of the great factors that should be emphasized is that the President does not brag about all the good things he does for people.

so let's get the fucking Plumbers to brag about them?

Dare I admit that these admissions make Dick seem more...endearing?? How his life might have changed had someone kissed him.

"I let Pat sleep by herself, too"

Posted at Slate – a correspondent recalls his own Dick Nixon Moment:

When I was a 13 yr old boy in Milwaukee WI, I was standing in line to shake RN's hand, and was getting close. He had been nominated by the Repubs and was throwing a thank you dinner for masses of campaign workers. Average spaghetti in a giant room with those portable trestle tables like in high school. I had stuffed fliers in newspaper boxes out the right hand car window as my mother drove the car past mailboxes.

Bored, mute and watchful, as a 13 year old can be, I noticed Pat Nixon was turning white(er) and was about to faint. I darted out of the line, skimmed up on the portable stage and flashed in between the secret service detail with the unconscious alacrity of the child. Still moving, I had to hurry, I scooted an already opened folding chair under her and instead of falling to the floor, she got a controlled crumple into the chair. Through this whole event I never said a word.

Remember how a child on the move simply weaves between adults without looking up to their full height? The secret service guys I barely noticed, they were like trees.

One secret service guy laid a hand on me, but not a hard hand. I think he was just making sure I didn't use my super speed and blur past him again. And another agent brought Pat a paper cup of water. I remember that. Pat waved them off me and as her color returned, she murmured her thanks.

I was stock still now, and I was mute, and looking at her face, watching the color return to her face, almost clinically. She was now sitting, and I was still small for my age, our faces were very close. After a couple of heartbeats she took my face in her hands and kissed me solidly on the face, kind of on the lips.

Still mute, but my job done, I turned, hopped down, retook my place in line, and waited my turn to shake hands. When I did get to shake hands, the Nixons were a little extra warm with me and Pat winked at this grave, small, dark haired boy.

Click.., its 1980 or 81, now I'm 26 and broke. I'm half flunking out of grad school in Columbia SC, studying comparative anatomy both in the science lab and in my spare time, and testing the effects of pot on the dissolute summer student. Seeking amusement on a budget of three dollars, I see a used copy of "No more Vietnams" in a bookstore window with a magic $2.95 price tag. I buy and read it. A champion reader by now, I read it swiftly, and while Nixon had a lot to say, I felt his style was a bit flat, and that he needed to know.

Savvy enough to know that you have to write something short and snappy to get past the assistants, and wanting to teach some style by example, I began my first (typed of course) letter to Nixon with this hook:

"Dear Mr. Nixon,

You don't know me but I once kissed your wife."

Then I talk about the book and give him a stylistic hint or two. Then I close with the incident above. The whole letter is only a page with a decent amount of white space.

Well, he wrote me back from his old New Jersey address, and penned a note at the bottom saying that he remembered the incident. I wrote him a few more times over many years and each time I got a reply. The last time I wrote him was after Pat died.

Well, I always had sympathy for Nixon, as I felt he was a person who was a little emotionally stunted, as was I. I know the struggle those with a limited emotional repertoire have to become whole, broad people, if they choose to try to be more...whole.

I felt that was what Pat saw in my face. Maybe it explains in part, her love for RN. And the body of my Richard Nixon correspondence, while not very personal, does have an odd tone of mutual sympathy.

Nixon = best source of Presidential comedy material ever

We might have more, of a sort:

A federal judge has ordered the government to unseal grand jury transcripts of testimony by former President Richard Nixon about the Watergate scandal.

Ruling in a lawsuit brought by a historian and several historical associations, Chief U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth ordered the transcripts to be unsealed.

The testimony was taken near Nixon’s California home in 1975 – after he had resigned in the wake of the scandal.

The Watergate scandal, which began with a June 1972 burglary in Washington, eventually led to the President’s resignation after investigations linked the burglars to top White House operatives.

“The special circumstances presented here – namely, undisputed historical interest in the requested records – far outweigh the need to maintain the secrecy of the records,” Lamberth wrote. “The Court is confident that disclosure will greatly benefit the public and its understanding of Watergate without compromising the tradition and objectives of grand jury secrecy.”

The government is entitled to appeal the ruling.

Hugh Hewitt's off crying somewhere...

ooh!

The testimony was taken near Nixon’s California home in 1975 – after he had resigned in the wake of the scandal.

God, I've read so much about Nixon, and I don't have any recollection of that at all. He really is like Jason Voorhees or Freddy Kruger--he simply cannot be killed. I find that stories usually seem to materialize during election cycles, so this one's a few months early.

The first thing the LA ILXors wanted to know was if the Nixon Library shows the "Futurama" ep w/ Nixon's cryogenic head. No... they have a whole WALL of the storyboard sketches.

And the copter out back is fun:

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/08/06/nixon.resigns/nixon.leaves.jpg

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6014/5988863865_d2eb75906c.jpg

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/09/richard_nixons_watergate_grand_jury_testimony_to_be_unsealed.php?ref=fpb

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emPABapBvmU

oh fuck yes

Salon publishes an excerpt from Greenwald's new book: a chapter showing how Ford's pardon set the stage for future executive office grants of immunity.

funny to contrast greenwald's piece with the obit salon ran for ford when he died: http://www.salon.com/2006/12/28/gerald_ford/singleton/

notably this bit:

Yet these days only the most stubborn and unyielding Nixon haters still question whether the cleanse-the-air pardon was justified. America is simply not a banana republic in which former presidents should face the prospect of prison or ruinous civil judgments after leaving office. Ford paid the ultimate political price for his courageous decision to restore a veneer of civility to our politics even in the face of the intemperate passions let loose by Vietnam and Watergate.

that infuriated me when i read it and still does.

lol at beginning a sentence advocating suspension of due process with 'America is simply not a banana republic'

the title of GG's book resonates, as I stopped saying the Pledge in school after the pardon.

(not that anyone noticed)

And here we go:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2011/11/10/nixons_long_secret_watergate_testimony_is_out/

http://www.archives.gov/research/investigations/watergate/nixon-grand-jury/

This is going to be interesting

EXCITED!

I can't see it having much entertainment value, no swearing or Buck Turgidson-style venom.

discussion of "goons"!

but yeah I know what you mean, this was legal testimony, not Nixon's usual shit-talking session

cue NRO types finding the timing "curious" because there's an election next year

PRESIDENT:

You knml' when they talk, though, about a
thirty-five year sentence, now here's, here's
something that does not involve--There were no
weapons, right? There were no injuries,
right? There was no succe--well, success
maybe--I don't know
The point is--the) uh--
that, that sort of thing is just ridiculous.
One o f these, one of these black~, you know,
goes in here and "holds up a, a store with
a God damned gun, and, uh, they give him
two years and then probation after .••

Would have been 98 today.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AauCarFOO_Y/S_q5grNV3UI/AAAAAAAAAIs/JYYVKkuELH4/s1600/Nixon-1930.jpg

99 actually. Gear up for next year.

You're right--knew it was 1913, forgot it was 2012.

What better time to read this again:

http://teaching.arts.usyd.edu.au/history/hsty3080/StudentWebSites/Nixon%20Obits/source9

You knml' when they talk, though, about a
thirty-five year sentence, now here's, here's
something that does not involve--There were no
weapons, right?

Spent a minute looking at this, trying to work out whether "knml" might be an old-school variant on "kmt".

I'm reading Watergate, Thomas Mallon's latest Washington novel. Rose Mary Woods, Fred LaRue, Howard Hunt, Pat, and Dick each get a POV. Alice Longworth Roosevelt is a sardonic delight.

yeah, I read the NYTBR last Sunday on that. Sounds too nice to Dick.

well it's fiction

Coming to MoMA this month: dirty-tricks supervisor Dwight Chapin presents Nixon White House home movies!

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/film_screenings/16477

!

goddammit why don't I live in NY

in which Nixon exits the monorail and rides the carousel in Walt Disney World's Fantasyland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04wXubYOIlM

Where you at, Morbs?

http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article/90803/ap-exclusive-documents-detail-richard-nixon-bill-clinton-ties?page=all

nothing like realpolitik to unite creeps

from november '62: JFK and pat brown (who had just defeated nixon for governor of california) discuss 'you won't have nixon to kick around' speech, conclude the guy is 'nuts' and 'psychotic.'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeA41pyRZY8

I'm reading the Watergate novel now... aside from Alice Roosevelt Longworth, who I never knew much about, I think Fred LaRue and Howard Hunt are the most compelling characters.

i love that shot of you walking out of the copter.

i can either run the country or i can attend to alice. i cannot possibly do both.