# I don't care if he's dead, I'm Pitting Nixon **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 15, 2013, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973 "2013-03-15T02:39:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/41 "2013-03-15T19:22:37Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I’m trying to wrap my head around the idea that Nixon had committed treason in an effort to sway the election and LBJ was just too much of a nice guy to bring that to light. Apparently LBJ (or maybe Kennedy) had ordered the bugging of Nixon’s aids and or the South Vietmanese embassy. So it might be that he got the evidence illegally. It might be that he didn’t want to disclose the bugging because he or the CIA didn’t want to jeopardize an ongoing source of intelligence, that is if the bugs were still producing. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2013, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/42 "2013-03-16T19:10:11Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Is this a whoosh? No, seriously. Nixon was a bit before, or just into, my time. I never understood exactly what Watergate was all about when it was in the news, I was a kid. And I never heard any commentators call Nixon a drunk. And I’ve read _Nixonland,_ and while Perlstein delves pretty deeply into Nixon’s life personal and political (e.g., when young Nixon was in the Navy, he supplemented his income with amazing skill at poker), he says nothing about a drinking problem. Perhaps it was, for Nixon’s generation, simply too ordinary a thing to mention. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2013, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/43 "2013-03-16T19:22:57Z")
> [@drew870mitchell](#): > > I wish I could remember where I read the lightweight thing. Well, _that’s_ certainly more than enough to disregard all the cites to the contrary. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2013, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/44 "2013-03-16T21:29:56Z")
We liberals just don’t have enemies like Nixon anymore. Freakishly intelligent, racist and insecure while downing enough liquor and pills to impress Hunter Thompson. Modern fascists are as smart as W, racist like Trump and insecure as that fellow who shot his best friend in the face while drunk off his ass and planning Armageddon. Nixon was the whole fucking package all by himself. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2013, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/45 "2013-03-16T21:37:14Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > We liberals just don’t have enemies like Nixon anymore. We don’t have **friends** like Nixon any more either – a Pub who established the EPA and the first affirmative-action program and experimented with price controls and normalized relations with “Red China” – he’d have no place even on the leftmost wing of today’s GOP! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2013, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/46 "2013-03-16T21:39:35Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I never understood exactly what Watergate was all about when it was in the news, I was a kid. Actually, I think most Americans still don’t understand what it was: The tail end of a huge and hugely successful conspiracy to clinch Nixon’s re-election in 1972 by sabotaging the primary campaigns of all Dem contenders but McGovern, who was judged easiest to beat. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2013, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/47 "2013-03-16T22:01:08Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > We don’t have **friends** like Nixon any more either – a Pub who established the EPA and the first affirmative-action program and experimented with price controls and normalized relations with “Red China” – he’d have no place even on the leftmost wing of today’s GOP! With friends like Nixon, who needs enemies? Without Nixon and McCarthy and their Red hunts and scares Johnson might have not worried about “losing” Vietnam the same way we “lost” China. Idiotic worrying over reds was the most destructive thing to hit this country since the Civil War. It destroyed a whole generation in and over Vietnam and crippled our economy since. And Nixon didn’t even believe in red baiting other than as a path to power. As evidenced by sucking up to China, which he rendered impossible for any other kind of politician. You are probably too young to remember, but millions of dead Vietnamese can’t be wrong: “Nixon’s the One.” Unlike his successors, (and even Kissinger), Nixon was smart enough to know exactly the likely consequences of his actions. And he did them anyway. For power. He left several generations of acolytes like Cheney for us to chew on. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2013, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/48 "2013-03-16T23:45:08Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > Nixon could win 9000 debates, discover the lost continent of Atlantis, and rescue Tess Trueheart from the train tracks, and he’d still be . . . you know . . . Nixon. \*“I do not love thee, Doctor Fell. The reason why, I cannot tell. But this I know, and know full well: I do not love thee, Doctor Fell.” \* Even people who agreed with Nixon’s politics and policies could never really like the guy. I think he knew this, and at least part of his paranoia and misanthropy resulted from this knowledge. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2013, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/49 "2013-03-17T00:02:52Z")
> [@drew870mitchell](#): > > The Anna Chennault thing is old news to anyone who still cares about it. [HNN](http://hnn.us/articles/60446.html) does a better job at covering it than Washington Post. > > There are a couple competing theories as to why LBJ sat on it, but there’s no question that he did. I trust Robert Caro will get to the bottom of it and IMHO it’s a much more interesting question than anything to do with the JFK assassination. [Atlantic Wire](http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/03/newly-released-secret-tapes-reveal-lbj-knew-never-spoke-out-about-nixons-treason/63188/) has a bit on this topic today - reporting on a BBC [piece](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21768668) by David Taylor. > [@Atlantic Wire](#): > > …It seemed like the war was about to end and Johnson was about to halt the bombing of North Vietnam. Until Nixon had Chennault convince the South Vietnamese that they “should withdraw from the talks, refuse to deal with Johnson, and if Nixon was elected, they would get a much better deal,” Taylor writes. They did, the day before Johnson was to announce the end of the Vietnam war. > > And Johnson knew about it all. In the recently released tapes, we can hear Johnson being told about Nixon’s interference by Defence Secretary Clark Clifford. The FBI had bugged the South Vietnamese ambassadors phone. They had Chennault lobbying the ambassador on tape. Johnson was justifiably furious – he ordered Nixon’s campaign be placed under FBI surveillance. Johnson passed along a note to Nixon that he knew about the move. Nixon played like he had no idea why the South backed out, and offered to travel to Saigon to get them back to the negotiating table. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2013, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/50 "2013-03-17T00:20:29Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > \*“I do not love thee, Doctor Fell. The reason why, I cannot tell. But this I know, and know full well: I do not love thee, Doctor Fell.” > \* > Even people who agreed with Nixon’s politics and policies could never really like the guy. I think he knew this, and at least part of his paranoia and misanthropy resulted from this knowledge. And, yet, he did have a kind of charisma – pale beside JFK’s, but more than enough to get a lot of people cheering “Nixon’s the One!” and meaning it. According to polls during his presidency, Nixon was both the most loved **and** the most hated person in America. Probably less for what he was, than for what he stood for and stood against. It was that kind of time. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2013, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/51 "2013-03-17T00:42:19Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > And, yet, he did have a kind of charisma – pale beside JFK’s, but more than enough to get a lot of people cheering “Nixon’s the One!” and meaning it. According to polls during his presidency, Nixon was both the most loved **and** the most hated person in America. Probably less for what he was, than for what he stood for and stood against. It was that kind of time. Find me one person who wrote believably in their memoirs that they knew Tricky Dick and liked him as a person. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2013, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/52 "2013-03-18T00:21:26Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > LBJ had so much emotional and political investment in the war – perhaps he was actually ambivalent as to whether he wnated the Paris Peace Talks to succeed or not. My dad started working for the Washington State Patrol during the last few years of the Vietnam War. He was stationed at the Port of Entry on Interstate 5, weighing and checking the paperwork of commercial trucks traveling north. This included many/most of the trucks hauling munitions to Bangor Naval Base, a launch point for ships carrying munitions to Vietnam. According to him (though these days I retroactively apply a huge grain of salt to things he told me back then), the primary trucking company hauling this stuff was owned by Lady Bird Johnson, or at least she had a major financial stake in the company. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2013, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/53 "2013-03-18T00:58:28Z")
Often wondered about that, the Lockheeds, the General Dynamics, that sort. Howcum in time of crisis, when their nation calls for sacrifice, why don’t they produce their goods “at cost”? After all, what is profit at a time like that, when our heroes are in harm sway? Surely their stockholders and investors would cry aloud with unanimous approval! There will be profit enough when the fightin’s done, dontcha think? Just sayin’, is all. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/54 "2013-03-19T03:13:05Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > We don’t have **friends** like Nixon any more either – a Pub who established the EPA and the first affirmative-action program and experimented with price controls and normalized relations with “Red China” – he’d have no place even on the leftmost wing of today’s GOP! In that regard… (and published in FoxNews of all places!): [http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/01/09/richard-nixon-last-great-liberal/](http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/01/09/richard-nixon-last-great-liberal/) > [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > With friends like Nixon, who needs enemies? Without Nixon and McCarthy and their Red hunts and scares Johnson might have not worried about “losing” Vietnam the same way we “lost” China. Idiotic worrying over reds was the most destructive thing to hit this country since the Civil War. It destroyed a whole generation in and over Vietnam and crippled our economy since. And Nixon didn’t even believe in red baiting other than as a path to power. As evidenced by sucking up to China, which he rendered impossible for any other kind of politician. The Gilded Age-era actions against the labour unions, Wilson’s suspensions of antiwar speech in World War I, and FDR’s internment of Japanese-Americans all easily exceed the damage done by red-baiting. And I don’t see how you can blame Vietnam for “destroying” a generation (unless you are one of those conservatives who blame the Sixties for everything from rising illegitimate births to Justin Bieber) or how it crippled our economy to this day. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/55 "2013-03-19T04:41:48Z")
> [@BigAppleBucky](#): > > Is this significantly different from Reagan’s dealings with the Iranians behind Carter’s back in 1980? You’re referring to a discredited conspiracy theory. You might as well say, “Is that worse than Fidel Castro killing John F. Kennedy.” ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/56 "2013-03-19T04:47:23Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Absolutely. He was a very heavy drinker. Google Nixon dunk and you’ll get a lot if hits, including claims he was at times too drunk to discuss critical foreign policy issues. [Here’s a recording of Nixon allegedly drunk talking to Bob Haldeman](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm5FIs9V0VA). He’s not falling down drunk and slurring every word, it’s a little more subtle than that, but he is clearly being affected by … something. I might be misremembering but I think according to Stephen Ambrose, who was one of his biographers and hardly his biggest fan, Nixon really didn’t start drinking heavily during his Presidency until the Watergate crisis, for rather obvious reasons. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/57 "2013-03-19T13:07:39Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > You’re referring to a discredited conspiracy theory. _Discredited_? Cite? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/58 "2013-03-19T14:32:08Z")
Well, mistakes were made, certainly. They didn’t quite get away with it, that was a big mistake. ---
**Author:** ![drew870mitchell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drew870mitchell/32/3946_2.png) [@drew870mitchell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drew870mitchell)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/59 "2013-03-19T16:03:31Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Well, _that’s_ certainly more than enough to disregard all the cites to the contrary. :rolleyes: Oh GFY. No such cites to the contrary exist _because he wasn’t an alcoholic._ Prove your damn positive assertion first. Or is it cool to believe a stupid rumor about Nixon because you want him to be a Bad Guy? Are we about fighting ignorance here? > **[Post by @deadpresidents](https://deadpresidents.tumblr.com/post/15133779239/have-you-read-about-this-new-book-that-alleges)** > > 💬 2  🔁 0  ❤️ 8 · Have you read about this new book that alleges Nixon was a drunk wife-beater who had a gay affair with Bebe Rebozo? > > I have not read it, and I doubt that I will.  I think those are… I should be able to cite the maotai story there when I get back to my books in a few days. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/60 "2013-03-19T16:08:02Z")
Oh, a Mao Tai, eh? A regular old Mai Tai wasn’t Communist enough for him! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973.md?page=4)