# 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:** 4
**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, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/61 "2013-03-19T16:35:56Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Oh, a Mao Tai, eh? A regular old Mai Tai wasn’t Communist enough for him! Only Nixon could go to China. Because he was the only secret-Communist President!!! ---
**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 19, 2013, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/62 "2013-03-19T16:43:30Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Well, _that’s_ certainly more than enough to disregard all the cites to the contrary. :rolleyes: [I did find a reasonably reputable site](http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/10/08/reviews/001008.08hitchet.html) that claims Nixon didn’t need much alcohol to visibly affect him, Christopher Hitchens writing in the NY Times reviewing Anthony Summers biography of Nixon: > [@](#): > > … Nixon might have been intoxicated; it took very little alcohol to make him belligerent, and he became even more thuggish and incoherent when he threw in a few sleeping pills as well. He might have been hypermedicated, and he may have helped himself to a very volatile anticonvulsant called Dilantin, given to him by a campaign donor rather than prescribed by a physician. … Doesn’t directly address whether he was an alcoholic. Lots of site say he had a “drinking problem”. I may have been wrong characterizing him as a “heavy” drinker, simply because it didn’t take mush drinking to get him drink. But he did get drunk fairly often in the White House, and there are plenty of cites about his staff being concerned about it. Pat Nixon, by her own daughter’s account, was at least a borderline alcoholic as well. ---
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/63 "2013-03-19T16:48:52Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > 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. FWIW, this is exactly how Maddow explained it last night on her show (which, btw, did a fantastic piece on this whole thing, explaining everything quite well, playing a bunch of the tapes, etc.). Because the information was obtained illegally, they couldn’t publicly talk about it. ---
**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 19, 2013, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/64 "2013-03-19T16:55:37Z")
> [@DiosaBellissima](#): > > FWIW, this is exactly how Maddow explained it last night on her show (which, btw, did a fantastic piece on this whole thing, explaining everything quite well, playing a bunch of the tapes, etc.). Because the information was obtained illegally, they couldn’t publicly talk about it. I’ve read several stories now claiming the info was obtained from a tap of the South Vietnamese ambassador’s phone. And I have to wonder if a warrant was really needed. The embassy and residency are technically foreign soil and the guy isn’t a US citizen. OTOH, it’s certainly possible that the tap was put in place somewhere along the line on US soil. Sounds kind of like a legal minefield and I’m also doubtful that it’s been specifically addressed by a court, or even a law. ---
**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 19, 2013, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/65 "2013-03-19T16:59:03Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > 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 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. That is an interesting opinion, but one I don’t agree with. Wilson’s suspension of free speech was during war time, and rather limited. The internment, the low point of FDR’s tenure, was again, only during war time, and was heavily criticized later, with reparations and apologies. The red scare was during peace time and used against anyone who was a political opponent and destroyed the lives of people based on their alleged political beliefs from the late 40s to this very day. Now, I’m a liberal. An FDR liberal, but I’m okay with criticizing his internment and court packing plan, but Vietnam did socially rip the country apart and destroyed a huge portion of the people’s faith in government (which might be a good thing) but the lives and families torn to pieces were horrifying. The counter-culture did produce great art and freedom, but the drugs and crime and PTSD destroyed, as Allen Ginsberg put it, the best minds of a generation. Not to mention millions of mediocre minds too, all of whom had people who loved them. Nixon’s political allies got power and war dollars for it. Communism never amounted to anything in this country. Poor people in this country not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. (John Steinbeck). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/66 "2013-03-19T17:03:17Z")
[Directly relevant GD thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=685584) [Tangentially relevant GD thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=685321) ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/67 "2013-03-19T18:15:25Z")
I really adore Hunter S. Thompson’s Nixon obituary. > [@](#): > > If the right people had been in charge of Nixon’s funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. Even his funeral was illegal. God, that’s great. But it’s this paragraph I especially love: > [@](#): > > Some people will say that words like scum and rotten are wrong for Objective Journalism – which is true, but they miss the point. It was the built-in blind spots of the Objective rules and dogma that allowed Nixon to slither into the White House in the first place. He looked so good on paper that you could almost vote for him sight unseen. He seemed so all-American, so much like Horatio Alger, that he was able to slip through the cracks of Objective Journalism. You had to get Subjective to see Nixon clearly, and the shock of recognition was often painful. That’s about the most perfect definition of the ethos of Thompson’s style of journalism that one could come up with. It’s why he could never be mainstream. ---
**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, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/68 "2013-03-19T19:16:38Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > …The counter-culture did produce great art and freedom, but the drugs and crime and PTSD destroyed, as Allen Ginsberg put it, the best minds of a generation… Ginsberg wrote _Howl_ in 1955. We of the counterculture did not begin our campaign to ruthlessly destroy American civilization for some years yet. The drug that damaged his “angel headed hipsters” was heroin, not LSD, sure as hell not pot. ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/69 "2013-03-19T19:18:08Z")
Don’t forget the lead in the gasoline. That dain bramaged everyone too. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/70 "2013-03-19T19:27:00Z")
> [@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. So am I. For real. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/71 "2013-03-19T19:41:35Z")
> [@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. I don’t think that LBJ was a nice guy, capable of doing nice things, but not being nice with others, IIUC LBJ was not being nice in this case, he was aware that the information he got was not obtained legally, I think the old joke about lawyers is relevant with politicians like LBJ and Nixon: Why won’t sharks attack lawyers? A: Professional courtesy \*Both Nixon and LBJ did go to law school. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/72 "2013-03-19T20:42:52Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > _Discredited_? Cite? Seconded. ---
**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 19, 2013, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/73 "2013-03-19T20:51:34Z")
> [@MOIDALIZE](#): > > Don’t forget the lead in the gasoline. That dain bramaged everyone too. And lawn darts. ---
**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, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/74 "2013-03-19T21:05:08Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > _Discredited_? Cite? That right wing rag _The Village Voice_, thoroughly debunked it over 20 years ago. It was a theory propagated by a former Carter aide pissed off at his boss losing and was exposed as a myth by two separate Congressional committees(both of which were staffed mainly with Democrats) and such staunch Reagan defenders as Newsweek and The New Republic. As _The Village Voice_ reports: > [@](#): > > Former Carter aide Gary Sick says, in his recent book October Surprise, that the many sources he relied on for his searing indictment of Reagan campaign tactics in 1980–an indictment that accuses the GOP campaign staff of sabotaging Jimmy Carter’s Iran hostage negotiatons–all spoke independently with no common script. That’s why he believed them, he maintains. > > `As time went on and the number and diversity of sources increased,' he writes, `the likelihood of a concerted, organized disinformation campaign dwindled.’ But in an exhaustive examination of the origins of the Surprise story, the Voice has discovered that Sick’s assumption is wrong. > > All his principal sources harken back to a group of Israeli and European arms merchants who dealt regularly with one another throughout the 1980s and early '90s, first in shipping arms to Iran, then in shopping the October Surprise story to reporters. Several members of this group got caught in a U.S. Customs sting in 1986, which left them with an incentive to pay back the Republicans and George Bush. > > Based on a review of exclusive documentation it appears that none of Sick’s key informants had any original knowledge of the October Surprise counterplot, an alleged Reagan campaign attempt in 1980 to head off a preelection release of the 52 American hostages then being held in Tehran. Only by swapping rumors and tacking with the latest ones–a process that the Voice has traced in detail–were they able to create an impression that they knew of this event firsthand… > > The picture that finally emerged from the investigation was one of a self-perpetuating fraud. Reporters with preconceptions about October Surprise had often suspended skepticism in deference to helpful sources. Sick himself ignored or overlooked inconvenient details. As early as 1989, he also became involved in the first of two movie deals that committed him prematurely to an unverified conspiracy theory. I certainly hope that none of the people who bought this idiotic story have ever ridiculed either the Truthers or the people who believe Oswald didn’t kill 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, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/75 "2013-03-19T21:19:16Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > I certainly hope that none of the people who bought this idiotic story have ever ridiculed either the Truthers or the people who believe Oswald didn’t kill Kennedy. This last sentence was far too harsh and confrontational. I wasn’t trying to be insulting, but merely point out that believing in it is as naive as believing in either 911 conspiracy theories or conspiracy theories regarding the killing of JFK. The only reason people who believe in it aren’t held in such low regard is because the case isn’t as famous so people aren’t aware just how thin the case is. Similarly, 30 years ago, something like 70% of all Americans believed the Warren Commission got it wrong, but now vastly fewer do. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/76 "2013-03-19T21:47:23Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > This last sentence was far too harsh and confrontational. > > I wasn’t trying to be insulting, but merely point out that believing in it is as naive as believing in either 911 conspiracy theories or conspiracy theories regarding the killing of JFK. There’s no need to apologize. You do know what thread you’re in don’t you? Anyway, getting back on-topic, this latest release of information sadly just confirms a story that’s been around since the 90s. The book Nixonland also discusses the tampering Nixon (and Kissinger) did at the peace talks in 1968. It further mentions that Nixon had come to the conclusion that the U.S. could not win in Vietnam as early as _1966_ but still kept the war going for another four years after he became president. ---
**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, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/77 "2013-03-19T22:14:24Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > There’s no need to apologize. You do know what thread you’re in don’t you? > > Anyway, getting back on-topic, this latest release of information sadly just confirms a story that’s been around since the 90s. The book Nixonland also discusses the tampering Nixon (and Kissinger) did at the peace talks in 1968. It further mentions that Nixon had come to the conclusion that the U.S. could not win in Vietnam as early as _1966_ but still kept the war going for another four years after he became president. If nothing else, it puts to rest the idea that George W. Bush was the worst President ever. Frankly, to me at least, this story is vastly worse than Watergate. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/78 "2013-03-20T02:50:10Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > This last sentence was far too harsh and confrontational. > > I wasn’t trying to be insulting, but merely point out that believing in it is as naive as believing in either 911 conspiracy theories or conspiracy theories regarding the killing of JFK. You have in no way demonstrated that. You have instead pointed to a debunking. Very different. A Ron Reagan October surprise is _plausible_ simply because it happened before in 1968. That the sourcing was suspect did not emerge until years later. Furthermore former Iranian President Abulhassan Bani-Sadr stood by the allegation. This isn’t implausible or dubious on its face. Whether it happened is another matter: I honestly haven’t looked into it. Heh: _until now_: [1980 October Surprise theory - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_surprise_conspiracy_theory) ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/79 "2013-03-20T05:02:13Z")
A lot of this may be predicated on a shaky presumption, that the Thieu regime would have accepted a peace deal if Nixon had not intervened. Everybody was taken by surprise, as I recall, no one expected such a sudden thaw. What would a peace deal offer the rulers of S. Viet Nam? The Americans leave, the money spigot is turned off, and they can rely on the ARVN to protect them? For what, two weeks maybe? I think he did it, and I think he stinks, but it may not have actually made any difference. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973/80 "2013-03-20T10:14:25Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > 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. This claim is also made in David Kessler’s [“In the President’s Secret Service”](http://www.amazon.com/In-Presidents-Secret-Service-Protect/dp/030746136X/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363773908&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=susskind+secret+service) , for which the author spoke with generations of agents about all the president’s (and their families’) behind-closed-doors behavior. Curiously, Kessler also claims that Pat Nixon was a long-time, serious alcoholic, which was news to me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-care-if-hes-dead-im-pitting-nixon/652973.md?page=5)