# Was Richard Nixon great or terrible? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 4, 2014, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-great-or-terrible/694810 "2014-08-04T19:19:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**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:** [August 5, 2014, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-great-or-terrible/694810/41 "2014-08-05T17:34:03Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > Stalin killed ~20,000,000 > Hitler~ 6,000,000 to 10,000,000 > > Is Nixon really even close enough to be in that category? To even be mentioned? > > Hint: There is really only one answer. Hitler killed a lot more than 10M. [NAZI GENOCIDE AND MASS MURDER](https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NAZIS.CHAP1.HTM) Nixon’s perfidy in sabotaging the Paris Peace talks in 1968. Wiki [Vietnam War casualties - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties#Deaths_caused_by_the_American_military) suggests 950,000 per state department figures of just Vietnamese deaths ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2014, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-great-or-terrible/694810/42 "2014-08-05T18:00:14Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Hitler killed a lot more than 10M. [NAZI GENOCIDE AND MASS MURDER](https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NAZIS.CHAP1.HTM) > > Nixon’s perfidy in sabotaging the Paris Peace talks in 1968. Wiki [Vietnam War casualties - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties#Deaths_caused_by_the_American_military) suggests 950,000 per state department figures of just Vietnamese deaths OK. So Stalin and Hitler together murdered not 30 million but 40 million per your site. You really put Nixon on par with these two? ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2014, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-great-or-terrible/694810/43 "2014-08-05T18:55:52Z")
Speaking as a conservative? Terrible. He capitulated to the left on almost all domestic issues, and expanded government spending a lot more than the Democrats would have. He also appointed Harry (Roe v. Wade) Blackmun to the Supreme Court. What is there for a conservative to like? ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2014, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-great-or-terrible/694810/44 "2014-08-05T19:06:48Z")
Probably the worst president we’ve ever had. He accomplished some great things, yes, but he was such a bastard and a crook that we’re lucky he got caught when he did. ---
**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:** [August 5, 2014, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-great-or-terrible/694810/45 "2014-08-05T19:17:53Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > OK. > > So Stalin and Hitler together murdered not 30 million but 40 million per your site. > > You really put Nixon on par with these two? I’m conflicted about it, the answer has to be no simply because he only killed a million. But he did kill a million. He sabotaged the Paris Peace talks so he could get elected President and then killed a million people. That is pretty frickin’ evil. Even the Bush/Cheney war in Iraq required them to get elected/appointed and in the PNAC document they told us they were going to start a bunch of wars after a Pearl Harbor style event. ---
**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:** [August 5, 2014, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-great-or-terrible/694810/46 "2014-08-05T19:20:15Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Speaking as a conservative? Terrible. He capitulated to the left on almost all domestic issues, and expanded government spending a lot more than the Democrats would have. > > He also appointed Harry (Roe v. Wade) Blackmun to the Supreme Court. > > What is there for a conservative to like? His “secret plan” to win the Vietnam War? His enemies lists? The whole country voted for him in the re-election, the conservatives sure didn’t sit it out in protest. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2014, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-great-or-terrible/694810/47 "2014-08-05T20:22:41Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Probably the worst president we’ve ever had. James Buchanan. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2014, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-great-or-terrible/694810/48 "2014-08-05T20:27:13Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > His “secret plan” to win the Vietnam War? His enemies lists? The whole country voted for him in the re-election, the conservatives sure didn’t sit it out in protest. I never said they did. I’m saying they were stupid to do so. A lot of conservatives reflexively defend Nixon because they hate his enemies. I’m saying that, if you look at Nixon’s record, there is nothing a conservative should admire. Free market conservatives should loathe him for imposing price controls and for his massive expansion of government spending… Social conservatives should loathe him for Harry Blackmun and Lewis Powell. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2014, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-great-or-terrible/694810/49 "2014-08-05T20:51:16Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Free market conservatives should loathe him for imposing price controls and for his massive expansion of government spending… He did attempt to replace welfare with a negative income tax, at least, though the proposal died in Congress. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2014, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-great-or-terrible/694810/50 "2014-08-05T21:01:11Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > Why can’t he be both? Like the late [del]Earl Warren[/del] Wizard of Oz? ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2014, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-great-or-terrible/694810/51 "2014-08-05T21:02:33Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > James Buchanan. For sheer incompetence nobody could outdo Grant or Harding. ---
**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:** [August 5, 2014, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-great-or-terrible/694810/52 "2014-08-05T23:14:43Z")
> [@dougie\_monty](#): > > For sheer incompetence nobody could outdo Grant or Harding. How soon we forget 2001 to 2009. ---
**Author:** ![Jungian\_Camisole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8baadc/32.png) [@Jungian\_Camisole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jungian_Camisole)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2014, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-great-or-terrible/694810/53 "2014-08-05T23:53:34Z")
Wasn’t Nixon the man responsible for the Southern Strategy? That in itself is enough to make me want to dig him up and give him a posthumous kick to the balls. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2014, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-great-or-terrible/694810/54 "2014-08-06T00:44:35Z")
One of the lesser known aspects of Nixon’s career was his support - diplomatic and military - for West Pakistan’s ethnic cleansing during the formation of Bangladesh. Unusually, he did this inspite of protests and reports from his own diplomats, which has recently(last year) been brought to light by Princeton professor Gary Bass in a book called the Blood Telegram. I started off trying to highlight parts of the following excerpt from a review of the book, but the whole thing repays reading. > **[Collateral Damage (Published 2013)](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/books/review/the-blood-telegram-by-gary-j-bass.html?pagewanted=all)** > > Promoting their opening to China, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger countenanced mayhem in South Asia. > [@](#): > > With the White House averting its eyes, the largely Muslim Pakistani Army killed at least 300,000 Bengalis, most of them Hindus, and forced 10 million to flee to India. Bass lays out his indictment of the White House: Nixon and Kissinger spurned the cables, written by their own diplomats in Dacca (the capital of East Pakistan), that said West Pakistan was guilty of carrying out widespread massacres. Archer Blood, the counsel general in Dacca, sent an angry cable that detailed the atrocities and used the word “genocide.” The men in the White House, however, not only refused to condemn Yahya — in public or private — but they also declined to withhold American arms, ammunition and spare parts that kept Pakistan’s military machine humming. Indeed, Nixon regarded the dictator with genuine affection. “I understand the anguish you must have felt in making the difficult decisions you have faced,” he told Yahya. > > The voices of Kissinger and Nixon are the book’s most shocking aspects. Bass has unearthed a series of conversations, most of them from the White House’s secret tapes, that reveal Nixon and Kissinger as breathtakingly vulgar and hateful, especially in their attitudes toward the Indians, whom they regarded as repulsive, shifty and, anyway, pro-Soviet — and especially in their opinion of Indira Gandhi. “The old bitch,” Nixon called her. “I don’t know why the hell anybody would reproduce in that damn country but they do,” he said. > > These sorts of statements will probably not surprise the experts, but what is most telling is what they reveal about Nixon’s and Kissinger’s strategic intelligence. At every step of the crisis, the two men appear to have been driven as much by their loathing of India — West Pakistan’s rival — as by any cool calculations of power. By failing to restrain West Pakistan, they allowed a blood bath to unfold, and then a regional war, which began when Gandhi finally decided that the only way to stop the tide of refugees was to stop the killing across the border. That, in turn, prompted West Pakistan to attack India. > > At this point, the recklessness of Nixon and Kissinger only got worse. They dispatched ships from the Seventh Fleet into the Bay of Bengal, and even encouraged China to move troops to the Indian border, possibly for an attack — a maneuver that could have provoked the Soviet Union. Fortunately, the leaders of the two Communist countries proved more sober than those in the White House. The war ended quickly, when India crushed the Pakistani Army and East Pakistan declared independence. > > Nixon and Kissinger spent the decades after leaving office burnishing their images as great statesmen. This book goes a long way in showing just how undeserved those reputations are. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2014, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-great-or-terrible/694810/55 "2014-08-06T01:02:05Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > I’m conflicted about it, the answer has to be no simply because he only killed a million. But he did kill a million. He sabotaged the Paris Peace talks so he could get elected President and then killed a million people. That is pretty frickin’ evil. Even the Bush/Cheney war in Iraq required them to get elected/appointed and in the PNAC document they told us they were going to start a bunch of wars after a Pearl Harbor style event. I never heard that he had anything to do with the Paris peace talks. What did he do, and how? And how did it help him in the 1968 election? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2014, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-great-or-terrible/694810/56 "2014-08-06T01:51:13Z")
> [@bldysabba](#): > > One of the lesser known aspects of Nixon’s career was his support - diplomatic and military - for West Pakistan’s ethnic cleansing during the formation of Bangladesh. Unusually, he did this inspite of protests and reports from his own diplomats, which has recently(last year) been brought to light by Princeton professor Gary Bass in a book called the Blood Telegram. > I started off trying to highlight parts of the following excerpt from a review of the book, but the whole thing repays reading. > [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/books/review/the-blood-telegram-by-gary-j-bass.html?pagewanted=all](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/books/review/the-blood-telegram-by-gary-j-bass.html?pagewanted=all) In the era of Détente with the Soviets, most countries were nothing more than chess pieces. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2014, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-great-or-terrible/694810/57 "2014-08-06T02:04:42Z")
> [@Little\_Pig](#): > > In the era of Détente with the Soviets, most countries were nothing more than chess pieces. Maybe, but I would hope that supporting, materially and morally, an army that murders at least 300,000 of its people(Bangladeshi estimates are 3 million) and displaces millions more, would detract from Nixon’s reputation enough that this debate is settled. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2014, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-great-or-terrible/694810/58 "2014-08-06T02:06:33Z")
> [@bldysabba](#): > > One of the lesser known aspects of Nixon’s career was his support - diplomatic and military - for West Pakistan’s ethnic cleansing during the formation of Bangladesh. Unusually, he did this inspite of protests and reports from his own diplomats, which has recently(last year) been brought to light by Princeton professor Gary Bass in a book called the Blood Telegram. > I started off trying to highlight parts of the following excerpt from a review of the book, but the whole thing repays reading. > [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/books/review/the-blood-telegram-by-gary-j-bass.html?pagewanted=all](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/books/review/the-blood-telegram-by-gary-j-bass.html?pagewanted=all) Or his involvement with the overthrow of the democratically elected government in Chile, and the installation of the dictator, Augusto Pinochet. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2014, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-great-or-terrible/694810/59 "2014-08-06T03:49:43Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Or his involvement with the overthrow of the democratically elected government in Chile, and the installation of the dictator, Augusto Pinochet. Salvador Allende–a Marxist–was democratically elected? Now that’s hard to swallow. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2014, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-great-or-terrible/694810/60 "2014-08-06T04:16:33Z")
> [@dougie\_monty](#): > > Salvador Allende–a Marxist–was democratically elected? Now that’s hard to swallow. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador\_Allende](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende) > [@](#): > > …known as the first Marxist to become president of a Latin American country through open elections. Say what you will about the guy, he was committed to democracy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-great-or-terrible/694810.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-great-or-terrible/694810.md?page=4)