Since you asked.
Morally? Morally?? Obviously, You Weren’t There. Morally? Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger??? Morally? Ever read a book entitled Sideshow about how 1/3 of Cambodia’s population was murdered?
Go open a thread about “Morality during the Nixon Administration” and see if you get one positive response about the morality of Richard Nixon.
Everyone was expendable and yeah, You Weren’t There.
Jeepers Creepers. Older Dopers, please help enlighten bldysabba before I blow my beer through my nose.
Another thing that never ceases to amaze me about the Nixon tapes is how stupid, immature, unprepared and unprofessional the principals are at all times. I understand that back in the day there would be dirty jokes at the water cooler, but these guys never seem to have done the work and analysis.
Nixon or Allende?
Not sure what Nixon was committed to but on foreign policy, the guy was ruthless. I think he totally spooked the Chinese and Soviets. He was unpredictable and damn near bombed Hanoi flat to get the North Vietnamese back to the “peace table” in Paris.
Who remembers this? C’mon guys. Help me.
Funny- FDR had no qualms about taking the votes of the evil racists of the Solid South. Why wouldn’t Nixon want their votes?
I didn’t realize quite how complicit Nixon was in the Bangladeshi genocide, bldysabba. Thanks for that. I was under the impression that he (like the British) basically just made supportive noises to East Pakistan without actually doing anything.
If not him, someone else. LBJ had basically handed the white southern vote to the GOP (and rightly so.)
See post #29.
The difference is, FDR was stuck with 'em and Nixon set out to poach 'em.
And yet some Dopers will still defend Pinochet. And Nixon/Kissinger’s role in that business.
Nixon himself remembers. (Yes, “remembers,” present tense, death as we know it has no power over Him . . .)
“If, when the chips are down, the world’s most powerful nation, the United States of America, acts like a pitiful, helpless giant, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations and free institutions throughout the world.”
(Totalitarianism and anarchy are allies now?!)
“1 in 10 chance perhaps, but save Chile! worth spending; not concerned; no involvement of embassy; $10,000,000 available, more if necessary; full-time job — best men we have; game plan; make the economy scream; 48 hours for plan of action.”
“I call it the Madman Theory, Bob. I want the North Vietnamese to believe I’ve reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war. We’ll just slip the word to them that, for God’s sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about Communism. We can’t restrain him when he’s angry and he has his hand on the nuclear button and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace.”
Nixon: I still think we ought to take the North Vietnamese dikes out now. Will that drown people?
Kissinger: About two hundred thousand people.
Nixon: No, no, no, I’d rather use the nuclear bomb. Have you got that, Henry?
Kissinger: That, I think, would just be too much.
Nixon: The nuclear bomb, does that bother you?. I just want you to think big, Henry, for Christsakes.
Nixon: The only place where you and I disagree is with regard to the bombing. You’re so goddamned concerned about civilians and I don’t give a damn. I don’t care.
Kissinger: I’m concerned about the civilians because I don’t want the world to be mobilized against you as a butcher.
The New Deal coalition depended on the very Southerners that liberals condemned Nixon for appealing to.
I know that, and LBJ knew it when he signed the Voting Rights Act and told Bill Moyers, “We [the Democrats] have just lost the South for a generation.”
(That generation is now past, BTW.)
That’s only relevant if you are arguing that FDR’s Republican opponents were anti-segregation.
Nixon’s animosity towards whole segments of the American people, alone, made him a terrible president. The man kept a list of his enemies!
Well, you wouldn’t want him to be mean to the wrong guy, would you?
Doesn’t everybody?
I like to think that periodically he would casually add to it, like one would add to a grocery list.
Now why would I want a list of Nixon ’ s enemies?