# Was Richard Nixon That Bad? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 6, 2010, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508 "2010-03-06T04:49:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/141 "2010-03-19T03:35:22Z")
I’ve casually scanned this thread but didn’t see reference to the “money” recording of Nixon and Kissinger discussing prolonging the Vietnam war in order to do better in the 1972 election. Which obviously they did do. So Dick Nixon knowingly killed thousands of American soldiers in order to bolster his election chances. [Here’s one link.](http://mtracy9.tripod.com/nixon-vietnam.htm) And here are a few excerpts: By CHRIS KAHN The Associated Press ROANOKE, VA. – Three months before the 1972 presidential election, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger met in the Oval Office to discuss when and how to get out of Vietnam. Despite a massive bombing campaign during the spring and summer, the Republican president had concluded that U.S.-backed “South Vietnam probably can never even survive anyway.” “We also have to realize, Henry, that winning an election is terribly important,” Nixon told his national security adviser. “It’s terribly important this year, but can we have a viable foreign policy if a year from now or two years from now, North Vietnam gobbles up South Vietnam? That’s the real question.” Kissinger has tried to spin this recording (naturally), but it says what it says and the meaning is clear. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/142 "2010-03-19T18:47:18Z")
> [@Baal\_Houtham](#): > > “We also have to realize, Henry, that winning an election is terribly important,” Nixon told his national security adviser. “It’s terribly important this year . . .” That needs to be understood in context. Nixon might well have sold himself – and, more plausibly, might well have sold his staff – on the idea that it was a matter of Good vs. Evil and the survival of America really did depend on the survival of his Administration. (I daresay some Americans believe something of the kind still – are you there, **Starving Artist?)** This was a time when many Americans, left and right, actually believed that the country was on the verge of a revolution, or was already in one. And many on the right saw no important distinction between the radical counterculture and the mainstream of the Democratic Party. As Rick Perlstein recounds in _Nixonland,_ Nixon plumber [E. Howard Hunt,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_hunt#Books) while in the Nixon Admin, was also a paperback novelist on the side; writing as “David St. John,” he wrote a thriller called [_The Coven,_](http://groovyageofhorror.blogspot.com/2007/05/coven-by-david-st-john-fawcett-crest.html) in which a thinly-veiled Ted Kennedy figure turned out to be the leader of a Satanic cult. (There was also an incredibly-rich-in-hindsight scene, excerpted by Perlstein, in which the detective visits a filthy hippies’ pad, where at least one of the residents has been turned into a drooling zombie by use of . . . marijuana!) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/143 "2010-03-19T23:24:40Z")
> [@](#): > > George HW Bush hadn’t risen to national prominence by '76 for instance. Bush was almost President in 1976. When Agnew resigned, a new VP was needed. A canvas of Republican Party leaders picked Bush as their first choice, Nelson Rockefeller as their second, and Ford third. Nixon overruled them on Bush and Rockefeller and chose Ford. ---
**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, 2010, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/144 "2010-03-19T23:34:51Z")
> [@Spavined\_Gelding](#): > > Nixon was a man to whom much was given, who did considerable good but who wanted more and chose to do evil when he found it expedient. He betrayed the nation. Let his rotten corpse and his rotten reputation serve as an example. The man was a villain. The somewhat simple minded President Regan and the not quite smart enough President Bush (II) can’t hold a candle for him in terms of down-right deliberate, premeditated and calculated villainy. Bush II was a far worse President, and I remember both. W was worse because he didn’t happen to do good, like opening China and starting the EPA. All of the vices, none of the token good deeds. Now in all fairness, Bush II was an intellectual zero and Nixon brilliant, but that doesn’t play in the question of redeeming acts or acts of evil. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2010, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/145 "2010-03-20T00:15:06Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Bush was almost President in 1976. When Agnew resigned, a new VP was needed. A canvas of Republican Party leaders picked Bush as their first choice, Nelson Rockefeller as their second, and Ford third. Nixon overruled them on Bush and Rockefeller and chose Ford. Yes, that’s another thing – as discussed in the [Ford Thread,](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=401762) Ford was a much closer friend of Nixon than was generally known at the time, and Nixon almost certainly picked him because he could reasonably hope for a pardon. ---
**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 20, 2010, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/146 "2010-03-20T03:07:25Z")
QUOTE=BrainGlutton;12233638]:rolleyes: **Curtis,** we’ve been over the Vietnam what-ifs in this forum many times before. There is **no way** South Vietnam could ever have become stable and successful the way South Korea did. SK never had to deal with an analogue of the Viet Cong – the important thing about which was not that it was invincible, but simply that it existed, and kept finding new recruits among the people no matter how many battles it lost and how many of its men got killed. Quite simply, the people of SV did not want the government they had. [/QUOTE] Actually there were communist guerrillas in Korea. > [@](#): > > :dubious: Certainly. In a republic, the people get to choose that if they want it and, wise choice or unwise, it is as **legitimate** a choice as any other. **Right?** Except the Chilean Congress and Supreme Court condemned him and he was getting extensive Soviet support: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador\_Allende](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende) > [@](#): > > Supreme Court’s resolution > > On May 26, 1973, Chile’s Supreme Court unanimously denounced the Allende government’s disruption of the legality of the nation in its failure to uphold judicial decisions, because of its continual refusal to permit police execution of judicial resolutions contradicting the Government’s measures. > [edit] Chamber of Deputies’ resolution > > On August 22, 1973 the Christian Democrats and the National Party members of the Chamber of Deputies voted 81 to 47, a resolution that asked the authorities[50] to put an immediate end to breach[es of] the Constitution . . . with the goal of redirecting government activity toward the path of Law and ensuring the Constitutional order of our Nation, and the essential underpinnings of democratic co-existence among Chileans. > > The resolution declared that the Allende Government sought . . . to conquer absolute power with the obvious purpose of subjecting all citizens to the strictest political and economic control by the State . . . [with] the goal of establishing a totalitarian system, claiming it had made violations of the Constitution . . . a permanent system of conduct. Essentially, most of the accusations were about the Socialist Government disregarding the separation of powers, and arrogating legislative and judicial prerogatives to the executive branch of government. > > Specifically, the Socialist Government of President Allende was accused of: > > ``` > * ruling by decree, thwarting the normal legislative system > * refusing to enforce judicial decisions against its partisans; not carrying out sentences and judicial resolutions that contravene its objectives > * ignoring the decrees of the independent General Comptroller's Office > * sundry media offenses; usurping control of the National Television Network and applying ... economic pressure against those media organizations that are not unconditional supporters of the government... > * allowing its socialist supporters to assemble armed, preventing the same by its right wing opponents > * . . . supporting more than 1,500 illegal ‘takings’ of farms... > * illegal repression of the El Teniente miners’ strike > * illegally limiting emigration > > ``` > > Finally, the resolution condemned the creation and development of government-protected [socialist] armed groups, which . . . are headed towards a confrontation with the armed forces. President Allende’s efforts to re-organize the military and the police forces were characterized as notorious attempts to use the armed and police forces for partisan ends, destroy their institutional hierarchy, and politically infiltrate their ranks[51]. ---
**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 20, 2010, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/147 "2010-03-20T04:24:22Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Except the Chilean Congress and Supreme Court condemned him and he was getting extensive Soviet support: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador\_Allende](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende) Of course that works by ignoring the response: > [@](#): > > Two days later, on August 24, 1973, President Allende responded,[52] characterising the Congress’s declaration as destined to damage the country’s prestige abroad and create internal confusion, **predicting It will facilitate the seditious intention of certain sectors**. He noted that the declaration (passed 81-47 in the Chamber of Deputies) had not obtained the two-thirds Senate majority constitutionally required to convict the president of abuse of power: essentially, the Congress were invoking the intervention of the armed forces and of Order against a democratically-elected government and subordinat[ing] political representation of national sovereignty to the armed institutions, which neither can nor ought to assume either political functions or the representation of the popular will. If congress was in favor of Pinochet, he did not gave them much time to show it. ---
**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 20, 2010, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/148 "2010-03-20T14:57:35Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Of course that works by ignoring the response: > > If congress was in favor of Pinochet, he did not gave them much time to show it. Of course he’d think that. Also Pinochet I agree wasn’t much of an improvement but at least he wasn’t going to be a Soviet ally. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2010, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/149 "2010-03-20T15:29:17Z")
So you’re saying the Allende government was illegitimate because there was a functioning Congress and Supreme Court that was able to challenge the elected President. As you note, Pinochet fixed those problems. No congress, no courts, no elections - government with zero opposition. ---
**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:** [March 20, 2010, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/150 "2010-03-20T18:50:56Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Of course he’d think that. Also Pinochet I agree wasn’t much of an improvement but at least he wasn’t going to be a Soviet ally. So what? What difference does it make? The man was a brutal dictator. But that’s okay as long as he wasn’t a communist? WTF? ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2010, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/151 "2010-03-20T20:38:04Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > So what? What difference does it make? The man was a brutal dictator. But that’s okay as long as he wasn’t a communist? > > WTF? **Guin** , meet **Curtis**. **Curtis** , this is **Guinastasia**. To be candid, I had no idea you two weren’t already acquainted. ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2010, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/152 "2010-03-20T22:50:42Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > So you’re saying the Allende government was illegitimate because there was a functioning Congress and Supreme Court that was able to challenge the elected President. > > As you note, Pinochet fixed those problems. No congress, no courts, no elections - government with zero opposition. It did eliminate that whole “people electing the wrong [ie, non-US approved] choices” problem. The attitude also helps explain why Curtis seems to find Nixon’s subversion of the electoral process no big deal\*. (\*Along with the whole “being a thirteen year old who thinks he’s a lot smarter than he actually is” thing, of course) ---
**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 21, 2010, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/153 "2010-03-21T22:50:08Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > So what? What difference does it make? The man was a brutal dictator. But that’s okay as long as he wasn’t a communist? > > WTF? Pinochet was the lesser of two evils-that is what I am saying. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/154 "2010-03-22T02:11:06Z")
How so? Is it just because any Communist is automatically worse than any non-Communist? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/155 "2010-03-22T02:21:58Z")
The Chileans could have voted Allende out of office if they wished, next election, and might well have done so. Pinochet – and Nixon – deprived them of that option. ---
**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 22, 2010, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/156 "2010-03-22T02:22:10Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > How so? Is it just because any Communist is automatically worse than any non-Communist? Communist dictatorships such as Castro have had long staying times but right-wing dictatorships in Latin America have all fallen. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/157 "2010-03-22T02:27:31Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Communist dictatorships such as Castro have had long staying times but right-wing dictatorships in Latin America have all fallen. There’s not much evidence to choose from there. Other than Castro, the nearest thing to a Communist dictatorship in LA to date, **ever,** was the Sandinista government in Nicaragua; and it eventually was eased out – by a free election. (And, no, Hugo Chavez is not a dictator, not quite yet; though we might live to see him become one.) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/158 "2010-03-22T02:29:25Z")
> [@](#): > > Communist dictatorships such as Castro have had long staying times but right-wing dictatorships in Latin America have all fallen. This makes very little sense. Are you saying right-wing dictaorships are better because they’re more likely to collapse than left-wing ones? If so, that seems like a pretty silly reason. And a non-factual one - there are more right wing dictatorships in the world now than left-wing ones. In this particualr case, it seems silly to say that left-wing governments are bad because they last so long and right-wing governments are better because they fade away quickly. Allende was in power in Chile for three years, Pinochet was in power for sixteen years. ---
**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:** [March 23, 2010, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/159 "2010-03-23T05:59:48Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Communist dictatorships such as Castro have had long staying times but right-wing dictatorships in Latin America have all fallen. Except, we’re not talking about Castro, nor Cuba. We’re talking about Chile and Pinochet. Allende wasn’t a dictator – he was democratically elected. How many times does this have to be pointed out to you? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2010, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/160 "2010-03-23T15:07:25Z")
It does seem strange to try to justify a Latin American dictatorship overthrowing a democratic government with the argument that Latin American dictatorships eventually get replaced by democratic governments. Wouldn’t it have saved time to just skip the dictatorship phase? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508.md?page=9)