- Nixon on women: "A pain in the neck,
very difficult to handle."
-
- Nixon on blacks: "You put incompetents
in and get along with them because the symbolism is vitally important."
-
- Nixon on Mexicans: "That's the problem,
finding a Mexican that's honest."
-
- Nixon on Italians: "Italians have
somewhat the same problem."
-
- Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton have much
in common: the presidency, impeachment, and a propensity for bombing far-away
nations. But for all his vices, Nixon found that his prejudices served
him well when it came to avoiding The Great Clinton Failing.
-
- Monica Lewinsky might only have been
a White House intern but she would not have cut much ice with the disgraced
Republican president. Women and government, Nixon believed, should be kept
at a distance from one another. Females were "a pain in the neck"
and not "really worth the effort."
-
- Harsh words. Yet Nixon's view of women
was relatively moderate compared with the comments he reserved for his
own staff, military leaders and cabinet colleagues, not to mention black
people and Mexicans: "With blacks you look the other way. The same
with Mexicans, you've got to look the other way. You've got to find one
who's honest."
-
- Nixon's controversial sayings have emerged
in previously unheard tapes which were seized by Congress when Nixon resigned
in August 1974 and which have been played before a federal court. His estate
wants the court to rule that it is entitled to about $213 million (£145
million) in compensation and 24 years' interest for 42 million pages of
documents, 3,700 hours of recordings, and thousands of photographs.
-
- The US government claims that the late
president never intended to cash in on his legacy. Justice Department lawyers
argue that his inflammatory remarks are such that Nixon would never have
wanted them to be made public - and have made the remarks public to prove
the point.
-
- Nixon and H R Haldeman, White House chief
of staff, discussed the need for better personnel in top jobs at a meeting
on March 8, 1971. A summary written by aide Fred Malek was an early stab
at what was later to be dubbed affirmative action. "Blacks have the
highest priority, followed by Mexican-Americans, and then ethnics,"
he wrote. "Competent women who can compete with men should be placed
in selected positions, especially in those with symbolic value."
-
- Nixon's audio version tells a rather
less politically correct story. "With blacks, you can usually settle
for an incompetent because there are just not enough competent ones, and
so you put incompetents in and get along with them because the symbolism
is vitally important. You have to show you care."
-
- His expectations of Mexicans were not
high, either. "That's the problem, finding a Mexican that is honest.
And Italians have somewhat the same problem."
-
- But the president was at least gracious
enough to share his invective, extending it to members of his inner circle.
A month after dealing with the place of minorities in government, he delivered
a nationwide television address in which he said that he was stepping up
troop withdrawals from Vietnam and that he intended to finish American
involvement in the war.
-
- Nixon considered this one of his finest
speeches and was put out when few of his advisers called up to congratulate
him. "Screw the cabinet and the rest," he told national security
adviser Henry Kissinger, who had done his duty and offered up praise. "No
more sucking around, from now on they come to me. I'm sick of the whole
bunch. The others are a bunch of god-dammed cowards.
-
- "The staff, except for Haldeman
and [John] Ehrlichman, screw them. The Cabinet, except for [Treasury Secretary
John B] Connally, the hell with them."
-
- It was President Clinton's hero, John
Fitzgerald Kennedy, for whom Nixon's ultimate condemnation was reserved,
that of having had the South Vietnam president Ngo Dinh Diem "murdered".
-
- When the evangelist Billy Graham called
to congratulate Nixon for his intention of winding down the war, he replied:
"He [Kennedy] started the damn thing. He killed Diem and sent the
first 16,000 combat people there himself."
-
- And as for his generals, they were "a
bunch of greedy bastards".
-
- At least he did not question their sanity,
a charge levelled at his political opponents. When Hale Boggs, Democratic
leader of the House of Representatives, demanded the resignation of J.
Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, for allegedly tapping the phones of
Congress members and spying on students, Nixon said he was "off his
rocker".
-
- The president demanded of House Republican
leader, and later president, Gerald Ford: "What's the matter with
your opposite number? He's on the sauce, isn't that it? I don't think I
can tell him anything in confidence. Frankly, everything I say is classified.
You cannot have a nut."
-
- Or, it would seem, a woman or a black
or a Mexican or an Italian.
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