Worst Presidents: Richard Nixon (1969-1974)
Nixon's failings were the stuff of dark tragedy: uneven judgment and a deeply suspicious character verging on delusional, combined with great political gifts and considerable vision.
He not only opened up U.S. relations with China but also reached an important arms-limitation agreement with the Soviet Union. He slowly, if not quite steadily, extricated America from the quagmire of Vietnam. He supported a number of progressive domestic policies, including the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Consumer Product Safety Commission. He stepped up the war against crime on multiple fronts.
But the drama of Nixon Agonistes concludes with his resignation under a cloud of wrongdoing. For obstructing the investigation of a petty crime committed by some of his own campaign operatives—an attempt to burglarize the Democratic National Headquarters—Nixon's name and reputation will forever be linked with one word: Watergate.
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The book says Nixon treated Pat cruelly. He once sent her to the hospital after a beating & another time gave her a black eye. They were both alcoholics. Since he was gay with Rebozo, his behavior toward her may have been misery of being made vicious as a closeted gay. They always joined to board or leave a plane, to fake the loving couple scam, but it was all a lie. He was far from being a wonderful expert in foreign affairs. His tax-paid early global trips let him make "connections" to meet people he could do favors for in office, and ask deals from them. His acts were like those in the Godfather, it seems to me. To court the Catholic vote, he lied & said Pat was born on St. Patrick's Day. I was in Singapore in l972 when the famous Red-Hater Went to China. As I posted before, he was there to get commissions for getting China to market Pepsi there. The company got one of the first trade agreements. With him, but soft-pedaled, were agents of airlines seeking contracts for air routes, etc. He was there as a commission man. The law firm he worked for had as a client--get this--the government of S. Nam, headed by Diem, the corrupt heroin dealer.
Read Anthony Summers "The Arrogance of Power"....
I just read Summers' book-based on transcripts, memos, interviews, etc. I was stunned to learn how unstable Nixon was. Quite a long time before he resigned to escape trial, conviction and prison, his aides & cabinet met to be sure nobody obeyed a Nixon order until all agreed. They might have disabled the brief case so if he pushed the button ordering nuclear attack, it would not work. I suspected he and Rebozo gay lovers & they were, since about l951. Rebozo helped make Nixon rich with deals including the Mafia. When he was in office, i never knew he secretly had secret psychiatric sessions & took meds. He used to brag HE could push the button & kill 500,000 Reds. Aides wondered if could make a military fascist coup by ordering the army to surround the capitol. How far away were the nearest troops he could use? Those in command there were briefed against him. A bizarre situation arose.. If he ordered the army to take over, would someone of high rank need to order Marines to beat the army? This man INTERFERED with peace. I blame him personally for killing everyone caught in his endless war. Secretly, there were heroes behind the scenes, protecting the Republic from this poor-boy envious psychopath.
Mark,are Nixon tape transcripts at Nixon Library?
Mark praised Nixon but I'll bet that if any tape transcripts are at the Nixon Library, they've been "sanitized." I've read books by Helms and others near Nixon. They reveal Nixon treated the Oval Room like the Vegas suite of a Mafioso in the old days. He used the IRS to harass candidates and scare them. He said the Watergate break-in wasn't really a crime "because they didn't get anything." He called it 3rd class break-in and called it stupid. He said its stupidity proved he and his men could not have done it. If they had done it, they would succeed. Five coups are mentioned in a Helms book. All were started and run by the CIA and all displaced anti-capitalist socialist leaders. See Pg. l4l4, Vol. 4 of an edition of the Catholic Reference Encyclopedia. It defines "Private Property." It says "the Church vigorously defends against those political systems that seek to replace private with public ownership." The US used men and taxes to implement that war-making policy of the Vatican City State. Leaders of the Cold War include many subjects of the pope..Haig, Shultz, Allen, Angleton, RFK, JFK, etc. Glasnost wreckers of the USSR had ties to the Catholic church and it is back again, with pubiic subsidy, over there.
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