Nixon dismissed Watergate as a 'Republican problem'

[sabra]

Source: Guardian Unlimited

The voice on the tape is eerie. It is the final stretch of the 1972 elections, and in the White House, Richard Nixon is poring over the news from the campaign trail with his aide, Chuck Colson, and weighing his prospects for re-election.

"What did he say about Watergate?" Nixon's voice is heard asking. Then, when he hears that voters are far more concerned with Vietnam than the details of a break-in at the Democratic campaign headquarters at the Watergate hotel, Nixon says with evident relief. "It's mainly a Republican problem, you know."

Today's release of 78,000 new documents and some 200 hours of audio tape promises to shed new light on a presidency that remains one of the most divisive in modern American history, a generation after Nixon was forced to resign over Watergate.

...

Some of the memos released today are also focused on politics, with a 1970 note from Roger Ailes to Nixon's chief of staff, HR Haldeman, advising Nixon that it looked unseemly to make his wife chase after him at a political event in Houston.

"From time to time he should talk to her and smile at her," the note says. "Women voters are particularly sensitive to how a man treats his wife in public."

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2124069,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront

[aquart]

1. Aww, Nixon will be nothing after George.

[Up2Late]

2. National Archives Release 11 Hours of Nixon Tapes

Source: New York Times

National Archives Release 11 Hours of Nixon Tapes

By NEIL A. LEWIS
Published: July 12, 2007

WASHINGTON, July 11 — The National Archives made available on Wednesday more than 11 hours of tape recordings that show President Richard M. Nixon maneuvering in 1972 to remake the Republican Party in his image, crush South Vietnamese opposition to his efforts to end the Vietnam War and dole out patronage to ethnic groups based on how much they supported his re-election.

The release of the tapes along with 78,000 pages of newly disclosed documents should be a trove of fascinating detail and context for historians, archives officials said. The Nixon library in Yorba Linda, Calif., is now part of the National Archives, as a result of an agreement forged after years of bitter fights between the government and the Nixon family over custody of his official papers....

(edit)

...Shortly after trouncing Mr. McGovern in his re-election bid, Nixon is heard on a Nov. 19, 1972, tape criticizing two men who would go on to be president: Ronald Reagan and the elder George Bush. He tells Charles W. Colson, a senior aide, that the Republican Party is in trouble and needs to be reinforced with a coalition of working-class Democrats. “Basically, your leadership in the states is so bad,” Nixon says. “Frankly, in California, it’s Reagan. You can’t do it around him. He’s got to do it, and he is a drag.”

Nixon talks in the same conversation about replacing Mr. Bush as representative at the United Nations, saying: “That whole staff up there is violently anti-Nixon, and Bush hasn’t done one damn thing about it. He’s become part of it....”


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/12/washington/12nixon.html?hp

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I hope they find more good stuff, in these new papers, that is better than this, but this is pretty bood so far.

[bananas]

3. "Several of the following audio excerpts contain language that some readers may find objectionable."

[trof]

4. kick

[alkaline9]

5. even Nixon saw the writing on the wall...

...he wasn't dumb, just corrupt.

[karynnj]

6. These are fascinating

They show evenmore than past comments that the last several years of the war were really wasted as politicians tried to get a deal to look good. It was ironic that Nixon pushed the states to go after the Democratic blue collar voters - but Reagan wasn't doing much on this. Nixon's anger that his people failed to make him look warm and nice is interesting. He really did seem to hate GHWB.

As one of the Kerry group, I was surprised by one of Nixon's advisors saying he would be a prized Republican convert. On one hand, it shows that the 4 decade demonization was done to a man they knew was good. I can't imagine Kerry becoming a Republican -though they were more liberal and moderate then - but it would have helped the Republicans.

[Raine]

9. I wouldn't be surprised if GHWB

wasn't behind the whole thing so that Nixon would be destroyed and the thugs could gain control of the repuke party.

[Javaman]

7. Pffft! I want the 16 minutes. nt

[leftofthedial]

8. watergate was the neocon coup inside the repuke party

it's when they killed the leadership of the "country club" wing of their party and the gang of thugs who have seized our country took over.

anyone who still claims to be a repuke is either mentally ill or a criminal or both

[Up2Late]

10. kick n/t

:kick: