THE NIXON/GANNON INTERVIEWS

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Transcript: Richard Nixon/Frank Gannon Interview, June 13, 1983 [Day 8 of 9]

interviewer: Frank Gannon
interviewee: Richard Nixon
producer: Ailes Communications, INC.
date: June 13, 1983
minutes: approximately 200
extent: ca. 287kb
summary: This interview, comprising four video tapes, or approximately 3 hours, 20 minutes, is the eighth in a series of taped interviews with former president Nixon. The focus of the conversation is the American presidency. Nixon's relationships with and assessments of the administrations of Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson are discussed extensively. Also discussed are Ted and Bobby Kennedy, Nixon's 1950 campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglas, Nixon's feelings about money, his drinking habits while president, political assassinations, and J. Edgar Hoover.
repository: Walter J. Brown Media Archives, University of Georgia Libraries (Main Library)
collection: Richard Nixon Interviews
permissions: Contact Media Archives.

Day Eight, Tape one of four, LINE FEED #1, 6-13-83, ETI Reel #55
June 13, 1983

Day 8, Tape 1
00:00:53
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

Day 8, Tape 1
00:00:55
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

Day 8, Tape 1
00:00:59
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

Day 8, Tape 1
00:01:01
[Offscreen voice]

All right, Frank.

[Frank Gannon]

'Kay.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:01:18
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

Day 8, Tape 1
00:01:21
[Richard Nixon]

Tell you when you want to [unintelligible].

Day 8, Tape 1
00:01:23
[Frank Gannon]

Do you remember the first time you met Harry Truman?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:01:26
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I'll never forget it, because it was the first time I was ever in the White House. Having been just elected to Congress in 1946, we were invited to the reception that the president traditionally gave then, and even now, for the new members of Congress, and, for that matter, all members of Congress. I remember we had a little bit of a family problem then, because we were pretty strapped financially after the campaign, but the s--this event was black tie for the men and long dresses for the ladies. And Mrs. Nixon felt she had to have a new dress, and she certainly did have to have one, and I said, "Well, go ahead." And she said, "Well, I'm going to get it because it's probably the only time we'll ever be in the White House." So she got the new dress. We went. It was a mob scene, of course, with so many there, but we will always remember it. I remember when we met President Truman that he and Mrs. Truman were standing together, in the Blue Room, as I recall. And he shook hands in the way that people often shake hands in receiving lines when they wanted to get you through. He'd take your hand and just push you on to the next one, and push you on to the next one. And it went pretty fast.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:02:34
[Frank Gannon]

What’s your hand-shaking technique?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:02:36
[Richard Nixon]

I always believe it's very important for even one--ten seconds, for that matter--look them straight in the eye, and then on, and very strong. The fish handshake, I think, is something that I--just turns me off. Now, some people have it. Our British friends usually use it, but I think that an American should shake hands strongly and firmly and look people in the eye.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:03:00
[Frank Gannon]

What--what were your impressions of him as a--as a man, or as a president, as a leader?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:03:06
[Richard Nixon]

Well, my impressions, I think, were colored a great deal by my first meeting with him. On this occasion, of course--was not a meeting. It was a handshake. But in July of that year, that first year of 1947, a group of four freshman Republican congressmen met with Truman in the Oval Office. The way it came about is that Charlie Kersten from Wisconsin requested an appointment, and it was given. Incidentally, at the time, since we were members of Congress, we all thought we were important enough to deserve to be invited down to see the president. But as I look back at it in retrospect, I really marvel that Truman ever did it. But then I think that tells us something about him. He was a very good politician. He knew that the Republicans had an overwhelming majority in the House and in the Senate. He needed Republican votes. He also knew something else, that the four of us--and I'm sure that our records were checked before we ever got into the Oval Office--had supported the Greek-Turkish aid program, whereas many liberal Democrats had opposed it. He needed us as friends. And then I think he might have been impressed by the fact--he just liked the fact that we had the temerity to ask. And so he sort of appreciated that, because that's the kind of thing he might have done.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:04:26
[Frank Gannon]

What were your feelings as you stepped over the threshold of the Oval Office for the first time?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:04:31
[Richard Nixon]

Well, my feelings were, of course, one [sic] of profound respect for that place. It's a hallowed place. I'd read about it and seen pictures of it. But I think my recollection of the meeting is more of the man than of the office. President Truman, before we went there, was one who had not received a particularly good press. When he succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt, there were many in the media, and many in the country, for that matter, who said, "Can this little pipsqueak from Missouri, poorly educated and so forth, step into the shoes of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was a great heroic figure for so many years?" And many wondered whether he could. I would say that nobody could have filled the shoes of Franklin Roosevelt, but Harry Truman made his own footprints in the sands of history. At this particular point, however, having read about him as being somewhat uneducated, rather crude, and--and rather limited, I was impressed by the fact that he had a sense of history. He demonstrated that by taking us over to the globe which was there in the office and turning it to Manchuria and pointing out, which was quite prophetic at that time, how important Manchuria, in terms of its natural resources, could be in the future, and how important that whole area of China could be in the future for this country, and for the world, for that matter. And then he turned the globe a little further to the Soviet Union, and he said, "You know, I--I like the Russian people. They got along very well--the Russian soldiers did--with our soldiers at the Elbe." He said, "As far as I am concerned, they can have any kind of a system they want, provided they don't try to impose it on us." He spoke not in a dramatic way, but almost in a matter-of-fact way--that the most difficult decision he'd ever made was to drop the atomic bomb--a decision which I think, incidentally, was his greatest decision, the most courageous one, and was totally right. I would say, too, that in terms of his manner, at that point, before he was elected in his own right in 1948, he was somewhat humble, very direct, but not at all overbearing, not at all cocky, as he sometimes later came to be. So, all in all, I would say that he made a good personal impression on all of us. I thought right then that those that criticized him because of his lack of education failed to recognize a truth which I have always felt was the case where many leaders are concerned. Education sometimes can strengthen the brain and weaken the backbone. Harry Truman had a pretty good brain, but I can say that his backbone was strong, and that's what sustained him through those years.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:07:24
[Frank Gannon]

He was a--a terrifically crusty figure, and I know there was a lot of shock at the time that the--that your White House tapes were revealed about the language that went--that--that was spoken in the Oval Office, and yet the records indicate that Truman, possibly next to Johnson, had the most salty language, and he was also, by the time he left office, a very unpopular figure. And yet for the last ten years or so, there seems to have been a tremendous revision of opinion about him. Do you--do you have any insights into that?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:08:01
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I would say that, as far as President Truman is concerned, that the revision is taking place for several reasons. One, because as far as those who write that kind of article, who write instant history--most of them are liberal. Most, also, when they do have partisan affiliations, are Democrats. He, in terms of his domestic policy, was very liberal. His Fair Deal was more liberal than the New Deal, and in terms of his partisanship, of course, he was a very partisan Democrat. I think that helped in terms of the revision--the fact that those that are writing it approved of what he was trying to do in those particular areas. In addition to that, I think the fact that Truman was so refreshingly candid--he was an interesting personality. The things that made him unpopular at the last of his service--unpopular because it was combined with the Truman scandals, the war in Korea, which was not being waged effectively, many people thought--those things that made him unpopular then, that crusty, arrogant--what th--many thinks thought arrogant and too cocky attitude made him far more interesting to instant historians today. So, under the circumstances, I would say that the revision is--that that is part of the reason for the revision. Another part of the reason for the revision is that, whatever you want to say about President Truman, whatever about--we want to say about his manners, about the Truman scandals--"the mess in Washington," as Adlai Stevenson called it--and so forth, he was a strong president. He made three great decisions, and that's what the man's hired for--to make the great decisions.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:09:48
[Frank Gannon]

What were the three?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:09:49
[Richard Nixon]

The three--first, of course, was dropping the bomb, which saved at least a million lives, according to experts--if we had gone to take over Japan through conventional arms rather than the nuclear weapont--weapon that was available. The second one was the Greek-Turkish aid program, the so-called Truman Doctrine, which later developed into the Marshall Plan. It was unpopular, and therefore a difficult decision for him politically because it was unpopular with his liberal wing of his party. But he stood up to them, and with the help of some of us who were Republicans, we got the bipartisan support that was needed. And his third, curiously enough, was going into Korea. Now I was critical of him, as were many Republicans, and I think properly so--of the way the war was waged at times. But the decision to go in was right. It was necessary because, had the Communists been allowed to overrun Korea, Japan would at that early point be a sitting duck for Communist takeover. So I would say these three great decisions are ones that make the revisionism with regard to Harry Truman and his place in history most justifiable.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:11:00
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think that there is some kind of inexorable law of--of presidential revisionism that if--that if you can wait long enough or live long enough the distance lends enchantment and reputations are revived? It seems to have happened with Hoover by the time Truman came into office. It happened to Truman by the time you were in office. Do you think it'll happen to Johnson?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:11:24
[Richard Nixon]

Yes, perhaps to a less [sic] extent and much further on down the road. I--I should point out th--however, in terms of the revisionism by the historians, that it is more likely to happen to one who is a liberal and one who is a Democrat, due to the fact that most historians are liberals, and, where they do have party affiliation, are Democrats, than it will, for example, to Herbert Hoover. There's been some revision on Herbert Hoover, but not among the elitists. There's been some on Eisenhower, justifiably so, and there should have been long before. But insofar as--as a place in history for a president is concerned, he has twice as good an opportunity or chance to have a higher place as time goes on if he's a--a liberal rather than a Democrat.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:12:12
[Frank Gannon]

Rather than a Republican.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:12:13
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah, rather than a Republican.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:12:15
[Frank Gannon]

How long's it going to take for Nixon?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:12:18
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, I have no idea about that. I won't speculate.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:12:22
[Frank Gannon]

Harry Truman once said that "[t]here are only two men in the whole history of the country that I can't stand." One was a governor of Missouri that he had helped get elected and then screwed him politically, and the other was guess who. Why do you think he disliked you so much?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:12:40
[Richard Nixon]

Well, the major reason for his dislike goes back to the Hiss case. Certainly when we were there in July of 1947--the four congressmen--he liked us politically because we had given him support on the Republican side that he couldn't get from his liberal Democrats. He liked that. But later on it was my responsibility to conduct the investigation of the Hiss case. That embarrassed Truman. I want to s--make it clear that, as far as Truman is concerned, there was no question that he was an anti-Communist. But where the Hiss case was concerned, he had condemned the Committee on Un-American Activities as trying to bring a red herring into the campaign of 1948. He felt that the--that the investigation was politically motivated, and even though un evidence was brought to his attention that clearly indicated that Hiss had turned over top-secret documents to Soviet agents, he still persisted in condemning the committee, and therefore condemning me. I remember s--so well being told by Bert Andrews of the New York Herald Tribune that when the so-called Pumpkin Papers were brought to Truman's attention by an Assistant Attorney General of the United States, he looked them over, and he said, "The son-of-a-bitch. He re--pr--betrayed his country. The son-of-a-bitch. He betrayed his country." And then he went right out that same day in a press conference, and somebody asked him, "Do you think--still think the investigation's a red herring?" He said, "Yeah. It's a red herring." That's Harry Truman, vintage Harry Truman--politics in terms of trying to evaluate an investigation of that sort.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:14:20
[Frank Gannon]

Didn't he think, though, that you'd added insult to injury by impugning his patriotism by accusing him of being a traitor?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:14:30
[Richard Nixon]

Yes.

[Frank Gannon]

Didn't he carry that on through--

Day 8, Tape 1
00:14:31
[Richard Nixon]

Yes, he--he

[Frank Gannon]

--[unintelligible] something he held against you?

[Richard Nixon]

--felt that was true. It--it wasn't true, of course. As far as the Hiss case is concerned, I earned what he gave to me. Earned it be--it happened that I was right, and of course there was nothing more difficult for a politician than to have somebody else prove him wrong. But beyond that, in this case it happened that his dislike for me was motivated by a wrong impression of what the facts were. The facts were very clear. In a speech in the 1952 campaign at Texarkana, Texas, I made the point that Truman, Acheson, and others in the current leadership of the Democratic Party were traitors to the high principles in which many of the nation's Democrats believed. I didn't say he was a traitor to the country. And so, under the circumstances, it came to his attention. He short-handed it to "traitors to the country" and said Nixon called him a traitor, even though several of my friends who were his friends tried to set him right.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:15:38
[Frank Gannon]

Why do you think an otherwise intelligent, tough-minded man remained impervious to this kind of proof that what you had said was not what he had thought you'd said? Because to the end he carried this idea that you had accused him of being a traitor.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:15:51
[Richard Nixon]

Well, it wasn't just me that he was that way with. He--he was very personal. He just wasn't a Democrat, and a partisan Democrat, he was a personal partisan Democrat. For example, he never forgave Eisenhower for the fact that Eisenhower, after Truman urged him to run as a Democrat, proceeded to become a Republican a--and then to become a Republican president. And that's why he said that--very disparaging things about Eisenhower. After praising him earlier, he said, "He doesn't know as much about politics as a pig does about Sunday." And so, under the circumstances, therefore, he--he--he--he had a tendency to do--to--I would say that that's an indication--in talking about Eisenhower, you could say, "Well, Eisenhower was a Republican, and he was a Democrat." But he had some of the same kind of pithy comments with regard to Adlai Stevenson. He said, "He's an indecisive fellow. He doesn't know whether to go to the bathroom, or when. He can't decide." So I'd say that--that Harry Truman had his likes and dislikes, and they became imbedded in him. He was one who did not forgive, usually.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:17:02
[Frank Gannon]

How did Eisenhower feel about him? Was that feeling reciprocated?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:17:06
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, it was reciprocated in spades. That's why Eisenhower never had him to the White House in those eight years. I think it was a mistake not to have had him. For example, I had Johnson and the Kennedy clan and all the rest to the White House when I became president, but, on the other hand, Eisenhower also had very strong feelings. When somebody impugned what he thought, his intelligence, or his integrity, or so forth, he didn't forgive them.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:17:31
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think Truman disliked you personally?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:17:35
[Richard Nixon]

No, I don't think so. I don't think it was a question of personal dislike. I didn't know him that well to dislike me personally.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:17:43
[Frank Gannon]

He didn't know you well enough to dislike you, as--as the saying goes.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:17:46
[Richard Nixon]

And the point was that he--his--his dislike was basically partisan and political, the Hiss case in the first instance, and the view, too--I--I think you have to have in mind that he was--he was a good Democrat fighting for his candidates. Eisenhower was not a target that would be a very attractive one, because Eisenhower was too popular. I was carrying the load politically for the Republicans, and so, consequently, he zeroed on me--in on me, and I zeroed in on him. But I did not become personal with him. I didn't take him on, for example, for some of the things that he did.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:18:24
[Action note: Gannon starts to speak.]

[Richard Nixon]

I attacked "the mess in Washington," of course, and so forth.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:18:28
[Frank Gannon]

Was Eisenhower a--a long, hard grudge-holder? Was he a good hater?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:18:35
[Richard Nixon]

Not a hater, no, that--Eisenhower is not--I wouldn't classify him that way, the same way you would classify a--a usual partisan. But, on the other hand, he had a long, long memory, and sometimes, because he was not a politician, or--he would take things personally that a politician would let roll off the back. That was why, also, he didn't want to have Stevenson come to the White House, because he thought Stevenson had said some things that were beyond the pale in the campaign of '52, and he wouldn't let his staff bring Stevenson in to see him, even when he felt--they felt that Stevenson coming to the White House might help Eisenhower get through a program for foreign aid. That was the way Eisenhower was.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:19:23
[Frank Gannon]

Your relationship with Harry Truman wasn't entirely grim. I think there were a couple of lighter moments to it.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:19:31
[Richard Nixon]

Yes, we--we had some lighter moments. One I particularly remember was when I was the Republican speaker at a Gridiron dinner--this is after Truman had left the presidency--and before the dinner, they have a custom of having the head table all get together in a small room just before you go into the main dining room, at the [Statler Hilton Hotel], where those dinners were held at that time. I was at that reception, and I saw Harry Truman sort of standing over by himself, alone. Sometimes a former president can become very lonely. And as I saw him standing there, I went over to the bar--I knew the bartender well--and I said, "Make Mr. Truman his drink." And he says, "Oh, it's bourbon." So he poured bourbon on the rocks. I took it--it was Jack Daniel's, incidentally, a very good bourbon. I took the drink and took it over to Harry Truman. I said, "Mr. President, here's a bourbon for you." And he said, "Thank you, sir. You're a real gentleman." Then we went in to make the speeches, and I made the Republican speech, the usual ten-minute speech, part of it serious, a--and ending usually on what is supposed to be a half-serious, or humorous, note. And so I related that incident to the press people and the other bigwigs that were there for the dinner. The theme of the dinner that night was that--"Everything Is Made for Love." All the songs were "Everything is Made for Love." And so I said, "I know the theme of this particular dinner. I want to tell you an incident that proves that that theme is correct." I said, " I went in and I saw Harry Truman tonight. I brought him a bourbon, and you know what happened? He took it and thanked me for it. And I can assure you that when Harry Truman will take a glass of bourbon from Dick Nixon and drink it without asking somebody else to taste it first--that's love."

Day 8, Tape 1
00:21:29
[Frank Gannon]

D--do you think the theme was right? Is everything made for love?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:21:32
[Richard Nixon]

It has--you have to say that now and then. But as far as war and politics are concerned, love plays very, very little part.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:21:43
[Frank Gannon]

We have some film of an event in your presidency, when you went out to Independence, Missouri, and took with you, to present to President Truman for the Truman Library, the piano that he had played in the White House. Do you have any recollections as you see this film?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:22:01
[Richard Nixon]

Well, the piano was on the second floor of the White House.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:22:04
[Action note: Film clip begins.]

[Richard Nixon]

It was sort of a beaten-up thing in any event, but that wasn't the reason we took it. As a matter of fact, Harry Truman wanted that piano--I am sure he wanted it not because he had played it, which he had, but because his Ma--daughter Margaret had also used it. Of course she had become quite an accomplished singer. And so, under the circumstances, I just loaded the piano onto Air Force One. We flew it out to Independence and presented it to him. And then I see a picture there of me playing the piano, and there's Harry Truman standing behind me clapping. But let me tell you, he--he was not one to go overboard. After all, I had a f--I play by ear now, and I had a few blue notes. I was playing "The Missouri Waltz," and he didn't say, "That's excellent." He says, "That's pretty good."

Day 8, Tape 1
00:22:53
[Frank Gannon]

What was--did you have any dealings at all with Mrs. Truman, any impressions of her?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:22:58
[Richard Nixon]

Only at a distance, of course, and meeting her at--at the White House reception, and meeting her, of course, then, and when I went out to President Truman's funeral. I liked her. She was down-to-earth, Midwestern, no airs, very strong. I think she was a very good influence on him. Incidentally, in that connection--this may be an apocryphal story, but it's, to me, one of the most amusing ones. Truman could get very rough in campaigns. They think I'm rough, but I campaigned on issues. I would be rough on people on the issues, but as far as Truman is concerned, he could get very, very personal. And at one point, he--out on the stump, he said, "The Republican platform ought to be a manure spreader." And one of his aides talked to Mrs. Truman, according to this story, and said, "Mrs. Truman, you know, it--it would be better i--i--if you could have him say, 'fertilizer spreader.' 'Manure's a little crude." She said, 'Look, you don't know how many years it took before I could get him to say 'manure'!"

Day 8, Tape 1
00:24:07
[Frank Gannon]

Looking back at that '52 campaign, do you see the--any of the language you use and--used, and particularly the--the line about "traitors to the high principles of the Democratic Party," as being inflammatory or excessive, because, after all, at that time the whole issue of loyalty and of Communist infiltration was a--was a tough issue being used against the Democrats. Even to use the word "traitors to the high principles"--was that a--was that a buzzword that--

Day 8, Tape 1
00:24:37
[Richard Nixon]

It wasn't intended to be, under any circumstances. As a matter of fact, in that same campaign, an issue that developed was that Bill Jenner, the senator from Indiana, had a--had coined the phrase of "twenty years of treason." And I made the point that there was only one party of treason in the United States--the Communist Party. So I constantly tried to reassure audiences that the problem was not a party--one party being the party of treason and the other party being the party of loyalty. And I--I must say that in all campaigns the rhetoric gets excessive. I think, for example, a--in retrospect, that I was too rough on Acheson. Acheson was wrong on the issue. He never understood it. He didn't go there enough, if at all, when he was secretary of state. But he was right on Europe, and deserves high mark for the leadership he provided on the Marshall Plan and in other areas. And I was overly rough on him, just as Harry Truman might have been a little overly rough on me.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:25:47
[Frank Gannon]

There's a book that's recently been published about the Rosenberg case, which, if it's true, upsets the liberal pantheon in that, based on government and other documents, it indicates that the Rosenbergs were, in fact, guilty, al--at least Julius Rosenberg was specifically guilty and Ethel to a--perhaps to a lesser extent. But it also indicates that the government went overboard in framing a case against them. Does that--did that shock you as you read about that, or surprise you, or f--make you feel vindicated?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:26:23
[Richard Nixon]

No, as far as the Rosenberg case was concerned, of course, that final decision, the decision not to delay the sentence, was President Eisenhower's. I was in the room when it happened. It was in the Cabinet Room, and I recall very well the attorney general, Herbert Brownell, and Bill Rogers, the deputy attorney general, bringing the facts to the president, to his attention, and the decision was made. Not in that room--he made it later--

Day 8, Tape 1
00:26:48
[Frank Gannon]

[Unintelligible.]

[Richard Nixon]

--as he always did.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:26:49
[Frank Gannon]

Did anybody argue for--

Day 8, Tape 1
00:26:50
[Richard Nixon]

No.

[Frank Gannon]

--clemency?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:26:51
[Richard Nixon]

No. The evidence was clear. There was no question about their guilt, as even this book--in which the authors started out convinced they were innocent and then came around to c--becoming convinced they were guilty.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:27:03
[Frank Gannon]

Does it bother you, though, that some of the evidence--although they were apparently guilty--that some of the evidence was--was cooked by the F.B.I. to make them appear even more guilty--

Day 8, Tape 1
00:27:12
[Richard Nixon]

If we had--

[Frank Gannon]

--which might have affected the judgment on clemency, at least for Ethel Rosenberg?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:27:15
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, certainly. If I had known--if we had known that at the time--if President Eisenhower had known it, he might have taken a different view with regard to her. In other words, tainted evidence, even though a person is totally guilty, is a reason to get him off. Take Daniel Ellsberg. Daniel Ellsberg was guilty of t--of illegally taking top-secret papers from the Pentagon and turning them over to be published in a newspaper. And yet, because the evidence was tainted, he's scot-free, making a lot of monies on the lecture circuit, particularly at the elite Ivy League colleges. So, as far as Mrs. Rosenberg was concerned, she was entitled to get off on that basis, too.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:27:54
[Frank Gannon]

Does it disillusion you about J. Edgar Hoover that presumably he--it wouldn't have been done without his knowledge, if, indeed, without his direction--that the F.B.I. was cooking evidence in such a way?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:28:04
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I wouldn't--I f--I followed that book that you refer to. And the case they made for cooking the evidence is--is pretty weak. It's--it's a question of, really, a--a matter of judgment, and there isn't any c--if--if you look at the times then, at you took--if you look at the fact that the Soviet Union acquired the atomic bomb two to three years before we thought they could, all the evidence points to the fact they wouldn't have gotten it if it hadn't been for not only our atomic spies, but the British atomic spies. You can see why overzealous prosecutors, and those that are assisting prosecutors, like J. Edgar Hoover, would certainly tilt their prosecution and their investigation in a way toward guilt, rather than toward innocence. Now if you look at it coolly, in retrospect, at this point, certainly we would have preferred that it not be done. But at the time I understand why it was done. And let us understand--Mrs. Rosenberg was guilty. This wasn't a case of somebody not guilty going to the chair.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:29:11
[Frank Gannon]

Do you remember your first meeting and your first impressions of John Kennedy?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:29:19
[Richard Nixon]

Well, our first meeting, actually, was in the committee. He was a member of the Education and Labor Committee. He was from a liberal district in Massachusetts, and I was a member of that same committee, and I was a conservative Republican from California. In the new Congress, the way you determine seniority for a committee is to draw straws. He drew straws on the Democratic side. He drew the last straw. In other words, he became the l--became the low man on the totem pole. I drew straws on the Republican side. There were seven new members on the Republican side. I got the last straw, number seven. So I was the low member on the Republican side, and, as somebody might have put it, we were bookends on that committee--political booklends--ends--and literal bookends. On the committee I learned to respect him, and I think he learned to respect me, because by the time the questioning got around to those of us at the end, all the good questions had been asked, so we really had to do a great deal of work in order to have good, precise questions to ask. We worked together, not conspiratorially, but independently, particularly in questioning labor leaders who had infiltrated--labor leaders that--or C--or Communist-leaning labor leader--leaders that infiltrated the labor unions. His questioning was extremely good, and independently I had come to similar conclusions, and so we played each other very well at that point.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:30:46
[Frank Gannon]

He was a strong anti-Communist then?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:30:48
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yes, very strong, very strong. Well, later on, because we were members of that committee, we both received an invitation, with no honorariums, incidentally. This was before the days of honorariums of any significance. Frank Buchanan--I remember him so well--the silver-haired liberal Democratic congressman from McKeesport, Pennsylvania, right outside of Pittsburgh, said y--there's a big civic dinner up there, that they wanted to have the Taft-Hartley bill, which I had supported and Kennedy had opposed--they wanted to have it debated and wondered if we would go up and debate it. Well, independently, he agreed to do so, and I agreed to de--do so. And so we went up to McKeesport, Pennsylvania. I don't recall the debate. I don't think anybody that was there would particularly recall it, because we were nothing then. We were just a couple of junior senators. I think most of those who were there, because the audience was primarily business-oriented, although some labor leaders were there as well--most of them agreed that I had, perhaps, had a bit better of the argument, I think--had the better of it, because, I think, had the better case. And, incidentally, I don't think he had his heart in that case, either. While he came from a liberal Democratic district, he was concerned about the excesses that some labor unions had been guilty of, and he wanted some restraints on them. Well, the debate was over, and it was late at night, and that's before w--there were good airplane flights from Pittsburgh to Washington. And so we took the night sleeper train. I can remember very well that particular occasion, and again we had to do some drawing of straws because the only two bunks left were in the same compartment, an upper and a lower. And I drew, and he drew, and this time I won. I got the lower berth, he got the l--upper berth. Didn't make a lot of difference because we didn't sleep all the way back. We talked, and mainly about what we agreed on. You always do that when you're in Congress, and with people that are personal friends though political opponents. And so we talked about foreign policy, about the problems in Europe, and the problems that might come up in Asia and the rest. I don't remember anything--any discussion whatever of domestic policy.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:33:03
[Frank Gannon]

Didn't he become a--an unlikely contributor to your Senate campaign?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:33:10
[Richard Nixon]

Yes. In fact, I should point out that, while our relations were not buddy-buddy--in fact, except for a very few, he didn't have buddy-buddy relations with anybody. He was not that--he was not the gregarious type that Teddy Kennedy is, for example. But they were--they were friendly and personal.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:33:28
[Frank Gannon]

Who was he buddy-buddy with?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:33:30
[Richard Nixon]

George Smathers was a very good friend of his, for example. I would say, however, that in terms of--of his--our personal relationship, I could summarize it this way. He invited me, or, I should say, Eunice Kennedy, his sister who was his official hostess before he got married--to his--to his home, his Georgetown home, for a stag dinner, or I think there may have been another one as well. And they were very gracious, and the conversation was very spirited. I recall, too, being invited to his wedding--this was later on--and there were occasions when we had the opportunity of meeting on a--on a--on a very impersonal, social basis. But--but John Kennedy was not one of the group that played handball down in the gym. I did that. He was not one that--

Day 8, Tape 1
00:34:26
[Frank Gannon]

Were you any good?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:34:27
[Richard Nixon]

I was fair, but--not as good as some, but I couldn't play enough. So, in any event, we had a good personal relationship in that respect. I remember, incidentally, to show you how things can change in terms of political affiliations and the rest, the first time that I met his father, Joe Kennedy, the legendary Joe Kennedy, it was in 1960. This was before the nomination, and Joe Kennedy and Teddy Kennedy were standing outside the Colony Restaurant in New York City, and I shook hands with them. And this is the first time I'd met Joe Kennedy, and he said, "I just want you to know how much I admire you for what you've done in the Hiss case and in these--this Communist activity of yours." He says, "If Jack doesn't get it, I'll be for you." Teddy didn't say anything, but I hoped that he felt the same way. I saw Joe Kennedy later, incidentally, that same year. I was on my way to California by plane, and he was on the same plane with a beautiful girl. Oh, she was a raving beauty. And so I saw him, and I shook hands, and he introduced her to me as his niece. I don't know whether he had a niece out there or not, but she was a beauty. But as far as--as Kennedy himself was concerned, for example, he used to bring me--he'd bring me a book on occasion. I remember particularly, and I still have it in my library--he brought me the book To Light a Candle by [Father Keller], about the Christophers. It was inscribed by Father Keller. This is an indication of the kind of relationship it was.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:36:16
[Frank Gannon]

Did you consider that you were friends?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:36:18
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yes, we were friends--not close friends, but we were not enemies by any ch--by any stretch of the imagination. We never had a hard word between ourselves, never.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:36:30
[Frank Gannon]

You'd started to tell about the--the 1950 campaign.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:36:34
[Richard Nixon]

Well, this--in 1950, he came into the outer office. My secretary buzzed and said, "Congressman Kennedy is here." And so, of course, he came right in, and he handed me an envelope. He said, "You know, I know you've got a tough campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglas, and the family'd like to contribute." So he handed it to me, and it was a thousand dollars in cash. Later on, I think it was quite embarrassing to him, and he wanted it made very clear that the contribution was from his father and not for him personally. But he was delivering it. There was no question that--whose side he was on, and later on, after the election, when he was speaking at Harvard, he said that he was not unhappy about my defeating Helen Gahagan Douglas, because he had not found her one that he'd like to work with in the Congress of the United States.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:37:23
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think the money was, in fact, from him, or was it from his father?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:37:28
[Richard Nixon]

Doesn't make any difference. The Kennedy money is all in one pot, and he got--he had a chance to get it. I think--let me put it this way. Unless he had wanted me to beat Helen Gahagan Douglas, that money would never have come, because I didn't know his father at that time. I'm sure what happened is that he s--told his father that--"Well, this is one of the coming lights here," and his father was anti-Communist and felt, because of what I'd done in the Hiss case, which was already under the belt at that point, that he'd like to be on that side. No, I don't think he was an errand boy for his father. The money may have come from this father, but he wanted it done, too. There was no question about that. He was on my side in that campaign.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:38:10
[Frank Gannon]

It's been written that--or a lot has been written about the patriarch's tremendous influence on the Kennedy family--that Joe set the--the tone and the pace for the entire family, and indeed it was his thwarted presidential ambitions that led him to expect his son Joe, Junior, and then when he died, John, and then when he died, Robert, and now Edward--that the--the mantle sort of fell to them. It's also been argued, or written, that the fact that he was very open in his--you mentioned his--his niece, but there are stories that, when Gloria Swanson was his mistress, he actually had her on a boat to England with Rose Kennedy, and she simply had to accommodate herself to the--to the women that he brought around. And it's been argued that that influenced the Kennedy family's attitude towards women generally. Do you see anything to that in your observation of him or them?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:39:07
[Richard Nixon]

No. As far as he was concerned, I, frankly, wasn't particularly interested in what his extracurricular life was. And I must say this. Insofar as the time before he went to the White House, and I can't speak for what happened then--he was quite circumspect about it. I mean, he didn't flaunt it around and run around with the--the babes, particularly after--after he was married.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:39:37
[Frank Gannon]

Do y--m--my guess is--I don't want to--

Day 8, Tape 1
00:39:40
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah.

[Frank Gannon]

--wrong anybody, but that there's not much action on the streets of McKeesport after dark--but after that debate, or in your experiences with him at that time, did you see--with John Kennedy--did you see any of the ladies' man that the reports subsequently indicated were there?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:39:57
[Richard Nixon]

No, I really didn't. As I said, it isn't something that I discussed with him. Maybe we were--we weren't that close. Maybe that's something that a very close friend, like maybe a George Smathers, might have talked with him about, but I--I can never dis--I can never remember a discussion with him about girls. I don't recall his being known having a reputation around the House--the House of Rep--Representatives--that is, around the office building--as being one who's chasing the girls. I am sure, based on what we have read since, that he was rather active, and, he of course apparently came by it through inheritance, through his father, who was quite a swordsman.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:40:46
[Frank Gannon]

In 1952, when you were nominated at the Chicago convention, John Kennedy wrote you a letter which you reprint in your memoirs, and I wonder if you'd read it for us.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:41:03
[Richard Nixon]

This is a handwritten letter, incidentally. "Dear Dick, I was tremendously pleased that the convention selected you for vice president. I was always convinced that you would move ahead to the top, but I never thought it would come this quickly. You are an ideal selection and will bring a great deal of strength to the ticket. Please give my best wishes to your wife." I must say, incidentally, that our communication in that respect was not just one-sided. I--I wrote to him in 1956, after he had tried to gain the nomination on the Democratic ticket, and he made a very good run for it--almost got the nomination but was turned down, probably because he was a Catholic, at that point. But, in any event, I wrote to him afterwards and congratulated him on a very good race, and I think he appreciated that fact.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:42:10
[Frank Gannon]

Could--

[Richard Nixon]

That's something that you do in politics. I--I wrote to Hubert Humphrey after he lost the nomination back in 1972. I write, as I've often said, to losers as well as winners, because I had been both.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:42:27
[Frank Gannon]

Could you read again just the last? You left out one--

Day 8, Tape 1
00:42:31
[Richard Nixon]

Let's see--

[Frank Gannon]

--section of the very last paragraph there.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:42:37
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yes. Want me to read the whole thing again? I--see, I didn't bring my glasses. I forgot about them.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:42:43
[Offscreen voice]

Let's read the whole thing again.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:42:44
[Richard Nixon]

All right.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:42:45
[Frank Gannon]

Okay.

[Richard Nixon]

This was a letter that was, incidentally, written by hand, and it said, "Dear Dick, I was tremendously pleased that the convention selected you for vice president. I was always convinced you would move ahead to the top, but I never thought you could come this quickly." No, th--sorry. "Dear Dick, I was tremendously pleased that the convention selected you for vice president. I was always convinced that you would move ahead to the top, but I never thought it would come this quickly. You were an ideal selection and will bring great strength to the ticket. Please give my best to your wife, and all kinds of good luck to you."

Day 8, Tape 1
00:43:32
[Frank Gannon]

You've described your first meetings--meeting with and impressions of John Kennedy--Congressman John Kennedy. Do you remember your last meeting with President John Kennedy?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:43:46
[Richard Nixon]

Well, the last meeting was not a meeting. It was a telephone call. We were in Rome at the time on a family vacation in 1963, and he was in Rome on a state visit. And it happened that we were in the same hotel, and he was there for a meeting, and I was, of course, staying there. And he called on the phone. It was a very--just a--a friendly call. He said he hoped we had a good vacation, and I wished him good luck. And six weeks later, of course, he was dead.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:44:19
[Frank Gannon]

Do you remember how you heard about his death? For--for one generation of Americans, just like for an--for an earlier one--everybody remembers where they were when F.D.R. died and--in your generation. In my generation, I think, everybody remembers where they were when they heard about President Kennedy's death. Do you remember?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:44:39
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yes. I was in a taxicab. I had been in Dallas that very morning, as a matter of fact. I'd been out there for a board meeting of the Pepsi-Cola Company, of which I--our firm was general counsel. And I remember driving through the streets of Dallas. They were deserted, and the barricades were up for the parade that was to go through the city. I got a cab from the airport--was driving in and--at the--I think it was right at the 59th Street Bridge, where y--from Queens on fifty-nine--strike that. I remember that our cab was stopped at--in Queens just as you come into 59th Street, and--at a stoplight, and a man ran over from the curb and said to the cab driver, "Do you have a radio in your car?" He said, "No." He said, "President Kennedy's just been shot!" Well, we didn't have a radio, and the cab went on, and I--all the way back in--took an--tw--another twenty, twenty-five minutes before we got to the apartment, I wonder what in the world has happened. So we got into the apartment, and I immediately got on the phone. I got J. Edgar Hoover on the line, and I said, "What happened? Who was it? One of the right-wing nuts?" And Hoover responded, "No, it was a Commonest [sic]." He never said "Communist." He always said "Commonest." And that's how I learned it.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:46:07
[Frank Gannon]

Didn't--you've written that he later told you that you might have been the target.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:46:12
[Richard Nixon]

Yes. Hoover told me later that Mrs. Oswald said that she locked her husband the day before into the bathroom because he had a gun and said he was going to get me, because, of course, I was--happened to be in Dallas the day before at this board meeting. Apparently, if this story is true, and I have no reason to believe that Edgar Hoover made it up, it means that this man was a little bit off his rocker and was out to get anybody that he thought was possibly against what he stood for.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:46:50
[Frank Gannon]

What--what was your personal reaction when you found that President Kennedy was, in fact, dead?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:46:57
[Richard Nixon]

Well, it was the reaction of, I think, most everybody, that--first, one of sadness, profound sadness, the tragedy of it all, a man so young with so much life ahead, the tragedy for him, for hims--his family, for his supporters and friends, for the free world generally, the tragedy for the country--that a--an assassination could take place and be allowed to take place. That certainly was something that ran through my mind. I didn't have any feeling that there but for the grace of God go I. I had--I had--after all, I'm very fatalistic about life in general. And as far as I'm concerned, I always feel that what you have to do is to live life to the hilt. You have to--I always start out each day figuring this day may be the last, and live it right to the hilt. If you shortchange life, you shortchange yourself. You never look back, but always go forward. I think President Kennedy, John Kennedy, felt the same way, and the tragedy that he had to have his life snuffed short, to an extent, I think, is balanced by the fact that he lived it to the hilt.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:48:20
[Frank Gannon]

How do you feel about the use of the insanity plea in assassination attempt cases? For example, John Hinckley has recently and successfully used it in his attack on President Reagan.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:48:32
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I suppose the--what I consider the responsible su--proposals to modify the plea, so that it just isn't used--made up--"temporary s--insanity." If you have temporary insanity, you can say that everybody, any cold-blooded murderer, is temporarily insane. At the present time, the plea covers far too many people who, frankly, should pay for their crimes.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:49:01
[Frank Gannon]

We--we--I think we've anticipated the answer to this question, but I'll--I'll ask it anyway. We have a ph--a photograph of you and Mrs. Nixon standing next to the catafalque at the Kennedy lying in state in the Rotunda of the Capitol. Do you remember what you were thinking or what was going through your mind as you stood there looking at his coffin?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:49:33
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I'm not one that is going to say that I had profound feelings at such a time and so forth. That isn't the way it was. I--I think my feelings were the same--any person who was, as I had been, a personal friend, one who respected him, although he had been my political opponent--respected him as a man and particularly as president of the United States. I think the primary feeling was one of the tragedy of it all, of a life being snuffed out. Even though he was against me, even though he was an opponent, in our system the better the competition, the better the eventual leader's going to be. And he was a great competitor, and in that sense the loss to the country was irreparable. Then, of course, just the human tragedy of it all.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:50:30
[Frank Gannon]

A lot has been written and spoken, and--and even sung, about the -- the Kennedy style, that sort of collection of events and attitudes and conduct which for one brief shining moment created Camelot on the--on the Potomac. One might expect that you have a--a slightly different approach to the Kennedy style. How would you describe the Kennedy style?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:51:03
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I would describe it first as being suave, smooth, debonair, and that appealed, of course, to many in the media, who--who are more, frankly, suckers for style than average people, for that matter.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:51:21
[Frank Gannon]

Are they suave, smooth, and debonair themselves?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:51:23
[Richard Nixon]

No, but they want to be. They always admire it, but i--in Kennedy they saw somebody that they would like to be and so consequently it--it appealed to them. Also that th--I guess, the Kennedy style had to do with the fact that he was considered to be an intellectual.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:51:46
[Frank Gannon]

Was he?

[Richard Nixon]

He--I would rate him more so than most in that office. He was a good phrase-maker. He read books. Many don't. And--and whether he was or not is not so important as that he enjoyed the company of--of intelligent people, of intellectuals. He made them feel important, and that was the case. But th--I think another thing that appealed to the media was that he was more than simply a suave, smooth intellectual, or l--Ivy League l--intellectual. He was Ivy League, but he was also Boston Irish, and that was a big difference. I think the fact that--that John Kennedy very much approved of the designation that was given to him by Joe Alsop tells us about--tells us one of the reasons why he had this charisma. He was a "Stevenson with balls," and therefore he was one that attracted the--the people who wanted a young, courageous man in the presidency and yet one who was smooth and graceful. Basically that's the mark of royalty.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:52:02
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think that the Kennedys are American royalty?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:52:07
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, in their minds, certainly. And I think that tells part of the story. And in the minds of many of the media, yes. Nothing else can explain the way that Teddy Kennedy, despite the defeats he has suffered and despite his background, is still a very formidable potential candidate for president of the United States. It's the Kennedy mystique. It's still there. It's going to last as long as one of them's living.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:52:36
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think that Americans long for the grandeur and the pageantry and the s--and the security of a royal family? Do they look for that in leaders?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:52:45
[Richard Nixon]

Some do, yes.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:52:47
[Frank Gannon]

Is that healthy?

[Richard Nixon]

Whether the majority do or not--I don't think it's particularly unhealthy. I--it depends on--on how you--how it's really defined. I would say that, generally speaking, you find that many Americans--that they want their leaders to be somebody different from themselves. The--the present-day politician thinks that the way to lead is to be like the other people, just to be like the man next door. Well, people aren't going to vote for the man next door. They want their leader to be somebody who is different, bigger than life, different from themselves. Not one that is like them.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:54:26
[Frank Gannon]

Some of the Kennedy people--in fact, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., is the man who gave it the phrase--have said that the Nixon presidency was an imperial presidency. Was that your attempt to give the American people that aspect of a--of a royal family in your kind of leadership?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:54:44
[Richard Nixon]

No. I would say that--I would say the Kennedy presidency is the one that qualifies as the imperial presidency more than any other. It had the glamour. It had the trappings. It had the--the--the--the phrases and so forth of the imperial presidency. I think in our case we tried to--to be--to run the office in a way that was dignified, but not in a way that made us--made it necessary for people to bow down and--and in effect treat us as the royalty. I never thought of it that way.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:55:25
[Frank Gannon]

I think the real point of the Schlesinger book was that--that your administration's use of power, your approach to the power of the office, was an imperial one. How would you compare your approach to power and your administration's approach to power to the Kennedy administration's approach to power?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:55:40
[Richard Nixon]

Ineffective.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:55:42
[Frank Gannon]

Who--what--which was ineffective?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:55:44
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, ours.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:55:45
[Frank Gannon]

Compared to theirs?

[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yes, yes, yes. They--they really know how to use power, and they used it ruthlessly. Well, let's--let's use a couple of examples. You heard about wiretapping, and people would think that the first time anybody was ever wiretapped was in our administration. Now, this is going to surprise a lot of people, but the highest number of wiretaps, even higher than those that were necessarily applied for national security purposes in the Korean War and those that were applied for national security fur--purposes in the Vietnam War--the highest number of "national security"--so-called--wiretaps was in 1963 by Bobby Kennedy when he was attorney general for John F. Kennedy. And they used the wiretaps were for what I would say were questionable national security purposes. For example, they wiretapped one reporter that they found was writing a book on Marilyn Monroe that might have some derogatory comments about Kennedys in them. I don't think you can find any of that in our case. Some of ours may not have b--should not have been applied, but we tried to have a national security justification for them. Leaks, for example, of classified material was the [or "a"] primary reason we had for wiretapping. The--the handling of the press, for example--there is a great deal of discussion about the fact that we were s--trying to use the power of the presidency to silence the press, and so forth. But let's look at how they used it so effectively. Their--a story appeared, apparently--carried on se--on C.B.S. after the 1960 elections, indicating that the Catholic vote had been stirred up by the Kennedys during the election so that there was a pro-Catholic backlash among Protestants and the rest. And Kennedy was furious, and he called in [Frank Stanton], the president of C.B.S., and took him to t--on the carpet about it. And Stanton said, "Well," he said, "look. We weren't using this for the first time. The print media's used this story before." And then Kennedy looked him in the eye and said, "Yes, but they aren't lion--licensed by the federal government." And inc--of course, predictably, C.B.S. soft-pedaled the story thereafter. Now that's the use of power, and using it effectively. And in campaigning we have some pretty good examples. I think of Dick Tuck and others like him--th--the c--what they did, the way they would foul up schedules, the way they'd have demonstrators and hecklers and so forth, to follow us around on the campaign trail. And they made poor Donald Segretti and his little group of collegiate people look like a--like the amateur hour. What I am suggesting is that, while the Kennedy campaign did not develop--did not initiate or invent dirty tricks, they were the most professional in using them of any campaign that I know of.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:58:52
[Frank Gannon]

You--you tell these stories with such seeming relish. Do you envy this toughness, and almost ruthlessness in--

Day 8, Tape 1
00:59:02
[Richard Nixon]

No, I--

[Frank Gannon]

--campaigning?

Day 8, Tape 1
00:59:03
[Richard Nixon]

No, the only thing I envy is the effectiveness. I think things sh--I think--I think if you're going to engage in activities for which you are going to be held account, as you should, that they should be effective. That's why, for example, in the field of foreign policy, it turns me off to have congressmen and senators, or other leaders, huff and puff about the Communists and so forth, and then when it comes to doing something effective, they back away. I'm interested in a policy being effective above everything else. And let me say, the Kennedys got it done. They got the job done. They were very effective.

Day 8, Tape 1
00:59:40
[Frank Gannon]

There are those who argue that President Reagan is not u--

The following text appears in the original transcript but does not appear on a tape. It has not been edited.

[Frank Gannon]

--nlike these congress--in light of the recent shooting down of the Korean Airlines jet--is not unlike these congressmen you mentioned--that he's talked about the "evil empire" in the past, that he's huffed and puffed about the Soviets, but that when it came to actually going on television and doing something about it, he talks about suspending landing rights for a certain amount of time. Has his reaction been properly tough in these terms, do you think, in terms of being effective?

[Richard Nixon]

Well, any criticism I would have, I, of course, would make to him personally, because I follow the ground rule of not criticizing the president in the foreign policy area.

[Frank Gannon]

Have you done so?

[Richard Nixon]

No. I'm not--I haven't criticized him. My view is that, once it's done, then you look to the future. I think in this case he's between a rock and a hard place. He had to be tough with regard to what--

Day Eight, Tape two of four, LINE FEED #2, 6-13-83, ETI Reel #56
June 13, 1983

Day 8, Tape 2
00:00:53
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

Day 8, Tape 2
00:00:57
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

Day 8, Tape 2
00:00:59
[Richard Nixon]

--was done. It was an unconscionable action. But in terms of what he could do, he had to recognize that whatever we might want to say, even after this incident, things remain the same. I mean, after all, those that murder their way to the tops in the K--to the top in the Kremlin are not going to have any qualms about murder in the sky, and that's all this indicates. The Soviet [sic] have been this way before. This is the latest example of it, but they are there, and what we have to do is to find a way to give them incentives to keep the peace and incentives against this kind of activity in a hard-headed way.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:01:38
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think this went to the top in the Kremlin, or do you think it was a local error--callous, brutal, but in--a local error?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:01:44
[Richard Nixon]

Local error. No, there is--I don’t know Mr. Andropov personally, but from everything that I know about him he's a highly intelligent man. He has a good sense of public relations for one who lives in that kind of closed society. He was trying at this particular time to sort of cool things down between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and they were reaching out in terms of trade and other areas. They need us, let's face it. He's trying to disarm the armament movement in Europe, and in the United States, for that matter. He's trying to help the peace groups. And he's--he's not a stupid man. He's not going to shoot himself in the foot. No. I think he--I wouldn't be surprised to see somebody executed for what happened here, just for stupidity.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:02:36
[Frank Gannon]

Will we ever--

Day 8, Tape 2
00:02:37
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[Frank Gannon]

--know about that?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:02:38
[Richard Nixon]

No.

[Frank Gannon]

Would they make that public?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:02:39
[Richard Nixon]

Never.

[Frank Gannon]

But that--that would be the s--the strength of their response to a mistake like this--

Day 8, Tape 2
00:02:42
[Richard Nixon]

That's right.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:02:43
[Frank Gannon]

--and the nature of their--

[Richard Nixon]

That's right.

[Frank Gannon]

--kind of response?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:02:44
[Richard Nixon]

It is possible that it would be that way. On the other hand, there was a similar incident to this about--in nineteen--five years ago, in 1978. A Korean--another Korean plane got off-course. It was downed. Two people were killed. What happened there--that there was investigation, apparently, in the Soviet Union, and at least two of those responsible for allowing the plane in and the handling of the matter were executed. The point is you're more likely to have an execution of one of those on the ground who allowed an intruder to get into Soviet airspace than one who, even mistakenly, shot it down. I am simply saying he would have no qualms about it. My guess is, however, that he is very, very paranoiac about having any intrusion in the airspace, and he would hesitate to take action that would discourage people--his own people on the ground--from avoiding it.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:03:50
[Frank Gannon]

Is Sakhalin Island like Dr. No's island? Is there something going on there that's so secret that they're--that they're super-sensitive about that particular place?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:04:01
[Richard Nixon]

I don't know, but I would hope that investigation is being made in that direction. I und--I would think that it is a very, very important base, or otherwise they wouldn't be quite that paranoiac about it.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:04:13
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think Andropov is capable, if it had come up to him, of making a decision to take out--to take down a--an unarmed passenger plane if he had been told that it was over this sensitive area?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:04:26
[Richard Nixon]

No doubt about it. No, after all, we have to remember, in the Soviet Union, I don't know of any Soviet le--lu--leader who's been the head of the Soviet Union that didn't murder his way to the top. I don't mean by that individually, here and there, but executions, participating in purges, and so forth. That is one of the requirements for going up in the Soviet hierarchy. He was the head of the K.G.B. They not only execute people, murder them, entrap them, send them to clinics where they use all co--sorts of psychological pressures on them, and the rest--psychiatric, I should say. But of course they would do it. They--they will do anything that serves the cause. On the other hand, he's not going to engage in activities that he feels are going to be harmful. Let me put it another way. When we talk about--when we try to influence the Soviet by appealing to their morality, it's like two ships going in the night. They have a different view of morality, a different view of the world, than we have--what is right and what is wrong. For example, a pathetic gesture like taking it to the United Nations, figuring that world opinion is going to make them change. Condemning the Soviet Union in the United S--Nations is like making faces at the Sphinx. It isn't going to affect them. Now, what may affect them, from a pragmatic standpoint, is the realization that if world opinion is totally against them--that then--that will lead to a bigger arms buildup in the world and less progress in areas that they want. But they’re not going to be affected by an argument that it's moral or immoral to have somebody killed. After all, Lenin--every Soviet leader that has ever lived has indicated that there are times when lifes [sic] must be sacrificed for the greater good. Any means to an end.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:06:37
[Frank Gannon]

There were some criticisms that President Reagan had used this incident to push his own defense program, the--the M.X. and the Pershing. Do--do you s--see anything to that criticism?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:06:54
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I hope he did use it for that purpose. I don't know what these idiots are thinking about. When you have this--this--a Soviet leadership exposed for what it is--this incident, which is an indication of the problem that we have--that's a very good argument to develop our strength. And I am--I totally approve of President Reagan asking the American people and our allies abroad to realize the kind of a world we live in. It's very, very dangerous, and we have to recognize that if they're going to engage in this kind of activity, we've got to have the military strength, because that will deter them. They are not going to be deterred by a resolution in the United Nations. They may be deterred by the fact that we would be able to react or might react more strongly than such a revolu--resolution. So when President Reagan addresses the issue in that way, he's right on, in my opinion.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:07:53
[Frank Gannon]

But you do distance yourself from the conservatives who--the--if it's not redundant, the right-wing conservatives--but you do distance yourself from the conservatives who argue that he should cut off all relations and take much stronger actions?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:08:07
[Richard Nixon]

They're out of their minds. I mean, they--they just don’t understand how the real worl--world works. So we break relations with the Soviet Union. I remember de Gaulle said to me once--we were talking about what was called "détente"--hard-headed détente, as I would call it, not the soft-headed kind that was practiced in the later administration--but de Gaulle said, "What is your choice? If you are not prepared to break down the Berlin Wall, then you have to talk. And the thing to do is to be--talk from--in a position of strength." Now what we have to understand is that when the--the--what I call--they--they call themselves "the hard right" or "the far right," et cetera--when they say "break diplomatic relations, cut off all trade, isolate them," what are they going to build? I know what they think. They think, "Well, if we just do that, the rotten system will collapse." I wish it were, but it is not going to collapse. They're just going to squeeze their people more. What we have to realize is that this incident itself demonstrates why you have to have contact. If war comes, it's going to come not, in my opinion, by the Soviet Union launching a massive strike. They don't want a world--even though they want to conquer the world, they don't want a world of destroyed cities and dead bodies. It's going to come through accident, through miscalculation, or through third-party small nations drawing the big powers into war. And as far as accident and miscalculation is concerned, you've got to have more contact rather than less. And this plane incident shows how very close to the edge we are. An incident of that sort--suppose that it involved not a Korean plane but an American transport? It would have been pretty tough.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:09:57
[Frank Gannon]

What would--what would you have done in a case like that, if it--if it were--

Day 8, Tape 2
00:10:01
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I'm not going to--

[Frank Gannon]

--would that have made the response difference?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:10:03
[Richard Nixon]

I'm not going to comment upon what I would have done about that, because that gets me into this, and, as I said, I s--I don't comment upon what the president should do.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:10:11
[Frank Gannon]

At this point we take a break.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:10:15
[Richard Nixon]

I'm not sure it's useful, Frank, to get all this in, because that's--

Day 8, Tape 2
00:10:18
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Day 8, Tape 2
00:10:33
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Day 8, Tape 2
00:11:44
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Day 8, Tape 2
00:11:45
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Day 8, Tape 2
00:11:55
[Richard Nixon]

Now we've covered Truman's legacy enough.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:11:58
[Frank Gannon]

Yes, I think that the decisions and--

Day 8, Tape 2
00:12:04
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Day 8, Tape 2
00:12:20
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Day 8, Tape 2
00:12:24
[Frank Gannon]

You--you mentioned Marilyn Monroe. Are you aware of the--the widespread rumors that Marilyn Monroe was the mistress of either President Kennedy or Robert Kennedy or--or both, and that her last phone call on the--on the afternoon of her death was to Peter Lawford, and her last words were, "Say goodbye to Bobby. Say goodbye to the President. And say goodbye to yourself, because you're a nice guy"? Do you have any knowledge or insight into the relationship between the Kennedys and Marilyn Monroe and why this--why th--why the rumors about their fears about her diary exist and whether they might be justified?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:13:04
[Richard Nixon]

No, I've never gotten into that. I--I don't read those movie magazines and the reports and so forth. Probably should, but I just have never found time for it.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:13:17
[Frank Gannon]

One of the--t--one last thing on the--the idea of the imperial presidency. One of the charges ab--against the Nixon administration was the--the uniforms, the dress uniforms, the comic opera dress uniforms for the White House uniformed guards. Why'd you do that?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:13:38
[Richard Nixon]

Well, as a matter of fact, that was done at the staff level. I was pretty surprised when I saw them, and I think just some bright-eyed fellow down below thought that would look great. O--I--all I knew is that I had wanted it upgraded, because, having been to so many foreign countries and then coming back to the United States as vice president, as I had, and to see the--the way that we receive foreign guests in such a very undignified way I know made a terribly bad impression on them, and I said I just wanted it shaped up, because I--I would say at this particular point, the--at the time that I became president, the only more unkempt, if I may use those two words together, security people than the ones at the White House were the ones in the Congress. It's really disgusting to see these overblown, fat people that are basically political hacks running around there to protect the congressmen, and that's the way the White House looked. Th--thank heaven it's shaped up now, and we do a very good job on our protocol. I was only interested in the protocol. As far as the uniforms, I never look at the uniforms. I don't know anything about uniforms.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:14:47
[Frank Gannon]

Did you know when you knew Congressman Kennedy--and then Senator Kennedy--about the health problems, the serious health problems he had that were later revealed?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:14:57
[Richard Nixon]

In fact, not only did I not know, but in the discussions I've had with him, he never mentioned it, which I think is a compliment to him. I understand that throughout the years he was in Congress and in the Senate that he was--had a great deal of pain from what is called Addison's disease, and also a back problem of some sort. But he never talked about it--never talked about his troubles. Not to me.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:15:23
[Frank Gannon]

Do you feel that his health problems were sufficiently serious that he shouldn't have run--shouldn't have put himself in the position of running for president?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:15:33
[Richard Nixon]

No. I think the proof of the pudding there is in the eating, and in this respect, where health becomes an issue, and where it should be an issue, is when it may have the effect of not allowing the individual to be an effective leader. But let's look at--look at the history of that here. Franklin D. Roosevelt had had polio. He was crippled. He became one of the outstanding presidents. Whether you like him or not, he was an outstanding president, a great leader. You talk about age. Some thought Eisenhower was too age [sic]. Many think Reagan is--no. Some thought Eisenhower was too old, and many, of course, campaigned against Reagan at an earlier time on the ground that he was too old. The question is not his age, but the question is can he do the job. The same was true of Eisenhower after he'd had a heart attack. Many would suggest that--"Well, he's had a heart attack. Maybe he can't do the job." But he went ahead, he ran, and he did the job. Now in the case of Kennedy's health, I would say also in the case of Johnson's health, because the Kennedy people were trying to make an issue of Johnson's heart attack in the 1960 primary campaigns--but in the case of both, the proof is can they go through a campaign. A campaign is more difficult than being president, and anybody that can go through a presidential campaign is healthy enough to be president. And that's what I say about Kennedy. I say it about Roosevelt. I say it about Eisenhower. I say it also about Johnson.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:17:09
[Frank Gannon]

Jack Valenti has told a story about being in Texas when President Kennedy gave a speech, and in fact being crouched beneath the podium, and seeing President Kennedy's hand when it was down beneath the podium, and that it was--it was shaking that--o--out--out of control. The press must have seen a lot of this by that point, and must have known about the braces he had to wear. Do you think they should not have reported that? Do you think that the public doesn't need to know that kind of thing as long as, ostensibly, the job is being done in an orderly way?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:17:41
[Richard Nixon]

You've stated my position very well. I didn't know about Franklin Roosevelt being crippled until after the war. I think that was proper. He was doing the job all right. As far as President Kennedy was concerned--he was then, of course, as a candidate, and then thereafter as president--the fact that he had Addison's disease, or whatever it was, unless it affected his mind I do not believe it is a legitimate issue. Now I must say I think the press, or the media, perhaps were a little less hard on him, if I may use British understatement, than they were on me on some issues. But as far as the health issue was concerned, I think that was proper. And let me say, too, that in respect to what is called the sex issue. Now, apparently it's been disclosed that there was a lot of hanky-panky going on in the White House in the Kennedy years and so forth, and the bedrooms being used for extracurricular purposes. I don't want to see any of that. I don't want to even see it now. I think what matters is what kind of a president he was. I think the important thing, however, is that a president, whether it involves that sort of activity, or whether it involves profanity or what-have-you--the important thing is for him to set an example and not blatantly to destroy the myth that people need to have about whoever's president.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:19:14
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think that candidates should be required to make public their medical records in a campaign, or before or during a campaign?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:19:22
[Richard Nixon]

I don’t believe so, but I don't mind it. I never minded it because mine--naturally, from a personal standpoint, because I--from the standpoint of my opponents I'm disgustingly healthy and will probably outlive them all. But, on the other hand, these days when you've got all these psychiatric experts running around and so forth. I think before we get through we're going to have--to have presidents go through a psychiatric examination, spend two, three days on the couch--I mean with a psychiatrist, not a babe--and then see what happens before you can allow them to be president. It's gone too far, in my opinion. Maybe a routine health examination so that they haven't got terminal syphilis, but beyond that I'm not for it.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:20:08
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think that having undergone psychiatric therapy should exclude a--a person from running for president or should influence people's decision whether or not to vote for that person?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:20:21
[Richard Nixon]

Well, you had that problem with the Eagleton case, and I would say it would not exclude him unless the--the prognosis after the therapy indicated that there--r--a recurrence might occur of a psychiatric problem. And--but otherwise, these days that would probably rule out half the population among those that would be qualified to run for president, because of--the so-called "upper set" or the "better" people and so forth not only go onto the couch themselves but send their kids on the when--couch ins--rather than disciplining them.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:20:55
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think discipline would be better and more effective?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:20:57
[Richard Nixon]

Far better. Far better. I think, as a matter of fact, if priests and ministers and parents and teachers were doing a better job, you'd put th--nine-tenths of the psychiatrists out of business.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:21:13
[Frank Gannon]

What--what kind of role did money play in John Kennedy's career?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:21:20
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, very effective. He, of course, had all the money he needed for personal purposes. He never had to fight his way up. He never had to worry about losing in a campaign for fear that he wouldn't have a job. The second thing is that it provided him the opportunity to--to buy the brightest and the best. Now let me make a differentation [sic] there--not only by buying them, because he was able to pay them, but also, in his case, however, he had the added advantage that once bought, they stayed bought. He was able, to his great credit, to inspire an enthusiasm and a loyalty which, for example, Nelson Rockefeller was unable to do. Nelson Rockefeller bought the brightest and the best, too, but Nelson Rockefeller ended up--when a Rockefeller campaign was over, they went to greener pastures. Not with the Kennedy--once the Kennedy supporter, virtually all were that way in the future. Now, that's on the plus side. You have enough money that you don't have the trials and tribulations of--of life that people who don't have money have, and you're able to buy--a--af--afford a campaign. You're able to buy a good staff. On the minus side, however, sometimes it's very important for a potential leader to go through the fire. I've often said that before you win, you've got to lose--that that's how you learn how to win. And so the trials of life can toughen a person up, make you stronger, so that when you have crises you will have already been through enough that you can take--handle them in an effective way. And as far as staff is concerned, I think I'm a prime example of the fact that money is not that necessary if you have a good cause. For example, after 1966, when I began to ran--run for president for the second time--and this'll be hard for people to believe today, when people spend millions just to get into the House, let alone the Senate or the presidency or what-have-you--at that particular time I had four paid people on my campaign staff--Rose Mary Woods, my secretary, Dwight Chapin, who handled appointments, Pat Buchanan, who worked with the press, and Ray Price, who was a speechwriter. Four--that's all. Rockefeller had several hundred full, paid staff. We beat him. We beat him because mine were totally dedicated, and then we added to that with volunteers. Another reason why a big staff, bought and paid for, is not always an asset is that the bigger the staff, the less thinking the man does himself. And when you get into that top job, they're not hiring your staff. They're hiring you. And the more you have to make those decisions--write your own speeches, or at least if someone else writes them, edit them--the more you have to think the problem through, the better you will be in handling the problem when it comes up.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:24:26
[Frank Gannon]

What was it about, do you think--about John Kennedy that--that drew--or kept the people that he drew to him with him?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:24:37
[Richard Nixon]

I think there were two factors. One was the fact that he, insofar as creative people were concerned--was that he had imagination. He wanted new ideas. He was an intellectual, so to speak, and he appealed to intellectuals, just as Woodrow Wilson, who was an intellectual, appealed. I wouldn't put John Kennedy, or any other president, for that matter, in the category of Wilson, who was, of course, the most dominating intellectual figure in our history. But, nevertheless, he had that appearance to people, and he enjoyed their company, and they appreciated that. I think beyond that, though, in terms of the workers in his campaign--I mean, not just the speechwriters and the idea people and the rest, but those that had to do the grinding work of organizing the campaign, working out schedules, advance men and so forth and so on--what appealed to them was not what he stood for but the method, the macho image that he projected, a--a man that was going to go out and risk all to gain all. In other words, his--his Harvard side appealed to his speechwriters, who rendered great service to him. His Irish side appealed to the campaign workers, and the combination became unbeatable.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:25:56
[Frank Gannon]

To whom did you appeal? What kind of supporter did--did you attract, and--and what did they--what did they look for and find in you that--that kept them with you in--in that way? Did you have people with the same intensity--

Day 8, Tape 2
00:26:08
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yes.

[Frank Gannon]

--that the Kennedys did?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:26:09
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yes, and--and I still have them. In other words, the difference between what we call the Nixon hard core and the Rockefeller hard core is that his is gone now. Oh, there are a few Rockefeller people around, but--but not really that'll carry the torch. Mine are still there, even despite what I have been through. We still have a very good hard core of people, some in government, some outside of government, some in business, some even in the media, and so forth and so on.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:26:34
[Frank Gannon]

Who are they, and--and why are they for you?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:26:36
[Richard Nixon]

The--the--the reason that they're for me, I think, is perhaps threefold. First, that I think primarily there are those who were for me because they believed in what I stood for. I always tried to attract people to a cause rather than to the man. I used to, in campaign speech after campaign speech-- I said, "Don't vote for me as the man. Vote for what I stand for. If you believe what I stand for, then vote for me." And I think the cause, the--my--my--what I would call responsible conservatism at home, my internationalism but hard-headed attitude toward the Soviet threat abroad-- this drew people to me. They saw me as one who could stand f--for and present the cause that they deeply believed in. That's probably the main group there. From the personal standpoint, too, I think that I had appeal, curiously enough, to some intellectuals, but they're very rare. It happens that most of the people with brains don't go into politics in the intellectual side. They go into business. They can make more money. But in those rare instances where you have intellectuals in politics on the conservative side, I had an appeal to them, because my--my appeal was primarily cerebral, rather than emotional. And so, consequently, I didn't have very many, but those that I did have in my speechwriting and other staff were very, very good. I'm very proud to have been able to attract them. Those things--and then, of course, there were a certain number who, for what reason or another, had a personal attraction, I assume, but I'm not able to speak to that point.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:28:27
[Frank Gannon]

Two of those three reasons are cerebral and intellectual rather than emotional or charismatic. Are you making a virtue of adversity to--in charismatic terms? If--on a ten-point charismatic--charisma scale, if you were put against--head-to-head with JFK, where do you think you would stand?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:28:51
[Richard Nixon]

No, I wouldn't--I wouldn't judge that. I--that--that’s something that's--that people have voted on and expressed their judgments, and apparently, I--I think, on that score it would come out about even. That's the way the election came out--thirty-five million to thirty-five million.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:29:07
[Frank Gannon]

Would--if you had had money, would that have made a big difference to your career?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:29:13
[Richard Nixon]

I'd probably never gotten so high. I--I am convinced, as I said, that money can be a mixed blessing. I think these days, incidentally, it may be more important. I'm--I noticed when I was in the Senate I don't think there were more than four or five that were s--in the million class. Today, there may be twenty. Of course, the--the million isn't as big then as it now--isn't as big now as it was then, I should say. But, on the other hand, I think what has assisted me in my political career is that I've had to go through adversity. You develop strength through adversity. It's like what Chou En-lai said when we met. He said, "Men who travel a smooth road never become strong." And my road has not been smooth.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:29:59
[Frank Gannon]

One of the standard operating interpretations about Richard Nixon is that you're obsessed by money, by wealth, by the lack of it, or the lack of enough of it, or impressed with it in other people. Do you see that at all in yourself?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:30:13
[Richard Nixon]

Well, if I were, I'd have some. My--my income is relatively modest, and I don't have any, except from--for--for what I write, because I don't take honorariums, and I don't--I'm not a member of any board or any of that sort of thing. I'm very comfortable, because my books have been very successful, and my real estate investments, the only thing I've ever invested in, have come out better than most. But I don't have a great deal, but if I--I were interested in money I would hope that I would have been far more successful than I am.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:30:44
[Frank Gannon]

It's--it's always struck me as an irony of your career that for someone who claims to be--and in fact, the--the records which you have made public at various times bear out your claims--someone who has had a--a very modest, straightforward and open-book financial history. Indeed, when you write about leaving the vice presidency that you left with an Ol--

Day 8, Tape 2
00:31:07
[Richard Nixon]

Forty-seven thousand dollars.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:31:08
[Frank Gannon]

--forty-seven thousand dollars equity and--

Day 8, Tape 2
00:31:09
[Richard Nixon]

And s--and a--

Day 8, Tape 2
00:31:10
[Frank Gannon]

An Olds--

[Richard Nixon]

--secondhand Oldsmobile.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:31:12
[Frank Gannon]

That was true, but you were very carefully conscious--maybe because you felt it was going to be exposed at some time--about keeping records and-and living very frugally and--and--and honestly. And yet you were surrounded by people in the Congress--take Lyndon Johnson as an example of a man who, from the early forties when he went to the Congress, never was on any other than a government payroll, and he left a fortune when he died, estimated between fourteen and twenty million dollars. There were a number, if not a lot, of people in the Congress at the time you were there who were, without necessarily doing anything illegal, were just--were--were making a lot of money. You didn't, and yet a lot of people still suspect that you've got an un--you know, an--an listed Bahamian or Swiss bank account that--wh--why--it's ironic that the least likely person against whom these charges should be made is the person against whom they are made.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:32:03
[Richard Nixon]

Well, of course, it goes clear back to the famous fund controversy, when we had this sixteen-thousand-dollar-a-year fund back in 1952, and when finally when it all came out it was quite clear the fund was for--solely for political purposes, not for personal purposes, as distinguished from the Stevenson fund, which, because he was a liberal and a Democrat, they didn't go after at all--was used even for personal purposes and--and not just for political purposes. Going back to then, I was--I have always, of course, been examined very closely by the media and by my political opponents in this respect. And so I've had to be like Caesar's wife. But I think that as far as the charge is concerned, it's just routine. I mean, opponents have to go after something, and so they--they can't believe that I could have served all this time in--in the Congress, as vice president, then I was practicing law for eight years at a pretty good amount of money, the--then I served as president for five-and-a-half year [sic] --that I could have, shall we say, as modest amount as I have. And understand, I am very comfortable, but I am not in that multi-multi class that people would expect me to have. But it's--but I--that doesn't mean that the charge isn't going to be made.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:33:29
[Frank Gannon]

Are you impressed by people who have money?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:33:31
[Richard Nixon]

Not--no, not at all. Not at all. In fact, most of them are very boring, because they--that's all they want to talk about. I mean, they--I mean, to me one of the most boring things to do is to go to Palm Springs or Palm Beach or Newport and see the so-called "beautiful people" who have either inherited money--and some have earned it--showing off their gowns and their furs and their diamonds and their jewelry and talking of nothing but money and food and houses, and sometimes a little sex. But it's a bore.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:34:08
[Frank Gannon]

What was it like running against the Kennedy political operation and the Kennedy money in 1960?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:34:15
[Richard Nixon]

It was rough, because they were smart, they were rich, they were ruthless. And by "ruthless," I mean they'd do anything to win. You had the operation, for example, of Dick Tuck that I've referred to. The--the--the media classified it as just "fun and games," because they were for him. In our case, they took poor Don Segretti, who was a--an--was today's version of amateur hour and made it out as political sabotage. All of it, of course, had nothing, no particular effect on the campaign, although it's quite irritating to be heckled and to have your schedule screwed up and so forth. And by having moles in your operation, which, of course, they were very good at. No. They play--they play hardball. I mean, they play--they may play softball out on the White House lawn over there, but it's hardball, or it may be touch football in the--on the playgrounds, but it's tackle football all the way.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:35:16
[Frank Gannon]

Did you--could you see the Kennedy money at work against your operation?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:35:25
[Richard Nixon]

Well, one rather humorous example. In those days, and thank God those days are gone, the--the black vote was greatly influenced by black preachers. And in those days each party used to bid for the support of the black preachers, figuring if you get the preachers they'd go out and tell their congregations, and you'd get the black vote. Well, Len Hall was our campaign chairman. He was from New York State. And, of course, this kind of thing of buying the black preachers, as they say--we didn't do that in California because we weren't up to speed with regard to what was done back here in the East. But Len Hall--apparently they knew--they had been doing that for years in New York. So he made an attempt to--to, you know, s--subsidize some of the black preachers and so forth, with contributions and so forth, in order to get their support. And he had a pretty good fund to do that. And he came to me one time--he says, "My God, I've never seen anything like it." He said, "I've paid these fellows more than they ever got before, and Joe Kennedy's come in there and raised me every time. We didn't get one of 'em." Now that's just one example, but the main example, of course, i--is in terms of the ability to buy time, to buy advertising, to pay precinct workers, et cetera, et cetera. And the difference was we were f--well-financed in 1960, but they outspent us. And it's a miracle that we did as well as we did.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:36:56
[Frank Gannon]

Did Hubert Humphrey ever talk to you about his--his running up against the Kennedy political operation and finance operation in--in that campaign, and particularly in West Virginia?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:37:06
[Richard Nixon]

Very privately. He was--he was not a crybaby, and he'd say it in sorrow more than anger, but he said, "Boy, it was really something. It was really something." And I know now why he felt it was really something to be up against the Kennedy machine, because in West Virginia, for example, a state that he was predicted to win, because it's ninety-five percent Protestant, because it's very, very much pro-New Deal, and Hubert Humphrey was much more of a New Dealer than was Jack Kennedy, and so forth, and a very poor state, and Hubert made a great appeal to the people on the poor basis, and yet he lost. And one of the reasons, he said, was that--that--the money that was spent. And I've seen a study which indicated that the Kennedy people spent enough money in West Virginia to pay every voters [sic] fifty dollars. Now, whether that's true or not, I don't know. But I know that k--that poor Hubert was outspent. But that wasn't the worst thing. It wasn't just--you can't just buy the voters in-in any state. The worst thing that happened in--in terms of Hubert was--happened to him in Minnesota and in d--Wisconsin. Hubert was from Minnesota, of course. He was campaigning against Kennedy in the Wisconsin primary. It was very important for him to win Misco--Wisconsin, because, after all, Wisconsin's in his back yard. And so it was predicted he would win. So what happened was that just a few days before the election, the Catholic precincts in Milwaukee and other areas of Misco--Wisconsin were flooded with anti-Catholic literature, vicious anti-Catholic literature, postmarked from Minnesota. Everybody thought Hubert did it, and the Kennedy people did nothing to dissuade them. It was only learned after the campaign that an aide to Bobby Kennedy did that mailing. Of course, the press--it was a one-day story to them, because, after all, they have a different standard for a Kennedy than they do even for a Hubert Humphrey. And another thing on Hubert, for example--the--the use of--o--o--of what I call hardball--and, I would say, since it's illegal, a spitball tactic--was that the Kennedy people got Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr.--Roosevelt being a legendary name in West Virginia--and they got him to go into the state and make speeches questioning Hubert Humphrey's war record. He wasn't in the service, because he was legitimately not in it. He--he didn't dodge the draft, but they left the implication that he had dodged the draft. And only after the election did they say, "Well, we're sorry." Hubert, as a result, I u--in his memoirs, he--he didn't want to be too much of a sour grape, but he said that "beneath that beautiful exterior was a toughness and a ruthless [sic] which I shall not forget and do not understand."

Day 8, Tape 2
00:40:18
[Frank Gannon]

In Ben Bradlee's book, he indicates that President Kennedy had a- a terrific interest in the military records of some of his opponents--Humphrey, and he mentions Rockefeller, and the--the man who ran against his brother for the s--senate race.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:40:34
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah. They did the same thing on Rockefeller. As a matter of fact, I think President Kennedy, a--ac--according to one of those--I think it was Bradlee himself said to him, "Look. You ought to ream out Rocky a little on his war record."

Day 8, Tape 2
00:40:51
[Frank Gannon]

Tom Wicker, the--the liberal columnist, wrote some years ago, "Nobody knows to this day, or ever will, whom the American people really elected president in 1960. Under the prevailing system, John F. Kennedy was inaugurated, but it is not at all clear that this was really the will of the people, or, if so, by what means and margin that will was expressed." Do you think that you were elected president of the United States in 1960?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:41:22
[Richard Nixon]

Well, many objective observers believe that I was. I'm not going to s--sit here and say that I believe that I was, because I haven't the evidence to prove that I was not or was. I--I will say this, however. There was no question, and these are facts, that there was immense fraud in Chicago, and it was all on that side, not on our side. And there was only eight thousand votes difference in us in Illinois--between us. So it's only a shift of four thousand votes and I would have won Illinois. Then I'd have needed only one other state--could have been Missouri, could have been South Carolina. A shift of twelve thousand votes out of seventy million would have meant my being elected rather than Kennedy. The other state, however, where the major charges of fraud was made was in Johnson's state of Texas. And there -- there were many precincts in heavily Johnson areas that twice as many voters voted as were on the rolls. In fact, there was a--there was a famous story that Johnson used to tell on himself. Kennedy kidded Johnson on occasion, and Johnson didn't particularly like it, of being "Landslide Johnson." That was because when Johnson went to the Senate the first time, he won by a very, very small amount, and he won, they thought, by some hanky-panky, because he played hardball, too. And then Johnson told this story about a little boy sitting on a curb in a--down in a south Texas town. The little boy was crying, and somebody came up and said to him, "Manuel, why are you crying?" He said, "I'm crying because my father was here Tuesday and he didn't come to see me." "Oh, but Manuel, your father's been dead for ten years." "I know, but he was here Tuesday and voted for Lyndon Johnson, and he didn't come to see me." So, in other words, the voting of dead people and the rest--it occurred. But people say why didn't--"If it did occur, why didn't you do"--as President Eisenhower and many other [sic] urged me to do--"why didn't you contest it?" Well, there were clear reasons. I really didn't have any doubt about contesting it. Not really. My heart told me to do it. My head said no. It said no for this fundamental reason. One, it would be--the United States would be without a president for almost a year before the challenges in Illinois and Texas could have been taken--could have been run through. And there was a good chance that we could finance it. Eisenhower was willing to raise money from his friends in order to support that challenge, and I turned it down. The second reason was, and this was because of my travels abroad. I'd been to Latin America, and I'd been to Africa, and I'd been to countries in the Far East that were just starting down the democratic path. The United States is an example of the democratic system. In those countries, an election means very little. You have an election, you either fix it or, if it comes out against you, you have a coup and overthrow them, or charge corruption or what-have-you. If in the United States an election were found to be fraudulent, it would mean that every pipsqueak in every one of these countries, if he lost an election, would simply bring a fraud charge and have a coup. So I felt that, under the circumstances, one, the United States couldn't afford to have a vacuum in leadership for that period of time without knowing who was president, and, two, even though we were to win it, the cost in world opinion and the effect on democracy in the broadest sense would be detrimental.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:44:49
[Frank Gannon]

So you--you do think it is possible, without reaching a judgment, that you were, in fact, elected the thirty-fifth president of the United States in November of 1960?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:45:01
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yes, it was possible. And I think President Kennedy felt it was possible, too. I remember when he came to see me right after the election, when we were both in Florida at the Key Biscayne Hotel. The first words that he a--he spoke after the press left and so forth, he says, "Well, I guess it's hard to tell who won this election." And I said, "Well, it's pretty clear that it's over now." I think he was rather relieved when I said that. That meant that, ef--that, in effect, I was telling him I was not going to contest it.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:45:34
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think he was feeling you out to see what you were going to do?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:45:37
[Richard Nixon]

At the time I didn't think so, but I--I know they were very sensitive about that particular point. It could be, but I'm not prepared to judge that.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:45:47
[Frank Gannon]

Did you feel that then, or in his later contacts with you, that he was embarrassed or defensive because in fact he might have been a usurper in your chair?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:45:57
[Richard Nixon]

No. I don’t think he was capable of that. I mean, after all, he plays hard, and he--when Mayor Daley--he talked to him on the phone after the election, and Mayor Daley said that--"Mr. President, with a little bit of luck and with the help of some good friends out in the precincts, we're going to carry Illinois for you." Well, Kennedy knew what he meant. And I think that, well, naturally, he's not going to formally approve hanky-panky. On the other hand, he knows that under the system that sometimes happens. No. H--he's never--I don’t think he was ever defensive. I think, however, he--he did feel that because the election was so close, it would be useful to have--at least make an offer for me to be in the administration, which of course he did offer, and I turned it down.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:46:47
[Frank Gannon]

What did he offer you?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:46:49
[Richard Nixon]

I--U--U--the United Nations or something else that I considered to be relatively unimportant. But symbolically it had been important.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:46:58
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think he may have done that in order to sort of co-opt you?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:47:03
[Richard Nixon]

No. I don't think he thought I would take it, but I think he thought that it was the proper thing to do. Well, as a matter of fact, I did the same thing for Humphrey. The election was close, and I offered Humphrey the chance to go to the United Nations, and he turned it down. I--it's--the--that's part of the--that's part of the process. The winner, if he needs the support of the loser, will offer him something, like, for example, after Johnson beat Goldwater, he couldn't have cared less, because he didn’t need Johnson [sic]--he beat him by so much. And I suppose the same would be true after I defeated McGovern. I didn't offer him a job.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:47:40
[Frank Gannon]

Did you take the fact that Kennedy came to you at Key Biscayne, rather than you going to him at Palm Beach, for this meeting, at which he--which he opened by saying, "It looks like we don't know who won," as a sign that he was trying to placate you or appease you in any way?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:47:56
[Richard Nixon]

I wouldn't say that. I--I think actually it was just the gracious thing to do. You know, let's understand, he plays hardball, but he has grace. He does the thing that is right in terms of the manners and so forth--he tries to. I try to, too. And i--in this particular respect, I think what happened here--I offered to come up to see him. We made the appointment by telephone. He says, "No, I've got a car and Secret Service and so forth. Let me come to see you." Which was quite true--I didn't have an automobile and so forth. So, under the circumstances, he felt that it was right to pri--and then he als--and--and then, of course, he could well make the point--I still outranked him. He was still a senator. I was still vice president. He was president-elect. So protocol-rise [he may mean "protocol-wise"] he should come, although, of course, I would have gone to see him.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:48:49
[Frank Gannon]

It's--i--it's one of the canons of the Nixon loyalists that you did, in fact, win the election in 1960. And now, more than twenty years later, shouldn't you study this? Don't you owe it to history, really, to study this and reach a decision about it, because if you did in fact win, as you indicate is possible, the way you acted then and since is arguably the most magnanimous and noble conduct in the history of American politics. If you think you didn't win, allowing your supporters to keep this story going is a fairly cynical manipulation of history. Don't you--shouldn't you--

Day 8, Tape 2
00:49:28
[Richard Nixon]

No.

[Frank Gannon]

--reach a decision--

Day 8, Tape 2
00:49:29
[Richard Nixon]

No. No.

[Frank Gannon]

--and state your case.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:49:30
[Richard Nixon]

I'm not going to get out and say that I did win and then cast a pall on the whole Kennedy record. I'm not going to say that. I will say, however, that I--I can understand how my supporters would do what they're--they are doing. They believe that, and I would say a--there is a very good prima facie case, which we didn't have the opportunity to prove because we did not legally contest the election, that we did win it, because as far as the--as the vote frauds were concerned--they were on the Kennedy side. I didn't hear of any cases where the Nixon people were able to--in any state that it mattered, for that matter--where--where it was the other way around. In Texas and in Illinois, for example, and in Cook County, in those precincts where more people voted that [sic] were on the rolls--they were all Kennedy precincts, never Nixon precincts. That's got to tell you something.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:50:31
[Frank Gannon]

Do you--[pauses]. Sorry, I lost my train of thought there.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:50:37
[Richard Nixon]

Sex or--

Day 8, Tape 2
00:50:39
[Frank Gannon]

Yeah, well, I'm always thinking about sex. That's--that's probably what did it.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:50:42
[Richard Nixon]

Sex, profanity--

Day 8, Tape 2
00:50:43
[Frank Gannon]

Do you--do you think that the--given--given the enormous frustration you must have felt to have been so near and yet so far--a hundred and thirteen thousand votes out of seventy-eight million cast for the presidency--do you, looking back--or at the time, did you feel that you were acting magnanimously or nobly in the way you conducted yourself in terms of not calling a recount?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:51:06
[Richard Nixon]

No. I--I--I wouldn't classify what I did magnanimous--

Day 8, Tape 2
00:51:09
[Frank Gannon]

Would you argue with those--

[Richard Nixon]

--or noble.

[Frank Gannon]

Would you argue with those--

Day 8, Tape 2
00:51:10
[Richard Nixon]

No.

[Frank Gannon]

--who did so characterize it?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:51:12
[Richard Nixon]

No, I can understand how others would--would--would say it. I think I was acting responsibly. "Responsible" is my favorite word. You do what is the right thing, and the right thing in that case was to do exactly what I did.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:51:24
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think that the average politician wouldn't have cried for a recount till the cows come home? Do you think most politicians look at it that way and do the right thing?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:51:33
[Richard Nixon]

I think they might've. I think that if the shoe had been on the other foot--that Kennedy might have contested it. But I don't know.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:51:45
[Frank Gannon]

Did you--did you have any idea at the time when you knew him as a senator or a congressman that John Kennedy was the--the ladies' man that he later turned out to be?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:51:53
[Richard Nixon]

No. He--he never confided in me about his, you know, adventures in that particular area.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:52:02
[Frank Gannon]

Were you shocked by these revelations?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:52:04
[Richard Nixon]

Not particularly, no. No, I--

Day 8, Tape 2
00:52:07
[Frank Gannon]

Why not? Didn't--didn't they show a disdain of convention and political propriety that's really sort of breathtaking?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:52:16
[Richard Nixon]

Well, to a certain extent I suppose that's true, but I have--I have always separated an individual's personal life from his political life. You take Franklin Roosevelt, for example. I respect Roosevelt for a great wartime leader. Now, all these revelations to the effect of his long-time affair with Lucy Mercer--I don't care about that. That’s between him and his family. What I am concerned about is how he handled the presidency and what kind of an example he set there. Now, as far as Kennedy is concerned, I will look at his record as president. I will be critical of some of the things he did--the Bay of Pigs, for example, and others. But as far as the--as far as his extracurricular activities are concerned, unless that affected his--his handling of the presidency, I'm not going to be critical of him.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:53:11
[Frank Gannon]

When I say these revelations are breathtaking--maybe they’re not breathtaking. Henr--Henry Kissinger said that power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. Is politics a--a more sexy or a more highly sexed profession than others? Maybe this goes on all the time.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:53:30
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I guess quite a few politicians have been swordsmen, and--but that doesn't mean that a lot of businessmen haven't been, and even college professors now and then have a little hanky-panky.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:53:42
[Frank Gannon]

Didn't you--you once told a story that--was it Richard Russell described the--the--the campaigning conduct of one of his Southern colleagues?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:53:53
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yes--Russell and Kefauver. Estes Kefauver, you know, the great fellow--he was my neighbor out in Spring Valley, and I didn't know that he was particularly a ladies' man, but apparently he was. Big, raw-boned Tennessee fellow who conducted the investigations of the Teamsters and all that sort of thing. Great hero of all the moralists and so forth, but apparently Russell was aware of the fact that he knew that he had a few affairs. And--and Russell, who--who beat him in the Florida primary, was saying afterwards how tough it was. He says, "This fellow, this Kefauver, he's s--he'd go all over the state." He said, "He'd have a Bible in the one hand and his thing in the other hand." He said something other than "thing,' but I'll--

Day 8, Tape 2
00:54:47
[Frank Gannon]

Do you--Barbara Walters said that you were one of the sexiest men she'd ever met. What do you think led her to that conclusion?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:54:56
[Richard Nixon]

Well, maybe she doesn't know many other men.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:55:02
[Frank Gannon]

There--there were widespread stories, and--and people have expressed not only moral shock but--but strategic concern about the widespread stories that President Kennedy smoked marijuana in his bedroom in the White House with one of his mistresses, [Mary Meyer], and in Timothy Leary's new autobiography he says that he provided [Mary Meyer] with amounts of the hallucinogen LSD, and she told him that she was turning on people so highly placed in Washington that she couldn't name them. And President Kennedy apparently joked with [Mary Meyer] about what would happen if the Soviets staged a sneak attacked [sic] while--while he was stoned. Given--is it--is it simplistic or unrealistic to expect that the president of the United States is going to be stone cold straight or sober for every minute that he's in the White House against the possibility that a sneak attacked [sic] or some kind of crisis that could happen that he'd have to respond to right away? Given the laws of human nature and--and the laws of probability, should Americans worry if the president, for an--an occasional couple of hours, is high on some substance or other?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:56:17
[Richard Nixon]

Well, of course, you can get high on alcohol, and I would say that, however, generally, at this time--and I felt this way when I was president, and I'm sure that others have as well--Eisenhower used to have his couple of drinks and so forth, but--but you--you are inhibited. You are inhibited wherever you are in that office, whether on vacation or in the office itself with regard to your personal habits. I would say that drugs--that's way beyond the pale, because they do something to the mind that is--could be even permanent, in my opinion. Alcohol, which of course is more common, is something that has to be taken having in mind the capacity of an individual to take it. Let me--let me say in one respect, probably the biggest drinker in the White House, at least in the post-war period, was Lyndon Johnson. Of course, he did everything big. He ate big, he drank big, and he was a big man. And I have seen him go through in one night, one of those midnight sessions that we had at the close of a s--the Senate when I was vice president of the United States---I've seen him go through a couple of bottles of bourbon in eight hours. Never drunk. And J--and -- and people used to complain la--later, that--when Johnson was in and the Kennedy people and others had turned against him, who had been for him--and they used to re--criticize him--say, "Well, Johnson drinks." Didn't bother me, because I knew Johnson could hold his liquor.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:57:57
[Frank Gannon]

Have you ever tried marijuana?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:57:59
[Richard Nixon]

Nope. Never. I've smelled it once. That was, strangely enough, at the '72 convention. I was in Florida at the time, and apparently what happened there--right outside Convention Hall there was a huge group of anti-war demonstrators were there [sic]. They all sm--marijuana. And I had s--it--it smelled sweet. And I went in, and I asked the makeup person--I says, "What is that stuff?" because I got it in my eyes. Said, "That was marijuana." It's the only time I ever smelled it. It was never in the White House when we were there, I can assure you. Never.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:58:30
[Frank Gannon]

Would you try it?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:58:31
[Richard Nixon]

No. No.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:58:32
[Frank Gannon]

Why--why don't you--

Day 8, Tape 2
00:58:33
[Richard Nixon]

I don't like--I don't like drugs of any sort--the uppers, the downers, and so forth and so on. Sleeping pills I have taken, because they have to be taken on occasion--when you're traveling or when you've had a lot to do, you've got to get your sleep. But beyond that, I think--I just--I just don't want to fool with it. My--I think all of us in--in politics--any--with any kind of intense activity we're already very tightly strung. And to add to it just may snap it.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:59:03
[Frank Gannon]

Margaret Mead said something to the effect that any young person who went through the later 1960s without having tried marijuana wasn't leading a normal life. Would--unless you know--would you be surprised if you found out that your daughters or sons-in-law who were in college or graduate school then had experimented with marijuana or had used it?

Day 8, Tape 2
00:59:26
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I can't speak for my sons-in-law. I haven't known them all that period of time. As far as my daughters--no question, they would never do it. A--b--i--b--it's the example at home.

Day 8, Tape 2
00:59:36
[Frank Gannon]

What about--there--there have been several alle--

Day 8, Tape 2
00:59:42
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

The following text appears in the original transcript but does not appear on a tape. It has not been edited.

[Frank Gannon]

[interrupted in the middle of the word "allegations"] --gations about your drinking habits. Woodward and Bernstein, Seymour Hersh, Henry Kissinger, William Safire, John Ehrlichman claim that from time to time--not to put too fine a point on it--you got smashed. Hersh claims that he talked to people who listened in on an extension when you were talking to Henry Kissinger when you slurred your words and made extreme statements or demands. And Ehrlichman has written that as early as 1962 he told you that he--unless you got your act into shape, or cleaned up your act in terms of drinking, that he wouldn't work for you in a presidential campaign. How do you respond to this range of--

Day Eight, Tape three of four, LINE FEED #3, 6-13-83, ETI Reel #57
June 13, 1983

Day 8, Tape 3
00:01:00
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

Day 8, Tape 3
00:01:02
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

[Frank Gannon]

--allegation?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:01:03
[Richard Nixon]

I don't respond to it. The record has been made. As far as these people are concerned, they're--they're speaking generally from a--from a different vantage point. And I just let the record speak for itself.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:01:16
[Frank Gannon]

Can you--can't you at least deny it?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:01:19
[Richard Nixon]

No, I'm not going to deny it. I cer--I--I've made it clear--I have--have had a--drinks on occasion, but I was never in a position--and Henry Kissinger bears this out, incidentally--there was never an occasion when I was not able to--to exert the leadership functions that I was supposed to exert. That's one of the reasons I was that restrained.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:01:43
[Frank Gannon]

You d--you're not concerned that--that a failure to deny might be seen as a tacit admission that--

Day 8, Tape 3
00:01:50
[Richard Nixon]

No. No.

[Frank Gannon]

--you can't deny--

Day 8, Tape 3
00:01:51
[Richard Nixon]

I--I'm--no--I'm not d--when I say I won't deny--I'm not going to deny that I have not had drinks, because I have. I do deny that I have ever had drinks to the point that I was unable to handle the office, and in a responsible way, of course. (Whispers.) Let's get on with--

Day 8, Tape 3
00:02:07
[Frank Gannon]

Yeah.

[Richard Nixon]

--the stuff here. You're taking too long.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:02:09
[Frank Gannon]

What was your--

Day 8, Tape 3
00:02:11
[Richard Nixon]

[Inaudible.]

[Frank Gannon]

Yeah. What was your meeting with President Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs like?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:02:21
[Richard Nixon]

Well, the way it happened was that he called me on the phone, and I was in Washington briefly to get a C.I.A. briefing prior--prior to some travel. And he asked me if I could come down to see him. And I said of course I would come, and we set the appointment for the next day. I should set the background for that, however. When I arrived in Washington, I arrived the day that the Bay of Pigs story began to break in the papers. I had an appointment that evening with Allen Dulles, the head of the C.I.A. He was going to brief me on foreign policy generally. The Washington Star reported that the landing had taken place. I assumed it had gone all right because I knew that it had been planned in the Eisenhower administration, and I just assumed this was the one that was being carried forward by Kennedy.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:03:23
[Frank Gannon]

After you left office, you had no knowledge of its being carried forward, though?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:03:26
[Richard Nixon]

No, but I assumed it would be, because it was well on its way by the time Kennedy became president. Then, when--and when Kennedy reappointed Allen Dulles as head of the C.I.A., I assumed that--that Dulles would continue to push for carrying out the particular plan. I'll never forget when Dulles d--came to the door. I opened the door, and I said--I shook hands, and I said, "Come on in, Allen." I said, "Would you like a drink?" He says, "I would." He says, "I really need one." I said, "Well, what's happened?" He said, "The--the whole Cuban venture is a failure. Everything is lost. This is the worst day of my life." And then he gave me chapter and verse as to what had happened. He said, "The greatest mistake I ever made in my life was not to tell the president that if he went in--that there was a chance it might fail and that he must not lose," because what had happened is--Allen Dulles explained it--is that Kennedy had cancelled two air strikes which were essential if it were going to have any chance to succeed--cancelled the strikes because he was concerned about the reaction he was getting from within his own administration, particularly people like Adlai Stevenson, in opposition to what was being done. So I had that background before going in. So I went to the White House, and Lyndon Johnson was in the office at the time, and we shook hands, had a little idle chatter, and then we sat down, Kennedy in his rocking chair, I sitting over on a couch, and he proceeded to fill me in.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:05:03
[Frank Gannon]

How did he look?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:05:05
[Richard Nixon]

Beaten, very wan, very tired, harassed. I had never seen him look down before. Never. But in this case there was no s--it was not surprising that he would look that way. And I felt, incidentally, complimented a bit that he felt that he could let his hair down. And he really did. He was--he was, I may say, quite outspoken in condemning all of the people that advised him--the C.I.A., the military, the Joint Chiefs of Staff--all of those that advised him. He says, "I asked every one of the sons-of-bitches about this. They all assured me it would succeed." And then he got up and started to pace the floor, and he--he--he used a string of four-letter words that he didn't learn at Harvard. Unless he went there in the sixties--he might have learned it [sic] then. But, in any event, I felt that it was--that--I felt it was good that he had a chance to vent his frustration and his anger on this occasion. And he said to me--and, incidentally, this tells us something about his past as well. He said that--that it had been the worst experience in his life to have to talk to some of those men that had been part of the invasion force--their families and so forth. He said it was the worst day of his life--his feeling that he had let them down. And I--as he told me that, I realized that this is the first time he had ever failed. He had never been through the fire of failure before, and that's why it had such an enormous impact on him.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:06:54
[Frank Gannon]

What did--why did he want to meet with you? D--did he ask for your support?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:06:58
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, of course. That was the purpose of it. Yes. He hadn't had me down before. No reason to, particularly, but in this instance he wanted the support of the Republicans for what he was not going to do, which was nothing at that particular point.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:07:12
[Frank Gannon]

Did you--did he ask for your advice, or did you offer advice on what you thought he should do?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:07:18
[Richard Nixon]

Yes. I said that--he suggested he would be interested in advice. And I said, "There's no question about what ought to be done." I said, "You've got to get Castro out of there." I would--said, "I would find a legal excuse, maybe defending our base at Guanta--Guantanamo, or saving the lives of American citizens who happened to be residing in or living in Cuba, to go in and take him out." And his answer was, well, he couldn't risk that, because he had heard from Chip Bohlen and other experts that Khrushchev was in a very cocky mood, and that if he moved in on Cuba, that Khrushchev might move on Berlin. So we kind of left that there. I then pledged my support, in addition, if he decided to do something in Laos, because his first speech after he became president had been with regard to the Communist attempts to take over Laos. And, you remember, he had said in his inaugural, "We will fight any time, any place, in defense of freedom." And Laos had been used as an example of where the United States might fight. And then I was really shocked to hear him say, "No, we can't do anything in Laos if we can't do something about Cuba ninety miles away. I don't think the American people will support doing something in Laos where we might be confronted with a million Chinese." Of course, later on it was he who made the decision to send the first fifteen thousand Americans into Vietnam. But that, of course, is another part of the story. So, under the circumstances, the conversation went on.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:08:53
[Frank Gannon]

Did you try to talk him around to your point of view?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:08:55
[Richard Nixon]

As well as I could. I felt that I had to put it into the hopper. He has a very quick mind. You don't need to try to--to arm-twist him or that sort of thing. And, anyway, it would have been improper for me to do so. So, as we were leaving, he escorted me out to the car. He was very gracious about it--asked me about possibility [sic] of running for governor--said I didn't plan to--urged that I write a book, which I did do--Six Crises. And he was--then he made a very interesting comment at the end that showed how his vision of the presidency had changed to an extent. In the campaign, he talked quite a bit about domestic issues, of course, because as a Democrat running against a conservative Republican he had to appeal to the liberals. And so he went through the usual liberal clichés about more for this and more for that and the other thing. But then he said, "You know, really, who gives a shit whether the minimum wage is one-fifteen or a dollar twenty-five when you think of this problem like this? Really, that's all that matters, isn't it?" Th--s--it meant, in other words, that now that he was in the office he realized that overriding these admittedly important domestic issues was the responsibility that a president has, and only the president can fulfill, of projecting the United States as a responsible foreign policy power and to defend the freedom of ourselves as well as others throughout the world.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:10:30
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think that going through what you call the fire of failure in the case of the Bay of Pigs changed President Kennedy's conduct or his outlook?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:10:41
[Richard Nixon]

Well, it changed him in one respect. He felt that he had to do something about it later. I mean, after losing in the Bay of Pigs, I think he felt that he had to prove himself in some other area. As a matter of fact, this had to be terribly disillusioning to his own people. I--I've read since then that one of those who helped train the Cuban--the--the--the dissident Cubans, who were in the landing force and so forth, was saying how terribly disillusioned they were, because they had this image of Kennedy, which was built up in the campaign and which came from his inaugural, that he was a macho fellow, that he would fight any time, any place, and take any risk for freedom around the world. And then they were let down so, and this man described it. He says, "It was--it was like their finding that Superman was a fairy." And so Kennedy had to change that image, and I think that's one of the reasons, among others, that he decided that the United States should play a strong, positive role in Vietnam. He didn't want to have Vietnam, for example, fall to the Communists, because having failed in Cuba--and, incidentally, that failure was compounded by the fact that after the Cuban missile crisis, he gave Castro a privileged sanctuary in Cuba and said that we would restrain any further attacks by dissident forces l--based in the United States. This meant that he had to do something in other places in the world. So Vietnam turned out to be the place.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:12:28
[Frank Gannon]

Do you see the Cuban missile crisis--that outcome of the Cuban missile crisis is usually seen as a--a Kennedy success, in--in--indeed the fruit of the lesson that he learned in the Bay of Pigs failure. Do you see the Cuban missile crisis as a failure, as another failure, or as not--

Day 8, Tape 3
00:12:43
[Richard Nixon]

No.

[Frank Gannon]

--a success?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:12:44
[Richard Nixon]

I think--I--I would say--I myself have said that the Cuban missile crisis was one where he very properly stood up to the Soviets, where he called their hand, where he instituted the blockade, and where they backed down and took out the missiles. On the other hand, the price that was paid, which many didn't realize at the time, where we took missiles out--claims that they weren't useful any more--we took intermediate missiles out of Greece and Turkey--and also an agreement to the effect that the United States in the future would not support or--any actions from the American shores against Cuba. This gave Castro the privileged sanctuary that he had and has today, and allows him--presently Cuba is the most awesome military power in the Western Hemisphere except for the United States and possibly Canada--and also allows him to be the most effective Soviet proxy in the world, running around Africa and other places when they should be concentrating on Cuba.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:13:54
[Frank Gannon]

Did you talk to President Eisenhower about his opinion of the Kennedy's actions in the Bay of Pigs?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:14:01
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yes, and he was as astounded as I was. I think what irritated him was the reflection on his leadership, the idea that all Kennedy was doing was carrying out the Eisenhower plan. And I remember he gritted his teeth--he said, "Can you imagine they suggest that this was my plan? It wasn't my plan." He said, "I would never have approved a plan for an amphibious action of that sort without adequate air cover." And he says, "The plan did provide it for, and the reason it didn't work is that he withdrew the air cover." No, Eisenhower felt very, very strong about that, and very critical of Kennedy. MacArthur, too--MacArthur's point was when--he felt that Kennedy did not recognize the prime rule that a great power must follow. You don't start something unless you're prepared to finish it. And he should have thought of that before he went in. But having said all those things, Kennedy having failed in Cuba, I think, led to a certain extent to his doing what he did in Vietnam. And then the Vietnam thing was compounded by the fact that when Diem was murdered, assassinated, during a coup which he, Kennedy, had supported, that led to the musical chairs which exacerbated the Vietnamese problems, and the first fifteen thousand combat troops committed by Kennedy, and then escalating from there on. So you can really trace in a way--you can trace, in a way, if you want to follow it historically--the involvement in Vietnam back to Cuba. One failure leads to another. In order to correct one failure, you want to prove yourself strong in another, and you're strong in a place where it's difficult to be strong. Vietnam was one of those.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:15:52
[Frank Gannon]

To reduce it to a--to an absurdly simple level, could you say that that the reason--one of the reasons we went in to Vietnam was to prove that Superman wasn't a fairy?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:16:04
[Richard Nixon]

Well, there was a macho feeling about it, as I understand it, and as I reflect on it since then. The Green Beret concept--the--the feeling, too, as I say, that--that--that was expressed in the inaugural--"we're going to fight any time, any place." Well, we didn't do it in Cuba, so we have to do it somewhere else. And I think it could have led to that. Now, understand, I do not criticize Kennedy for going into Vietnam. I think going in was necessary. I think it was proper. I have always supported that. I have never gone along with many in our own administration who have--have indicated--"Well, it was a bad war, and all we're trying to do is to be sure that we end it in the right way." If it was a bad war, it should have been ended immediately. The point of the matter is it wasn't conducted properly, and that was the great mistake.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:17:02
[Frank Gannon]

Do you remember the first time you met Bobby Kennedy? What was he like?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:17:07
[Richard Nixon]

Well, Bobby Kennedy I met when he was working for Joe McCarthy. See, I was an investigator, and so was he. He was very intense, very different from Jack. In fact, Alice Longworth had a priceless comment about the three. I think she--she said Jack Kennedy was like a--a--a debonair--I'll try that again. Alice--I remember Alice Longworth used to describe the three Kennedy brothers, and she used to revel in how different they were. She said Jack Kennedy was a debonair man of the world, a movie star. And Bobby Kennedy was an eighteenth-century Jesuit priest. And Teddy Kennedy was a gregarious Irish politician. And I think that says it well. Bobby Kennedy was humorless. I've often heard Jack Kennedy laugh and--and tell funny things. I didn't know Bobby that well, but from what I've been reading about him, he was very intense, very hard-working, very dedicated. But he could be dedicated to anything he was in at the particular time. He was totally dedicated to McCarthy and what he was doing, and John [McClellan], who was the overall chairman of that committee, said that he had never seen a more dedicated, hard-working man than Bobby Kennedy when he was working for McCarthy and then for McClellan. So I saw him--the other t--another time that I saw him, apart from casual meetings and other occasions, was a football game. The year was 1960, or, I should say, 1959, and it was the playoff game for the National Football League championship. That was before the leagues--the new league came into being. It was a game in Baltimore between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants. The Colts, incidentally, won, and it was a pretty good game. But I remember I was sitting by Bobby in the owner's box, and I was interested in the game. Bobby wasn't interested in the game. He never talked about the game. He wanted to ask me how was--how would Jack do if he were--entered the California primary. It was a long way off. I said I thought he would do well, which I believed at that particular point. But I could see then that this was a totally political animal.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:19:26
[Frank Gannon]

We have to break.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:19:27
[Richard Nixon]

Okay.

[Offscreen voice]

[Inaudible.]

Day 8, Tape 3
00:19:41
[Action note: Picture fades to black.]

Day 8, Tape 3
00:19:45
[Action note: Picture returns.]

[Richard Nixon]

Well, you know the reason Helms was so concerned about that June twenty-third tape and so forth was--

Day 8, Tape 3
00:19:52
[Offscreen voice]

How's that now?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:19:53
[Richard Nixon]

--remember this [inaudible]--

[Action note: Color bars appear.]

Day 8, Tape 3
00:19:54
[Frank Gannon]

It's the Mafia.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:19:55
[Richard Nixon]

It had to be that that was all in there.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:19:57
[Frank Gannon]

Yeah.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:19:58
[Richard Nixon]

And he didn't want to turn it over--

Day 8, Tape 3
00:19:59
[Frank Gannon]

Surely it was.

[Richard Nixon]

--and never did.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:20:00
[Frank Gannon]

Well, it was all over the place.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:20:01
[Richard Nixon]

And it came in later, see, and he just never did give it to us.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:20:04
[Action note: Various people speak inaudibly offscreen.]

[Richard Nixon]

I didn’t know.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:20:05
[Frank Gannon]

Mm-hmm.

[Richard Nixon]

Don't you think that's it?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:20:06
[Frank Gannon]

Yeah, that's--

Day 8, Tape 3
00:20:07
[Richard Nixon]

And Helms is basically a Democrat.

[Frank Gannon]

That's what they're scared of.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:20:08
[Richard Nixon]

Don't you think so?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:20:09
[Frank Gannon]

Yeah. The--the Kennedys were scared because it would have tied Kennedy to--

Day 8, Tape 3
00:20:14
[Richard Nixon]

Gian--

[Frank Gannon]

Giancana.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:20:15
[Richard Nixon]

--cana.

[Frank Gannon]

To Exner--through--through Exner.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:20:17
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah.

[Frank Gannon]

And--

[Offscreen voice]

[Inaudible.]

Day 8, Tape 3
00:20:18
[Frank Gannon]

--the C.I.A. would have been up to their [keisters] in Mafia.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:20:23
[Richard Nixon]

Mm-hmm.

[Offscreen voice]

Hi-ho.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:20:24
[Richard Nixon]

Hm.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:20:31
[Action note: Picture returns to screen.]

[Richard Nixon]

Well, also the--you know, I sort of put aside these assassination plots, but obviously there was one. Operation Mongoose.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:20:42
[Frank Gannon]

Oh, there's no question that there was--

Day 8, Tape 3
00:20:44
[Richard Nixon]

See, we didn't know about that.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:20:45
[Frank Gannon]

And it got to a very far point.

[Richard Nixon]

I didn't know about it as vice president, see. I didn't know about it then. H--Helms never told me about that, see.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:20:50
[Frank Gannon]

Well, that only came out in the '75--

Day 8, Tape 3
00:20:51
[Richard Nixon]

That's right.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:20:52
[Frank Gannon]

--with the Rockefeller stuff.

[Richard Nixon]

That's right. Hm.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:20:55
[Frank Gannon]

This damn fly.

[Offscreen voice]

Ten seconds.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:20:56
[Frank Gannon]

Does it bother you?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:20:58
[Richard Nixon]

No, I haven't seen it yet. I saw it earlier.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:21:07
[Action note: Picture fades to black, then returns.]

Day 8, Tape 3
00:21:08
[Offscreen voice]

Five seconds.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:21:21
[Frank Gannon]

After President Kennedy's assassination, you wrote a letter to Mrs. Kennedy offering your services if she needed them in any way and your support. Several weeks later, she wrote you a--a handwritten reply, which you reprint in your memoirs. I wonder if you would read that letter.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:21:43
[Richard Nixon]

"Dear Mr. Vice President, I do thank you for your most thoughtful letter. You two young men, colleagues in Congress, adversaries in 1960, and now look what has happened. Whoever thought such a hideous thing could happen in this country? I know how you must feel--so long on the path, so closely missing the greatest prize, and now, for you, all the question comes [sic] up again, and you must commit all you [sic] and your family's hopes and efforts again. Just one thing I would say to you: If it does not work out as you had hoped for so long, please be consoled by what you already have--your life and your family. We never value life enough when we have it, and I would not have had Jack live his life any other way, though I know his death could have been prevented, and I will never cease to torture myself with that. But if you do not win, please think of all that you have. With my appreciation and my regards to your family. Sincerely."

Day 8, Tape 3
00:22:47
[Frank Gannon]

Do you--do you remember your first meeting with Ted Kennedy?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:22:53
[Richard Nixon]

It was a rather curious meeting, as a matter of fact. It was while I was vice president. I had just become vice president in about 1953 or '54. And my office, the vice-presidential office, was right across the hall from Jack Kennedy's senatorial office, and I used to get to the office quite early in the morning. One day I arrived at my usual early time, and here was a young fellow sitting on a suitcase outside of the Kennedy office door, which was not yet open. It was Ted Kennedy. So I invited him in and had a cup of coffee with him, and we talked a little about wherever he was going to school, and that's how we got acquainted for the first time.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:23:34
[Frank Gannon]

Did you see a--a future senator in him then? Did you--could you see the family resemblance?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:23:41
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, the resemblance, yes. I would say, incidentally, in terms of appearance, that he was the best-looking of the Kennedy group. I don't mean that they all weren't good-looking men, but Teddy, I think, in terms of appeal to women, probably was the most glamorous.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:24:00
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think that he has a--in 1984, or--he's still a young man--in 1988--that he still has a viable presidential future in American politics?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:24:11
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, without a doubt. He has much of what it takes to go all the way. First, he has money. Second, he has the best brains that money can buy. And third, he also has the Kennedy mystique, which st--is still around. He is the one that carries the torch for both of his brothers, both of whom were assassinated. I would say, too, that he's a--a very good campaigner. As I look at the three of them, curiously enough--this'll surprise some people--the one who was the most effective senator was not Jack or Bobby, but Teddy. Bobby wasn’t there long enough. Jack was not too well during his Senate years and was campaigning for president a great deal of the time. But Teddy is a very natural politician. He likes the Senate. He likes being on a committee, he has a very good staff, he works hard, and so forth. I would say that his problems are--he has one other asset going for him. Who's going to beat him? Well, maybe one of the Democratic candidates currently on the scene will rise to the top, but at the present time, as somebody has recently said, you've got about six candidates for vice president running for president on the Democratic ticket. I would say, too, that he's got to pray in 1984, assuming that lightning doesn't strike him through some sort of a draft, that Ronald Reagan wins, because if Ronald Reagan wins in 1984, I think that in 1988 it will be very, very difficult for him to take on an incumbent Democratic president. In other words, he can run in '88, but I think by that time he's going to be over the hill in age, which brings me, of course, to the last point. His problem is that at the present time one of his major appeals--one of the major appeals of the Kennedys generally has been that they appeal to youth. And there's nothing more pathetic that a middle-aged man trying to act like a teenager. He's got to grow old gracefully and still be young enough in heart and actions and so forth to appeal to youth. But adding it all up, I would say that of all the people on the scene today, he has as good a chance as any to go clear to the top.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:26:32
[Frank Gannon]

The--the conventional wisdom is that although he's got two other--or two major problems--one is that although he has the looks and the money and the--the staff that he doesn't have the--the ambition, the fire in the belly, that the others did. And then, of course, the other is--is Chappaquiddick.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:26:52
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I would say there's no question but that Bobby had more fire in his belly than either of the other two. But Jack had enough. Teddy doesn't seem to have it at the present time. And believe me, you've got to have fire in your belly. You've got to pay the price.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:27:06
[Frank Gannon]

Can you fake it?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:27:08
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yes. I think so. I--and I think that that is what his admirers, the rest of sort of the Kennedy entourage that realize they want--or want another one in there--that they'll attempt to have it put on. Anything can be faked of--particularly in this age of television.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:27:28
[Frank Gannon]

Isn't the camera supposed to never lie, though? Wouldn't--wouldn't the camera reveal that?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:27:32
[Richard Nixon]

I--I don't give that much credence to what the camera can do. It can see through a lot, but it--I would say that if it comes up to the point where he thinks he has a real chance, he'll get up for it. He's not a weak man. Now, as far as the Chappaquiddick thing is concerned, that's hurt him up to this point. It--certainly the Roger Mudd interview, the famous mudg--Roger Mudd interview on Chappaquiddick, hurt him the last time around. But as time goes on, that's going to recede into the background, and people are going to look at the Teddy Kennedy of today, rather than the Teddy Kennedy in his misspent youth. You know, it's an interesting thing. That--that used to drive Lyndon Johnson right up the wall--the fact that Teddy Kennedy, after the death of this girl at Chappaquiddick--that he seemed to get off so lightly. And he once remarked to a friend--he says, "Well, gee, if I've been out with a girl, and she'd been stung in the ass by a pum--a"--strike that. He said that--"If I'd been out with a girl, and she'd been stung in the ass by a bumblebee, they would have put me in Sing Sing for life." And there is somewhat of a double standard there. I think Johnson had a good beef.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:28:51
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think he's got off lightly--Ted Kennedy on Chappaquiddick?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:28:55
[Richard Nixon]

I would say that it seems to be a very light--well, let me put it this way. From a legal standpoint, it would seem so, where death was involved, and the rest. From the standpoint, however, of the political price he paid--who knows? The personal price he paid--who knows? I mean, only he can tell us about that. But he's paid a price.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:29:21
[Frank Gannon]

Does it say something about the American political process, or the American people, that someone who--who did something like that, or to whom something like that happened, x number of years later can be back as a very viable political presidential possibility?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:29:38
[Richard Nixon]

Well, it says something about the political process generally, not just in the United States. People generally are--are not going to hold a--an action against an individual forever. He--i--i--an individual has a chance to come back from adversity. And he has that chance if he's able to wheel it. I do not think, as a matter of fact, that Teddy Kennedy failed in his 1980 bid, or in the earlier bids, solely because or even primarily because of Chappaquiddick. Perhaps without Chappaquiddick he would have been more sure to win, but I think it was the fact that he just didn't seem to be presidential. He didn't answer the other questions well as--as well as the ones about Chappaquiddick. He didn't seem to be decisive enough and strong enough. Now he may be able to overcome that, and if he can overcome that image of indecisiveness, of knowledge about the issues, the Chappaquiddick thing will get behind him. I think it's possible, particularly in view of the fact that there doesn't seem to be much competition coming up on the Democratic side.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:30:52
[Frank Gannon]

What do you think, or do you have any opinions about the subsequently alleged Castro connection behind President Kennedy's assassination?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:31:05
[Richard Nixon]

I know there's been a great deal of speculation as to whether or not Oswald was acting alone or whether he was part of a conspiracy and that Castro was behind that conspiracy due to the fact that Oswald had spent some time in Cuba. I would state, first, that there is a strong hypothetical case for that conspiracy theory. First, Castro had a motive. The motive was that there was a plot to assassinate Castro--no question about that--th--called the Mongoose plot. The C.I.A. had drawn up the plans to carry it out. Second, there was no question about Kennedy being aware of it, because he discussed it with other people--aware of the plot. And also there doesn't seem to be much question that Castro was aware of the fact that there was a plot, because two months before the assassination he made a comment to the effect that if the Americans were trying to engage in activities against him, they--they--that they should fear for their own lives. I would say, too, that Castro looking at Kennedy might have reached the conclusion--"Well, after all, he's capable of having a plot of this sort," and, of course, here's the conspiratorial Communist mind working. After all, i--if Kennedy, a man who had no qualms about supporting a coup which resulted in the assassination of a friend, Diem, in South Vietnam, would therefore have even less qualms about engaging in activities that result in the assassination of an enemy, Fidel Castro. Now, that is, of course, the hypothetical case. Lyndon Johnson put it very graphically to Howard K. Smith when he said Cas--Kennedy was out to get Castro and Castro got him first.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:33:07
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think Johnson believed that back then?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:33:12
[Richard Nixon]

Possibly he did believe it, because Johnson tended to think sometimes in conspiratorial terms, too. I would say that as far as the hypothetical case is concerned, and I outline this because this has widely been published in this country, and abroad as well, that it is there. However, the factual evidence, and this has been investigated over and over again, is that he was acting alone. So I have to assume that that is the case, and I will say that is the case. I think all of us should say that is the case unless we have facts to disprove that and prove the hypothetical case.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:33:48
[Frank Gannon]

Didn't Johnson, at another point, referring to the Mafia connection, make some remark about--

Day 8, Tape 3
00:33:53
[Richard Nixon]

Well, Johnson said--as a matter of fact, when he became president, he says, "I inherited a damned Murder, Incorporated, in the Caribbean," because apparently there was a plan to assassinate a few other people as well.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:34:07
[Frank Gannon]

How--how do you react to the knowledge that the C.I.A. used the Mafia to set an assassination of Fidel Castro?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:34:18
[Richard Nixon]

Well, the whole assassination game is kind of beyond me, in any event. When I spoke of what we would do about Kennedy--about Castro when I spoke to President Kennedy, I was not speaking in terms of assassination. I was speaking in terms of recommending action in which the United States would move in and overthrow Castro. Just assassinating Castro I don't think would have done the p--done the job, because there are Castroites, more now th--even than there were then. I think what was necessary would be to support a--a counterrevolutionary activity that would overthrown [sic] the Castro regime. So, consequently, I must say that I never knew of any C.I.A. assassination schemes while I was president--

Day 8, Tape 3
00:35:11
[Frank Gannon]

Would you have squelched them?

[Richard Nixon]

--and, frankly, I would never have approved one.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:35:16
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think that the--that the knowledge of this--this--this--this tangled web of the C.I.A.'s involvement with the Mafia, President Kennedy's involvement with one of his mistresses, Judith Exner, and her also at the same time being the mistress of one of the Mafia leaders--do you think that accounts for the C.I.A.'s tenderness about the Bay of Pigs?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:35:40
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I've always wondered about why they were so tender. It is well-known that I requested the full file on the Bay of Pigs--what came that brought it on, how it was handled, the preparations for it, how it was handled, and the aftermath. But I was never able to get it from the C.I.A. And it took till after I left office in 1975 and the Rockefeller Commission investigation that some of this information began to come forth. I didn't know there was an operation for assassination. I didn't--and as a matter of fact, when you speak about Johnson saying he inherited--inherited Murder, Incorporated--that really hadn't worked its well--way into my consciousness either.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:36:23
[Frank Gannon]

You are nothing if not a tough guy, a tough leader. Why did you take no for an answer from the C.I.A. when you asked for this stuff and they--they--they first didn't send it and then sent the wrong stuff? Why didn't you shake them up and get what you wanted?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:36:35
[Richard Nixon]

Well, it was a little difficult because, after all, I had--I had named Helms as the head of the C.I.A., and I'd either--I--all I could--about all I could hope to do then was to change him, which, incidentally, I did after the election in 1972, and get a new man in who would do what I felt was proper. As a matter of fact, I do not think that a C.I.A. head should hold himself above the presidency, just as I don't think the State Department Foreign Service should hold itself above the presidency. Anything the president wants is something in terms of information that the C.I.A. should provide for him. As a matter of fact, I was never able to get from the State Department the full disclosure of what commitments were made at the time of the bombing halt--the bombing halt that Johnson ordered, which led to the Paris peace talks, which aborted and, of course, delayed the ending of the war rather than brought it closer to an end.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:37:43
[Frank Gannon]

Does it say something, or anything, about the C.I.A. that having devoted its attention, its purpose, and its considerable resources--I think at one point something--several hundred people were working on Operation Mongoose--that they weren't able to assassinate Fidel Castro successfully?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:38:03
[Richard Nixon]

The C.I.A., a--a--has, of course, just as every organization has, some very good people. But in terms of its operational capabilities, I've never been very high on them, not in my time. I--I think in the earlier period under Allen Dulles there were some operations that were extremely effective, but later on it became so cluttered up with bureaucracy and so forth that I never had much confidence in what they could do. But that--incidentally, I don't want to knock them alone. I didn't have much confidence in what some of our military were doing either. They were just muscle-bound by too much money and too much bureaucracy. And the same is true of the State Department. Basically what we're talking about here is the curse of a huge overblown bureaucracy, everybody writing memos to everybody else, and a lot of people with great educations trying to do things rather than getting the people that could do things to take charge. That's the curse of government, and that's what a president is for. He's got to shake these people up and make them--make them brace up. But the C.I.A.--the C.I.A.'s capabilities in that area it didn't seem to me were that good.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:39:14
[Frank Gannon]

You make it sound--

Day 8, Tape 3
00:39:15
[Richard Nixon]

In fact, that shouldn't have been too difficult a job, if they were going to assassinate--incidentally, I question the wisdom of assassination, however. I--I never approved it.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:39:24
[Frank Gannon]

Do you question its morality?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:39:25
[Richard Nixon]

I would not approve it now, because I don't think it's effective.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:39:27
[Frank Gannon]

Do you question its morality? Would you stop it because it's not wise or effective, or because it's immoral?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:39:32
[Richard Nixon]

Because it's not wise and effective. Let me say that in terms of immoral, if something is immoral and therefore becomes ineffective, that's something else again. No, I wouldn't like the morality of it. War is immoral, but sometimes you have to wage war, a defensive war, and maybe that makes it--doesn't make it moral, but it certainly isn't immoral to--t--to resist, for example, a Communist takeover of South Vietnam. It's more immoral to allow the Communists to take it over and have hundreds of thousands of boat peeper--people drown in the China Sea and millions of Campodia [sic - he may mean "millions of Cambodians" or "millions in Cambodia"] killed and starved to death. But in terms of the--of the moral problem as far as assassination is concerned, certainly I--I--I don't like the idea of it at all, but what you have to look at here--and I'm putting it on the broader context--you have to look at it in terms of what is effective to serve the interests, the broader interests of American foreign policy resisting Communist aggression. And the broader interests, I think, are not served by trying to assassinate a political leader.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:40:36
[Frank Gannon]

If that had succeeded, though, would you have approved of it and--and supported it?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:40:40
[Richard Nixon]

That's a hypothetical question I don't think I'd go into.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:40:44
[Frank Gannon]

You almost make it sound like the C.I.A. is--at times has been a--a loose cannon, almost, a--and there are people--conspiratorialists, I guess they could be called--who believe that there's almost a parallel government operating out in Langley on its own. Do you worry about the independent sort of super-power of the C.I.A. in terms of reporting to presidents--

Day 8, Tape 3
00:41:07
[Richard Nixon]

Yes.

[Frank Gannon]

--and doing things?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:41:08
[Richard Nixon]

I worry about that, and I worry about the independence of the State Department Foreign Service. I worry about the independence of the Pentagon--the professionals over there. There's a tendency of all these huge bureaucracies in the national security field to think that they have a franchise and that they can be bigger than the president and so forth and so on. Now, the military shapes up the best because they realize there's a direct chain of command between the president as commander-in-chief and the military. But, boy, it's hard to shape up the State Department at times, particularly with their propensity for leaking and all that sort of thing. And the C.I.A. does tend at times, in my view, or did--whether the situation is true now under Casey I don't know--but they did tend at times to feel that they were an institution that went on and on and on--that presidents just come and go.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:41:59
[Frank Gannon]

In February 1971, you invited Mrs. John Kennedy and her children to come to the White House for a private dinner to see the portraits--the official portraits of President and Mrs. Kennedy that were going to be unv--unveiled. Do you remember that visit--that private visit?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:42:17
[Richard Nixon]

Yes. We arranged it because we knew that she would like to see the portraits. We knew also, and we understood this, that her feeling about privacy was such that she didn't want to come with her children to see it with a huge crowd of tourists and others around. So we arranged it very privately--arranged the visit privately. There was no press present. No pictures were taken. It was just unfortunate. It would have been nice to have had a picture. We didn't have the White House photographer there. And it was a very pleasant evening. The--the children were just growing up then. They were very young, and they had the problems that young people have. For example, I remember that one of them--I think it was the boy--when sh--Mrs. Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy--ordered milk for him, said, "Well, I--I'll take some milk." He says, "I don't like milk in foreign countries. It's so icky." But he drank the milk here, and then she was a little concerned because he spilled some of it. But what I, incidentally, am particularly delighted at is that both the boy and the girl seem to have grown up very, very well, because it's terribly difficult for children of celebrities, and particularly one in the spotlight such as the children of John Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy, to grow up and--and just be normal, or even--even, shall we say, subnormal. And they are far more than that I am sure. I remember, too, that when she came in, we were sitting around in the--in the little reception area before going in to dinner, and the White House butler who waited on us had been there in the Kennedy White House--[Alan]. And he asked everybody what they wanted to have for drinks. He came to Mrs. Kennedy, and he said, "What would you like, Mrs. Kennedy?" And she said--she said, "Ginger ale." He looked startled--said, "Ginger ale?" She said, "Well, maybe a little vodka." And so we had our drinks, and then we went in to dinner, and she talked about campaigning, and she had the same problem that we had. She said she remembered going into hotel rooms all over the country and getting sick, because every time you went into the hotel room they would have painted it the day before to be sure it was nice and fresh. And then on one occasion when the conversation seemed to drift away, she said something rather interesting. She said, "You know, I always lived in a dream world."

Day 8, Tape 3
00:44:42
[Frank Gannon]

What--what are your impressions of Jacqueline Kennedy?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:44:48
[Richard Nixon]

Well, she's--I do not know her well, first. I was--we were invited to the wedding. We were unable to go to the wedding. And I've only seen her socially on--at least--maybe two occasions. From what I read about her, I would say that she has star quality. She handled herself, of course, in a very effective way at the time of--of President Kennedy's assassination. and that has made her place in history. And whatever she did before and whatever she did after, it's not going to affect that. That's the way it is sometimes. One big event overwhelms all the negatives, if there are negatives, on either side of that event.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:45:33
[Frank Gannon]

Do you remember your first meeting with Lyndon Johnson?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:45:37
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I was flat on my back at the time. I was in the Congress. I'd just come to Congress, and I was--was carrying Tricia, our older girl, and slipped on the ice at the little apartment house where we lived out in Alexandria, and broke both elbows. So I had to go to Walt--not to Walter Reed--I went to the Naval Hospital, as a matter of fact--Bethesda. And right across the hall from me was a Texas congressman who was a member of the Ways and Means Committee who had fallen on the ice in Washington on one--crossing one of the icy streets. You don't have ice in Washington that much, and so--and I, from the West, wasn't used to it at all, and neither was he. So we were sharing those opposite suites. And in came this very handsome, vigorous young man bringing a big bowl of chili. It was Lyndon Johnson. This Texas congressman loved a little restaurant out on--near Rockville he said made the best chili, even better than they made in Texas. And so Johnson had gone out there and got the chili and brought it in to us. So I shared the chili with the congressman and Lyndon Johnson. But I remember he was tall, of course. He was a big man, he was handsome--thinner then than he is now, or was later on. But he cut a striking figure. He--also I saw from that time, and it was always true thereafter--he was a fashion plate. And he had cufflinks--most of the rest of us wore just sort of store clothes--well-tailored suits. A very impressive-looking fellow.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:47:11
[Frank Gannon]

Wasn't--or maybe that was part of the fact that he was considered to be sort of a ladies' man?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:47:17
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I--you know, all this talk about Johnson and Kennedy being ladies' men, again, it's something I never discussed with either. I never participated in any of their activities as far as I know, and they--and frankly, I think it's pretty much irrelevant in terms of their performance in office. My point is this--whether it's being a ladies' man, whether it's the health problem, whether it's any other activity of that sort, what is important is what did the man do. He's got to have a personal life. He's got to have a private life. Now, it's only when his private life impinges upon his public life that it becomes a public issue. And if someone who is a ladies' man does it so blatantly that it sets a bad public example, that's something else again. And the same is true of whatever it is--philandering, drinking, or if his health is so bad that it impinges on his public performance, as it did with Woodrow Wilson when he'd had a stroke and for seventeen months didn't even act as president, or Franklin D. Roosevelt when he was not--no longer able to act effectively when he went to Yalta. That's when the--health then becomes the issue. But otherwise, it's not a legitimate issue, and it's one I don't like to discuss.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:48:42
[Frank Gannon]

One gathers that Lyndon Johnson really had to be experienced to be understood or appreciated. What--what was he like to know?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:48:51
[Richard Nixon]

Big. Everything about Johnson was big. He was a tall man, a big man. He gestured expansively. He ate enormously, much too much. He had to constantly diet. He could drink like nobody else. I have never seen anybody who could drink so much and not be affected by it. I never saw him drunk. Oh, he'd maybe slur a word now and then, but Lyndon was always in total control. He was the man in motion, perpetually in motion. Without question, when--when you judge Lyndon Johnson, he was the most effective legislative leader of the period that I was around, thirty-seven years or so-- the most effective legislature--lative lea--probably the most effective legislative leader of the century. He had all the moves. He knew how to use power. He was ruthless. He was persuasive mentally, physically, emotionally, and every other way. Overwhelming was the way I'd describe him. When I describe him as a man in motion, I have a vivid recollection of Lyndon Johnson. On those occasions when I'd be presiding in the Senate and we'd have a visitor, as we often would, from a foreign country come to address the Senate--not a joint session but just a session of the Senate, Johnson would escort them in. Now the senators would sit back there. When the visitor--visitor was introduced, most of them would clap (claps slowly) in that vapid way, you know, sort of like that, like--many times particularly you find this in the East. The British do it the same way, that sort of polite hand-clapping. But Johnson was a cheerleader. He would always go (claps quickly) like a machine gun and made everybody else do it. He'd, you know, look around like that. That was Lyndon Johnson. He was a leader. He was strong. He's quite a man.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:50:38
[Frank Gannon]

Was he a nice man?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:50:40
[Richard Nixon]

Yes. Anyone who knew him personally, yes. He could be brutal, I understand. He--I've talked to some of the girls who were in our White House who were in his, and he--said that--that he'd send them out with tears and--because they made a mistake in doing a letter, or didn't carry out an order as he thought it should be. But the next day he'd give them a huge gift. He was volatile, et cetera. He was ruthless, he was tough, but he also had a very, very big heart, in my opinion. But, you see, I--I'm seeing him from my vantage point. Whether others who knew him in a different way felt that way, I don't know.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:51:21
[Frank Gannon]

What--what happened to him, then, because one tends to think, I guess, of his--of his latter days as president, and the last words that come to mind would be handsome, vigorous, decisive, even ruthless. One thinks of him as being sort of sad and an almost melancholy figure.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:51:41
[Richard Nixon]

Well, he did become sad and melancholy. He was broken. I--I think you go through several phases here. First, you had the Johnson of the Senate days, and then there was no one that was his equal, and I don’t think there will be anyone who will be his equal. L--let me say that one who has the makings of being as effective is Howard Baker, who, unfortunately, is not going to be leader in the Senate now since he's not running again. B--but Baker didn't have the ruthless quality that Johnson had. Johnson was not only persuasive, but he liked power, and he used it. When he became president, for example, he would get all of the F.B.I. reports that he possibly could on the various senators, and he'd look them right in the eye and let them know in no uncertain terms that he knew what they were up to--I mean, in their extracurricular activities. And so he--he used power effectively, and if he couldn't win them by persuasion, he scared them to death, or he rewarded them. He rewarded, he punished, he cajoled, he--he did it all. That was the Senate days. Then he became vice president. Those were very unhappy days for him--unhappy because he felt from the beginning that he was superior to Kennedy, that he should have been in the office himself. He was a loyal vice president, however. He never cut Kennedy up while he was vice president. But it wasn't reciprocated. Kennedy, the president, did not cut him up, but Bobby really did him in, always putting out little stories about things--gaffes that he presumably had made. And Edgar Hoover, who of course was very close to Johnson, said that--told me on one occasion that in that period --that Johnson was about ready to resign as vice president because--because Kennedy, in a National Security Council meeting, had berated him and humiliated him right in front of the president. And I would say that in that particular respect that Johnson, I think, liked Jack Kennedy up to a point. He did not respect him as a leader, because he thought he--Johnson--was a more effective leader. He hated Bobby--Bobby Kennedy. And so it was an unhappy time. But, you know, Johnson gave him a little ammunition. He--he was fine in the domestic field, where he--he--he was so effective that--the Johnson Library has example after example where Jackie Kennedy writes memoranda to Lyndon Johnson, the vice president, to ask him to get things done that she thinks need to be done, rather than the president. And that shows you that she knew the man that could get things done. But in the foreign field he was quite inept then, and later he improved some. But, for example, I think one of his major gaffes--it didn't get a lot of play at the time, but it must have had quite an effect in a--certain quarters--a distinguished diplomat from India came in, and Johnson was talking to him. He said, "You know, hell, we don't worship cows here in this country. We eat 'em!" Well, you can imagine the effect he had on some Indian vegetarian who worships cows. But, nevertheless, that was Johnson. Then came the period when he became president, and there for a time he put on an act you wouldn't believe. He went to that grave about once a week. He'd find a reason to lay some flowers. He was contrite. He was humble. He was the man, the soft-spoken, very kind man who had taken the mantle of leadership from the martyred president. He always spoke of what he was doing in terms of carrying out President Kennedy's policies rather than in terms of being president himself. And that was a period when he got a very, very good press, because the press basically was pro-Kennedy. One, because they considered him to be one of their own, sort of an intellectual. Two, they considered him to be basically, as he was, of course, a--a domestic liberal. And three, because he was a Democrat, of course. So, anyway, here came Johnson in this period after Kennedy's assassination. And then a change had to come over him. He had won in his own right. He had won the biggest landslide in history. The only one that even approached it was the one that we won--by one-tenth of a percent less than that we won in 1972 over McGovern.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:56:17
[Frank Gannon]

This was his--the Goldwater race in '64.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:56:20
[Richard Nixon]

The Goldwater race in '64. And so after massacring Goldwater, he proceeded, without realizing it, to massacre himself. Not at first--Johnson's first year after he was elected, year 1965, was a year of achievement even exceeding Franklin D. Roosevelt's famous Hundred Days. The way he rolled that legislation through--the Great Society legislation. A lot of it was bad, in my opinion, but he got it through, and he's--he's got to get a lot of credit for that. What he did then for--for--he's got to get a lot of credit for having the ability to do it. Now it's true that he had enormous majorities in both the House and the Senate, something Eisenhower didn't have when he had both houses, something Reagan does not have, something I never had. But you've got to give him credit. He did it. And in that period, his approval rating went up, but then Johnson began to be Johnson, and then people began to realize, "Uh-oh, now we've got this Johnson sitting in Kennedy's chair. And who is this meathead, this corn pone, sitting in Kennedy's chair?" You know, I speak of bigness. I'll never forget the first time I was in the Oval Office with Johnson--this is after I was elected president in 1968. I had been in the Oval Office with Kennedy--that was the only other time--eight years before, and Kennedy sat in his rocking chair. Believe it or not--I--I was so surprised--I go into the Oval Office. Here Johnson's sitting in a rocking chair. The difference was it was twice as big as Kennedy's. That's Lynson [sic] Johnson. So, anyway, here was Johnson, and--and he was a very effective president, but then he began to turn off the pro-Kennedy people. And--and as a result, the situation began to change. It changed for several reasons. One, he broke it off in Bobby Kennedy by not taking him for vice president, and, in effect, humiliating him, according to what--Bobby felt he had, at least.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:58:17
[Frank Gannon]

Would Bobby Kennedy have wanted to be vice president?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:58:19
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, no question about it.

Day 8, Tape 3
00:58:20
[Frank Gannon]

Wouldn't that have put him in a--in a weak position vis-à-vis Johnson like Johnson was in vis-à-vis John Kennedy?

Day 8, Tape 3
00:58:26
[Richard Nixon]

John--Johnson, whatever people may say about his weaknesses, was a party man. For example, I remember Bobby Baker, who was his top assistant, telling me in 1960, "Johnson"--this was when Johnson was running against Kennedy for the nomination--"Johnson will never go on that ticket, never go on that ticket. He despises this whippersnapper," et cetera. I wasn't a bit surprised when Johnson went on the ticket. He's a party man. And Johnson was a good vice president because he was a party man. He felt that was his job. On the other hand, Bobby Kennedy is a Bobby Kennedy man first, or a Kennedy man first and a partisan Dem--

Day 8, Tape 3
00:59:03
[Action note: Sound cuts off; color bars appear and tone sounds.]

The following text appears in the original transcript but does not appear on a tape. It has not been edited.

[Richard Nixon]

--ocrat second. And he would have done what was necessary. And the way he would do it would be very cleverly. He'd just have Johnson cut up through the media, through his leaks, and his controls also, and all of his contacts out in the bureaucracy. And it would have been very effect--oh, it would have been terrible for Johnson. It would have been a terrible mistake for him to let Bobby Kennedy be vice president.

[Frank Gannon]

Don't you--there's a story that you've told about the meeting in which Johnson broke the news to Bobby Kennedy that he wasn't going to be taken on the ticket.

[Richard Nixon]

Well, it's too bad that we don't have a record of that, but it's no fault of Lyndon Johnson's if we don't. What happened was that Johnson wanted to record the meeting. He had a very, very extensive recording system--

Day Eight, Tape four of four, LINE FEED #2, 6-13-83, ETI Reel #58
June 13, 1983

Day 8, Tape 4
00:01:10
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

Day 8, Tape 4
00:01:17
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

[Richard Nixon]

--and so--a--a taping system. He had everything taped. He even had a taping system under the bed in the White House. I don't know why, but he did. But he had meetings in his bedroom, so that didn't make any difference. I don't know whether he had any in the bathroom, but, you know, sometimes Johnson loved to somebody--times embarrass some whippersnapper or somebody who thought he was pretty smart, and he's--he'd receive them while he's sitting on the toilet. He just loved to do that sort of thing. But, in any event, in this case he had the recording equipment, and he had this meeting, and I understand it was brutal, where Johnson told Kennedy, "Look, you're not going to be the vice-presidential candidate, and I want you to shape up," et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. In other words, he gave Bobby back in spades what Bobby had been giving him when he, Bobby, was Attorney General, and so forth. And so right after the meeting, Johnson called in his secretary and says, "Run off that tape." He used to transcribe the tapes. He loved to read his tapes after they were done. I never had any of them transcribed until after the taping system was revealed. And so I didn't know what was on them But, in any event, the poor secretary came back. She says, "I can't do it. It's garbled." And he practically tore the roof off the Oval Office. He raised hell around there. He said, "What's happened here?" And what had happened was that Bobby was smart enough to know that Johnson was taping him, and he apparently had carried a scrambler in his pocket. He'd scrambled the tape. So, anyway, that's one of those stories that still exists in the White House legends.

Day 8, Tape 4
00:02:49
[Frank Gannon]

I--

[Richard Nixon]

It tells us something about each.

Day 8, Tape 4
00:02:51
[Frank Gannon]

I interrupted you. You were talking about the things that happened to Johnson, and one of them was--

Day 8, Tape 4
00:02:55
[Richard Nixon]

Well--

[Frank Gannon]

--that he didn't take Bobby--

Day 8, Tape 4
00:02:57
[Richard Nixon]

He didn't take Bobby.

[Frank Gannon]

--Kennedy as vice president.

Day 8, Tape 4
00:02:58
[Richard Nixon]

The second was the war. That put the nail in the coffin. You see, Johnson--Johnson had to be a favorite. He--he--he wasn't a favorite of the Eastern establishment press, which is the most powerful press. He wasn't their favorite in terms of his Texas background. They thought he was basically a--a bit on the crude side, sort of a corn pone, and so forth.

Day 8, Tape 4
00:03:23
[Frank Gannon]

Wasn't he, in fact?

Day 8, Tape 4
00:03:24
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah, he was a very down-to-earth fellow. I liked him, though. I mean, I--I don't believe that somebody has to--has to speak with a so-called B--British accent and all that sort of thing. You know, that--that--that s--that sappy accent that many of our Foreign Service people put on, you know, where they sort of burp out their words in order to prove that they are so smart? No, Johnson was what he was. And--well, one thing, incidentally, before I get to that, that always used to be about Johnson. Johnson used to love to stort [sic] of stick it to--after he became president in his own right--to some of these--what he called "Fancy Dan" bureaucrats, or from the State Department, or some of the other agencies then, from the press, by deliberately using very bad grammar. Now, Johnson knew good grammar. He wasn't that badly educated. He knew it, but he used very bad gram--bad grammar. He'd mispronounce things, like rather than saying "hors d'oeuvre," he'd say "hors d'uv," and then he'd watch them cringe. But, you know, that was not a usual trait sometimes for people from the Midwest and the others who have a resentment toward these people that wear their education on their sleeves. I remember Bill Jenner. He was the congressman--I mean, the senator from Indiana, very conservative, ultra-conservative--but he had been first in his class at Indiana Law School. He--he--he had a marvelous understanding of the English language, but he deliberately would use bad grammar on occasion. I recall the day that Averell Harriman announced he was going to run for president of the United States in 1956. We're--several of the senators were sitting with me--I was vice president at the time--in a little special dining room we have for members of the Senate there as stags, having lunch. And just as we were finishing, in came Bill Jenner, and he sort of slouched down into a chair, sat down. He said, "I just seen Harriman on the TV." And somebody said, "Well, what was he like, Bill? What do you think of him?" He says, "He's thin, boys--thin as piss on a rock." Well, in any event, that was Bill Jenner. That was Lyndon Johnson. It turned some people off, but that's the way they were. And I kind of admired them for being what they were. But then, getting on, you add the Bobby Kennedy--not taking him. You add the war. You add the Texas style. All of those things did him in, but he deserved credit from that same group, we should say, however, for the Great Society program, which was more liberal and more costly than the New Deal, the Fair Deal, and the New Frontier put together. So they had to be for that on the issue. And also I must say this. Whatever anybody wants to say about Lyndon Johnson, he did one thing which no one else could have done at that time. Johnson carried out what Kennedy promised, and was unable to carry out. That was particularly in the field of civil rights. He got through the famous, and justly famous, Civil Rights Act of 1964. He got it through, and only he as a Southerner could do it--stop the filibuster and all that sort of thing. He was able to do there in the same way what I was able to do going to China. I could go to China. Hubert Humphrey, a liberal, could not. Lyndon Johnson could do this as a Southerner, what Kennedy, the Northerner, could not do. And those who believe in civil rights, as I do, owe him a great debt for biting the bullet then--bringing the South, frankly, back into the Union. That's what he did.

Day 8, Tape 4
00:07:07
[Frank Gannon]

It's been written that whereas the Kennedys required loyalty of their staff and their followers out of confidence, Johnson required loyalty out of insecurity. Do you--did you see that side of him?

Day 8, Tape 4
00:07:23
[Richard Nixon]

No. I think that's, frankly, pro-Kennedy historians writing. No. Johnson was not insecure. That's just baloney, all this business about this one being secure and the other being insecure. There--there was no more self-confident man in the world than Lyndon Johnson. When he--he looked around him, for example, at these--what he called the Eastern establishment types and so forth, it wasn't a question of his feeling inferior. He felt he was superior to them. Have you ever found anybody from Texas that didn't think Texas was the biggest and the best and that a Texan was the biggest and the best? They believe that. And he believed it in spades. The point was, and the mistake he made, was this. The biggest mistake Lyndon Johnson made after he was elected in 1964 was not to become Lyndon Johnson. You know, these days some of Reagan's conservative critics say, "Let Reagan be Reagan." Somebody should have said to Lyndon Johnson, "Let Johnson be Johnson." The real Lyndon Johnson would never have temporized with that war in Vietnam. He would not have escalated gradually. He would have moved in, and we would not have had the war as an issue. He would have ended it, and ended it effectively. But Lyndon Johnson was passionately concerned about being liked. He was passionately concerned also about trying to win the Eastern establishment people. Not that he felt inferior, but he was confident enough that he thought that--"Well, by golly, I'm really better than this other fellow. I can do things that he didn't do. I should be able to win them." And of course he couldn't win them, because he was not their kind. He turned them off. Style is so important to those people. That's their bread and butter, and they're suckers for style, and Lyndon Johnson just didn't have it.

Day 8, Tape 4
00:09:23
[Frank Gannon]

What--you've-you've said that he said that without J. Edgar Hoover, he couldn't have been president. What do you think he meant by that?

Day 8, Tape 4
00:09:32
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, I know very well what he meant. He meant that in this period when we were in a war, and when the place was plagued with leaks--that J. Edgar Hoover was indispensable to him. I'm confident that's what he meant. And one thing which makes me sure that that was the case--I remember the first, very first piece of mail I got as president was a letter from J. Edgar Hoover, a very thick envelope. It was marked, "Top Secret - Eyes Only - for the President," and so I slit the thing open. I said, "What in the world is this?" And it was an--a [sic] intelligence report on Henry Brandon. Well, I knew Henry Brandon. He's a--was the--still is, I think--a reporter for the London Times, very distinguished, very respected. And so I called Hoover, and I says, "What the hell is this?" He says, "Oh, he--Henry Brandon, oh, yeah. He's a British agent." I didn't know what we were tapping a British agent for, so I just took the envelope, threw it in the "out" box--marked it for Kissinger. I said, "Look into this. I don’t know anything about it," and never heard of it since. I'm sure Brandon thinks I put the tap on, but apparently Johnson had it on all the time. Maybe it was put on even before that time. What I am saying is that he felt that Hoover was indispensable in order for him to find out who his friends were and who his enemies were.

Day 8, Tape 4
00:10:48
[Frank Gannon]

Did that go beyond the proper purview of an F.B.I. director? Tapping potential agents is one thing, but wasn't he, as you describe it, in effect doing political intelligence--

Day 8, Tape 4
00:10:58
[Richard Nixon]

That's right.

[Frank Gannon]

--for a president?

Day 8, Tape 4
00:10:59
[Richard Nixon]

That's right. But Johnson was not refer--was not telling me, I don't think, that Hoover was indispensable to him because of political intelligence. Johnson was speaking to me with regard to the narrow national security thing. I don't think Johnson would have wanted me to know that he had used Hoover to tap Goldwater, or whatever they did do, or to use Hoover, as I have learned since, to tap my plane to do some surveillance on Agnew in the 1968 campaign. That was a totally improper use of power.

Day 8, Tape 4
00:11:29
[Frank Gannon]

Do you resent it?

Day 8, Tape 4
00:11:30
[Richard Nixon]

No. I--I--

Day 8, Tape 4
00:11:32
[Frank Gannon]

Why?

Day 8, Tape 4
00:11:33
[Richard Nixon]

Because I--I--I would expect Johnson to do that.

Day 8, Tape 4
00:11:37
[Frank Gannon]

Do you--do you think, or--or do you know, whether J. Edgar Hoover was a homosexual?

Day 8, Tape 4
00:11:47
[Richard Nixon]

I don't know. I don't think so. No, I--I'm not--I can't say that I'm a judge on this, and naturally I don't know. I have no experience to know whether he was or he wasn't, but I would say that I'd discount it all because that is such a typical line of the--of the left, to attack anybody on the other side on the--on--on sexuality, on drunkenness, on drugs, and so forth and so on. In other words, they're attacking those on the other side for what they themselves do. And I would say that as far as J. Edgar Hoover is concerned, he was one of the most virile, strong men I ever saw. I--as a matter of fact, he--he had a lot of pretty girls pictured on his wall and so forth and so on.

Day 8, Tape 4
00:12:32
[Frank Gannon]

Are you aware that the most recent, and in some ways the most definitive person to put this into print is John Ehrlichman?

Day 8, Tape 4
00:12:41
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I wouldn't think that would be a very good source, because Ehrlichman had a thing against Hoover. So I--

[Action note: Nixon shakes his head.]

Day 8, Tape 4
00:12:50
[Frank Gannon]

How did--Lyndon Johnson came to the Congress in the early forties. He was a poor boy from a hardscrabble part of Texas. He then continued in Congress, as vice president, as president, and when he returned to Texas--when he died he left a fortune that's been estimated between fourteen and twenty million dollars. How'd he do that?

Day 8, Tape 4
00:13:16
[Richard Nixon]

Well, he had a television station, to begin with, and he--I--I think he made some very good investments. Let's put it that way. I am not one to sit here and try to judge what he did. I haven't looked into the facts. Many who have looked into it have concluded that he did use the power of his office in terms of getting his television license, in terms to--getting information with regard to a good land deal, or here or there or the other place. But let's just say that everybody should judge for himself after doing a thorough study. I don't intend to look into it. Johnson has served his country. The time is over now, and I'm going to judge him on his record and not on what he did in that area.

Day 8, Tape 4
00:14:06
[Frank Gannon]

Is it true that there was--not a different kind of morality, but a different kind of standard applied to those kinds of activities, certainly before Watergate, but probably even before television journalism? That congressmen and senators kept up ties with law firms, that they--they received gifts from constituents, they got involved in deals, they got tips and that kind of thing. So that it was a--a--a real different--it's apples and oranges

Day 8, Tape 4
00:14:36
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah.

[Frank Gannon]

--to compare--

Day 8, Tape 4
00:14:37
[Richard Nixon]

I agree. I think that's the case. And, incidentally, it--it was on the Republican side, too. Some of them had some pretty good sweetheart deals. And there were some Republicans--more Democrats, I must say. It doesn't mean that it's--all--all the hanky-panky's on one side, but I would say that in terms of coming into office and coming out richer, there were some Republicans that did and a number of Democrats as well. Johnson was in that group. I--not that I--it makes me any more moral--it's just that my interests were in other directions. I think I am one of the few that came out with about what--that came out of office without having profited from it. But I've done very well since.

Day 8, Tape 4
00:15:26
[Frank Gannon]

I am sorry to say that, in order to record our birthday greetings, we've got to cut off now.

Day 8, Tape 4
00:15:35
[Offscreen voice]

[Inaudible.]

Day 8, Tape 4
00:15:39
[Frank Gannon]

However, it's a good point, 'cause next day we'll just pick up the assessment of Johnson.

Day 8, Tape 4
00:15:45
[Richard Nixon]

Yes.

[Frank Gannon]

--and save the assessment of Kennedy--

Day 8, Tape 4
00:15:46
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah.

[Frank Gannon]

--'cause [inaudible] got to be more than--

Day 8, Tape 4
00:15:47
[Richard Nixon]

That's right.

[Frank Gannon]

--just two chunks--

[Richard Nixon]

Mm-hmm.

[Frank Gannon]

--and then [inaudible].

Day 8, Tape 4
00:15:52
[Richard Nixon]

[Inaudible.] I'll give you a--two or three lines [inaudible]--

Day 8, Tape 4
00:16:04
[Frank Gannon]

Okay.

[Richard Nixon]

--and you can pick them up very easily.

Day 8, Tape 4
00:16:07
[Action note: Fade to black.]

Day 8, Tape 4
00:16:28
[Action note: Picture returns to screen; no sound.]

Day 8, Tape 4
00:16:33
[Frank Gannon]

Yes.

[Offscreen voice]

[Inaudible.]

Day 8, Tape 4
00:16:34
[Frank Gannon]

Do you want me off?

[Offscreen voice]

[Inaudible.]

Day 8, Tape 4
00:16:43
[Richard Nixon]

I just love that bumblebee story. [Inaudible.]

Day 8, Tape 4
00:16:44
[Frank Gannon]

[Inaudible] true.

Day 8, Tape 4
00:16:47
[Richard Nixon]

I added the "ass" to it. He didn't have that in there. Better on the ass.

Day 8, Tape 4
00:16:50
[Frank Gannon]

History will never know, because we'll never tell.

[Action note: Gannon leaves the set. Nixon sits reading a piece of paper.]

Day 8, Tape 4
00:17:25
[Richard Nixon]

Okay.

Day 8, Tape 4
00:17:30
[Action note: Color bars appear on screen.]

[Richard Nixon]

This--this one here.

Day 8, Tape 4
00:17:33
[Action note: Tone begins.]

Day 8, Tape 4
00:18:06
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

[Richard Nixon]

It'll be "Prime Minister Kishi." That's the last word.

[Action note: Picture fades to black.]

Day 8, Tape 4
00:18:13
[Richard Nixon]

All right, fine.

Day 8, Tape 4
00:18:25
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

Day 8, Tape 4
00:18:27
[Richard Nixon]

I'm delighted to have the opportunity to participate in this eighty-eighth birthday celebration for Prime Minister Kishi. I've had a very rare privilege in my public life. I've known and worked with six Japanese prime ministers over the past thirty-seven years, in and out of office. The one that I've known the longest and the one who is my closest friend is Prime Minister Kishi. I have profited very much from his wise counsel over these years, and also have profited from knowing him as a friend. As we look around the world today, we must recognize a basic fact. Japanese-American cooperation and friendship is indispensable if peace and freedom are to survive in the Pacific and in the world. No one I know of has contributed more to that great cause than Prime Minister Kishi. And I can say very directly to all of his friends gathered here tonight on this historic occasion that whether it is as a statesman, whether it is as a government leader, as a friend, or on the golf course, no one could have a better partner than Prime Minister Kishi.

Day 8, Tape 4
00:19:56
[Action note: Picture fades to black.]

 

Go to: Transcript, Day 9

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