Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from My Heart Radio. When Kurt Anderson started working
Speaker 1: on his new podcast, Nixon at War, he thought he
Speaker 1: knew a fair amount about Richard Nixon's presidency, including two
Speaker 1: defining experiences. His nineteen sixty eight campaign promised to end
Speaker 1: the Vietnam War and his nineteen seventy three resignation due
Speaker 1: to Watergate, devastating but unrelated events, or so he thought.
Speaker 1: The surprising connection between those two are at the heart
Speaker 1: of Nixon at War. You may know Kurt Anderson from
Speaker 1: his award winning radio program Studio three sixty. He's a
Speaker 1: prize winning novelist and historian whose three most recent books,
Speaker 1: Evil Geniuses, Fantasy Land, and you Can't Spell America Without Me.
Speaker 1: We're all New York Times bestsellers. Anderson says, to understand
Speaker 1: Nixon's plans for Vietnam, you need to appreciate how much
Speaker 1: was at stake for Nixon when he ran in nineteen
Speaker 1: Richard Nixon, despite the fact that he was not a
Speaker 1: beloved figure in America as vice president, he had a
Speaker 1: very kind of meteoric young career. As a very young man,
Speaker 1: had never really been in politics right out of World
Speaker 1: War Two, was elected to the House in California, like
Speaker 1: had promptly after two terms of the Senate in California,
Speaker 1: before he had even had a couple of years in
Speaker 1: the Senate, was picked the vice president by Dwight Eysmower.
Speaker 1: And and so then of course he was going to
Speaker 1: run for president in nineteen sixty and and barely lost,
Speaker 1: but then lost again when he ran for governor of California.
Speaker 1: So this incredible rise, this recent fall, and this is
Speaker 1: a guy who never felt comfortable in his own skin
Speaker 1: with the world, didn't like socializing. Was this weirdo, this resentful,
Speaker 1: paranoid weirdo, who had done really well and now it
Speaker 1: was all slipping away. This was his last chance. This
Speaker 1: is his last chance to get back at the Kennedy
Speaker 1: Ivy League elites who beating him in nineteen sixty He
Speaker 1: moved to the heart of it, right and moved to
Speaker 1: the upper East side of Manhattan after he got beaten
Speaker 1: for the government of California. And and just right there
Speaker 1: in the middle of it where everyone hated Hi murdered
Speaker 1: and he hated them, but by god, he was gonna
Speaker 1: do it. And and so this was this real then
Speaker 1: Jean's field comeback attempt. That's where he is as as
Speaker 1: a figure, I often think that someone is chosen as
Speaker 1: vice president who can come in hand you to do
Speaker 1: things the president won't do. Eisenhowerd was probably the last
Speaker 1: president of the United States chosen by acclamation. Did not
Speaker 1: want to be the president, was pressured into doing that.
Speaker 1: Not a details guy at that point in his life,
Speaker 1: wanted to go play golf and take it easy. So
Speaker 1: he brings Nixon and by my lights to do the
Speaker 1: dirty work. Who better the Nixons to do dirty work.
Speaker 1: I mean, Eisenhoward needed somebody who was a political hitman
Speaker 1: and enforcer. And so because he wasn't going to micromanage
Speaker 1: that way, Eisenhower and Nixon cuts his teeth on Alger
Speaker 1: Hiss and all this kind of pumpkin papers and all
Speaker 1: this other stuff. He's an anti communist tool, if you will,
Speaker 1: during a time when anti communism seemed too many people
Speaker 1: in the country the right thing to be doing. My
Speaker 1: favorite scene about the American nineteen fifties is in Manchurian
Speaker 1: Candidate when Angela landsbois there with her husband and he says,
Speaker 1: there are hundred five communists and the government. I said,
Speaker 1: though a hundred forty five, how many other hundred eighty nine?
Speaker 1: He just keeps changing the number right in the same
Speaker 1: paragraph that he's talking, which is not unlike certain moments
Speaker 1: in Joe McCarthy's real life where he was saying, you know,
Speaker 1: he changed the number all the time. No, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, the Soviet Union having been our buddies in
Speaker 1: World War Two, suddenly we're not our buddies, and suddenly
Speaker 1: had the atomic bomb, and then the hydrogen bomb. Anti
Speaker 1: communism got out of control and created McCarthyism. But it
Speaker 1: wasn't it wasn't nuts to be frightened of the Soviet Union,
Speaker 1: even though it went crazily too far. And yeah, Richard
Speaker 1: Nixon saw this is how he could make his career
Speaker 1: and did. And making an enemy of the people out
Speaker 1: of aldra Hiss along with Jeheger Hoover in the around
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty was the way he did it, and it worked.
Speaker 1: And squishy soft Dwight Eisenhower, who by the way, and
Speaker 1: won World War Two for the Islands. I'll pick this
Speaker 1: anti communists, as you say, tool hitman to uh show
Speaker 1: that he was good as an e communist, even though
Speaker 1: that didn't stop the John Birch Society later in the
Speaker 1: fifties into the sixties of claiming that Dwight Eisenhower was
Speaker 1: a conscious stooge of the Soviet Union. Well, it's funny
Speaker 1: when I think when you see Eisenhower, oh, PSC won
Speaker 1: World War Two. Yes, but I always think Eisenhower's career,
Speaker 1: even though you think that there's an inextricable link between
Speaker 1: the military and the government at that point, there wasn't
Speaker 1: necessarily one and and and the man that won World
Speaker 1: War Two, of course exited the office in his farewell
Speaker 1: speech warning about the creating the phrase military industrial complex papabah.
Speaker 1: But what I was thinking is I see Eisenhower to
Speaker 1: me as president was like as if Ted Williams was president.
Speaker 1: It's like the guy that won all these games. He
Speaker 1: was a hero, but he wasn't necessarily what we could
Speaker 1: we equate now with the president as an executive. No,
Speaker 1: and figurehead is unfair too, but he was. He was
Speaker 1: a hero and then beat twice the same liberal elite
Speaker 1: egghead and like Stevenson who was running against him. You
Speaker 1: mentioned passingly in the piece about your own background, in
Speaker 1: your own family and for your Republican household. Would you say,
Speaker 1: when Nixon is elected in sixty eight, where are you well?
Speaker 1: When Nixon's elected in sixty eight? Just fourteen? Your fourteen
Speaker 1: and your parents were pro Nixon. Oh, definitely, I was
Speaker 1: pro Nixon when I was thirteen. I was. I was
Speaker 1: a little teenage republic I went to teenage Republican camp.
Speaker 1: Had a had a poster of Nixon on my wall.
Speaker 1: I wish I had photographs of that whole He had
Speaker 1: a poster of Nixon on your wall. In terms of
Speaker 1: decorating your room. You were like the Roger Stone of
Speaker 1: your generation. I hate to say that a little bit,
Speaker 1: but then again, you know, summer of sixty eight came.
Speaker 1: My older brother and sisters took me in hand, and
Speaker 1: by the fall I was a hippie. Now, comparatively speaking,
Speaker 1: now you have how many siblings. That's you plus three,
Speaker 1: It is me plus three. And the other ones were
Speaker 1: more liberally inclined than they were older. So I was
Speaker 1: the youngest and they've gone through the countercultural transformation ahead
Speaker 1: of me. It was the one window where your siblings
Speaker 1: were more politically evolved than you were. That didn't last long.
Speaker 1: And then they definitely, definitely were politically culturally all that
Speaker 1: they were, you know, fifteen eighteen one, so they were
Speaker 1: into the late sixties. And and what happened to you
Speaker 1: when you were four to I don't know. I smoked pot,
Speaker 1: I started reading other books and other things than William F.
Speaker 1: Buckley Jr. And Uh, I self radicalized like but no,
Speaker 1: I but your parents did Republicans absolutely, although interestingly I
Speaker 1: described the kinds of Nebraska Republicans my parents were, which
Speaker 1: is to say atheists, big public radio enthusiasts, when when
Speaker 1: public radio began, big environmentalists and and pro choice and
Speaker 1: so on and so on. And my mother, who outlived
Speaker 1: my father, finally left the Republican Party at the end
Speaker 1: of the ninety nineties because it was no longer her party. Gasp.
Speaker 1: Did she vote for Bill? She probably didn't vote for Bill,
Speaker 1: but she started a Bob Terry, who was our senator,
Speaker 1: was a sort of her entryway drug to becoming a
Speaker 1: now sixty eight, I'm ten years old, big turning point
Speaker 1: for me politically. Through the eyes of my father and
Speaker 1: through the lens of his progressive he was a democratic
Speaker 1: commitment in our town and so forth, through his eyes
Speaker 1: and This is after Kennedy is killed, of course, so
Speaker 1: everybody's just, you know, just just seething with emotion. Bobby
Speaker 1: Bobby Kennedy. So we're watching the convention and it's like,
Speaker 1: are you rooting for the Chicago police? Are you rooting
Speaker 1: for the demonstrator? Who are you rooting for? My dad,
Speaker 1: I was rooting for the protesters. He was an anti police.
Speaker 1: He was a very, very middle of the road Democrat,
Speaker 1: but he was rooting for the protesters. And I'm wondering,
Speaker 1: what was that like for you? Were your parents rooting
Speaker 1: for the Chicago cops. So they weren't. They were the
Speaker 1: extinct species of decent liberal Republicans, although they considered themselves
Speaker 1: conservative and we're kind of very Goldwater Fans back then.
Speaker 1: But as the party moved right and they didn't, they
Speaker 1: thought they didn't have a party. So, no, they weren't
Speaker 1: in favor. Were the issues more important to them? Military?
Speaker 1: Strong military was somewhat important, but conservation actually was a
Speaker 1: huge thing for them, and actual liberty not to be
Speaker 1: run by religious nuts, because they were anti religious, really,
Speaker 1: and they wanted to live a free life with as
Speaker 1: few you know, rules and regulations as possible. Really, and
Speaker 1: my father also his his profession, he was a lawyer,
Speaker 1: and and he his specialty was labor law, representing corporations
Speaker 1: and management. And so he was not viciously anti union.
Speaker 1: And in fact, subsequently school teachers against whom he negotiated
Speaker 1: contracts had said to me since he died, like, you know,
Speaker 1: your dad was always a decent guy, and he always
Speaker 1: was fair and somebody managements well exactly, so I was
Speaker 1: the opposite of a red diaper baby. You were a
Speaker 1: boss baby something like that. You were suiting tie baby.
Speaker 1: Well I wasn't. I didn't go that whole Alex Keaton thing. Ever,
Speaker 1: although in retrospect, I guess you could you could see that.
Speaker 1: I mean as no as a twelve thirty funeral. I
Speaker 1: must have been an insufferable little dick, you know, with
Speaker 1: my little Republican talking points. Pretty but as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: I'm conveniently using you and your family to frame what
Speaker 1: Republicanism was back then. You say Goldwater Republican on in
Speaker 1: the heartland, but at first is New Yorker was Rockefeller right? Correct?
Speaker 1: Were the whole thing? We're like, we don't give a
Speaker 1: shit about abortion, we don't give a shit about you
Speaker 1: want to order a gay wedding cake. Just lower my
Speaker 1: taxes and cut the regulation on my business exactly. And
Speaker 1: my parents were very pro civil rights, and my mother,
Speaker 1: until she left the party, always referred to it as
Speaker 1: the Party of Lincoln, the Party of Lincoln. We're the
Speaker 1: Party of Lincoln. Everett Dirkson was was her and their hero, who,
Speaker 1: by the way, helped Lennon Johnson passed the Civil Rights
Speaker 1: Act and the Voting Rights Act. So you know, they
Speaker 1: were economic conservatives, absolutely, and they believe in the strong military.
Speaker 1: But all the other stuff, all the culture war stuff
Speaker 1: that didn't know, which wasn't part of Republicanism very much
Speaker 1: back then until Richard Nixon made it so was not
Speaker 1: their cup of tea at all. Now, I don't expect
Speaker 1: you to concur with me here, but before we launched
Speaker 1: into Nixon full blown in the war, I want to
Speaker 1: just go trace backwards and say that if Elsberg, who
Speaker 1: himself was a self described hawk during the period prior
Speaker 1: to the Pentagon Papers and working at RAND, eventually realized
Speaker 1: that this policy is a catastrophic and immoral. But I'm
Speaker 1: assuming that when the truth of the Pentagon Papers, when
Speaker 1: the Rand Corporation submits their report that's around what year
Speaker 1: sixty seven, no, sixty eight they finished, and it was
Speaker 1: it was really right before Nickson mcame president that they finished.
Speaker 1: So there was it was it safe to assume that
Speaker 1: kind of information, that's specific cash of paperwork was not
Speaker 1: made available to Johnson. Johnson did not know about the
Speaker 1: Rand Report. Well, it was actually I mean Rand was
Speaker 1: part of it, and Elbert worked for Rand, as you say, um,
Speaker 1: but it was it was a Defense Department report, commission commission,
Speaker 1: and so it was under commission under mcnamaraon LBJ and
Speaker 1: finished under Clark Clifford and lb J. So yeah, Johnson
Speaker 1: was very much aware of it. Did it go to him?
Speaker 1: I don't actually know that, but it was secret, So,
Speaker 1: but I'm always wondering, and I've said this to his
Speaker 1: face to Bob Caro. You obviously have all this worship
Speaker 1: of Johnson and his political acumen and the kind of
Speaker 1: heft and the grandeur of his career and his position
Speaker 1: in our history and how determinative was in our history
Speaker 1: beyond Kennedy's death and sixty three and what he did
Speaker 1: in those years. But let's face facts. At one point,
Speaker 1: did he know that the Vietnam War was wrong anymoral
Speaker 1: and why don't you call him on that? And I'm
Speaker 1: wondering in the research you did, did Johnson know before
Speaker 1: he left? Yes, he definitely did. I mean that we
Speaker 1: have a bit of a phone call he had had
Speaker 1: back in the nineteen sixties six, you know, with Eugene
Speaker 1: McCarthy saying, I want to get out of it as
Speaker 1: much as you do. Jeane hated you know, it's awful. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, he was not a you know, a moralist
Speaker 1: in the in the Bobby Kennedy sense, say, you know,
Speaker 1: but he knew it was a bad deal and he
Speaker 1: made a mistake and he needed to get out. And
Speaker 1: then you know, in sixty eight and as you hear
Speaker 1: in this show with his conversations with Nixon and his
Speaker 1: conversation with his Secretary of State Dean Russ and other
Speaker 1: people like I will tell America I'm not running and
Speaker 1: I got nine months to try to really start our
Speaker 1: way out. Johnson wants to get out and Nixon doesn't
Speaker 1: want to get out because he wants it to stay
Speaker 1: so he can get us out. He could be the hero.
Speaker 1: Well he wants to, Yes, he wants to. Nixon wants
Speaker 1: it both ways. Nixon wants to get elected by saying,
Speaker 1: these Democrats have met bungled this war, and I'll be
Speaker 1: a tough minded guy who will finish it right and
Speaker 1: and soon. But then when when peace is at hand
Speaker 1: in the night, Nixon goes, oh, this is gonna beat me.
Speaker 1: This is gonna elect Humbert Humphrey the vice president, and
Speaker 1: we I gotta I gotta postpone this piece thing. So
Speaker 1: explain to the listeners what's the thing. Johnson tells Nixon
Speaker 1: in the phone call not to do that. Nixon does
Speaker 1: well Johnson Johnson tells Nixon not to do multiple times.
Speaker 1: Nixon says he's not going to do it multiple times
Speaker 1: in the fall of sixty eight, which is talk and
Speaker 1: and say I'll do a better deal for you South Vietnam.
Speaker 1: I'll do a better deal for you North Vietnam. Elect me, everybody,
Speaker 1: and I'll end this war because I won't have this
Speaker 1: Johnson Kennedy baggage. And and he keeps quiet for a
Speaker 1: little bit, but then he Nixon freaks out, thinks he's
Speaker 1: gonna lose, and just like goes full Nixon and tries
Speaker 1: to mess up these Paris piece talks to end the
Speaker 1: Vietnam War had really started to take off and there
Speaker 1: was about to be a big breakthrough, and Nixon didn't
Speaker 1: want that to happen. A week or two, Well, he
Speaker 1: does a lot of stuff. Most he does this thing
Speaker 1: that he spent the rest of his life covering up.
Speaker 1: He gets this fascinating woman named Anna Chenault, this Chinese
Speaker 1: teenage reprovocateur. Well, but she's she deserves her own podcast,
Speaker 1: she deserves her own biopic. Anyway. She meets this uh
Speaker 1: as a nineteen hole reporter in China during World War Two,
Speaker 1: meets this General Marrison. They moved to America. He dies
Speaker 1: right away. She's rich. She's this glamorous, rich, anti communist,
Speaker 1: right wing widow living at the Watergate like too good
Speaker 1: to be true, and becomes Nixon's biggest female donor and finagler.
Speaker 1: She also is good pals in her anti communist way
Speaker 1: with the South. FETA music ambassador to the US introduces
Speaker 1: the two of them at this secret meeting in the
Speaker 1: summer of n at which Richard Nixon says, Okay, Mr Ambassador,
Speaker 1: you and President too of South Vietnam. You've gotta understand
Speaker 1: this woman your pal, and Channault is my person to you.
Speaker 1: She she is my whatever I'm want you to do,
Speaker 1: she's the person telling you that. And when a couple
Speaker 1: of a few months later, when the election gets closed
Speaker 1: and this and this He's breakthrough is about to happen,
Speaker 1: he Nixon and Nixon's people set out what he called
Speaker 1: the Dragon Lady to go tell too and the ambassador no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: don't go along with this piece deal. You gotta you
Speaker 1: gotta make sure this doesn't have a better deal. When
Speaker 1: we come in, you'll get and I'll owe you right.
Speaker 1: And so don't make anything happen before November five. You know,
Speaker 1: it reminds me of the whole hostage crisis with Carter.
Speaker 1: And they go and they basically, if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 1: they do the same thing. Don't release the hostages to
Speaker 1: weaken in there. We gotta get rid of Carter. Is
Speaker 1: it similar? Well, is it's comparable. This was an ongoing war.
Speaker 1: This wasn't a few dozen hostages. This was an ongoing
Speaker 1: war where hundreds of Americans were dying every week. And
Speaker 1: they're saying, let's extend this so I can get elected.
Speaker 1: I mean, what's interesting to me about this part of
Speaker 1: the story. It was eclipsed in history and in the
Speaker 1: popular understanding by Watergate. But this is where it all began.
Speaker 1: This is the thing he did which was illegal and
Speaker 1: and a federal crime. Undoubtedly a citizen messing around with
Speaker 1: foreign policy, you know, in this very specific way. And
Speaker 1: then he was worried the rest of his time alive
Speaker 1: and certainly as president, that this was going to come
Speaker 1: out and uh lead to his downfall. So what did
Speaker 1: he do? He committed burglaries that led to his downfall.
Speaker 1: Author and podcaster Kurt Anderson. If you want to deep
Speaker 1: dive on the Vietnam War, Ken Burns and Lynn Novic's
Speaker 1: eighteen hour documentary is a good place to start. Ken
Speaker 1: Burns told me he screened a final version for Senator
Speaker 1: John McCain, a decorated pow who was particularly fascinated by
Speaker 1: the interviews with North Vietnamese soldiers. What you begin to
Speaker 1: realize is that at that point of combat, which is
Speaker 1: where human beings are at their very worst, they're really
Speaker 1: good at killing the other people and avoiding being killed
Speaker 1: or all this stuff happens, but it's hell, and we
Speaker 1: couldn't even possibly imagine what it's like, and we've tried
Speaker 1: so hard in so many films from Civil War through
Speaker 1: World War Two into this. But they recognize each other,
Speaker 1: and they that recognition is transcendent, and so he wants
Speaker 1: to see what they're saying, and what they're saying sounds
Speaker 1: so exactly like our marines and our army guys. And
Speaker 1: so you have a marine, for example, Karmar Lantis, who says,
Speaker 1: you know, we're not the dominant species on the planet
Speaker 1: because we're nice, right, And people complained that, oh, the
Speaker 1: military turns young men into killing machines. I'd suggest it's
Speaker 1: only finishing school. Here more of my conversation with Ken
Speaker 1: Burns and Lynn Novik that Here's the Thing dot Org.
Speaker 1: After the break, Kurt Anderson talks about Nixon and Henry
Speaker 1: Kissinger's faithful decision to bomb neutral Cambodia. Bi'm Alec Baldwin
Speaker 1: and you're listening to Here's the thing. Kurt Anderson says,
Speaker 1: Richard Nixon had a number of close advisors, but on
Speaker 1: they listened to a few. Henry Kissinger definitely had his
Speaker 1: ear and his trust, even though they mistrusted each other
Speaker 1: because they were both manipulating guys. They were scorpions in
Speaker 1: the Oval office together but Bob Holdenman, his chief of staff,
Speaker 1: he he thought was a smart political guy and a
Speaker 1: tough guy and all that. But like in terms of
Speaker 1: oh should I get out of Vietnam sooner rather than later? Kissinger,
Speaker 1: if he was of a mind to do that, I
Speaker 1: think could have done that, and could have you know,
Speaker 1: could have talked him out conceivably of all kinds of things.
Speaker 1: Did he have his trust though? Because when he gives
Speaker 1: that speech, and you're talking about like episode five or six,
Speaker 1: he gives that speech and Kissinger there's a long clip
Speaker 1: of kissing going, I've never heard of speech delivered like this,
Speaker 1: to the greatest speech that an actor never could have read,
Speaker 1: that written that speech, And he said, I think I
Speaker 1: was as good as any actor in Hollywood. He says,
Speaker 1: and and and what's what's the speech again? He gives
Speaker 1: There was the famous silent majority speech back in the
Speaker 1: fall at sixty nine he gave. But this was afterwards
Speaker 1: and the Kissinger actually says the one non ass kissing
Speaker 1: thing in these hours of tapes with Nix and he says,
Speaker 1: he but that wasn't as well delivered as this one,
Speaker 1: Mr President, And yes, you're right, and we run that
Speaker 1: so long those calls. Kissinger called him I think five
Speaker 1: times that night, just to keep trying to keep giving
Speaker 1: him the drug was praised. The only thing that cemented
Speaker 1: since trust for kissing him was that all you had
Speaker 1: to do. No, that was part of the anti he
Speaker 1: That was the entry admission. He had to do that
Speaker 1: just constantly, obviously because Nixon was so needy for it.
Speaker 1: But no, they had actual substantive conversations about politics and
Speaker 1: geopolitics and Russian Vietnam and all the rest. But they
Speaker 1: were both a moral people and just full of just
Speaker 1: amazing to me listening to these hours of tape, kind
Speaker 1: of grotesque. A morality about killing, killing on the massive scales,
Speaker 1: whether it's Mela, the Meli massacre, or tens of thousands
Speaker 1: and then eventually millions in Cambodia now much as made
Speaker 1: not by you. You You've mentioned it glassingly. Nixon was
Speaker 1: a profound anti Semite. Apparently that never entered Kissinger's mind.
Speaker 1: I Kissinger was unaware of that. Oh, he was fully
Speaker 1: aware of it. He just had to shut up and
Speaker 1: stuck it up. Yeah, not be be one of the
Speaker 1: good Jews, as Nixon more than once talked about. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, William Sapphire, who later became a New York
Speaker 1: Times columnist, was Jewish and his and Agnew's most uh
Speaker 1: you know, Nixon and agnew esque speechwriter before he went
Speaker 1: off to become a cultur prize winning columnists. So he
Speaker 1: was of two minds. I mean, he wasn't, you know
Speaker 1: ku klux Klan committed and devoted to his anti Semitism.
Speaker 1: But he was. And again it's they're all over the tapes,
Speaker 1: especially when he was with Bob Holdaman alone, and they
Speaker 1: could just expose and and share their anti Semitic feelings.
Speaker 1: But no, I mean he understood that Kissinger was a
Speaker 1: really smart guy who was as ruthless and amoral as
Speaker 1: he was, and it was a match made in hell.
Speaker 1: The you and I worked on a book together, our
Speaker 1: Trump parody book. But I would say to people that
Speaker 1: I found it just absolutely I was dumb struck by
Speaker 1: how Trump was able to draw together so many bad people.
Speaker 1: I thought, were there really this many bad people who
Speaker 1: wanted to come to Washington and to pervert the course
Speaker 1: of this government to these purposes? I thought, I couldn't
Speaker 1: even imagine there were that many of them. Can the
Speaker 1: same be said of Nixon or was Nixon not as bad.
Speaker 1: It's a complicated question. I was talking about the other
Speaker 1: day comparing Trump to Nixon. Now, I mean, on the
Speaker 1: one hand, Nixon had actual noble ambitions of being a word,
Speaker 1: accomplished good things and China, so the Union, those were
Speaker 1: good things, and Kissenger helped him stipulating those an E
Speaker 1: p A, Oh my god. On domestic politics, he was
Speaker 1: the most liberal president between you know, lb J and
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. I mean literally, I mean, but what he
Speaker 1: did with and in Southeast Asia is unforgivable because it
Speaker 1: was to him a side show to the big game
Speaker 1: with China and the Soviet Union. It was just let's
Speaker 1: not let Saigon follow the comedies. Before November seventy two,
Speaker 1: that that was it. I mean, after his first year,
Speaker 1: we realized we're not gonna win this. They're not gonna
Speaker 1: stand up. This is gonna fall. I just got to
Speaker 1: make sure it doesn't fall. Before November seventy two, it
Speaker 1: was inexcusable and it was awful. Now he had bad people. Well,
Speaker 1: when when you hear the quotes, when you interrojected, when
Speaker 1: you hear the quote when Haig says we're within an
Speaker 1: eyelash of victory. And this is in nineteen seventies, seventy one.
Speaker 1: This is like, no, we aren't General Haig, and no,
Speaker 1: Haig was his military right hand guy throughout this. And
Speaker 1: what's extraordinary about that line from Hague at that point
Speaker 1: it's Kistener and Nixon knew that wasn't true, that they
Speaker 1: knew that this was a lost game, but that we
Speaker 1: couldn't speed up the withdrawal because then Saigon would fall
Speaker 1: and he would have lost Vietnam. And there's no comparison
Speaker 1: between Donald Trump and Richard Nixon and I Q and
Speaker 1: even in morality, although I mean an experience, yeah so,
Speaker 1: but I don't want to say and therefore Nixon is good.
Speaker 1: I mean, in the argument between who's the worst president,
Speaker 1: it's a kind of a tie between an apple and orange,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, Nixon was intelligent, Nixon actually had
Speaker 1: some things he wanted to do. Nixon was not bad
Speaker 1: as a domestic president, Henry kissing, you're really smart guy,
Speaker 1: on and on and on. But what they did in
Speaker 1: Vietnam and what they did in Watergate, what he did
Speaker 1: in Watergate to undermine American confidence in this possibly fatal
Speaker 1: way along with extending Vietnam? Is this one to punch?
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's just inexcusable. I mean if I mean,
Speaker 1: we'll see, right, or maybe we'll see if we live
Speaker 1: long enough, what happens to this country. But was Richard
Speaker 1: Nixon were responsible for its downfall if we come to
Speaker 1: a downfall, or Donald Trump? Both together and and in
Speaker 1: a certain way, which I did really realized before working
Speaker 1: on this piece. You know, marinating in Nixon for a
Speaker 1: year during the last year of the Trump administration, I
Speaker 1: saw the connections between them, even though one was a moron,
Speaker 1: one was more mentally ill than the other, one was
Speaker 1: a bigger liar than Nixon. But you saw how Richard
Speaker 1: Nixon began the rot in the Republican Party and in
Speaker 1: just this cynicism and nihilism that became so big in
Speaker 1: the beginnings at the beginning of the Republican mantra of
Speaker 1: he's a sociopath, but he's our socioth Yes, exactly. Even
Speaker 1: though they got rid of him, and when people, as
Speaker 1: people have said to me, as I've been talking about
Speaker 1: this podcast, well water Gate, we got rid of him
Speaker 1: and it was all good and we're all fine. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and it was good what Baker and Goldwater and all
Speaker 1: those Republicans didn't said, Mr President, you gotta get out
Speaker 1: of here, you gotta resign. This isn't this is no
Speaker 1: longer tenable. But there's a certain self flattering focus on
Speaker 1: as opposed to what was just beginning to happen in
Speaker 1: the Republican Party. It's like, you know, don't end in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four when Gerald four takes over and everything's good,
Speaker 1: We're gonna have tanks in the street and look enough, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: and and and I get it, and it was a
Speaker 1: good thing that we did that, but like here in
Speaker 1: one Land, we haven't had that moment where who good,
Speaker 1: We're safe now, you know. No, well, I mean, I
Speaker 1: mean that proposed the book that we did, and the
Speaker 1: whole crap I did on S and L and so
Speaker 1: forth with Trump, And people would ask me for some
Speaker 1: thumbnail analysis and they say to compare Trump and Nixon,
Speaker 1: and I'd say, well, I'm going to paraphrase, and I say,
Speaker 1: all honorable presidents are the same, and all dishonorable presidents
Speaker 1: are dishonorable in their own way. You know that you
Speaker 1: really can't compare them. They're very very very different people.
Speaker 1: And again Nixon because of the breath of his experience
Speaker 1: and Trump with none. But what I do see is
Speaker 1: that both of them brought a lot of bad people
Speaker 1: with him, and Haldmen and Irlckman were bad people. Hague
Speaker 1: is a bad guy in terms of what what I
Speaker 1: believe the world of government should be. Lately, we've been
Speaker 1: reading about as we already knew, but the details of
Speaker 1: Trump's politicization of the Justice Department, his attorney generals. Well,
Speaker 1: there was Richard Nixon who had taken his campaign manager,
Speaker 1: John Mitchell and made him attorney general and just made
Speaker 1: him like part of the criminal gang that then went
Speaker 1: on to do Watergate and cover it up and all
Speaker 1: the rest. So that politicization of the Department of Justice,
Speaker 1: that we're all, look what he did, Look what Trump said? Well,
Speaker 1: this guy did it? You know, yes, exactly. Now, obviously
Speaker 1: something that is as sweeping as this in terms of history,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of history there. Nixon becoming elected in
Speaker 1: nine and why uh, you know, as I've told people,
Speaker 1: it's like Dracula polls the stake out of his art,
Speaker 1: gets out of the coffin and goes to marry your girlfriend.
Speaker 1: You're like, you just can't believe the improbability of this
Speaker 1: whole fucking thing. But in the breadth of this the convention,
Speaker 1: Nixon wins silent majority. On through the war, I want
Speaker 1: to stop and take a moment because there's so much
Speaker 1: there to cover and talk at out of the expansion
Speaker 1: of the war into Cambodia and allows which I viewed
Speaker 1: as war crimes. I mean, these are guys should have
Speaker 1: been prosecuted for war crimes. I mean, to me, the
Speaker 1: war crime that we're committed were what they caused to
Speaker 1: happen in Cambodia. That they caused the crazy faction of
Speaker 1: Communists in Cambodia to win the civil war that had
Speaker 1: barely started in six sixty nine when the Wigs and
Speaker 1: presidency began. But then this bombing, this this relentless bombing
Speaker 1: this neutral country of not very many people by the
Speaker 1: US to get rid of those Vietcong centuaries, whipped up
Speaker 1: this civil war and certainly made it. You know, who
Speaker 1: are you for, the communists or these people who are
Speaker 1: sending thousands of tons of bombs into your homes every
Speaker 1: day and every week for a year after year. And
Speaker 1: of course that made the camer Rouge eventually win that war,
Speaker 1: and and the genocide of killing two million of their
Speaker 1: seven million fellow citizens. So what happened there really is,
Speaker 1: I mean, very arguably a war crime. It's not hyperbole,
Speaker 1: but yes, expanding the war when he was elected to
Speaker 1: end it, and then thinking that they could at least
Speaker 1: be seen as not giving in, not bugging out, and
Speaker 1: and maybe we can just scare the North Vietnamese a
Speaker 1: little bit enough to be more tractable at the peace talks.
Speaker 1: That's what going into Cambodia was about. That's what going
Speaker 1: into Louis was about. And just also a kind of
Speaker 1: bloody minded desire to keep fighting and not losing a war.
Speaker 1: Americans don't lose wars. We've never lost a war. That
Speaker 1: was for both of them, but especially I think Nixon,
Speaker 1: both of them, meaning Kissinger and Nixon, but for Nixon, like,
Speaker 1: I just can't be the guy who loses the war.
Speaker 1: And yeah, now I'm gonna lose the war, but I'm
Speaker 1: gonna just bomb the hell out of him, even on
Speaker 1: the way out, even if I can't do North Vietnam.
Speaker 1: I think it's literally I want to kill as many
Speaker 1: of them as I can before I signed a document
Speaker 1: in Paris, yes, which they justified to themselves in a
Speaker 1: rational way as all we're getting you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: part of the negotiation process. But now, I mean they
Speaker 1: really didn't get anything more than they could have gotten,
Speaker 1: you know, much earlier in the presidency. But they just
Speaker 1: kept at it. And it's yeah, it's absolutely inexcusable. It's
Speaker 1: almost impossible, I guess. I mean this is true of
Speaker 1: any president. We've imposed a contemporary seco analysis of them. Uh,
Speaker 1: and people positive things like if all these guys have
Speaker 1: been given a really cursory psychiatric examination, they would have
Speaker 1: been ruled ineligible for the job, but no one more
Speaker 1: so than Nixon. And I feel like Nixon is somebody
Speaker 1: who if only he had a friend, if only he
Speaker 1: had a counselor if only he had someone who said
Speaker 1: to him, don't do this. I mean, you have a
Speaker 1: chance to become I'm not gonna see a great president.
Speaker 1: Because it was a very turbulent time because Vietnam is
Speaker 1: the anti communist thing overdone if you will. Everybody knew
Speaker 1: if you study Vietnam and college that they were not
Speaker 1: a Sino based or Russo based communist satellite they were
Speaker 1: like fuck you to the Chinese and fuck you to
Speaker 1: the Russia. They wanted to be left alone. They wanted
Speaker 1: to be their own independent tree, and they would take
Speaker 1: from different people to fight the United States, which was
Speaker 1: a very wealthy country at that time, and we were
Speaker 1: doing the whole guns and butter thing which would later
Speaker 1: come back to haunt us by spending trillions of dollars
Speaker 1: to fight a war halfway around blah blah blah, all
Speaker 1: things we know about Vietnam and the kind of thumbnail way.
Speaker 1: But I do believe that Nixon is somebody who if
Speaker 1: he only had an advisor that really had his heart,
Speaker 1: he could have become a very good president. Do you agree?
Speaker 1: I totally agree. And again a dozen years ago I
Speaker 1: developed this contrarian view of Nixon as this reading about
Speaker 1: what he had done and allowed to be done um
Speaker 1: domestically that we talked about earlier. I mean, between that
Speaker 1: and ending the war in Vietnam, if you'd done it
Speaker 1: more expeditiously and hadn't let the Pentagon papers and everything
Speaker 1: else throw him off the rails and go go nuts,
Speaker 1: and then China in the whole Union, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: he would have been remembered as this unlikable guy he was,
Speaker 1: but as a really really good president. Absolutely are think
Speaker 1: eight years in the White House would have helped him
Speaker 1: erase the image unlikable guy that he was. Well, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, he was such an un Californian,
Speaker 1: Californian and a deeply unlikable tip shoes on the beach.
Speaker 1: I was took exactly, not a natural politician, so beloved
Speaker 1: never but he said he was gonna in the war
Speaker 1: he did, and look at all this other stuff he did,
Speaker 1: and look at China. No, he would be today, absent
Speaker 1: Watergate and absent all the Vietnam craziness that I didn't
Speaker 1: really realize before doing this show led directly to Watergate,
Speaker 1: he would be not in the bottom five or ten,
Speaker 1: he be in the top five or ten. Best selling
Speaker 1: author Kurt Anderson, If you're enjoying this conversation, tell a
Speaker 1: friend and be sure to follow here's the thing on
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. When we come back, Kurt Anderson talks
Speaker 1: about how Nixon became fixated on winning over protesters at home.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: In the early morning of May, just days after four
Speaker 1: students were killed at Kent State University, Nixon went to
Speaker 1: the Lincoln Memorial to talk to protesters himself at five am.
Speaker 1: He recorded the experience on a dictaphone, which is memorialized
Speaker 1: in Kurt Anderson's podcast, Nixon at War. I walked over
Speaker 1: to a group of them, walked up to them, and
Speaker 1: your hands. They were not unfriendly, as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: they sad, of course, quite surprised. As one of the
Speaker 1: protesters said afterward, it was so freaky because I have
Speaker 1: tried to explain it. Michaels in Vietnam were the same
Speaker 1: as there is to stop the children and the war,
Speaker 1: to bring peace. Our goal was not to get into
Speaker 1: Cambo again by what we were doing, but to get
Speaker 1: out of Vietnam. There's need to be wished. They did
Speaker 1: not respond. I hope that they're hatred of the war,
Speaker 1: WHI try could well understand would not turn into a
Speaker 1: bitter hatred of our whole system, our country and everything.
Speaker 1: And it stood for I said, I know you, probably
Speaker 1: most of you think I'm an s op, but I
Speaker 1: want you to know that I understand just how you feel.
Speaker 1: Kurt Anderson says Nixon's frustration was that his plan to
Speaker 1: draw down US troops while training the South Vietnamese just
Speaker 1: wasn't working. Nixon did start vietnamizing the war pretty rapidly
Speaker 1: and significantly, which means for our listeners, which means saying, hey,
Speaker 1: this is not our war to win the South Vietnamese,
Speaker 1: the non communist southern half of this country that was
Speaker 1: divided after the French occupation failed in the nineteen fifties
Speaker 1: between the North who became communists, in the South, who,
Speaker 1: in the view of the communists, became the puppet of
Speaker 1: the United States. So Nixon is is elected to in
Speaker 1: the war, and he begins reducing the draft. First year
Speaker 1: was drawing not very many truths, but then more and more.
Speaker 1: We had five and fifty thousand when he was elected,
Speaker 1: and as many as five hundred dying a week, and
Speaker 1: six thousand boys my brother's age and even my age
Speaker 1: almost being drafted every week. And he brought all that
Speaker 1: down because he understood that was not politically tenable and
Speaker 1: it was for better or worse, all about politics for him.
Speaker 1: If I can end the draft and reduce the number
Speaker 1: of Americans killed. He knew it would not country at
Speaker 1: doubts it would not be a problem for him anymore.
Speaker 1: And so his approval ratings for how he was handling
Speaker 1: Vietnam stayed high for the almost the whole time, and
Speaker 1: he went up and down, and he responded by giving
Speaker 1: speeches and announcing further reductions in the draft and everything else.
Speaker 1: So vietnamization and was saying, Hey, South Vietnam, it's on you.
Speaker 1: We're getting out of here. We're not getting out here immediately,
Speaker 1: but we're getting out of here, and therefore you will
Speaker 1: be fighting your own war against your North Vietnamese brothers.
Speaker 1: During the time that you did this, and you had
Speaker 1: mentioned getting into the weeds quote unquote and the research.
Speaker 1: What was something that surprised you that you found out? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean not so much facts, although this in anal story.
Speaker 1: I had heard of her, maybe, but I knew nothing
Speaker 1: about that. And it was interesting because he had covered
Speaker 1: it up and then and then the Nixon Nights to
Speaker 1: this day, the Nixon Library still so no, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's not don't even pay attention to that. Don't look
Speaker 1: in those files, paying no attention to that woman in
Speaker 1: the channel dress in the corner well exactly, So that
Speaker 1: was a kind of surprise to me. But these moments
Speaker 1: on the tape, listening to the tapes gave me a
Speaker 1: sense of their humanity or in humanity that I just
Speaker 1: didn't have before that I just reading you just don't
Speaker 1: I didn't get as much as hearing them talking admitting
Speaker 1: we're screwed, or laughing about massacres. All those things were
Speaker 1: just in the sense that I now feel as though
Speaker 1: I was there with these guys as they were running
Speaker 1: their horror show. So not so much facts, although I
Speaker 1: had heard, because it's well known about this visit of
Speaker 1: Nixon's at five am to hang with the protesters at
Speaker 1: the Lincoln Memorial, which is an amazing scene, and I
Speaker 1: think we did pretty good justice to it. But I
Speaker 1: never knew the thing that he didn't did at dawn
Speaker 1: and went to the empty capital alone and sat in
Speaker 1: his old chair where Representative Nixon sat. And then as
Speaker 1: they're leaving, going through the statuary hall in the middle
Speaker 1: of the Capitol, there's this black woman mopping the floor
Speaker 1: at six am in the morning, and he goes over
Speaker 1: to her and says, you know, my mother was a saint.
Speaker 1: You remind me of my mother. You'd be a saint too.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's this crazy scene. So so the details
Speaker 1: throughout of how they sound, how they interact, his his craziness.
Speaker 1: When Daniel Alsberg appears and arrested and admits you, I'm
Speaker 1: the Pentagon papers leaker, that he couldn't get Alger Hiss
Speaker 1: out of his mind. What happened. He was a guy
Speaker 1: who works in the State Department as a young man
Speaker 1: in the in the nineteen thirties and into the forties,
Speaker 1: and then ran a nonprofit, was a big liberal guy,
Speaker 1: had been a Communist, as so many people had in
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, and it was alleged and perhaps maybe
Speaker 1: probably true, had given papers, not atomic secrets or anything,
Speaker 1: but had dealt with the Soviets. And and then that
Speaker 1: was I put it in a pumpkin. That was part
Speaker 1: of the pumpkin thing. And that was that became a
Speaker 1: thing in fifty when Richard Dixon was fresh to the
Speaker 1: house and Richard Nixon rode that to prominence. Really the persecution, prosecution,
Speaker 1: call it what you will. Of Aldre was along with
Speaker 1: Jagar Hoover's help, was how Nixon became famous. Mr Anti
Speaker 1: communist who wasn't a nut like Joe McCarthy, and that
Speaker 1: was his beginning of his queer So twenty years later,
Speaker 1: when there's this leak of the Pentagon papers, wholly different thing.
Speaker 1: It's not about a Cold War, it's about this actual
Speaker 1: war we're fighting, and it's all it's so different, but
Speaker 1: he sees it as just the same. It's another pinko
Speaker 1: guy and he's Jewish to boot doing this bad thing,
Speaker 1: and all the newspapers are not only supporting him, they're
Speaker 1: printing it. So to him it was just it's it's
Speaker 1: aldre Hess all over again. It's communists against me all
Speaker 1: over again. It's the liberal elite all over again. And
Speaker 1: he kind of lost it. The thing that was surprising
Speaker 1: to me, even though it's silly, was I couldn't believe
Speaker 1: in Watts said when he was going to resign that
Speaker 1: he got up and took a swing at a kissinger. Myself,
Speaker 1: I didn't think men had that kind of passion in
Speaker 1: that white Well. William Watts, he was the kind of
Speaker 1: administrator of the National Security Council, so he was an
Speaker 1: important guy. He made sure the trains ran on time
Speaker 1: in the National Security Council which Nixon and Kissinger had
Speaker 1: made more powerful than it had ever been, of concentrating
Speaker 1: all the national security, foreign policy decision making, policy making
Speaker 1: in the White House, while was the guy that Kissinger
Speaker 1: had personally hired and finally got too much for him,
Speaker 1: as it did for other liberal ivy legal elitist that
Speaker 1: Kissinger had hired. And he's quit and yeah, took a
Speaker 1: swing at him, and then Hague al Hague told him
Speaker 1: right after that you can't quit. Your commander of chief
Speaker 1: is giving an order. He said, well, I did, General Haig,
Speaker 1: and as he says, and that was the end of
Speaker 1: my career in government. I mean, I'm of the belief
Speaker 1: that we've never recovered from the Vietnam War. Did that
Speaker 1: take hold of you while you're doing this work about
Speaker 1: just the kind of suffocating tragedy that was Vietnam Absolutely,
Speaker 1: and how it combined under Richard Nixon with Watergate and
Speaker 1: all of the the undermining of the rule of law,
Speaker 1: of decency and everything else into one horrible explosive thing
Speaker 1: that began all of the things that we haven't recovered from.
Speaker 1: And the way Nixon used Vietnam and used the countercultural
Speaker 1: moment at the time and used all these things at
Speaker 1: the time politically to make the this this fissure that
Speaker 1: are broken up between the hard hats and the hippies
Speaker 1: and all that he turned into this unhealable wound, and
Speaker 1: this fisher became the chasm that Donald Trump, in his
Speaker 1: way has been still exploiting, is still exploiting between the
Speaker 1: regular folks and the working class guys and these liberals
Speaker 1: and these professors and these newspaper people, and turned into
Speaker 1: this permanent wound that we have never recovered from. And
Speaker 1: also the war powers that comes in three during Nixon's
Speaker 1: second term, which has been flouted by Democrats and Republicans
Speaker 1: since we've learned nothing about that, which is, if we're
Speaker 1: going to invest all this power into a commander in
Speaker 1: chief and an executive without any of the advising instead
Speaker 1: of the Congress. It was, among other things, the time
Speaker 1: when we still believed we hadn't had this happen yet,
Speaker 1: right President's wage war, and here was a president, the
Speaker 1: third president, to wage this particular war. We didn't know
Speaker 1: how to stop that or control that that This was
Speaker 1: a whole new kind of war. So I don't want
Speaker 1: to excuse Congress's ineffectual exercise of power in the instance,
Speaker 1: but they didn't fell down on the job. Look at
Speaker 1: the rock, I mean fell down on the job again.
Speaker 1: And the kind of expansive authorization of war that happened
Speaker 1: in two thousand one. But evil geniuses, fantasy Land, your
Speaker 1: last couple of books, many books prior to that, and
Speaker 1: again you I'm always she lacking you and laddering you
Speaker 1: all the time, but but effortlessly. No. Let's quote Nixon
Speaker 1: in his resignation speech to the staff. When he turns,
Speaker 1: everybody says, this is not the most elegant house, but
Speaker 1: he's the best house because that has a heart. He says,
Speaker 1: that's great speech. And then he said, we don't say goodbye.
Speaker 1: The French have award for it. Or of war, he says,
Speaker 1: Or of war to you. Kart Anderson, our revoir to
Speaker 1: you as well. Kurt Anderson, host of a new podcast
Speaker 1: called Nixon at War. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Is brought to you by I Heart Radio. We're produced
Speaker 1: by Kathleen Russo, Carrie donohue and Zack McNeice. Our engineer
Speaker 1: is Frank Imperial.