WEBVTT - Kurt Andersen on Nixon at War 0:00:02.279 --> 0:00:05.280 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:10.120 Thing from My Heart Radio. When Kurt Anderson started working 0:00:10.160 --> 0:00:13.440 on his new podcast, Nixon at War, he thought he 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:17.560 knew a fair amount about Richard Nixon's presidency, including two 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:22.200 defining experiences. His nineteen sixty eight campaign promised to end 0:00:22.280 --> 0:00:26.279 the Vietnam War and his nineteen seventy three resignation due 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:31.480 to Watergate, devastating but unrelated events, or so he thought. 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:35.760 The surprising connection between those two are at the heart 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:39.880 of Nixon at War. You may know Kurt Anderson from 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:43.600 his award winning radio program Studio three sixty. He's a 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:47.839 prize winning novelist and historian whose three most recent books, 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:52.479 Evil Geniuses, Fantasy Land, and you Can't Spell America Without Me. 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:57.640 We're all New York Times bestsellers. Anderson says, to understand 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:01.520 Nixon's plans for Vietnam, you need to appreciate how much 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:04.119 was at stake for Nixon when he ran in nineteen 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:08.399 Richard Nixon, despite the fact that he was not a 0:01:08.440 --> 0:01:11.679 beloved figure in America as vice president, he had a 0:01:11.840 --> 0:01:15.560 very kind of meteoric young career. As a very young man, 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:18.000 had never really been in politics right out of World 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:20.040 War Two, was elected to the House in California, like 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:22.400 had promptly after two terms of the Senate in California, 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:24.600 before he had even had a couple of years in 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:26.920 the Senate, was picked the vice president by Dwight Eysmower. 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:28.560 And and so then of course he was going to 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:31.800 run for president in nineteen sixty and and barely lost, 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:36.120 but then lost again when he ran for governor of California. 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:42.040 So this incredible rise, this recent fall, and this is 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:45.760 a guy who never felt comfortable in his own skin 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:51.160 with the world, didn't like socializing. Was this weirdo, this resentful, 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:53.200 paranoid weirdo, who had done really well and now it 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:55.920 was all slipping away. This was his last chance. This 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:59.800 is his last chance to get back at the Kennedy 0:01:59.840 --> 0:02:03.920 Ivy League elites who beating him in nineteen sixty He 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:05.800 moved to the heart of it, right and moved to 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:08.640 the upper East side of Manhattan after he got beaten 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:11.560 for the government of California. And and just right there 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:13.640 in the middle of it where everyone hated Hi murdered 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:15.840 and he hated them, but by god, he was gonna 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:18.720 do it. And and so this was this real then 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:22.560 Jean's field comeback attempt. That's where he is as as 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:28.120 a figure, I often think that someone is chosen as 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:30.640 vice president who can come in hand you to do 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:34.520 things the president won't do. Eisenhowerd was probably the last 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:37.560 president of the United States chosen by acclamation. Did not 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:39.880 want to be the president, was pressured into doing that. 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:42.360 Not a details guy at that point in his life, 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:44.560 wanted to go play golf and take it easy. So 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:47.280 he brings Nixon and by my lights to do the 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:49.399 dirty work. Who better the Nixons to do dirty work. 0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:52.440 I mean, Eisenhoward needed somebody who was a political hitman 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:55.399 and enforcer. And so because he wasn't going to micromanage 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:58.800 that way, Eisenhower and Nixon cuts his teeth on Alger 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:01.080 Hiss and all this kind of pumpkin papers and all 0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:04.120 this other stuff. He's an anti communist tool, if you will, 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:07.600 during a time when anti communism seemed too many people 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:09.400 in the country the right thing to be doing. My 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:14.639 favorite scene about the American nineteen fifties is in Manchurian 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:18.280 Candidate when Angela landsbois there with her husband and he says, 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:22.880 there are hundred five communists and the government. I said, 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:27.320 though a hundred forty five, how many other hundred eighty nine? 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:30.080 He just keeps changing the number right in the same 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:33.920 paragraph that he's talking, which is not unlike certain moments 0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:37.400 in Joe McCarthy's real life where he was saying, you know, 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:39.960 he changed the number all the time. No, I mean, 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:42.440 you know, the Soviet Union having been our buddies in 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:44.920 World War Two, suddenly we're not our buddies, and suddenly 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:48.040 had the atomic bomb, and then the hydrogen bomb. Anti 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:51.680 communism got out of control and created McCarthyism. But it 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:56.000 wasn't it wasn't nuts to be frightened of the Soviet Union, 0:03:56.360 --> 0:03:59.320 even though it went crazily too far. And yeah, Richard 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:01.880 Nixon saw this is how he could make his career 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:04.839 and did. And making an enemy of the people out 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:07.720 of aldra Hiss along with Jeheger Hoover in the around 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:10.000 nineteen fifty was the way he did it, and it worked. 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:13.520 And squishy soft Dwight Eisenhower, who by the way, and 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:16.640 won World War Two for the Islands. I'll pick this 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:21.040 anti communists, as you say, tool hitman to uh show 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:23.680 that he was good as an e communist, even though 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:26.240 that didn't stop the John Birch Society later in the 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:30.200 fifties into the sixties of claiming that Dwight Eisenhower was 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:34.479 a conscious stooge of the Soviet Union. Well, it's funny 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:36.840 when I think when you see Eisenhower, oh, PSC won 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:40.240 World War Two. Yes, but I always think Eisenhower's career, 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:42.560 even though you think that there's an inextricable link between 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:44.680 the military and the government at that point, there wasn't 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:47.600 necessarily one and and and the man that won World 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:49.680 War Two, of course exited the office in his farewell 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:52.880 speech warning about the creating the phrase military industrial complex papabah. 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:55.279 But what I was thinking is I see Eisenhower to 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:57.839 me as president was like as if Ted Williams was president. 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:00.760 It's like the guy that won all these games. He 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:03.120 was a hero, but he wasn't necessarily what we could 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:06.600 we equate now with the president as an executive. No, 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:09.960 and figurehead is unfair too, but he was. He was 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:13.200 a hero and then beat twice the same liberal elite 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:16.040 egghead and like Stevenson who was running against him. You 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:19.080 mentioned passingly in the piece about your own background, in 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:24.160 your own family and for your Republican household. Would you say, 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:28.720 when Nixon is elected in sixty eight, where are you well? 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:33.000 When Nixon's elected in sixty eight? Just fourteen? Your fourteen 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:35.560 and your parents were pro Nixon. Oh, definitely, I was 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:39.200 pro Nixon when I was thirteen. I was. I was 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:41.800 a little teenage republic I went to teenage Republican camp. 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:44.040 Had a had a poster of Nixon on my wall. 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:46.760 I wish I had photographs of that whole He had 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:49.400 a poster of Nixon on your wall. In terms of 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:51.240 decorating your room. You were like the Roger Stone of 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:55.440 your generation. I hate to say that a little bit, 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:59.279 but then again, you know, summer of sixty eight came. 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:01.279 My older brother and sisters took me in hand, and 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:06.000 by the fall I was a hippie. Now, comparatively speaking, 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:08.360 now you have how many siblings. That's you plus three, 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:10.960 It is me plus three. And the other ones were 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:14.719 more liberally inclined than they were older. So I was 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:18.679 the youngest and they've gone through the countercultural transformation ahead 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:20.880 of me. It was the one window where your siblings 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:23.960 were more politically evolved than you were. That didn't last long. 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:27.159 And then they definitely, definitely were politically culturally all that 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:31.240 they were, you know, fifteen eighteen one, so they were 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:34.200 into the late sixties. And and what happened to you 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:38.040 when you were four to I don't know. I smoked pot, 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:42.600 I started reading other books and other things than William F. 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:47.880 Buckley Jr. And Uh, I self radicalized like but no, 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:53.240 I but your parents did Republicans absolutely, although interestingly I 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:57.520 described the kinds of Nebraska Republicans my parents were, which 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:02.200 is to say atheists, big public radio enthusiasts, when when 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:06.600 public radio began, big environmentalists and and pro choice and 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:08.480 so on and so on. And my mother, who outlived 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:10.800 my father, finally left the Republican Party at the end 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:14.600 of the ninety nineties because it was no longer her party. Gasp. 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:18.600 Did she vote for Bill? She probably didn't vote for Bill, 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:21.280 but she started a Bob Terry, who was our senator, 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:24.000 was a sort of her entryway drug to becoming a 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:29.240 now sixty eight, I'm ten years old, big turning point 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:32.120 for me politically. Through the eyes of my father and 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:34.400 through the lens of his progressive he was a democratic 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:37.160 commitment in our town and so forth, through his eyes 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:40.240 and This is after Kennedy is killed, of course, so 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:43.440 everybody's just, you know, just just seething with emotion. Bobby 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:46.920 Bobby Kennedy. So we're watching the convention and it's like, 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:49.040 are you rooting for the Chicago police? Are you rooting 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:51.000 for the demonstrator? Who are you rooting for? My dad, 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:53.239 I was rooting for the protesters. He was an anti police. 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:55.440 He was a very, very middle of the road Democrat, 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:57.960 but he was rooting for the protesters. And I'm wondering, 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:00.000 what was that like for you? Were your parents rooting 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:02.440 for the Chicago cops. So they weren't. They were the 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:07.800 extinct species of decent liberal Republicans, although they considered themselves 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:10.520 conservative and we're kind of very Goldwater Fans back then. 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:13.160 But as the party moved right and they didn't, they 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:14.880 thought they didn't have a party. So, no, they weren't 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:17.520 in favor. Were the issues more important to them? Military? 0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:21.560 Strong military was somewhat important, but conservation actually was a 0:08:21.640 --> 0:08:25.080 huge thing for them, and actual liberty not to be 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:29.400 run by religious nuts, because they were anti religious, really, 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:32.640 and they wanted to live a free life with as 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:36.439 few you know, rules and regulations as possible. Really, and 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:39.680 my father also his his profession, he was a lawyer, 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:44.479 and and he his specialty was labor law, representing corporations 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:48.319 and management. And so he was not viciously anti union. 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:53.000 And in fact, subsequently school teachers against whom he negotiated 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:55.200 contracts had said to me since he died, like, you know, 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:57.120 your dad was always a decent guy, and he always 0:08:57.200 --> 0:09:01.640 was fair and somebody managements well exactly, so I was 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:04.040 the opposite of a red diaper baby. You were a 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:09.240 boss baby something like that. You were suiting tie baby. 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:11.960 Well I wasn't. I didn't go that whole Alex Keaton thing. Ever, 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:14.720 although in retrospect, I guess you could you could see that. 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:16.640 I mean as no as a twelve thirty funeral. I 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:19.880 must have been an insufferable little dick, you know, with 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:23.080 my little Republican talking points. Pretty but as you mentioned, 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:26.960 I'm conveniently using you and your family to frame what 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:31.520 Republicanism was back then. You say Goldwater Republican on in 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:34.199 the heartland, but at first is New Yorker was Rockefeller right? Correct? 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:35.280 Were the whole thing? We're like, we don't give a 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:37.079 shit about abortion, we don't give a shit about you 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:39.200 want to order a gay wedding cake. Just lower my 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:41.800 taxes and cut the regulation on my business exactly. And 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:45.640 my parents were very pro civil rights, and my mother, 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:49.160 until she left the party, always referred to it as 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:50.599 the Party of Lincoln, the Party of Lincoln. We're the 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:54.720 Party of Lincoln. Everett Dirkson was was her and their hero, who, 0:09:55.000 --> 0:09:57.680 by the way, helped Lennon Johnson passed the Civil Rights 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:00.679 Act and the Voting Rights Act. So you know, they 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:03.840 were economic conservatives, absolutely, and they believe in the strong military. 0:10:03.840 --> 0:10:06.840 But all the other stuff, all the culture war stuff 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:10.760 that didn't know, which wasn't part of Republicanism very much 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:14.120 back then until Richard Nixon made it so was not 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:17.000 their cup of tea at all. Now, I don't expect 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:21.280 you to concur with me here, but before we launched 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:23.839 into Nixon full blown in the war, I want to 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:27.160 just go trace backwards and say that if Elsberg, who 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:31.079 himself was a self described hawk during the period prior 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:35.200 to the Pentagon Papers and working at RAND, eventually realized 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:39.559 that this policy is a catastrophic and immoral. But I'm 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:42.319 assuming that when the truth of the Pentagon Papers, when 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:45.160 the Rand Corporation submits their report that's around what year 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:48.560 sixty seven, no, sixty eight they finished, and it was 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:51.160 it was really right before Nickson mcame president that they finished. 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:53.920 So there was it was it safe to assume that 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:58.439 kind of information, that's specific cash of paperwork was not 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:01.880 made available to Johnson. Johnson did not know about the 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:04.800 Rand Report. Well, it was actually I mean Rand was 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:07.840 part of it, and Elbert worked for Rand, as you say, um, 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:12.480 but it was it was a Defense Department report, commission commission, 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:15.840 and so it was under commission under mcnamaraon LBJ and 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:18.760 finished under Clark Clifford and lb J. So yeah, Johnson 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:21.319 was very much aware of it. Did it go to him? 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:24.840 I don't actually know that, but it was secret, So, 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:27.280 but I'm always wondering, and I've said this to his 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:31.000 face to Bob Caro. You obviously have all this worship 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:33.680 of Johnson and his political acumen and the kind of 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:36.800 heft and the grandeur of his career and his position 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:39.120 in our history and how determinative was in our history 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:42.760 beyond Kennedy's death and sixty three and what he did 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:45.600 in those years. But let's face facts. At one point, 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:48.920 did he know that the Vietnam War was wrong anymoral 0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:50.840 and why don't you call him on that? And I'm 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:54.400 wondering in the research you did, did Johnson know before 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:57.320 he left? Yes, he definitely did. I mean that we 0:11:57.360 --> 0:11:58.720 have a bit of a phone call he had had 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:01.640 back in the nineteen sixties six, you know, with Eugene 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:04.600 McCarthy saying, I want to get out of it as 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:08.439 much as you do. Jeane hated you know, it's awful. Um. 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:12.199 I mean, he was not a you know, a moralist 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:14.720 in the in the Bobby Kennedy sense, say, you know, 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:17.160 but he knew it was a bad deal and he 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:19.240 made a mistake and he needed to get out. And 0:12:19.280 --> 0:12:21.880 then you know, in sixty eight and as you hear 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:23.960 in this show with his conversations with Nixon and his 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:26.280 conversation with his Secretary of State Dean Russ and other 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:28.719 people like I will tell America I'm not running and 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:31.959 I got nine months to try to really start our 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:34.920 way out. Johnson wants to get out and Nixon doesn't 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:36.320 want to get out because he wants it to stay 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:37.560 so he can get us out. He could be the hero. 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:41.439 Well he wants to, Yes, he wants to. Nixon wants 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:43.679 it both ways. Nixon wants to get elected by saying, 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:47.000 these Democrats have met bungled this war, and I'll be 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:49.360 a tough minded guy who will finish it right and 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:53.200 and soon. But then when when peace is at hand 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:57.040 in the night, Nixon goes, oh, this is gonna beat me. 0:12:57.080 --> 0:12:59.800 This is gonna elect Humbert Humphrey the vice president, and 0:12:59.800 --> 0:13:02.560 we I gotta I gotta postpone this piece thing. So 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:05.440 explain to the listeners what's the thing. Johnson tells Nixon 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:07.600 in the phone call not to do that. Nixon does 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:10.679 well Johnson Johnson tells Nixon not to do multiple times. 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:12.760 Nixon says he's not going to do it multiple times 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:15.480 in the fall of sixty eight, which is talk and 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:18.080 and say I'll do a better deal for you South Vietnam. 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:21.680 I'll do a better deal for you North Vietnam. Elect me, everybody, 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:24.160 and I'll end this war because I won't have this 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:28.720 Johnson Kennedy baggage. And and he keeps quiet for a 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:32.240 little bit, but then he Nixon freaks out, thinks he's 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:35.920 gonna lose, and just like goes full Nixon and tries 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:38.640 to mess up these Paris piece talks to end the 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:41.280 Vietnam War had really started to take off and there 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:43.400 was about to be a big breakthrough, and Nixon didn't 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:47.080 want that to happen. A week or two, Well, he 0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:49.560 does a lot of stuff. Most he does this thing 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:52.520 that he spent the rest of his life covering up. 0:13:53.200 --> 0:13:59.479 He gets this fascinating woman named Anna Chenault, this Chinese 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:04.360 teenage reprovocateur. Well, but she's she deserves her own podcast, 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:08.400 she deserves her own biopic. Anyway. She meets this uh 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:11.959 as a nineteen hole reporter in China during World War Two, 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:14.800 meets this General Marrison. They moved to America. He dies 0:14:14.880 --> 0:14:18.880 right away. She's rich. She's this glamorous, rich, anti communist, 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:22.000 right wing widow living at the Watergate like too good 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:27.400 to be true, and becomes Nixon's biggest female donor and finagler. 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:31.560 She also is good pals in her anti communist way 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:35.280 with the South. FETA music ambassador to the US introduces 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:37.280 the two of them at this secret meeting in the 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:42.640 summer of n at which Richard Nixon says, Okay, Mr Ambassador, 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:45.840 you and President too of South Vietnam. You've gotta understand 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:50.440 this woman your pal, and Channault is my person to you. 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:53.360 She she is my whatever I'm want you to do, 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:56.520 she's the person telling you that. And when a couple 0:14:56.520 --> 0:14:58.840 of a few months later, when the election gets closed 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:01.160 and this and this He's breakthrough is about to happen, 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:05.040 he Nixon and Nixon's people set out what he called 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:10.760 the Dragon Lady to go tell too and the ambassador no, no, no, no, 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:13.400 don't go along with this piece deal. You gotta you 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:15.560 gotta make sure this doesn't have a better deal. When 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:18.160 we come in, you'll get and I'll owe you right. 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:20.920 And so don't make anything happen before November five. You know, 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:24.320 it reminds me of the whole hostage crisis with Carter. 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:26.360 And they go and they basically, if I'm not mistaken, 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:28.640 they do the same thing. Don't release the hostages to 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:30.840 weaken in there. We gotta get rid of Carter. Is 0:15:30.840 --> 0:15:34.960 it similar? Well, is it's comparable. This was an ongoing war. 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:37.320 This wasn't a few dozen hostages. This was an ongoing 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:40.640 war where hundreds of Americans were dying every week. And 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:43.240 they're saying, let's extend this so I can get elected. 0:15:43.600 --> 0:15:46.000 I mean, what's interesting to me about this part of 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:49.320 the story. It was eclipsed in history and in the 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:52.840 popular understanding by Watergate. But this is where it all began. 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:56.240 This is the thing he did which was illegal and 0:15:56.240 --> 0:16:00.840 and a federal crime. Undoubtedly a citizen messing around with 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:04.160 foreign policy, you know, in this very specific way. And 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:06.400 then he was worried the rest of his time alive 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:08.200 and certainly as president, that this was going to come 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:11.920 out and uh lead to his downfall. So what did 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:14.560 he do? He committed burglaries that led to his downfall. 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:23.360 Author and podcaster Kurt Anderson. If you want to deep 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:27.600 dive on the Vietnam War, Ken Burns and Lynn Novic's 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:31.400 eighteen hour documentary is a good place to start. Ken 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:34.320 Burns told me he screened a final version for Senator 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:39.800 John McCain, a decorated pow who was particularly fascinated by 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:43.560 the interviews with North Vietnamese soldiers. What you begin to 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:46.840 realize is that at that point of combat, which is 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:49.880 where human beings are at their very worst, they're really 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:52.120 good at killing the other people and avoiding being killed 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:55.120 or all this stuff happens, but it's hell, and we 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:57.600 couldn't even possibly imagine what it's like, and we've tried 0:16:57.640 --> 0:16:59.960 so hard in so many films from Civil War through 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:03.280 World War Two into this. But they recognize each other, 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:06.800 and they that recognition is transcendent, and so he wants 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:09.359 to see what they're saying, and what they're saying sounds 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:12.439 so exactly like our marines and our army guys. And 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:15.600 so you have a marine, for example, Karmar Lantis, who says, 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:19.200 you know, we're not the dominant species on the planet 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:22.679 because we're nice, right, And people complained that, oh, the 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:25.960 military turns young men into killing machines. I'd suggest it's 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:30.440 only finishing school. Here more of my conversation with Ken 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:33.920 Burns and Lynn Novik that Here's the Thing dot Org. 0:17:35.240 --> 0:17:38.800 After the break, Kurt Anderson talks about Nixon and Henry 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:52.640 Kissinger's faithful decision to bomb neutral Cambodia. Bi'm Alec Baldwin 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:56.520 and you're listening to Here's the thing. Kurt Anderson says, 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:59.800 Richard Nixon had a number of close advisors, but on 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:04.520 they listened to a few. Henry Kissinger definitely had his 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:07.440 ear and his trust, even though they mistrusted each other 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:11.919 because they were both manipulating guys. They were scorpions in 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:15.080 the Oval office together but Bob Holdenman, his chief of staff, 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:17.239 he he thought was a smart political guy and a 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:19.240 tough guy and all that. But like in terms of 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:24.320 oh should I get out of Vietnam sooner rather than later? Kissinger, 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:26.640 if he was of a mind to do that, I 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:28.679 think could have done that, and could have you know, 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:31.360 could have talked him out conceivably of all kinds of things. 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:33.880 Did he have his trust though? Because when he gives 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:36.600 that speech, and you're talking about like episode five or six, 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:39.560 he gives that speech and Kissinger there's a long clip 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:42.560 of kissing going, I've never heard of speech delivered like this, 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:45.840 to the greatest speech that an actor never could have read, 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:48.959 that written that speech, And he said, I think I 0:18:49.040 --> 0:18:50.960 was as good as any actor in Hollywood. He says, 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:53.080 and and and what's what's the speech again? He gives 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:56.680 There was the famous silent majority speech back in the 0:18:56.760 --> 0:18:59.080 fall at sixty nine he gave. But this was afterwards 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:02.159 and the Kissinger actually says the one non ass kissing 0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:04.680 thing in these hours of tapes with Nix and he says, 0:19:04.720 --> 0:19:07.080 he but that wasn't as well delivered as this one, 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:09.960 Mr President, And yes, you're right, and we run that 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:12.720 so long those calls. Kissinger called him I think five 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:15.440 times that night, just to keep trying to keep giving 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:19.200 him the drug was praised. The only thing that cemented 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:21.800 since trust for kissing him was that all you had 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:24.560 to do. No, that was part of the anti he 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:27.240 That was the entry admission. He had to do that 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:31.080 just constantly, obviously because Nixon was so needy for it. 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:36.320 But no, they had actual substantive conversations about politics and 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:40.159 geopolitics and Russian Vietnam and all the rest. But they 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:42.880 were both a moral people and just full of just 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:46.760 amazing to me listening to these hours of tape, kind 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:52.320 of grotesque. A morality about killing, killing on the massive scales, 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:55.560 whether it's Mela, the Meli massacre, or tens of thousands 0:19:55.600 --> 0:20:00.320 and then eventually millions in Cambodia now much as made 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:03.879 not by you. You You've mentioned it glassingly. Nixon was 0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:08.240 a profound anti Semite. Apparently that never entered Kissinger's mind. 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:10.520 I Kissinger was unaware of that. Oh, he was fully 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:13.199 aware of it. He just had to shut up and 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:15.320 stuck it up. Yeah, not be be one of the 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:18.920 good Jews, as Nixon more than once talked about. Um, 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:22.040 you know, William Sapphire, who later became a New York 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:26.320 Times columnist, was Jewish and his and Agnew's most uh 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:30.320 you know, Nixon and agnew esque speechwriter before he went 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:33.040 off to become a cultur prize winning columnists. So he 0:20:33.119 --> 0:20:34.840 was of two minds. I mean, he wasn't, you know 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:39.520 ku klux Klan committed and devoted to his anti Semitism. 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:42.280 But he was. And again it's they're all over the tapes, 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:44.840 especially when he was with Bob Holdaman alone, and they 0:20:44.840 --> 0:20:48.639 could just expose and and share their anti Semitic feelings. 0:20:48.920 --> 0:20:51.399 But no, I mean he understood that Kissinger was a 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:54.880 really smart guy who was as ruthless and amoral as 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:57.080 he was, and it was a match made in hell. 0:20:57.720 --> 0:21:01.639 The you and I worked on a book together, our 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:04.840 Trump parody book. But I would say to people that 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:10.360 I found it just absolutely I was dumb struck by 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:15.399 how Trump was able to draw together so many bad people. 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:19.560 I thought, were there really this many bad people who 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:23.760 wanted to come to Washington and to pervert the course 0:21:23.800 --> 0:21:26.240 of this government to these purposes? I thought, I couldn't 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:28.679 even imagine there were that many of them. Can the 0:21:28.720 --> 0:21:31.800 same be said of Nixon or was Nixon not as bad. 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:35.159 It's a complicated question. I was talking about the other 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:38.359 day comparing Trump to Nixon. Now, I mean, on the 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:43.920 one hand, Nixon had actual noble ambitions of being a word, 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:47.360 accomplished good things and China, so the Union, those were 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:51.399 good things, and Kissenger helped him stipulating those an E 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:54.320 p A, Oh my god. On domestic politics, he was 0:21:54.359 --> 0:21:57.480