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- [00:00]
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- [01:37]
Don Wildman
Hello everyone, I'm Don Wildman.
- [01:39]
Advertiser 2
Welcome to American History. Hit and this is part two of our examination of a most psychologically complex man, President Richard M. Nixon. Let's start off with an unlikely but revealing story. It's 10pm May 9, 1970. Nixon has just finished a grueling press conference about Cambodia. Days earlier, protesters were shot dead at Kent State University in Ohio. The country is in shock, angry, raw, grieving. Nixon stays up late making phone calls. He's tried to sleep but couldn't. At 4am he's blasting a recording of Rachmaninoff so loud he wakes his valet, Manolo Sanchez. Manolo finds the President staring out the window into the darkness towards a gathering of protesters on the National Mall. Nixon turns and asks if Manolo's ever visited the mall at night. A short time later, the President of the United States with his valet and Secret Service in tow, is out there among a small circle of protesters, unplanned Unprogrammed, chatting face to face at the base of the Lincoln Memorial. These protesters were a bit stunned. Some shook his hand, overawed. Nixon would later describe them. Remembering the incident, they reported Nixon telling them to travel, see the world, its architecture. He talked about football. He was quiet, murmuring at times in broken sentences. He mentioned a spiritual hunger inside of us all. Now, here's the thing. Nixon, as a rule, loathed protesters. Yet here he was, sharing his soul with them in the hours before dawn. It's a famous story for its improbability, of course. The most powerful person on the planet, casually among the young people who despise him. But it also reveals so much about Nixon's own inner contradictions. Who would take such a risk? And in the middle of the night, Richard Nixon seemed to be a man in conflict with himself. And if we mean to understand him as a leader, we have to follow him into the dark.
- [04:09]
Don Wildman
This is American history hit. I'm your host, Don Wildman. Greetings all. Thanks for listening. Today we return to the ascendancy of President Richard Milhouse Nixon, the nation's 37th chief executive. His famous downfall and disgrace is another episode, specifically episode 139 on Watergate. Find it on our series website. Most of us know how it ended for Nixon, but before he served as president from 1969-74, his resume in Washington was so vast we spent a part one of this interview on his prior jobs. Member of the House of Representatives from California in the 1940s. His rise as a Cold War hawk, followed by an abbreviated term in the Senate before he was drafted as Dwight Eisenhower's vice presidential candidate. Elected with Ike in 1952, Nixon was a political comet shooting across the firmament of our federal government. And the remnant of that comet is still a tale being told today. Important to understand why has a lot to do with the ever critical balance of power in Washington. Professor Nicole Hemmer is our returning guest. She is a professor of political history at Vanderbilt University. Her latest book is the Conservative Revolutionaries who Remade American politics in the 1990s. Hey, Nikki, thanks for coming back.
- [05:25]
Nicole Hemmer
Great to be back with you.
- [05:26]
Don Wildman
Those 1990s partisans in your book cut straight from the Nixon fabric, aren't they?
- [05:31]
Nicole Hemmer
Boy, are they ever. And many of them, you know, worked within the Nixon administration, so there's a lot of overlap.
- [05:36]
Don Wildman
Exactly. The man is still with us. So in our previous episode, we got Nixon elected in 1968 in the roiling midst of Vietnam, LBJ's choice not to run, the awful assassinations MLK Jr. And Robert Kennedy. Riots in the cities. There is a tectonic shift in national politics in America. A third party challenge from George Wallace and the new GOP south in the face of the civil rights and call for, for law and order. Nixon squeaks into the White House defeating Democrat Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Wallace. And here we are. What's the advertised vision of his presidency? He's the new Nixon, right?
- [06:16]
Nicole Hemmer
He's the new Nixon. He's not going to be that old Nixon. You remember him as the kind of shifty fellow from the 1950s and 1960s, the defeated Nixon of the early 1960s. But the new Nixon is going to be popular and more important, he is going to restore order to the United States. That is sort of his promise. He's kind of the second coming of Warren Harding from 1920.
- [06:38]
Don Wildman
Right.
- [06:38]
Nicole Hemmer
The a return to normalcy after all of this, this chaos and a kind of, kind of soft landing from the liberalism of Lyndon Johnson.
- [06:47]
Don Wildman
Right. The silent majority played a big part in this. Right. In his mind, very much so.
- [06:51]
Nicole Hemmer
Nixon understood American politics as being, on the one hand, this very loud, noisy, protesting minority that was clamoring for attention and was getting all of the attention. But actually they disguised this silent majority of white middle class Americans who went to work and loved their country. And yes, they were unhappy with how things were going, but they weren't going to take to the streets because they had responsibilities and they were being responsible. And he saw those Americans as being not only his base of support, but the Americans who he most needed to serve while he was in office.
- [07:31]
Don Wildman
He makes a well received speech at his first inauguration. He uses the phrase the greatest honor bestowed is the title of Peacemaker. Spoken as a guy who was raised Quaker. But things will tangle up very quickly. Nixon's administration in general, I will say, will be a bold endeavor that is constantly tripped up by events or by themselves. And in the worst way, very much so.
- [07:53]
Nicole Hemmer
If you go to the Nixon library today, Peacemaker is still, still the title that they pushed for Richard Nixon. And it was something that he really, really wanted. He wanted because he had this encyclopedic knowledge of the world, because he'd met all of these world leaders. He really believed that he could shape the world. He believed that he could domestically put in place policies that would tamp down on the domestic unrest and lead people into this new golden era. Events were less his problem than he was. He was paranoid and constantly for ways to use power that were outside of the bounds. And as he did that, he got into a lot of trouble. And in fact, he was already getting himself into trouble during the 1968 campaign when he was behind the scenes working with people to scotch the peace talks that were going on with Vietnam because he. He was letting them know, you know, don't. Don't make any deals with Lyndon Johnson. Now when I get into office, I can offer you something much better. And so the. The peacemaker was actually getting in the way of peace in his pursuit of power. And that was something we would see throughout his presidency.
- [09:04]
Don Wildman
Sure, yeah. Based on his promises, he sort of has this mandate. It's not an election mandate, because that comes later with 72. But he's going to end Vietnam. He's going to restore order to American society, law and order. He's going to restore our standing in the world. So let's start with the first. Vietnam. Obviously, Vietnamization is his project. Can you define that term?
- [09:24]
Nicole Hemmer
Vietnamization was the idea that you would slowly pull out the American troops and replace them with South Vietnamese troops. So it would become a war that was taking place in Vietnam between Vietnamese people and the US Would pull out of it. And the reason that was so important to him was because it was this high cost of life, the draft, all of this treasure and personnel that was being poured into Vietnam that had been the source of so much unrest. Americans, I don't think, cared that much whether there was a war in Vietnam, Vietnam. They cared that the US Was involved in a war in Vietnam and that it was their children who were being drafted into that war, they themselves who were being drafted into that war. So Nixon's plan was, well, if I can't. If I can't get a peace between these different factions in Vietnam, at least I can get the US Largely out of it.
- [10:16]
Don Wildman
Yeah. His big challenge was perception in so many ways. He wanted the United States to be perceived as withdrawing on its own terms and not dishonorably, you know, and that becomes peace with honor, which is really a big slogan. Later on, unfortunately, he has again. And this is. We're going to be constantly coming back to the fact that, you know, on one hand, there's the public perception of what he's doing, but then there's these other things that are happening behind the scenes. He secretly starts a campaign of bombing against Cambodia and broadens the war against the North Vietnamese in Cambodia in 1970. He is expanding this war and not.
- [10:50]
Nicole Hemmer
Shrinking it very much so. And that expansion of the war has two components that are really unpopular. The first is that he's expanding it in the first place. And so, you know, he's come in promising he's going to end this war and instead it's getting bigger and bigger and bigger and also that he's doing it secretly. That had been one of the major issues in 68 during the Tet offensive, was that the generals had been promising one thing, we're about to win this war. And then facts were playing out on the ground where people were like, well, but the Vietnamese that we're fighting are much, much stronger than we had been told. And so the American people already had this perception they were being lied to about the Vietnam War. And the expansion of the bombing into Cambodia only reinforces that sense.
- [11:33]
Don Wildman
Am I right to say, you know, at the outset of this conversation, we're really dealing with executive power here as a huge theme in the story of Richard Nixon's presidencies, of course, you know, with Watergate later on. But it also plays a part in all of these foreign policy moves that he will have as the President. It come to this point where American power sits in the White House more than ever before.
- [11:57]
Nicole Hemmer
This is the story of the Cold War presidency that it accrues more and more and more power in all sorts of ways through the intelligence agencies, through the ability to wage war, through just the growth of the executive state. You end up having power because so much is focused on foreign policy and strategies for nuclear war. So much of that power sits in the executive and rests on the person of the presidency. So Nixon is really the air to, you know, some 20 years of ever expanding presidential power.
- [12:29]
Don Wildman
Well, there are those who would go even back to FDR for sure, you know, as far as that kind of thing. And this is the issue today we're talking about anyway. When the truth about Vietnam and Cambodia comes out, of course it triggers protests. This is also happening because of the draft and all the rest. Kent State is a huge event most notorious among many, many protests. May 4, 1974. 1920 year old protesters were shot and killed there. Nine were wounded, often forgotten, including one permanently paralyzed by the Ohio National Guardsmen who were firing real bullets. How did Nixon view these protests?
- [13:05]
Nicole Hemmer
Nixon was disturbed by the protests. He felt like the protests were illegitimate. He didn't think that the protesters were patriotic. But that said, one of the things that Nixon did during one of his dark nights of the soul was he went down and talked to protesters who were in Washington D.C. who were protesting the war. And so there really were these two sides of Nixon. You listen to the tapes and the secret tapes that he recorded in the Oval Office. And he often says the worst things about protesters. He talks about wanting to shoot Quaker protesters in the face, despite the fact that he himself was a Quaker. But he also then goes down and he talks to these. These protesters who are gathered on the National Mall, trying to have, like, this rap session with them to show that he hear them and sees their protests. So I think that this is part of the two sides of Richard Nixon that play out over these protests.
- [13:59]
Don Wildman
That was going to be my follow up right there. It really is the theme of his presidency and of the man himself, this conflicted internal conflict that's always going on, it seems.
- [14:09]
Nicole Hemmer
Right. And that that conflict that's taking place within the person of the President becomes the country's conflict because of all that power he has.
- [14:17]
Don Wildman
The fact is, the war under Nixon's presidency, as we said, continues to cost untold thousands of lives on both sides, especially from the bombing, of course, which then leads to The Pentagon Papers, 1971, and it all comes out. That lying and obfixation has been going on since, you know, as far back as Truman, really. 1973 are the Paris peace talks led by Henry Kissinger, and they finally arrive at an accord, and they are signed. Does Nixon take credit for bringing peace at that time? I can't remember.
- [14:47]
Nicole Hemmer
He does. I mean, this is part of a celebratory moment in the Nixon presidency. It really is kind of like the climax before the denouement of this presidency because he's coming off of this trip to China where he's opening the US to communist China, and then he has these peace talks. And he really does see himself in this moment as the person who is sort of bringing order to the world. And of course, behind the scenes, the negotiation is, okay, we're gonna. We're gonna declare peace, peace with Honor in 1973. And there's a kind of side negotiation with the North Vietnamese. They won't attack until 1975. And so you have actually what ends up being a chaotic and disorderly retreat from Vietnam that happens in 73, and then in 75, the complete collapse when some of those enduring images of the US Embassy being evacuated.
- [15:41]
Don Wildman
So those peace accords had been intended to secure his peace with honor, but that totally failed within two years. How did Nixon react to that? I guess that happened in the Frost interviews, right?
- [15:52]
Nicole Hemmer
Yeah, it happens after he's left the White House. And he, I believe, takes credit for getting the US Out. Right. Like, you can't control what happens in Vietnam going forward. But the US Got out and for a while, there was some stability in Vietnam, but ultimately, you know, couldn't stay there forever.
- [16:12]
Don Wildman
Nixon's presidency is most notably about foreign policy, which is interesting and ironic. I suppose we'll talk about that later. But it's what sets the Nixon presidency apart and why so many Americans still look back fondly on, on this man, China, most famously, as we've already mentioned. Did Nixon ever explain what it was about foreign policy that would become his great legacy? Why him?
- [16:35]
Nicole Hemmer
He was fascinated by foreign policy. He was fascinated about the way that power flowed around the globe. And he had read so much on it, and he had theories about what would become known at the time as realpolitik. Right. That we needed more realism in foreign policy and less ideology. And this really is a turning point in how presidents think about the Cold War. You know, it had been seen in the 1950s and 60s as this clash between incompatible ideological worldviews. And Nixon takes a step back and he's like, well, actually, you know, I've talked to people in all these different parts of the world and, you know, communism in the Soviet Union is not the same thing as communism in China. And in fact, there's a way for us to triangulate between these two communist superpowers and actually drive a wedge between them and open up relations with China, even though it has a communist government. And so he brings a really studied and experienced hand to foreign policy. It just ends up not being his legacy because of everything else, but he.
- [17:38]
Don Wildman
That had happened as he was a vice president. He was really Ike's man on the ground. As far as these, these foreign trips goes.
- [17:44]
Nicole Hemmer
He logged so many tens of thousands of miles crisscrossing the globe as vice president and really thought that that was going to be the launching pad for him to, to become president in 1960, that he could say in this very braught moment across the globe, here was somebody who had this, this real experience and could lead the US through this very precarious moment in the Cold War. He doesn't get that shot in 1960, but then in 1968, he finally has his hand on the wheel and is, is eager and excited to reshape global politics.
- [18:30]
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- [19:01]
Nicole Hemmer
Our skin tells a story. Join me, Holly Fry, and a slate of incredible guests as we are all inspired by their journeys with psoriasis. Along with these uplifting and candid personal histories, we take a step back into the bizarre and occasionally poisonous history of, of our skin and how we take care of it. Whether you're looking for inspiration on your own skincare journey or are curious about the sometimes strange history of how we treat our skin, you'll find genuine, empathetic, transformative conversations here on our skin. Listen to our skin on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [19:42]
Advertiser 2
Foreign.
- [19:48]
Don Wildman
Let'S talk about the opening of China. Some context for anyone who doesn't understand. The Chinese Communist revolution happened under, between Mao and, and Chiang Kai shek back in 1949, right after World War II. The rise of Mao and communist China then leads to our military confrontation on the Korean peninsula, the Korean War, which is all part one of what later becomes Vietnam, of which is to say, not in a million years would Rich Nixon, the Cold War hawk of the 1940s and 50s, ever sit down with Ma to sip tea. But that's exactly what happens 25 years later. It's crazy. You know, that's what's incredible about this guy. And he needs to be given credit for the fact that he can adjust. And this was an enormous journey for this, this personality to take.
- [20:33]
Nicole Hemmer
There's this saying that comes after the opening of China, which is only Nixon could go to China. And what that saying means is that like, only Nixon could do it without being red baited by Richard Nixon because had a, had an earlier president tried to do, Nixon would have accused them of being Communists. That's where he, he sort of built his reputation. And in fact, the opening of China brings him into open conflict with the conservative movement in the United States who are actually like, wait a second, we thought you were one of us. That you understood that communists were an existential threat. What are you doing, like sitting down with these butcherous enemies and they actually break with Nixon right ahead of the 1972 election because of this. They support minor third party candidates, but Nixon stays the course because he realizes that by the time the 1972 election is rolling around that he's, he's got that one he doesn't necessarily need. You know, the William F. Buckley, Juniors of the world, to be on his side.
- [21:26]
Don Wildman
Well, the upshot of that trip really is basically the world order we have today. I mean, it's China rising to become this communist capitalist superpower here to challenge us, really. Not to mention they own our debt. I mean, when you look back with 2020 hindsight, did he see this coming? Did he understand what he was the can of worms he was going to open up?
- [21:48]
Nicole Hemmer
I, I don't think he understood where the US and China relations would be in the 21st century. He understood that there was opportunity in that moment that there could be this, this new realpolitik way of viewing the power on the global stage. So I think he understood the potential of a rise in China, but I think that he was more hoping to harness that rising power rather than where we are now. Where the US is really entering in some ways a new Cold war with China on very different economic terms.
- [22:21]
Don Wildman
It's hard to, to track it. But you figure, you know, before China is opened up, it's Japan, where we get all of our cheap goods and things. And that continues for a time, including the, the cars especially, but, but it, it shifts over to China. And I always wondered if he knew we're going to need a place where there's cheap labor, you know, that's going to make iPhones someday, you know, whatever. But I always wondered if it was Richard Nixon who had that vision or was taking that advice from somebody who understood it.
- [22:51]
Nicole Hemmer
It's a great question. I'm not sure how much he had a new economic order in mind. He certainly understood that the US was entering some challenging economic times because so much of that post war prosperity had been built off of two things. One, you know, China had been kind of cloistered and closed off and so wasn't a central part of the global economy. But also Japan and Europe and all of these places had been destroyed in World War II, and so they weren't challenging the US in terms of manufacturing. And Richard Nixon is becoming president at a moment in which that is shifting. Right. Europe is powering back up, Japan is powering back up. They hadn't yet reached critical mass. I'm just not sure how much he understood that China was part of that equation. It's entirely possible that he did.
- [23:36]
Don Wildman
They were sure playing the long game boy. They, I think they knew what exactly what they were doing. He makes all kinds of moves. Internationally, he's acting again as the peacemaker. Detente with the Soviet Union under Brezhnev finally gets traction under Nixon it sort of began under, under Johnson. They signed the SALT one agreement which reduces nuclear weapons. He also visits the Middle East, Egypt, Israel. Fair to say he sets the table for everything that happens under, Under Carter. Right.
- [24:03]
Nicole Hemmer
Those conversations are happening under Nixon. And again, Nixon understands how power works. He knows these people who are running the countries in the Middle east and the sultanates and all of these different governments, and again, is looking for a way to stabilize the world. Right, to stabilize power in these different places like the Middle east, instead of having them be simply pawns in US Soviet conflict, to empower them and to bring them sort of into this new political order that he is helping to shape in this moment.
- [24:40]
Don Wildman
You can draw a line, or maybe it's 180 degree turnaround from George Washington in Richard Nixon. Okay, so George Washington famously leaves office saying, don't get into foreign entanglements. Whatever you do, it's trouble. And here we are with Richard Nixon, who really opens that all up. And quite deliberately realpolitik is that idea that we have this role to play in the world on this grand scale.
- [25:07]
Nicole Hemmer
The very idea of the American century, the idea that Henry Luce puts forward in 1941, that the US would be an active leader on the international stage. The founding generation would not have even really conceptually understood that, not only because the US didn't have that kind of power back in the late 18th century, but because they just had a very different vision of how the US would operate in the international space. And a lot of that was like, we're going to stay over here. Europe and its problems can be over there, and we're not going to worry about those so much, except on the, the rare occasions when it interferes with our, our economic interests. So, yes, this was a, just a, an entirely new vision for the US's place in the world that had been building, I think, since the late 19th century as the US is becoming more of an empire and then with, you know, World War II and the Cold War. But Nixon really brings it to its apotheosis.
- [26:03]
Don Wildman
Oh, there's all kinds of, there's Teddy Roosevelt, there's all kinds of places where the President steps out. But, but Nixon, I just want to say, is in terms of finalizing that idea of what we now accept as, as reality, that we are the, you know, however you want to define it, we are an enormous presence in the world. Nixon puts the nail in that. He, he says, this is how we're going to be domestically. He pushes something that's called New Federalism.
- [26:26]
Nicole Hemmer
What does that refer to new federalism is this idea that the federal government is going to begin to devolve power back to the state, that you're still going to have federal programs that are interested in funding things like early childhood education, or that it is interested in the desegregation of workspaces and those kinds of things, but it's going to be done at the state level. So instead of having these big federal programs, you'll instead give block grants to the states and the states will figure out how best to spend that money. It's a conservative idea that again, is this idea sort of slowly transitioning away from new deal great society big government that is, that is located in the federal government and taking that federal money and devolving it back to the state level. And so that's the big driving idea.
- [27:18]
Don Wildman
There must have been enormous resistance to this. I mean, the, the Congress was very powerful in those days. You know, Mike Mansfield, all those guys were out there and, and they knew how to build this kind of thing. And so to have it deconstructed was a big problem.
- [27:31]
Nicole Hemmer
Yeah, it really depends on where you sat, how much you saw it as a problem to be resisted or something to be embraced. In the US south, there was quite a lot of interest in having white state governments run these federal monies. But for people who had invested their careers in building up these federal agencies, understanding that it had to be managed at the federal level, both for it to be consistent and fair, but also to make sure that it was following sort of the new rules of the, the civil rights era, making sure that, you know, money was getting to black residents and to women and to Latino residents, like this was part of the understanding that federal control meant fairness and that state control meant something else. And for Richard Nixon, who had run on the Southern Strategy, he was more interested in having that state control than federal control.
- [28:31]
Don Wildman
But that's a question. I mean, was that political calculation or was that truly his belief? Because in fact, he does amazing things with the Met, with the federal government in oversight and regulation. He creates the Environmental Protection Agency, the epa. Is Richard Nixon.
- [28:46]
Nicole Hemmer
I think that as especially first term Richard Nixon is someone who understands he has to compromise. Republicans do not control the Senate and the House. They're still in the Great Society era. And when he moves, he has to move strategically. And so he doesn't say, let's dismantle the welfare state. He says, what about this idea of having a guaranteed annual income where the federal government just gives people money and they figure out how to, how to spend it that way, or even for something like affirmative action. Right. A liberal policy idea. Nixon sort of embraces it, but he embraces it to the end of trying to weaken unions. And so one of the things that Nixon does in his first term is he tries to figure out how to use liberal means to reach conservative ends. So he does oversee things like the development of the Environmental Protection Agency, but his ultimate goal is to have a more conservative federal government. He just doesn't have a lot of space to do that in his first term, where he's barely eked out of victory and is working in what is clearly just like a more liberal America.
- [29:58]
Don Wildman
Yeah, well, he sure gets it in his second term. I mean, the 1972 is a startling election that really, people don't talk about very much. And I was fifth grade or something like that, so I was alive well enough to know that it was an extraordinary fact of life that Richard Nixon had taken this government over. In 1972, you know, George McGovern was barely in contention and as a result, had a gigantic mandate to do whatever he wanted in his second term. This is the most confusing thing of all to me, you know, why you would do any of these things that they did behind the scenes and then trip themselves up from such a gigantic accomplishment.
- [30:36]
Nicole Hemmer
I think the important starting point has to be that the Watergate affair, the scandal, starts during the 1968 election, before that big landslide happened. Nixon had, of course, in 1968, as we've mentioned, barely eked out a victory. The conditions were obviously very different in 1972. But I think he was still pretty paranoid that he might lose that election. So he was looking for any little thing that could give him an edge, not knowing that the 1972 election would be one of the biggest landslides in American history.
- [31:10]
Advertiser 1
Right.
- [31:10]
Nicole Hemmer
McGovern wins his home state, Nixon wins the other 49. I think at least the scale of it was even a little bit of a surprise to Richard Nixon. But it is there. It is. Hard to imagine a bigger mandate. Although, interestingly, it's coming just eight years after LBJ had a mandate of a very similar size.
- [31:28]
Don Wildman
Be careful reading your own tea leaves. I suppose his civil rights record is a checkered one. We've mentioned him in the tape tapes. Unsavory opinions of African Americans and others. My wife made a documentary about his opinion of public television and African Americans in that medium on Haldeman. He's taped saying to Haldeman, you know, get those blacks off television. All kinds of difficult things that you Hear this man saying, that's the conversation about his personality. You know, how much did we know the real Richard Nixon versus this sort of ugly darker side to him? I guess we'll never know from real, obviously, but. But where. Where do you fall on it? I'm sure, I'm curious.
- [32:07]
Nicole Hemmer
The darker side peeks out now and then in public. So he. He has a kind of viciousness toward the press that you later learn is actually being actualized into a war on certain journalists. They're being investigated by the IRS and the FBI, and he's keeping an enemies list. That is the real Richard Nixon. You know, he. He cuts loose Vice President Spiro Agnew to attack the liberal media and to really try to bring the fight to the press. That's clearly a big part of his personality, is that idea of vengeance and embattledness. And then honestly, it speaks to what white elite life looked like in the United States in the mid century. It had become unpalatable to use racial slurs in public, to talk about the Jews in negative ways in public. And yet behind the scenes, you know, in those places that were out of the. Out of the spotlight and off camera, there was a lot of this. And Nixon embodied it. He had terrible things to say about black people, about Jewish people, about women. And that all comes out on the tapes. And that is. That is part of the story of his downfall is that people see this kind of bigotry and just meanness that Nixon has that he's able to largely disguise in public, but that is very evident on those. On those hidden tapes.
- [33:29]
Don Wildman
I don't want to be naive. Every president has his ugly side, and politics on all levels has been ugly in America forever. But Nixon really does crystallize a lot of what we now consider negative politics and kind of seems to divide America into good and bad, maybe more so than ever, you know, in terms of any president I mentioned. We'll talk about this in a moment. His legacy. But it's really this dichotomy of the man, you know, because he's obviously extremely intelligent, has a wide vision of how presidential politics can be used positively. But he also has this other side of him which is sort of undermining that vision all the time.
- [34:09]
Nicole Hemmer
It's really extraordinary, undermining it in so many different ways. Because yes, on the one hand you have this Nixon who is, you know, promoting affirmative action for in his Philadelphia plan and who is crisscrossing the world and talking to people of all different kinds of backgrounds and religions and belief systems. And pulling them together in international politics but who harbors a great deal of bigotry in his own personal life. And that also, you know, while he's building this enormous national majority in the 72 election, is also behind the scenes breaking law in order to make sure that he wins that election. So this is the break in to the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate, but is also going after his political enemies. You mentioned the Pentagon Papers which were released in 1971 and the. The Nixon admin. Fought tooth and nail to try to keep those from being published in the New York Times and the Washington Post where they were ultimately revealed. But part of, part of the crime spree in 1972 is going after Daniel Ellsberg, who's the person who released the papers, breaking into his psychiatrist office in order to try to get dirt on him. That sort of revenge mindedness trips him up again and again and leads him to to break the law at a time when presidents have so much power that there was probably things he could do legitimately to discredit someone like Ellsberg. But that's not the path he chose.
- [35:33]
Don Wildman
Not when you have J. Edgar Hoover on the other side of the street. There's a lot of skeletons in the closets.
- [35:49]
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- [36:55]
Don Wildman
Let's talk about his legacy, some of which we're already discussing. It is fair to say that so many of the themes we see today have their roots in the Nixon time. And that's because a lot of careers kind of started there and then carried through Reagan and all through the Iraq. Although all kinds of things that happened were personalities that came up through those years. The name Roger Stone, of course, is part of this story, but it's the conundrum of Richard Nixon. I remember his memorial service at the Nixon Presidential Library. We opened part one talking about that. The weeping that was done on the parts of, like, Robert Dole, who I greatly admired, really, people felt very strongly and positively about Richard Nixon. But then on the other side of it, you have everything we're suggesting, you know, was working against him all the while. Where does it land for you, Nikki, in terms of legacy?
- [37:45]
Nicole Hemmer
It's a great question, because on the one hand, we often talk today about how great it would be to have a president who is deeply knowledgeable about the world and treats the world as it is. And I think that that is something that is laudable and that we want. Right. We want presidents who are sincerely interested in peace and who are engaged and understand both how power and people work. And in a lot of ways, Richard Nixon had those qualities. At the same time, the way that he went about getting peace in some of these places, including Vietnam, involved war crimes and law breaking, as in the case of the bombing of Cambodia, even.
- [38:25]
Don Wildman
You talked about Chile.
- [38:26]
Nicole Hemmer
Yeah. The body count of the Nixon administration is not something that can be set aside. The chaos and the destruction that his administration caused in pursuit of those loftier goals. The loftiness of the goals does not excuse the criminality on the world stage and then the criminality at home. I think one of the lasting legacies of the Nixon administration is that he did have a lot of supporters, people who felt that he was unfairly prosecuted and persecuted through Watergate, and who then spent the next several decades trying to create a world in which the next Republican president wouldn't be held responsible if he committed crimes in pursuit of his goals. And that's the world we live in now. And so, you know, I think that you can tally things up on a ledger about the good and the bad of the Nixon administration, but I think we have to take into account the destructiveness of that legacy, which, you know, Nixon probably couldn't have foreseen, that he would have loosened the constraints on presidents going forward. That wasn't, I think, what he saw as the lesson of his presidency. But nonetheless, we are living in the world that Richard Nixon created. And looking around right now, it doesn't feel like a very good world to live in.
- [39:38]
Don Wildman
He was the tipping point of executive power in the American presidency. That's my quick thumbnail on it. He pushes those limits that are, as you say, currently being tested today. Just a reminder to listeners, you can find a lot more about Nixon in our archive. The Watergate episode I mentioned, episode 139, his trip to Moscow to meet Nikita Khrushchev, episode 84. And there are others. I mean, this guy has made his presence felt. Professor Nicole Hemmer has been with us for two episodes now. Please listen to part one of this episode in which you talk about everything before the presidencies of Richard Nixon. She is a political historian at Vanderbilt University, host of this Day podcast, and of course, a writer whose latest is entitled Partisans the Conservative Revolutionaries who Remade American politics in the 1990s. It has been an honor to talk to you, Negi. Thank you very much.
- [40:28]
Nicole Hemmer
It's been my pleasure. Thank you.
- [40:30]
Don Wildman
Hello folks. Thanks for listening to American History hit. Each week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays. All kinds of great content like mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode by hitting like and follow you help us out, which is great, but you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, share with a friend. American History hit with me. Don Wildman, so grateful for your support. Bye for now.
- [41:12]
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- [41:42]
Nicole Hemmer
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