A new batch of Nixon White House tapes and documents were released by the National Archives in 2010, putting the former president back on page one. Herewith, the top ten:
10. “The Irish can’t drink. What you always have to remember with the Irish is they get mean. Virtually every Irish I’ve known gets mean when he drinks.”—to Chuck Colson, White House hatchet man, Feb. 13, 1973.
9. “The Italians, of course, those people course don’t have their heads screwed on tight. They are wonderful people, but.”—to Chuck Colson, Feb. 13, 1973.
8. Nixon discussing who would get invited to a 1973 state dinner for Golda Meir: “I don’t want any Jew at that dinner who didn’t support us in that campaign. Is that clear? No Jew who did not support us.” —to Rose Mary Woods, his secretary, Feb. 3, 1973.
7. Nixon discussing the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade: “there are times when abortions are necessary. I know that. You know [unclear] you have a black and a white [unclear].”—to Chuck Colson, Jan. 23, 1973.
6. “If you look at the Canadian-Swedish contingent [of draft resisters in exile], they were very disproportionately Jewish. The deserters.”—to Chuck Colson, Feb. 13, 1973.
5. Kissinger to Nixon: “The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.” Nixon responded, “I know. We can’t blow up the world because of it.” Mar. 1, 1973.
4. On the standoff at Wounded Knee with Native American militants: “I think we ought to move tanks, the whole goddamned thing. Put a division in there, if necessary, It’s time for action on it. If some Indians get shot, that’s too goddamned bad. If some Americans get shot, that’s too bad, too."
3. Nixon ordered staff members to get Bill Moyers’s new show on PBS off the air: “It must not appear that you’re trying to affect the network’s news content. That’s what you must do, but you must not appear to be doing that. That would be stupid.”
2. On the Vietnam war: "In order to counter-balance the sickenly [sic] pro-communist stories appearing in the New York Times from Tony Lewis we have to do far more than we are presently doing. I do not want to hear any of those objections to the effect that this may compromise a source and all that sort of thing."—memo to Kissinger, May 19, 1972.
1. “The Jews are just a very aggressive and abrasive and obnoxious personalities. … But they are able people.”—to Chuck Colson, Feb. 13, 1973.
Audio can be found online at http://nixontapes.org
