He utilized recently on classified tapes and documents to report on the interworkings of of the Nixon Administration during the watergate scandal. Im going to put this down here, okay, good evening. I am bradley graham, coowner of politics and prose along with my wife. On behalf of of the entire staff, thank you so much for coming. A few quick administrative notes. Now would be a good time to silence any cell phones or other things that might go beep. When we get to the q and a part of the session, i invite anybody to ask questions, we ask if you have a question, first you put it in the form of a question, and second you make your way to this microphone up here. We are videoing both for our own youtube page and pursue span tv is here as well. They would like to be able to hear your question. At the end, before you come up to get your book sign. Our staff would appreciate it very much if you could fold up the chair that you are in and lean it against a bookcase or a pillar. The topic this evening is of course Richard Nixon, whose tragic presidency is profiled in a new book by tim weiner that is receiving lots of attention. Tim is an experience, prizewinning journalist who is quite familiar with washington. He lived and reported here for 15 years of his life. He spoke before his previous books. He got into the newspaper business after earning a masters degree in journalism at columbia, 36 years ago. By the early 1980s he landed at the philadelphia choir, where he worked for a decade on a range of assignments, both domestic and foreign. In 1988 he won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting period was awarded for a series of secret pentagon budget used his sponsor research and arms buildup. That series led to tims first book, blank check. The pentagons black budget. He joined the New York Times in mid 1990s covering National Security issues. He once was described as nukes, spooks, and clicks. During that period he coauthored of book about the spy betrayal. He later served as a correspondent for times in mexico and traveled on an assignment of other spots as afghanistan, pakistan, kenya, sudan, and a number of other places. His third book, legacy of ashes, a history of the cia came out in 2007 and 2007 and one the National Book award for nonfiction. Not long after that he left newspaper ink but not the world of reporting and writing. He is now the direction of a nonfiction Residency Program at new york. It is about to open. He will also will also be at princeton this fall, teaching a course on a cia. Of course he continues to turn out books on very challenging subjects. Three years ago, and the book enemies he tackled the history of the fbi secret intelligence operations. In his new book, one man against the world, the tragedy, the tragedy of Richard Nixon, he revisits the spectacular fall of one of our most controversial complicated presence. Drying on documents declassified over the last years he looks back over the war and the watergate scandal and the torment a complex figure who essential to those tumultuous years. One review, no one who reads this incisive book will be nostalgic for nixon, no matter how disastrous his success was. I did learn just a moment ago, that tim and his family have at least a personal connection to the nixon years. Tim when he was a teenager, his company his dad and when they got back to their car they noticed someone was parked it was the justice department. Someone was was taking down the license plate number. His dad worried that maybe had a ticket. He got audited for the next three years. Ladies and gentlemen please try me in welcoming tim weiner. [applause]. Thank you brad, thank you everybody who works at politics and prose, whether they are selling books, buying books, reading books this is one of the greatest bookstores in the United States. I think Everybody Knows that. [applause]. Speaking of nixon successors, during my my years as a reporter i had a chance to interview president ford who succeeded and then amply pardon Richard Nixon. Also jimmy carter who was elected after gerald fords shorts accidental presidency. A few years later during the reagan era, senator bob dole saw at a state event, carter, ford, and nixon all gathered together. He. He said look there they are. Speak no evil, hear no evil and the evil. [laughter] and on that note, i would like to go to the way back about 45 years. Many of you of you will remember this passage in our history, Richard Nixon had been president for 14 months, the war in vietnam was not ending as he had promised during his campaign , and he decided to take some extremely drastic measures which led to a series of disasters on like any other country had experienced, probably since the civil war. Its the spring of 1970. Nixon was sleepless, soulsearching his somnambulant. I dont think he ever slept, general Alexander Haig recalled. He dealt with it at night by drinking. The president by day fell into a dark state of moments. Talking talking with the chief of staff about past president s he started planning the precise details of his own funeral. He had predicted that 1970 would would be the worst year of his first term. The president s popularity plummeted 11 points points that march. The endless war was the cause. The tall vietnam was taken was not measured in casket but the winds of the mine. An increasing number of veterans were shellshocked, or heroin addicted. When they returned, they found the work came home with them. A battle within the american body politics. All the while americans were still dying in combat, a thousand every month. On march 19, 1970 Henry Kissinger told his colic about a brutal a brutal telephone conversation he just had with the president. Kissinger told nixon that there wasnt very much they could do militarily to force vietnam to settle or surrender. The president demanded a new set of war plans, a hard option and he wanted it on his desk that day. Kissinger became frantic. The written notes of white house were council convened on march 23, conveyed the conundrum. Mr. Helms, the director of the cia, said at the end we believe we might bomb North Vietnam set might be achieved. Mr. Mr. Kissinger asked how this could be conveying to fit non. General wheeler said it would be clear if we actually did some bombing. Then came a clue out of nowhere. That week, a rightwing a rightwing military took power in cambodia. Communist forces started moving toward the cambodia capital, 200 miles northwest of military headquarters in saigon. Nicks again embraced the leader, a a general knowing new well but with the name knowing could forget. Long knoll. Quote pres. Nixon nixon asked me to draft several personal nixon too long telegrams containing extravagant expressions of friendship and support. Recalled marshall greene, the secretary of state. I was concerned he would read into those messages, degree of u. S. Military support and commitment that exceeded what our government could deliver on, given congressional attitudes in particular. Also regarded him as lacking any qualities needing to lead his country out of its mass. Does any of this ring a bell . As it i want helms to develop and implement total plans with maximum assistance to elements in cambodia he instructed. Cia dir. Helms, promised, promised to support nixons military effort on traceable money and guns, swiss gold and an arsenal of weapons. This proved difficult. Cambodia had no america ambassador, no ci station chief, no ci military Intelligence Officers on the ground. Casting around the world, the cia called upon john stein, a veteran cia officer with plenty military experience in africa but none in indochina. He reported back back to the white house and got straight to the point quote here is another small Southeast Asia country where nobody knew what was going on on quote. The new cambodia reaching had come to the conclusion that someone had to help them and somebody was the United States. With with more fighting on their hands, the only way to give them a bucking up was 10,000 ak47 rifles rifles in a swiss bank account. Nixon approved 1500 assault rifles and 10 million in on traceable cia, a down payment far greater than what was to come. That same week americas central outpost faced a deadly siege by communist soldiers, if it fell, they could collapse under communist control. It demanded immediate action but offered no solution. Kissinger. Kissinger had to plead for the president s attention. Poor k they noted, no one will Pay Attention to this war. And it looks like lau is falling. On march 15, kissinger met for three hours with nixon, helms, and helms, and key members of the National Security council. The president wasnt wanting to let laos go down the drain. Helms and the cia, helms was blunt. The u. S. And the cia had to ask to go to thailand to send battalions of troops to laos without telling congress. The cia director wrote and apologize for my vulgarity, this is a quote i told the president i realize this was a shitty decision. But in light of all the factors that seem desirable. Nixon commented, commented, it had been necessary to do on pleasant things necessary and this was one more that could be taken on as well. There is going to be no announcement the president said. Were just going to do it, we dont have to explain it. The political situation at home was no better than the military situation abroad. Secretary of defense, melvin warned nixon on tuesday, march 31 that the senate was prepared to cut off funds. Nixon responded, i will fight such limitation to the death. The senate also rejected the nomination of john judge jeannie harold. Theyre personally selected for nixon. A ranking republican of the Senate JudiciaryCommittee Said quote there are a lot of mediocre people, judges, lawyers, they are entitled to a little representation arent they . [laughter] not on the Supreme Court the senate degree. Nixon blamed attorney general mitchell for the nomination. The prior selection judge climate haynesworth was rejected for his record of wraith racism. Multiple, unsolvable problems bearing in. Nixon responded to the Senate Resistance with rage. Quote set set up a political attack he commanded. Have to declare war. The pres. Order to retired new York City Police officers overseen by others to conduct undercover investigation of the senate opponents. Notably teddy kennedy, muskie, and proxmire. There are prominent democrats who fought nixons policies and the Supreme Court nominees. As part of what nixon calls an all out hatchet job. They wanted the irs to investigate their finances. The cops they hired handled things like irs audits and tony who is paid off the books with Campaign Cash doled out by herb, nixons personal lawyer and political bagman. Tough tony followed kennedy for two years, the department of of dirty tricks was on the case. By april 19, the communists communists were 20 miles from the cambodian border. Pres. Nixon and hawaii to greet the astronauts returning from the nearly fatal apollo 13 moon Mission Mission was briefed by admiral john mccain, the commanderinchief of the pacific. Admiral mccain, his son was still a prisoner of war. It captivated next with a hairraising report. The president ordered adm. Mccain to return with him and meet with kissinger. Mccains briefing was grim. The communists took cambodia South Vietnam would be next and the war would be lost. Mccain emphasized the need for speed into of the precarious situation. He thought the the United States should send every weapon to the joint chiefs of staff quickly assembled weapons for the cambodian army. That was the easy part. Now the president needed a plan for the invasion of cambodia and the destruction of what the United States called, the the Central Office of South Vietnam. America war planners envisioned it as the communist nerve center as a bamboo pentagon. Construct did beneath the jungle canopy. They thought if you could blow it up, you could cripple the enemys capacity to command control attacks on American Forces in South Vietnam. Adm. Mccain said the United States should destroy and win the damn war. But nixon, and his joint chiefs of staff never understood the cousin, the bamboo pentagon was not a place, it could it cannot be bombed, it had no fixed address, it was a small mobile group of communist officers. It could be located only by the radio signals are transmitted. That location could only be fixed by the antenna they use for their transmission which could be miles away from the men in the air. The enemy always always seem to know when the b52s were coming. North vietnams intelligence on americas and entrance was far better than americas intelligence on the enemy. Nicks it did not sleep for more than an hour to, before dawn he dictated the disturbing note to kissinger. I think we we need a bold move in cambodia. I do not believe one will survive. There is a chance you might, in, in any event we must do something. Nixon immediately ordered large crossborder attacks by South Vietnam into cambodia with support from the american artillery and fighter jets. He had yet not yet discussed Ground Forces attacking cambodia. His work consoles were split three ways, secretary of defense, secretary of state wanted the invasion limited, restricted to the soldiers in South Vietnam. Kissinger, favorite favorite attack on two cambodia sanctuaries across the border but without America Ground troops. The military, wanted a full assault on cambodia and the headquarters with american soldiers leaving the cause. So did Vice President whose personal qualities included lack of attack. He objected to all the pussyfooting. Nick said resented that an it provoked nixon to go out and all out attack with Ground Forces. The joint chiefs of staff never drew up a formal plan for the cambodia operation. There wasnt any time. The next day, the next morning, at 7 20 a. M. , nixon still sleepless summoned kissinger. In theory, the president said, the secretary of state and secretary of defense were sabotaging plans for the invasion. They noted in his dower the president is moving too rashly without thinking through the consequences. Kissinger called helms to ask what he thought of nixons decision. G. I. Dir. Helms replied, it seemed to me that if he was prepared for the fallout it is the thing to do. He obviously was. Secretary of state rogers and secretary of defense continue to object to the invasion of cambodia. On april 28, 28th, the president ordered them into the oval office. Atty. General John Mitchell laid down the law to them. Thered be no arguments, thered be no dissent. In silence they were dismissed from the oval office, mitchell wrote, quote the president stated the purpose of the meeting was to advise those president of the decision he had reached. There was no discussion. On thursday, april 30, after another night with one hour of sleep the president addressed the nation in a nationally televised speech announcing the invasion of cambodia. Quote this is not an invasion of cambodia, nixon said a classic contradiction. I say tonight, all all the offers and approaches made previously remade on the conference table whenever hanoi is ready but the response for peaceful, we should react accordingly. My fellow americans, we live we live in an age of anarchy. Both abroad and at home. We see mindless attacks on all the great institutions by free civilizations given here in the United States are being systematically destroyed. Small nations from all over the world find themselves attack from within, from without. If, when the chips are down the worlds most powerful nation, the United States of america acts like a pitiful, helpless giant, the forces of totality terry is him will threaten free nations and free institutions throughout the world. Secretary of state rogers was in his hideaway office, as nixon concluded his remarks the secretary of state snapped off the tv set muttering, the kids are going to retch. He saw what lay ahead. The morning after the speech, was made a the storm had started on the nations campuses. College newspapers called First Student strike, a march on washington was set for the coming week. After suffering another insomniac night nixon showed them maps where u. S. Forces were in cambodia. They showed for major sanctuaries far beyond the target, quote, i made a very on characteristic on the spot decision next reported. I said said i want to take out all the sanctuaries. Make whatever plans are necessary, do it, not them all out, so it cant be used against us ever. Leaving the briefing, im sorry, to some of the officers in the pentagon the present theme on hinge. Haldeman concurred, he was really beat, he wrote in his diary a few hours later, i really need some good rest. Leaving the briefing nixon compared american soldiers, they are the greatest with american students, these bombs blowing up the campuses. A statement later realized only quote added fuel to the fires of dissent. On monday may 4, haldeman went to nixons with bad news, quote something just came over the wires about demonstration at kent state. Haldeman said the National Guard opened fire and some students were shot. Are they dead . Im afraid so haldeman said. If we just wait for cambodian success. I now quote from a National SecurityAgency History of the invasion of cambodia that was declassified a year and a half ago. Quote the cambodian incursion was an unmitigated disaster. The most famous or infamous event of the incursion was the attempt to get kazan, but kazan was always on the move, always able to get out of the way of b52 strikes which, as we know, were predicted with great accuracy by North Vietnamese intelligence and repeated strikes over the years never did any damage. Kissingers thishouse expert inhouse expert on hanoi remembered vividly when he heard nixon was going after kazan. By the time i stopped laughing, i almost started crying. I then wondered who the hell had briefed the president on this. It turned out to be kissinger. Quote kazan was a floating crap game. There was no way you were going to be able to get in and capture it. What did he think it was about anyway . It was mostly files which could be moved in hours. The press got ahold of this story within two weeks. It became Common Knowledge to the American People the nsa history recorded, the pressure from the white house and the pentagon to bomb kazan became immense, but the military system was unable. Kazan was able to evade every b52 strike and every ground maneuver. The report concluded this is from the National SecurityAgency American bombs tore up miles of jungle, and troops floundered through a tractless quagmire. They never caught up with the headquarters which moved safely to central cambodia ahead of the advancing allies. Protests against the invasion erupted nationwide. Not only students, but University President s. Not only scraggly leftists, but wall street lawyers. Not merely a handful of nsc staffers, but hundreds of state Department Officers protested. They openly opposed nixons conduct of the war. A national day of protest loomed in a week. Nixon knew he had to mobilize Political Support from his political allies. Enter charles w. Coulson. The 38yearold lawyer had signed on as a white House Counsel eight months before as a liaison with labor unions and other special interests. Quote his instinct for the political jugular, his ability to get things done made him a lightning rod for my own frustrations, nixon recorded. When i complained to coulson, i felt confident something would be done. I was rarely disappointed. Coulsons job as he himself put it was attack and counterattack, and in that role nixon said on tape, hell do anything. I mean, anything. Coulson now received his first assignment as point man for domestic political warfare. He joined a meeting convened by nixing son in the white house nixon in the white house and taking action to really clobber the president s political enemies, he telephoned his contacts at the new york City ConstructionUnion Council led by peter j. Brennan. On friday, may 8th, hundreds of hard hats carrying lead pipes and crowbars attacked antiwar protesters at broad and wall streets, cracking heads and breaking bones. More than 70 people were injured. The hard hats got an invitationing to the white house and invitation to the white house, and brennan be became nixons labor secretary. As footage of the fracas ran on the evening news, tens of thousands of protesters were gathering in washington from across the country, trucks were transporting soldiers to batten down in an executive Office Building for the night, and two rings of buses barriced the white house. Nixon was on the nerve was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He stayed up all night that night, quote, agitated and uneasy, in his own words, frantically making more than 50 telephone calls and finally calling upon his valet to accompany him to the Lincoln Memorial so he could rap with the young people protesting the war. Word spread quickly at four a. M. That the president was on the loose amid the hippies. [laughter] the white house aide was on duty that night. Krogh vividly recalled 4 30 in the morning, i was in the secret Service Command post, and over the loud speaker came the words searchlight is on the lam. Search light being the president S Secret Service code name. I immediately punched inner lickmans home in ehrlichmans home number, he said go and render assistance right now. I tried. I found out where the president was going, and i followed them to the Lincoln Memorial. Couldnt have gotten there more than five minutes after he did and found him in discussion with, at the start, 10 or 15 young people who had come from all over the east coast to protest the war. The only reliable record of the president s words on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial exist in the be realtime accounts of three women who talked face to face with him. Lynn, Ronnie Kemper and joan pell tier. Quote, he didnt look anyone in the eyes, he was rambling. Schatzman said, he mumbled on and on. As far as sentence structure, there was none. Somebody would ask him to speak up, kemper said, and that would jolt him out of wherever he was, and hed kind of look up, shake his head and go back to wherever hed started, but then hed look at his feet, and he was gone again. There was no train of thought. Nothing he said was coherent, pell tear wrote. At first i felt awe, and that changed right away to respect, and then as he kept talking, it went to disappointment and disillusionment, and then i felt pity because he was so pathetic. And then just plain fear to think that he was the president , running the country. Nixon was, this is bud krogh talking again, nixon was flushed, drawn, exhausted. I saw him probably the most psychologically exposed, raw day of his presidency. Nixon went to the capitol at 5 30. He wanted to show his chambers to his valet, manolo sanchez, who had never been inside. Haldeman corralled him at 6 15 a. M. The president demanded a plate of corn beef hash at the mayflower hotel. He got it. Haldeman urged him to get some rest, but nixon still could not sleep, and he rattled about the white house all day without purpose as a peaceful protest of 100,000 people swirled around him. Haldeman wrote in his journal that day, weirdest day so far. [laughter] very weird. President completely beat and just rambling on but too tired to go to sleep. I am concerned about his condition. He has had very little sleep for a long time. Haldeman added that he had demanded the president take a fiveday weekend in key biscayne, but that proved futile. I quote again from haldemans recentlydeclass classified diaries. More of the same, he just keeps grinding away. And he wont anytime it, but he is letting he wont admit it, but he is letting himself slip back into the old ways. That meant hitting the bottle. Nixon, desperate for respite, was drinking heavily night after night after night. I think well stop there. [applause] thank you very much. Fire away. In a book like this, you do a lot of research before you start writing yes, i do. Theres a nixon has a lot of men around him. Yes, he did. And my question is, what role did pat nixon, if any, and any other people that were women play in his life . Well, pat nixon, of course, and Richard Nixon had been married for almost 40 years at this point. Nixon spent far more time with his chief of staff, h. R. Haldeman, than he did with his wife. Theirs was a relationship that had begun with a twoyear futile courtship of Richard Nixon by of pat ryan, who finally consented to take his hand. There was no love. Henry kissinger once famously said of Richard Nixon, can you imagine what this man could have been had anyone ever loved him . Thank you. I was interested in the quotes you gave from the haldeman diary which i know nothing about, but he appeared from what you said to be a little different than the hardnosed people that you think of surrounding nixon. And im wondering just generally what you think of haldeman and what his role really was. Well, anybody who remembers haldeman remembers that he had a military buzz cut, looked tough as nails. He wrote and recorded a diary every day, and he spent sometimes five and six hours a day with the president. His diaries, written and recorded, run to nearly a million words. Some of them were, about a quarter of them were classified top secret until last year. He was very funny. He was very smart. Like many of the men who served Richard Nixon, he was loyal to the point of zealotry. Blindly loyal. And for his loyalty, he went to prison. His diaries make amazing reading. They are smart, they are funny, they are vivid, and they are heartbreaking. I never thought id say this, but you might have given me the only reason i could think of to vote for donald trump. Id love to see your book. [laughter] youre on all right. Id love to see your book on the trump presidency. I saw you and evan thomas on charlie rose recently. Very good discussion. Ive read evans book, i havent read your book, but i want to read your theyre very different. [laughter] you took the words out of my mouth. Thomas, i dont know how much of a stretch it is, but he really seems to reach for some [inaudible] speak up, please. Just lean into the mic. Oh, okay. I dont know how much of a stretch it was, but thomas really seems to reach for some positive things the lighter side of Richard Nixon. Well, no, the positive things. The Environmental Protection agency, the eeoc. He cites and id appreciate your comment on this the dramatic desegregation of southern schools under nixon. Niche quainted, obviously, by johnson. Initiated by the Supreme Court. Okay, okay. But nevertheless, there was a dramatic move during the Nixon Administration, correct . There was some change. Okay. Can i thomas says its dramatic. Okay. I dont know. Okay. Were still working on race issues in this country, you know, 50 years after the fact. Absolutely. As nixon would say, let me say this about that. Yeah. Richard nixon signed the Environmental Protection act because congress had passed it by vetoproof majorities, and the American People marched, a million of them, on earth day in april 1970. Immediately before the events recorded here, the invasion of cambodia. He said on tape, the environment is not an issue worth a damn to us. The liberals and the left want to use it to screw corporate america. But he signed it nonetheless. He had no choice. Okay. All right. As far as desegregation goes, the Supreme Court had, by the time, issued 15 years of decisions saying the United States had to move you remember brown v. Board of education quote, with all deliberate speed. Fifteen years later, they were moving very slowly with all deliberate speed. Youll remember that president eisenhower, when nixon was Vice President , sent federal troops to arkansas right. To desegregate the schools, okay . This is only 12 years later. It is true that there was desegregation under nixon. There was also fantastic resistance within the white house to doing this. Nixon tried to have it both ways. All right . But he said himself, i cant talk to black people unless theyre uncle toms. Thats on tape. And the only black official who ever served under nixon, james farmer at hew, said nixon believed in nothing. He did whatever was politically expedient. Thats whats on the record. Let me just ask one question. Youve obviously done an extensive amount of research on nixon. Could i ask you to cite five positive personal traits . [laughter] no man could father two brilliant, beautiful daughters, julie and patricia, and be all bad. Thats two. [laughter] i dont like the way you count. [laughter] thats two. Nixon genuinely believed that he could be a world figure who could change history. Thats where the title of my book comes from, one man against the world. He genuinely believed that he could end the vietnam war by going to china, going to moscow, clinking glasses with the communist tyrants of the two greatest communist pars on powers on earth and somehow change the world and end the war. So he had a grand strategy. It didnt work, but you can credit him for having a huge, dynamic vision. Well, hopefully, all president s have that same aspiration. Not all of them. [laughter] okay. Okay, fourth. He had the good grace to realize that it was in the interests of the United States to leave and not put us through the agony of an impeachment and conviction in the senate. All right . That took personal courage. Where yep. And humility. No president has ever stepped down willingly from office. Can you imagine what we would have gone through, you know, as our bicentennial approached if there had been an impeachment in congress, which there would have been, and conviction in the senate, which there would have been . Right. Okay, thats four. [laughter] let me think. [laughter] [inaudible conversations] well, he did get rid of agnew, thats true, but only after he pleaded no contest to bribes he took, so lets call that four and a half. He was a good piano player. But only in the key of g. He could play anything, but in the key of x. Thats the best key of g. Thats the best i can do off the top of my head, thank you. Thank you. [applause] in your book one of the most interesting people, i guess, and most confusing was kissinger, Henry Kissinger. Yeah. Could you comment on your feelings in his role as an enabler yes. But also what was real about him and not, because i got a very confused feel kissinger is a very confusing person, especially if you read his memoirs. But let me try to explain. I have interviewed kissinger and, in fact, my mother was born 11 months after Henry Kissinger in the same little town outside of nuremberg. And so [laughter] i know where he came from, i know what he went through fleeing nazi germany, i know that he had a deep sense that history was a tragedy and that human beings were fatally flawed. Kissinger, you have to understand, was the tactician. Nixon was the strategist. This is why i told the gentleman, i think, nixons grand strategy is something you have to admire even though in the end he failed. Kissinger is probably tied for first place among the reasons that nixon started taping himself in the white house. This is hard to understand, but its the truth. Nixon installed the taping system, and it wasnt just the white house. It was the white house, it was the executive Office Building, it was camp david eventually, it was all the telephones for two reasons are. One reasons. One, he thought no one would ever find out about them until he left office, and he could write a memoir based upon the tapes, and there would be a defense against the inevitable them wores memoirs of henry caningier. [laughter] no washington memoirist makes himself to come out as anything less than a brilliant man. Kissinger was interested in power. And through proximity to power, through proximity to the president and unflagging work, he rose a german refugee to become the secretary of state under nixon for better or for worse. I have a followup question yes, sir. For your previous response. I understand why nixon made the tapes. What ive never understood is why he kept the tapes. And i can tell you. [laughter] please. On tape nixon said, i should have destroyed the tapes. [laughter] after their existence was revealed. Right. Okay. Why didnt he do it . He never believed that the Supreme Court would ever rule 8zip that he had to turn them over. Couldnt even conceive of it. Okay. Second of all, this was the dilemma, and this is also recorded on tape. Only nixon could have destroyed the tapes claiming that they were his executive property and by executive privilege he could destroy them, erase them or, you know, make confetti out of them. But he didnt. Then the question became no one knew what was on these tapes. He did. Well, he did and then sometimes he forgot that the tapes were rolling. And so then the question became after their existence was exposed at the watergate hearings by one of the four people who knew that they existed, what are we going to do with them . The president s lawyers meet in the white house, and they say are we going to have a bonfire on the white house lawn of these 4,000 hours of tapes . Whos going to strike the match . King timaho . That was the president s not very faithful irish setter. [laughter] anyone who was not the president who struck the match would have instantly been indicted for obstruction of justice, because some of these tapes were under subpoena as soon as their existence was known. Do you have any, do you have anything on the sabotaging of the peace negotiations of the vietnamese hell, yeah. [laughter] i kind of figured. Yeah. I mean, because to me, it makes watergate look like childs play. It does. Its Chapter Three of the book, in case youre interested. The gentleman is referring to in the weeks before the 1968 election, president johnson was trying to negotiate a ceasefire, and he called a bombing halt in vietnam. And nixon, from the summer onward, had been in contact with the embassy of South Vietnam through his campaign manager, later attorney general John Mitchell, sending word through the South Vietnamese embassy here in washington to the president ial palace in saigon dont make a deal with the democrats or with hubert humphrey, nixons opponent in the 1968 election and lbjs Vice President. Wait for us, well get you a better deal, okay . Lyndon johnson knew about this because the fbi had the South Vietnamese embassy in washington wired, and the nsa had the president ial palace in saigon wired, okay . So they were hearing both ends of the conversation. The South Vietnamese ambassadors Getting Communications from the president of South Vietnam, and theyre talking back and forth, and the ambassadors saying, listen, nixon says wait, well get a better deal, okay . And the president says, absolutely, i totally agree. And on the eve of the president ial election, this close to a deal in paris, the South Vietnamese walk. And lyndon johnson, who recorded his telephone calls, says five days before the president ial election, and i quote this is treason. It is definitely against the law, its called the logan act. It was passed this 1798 in 1798, for a private citizen to conduct diplomacy on behalf of the United States. If this had come out, it would have swung the election which was going like i mean, the polls were going like this. And in the e nixon won by seventenths of a percent of the vote. But the evidence was too secret to reveal on the eve of a president ial election. It had been gathered by the nsa. Nobody knew what the nsa was. People thought the initials stood for no such agency. And to admit that the fbi was tapping the South Vietnamese, johnson has a war council. Secretary of defense is there, secretary of state is there, his National Security adviser are there, and is there, and they all say we cant do this, okay . Itll blow the country up. And it had already been a pretty bad year in 1968. Bobby kennedy had been murdered, Martin Luther king had been murdered. If on the eve of the president ial election the president is saying his political opponent has committed a federal offense by sabotaging the peace negotiations, the country is going to be torn apart even worse than it is, which is hard to imagine in 1968. Anyway, its all down in black and white, its all recorded, and its a pretty terrifying story. Did humphrey know before the election . After. After. Okay, i thought it was before. Yeah. But lbj knew, and he was righteously angry. Yes, maam. Thank you. It was obvious to many people in the white house and staff that nixon was unhinged, seriously unhinged. And im wondering, is there anything in the constitution to remove somebody who was so seriously mentally disturbed aside from impeachment, like isnt there a white house well, no who could give him tranquilizers or something . Yes, he did get he took a lot of sleeping pills on top of the insomnia, on top of the alcohol. But the constitution says that the president can only be removed if he is literally, you know, noncampos mentis and on his hospital bed dying. If you know your history, youll know that Woodrow Wilson right. You know, unable to speak because of a stroke right after world war i, but nobody knew about it, okay . The 25th amendment says the president can be replaced if he is, essentially, unable to carry out his duties because of physical illnesses. It doesnt say anything about if the president is nuts. Is it time for an amendment . [laughter] good luck getting that passed because you kind of have to be nuts to run for president now a days. [laughter] thank you. Sir. With respect to you saying one of the four positive things nixon did was stepping down relative to impeachment, my question is did nixon know ford was going to pardon him . Pardon him before he stepped down very interesting question. The question had been broached a week before nixon left office by his new chief of staff, general alexander hague. Who Alexander Haig. Who, by the way s the only person who ever went from colonel to fourstar general in five years without being in combat. Unless you count political combat. Its ambiguous to. The evidence is ambiguous. President ford absolutely denied it on a stack of bibles, that there was any deal cut. Here was the column that dilemma that he faced. If ford hadnt pardoned nixon, there isnt any question that nixon would have been indicted for obstruction of justice among other crimes. That would have been a pretty ugly process as our bicentennial anniversary approached. There is no precedent for that in american history, the criminal conviction of a former president. So ford was trying to, as he put it, bind up the nations wounds, say our Long National nightmare is over, lets put this behind us. He thought he was doing the right thing. He guaranteed that he would not be elected in his own right two years later. But i actually asked gerry ford this question face to face in 19 82, and im almost repeating verbatim what he said as i recall it. He said, the country had been through so much pain, why prolong the suffering . Thats the best we know. Hi. One of the questions ive thought about from time to time is whether nixons behavior during the time you covered could perhaps have been explained by a thorough analysis and a unbiased analysis of his behavior earlier in his career . For example, take jerry [inaudible] he won because he called him a communist. That made nixon. Yes. I wondered if he had some role in the pumpkin papers. I dont know. Yes, he had a big role in it. I mean, were they real, is what im asking. Well, alger hiss was guilty. But, again, as in the paris peace talks case, the evidence was too secret to reveal in court. Hiss was convicted of perjury in the second trial by denying he had ever been a member of the communist party. He was never convicted of espionage, okay . Yeah. For years he wrote a book which was unreadable, how innocent he was. Yeah. No, the evidence was declassified when the cold war was over, and theres no question that alger hiss worked for the soviet underground from 19321936. Okay . However, for a lot of americans was anyone here remember the 1930s . Put up your hands. Anybody . Okay. There was a real question as to whether hitler or stalin was going to run the world, right . So some people picked sides. Its kind of a terrible choice any way you cut it. Yeah. I wasnt raising the question of really hiss perjury, i was trying to raise the question of nixons role in the pumpkin papers, for example. It was crucial. Yeah. It was crucial, and it made Richard Nixon internationally famous. Right. He became tied for first place with j. Edgar hoover as the most famous anticommunist in america. Hed been in congress for four years, and then he became ikes Vice President. Thats a pretty rapid rise. With the help of prescott bush. They didnt actually get along that well. Prescott bush belonged to that nowextinct breed called a liberal republican. Okay, thank you. Youre welcome. Anybody else . Any questions . Yes. Step right up, sir. Hello. Hello. So, my dear uncle tim [laughter] cats out of the bag. So im about 200 pages into the book, and i was telling my friends and my family that im surprised by the scope or the narrative that youve chosen for this in the sense that nixons president by page 30. By page 200, vietnam has dominated the narrative, you know, even events like going to china get relatively little coverage. And by page on page 200 it says today was the day watergate was broken into. So this makes it a pretty particular scope, in my opinion. Even to call it a biography of nixons presidency might be too broad. So what concern we all mow about a how he went through a lo how you went through a lot of recentlydeclassified material, obviously, tons of primary sources, what have you. At what point or what was your reasoning behind the decision to, ultimately, focus on, you know, the two most devastating aspects of his presidency and take it from there . I will tell you. When you look at the newlydeclassified records which are 40 and 50 years old in some cases, you finally understand or at least i finally understood and ive been trying to understand Richard Nixon for quite some time now how the vietnam war turned into watergate. Nixon was fighting two wars at once. In vietnam his weapons were b52 bombers. At home he was fighting his political enemies. Anybody who opposed the war, anybody who had ever voted against him. He was only elected by a bare plurality of 42. 7 of the vote in 68. Anyone who was against him was an enemy, and he used different weapons. He used bugs, burglaries, breakins, black bag jobs, political sabotage to destroy his enemies. In the end, thats what brought him down, trying to fight the war at home. And thats what i really learned from the new material. Any more relatives want to ask . [laughter] i didnt set that up. [laughter] sir. Weve got time for one more. Okay. Make it a doozy. A doozy. The tapes demonstrate this really unsavory strain of antisemitism in nixon, and yet a number of his closest advisers were jews. Of course, kissinger, sapphire, garment, a number of others. And then when israel was in deep trouble in 73, nixon really pulled israel out of the fire. Yep. So to speak. So how do you reconcile this . I think youre talking about two different strains in the mans character and the mans actions, okay . Nixon was a hater, okay . Its all on tape. He hated blacks, he hated jews, he hated liberals, he and once you were on his you know what list, lets just say his enemies list, you were there for life. On the other hand, you know, the United States had supported the creation of the state of israel in the year nixon came to congress. The United States had never wavered in that support. And in those days the egyptians and the syrians were supported by the soviets. Okay . Now, theres a terrible moment during the