Every newly released Nixon tape reminds us afresh how special he was. But this one has extra bonus Reagan approval of Nixon’s attempt to evade justice!
“There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white,” he told an aide, before adding: “Or a rape.”
Nine months later, after Nixon precipitated the resignations of two top Justice Department officials and forced the firing of the special prosecutor looking into the Watergate affair, Ronald Reagan, who was then the governor of California and would later be president, told the White House that he heartily approved.
Reagan told the White House that the action — which would become known as the “Saturday Night Massacre” — was “probably the best thing that ever happened — none of them belong where they were,” according to a Nixon aide’s notes of the private conversation.
The Edge of the American West 
19 comments
June 23, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Mikhail Emelianov
It’s like a gift that keeps on giving, isn’t it?
June 23, 2009 at 4:04 pm
ekogan
Politician in private turns out to be cold-bloodedly ruthless and not as huggable as his public image. News at 11.
June 23, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Colin
Not to mention Billy Graham … there’s a book to be written on Graham’s political engagements, no? Or has somebody written it?
Clearly Reagan kept his fond memories of Robert Bork.
June 23, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Charlieford
Richard Nixon: our first pro-choice president?
June 23, 2009 at 4:51 pm
joel hanes
You can take the sociopath out of Whittier,
but you can’t take the Whittier out of the sociopath.
June 23, 2009 at 5:54 pm
wren
I read the clip when you did. And the miscegenation stuff is shocking (not really in 1973). What is revelatory is the “it breaks the family” quote. This is why several generations of Republican presidents who didn’t practice abstinence in their youth, checked the “pro-life” box. If we break the link between the patriarchy and choice, the issue will go away. As a father I don’t want my daughter to marry some punk just because she had to bear his kid. That’s an argument that works in AK.
June 23, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Charlieford
“As a father I don’t want my daughter to marry some punk just because she had to bear his kid.” When was the last time that was the case? When Winthrop was governor, maybe?
June 23, 2009 at 6:14 pm
politicalfootball
This was my favorite jaw-dropper:
I normally don’t use boldface, but on rare occasions it just seems necessary.
June 23, 2009 at 6:22 pm
wren
Jeepers Charlie that’s the deal with Bristol and…er what’s his name. If they’d been able to terminate, all that Letterman-Palin crud could have been avoided.
June 23, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Kieran
Nine months later, after Nixon precipitated the resignations of two top Justice Department officials and forced the firing of the special prosecutor looking into the Watergate affair, Ronald Reagan, who was then the governor of California and would later be president, told the White House that he heartily approved.
This sentence is so poorly written, it makes it seem like Ronald Reagan was Archibald Cox.
June 23, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Charlieford
Good point, wren. But when I saw that Nixon comment on the bi-racial love-child, I was a bit perplexed. What’s he mean? Seems plausible that, for a guy of his age and generation (which was my fathers), the worst tragedy that could befall a person was to be a bi-racial child. The second would be to give birth to one (recall that Doris Day brouhaha?). So I imagine it may very well have behind it a sentiment not at all dissimilar to pro-choice arguments we’re all familiar with–and many of us hold: spare the child a tragic life; empower the woman to avoid wrecking her life if she wishes. So, the reason he possibly sees this as an un-wantable pregnancy (the bi-racial aspect) doesn’t resonate very fully with us, but his solution is entirely of a piece with the dominant feeling in these here circles about how to deal with it. Yes?
June 23, 2009 at 11:01 pm
saintneko
I love Nixon. He’s so unabashedly evil in private.
He didn’t add “Or a rape” until after some other guy said it – I heard the tapes on the news tonight. Someone remembered they were recording and knew how long magnetic tape would last. ;)
June 23, 2009 at 11:29 pm
andrew
The sentence eric and Kieran quote appears to have been turned into two sentences, at least on the version I’m currently viewing (from the link in the post):
June 24, 2009 at 6:10 am
eric
Yes, Charlie. Just as people who think the police should be authorized to use deadly force are basically promoting Einsatzgrüppen.
June 24, 2009 at 6:26 am
Barry
ekogan:
“Politician in private turns out to be cold-bloodedly ruthless and not as huggable as his public image. News at 11.”
When the private image of *Richard Nixon* proves to be far, far less likable than his lousy public image, that is indeed news.
In addition, Nixon’s legacy includes Dick Cheney, who crawled out of public office only this year. We are still living with what Nixon did.
June 24, 2009 at 7:03 am
Anderson
One of the charms of Perlstein’s Nixonland is that it reminds us what a shit Reagan could be, when Reagan thought it would get him votes.
June 24, 2009 at 7:08 am
Dr J
Dang. Now I wish Nixon had lived long enough to have a heart attack and die when he realized we’d have a mixed-race president.
June 24, 2009 at 9:13 am
Charlieford
Sort of an odd analogy there, eric, but ok. Ya gotta admit there was at least something there to, you know, work with. “Now Dick, don’t you see, it’s the same if there was an Asian and a white? Or a Mexican and a white? And what if the mother was carrying a recessive gene of nattering, naboby negativity? What if she was afraid the kid might become a hippie? Or a journalist?”
June 24, 2009 at 12:56 pm
nick
Hunter S. Thompson’s obituary for Nixon