More Richard Nixon

In the latest tapes to be made available, Nixon says he wants to drop a nuclear bomb on Vietnam and that he doesn't care about civilian casualties.


"The only place where you and I disagree ... is with regard to the bombing," Nixon said. "You're so goddamned concerned about the civilians and I don't give a damn. I don't care."


"I'm concerned about the civilians because I don't want the world to be mobilized against you as a butcher," Kissinger said. "We can do it without killing civilians."


So Kissinger didn't have any moral scuples about killing civilians, he was against it politically.


Great people, those two. War criminals, the both of them. A sorry chapter in our history.

Sounds scary. I would not agree with nuking them either. However perhaps if the US had had a philosophy of winning that war instead of merely trying to contain or stop the North Vietnamese, perhaps things might have turned out differently, and perhaps the South instead of te North would have gained control of the country. I'm not saying that's what should have been done, because I really don't know. However if today there were no Communist countries at all and they were democracies instead I think that would be a good thing. Too bad the people have to suffer through so many generations of authoritarian tyranny, it's really sad. Democracy is really the only system that gives most people half a chance, even with all its flaws. I don't entirely buy the notion that because they are a sovereign government they have the right to treat their people like that..after all we are all humans and I believe tyranny should be resisted and overcome when possible. Fortunately for mankind, the free world has been gaining in power and ascendancy in recent decades and the trend will probably continue, rough as it is.


Should Vietnam have been nuked? Hell no. Should the North have been taken over instead of merely resisted? I think that's a good question.

You haven't equated them, I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but by mentioning South Vietnam in your discussion about democracy, it seems as though you have equated them. Nothing could be further from the truth. Diem and Thieu were brutal tyrants who were not worthy of our support. We were not defending democracy in Vietnam. Those who said we were were liars. In 1955, Diem staged an "election" in which the 450,000 registered voters in the Saigon-Cholon area cast 605,025 votes. Pretty good voter turn out. Diem announced that he had won 98.2% of the votes in the contest. Sounds like a Communist "election" to me.


Here's a quote from an article written in Foreign Affairs, the bastion of the establishment, in 1957:


"South Vietnam is today a quasi-police state characterized by arbitrary arrests and imprisonment, strict censorhip of the press and the absence of an effective political opposition."


And from Life magazine, which was generally supportive of Diem:


"There is a grim structure of decrees, political prisons, concentration camps, milder 're-education centers,' secret police. Many non-Cummunists have been detained. The whole machinery of security has been used to discourage active opposition of any kind from any source."


The point I'm trying to make is that our leaders have used anti-Communism and the defense of "democracy" as ruses, knowing full well that neither issue was involved, far too often. Our country is sometimes in the right and sometimes in the wrong.


The U.S. philosophy was always to win the war. Most of our support for South Vietnam was always military support and we dropped more bombs there than were dropped by all combatants in World War II. One doesn't have to be an apologist for the Communists to recognize what a murderous tragedy our Vietnam policy was, and what pathological liars our leaders were who created and maintained that policy.

I've never understood why Nixon would let all the stuff he said be taped. Someone please explain it. Nobody can defend this stuff and I'm not trying by asking this. :-)

I think he honestly felt the tapes were his and no one could have them but him. After al, previous presidents has also taped conversations. Who knows what additional horrors will be revealed? He spent all of his post-presidential years trying to do all he could to make sure no more tapes would see the light of day.

Yeah, but how crazy do you have to be? I mean, I wouldn't dare tape some of the stuff I've said in the office and I don't get to shoot nukes if I want to.

Well, there's probably a sense of hubris too that those with the power to shoot nukes have that you and I don't. Remember what Fitzgerald (supposedly) said to Hemingway when Hemingway said the rich are different from us? He said yeah, they have more money.


Maybe the powerful are different from us too. They have more power.

Tricky Dick. How I miss him. He was also, by all accounts, a very good poker player. He helped finance his first run for office with poker winnings. He was, like most people in pursuit of power for power's sake, a work of contrast. He was a bit of a misanthrope also, I think. I voted for him. I have always been glad I did. People should get the type of leaders they deserve.


-Zeno, The misanthrope from Greenland.

With the state of the world right now, I'm becoming absolutely disgusted with my fellow man. I've found a label for myself. Thanks Zeno.

You seem to know more about the Vietnam war and the country than I do, so I will assume you are correct that South Vietnam was far from democratic.


It was always my impression, however, that US policy was not to try and take over the North, but rather only to prevent the North from taking over the South.


The degree to which US political leaders stretched various truths or outright lied is something I am not sure of.

Not necessarily. Kissinger may or may not have been against killing civilians. Even if he were, he may have made the most effective argument to dissuade Nixon who might have been more concerned about the world view of himself than the moral question of killing civilians.


Alden Chase (tyro)

So he privately speculated about Harry Truman did.

Big Deal.