![]() However, Hughes notes that because “secret taping has become a lot easier in the age of the smartphone,” he “wouldn’t be surprised if we find out that there are other recordings of presidential conversations.” 7. “I think we as citizens deserve to have an accurate record of presidential deliberations.” “I wish that it was the law that presidential meetings had to be tape recorded,” Hughes says. Prolonging a war for political gain is an abuse of government power, but there was no proof that Nixon had done this until the transcripts became public. If we do, it’s going to hurt us very badly.” “We can't have it knocked over-brutally-to put it brutally-before the election,” he said and Nixon responded, “That's right.” In the last months before the election, Nixon told Kissinger, “South Vietnam probably can never even survive anyway” and “I don’t want it before the election with a Thiệu blowup. Kissinger mentioned this to Nixon as far back as March 1971. But he also knew that this would probably hurt his reelection chances in 1972-which is why he delayed withdrawal until 1973. Nixon knew that he couldn’t win the Vietnam War, and that as soon as American troops pulled out, Nguyễn Văn Thiệu’s U.S.-backed government in the south would fall to the north. 'I don’t want it before the election with a Thiệu blowup.' ![]() which certainly was not justified, and was an abuse of governmental power.” 6. “In many ways, Nixon exaggerated what the Kennedy’s did… But at the same time, President Kennedy and Robert Kennedy did approve wiretaps of Martin Luther King Jr. “In Nixon’s view the Kennedys, both John and Robert, got away with abuses of power that Nixon could not get away with,” Hughes says. Nixon then ranted about the kind of public image his staff should project for him. “His staff created the impression of warm, sweet and nice to people, reads a lot of books, a philosopher and all that sort of thing. “Kennedy was cold, impersonal, he treated his staff like dogs, particularly his secretaries and the others,” Nixon said. 'We really slobbered over that old witch.' When the plumbers-so called because they fixed leaks-discovered military analyst Daniel Ellsberg had released the Pentagon Papers, they broke into his psychiatrist’s office to try to find information to use against him. “He created the ‘plumbers,’ this illegal, unconstitutional secret police organization that he ran out of the White House to counteract the imaginary conspiracy against him.” In response to this conspiracy, Nixon “created a counter conspiracy of his own,” Hughes continues. After the leak of the Pentagon Papers in 1971, he became convinced that that leak was part of a conspiracy that was going to leak his own secrets.” “He believes that members of all those groups are arrogant and that they put themselves above the law. “There are three groups about whom Nixon is particularly paranoid: Jews, intellectuals and Ivy Leaguers,” says Ken Hughes, a University of Virginia Miller Center researcher who’s written two books on Nixon’s tapes.
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