S3 Ep 6 - Off the Rails

Nixon at War

PRX

History

4.8 • 816 Ratings

🗓️ 19 July 2021

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

With the publication of the Pentagon Papers in June ’71, the demons that Richard Nixon has wrestled throughout his presidency – indeed, through much of his public life – begin to gain the upper hand. “The strain of office, and the belligerency of his enemies,” Nixon biographer Jack Farrell says, “have begun to unsettle the president, dispelling the ‘mellow’ Nixon of 1968 and unleashing the self-injurious behavior of old.” Kissinger and others assure the president that he has nothing to fear from the Pentagon Papers, and might even benefit from the unflattering light they will cast on his predecessors, but the act of publication of classified documents – thousands of pages worth -- rankles deeply. Very quickly, the president’s long festering paranoia and indignation zeroes in on two of his most despised “enemies” – the press, for publishing the government’s closely held secrets, and the leakers within his own deep state, now personified by Daniel Ellsberg, for the growing threat he believes they pose to his own buried secrets.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I just start right at the top and fire some people.
0:04.3	The best politician of all is Nixon.
0:06.9	But boy, when you get in tight and close and he's under attack.
0:10.4	President Nixon heard today, the voice of the campus in a massive appeal.
0:14.6	He was known as the Madman theory.
0:16.3	Make those North Vietnamese think that he was just crazy.
0:18.9	Here was a fellow who seven years before was the biggest loser in American politics.
0:22.6	Astonishing.
0:24.6	It was a textbook or how to damage our democracy.
0:28.6	I have Dr. Kissinger calling you.
0:29.6	Nixon was a paranoid.
0:31.6	Everybody was told a different story.
0:32.6	Mr. President, you are saving this country.
0:34.6	I thought this is really what he means, and he's the president.
0:38.4	It was a very intense time.
0:42.2	From PRX, this is Nixon at war.
0:46.8	Seymour Hirsch reported on all the president's men in the 1960s and 70s, knew a lot of them personally.
0:53.5	And, as he told me... it was very hard to tell Nixon
0:56.3	something. He didn't want to hear. But sometimes you had to. Like in 1973, just after the Ides of
1:02.8	March, when White House counsel John Dean spent more than an hour in the Oval Office delivering
1:08.5	a very grim diagnosis to the president.
1:11.3	The reason I thought we ought to talk this morning is because in our conversations, I have the
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from PRX, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of PRX and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.