The Complete Nixon and Watergate Series - w/ Thomas777

mister Nixon can't be overstated. People misunderstand when I say that, I'm not saying that Trump is has anything approaching the intellect and Nixon, or that his significance and historical capacities is analogous. But what he he really, he truly is the heir to the Silent Majority coalition, what remains of it, and the manner in which the deep State works I don't think anybody denies any more that the deep state

is an actual feature of government. That's basically a kind of shorthand polemical or colloquial way of talking about I mean, you know, Burnham's managerial state. It shouldn't be controversial with people that it exists, okay, But institutions at scale, particularly institutions of government, they behave in predictable ways, okay. And the forces are rating as mister Trump as it were,

basically identical, all right. And the reasons for his disqualification from public office, you know, and is his removal from office, and now with subsequent dis qualification by by extra legal and extra constitutional means, you know, it owes to the same phenomena, if not the same set of circumstances and conditions. Obviously, However, in Nixon's case, you know, we're dealing with the origins of of what the hostility to Nixon was, and that's

more complicated than what may superficially appear. You know, what put Nixon on the map as a national political figure, independent of his association with Eisenhower was was the fact that he demanded elder Hiss be prosecuted. Okay, Elder Hiss has probably kind of fallen out out of you know,

living memory. I mean probably this happened like almost a generation agoing now, Okay, but Elder hist was undoubtedly a Soviet asset that they can't be denied, even though to this day there was a book as recently as two thousand that claimed that this was some sort of elaborate slander of his, you know, owing to owing to some hostility that you know, the East Coast establishments such that you know, it existed mid century, you know, and it

was profoundly powerful. And still that's another thing that can't be overstated. And what we're going to get into about Nixon. The degree to which the local of American power, political power, and financial power, the degree to which that was concentrated

on the East Coast, they can't be overstated. As recently as the seventies and eighties, you the kind of the kind of what remained of the old ruling cast, you know, kind of looked looked with disdain, you know at the Midwest and the West Coast is is not really in the game politically, and as you know, not packing not

having the pedigree to challenge for public office. Okay, and to that the fact that somebody like Nixon was was totally at odds with with their values, at least in terms of the coalition that that he came to lead. You know, when you have a you have this situation has developed with Watergate. But in the case of Hiss himself, you know, like I said, he uh his he was uh, he was he was truly like American gentry. He was

one of five children. Both parents came from these sort of form of these truly aristocratic Baltimore families who could trace their roots to the mid eighteenth century. His is interestingly his his uh. The name was an angler, it was it was an anglicization of Hess. His sounded more anglophone. His paternal great great grandfather had emigrated from Germany. And I believe that was his only like non non anglophone ancestor, which, of course, you know, when those circles like was uh

was cosmetically problematic. Has said something of a tragic upbringing. His father, the family never had any money, you know, they lived in genteel poverty, as it were, you know, like a lot of people of that kind of cast and station did. By the by the early twentieth century, despite the fact that they were retained kind of like their social registered type, you know, credibility and political clout.

His father, Charles his he tried a number of different business ventures, you know, some which fared better than others. He did fairly well as a UH as the head of a dry goods importing firm, becoming becoming a top executive and and majority shareholder. This came to an end and around nineteen oh seven has lost most of the family's fortune that he's so kind of diligently accrued, and he committed suicide by cutting his throat with a razor of all means, I mean, really really kind of awful stuff.

His UH wife was now a widow, you know, with these five children, and she subsequently had to rely on you know, her family's money and basically hand out from people to survive. And UH Alger Hisss, who was only two years old at this time, presumably has made it had a big impact on his life, you know, being this guy who had this kind of outsized heritage. But he lived up. But he grew up you know, in a fag of his household, in relative poverty. Fast forward to UH his adult life. The UH ended up at

Harvard Law School. It was a projy of Felix Frankfurter, you know, which became a kind of ingress into the the New Deal regime. Early on, Frankfurter had written a book on the Sacho and Vanzetti case. Soacho and Vanzetti, we're communist a Jason anarchists who were who were convicted of terrorism and executed in the New York Electric Share. They were kind of the this was kind of the

Rosenberg case before the Rosenberg case. And Frankfurter he wrote an entire treaties claiming that these men were convicted unjustly for no particular factual reason, just kind of because and uh and uh, and his was kind of the what was kind of this like goyish prince who Frankfurt or king to really like. Okay, his subsequently stirred as a clerk to Alverer Wendelholms Junior. So he was kind of covering all his bases, okay, you know, with the tribe

as well as with his own people. You know, ended up in this hot shot Boston law firm and later uh later in New York firm then known as Cotton. Frank Franklin, Wright and Gordon. I don't keep up with the East Coast silk stocking law firms. I have no idea what it is today, but it does still exist

in some legacy capacity. His was a he was a radical new dealer, became a government attorney, served briefly the Justice Department, and he got a plumb position with the Night Committee, which, despite the presence of people like his, was doing God's work. You know. They investigated war profiteering cost overruns and you know, the pocketing of these overruns by people in the arments industry and in the financial sector who had you know, funded these these massive out

ways to fight World War One. And a lot of the for clarity, the Ny Committee was not Nora was Ny himself. Some some some some kind of radical. A lot of these people were, you know, like those who later became America First types, you know, but this was, uh, the way the way radicals left radicals obviously, I mean, the way they fell on the usual of World War

One is interesting. You know, they basically towed the Soviet line that you know, this was an imperialist war that was you know, came about only to the intrigues of capitalists and war profiteers, and in the case of the Great War, as we've been covering somewhat and we'll get more into that, that that actually wasn't totaled too far off,

you know. I mean, like we've talked about the uh the degree to which high finance quite literally had Wilson by the short hairs and essentially demanded the demand did he not allow, you know, a default on these massive unsecured lines of credit that had been extended to the British crown. The degree to which that was an essential approximate cause of American intervention, they really can't be overstated.

But either as it may, during the same period his uh, he he defended a lot of labor organizers and adjacent institutions against challenges of their legitimacy, either of political nature or of a or or or a criminal one. He uh, it became very insinuated into the Agricultural Adjustment administration, which uh was for whatever reason, strongly connected to a lot of radical elements, more than a few of whom were uh,

we're communists. I believe that oh to the outsized power of agribusiness in America than is now as well as the fact that kind of the bane, the bane of Marxist Leninists, you know, be them vanguardists or people who favored a broad front strategy with the conspicuous absence of of of agriculturally situated you know, people and institutions within

their ranks. But he uh, most notably his kind of shining moment with the Night Committee was uh when DuPont Chemical or Dupon Industrial I think it was known at the time. He got the opportunity in nineteen thirty four to thirty five as an investigator and his official title

was legal assistant to the Night Committee. But he was able to badger these do these big shot dupat executives and officials on cross examination and Bernard Baruk, a chairman of the War Industry's board under Wilson and a key and a key personage in the administration is waging of the war itself. He really he really dragged him over the raked him over the coals, as it were, and and just dragged him, you know, before the republic audience.

He was rewarded and his younger brother Donald, they were rewarded with a posting under Cordell Hull in the State Department. His was the direct assistant to Assistant Secretary of State Francis Sire, who was Wilson's son in law incidentally and uh as well as special assistant to the Director of the Office for Far Eastern Affairs during the war years

thirty nine to forty four. Specifically, his was an assistant to Stanley Hornbeck, who again was insinuated into the Far Eastern Affairs as a special advisor to Crodel Hall himself. So his was a man who was very well situated to impact policy at a very high level. You know, he wasn't some nobody. He wasn't some. He wasn't some. Uh, he wasn't he wasn't some. He wasn't some you know, uh legacy up whose family no longer going a fortune. So we were more of the kind of plum jobs

that he could like afford gross reason things. I mean, he he had real power. Okay, those who would contest that light rebuttal is that as the war came to an end, but not only not only did his attend to the US State Department delegation at Yalta, you know where quite literally the Soviet Union was was was afforded, you know, half of the political map of Europe. But he, uh, he was. He was named director of the Office of

Special Political Affairs in ninety forty four. This with in this office was specifically and purposefully organized to plan for post war international organizations, first among the United Nations. Okay, his his himself was instrumental in the drafting of the United Nations Charter and the negotiations that went into that. Okay, I don't think I need to I don't think I need to continue to list his accomplishments and resume to convey that, you know, he was somebody who had real cloud.

Long story short, when it came to light based on a whole testimony that you know, hits had been a Soviet asset for many years, you know, and this was this was that arguably the zena of what came to be known as the McCarthy era. The fact that Nixon was his primary antagonist. You know. McCarthy, I believe, was

a well intentioned individual, and people forget too. What brought down McCarthy was Roy Cones, uh, you know, to be delicate about it, his uh persuasion and his exploitation of his office to get special treatment for David Shine who if he was not actively involved in a homosexual affair with him, Shine was quite obviously the object of Cone's affection.

That's what brought down McCarthy. It wasn't that McCarthy was going after innocent people, or it confabulated some some imaginary narrative of communist under the bed, or whatever the current claim is of court history. But regardless, even before all of that, McCarthy, McCarthy had a reputation as something of a yokel you know, he was from Wisconsin, whose representatives and senators didn't get a lot of respect. He was

a notorious alcoholic. It was a lot easier to dismiss somebody like McCarthy than it was somebody like Nixon, okay, who even his enemies admitted was an obvious, you know, savant and you know, a consummately serious individual. And Nixon had studied the FBI record to the point practically of memorization. You know, his what he presented against his was air tight.

And the establishment from whence his emerged never forgave Nixon, you know, I know, in the Oliver Stone film and things, which in some ways it is a very good film, the biopic of Nixon, Nixon kind of presented, you know, at the throughout the film and particularly at the height of Watergate and his fall from grace, as this man kind of you know, tormented by phantasms and seeing these sort of establishment antagonists, you know, in the shadows, who

may or may not have even really existed. That's a complete mischaracterization. The East Coast establishment hated Nixon, you know, the New Dealers hated Nixon. They they hated him. They hated him in a way that not even people who suffered from trunk arrangement syndrome hate Trump, you know, like they This cannot be overstated. Okay, So if you want to understand, we're gonna we're gonna get into the career Nixon and and and the circumstances of water Eat in

a minute. But this cannot be overstated, Okay, in the degree to which, in part the Watergate scandal was revenged for Elger Hiss, that must be considered. Otherwise everything subsequent is missing a key component of the evidentiary record and the causal nexus. Okay. Now, I believe also what's key to understanding the attack not just on Nixon, but executive power generally after World War Two the only historian mainstream his story, and I know who addresses this specifically is

Paul Johnson, who I have mixed feelings about. He's written some very good He's done some very good work. He also tends to resort to kind of shrill, neo countage kind of canards, particularly discussing, you know, US foreign policy and things like that. And he's got a tremendous blind spot about why the fortune is the American right precipitously and totally deteriorated after Nurmer. But that had aside, he brings up the point of what exactly brought down Johnson,

you know, Lyndon Daines Johnson. Now Johnson at one time had a very strong mandate. The Vietnam War until tet and we'll get into that. In the moment, too, was fairly popular Johnson's, uh, Johnson pursuing zealously, you know, the civil rights crusade and doing so in a way that on other on other policy initiatives would have been viewed

probably as overreach. But because you know, the the East coast power center of the country as well as you know radicals all on Sundry who identified with those values, you know, they viewed it as you know, unnecessary evil, you know, for the chief executive, you know, to kind of like bypass legislative solutions and even you know this, and even even the machinery of the judiciary in order to kind of force outcomes. That's why Johnson was doing what he was doing in that regard. You know, Johnson

kind of the soul of a pick. Okay, he was not a good man, but you know, the degree to which he was basically cow telling to an establishment that he knew had nothing but disdain for him, it's got to be considered. And you know Johnson, Johnson was kind of the consummate. Uh, They've probably never been a man who was more skilled at backroom dealing. And the achievement of consensus on a key policy initiative is across the partisan

divide in Congress, like it's really remarkable. But Johnson was also a redneck Southerner, okay, and he said he said, and know on certain terms like literally he's quoted saying, I don't not believe that the nation would unite definitively behind any Southerner. And when asked why, he said, well, the metropolitan press would never permit it. Okay, what he's UPHI what he was euphemizing when he said, Metropolitan press,

take from that what you will. I think people know the history of this country as well as some aspects of the present dilemma, should be able to see through that pretty clearly. It increasingly became a narrative in the national media that what Johnson was doing in Vietnam specifically was dangerous. Now, mind you, in living memory, there was the Roosevelt administration where Roosevelt had literally incarcerated Germans, Italians

and Japanese and concentration camps. He'd shut down national media, absorbing all coverage and reporting on the war into the number and authority of the Office of War Information. He had people arrested without formal charges for criticizing the war effort, under auspices of national security exigencies like the idea that the idea that LBJ was somehow acting against precedent in time of war was preposterous and obviously two you know,

uh Kennedy and and Johnson's predecessor of Eisenhower. You know, not only was Eisenhower, not only was Eisenhower the equivalent of a five star of which there's you know, only been three. He very much ran the oval office like a five star general, would you know. So this kind of sudden, this kind of sudden declaration that an imperial

executive was afoot. That's and that's on American It was a it didn't make a lot of sense upon a superficial analysis, but there was a basic revolt against authority that had been brewing, and a lot of that had to do with Again, despite the fact that Johnson was very much cow towing to a minority, elite opinion with the Civil Rights Act and the and and all of sixty four and all the kind of incidental and adjacent efforts towards forced integration and you know, social engineering, it

didn't matter. And the president being the country's only nationally elected representative and being a prime symbol of government, and you know, kind of the great power that's expressly coded into Article two as the kind of new political culture post nineteen thirty three, you know, ossified.

national press and the deep state. But again it was Nixon status's outsider, you know. Ninety sixty two Nixon ran for governor of California, and Nixon was a Californian. And uh, I believe that this is why he had a very pacific centric, if view of Jewish strategic matters. And I highly recommend that not just as memoirs, but the books he wrote on Grand strategy in the epoch after he

left office. It indicates a very strong understanding of the key strategic implications of not just military force deployments, particularly of a strategic nuclear category in the Far East, but he had an understanding of the outside power in global economic terms that the orient would have. And this kind of thing was totally alien to the East Coast establishment. Among other things, they looked at Nixon as like upstart, okie trash, punching above his weight. These East Coast reporters

during the campaign for the nineteen sixty two governorship. They out now just poked fun at Nixon. They made fun of his clothes, They made fun of the way he talked, you know, they made fun of his alleged awkwardness, you know, and kind of lack of in our arsenal manners. That's the famous, the famous sound bite where Nixon says to the press afterwards, just think how much you're going to be missing you want to Nixon to kick around any more, gentlemen,

because this is my last press conference. That was his concession announcement in sixty two.

especially especially he never gave up till the end. But there was a lot of dirty pool in that election, and probably in absolute terms, like in real numbers terms, it was probably too close to all the kind of full the kind of full front of assault on Nixon by the East Coast press amidst uh that kind of presentation that you know, the national audience had been afforded, would have would have been somewhat unseemly. I make the point about sixty two because in a lot of ways,

like the perverbial mask dropped what prompted Nixon's comeback. It know, as we've talked about, you know, the catastrophic defeat of very Goldwater. You know, Goldwater himself was a bizarre placeholder, but it wasn't just going to a lack of personages who could interface effectively with kind of the the era of new media, you know, is that like we've talked about Kennedy's literal eulogy to Taft and profiles and courage, you know, post Nuremberg, and there was no more American right.

It was it was it was for all practical purposes, illegal in policy terms and and ethical and optical terms. It was just unthinkable, you know, to have an America First party. So what was the Republican Party. Well, you know, they got behind Ike because like who could you know, who could who could disdain Ike? You know, I'm speaking within the bounded rationale, the perception of the time, obviously,

so they picked Goldwater. You know, again, here's this gadfly, here's this gadfly proto libertarian who goes around you know, basically like reciting manifestos about why we need to abolish the I R S. You know, he was. It's a bizarre choice, you know, but again it owed to the fact that there was now there was now an official opposition that was precluded from even acting as oh as

an official opposition in formal terms. Of course, despite the hostility to despite the hostility that Johnson, You've got to understand that the uh, the left, radical establishment and the deep state, their idea was that by forcing Johnson to step down, that the heir apparent would be Bobby Kennedy. Okay, the camelot myth was still alive, and well Kennedy, believe it or not, he had there was actionally some crossover appeal with Wallace voters, and not just ethnic Irish guys.

Because the hoy ploy don't they don't really think deeply in policy terms. It didn't matter that like Kennedy was basically this like radical you know, they he was viewed as kind of like this he was he was. He was viewed as kind of like as pugnacious, you know, like young, like white ethnic type guy who was like a man of the people. Like however, was guided that

might have been. But the point is he was their ace in the hole, you know, and he was bizarrely murdered, you know, by Sir Hans, Sirhan, and that threw everything into chaos. That made lbj's vice president, Hubert Humphrey the uh, the front runner. And uh, he was an experienced campaigner, and he might have uh, you know, he experienced like literally all day. If LBJ had given him, you know, the loyal support that you know, some what are you

had the right to expect. And in particular, had you know, kind of greased the skids for him to advocate withdrawal from Vietnam, he would have probably had a good chance. But Johnson was understandably better by now. And Johnson's Johnson's Johnson's nose, And if you listen, you can find it on youtubef you listen to Johnson's discussions with Senator Everett Dirkson from this time. It's really revealing. Johnson's basically like, fuck you, I'm gonna burn it down. You know, I'm

gonna burn I'm gonna burn the proverbial house down. I don't care if the Republicans take over. I'd like to see him take over after what you did to me, like see you later, you know, fuck you very much.

So an electoral in the electoral votes was three h two Nickson one end. He went home free forty six Wallas. The uh the so, I mean it doesn't sound like a huge margin, Okay, but in in actual terms, like Nixon's victory was, I mean, it was, it was, it was. It was a definite, It was a definitive statement. Okay. However, Wallace's spoiler campaign it meant that Nixon was a minority victor.

In absolute terms that came out to forty three point four percent of the popular vote, which was the lowest percentage of an elected president since Wilson won the ninety twelve election. People forget Woodrow. Wilson ran in a four man race. He ran against incumbent President Willimar Taft, He ran against Teddy Roosevelt who was on the Progressive or Bullamouse Party, and he ran against Eugene depths like the

Socialist Party. Okay, it was also there was a low poll count to only sixty one percent of registered voters turned out. So the refrain, the refrain of media became oh Nixon, Nixon. Only Nixon only got twenty seven percent of all voters. You know what kind of it mandates that he's not legitimate. And they bandied this over and over and over and over again. You know, Nixon is not a legitimate president. Nixon, Nixon. He didn't carry a single big city, you know, like Nix. Nixon's are racist,

you know, like Nixon. These Wallace voters, you know, they only did what they did to like, you know, elect Nixon. And you know, we know what they are. You know, they're they're those Southern people. And we just went on and on and on and on and on, you know, like it was like I said, it was it did think about the think about the campaign against Trump. You know, this was like this was like the one point zero version, okay, just this constant effort to undermine the legitimacy of Nixon's

presidency at every turn. And I said, to the applications of this, you know, Nixon takes the oath of office in nineteen sixty nine. In nineteen sixty eight, over eleven thousand Americans were KIA and tens of thousands wounded. You know, the Soviet Union was had not yet achieved parody, but uh it it had. It had it had a nuclear arsenal that could absolutely devastate Europe, the United States and the general war. Okay, and the technological gap was was

rapidly closing as revery of deeper parodies. You know, relations between pet King and Mosquea were deteriorating, but the Communist block and not get fractured. I mean, uh, aiming to undermine a wartime president in this regard as unthinkable and just I mean to take it back from it to Johnson.

When you think about Kronka going at TV and saying the Vietnam War was lost, you know, and and attacking the unwillingness the John's administration to open the decision making process to public scrutiny and time of war like imagine if imagine if in World War Two, imagine after Casserine Pass, you know, when when the American Expeditionary Force met the Wehrmacht in North Africa, like they were humiliatingly wiped out. Like imagine after that happened, Walter Winchel went in the

radio and said, the war is lost. Mister Roosevelt is a liar, you know, like I mean you imagine that, like you would have been immediately arrested, that never would have been tolerated. You know, this, this, this is truly insane that this was allowed to happen. And you know, people, even people not ideologically inclined particularly, simply looked at it as, oh, well,

that that's just politics as usual. You know, it's it's it's incredible, it's the most it was kind of the second Revolution in my opinion, after the nineteen thirty three New Deal Revolution. But because I missed this context that Nixon quite literally told his staff the press is the enemy. He was quota is saying that to Hallered him and I believe the news is concerned nobody in the press

of a friend. They're all enemies the uh, you know that the men, as Paul Johnson relayed, the men and the movement that broke Linton Johnson's authority and broke his back in political terms in sixty eight, they turned their gun sights proverbically on Nixon. And on top of that, they had even more powerful allies because they had people with long memories. So we're quite literally the friends of alger Hits. You know.

the presidency. Like to that point, really the only opposition to a strong chief executive, particularly at war, had come from Congress and specifically the Senate, you know, like FDR who whateveryone thinks of him, and we certainly have nothing likes to say to him in these quarter about him in these quarters, he was highly quotable he said, the only way to do anything in American government is to bypass the Senate. And like people truckled when he said that,

but he was being a dealy serious, you know. Uh Wendell Willicky, you know, who was his one time opponent, apparently apparently said apparently said to Roosevelt like subsequent that he He's like, look, okay, I understand, I quote devoted my life to saving America from the Senate under FDR. Obviously, but even Truman, the press, academia, the entire commentariat, especially in foreign policy matters, they were firmly behind the presidents.

The view of Congress as being full of opportunists. He's kind of parasitic career is you know, like men who were possicly looking to obscure the reality of policy and favorite cheap polemic, you know, and uh to basically just you know, kind of like guarantee their own permanent incumbency,

you know, the uh, the even the New Republic. This was in nineteen fifty three, which was you know, when Truman was approaching kind of isn't the dear of of of approval in the court of public opinion, you know, because the Korean War was an incredibly unpopular war, especially the dragon. One of the things the New Republic, uh was quoted saying, Oh, the gravitation and power into the ends of Congress at the expense of the executive is a phenomenon so fatuous as to be incredible if the

facts were not so patent. That's the New Republic, you know, which in the fifties was dividing its time between screaming that everybody in America is racist and and talking about how great the Soviet Union is. You know what this wasn't. This wasn't the Wall Street Journal, and it wasn't a bunch of John Bircher's and it wasn't a bunch of you know, like dissident America firsters who you know, had uh had hoped to see Robert Taff become the president.

This was this is like literally a bunch of reds like saying this. Eisenhower repeatedly invoked executive privilege and on all kinds of matters to deny information about government activities to the House and American Activities Committee, and uh, he was universally applauded by media. There was a there was a universal consensus that there was no right to know what went on in the inner councils of foreign policy

and uh, the machinery of war and peace. You know, it was to take fast hole for people to think they had a right to know about that, you know, owing to the national security implications and the fact that this is not something that is up for debate. You know, you can't you can't reduce war and peace questions, particularly owing to the complexity of the Cold War as it were, you know, to to catch phrases or you know, bump

or stereo polemic as it were. You know, like it was absurd to suggest that there's auld be any transparency on matters of national security and the decision to wage war. And I mean this was uh, this was this was you know, a decade. This was fifteen to This attended fifteen years before Johnson's unceremonious, de facto removal from office and obviously you know, the subsequent and more fervent treatment Nixon. So just for context, you know, like we're not talking

about like decades here. It was really you know, Kennedy's dictum. Also part of this was him i think, trying to show a strong face contra Cruise chief. But h Kennedy literally stated in ninety sixty is the president alone and must make the major decisions on our foreign policy. And that was what was demanded, you know, not just not just by the the electorate, but also you know, the

media establishment in and then angel security establishment. You know, particularly when executive decision ismm in that capacity included the decision to kill ten to millions of people and you know, a general nuclear war.

I mean, even the best of conditions as it were, but post Nuremberg, when it quite literally was declared that war as an answrument a national policy is illegal. There's this kind of tortured logic that was engaged in in executive policy circles. About what constituted to cause us belly and this kind of commitment to euphemizing the fact that war was underway at all. Everything was a police action or an intervention necessary to offset a communist violationist sovereignty.

It became this kind of like literal like lawyer ball by which everybody in the executive chain of command tried to find a way to not admit that war was underway. Okay, the Gulba Taguan resolution has to be understood within that context, all right. Even that said, that was not the right way to proceed, and there was a collective security arrangement that was dedicated to the defense of South Vietnam. But such that it was, the decision was made to procure

the war mandate within the parameters of this narrative. Okay, But that was a starting point for criticism of what became known not just punitively and kind of colloquial terms of on the op ed pages, became too loom conceptually in people's minds as this real and dangerous phenomena the Imperial executive. It was the Gulvatagan resolution and discussion around it that really represents the kind of see change in

how executive authority. He was viewed okay, such that any one moment can be identified as the point at which things have changed. Now. What Nixon did to protect is an ascent administration. His senior White House advisors were Bob Haldeman and John Erlckman, both of whom are villainized to various degrees. Even my people should know better. Hallman, Erlckman and Henry Kissinger were kind of the key to the

Knicks administration and advisory capacities. Kissinger's role in this regard is interesting, not just because he and Nixon were one my opinion on how they waged the Cold War and their vision for resolving it, quite literally ending it, it could not have come about that that that that pattern of conceptual variables could not have come about without the participation of both men. It's a It's an instance of kind of a shared strategic vision, the nuances of which

were so myriad. It's rare that there could be a true meeting of that minds in their regard, but that someone explains the bond between Kissinger and Nixon. It wasn't a bond of friendship, but beyond that, Kissinger developed an

outsized influence in the Nixon White House. I don't even mean that punitively, but I mean the reason why the evil Watergate Kissinger sort of joined Hollmen and Erlicman as in kind of the true inner circle, Like that's why whatever you can say to Hollerman and erlic Man, these guys were incredibly competent people and they were rapidly devoted

to Nixon. That is true. Backing that up, if you want to think about this in football terms as like this the secondary of the Nixon White House Knixon speech writers and you know, sort of media element. It was William Sapphire, Pat Buchanan, Ray Price, and David Gergen and Lee Hubner. This was arguably the best like media speech writer team ever assembled until until Reagan. Okay, so I mean this this was a crack administration team that only

had Nixon. Nixon and Kissinger developed the first true kind of clear geo strategic geopolitical strategy for America. So size how or left office. But one would think that this is kind of the ultimate pr machine, you know, like what could go wrong? You know Nixon? Also, I mean if you listened to the Nickson tapes as well as you know, read Kissinger's memoirs, both which I highly recommend to people. Nixon had a clearer view of the Vietnam War. He viewed it as a short term problem. He didn't

really view it as a quagmire. The things that truly mattered was solidifying in NATO, solidifying specifically, you know, the Atlantis syst alliance with the UK, which at that time appeared to be in potential jeopardy, and specifically breaking pay case away from Moscow and fracturing, you know, kind of the key the key alliance structure of the Communist block, This idea of Vietnam the unwinnable war, that's revisionism of a punitive sort. Creighton Abrams, who was a brilliant combat commander,

you know, had replaced Westmorland. The US Army had very much abandoned what had, you know, the kind of strategic hamlet orientation in favor of annihilating the People's Army of

Vietnam to fairly great effect. Effective deployment of massive firepower to neutralize the andes the enemy, had the widening of the war to deprive the enemy of key tactical havens that basically unrestricted bombing in North Vietnam two prevent you know, effective utilization of of their own combined arms brought to bear, which is most exemplified by Linebacker two stopping in the

Eastern offensive in its tracks. But you know, Nixon, Nixon, the idea of Nixon as this president kind of in the in thesane, the scenario is LBJ, you know, pouring over the map a Caisson, the scale model of Caisson, having no idea how to proceed in the war, you know, being kind of being kind of entrapped and and it duped at every opportunity, you know, by the enemy. That

that was not the case at all. Even before a single shot was fired between the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union, Nixon was adamant that friendly relations with China could be brought about by intelligent diplomacy, that China could be decoupled from Russia, and at the end, the Soviet Communist Party could be fatally undermined without a

general war. And indeed all this came to bear, and in terms of the raw, in terms of the raw successes Nixon's administration, I folloso the things that I think are inarguable again well, imposing unsustainable or what would have been unsustainable attrition on the North Vietnamese mix. It scaled down the US military presence from its peak when he took office at just enter fire to fifty thousand men.

The twenty four thousand spending decline from twenty five billion a year under Johnson when Johnson left office to less than three billion. A lot of this had to do with more intelligent allocation of resources in Southeast Asia, like in the Battle theater, directly military as well as infrastructural

and ancillary. Flexible use of firepower and deployment being used in Cambodia in seventy lows in seventy one, and again too the relentless strategic bombing in North Vietnam in nineteen seventy two, which all of which kept kept the leadership Cadre and Hanoi off balance, especially as the death of Ho Chi Minh people forget too. Nixon zealously pursued peace

negotiations with Hanoi. He didn't have a great deal of optimism that a conventional peace treaty could be achieved, you know where by the status quo would be unconditionally reinstated. But within the context of what became the sound of

Soviets split. He realized that, you know, even before, even before the state visited China, even before it became apparent the degree to which the respective political cultures were no longer aligned in any meaningful way, you know, any any kind of guarantee from China that it would hedge against. You know, the Soviets client in North Vietnam was a victory in this regard, and it was National Security Memorandum fourteen, which was issued in UH on a February fourth, nineteen

sixty nine. The UH outlined uh Nixon's view that was imperative to the Court China. This was backed up the following September, after the Son of Soviet Border War that brought the irrespective countries back from the brink. Nixon secretly communicated to A Breshnev that an event of a general war between the Soviet Union and China where the Soviet Union struck first, the United States intervened on behalf of

the People's Republic at China. Kissinger said that this was the most ballsy move and I think it's in the most darren step but of the Knickson presidency, which it was. And even though Kissinger didn't say this. I guarantee you that Kissinger himself, you know, like leaked this, uh, the secret communicate to the Chinese. And I'm sure, I'm absolutely positive that that's one of the things that finessed the opening of negotiations when Nicks and a Kissenger went to visit.

You know, it's uh. Nix had made the point at that time a quarter of the world's people lived in communists China, and whether or not they had the ability and the gumption and the ambition theyve bec was superpower in their own right, it didn't matter because if they could be turned against the Warsaw Pact, it would mean that there was an overwhelming world consensus against an enemy in Moscow which had purported to you know, essentially be the lead year of the Global South as we think

of it today. You know, so from the top down, this was brilliant power of politics, sight unseen since Bismarck in my opinion, but was ultimately put the paper on as regards the peace agreement in Vietnam, and again this is uh, this is basically forgotten history today going to the fact that it was on cere want to see abandoned quite literally to Shane Nixon, which is which is unconstonable. January twenty second, nineteen seventy three, Rogers, Secretary of State

Rodgers and uh laid uptae his UH Vietnamese counterpart. It made it possible for America to fully disengage from Vietnam. It demanded that North Vietnam recognized the sovereign together the Republic of Vietnam, and an event when he direct attacked America would America would pursue a massive retaliation to substantially

that threat. The agreement reserve the right to maintain carrier battle groups and Vietnamese will territorial waters, and call upon the aircraft station in Taiwan and Thailand towards that purpose. Presumably it's only include included conventional forces, but I believe it was left deliberately ambiguous. To say this was a formidable feat of extrication from an active conflict while maintaining

credible threat potential would be a gross understatement. So this was you know, this is I. I click these things. I take these things off, not because I'm some kind of Nixon a hagiographer, but it's important to set the record straight. You know that this idea that the Nicks administration was some failed administration or Nixon with this kind of like weird paranoid eye just sort of presiding over

this Vietnam quagmire. You know, nobody else can point to a policy resume that's successful other than other than Reagan, in my opinion, and in my opinion writing and capitalized more on circumstance than you know, he was the key variable in any of the outcomes from which his administration is so benefited. In fact, I'd argue that I'd argue that the collapse of the Warsaw Pact the nineteen eighty nine know directly to the accounishments of Nixon and Kissinger

that are under discussion here. So what was Watergate and why did it happen? I mean, like we just discussed all of the uh, all the kind of all the kind of key factors were in place to attack the Nixon presidency. You know what caused them to?

presumably for imperialist reasons. Cambodia was a haven for the National Liberation Front and a key operational base for the enemy. To not assault it prior to them entering negotiations for extrication from the conflict would have been grossly negligent, but the way it was presented it led directly to this mass wave of campus protests which then culminated in disasters like you know, they be killing of students at Kent State and things like this that kind of breathed like

new life into the the ulification of Nixon. Now, what this also did was it led the Democrats. There's there was there was a there was more than a small component delusion. Hear could that reminds me? That's not unlike the way that the New York Times insisted like Hillary Clinton was a good candidate. The Democrats became convinced that there's gonna be this youth uprising that would bring down Nixon at the polls. You know, like youth culture never

impacts president outcomes that way, electoral outcomes. The media insisted that like Nixon was in deep trouble going into the ninety seventy two election, they nominated George McGovern, who truly was a radical. He was Students for a Democratic Society types love McGovern. His platform was literally an immediate and total withdrawal from Vietnam and just like an abandonment of

of it as a as an contested theater. A uh, A dramatic increase in the welfare state, you know, a dramatic increase and enforced integration and social engineering in this regard.

When Nixon's staff, you know, air Linkman and Company told Nixon that McGovern was going to be the nominee, Nixon said, like, we've got this in the bag then, like this is a joke, right, But in the the ideological bent of I mean, the Washington Post, New York Times, you know, Time, news Week, the big three TV networks, they literally they literally insisting that Geordan McGovern's gonna run away with this election because he's gonna he's gonna get amnesty for the draft,

you know, and you know he's gonna he's gonna he's gonna stand up for you know, like women's aborting rights, and the whole country is behind him. And what happened. Nixon literally swept the entire country, like like he swept the entire country. McGovern carried Massachusetts and the Issuer of Columbia. I mean to say, like he went down in flames, like doesn't even It was absurd. And that's something I pointed out to be able too, especially because lately a

lot of my contents centered around Vietnam. I have to correct people a lot who claim, like, oh, when American soldiers can make from Vietnam. Everybody spit on them and said you beb killer. That didn't happen. It just didn't.

Like Carter. When Lieutenant Kelly was a brought up on charges, you know, lay preacher, you know, liberal Jimmy Carter, he demanded people stand with Kelly and said, you know, drive with your headlights on during the day to show that Georgia supports Lieutenant Kelly by this idea that like the country hated Vietnam vets or like loved Ho Chi Minh, or that that's garbage. You know, there was a minority of a vanguard minority who were prone to those kinds

of annects, but everybody hated them, you know. And these outfits like SDS and these I'm getting old but ahead of myself, but you know, as the seventies got underway, like these radical outfits and these terror organizations that popped up, including like the SLA and the people who uh you know, the Clanners and and Harold Cogny's National Socialists shout it out with and in Jonesborough. These organizations were funded by

big NGOs, if not by the Warsaw Pact. Like there's not people weren't like spontaneously, you know, weren't spontaneously you know, taking up the cause of the Soviet Union or of you know, Maoism or whatever like. That's not that's not at all accurate depiction of the state of the country. And seventy two proved that. But much like twenty sixteen, the deep state in the media, staleis meant like when utterly berserk and like decided like this can never be

allowed to happen again. I can't remember who it was. It might have been, It might have been the it was some big media mogul. It wasn't the guy at the Washington Post like o count and you I can't but he literally said after the election, apparently in seventy two, this can never be allowed to happen again, you know.

of the cities. This is also when the myths started this like bizarre kind of symbol and claim that like the popular vote is the real votes, and like the electoral collogism conspiracy to hide the real votes. Like that kind of nonsense became in seventy two, and obviously that carries onto this day. But this, uh, this, I'm gonna stop here in a minute because what I'm gonna get into next has to do with the White House plumbers, and I don't want to just have to stop talking

about the mid stream robili speaking. Otherwise it's gonna kind of interrupt the flow discussion. But uh, next episode will we'll deal specifically with like the Watergate break in and and everything everything everything adjacent and like the actual you know, the kind of move towards impeachment of President Nix and then also the indictment of the the intended indictment of Spiro Agne. But this background was important Otherwise what we Otherwise when we deal with the nitty ready, uh of

what ensued, it wouldn't really have a context. And forgive my horse voice, I'm I'm still kind of getting over you know, the ship I go through.

That's the book that famously suggested that John Dean White House counsel, among other things, his his his mistress was uh this formerly like this this uh kind of high end call girl who would become a madam, and documents to that effect, you know, her client lists and things were supposedly was the object that the White House plumbers were supposed to procure from the Watergate Hotel. That may

in fact be true. There's also a claim presented that representatives of Howard Hughes were we're trying to incentive like putting out feelers about a payout relating to getting their way with respects to these burgening like emissions restrictions on aircraft and other things I did did The evidentiary record

on that claim is scant. But there's also a claim that the White House plumbers were either looking for evidence of you know, the solicitations of of brides that effect, or that there was actual like bag money in the Watergo Hotel and they were looking to steal it. Frankly, I find that easier to believe than the latter. Easier to believe in some of these suggestions because G. Gordon Liddy was not a dummy. He was a pretty experience, you know, a heistman, albeit you know, like he wasn't

like a street dude. He was a guy who was insinuated into kind of the and into and into the kind of gray ops as it were. But you know, first of all, it was like a weird thing to do. Secondly, because nobody really seemed in I mean, if anybody knew in in an if anyone in an executive role truly knew like what the whole story was, he would have

just come clean with it. I can. I can easily see Liddy saying like, hey, there's you know, there's one hundred thousand dollars, which in those days was real money, like in the water yet hotel, you know, and nobody can report it stolen, like I think Christmas is gonna come early this year. I mean, frankly, if I were him, I do it, you know that? Uh? Or I mean

we may never know. But my point is, I guess it's very very peculiar that nobody, including Lyddy himself, ever really acknowledged what they were doing, you know, And uh, the whole thing seems like kind of a comedy of errors, you know, like it and I mean it's kind of like that's kind of the point is that this was I call it, I called Watergate the Seinfeld scandal because it's the scandal about nothing, and not only it's about nothing,

but especially when you consider sort of the precedent relating to executive malfeasance, as it were, the idea that you know, these kinds of white house hatchetmen and breaking into a hotel which sometimes acts as a like a honey pot for you know, setting up liaisons between you know, DNC contributors and hookers. The idea that this is something like this is like some moral affront to like all things decent, and this is just like so horrible it almost can't

be spoken of. Like there's something just kind of like preposterous about that. You know, I'm at the very worst is an instance of breaking and entering. I mean okay, like that there's that shocking to the conscience, you know, I mean America lost its innocence the day it was discovered that these kind of weird guys broke into a hotel.

I mean like like like where it it doesn't pass the straight face test, and people will allege that there's like something I'm missing or something that Nicks and apologies are just missing because there's some broader like principle at play. You know, like it's really, really really weird if you're gonna if you're gonna confabulate, you know, like some kind of like feigned moral outrage, you know, but be it

as it may. Like. Well, and also I'll include this now I was gonna I wasn't gonna speak of it until kind of the end of the episode. But I want people to contemplate. I want people to conteplate with the precedent is for impeachment of a sitting president. Now this isn't what about ism, Okay, When we're talking about the criminal law, and impeachment is a matter of criminal law, albeit a narrowly tailored process and an unusual circumstance, it

gives rise to it. You know, what constitutes an actionable wrong is contingent upon the facts, Okay, And it's continued to it's contingent upon how the trier of law and the trier of fact has interpreted the circumstances giving rise

to the alleged wrong. Okay, If it's just something that's if it's just a process that's capriciously and randomly and arbitrarily invoked owing to political expediency, Like we're not really talking about criminal justice, you know, we're just talking about what we're talking about politics, like masquerading as as a

you know, due process of criminal law. Uh So, not even uh not even a decade after Watergate, it came to light that Reagan's National Security Cabinet to get around the Bowland Amendment, which had specifically prohibited aid to the Concience in Nicaragua or any other actor whose aim was to overthrow the Santinista government, Reagan's National Security Cabinet had taken it upon itself to sell arms to Iran and his BLAH, which was listed as a terrorist organization, and

to take those funds and you know, provide the Contras with with arms of their own, and you know, money for infrastructural needs so that they could continue to proces cute there war and direct violation of the Bold Amendment.

That's incredibly illegal. I mean, my sympathy actually has always been with Oliver North, Like I met the guy years back, and I probably would have done the same thing in his shoes, honestly, especially because he had come to believe he had a personal debt of honor to these people in Nicaragua. You know, he made certain guarantees to them.

This was before so Calm existed, and these kinds of ongoing special operations were kind of ad hoc just for clarity, you know what, Like like North wasn't putting on airs when he said he felt personally responsible. But however, anyone feels about this, that's incredibly illegal. There was never any talk of impeaching Reagan, and I mean selling selling weapons to his ballah to then illegally pay the Contras in direct violation of a you know, an explicitly prohibited you know,

foreign policy initiative. I mean, that's kind of that that that that's kind of a textbook example of what the impeachment power exists for. Okay, but nobody seriously bandied impeaching Reagan. You know, subsequent people forget because I guess there's not really historical events anymore in the twentieth century sense, which

is a subject for another podcast episode. But such that there is discussion of the Iraq War, it's presented as Bush forty three eating a buffoon, or you know, Tony Blair lining to the lying to the people of the UK, or you know, the kind of tactical disaster that ensued, you know, within months of Bush declaring mission accomplished. What people forget is that Bush literally suborn perjury through Colin

Powell before the Senate. You know, that's incredibly illegal, and this time of the fact, there's a felony in its own terms, and it's kind of unconscionably you know, is wrong just on it in terms of you know, the implicators of public trust. You know, tens of thousands of people died because of this perjury, and like there was nary I mean who who suggested Bush should be impeached other than you know, like like people like Bill Maher would like, you know, drop like stupid, one off kind

of statements that effect. But there's never any serious discussion of that. So like suborning perjury to procure a warman date where in tens of thousands of people die, that's permissible. That's a permissible executive act. But guys breaking into a hotel, you know, it cannot there's something that cannot be allowed to stand. I mean, if there's something wrong with this picture, like however you feel about Nixon, you know, and you can't people can't cope by saying that's what about is them.

We're talking about criminal law. There's no what about ism in criminal law. There's precedent that controls, and there's everything else that's that's not controlling, you know. So I mean, I don't I don't think that I don't think that the Watergate fetishes and they really are fetishist. And I'm not just being silly. I don't really think they have like a limb to stand on anymore. So I think increasingly in the historical record it's kind of it's gonna

kind of evaporate. But it hasn't happened yet, you know. And it's not just uh, it's not just because of it's not just because of boomers, you know. And there I mean, everybody likes to burn boomers and proverbial life. And I mean, I'm the first to point out that some of these ridiculous sort of civic mythologies, you know, originate from that coterie. But the like like the Watergate

fantasy goes beyond boomerism. There's something really deep seated about it and like literally delusional about it, you know, in the and it only makes sense if you consider the person of Nixon, not even Nixon's subjective traits and the man himself, but he represents the same thing that Trump does to these people.

the election. That that's that's so fucking stupid. I don't even know like where to It's like beyond it's beyond the conceptual reality of like a saying it old person, you know, like I and again, like quote unquote, collusion isn't it has no meaning as a matter of law or in the context of you know, power political affairs. There's there's conspiracy. I mean, if you can claim that, I guess you could claim that Donald Trump he took sensitive data or relating to like the NATO operation in

Ukraine and Fedda to FSB. I mean, I he could if he's the president, He's within his rights to do that. That's not against the law. But I mean, I suppose he could say that, you know, they could constitute some sort of conspiracy between you know, the Kremlin and the White House. But like, what the fuck is collusion? Like it doesn't that doesn't mean it literally means nothing, you know, and even if it even taking it on its own terms, it's like I don't think I don't think. I don't

think Trump has developed ideas on power politics anyway. But uh, you know the fact that he doesn't have some drain hatred of Russia and maybe let's say, let's even say like he was an admirer of Vladimir Putin, was like that and I mean that that's that's not that that's not somehow against the law, nor is it particularly strange. I mean, I went in church all used to pretty regularly praise Mussolini, you know, was he colluding with Mussolini? Like what is what? What does this mean? I realized

him being obtuse myself. But it doesn't. But right the point, it was not even it's not even like there was a confatulated scandal relating to Russia and Donalds from because

it like literally meant nothing. It was just like these weird sound bites kind of kind of spat out by people who don't have a meaningful understanding of the subjects, you know, and it's parameters like or you're you're colluding with a bad guy, Like it's that's that's illiterate, Like on its face, it's a literate it's it's it's not it's not. Nobody competent in the English language would say that. But moving on, because like I said, I if very

many for jumping around. I I I thought it was better placed to raise the issue of precedent now rather than kind of on the tail end when we'll probably have you know, moved on to other things. Something I touched on a bit last time, and I think Warrant's a bit of a deeper discussion. This wasn't the approximate cause by any means, of the hostility that developed towards mister Nixon, but it was an essential cause within the

broader nexus of you know, deep state opinion. I ironically, I believe that despite the fact that these deep state types owed their personal prosperity and clout to the dramatic expansion of state power and you know, the concominant you know, like physical expansion of the state apparatus itself, there remains is kind of basic hostility and suspicion of an empowered

executive office. You know, not just in ethical terms and not just in war and peace terms, as the country kind of fractured in elite corridors relating to the situation of the Soviet Union and everything else. Okay, after the that doest settled into the Second World War, you know, the presidency and becoming a true power onto itself structurally, that seemed to impact people it in a deeply psychological capacity, even people who presumably were very familiar with kind of

the structural parameters of government. As a matter of law, which, according to the letter of Article two, quite literally vest you know, tremendous power in the executive. It's one things to understand as a matter of law that this power exists as a potentiality. It's another thing to kind of be surrounded by it physically and to witness its tremendous reach, and to contemplate one of his own fortunes if that great power was uh, what was was turned on you? Okay.

The first reference to the imperial the quote imperial presidency emerged right around the end of Wilson's administration, even even among media people who are otherwise sympathetic to the kind of progressive enterprise, at least the strike represented by Wilson.

The uh. The fact that executive power had been growing steadily, with a dramatic spike obviously during Roosevelt's tenure, but even before and after that, you know, slowly but steadily, you know, there'd been this structural increase, and you know, the real power of the executive and media began to view itself increasingly as you know, not just the fourth estate, you know, as this kind of as it's kind of beacon proverbially that you know, whose role it was to ethically, you know,

lead the Holy poloy away from you know, the false promises and and bad faith of official dumb But also they viewed themselves as literally like a hedge against an active presidency that had increasingly taken on you know, what had theretofore been, you know, the role of an increasingly comatose and kind of and kind of inert senate, you know, and the fact that again the peculiarities of Nuremberg and

the strange fictions therein. We talked about that and how that came to constitute you know, the manner and means in which American president's pictured a war mandate. You know, we talked about this in the context of the Gulf of Tonkin, but it also it changed the way that wars were waged in terms of civilian command and control, okay,

and basic capacities. You know. Not only did not only did the Senate kind of scale back its own micromanagement of such affairs, in part, of course, obviously because these careers type I wanted to protect their own reputation and voting record, but also increasingly it became the domain of experts. Like everything else. You know, you'd have a president you had this, you know, emboldened and dramatically and large and

relative terms of national security staff. They were interpreting and processing reams upon reams of data, trying to interpret it in real time in order to render battlefield decisions, you know, in a hot theater of war in Southeast Asia, well at the same time managing political perceptions you know, around those decisions by both friendlies and hostiles. On top of that, there was the ongoing strategic menace of the Cold War.

You know, this wasn't even even in the kind of best of all possible worlds with a balance of power structurally between the three branches of government kind of existed in look a perfect and complementary stasis. It just it's inconceivable to conceptualize some sort of equal division of responsibility over war and peace questions, you know, between the executive

and the legislature. And people found this alarming, I believe, particularly people who frankly, do not really understand the nuances of war and peace, either you know, in practical terms at scale, or in you know, conceptual and philosophical terms. Most men can't and don't. Frankly, I've made that point a lot, and I'm sure, those of a less than charitable view of me and my work product would say, well, I'm just trying to insinuate some kind of mystique into

my own skill set. That's not true at all. But moving on, I mean, just for Roosevelt's White House was the first White House where every man had had had a number of executives administrative assistants. I mean, it's like, think about that, okay, I mean, like it was the Truman White House. Yeah, was represented something of a scaling back this tendency. But by the time but by the time Eisenhower took the oath of office, like like the managerial state was in structural terms, was here to stay.

And nowhere was that felt more than you know in the Oval office and everything that orbited it, the uh lbj's uh White House personnel staff, you know, ancillary people, you know, like custodians, you know, everybody, feel like the top down it was forty times bigger than the size of the entire like White House Personnel Directorate and uh in the Hoover administration. So I considered that it uh uh the cost had exceeded by nineteen seventy two a billion dollars. It was. It was, it was, it was.

It was effective to exceed a billion dollars by the end of the decade as of nineteen seventy two. And that was that was huge money in those days. It was like almost inconceivable money. Okay, like it's not it's not even suggested considering you know, what was on the table needs to be the Cold War, America's defense commitments, collective security commitments for better or worse. You know, these infrastructural projects that were still ongoing, you know, like the

highway system. That's not that's not to say that this was just you know, an example of like public spending gone crazy and and pigs just you know, gorging themselves at the verbial trough. But that was a staggering number, you know, to anybody in those days. The Kenned he tried to finesse this a bit, you know, by one of the reasons why, like the Camelot myth, like corny as that kind of whole miss manufacturing mystique, that kind of like Time magazine and Life magazine mystique was that

was very much cultivated by the Kennedy administration. Okay, in lieu of transparency, you give people a fairy tale literally, all right, all of that came to crashing down when Kennedy was murdered. You know, LBJ played things very close

to the chest. His concession to media was allowing them to embed in in the field in Vietnam, you know, with the common infantry as well as you know, it's allowing newsmen to attack himself to the staff of of a battalion level commands and higher, which proved to be a terrible mistake. But the idea that suddenly there's been an information blackout from the imperial executive. This is how

that kind of canard gained traction, you know. And obviously it played into it played into their despite the fact that these are a bunch of like newsmen, you know, and like bitch made police worshipers, you know, and and and and UH and middling apparatics, they fancy themselves as like anti authoritarian you know, and this all these tendencies, all these kinds of future shock tendencies, you know, fed their kind of delusions in that regard, you know, their

delusions about themselves and their own roles and significance as well as about you know the nature of UH. You know, the UH the imperial executive, which again was kind of a boogeyman that, although only extending our own minds, you know, loomed, uh, like the angel of death over these people's horizon. And frankly, I mean really from really from the turn of the century onward, it's uh. You know, the White House as a power center. It was engaged in all kinds of

activities which which didn't bear a public scrutiny. And the Cold War kind of sealed the fate of you know

that you got the kind of open executive. You know, you couldn't allow you couldn't allow free flow of information out of the White House when you know, when if the enemy were to come upon you know what happened upon you know, the right data, the strategic balance could be totally altered in terms of you know, in terms of discerning like the the will capability and and and political and political gumption to you know, to wage war

like this. I mean this goloes out saying, but it the really the uh, the Cold War was won and lost by data and the ability to correctly interpret data. I mean you can say that about like any modern war. But when you consider that, you know, the world that's settled into this kind of strategic paradigm where by the triggering of the primary conflict diad could lead to general

nuclear war. But even in times of peace, you know, like a state, but some sort of state between like war and peace was always a foot, so that like, you know, genuine peace as it had existed prior to you know, nineteen forty one in this country could not be said to exist. Like the idea that executive decisions you know, should be subjected to public scrutiny or availed to some sort of like plebiscite, like actual or metaphorical,

I mean, is laughable. But the uh, and just to the way that this was managed again for context contra Nixon. You know when when when people assert that, you know, the assembly of something like of a of a team like the White House plumbers itself constitutes overreach. You know, FDR created his own special intelligence unit, was responsible only to him. They had a staff of eleven men. It was financed by this what was called the Special Emergency

Fund of the State Department. He poached the members of it from Hoover's FBI, which at that point it's it's it's mandate, it's kind of like come into its own, you know, like FBI men are now carrying guns. You know, they had like real arrest power, you know, they were real cops by that point, as well as in the I R. S. And uh, you know, there was also some there was a coterie from the Department of Justice,

you know, like lawyers. They kind of finessed everything and you know, to make sure that the verbial is we died and teas were crossed. But rosel openly, he openly used this this intelligence unit to get dirt in his enemies and harass them, especially the press and especially businessmen you know, like Robert McCormick who were his enemies. You know,

he tapped their phones. He'd have them followed, you know, like uh he'd he uh, he'd have he'd have been indicted on for tax evasion, you know, based on trumped up allegations and you know, things that constitute like simple accounting errors. You know. He he made persistent efforts to get The New York Times indicted for tax fraud, which failed. But I mean they were tied up in litigation and being you know, served with civil and criminal subpoenas you know,

for years on end. I mean that's you know, and this was all this, this was all very above board. You know. He uh he used his intel Roosevelt special intelligence unit. It bugged the room, the hotel rooms of his cabinet. It even bugged Missus Roosevelt's the hotel room.

Not because he was like spying and Missus Roosevelt, but because people when they talked to her obviously thought that they were speaking or in confidence, and he also wanted to hear it like the other wives were saying, you know, the this kind of personal espionage against uh, you know again against ones, you know, fellows as well as adverse series. I mean, nothing like that was in our way in

the Knicks administration whatever. You and I've got no louses about Nixon, but I mean that's like, that's one step beyond you know, dirty tricks and in the business of modern politics, you know I say modern. I mean, you know, from the twentieth century onward. I mean, have you has anyone ever read a book about the gross overreach of FDR. I mean not like not not like Fleming's book. I mean in terms of you know, his special intelligence unit, you know, likening them to the White House plumbers or

I mean No, it doesn't exist. People don't even think in those terms. You know. Again, it's the uh Truman like like was basically it was basically ran like a clean White house. That's not just a myth. They basically avoided these kinds of like domestic clandestine dealings. But it, uh frankly like Eisenhower was a foregone conclusion. He was gonna have two terms. And Eisenhower also he basically there's

never been there. There's never there's never been after the war between the States, like a president who had the kind of mandate that Eisenhower did. Like it's kind of like across the aisle, just an agreement, you know, and then that odorate much to the emergent kind of global system and everything else. But my point is that like Eisenhower is an odd case. You know, you can't extrapolate much from what he did or did not do in this regard generally about you know, the exigency's faced by

a modern executive, you know. And of course Kennedy himself was uh, the all time king of dirty tricks and intrigues. I'm not I'm not a Kennedy basher, despite what people say. A lot I've actually made no secret of it that I think he had tremendous balls, and the way he managed the sixty two crisis, standing up not with the cruise chift, but also the Curtis Leamay, and you know, his own war cabinet when he was just a wet behind the ears, you know, rich Man's son in the

eyes of most people. He was a real man. He wasn't a plunk. But JFK stated no on certain terms that uh, one of the chiefer grants was not having made his brother RFK had a CIA, you know, to bring it under family control too, because his notion, uh, like Roosevelts, was to know everything. You know, the he'd uh he'd been privy very much to the reading which she was privy to the assassination of uh of a DM is it's questionable obviously, like DM it'd been is

like one time. Ally, subsequent historians like to claim that like Kennedy knew nothing about this, and there's a CIA, you know, being atack things like this rogue element. And then of course these fools also like to you know, they got this whole they got this whole fantasy that the CIA killed Kennedy. But I'm not even that touched to that because it's fucking retarded. But the but in the case of DM, the point is, like Kennedy knew it was gonna happen. He was very much insinuated into it.

Whether he formally objected to it, you know, but then you know, went ahead and ordered it or allowed it rather by actor omission as a necessary evil, or whether he was one hundred percent behind it doesn't matter. This idea that like Kennedy was like running this clean administration and had no idea that you know, elements within the executive branch were killing people. That's nonsense. He had uh where where his brother was at It was the Department

of Justice. Obviously in sixty two. These US steel executives who are parenially perennially threatening strikes and opposing administration policies related to the terrorf regime, like uh, head of them have harassed with subpoenas and pre dawn and search warrants. There were dog agents, n FBI man you know, rated their houses, you know, just like family men, you know, like in pre dawn hours, you know, just to just

to terrorize them, you know. In the Kennedy brothers, you know, long before Martin Luther King totally ran a foul of uh you know Jager whoever in LBJ. You know, half a decade later, Jeff get RFK didn't trust him a bit. You know, they had him put under surveillance, you know, they was it was the Kennedy brothers who you know first uh became aware of his uh a King's problems

with females and his like sex addiction. They were the ones who you know, first documented this by having these liaisons with prostitutes and other women that he was compulsed of waving sex with, you know, like recorded and documented. You know, I mean it's this wasn't this wasn't Jay,

This wasn't like mean racist Jadrew whoever? Are doing it for the fun of it, you know, that's they uh nass and right wing media, you know, like birth society types and these kind of nascent uh people like Connie McGinley who put out in the tabloid common sense, you know, and guys like uh you know, these are the guys like Tommy Metzker were associating with back when it was like a klansman. They were trying to uh you know, like as uh as media became more more ubiquitous, and

some of the censorship regime on radio loosened. You know, they were trying to insinuate themselves into into the discursive media again like father Coughlin had, you know, the Kennedy shut that down again, like using the weaponized I R S and other things. When uh, subsequently, Yeah, the first big U the first big scandal that LBJ found himself embroiled in not long after was uh, the Bobby Baker scandal.

Baker was uh, he was political advisor to LBJ having started this is the Senate secretary of the majority leader. Like what Baker's job was, and Uh, Lbj's fingerprints were all over this. He was implicated in arranging liaison as with prostitutes between soft money donors as well as UH, as well as as well as congressmen and the House representatives whose votes he needed on government contracts and other things. And like when this broke, lbj's enemy is gonna certainly

like a bunch of vultures. LBJ uh asked Baker, what kind of dirt you know we had on anybody in I R S. Baker came up with it. LBJ told them, like, you know, you're gonna indict these people or after me or guess what you know, like you know, your wife, your family, the National press, you know, everybody at i RS, like everybody in Capitol Hill. You know they're gonna they're gonna find out about this, you know, like little deliance you had with you know, with this prostitute. And we've

got the receipts to prove it. I mean, like people knew about this stuff, Okay, I mean it's it's this idea that you know, I mean, what did anybody was it? We're people gonna impeach the Kennedy's for spying on Martin Luther King where people gonna impeach LBJ, you know for basically, uh, for basically keeping Bobby Baker rounds a pimp in order

to get dirt on his enemies. Like no, no, because that that's k But four guys breaking into a hotel is is the equivalent of like, you know, murdering a child or something apparently, like according to the American like moral code of Capitol Hill, and frankly too until the until the Nixon era, like the LBJ Nixon era, I kind of consider him in the same vein for reasons I think are clear by now, not because the two men amen thing in common, but I believe we got to.

I believe it was established. Like why I consider it in those terms, the media was pretty selective and the way, the degree which in the way it publicized presidential wrongdoing, and for no other reason then, because it was understood that, you know, kind of the lynchpin of American national security amidst the Cold War was the presidency, okay, and even before that, during the Roosevelt and Wilson administrations and the Hoover and Hardy administrations, it was understood that contained with

an Article two, it's not just a great it's not just an express delegation of great power in warr in peace terms. It's not just a way of structuring the government so as to confer upon the only nationally elected representative, you know, a kind of authority above and beyond that

enjoyed by the judiciary or by the Senate. But there's an understanding that the president is a prime symbol, okay, And in America, you know, it's like, okay, like white Christians shouldn't be shouldn't be worshiping you know, you know, a high office or something, or treating elected official dum

like their kings. But at the same time, you know, there's there's got to be a certain respect afforded to the office the chief executive like other was the officer is in fulfilling its function, and which is why you gotta be very careful about what what kind of man you know you installed in the office. Okay, So there was a basic understanding that attacking the presidency in a in a kind of a in a truly dedicated on going capacity would very much is throwing a baby out

with the bath order. Okay. I mean the fact that I mean Kennedy. When Kennedy was president, he he shared a mistress with Sam g and Conna like Kennedy probably was a sex addict. Kennedy was drug dependent. He wasn't doing drugs the party. I mean it was he was in terrible health. And you know he he had a doctor not unlike doctor Morrell was the hitler who uh basically like made sure that Kennedy had like whatever drugs in the system had to be there from the function

and get through the day. You know. I mean, if somebody at the National media wanted to ruin Kennedy, they could have done it in an instant, which is what was another reason. It's totally retarded, and we will claim

that that Kennedy was whacked. Like you want to get rid of Kennedy, like follow him around on a Friday night, bribe one of his secret services detail, you know, and like take you take take a photo of him getting shot up with eight different drugs by his doctor, or you know, like having a threesome with like two black hookers.

You know, no more, mister Kennedy. But you know, the uh it's striking, and I've i've I've literally spent hours perusing like the main large market newspapers of the day, you know, the New York Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, you know, the La Times. It's striking. How even during even in miss presidential scandals again like going back, you know to Wilson, there's like neary a peep you know about the kind of bad character of the president or any like ad hominem really at all.

And then come Nixon. This day after day after day, it uh, this this like just continual invective you know against Nixon, you know, just just just non stop. That was like the lead story like every day and every paper you know, it's like I said, it was, it was it was the it was Trump one point zero. It's fascinating. I guess that's part of aging, is being able to witness the cyclical patterns of the sociological phenomenon.

Psychosocial phenomenon at scale kind of emerged a high relief, but it's not usually this clear.

part of it. But it's the president being this kind of stand in for a boogeyman imperial executive who's some kind of you know, paternal figure gone wrong. That was very much. That's what I do agree with Paul Johnson on people developed this this this kind of just like disdain for authority, like quah authority, not like real rebels or something, but I mean like actual authority, like where it should be vested in something like the presidency. Like

this became like scary and bad, you know. But like these same people though, like howtow to the police or howtow to a COVID mandate like immediately, but this idea that like, let me just say thing like why the media has this like hysterical fixation with declaring that laborer Putin is like an evil evil man like Labry Putin's he's a he's a moderate liberal who basically acts like any Russian executive would with more restraint, you know, like because he but but he's he's like an evil man

because in Russia there's you know, Russia doesn't just like rotate actors and pretend like you know, the executive is these kinds of uh, you know, there's not this rotation of of like frontmen you know, like behind like a real executive like in America, like like Putin actually is the president something. But there's this idea that like that's scary year, that constitutes some kind of like authoritarian overreach or some kind of threat to people's preferred way of living.

I think it's I think it owes a lot to symbolic psychology, which a lot of things do in this country and just and probably elsewhere too, when I don't live in other countries, so I can't speak to that and with as much certainty. But yeah, it's the interplay of symbolic psychology of you know, the kind of the kind of collapse of authority by future shock and kind of the weakening of social bonds to facilitate authority. You know.

The capitalis the capitalization on those fears and the kind of perverting of the form of those fears such that you know, it appeals the you know, the kind of hoy peloy who are increasingly kind of like sleevish and and resentful. It's almost it's.

That's one of the reasons why, like Hobbes, Hobbs ontology, Hobbs sociological and political ontology is absurd in terms of how humans actually live, But what remains intact is Leviathan, you know, because the patriarchal authority of the executive over his domain is absolute and unimpeachable. I'm not making a pun, I mean quite literally. You know. Why is that the last psychological structure to come under attack or at least to be effectively deteriorated by design? Well, I mean that's why.

But this also brings up there's also reasons questions about, you know, the secularization of concepts of God, you know, and how executive action in a modern state takes on the trappings of like literally miraculous events, suggestive divide intervention, not like literally, but in the symbolic mind and for all practical purposes. Symbolic psychological occurrences are are real occurrences. But again that's kind of outside the scope. I'm raml

like you're not. But it's a when you can come back to that question when I'm more like folks like one of the less like discreetly focused on the subject at hand, the uh, but also lowered to your point, and I mean to what we've been talking about the entire of the hour. Not only it became someone impossible for policy were to be reduced to discourse and polemic and catch phrases anymore, you know. Prisoner Lash made that

point a lot too like about the Vietnam War. One of the reasons so little is understood about it, aside from the bad faith in trendic to the people who are trying to sabotauze the war effort. You can't explain something like the Vietnam conflict in five sentences, and you can't reduce it to being a good war or a bad war, or like we should just do more to win. There.

There's a complexity here. There's nuances, and it's not saying they can really be debated at policy level other than between men who truly understood, you know, all the variables and the strategic implications beyond the battle theater of those variables, as well as the historical implications of victory defeat in

that theater. You know. So as a journalism could no longer really kind of capture the essence of policy decisions and what went into those decisions, and it became less and less capable to kind of structure the world according to these sort of polemical devices. It just it just simply lowered the standards of the US journalism. You know, everything just slowly but surely became a tabloid. You know, even those brands and outlets that there tofore had been

fairly serious and particularly anti Nixon. Well, the way to stay alive now is is tabloid and we hate Nixon, or you know, splashing across the front page that you know, uh, you know, some some like some some snap sort of hollderman looking like he's snarling about to strike a reporter, you know, saying like you know, with some lurid you know, headline.

You know, that's what that's what sells papers. And if you decide to take that, if you if if one had decided to take the high road, or they just like wouldn't be in the game, you know, they don't ceremoniously. They's one of my ceremonials ceased to exist, you know. And even even stuff that was like nominally, even like Midwood, stuff that was like nominally kind of like the intellectual alternative. Look at like look at like old firing line with William Buckley. I mean it's note of the fact. I

mean he was he was an up two's prick. But you know, even that, it's like it's like, okay, so gas Buckley he talks about they'll give like a five minute summation of something instead of a three sentence summation.

But it's still you know, the same kind of dumb down slogan earring, you know, just like a little bit more uh just like a little bit more like meat to it, at least in terms of stylistic convention, but no more like intellectual nuance, you know it the uh, this idea of you know, the newsreader as you know kind of like the arbiter of policy, you know, like owing to you know, his participation, you know, as the target audience of this this cursive process whereby you know,

we arrive at the truth. You know, like this like American discursive space is like, you know, it's like some giant like lyceum, like maintained by Plato or something like. It's I mean that that's that's fucking ridiculous. But it

became even more ridiculous in the twentieth century. You know, the and this and this is why this, this is why, this other the other things that set the foundation for the Nixon coup, you know, like uh, you know, like they were like the leading of the Pentagon papers and like the demand that you know that the demand that uh, the executive opened up proverbial books relating to Vietnam and battlefield outcomes and special operations, as well as you know,

asymmetrical warfare techniques, you know, some of which may or may not have been you know, legal according to the prevailing paradig I'm the idea that, you know, it was imperative, it was morally imperative for these things to be availed the journalistic scrutiny or or to uh, you know, brought into the purview of the public mind. I mean, that's preposterous. Like the I mean, in in pretty much every NATO

state at that time. I mean exclude like the Buonis Republic because they was not was not not a normal country and the hostile occupation. But I mean in the UK there's there's the Official Secrets Act, you know, which obviously like as as as lettered in their system, wouldn't pass First Amendment muster, But I mean national security exigencies, you know, like are an exception to the First Amendment,

you know. I mean there's ways to if one were to be inclined, if what had been inclined to draft a body of law to kind of formally insulate state secrets, you know, from the prying eyes of media and from the cynical maneuverings of of of parisans. I mean, it

could have been done. I mean this idea that it was just not only not only like more morally wrong, but you know, somehow like ali into the American political culture to allow for official limb to keep it secrets is a posterous The UH and the appearance of the appearance of secret material, genuinely eyes only material in newspapers like national papers. It shot up spectacularly during Nixon's first months in office. The first six months of UH nineteen

sixty nine, there was a there's there's twenty. There's twenty major leaks of documents of from class at INFO circular classified memos circulated by the National Security Council, to documents transmitted to and from c i A to the White House, to Army intelligence files, you know, relating to the conditions relating to then XTA had conditions on the ground in Vietnam, uh, I mean serious violations and national security. Later that year, CIA was so concerned and this is pregates hearings a

CIA actually still had some cloud. At the end of nineteen sixty nine, CIA trained into a White House a list of forty five newspaper articles which were regarded as serious violations and national security which would have real effect on you know, the state of the strategic paradigm potentially you know VISA V nuclear secrets, as well as the battlefield situation in Southeast Asia, which obviously was still raging, and of course the kind of the dear of this.

It was June thirteenth, seventy one, was when the Pentagon what's called the Pentagon Papers dropped in the New York Times. It was a seven thousand words survey of America's involvement in Southeast Asia, specifically Vietnam, but also Cambodia. Allows from the end of World War Two ninety forty six, which was when you know, the Vietnam War kicked off, until

ninety sixty eight. The study had been commissioned by Macnamera, you know then when he was you know, Defense secretary under Kennedy and Johnson UH and the Joint chiefs of Staff. These were top secret documents, okay. It related not just to you know, America's overall uh, strategic ambitions in the Orient, which had become gonna the key theater as a you know, a strategic nuclear terms as we talked about, as well

as in you know, conventional terms. It uh, it dealt with the American can forces at the operational level and like what you know kind of like the what like emerging battle doctrine was It dealt with like under what conditions America would consider deploying nuclear weapons to a secondary theater. I mean, this was catastrophic, okay. The author of the

leak was Daniel Ellsberg. He was a four year old Rand Corporation employee who'd been a researcher on the study, and he's stolen all these documents, and when the administration and the FBI discovered the source, they were convinced the guy was a double agent because they're like, if there's analyzed by KGB experts, not only could jeopardize basically an entire range of CIA operational codes, practice and operations, but it also it also l bear basically you know, like

how America derives its own intelligence, you know, from Warsaw packed elements, you know, the method that uses to try and turn these people, you know, and that information on like American surveillance devices, which at that point, you know, was was not readily available data, you know, I mean this was so the reasoning of the reasoning of the Pentagon and other people in the Nicks administration was that if this guy's not KGB and trying to cover his

ass by going public, so doesn't up show up dead, It's like what's his angle? Like why is he doing this? You know, like the fact that this guy would basically be so fucking deranged he's gonna like essentially like burn down the American national security establishment to stick it to Nixon because Nixon's a bad guy. That's literally insane, you know, Like that's but that that's but that's how the people think, you know, it's the uh. Nixon was so disturbed by it.

He uh. On the one hand, you know, he said, you know, he said, if we overreact to this. This was speaking to his uh, his national security Cabinet, and then privately, Kissinger, you said, if we overreact to this, we're just that, you know, we will look like weaklings because it's kind of constantly reacting to what our enemies do. You know, So should we should we? Should we? Not?

his own. Like the fact that this and this can destroy our ability to get up foreign policy, like the fact that's being done in the first place, Like the damage is done, you know, and there you see, like Kissinger kind of the Machiavelian emerging contra Nixon the politician, which I kind of interesting. And it's also too, I mean, if if other powers feel you cannot control leaks and the flow of information. They're not going to negotiate with you in a serious capacity. You know, North Vietnam is

not gonna talk to you seriously. The Russians and the Chinese tourists aren't going to talk to you because you know, they they've got to be certain that you know what they tell you, like doesn't travel to the to the other. If you cannot control the flow of information within your sovereign domain, you cannot be said to be sovereign. So Nixon's solution to this was an anti leak unit who's mandate specifically was to make sure nothing like the Pentagon

papers could ever happen again. The unit was formed by h who got air Litman's assistants Ego Bud Crow and

Kissing Germ's administrative assistant David Young. They recruited G. Gordon Lyddy, who'd been an FBI man, and he was a military event and he was working at the in the Department of Justice as a in kind of a murky capacity, technically as an investigator, but probably in some like national security policy like I would I would imagine counter espionage, which at that time was a big part of the

FBI is like mission mandate. They were called the Plumbers because apparently David Young's grandmother, upon hearing that he was running a unit to stop leaks, she wrote him a letter saying that you know, well, you know, your grandfather be proud that you're returning to the family business because he'd been a plumber in New York City, Which is kind of funny. But the uh also the plumbers did. I was entirely justifiable, if any reasonable perspective, in light

of the severity of the Elsberg case. Their first kind of breach with legality, They've got they got they got to go ahead from Erlockman himself too covertly, in his words, obtained the files to obtain Elsberg's medical files from his psychiatrist's office, and the White House plumbers broke into the psychiatrist's office after hours, and they in fact procured those files. That break in of Elsberg's psychiatrist's office. That was the moment.

It was the Nick administration, albeit totally unknown to Nixon himself, It did over overstep the bounds of legality, but nobody talked about it subsequently, obviously because it could be rationalized as you know, an infraction that was unfortunate, but the necessity of which was dictated by basic national security exigencies.

And it also raised the incomgtable questions like why is Elberg like feeding secrets, you know, feeding state series to the media and potentially putting tens of millions in Maria's lives in jeopardy the sole purpose of bringing down Nixon, you know. Obviously the subsequent break in May, in late May nineteen seventy two, and then again on June seventeenth, I mean seventy two. These are the Water eight break ins.

There was two break ins at the Water eight Hotel by the White House plumbers, the second of which was when they were caught. All we've been going for let's I've got about another hour. I want to go. If you want me to do that, I eat a break or we can reconvene in a day or two.

And like I said, I think something miss understood when I shouted out on Twitter when I said I gotta scale back. Like my pod appearances, I'm gonna keep doing these with Pete as long as he wants, as long as Wing to host me, but other commitments outside of my own pod, I'm gonna have to scale those back dramatically. Otherwise I'm not gonna have any time in the day to work on these manuscripts and this other stuff. I

will come back to making myself basically available. But in the next few days, I it's I'm gonna have to dramatically cut back on abiding invitations to appear, and I'm sorry about that. But I will always be on here as long as Pete wants to host me, and I will always be active on my own shit. But I'm gonna need a couple of months to just focus on getting a hit on this stuff.

But also people focus on the wrong things, you know, Like I said, the book Silent Coo is exhausted and it's a good resource, but I think it focuses too much on, you know, speculating about the intrigues actually led to the Watergate break in, and as I'm going to get into, because I'm going to get into today, the second Watergate break in, whereby the plumbers were actually arrested, that increasingly faded into the kind of faded into the

peribrial ether even as the narrative was reaching its zenith in terms of, you know, the coalition that had assembled to bring down the Nickson White House, you know, even when they were kind of like at the peak of their power, and we're very it was it was you know, a fore round inclusion that they would they would get an impeachment quorum if in fact it came down to

such a vote. And that's important to consider the degree to which, you know, whatever the plumbers were doing was really protextual what I believe people are saying, and this

is entirely this is very very dishonest. I'm not saying this is somehow more legitimate than the kind of laughable sort of pretext of what is being alleged is indicative of you know, intolerable corruption and overreach on the necks and White House, the below board, or extra judicial wire tapping of certain individuals, as well as as well as what was said on the infamous Nixon tapes that seems to be abould really through Special Counsel Archibald Cox, into

this kind of vicious moral crusade, which makes a little bit more sense than the Watergate break in pretext, but in comparative terms. And again, this isn't what about ism when we're talking about criminal law and the impeachment power and process is a matter of criminal law, albeit a very discreetly narrowly tailored one and a very unusual one. But we can only rely on precedent, you know, to determine what's an appropriate way to proceed under diverse facts

and circumstances. And essentially nobody cared when other administrations did exactly the same things that the Knickson administration was doing and considering the exigencies presented, you know, it can never be it should never be forgotten that Nixon was a wartime president in a very real sense and that had had that had existential implications during the Cold War, you know, I mean Bush forty three was also a wartime president.

But the not to sound overwrought, but the kind of fate of the world system as it existed was not in the balance, you know, I react not a client state of a superpower that could kill eighty million Americans

within hours an event of a general war. So whatever Nixon did as regards extra judicial measures undertaken against people who are believed, based upon some reasonable suspicion, to be compromising the ability United States to specifically off off to the president, you know, to carry on not just diplomacy, but carry on and prosecute an active war while protecting state secrets in the midst of a wider strategic paradigm that that that's got to be considered and what's what's

appropriate and what constant is a clear and present danger then cannot be analogised or analogized to facts and circumstances. Were such such factors not present. I think we spoke, and I think we ended last time around the even one's second to call my notes hears, I'm not having to do them, so I'm not having to do Google food to get them next to check my dates and things. Yeah, I think we I think we ended in discussing we started to talk about the White House tapes before we

get to that. Though, one of the reasons why Liddy became sort of the face of Watergate is not just because you know, he was an eccentric character and he was kind of made for you know, conspiraal narratives in media, like the Man of Lydia. I mean, after the after the White House plumbers were arrested, a particularly ambitious judge named John si Rica Cloak People Cloak Willie, anonymously known as Maximum John because he was very much like a Rockefeller laws or a judge who was known for his

absolutely draconian sentences. He was threatening to slap the White House plumbers with life sentences like with parole, but just the same if if they refuse to turn state's evidence. That's quite literally insane, you know, to say, well, you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna lock people up for the mouse, you know, twenty years to life from a petty burglary, you know, regardless of the implications visa via a sitting

in presidential administration. I mean, things like things like this that doesn't just smack a malicious prosecution, but I mean that that's that's an obvious made of judicial overreach, you know, and it goes to show you're kind of at every level, this was this this this scandal that we can call it a scandal and not you know, coup, which is

kind of more probably what it was. At every stage, you know, every every every actor of regime official dumb was proceeding abnormally, you know it, Uh Liddy uh clammed up essentially stated he wasn't afraid to go to prison. Three could further threaten him by making it clear that he'd see to it that Liddy was sent to a maximum security prison, you know, presumably that housed violent offenders. And this was you know, the Attica era when when

when when racial warfare was underwayne American penitentiaries. I mean, this is this is very this is this is really quite grotesque. Okay, it's you know, I mean, as it were, uh lady was able to plete out. But you know, for people proportedly, you know, for these Woodward and Bernstein types supposedly were so singularly concerned with the integrity of processes and things. I mean they I I would think

that that would have given them pause. But apparently it didn't, you know, So thus the water when you know, the water gets the water get scandal broke, you know obviously with with the arrest of the plumbers, but it wasn't you know again, it kind of pretty rapidly mutated into

something totally unrelated. The uh the Democrats had majority congressional control, so this was kind of their proved opportunity to assault, you know, the imperial presidency, which had become their boogeyman, as they've been talking about the last two episodes, and what they singularly focused on first was you know, the White House tapes. You know, the claim then is now was oh Nixon was this paranoiac. He was taping everything in the White House. There'd been a White House taping

system in place since FDR. When Nixon took the other of office, there was a taping system installed that Johnson had installed Nixon, and that one removed. The one that replaced it was one that holler him and selected that was voice activated. So that was which was something of a double edged sword because obviously it guarantees that you know, if if if the third man in the room forgets

to you know, hit the record button. In those days, you know, with that with the same technology, know, the the minute somebody speaks audibly, the mechanism would would kick on. You know. Some people have claimed like, oh, this, this is what this was the single greatest disservice you know, Hallerman could have all be it unintentionally done? I don't accept that. Like the issue with the tapes, wasn't that the whole point of the whole point of taping Oval

office conversations is that they're not doctored. It's that when it's claimed that you know, oh, mister Nixon said this, he ordered this. There's literally both sides or all sides of the conversation. You know, it can't it can't be said to be you know, half of a conversation, you know, owing to owing to selective editing, you know, in sitsu. But of course, uh, these uh, the transcriptions of these tapes. The court and the Congressional advent instigators insisted that these

be handed over without exception. And I mean obviously that's you know, uh, this is this is literally what executive privilege is tailored for, is to prevent such things from seeing the light of day, you know, not not because we're gonna protect you know, a sitting executive, not because we're gonna indentify, indemnify I am from wrongdoing. But again it was understood by everybody, literally everybody, you know, until this Watergate moment, that there's going to be state secrets

bandied about pretty much constantly in the Oval Office. You know, we're not We're not gonna just kind of throw open the doors of you know, the machinery of policy in a time of war and you know, destroy the ability to practice you know, meaningful diplomacy and and wartime negotiation, and you know, just so that you know, Woodward and Bernstein can get the scoop, or just so that you know, there can be some kind of forth estate veto over what they perceived to be you know, bad conduct and

the prosecution of the Vietnam War or whatever, you know, something that's that was bad faith of itself. The driving force against Nixon, particularly in this regard of the tapes in the Senate at least was Sam Urvin, who, ironically, you know, we talked about that Bobby Baker scandal, you know, like sex scandal involving LBJ. Like Irvin had been the man who successfully you know, kind of intervened like save

Olbg's ass you know, many years back. By that point, he'd kind of retained his role as a political fixer, you know, but obviously he didn't have any particular history with Nixon personally. You know, this is obviously very much a careerist, uh effort. And you know, since he'd been the secretary of the majority leader back in back in the days the Baker scandal. He'd ultimately resigned during an investigation in ninety sixty three into this, you know, into

the into his business and political activities. But he very much bounced back from that, and uh, I think of this as a way of him kind of trying to

ingradiate himself to the new masters, as it were. But the uh, the investigation into Baker was in sremonus he dropped there for the assassination of Kennedy when kind of everything got thrown into him chaos, you know, and uh, not not to be make a crude pun, but I mean Urban kind of dodged a bullet as as much Kennedy uh did not did not dodge a bullet simultaneously.

Because I think we touched on you know, Vice President Spureau agnew he was very suddenly accused of accepting kickbacks, you know, for for government contracts, particularly by you know, construction firms that you know, we're alleged to have organized crime ties, you know, all government Maryland. He got slapped with this uh indictment containing over forty counts, you know, and alleging everything from you know, tax tax fraud and

tax evasion. He's accepting the bribes, you know, criminal conspiracy and solicitation to commit fraud. You know. But again it's like why why is this suddenly coming out now? You know? But I mean Agnew had Agnew had no choice but to resign on October ninth, ninety seventy three, the Justice Department offering him if he was willing to resign, off offering him a play, uh no contest. You know, I'm on one kind of tax evasion, which also I mean

is very transparent too. You know. It's well, we'll make we'll make this forty kind indictment go away as long as you quit, you know. Enter Alexander Haig and he becomes key. Higg's a really compelling figure, and I think he was a stronger military mind than he's credited. He was a commander of a naval forces during kind of kind of keep during kind of the key detent era and as Dayton came to an end. I mean, he famously is remembered for you know, his uh putting his

foot in his mouth after Reagan was shot. I'm in control here. I No matter what Haig said, he was gonna be used as a pinata by you know, by the enemies of mister Nixon and you know, those with long memories. But Haig, at this point became the White House Chief of Staff, held him and having resigned, you know, owing to the fact that he there was you know,

he'd been singularly targeted by the Watergate witch hunters. Haig was a pretty I mean, indition to being a strong general officer type of that era, he was a combat veteran in of Korea. He had good Machiavillian instincts for Washington, and he was in favor of Agnew stepping down without

a fuss for the sake of optics. But privately, his big concern was uh that both Nickson and Agnew would be indicted, leaving succession to the constitutional next in line, who was figure at the House, Carl Albert at that time, who is known to be like a barely functioning alcoholic.

He was presently under psychiatric here, you know, to a military man like hey, everything else aside the idea of there basically being like a headless executive at that juncture, you know, mind you in the midst of the on the costs, but in the midst of you know, the nineteen seventy three war, the kind of you know, critical critical developments in Southeast Asia after you know, the signing of the peace agreement, which had to be managed correctly as you know, to say the least, you know, as

Han NOI kind of tested the parameters of American willingness to enforce it. You know, this sin was so be it split was you know, the blood was still fresh from that coverbial separation. This this could have been uh, this this, this, this, this could have been an absolute disaster. Now, enter Archibold Cox. One second. Let me sorry about this.

cipher anyway. And that's one of the reasons during the Avil Archer era why I kind of the real intromvirate of grim Eco Ustenoff and it dropped Off became so paranoid as it were so Yeah, I think that added to the danger of a Reagan Reagan being shot just just on its own terms, like added to the danger of the of the situation. In my opinion, I don't think I don't think what Haig said signaled to the Russians any any kind of critical any kind of critical perception,

critical capacity that impacted their perception. As far as Haig's uh role in you know, the final days of the Knicks administration, Hay very much came into the gun sights of Archibald Cox, who is Archibald Cox before Nixon's appointment of Attorney General Elliott Richardson before the Senate would confirm him on May ninety seventy three, Richardson had to agree at his confirmation hearing to a point of Watergate special prosecutor.

The special prosecutor role and of itself is absurd, like in any epoch, like it was absurd when ken Starr was assigned the role. I mean, Clinton was a total piece of shit. But that's beside the point. This idea of we're gonna we're gonna appoint what amounts to a law enforcement officer. He's simply gonna like investigate. He's gonna begin an investigation from a man and from there discover some kind of wrongdoing. I mean that that's grossly offensive

to due process. It intrinsically politicizes, you know, the Fag finding mission. And it also it basically in the best of times and in the best of circumstances, in the most stable circumstances, in terms of you know, a true moral consistent in Washington, it basically calls by the sitting executive, the police himself, and the worst at times in terms of across the aisle trust and goodwill. You're you're basically guaranteeing a witch hunt. Okay, Richardson h back to the

point of Archibald Cox. Under a one time special regulation he was allowed to it was essentially allowed to appoint him. Okay, Now this this, this, this, this whole arrangement was to say it was I mean that Turtle legal scholar might call it novel. I mean, it was just moronic. You know, we're gonna have the incoming age essentially appoint a special prosecutor. His job is like dig up dirt on the chief

executive of the administration. He's now going to serve. And Richardson's reasoning for selecting Cox to say it was tortured,

it doesn't even begin to describe it. Cox had an idea that richards and idea that Cox there was so much natural hatred between Cox and the NIXT administration that when Cox didn't come up with anything substantive in his investigation, it couldn't be said that there was you know, any kind of there was any kind of cooperation, you know, or collusion, which is the stupid reviews word now between Cox's office and in the White House. Like how anybody

could convince themselves of that is incredible. But Richardson actually believed this. This wasn't He wasn't some This wasn't some leedgered Maine that he was invoking because he, you know, had some kind of secret enmity for his boss. Cox had been John F. Kennedy's labor advisor. Kennedy had appointed of Solicitor General and he held that role for four years. He was an arch Kennedy loyalist, and he was a radical leftist, you know, son of a Manhattan lawyer, Harvard alumni,

couse judical activist. He cited John Marshall as a model jurist, you know, and thus I mean Marshall's literally the father of judicial review and judicial activism, you know, Marbray versus Madison being you know, the the progenitor authority. Cox had graduated first of his class at Harvard. He got uh a top posting at the Solicitor General's office when World War two broke out? By it, what's that? Did you say something? No?

manufacturing economy. You know. His his role being the supervise enforcement at the district court level of federal labor statutes, you know, meant that he had a lot of clout, okay, and again his his radical strikes brought him down unfailingly, you know, on the side of a big labor and interpreting regulatory in arbitration regime, you know, most as charitably as as he possibly could within their favor. In this role, he had a staff at eight lawyers each which supervised

apartment's regional offices. He could he had final authority and when an attorney could bring suit. Most of these, most of these, most of the litigation involved issues arising under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Okay, which is kind of the bane of of of of management, and of and

of capital in those days. He Uh. He also sat on the wage Adjustment Board periodically with all the construction industry and attempts to maintain labor peace by mediating disputes and settling prevailing you know, you know, disputes from over like you know, wage rates and increases, which was also statutorily controlled by the Davis Bacon Act, which was tailored to standardize wages. But obviously I mean that that that

was open to very very wide interpretation. So I mean, uh, you Harvard Man himself, you know, the rich scion of a of a legal family from Manhattan. You know, Uh, this kind of like who had a hero worship and Kennedy, you know, it's like who, It's like, what the hell was richards in thinking like this is It's like, uh, it's like hiring Uh, it's like hiring LUCIFERD guard the Pearly gates when uh Saint Peter goes to take a piss or something. But after the war, uh, Hovard Law

School hired Cox as a professor. Cox said the st he used to the stipulation that he would as long as they have to teach corporations or property. You very much use this as like, you know, an opportunity to

grand stand on his you know, socialist politics. Obviously, he became a permanent family member in nineteen forty six forty seven school year, you know, and this was during the post war boom and the g I Bill, So he you know, he the guys who were guys who went on to become real players on the Beltway, you know, like like passed through like you know Professor Cox's class at Harvard to a degree that's really kind of striking.

You know, he sired proverbially speaking, like many many intellectual offspring. He became hugely influential in the labor field there an even fifties. You know, this was the era where the public intellectual was alive and well that as as you know, that role, I mean the uh he was instrumental in defining what became you know, kind of the controlling body of industrial relations law. You know, for an entire generation.

You know, his UH is there's no man comparable with who's got that that kind of influence, like in any field, but particularly not the legal field. You know, these days it's uh, you know, mind you this he wasn't just like a you know, kind of like a celebrity legal commentator like Dershowitz or something, you know, he was he was a true like public intellectual and you know, in the way, in the way Thomas Schelling was on the

side of like new nuclear war planning. Okay, Kennedy when he was a freshman senator in ninety fifty three, decided that labor relations would be kind of his primary point of attack, you know, and he wanted to build his policy resume on that, you know, which was which was smart, and it also allowed him to kind of like play the set on civil rights and things. He wrote to Cox inviting him to testify with the Senate Subcommittee on

Labor and Public Welfare. Cox reciprocated his admiration and affection. You know. He was he was gonna county his constituents. He's a fellow Harvard man, you know. And most importantly, I mean this, this really kind of made a star

like permanent. You know. He was he was already naturally recognized academic expert on labor law, and this kind of like you know, radical liberal democrat with a predecision towards labor but now you know, like this popular freshman senator that people are like bandying is going to be the president someday, is you know, hitching his wag into his own okay, out of the fall of nineteen fifty nine or in the fall in nine fifty nine or rather, there was an effort to beef up the Landrum Griffin Act,

which is a bipartis and effort to kind of butcherss the taff Hartley Act, by way, have a sort of legislative injunction. And this was the first in a series of kind of shipping away of you know, the hegemony that organized labor had had won throughout the New Deal years. It under the under the osises of residentially premise upon anti corruption and anti recodeering concerns, and it need to you know, get organized crime out of out of out

of labor unions. It it allowed, uh, it allowed a Senate subcommittee like very wide based police power to essentially like force you know, unions above a certain membership, which was a very low bar, you know, like open their books essentially, you know. And these kinds of a lot like these endless kind of like mafia related hearings, like a lot of them like were premise upon initially at least upon the power convert by Langem Griffin incidents at

taff Hartley. Just incidentally, this is important for context. I believe, Sorry if I'm boring everybody to death. According to I don't know, he's the topographal because other people have claimed

this too. It's believed that like outside of his own family, Cox was the first man that Kennedy can fight it too, that he's running for president, you know, he wrote he approached Cox formally despite them by that point being quite friendly, saying you needed to he would needed to quote tap intellectual talent in the Cambridge era, you know, and basically build kind of like a dream team of like public intellectuals and academics, you know, and kind of go go

forward like all guns blazing at full frattle, you know, on you know, kind of like we're forming the labor code, you know, to bring it back to you know, what had happened under the New Deal, but augmented by the kind of like newfound postwar prosperity. You know, that that will ease the burden on management. You know, very utopian, very much kind of the very very much the language of kind of like you know, the utopian socialism of

the day. And uh in turn, like Cox, he prodded a lot of labor, both labor union types and as well as a lot of academics who again had a lot of cloud and policy playing circles like towards the Kennedy camp. Okay, so to say that, to say that Cox was insinuated into the into the kind of into the kind of the Kennedy orbit, I mean he he absolutely was like more than more than anybody, like not a relation of the man could be, you know. In

nineteen sixty, Cox was appointed Solicitor General. Solicitor General is something of an unusual role. He's kind of like corporation council would function in a municipality or at the state level. He basically acts as the government's lawyer before the Supreme Court.

It was in those days immensely influential, not just knowing the fact that government had more clout than but this was the War in Court era where the Supreme Court and the Federal judiciary in general was like legislating from the bench and everything from four six and fourthe Amendment issues to these you know, civil rights acts all on Sundry and you know, these these social engineering endeavors. It basically it was uh Cox is ten year as Solicitor

General absolutely facilitated a lot of these things. Okay, So again, like the idea that this man would behave in any way once appointed as Special Pride Pecuter other than to try and do everything he could to destroy Nixon is a really insane you know. But again, it's incredibly smart people and incredibly stupid people often like outsmart themselves by

by twisting themselves in a crazy conceptual contortions. And I can't tell if Richardson was either like that stupid because he was so smart or because he was such a fool, But it's one or the other, because there's no there's no other explanation. But that was that was Cox's background.

And in July of nineteen seventy three, Cox immediately requested the White House tapes and then subpoenaed them, and not just the White House tapes but all other wire taps and extra judicial like non court ordered tapes that had been you know, produced by you know, any anybody on the executive staff. Obviously, the next administration refused to produce these tapes and the executive privilege, and they were right. And this dispute carried on until October and carried on

through the that the nineteen seventy three war. Cox seemed some people like Paul Johnson and CLAYT. Cox was his grandstanding for you know, a Democratic Congress, you know, so he at every every turn, you know, he kind of refused to abide not just that the honor of the presidency, but also refused to give grant the benefit of the doubt to Nixon the chief executive. I think I don't I don't think that was it. Okay, I think I

mean he he was absolutely doing those things. He wasn't doing it because of like simple you know, simple show voting for a Democratic majority. Like he he utterly hated Nixon and was exactly the kind of person who viewed Nixon and the silent majority as UH as like the epitome of of of of literal evil. On October twelfth, Cox one uninjunction doesn't cure the right of access to the tapes, UH, to the recordings of all Nixon's White

House conversations, and uh Nixon responded by firing Cox. Okay, Now this is held out by people as oh that you know, crazy Nixon trying to become a dictator. Look, this man was literally appointed by Nixon's Attorney general. Okay, and he's within one of the absurdities of Special Council is he's within the executive chain of command. Like under Article two, you can fire him, you know. I mean and again it's you. Uh, it'd be like saying like

let's say like a court order. Let's say like you, let's say you were like an incorrigible uh, like you know, like traffic violator. Okay, if you like a court like ordered you to like hire like a policeman or like a parent in type to like follow you around and you know you should do citations for speeding. Well, at the same time, you pay him a salary, and you're within your rights to fire him. Like then if you fire him, they'll charge you with a crime. I mean.

It's it's like something it's it's like something that of have not particularly creative, you know, like Joseph Heller kind of sat attire or something. It was at this moment you know that like like a firing cox is is like breathlessly and and incomprehensively called the Saturday Night massacre. Kind of all all this, all the hysteria usually associated with the kind of Nixon which Hunt. It just just it says they wanted to like absolute, like full frattle

after this. But I want to I want to get back to the issue with with with Haig, he just for one a second, Okay, he was alarmed by cox As immediate plans to widen the Watergate investigation for a few reasons. Hey kind of saw the writing on the wall. Okay, Haig realized that the Watergate, like Watergate in of itself, didn't really make sense. Haig had been very deeply involved in to what degree is not clear, but even very deeply involved in what came to be known as the

Houston Plan. Okay. The Houston Plan was an ongoing effort to surveil people who are believed to be the source of information weeks like the Pentagon papers. You know that involved discloses a critical information of uh you know of

of of a national security imperative. Okay. Between ninety sixty ninety seventy one, there'd been about seventeen extra judicial wire taps of private persons who these private persons were will get into in a moment, they'll see that there's some of mischaracterized and Haig was, uh, pressure has brought to

bear on Haig did has closed what he knew. This is when Coals began threatening to bring indictments again those who had conducted and supervised the breaking the break in of Elsburg's doctor psychiatrist's office, you know, doctor fielding with

the doctor. Haigg's rebuttal, without admitting knowledge of any wrongdoing, was that any such disclosures that you know, derived from such prosecutions by antenor accident would threaten national security and grave capay cities because the White House plumbers were involved in a highly classified matters, some which were related to these wire taps, which we'll get into in a moment, some of which were not. But Cox then responded by uh subpoena documents relating to the purchase of Nixon's home

in San Clemente. You know, I mean, so this became, it became, it became, it became very clear that this was a witch hunt. By this point, Okay, when you're when you're when when the scope of your investigation simply widens every time that your stone walled with a refusal

biactual mission to cooperate with a threatened subpoena. It's not even clear if that subpoena power it's constitutionally permis did I mean you're not You're not talking about an investigation in the public corruption based on you know, facts coming to light that demanded, you know, and you're not talking about you're not talking about due process as we think of it. You know, you really are talking about a wish hunt by this point, and I don't I don't see how that can be contested. But a man of

in one second, Jade Burzards. He was named Special White House Council for Watergate matters to the President on May tenth, and Alexander Haig apparently confided in him quite a bit, which kind of came with the role because again, Hig became White House Chief of Staff following the resignation of Holliman.

He can fighted a buzzart that his role at the White House to be temporary, and so he retained his title at the Department of Defense, so essentially essentially saying like, I'm just a placeholder, and one of the reasons I'm here is because you know, the way I interpreted the least one of the reasons I'm here is because you know, I obviously you know my top priority is is guaranteeing He's guaranteeing, you know, security, and it's in the integrity

of state seekers. The first task of UH, the first ask a special council, Buzzart's, was to investigate fromer whaloes Counsul John Dean. Dean was believed to possess classified documents. And this is where you know, again the the kind of entire narrative to some people of Watergate like revolves around John Dean. That's about outside the scope of what I want to tackle in this series. But what John

Dean had direct knowledge of was the Houston Plan. And I believe the big concern about Dean being pressured, if for no other reason then only to his connections the intelligence community. Deans, I mean, Buzzart was convinced that these documents related to what was called the Houston Plan. The Houston Plan was a proposed banged and a domestic surveillance. Okay,

was it illegal as proposed? It was extra judicial? But this is this is gonna kind of like the meat of Watergate, Okay, like what and at the eleventh hour, suddenly this became the rationalization like you see other goal post was always changing between the Houston plant. What was even plant first was a forty three page report and outline posing security operations, surveillance espionage while you're tapping of domestic targets. It is proposed it it was, it was

proposed in in nineteen sixty nine. It came to light owing to Sam Urban's efforts, like what exactly, but like how we came to know if it's existence isn't clear Again to this this may have been like a Dean league them may have Dean may have told they may have just closed what he knew about it. He may have his closed that he had documents relating to it, and then his ace in the hole was saying like I absolutely will not like release those documents unless, say,

you know, before an immunity qualified or otherwise. Conventional wisdom is that Nixon rescinded the plan on July twenty eight, nineteen seventy, after approving it only a few days before in July twenty third. This has led to this kind of hysterical refrain that for five days in nineteen seventy, the fundamental guarantees that Bill Roy were suspended by the mandate given the secret Houston Plan. Beau if like hevieus

corpus and new process has never been suspended before. And then you know, most recently during you know, the Bush

forty three era. You know, before that during World War one, world War two, during Roosevelt's you know, internment of a you know, thousands of people based on subjective subjective national characteristics, you know, his indictment of people under the sedition active and the list goes on, no no, no, no, no, no no. But the impetus for this report was, uh, the belief that a lot of left wing radical NGOs were in fact being funded by Warsaw Pact. That was

actually true. Okay, countercultural era a movement in general. I think it was like the anti war movement which seemed to emerge out of nowhere and was flushed with money. Was you know it was it was an enemy okay. Jaegrew Hoover initially back the Houston Plan. Also Houston himself at or closely with William Sullivan, who was uh, William C. Sullivan who was one of humors assistant Hoover's assistants, and drawing up the options listed what eventually became you know

the Houston Plan. The plan called for you know, domestic burglary, electronic surveillance, surveilling of male of domestic radicals. Okay, like in broad terms at one time, it's uh, it calls for a suspension of habeas corpus in the case of you know, people like the Weathermen who were known to be involved in terrorist activities and allow their detainment you know,

without you know, like formal arraignment or indictment incidents. Uh, you know, clear clear and present danger, which like I said, I there is precedent for that, for better or worse. Nixon RADI. Nixon ratified these proposals, and they were submitted uh two FBI, Central Intelligence, d I A, and the National Security Agency. So again this you have Hoover collaborating on this, you have White House Council liaising with the

FBI on this. You have uh, the director of every one of the major intelligence organizations that constitute the National Security Apparatus being literally like availed to this document. Like the idea that this was like Nixon developing some secret spy for wars or something is laughable, you know, to say nothing of the fact that he rescinded it five days later, and there's this incredible in nineteen seventy three.

The world's on the prank and nuclear war at that time and about every decade, you know, and it ends up there the American streets being torn apart by race wars. This is an incredibly brutal war in Southeast Asia that has just come to close, you know, the third World terrorism.

I'm not saying that like translink and I'm saying that as what happened, but it the so like very very suddenly the very very very very suddenly the Houston plan, Like oh now, now this is now, this is the reason for you know this, this why Nixon must go, you know, and who are these out of the uh, out of the intelligence and in law enforcement establishment aforementioned Only Hoover objected to the plan and and pressured the attorney and pressure then Attorney General John Mitchell to to

get Nixon's ear to rescind it. Like why Hoover thought it was a bad plan. There's a few reasons in my mind, but it wasn't because he was, you know, horrified at the thought that the Bill rights might be corrupted. But you know, this is presented as a case of oh, you know, like regular people or like college teachers or whatever. Just you know, John and JQ public were being set

up to be terrorised by the government. Okay, here's here's a list of the people who were actually placed on surveillance incident to the provisions of the he was in planning, I can implemented one Martin Helper and who's a National Security Council staffer and a consultant UH Democratic Presidental cannedy Edmund Muskie. His phone was tapped from May sixty nine

to thirty seventy one. Daniel Davidson, another NSC staff member who UH who Hoover ultimately had fired Colonel Robert Roberty Persley then Melvin Lair, a Secretary of Defense adjutant a whole lot of em earlier administrations in the wake of the Cambodian invasion. It was believed that he was the source of the leagues to national media. Okay, this is a bird colonel, you know, serving the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense Helmet Sunenfeldt Uh, a sovietologist and National

Security council who served in the State Department. Haig wrote his name to the FBI because it was believed that he might be a mole for for East Bloc intelligence named Henry Brandon. He was the London Times, the London Sunday Times correspondent liaison to Washington. He was friendly personally with Henry Kissinger.

And WILLIAMS. Safire, who'd been a he was he was the New York Times writer columnist, and that's what he's most known for. The people our agent. He was a White House speech writer at UH wasn't clear what Safire was on the list, but again like he was, you know, very much, very much a public figure. The two kind of outliers where Marvin Kel was a CBS and an NBC reporter, and William Beecher was a report of the

New York Times and the Boston Globe. But again too, you know, the media was acted, especially the print media. They were they were they were, they were engaged in actively publicizing eyes only documents relating to the critical national

security of the United States. You know, So none of these, none of these people under war conditions which were underway in ninety seventy three or from ninety sixty nine to you know, seventy one, like it should have been like off limits or something, you know, the remaining UH, the remaining targets. UH Richard F. Peterson States Bari councilor Williamate Sullivan Ambassador of Laus Anthony Lake, an NSC specialist in Vietnam who had very much a murky career. He was

probably a spook, is what I'm getting at. Under light dolomatic cover Winston Lord, China specialist in the NSC staff. And UH James H. James McLean was a staff member with ties to UH Rockefeller, kind of liberal Republicans like Health, Education and Welfare Secretary Robert Finch. He was close the former gardner of Massachusetts, Francis Sergeant McLean was was briefly tapped for ever of weeks at Halliman's of warquest. I mean, who knows why, but that's where that that was it.

That was the extent of private citizens tapped by the precepts of the Houston Plan, you know. And that was and after, you know, after after Nixon lost the fight to give up the tapes, Nixon has still been ahead in the polls until publication of the tape extracts. The

tape extracts says printed we're very much doctored. Many marks have exploited, deleted, you know, persuaded members that Nixon and his team were constantly swearing, you know, and habitually uttering obscenities, which sounds corny today, it's made like a difference, you know, it was they were kind of cast in a light. It's putative. Yeah, there's rumors constantly bandied that all these tops have been these tapes have been doctored and censored by Nixon and his staff, you know, like the media

was claiming this. So anything you read, it's way worse than what you're reading, you know. But so as the pollster and moving against Nixon, you know, the machinery impeachment is brought into play in a true sense, the impeachment process, the way it works, its specified an Article one. Obviously, Article one, Section two and three provides for the president of the impeach where offenses describe an Article two, section four. That's where treeson bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

That's where that phraseology comes from. I mean, in reality though, it just me it's it's just politicians sitting in judgment and one another. You know. Andrew Johnson got impeached because he was like a Southern patriot and a bunch of radicals and people wanted to you know, and people wanted to like hang him anf figy for the death of mister Lincoln, like said to impeach him, you know, like like bitch made retards, you know, want to uh who uh who have some kind of like superstitious hatred of

Donald Trump? You know they they get off on impeaching him. I mean that's you know, that's but but the actual like process that follows the House Judgery Committee is like the court of like first Review, Like they're like the reigning court basically like what what amounts will they they sent off on what amounts to a fighting of problem cause? And uh then it goes to the and then it goes to the Senate. But the two thirds majority is required for a conviction. Like the actual article that comes

before the House. The Detrict Committee is is is literally one of the foreign organization of the articles of impeachment. The Senate then tries the accused of these articles you know, like any other like like an like any other trial. Basically, you know, a two days majority is required for conviction, at which time the convicteds removed from office. It's qualified to holding any subsequent office under the Constitution in the future.

Nick Son's view early on was that, uh, it was like the House to repert stamp the article of impeachment, but that they'd never get through two years majority in the Senate, the House Judirie Committee there was twenty one Democrats and seventeen Republicans. Eighteen to twenty one. Democrats were certain to vote for impeachment no matter what, just because they hated him and they were absolute partisans. So the

committee was a stacked deck as it developed. All twenty one Democrats and six of the Republicans, six out of seventeen voted for impeachment and recommended I and voted to recommend Pee into the full House. There was no doubt look mixed of the first His reasoning was that he wanted to get in his public career as a fighter. He actually wrote that down and Nixon wasn't a prol

big diars. He jotted that down on a pad of paper, in public career as a fighter, and he thought, even if convicted, you know, there would be the opportunity to defend himself in public. And uh, the odds of it. Two thres majority again were not particularly strong. Andrew Johnson had survived by a single vote famously, and by that time there had been twelve instances of the House moving to impeach a public official, and the Senate had only

convicted on four occasions. But Nixon, Nixon in nineteen sixty shown through subsequently. I mean, he realized there'd been incalculable damage done to the executive end of the country by the which hunt, by the entire charade. You know, America was a nation just coming off of a general war.

The future is very uncertain. The Soviets that achieved nuclear parody and strategic terms and were winning on the battlefield, the impeachment process itself, I mean, even if Nixon's successor was a real executive, which basically was no chance of the impeachment process itself, would would be head the executive you know, at a time when NATO was quite fragile, you know, in the UH in the anti communist block, would such be like literally headless, you know, in Nixon's mind.

And it's clear if you know what to look for in his statements on it, and they're not self serving. Next, I'm not playing martyrs. He's entirely right like, had he not stepped down, he would have been playing directly into the hands of the Soviet Union and at a critical juncture it may have given them what they needed to win next and decided, obviously in the national news, to resign,

other than stand to be impeached. Nixon's hope had been that John Connolly for a governor of Texas, you know, who'd been who got shot, you know, and the same that Kennedy was murdered, would be a successor. And had you know, had Nixon seen out his term, he was gonna back Connolly in seventy six. But it's uh such that it was Ford. Ford was a like a good guy, like morally, like he had no vices, and by all accounts he was like a decent man. But you know,

Ford was like a non entity. And there's no you know, there's no way anybody truly affiliated with Nixon would have gotten would have gotten a nod for the job after Nixon's removal. But that's basically Watergate, man, Like you give me the scatter shot. There's like a lot there that I wanted to like get in that we weren't able to before. And I hope it didn't seem to disjointed.

very much in the driver's seat of policy. And there never would have been this situation where you know, a decade goes by and there's no communication, you know, between the Soviet executive and the president of United States. It's like how that developed would have been interesting. And I think a possibility of like real strategic nuclear disarmament before the collapse of the Soviet Union would have been realizable.

But it's it's hard to say. Otherwise Nixon did get is like the Burger Court was I mean, Nixon was able to pack like the federal judiciary and you know, Renquist was this guy. You know, it's I'm in rentalist. So I mean a lot of a lot of Nixon's legacy like was realized, you know, set up the EPA and stuff. I ever what he feels about that. It's been like impactful, but it's it's hard to say. I'm oriented towards you know, the Cold War side of it

and things like that. But you wouldn't have a gilded executive, Okay,

that's the big I think that's what you're looking for. Okay, Like there wouldn't you would do this bizarre situation like the presidents is kind of like the cipher, and you've got this like Soviet like gerontocracy that's impossibly get rid of, and the legislature and the judiciary, you know, and you and you have like basically like a headless executive that just kind of exists, you know, and it's kind of like a magnet for you know, sort of like pure

island manufactured controversies and political theater and stuff. So you have so other country functions more like it did you know, like you know, from like Trueman to Kennedy and Nixon himself.

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