YORBA LINDA, Calif. Dec 12 : Former US President Richard M. Nixon made disparaging remarks about Jews, blacks, Italian-Americans and Irish-Americans in a series of extended conversations with top aides and his personal secretary, recorded in the Oval Office 16 months before he resigned as president.
The remarks were contained in 265 hours of recordings, captured by the secret taping system Nixon had installed in the White House and released this week by the Nixon Presidential Library
and Museum.
While previous recordings have detailed Nixon's animosity toward Jews, including those who served in his administration like Henry A. Kissinger, his national security adviser, these tapes suggest an added layer of complexity to Nixon's feeling. He and his aides seem to make a distinction between Israeli Jews, whom Nixon admired, and American Jews.
In a conversation Feb. 13, 1973, with Charles W. Colson, a senior adviser who had just told Nixon that he had always had "a little prejudice," Nixon said: "The Jews have certain traits." "The Jews are just a very aggressive and abrasive and obnoxious personality."
These tapes, made in February and March 1973, reflect a critical period in Nixon's presidency - the final months before it was "devoured by Watergate," said Timothy Naftali, the executive director of the Nixon Library.
The remarks were contained in 265 hours of recordings, captured by the secret taping system Nixon had installed in the White House and released this week by the Nixon Presidential Library
and Museum.
While previous recordings have detailed Nixon's animosity toward Jews, including those who served in his administration like Henry A. Kissinger, his national security adviser, these tapes suggest an added layer of complexity to Nixon's feeling. He and his aides seem to make a distinction between Israeli Jews, whom Nixon admired, and American Jews.
In a conversation Feb. 13, 1973, with Charles W. Colson, a senior adviser who had just told Nixon that he had always had "a little prejudice," Nixon said: "The Jews have certain traits." "The Jews are just a very aggressive and abrasive and obnoxious personality."
These tapes, made in February and March 1973, reflect a critical period in Nixon's presidency - the final months before it was "devoured by Watergate," said Timothy Naftali, the executive director of the Nixon Library.
No comments:
Post a Comment