Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On One Man Against Th

I didnt do a good job of reading it. The 41st president to the 43rd president. The handwritten note touched my heart. You are doing the right thing. Yet it with strength and compassion. It is right to worry about the loss of innocent life. Iraqi or mac you have done that which you had to do. He face the toughest bunch of problems any president since lincoln is based. You carry the burden with strength and grace. Remember robbins words. I love you more than tongue can tell. Well, i do. Devotedly dad. How one senator to find the president on brownsville a shooting in brownsville in august. The Buffalo Soldiers stationed at nearby for brown. They asked him to remove the troops. Thought there were guilty. Felt they would not be convicted. Was roosevelt wrong . Most people think it was wrong. Few people thought he was wrong. One minute it was senator joseph order from ohio. What would happen to the soldiers. Also talks about everything else. So angry for what he did a double down, committed his 2nd mistake by really treating that considering any alternate throw public life. And hes forgotten. They sometimes make mistakes. And the genesis of the story was her in washington. I was a museum of american history. I saw a picture of the house in washington. Thats what got me in the story. Story. That shows roosevelt and away we dont always see him. An unknown man was really heroic and is still forgotten. Help us put the sender having, to determine by politics and no one can ever to the depression of the United States. That republican there shall be called and said we only roosevelt was wrong. Mainly because there were no trials. No evidence. Its hard to say you did it. They were considered suspects but no one would be on considering the soldiers. Taking on theo roosevelt. Thank you so much. Am going to put this down here. Okay. Good evening. I am bradley graham, coowner of politics and prose. Thank you so much for coming. Now would be a good time to silence any cell phones or other things that might go beep. We get to the q a part of the session we invite anybody to ask a question but we ask that if you have a question 1st you put it in the following question and 2nd you make your way to this microphone appear because we are videoing for our own youtube page and cspan tv is this evening as well. They would like to your question. At the end before you come up to get your book signed our staff would appreciate it if you fold of the chairs the you are in and laid them against the bookcases. The topic this evening is of course Richard Nixon is tragic presidency is profiled in a new book by tim weiner that is receiving lots of attention. A prizewinning journalist who is quite familiar. He lived in reported here and he spoke before this previous books. He got into the newspaper business after earning a masters degree in journalism thirtysix years ago and by the early 1980s he landed at the Philadelphia Inquirer where he worked for a decade on a range of assignments both domestic and foreign. In 1988 won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting and was awarded for a series a series about a secret pentagon budget used to sponsor defense research. That series led to his 1st book blank check, the pentagons black budget. He joined the New York Times in the mid 1990s covering National Security issues. A bt was described as nukes, spooks, and kooks. During that time he coauthored a book about this by aldrich ames. He served as a Foreign Correspondent in mexico and traveled on assignment to a range of other garden spots like afghanistan, pakistan, kenya, the sudan, and a number of other places. His 3rd book came out in 2007 and won the National Book award for nonfiction. Not long after that he left the newspaper world. He is director of the nonfiction Residency Program at the kerry institute in new york which is about to open. It will be at princeton this fall teaching a course the tragedy of Richard Nixon revisits the spectacular fall of one of our most controversial and complicated president s. Drawing on documents declassified of the next seven or eight years he looks back at the vietnam war and the watergate scandal. The trauma to complex figure to the tumultuous years. No one who reads this book will be nostalgic the matter how disastrous the successors. I did learn that they have at least a personal connection to the nixon Years Company to martian. They noticed this part of the Justice Department and notice someone taking the license plate number. Worried that even get a ticket. He got audited for the next three years. Please join me in welcoming tim weiner. [applause] thank you. Selling books, buying books, reading books, this is one of the greatest bookstores in the United States. [applause] and speaking of nixons successors during my years as a reporter i had a chance to interview president ford who succeeded and promptly pardoned Richard Nixon and then jimmy carter who was elected after gerald fords short and accidental presidency. And a couple of years later during the reagan era senator bob dole saw at a state event carter, ford, ford, and nixon all gathered together and says, look, there they are. Speak no evil, hear no evil command evil. And on that note i would like to go back about 45 years. Many of you will remember this passage in history. Richard nixon have been president for 14 months. The war in vietnam was not ending as he had promised. And he decided to take some extremely drastic measures which led to a series of disasters unlike any that the country had experienced probably since the civil war. It is the spring of 1970. Nixon was sleepless, soulsearching, demonic insomnia returned. I dont think he ever slept. He dealt with it at night by drinking. The president by day fell into a dark state importance and almonds talking with the chief of staff about pres. Scores of omnipotence he suddenly started planning the precise details of his own funeral. It predicted the 1970 would be the 1st year of his 1st term. Heit plummeted 11 points. The endless war was the cause. The total vietnam was taking was measured not only in military caskets but wounds of the mind. An increasing number of veterans were shellshocked or heroin addicted. When they returned they found the war had come home with them. A battle within the american body politic. And all the while americans are still dying in combat, thousand month. March 191970 kissinger told a trusteda trusted colleague about a brutal telephone conversation he just had with the president. Kissinger told nixon that there was not very much we could do militarily to force vietnam to settlor surrender. The president then demanded a new set of plans, hard option on his desk that day. Kissinger became frantic. The written notes of the White House Council convened on march 23. Mr. Helms said at the end we believe might bomb North Vietnam to achieve something. Kissinger asked how this message can be conveyed. The gen. Of the joint chiefs of staff said it will be clear forget some bombing. Then came a coup out of nowhere. That week of rightWing Military junta battle hardened communist forces started moving toward the cambodian capitol 200 miles northwest of American Military headquarters. Nixon instinctively embraced the right wing leader of the cambodian coup. President nixon asked me to draft several personal telegrams containing extravagant expressions of friendship and support called marshall green. I was concerned that he would read into the messages the degree of support that exceeded what our government could deliver on. I also regarded as lacking any qualities needed to lead his country out of the mess. Does any of this ring a bell . Has the mess nixon ordered the cia into the fight. Promised to miss the military effort with untraceable money and guns. An arsenal of communist weapons. This proved difficult. No american ambassador, no station chief, no military Intelligence Officers on the ground. Casting around the world the cia called upon john stein, plenty of military experience in africa but none in indochina. He reported back to the white house shortly thereafter. There was another small Southeast Asian country where no one knew what was going on. The new cambodian regime must someone had to help. And this was the United States. The only way to give them a bucking up was 10,000 ak47 rifles and the swiss bank account. The approved 1500 assault rifles and 10 million. A down payment on a far greater commitment. That same week america central outpost in laos faced a deadly seized by communist soldiers. If it fell laos could collapse under communist control. Crisis demanded immediate action. Kissinger had to plead for the president s attention. Poor casey noted sardonically. No one will pay attention. And it looks like glasses falling. On march 15 kissinger met for three hours with nixon, helms, and key members of the National Security council. The president was not inclined to let them go down the drain. Helms and the cia helms was blunt. The usblunt. The us and cia had to ask the right Wing Military junta in thailand to send battalions in troops widening the covert war without telling congress. The cia director wrote for the record apologizing for my vulgarity, i told thei told the president i realized this was a should a decision. Test the pres. To make president to make it. In light of all the factors it seemed desirable. Nixon commented that it had been necessary to do a number of unpleasant things recently. There is going to be no one else. We are just going to do it. We dont have to explain. The political situation at home was no better than the military situation abroad. They warn nixon that the senate was prepared to cut off funds for american airstrikes in laos and cambodia. Nixon responded that he will fight such a limitation to the death. The senate rejected the nomination, the 2nd of two thirdrate conservatives personally selected to elevate to the Supreme Court a ranking republican of the Committee Said there are a lot of mediocre people and judges and lawyers entitled to a little representation. Not on the Supreme Court, the senate decreed. Nixon blamed nixon blamed the attorney general for the politically tone deaf nominations. The attorney generals prior selection was rejected for his record of racism, but he took his wrath out of the senate. Multiple unsolvable problems bearing in. Nixon responded to the Senate Resistance with a wide range. Set up a political attack he commanded. The president ordered to retired new York City Police officers overseen to conduct undercover investigations of senate opponents, notably different notably Teddy Kennedy, birch and proxmire call for prominent democrats who fought mixes military policies and Supreme Court nominees. As part of what nixon called an allout hatchet job on the Democratic Leaders including the Internal Revenue service to investigate finances. The ex cops nixon hired were Jack Caulfield and tough tony was paid off the books with 1968 Campaign Cash doled out by nixons personal lawyer and political bagman. Tough tony told Teddy Kennedy for nearly two years for the department of dirty tricks. By april 19 the communists were 20 miles from the cambodian border. Apollo 13 mission, the commanderinchief of the pacific. Admiral mccain was still a prisoner of war and captivated nixon with a hairraising report. Thethe present order mccain to return with him on april 20 to me with kissinger. Mccains briefingmccains briefing was grim. If the communists took cambodia South Vietnam of the next in the wall would be lost. Mccain emphasized the need for speed. Without the United States should send every weapon that can find an troops should attack across the cambodian border. The joint chiefs of staff quickly assembled tons of weapons for the cambodian army. That was the easy part. Now the president needed a plan for the invasion of cambodia and the destruction of what the United States called the Central Office for South Vietnam. American war planners envisioned it as the communist mayor center, bamboo pentagon. They thought if you could blow up you could cripple the enemy capacity to commandandcontrol attacks on american forces. The United States should destroy it and when the dam work. But nixon in the joint chiefs of staff never understood that the bamboo pentagon was not a place. It could not be bombed. It had no fixed address. It was a small mobile group of communist officers. It could be located only by the radio signals they transmit, but that location could only be fixed by the antenna they used for transmissions which could be many miles away from the men on the air. The enemy always seem to know when the b52s were coming. North vietnam intelligence on american intentions was far better than american intentions. Nixon did not sleep for more than an hour to. Before dawn he dictated that serving up to kissinger. I think we need a bold move. 5 00 a. M. I do not believe will annoy will survive. In any event we must do something. Nixon immediately ordered large crossborder attacks in the cambodia with support from american artillery and fighter jets. The question of american ground forces. His Work Councils were split three ways. Secretary of defense and secretary of state wanted the invasion limited or restricted to the soldiers in South Vietnam. Kissinger favored attack on to cambodian sanctuaries across the border but without american ground troops. The military wanted a full assault on cambodia and the spectral causing headquarters with american soldiers leading the charge. So the Vice President agnew s personal qualities included in audible. Agnes said nixon resented the implication that he was not being tough enough. The pussyfooting remark provoked him to go for an allout attack. The joint chiefs of staff never threw up a formal plan there was no time. The next day, the next morning at 720 mixes so sleepless summoned kissinger , tom moore and cia director helms. In a fury the president said the secretary of state and secretary of defense or sabotaging plans for the invasion. The pres. President is moving too rashly without thinking through the consequences. Kissinger called helms to ask what he thought of nixons decision. The director replied, it seemed to me that if he was prepared for the fallout is the thing to do. He obviously was. Helms said he hoped so. They continued to object to the invasion of cambodia. On april 28 the president ordered them into the oval office. Attorney general John Mitchell lay down the law. There would be no arguments. There would be no dissent. In silence they were dismissed from the oval office. Mitchell wrote the president stated the purpose of the meeting was to advise those present of decisions he had reached. There was no discussion. On thursday april 30 after another night with one hour of sleep the pres. Addressed thepresident addressed the nation in a nationally televised speech announcing the invasion of cambodia. This was not an invasion of cambodia. I say tonight all the offers and approaches made previously remain on the conference table whenever is hanoi is ready. We shall react accordingly. After severing another insomniac 90 went to the pentagon detail in a map showing cambodia there were far beyond that target of a native very uncharacteristic decision to take out all the centuries and report ever planned san duet. Knocked down now. Leaving the briefing im sorry the presidency but i unhinged. In date and it was concurred there really need some good rest. Leaving the briefing that nixon compared soldiers and a statement that only added fuel to the fire. And going to the executive Office Building. And the the National Guard opened fire. Also for kill the nine injured from the ohio campus his diary recorded the president s reaction. He is very disturbed week are sad to see his worries about the war. This makes it a lot worse. He has to take the heat for having caused the august the realizes the will maya admit it was harmful. With a telephone conversation dated that day. But to be run by a children god help us. But kissinger wants to let the students go the movies and. But how they could be hit with any think harder than the National Guard. He was concerned with not give it in any way. In the National Security Agency History classified the year and a half ago that the cambodian incursion was an unmitigated disaster. Ed to get the b52 strikes with the vietnamese intelligence and never did any damage. Kissingers inhouse experts stirred the with the. And it turned out to be kissinger. There was no way they could be. What did you think that was about . The press got a hold of the story within two weeks. Put the pressure from the white house at the pentagon and the military system and was unable to invade every tb 52. It is from the National Security agency. And the bill would move safely to cambodia ahead of the allies. And fe