Angry Nixon vowed to 'ruin' diplomatic corps

Angry Nixon vowed to 'ruin' diplomatic corps
POSTED: 2:08 a.m. EST, January 4, 2007

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/03/nixon.foreign.service.ap/index.html

Story Highlights
• Former president told Kissinger that "his one legacy is to ruin the Foreign Service"
• Nixon "outraged" by State Department performance on foreign economic policy
• Nixon reportedly viewed Foreign Service as dominated by liberals

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Embittered by career diplomats during his first term, President Nixon said he wanted to "ruin the Foreign Service" before leaving office, according to newly released State Department documents.

The former president's darker side was further revealed on Wednesday by newly released FBI files which show the agency ran criminal background checks on Senate witnesses critical of William Rehnquist's nomination to the Supreme Court in 1971 at the request of the Nixon administration. The disclosures were among 1,561 pages released by the bureau under the Freedom of Information Act.

Days after his re-election on November 7, 1972, Nixon vented his frustrations about the diplomatic corps during a meeting with his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger.

Just before saying he was going "to take the responsibility for cleaning up" the department, the president told Kissinger on November 13 that he was determined that "his one legacy is to ruin the Foreign Service. I mean ruin it -- the old Foreign Service -- and to build a new one. I'm going to do it."

Let the frying begin.

instead of those Republicans and Democrats who believe in secrecy and privilege.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/111106.html

SSDD

Goss brought in a team of fellow political cronies to clean house. He pushed out all high ranking officials who were to the left of Rush and O'Reilly, and helped John Negroponte significantly water down the CIA's authority. With agency morale in the dumpster, Goss' job was done so he resigned in May 2006 to make way for Junior's favorite spymaster, Gen. Michael Hayden. Hayden, due to his complicity, is motivated to provide cover for Junior's illegal surveillance adventures.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12646394/

we've had OTHER assholes in the White House, so stop picking on _Bush.

Republicans ADORE authority, but they can't handle it well. They just go wild. At the heart of it, they just aren't quality people!

Thanks, Capn Amerika. Welcome to D.U. :hi: :hi: :hi:

It's seems rather strategically placed.

this story could be run at anytime.

:shrug:

The late Chief Justice William Rehnquist’s Senate confirmation battles in 1971 and 1986 were more intense and political than previously known, according to a newly released FBI file that also offers dramatic new details about Rehnquist’s 1981 hospitalization and dependence on a painkiller.

. . . .

(I)n 1986, the FBI conducted an intensive investigation into Rehnquist’s dependence on Placidyl, a strong painkiller that he had taken since the early 1970s for insomnia and back pain. Rehnquist’s bout with drug dependence had been made public in 1981, when he was hospitalized for his back pain and suffered withdrawal symptoms when he stopped taking the drug.

The FBI’s 1986 report on Rehnquist’s drug dependence was not released at the time of his confirmation, though some Democratic senators wanted it made public. But it is in Rehnquist’s now-public file, and it contains new details about his behavior during his weeklong hospital stay in December 1981. One physician whose name is blocked out told the FBI that Rehnquist expressed “bizarre ideas and outrageous thoughts. He imagined, for example, that there was a CIA plot against him.”

The doctor said Rehnquist “had also gone to the lobby in his pajamas in order to try to escape.” The doctor said Rehnquist’s delirium was consistent with him suddenly stopping his apparent daily dose of 1400 milligrams of the drug — nearly three times higher than the 500-milligram maximum recommended by physicians. The doctor said, “Any physician who prescribed it was practicing very bad medicine, bordering on malpractice.”


. . . .

The 1986 investigation also included extensive interviews conducted to clarify Rehnquist’s role as a Republican poll watcher in Arizona in the early 1960s. Witnesses had widely varying recollections, and the FBI did not offer the Senate a clear conclusion. It did suggest that at one point, when Rehnquist was explaining voter qualifications to fellow Republicans at a Phoenix polling place, some voters who overheard the conversation left, apparently discouraged.

http://www.law.com/jsp/dc/PubArticleDC.jsp?id=1167732122395&hub=TopStories

Yep, Mr. Moderate and Sensible, letting a career criminal like Nixon off the hook, and his ideological and political children live on to trouble our unhappy world. Thanks again, Jerry.

Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton look like Ronald Reagan when you contrast their domestic and economic policies with Nixon's: Nixon created OSHA and the Environmental Protection Agency, imposed wage and price controls (which he later had to abandon), started the first federal affirmative action plan (the Philadelphia plan), created the Supplemental Security Income, indexed Social Security for inflation, and created the Legacy of Parks program. Before he completely self-destructed, Nixon was asking his aides to come up with proposals for creating a national health care system, and even a yearly stipend for every household.

The Democrats considered it a "victory" when Nixon was forced to resign, but actually, it was the Republicans who secretly were the happiest of all. Big Business was ecstatic when Nixon left the WH; corporate American power was born the day Nixon resigned.

If he wasn't such a paranoid, duplicitous nutcase, Nixon could have been one of our great presidents.

He had to do some liberal things, as the political culture was more liberal. Similarly, Clinton had to be more conservative than he liked, since the political culture of the 90's had shifted to the right.

The right wing worked hard to effect this change (or the appearance of a change, which can be much the same). The takeover of the media, the creation of right wing think tanks, religious wedge issues, etc. can account for a large part of this rightward shift, in my opinion.

With as many pages as he's covered with his musings, he left this out ?

The enablers are still among us.