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Late Richard Nixon Made His Bigotry Perfectly Clear

He Couldn't Shake Hands with any San Franciscans

Said Catholic Hierarchy Went Gay 3 or 4 Centuries Ago

By Jack Nichols

Chicago, Illinois�James Warren, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune published transcripts of Oval Office tapes yesterday, made during the tenure of the late Republican President Richard Nixon.

In a wide-ranging discussion Nixon and his aides, H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman, exhibited their prejudices about various minority groups to one another, including Mexicans, African-Americans and homosexuals.

Richard Nixon

Of African-Americans Nixon said: "I have the greatest affection for them, but I know they're not going to make it for 500 years. They aren't. You know it too."

The former president, discussing welfare cutoffs, said: "We're going to (put) more of these little Negro bastards on the welfare rolls at $2,400 a family�work, work, work, throw them off the rolls."

Of Mexicans the former President stated: "At the present time they steal, They're dishonest. They do have some concept of family life, they don't live like a bunch of dogs, which is the Negroes do live like."

Nixon and his aides then doted on episodes of the prime time TV classic All in the Family, which he mistakenly called "Archie's Guys". An episode in which a gay male is introduced to Archie, and in which Archie meets a football star in a gay bar seemed to particularly fascinate the former President.

In a rambling monologue describing what he called All in the Family's attempt to "glorify homosexuality" Nixon's homophobic obsessions dance about in the newly-released tapes in some particularly revealing ways. He told his aides:

"I don't mind homosexuality, I understand it�Nevertheless, goddamn, I don't think you glorify it on public television, homosexuality, even more than you glorify whores. We all know we have weaknesses. But goddamn it, what do you think that does to kids?"

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In his own voice, Nixon's theories about the rise and fall of nations, may, to some, suggest damage to his reputation as a realist in international affairs. On the tapes he pontificates:

"You know what happened to the Greeks! Homosexuality destroyed them. Sure, Aristotle was a homo. We all know that so was Socrates�You know what happened to the Romans�The last six Roman emperors were fags. Neither in a public way."

Nixon believed that "strong" societies fought against their homosexual impulses. "Let's look at the strong societies," he says, "The Russians. Goddamn, they root 'em out. They don't let 'em around at all. I don't know what they do with them."

Deploring what he considered San Francisco's takeover by "fags" Nixon revealed a classist bias: "It's not just the ratty part of town. The upper class in San Francisco is that way....I can't shake hands with anybody from San Francisco."

Nixon reserved some of his most controversial commentaries for Roman Catholic clerics, however. "You know what happened to the popes? They (had sex with) the nuns, that's been going on for years, centuries. But the Catholic Church went to hell, three or four centuries ago. It was homosexual, and it had to be cleaned out. That's what happened to Britain, it happened earlier to France."