Nixon Was a Terrible Human Being

[jbg]

Wrong again....remember who invented the "southern strategy"? It was Atwater...executed by Nixon and Agnew...imitated by Reagan and Bush. Rove learned from the best.

This is a post with a distinct equine and rural essence, and surprising coming from someone with your handle.

A President does the ordering. The person in Atwater's shoes is a waiter. Reagan was nowhere near as divisive as Nixon. Bush runs the most racially inclusive administration ever.

Edited September 11, 2007 by jbg

[August1991]

Wrong again....remember who invented the "southern strategy"? It was Atwater...executed by Nixon and Agnew...imitated by Reagan and Bush. Rove learned from the best.

It's something of a stretch to refer to Agnew as part of a southern strategy. OTOH, Nixon was courageous to name a second generation immigrant to the ticket. The Democrats went nowhere with Dukakis.

So what? Would you have preferred nuclear fried Moscow or Washington D.C.?

You have no idea (by your own admission) what was at stake for all US interests, and we were hardly put out because of wheat and cotton deals. Nixon set the stage for SS20 deployments and counterforce spending, which ultimately led to Reagan's challenge in Europe with GLCMs and Pershing IIs.....which broke the Soviet Union's back.

The Soviets did not have "parity" after SALT I, because their CEPs sucked while we could most definitely hit hardened targets with an order of magnitude better accuracy. I know this because it was my job to do it.

US foreign policy during the Cold War was a continuum, and nobody gives a rat's ass about bushels of wheat now.

I happen to think that if Andropov had not died young, we'd still be facing the Soviet Union in a Cold War. IOW, I don't ascribe to the "Reagan defeated the Communists" theory.

The Soviet system didn't work but it could have continued not to work for several decades into the future.

Nixon worked in a world of a Cold War that they thought would last for a long time. He (and Kissinger) wondered how to create a viable structure that would provide stable peace. Nixon's negotiations with Brezhnev and Mao were intended to create this peaceful coexistence while at the same time, creating an environment where there would be steady contacts at the level of ordinary people. I think Nixon's strategy was sensible in the context of the 1960s and 1970s.

Reagan refused to meet any Soviet or Communist leader during the first five years of his presidency. Reagan's strategy was the more dangerous.

As luck would have it, Andropov died, Gorbachev eventually lead the Politburo in the Soviet Union and began to make naive and foolish experiments with "socialism". In China, the Gang of Four were kicked out and Deng Tsiao Ping was brought back.

I still think that Nixon's strategy of detente is a sensible approach to a totalitarian regime, if it is coupled with encirclement and clear limits to agressive behaviour.

Edited September 11, 2007 by August1991

[bush_cheney2004]

It's something of a stretch to refer to Agnew as part of a southern strategy. OTOH, Nixon was courageous to name a second generation immigrant to the ticket. The Democrats went nowhere with Dukakis.

It's not a stretch at all....perhaps you are unfamiliar with the 1960's version of the Mason-Dixon Line.

[bush_cheney2004]

A President does the ordering. The person in Atwater's shoes is a waiter. Reagan was nowhere near as divisive as Nixon. Bush runs the most racially inclusive administration ever.

Oh sure...when it comes to the campaign..it was Atwater who engineered the southern strategy, and one would hardly say that George Bush ordered Karl Rove wrt to such things....ditto Nixon, who had already lost another election to JFK (perhaps because even while winning a debate, he forgot to shave.)

[jbg]

Reagan refused to meet any Soviet or Communist leader during the first five years of his presidency. Reagan's strategy was the more dangerous.

As luck would have it, Andropov died, Gorbachev eventually lead the Politburo in the Soviet Union and began to make naive and foolish experiments with "socialism". In China, the Gang of Four were kicked out and Deng Tsiao Ping was brought back.

I still think that Nixon's strategy of detente is a sensible approach to a totalitarian regime, if it is coupled with encirclement and clear limits to agressive behaviour.

I respectfully don't agree with you. Reagan reduced our implicit aid to the USSR, while at the same time increased both military and rhetorical pressure.

The point that you could make (to support your views) but fail to is that the advent of the facsimile machine as a ubiqitous device made the transmission of information from the free world to the Iron Curtain countries easier. That being said, it took Reagan and Thatcher some doing to ratchet up the level of noise so that the people behind the Iron Curtain could hear it and gradually take matters into their own hands.

[jbg]

Oh sure...when it comes to the campaign..it was Atwater who engineered the southern strategy, and one would hardly say that George Bush ordered Karl Rove wrt to such things....ditto Nixon, who had already lost another election to JFK (perhaps because even while winning a debate, he forgot to shave.)

And what divisive strategy did Bush Jr. employ? (note, Willy Horton was Bush Sr.).

[bush_cheney2004]

And what divisive strategy did Bush Jr. employ? (note, Willy Horton was Bush Sr.).

He really didn't need one after 2001...."it's the Terror, stupid"

But for good measure, in 2004 it was "family values", a code word for "defense of marriage", which is yet another code word for...well...you understand. (Hell, even Clinton jumped onboard the DOMA train.)