July 5, 1971

I have a doozy for you today...

Hey, it's the day after the 4th of July, and the President is hanging out in the afternoon with his Chief of Staff and his Press Secretary...patriotism is in the air, so what do you expect them to be talking about, if it's not the blacks and the Jews:



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President Nixon: All of the Jewish families are close, but there's this strange malignancy now that seems to creep among them. I don't know, the radicalism. I can imagine how the fact that [Daniel] Ellsberg is in this must really tear a fellow like [National Security Adviser] Henry [A. Kissinger] to pieces, or [Consultant Leonard] Garment, you know. Just like the Rosenbergs and all that. That just has to kill him. And you feel horrible about it.

Ronald L. Ziegler: Couldn't be guy by name of Snyder.

President Nixon: There ain't none.

H.R. "Bob" Haldeman: [chuckling] It would've been a Rosenstein that changed his name.

Ziegler: [Laughs.] It is. Right. It's always an Ellsberg or [unclear--”overlapping voices].

President Nixon: They're all Jews. Every one's a Jew. [Former Director of Policy Planning and Arms Control for International Security Affairs Leslie H.] Gelb's a Jew. [former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Morton H.] Halperin's a Jew. But there are bad--[Alger] Hiss was not a Jew. So that proves something. Very interesting thing. So few of those who engage in espionage are Negroes. Very lucky that way. [Unclear] As a matter of fact, very few of them become Communists. If they do, they either, like, they get into Angela Davis, they're more of an activist type, and they throw bombs and this and that. But the Negroes, have you ever noticed? There are damn few Negro spies.

Haldeman: They're not intellectual enough. Not smart enough.

President Nixon: It may be.

Haldeman: They're not smart enough to be spies, they're not intellectual enough--

President Nixon: The Jews are born spies. You notice how many of them are? They're just in it up to their necks.

Haldeman: Well, got a basic devious abil--deviousness that--

President Nixon: Well, also, an arrogance, an arrogance that says--that's what makes a spy. He puts himself above the law.

Ziegler: Yeah.

President Nixon: Other than spies for the pay. I'm talking about the spies that do it because of idealism.

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I hate to add anything to that, but a few other notes. Elsewhere in that same conversation, Nixon continues talking about declassifying and releasing materials from World War II and episodes from the Kennedy Administration in order to embarrass Democrats; he's pretty focused on that, and it is soon to become a main assignment for the Plumbers.

Earlier that day he was at Camp David, and we have Haldeman's notes for a call between them. The Watergate-relevant bit is that Nixon is again upset about economic news, and (in Haldeman's words) says that "we've really got to put the screws on the bad guy at the Bureau of Labor Statistics." So more on the Yids, there.

Also, just for fun...Nixon wants Haldeman to start organizing the administration's "major accomplishments." The funny part of that is that Nixon tells Haldeman that on the economy, it's the results that count
 I though many of you would enjoy a couple of them (again in Haldeman's words): "we're launching successfully a war on drugs...we've ended the era of permissiveness." Hey, they only said they launched the war successfully, right? And as for permissiveness...well, I'll let you all fill in your own jokes on that one.