Saturday, May 25th, 2013
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1972 / Washington D.C.

Richard Nixon Thinks Big

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Nixon: See, the attack in the North that we have in mind… power plants, whatever’s left—POL (petroleum), the docks…. And I still think we ought to take the dikes out now. Will that drown people?

Kissinger: About two hundred thousand people.

Nixon: No, no, no… I’d rather use the nuclear bomb. Have you got that, Henry?

Kissinger: That, I think, would just be too much.

Nixon: The nuclear bomb, does that bother you? I just want you to think big, Henry, for chrissakes. The only place where you and I disagree is with regard to the bombing. You’re so goddamned concerned about civilians, and I don’t give a damn. I don’t care.

Kissinger: I’m concerned about the civilians because I don’t want the world to be mobilized against you as a butcher.

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States of War
About the Text

From the Nixon White House tapes, recorded on April 25, 1972, made public by the National Archives on February 28, 2002.

The nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards, and its fighting done by fools.
Thucydides, 5th century BC
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