Richard Nixon on Civil Rights President of the U.S., 1968-1974

1959: Tie-breaking vote to strengthen black Southern voting

[In 1960], blacks voted for Kennedy by a margin of 70-30, more than enough to give the Democrat the victory over Richard Nixon.

1971: Required affirmative action for federal contractors

1947: Joined HUAC to catch real Communists

Richard Nixon won a dubious posting on the anti-Communist front: the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Speaker Joe Martin of MA wanted the 33-year-old Californian on HUAC for what he was, a lawyer, but also for what he was not, a crackpot. Such credentials were in short supply on a committee notorious for ignoring civil liberties and tilting at windmills. Nixon brought another talent to the committee table: an insatiable appetite for opposition research. That appetite had been whetted, not sated, by the digging done on Jerry Voorhis, which produced the lethal NC PAC memo.

The Honorable Richard M. Nixon, member of Congress, was now hunting bigger game than Jerry Voorhis. He was out to catch real Communists. The committee's junior Republican was not content: Dick Nixon smelled blood. 2 weeks later, he gave his maiden House address on the matter.

1960: Declined to commit to a black Cabinet member

Coretta Scott King feared with good reason that her husband, a black man, might not get out of jail alive. [Kennedy called Coretta]; the press quickly learned about John Kennedy's expressions of sympathy.

Nixon, meanwhile, was silent. For his failure to act, Nixon would pay dearly. A pamphlet, "The Case of Martin Luther King," laid out the story 'No Comment Nixon' Versus a Candidate with a Heart, Senator Kennedy," one caption read.

Two million copies were printed on light blue paper and delivered to black churches the Sunday before the election, and would be dubbed "the blue bomb". In a silent coup, black America was being moved overnight to the Democratic side of the ballot, from the party of Lincoln to that of the Kennedys.

Should not glorify homosexuality on television

You know what happened to the Greeks? Homosexuality destroyed them. Sure, Aristotle was a homo, so was Socrates. The last six Roman emperors were fags. You know what happened to the Popes? It’s all right that Popes were laying the nuns, that’s been going on for centuries, but when the Catholic Church went to hell three or four centuries ago, it was homosexual.

With open homosexuality, vitality goes out of society

Nixon: Let me say something before we get off the gay thing. I am the most tolerant person on that of anybody in this shop. They have a problem. They're born that way. The tendency is there. But my point is that Boy Scout leaders, YMCA leaders, teachers, & others bring them in that direction. If you look over the history of societies, some of the highly intelligent people--Oscar Wilde, Aristotle--were all homosexuals. Nero was, in a public way, in with a boy in Rome.

Haldeman: There's a whole bunch of Roman emperors--

Nixon: But once a society moves in that direction, the vitality goes out of that society.

Kissinger: That's certainly been the case in antiquity.

Haldeman: The Greeks.

Nixon: They had plenty of it. I am not going to have a situation where we pass along a law indicating, "Well, now, kids, just go out and be gay." They can do it. Just leave them alone. That's a lifestyle I don't want to touch.

1953: chaired committee to eliminate federal discrimination