“Tricky Dick” wasn’t his only nickname (list), and since this confirms for me that he was an ass, I prefer to call him by his law school nickname, “Iron Butt.”

Nixon Believed in Aborting Mixed-Race Babies

By Toby Harnden in Washington
Published: 7:49PM BST 24 Jun 2009

via

Commenting privately on the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling Roe vs Wade, which decriminalised abortion in the US, the then-president said he worried that access to a legal abortion could lead to “permissiveness” because “it breaks the family” but thought them justified in certain cases.

“There are times when an abortion is necessary,” he told his aide Chuck Colson. “I know that. When you have a black and a white.” Mr Colson offered that rape might also make an abortion legitimate, prompting Mr Nixon to respond: “Or a rape.”

The comments were revealed in more than 150 hours of tape and 30,000 pages of documents made public this week by the Nixon Presidential Library, part of the United State National Archives.

They were recorded by secret microphones in the Oval Office from January and February 1973 and provide fresh insights into Mr Nixon’s tumultuous presidency, which ended with his resignation in August 1974 over the Watergate scandal.

Mr Nixon was widely believed at the time to be privately opposed to abortion rights, though he declined to take a public stance on the issue.

The tapes capture mundane conversations about daily life in the White House but also offer new insight into changes in US society.

During a telephone conversation with George H. W. Bush, then Republican National Committee chairman and later elected president in 1988, Mr Nixon said that a visit to the South Carolina legislature had persuaded him of the value of female political candidates for his party.

“I noticed a couple of very attractive women, both of them Republicans, in the legislature. I want you to be sure to emphasize to our people, God, let’s look for some … Understand, I don’t do it because I’m for women, but I’m doing it because I think maybe a woman might win someplace where a man might not … So have you got that in mind?” Mr Bush replied: “I’ll certainly keep it in mind.”