Posted on 10/28/2005 2:58:00 AM PDT by HAL9000
Former president Richard Nixon considered Ugandan dictator Idi Amin an "ape" and mistrusted his own State Department as "always on the side of the blacks," according to documents made public this week.The once-classified documents show Nixon and his national security adviser Henry Kissinger in raw form in dealing with African crises in 1972, including Uganda's mass expulsion of Asians and genocide in Burundi.
But for all of the rough language, the transcripts of phone conversations and other texts highlight the US reluctance to take a stand on atrocities committed by Amin's regime until US citizens were threatened.
And Kissinger made clear Washington's refusal to respond to the plight of tens of thousands of Asians expelled by Amin until after the November 7, 1972 US election that gave Nixon a second term.
In private, both Nixon and Kissinger showed unvarnished contempt for many of the players in Africa, from Amin to US State Department diplomats.
"Isn't it awful though... that this goddamn guy at the head of Uganda, Henry, is an ape," Nixon told Kissinger by telephone from his retreat at Camp David on September 24, 1972.
"He's an ape without education," Kissinger replied.
"He's a prehistoric monster," Nixon later chimed in.
Nixon thought little more of Kwame Nkrumah, the late father of Ghanaian independence and champion of the pan-African movement whom he dismissed as "that asshole."
The Republican leader went apoplectic when he learned his State Department was balking at providing assistance for thousands of Britons stranded and fearing massacre in Uganda.
"Screw State!" Nixon bellowed. "State's always on the side of the blacks. The hell with them!"
But 10 days earlier, in a meeting at the White House, Kissinger had little to say to a senior British delegation looking for help to resettle some of the Indians and Pakistanis brutally chased out of Amin's country.
"I believe we are looking to see if we can take any (action) but I am confident that we cannot take enough to help your problem," he said. "We are eager to avoid this issue before November 7."
A November 1, 1972 memorandum from Kissinger to Nixon stated bluntly that US interests in Uganda were limited to protecting American citizens and barring the Russians from having a free hand.
The pair were also left fulminating and frustrated by the 1972 slaughter of an estimated 150,000-200,000 Hutus in an outbreak of tribal violence in Burundi.
"I'm getting tired of this business of letting these Africans eat a hundred thousand people and do nothing about it," Nixon fumed in the September 24 phone call.
Kissinger, who was to win a Nobel Peace Prize the next year for negotiating a ceasefire in the Vietnam War, endorsed the show of compassion that confounded "these bleeding hearts in this country who like to say we kill yellow people."
In the end, the United States did not do much more in Burundi than try to whip up international pressure to stop the killing, recall the US ambassador for consultations and provide 150,000 dollars in relief aid.
Nixon resigned the presidency in 1974 amid the Watergate scandal and died in 1994.
"He's a prehistoric monster," Nixon later chimed in.
Forget the ape reference if it offends but can we agree on "prehistoric monster"?
I think the interesing part of this is the references to the State Department. Conservatives have known for a long time that State has been more or less, an enemy of the people of the United States.
This is the same State Department that was complicit in the escape of terrorists from Tora Bora, when they were surrounded by our military. Wasn't the Powell (movement) in charge of State at that time?
Where's the UN in all this?
"The once-classified documents show Nixon and his national security adviser Henry Kissinger in raw form in dealing with African crises in 1972, including Uganda's mass expulsion of Asians and genocide in Burundi.
But for all of the rough language, the transcripts of phone conversations and other texts highlight the US reluctance to take a stand on atrocities committed by Amin's regime until US citizens were threatened."
I can't wait til we get to read bjclinton's conservations with Sandy the Burglar. Sadly, the real action will never see the light of day, Hillry was truly the stealth president.
Good point.
It's also good to see President Nixon taking his place in history with those other dead white men, our Founding Fathers and Howard Cosell, etc. etc..
Elitist!
Nixon was brilliant on foreign policy. And had he had the conservative support net that now exists with talk radio and the internet, he would have served out his second term. As he should have. And South Vietnam would today be the equal of South Korea.
God bless you Richard Nixon.
We can certainly agree that this was well over thirty years ago and is manifestly irrelevant.
The North Vietnamese government knew that if they launched their final offensive on Saigon when Nixon was in office, Nixon would have sent back the B-52's and flattened Hanoi and Haiphong.
Sounds about right to me.
It sound about right to me too and I might add Mugabe isnt much better. Things havent changed that much in Africa, In fact they might have gotten worse.
But, but every day thousands of US citizens are clammering about leaving this cesspool and heading back to wonderful Mother Africa.
Oh no, what an insensitive way to put it! Nixon must've hated black people! Damn those racist Americans! ~ < /sarcasm off>
OK, so he shouldn't have taken so much license with the facts. They weren't necessarily eating each other, they were just hacking each other to death with pangas.
Saying that they were eating each other just makes them look bad. So it's racist.... ;)
The above quoted from the article at the following link.
http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_1403332,00.html
Sounds to me like Richard Nixon was spot on.
Oh, and Idi Amin was a convert to Islam.
They were being eaten but crocodiles were doing most of the eating.
"At one point, so many bodies were fed to crocodiles that the remains occasionally clogged intake ducts at Uganda's main hydroelectric plant at Jinja."
http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_1403332,00.html
I agree with your assessment that things in Africa have not improved.
It may sound harsh to say this, but South Africa was better off under Apartheid.
Another thing that struck me recently was watching the movie Amistad and then reading about goings-on in Sierra Leone in the present, and realizing that nothing has changed.
She told me they had to stop eating perch out of Lake Victoria because the fish were feeding on all the decaying floating corpses.
Well....Nixon was right...
I didn't think you could come up with an insult that would be adequate to describe someone who murders women and children and eats their bodies. He was one of the first prominent muslim fanatics who came to power in Africa. He was not understood to be a muslim fanatic because he came to power in a day when that was not an issue in the West.
Amin filled his jails with those that dissented and turned Uganda from what was once called the "Pearl or Jewel of Africa" into a massive death camp. He brought death and destruction to every inch of the country and to any and all who opposed his belief system, especially Christians and Jews.
The West was still wrestling with the spread of communism in Africa and was blindsided by this animal. He was a modern day Frankenstien, a modern day Dracula. There can be no insult that would show his true colors. He was supported in his monstrosity by the muslim countries and thier goal of a Jew/Christian free Africa was greatly enhanced by his efforts.
So, was Nixon wrong? If it becomes an insult in a vacuum, instead of looking at the history of what happened and was happening, then it looks bad for Nixon. Nixon is the favorite object of hatred by the left. He was right in what he said about Amin, he was wrong in not stopping the man by intervening in the affairs of Uganda. Amin is responsible for over 500,000 African deaths. He was the first leader since the Mau Mau uprising to show the deep diminishing that a person can drop to when they give into the dark heart of darkness. \
He was an eater of human flesh. He was a very wicked man, full of evil and probably completely out of his mind. The worse part of it all was the American Black Nationalist Movement, and the support of the Black Panther Party, and other haters of white people and how they supported this man. I remember hours of argument with these people over their support of this man, yet they always supported him in spite of how deeply he had drifted from any concept of humanity. He was a black leader so he was going to be supported even if he killed and baked children.
The same thing is going on all throughout the Black leadership in America who have no problem being close to the present day monsters in Africa. Until there is a change in the "support them because they are from Africa, even if they eat babies for sport" attitude in the Black learship in America there will be little taking of the black leadership in America seriously by any thinking person.
I agree.
Well said.
Nixon was right.
Not only were they better off under Apartheid, Mandella was where he belonged---in jail.
If you liked Nixon, then you must read “The Amendment”
By John Fitzgerald. The American Da Vancie Code of How Nixon was set up.
A great read.
Agence France-Presse? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!
".........highlight the US reluctance to take a stand on atrocities committed by Amin's regime until US citizens were threatened.........."
And I suppose the French would support US intervention at the UN or some such thing?
What a pantload.
Nixon has been dead for 10-12 years now and they just can't stop piling on.
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Amen! There's something sleazy about attacks, exp. malicious attacks, on a man who is unable to defend himself.
FR Trail is right folks! I am an arm-chair traveler and particularly enjoy the old 19th century travel narratives to places like China and sub-Sarahan Africa.
These pre-PC travelers --mostly missionaries -- do describe places like Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda as jewels. More than once I've read some of these descriptions and thought to myself, "Are we talking about the same country??"
That is insulting to apes.
With regards to African holocausts, Nixon was very Clintonian, a lot of talk, but little action.
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