Part Five: Kissinger

Robert is joined again by Gareth Reynolds & Dave Anthony (The Dollop) for part five of our epic six part series on Henry Kissinger.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, everybody. Robert Evans here and my novel After the
Revolution is available for pre order now from a k
press dot org. Now, if you go to a k
press dot org you can find After the Revolution. Just
google a k press dot org After the Revolution you'll
find a list of participating indie bookstores selling my book.
And if you pre order now from either these independent
bookstores or from a k Press, you'll get a custom

(00:22):
signed copy of the book, which I think is pretty cool.
You can also preorder it in physical or in kindle
form from Amazon or pretty much wherever books are sold.
So please google a k press after the Revolution um
or find an indie bookstore in your area and pre
order it. You'll get assigned a copy and you'll make
me very happy. The Dollar Crossover Special event Week three

(00:49):
of our Henry Kissinger series, and and the stress is
getting to everyone. Uh, David and Gareth fighting viciously. I'm
not I mean, I've been quite home. I just I
just when I'm attacked. Like Henry Kissinger, I am attempting
to maintain a balance of power between you and Yeah
in the state, get it? You have the answers? Yes, Yes,

(01:13):
Our podcasts are now bombing Cambodia. Um, finally show that
to Oh boy, well this is this is week three.
Can you all believe we're already in the home stretch
of of this series? Is it week three? Yes? Wow?
Episodes five and six together for three weeks. I know

(01:35):
most podcasts don't make all of the guests live together,
but we do it. What do they? Yeah, I think
with like like the the Internet. I'm gonna have to
look that up in my dictionary. I've enjoyed our time here.
I would really like I don't I don't want to leave,
so I mean, but I mean, you know, we should.
I gotta go back to as a family. We could

(01:57):
do another couple of episodes on Henry Kissinger. Uh, you know,
just do one a year for the next like five years.
Here we will just be like a reunion show. Yeah,
what's Henry Kissinger up revival? Yeah, there's probably more chapters,
hopefully just dead soon hopefully dead. I don't think that.
I don't think that ends it. Somehow, I feel like

(02:17):
that's not gonna be enough. Yeah, we'll be doing the
episode about how Henry Kissinger brings the Army of Hell
back through a portal to somehow fight on both sides
of the Ukrainian War, and the Army of Hell has
been misled us to the rationale. They're like you said
that there was going to be a lot more slavery. Here,
go ahead, it's follow me. Come with me. I'll show
you where they w m D s Henry kissing it.

(02:42):
I should have studied the Kissinger's accent before this totally.
But do you have an ear for accents? It's all right,
this will be so iconic that it will retroactively become
Henry Kissinger's accent, kind of like the Nazis are now British.
I do one, do one, just one stranger accent. I

(03:02):
nail one thing perfect. It's like we're there. It's like
I am excited for when what's his name? The guy
who did vice of that director? What's his name? I'm
talking about the Chainey. Yes, when Adam McKay does his
Kissinger movie in ten more years, he'll use that accent. Tavid,

(03:25):
that'll be great, David beyond set coaching Christian Bale. You
know you're saying hello, and it's really like all o vera,
so hear it behind the bastards um and and at
the dollar which behind the Bastards is the Kirkland brand
version of we like to ask questions that historians all

(03:48):
too often try to ignore it, namely, how did bad
people in history fuck? So? Yeah, we're talking about how
Kissinger bone? Um, are you excited for the state? No? No,
I want to go? Can I leave? I make you
know this is it is important to both cover the

(04:10):
historical crimes of a guy like Kissinger and and to
get some personal color. And since we've spent four episodes
talking about his beliefs and his acts and power, it's
only fair that we now turn our furoscopes onto his
sex life. This episode is going to have base under it,
right absolutely. Um, So, I think the best way for

(04:32):
me to start this segment is by reading a quote
from a September nineteen seventy one article in the San
Francisco Chronicle as a warning, guys, there is a thirty
percent chance this is going to give one of you
a stroke. No you mean wait, you mean we're gonna
be stroking it our actual that that is impossible to say.
Quote Henry Kissinger, sex symbol of the Nixon administration steps

(04:57):
let a stick. I'm just gonna buite a stick just
to be safe. I'm just gonna I'm just gonna get
a branch in my mouth. Steps out of his office
onto a sun drenched San Clemente terrace with a cup
of black coffee and sits in a white deck chair
with his legs crossed. The man who was pressured Moscow

(05:18):
drafted State of the World addresses, advised the president to
enter a Cambodia and paved the road to red China
appears as something of an anachronism, and his baggy midnight
blue cotton trousers, black tie shoes, bright blue unfitted blazer,
blue and white striped shirt and striped tie. What you
guys hold then so far? I mean embedded reporter L L. Bean.

(05:44):
Why I can't I can't imagine combining the fashion sense
with the war crime. It's so good because they acknowledged
the war crimes and then talking about It's like Henry
could be walking out a catwalk, like like you'll see
Henry right now in a tie, white pants suit. You
can see it's sucked to him. Henry, also known for
ruining Cambodia and Vietnam, continue to quote it comes mass motors,

(06:11):
sex machine kissing, You're oh no, it's an open robe.
On the back wall you can see some victims of
the aged Orange campaign, and with in Vietnam and Henry Sucker.
You could notice the outline of his hog and those

(06:32):
I don't know fancy pants brands. Otherwise I would have
finished that, But I'm gonna finish the quote now, because
by god, there's more. What are you trying to do?
Seduce me? Henry will tease as he notices his visitors
hot pants. You know, I like these hot pants very much.
Then he'll light your cigarette, touching your hand as all
continentals do, offer you a cup of coffee, and discuss
trivia as readily as he would have Sino Soviet entaunt.

(06:56):
The impeccably tidy image is perfect for dealing with Alexei
question or or Zouan Lie, or lecturing at Harvard, But
one cannot help wonder if the movie stars mind that
the ankle socks of Washington's greatest swinger are falling down,
or that his wiry chestnut hair, which flashes golden in
the intense white sunlight, is too close crop to run
their fingers through, or that at least ten of his

(07:17):
hundred and seventy eight pounds protrude over his thin black belt,
somehow shortening his five ft nine inches. But suddenly an
electric twinkle will flash through the intense blue of his eyes,
and one it touches an inkling of that movie star magnetism,
that special quality which causes some people to call him
cuddly Kissinger. How is the craziest thing that's happened so far?

(07:39):
How did that happen? Oh? Man, yeah, this is oh
my god, a bottom below the bottom folks look back
to just murdering us? How did that happen? What in
the fund just went on? Is this a guy or
a lady writing this? I think it's a late certain

(08:02):
it's a lady. Yeah, wants to well, who hold your
hand when he lights your cigarette? Why did we have
to talk about Kissinger's chest air? Why? Why? Why? Indeed,
why indeed, David? Because can we na palm that? This
is what name palms for? Right? Speaking of made in

(08:23):
that hair of Henry's. This has convinced me there is
a place for the B fifty two bomber in his pants. Boy,
that's what Henry calls little Hank. So bafflingly, almost impossibly,
it is not hard to find articles written at this
exact sexual tenor, and unfortunately I would I would love

(08:46):
to tell you guys that I'm sure this was like
a satire or a joke, but people were weirdly serious
about this kind of ship in nineteen seventy two. And
there's no way you're ready for what comes after this
part of the center in night. What In nineteen seventy two,
the Playboy Club hosted a poll of the bunnies and
asked them who was quote the man I would mostly

(09:07):
not do that on a date with Henry Kissinger was
number one? What in the no, no, what are the
horrible indictment of the worst indictment of America that has
ever been This is the most damning thing you can
say about it, right in the ground and the Playboy Mansion.

(09:29):
What how is that? I can't It's like we're in
the back to the future, Biff Timeline, Well, hold on,
the man who massacres hundreds of thousands knows how to fuck.
That's just an old saying. That is that is an
old saying. I want to funk you like the people
of Vietnam Ov. So once the first few articles about

(09:54):
Henry Kissinger's you know, sex symboltitude dropped um Kissinger himself
started being questioned by reporters about the phenomenon. His standard
reply became one of his most favorite famous quotes. Power
is the ultimate aphrodisiac. I mean, like there are there is.
I mean people are attracted to like psychos too, like

(10:18):
Ted Bundy had like a fan club, and like you know,
like I mean like I've been compared to Jeffrey Dahmer
a number of times looks, which has always been a pleasure.
And you're both very handsome young men, yes, thank you
so much. Uh, and both still in the primes of
our youth. Absolutely, it's still it's like if you feel
like there is a separation with him and what it

(10:41):
just seems very like a very strange connection. It's it's baffling.
Other than that, like, here's the sad thing. We're gonna
get to this. It's not just that he's powerful, and
the other thing about him that makes him women so
attracted to him is like bleak in a surprising way.
But but we'll we'll get to that. So famous women
loved being spotted on Kissinger's arm. One night he was

(11:04):
sited at the Traitor vix in the Los Angeles like
flirting and holding hands with Jill st John, who played
the very first Bond girl. What he dated the first
James Bond girl on he needs to be Yeah, she'll
st John to be honest. Fucking murder troll. Well so

(11:30):
horrifying part. But who goes from Bond to murder munchkin?
I mean, Bond is kind of a murder like but
he's a good He's a good guy. Come on, always
a good guy. So while they were out on this date,
Jill st John and Kissinger were spotted by Anne Miller,
and was a dancer famous d answer at the time.

(11:52):
She approached Kissinger and quote in a friendly way. These
are the words of biographer Walter Isaacson criticized him for
having fun in public while our boys in Vietnam are
getting their heads shot off. Kastinger responded, dourly, Miss Miller,
you don't know anything about me. I was miserable in
a marriage for most of my life. I never had
any fun. Now was my chance to enjoy myself. When

(12:13):
this administration goes out, I'm going back to being a professor.
But while I'm in the position i'm in, I'm damn
will going to make it count, I mean, really avoiding
the centralistation. No point does he acknowledge that that is
an unfair thing he's doing. He's just like, look, come on,
even us. You know, psychopaths need to have some fun. Yeah,

(12:37):
and it's it's I mean, it's nice to hear someone
like approach him and and say something like that too. Yeah. Yeah.
And of course she approached him for not doing right
by our g I s and as opposed to not
doing right millions of Cambodian and Vietnamese and morsel it's
a morsel oution, yeah, civilians, but yes, it is a morsel.
I did something similar to the lead singer of the

(12:59):
Count of Crows. I want up to him and said
that his band was bad and they drove me crazy.
Your bands a war crime. You know, if you might
have had more of an impact if you criticized him
for playing his music while our boys in Vietnam are
getting their head shut off, you would have had some
trouble parsing that out. Sir, Are you okay? Ye? Blag

(13:21):
your jam band there dying in the mud, face down
in the mock. God, dare you I think you have
the wrong persons? I don't want you dead, something about
a parking lot that that you are. You are edging

(13:43):
up on my favorite conspiracy theory, which is that the
tonk and golf incident was engineered by the Counting Crows
in order to sell out. We know it was absolutely
that seems proven at this point, so biographer Walter Isaacson
described Kissinger is having quote the boyish glee of a
senior on prom night and in the twinkle of a

(14:05):
middle aged rake. He regularly had quote, striking blonde women
come with him into the White House on lunch dates
so he could show them off to his colleagues, telling
a co worker on at least one occasion to eat
your heart out. He's very much like bragging to other
dudes about the fact that being Henry Kissinger has turned
him into a sex symbol and he just had a

(14:25):
gun and he was like no. Literally. So it was
known that Kissinger's notorious temper could be somewhat offset by
tossing young women in front of him. When his staffers
fucked up and had to give him bad news about
a scheduling issue, they'd send the youngest female secretary they
had to go and give him the news the White
House Press Office used Diane Sawyer for this purpose. Eventually

(14:49):
the two started dating. Oh my god, I mean she
should not be allowed to still be doing news. I
mean your you need to have your news license revote.
Do you think do you think he just comes pure poison.
It's just like a gas slowly releases. We could harness

(15:10):
Henry Kissingers come to to get Europe off of Russian crude.
They're gonna drop the Kissinger go on us um. Diane
Sawyer later told New York Magazine quote, the power of
Henry working a room is still seismic. All of a sudden,
everybody wants to step up their game and say something
he'll find interesting or funny. And you know, I don't

(15:32):
know how much of this is just like his He's
clearly a charismatic man, right, he clearly has it feels
like it's it's dinner for schmucks, and he's like the Rube.
Like it feels like it's not everyone's just doing a bit.
Like it's just like it's growing with the person that
we I see and hear about that. You're like, oh
my god, if you could get in a room with

(15:52):
Henry Kissinger, just get right next to you will not
leave his side. Obviously sexy, obviously sex who wouldn't want
to fuck Henry Kissinger too. Now, this is all profoundly upsetting,
but it gets weaker. So if Walter Isaacson, who's who's

(16:13):
probably Kissinger's best biographer. If Walter Isaacson is correct, the
reason all these women liked hanging around Henry wasn't just
that he was powerful and no, it was not that
he had, you know, incredible dick game, which I'm sorry
for saying that in the context of Henry Kissinger. Thank you,
thank you, we are we just plunged in the rankings.

(16:35):
That's a fireba. I'm gonna quote now from Kissinger, a
biography by Walter Isaacson. Kissinger secret with women was not
all that different from his one with men, whom he
wanted to charm. He flattered them, he listened to them,
he nodded a lot, and he made eye contact. But
unlike the way he was with most men, Kissinger was

(16:56):
exceedingly patient with women who wanted to talk. Very few
men in the night teen seventies actually listened to women.
According to Betty Lord, Henry talked with you, talked to you,
seriously and probed for what you knew or thought. He
was someone who could and would make a Jill Saint
John feel intelligent or as Shirley McClain, feel politically savvy.
Next to Ingmar Bergmann, he is the most interesting man
I have ever met, said liv Ullmann. He is surrounded

(17:18):
by a fascinating aura, a strange field of light, and
he catches you in some kind of invisible net. Over
long dinners at public places, he would listen with sympathy
while women talked about themselves, their lives, their hopes, and
even sometimes they're slightly wacking new age philosophies. He would
call them on the telephone late at night and talk
for an hour or more at a time. He was
a great friend, especially a telephone friend, always there when

(17:39):
you needed him, said Jill Saint John. The dirty little
secret about Kissinger's relationship with women was that there was
no dirty little secret. He liked to go out with them,
but not home with them. His fascination with affairs tended
to be foreign rather than domestic. Henry's idea of being
romantic was to slow down his car when he dropped
you off at a date, said Hower. He may have
been how in fact, the most celibate lecture in Washington.

(18:01):
People say, yes, he doesn't do anything with this with
these girls. His friend Peter Peterson once remark, Yeah, what
what is happening? So he's a little a sexual. I
don't know if. I mean, he definitely had sex, he
had relationships, he had kids, But I think that the
being seen with women, the being seen as a sex
and but wasn't. But I don't think he had a

(18:21):
particularly high sex drive. I don't think he's going out
and like fucking his way through like famous people. I
think he likes being seen in public with beautiful women.
And I think beautiful women. Number one, he's safe, like
he's not gonna pressure you for anything. Number Two, he'll
actually listen to you like he's company. It's an extremely
low bars, I mean really bleak right. There is like

(18:42):
something to that. You know, it's like he's he's doing Yeah.
I mean I think that even now with guys like what,
I'll here like guys talking like yeah, it's like just
be respectful and it will probably get you, like I mean,
it at least makes you not an asshole. I mean,
he's he's he's you know what it is. I think
the women in this situation are getting something out of it, right.

(19:04):
Being within re Kissinger gets you in the news, It
raises your profile. He's extremely famous and powerful. Um, and
you get taken maybe even more seriously, you know, as
as a woman who's a who's a journalist, who who
wants to be seen as kind of intellectual um being
around Henry Kissinger. He's a very serious public intellectual. It's
good for your career. And also he's just men in

(19:26):
power were so much worse than than they even are
now that he was like the best dude in that
world you could hang out. He's kind of like it's
almost like a Batman villain again in the sense that
like he's got he's this evil piece of shit, but
yet he is also able to hold a conversation and

(19:48):
not be a prick, And you're like, wow, who could
pull off such opposing forces. Yeah, he treats women like
humans exactly. Yeah, literally that he and he will look
a woman in the eyes. Yeah, he is the saint
John feels smart. The guy is a magician. Yeah, he

(20:09):
is the only he is the only man in power
in Washington, d C. Who will like sit down with
a woman and listen to what she has to say,
and as a result, he is the primary sex symbol
of nineteen seventies squaking bar. I mean, it's incredible. It
also again is it comes down to what we've talked
about before with him, which is media normalization and how

(20:31):
it is just once you kind of create that bubble,
most people just acquiesce and then you're just like, you know,
you're kind of like Diane Sawyer is just like, oh yeah,
well he's people don't throw bricks at him when he's outside,
so he's okay now. Isaacson's gives an example of a
typical relationship. Kissinger's friendship with Jan Golden, who's a New

(20:53):
York socialite he dated from seventy to seventy one. She
was twenty two, he's like fifty. Um and Kissinger had
been given her name by Kissing had been given her
name by by Kirk Douglas. Douglas is the fucking hook
up in this case. So Henry calls her one day
without warning and asks if she wants to come out

(21:14):
for dinner. When she flew down to d C to
meet him, she was met at the airport by one
of Kissinger's military AIDS, who drove her to a fancy
club where he was dining. The two sat down to eat,
and midway through dinner, Henry got a phone call and
stayed away for forty minutes. When he came back, he
apologized and said that the Secretary of State had needed
his advice. But whenever he was present, he paid cost

(21:34):
close attention to her, and he asked her her opinion
on issues of the day. She found the overall experience heady.
The two dated for half a year, without any romance
ever developing. Isaacson writes, quote, only once did they go
back to his apartment, and when they arrived and Aid
was their fielding telephone calls. By Golden's count, the phone
rang forty times. You couldn't do anything romantic in that place,
even if he were dying to She recalled, who's dying.

(21:57):
Nobody's dying too. She wants to get by the old weirdo. Yeah,
she's she's she's into it. I must is horned. Yeah, yeah,
she said. I just don't think Henry was interested in
sex when it came time to perform, Well, I just
think he was too preoccupied for it. He didn't have
time for it. Power for him may have been the aphrodisiac,

(22:18):
but it was also the climax. Oh my god, I
know that's a line right there. That's what he was
doing in the bathroom for oh, Henry. So on one occasion,
Henry was more honest than usual with one of his
female friends, Oriana Falacci, who's an Italian author and a
former World War Two partisan. She's actually pretty fascinating person um,

(22:41):
he said. Quote when I speak to Lee Ducto, who
was the Vietnamese negotiator for North Vietnam, I know what
I have to do with Lee Ducto, and when I'm
with girls, I know what I must do with girls. Besides,
Lee Ducto doesn't at all agree to negotiate with me
because I represent an example of moral rectitude. This frivolous reputation,
it's partially exaggerated, of course. What ounces to what degree
women are part of my life, a central preoccupation. Well

(23:03):
they aren't that at all for me. Women are only
a diversion, a hobby. Nobody spends too much time with
his hobbies. See for a minute there, you're sort of thinking, okay, well,
if he if he's getting something out of female accompaniment,
then in a way that is. I mean, there's something
kind of like, there's is something kind of nice about

(23:24):
the idea that a guy isn't just not like trying
to funck his way through you know, beautiful women, like
he's just enjoying the company of women. But then the
more you kind of peel back, the more it just
does seem to be really like, he's just he's just backwards.
He's a backwards person. Every part of him has just
been rearranged. He's like a mannequin body of guts that

(23:46):
fell down and was put back improperly. Now the surprise,
Kirk Douglas cameo there. Make Key went on the fact
that Henry was also very popular with the celeb set.
During the party throw for Gloria steinhum By, the talk
show host Barbara Howard, Kissinger told those assembled, I am
a secret swinger. Now yes, uh yeah, that's the thing,

(24:10):
he claimed, I like any whole Maybe it's a joke.
That means he's like he's saying he likes to fuck,
but all the evidence we have is that he doesn't.
Like Yeah, I think again, I think that's him myth making.
I think it's just saying that I'd like to go
around and touch the genitals of fucking people. Yeah, you

(24:30):
go to a swingers party in d C. And Henry's
just they're putting a finger on things. If I penetrate
the pinky rings, I get nothing out of this. It's fine.
I don't worry. I'm comeless. So Kissinger missed the announcement
that he'd been nominated for Secretary of State because he
was on a date with Norwegian Oscar nominee liv Ullman.

(24:53):
He took Candice Bergen out on a date when she
was a young star. She later said that he gave
her quote the sense of shared secrets probably be the
same set he gave every anti war actress, Like he
would act like, oh, I'm really against the war. I'm
inside the administration like trying to get us out of
these things. You know. It's it's like, yeah, he's he's
just he doesn't he's yeah, he's a psycho psycho about it.

(25:14):
Just I mean that way, he's completely everything we've heard
is completely contrary. The sucking devil. Yeah, yeah, it's just psychotic.
But also you have to credit like, I don't think
Candice Bergen is lying. I can imagine how you're not
privy at that point in time, to any of what
we have right to any this information we have about
how much he was planning this, about what a two
faced liar he was, So maybe you believe. Yeah, this

(25:35):
man is so intelligent and it's so like emotionally competent.
I can't imagine him being the architect of these war crimes.
He must be just it's it's such a titanic system
of evil and he's fighting alone to bring it down,
and like it must be why Hillary Clinton still hangs
around him. He's like, look, I had nothing to do
with any of the Taylor, don't worry. We'll talk about that. Gareth.

(25:55):
Oh god. Um. So I'm gonna quote next from Nil
Ferguson's Kissinger quote for the Press, The story was irresistible.
The dowdy Harvard professor reborn in Hollywood as Carry Grant
with a German accent. When Marlon Brando pulled out of
the New York premiere of the Godfather, It's executive producer
Robert Evans and unhesitatingly called Kissinger, and Kissinger obligingly flew

(26:19):
up despite blizzard conditions and a schedule the next day
that began with an early morning meeting with the Joint
Chiefs of Staff to discuss the mining of Hypong Harbor
and ended with a secret flight to Moscow. A reporter asked,
doctor Kissinger, why are you here tonight at the Godfather premiere?
Kissinger responded, I was forced by who? By Bobby Bobby Evans.
Did he make you an offer you couldn't refuse? Yes.

(26:41):
As they fought their way through the throng, Evans had
Kissinger on one arm and Ali McGraw on the other.
What I know, right, would you have called that when
we started this ship? Like you Kissingers, you've lulled us
into this being okay because at the beginning absolutely, But
now I mean imagine honestly like a war criminal on

(27:04):
a rent carpet going like, look, I didn't one through obviously,
I wanted to stay in sell Vietnam. But Bobby called,
oh man, it's incredible. You know what? Who else attended
the premier of The Godfather with producer Robert Evans and
Ali McGraw that I can't wait to hear the sponsors

(27:27):
of this show all deeply tied in Well, of course
they are right, like they're the kind of people who
get invited to hunt children on private island reserve off
the coast of Indonesia. You know, I've heard it's an archipelago.
I refused to believe that Hollywood producer Robert Evans did
not hunt children for sport at least once. There's just
no way those glasses were just scopes, he laughed, like

(27:52):
a man who has hunted the most dangerous game. Anyway,
here's ads. We're back now. In our Cambodia episode, I
mentioned and by the way, we're done with the sex stuff.
You made it through my sweat pants. My sweatpants half repped. God,

(28:17):
please get back to the killing. Well, in our Cambodia episode,
I mentioned that the illegal bombing of Cambodia was leaked
to the New York Times, and this was a big story,
and it prompted Nixon to suspect that Kissinger's liberal staffers
UM had been the ones who had done the leaking. UM.
And so after this gets leaked, Kissinger and Nixon worked

(28:39):
together to orchestrate a wire tapping program. Well, Kissinger initially
ran the whole program. He was actually in charge for
only like a day. Nixon decided pretty quickly that he
didn't trust Kissinger. After all, namely because Herbert Hoover expected
that Kissinger was the one leaking things. And this is
because Kissinger absolutely was leaking. Now, he was not leaking
the men of Cambodia, right. But Kissinger had his favorite

(29:02):
journalists that he'd leaked things to. UM. Some of them
were guys he wanted to write a book about him,
you know, and so he wanted them to give him
positive coverage. Some of them were like leaks in order
to hurt other people in the administration. Because there's just
Consert's Nixon's We're not getting into those enough. But Nixon's
administration is just like an endless series of power struggles.
Everyone is fucking over everybody else, right, Like, that's that's

(29:23):
the Nixon administration. That's incredible. Yeah, it's it's really quite
quite a tale. Um. So, yeah, Kissingers absolutely leaking some stuff,
and that's that. Nixon is pretty aware of who Kissinger
is leaking things to. UM And, as Walter Isaacson writes,
the real reason why he pulled Henry from overseeing the
program was that the two were having one of their

(29:43):
periodic feuds. Nixon actually made the call to pull Kissinger
from the wire tapping program right before he flew to
Camp David and like stopped returning Kissinger's phone calls for
a week. It's this like thing that it was like,
it's like fucking nineteen year olds fighting. It's not here. Yeah,
they literally had just little TIFFs, and yeah, they have
little TIFFs. You know. There's there's so much petty bullship

(30:09):
between Kissinger and Nixon, and they're very much like if
you've ever been in a codependent relationship, the Kissinger and
Nixon will seem extremely familiar because they'll like be fighting
over some stupid bullshit and then things will get bad
and they'll like come together and be like also collapsing
at the same time as they're propping each other up.
It's very funny. I got millions die. But I'm sorry

(30:31):
that they said that. Well, I've been waiting for your apology.
I can't stay mad at you, Cambodia with Look, we
have too many people to kill to stayment at each
other for this long, So good over shift. Despite Kissinger
Nixon periodically being angry with him throughout the duration of

(30:52):
the wire tapping program, Henry Kissinger retained the ability to
pretty much wire tap American citizens at command he would
submit names to the FBI, who would start a wire
tap on that person. When the secret wire tapping program
was leaked in nineteen seventy three and it blew up
into a big congressional inquiry, Nixon took the blame, defending
Kissinger by saying it was his responsibility not to control

(31:14):
the program, but solely to furnish information to the FBI.
So what they claimed, it's like Kissinger wasn't ordering wire taps.
He was giving the FBI information on people we thought
were suspicious, and they would decide to wire tap, And
it's a coincidence that all he would do was hand
them a name and they would immediately start the wire tap.
It's like he would give the garment to the bloodhound,
but he's not hunting the child looking for on. So

(31:39):
it's also though, like this might be the moment that
proves Dick Nixon was actually a better person than Henry Kissinger,
because he did like kind of take a hit for
his team, not that he wasn't responsible for the wire tapping.
In the Land of no respect, a man with one
ounce has on all. It was like a tiny, tiny dollar,

(32:03):
if you will, of honors from Henry Kissinger, and we
just never see that or from from Nixon, and we
just never see that from Kissinger. Um. It's kind of
like saying that, like a cheese grater is better to
fun than the blade of a jigsaw. But you know
it's something, well, no that, now that I think about it,
I mean, if someone laid it on the table, right, yeah,

(32:27):
well that's great this cheese. What do we say, gentlemen,
I'm gonna drop trap. Let's get greater. So here's how
the secret wire tapping program worked. Kissinger and another Nixon
dude I think it was Haldeman Um would submit names
to the FBI, which the FBI viewed as requests, right.
The transcripts of that person's conversations then would all be

(32:47):
sent to Kissinger's death desk. So he got direct transcripts
of every wire tap personally, and he would decide what
to bring to Nixon. He wasn't the only guy he
because again Nixon had multiple like people kind of competing
through this program. Right, he's like the head writer. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So.
James Adams, head of the FBI's Intelligence Division, later told
a biography that he did not think there was quote

(33:09):
more or less wire tapping under Nixon than under previous presidents.
What made things unusual then was that the wire taps
Nixon and Kissinger ordered, we're on n SC staff, individuals
that were part of the White House family and Isaacs
worlds right quote. In other words, previous wire taps had
mainly been on suspected spies potentially subversive union leaders in

(33:30):
the like a regular program of wire tapping one's own
aids was, according to Thomas Smith, another top FBI official, unprecedented.
Oh my god, it's amazing, Like that's what's amazing, right,
It's like, well, no, it's not unusual. That's for this
many wire taps. It's just normally on people that you're
worried about, like attacking the country, not people who you've hired.

(33:51):
The FBI is like, you know, we're okay with spying
on dissidents, but they made a spy on their friends,
and we feel gross about this. What you see Henry
Kissinger's wire tapping Nixon. Yeah, he's getting very caddy. Kissingers
just as wire tap on himself. You were joking, but

(34:14):
you have accurately predicted where the story goes. No, what
the this is such a weird chapter of American rust
me as far as I could throw myself. I am
such a fucking asshole. Look at what I was saying.
Oh my god. So these wire taps were all considered

(34:35):
legal at the time, although the Supreme Court did later
determine that they were illegal. It was kind of like
one of these at the time they were legal, and
because of how gross they were, the Supreme Court was like,
you know what, no, um And thankfully the US never
never wire tapped people again. That's the end of That's
the end of it. Famously, that's why Edward Snowdon is

(34:56):
famous for his reveal that no one was ever wire tapped. Again.
That's why we don't know who Edwards Snowdon is. Yes,
famous private citizen living in Ohio. Edwards a name out
of the air, random guy. Um. So. A tremendous amount
has been written on the subject of the wire tapping

(35:17):
in the Nixon administration. I'm not going to go to
into detail on it because as sleazy as it is,
why are tapping your friends? Doesn't quite measure up to
war crimes? Like, it's gross, but it's also not that gross,
and because it's super weird. Yeah, it's just like weird.
It's a weird thing about them. There is something I
should read here that reveals something meaningful about Henry's character.

(35:37):
William Sapphire was a New York Times op ed columnist
and a Nixtion speech and a Nixon speech writer. He
later said that Kissinger was quote capable of getting a
special thrill out of working most closely with those he
spied on the most. Like Sapphire's attitude is like he
was doing this mainly because he thought it was like
kind of hot to be wire tapping a guy. That heasm, Yeah, finally,

(36:02):
it's the power thing. It's the power thing. And he
knows he's he loves that. He's like fucking over someone.
He's just hanging out with him, talking to him. They
don't know he's it's like slipper. Yeah, he gets this
crazy thrill out of it. Yeah, he knows secrets about them, like,
oh god, it's so fucking weird going to tap that
does so he gets like, yeah, that quote from Kissinger

(36:28):
powers the ultimate affrodaisac. It's usually translated to him being like,
that's why women are so into me, right, because power
turns people on. But I think it literally means that
like he kind of gets off on exercising power, right,
Like that's his thing. Oh my god, I can even
fuck my friends over yea. It is also worth noting
that Henry wire tapped himself once he took off, as

(36:51):
he had a secret kidding, I know, I know, but
it happened once he took off, as he had a
secretary list in on all of his calls and take
mimo notes on his conversations. He also had a series
of what are called dead key extensions added to phones.
These are keys that were secretly added to phones in
his office so that his secretaries and aids could like

(37:12):
press them to listen in on calls without other people
knowing and take notes on the calls. When Nixon would
call kissing your drunk, slurring his words, Kissinger would like
wave all of his people who get in there, get
in there, get in here, like kick up the phone,
pick up the phone, and then he would make faces
making fun of the president while his notes is like aids, listen,

(37:34):
bit okay, I mean just that's the coolest thing about
Now take a step back and realize that Henry Kissinger
is making fun of the wire tap he's called on
himself while he's talking to the president who's blackout drunk.

(37:54):
It's it's something else war is. He isn't like not
to minimize how fucked up you know the current administration
to the previous administration was. But by god, America still
has not reached the Nixon peak of craziness. We've gotten
it in pieces, the little bit I've never had like

(38:14):
the full team together, and yeah you can't. It's it's
really hard to compete with Dick Nixon and Henry Kissinger.
I talking about ahead of his time. Oh my god,
his stuff age is great. Oh man. So Kissinger also
used the transcripts he made to attack his coworkers and
reinforce his loyalty to the president. When his colleagues said

(38:36):
something to him that he knew Nixon would hate, or
when someone made a comment to green with Kissinger on
an issue, he would pass those notes from his secret
conversations onto the president. So you would hand the president
like a transcript of a call he'd had with like
a thing underlined that made Kissinger look good. Um, oh
my god. From Kissinger of biography quote William Sapfire, who
dubbed the transcripts the dead key Scrolls said he once

(38:58):
saw Kissinger altering one to shore up a point he
wanted to make to the president. He had been chewing
out a reporter from the Christian Science Monitor for writing
a story that was unfavorable to Nixon. In doing so,
he also tossed in occasional complaints about the perfidy of
Secretary Rogers. Since he was planning to send the transcript
to the President, Sapphire said he had taken a draft
and edited it, adding to the fierce loyalty of his

(39:19):
own remarks, So you would like mark it up to
make him like be more of a kiss asked to
kick to Nixon. I mean Nixon's also like hammered. It's like,
how hard do you have to work to convince this guy?
You know what I mean? Hand him a my tie
like from tred Vis. Here're my best friend. I love you,
Henry a closer friend. Look at how much of of

(39:43):
your pitch I am. The existence of these transcripts was
revealed by The Washington Post in nineteen one, but Kissinger
insisted they were just for the President's files. In reality,
he used them for as notes to write his two
books that he published after leaving power. But he was
canny enough to know they had damning information. So when
he considered quitting the Nixon administration in nineteen seventy three,

(40:06):
he had them all shipped to a bomb shelter at
Nelson rockefeller cells. I mean what you just said every
third sentence you have to write about these guys's magnet
fridge poetry. Yeah, he illegally hit government files and Nelson

(40:28):
Rockefeller's private bomb shelters just like, feel like, may I
use your bomb shelter storage? I need to put my
biography notes there of course, of course, And right, that's
you're not what I always say, my bomb shelters yours?
These are these are what short stories? Right, yes, sure, yeah,

(40:48):
whatever you need to tell yourself. I need I need
them save in case there's a nuclear war. So obviously
this is very illegal. Um. And when Kissinger decided not
to quit the administration, he had a military liaison Cinda
plane to pick them up from Rockefeller's house and then
he hit them in a bomb shelter under the White House.
After he left. There's less for these people. They're fucking notes.

(41:15):
They they don't need to survive the fucking nuclear holocaust. Great, though,
if a bomb is in coming towards the White House,
and they all go there and it's just stacked with
Kissinger papers. Yeah, this guy was a real piece of ship.
This is awkward going to petish. He's just sitting in
the corner. I don't think you should read those. So

(41:38):
after he left office, Kissinger donated the papers to the
Library of Congress under the restriction that they would not
be made available until he had been dead for five years.
Well he's been He's been for five years. We should
them now, who makes that deal. It's not a great thing,
the Library of Congress. Jesus Christ five, by the way,

(42:00):
most people, most people do like the after I die.
He wants the five year buffer, which sounds a little Yeah.
He wants time for people to get things out of
the country. Yeah. Yeah, I want to make sure I'm
pure bone. Yeah. So Kissinger was also convinced that Nixon's
chief of staff Holdeman had Nixon wire tapped uh and Nixon. Sorry,

(42:23):
Kissinger was also convinced that Nixon's chief of staff Holdman
and Nixon had wire tapped him, which they absolutely had.
So Kissinger was kind of tapping himself. But Nixon had
also wire tapped Kissinger, and when he passed Holdeman in
the hall, Kissinger would say, quote, what do your taps
tell you about me? Today? It's almost remember that what

(42:43):
was it? I don't remember when I was on where
Lily Tomlin was the one ringy dinghy operator who keeps
plugging in on it. It's almost like that with wire taps,
where you're just like every wire is getting plugged across.
Nixon's wire tapping Kissinger, who's wire tapping himself, who's wire
tapping Nixon is also wire tapping hold him It is
wire tapping Kissinger is also wired tapping Nixon. And that's
why we know so much about not just like the

(43:04):
crimes they committed, but like what they were saying in
the meetings while they committed the crimes, because unbeknownst to
Kissinger and to everyone else, Nixon was also wire tapping himself,
like he recorded every conversation that he had. Is the
most that that to me is like the one of
the most. I mean, it's why we know so much

(43:25):
because if you are able to, like if if Trumper,
I mean, if any of them, I mean, if you
had the Bush tapes, like they would be fucking incredible.
But It's also that Nixon recorded himself and it was like, okay,
take them, and everyone's like, the funk Are you drunk?
And he's like, I am, actually, I am extreme. I
am so drunk. My Secretary of Defense has a contingency

(43:47):
plan in case I try to nuke everyone. Checkers been
that drunk, No one has. So this was a secret
until the Watergate scandal was really feeled at the end
of nineteen seventy two. Kissinger was warned about this that,
like the Watergate story was about to break two months
ahead of time, and he was horrified by the implications,

(44:10):
namely by the fact by the things we've already gone
over at length that he had, Like he was on
tape in these records, agreeing and encouraging with Nixon's bigotry
and his copious racial slurs. So, like, Kissinger is not
involved in Watergates, so he's like, I'm not worried about that.
I'm worried that everyone's going to know that I was
like egging Nixon's bigotry on in order to kiss his
ass um Yeah, amazing, amazing for him to be horrified,

(44:34):
like of all the things he's done, like for this
to be like it's it's always like the weirdest thing,
but it's like for this too, for him to be
like this could really damage my credibility. Yeah. When he
was asked about this later about like encouraging Nixon's bigotry,
Kissinger explained that the things he'd said to Nixon were

(44:56):
based on quote, the needs of the moment, rather than
to quote, stand the test of deferred scrutiny, which was
a nice way of saying, I'm only racist around racists
and one of the most impressive feats of mental gymnastics
and political history. Kissinger actually argued that his egging Nixon
on was meant to protect the American people. Quote he
was so much in need of succor so totally alone.

(45:19):
Our national security depended so much on his functioning. Uh,
it's called yes, and okay, he was Chicago school. It's
called the Olympic. I mean again, to be able to
get away with that argument just shouldn't be stud Now,

(45:40):
speaking of Nixon's functioning, it's probably time to talk a
little more about Watergate. As previously covered in nineteen seventy one,
Nixon and his team, including Kissinger, hired a goon squad
of x FBI and CIA agents called the plumbers and
asked them to investigate the leak of the Pentagon papers.
These guys broke into the office of Daniel Ellsberg, that's
the guy wh leaked the Pentagon papers. He was a

(46:02):
Department of Defense employee. They break into the office of
his psychiatrist to try and steal records to smear him.
In nineteen seventy two, one of the plumbers, g Gordon Liddy,
was transferred to the Committee to re Elect the President.
The acronym of this organization organization was literally creep because
satire has never happened even once, Like it's impossible, nopevers over.

(46:23):
Liddy's team executed a wide ranging plan to illegally spy
on the Democratic Party, which ended with them breaking into
DNC headquarters in the Watergate Building in d C and
bugging the phones of staffers. They got arrested almost immediately,
like that night they get busted, right, that's like when
this all starts, um. And so that's what like the
fact that this, like the Watergate scandal in public knowledge

(46:45):
starts is like these guys getting arrested doing a break in.
He's a crime reporter named Bob Woodward and on the case.
He was not a political journalist. He was like a
crime beat d C reporter. But he hears about this
break in and he's like, something's going on here, and
he winds up making you know, contacts with a guy
who we later eventually, like decades later, learned was the
associate director of the FBI. That's deep throat, you know. Famously,

(47:08):
this guy gives him information and the Washington Post under
Woodward and and Bernstein, right, he has a partner in
it too, Like they're both doing very good journalism here.
They start dropping articles at the tailed of nineteen seventy two,
and a trial over the break and starts in nineteen
seventy three January, right after Nixon wins reelection. Well Woodward
and his partner Carl Bernstein were running down leads. They

(47:29):
got in touch with another FBI guy and asked him, hey,
who kept authorizing all of these wire taps that FBI
guys said, well, Henry Kissinger in a lot of cases,
this Kissinger, he's like our main guy calling us. So
Woodward calls Henry Kissinger, who plays dumb at first and
then tries to blame Holdeman for the wire tapping. Woodward asked, okay, well,

(47:52):
is it possible you were the one doing wire tapping Henry,
and Kissinger says, I don't believe it was true. Woodward asked, what. Yeah,
it's such a weasel answer. Yeah, he's four years old.
Woodward asks, is that a denial and kissing Your response,
I frankly don't remember. I mean, it's kind of like

(48:15):
it's it is kind of like nice to see the
genesis because the I don't remember things just utilized so
much now it's like it's like one of the first
like where you're just like, I think if I just
say I forgot, I can go the way with this ship. Yeah.
You can imagine a young Bill Clinton reading this news
story and saying, I'm not sure why, but I think
I'm gonna take notes on this. I'll remember ejaculating, but

(48:36):
I don't remember how that come to me. It's also
it shows you, like how insulated they were in their
psychotic little dome that once they actually take their tactics
out in the real world, people like, yeah, that's like
crime and we have you. They're like, yeah, ship, the

(48:58):
President's drunk. So Kissinger admitted after that line of question
that he might have given the FBI the names of
some people who had access to leaked documents and quote,
it's quite possible they construed this as an authorization. So
once he makes this admission to Woodward, Henry starts to
get looser and he talks about how he figured he

(49:19):
probably should take responsibility for the wire tapping, and then
he realized almost immediately, oh shit, I fucked up, And
he asks Bob Woodward, you aren't quoting me, right? Like,
He's like, this isn't on the record. Is it that
it works to? Right? You put it on the record,
and then you're like Woodward says, of course this is
on the record. Like what like? I like, I never

(49:39):
said this was off the record. Kissinger insisted, well, I
was only speaking on background. Quote. I've tried to be honest,
and now you're going to penalize me. In five years
in Washington, I've never been trapped into talking like this.
If a journalist calls you and asks you questions, as
the secretary of State, goff Right, you just wanted to chat, right,

(50:03):
I thought, how are you times have you committed bub Yeah,
it's it's fascinating. Yeah, it's so dumb, and it shows
what fucking tame little pricks. The entirety of the White
House press corps were right because thought he could get
away with this, and he finally encountered like an actual

(50:24):
journalist for the once right and just like thirty seconds
with with Woodward and he's blown wide open and it
doesn't not handle it. Yeah, he's just pissing his paints, crying.
You know what it is? You have you've seen those
videos of like those fucking um uh those tai Chi
champions who are like in those videos fighting their students

(50:45):
where they're just like flipping everyone around the room, throwing
them and then like they fight an actual m M
A fighter who just like takes them down in thirteen seconds. Yeah,
it's like how Seal fights where Yeah it's yeah, it's
Steven Seagal, say Putin's Judo, Yeah it is. This is
this is the moment for Kissinger. That's like when when

(51:06):
Steven Seagal got choked out by Gene LaBelle and chats passed, Alright,
I'm the star. Come on, this could happen? Come on
play fake next from kissinger biography quote. Woodward wondered what
kind of treatment Kissinger was accustomed to getting from the press.
He consulted Murray Martyr, the kindly soft edge diplomatic reporter

(51:28):
who covered Kissinger for The Post. Well. Martyr admitted Henry
was regularly allowed to put statements on background after he
had made them. I mean it really it does. And
and what's so frustrating is that it's like, you know,
they they've all kind of learned from the mistakes of
this time in ways where it is it's kind of
the same ship. I mean, everything is kind of a

(51:50):
fluff piece. You're allowed to be in the White House
press color if you ask softball questions. You know, it's
like this this was like a major funk up. And
they all were like, well, the lesson we've learned here
is don't let good reporters around you. Yeah, don't let
journalists exist. Yeah, it's one of those. Um, there's so

(52:12):
much going on here. It really is. This is like
we are peaking. There are ways in which, like, there
are times when journalism does work that way, right when
I'm like sitting down and talking to like a fucking
dissident or or a protest or someone who like might
be targeted by the state or by you know, fucking
fascist or whatever and murdered, and they like say something
and then later like, oh, you know, can I take

(52:32):
that off the record? I'm worried that's gonna like reveal. Yeah,
of course, Like I'm not gonna like but like, it doesn't.
It should never work that way for cabinet level fucking government,
efficients right, they don't. They can't if you agree ahead
of time to make something off the record. Yeah, that
that happens. That's like a thing that occurs. Although I
think that's problematic too, but like they don't get to

(52:53):
just take something off the record retroactively. That's not how
it works. Yeah, And I mean it's just about excess.
So then about the actual story. They just want to
talk to them again. Yeah, they want to keep getting access.
It is. It's like it needs to be a a
group of people need to say that this is all fun,
but instead they're like, what a great Coppile party? And
Woodword to his credit, there critiques to make about Woodward

(53:16):
later in his career, but to his credit was like,
I don't give a shit about access. I'm trying to
take down a president like I could give a fuck,
you know, like um so Nixon eventually took the fall
as we've covered, but the issue was brought up again
in nineteen seventy three when Kissinger went through his confirmation

(53:37):
hearings to become Secretary of State. We don't need to
cover the politicking he did to secure that job, but
I should note all the fallout over wire tapping in
the disaster in Cambodia didn't do ship to reduce Henry's
popularity at home. In nineteen seventy two, he had ranked
fourth on the list of most admired Americans. In nineteen
seventy three, he was number one, largely because Harry Truman died,

(53:59):
which is also bleak. Yeah we are, I mean, and
that's when you're like, we deserve it. I mean, if
you are that incapable of deciphering reality from fiction to
some extent, you want to be taken advantage of. Yeah,
you're the rube who opens the door to the vacuum

(54:20):
cleaner salesman. Yeah, well, on my floor. I want to
see how this thing sucks. You mean by Social Security number,
of course, a new problems. I get five thousand dollars
in the mail. Okay, So one congressman that proposed a
constitutional amendment to allow foreign born citizens to run for
president because of like how much he liked fucking Kissinger.

(54:42):
I don't like Henry. Henry received a figure at Madame
Tussaud's wax Museum in London, which quickly became the star attraction.
Miss Universe pageant contestants voted him quote the greatest person
in the world today. Is it possible that we just
put a heart in the Madame Tussau's a year and
melted it and that's what's walking around now, Yeah, that's

(55:05):
but we just left it in the sun for a week,
like you bring up the medium like this is just
so like they just normalize monsters. They act like monsters
are great people, and people don't actually hear the fucking
hainoush ship that they're doing, and they just hear he's
a smart guy. But because that's what he can like
quote smart dead people that they you haven't read, but

(55:26):
you know they're smart because their name sounds vaguely familiar.
And so you're like, well, this guy's read all these
smart dudes, he must be a good guy because smart
people don't do bad thing. Well, it's smart people don't
like go out with reporters, and you know you would
just be like, look at Frankenstein at the Playboy mansion. Gosh,
he's got those bolts on his neck and the girls
love to twirl him. So it is perhaps not surprising,

(55:50):
even though the Watergate scandal had built to a fever
pitch by seventy three, that Henry Kissinger was a shoe
in to be appointed as Secretary of State. On the
day of his first Congressional confirmation hearings, someone in the
press asked, do you prefer to be called Mr? Secretary
or doctors secretary? He replied, I do not stand on protocol.
If you just call me excellency, it will be okay,

(56:12):
excuse me, pardon, And again, as a journalist, the proper
response to that is to throw your handheld recorder at
his face, like try to take a chair to his
nose like they did break his face. I'm not tugue
up on time. You can just bow and call me

(56:34):
on majesty. So Kissinger was extremely nervous going into the
confirmation hearings because again, Nixon is being torn apart for
Watergate right now, and he was expecting that he'd be
interrogated about all the shady wire tapping he'd done. But
As it turned out, all he had to do was
lie and say he'd never recommended wire tapping. Everyone decided
that was fine, and he was confirmed by Secretary of

(56:56):
States seventy eight votes to seventy seven. Fucking And here's
the thing. Even among the people who voted against him,
there was not always strong antipathy. George McGovern voted against
confirming him, but he called Kissinger afterwards to privately endorse him,
to be like, hey, publicly, I got to pretend I
don't like you, but like we're cool, right, bro, I

(57:19):
don't worry. Someday I'll be the president and I got
my eye you Henry. Yeah, I mean, honestly, that might
have happened. Yeah, probably so. When he was sworn in
on September twenty one, nineteen seventy three, a family friend
presented Kissinger with a copy of the Old Testament that
would be been published in first in eighteen oh one
for him to be sworn in on. Kissinger decided instead

(57:40):
to use Nixon's copy of the King James Bible, which
I just opened it. It's a bottle of bourbon. Sorry,
it's actually the bottle of lets that first one. So
I'll last for Dick Nixon. Seventy four was an even
worse year for him than seventy three had been. In
July of that year, three Southern Democrats on the House

(58:01):
Judiciary Committee announced that they were voting to impeach him.
On August five, a transcript of taped conversations between him
and Haldeman was released, which proved his involvement in the
cover up of the Watergate break and and proved he'd
lied under oath. This was the nail in the coffin.
On August seven, Very Goldwater told Nixon he would not
survive an impeachment vote. Nixon had already made the decision

(58:22):
to leave. He met with Jerry Ford, his vice president,
and told him that he was about to be president.
He urged forward to keep Kissinger on as his secretary
of State. Then Nixon made his big announcement to the
American people next from history dot com. After the speech,
Kissinger accompanied Nixon to his living quarters. One last time,
history is going to a record that you were a

(58:42):
great president, Kissinger assured Nixon. Henry the President said that
will depend on who writes the history. Can you imagine
a wasted Nixon showed Gerald Ford around like thought put
that in your way. Days in the morn this is
pineapple cottage cheese every day. Now here's a Jack Nixon's secret.

(59:05):
If you pour a little diet coke in the bourbon,
they can't tell you're getting drunk. At nine in the morning,
when do you confuse? Just nod what you're throwing up
in the toilet and say something disagreed with you, and
it's diarrhea. The Secret Service agents have to let you
puke down their sleeves. That's what I've been doing. This
is the vacky room, and this is the vodka room.

(59:27):
And this is the vacky room. This drawer here's for
letters and things like stamps like that. And this is
the drawer you can puke in. But just bend over
and pretend you're looking for something. I'm gonna be honest.
I've been shifting in the fireplace a lot. It's hard
to find the bathroom when you're turned in the oval. Look. Look,
if you're worried, just lift this cushion up. This chair
is actually a toilet with wheels. Sits behind the desk.

(59:54):
Trying to think what else? These are laws? You can
wipe your ass with them. By the way, this is
all being recorded. Everything is this chest hare is actually
a tape recorder. Kissinger's sorrow over his boss stepping down
was stopped somewhat by the fact that right around the
same time, he'd succeeded in overthrowing an actual democratically elected leader,

(01:00:18):
doctor salvador I End. Now, yeah, we have We're not
going to talk about this in a lot of detail
because we have gone into detail on the coup against
Ende in both our episodes on the Dullest Brothers into
the School of the America's. It's just like, not this
is the thing to like cut out of our Kissinger
story because we've covered it a lot before. But I

(01:00:39):
will give an overview of Kissinger's involvement for the listeners
who maybe aren't familiar. Robert, Yeah, I know we are
all on the same page, but you're Derris or whatever.
Salvadora End was a socialist e dude who was elected
in nineteen seventy Like all kind of socialists the US overthrows,
he was not nearly as radical as they pretended he was,
but he was solidly left wing. The US back to

(01:01:02):
military coup that overthrew him in nineteen seventy three, I
end committed suicide and was replaced by General Augusto Pinochet,
who tortured and murdered tens of thousands of people over
the next seventeen years. So I'm gonna be brief here
and I'm gonna read a summary of Kissinger's role in
that kerfuffle from the Transnational Institute. Less than a week
after Nixon received the disappointing news about the presidential vote,

(01:01:24):
he decided to annul the Chilean vote. A quote widely
attributed to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger explained to Nixon's morality,
I don't see why we need to stand by and
watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of
its people. The issues are much too important for the
Chilean vote voters to be left it aside for themselves.
I mean, like you are you need to be like

(01:01:44):
so far gone to be comfortable speaking in that way. Yeah, yeah,
you you that's ghoulishly evil. I mean it's just like
you could come up with a version of that that
would also probably sound effective, but basically be like, look,
the people have fucked up voting, They've they've wrongly voted.

(01:02:05):
BOOPSI poopsie. Well, we'll do it for him. We'll figure
out I mean, we'll take care of this in United
States policy pretty much, you know, yeah, all the time,
in perpetuity. Yeah. And it's it's it's good. Um. Yeah.
And and after the bloody coup that that Kissinger and
Nixon endorsed, Kissinger pushed to recognize Pinochet's coup government and

(01:02:28):
offered economic aid. Uh. He pressured international lending organizations to
lend money to the new Chilean government. Yeah, he sucks.
This is a bad thing that he did. Um. You
can hear a lot more about it. And honestly, Kissingers
was involved, but like the Dulles Brothers were a much
bigger part of this specific things. So check that out
in our Dulles Brothers episode. All this would Raquel welch
on his arm. Yeah, Jill st John, I love the

(01:02:53):
way you. Actually the woman he does marry, Nancy McGinnis,
who is also a fairly prominent person, is a huge
fan of the overthrowing of the Chilean government. Um, and
his wife is like more hardcore right wing than he is.
Come to bed. Tell me about how you ignore the
will of the Chilean voters. Yeah. So I don't know

(01:03:15):
much about the working relationship Henry had with Jerry Ford honestly,
Like they didn't spend a lot of time together. We're
not going to delve super deep into it. Um, there
were like too much to talk about. Still, Um, there
is one thing I want to note about his relationship
with with kissing with Nixon, Like, for the first several
years that he's working with Nixon, he's desperate to go
to Camp David anytime the President invites him, He's excited

(01:03:38):
to go. But then when the Watergate thing is going
on and Nixon feels isolated and alone, Kissinger spends like
the whole Watergate hearing time, jetting around the Middle East
and stuff doing diplomacy. Nixon begs him like do you
want to come hang out at Camp Dated with me?
And Henry's like, oh, buddy, I'd love to, but you know,
I just got so much work. I'm swamped over here

(01:03:58):
with stuff. Was like such a It's amazing that there's
a moment at this where you're like, oh, man, Dick,
he did you dirty? That's not yeah A friend to
him a little bit of sympathy for do you want
to come to summer camp David with me. I can't
I could really use a friend. I broke my arm.

(01:04:19):
I can't get any merit badges or anything. This someone
my mom said. So oh man, it's amazing. Um. So yeah,
there's so much to talk about. I will tell you.
I will note that one of the first things that
Henry did a Secretary of State for President Ford was
to deliberately enable another genocide, which put him just one

(01:04:40):
genocide away from earning a free coffee at the Pentagon Starbucks.
Oh my gosh, he's close. He's close. He's close. We're
gonna talk about that. But you know what we got
to talk about right now. Products and services that support
this podcast, including Starbucks, commit five genocides, and Starbucks will

(01:05:01):
fund to six that it reduces the price of coffee. Bee,
make sure it's eventy. We're back. So. In nineteen sixty nine,
the US conspired with the Indonesian dictator Suharto to encourage
the illegal annexation of West Papa through what was called
the Act of Free Choice. This was a shameless propaganda

(01:05:23):
exercise which allowed the United States to pretend democracy. Ray, Ray,
you get the idea. Behind the scenes support by the
US at the UN allowed Suharto to solidify his control
on West Papua. This led to four decades of genocidal
policies which have killed huge numbers of the Papuin population.
Six years later, Suharto had another fun idea. East Timore

(01:05:44):
was nearby and near the end of a twenty seven
year long process of being decolonized by Portugal. Having just
been ruled pretty brutally in the name of capital, you
will be surprised to hear that the East Timorese people
were somewhat sympathetic towards socialism. The leftist Friedland freight fright
Fredlin Party began to gain ground as freedom grew near.

(01:06:04):
In nineteen seventy five, it had a brief civil war
with the much smaller right wing wing Pro Indonesian Party.
This freaked out Portugal, who pulled their last people out
of the country during the fighting. Seeing the territory abandoned,
General Suharto felt he had an opportunity. He and others
in the Indonesian military began to complain to the Americans
that East Timore might be used as a base for

(01:06:26):
dastardly communists to inspire secessionist movements in Indonesia over in here,
it's just like, you know, East Timore seems like it's
gonna be really bad. We're gotta tell them, we gotta
get rid of them. And don't like the side of
this over in East Timore, Freightlin the Socialist Departy recognized
the fact that they were in danger. They had their

(01:06:47):
oh we're in danger moment, and they declared their independence
on November nineteen seventy five so they could ask for
help from the United Nations. Everyone ignored them. Japan, a
major investor in Indonesia, twiddled her thumbs. Australia looked away.
This left the United States is the only power that
could potentially stop Indonesia from invading. More do we do it? Yeah,

(01:07:08):
we did it. Everything's good now they're doing great. They're
flying cars. How many times do we have to be
the heroes? Yeah? Another job well done for the United States.
On December six, five, on the eve of the planned invasion,
Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger flew to Jakarta to meet

(01:07:30):
with Suharto. The very next day, Indonesian land, air, and
naval forces invaded. The timing is predominant, predominant enough that
people have debated ever since, whether or not Kissinger and
Ford gave Suharto the green light here too, from a
right up in the nation. Kissinger, who does not find
room to mention East two more, even in the index
of his three volume memoir, has more than once stated

(01:07:51):
that the invasion came to him as a surprise and
that he barely knew of the existence of the Timorese question.
He was obviously lying, but the breathtaking extent of his
mendasca that he has only just become fully apparent with
the declassification of a secret State Department telegram. The document,
which has been made public by the National Security Archive
at George Washington University, contains a verbatim record of the
conversation among sue Hardo, Ford and Kissinger. We want your

(01:08:14):
understanding if we deem it necessary to take rapid or
drastic action, Suharto open bluntly, We will understand and will
not press you on the issue. Ford responded, we understand
the problem you have in the intentions you have. Kissinger
was even more emphatic, but had an awareness of the
possible spin problems back home. It is important that whatever
you do succeeds quickly. He instructed the despot, we would

(01:08:35):
be able to influence the reaction if whatever happens happens
after we return. If you have made plans, we will
do our best to keep everyone quiet until the president
returns home, micromanaging things for sue Harto. He added, the
president will be back on Monday at two p m.
Jacarta time. We understand your problem and the need to
move quickly, but I am only saying it would be
better if it we're done after we returned. Worst case scenario,

(01:08:57):
I'll just say I never said this, and nobody that
I mean to be scheduling it like a like a
golf day. Can you cracked out on the independence and
freedom of these people and engage in a genocidal war
like once we're back, just one five or like four
on Monday with the great Tursday Thursday, would really like

(01:09:20):
that's a lot of time. Yeah, I thought it was
a workout right. Yeah, there's a lot of US factory
and fucking Indonesia. I'm sorry, I'm not going to hear this, gentleman.
That's enough of that talk. Please, the greatest country on Earth,
you do have that giant Indonesia in the United States
shaking hands over a burning East him or tattoo over

(01:09:41):
your heart. Well, I would hate for that that speculation,
and uh, please cut that out, so if you can,
we make a note that that should not be included
in the episode. It seems a little incriminating. So Suharto's
troops when they invaded East two more, which they did,
were equipped with the finest u S made weaponry. Under
the four and Assistance Act, such material could only be

(01:10:01):
provided to nations who would use it exclusively for self defense.
When this was brought up to sue Haarto, and when
this was brought up to Kissinger and he was asked
whether or not selling arms to sue Harto had violated
the Act, Kissinger responded, it depends on how we construe it,
whether it is in self defense or it is a
foreign operation. Back in d C on December eighteenth and
a meeting his minutes are now to classified, Kissinger admitted

(01:10:23):
that he knew that he that he and you know
the United States were violating the statute from the nation.
And even more sinister note was struck later in the
conversation when Kissinger asked sue Harto if he expected along
guerrilla war, the dictator replied that there will probably be
a small guerrilla war, while making no promise about its duration.
Bear in mind that Kissinger has already urged speech and

(01:10:44):
dispatch urged speed and dispatch upon Suharto Adam Malick, Indonesia's
Prime minister at the time, later conceded in public that
between fifty thousand and eighty thousand temporary civilians were killed
in the first eighteen months of the occupation. These civilians
were killed with American weapons, which Kissinger can tried to
supply over congressional protests, and their murders were covered up
by American diplomacy. So I mean again again, it really

(01:11:10):
it really is like it's it's like a like a
serial killer who just gets very comfortable with killing, gets
kind of cocky about it, starts leaving clues. But in
this case, there's no cops chasing anyone. There's no he
was really trying to solve the case. It's like if
the UNI bomber left his name on every package. Yeah,

(01:11:30):
and then he was like a return address, yeah. Ted
Kazinski Shack nine. Roughly three hundred thousand East Timor's civilians,
roughly half the population, were forced out of their homes
and into camps during the fighting. By nineteen eighty the
death toll was at least a hundred thousand, and possibly
as high as two d. Thomas Meany, writing in The

(01:11:54):
New Yorker, has tried to make sense of this. All
kissingers sign off on the Indonesian president to Harte's genocidal
campaign and East two more was meant to signal that
America would unquestionably reward those who had decimated communists within
their reach. In retrospect, the notion that everything America did
would be duly registered and responded to by its opponents
and friends seems like an expression of geopolitical narcissism. At

(01:12:17):
the time, the thirty three year old Senator Joe Biden
accused Kissinger at a Senate hearing of trying to promuligate
a global Monroe doctrine. The Kissinger is that guy to
where repeatedly terrible people will be like, well, you're in
the right here, but only because you're talking about Henry Kissinger.
Yeah right, I mean yeah, He's like yeah. It's like,

(01:12:38):
in the next episode, we're gonna have a moment where
the CIA is a voice of reason to give you
an idea of where and how many people have to
be the voice of reason. I mean, it just is
like he's like cocky. I mean, it's just just no
ships given at this point to have no I mean
it's not like he's had a soul throughout all of this.

(01:12:59):
But you think that once you have a soul for
such a long period of time, you would start to
notice the absence of a soul and at least start
to act like you had a soul. Well, good news, Gareth,
nothing like that ever happens. Fucking great. Yeah, we're we're
gonna have fun and episode six, um, but you know,

(01:13:19):
now it's time to just chill out, you know, have
a drink of just a nice sip of the blood
of I don't know, East Timorese dissonance. Um, and uh
go watch the Paraos documentary Henry Kissing You get cooked.
But I mean, yeah, you only only like I forget

(01:13:41):
who said it, but that's true. That's our hero. She's
our hero Zanko who was like, hey, yeah you can,
we can do this with your blood at Walgreens because
she got Henry kissing her involved. And I mean, just
he's he's not It's not like he's not a genius
there's just not a lot of genius it takes to

(01:14:01):
just be awful and indiscriminate. Yeah, he's just like the
best of all time. And here's the thing. Episode six,
we're gonna talk about his political downfall because he does
get his come uppance, but it's from people who suck,
maybe even worse at least as bad as he does,

(01:14:21):
and so there's no satisfaction in it, like and he's
also it's also it's like Hitler had gotten assassinated by
Hitler too, who had been like expanded. And it's also
by people who are like they're there because of him,
like they like he had to walk so they could run. Yes, exactly, Yes,
there's someone needs to paint a picture of like Henry

(01:14:42):
Kissinger kind of on the bow of the Titanic holding
up Dick Cheney with his arms. All that fails. Nice,
that feels real, Nice, Henry, So you love your form,
Let me paint you kissing your walked so that Donald
Rubbs felt could stagger ya. But that's gonna be part six. Still,

(01:15:06):
then Dave, what Gareth you got plug? I want to
drink like Nixon? We uh again, look at what capitalism gets. Yeah,
we we will be invading the stories of Australia searching
for their w m d s, which we believe our north, South,
East and West. Um. You can go to Dollar podcast

(01:15:28):
dot com and uh, I'll be also doing stand up
over there, and you can go to Gareth Reynolds dot
com for those stand up dates. And we're also touring
America this summer. Sorry, we're touring the best country on
Earth this summer, and you can go to Dollar podcast
dot com for all that information. Now I should note
here y'all that that you guys have an ongoing, uh

(01:15:49):
an ongoing argument over over whether or not Gare is
an appropriate nickname for you. Gareth and I felt like
maybe we could bring in a negotiator to help us,
to help us deal with this question. So I'd like
to introduce to the Paul Dr Henry Kissing. Oh my god,
I'm sorry I said all those horrible things. I think

(01:16:12):
good idea. Look like a little bit. He's got his
nice shorts on, he's got those nut huggers. You can
see the outline, you can see the whole bread basket.
Looks like a baby bird in the nest now, but
it comes a python when the water starts once the

(01:16:34):
bumbs hit the soil. I ripped these babies. I really
hope people stopped listening so desperately stopped. I stopped listening,
and I'm talking alright, everybody, alright, let's see you on Thursday. Hi, everybody.
Robert Evans here and my novel After the Revolution is

(01:16:56):
available for pre order now from a k press dot org. Now,
if you go to a k press dot org you
can find After the Revolution. Just google a k press
dot org after the Revolution you'll find a list of
participating indie bookstores selling my book. And if you pre
order now from either these independent bookstores or from a
k Press, you'll get a custom signed copy of the book,

(01:17:16):
which I think is pretty cool. You can also pre
order it in physical or in kindle a form from
Amazon or pretty much wherever books are sold. So please
google a k press after the Revolution um or find
an indie bookstore in your area and pre order it.
You'll get assigned a copy and you'll make me very happy.