Nixon Tapes Reveal Plan to "Cover" Kennedy

(AP)  On April 9, 1971, U.S. President Richard Nixon conferred with aides on how to get Ted Kennedy followed, or "covered," in hope of catching the senator doing something scandalous.

Nixon, chief of staff H.R. Haldeman and press secretary Ron Ziegler seemed to think it would only be a matter of time because, as they saw it, Kennedys have affairs.

The taped conversation reflects on Kennedy's trouble at Chappaquiddick, when the young woman in his car drowned after they went off a bridge into the water. And it drifts into his wife Joan's eye-popping outfit at a White House luncheon.

Complete coverage of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's life and death

The exchange:

Nixon: "There oughta be a way to get him covered. ... The reason I would cover him is from a personal standpoint - you're likely to find something on that."

Haldeman: "He's covered on that."

Nixon: "You're sure?"

Haldeman: "Pretty much."

Nixon: "You watch. I predict something more is going to happen."

Haldeman: "They're keeping an eye on the family. I meant in -"

Nixon: "I mean, it's a matter of judgment. I mean, he's just gotta -"

Haldeman: "Did you see his wife came here at the White House again - crazy outfit...."

Nixon: "What did she wear?"

Haldeman: "Some leather gaucho, with a bare midriff or something."

Ziegler: "Well, no, they put on a body stocking which is flesh tone."

Haldeman: "Oh, is that it?"

Ziegler: "And then they wrap the leather gaucho type thing around it. So you look at it from a distance, and you think my God, there she is."

Haldeman: "She was going to wear hot pants but Teddy told her she couldn't."

Ziegler: "They're weird people, they really are. I mean, even the -"

Nixon: "It's crude. What the hell's the matter with them? What's she trying to prove?"

Haldeman: "Whatever it is, she ain't gaining many votes, because they've got - the super-swinger, jet-set types are going to be for them and not for you no matter what happens."

Ziegler: "The super-swingin' jet-set types don't even relate to that type thing. It's a very, very small group."

Haldeman: "Middle American folk, that's desecration of the White House to most Americans ..."

Ziegler: "She has to have some sort of hang-up herself personally. She knows what Teddy was doing out there with that girl, running her into the water, you know, and what he's been doing."

Haldeman: "But that family's used to that."

Nixon: "They do it all the time."

Read more stories on Sen. Kennedy's life and death at CBSNews.com:

CBS News Special: Ted Kennedy - The Last Brother
Kennedy To Be Missed in Health Care Fight
Kennedy Did His Life's Work Until the End
Kennedy's Bad Boy Days
Who Is Heir to Kennedy's Liberal Legacy?

[jab712]

All Nixon had to do to find out about Teddy is to do like
Everyone else, read the ny times, the wash. post or any
Supermaket tabloid. Poor JOAN she gave Teddy all those kids
Pluse a few misscarages& he truned her into a drunk.

[ObamaYoMama]

So, here we go again. The Grand Old Party shows us again what a diabolical bunch they are and have been for a long time. I was a young man during Nixon?s reign and didn?t understand the implications of the acts he perpetrated on the American people. For a long time I blamed the Democrats for what happened and thought that Nixon was a good president that got caught doing something that many before him might have gotten away with. My take on this was that if the Democrats cared about the country they represented they could have waited until Nixon was out of office to pursue criminal charges against him. Maybe this is true but the more I see from the now available Nixon tapes, the more I understand that this was a person that should never have been allowed to run this country. Why do you think it is that the most diabolical leaders of our country in the past half century have all been part of the same party?
I also grew up thinking that Ted Kennedy was a wacky left wing liberal. I blame this on my Alabama roots, where racism was taught in school (sort of like Hitler teaching young Germans to hate Jews), and my own lack of initiative to take interest in the world around me. Maybe I?m doing this all backwards, after all you are supposed to become more conservative as you age, but I have grown to respect and love this man. This was a man who always, always, fought for the rights of the disenfranchised in this country and around the world. Sure he was flawed, not perfect, but his heart was pure and his energy was unmatched.
Edward Kennedy was born to privilege; there was no reason for him to go into politics, hell he didn?t have to do anything. Ted had a need to help others, to be the champion of the underprivileged and the underrepresented.

[AK-47_Justice]

by antoniof123
That was the problem I had with Ford too he pardoned Nixon before we the people had a chance to investigate then of course it was done again.

BUSH, that is why WE THE PEOPLE NEED TO INVESTIGATE NO MATTER WHAT ANYONE SAYS.
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Yep.....the hypocrisy party of NO continues their march to trample Our Constitution, as trickie dickie was pardoned, "ronnie the rat" raygun and his Iran/Contra henchmen escaped justice for all their numerous treasonous crimes, and now the bush monkey and his puppet master dirty dickie, appear to be skirting justice from all their traitorous and treasonous crimes against WE THE PEOPLE!

Just once in my lifetime, I'd love to see the guilty republican'ts pay for their crimes against our great nation!

[mumma11]

Isn't it nice that these tapes allows the voyeur, CBS, after all these years, to now roll out this story on the voyeur, Nixon watching the Kennedy's. That's a piece of history that deserves the front page? Gimme a break! Who cares what one dead man did over 30 years ago to another dead man who wasn't even unharmed by it?

[antoniof123]

That was the problem I had with Ford too he pardoned Nixon before we the people had a chance to investigate then of course it was done again.

BUSH, that is why WE THE PEOPLE NEED TO INVESTIGATE NO MATTER WHAT ANYONE SAYS.

[AK-47_Justice]

by antoniof123
"You know the more I read what Nixon was like the more I realize he was a friging idiot. What a joke another of the worst Presidents in history comes from the fiscal family value party of god."
***********************************************



Yep.....the miNOrity party of 'NO,' the hypocritical republican'ts, continue to show us exactly how highly-partisan they have always been, spending taxpayer's MONEY in the hopes of "catching" someone from the other party in order to gain more WEALTH and POWER!

These despicable traits and actions that finally emerge years later, will obviously be the legacy of the bush/cheney fascist regime as well, knowing how they illegally tried to skirt all of our laws through an endless UNconstitutional power grab.

The republican'ts are always party first -- country last!

[tigerrram9]

AK-47_Justice You are exactly right. My father told me many years ago the republican party if for the wealthy and democratic party for people like us the hard working class. Your are right the Reps are for party first....

[blitzder]

Another Richard Nixon, who made the Executive all powerful for himself was another Richard, Richard Cheney. He used all those extraordinary powers with secret meetings, no bid contracts, wiretaps, renditions, torture etc. and to enrich himself and his corrupt cronies. The real story has yet to be told.

[babooph]

I guess Nixon could not count on all the secret svc-one of them spoke of his wife beating,& drug & alcohol abuse.A very strange man & a presidency with great accomplishments & great failures-Quaker background warlord,addict who hated addicts-odd in many ways.

[antoniof123]

You know the more I read what Nixon was like the more I realize he was a friging idiot. What a joke another of the worst Presidents in history comes from the fiscal family value party of god.

[brianbwb-2009]

Yeah he was totally bass tardly, complaining about someone disgracing the same WH from which he ordered the cover up of criminal activity by his "plumbers", but I will begrudge him this credit, he did have a few good ideas, first to pull out of the pointless debacle called Vietnam, then to begin a new dialog with China, and this one, but he didn't go far enough on it.

He wanted only his opposition "covered", had it been me, I would have "covered" every single politician in the house and senate, something we should be doing now.

Maybe if we set op a grassroots "rat patrol" if you live near, or see a politician in public, in a restaurant with some woman, or man who is not their spouse, take cellphone pics and post it to the net, with detailed notes, time, date, place, whether they were looking pure business, or otherwise, and if possible, what was being discussed.

I bet we catch each and every last one of those suckers up to no good with our money.

They are after all, public servants, and hold public office, they are paid by us, so we should reserve, and exercise the right to monitor the comings and goings of our employees, as long as they are on our dime.

[antoniof123]

brainbwb-2009 I wil tell you this yes he did do good but that will never ever never ever make up for the crimes he commited. There is no excuse PERIOD he failed and goes into the bowels of infamy.

Like my father said you can't make a right from 2 wrongs and how that rings true even today.

Nixon was one of the worst and it was his own fault no one else to blame his whole administration was a failure.

[TheVarsityClub]

J.Edgar Hoover must have loved Richard M. Nixion.

[User_00000000002945496845]

Nothing has changed in the Limbaughrican party since Tricky_Dick.

[the_majesty]

The Nixon tape sounded, right on.