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Well, that's not too far off from what probably happened. According to former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman: "You understand what I'm saying? We

Well, that's not too far off from what probably happened. According to former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman: "You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities," Ehrlichman said. "We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did." Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-...

pathseeker 7y ago
According to Harper's magazine, which conveniently published that after his death. From the same article: >Ehrlichman died in 1999, but his five children in questioned the veracity of the account. >"We never saw or heard anything from our dad, John Ehrlichman, that was derogatory about any person of color," wrote Peter Ehrlichman, Tom Ehrlichman, Jan Ehrlichman, Michael Ehrlichman and Jody E. Pineda in a statement provided to CNN. >Ehrlichman's comments did not surface until now after Baum remembered them while going back through old notes for the Harper's story. >Baum interviewed Ehrlichman and others for his 1996 book "Smoke and Mirrors," but said he left out the Ehrlichman comment from the book because it did not fit the narrative style focused on putting the readers in the middle of the backroom discussions themselves, without input from the author. How convenient. He was sitting on a massive admission because it "didn't fit the style".
- jessaustin 7y ago
  It seems more "massive" to our modern eyes. Back then it wouldn't have been remarkable, because the Drug War marketing was widely believed. (Baum's book itself was at the vanguard of changing public opinion.) Also, bland impersonal racism was largely tolerated in the mid-90s. Besides, that statement from some of his children seems surprisingly specific. Nothing about Nixon's policies or Ehrlichman's role in them required Ehrlichman to be derogatory to anyone. Not that it would have been a surprise: he was born in 1925! Lots of white Americans born in that year were all too happy both to discriminate in their private lives and to enact discriminatory policies in public. Ehrlichman's kids must not have been such great fans of his anyway. At the time of the interview, he lived in Atlanta and they were all in the Pacific timezone. Reading the Harper's article, I have more sympathy for him than for them. Let the old man say his piece.

pathseeker 7y ago

According to Harper's magazine, which conveniently published that after his death. From the same article: >Ehrlichman died in 1999, but his five children in questioned the veracity of the account. >"We never saw or heard anything from our dad, John Ehrlichman, that was derogatory about any person of color," wrote Peter Ehrlichman, Tom Ehrlichman, Jan Ehrlichman, Michael Ehrlichman and Jody E. Pineda in a statement provided to CNN. >Ehrlichman's comments did not surface until now after Baum remembered them while going back through old notes for the Harper's story. >Baum interviewed Ehrlichman and others for his 1996 book "Smoke and Mirrors," but said he left out the Ehrlichman comment from the book because it did not fit the narrative style focused on putting the readers in the middle of the backroom discussions themselves, without input from the author. How convenient. He was sitting on a massive admission because it "didn't fit the style".

jessaustin 7y ago
It seems more "massive" to our modern eyes. Back then it wouldn't have been remarkable, because the Drug War marketing was widely believed. (Baum's book itself was at the vanguard of changing public opinion.) Also, bland impersonal racism was largely tolerated in the mid-90s. Besides, that statement from some of his children seems surprisingly specific. Nothing about Nixon's policies or Ehrlichman's role in them required Ehrlichman to be derogatory to anyone. Not that it would have been a surprise: he was born in 1925! Lots of white Americans born in that year were all too happy both to discriminate in their private lives and to enact discriminatory policies in public. Ehrlichman's kids must not have been such great fans of his anyway. At the time of the interview, he lived in Atlanta and they were all in the Pacific timezone. Reading the Harper's article, I have more sympathy for him than for them. Let the old man say his piece.