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Relevant context and citation: “ Ehrlichman died in 1999, but his five children in questioned the veracity of the account. "We never saw or heard anything from
by ghufran_syed 6y ago
Relevant context and citation:
“ 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.
"The 1994 alleged 'quote' we saw repeated in social media for the first time today does not square with what we know of our father. And collectively, that spans over 185 years of time with him," the Ehrlichman family wrote. "We do not subscribe to the alleged racist point of view that this writer now implies 22 years following the so-called interview of John and 16 years following our father's death, when dad can no longer respond. None of us have raised our kids that way, and that's because we were not raised that way."
Ehrlichman's comments did not surface until now after Baum remembered them while going back through old notes for the Harper's story. Baum said he had no reason to believe Ehrlichman was being dishonest and viewed them as "atonement" from a man long after his tumultuous run in the White House ended.
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.“
So the author heard the quote in 1996 but didn’t “remember” them until around 20 years later - you can decide for yourself whether that seems credible, and whether any writer wouldn’t use such a quote at the time for “stylistic” reasons.
https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-rich...
- mnm1 6y agoThe quote may never have been uttered but the sentiment and intention was certainly there in the legislation and its enforcement.
- messick 6y agoJesus, never thought I’d live long enough to see Ehrlichman reputation astroturfers.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- 29athrowaway 6y agoOK, then. It surely did not happen because the US at the time was a happy place where institutions were not corrupt at all and the Nixon administration never did anything shady. It also could not have possibly happened because the direct family of the person being accused said this never happened. So it must be true. Also, the earth is flat, global warming doesn't exist, vaccines cause autism and 5G causes Coronavirus. </sarcasm>
- ahelwer 6y agoNobody wants their father to be publicly known as a racist, and it's a pretty common WASP family dynamic to never talk about politics anyway.
- jessaustin 6y agoMore amazing than the fact that the Erlichmans thought this non-denial denial meant anything at all, is that any other human ever agreed with them. Were they in White House strategy meetings as part of some foredoomed bring-all-five-of-your-sniveling-runts-to-the-office event? Did they think it was racist for their father to have admitted Nixon's racism? "There was no racism in government in the 1960s!" Yeah, sure, pull the other one.