Perfectly Unclear -- On LGBTQ, what did the President 'understand' and when did he understand it?

Someone who in 1971 referred to Archie Bunker as “a stupid old fellow” may not sound like a Nixon person, but it was in fact Richard Nixon himself who called his greatest fictional ally those words.

A White House tape reveals that as well as much that is more vintage reactionary Nixon, but also a mystery -- call it the “other” gap in the White House Tapes.

On this recording, Nixon tells H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman of a recent evening when, after watching a televised baseball game, he stumbled upon what he thought was a movie.

Nixon describes how in this broadcast he saw a “stupid old fellow” named Archie, two intelligent young men and a “nice girl” sitting in a living room. The characters are talking in a manner the 37^th President believed was “glorifying homosexuality.”

Haldeman explains to his boss that this was a weekly show, not a movie, though he never gets the name “All In The Family” out before Nixon cuts him off and launches into a detailed description of the plot.

In this episode, called “Judging Books by Covers,” an ascot wearing intellectual friend of Mike’s named Roger is presumed to be gay, or as the leader of the free world puts it in that tape, “queer.” At the episode’s conclusion, however, a virile, bulked up former pro football player, who is an acquaintance of Archie’s and a regular at the bar down the street, comes out to a disbelieving Archie as gay.

Nixon is appalled by this TV show and his strong reaction to it is part of a long Nixon-esque rant in this tape against gays (whom he calls “fags”) and the emerging movement for LGBTQ equality. The president asserts gay rights will weaken the United States, absurdly claiming that France and Britain fell from world superpower status because homosexuals became more visible in those nations.

Though he acknowledges gays likely include Aristotle, Socrates, and the wedding planner setting up Tricia’s upcoming nuptials, a hateful Nixon mixes up homosexual with pedophile during his tirade, and lumps the new visibility of gay Americans in with drug abuse as measures of moral decline.

Though statements like those coming from Richard Nixon would seem unsurprising, one thing about the president’s diatribe on this tape gives pause.

Though history remembers there was an 18-minute gap in a crucial 1972 tape three days after the Watergate break in, let us talk about an obscure 14-second gap in this tape. It includes a beep tone lasting that long, and its precise timing hints at the Chief Executive covering something up. Yeah, Nixon and cover ups go back a long way, though I concede the evidence is far from perfectly clear.

And since there’s no pardon in the works for me if I get in trouble over this, I’ll say that this is just unfounded crazy speculation.

But there has to be some reason why the White House tape has 14 seconds missing. Here’s how the tape goes:

NIXON: “But the point is, I do not mind the homosexuality. I understand it.... (14 second beep tone)... But nevertheless, the point that I make is that, God damn it, I do not think you glorify, on public television, homosexuality.”

One can’t imagine the beep's purpose being to cover up excessive anti-gay statements, because of the level of vitriol in what we have already heard. Was the language just too foul? C’mon, these are the Nixon tapes.

So that would leave the possibility that what’s blocked just after Nixon says he understands the homosexuality is an elaboration on just how he understands it.

                   ABOVE, listen to the TV Critic and Homophobe-in-chief

 

Could Nixon have said:

“I do not mind the homosexuality. I understand it. I mean from San Clemente to Key Biscayne, nobody decorates better than I do!”

Or…. “I do not mind the homosexuality. I understand it. Why do you think I was sweating so much in the ‘60 debate? Standing that close to Kennedy -- hubba hubba!”

Or… “I do not mind the homosexuality. I understand it. The day someone fixed me up with a blind date named ‘Pat,’ I spent the week looking forward to some cute Irish guy!”

Or not. But this is a man who built his political career on a string of illogical insinuations that his opponents were communist-leaning, so Tricky Dickey may have earned a little innuendo.

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Brian Arbenz lives in Louisville, Ky. USA, where he never missed All in the Family while growing up.  He turned out just fine, despite Richard Nixon's warning that the kids of America could be harmed by this episode:

CLICK to go to "Judging Books By Covers" from 1971, via Daily Motion