Nixon: Interracial 'Mating' A Reason For Abortions
Entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. gives President Richard Nixon a squeeze at the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, Fla., Aug. 22, 1972. AP Photo/Jim Palmer hide caption
Sammy Davis Jr.'s famous and rapturous 1972 hug of President Richard Nixon apparently didn't do much to change the 37th president's mind on a few issues.
For in the next year, as NPR's Nina Totenberg reports, there was Nixon in the White House talking smack about the progeny of interracial "mating."
It came during a discussion of the then just decided Roe v. Wade case. As Nina explained on All Things Considered today, new Nixon tapes released today reveal that Nixon thought abortion could be a good thing in certain cases.
A Nina excerpt:
The comments are startling, and as in many of the previously released tape recordings, they reveal more about the president than the issue.
Mr. Nixon is meeting with a variety of aides, including Henry Kissinger and Charles Colson, and the cross talk often makes the conversation difficult to decipher. But a listener can discern some comments from the president, disapproving of the decision because he thinks it will lead to promiscuity and family ruptures.
At one point, the president indicates he thinks that abortion is justified in cases of interracial mating, or rape.
"I know there are times when abortions are necessary," he tells an aide. "I know that. When you have a black and a white, or a rape. I just say that, matter of factly," he adds. "You know what I mean. There are times."
Again, Sammy Davis, who was married to a white woman, apparently had no effect on the president with that squeeze. (FJ notes: NPR producer Sonari Glinton pointed out to me the morning after this was originally posted that Davis and May Britt, who was white, were divorced by the time of the Nixon hug. Davis was remarried to Altovise Davis, who was black. I'm still trying to decide if that information ruins the point I was archly trying to make.)
Nina also reports this:
"Abortions encourage permissiveness," he says. "A girl gets knocked up. She doesn't have to worry about the pill anymore, she goes down to the doctor, wants to get an abortion for five dollars, or whatever."
Abortions for $5? That seems unbelievably cheap, even in 1973. Also, wasn't it the pill that helped spawn the sexual revolution, not abortions. Sexual freedom began significantly before 1973.
The tapes confirm what we've known for decades; Nixon was a piece of work, a man with truly remarkable foreign-policy chops and some moderate views on domestic issues but with warped views on race and religion and a shortage of integrity.