Thank You, Dr. Kissinger

Chris Matthews on MSNBC interviewed the transcendently self-important war criminal as part of the ongoing 'Watergate Walk-Down-Memory-Lane' festival.

MATTHEWS: ...If you think about Nixon and break-ins, I know I have a tape - I listened to it myself over at the archives - of Nixon saying, go break into Brookings after the Pentagon Papers were published.

There was another tape I listened to where he said, let's go break into the Republican headquarters and make it look like the Democrats did it. What is with Nixon and break-ins?

KISSINGER: You have to understand that Nixon had a habit of making grandiloquent statements. This was his way of letting off steam to prove that he was macho.

And the people who really knew him would not act on these comments. When I learned about Watergate, I asked Bryce Harlow, who was a wise old man around Washington, I said , what do you think happened here, Bryce? And he said, some damn fool went into the Oval Office and did what he was told, because Nixon didn't mean these things to be carried out. And he didn't really order them. He would say these things rhetorically. Let's break into Brookings. And he...

Wait. I know what you're thinking. Let's bomb Cambodia. Let's have an Enemies List. Let's have the CIA interfere with the FBI investigation. All rhetorical. Just wait.

MATTHEWS: Well, let me read to you a quote, because maybe you were in the room. Maybe you don't remember it. I don't know.

But here's a quote from June of '71, a year before the Watergate break-in. "The way I want that handled, Bob" -that's Bob Haldeman -"is through another way. I want Brooking. Just break in. Break in and take it out. You understand?"

"But what do we have to do - how do we do that?"

Nixon says: "Don't discuss it here."

In other words, Nixon is afraid he's being taped, I guess.

"You're to break into the place, rifle the files, and bring me."

And then he says: "Just go in and take it. Go in around 8:00 or 9:00 at night and clean it up."

He's even timing the break-in and you're saying it is rhetorical?

Can you guess what he said? Wait for it....

KISSINGER: Yes.

I was - well, I wasn't in the room when he said this. And I don't recall having been in the room when he said it. But I would have assumed, if I had been in the room - and I have no such recollection - that I would have thought, he's letting off steam and nothing is going to happen.

Hmm, Henry seems to notice something is up. Matthews follows up:

MATTHEWS: Well, God, he's precise, Dr. Kissinger, in letting off steam. I've never heard a guy that timed break-ins and then everybody around just knows he is not to be believed. He is president of the United States.

Yeah, it's one thing to burst out "I could kill that guy" and quite another to come out with "I could kill that guy. Wait, here's how I want you to do it. No, we shouldn't talk about it here. Never mind. Go over there between 8 and 9 and just do it. I want it." Shouldn't we assume that when the President of the United States says he wants something done, and is giving details on procedure, he means it?

Henry starts heading for the escape hatch.

KISSINGER: No, he is president of the United States. And he was - he was - in the field that I know, because, fortunately, for my knowledge of these things, he separated domestic and international affairs totally. In the field that I know best, in international affairs, he was very rational.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

Rational. In international affairs. How rational was he?

KISSINGER: He was very careful. He would sit there with a yellow pad writing down the pros and cons of things. Every once in a while, he would go into an eruption and say, let's bomb this or that. And then the wise thing to do was to go back to him the next morning and say, and go over this - the process again.

So he really could have said 'Let's bomb Cambodia'? That was supposed to be a joke.

So, like, what? The next day he'd go in and say "Remember yesterday when you told us to bomb that? You didn't mean for us to actually bomb that, did you?" And they'd have a good laugh, ha-ha-ha?

Was Henry just at home one day when Cambodia came up?

He had this streak of sort of grandiloquent statements relatively rarely. And, most of the time, in fact, 99.8 percent of the time, he was a very careful and thoughtful person. But he had this unfortunate tendency of flying off the handle with grandiloquent statements.

Unfortunate, yes. Well, there you have it. Watergate: it was all just a misunderstanding. Right. Thank you, Dr. Kissinger, thank you for your time.