Trump and Bolton Take a Page From Richard Nixon and the Mad Man Theory

The madman theory of policy is a debatable subject, but the thought of having actual madmen in positions of power is frightening.

Melvin Goodman
By Melvin Goodman
President Nixon meets Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the Oval Office of the White House on Oct. 9, 1973. Days before the 1972 election, Kissinger declared that peace was "at hand" in Vietnam. (AP/Harvey George)

Early in Richard Nixon’s presidency, he told his chief of staff, Bob Haldeman, that his secret strategy for ending the Vietnam War was to threaten the use of nuclear weapons.  Nixon opined that President Eisenhower’s nuclear threats in 1953 brought a quick end to the Korean War, and that he planned to use the same principle of threatening maximum

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Daniel Ellsberg: Nixon Sent CIA Operatives To ‘Incapacitate’ Whistleblower

While the Watergate Hotel break-in is what ultimately brought down the Nixon administration, Ellsberg says a burglary at his psychoanalyst’s office ordered by the president helped hasten its demise.

MintPress News Desk
By MintPress News Desk
President Nixon confers with then National Security adviser, and current war criminal Henry Kissinger, Nov. 25, 1972. (AP Photo)

MINNEAPOLIS --- MintPress News is proud to host “Lied to Death,” a 13-part audio conversation between famed whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and social justice activist Arn Menconi. Menconi wrote that these interviews are a “mixture of historical, political science and Dan’s sixty-year scholarly analysis as a former nuclear planner for Rand

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Daniel Ellsberg: Nixon Almost Took Vietnam War Nuclear In November 1969

‘There was pressure to make the war larger’ and ‘nuclear targets were picked’ by the Nixon administration, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower revealed.

MintPress News Desk
By MintPress News Desk
Daniel Ellsberg is given an armband by a protester in Lafayette Park, Washington in front of the White House, while attending an anti-nuclear protest, June 28, 1978. (AP Photo/Jeff Taylor)

MINNEAPOLIS --- MintPress News is proud to host “Lied to Death,” a 13-part audio conversation between famed whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and social justice activist Arn Menconi. Menconi wrote that these interviews are a “mixture of historical, political science and Dan’s sixty-year scholarly analysis as a former nuclear planner for Rand

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Does New Look At Documents Reveal Nixon’s Hand In My Lai Cover-Up?

On the 46th anniversary of the massacre, historians say that internal documents reveal presidential interference with war-crime prosecution.

Lauren McCauley
By Lauren McCauley
A brutal scene following the March 16 massacre in My Lai, South Vietnam. (Photo: Ronald L. Haeberle/ US Army/ Wikimedia Commons)

President Richard Nixon may have been personally behind an attempt to cover up the brutal killing of over 500 Vietnamese civilians by American soldiers in the South Vietnam village of My Lai in 1968, according to historians who spoke with CBS journalist Evie Salomon. Handwritten notes by Nixon's chief of staff H.R. "Bob" Haldeman taken during a

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House Proposal Offers Way To Strengthen Public Campaign Financing

With more than a billion dollars spent by each of the major candidates for president in 2012, it must be asked if donors of such large amounts see their contributions as an investment rather than a donation.

Frederick Reese
By Frederick Reese

In the 2012 general elections, $57,898,751.39 in “dark money” -- money from groups that do not disclose their donors or are forced to disclose their race spending until 60 days of an election -- went to fund a dozen high-profile House races, as calculated through Nov. 1, 2012. This is a small part of the more than $213 million in “dark money” that

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40 Years After US-Backed Coup, Chileans Search For Justice

Chileans are still dealing with the aftermath of a CIA-backed coup launched decades ago.

Frederick Reese
By Frederick Reese

Not everyone knows the name Victor Jara; but for students of rock ‘n’ roll history, Jara’s story -- which has been profiled in Rolling Stone’s “15 Rock & Roll Rebels” -- illustrates the humanity and conscious weight of music. A theater teacher and director, Jara picked up the social and moral convulsions of the Sixties, as the Free Love

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