完形填空：特朗普、里根、尼克松都是（ ______ ）？_風聞

《大西洋月刊》月31日刊登蒂姆·納夫塔利文章《里根與尼克松長期不為人知的種族主義對話》

文：Tim Naftali

譯：劉倩藜

1971年10月25日，聯合國大會投票承認中華人民共和國政府的代表為中國在聯合國組織的唯一合法代表。第二天，美國總統理查德•尼克松（譯註：美國第37任總統）就在白宮接到了加州州長羅納德•里根（譯註：美國第40任總統）的電話, 後者在通話裏發泄他對站在美國對立面的非洲代表們的不滿。里根説：“昨晚，我不是叫你在電視上看那件事嘛……”尼克松應了一句：“看了。”里根接着抱怨：“看看那些從非洲國家來的猴子們，真該死，他們還沒有習慣穿鞋子！”聽完，尼克松哈哈大笑。

就在上個月，美國總統發表的種族主義言論又成了新聞頭條。尼克松和里根之間的那場對話提醒我們，歷史上其他美國總統也持有種族主義觀念，認為非洲人或非裔美國人在某種意義上就是低人一等。特朗普的“創新”之處不在於他説了那些話，而在於他公然讓這種言論登上了枱面。

尼克松把他和里根的通話錄了下來，這些錄音後來由尼克松總統圖書館負責收藏。我本人曾於2007-2011年擔任該圖書館館長。2000年，當美國國家檔案館首次公開當日通話錄音時，出於保護里根隱私的考慮，其中種族主義的部分被抹掉了。法院指令要求按照時間順序複查這些錄音，該項工作2013年便完成了。但直到2017、2018年左右，國家檔案館才對尼克松早年的錄音開始全面複查。里根已於2004年過世，不再存在隱私問題。去年，我以研究人員的身份，要求再次複查尼克松與里根的對話。就在兩週之前，國家檔案館網站公佈了1971年10月尼克松與里根對話的完整版。

1971年，當聯合國投票決定由北京代表團而非台灣代表團代表中國時，聯合國大會現場的坦桑尼亞代表開始手舞足蹈。作為台灣堅定的支持者，怒氣衝衝的里根當晚就試圖致電聯繫尼克松。里根鄙視聯合國，他曾把聯合國稱作“蠢貨們私設的袋鼠法庭”，並希望美國立即停止全面參與聯合國事務。但當里根打電話時，尼克松已經睡着了，所以他們第二天早上才通上電話。

里根侮辱非洲代表的言論剛好觸碰到了尼克松的痛處。當天早些時候，尼克松打電話要求國家安全事務助理亞歷山大·黑格取消他與投票中沒跟着美國挺台灣的非洲領導人的見面，哪怕日程已經安排好。尼克松説：“不要因為我們事先接受了會見邀約，現在就説推不掉，這種話不要跟我彙報，”他疾聲厲色地説：“直接推掉，就説到時候我不在。”

事實上，尼克松把投票落敗歸咎於非洲國家駐聯合國代表團，還真把火撒錯了對象。美國國務院認為導致投票失利的主因不是非洲國家，而是包括英法在背後操縱等其他原因。但尼克松不接受這些理由，堅持認為非洲人才是“罪魁禍首”。

如果故事到這裏就結束了，那它——還是一件很糟糕的事——哪怕是發泄情緒，種族主義就是種族主義。但接下來的故事説明，只要有人推動，種族主義在美國仍然是一股活躍的力量。尼克松把里根的來電作為藉口，並借用里根的話向他人表述同樣的觀點。他剛掛掉里根的電話，就找來了國務卿威廉•羅傑斯。

儘管里根打電話給尼克松是想敦促他退出聯合國，但在尼克松的轉述裏，里根這通電話的主要目的成了抱怨非洲人。

尼克松對羅傑斯推心置腹地説：“你可以想象，有種強烈的感受，覺得我們不應該，（里根）説，他昨晚在電視上看到這些，他説，他看到這些……”尼克松結巴了一下，小心翼翼地拿捏措辭：“這些，額，這些食人族的時候，他説，‘上帝啊，他們連鞋都沒穿，而聯合國竟要聽命於這個現實了，‘諸如此類的話。”

尼克松想讓身為上流精英的羅傑斯瞭解到，里根是在為那些種族主義的美國人發聲，而且這些人的聲音應被聆聽。“你知道，這屬於比較典型的反應，可能有點……”羅傑斯插話道：“的確，有點強烈。”

尼克松似乎停不下來，一遍又一遍轉述里根的話。他似乎有點心不在焉，兩小時後又找羅傑斯談話，再把故事重複了一遍，彷彿在跟國務卿説一件新鮮事。

尼克松説：“里根昨晚打電話來，但我直到今天早上才跟他通上話。他顯然已經氣壞了。我瞭解了一下他為什麼這麼生氣，發現這種怒氣很多人都有。他們都在電視上了，他説‘這些食人族上躥下跳。’這番景象看起來確實挺怪誕的。”羅傑斯和尼克松一樣，也沒看過電視轉播畫面，但他卻附和説：“這看起來確實挺可怕的。”尼克松補充道：“他們還歡呼起來。”

接着，尼克松説：“他（里根）肯定覺得特別倒胃，才打電話給我。然後他説，‘那場面真的很可怕。‘而且這種畫面肯定會影響人們的情緒……據他（里根）説，‘這些連鞋都還沒穿上的人，居然就踩到美國頭上來了’……他們覺得這件事真是太可怕了。”

尼克松不認為自己是種族主義者，或許這也是為什麼他必須不斷引述里根的種族主義言論，而避免直接表達自己的情緒。但里根對非洲代表的評論引起了尼克松的共鳴，因為這些言論折射出後者對非裔美國人扭曲的看法。

1971年秋天，尼克松政府一邊推動大規模福利改革，一邊試圖阻撓反種族隔離的校車制。很明顯，這兩件事激發尼克松更深刻地檢視自己關於非裔美國人究竟能否融入美國社會的觀念。在和里根通話的三週之前，尼克松在與哈佛大學教授丹尼爾·帕特里克·莫伊尼漢對話時表露了他對非洲人和非裔美國人的觀點。尼克松深受心理學家理查德·赫恩斯坦和亞瑟·詹森的理論吸引，他們將智商與種族聯繫在一起。尼克松想知道莫伊尼漢怎麼看這個問題。

尼克松對沉默的莫伊尼漢説：“至少從當前擺在我面前的證據來看，我不得不説，赫恩斯坦以及更早的詹森，他們的説法可能……非常接近真相。”尼克松相信種族之間有等級高下之分，白人和亞洲人遠比非洲和拉丁人種優越。而且尼克松説服自己，只要懷着家長式的心態來看待黑人，那麼認為黑人族羣（而不針對個體）比白人低劣並不屬於種族主義。尼克松説：“族羣內部都是有天才的。在黑人族羣內部有天才。但，亞洲族羣內部天才更多……這種事情還是不知道比知道好。”

尼克松對於非洲領導人的分析反映了他對美國黑人的偏見。他親口對莫伊尼漢説：“記住一個事實：不知你有沒有注意到，聯合國40個還是45個黑人國家裏，沒有一個總統或總理是通過競爭性選舉上台的，就像我們堅持讓越南遵循的選舉方式。”在那次對話中，他後來還説：“我不是説黑人不懂治理，我是説他們有大把時間證明自己，現在總得拿出點像樣的東西來吧。”

五十年過去了，我們應當記住的一個事實，那就是我們國家的一把手曾認為美國有色人種公民低人一等。尼克松曾向他的智囊莫伊尼漢吐露他對非裔美國人智商研究感興趣的原因：“我之所以要了解這件事，是因為我在推行政策時，必須知道他們有根本性的弱點。”

從林林總總的錄音中可以清晰地得出結論，美國第37任總統尼克松是個種族主義者：他堅信應按種族來把人區分對待；種族意味着人類個體之間最根本的區別。尼克松的種族主義與今天的我們仍然有關，因為他對種族的觀念塑造了美國內政外交的重大決策。我們需要透過種族主義濾鏡看待他的政策。

第40任總統里根並未留下太多有關他私人觀點的記錄。里根的種族主義似乎僅體現在他和尼克松的那一次通話中，他個人日記從來沒有記錄。但是，他那番關於非洲代表團的評論，可以幫助我們理解1970年代他為如此堅決地為實行種族隔離政策的羅德西亞（譯註：現津巴布韋）和南非辯護。福特政府曾拒絕支持羅德西亞由白人少數派治理，而里根在1976年的總統初選階段對福特的政策公開表示反對，他在得克薩斯州競選活動上説：“我們似乎開始了一項向非洲南部人民發號指令的政策，而且是冒着暴力和流血事件升級的風險。”

這些新公佈的錄音提醒我們，美國曆任總統的公開説辭背後往往潛伏着種族主義。當我撰寫肯尼迪總統傳記時，我發現肯尼迪並不受此類種族主義鼓動。的確是這樣，肯尼迪早期甚至甘冒政治風險去幫助非洲領導人，其中最為人所知的包括埃及總統賈邁勒·阿卜杜爾·納賽爾和加納總統克瓦米·恩克魯瑪。但他不願讓非裔美國人更快獲得更多權利，這可能與他帶到白宮的家長式做派密不可分，也可能與他的波士頓心腹圈對黑人所抱的成見有關。

至少肯尼迪在任上清楚地認識到，從道德層面來看，確保所有公民享有民權勢在必行。相比之下，特朗普反映出美國社會消散不去的病症，它時而深入骨髓、隱而不發，時而浮於皮表，狂熱焦灼。他對他自己的行為承擔責任，但他語句裏那些比喻和措辭，那種笨拙的欲蓋彌彰，以及那些被他和他的死忠粉們當作美國思想的社會糟粕，都有着醜惡的根源。這不是美國傳統的核心所在，畢竟，美國的強大與成功都離不開我們超越自身的狹隘。但話雖如此，種族主義仍然是美國文化中不可逃避的一部分。

尼克松認為非洲人天生低劣的觀念一直沒有改變。1971年10月底，他和好友貝貝•雷博佐再次談起聯合國的那場投票。貝貝順着里根的話往下説，引得尼克松非常開心，他説：“他們在電視上的反應，證明他們其實應該用尾巴倒掛在樹上。”尼克松樂得哈哈大笑。

儘管今天特朗普不再把有色人種説成是動物，但他的言論在本質上沒有區別。與尼克松不同的是，特朗普覺得不需要躲在別人後面，當他人為自己的種族主義當擋箭牌。

Ronald Reagan’s Long-hidden Conversation with Richard Nixon

The day after the United Nations voted to recognize the People’s Republic of China, then–California Governor Ronald Reagan phoned President Richard Nixon at the White House and vented his frustration at the delegates who had sided against the United States. “Last night, I tell you, to watch that thing on television as I did,” Reagan said. “Yeah,” Nixon interjected. Reagan forged ahead with his complaint: “To see those, those monkeys from those African countries—damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes!” Nixon gave a huge laugh.

The past month has brought presidential racism back into the headlines. This October 1971 exchange between current and future presidents is a reminder that other presidents have subscribed to the racist belief that Africans or African Americans are somehow inferior. The most novel aspect of President Donald Trump’s racist gibes isn’t that he said them, but that he said them in public.

The exchange was taped by Nixon, and then later became the responsibility of the Nixon Presidential Library, which I directed from 2007 to 2011. When the National Archives originally released the tape of this conversation, in 2000, the racist portion was apparently withheld to protect Reagan’s privacy. A court order stipulated that the tapes be reviewed chronologically; the chronological review was completed in 2013. Not until 2017 or 2018 did the National Archives begin a general rereview of the earliest Nixon tapes. Reagan’s death, in 2004, eliminated the privacy concerns. Last year, as a researcher, I requested that the conversations involving Ronald Reagan be rereviewed, and two weeks ago, the National Archives released complete versions of the October 1971 conversations involving Reagan online.

When the UN took its vote to seat a delegation from Beijing instead of from Taiwan in 1971, members of the Tanzanian delegation started dancing in the General Assembly. Reagan, a devoted defender of Taiwan, was incensed, and tried to reach Nixon the night of the vote. Reagan despised the United Nations, which he described as a “kangaroo court” filled with “bums,” and he wanted the U.S. to withdraw from full participation immediately. Nixon was asleep when Reagan called, so they spoke the next morning.

Reagan’s slur touched an already raw nerve. Earlier that day, Nixon had called his deputy national security adviser, Al Haig, to cancel any future meetings with any African leader who had not voted with the United States on Taiwan, even if they had already been scheduled. “Don’t even submit to me the problem that it’s difficult to turn it off since we have already accepted it,” Nixon exclaimed. “Just turn it off, on the ground that I will be out of town.”

Nixon’s anger at the UN delegations from African nations for the loss was misplaced. His own State Department blamed factors other than African voting, including maneuvering by the British and French behind the scenes, for the loss. But Nixon would have none of it. The Africans were to blame.

Had the story stopped there, it would have been bad enough. Racist venting is still racist. But what happened next showed the dynamic power of racism when it finds enablers. Nixon used Reagan’s call as an excuse to adapt his language to make the same point to others. Right after hanging up with Reagan, Nixon sought out Secretary of State William Rogers.

Even though Reagan had called Nixon to press him to withdraw from the United Nations, in Nixon’s telling, Reagan’s complaints about Africans became the primary purpose of the call.

“As you can imagine,” Nixon confided in Rogers, “there’s strong feeling that we just shouldn’t, as [Reagan] said, he saw these, as he said, he saw these—” Nixon stammered, choosing his words carefully—“these, uh, these cannibals on television last night, and he says, ‘Christ, they weren’t even wearing shoes, and here the United States is going to submit its fate to that,’ and so forth and so on.”

The president wanted his patrician secretary of state to understand that Reagan spoke for racist Americans, and they needed to be listened to. “You know, but that’s typical of a reaction, which is probably”—“That’s right,” Rogers interjected—“quite strong.”

Nixon couldn’t stop retelling his version of what Reagan had said. Oddly unfocused, he spoke with Rogers again two hours later and repeated the story as if it would be new to the secretary.

“Reagan called me last night,” Nixon said, “and I didn’t talk to him until this morning, but he is, of course, outraged. And I found out what outraged him, and I find this is typical of a lot of people: They saw it on television and, he said, ‘These cannibals jumping up and down and all that.’ And apparently it was a pretty grotesque picture.” Like Nixon, Rogers had not seen the televised images. But Rogers agreed: “Apparently, it was a terrible scene.” Nixon added, “And they cheered.”

​

Then Nixon said, “He practically got sick at his stomach, and that’s why he called. And he said, ‘It was a terrible scene.’ And that sort of thing will have an emotional effect on people … as [Reagan] said, ‘This bunch of people who don’t even wear shoes yet, to be kicking the United States in the teeth’ … It was a terrible thing, they thought.”

Nixon didn’t think of himself as a racist; perhaps that’s why it was so important to him to keep quoting Reagan’s racism, rather than own the sentiment himself. But Reagan’s comment about African leaders resonated with Nixon, because it reflected his warped thinking about African Americans.

In the fall of 1971, the Nixon administration was engaged in a massive welfare-reform effort, and was also facing school busing. These two issues apparently inspired Nixon to examine more deeply his own thinking on whether African Americans could make it in American society. Only three weeks before the call with Reagan, Nixon had revealed his opinions on Africans and African Americans in a conversation with the Harvard professor Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who had briefly served in the Nixon administration. Nixon was attracted to the theories of Richard Herrnstein and Arthur Jensen, which linked IQ to race, and wondered what Moynihan thought.

“I have reluctantly concluded, based at least on the evidence presently before me … that what Herrnstein says, and what was said earlier by Jensen, is probably … very close to the truth,” Nixon explained to a quiet Moynihan. Nixon believed in a hierarchy of races, with whites and Asians much higher up than people of African descent and Latinos. And he had convinced himself that it wasn’t racist to think black people, as a group, were inferior to whites, so long as he held them in paternalistic regard. “Within groups, there are geniuses,” Nixon said. “There are geniuses within black groups. There are more within Asian groups … This is knowledge that is better not to know.”

Nixon’s analysis of African leadership reflected his prejudice toward America’s black citizens. This is, at least, what he told Moynihan. “Have in mind one fact: Did you realize there is not, of the 40 or 45—you’re at the United Nations—black countries that are represented there, not one has a president or a prime minister who is there as a result of a contested election such as we were insisting upon in Vietnam?” And, he continued, a little later in the conversation: “I’m not saying that blacks cannot govern; I am saying they have a hell of a time. Now, that must demonstrate something.”

Fifty years later, the one fact that we should have in mind is that our nation’s chief executive assumed that the nonwhite citizens of the United States were somehow inferior. Nixon confided in Moynihan, who had been one of his house intellectuals, about the nature of his interest in research on African American intelligence: “The reason I have to know it is that as I go for programs, I must know that they have basic weaknesses.”

As these and other tapes make clear, the 37th president of the United States was a racist: He believed in treating people according to their race, and that race implied fundamental differences in individual human beings. Nixon’s racism matters to us because he allowed his views on race to shape U.S. policies—both foreign and domestic. His policies need to be viewed through that lens.

The 40th president has not left as dramatic a record of his private thoughts. Reagan’s racism appears to be documented only once on the Nixon tapes, and never in his own diaries. His comment on African leaders, however, sheds new light on what lay behind the governor’s passionate defense of the apartheid states of Rhodesia and South Africa later in the 1970s. During his 1976 primary-challenge run against Gerald Ford, Reagan publicly opposed the Ford administration’s rejection of white-minority rule in Rhodesia. “We seem to be embarking on a policy of dictating to the people of southern Africa and running the risk of increased violence and bloodshed,” Reagan said at a rally in Texas.

These new tapes are a stark reminder of the racism that often lay behind the public rhetoric of American presidents. As I write a biography of JFK, I’ve found that this sort of racism did not animate President Kennedy—indeed, early on he took political risks to help African leaders, most notably Gamal Abdel Nasser and Kwame Nkrumah. But his reluctance to do more, sooner for African Americans cannot be separated from the paternalism he brought to the Oval Office or the prejudice held by parts of his Boston inner circle.

Kennedy, at least, learned on the job that securing civil rights for all was a moral imperative. Donald Trump, on the other hand, is a symptom of a sickness that dwells in American society, sometimes deeply and weakly, sometimes on the surface and feverishly. He bears responsibility for his own actions, but the tropes, the turns of phrase, the clumsy indirection, and worse, the gunk about American society that he and his most devoted followers pass off as ideas, have an ugly tradition. It is not at the core of the American tradition, for what makes us mighty and successful is that we are much more than the narrowest of our minds. But it remains an ineluctable part of American culture, nonetheless.

Nixon never changed his mind about the supposed inherent inferiority of Africans. At the end of October 1971, he discussed the UN vote with his best friend, Bebe Rebozo. Bebe delighted Nixon by echoing Reagan: “That reaction on television was, it proves how they ought to be still hanging from the trees by their tails.” Nixon laughed.

These days, though Trump’s imagery is less zoological, it is pretty much the same in spirit. And this president, unlike Nixon, doesn’t believe he needs to hide behind anyone else’s racism.