See if you can figure out what these guys were talking about:
Nixon: CBS came on with a movie. They had two magnificent handsome guys, and a stupid old fellow in it. They were glorifying homosexuality!
Ehrlichman: Was that a panel, sir?
Nixon: Hell no, it was a movie!
Haldeman: No, that’s a regular show, it’s on every week. And usually it’s just set in the guy’s home. It’s usually just that guy, who’s a hardhat.
Nixon: That’s right, he’s a hard hat.
Ehrlichman: And he always just looks like a slob.
Nixon: Looks like Jackie Gleason.
Haldeman: And then he has this hippie son-in-law. And, uh, usually the general trend of it is to downgrade him, and upgrade…
Nixon: Upgrade the hippie son-in-law.
Haldeman: Make the square hardhat to be bad.
Ehrlichman: What’s it called, I’ve never seen it.
Nixon: Archie is the guy’s name.
Ehrlichman: Now that’s real family entertainment, isn’t it?
Nixon: The point that I make is that goddamit, I do not think that you glorify, on public television, homosexuality! You ever see what happened, you know what happened to the Greeks? Homosexuality destroyed them. Aristotle was a homo, we all know that. So was Socrates.
Ehrlichman: But he never had the influence that television has.
Nixon: The last six Roman emperors were fags. You see, homosexuality, immorality in general, these are the enemies of strong societies. That’s why the communists and the left-wingers are pushing it. They’re trying to destroy us.
I don’t know why people are complaining about the NSA. We should record everything so we don’t miss any gems like this priceless exchange about All in the Family. The Nixon Archives are almost inexhaustible in their ability to provide comedy gold.
Also, everyone knows that Nixon was, as he’d put it, a fag.
Not really, but it would be irresponsible not to speculate.