WASHINGTON \u2013 In a newly released audio recording of an\nOctober 1971 conversation with President Richard Nixon, then-California\nGov. Ronald Reagan is heard making racist remarks about a Tanzanian delegation\nto the United Nations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In an article published Tuesday in The Atlantic<\/a>,\nNew York University history professor Tim Naftali writes that the conversation\noccurred the day after the U.N. voted to recognize China’s communist\ngovernment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Members of the Tanzanian delegation celebrated the\ndecision to seat a delegation from Beijing by dancing in the General\nAssembly. That infuriated Reagan, who called Nixon to tell him he thought\nthe U.S. should “get the hell out” of the U.N., which he called a\n“kangaroo court.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n “Last night, I tell you, to watch that thing on television\nas I did,” Reagan said. “To see those monkeys from those African\ncountries \u2013 damn them, they\u2019re still uncomfortable wearing shoes.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nixon burst into laughter after hearing the\nremark, which occurs at around the 6:30 mark in the recording below. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump: <\/strong>Trump says Democratic presidential\nopponents would lead to ‘economic sinkhole’ after first night of debates<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n “Well, and the tail wags the dog there doesn’t it? The tail\nwags the dog,” the president said. Reagan agreed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Naftali, who worked as the director of the Nixon Presidential\nLibrary from 2007 to 2011, said the National Archives first released the\nrecording of the talk between Nixon and Reagan in 2000, but the above\nportion of the conversation was cut out to “protect Reagan’s\nprivacy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n He said that last year that he asked the National Archives to\nconduct a new review of Nixon’s conversations with Reagan. Reagan’s 2004 death\nended any privacy concerns, and two weeks ago, the Archives agreed to release\nthem online, Naftali said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The recording can be listened to or downloaded on the Richard Nixon Presidential Library\nand Museum website<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Though some critics have leveled charges of racism at Reagan for\nsome of his policies \u2013 such as his support for the South African government\nunder apartheid \u2013 and his rhetoric \u2013 such as his denunciations of “welfare chiselers<\/a>” \u2013\nthis conversation with Nixon appears to be one of the only documented instances\nof him making such an overtly offensive statement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nixon’s conversations are full of racist and derogatory\ncomments. Naftali documents how Nixon “believed in a hierarchy of\nraces with whites and Asians much higher up than people of African descent and\nLatinos.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n Reagan and Nixon are far from the only White House occupants\nknown to have made derogatory remarks. Worse than racist utterances, most\nof the country’s presidents before the Civil War owned slaves, many of\nthem while they were in office. <\/p>\n\n\n\n By today’s standards, most presidents who were in office prior\nto World War II are guilty of writings, utterances or actions that would be\ndeemed racist. Even Abraham Lincoln’s writings display a belief in white racial\nsuperiority and he was long a proponent of “recolonizing” former\nslaves back in Africa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Though Lyndon Johnson passionately fought for passage of the\nCivil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, recordings of his conversations in\nthe Oval Office reveal that he regularly used racial slurs about African\nAmericans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The release of Reagan’s comments comes as President Donald Trump\nfaces accusations of racism for tweets he posted this month telling four\nminority congresswomen to “go back” to the “crime infested\nplaces from which they came.” He also referred to the majority\nAfrican-American city of Baltimore as a “disgusting, rat and rodent\ninfested mess” where “no human being would want to live.” \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nffff<\/p>\n\n\n\n