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Nixon and the Chiefs
In the last days of 1971 President Richard Nixon and his closest aides met to discuss the astonishing discovery that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had been spying on the White House. Transcripts of Nixon's secret tapes of these meetings, published here for the first time, offer a case study in Nixon's paranoid style of governing—and his surprisingly successful efforts to salvage advantage from misfortune
At 6:09 on the evening of December 21, 1971, President Richard Nixon convened a tense and confidential meeting in the Oval Office with his three closest advisers—John N. Mitchell, his Attorney General; H. R. Haldeman, his chief of staff; and John D. Ehrlichman, his top domestic-policy aide. Notably absent was Henry Kissinger, Nixon's national-security adviser. The men had come together to discuss a crisis unique in American presidential history—"a federal offense of the highest order," as Nixon would put it in the meeting. Just days before, Yeoman Charles E. Radford, a young Navy stenographer who had been working with Kissinger and his staff, had confessed to a Department of Defense interrogator that for more than a year he had been passing thousands of top-secret Nixon-Kissinger documents to his superiors at the Pentagon. Radford had obtained the documents by systematically rifling through burn bags, interoffice envelopes, and even the briefcases of Kissinger and Kissinger's then-deputy, Brigadier General Alexander Haig. According to Radford, his supervisors—first Rear Admiral Rembrandt C. Robinson and then Rear Admiral Robert O. Welander—had routinely passed the ill-gotten documents to Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and sometimes to Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, the chief of naval operations. It was, in short, an unprecedented case of espionage that pitted the nation's top military commanders against their civilian commander in chief during wartime. Nixon and his advisers had gathered to consider how to react.
The Nixon Era Center
James Rosen, in a joint effort with Mountain State University's Nixon Era Center, constructed the transcript of the center's enhanced version of the December 21, 1971, White House tape. Click here to read the transcript and White House conversation.
The Joint Chiefs' espionage effort was not born in a vacuum. Nixon's style of governance was highly secretive, and his presidency hung precariously on the constantly shifting lines of "back-channel" communication that he encouraged among Kissinger, Haig, the Joint Chiefs, Defense Secretary Melvin Laird, and Secretary of State William Rogers. The military often felt cut out of crucial decision-making on matters of national security, foreign policy, and the conduct of the war in Vietnam. In his 1976 memoir, On Watch, Admiral Zumwalt lamented "the deliberate, systematic and, unfortunately, extremely successful efforts of the President, Henry Kissinger, and a few subordinate members of their inner circle to conceal, sometimes by simple silence, more often by articulate deceit, their real policies about the most critical matters of national security." Scarcely alone in his views, Zumwalt marveled "that rational men could think that running things like that could have any other result than 'leaks' and 'spying' and all-around paranoia." Indeed, he said, "they had created a system in which 'leaks' and 'spying' were everyday and essential elements."
The espionage case ultimately came to be known as the Moorer-Radford affair. Although the details of the story may be new to many readers, historians and journalists have written about Nixon's handling of the affair—most notably Seymour M. Hersh, in The Price of Power (1983), and Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin, in Silent Coup (1991). Until now, however, chronicles of the White House's reaction have mostly been derived from the selective memories of some of those involved (including Radford, who has spoken to the press)—and have therefore proved either incomplete or less than fully reliable. But in October of 2000 the secret tapes that Nixon made of his initial conversations about the affair were declassified and released for public access, buried amid 420 hours of other Nixon recordings. Published here for the first time, excerpted transcripts of those conversations do much more than fill out the historical record. In fact, they offer an absorbing case study in the behavior and tactics of Richard Nixon under fire, trying to cope with a potential disaster of his own making. "Damn," he exclaimed to Haldeman on the day following that first meeting, as the details began to unfold. "You know, I created this whole situation, this—this lesion. It's just unbelievable. Unbelievable."
The tapes show that Nixon was stunned by Radford's revelations. He pounded his desk in anger. He spoke gravely about prosecuting Admiral Moorer, along with others involved. He voiced deep suspicion about the role played by Haig, who had personally selected Radford to accompany him and Kissinger on the foreign trips during which Radford had done his greatest damage. Nixon pronounced Kissinger, his national-security adviser, a threat to security. And yet within days he had developed a strategy for handling the affair that not only averted a major public crisis—which is where most Presidents would have been content to stop—but also skillfully salvaged advantage from misfortune and furthered his personal and political agendas.
Shaped considerably by Attorney General Mitchell, Nixon's response to the Moorer-Radford affair essentially consisted of covering it up, transferring Admiral Welander and Yeoman Radford to remote posts, and, daringly, retaining Moorer as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. The President—who had alternately conspired with and against the Chiefs—"had two ways of going," as Ehrlichman later recalled. "He could either tear up the Joint Chiefs or he could continue to do business with them." Nixon chose the latter, figuring, in Ehrlichman's words, that Moorer would from then on be a "preshrunk" admiral over whom Nixon could exert increased influence. Indeed, within days of the first White House meeting about the affair, having recovered from the shock of the revelations, Nixon and Kissinger were already plotting how to use Moorer's diminished status to further a secret policy goal. Nixon also reckoned that disclosing the scandal could irreparably damage the armed services—something he felt the country could ill afford in the Vietnam era.
The strategy clearly worked—Nixon gained an increased measure of control over the Joint Chiefs (in particular over Moorer, whom he reappointed Chairman six months later) and kept his various back channels in place; when the Moorer-Radford story broke, in January of 1974, a scandal-weary nation scarcely noticed. In 1986, recalling Nixon's handling of the affair, John Mitchell summed the matter up succinctly: "Richard Nixon was smarter than hell to sit on this thing."
Or was he? In burying the scandal, some historians have written, Nixon and his men perhaps sealed his subsequent fate as President. By allowing a cast of characters he distrusted, and who distrusted him, to remain in place in the White House and in the Pentagon, Nixon virtually ensured that the culture of secrecy and paranoia that infused his first term would persist until the Watergate scandal prematurely ended his presidency.
"Can I ask how in the name of God do we have a yeoman having access to documents of that type?" Nixon demanded of his aides at that initial meeting on the evening of December 21.
"Well, he's the key man," Ehrlichman answered. "He's the fellow that typed all the memcons—the memoranda, the conversations." Ehrlichman went on to say that Radford had kept the Joint Chiefs informed about "contingency plans, political agreements, troop movements, behind-the-scenes politics, security conferences between our government and foreign governments, et cetera." He added, "This sailor is a veritable storehouse of information of all kinds, as he reads and retains everything that comes through. He testified that he knew about Henry's secret negotiations with the North Vietnamese." He later said, "This guy was trained. He can tell you exactly the sequence in which he Xeroxed things, he moved to this room, to that room ... and he just has total recall."
"Under the implied approval of his supervisor, the admiral," Ehrlichman said at another point in the conversation, Radford "has systematically stolen documents out of Henry's briefcase, Haig's briefcase, people's desks—anyplace and everyplace in the NSC apparatus that he could get his hands on—and has duplicated them and turned them over to the Joint Chiefs, through his boss." He added, "This has been going on now for about thirteen months."
In a meeting on December 23 Ehrlichman explained to Nixon the motivation for espionage. "The Joint Chiefs had Henry's talking papers for meetings ahead of time," he said. "This yeoman could be sent into ... the NSC paper mill to pull out what the staff was recommending to Henry on decision papers that were coming to you, in advance of the decisions ... So that in fact the Joint Chiefs were getting advances on where weaknesses were in their case in a decision that was coming to you, ahead of it ever getting here."
Even in the initial Moorer-Radford meeting, on December 21, Nixon had already begun to develop suspicions about the complicity of some of his staff in the espionage. He asked Ehrlichman what Haig, in particular, might have known.
"I don't know," Ehrlichman said. "I suspect Haig may be aware, but by back-channel basis ... If this thing runs true to form, undoubtedly his radar has picked this up by now."
Throughout the meeting Nixon kept returning to Haig. "I'm afraid that Haig must have known about this operation," he said at one point. "It seems unlikely he wouldn't have known." At another point he asked, "Is Haig wiretapped?"
"Why not?" Haldeman replied, taking Nixon's question as a suggestion.
"It's not going to hurt anyone at all," Mitchell added.
But Nixon never ordered a wiretap on Haig. Although he clearly believed that Haig had condoned Radford's treachery, Nixon could not believe that Haig had sanctioned its most brazen manifestation. "Taking stuff out of Henry's briefcase!" Nixon said to his men. "I mean, Haig would never approve that." The others agreed.
But Nixon was not thinking about Haig simply on a personal level; he was also thinking about him in tactical terms. By December 23 Nixon had apparently decided that Haig's value as a bridge to the Pentagon, and as a counterbalancing force for reining in the notoriously mercurial Kissinger, outweighed any need to probe further into the general's role in the spying operation. "We are going to continue to handle the Chiefs ... through Haig," Nixon told Haldeman and Ehrlichman. "But we'll let them know what they're supposed to know."
After Ehrlichman's briefing on December 21, Mitchell weighed in. "Mr. President," he said, "I'd like to point out that this thing goes right into the Joint Chiefs of Staff ... The important thing in my way of thinking is to stop this Joint Chiefs of Staff operation, and to buck up the security over here." The Attorney General described the case in distinctly criminal terms.
NIXON: [Welander] had to know he was getting stuff from Kissinger's and Haig's briefcases. That is wrong! Understand? I'm just saying that's wrong. Do you agree?
MITCHELL: No question about it, that the whole concept of having this yeoman get into this affair and start to get this stuff back to the Joint Chiefs of Staff is just like coming in and robbing your desk.
NIXON: Yes it is.
Infuriated, Nixon had earlier reminded Mitchell that "prosecuting is a possibility for the Joint Chiefs." (In a meeting the next day Nixon revealed that he had more in mind than damage control, the prosecution of the wrongdoers, or even personal revenge. He was already thinking about how to manipulate the situation to his advantage. He told his advisers, "We ought to ... use this as a device, of course, to clean out the Joint Chiefs operation.")
Mitchell calmly steered Nixon away from pursuing prosecution. "I agree with you," he said, "but we have to take it from there as to what this would lead to if you pursued it by way of prosecution of Moorer." Their exchange continued:
MITCHELL: What has been done has been done. I think that the important thing is to paper this thing over.
NIXON: Hmmph!
MITCHELL: This way—first of all, get that liaison office the hell out of NSC and put it back at the Pentagon.
NIXON: Correct.
MITCHELL: Secondly, get a security officer into the NSC.
NIXON: Correct. Well, what about Henry Kissinger?
MITCHELL: Well, I think that whoever goes in there is going to have to ride herd not only on the rest of the staff but on Henry ... With respect to the Joint Chiefs, you have to get, in my opinion, this guy Admiral Welander the hell out of there, by way of a signal. That way you can transfer him to Kokomo, or Indiana, or anywhere we want to have him, along, of course, with this yeoman. And I think the best thing to do is for me—and we'll leave Laird aside for a moment—but for me to sit down with Tom Moorer, and point out what this scene is that's been going on, and it's the end of the road ... This ball game's over with.
Nixon agreed. "I think the strategy you suggested is the one that I would pursue," he said, adding that Mitchell should—"on my behalf"—establish "a direct line to Moorer." He continued, "Don't tell Laird. Laird is liable to screw around, and then one way it will blow."
As for Kissinger, Nixon was dismissive: "Henry is not a good security risk." Nixon said he would brook no "crying" by Kissinger, and added, "I don't want Henry to raise this subject with me here—or he's out." Two days later Nixon told Haldeman, "I will not have Henry in here with his childish antics. I will not discuss it. Just say you're handling this with Mitchell."
During the night of December 21 the President somehow managed to convince himself that Yeoman Radford had acted of his own volition, and not at the behest of higher-ups. In a meeting the following morning Ehrlichman and Mitchell worked swiftly to disabuse Nixon of this fantasy.
NIXON: The important thing is to handle [Radford's superiors] in a way that they do not talk.
EHRLICHMAN: [Inaudible] their career, and I suspect that that's enough leverage—
NIXON: And they're probably loyal fellows.
EHRLICHMAN: I suspect so.
NIXON: They're just doing it for—for the service.
EHRLICHMAN: Right.
NIXON: This fellow—I think they'd be shocked to know what this guy did.
EHRLICHMAN: Well, they know! They're the ones—
NIXON: But do they know about the fact that—
EHRLICHMAN: Absolutely! Oh, absolutely! See, they ... uh, used him!
NIXON: And they knew that he was stealing from Kissinger?
EHRLICHMAN: Oh, they had to! They had to.
NIXON: Jesus Christ!
EHRLICHMAN: I don't, I just don't see any escape from them being included.
NIXON: Well, they—that's the reason they need to be transferred. If they knew he was stealing from Kissinger ...
MITCHELL: This is the only way you're going to have a deterrent on future such operations.
But by this time Nixon viewed a full rupture with the Joint Chiefs as unthinkable, for strategic reasons. "You have to realize," he told Haldeman and Ehrlichman on December 23, "that the channel to the Chiefs is something we cannot lose. Ever." If this meant that Admiral Moorer would escape the affair unpunished, then so be it. It was a prospect that agonized Ehrlichman. "I lost more sleep [over] what to do with this guy," he told Nixon. "And I have finally come to the conclusion that you can't touch him."
"I agree," Nixon replied. "We can't touch him, because it hurts the Joint Chiefs. The Joint Chiefs, the military, et cetera—not to be viewed as our enemy. We cannot have it."
Nixon remained focused on Radford, convinced that transferring him was not enough. "One thing that I'd be worried about," he fretted to Mitchell and Ehrlichman on December 22, was that "this guy is a potential [Daniel] Ellsberg." This was a reference to the Defense Department consultant who, six months earlier, had leaked the Pentagon Papers, a classified study of documents relating to America's involvement in Vietnam from World War II to 1968. "He knows more than even Ellsberg knows ... Is there any way that we can keep him scared to death, so that he doesn't get off and think, 'Oh, I'm now going to write the book?'" Nixon added, "I think [Radford's] got to be told that a criminal offense hangs over him, that it's going to hang over him ... I'd like to scare the son of a bitch to death!"
Nixon had a habit of viewing scandals that occurred during his presidency through the prism of the Alger Hiss spy case, in which Nixon had first gained national fame, and around which there had long been unsubstantiated whispers that Hiss was a homosexual. The Moorer-Radford affair was no exception. Observing that homosexuality "poisons a lot of these things," Nixon ordered Mitchell to explore whether Radford was sexually involved with the prominent syndicated columnist Jack Anderson. (It was a high-level leak to Anderson, detailing Nixon's covert "tilt" toward Pakistan in its December 1971 war with India, that had first led investigators to Radford. The yeoman and the columnist, both Mormons, acknowledged knowing each other, but both denied that Radford was Anderson's source. Under interrogation, however, Radford surprised everybody by confessing to spying for the Pentagon.)
Nixon thought the Radford-Anderson relationship was "sexual up the ass," and he wondered whether Anderson had Radford "under blackmail." Ehrlichman followed up on Nixon's order, but investigators balked, and the idea was dropped.
Haldeman contributed little to the December 21 meeting, with one notable exception: with Ehrlichman, he raised the specter of more-pervasive military malfeasance.
EHRLICHMAN: The thing that disgusts me about this is, if they'll do that—
NIXON: Yeah.
HALDEMAN: What else are they doing?
EHRLICHMAN: What else are they doing? You got military drivers, military gals, military everything around here.
NIXON: Yup, yup, yup, yup.
HALDEMAN: Christ. We've all used this office.
Such suspicions later proved well founded. A previously unpublished Senate Watergate committee memorandum, dated December 5, 1973, and addressed to Fred Thompson, the committee's minority counsel (now a U.S. senator from Tennessee), noted that the investigation of Radford had turned up "another person on the NSC staff who was helping" him, named David Oscar Bowles. Like Radford, Bowles was swiftly transferred—to Corpus Christi. But unlike Radford, Bowles has never spoken on the record about his role in the military espionage; indeed, until now his alleged involvement in the Moorer-Radford affair has never been publicly disclosed.
On the afternoon of December 23 Ehrlichman briefed Nixon again, this time on the results of Mitchell's sit-down with Moorer.
EHRLICHMAN: Admiral Moorer feels that [Welander] should go to jail! For all the terrible things he's been doing over here! ... [Mitchell] said that Moorer admits that he saw stuff, but that he operated on the assumption that his liaison man was working this all out with Henry ... I said, "Well, did you get a plea of guilty or a not guilty?" And [Mitchell] says, "I got a nolo contendere." NIXON: [Did Mitchell] tell him about the briefcases and all that?
EHRLICHMAN: Yup.
NIXON: And?
EHRLICHMAN: Moorer said, "Why, that's shocking." Told him, "Whoever did that should go to jail."
Two hours later Haldeman briefed the President on Ehrlichman's attempt to break all of this news to Kissinger. Nixon, working hard to assess the mood of the various parties to the affair, asked what Kissinger—a primary target of the spying—had said about the prospect of criminal prosecutions in the case. Haldeman reported that Kissinger had asked Ehrlichman, "What do you do on that?," to which Ehrlichman had responded, "Well, that's, that's the question now. It's in the hands of the Attorney General, and he has got to determine what we do. Obviously, Admiral Welander thinks that we should put the yeoman in jail; Admiral Moorer thinks we should put Welander in jail." Haldeman said that Kissinger thought Moorer should go to jail. "John and I both laughed," Haldeman told the President, "and said as you go up the ladder, everybody's going to crucify the guy under him, and nobody'll take the blame himself."
As his knowledge of the affair deepened, the President realized that despite his aversion to personal confrontations, he would have to address it directly with many of those involved. He chose to do so by telephone, with Christmas as his pretext for reaching out. The recipients of Nixon's calls got different messages, delivered with varying doses of circumlocution and subtlety.
First came Haig, shortly after 5:00 P.M. on Christmas Eve. Hoping to preserve his informal channel to the military through Haig, Nixon sought at the outset to allay any fear of repercussions for what he had that first evening called the "curiousness" of Haig's involvement in the affair.
NIXON: Just called to wish you a merry Christmas.
HAIG: Oh, God bless you—
NIXON: And also to tell you not to worry about all this, er—not to—you, you mustn't, uh, uh—I could see Henry's in one of his, uh, sort of doldrums.
After warming up with some criticism of Kissinger, Nixon returned to the Moorer-Radford affair. His primary message was meant not for Haig but for Moorer: no action would be taken against the admiral—for now—but Moorer might not be reappointed when his term as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs expired, the following July. During the conversation Haig expressed no surprise at the espionage.
NIXON: But, uh—on the other thing, incidentally, on the Moorer thing. That's just—you just couldn't even dream of having Moorer out of that thing. I mean, he's part of a system. And the damn thing, I'm sure, started before he was there.
HAIG: That's right.
NIXON: I think—I think it goes back over years, and it probably went further than he ever expected it was gonna go. That's my guess.
HAIG: That's what I think, sir—
NIXON: And I—we gotta remember that, basically, he's our ally, in terms of what we believe in. And the worst thing we can do now is to hurt the military. I—I tried to get [that] through Henry's head. But—but that's what, that's the line we're playing on today.
HAIG: Sure.
NIXON: Don't you agree?
HAIG: Absolutely.
NIXON: We [have] just got to do that. And in June, of course, we can take a look—but not now ... After all, Moorer's a good man, and he's with us. This thing, of course, is pretty bad! It's, uh—understand: not the, not sending the information over [to the Pentagon], but goin' through briefcases. That goes too far!
In another talk with Haig, two days later, Nixon offered more reassuring words for Moorer's consumption. He wondered whether Moorer "thinks maybe now he's blown it." Nixon emphatically answered his own question. "He hasn't," he said. "He hasn't."
Minutes after his Christmas Eve conversation with Haig, Nixon had John Mitchell on the line. Their talk began with a discussion of "the Hoffa thing": Nixon's controversial commutation of the prison sentence of the former Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa. With Hoffa and Radford in mind, the President offered Mitchell—the man destined to become, after Watergate, the highest-ranking U.S. official ever to be incarcerated—some eerily prophetic words.
NIXON: I'll tell you, being in prison isn't, isn't all that, uh, that it's cracked up to be. You have some lonely days.
MITCHELL: I would certainly believe it ...
NIXON: Incidentally, on our other subject [the Moorer-Radford affair], I think we are better advised—I mean to—we've really just got to keep the lid on it ... keep it under as close control as we can. But I, uh—we cannot move to do anything to discredit the uniform. That's what I'm convinced of.
MITCHELL: Absolutely ... I have talked to Mel Laird, and ... he made a very interesting point. [Laird told Mitchell] "Come on over here one day into the Pentagon. I want to show you some of the memorandums that I've written to Henry about this and just warned him of it, to just cut it off"... He's actually backed up with [copies], maybe self-serving.
NIXON: Isn't that interesting!
MITCHELL: It is interesting ... 'cause of the daily jealousy of your direct approach to the Joint Chiefs.
NIXON: I know, I know ... I think it's important to—for Henry to sort of cool off and, and recognize that our best interests are served by not raising holy hell.
On Christmas Day, Nixon rang the concerned party he trusted least: Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird. After delivering holiday greetings the President artlessly made a transition to the Moorer-Radford affair.
NIXON: Oh, incidentally, on that, er, matter that you're familiar with, er— LAIRD: Yes.
NIXON: I think it's very important, and I've given the orders around to everybody, that we not allow this thing to hurt the military. You know, we, we know it's wrong—
LAIRD: I know.
NIXON: —but we must cut it. So we gotta clean it up, but we gotta stand by Moorer and these fellows, because they are good guys. They just—they just got trapped in a system that was bad.
LAIRD: Bad, bad.
NIXON: Don't you agree?
LAIRD: I agree, Mr. President.
Well aware of Nixon's distrust, Laird portrayed himself as disappointed by the Moorer-Radford affair, and sought to remind Nixon that he had tried, in 1968, to eliminate the office for which Radford worked. Nixon was having none of it; he spoke more sharply to Laird than he had, for example, to Haig.
NIXON: As you pointed out to Mitchell, apparently, eh, you knew about this years ago. This has been goin' on for years! And they—
LAIRD: Yeah.
NIXON:—and it's just surprising they had it now, and I just think it's the way the system works.
LAIRD: Well—
NIXON: But now that it's done, we'll, uh—
LAIRD: ... I'm just gonna stay out of it now, and just shut it off.
NIXON: Absolutely. Leave it. Stay out of it, and let Mitchell do whatever has to be done. That way, we can stay sort of apart from it. Because we've got to work with these fellows, you know.
LAIRD: It is important.
NIXON: Particularly with Tom Moorer.
LAIRD: Right. And he's mine. You know, it's just too bad that—
NIXON: He's a good man.
Seven days later, on New Year's Day 1972, while spending the day preparing for a one-hour prime-time interview with Dan Rather, Nixon made another Moorer-Radford call, to Henry Kissinger. Punctuated by Kissinger's trademark flattery ("You do these office press conferences so damned vell!"), their talk focused mostly on when to disclose that Hanoi had rejected a recent peace overture. Nixon also wanted Kissinger to secure Laird's agreement to end the draft. "Go back to Laird and see if we can get the no-more-draftees thing," he said. Kissinger responded by suggesting a more secretive approach.
KISSINGER: Mr. President, I have almost reached the point where you may have to do this without telling Laird beforehand.
NIXON: Whoa! Couldn't do that, Henry, he'd go up, he'd just—
KISSINGER: He'd go up the wall. But, uh—
NIXON: But you're afraid he's going to leak it out, huh?
KISSINGER: But I'm afraid he's going to come back with so many caveats.
Kissinger had an idea that appealed to Nixon. "Let me talk to Moorer," he said. "He owes us one." "He sure does," Nixon replied, confirming Ehrlichman's assessment that the President sought to use the Moorer-Radford affair as leverage with Moorer, his "preshrunk" admiral. Of this gambit Nixon told Kissinger, "Keep it in greatest of confidence."
Nixon and Kissinger had come full circle. Less than two weeks after learning of the espionage, which Nixon had termed a "lesion" created by his own machinations in the Oval Office, the President was plotting with Kissinger, whom he had so recently described as "not a good security risk," to make use of a back channel to the Joint Chiefs and to circumvent the Secretary of Defense.
In the murky Cold War milieu in which he had come to power, Nixon apparently saw such deception as integral to the practice of politics and governance. The new Nixon tapes confirm this. In an almost comic conversation with Haldeman on December 22, in the midst of the Moorer-Radford discussions, Nixon summarized his philosophy.
HALDEMAN: The worst thing about it is you get, you start—which we've managed to avoid, maybe too much—you start getting paranoid, and you start wondering about everything and everybody, and—
NIXON: I know.
HALDEMAN: —you figure you can't—
NIXON: But don't be too damn sure of anybody! I mean, that's—don't be too damn sure about anybody!
HALDEMAN: You can't.
NIXON: I am never sure of anybody.
HALDEMAN: Well [unintelligible]—
NIXON: You know, Bob, the reason you and I ain't so close now is, as you've noticed, I don't put that—[inaudible]. Do you not now see why I don't have staff meetings?
HALDEMAN: Damn right!
NIXON: Do you agree?
HALDEMAN: Oh, yeah!
NIXON: Don't you think I'm right?
HALDEMAN: I sure as hell do!
NIXON: I don't have staff meetings. Now I'd rather—I know it would charge up the staff for me to sit around and talk to 'em directly. But who knows—first, with—without evil intentions, some are going to leak.
HALDEMAN: That's right.
NIXON: Beyond that, there might be somebody in there that just—like a little guy like this [Radford] will get it all ... I tell you ... if there's ever anything important, just don't tell anybody. You know, I, uh—it's, it's really tough. It's got to be "Don't tell Rogers, Laird, anybody." We just don't tell the son—any son of a bitch at all.
HALDEMAN: And it is—it's a horrible way to have to work, but it's—
NIXON: Yeah.
HALDEMAN: —it's essential.


text:
As other Sufis, many Deobandis are also involved in magic, and this shows that many of the Sufis so-called Tasarrufat (controls) and karamat are in fact the works of Jinns and they use magic and Jinns to fool people and make them think they have Karamat from Allah and many of their ignorant followers are deceived by this.
Ashraf Ali Thanvi and magic to separate between two persons
Ashraf Ali Thanvi wrote a book called "A'mal e Qurani", a book of invocations, Ta'wizat (Tamaim) and 'Amaliyat (Sufi formulas).
In this book, p 21, Thanvi told how to use some magic to separate between two persons: "(Allah said:) "We have put hatred and animosity between them until the day of Resurrection"
If you desire to separate and put hatred between two persons, write this verse on a Bhuj stone, then write (the picture):
And below the picture write the sentence: may the separation occur between Fulan (so and so) and Fulan. Write the names of the two persons instead of Fulan, make a Ta'wiz (Tameemah) of it and bury it between two old graves , but don't do it for people not deserving this, as it will be a sin."
One can clearly see that the picture Ashraf Ali Thanvi told to write contains the words "Sihr" meaning magic, and learning magic is Kufr. The heart of the Muslim cries and gets a shock to see that such a Kufr is propagated under the name of Islam and Quran. And in this book, Ashraf Ali Thanvi gave other Ta'wizat to cure from some disease or to have a boy and these Ta'wizat contain numbers and unknown words, and this is also clear magic.
Invocation to control the Humans and Jinns and possess the kingdom of Sulayman
The Deobandi book called "Jawahir Khamsah" is about Du'a, Ta'wizat and 'Amaliyat. The author is Muhammad Ghawth Gulyari, and it has been translated from Persian by Mirza Muhammad Beg An-Naqshabani and it is published by famous Deobandi publisher of Karachi "Dar ul Isha'at", and it is also published by another Deobandi publisher of Lahore "Maktabah Rehmaniyah". At the end of this book, the Risalah "Futuh ul Ghayb" has been added.
In this book, the author teaches an invocation to possess the kingdom of Sulayman, control humans and Jinns: "Name 33 for greatness and control of humans and Jinns: "Ya Quddus Tahir min kuli Su fala Shayun Yu'azuhu min jami' khalqihi" (O Quddus, pure from all evils, none can be protected in
His whole creation). This composed name's particularity is that whoever for Zahiri and Batini (apparent and interior) greatness, reads it ten thousands time fir forty days, will be cut from what is other than Allah, and all the creation including humans and Jinns will be under his control and obedience…and he will become the inheritor of the kingdom of Sulayman (aley salam)"…
Also to possess the kingdom of Sulayman: whoever read this name for five years … (in a specific manner), he will have improvement in all of his works and the kingdom of Sulayman (aley salam) will come in his hands, and he will possess the control of the earth and the skies, and all the creation of the great and small universe will be under his control, and the whole universe will be enlightened by his benediction…even if he gives order, then the sun will appear in the night and disappear in the day"
One can wonder is such things are possible then why did the Sahabah fought their enemies and some became martyrs? This kind of Tasawwud totally destroys the intelligence of its author, and they are totally lost in this world of hallucination and madness and accept any kind of fairy tale and nonsense. Allah created humans on pure Fitrah, but this wrong Sufism corrupted his Fitrah and made him accept such falsehood.
Invocation to the men of the invisible (Rijal ul Ghayb)
In the same book "Jawahir Khamsah" p 310 there is an invocation:
"Peace be upon you O men of the invisible (Rijal ul Ghayb) and noble souls, help us with your special help and look at us with your special looking, O Ruqaba, O Nuqaba, O Nujaba, O Bukhaba, O Abdal, O Awtad, O Aqtab, O Qutb al Aqtab help me in this matter…"
About the invocation called "Du'a Sayfi", the author showed that it is finished with a table of numbers, and he does not know reality of it. So these people are writing numbers not knowing what they mean, they found this from Sufis.
He also gave a circle of the men of invisible (Rijal ul Ghayb) which is at the end of this invocation:
And it has preceded that these people believe that these Awliya, Abdal and Qutb rule the world.
Writing Al-Fatihah in disorder
This book "Jawahir Khamsah" also tells to write Surah Al-Fatihah in disorder to cure from some diseases. And it is well known that this is pure magic and clear Kufr pleasing Jinns, as Shaykh ul Islam Ibn Taymiyah explained in his book "Furqan bayna Awliya Rahman wa Awliya Shaytan".
Circles and crosses with strange words
This book also contains some pictures of crosses made with letters.
And there are strange circles with words like: Haqiqat Ism A'zam, Haqiqat Muhammad Haqiqi, 'Alim Wahdat, 'Alim Sifat, Arwah Maqam Haqiqat, Maqam Arwah.
There is also a circle containing 19 circles containing words such as: Soul (Ruh), secret (Sir), reason ('Aql), imagination (Khyal), the heart (Qalb) and others.
And these terms are the Batini and Zahiri sense known to the Greek philosophers and used by Ibn Sina and then Sufis like Al-Ghazali and others.
Formula to kill someone
In "Futuh Ghayb" of Mirza Beg Naqshabandi published at the end of "Jawahir Khamsah" there is a formula telling us how to kill someone deserving death, not an innocent:
"'Amal (Sufi formula) number ten: killing an enemy whose killing is permissible by the religious law. One should take and put a tree of Sanubar in an empty house, and he should write on it all the Great Names (of Allah) and if there is a group, then 48 times and if there are three then 27 times, and should do Dam (Ruqiyah) with the Great Names (of Allah) on the tree…and he should have no cloth on the head, and he should take a stick and imagine his
enemy then beat the Sanubar and say: "I have killed Fulan (so and so) with the domination of Allah (Jalla Jalaluhu)". He should do such three or seven days."
One can wonder if such things were correct why the Sahabah and Salaf fought and got martyred. But this kind of Sufism is an opium which totally destroys the reason of the person who enters it. This person might be attracted by the stories softening the heart, but then he is brain washed and accepts magic and all these fairy tales containing abominable Kufr and Shirk
Invocation to have the attributes of Allah
In the same "Futuh Ghayb", there is an invocation for the purpose of possessing the
attributes of Allah:
"If someone wants to enter the state of Fana fi Allah and Baqa bi Allah, and wants to possess the attributes of Jamal and Jalal of Haqq (Allah), and great subsistence and honour…and Ilm Ladduni (Sufi secret knowledge) and Kashf (unveiling) of hidden lights, then he should first fulfill the conditions of this name…then he should do Ghusl in one of the beginning day of the month, sing one or two songs for the soul of the leader of Prophets (saw) and read hundred times Darood Sharif, then he should start reciting this
name 2695 times in the day and night for forty days…"
May Allah protect us from such Kufr and Shirk.
May Allah send Salah and Salam on the Prophet (saw), his household, companions and those who follow them.
Compiled by Ali Hassan Khan

subset: commoncrawl


text:
27 November 2015
Training Module on Media and Information Literacy (MIL) is designed for villagers of Kyzylorda region of the Republic of Kazakhstan and includes the basics of the MIL in visual form including media literacy, librarian literacy, news, computer, digital literacy, freedoms of access and expression, Internet literacy, cinema and television, advertising, and computer games.
"The manual material represents basics of media and information literacy in a popular visual form by using UNESCO MIL courses for teachers and other materials of the organization," Mr. Sergey Lazarev, Director of the UNESCO Almaty Cluster Office, said in the introduction part to the manual.
The manual material represents basics of media and information literacy in a popular visual form by using UNESCO MIL courses for teachers and other materials of the organization.
Mr. Andrei Chevelev O.I.C. Director, UNESCO Almaty Cluster Office.
Collation: 35 pages
Authors: Laila Akhmetova, Dmitry Shorokhov, Aigul Niyazgulova
Published: 2015
UNESCO Registration Number: ATA/2015/ME.01/H/1
To download the training module, please, open the following links:
in Kazakh
in Russian
This manual was developed under a joint program of the United Nations and the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan and jointly was implemented by the Government of the RK and the UN agencies Kazakhstan: UNESCO, UNDP, UNFPA, UN Women, WHO and UNICEF to improve the well-being and quality of life in the Kyzylorda region through the implementation of innovative approaches to the provision of economic, social and environmental services to the local population, including the most vulnerable groups.
Permanent link: http://en.unesco.kz/training-materials-on-media-and-information-literacy


text:
"Jesus said to them.
'Take nothing
For your journey!
Take no staff!
Take no bag!
Take no bread!
Take no money!
Do not take
Even an extra tunic!'"
καὶ εἶπεν πρὸς αὐτούς Μηδὲν αἴρετε εἰς τὴν ὁδόν, μήτε ῥάβδον μήτε πήραν μήτε ἄρτον μήτε ἀργύριον μήτε ἀνὰ δύο χιτῶνας ἔχειν.
Luke indicated that Jesus told the 12 apostles (καὶ εἶπεν πρὸς αὐτούς) to take nothing for their journey (Μηδὲν αἴρετε εἰς τὴν ὁδόν). They were not to take a staff (μήτε ῥάβδον), a bag (μήτε πήραν), bread (μήτε ἄρτον), or money (μήτε ἀργύριον). They were not to take even 2 tunics (μήτε ἀνὰ δύο χιτῶνας ἔχειν). Equivalent passages to this can be found in Matthew, chapter 10:9-10, and Mark, chapter 6:8-9, who is closer to Luke here. Mark indicated that Jesus told them what they could not bring with them on their mission. Jesus instructed them that they should not bring anything for their journey. They could only bring a staff or walking stick, but they could not bring any bread, a bag or a sack, or money in their belts. Mark said that they should wear sandals and have a walking stick, but without any food or bread. However, all 3 synoptics agreed that they did not need two tunics, since one would be enough. Matthew also indicated that Jesus told them what they could not bring with them on their mission. They were not to bring with them any gold, silver, or copper, in their money belts, since they did not need money. This was similar to what Mark had said about not bringing any money belts. They were not to take any bags or sacks for their journey. They were not to take two tunics, since one would be enough. They were not to take any sandals or a staff. However, these laborers did deserve their food. Mark had said that they should bring a staff or sandals, but not bring food. Matthew was the opposite. He said that they were not to bring sandals, but could bring food. They did not need any money or material things, but they certainly needed something to eat for nourishment. This was a very strong demand on these 12 missionaries of Jesus. Do you travel light with few things?


text:
With his ponytail and khaki vest, Ichiro Itano looks like a rock star. The man who once strapped fifty fireworks to his motorbike to "see what would happen", who once had a part-time job playing the Masked Rider in a department store theatre, is also one of the best animation action directors in the business. He taught for four years at the Yoyogi Animation College, and now he's facing down a class of eager students in Switzerland, demonstrating how to use wide angle lenses, how to shoot moving vehicles, and how to block a cavalry charge against Chinese soldiers. All things that come in handy for the director of Angel Cop, Blassreiter and Gantz.
Someone asks about authenticity in animation, and his eyes light up mischievously.
"Let me put it like this," he says. "There's this flight school in America run by retired air force pilots. They'll give you one lesson in really fast English, and one safety demonstration, and then they'll take you up to 10,000 metres. You have a co-pilot, but he leaves it to you once you're up. So it was me and Shoji Kawamori, in jets, ready for a dogfight. All as part of the research for Macross Plus. I wanted to know what it was like to fly a plane, to be in aerial combat, and I was curious about G-force.
"Each plane had a laser pointer, and if you could keep the enemy in your sights for three seconds, you scored a hit. So we started the dogfight, chasing our tails. I scored six hits on Kawamori. He was all over the place, but I was really good!
"So after all that, I decided: 'I've done the dogfight. Let's faint.' So I grabbed the joystick and pulled right back on it. I heard the pilot shouting 'Itano! Itano-san! Mr Itano! NO! Stop!' and the G-force pushed me back in the seat. I felt my head lolling and then there was black. I'd blacked out, and it was like someone had pulled the plug on a computer.
"After that, it was just like I was rebooting. There was like static, and images, and the realisation that I was… wait… in a plane? Why am I in a plane? Why is there an American slapping my face…? Where am I… wha-? And then BANG, I'm back, after a minute unconscious, my head spinning as the co-pilot brought the plane down to land.
"I stumbled out of the cockpit and down the ladder, and then I threw up.
"Afterwards, everybody went to lunch. But the producer from Bandai took me off into a corner and just gave me a coffee, some paper and a pencil.
"He said: 'No lunch for you. You might drop dead at any moment. First, you must draw the storyboards of a blackout.'
"So I sat there and drew the storyboards for the sequence in Macross Plus where a pilot blacks out. And that's what we call authenticity."
(This article first appeared in NEO magazine #69, 2010)


text:
These days, it seems that Manny Machado would rather earn bragging rights by beating a teammate in ping-pong inside the Orioles clubhouse than discuss his possible place in baseball history. He'd rather coax manager Buck Showalter, 35 years his elder, into getting more apps on his iPhone than affirm his chase of an 82-year-old record.
But when the unofficial second half of the season kicks off for the Orioles in Texas on Friday night, Machado will resume his pursuit of one of baseball's longest-standing single-season marks.
Machado has the best opportunity of any player in more than a decade to break Earl Webb's doubles record of 67, which was set in 1931 for the Boston Red Sox. Machado's 39 doubles are the most at the All-Star break since the Seattle Mariners' Edgar Martinez hit 42 in 1996, and they put him on pace for 66.
And it's only a subplot that Machado just turned 21 this month.
"Well, he sure is setting the standards high for himself," Orioles right fielder Nick Markakis said with a smirk.
Machado's chase of Webb's mark will be one of the top storylines of the second half as the Orioles aim for another postseason berth, but it won't be the main focus for the club's precocious third baseman.
"It's something I'm not going to think about," said Machado, who has played more games at the break (96) than all recent challengers to the record . "It's not my goal. My goal is to make the playoffs. To be honest, a record is a record. It's something that's set in stone. Don't get me wrong, it's a great accomplishment and I'm honored to even be in the race. But my main goal is to make the playoffs. I want to win a World Series with this team. ...
"I'm going to be thinking about winning, and a part of that is knowing you're going to get your singles, your homers and your doubles. For me it's been doubles. Hopefully I keep hitting them and we keep winning at the same time."
Still, it's difficult not to get caught up in the chase. Last week, Showalter joked that he was on the verge of asking the official scorer at Camden Yards to take away a base on Machado's triple against the Texas Rangers on July 10. Showalter said he reviewed the play and believed Texas center fielder Engel Beltre bobbled the ball in the outfield, so it should have been ruled a double with an error.
"I was thinking about going to the official scorer and for the first time in history try to make something a double instead of a triple," Showalter said. "We looked at it. I didn't turn it in. [MLB executive vice president for baseball operations Joe] Torre would have killed me."
Seeing Machado leg out a triple without hesitation tells Showalter all he needs to know, that his young third baseman isn't going to sacrifice the chance to win for an individual accolade.
"Whether he gets it or doesn't get this record, it's not going to affect what he does," Showalter said. "A lot of guys might have stopped at second base, but he realized that it was good for him to be on third base with one out, so he kept going."
A record tough to rationalize
Machado's chances of breaking Webb's mark will rely on several factors out of his control. Doubles aren't only a product player's ability to place balls down the lines and into the gaps, but other factors such as stadium dimensions.
John Thorn, the official historian of Major League Baseball, believes playing at Camden Yards will help Machado's chase.
"Manny Machado is a great young player whose pursuit of Webb's mark may be aided by the short power alleys at Camden Yards," Thorn said. "The park tends to turn potential triples into doubles. Webb's mark is a great baseball outlier, like Owen Wilson's 36 triples in 1912. I don't think that mark will ever be topped, but then again, I once thought the same of Webb's."
Since 1993, five other players have gone into the All-Star break with 37 or more doubles. Of that group, the Houston Astros' Craig Biggio came the closest to Webb's record with 56 doubles in 1999. Martinez's bid in 1996 was derailed by a rib injury that forced him to miss 22 games.
Orioles second baseman Brian Roberts hit a franchise record 56 doubles in 2009 and was steady throughout the season, but he never really challenged Webb's mark. In 2000, the Colorado Rockies' Todd Helton used a post-break surge to hit 59 doubles, the most since 1936, but he hit just six doubles in the season's final month.
There was a sudden boon in doubles totals during Webb's era. Five of the six highest single-season doubles totals were posted between 1931 and 1936. A year after Webb set the record, the Pittsburgh Pirates' Paul Waner set a new National League mark with 62 doubles.
"I don't know why there would be [an era] for doubles," said Bill Nowlin, the vice president for the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). "I could see it for home runs. You have all kinds of explanations you can look at for statistics — when the race barrier dropped, which is also the same time teams started playing night games. A lot of things started changing in the middle-40s, but I don't know how any of that would have changes hitting doubles. … There are things that are just outliers, things that just happen. It's just that nobody has gotten to 67. Probably someone will some day."
As for why Webb — who was 33 and playing for his third team in 1931 — had such a dramatic season is still mostly a mystery. Webb hit just 30 doubles the year before and 28 the year after. Nowlin said he knows of no spray charts that show where Webb hit his doubles.
"It was a total personal outlier," Nowlin said. "It's just sort of happened. He had hot spells and cold spells like people will. Looking at Machado, he's real close. If he should suffer an injury or get in a cold spell, it would make it more difficult. On the other hand, he could take off. You see Miguel Cabrera get the first Triple Crown since 1967 [last season]. It's not quite the same as the doubles record, but it's half a century almost."
One theory is that Fenway Park's spacious alley in right-center was a treasure trove for the left-handed hitting Webb and that he could have even settled for doubles on hits that could have been triples. After tallying six triple in 1930, Webb had just three in 1931, and he had nine in each of the next two seasons.
"He was light in '31," Nowlin said. "Maybe he would have had 64 or 63 doubles. He still had an awful lot of doubles."
"His own worst enemy"
One remarkable aspect of Machado's run is the fact that he's hit the ball all over the field. Of his 39 doubles, right-handed hitting Machado has hit 11 to the right side of the field, according to a spray chart provided by ESPN Stats and Information. Machado's highest concentration has been down the left-field line, where he's pulled 18 of his doubles.
"It speaks to just his talent level and how well he can adjust," Orioles catcher Matt Wieters said. "You just don't chase any record unless you're able to hit a lot of pitches well. He's able hit balls the other way, he's able to pull balls. For a younger player to have that kind of advanced approach to be able to use the whole field, it speaks what kind of hitter he is. In this league if you have one pitch you hit well, the pitcher is going to figure it out and pitch you a different way, but he's able to adjust to pitchers and see the pitch and hit it where it's pitched."
Machado's pace has stalled. He had 38 doubles after 83 games — and was on pace for 74 — but he's hit just one over his past 13 games.
Former major leaguer and current ESPN analyst Alex Cora said Machado's biggest obstacle might be some of those doubles turning into home runs.
"In some ways, he might end up being his own worst enemy," Cora said. "As the season goes on, a lot of those balls might start becoming home runs. It's getting warmer and that stadium is a good place for homers."
Machado agrees that he still has room to grow, and he hopes his doubles stroke will translate into more homers as he matures.
"With more experience at the plate, you're going to be a smarter hitter," he said. "Definitely with more experience, hopefully they do turn into home runs. I haven't gotten my man strength yet. Eventually that will come. And when that time comes, hopefully they will go out. Hopefully they will. In the meantime, I'll just keep hitting doubles and getting on base."
Markakis, another hitter who was expected produce more power because of his early-career doubles numbers, said the stats alone aren't a true indicator.
"It's hard to tell," Markakis said. "Some guys fill out. A lot of people say guys will fill out. These days you don't know what the heck to expect with what everyone is doing these days. I lot of people mature differently. If he fills out like everybody says and thinks he's going to do, yeah, I think he's going to start turning some of those doubles into home runs."
Markakis also said that with Machado's smooth swing producing its share of line drives — 24 of his doubles have come on line drives — there should be patience in waiting for him to develop power.
Baltimore Orioles Insider
"The other thing you've got to look at is he's not a guy who goes out there and flies out to the warning track," Markakis said. "He's a guy who drives the ball and hits line drives and works gap to gap, hits them down the lines and works the whole field. Power is the last thing that's going to come. I think the thing that impresses me the most is his swing and his approach at the plate. If I was the manager, I'd take that every day and if the power didn't come, then that's fine."
Showalter is indeed fine with that.
"Here's the deal," the manager said. "I don't think that he's going to hit this many home runs or this ball's going to carry. Manny is a line drive guy, and I just think he's going to be as good as he's capable of being. That's the only thing I want to know. … I'm confident when I go to bed at night that he's going to be as good as he's capable of being. That's the only thing I ask. What he will be, nobody knows. His home run totals could go down. I don't know. I'm OK with it. But he's going to reach his potential, as long as we don't screw him up."
Most doubles at the All-Star break
A look at hitters who had the most doubles at the All-Star break in major league history. Machado has played more games than the rest of the field, but he is still on pace for 66 doubles, which would be one shy of the single-season record
Name Team Year Doubles at break Games at break Season total
Edgar Martinez Sea. 1996 42 85 52
Manny Machado O's 2013 39 96 ??
Craig Biggio Hou. 1999 38 87 56
Chuck Knoblauch Minn. 1994 37 83 45
John Olerud Tor. 1993 37 87 54
Lyle Overbay Mil. 2004 37 86 53
George Burns Cle. 1926 36 78 64
Paul Waner Pit. 1932 36 72 62
Earl Webb Bos. (AL) 1931 36 73 67
Most doubles in a single season
Name Team Year Doubles
Earl Webb Bos. (AL) 1931 67
Joe Medwick St.L. (NL) . 1936 64
George Burns Cle. 1926 64
Hank Greenberg Det. 1934 63
Paul Waner Pit. 1932 62
Charlie Gehringer Det. 1936 60
Todd Helton Col. 2000 59
Chuck Klein Phi. (NL) 1930 59
Tris Speaker Cle. 1923 59
Carlos Delgado Tor. 2000 57
Billy Herman Chi (NL) 1936 57
Billy Herman Chi (NL) 1935 57
Brian Roberts O's 2009 56
Garret Anderson LAA 2002 56
Nomar Garciaparra Bos. 2002 56
Craig Biggio Hou. 1999 56
George Kell Det. 1950 56
Joe Medwick Stl. (NL) 1937 56
Lance Berkman Hou. 2001 55
Gee Walker Det. 1936 55


text:
Warrant for drunken horseback rider issued in Boulder
Daily Camera
BOULDER – A 45-year-old man accused of going on a drunken horseback ride through Boulder while on his way to his brother's wedding in Utah failed to appear at a court hearing, and a warrant has been issued for his arrest.
The Daily Camera reported that Patrick Schumacher of Colorado Springs failed to appear at a hearing in Boulder on Friday.
University of Colorado police say witnesses saw him hit his horse and occasionally wander into traffic near the school Sept. 9. He faces several charges, including animal cruelty and being drunk while possessing a gun.
Police say Schumacher had a small pug in his backpack, as well as beer cans and a black-powder pistol in his saddlebag. He was traveling from Larkspur to Bryce, Utah — a 600-mile journey.


text:
Fall River firefighters meet with candidate for governor Berwick
FALL RIVER — Democratic gubernatorial candidate Donald M. Berwick visited the Lt. Paul R. Bernard Fire Station in the North End on Saturday to meet with a group of firefighters, with the discussions running from the future of the city to the state of the fire department with pending massive layoffs.
It was Berwick's first stop in Fall River since announcing his candidacy last June, and he wanted to talk about what government can do to help distressed cities like Fall River.
When Berwick asked the firefighters about the city, Local 1314 President Jason Burns said it has been in need of a lot of economic development since manufacturing left Fall River.
"I don't think we ever adapted to the new world and the new economy," Burns said.
The city is losing its tax base, Burns said, and that when unrestricted state aid is decreased "it hurts communities like mine."
"If the state cuts $3 million, it's like Armageddon down here," Burns said.
"It's a systemic issue," Berwick said, "I keep wondering that as governor we can take a few cities (like Fall River) and double-down. This can't go on."
Burns, who identified himself as a lifelong city resident as well as a firefighter, said he feels the city is on the verge of prosperity. He said he looks forward to the development of the waterfront as one way to improve the city's economy.
"I'm buying into the city. I know some are selling it," Burns said.
Berwick has a strong background on health care reform and is campaigning on a single-payer system in Massachusetts.
He started his career as a pediatrician, and in 1991 he helped found the non-profit Institute for Healthcare Improvement, which is now in 50 countries with a goal of improving health care.
In 2010, President Barack Obama tapped him to lead the Medicare and Medicaid programs with the agency's $800 billion budget. He participated in forming the Affordable Care Act.
Berwick resigned 17 months later when a group of Republicans indicated they would not support his nomination.
Last summer, Berwick met Burns and other Fall River firefighters at a Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts meeting and has been trying to meet with them again ever since, said his campaign staffer Joe Caiazzo.
When discussing Mayor Will Flanagan's plan to cut 60 firefighters from the department, Berwick said that "cutting from the safety net makes no sense at all."
A third-generation firefighter and city resident, Mark Medeiros said the job of the fire department is more than just fighting fires and responding to EMT calls — it's firefighters who extract the injured with the jaws of life.
For any cardiac arrest call, an engine company is expected to respond, he said.
"I had three cardiac (calls) in two shifts, and one was a 4-month-old. We beat the rescue," Medeiros said.
Berwick asked about the health of the baby.
Medeiros said the infant survived, but one of the other cardiac patients, a 10-month-old, did not.
"This is not the place we can afford to make cuts. Public safety should be untouchable," Medeiros said, "and there's a reason for it."
Burns told Berwick that as a taxpayer, his family deserved quality education and adequate public safety.
"This is an area that just can't be forgotten," Berwick responded.


text:
EVs have been around a long time but are quickly gaining speed in the automotive industry. Learn how the long-coming and inevitable shift to electric impacts you.
Whether you want to build your own home theater or just learn more about TVs, displays, projectors, and more, we've got you covered.
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