Nick Bryant

And then he took the National Security Council, which had been kind of like a think tank, and he made that, he turned that into something that would have bearing on his geopolitical moves.

And Richard Helms, who was the head of the CIA, he would allow Helms to brief the National Security Council, but as soon as he was done briefing,

He would have to leave, his persona non grata.

And Nixon really disliked Helms, really disliked him.

And actually, he thought that the CIA had burned him in the 1960 political campaign against JFK.

Because JFK was attacking him and the Eisenhower administration for being soft on communism, even though the Eisenhower administration was gearing up for what would be the Bay of Pigs.

And Nixon thought that the CIA had told that to Kennedy and undermined his run for the presidency at that point.

So Nixon didn't like the CIA and he wanted to become a peacemaker.

So he started making overtures to the Chinese and then the Russians.

He really wanted to de-escalate the arms race.

He was doing all this clandestinely through... The Navy had this top secret communication system called SR-1.

He was doing it all clandestinely through SR-1.

And the Hawks were alarmed.

And the Joint Chiefs of Staff actually initiated an espionage ring against the Nixon administration.

There was...

Thomas Moore, he was the head of the Joint Chiefs.

He was an admiral.

It's called the Moore-Radford affair because Radford was this lowly yeoman who was the liaison between the Joint Chiefs and the National Security Council.

Haig was the inside man for them at the National Security Council.

Haig was enabling Radford to get all these top secret documents.