Reagan – a devoted defender of Taiwan who despised the UN – wanted the US to withdraw from full participation, Naftali said. Reagan continued, “To see those, those monkeys from those African countries – damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes!” Reagan, Naftali writes, is heard saying to Nixon, “Last night, I tell you, to watch that thing on television as I did.” In the call, he says, Reagan is heard apparently referencing the way the Tanzanian delegation started dancing in the General Assembly when the UN took the vote to seat the delegation from Beijing instead of Taiwan. Tim Naftali, who directed the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum from 2007 to 2011, writes that Reagan – who would later become the 40th President of the United States – called Nixon in October 1971, the day after the United Nations had voted to recognize the People’s Republic of China. Ronald Reagan disparaged “monkeys” from African countries in a phone call with then-President Richard Nixon, according to the former director of Nixon’s presidential library, who published his findings in The Atlantic. This week, CNN presenter Don Lemon said that the racially insensitive comments by Trump made him the "race baiter-in-chief.In a newly unearthed audio clip, then-California Gov. Elijah Cummings and four congresswomen of color, known as The Squad-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib. The current president, Donald Trump, faces accusations of racism, the most recent following his comments about Rep. "These new tapes are a stark reminder of the racism that often lay behind the public rhetoric of American presidents," Naftali said. Naftali said that Nixon did not consider himself a racist and felt more comfortable hiding behind Reagan's words. Reagan publicly defended the apartheid states of Rhodesia and South Africa in the 1970s. Nixon emphasized how Reagan's reaction was what racist Americans may have felt, telling Rogers "that's typical of a reaction, which is probably quite strong." Christ, they weren't even wearing shoes, and here the United States is going to submit its fate to that." Nixon referred to how the California governor had told him he had seen, "these…cannibals on television last night. An excerpt from another conversation to then Secretary of State, William Rogers, has Nixon paraphrasing Reagan's sentiment. The Atlantic reported that Nixon later apparently used Reagan's language as an excuse to make racial slurs of his own. but the conversation ended up focusing on Reagan's broader complaints about Africans. He had phoned Nixon to push him to withdraw from the U.N. voted to seat a delegation from Beijing, instead of Taiwan. Reagan was a supporter of Taipei and took exception to a delegation from Tanzania dancing in the General Assembly after the U.N. "I requested that the conversations involving Ronald Reagan be re-reviewed and, two weeks ago, the National Archives released complete versions," Naftali told the magazine. Tim Naftali, a clinical associate professor of history at New York University, who directed the Nixon Presidential Library from 2007 until 2011, said the exchange was removed from the original tapes for privacy reasons until Reagan's death in 2004. A recording has emerged in which Reagan made a racial slur about African delegates at the United Nations. President Richard Nixon (right) is pictured in 1971 in the Oval Office with the future president, Ronald Reagan.
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