S360 Extra: Nixon at War - Ep 1 October Surprise

Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen

Hello Studio 360 fans!

We're sharing the first episode of a new podcast project, Nixon at War, hosted by Studio 360's Kurt Andersen. Nixon at War is a seven-episode history, a fresh new kind of chronicle about how Richard Nixon turned Vietnam into a war at home… that we’re still fighting today.

Most accounts of the collapse of Richard Nixon’s presidency begin with Watergate - the now iconic tale of a bungled break-in and the misbegotten cover-up that followed. But what led to Watergate? How - and more puzzlingly, why - did one of the shrewdest, most gifted political figures of his time become embroiled in so manifestly lunatic an enterprise in the first place?

Intrigued by that question, novelist and historian Kurt Andersen takes a deep dive into the vast archives at the Nixon Library and emerges with an answer he wasn’t expecting: While Watergate doubtless accelerated Nixon’s spectacular fall, it was the Vietnam War that led inexorably to the break-in, and from there to the sinking of his presidency.
At the heart of the series are hundreds of tape recordings from the time. Buried, never before heard, confidential conversations that play like dark drama. To listen to the new series, visit NixonAtWar.org, or search "Nixon at War" wherever you’re listening.