作者:
kwei (光影)
2019-08-06 11:19:26Ronald Reagan’s Long-Hidden Racist Conversation With Richard Nixon
雷根與尼克森被長期隱藏的種族主義對話
原文 (The Atlantic 大西洋月刊): https://tinyurl.com/y47jhpvz
作者：Tim Naftali
中譯 (觀察者網): https://user.guancha.cn/main/content?id=153254
譯者：劉倩藜
The day after the United Nations voted to recognize the People’s Republic
of China, then–California Governor Ronald Reagan phoned President Richard
Nixon at the White House and vented his frustration at the delegates who had
sided against the United States. “Last night, I tell you, to watch that
thing on television as I did,” Reagan said. “Yeah,” Nixon interjected.
Reagan forged ahead with his complaint: “To see those, those monkeys from
those African countries—damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing
shoes!” Nixon gave a huge laugh.
1971年10月25日，聯合國大會投票承認中華人民共和國政府的代表為中國在聯合國組織的
唯一合法代表。第二天，美國總統理查德‧尼克森（譯註：美國第37任總統）就在白宮接
到了加州州長羅納德‧雷根（譯註：美國第40任總統）的電話, 後者在通話裡發洩他對站
在美國對立面的非洲代表們的不滿。雷根說：“昨晚，我不是叫你在電視上看那件事嘛…
…”尼克森應了一句：“看了。”雷根接著抱怨：“看看那些從非洲國家來的猴子們，真
該死，他們還沒有習慣穿鞋子！”聽完，尼克森哈哈大笑。
The past month has brought presidential racism back into the headlines. This
October 1971 exchange between current and future presidents is a reminder
that other presidents have subscribed to the racist belief that Africans or
African Americans are somehow inferior. The most novel aspect of President
Donald Trump’s racist gibes isn’t that he said them, but that he said them
in public.
就在上個月，美國總統發表的種族主義言論又成了新聞頭條。尼克森和雷根之間的那場對
話提醒我們，歷史上其他美國總統也持有種族主義觀念，認為非洲人或非裔美國人在某種
意義上就是低人一等。川普的“創新”之處不在於他說了那些話，而在於他公然讓這種言
論登上了檯面。
The exchange was taped by Nixon, and then later became the responsibility of
the Nixon Presidential Library, which I directed from 2007 to 2011. When the
National Archives originally released the tape of this conversation, in 2000,
the racist portion was apparently withheld to protect Reagan’s privacy. A
court order stipulated that the tapes be reviewed chronologically; the
chronological review was completed in 2013. Not until 2017 or 2018 did the
National Archives begin a general rereview of the earliest Nixon tapes. Reagan
’s death, in 2004, eliminated the privacy concerns. Last year, as a
researcher, I requested that the conversations involving Ronald Reagan be
rereviewed, and two weeks ago, the National Archives released complete
versions of the October 1971 conversations involving Reagan online.
尼克森把他和雷根的通話錄了下來，這些錄音後來由尼克森總統圖書館負責收藏。我本人
曾於2007-2011年擔任該圖書館館長。2000年，當美國國家檔案館首次公開當日通話錄音
時，出於保護雷根隱私的考慮，其中種族主義的部分被抹掉了。法院指令要求按照時間順
序複查這些錄音，該項工作2013年便完成了。但直到2017、2018年左右，國家檔案館才對
尼克森早年的錄音開始全面複查。雷根已於2004年過世，不再存在隱私問題。去年，我以
研究人員的身份，要求再次複查尼克森與雷根的對話。就在兩週之前，國家檔案館網站公
佈了1971年10月尼克森與雷根對話的完整版。
When the UN took its vote to seat a delegation from Beijing instead of from
Taiwan in 1971, members of the Tanzanian delegation started dancing in the
General Assembly. Reagan, a devoted defender of Taiwan, was incensed, and
tried to reach Nixon the night of the vote. Reagan despised the United
Nations, which he described as a “kangaroo court” filled with “bums,” and
he wanted the U.S. to withdraw from full participation immediately. Nixon was
asleep when Reagan called, so they spoke the next morning.
1971年，當聯合國投票決定由北京代表團而非台灣代表團代表中國時，聯合國大會現場的
坦桑尼亞代表開始手舞足蹈。作為台灣堅定的支持者，怒氣衝衝的雷根當晚就試圖致電聯
繫尼克森。雷根鄙視聯合國，他曾把聯合國稱作“蠢貨們私設的袋鼠法庭”，並希望美國
立即停止全面參與聯合國事務。但當雷根打電話時，尼克森已經睡著了，所以他們第二天
早上才通上電話。
Reagan’s slur touched an already raw nerve. Earlier that day, Nixon had
called his deputy national security adviser, Al Haig, to cancel any future
meetings with any African leader who had not voted with the United States on
Taiwan, even if they had already been scheduled. “Don’t even submit to me
the problem that it’s difficult to turn it off since we have already
accepted it,” Nixon exclaimed. “Just turn it off, on the ground that I will
be out of town.”
雷根侮辱非洲代表的言論剛好觸碰到了尼克森的痛處。當天早些時候，尼克森打電話要求
國家安全事務助理亞歷山大‧黑格取消他與投票中沒跟著美國挺台灣的非洲領導人的見面
，哪怕日程已經安排好。尼克森說：“不要因為我們事先接受了會見邀約，現在就說推不
掉，這種話不要跟我匯報，”他疾聲厲色地說：“直接推掉，就說到時候我不在。”
Nixon’s anger at the UN delegations from African nations for the loss was
misplaced. His own State Department blamed factors other than African voting,
including maneuvering by the British and French behind the scenes, for the
loss. But Nixon would have none of it. The Africans were to blame.
事實上，尼克森把投票落敗歸咎於非洲國家駐聯合國代表團，還真把火撒錯了對象。美國
國務院認為導致投票失利的主因不是非洲國家，而是包括英法在背後操縱等其他原因。但
尼克森不接受這些理由，堅持認為非洲人才是“罪魁禍首”。
Had the story stopped there, it would have been bad enough. Racist venting is
still racist. But what happened next showed the dynamic power of racism when
it finds enablers. Nixon used Reagan’s call as an excuse to adapt his
language to make the same point to others. Right after hanging up with
Reagan, Nixon sought out Secretary of State William Rogers.
如果故事到這裡就結束了，那它——還是一件很糟糕的事——哪怕是發洩情緒，種族主義
就是種族主義。但接下來的故事說明，只要有人推動，種族主義在美國仍然是一股活躍的
力量。尼克森把雷根的來電作為藉口，並借用雷根的話向他人表述同樣的觀點。他剛掛掉
雷根的電話，就找來了國務卿威廉‧羅傑斯。
Even though Reagan had called Nixon to press him to withdraw from the United
Nations, in Nixon’s telling, Reagan’s complaints about Africans became the
primary purpose of the call.
儘管雷根打電話給尼克森是想敦促他退出聯合國，但在尼克森的轉述裡，雷根這通電話的
主要目的成了抱怨非洲人。
“As you can imagine,” Nixon confided in Rogers, “there’s strong feeling
that we just shouldn’t, as [Reagan] said, he saw these, as he said, he saw
these—” Nixon stammered, choosing his words carefully—“these, uh, these
cannibals on television last night, and he says, ‘Christ, they weren’t even
wearing shoes, and here the United States is going to submit its fate to that,
’ and so forth and so on.”
尼克森對羅傑斯推心置腹地說：“你可以想像，有種強烈的感受，覺得我們不應該，（雷
根）說，他昨晚在電視上看到這些，他說，他看到這些……”尼克森結巴了一下，小心翼
翼地拿捏措辭：“這些，額，這些食人族的時候，他說，‘上帝啊，他們連鞋都沒穿，而
聯合國竟要聽命於這個現實了，'諸如此類的話。”
The president wanted his patrician secretary of state to understand that
Reagan spoke for racist Americans, and they needed to be listened to. “You
know, but that’s typical of a reaction, which is probably”—“That’s right,
” Rogers interjected—“quite strong.”
尼克森想讓身為上流精英的羅傑斯瞭解到，雷根是在為那些種族主義的美國人發聲，而且
這些人的聲音應被聆聽。“你知道，這屬於比較典型的反應，可能有點……”羅傑斯插話
道：“的確，有點強烈。”
Nixon couldn’t stop retelling his version of what Reagan had said. Oddly
unfocused, he spoke with Rogers again two hours later and repeated the story
as if it would be new to the secretary.
尼克森似乎停不下來，一遍又一遍轉述雷根的話。他似乎有點心不在焉，兩小時後又找羅
傑斯談話，再把故事重複了一遍，彷彿在跟國務卿說一件新鮮事。
“Reagan called me last night,” Nixon said, “and I didn’t talk to him
until this morning, but he is, of course, outraged. And I found out what
outraged him, and I find this is typical of a lot of people: They saw it on
television and, he said, ‘These cannibals jumping up and down and all that.’
And apparently it was a pretty grotesque picture.” Like Nixon, Rogers had
not seen the televised images. But Rogers agreed: “Apparently, it was a
terrible scene.” Nixon added, “And they cheered.”
尼克森說：“雷根昨晚打電話來，但我直到今天早上才跟他通上話。他顯然已經氣壞了。
我瞭解了一下他為什麼這麼生氣，發現這種怒氣很多人都有。他們都在電視上了，他說‘
這些食人族上躥下跳。’這番景象看起來確實挺怪誕的。”羅傑斯和尼克森一樣，也沒看
過電視轉播畫面，但他卻附和說：“這看起來確實挺可怕的。”尼克森補充道：“他們還
歡呼起來。”
Then Nixon said, “He practically got sick at his stomach, and that’s why he
called. And he said, ‘It was a terrible scene.’ And that sort of thing will
have an emotional effect on people … as [Reagan] said, ‘This bunch of
people who don’t even wear shoes yet, to be kicking the United States in the
teeth’ … It was a terrible thing, they thought.”
接著，尼克森說：“他（雷根）肯定覺得特別倒胃，才打電話給我。然後他說，‘那場面
真的很可怕。'而且這種畫面肯定會影響人們的情緒……據他（雷根）說，‘這些連鞋都
還沒穿上的人，居然就踩到美國頭上來了'……他們覺得這件事真是太可怕了。”
Nixon didn’t think of himself as a racist; perhaps that’s why it was so
important to him to keep quoting Reagan’s racism, rather than own the
sentiment himself. But Reagan’s comment about African leaders resonated with
Nixon, because it reflected his warped thinking about African Americans.
尼克森不認為自己是種族主義者，或許這也是為什麼他必須不斷引述雷根的種族主義言論
，而避免直接表達自己的情緒。但雷根對非洲代表的評論引起了尼克森的共鳴，因為這些
言論折射出後者對非裔美國人扭曲的看法。
In the fall of 1971, the Nixon administration was engaged in a massive
welfare-reform effort, and was also facing school busing. These two issues
apparently inspired Nixon to examine more deeply his own thinking on whether
African Americans could make it in American society. Only three weeks before
the call with Reagan, Nixon had revealed his opinions on Africans and African
Americans in a conversation with the Harvard professor Daniel Patrick
Moynihan, who had briefly served in the Nixon administration. Nixon was
attracted to the theories of Richard Herrnstein and Arthur Jensen, which
linked IQ to race, and wondered what Moynihan thought.
1971年秋天，尼克森政府一邊推動大規模福利改革，一邊試圖阻撓反種族隔離的校車制。
很明顯，這兩件事激發尼克森更深刻地檢視自己關於非裔美國人究竟能否融入美國社會的
觀念。在和雷根通話的三週之前，尼克森在與哈佛大學教授丹尼爾‧帕特里克‧莫伊尼漢
對話時表露了他對非洲人和非裔美國人的觀點。尼克森深受心理學家理查德‧赫恩斯坦和
亞瑟‧詹森的理論吸引，他們將智商與種族聯繫在一起。尼克森想知道莫伊尼漢怎麼看這
個問題。
“I have reluctantly concluded, based at least on the evidence presently
before me … that what Herrnstein says, and what was said earlier by Jensen,
is probably … very close to the truth,” Nixon explained to a quiet
Moynihan. Nixon believed in a hierarchy of races, with whites and Asians much
higher up than people of African descent and Latinos. And he had convinced
himself that it wasn’t racist to think black people, as a group, were
inferior to whites, so long as he held them in paternalistic regard. “Within
groups, there are geniuses,” Nixon said. “There are geniuses within black
groups. There are more within Asian groups … This is knowledge that is
better not to know.”
尼克森對沉默的莫伊尼漢說：“至少從當前擺在我面前的證據來看，我不得不說，赫恩斯
坦以及更早的詹森，他們的說法可能……非常接近真相。”尼克森相信種族之間有等級高
下之分，白人和亞洲人遠比非洲和拉丁人種優越。而且尼克森說服自己，只要懷著家長式
的心態來看待黑人，那麼認為黑人族群（而不針對個體）比白人低劣並不屬於種族主義。
尼克森說：“族群內部都是有天才的。在黑人族群內部有天才。但，亞洲族群內部天才更
多……這種事情還是不知道比知道好。”
Nixon’s analysis of African leadership reflected his prejudice toward America
’s black citizens. This is, at least, what he told Moynihan. “Have in mind
one fact: Did you realize there is not, of the 40 or 45—you’re at the
United Nations—black countries that are represented there, not one has a
president or a prime minister who is there as a result of a contested
election such as we were insisting upon in Vietnam?” And, he continued, a
little later in the conversation: “I’m not saying that blacks cannot
govern; I am saying they have a hell of a time. Now, that must demonstrate
something.”
尼克森對於非洲領導人的分析反映了他對美國黑人的偏見。他親口對莫伊尼漢說：“記住
一個事實：不知你有沒有注意到，聯合國40個還是45個黑人國家裡，沒有一個總統或總理
是通過競爭性選舉上台的，就像我們堅持讓越南遵循的選舉方式。”在那次對話中，他後
來還說：“我不是說黑人不懂治理，我是說他們有大把時間證明自己，現在總得拿出點像
樣的東西來吧。”
Fifty years later, the one fact that we should have in mind is that our nation
’s chief executive assumed that the nonwhite citizens of the United States
were somehow inferior. Nixon confided in Moynihan, who had been one of his
house intellectuals, about the nature of his interest in research on African
American intelligence: “The reason I have to know it is that as I go for
programs, I must know that they have basic weaknesses.”
五十年過去了，我們應當記住的一個事實，那就是我們國家的領導人曾認為美國有色人種
公民低人一等。尼克森曾向他的智囊莫伊尼漢吐露他對非裔美國人智商研究感興趣的原因
：“我之所以要瞭解這件事，是因為我在推行政策時，必須知道他們有根本性的弱點。”
As these and other tapes make clear, the 37th president of the United States
was a racist: He believed in treating people according to their race, and
that race implied fundamental differences in individual human beings. Nixon’
s racism matters to us because he allowed his views on race to shape U.S.
policies—both foreign and domestic. His policies need to be viewed through
that lens.
從林林總總的錄音中可以清晰地得出結論，美國第37任總統尼克森是個種族主義者：他堅
信應按種族來把人區分對待；種族意味著人類個體之間最根本的區別。尼克森的種族主義
與今天的我們仍然有關，因為他對種族的觀念塑造了美國內政外交的重大決策。我們需要
透過種族主義濾鏡看待他的政策。
The 40th president has not left as dramatic a record of his private thoughts.
Reagan’s racism appears to be documented only once on the Nixon tapes, and
never in his own diaries. His comment on African leaders, however, sheds new
light on what lay behind the governor’s passionate defense of the apartheid
states of Rhodesia and South Africa later in the 1970s. During his 1976
primary-challenge run against Gerald Ford, Reagan publicly opposed the Ford
administration’s rejection of white-minority rule in Rhodesia. “We seem to
be embarking on a policy of dictating to the people of southern Africa and
running the risk of increased violence and bloodshed,” Reagan said at a
rally in Texas.
第40任總統雷根並未留下太多有關他私人觀點的記錄。雷根的種族主義似乎僅體現在他和
尼克森的那一次通話中，他個人日記從來沒有記錄。但是，他那番關於非洲代表團的評論
，可以幫助我們理解1970年代他為如此堅決地為實行種族隔離政策的羅德西亞（譯註：現
津巴布韋）和南非辯護。福特政府曾拒絕支持羅德西亞由白人少數派治理，而雷根在1976
年的總統初選階段對福特的政策公開表示反對，他在得克薩斯州競選活動上說：“我們似
乎開始了一項向非洲南部人民發號指令的政策，而且是冒著暴力和流血事件升級的風險。
”
These new tapes are a stark reminder of the racism that often lay behind the
public rhetoric of American presidents. As I write a biography of JFK, I’ve
found that this sort of racism did not animate President Kennedy—indeed,
early on he took political risks to help African leaders, most notably Gamal
Abdel Nasser and Kwame Nkrumah. But his reluctance to do more, sooner for
African Americans cannot be separated from the paternalism he brought to the
Oval Office or the prejudice held by parts of his Boston inner circle.
這些新公佈的錄音提醒我們，美國歷任總統的公開說辭背後往往潛伏著種族主義。當我撰
寫甘迺迪總統傳記時，我發現甘迺迪並不受此類種族主義鼓動。的確是這樣，甘迺迪早期
甚至甘冒政治風險去幫助非洲領導人，其中最為人所知的包括埃及總統賈邁勒‧阿卜杜爾
‧納賽爾和加納總統克瓦米‧恩克魯瑪。但他不願讓非裔美國人更快獲得更多權利，這可
能與他帶到白宮的家長式做派密不可分，也可能與他的波士頓心腹圈對黑人所抱的成見有
關。
Kennedy, at least, learned on the job that securing civil rights for all was
a moral imperative. Donald Trump, on the other hand, is a symptom of a
sickness that dwells in American society, sometimes deeply and weakly,
sometimes on the surface and feverishly. He bears responsibility for his own
actions, but the tropes, the turns of phrase, the clumsy indirection, and
worse, the gunk about American society that he and his most devoted followers
pass off as ideas, have an ugly tradition. It is not at the core of the
American tradition, for what makes us mighty and successful is that we are
much more than the narrowest of our minds. But it remains an ineluctable part
of American culture, nonetheless.
至少甘迺迪在任上清楚地認識到，從道德層面來看，確保所有公民享有民權勢在必行。相
比之下，川普反映出美國社會消散不去的病症，它時而深入骨髓、隱而不發，時而浮於皮
表，狂熱焦灼。他對他自己的行為承擔責任，但他語句裡那些比喻和措辭，那種笨拙的欲
蓋彌彰，以及那些被他和他的死忠粉們當作美國思想的社會糟粕，都有著醜惡的根源。這
不是美國傳統的核心所在，畢竟，美國的強大與成功都離不開我們超越自身的狹隘。但話
雖如此，種族主義仍然是美國文化中不可逃避的一部分。
Nixon never changed his mind about the supposed inherent inferiority of
Africans. At the end of October 1971, he discussed the UN vote with his best
friend, Bebe Rebozo. Bebe delighted Nixon by echoing Reagan: “That reaction
on television was, it proves how they ought to be still hanging from the
trees by their tails.” Nixon laughed.
尼克森認為非洲人天生低劣的觀念一直沒有改變。1971年10月底，他和好友貝貝‧雷博佐
再次談起聯合國的那場投票。貝貝順著雷根的話往下說，引得尼克森非常開心，他說：“
他們在電視上的反應，證明他們其實應該用尾巴倒掛在樹上。”尼克森樂得哈哈大笑。
These days, though Trump’s imagery is less zoological, it is pretty much the
same in spirit. And this president, unlike Nixon, doesn’t believe he needs
to hide behind anyone else’s racism.
儘管今天川普不再把有色人種說成是動物，但他的言論在本質上沒有區別。與尼克森不同
的是，川普覺得不需要躲在別人後面，當他人為自己的種族主義當擋箭牌。