Fred Thompson: Nation

“Not once did an off-the-record comment return to haunt me. For example, my relationship with Walter Pincus, editor of the New Republic, one of the nation’s most liberal magazines, developed to the point were he understood our conversations went off the record without my having to say so. I never divulged anything of great substance, but many of my comments about personalities and my own prejudices could have been extremely embarrassing had he (or others) betrayed my confidence.”

Fred Thompson

page 236
At That Point in Time, Off-the record meetings

Confidence , Personality

“This country has shed more blood for the freedom of other people than all the other nations in the history of the world combined, and I'm tired of people feeling like they've got to apologize for America.”

Fred Thompson

[Charles Hurt, New York Post, http://www.nypost.com/seven/08182007/news/nationalnews/not_yet_running_thompson_stumps_in_iowa_nationalnews_charles_hurt__washington_bureau_chief.htm, NOT-YET-RUNNING THOMPSON STUMPS IN IOWA, August 18, 2007, 2007-09-21, https://archive.is/5KYSw, 2013-06-30]

People , World , Feeling , History

“As I reflected further, I convinced myself that Nixon had not had prior knowledge to the break-in, nor of the cover-up that followed. Even if culpability reached dangerously close to the president, I reasoned, surely his top aides would have shielded him from damaging information, not just to protect themselves, but also to allow him to tell the nation, in the best faith, that neither he nor his chief advisors were involved.”

Fred Thompson

page 39
At That Point in Time, Perception of Nixon’s involvement and the nation

Faith , Knowledge

“In hindsight, I have come to believe the discovery of the tapes may prove to be an historic event in more than one way. At a time when the United States government acknowledges that 2 million conversations were overheard by authorized eavesdroppers in a twelve month period, and at least an equal number were being recorded by private dectecies, suspicious spouses, corporate spies, special agents, and blackmailers; at a time when people like me conduct their lives under the assumption that their telephone lines are tapped; and at a time when devices such as the bug-in-the-martini-olive are proliferating, the disastrous consequences that flowed from Nixon’s fateful decision to record White House conversations may serve to awaken the nation to the threat posed to the little privacy that remains to us.”

Fred Thompson

page 92
At That Point in Time, Tapes and the threat of wiretapping

Fate , People , Way , Decision

“The average 20-year-old serving us in Iraq knows more about their country's national security than the average 20-year political veteran serving in the Congress today.”

Fred Thompson

[Marc Caputo, Miami Herald, http://www.miamiherald.com/458/story/236981.html, GOP's Thompson shows his conservatism, September 14, 2007, 2007-09-21, http://web.archive.org/web/20070811065546/http://www.miamiherald.com/458/story/236981.html, 2007-08-11]

Country

“When five men were captured in the Watergate offices of the Democratic National Committee early in the morning on Saturday June 17, 1972 I had just completed a three-year stint as an assistant United States Attorney in Nashville. Ironically I had resigned the day before the break-in. I was about to become an unpaid political worker- the middle Tennessee director for the reelection campaign of Sen. Howard Baker.”

Fred Thompson

page 3
At That Point in Time, Initial involvement

Men