WASHINGTON — President Nixon jokingly threatened to drop a nuclear bomb on Capitol Hill in March 1974 as Congress was moving to impeach him over the Watergate scandal, according to transcripts of telephone conversations released yesterday.

"I was told to get the football," White House chief of staff Alexander Haig told Secretary of State Henry Kissinger less than five months before the president's forced resignation, during a conversation in which the two men exchanged stories about Nixon's increasingly erratic behavior.

"What do you mean?" asked Kissinger, who called Haig to express concern the president might unwittingly unleash a war in the Middle East with his new, get-tough policy against Israel.

"His black nuclear bag," Haig replied. "He is going to drop it on the Hill."

# posted by Gerry Canavan @ 9:16 AM  |