Chris Matthews and Henry Kissinger <$NoAd$> reminisce on Hardball ...

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about the whole Nixon—and I‘m sure you‘ve thought this over a zillion times in your life in your long career and all that you‘ve done. If you think about Nixon and break-ins, I know I have a tape -- I listened to it myself over at the archives—of Nixon saying, go break into Brookings after the Pentagon Papers were published.

There was another tape I listened to where he said, let‘s go break into the Republican headquarters and make it look like the Democrats did it. What is with Nixon and break-ins?

KISSINGER: You have to understand that Nixon had a habit of making grandiloquent statements. This was his way of letting off steam to prove that he was macho.

And the people who really knew him would not act on these comments. When I learned about Watergate, I asked Bryce Harlow, who was a wise old man around Washington, I said , what do you think happened here, Bryce? And he said, some damn fool went into the Oval Office and did what he was told, because Nixon didn‘t mean these things to be carried out. And he didn‘t really order them. He would say these things rhetorically. Let‘s break into Brookings. And he...

Just misunderstood.

(ed.note: Thanks to TPM Reader JW.)