Heather Cox Richardson:

From Cafe and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is Now & Then. I’m Heather Cox Richardson.

Joanne Freeman:

And I’m Joanne Freeman. Today’s topic came to us thinking about an issue that was in the news recently, and that still is lurking out there and there’s almost definitely more to come from this. And this involves the revelation, the discovery that former President Trump took top secret documents with him to Mar-a-Lago and has boxes of them there. And this involves the discovery, right? In the news. We all saw the discovery of that. And there was question of how top secret they actually were.

And that was in the news for a while. It seems to have ebbed a little bit, which in and of itself is interesting because as we’re going to talk about in today’s episode, what you keep secret and how, why and when you keep it secret matters a lot in politics and particularly when you’re dealing with foreign nations.

So what we want to talk about today is taking a look back in American history, to look at moments when presidents for one reason or another, decided to keep something secret or to hold it back from the public or to hold it back from congress for a reason that when we’ll discuss several reasons, why it made sense to them at the time and what the impact and implications of that are.

Heather Cox Richardson:

I’m excited about this topic in part, because I find it gobsmacking that a former president walked off with documents that were top secret. We know that now. Some of which, according to the people who were making a list of what he had taken with him were so secret that they didn’t even want to put them on the list.

That story did not really spend very much time in the news cycle at all. This to me is completely mind-boggling when you think about the necessity for government secrets in order to run foreign affairs, for example.

Joanne Freeman:

Right. I mean it matters of war and peace. And the thing is there were at least 15 boxes of documents. We’re not talking about three folders. We’re talking about massive amounts of documents.

Heather Cox Richardson:

And I want to emphasize here that those belong to the American people. Those are not something that the president is supposed to walk off with because of our laws about presidential records. And shortly before that, there was another interesting piece of political news that also seemed to me incredibly interesting. And that was when a state department spokesman was talking about the lead up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

And in that case, a spokesman, a guy named Ned Price was in front of a group of reporters and trying to outline for those reporters what the Biden administration thought that Russian President Vladimir Putin was going to do. And in that case, Price said, “Well, we expect that the Russian government is going to be releasing false videos that suggest a Ukrainian attack on Russia and those will include crisis actors. They will include probably corpses. They will make it look as if there’s been a Ukrainian attack on Russia. And that’s going to be used as justification for an invasion of Ukraine.”

And at the time, if you remember, there was a sense that a lot of people were trying to argue that Vladimir Putin was not going to invade Ukraine, that it was propaganda, the very fact that he was pretending to be launching an invasion. And the US government kept saying, “No, he’s really going to do it. He’s really going to do it.” And so when Ned Price said, “Listen, we expect there to be this sort of a false flag video,” a reporter from the AP, a man named Matt Lee really challenged him and said …

Matt Lee (archival):

What evidence do you have to support the idea that there is some propaganda film in the making?

Ned Price:

Matt, this is derived from information known to the US government intelligence information that we have declassified. I think you know-

Matt Lee (archival):

Okay, well, where is it? Where is this information?

Ned Price:

It is intelligence information that we have declassified.

Matt Lee (archival):

Well, where is it? Where is the declassified information?

Ned Price:

I just delivered it.

Matt Lee (archival):

No, you made a series of allegations and statements-

Ned Price (archival):

Would you like us to print it out the topper? Because you will see a transcript of this briefing that you can print out for yourself.

Matt Lee (archival):

That’s not evidence Ned, that’s you saying it. That’s not evidence. I’m sorry.

Ned Price (archival):

What would you like Matt?

Matt Lee (archival):

I would like to see some proof that you can show.

Ned Price (archival):

Matt, you have been-

Matt Lee (archival):

That shows that the Russians are doing this. Matt, I’ve been doing this for a while.

Ned Price (archival):

I know that was my point. [crosstalk 00:04:35] You have been doing this for quite a while. You know that when we declassify intelligence information-

Matt Lee (archival):

That’s right and I remember that-

Ned Price (archival):

… we do so in a means … [crosstalk 00:04:44] We do so with an eye to protecting sources and methods.

Matt Lee (archival):

… [crosstalk 00:04:46] is not going to fall.

Heather Cox Richardson:

Essentially at the end of the day, Lee said, “Well, we just have absolutely no reason to believe you.” And Price came back with, “Well, this is what we’re giving you.” And they reached an impasse that highlighted not only the importance of secrecy under certain circumstances, but also the political implications of secrecy and the ability to challenge an administration based on secrecy.

And of course now, we have watched how that particular issue played out that in fact, the state department was correct. And the reporter who challenged it could have trusted that. But at the same time, we still have hanging out there that Donald Trump, I just walked off with secrets story that isn’t getting any traction at all. And I don’t even know quite what to do with the fact that it’s like, “Oh, oopsy poopsy, he walked off with top secret information that was completely unsecured.”

And on other hand, we’re giving you all the information we can as carefully as we can. And there was that kind of pushback on that.

Joanne Freeman:

The even more remarkable part about that it’s lurking out there that’s really not part of the news and that is true at a time when the world is grappling with conflict and with warfare, and in the middle of that, we have this sort of big hole into which documents were sucked and we don’t know where they are or what’s in them or where they’re going. And we have no idea what they have to do with the countries currently involved in what’s going on right now around the world.

So it’s a reminder of something that we’ve talked about before on these episodes, and that is we tend to want to put domestic affairs and foreign affairs in separate buckets. And they’re not. They are not in separate buckets. We talked about it in a past episode about in the 1790s, how the French revolution really showed that. But that’s something that’s just generally true is that foreign affairs, although they may seem distant and tied to other countries and across oceans and dealing with secrets and highfalutin diplomats, they can have profoundly important domestic impacts.

And particularly on the country, and we’re going to be talking today about incidents where things happen, that for one reason or another, raise some questions because in one way or another, a president makes a decision for specific reason that leads to questions as to why? Should it happen? Was something wrong done? What does it have to do with partisanship and politics and the public?

When you veer off the straight and narrow path, and particularly when it comes to foreign affairs, you’re in dangerous territory.

Heather Cox Richardson:

Well, and so I’m very happy to be starting here with one of my favorite events in American history, because I don’t understand it in the least little bit and it has a totally cool name. And I always love these moments when I get to ask the national expert on these sorts of things, what the heck is the XYZ affair? And please tell me it involves buried treasure and pirates.

Joanne Freeman:

That would be nice. I could make that up. I could just add a treasure and [crosstalk 00:07:55].

Heather Cox Richardson:

Could totally make it up. I wouldn’t know.

Joanne Freeman:

What I love particularly about these moments is that you’re saying like, “I got to ask the world expert on blah, blah, blah.” I was going to say XYZ on blah, blah, blah. But I can see the joy on your face and that you get to ask questions and then watch me answer. I can just see you’re like excellent. You go.

Heather Cox Richardson:

And dead seriously, I mean, how many people would kill for a chance to ask you anything about this? I actually wrote to Joanne, I think it was this week and said, “Can we just do an episode where I get to ask you all the questions I want to know about stuff from colonial America and the early republic because I got a lot of them.”

Joanne Freeman:

And what did I reply? Ha?

Heather Cox Richardson:

Yes. And I replied, “I’m not kidding.” And I think that’s about as far as it went, but the XYZ affair is one of those things that honest to God, I remember reading about it in my textbook when I was probably in 5th grade and thinking, “Why didn’t they give it a name?” And then somehow it got honestly tangled up with zippers for me. Wasn’t there an XYZ zipper?

And then it’s got the French and it’s got Jefferson and it’s got the English and somehow money is involved and it turns out you tell me that there are secrets involved as well. And I feel certain that Thomas Jefferson in some fashion misbehaved, sorry.

Joanne Freeman:

Jefferson is involved. He is involved. I don’t think zippers. I don’t think I can give you zippers. I don’t think they’re involved in it, but.

Heather Cox Richardson:

Well, you’re not going to give me a pot of money. You’re not going to give me pirates and you’re not going to give me zippers.

Joanne Freeman:

No.

Heather Cox Richardson:

You can at least give Jefferson.

Joanne Freeman:

You’re just going to get an X.

Heather Cox Richardson:

Okay.

Joanne Freeman:

Okay. So the sort of quick and dirty version of this is if you step back for a minute and you look at the United States and its relationship with the world in the 1790s in the first decade that the United States existed under its constitution, you had the British and you had the French, which were long-term, longstanding enemies and kept coming into warfare with each other and falling out of warfare with each other again and again and again.

And what happens to the new United States is it gets stuck in the middle of that where typically the overall pattern is the United States makes a friendly gesture towards one of those nations because of some kind of provocation. And the other nation immediately responds by clamping down or interfering with American shipping or doing any number of things to show they’re not pleased.

So the United States turns around and makes nice with the other country, at which point the first country then begins to do unpleasant things. So you can just watch the poor United States ping ponging back and forth between these two countries. So what happens in the case of the XYZ affair is you have the Jay treaty that the United States makes with England and the Jay treaty, which happens under Washington’s administration is a treaty between the United States and England, which is kind of resolving some longstanding things that were unresolved after the American revolution that partly has to do with western lands and partly has to do with trade and shipping.

And it is supposed to appease hostilities intentions between the United States and Britain. It’s not popular at the time because people who are Jeffersonian Republicans favorable towards France, see this as a gesture of friendliness towards England and thus a gesture of enmity towards France. And the French in response to that being unhappy, displeased and feeling threatened, begin to interfere with American shipping and the Caribbean begin to basically show the United States that in one way or another, they are displeased.

You can see here part of what we were saying before that domestic affairs and foreign affairs are really a big mess in this time period. So you have building hostility between the French and the United States. And this is John Adams who’s president. He sends Charles Cotesworth Pinckney as a minister to France to try and deal with what’s going on. And he’s basically not accepted.

At this point, John Adams calls a special session of congress in May of 1797 talking about the fact that the French are rating ships, that Pinckney hasn’t been accepted, that this is a brewing situation that doesn’t look good just to kind of alert people to what’s happening. He also decides to send another commission to France.

And in this case, there will be three people sent John Marshall, Elbridge Gerry, and they will join Charles Cotesworth Pinckney.

Heather Cox Richardson:

Those are big names.

Joanne Freeman:

They are big names. John Marshall, Elbridge Gerry who is the man famed for his name being attached to gerrymandering. And yes, it’s Gary and Jerry and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney from South Carolina who’s already there. Now, they arrive in France in October of 1797, and they are met by three French intermediaries. And I won’t give you their names. I will say that in the long run, they are branded by John Adams so that specific names won’t be used X, Y, and Z, the three French in intermediaries, dealing with these Americans who’ve now been sent to France to try and fix up the situation.

Heather Cox Richardson:

Okay. So what you’re saying is they’re pirates?

Joanne Freeman:

Right. And they’re actually all saying R, if we’re dealing with the alphabet at this point. The X, Y, and Z, I don’t have no idea why that was the decision that was made to call them that, but they are basically Mr. X, Mr. Y and Mr. Z. And they have a series of meetings with the three American diplomats. And they basically tell the Americans, “You’re not going to be able to meet with French officials with the French foreign minister, Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand unless you do a few things. So for example, we’d like a low interest loan of $12 million. And basically we’d like a $250,000 bribe. And if you’ll do those things for us, then we will allow you to meet with Mr. Talleyrand.”

Heather Cox Richardson:

Is that the way diplomacy was done in those days though, that basically everybody had to pony up cash?

Joanne Freeman:

And that’s part of what happens here is that in Europe, making a payment to engage in this kind of diplomacy is certainly not unheard of. That’s European diplomatic culture, and Americans are not versed in that. They don’t see this as, “Oh, you do this in a world of practicalities to sort of get yourself into the realm of power that you want.” They see this as a dire insult that they’re treating United States like some piddly little nation that, “Yeah, you pay us and maybe we’ll let you in.”

Heather Cox Richardson:

Plus the Americans don’t have any money, do they?

Joanne Freeman:

Well, they sure couldn’t have handed over that amount of money. No. They don’t even get to that point. They’re just stunned at the fact that they’ve basically been asked for a bribe to engage in negotiations. So that request goes on. Apparently, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney exploded, “No. No, not a six pin,” which becomes this kind of motto of rallying cry be ultimately down the road.

So you end up with this moment, which is ugly, which as you’ll see in a moment becomes very shocking to many Americans when they hear that basically out and out, the French ask for bribe for the Americans to engage in negotiations over the fact that the French are interrupting American shipping. Really? This is what they’re doing.

So the ministers are sending dispatches back to the United States. And certainly John Adams knows what’s in those dispatches, but he chooses for a while to hold them back. He chooses for a while to not, and we’re not even talking about the public, to not send them along to congress because he thinks that there are American ministers who are overseas. And if this became public in any way, even just in congress, maybe their safety would be threatened in some way and because this is still a developing situation.

So he lets it be known that there are difficulties, that it’s not good, that things aren’t looking good. He begins to hint that it might be good for the United States to start thinking about raising up its arm profile, maybe being sure that we’ve got our army in good order or something, which of course is an alarming thing for president to say. Now, John Adams and his followers are Federalists and they typically are friendly towards England.

Heather Cox Richardson:

No. I’m just laughing because we hear presidents saying like, “We better think of about increasing our armies.” And it seems very 20th or 21st century. And I think of John Adams, who isn’t he the one who signs his name, gears too fat to live much longer.

Joanne Freeman:

When he’s older. Yeah.

Heather Cox Richardson:

I think of him saying, “Hey guys, I’ve been thinking and perhaps, how do you all feel about muskets?” It just seems very counterintuitive.

Joanne Freeman:

But that’s the right scale.

Heather Cox Richardson:

Yeah, yeah, but-

Joanne Freeman:

That’s the right scale. We don’t have a real army.

Heather Cox Richardson:

Yeah. Did you hear Mr. Adams? He seems to be interested in raising some money for flint. Do you think we might have a problem? I guess the more the world changes, the more it stays the same. Sorry about that.

Joanne Freeman:

No, no, but it’s absolutely right. And it’s important.

Heather Cox Richardson:

So he doesn’t want to tell anybody.

Joanne Freeman:

What’s in the dispatches, right. He wants to keep the actual details of the bribery secret at the same time that he wants to say things are not looking good over there. Something bad is going on over there. And we need to at least start thinking about what we might do for the very good reason that you just raised, which is we don’t really have an army or a Navy. It’s not like we have this equipped military establishment. We don’t.

Meanwhile, Thomas Jefferson, Vice President Jefferson somehow has the feeling that something sneaky and partisan is going on here. He thinks that somehow or rather Adams is keeping things secret so that whatever happens will go in favor of what the federalist want, will go in favor of Americans being close to England and not being friendly with France, which is what the Jeffersonian Republicans want. So Jefferson basically says, “Something’s fishy about this.”

Heather Cox Richardson:

Well in fairness, I wouldn’t necessarily have thought ill in terms of partisanship with John Adams. But if I thought the president was hiding something and saying, “Hey folks, how do you feel about buying a few guns?” I’d be unhappy too.

Joanne Freeman:

Well, true. And he is reporting. He’s just handing over the dispatches. Ultimately, he does hand over those dispatches like, “Okay, you want the actual details, the nasty details.” He hands them over. And so the Republicans, the Jeffersonian Republicans who for a while are like, “This is some kind of sneaky partisan maneuver. I don’t like it.” They’re horrified. So Republicans and Federalists are like, are stunned that the French tried to bribe the Americans. It becomes a really big deal.

So the hiding in this case with the XYZ affair, the hiding was an attempt to protect American ministers and to slow things down because it’s an evolving situation. But in the end, by holding them back a secret and then revealing them to congress and then congress basically says the public needs to know, it explodes. It becomes a huge public issue. There are people praising John Adams as the president during a time of quasi war, who’s going to lead us out of trouble in one way or another.

John Adams is never cheered for anything, so he actually is a little bit happy during this moment in time. When people there, he has cheering crowds, following him around. And the Federalists know this as a partisan gem. Here you have Secretary of State Timothy Pickering who writes to George Washington who ends up being called back into the field even though he’s a retired older gentleman. The publication of the instructions to our envoys to the French Republic and their speeches is operating admirably.

The Democrats, meaning the Jeffersonian Republicans in neither house of congress make much opposition and out of doors, the French devotees, the Republicans are rapidly quitting the worship of their idol. So Pickering is like, “Excellent.” We held them back for good we’re reasons and then we were asked, it was demanded that we released the actual dispatches if we did. And we gave them to the public and look at this big partisan bonus for us.

Now in the end, this actually leads to things like the alien and sedition acts. It leads to extreme American uproar about horrible French foreigners and ways to clamp down on them. It leads to extremist sentiment. It also leads to a sort of brief moment in popular culture when Americans are singing about, and believe it or not, they do. I have to confess, I did not know this before preparing for this conversation, singing about John Adams and the XYZ affair. They did indeed have a song cheering on Americans in the midst of the XYZ affair. It’s written in 1798. It’s titled Adams and Liberty. You will know immediately the tune that it is set to.

Heather Cox Richardson:

I’m guessing it’s Yankee doodle. Is it Yankee doodle?

Joanne Freeman:

No, no. It’s even more famous than that. Wow. (Singing) Oh man, I’m singing this. (singing) You’re making me sing this damn song. (Singing) Heather is laughing so hard, she’s disappeared under her desk. (Singing)

Heather Cox Richardson:

Well, that does it for us this week. We’ll see you next week.

Joanne Freeman:

Number one, I sang that song. And then in the middle of it, I was like, “It’s the fricking national Anthem song. I can’t hit those notes. Why am I doing this?” But that song had five verses, so I spared you.

Heather Cox Richardson:

The night is young, Joanna.

Joanne Freeman:

I know. Robert Treat Paine wrote it and they sang it in 1798 in honor of John Adams and discussing the horrible threat of the French, but that America would never give in to the evil French. So it has a big popular impact. And part of that impact is the secrecy, the initial secrecy of it. It’s worth noting that in the end, we do not have a war. It remains a quasi war. John Adams sends another delegation to France, which successfully negotiates peace and divides his party seriously since federalists wanted to go to war with France, but the war ends.

Heather Cox Richardson:

For more Cafe history content, check out time machine, a weekly column by our editorial producer, David Kurlander inspired by each Now & Then episode. You can receive the time machine articles through the free Cafe brief email. Sign-up at Cafe.com/brief.

So the secrecy enabled them to build sort of a popular movement, although not necessarily the one they intended to build. I want to play with that because the idea of government’s holding secrets in foreign affairs and what that does to domestic politics really plays out in the 19th century. It actually plays out in a lot of places. I think we could all sit here and make a list of all the places that we can think of, especially even harking back to the very first episode we did about how domestic policy often reflects foreign affairs.

But one of the things that we have talked about far too little on this podcast, I think as always is the late 19th century, which is of course where everything happens.

Joanne Freeman:

Your favorite period is in there. You know at this point.

Heather Cox Richardson:

Exactly. But I don’t think we’ve ever really talked about Grant. And this is a great example. Secrecy in foreign affairs, Grant is the poster child for this because when he goes into the White House in 1869, there is already a proposal on the table for America to annex, what at the time was known as Santo Domingo sometimes called San Domingo. And one of the great triumphs for the United States during the civil war was the triumph of this idea of an expansionist economy.

And so immediately after the war, there was a sense that the country would continue to expand. And one of the places that it expected to expand was into the Caribbean. And that itself is a fascinating, much longer story. But as early as the Johnson administration, some of the officials in what is now the Dominican Republic actually came to the United States and said, “We’re happy to join the United States. If you want to pay us some money, we’re happy to join the United States.”

And at the time, and the secretary of state said, “This isn’t going to happen,” because he knew full well congress was never going to do anything like that under Johnson and the under Johnson does in fact, in his last message to congress say that even though annexation would be controversial, it would be a really good idea to do, not only because the Dominican Republic had very good harbors for a growing American Navy, which actually doesn’t grow for a bit after that. But they think initially it’s going to be good for the Navy. And it would be a great place for the expansion of trade and to expand American businesses.

It does not happen under Johnson, but after Grant takes office, an agent of the president of San Domingo comes to talk to Grant’s Secretary of State, a guy named Hamilton Fish. And once again says, “We are up for sale if you would like to buy this country.” And there’s a number of reasons obviously internal to San Domingo that make them open to that kind of an idea that isn’t really part of the American secrecy story.

But Grant really likes this idea. Grant likes this idea a lot, not only because of the economic expansion, which he cares a lot about, but also because of something that is, I think really interesting for American reconstruction history. And that’s that Grant sees this part of the island of what is now the Dominican Republican in Haiti. He sees that acquisition by America as providing a leg up for African-American labor in this country, that is if African-Americans start to immigrate to what is now the Dominican Republic, they’re going to start to drain the American south of labor.

And there was a labor crisis right then in the American south to the point that a number of people who had land in the south were actually trying to import Chinese workers for example. And Grant thought that this would drive up the wages are people who were working in the south, which itself is a really interesting twist in reconstruction. So he thinks it’s a good idea, but he knows that there are a number of members of congress who are going to think this is a terrible idea.

First of all, Democrats don’t like the idea for the most part, because they don’t like the fact that the country is populated by people of color, some want the land for other reasons. And then the Republicans themselves are not getting along terribly well with Grant at that point. So he turns around and he says, “I’m willing to explore this.” He sends his personal secretary and very close friend, Orville Babcock, who had worked for him during the civil war, but under his commander during the civil war, to go down and meet with officials in San Domingo.

Babcock had no authority to do that aside from the fact that he was Grant’s bud. And Grant gives Babcock a note to give to the leader of the country saying, “Well, I trust him.” So he’s got nothing else behind him than that. So Babcock goes down and Grant actually writes in this letter that Babcock having been one of my aides to camp while I commanded the armies of the United States and having since been entrusted by me with confidential business of importance, I have entire confidence in his integrity and intelligence, and I commend him to your excellency accordingly.

Well, if you’re somebody from another country and you get that note from the president of the United States, where you are hoping to get annexed, you’re going to pay attention to him as speaking for the United States. So in September of ’69, the president signed a treaty and the treaty said that the United States would take Santo Domingo and assume its public debt, which is about $1.5 million or else purchase a very good naval port outright for $2 million. It also included an understanding that Grant would apply all of his power to lobby that treaty in congress in secret.

Well, Babcock brings this treaty back to the US and Hamilton Fish is shocked and horrified to see that this has come from a private citizen. Fish actually writes, “Babcock is back and has actually brought a treaty for the session of San Domingo. Yet I pledge you my word, he had no more diplomatic authority than any other casual visitor to the island.” So Grant recognizes that he has stepped in it and he instructs his Secretary of State, Fish, to prepare a different treaty, a formal treaty of annexation based on the draft that Babcock brought.

And he presented it to the cabinet in October of that year, October 19th of 1869, but he didn’t tell the senate. And this is where things get really interesting because in the 19th century, the senate foreign relations committee is pretty much the most important spot in congress. The senate foreign relations committee is the plum position. And if you are the chair of the senate foreign relations committee, that’s as good as it gets. That means you’re like the grand Poobah of all the other Poobahs.

The person who was sitting in that seat, the chair of the senate foreign relations committee is Charles Sumner. Charles Sumner as in, I got beat over the head in 1856 for my country and my party, the Republican party, which I rather than this wacky westerner who basically failed out of west point should be in charge of, is furious that anybody has tried to do something as extraordinary as taking on another country without so much as mentioning it to him.

So Babcock goes down with this new treaty in November, gets a signed draft of it, which includes the outright purchase of Santo Domingo and a rental agreement for taking over the harbor that America wants in November. By now, people have said to Grant, “Dude, you’ve got to talk to Sumner.” And Grant has started to realize that he’s made a real mistake by not consulting more with the senate because the senate feels very much like it should control the country. It should control the party. And that he’s this upstart westerner.

Heather Cox Richardson:

They literally sit in the cloak room of the senate, people like Charles Sumner and make fun of Grant. They make fun of his accent. They treat him like he’s an idiot. This is the guy who just won the civil war while they were all sitting around smoking cigars from his perspective.

Joanne Freeman:

Being Poobahs.

Heather Cox Richardson:

Being Poobahs, that’s right. He was treating the government like it was his army position that is, he put his own friends into office and he just thought you’d get stuff done, that you were supposed to be the head of things. The senate was like, “Where’s our consultation?” Grant recognizes this.

And so on the night of January 2nd, 1870, he takes this treaty to Sumner’s house. He literally walks over to Sumner’s house, the president, and he knocks on the door. Sumner is at dinner with two reporters and Grant walks in. The footman is like, “Hey, we got a visitor here.” And the president walks in and says, “I’m going to be bringing you this treaty. And I hope you will support it.” I mean, he says all the right stuff and the reporters are there. And Sumner is really like shocked that this is happening.

There’s both the fact that the president is on foot calling on him in somewhat an inappropriate manner, but it does indicate that he is sort of begging for Sumner’s support or at least expecting Sumner’s support. And of course the reporters are freaking loving it, because they are there for this moment. And one of them says to Sumner, “Sumner, are you going to support this treaty?” And there’s been a fight in American history ever since about what was said next.

The reporter and President Grant both believed that Sumner had said he would support the treaty. Sumner insisted that all he had said is that he would give it fair consideration. Well, you know exactly where this is going. When the treaty goes in front of the senate, Sumner does not support it. And the treaty does not pass through the senate. It does not have the stamp of approval from Sumner. It doesn’t go through the senate.

Heather Cox Richardson:

And the reason that this is so interesting is that in many ways for America at the time, the annexation of Santo Domingo was a no brainer. Santo Domingo wanted it and there were a number of forces in America that wanted it across a number of different political spectrums. But Charles Sumner wanted to control the Republican party. And he used this secrecy of this particular treaty to undercut a president of his own party and to suggest that he was corrupt and that he was working against American interests and that he, in fact, Charles Sumner should be in control the party rather than Grant.

And this turns into this incredible blow up in the party and also in the country because Grant’s people then turn on Sumner and strip from him the chairmanship of the foreign relations committee. And Sumner’s people turn on Grant and try and convince the entire country that he’s corrupt and he shouldn’t be in charge of the Republican party.

And at the end of the day, most Americans have forgotten that this was ever even on the table. I was telling somebody about this episode this afternoon and he said, “Oh wow. I was today years old when I learned that this was ever even on the table.” And yet that explosion over this treaty in the Republican party is one of the things that brings down reconstruction and gives us this idea that Grant is corrupt.

Joanne Freeman:

So Grant, despite everything, Heather that you’ve just described on all of the opposition and the shock, he continues to push for annexation even after the senate’s vote. And he actually devoted a chunk of his second annual message that he delivered in December of 1870, once again, making an argument for annexation of Santo Domingo. And in this case, he uses a lot of humanitarian rhetoric, that there are all kinds of good reasons for us to do this. And in part, it will be helping people in Santo Domingo. This is part of what he says in that message.

The government of San Domingo has voluntarily sought this annexation. It is a weak power numbering, probably less than 120,000 souls, and yet possessing one of the richest territories under the sun, capable of supporting a population of 10 million people in luxury. The people of San Domingo are not capable of maintaining themselves in their present condition and must look for outside support. They yearn for the protection of our free institutions and laws, our progress and civilization. Shall we refuse them?

And in that spirit in January of 1871, Grant sends a larger commission to Santo Domingo. Again, in this case for them to look around, to draw conclusions, to report on the state of San Domingo, and then to send a report back and discuss the feasibility of annexation. Frederick Douglas is actually appointed, Grant appoints him secretary of this commission. And Douglas had a number of reasons why he thought the annexation of San Domingo is a good idea, one of them being that it might be a potential refuge for recently freed black Americans.

He actually at one point makes an argument when it’s clear that there’s opposition to this, one of his arguments, and I think it’s fascinating because it says a lot, he lays it right out there as to what the United States typically does in cases like this. Douglas says, “Why should Santo Domingo, if she wishes to do otherwise be left alone, to work out her own destiny? Why should people who have annexed, Texas, Louisiana, California, and Alaska, and who are for annexing Mexico and Canada in good times raise the question of destiny against Santo Domingo?”

People are saying, “How can we do this? It’s not fair to San Domingo. They should have their own destiny and be able to determine their own fate.” And Douglas is saying, “Really? You’re going to use that argument now? This country that has annexed all of these other areas and still wants to annex more?” It’s a really straightforward in your face, kind of an argument, which I kind of admired for the way in which he offered it.

He ultimately writes a letter to Charles Sumner who the two obviously had been in league had been cooperative with Sumner acting as a Republican anti-slavery abolitionist leader and Douglas being a companion and colleague with him in that endeavor. Douglas writes to Sumner and says, “I may be wrong, but I do not at presidency any good reason for degrading Grant in the eyes of the American people.”

And this ties into what you just said, Heather, about Sumner, basically putting himself up against Grant. Personally, he, meaning Grant is nothing to me, but as the president, the Republican president of the country, I am anxious if it can be done to hold him in all honor.

Heather Cox Richardson:

Can I just say here, Douglas totally knew what was up. I mean, it’s just such a wonderful moment.

Joanne Freeman:

You mean as far as Sumner and Grant?

Heather Cox Richardson:

Yeah. Yes. And he recognized that if Grant got denigrated in the country, so would reconstruction and Sumner believed, I think that if he could just take over reconstruction, he could do it even better, but what he managed to do was divide the country and destroy the whole project.

Joanne Freeman:

Right. Well, and the statement that I just read, he’s basically saying, “Look, I don’t care about Grant.” But if you attack him, there’s going to be big repercussions. That’s pretty blunt. So yeah, absolutely what you’re suggesting Heather, he knows precisely what might happen, what can happen and he’s trying to work against it.

The commission ultimately issues a glowing report on April 5th, 1871, but at this point, Sumner is just going to be a permanent roadblock. And on March 27th, 1871, he gives a fierce senate address, formally accusing Grant of usurping congressional authority in his continued attempt for annexation.

Heather Cox Richardson:

He’s old now and he gets more and more wrapped up in this. And he starts to compare this attempt to put this treaty through as equivalent to the slave power, trying to take over the American government.

Joanne Freeman:

I would just read a sentence of what he says here, because it captures his outrage so powerfully. He says, “It is obvious beyond doubt, most painfully plain and indisputable that our government has seized the war powers carefully guarded by the constitution. And without the authority of congress has employed them to trample on the independence and equal rights of two nations, co-equal with ours, unless to carry out this project of territorial acquisition. You begin setting at defiance, a first principle of international law.” This is though hasty or idle allegation, nor is it made without immeasurable regret.

Heather Cox Richardson:

Except I don’t think it was with immeasurable regret. I think he thought that it was going to work for him. I think he thought it was going to put him at the head of the Republican party. It did not put him at the head of the Republican party. It did split the Republican party pretty dramatically. And at the end of the day, as I alluded to before, the treaty falls into the memory hole so that most people don’t even remember that it ever happened.

Grant though, always regretted that it had not happened. He said in 1878, “I think now looking over the whole subject, that it would’ve been a great gain to the United States to have annexed Santo Domingo. It would’ve given a new home for the blacks who were, and as I hear are still oppressed in the south. If two or 300,000 blacks were to immigrate to San Domingo under our Republic, the southern people would learn the crime of [inaudible 00:41:01] that is being members of the KKK because they would see how necessary the black is to their own prosperity.

He always thought that that was going to be the crowning jewel of his presidency and it of course didn’t happen. I do think it’s really interesting though, because when he says that, it’s 1878. And after the Democrats take over the Southern states after the election of 1876, there’s a huge exodus of African-Americans out of the American south because they’re terrorized essentially. And what happens when they leave is that there are a number of meetings of white people in the southern states, trying to force African-Americans to stay or trying to pass laws to guarantee that nobody can hire one African-American away or an African-American worker away from one employer to another with promises of higher wages.

That is by people moving west, it creates a shortage of labor in the American south. And there comes this period when it certainly looks as if labor competition is going to do very well for black workers. That’s not ultimately how it plays out. But Grant, I think is looking at that at in that moment and saying, “Crap, we could have had this way back in the 1860s.” And then there would’ve been a labor shortage in the south and it would’ve messed things up fairly considerably.

Joanne Freeman:

Now, this moves us into one final example of presidents and secrecy that we want to talk about on this episode. And this one moves us into the 20th century, and this involves President Eisenhower and the U2.

Heather Cox Richardson:

The U2 affair. I absolutely love because it is, I believe the first instance where an American president is openly caught lying to the American people. And the reaction is kind of like, “Yup, I got caught out of oopsy poopsy.” And the American people are like, “Oh, well, that’s cool.” And I just find it such a fascinating moment because of course, by the time we get to Vietnam and what has happened in the year since that weapons of mass destruction, uranium, all those sorts of things, the idea that a president would lie to America about foreign affairs is of like, “Well yeah, that’s just how it happens.” This is the first time it happens and it feels like it’s almost this naivete on the part of the American people being like, “Our president would never lie to us.” And then when he says, “Yeah, I did.” They’re like, “Oh, it’s okay. You must have had a good reason.”

Joanne Freeman:

You used the word naivete, a trust in institutions of national government and in the president that just as you said, there must have been a good reason for it and so, okay. And you talking about this as we’ve been talking about this and preparing for this, the part that at least judging from your facial expressions, always most stuns you is the fact that he openly says I lied and no one cares.

Heather Cox Richardson:

Yeah. All right. So President Eisenhower in late 1954, approves the creation of 35 reconnaissance planes, and these are known as the U2s. The planes could fly at an altitude of 60,000 feet. In his memoir, he explained why he approved these plans. And he said that he felt that he had to do it because the Soviet Union was not being forthcoming at all about any kind of the weaponry it was developing and that the United States needed to have some sort of vision into what they were doing.

And by the way, let me just put in a plug here for Eisenhower’s memoirs, which are remarkably interesting and well-written. Anyway, he says the importance of the effort at that time cannot be overemphasized. Our relative position in intelligence compared to that of the Soviets could scarcely have been worse. The Soviets enjoyed practically unimpeded access to information of a kind in which we were almost wholly lacking.

For example, some years earlier, a book had been published by a member of the atomic energy commission giving detailed descriptions and locations of several of our most important nuclear establishments. At almost every bookstore in important city’s accurate maps of important bridges, industrial establishments, highways, and railroad centers in the locality were available to any traveler in the country not so in the Soviet Union, a region in which information of this kind was known only to a selected few and to know foreigners.

So what he is trying to do is make sure that America and that its allies and partners had some sort of a sense of what the Soviet Union was up to. So in 1956, U2 planes began to make reconnaissance flights over the USSR. And this is where the US gets its first photographic evidence of Soviet military bases. What they found was that the Soviet premier that was Nikita Khrushchev had been exaggerating Russia’s nuclear capabilities and that in fact the US had a real leg up on the Soviets with nuclear weapons.

Well, the Soviet Union knew that there was some kind of flight going on. It had radar evidence of that, but it didn’t have any missiles that were capable of getting up that high. And the US simply said, “Well, these are NASA weather research planes.” Well, in spring of 1960, the Soviets developed surface to air missiles, which could reach up as high as the U2 planes.

And on May 1st 1960, a Zenith, which is one of the surface to air missiles locked onto the U2 of Gary Powers. Now, Gary Powers a 30-year old pilot, and he was part of a joint program between the CIA and the air force that operated the U2s. He ejected from his plane and he landed near the Ural Mountains and he was taken prisoner by Soviet authorities. All right. So this is a crucial moment for us Soviet relations because Eisenhower and Khrushchev were supposed to meet the leaders of France and Great Britain at a summit in Paris on May 14th.

So this is two weeks before the summit and the White House concocts this story. And they say this was a scientific expedition, and there has been a crash of a scientific plane. And NASA goes along with this and makes an announcement that one of its weather planes had crashed in the USSR. So the government is literally out on TV going, “We’ve lost a weather plane.” People buy this. Even the senate majority leaders, a democrat, a guy from Montana named Mike Mansfield buys it.

Joanne Freeman:

I wanted to weigh in with the voice of partisanship, finding a way to weave it in here even though there’s this, it was a scientific expedition and it’s sad, it crashed, and here you have partisanship rearing its ugly head. Senate majority Montana Democrat Mike Mansfield buys the cover story, but finds a way to use it as political evidence. He argues that the crash signaled a lack of control of Eisenhower over the rapidly expanding American global presence. So he issues the first congressional statement about this incident on May 5th, 1960.

And I interrupted you Heather, because I just wanted the joy of reading this very obviously partisan statement in the voice that it deserves. First reports indicate that the president had no knowledge of the plane incident. If that is the case, we have got to ask whether or not his administration has any real control over the federal bureaucracy. So that’s a creative way of saying, “Yeah, I know, scientific experiment,” but it shows that the president somehow or other is out of control.

Heather Cox Richardson:

Is out of control. That’s not in control of his administration, but here’s what I love about this is that the president is out in front, literally in front of the American people saying, “We have lost a weather plane.” And Khrushchev announces that in fact, the USSR has shutdown an American spy plane and has captured the pilot, Gary Powers. The cover story then is completely blown and Eisenhower on May 9th comes out and gets his Secretary of State, a man named Christian Herter to issue a statement that acknowledges the existence of this secret program.

He says, “In accordance with the National Security Act of 1947 and Joanne, you and I have talked a lot about that. The president has put into effect since the beginning of his administration directives to gather by every means possible information required to protect the United States and the free war world against surprise attack, and to enable them to make effective preparations for their defense.

Under these directives, programs have been developed and put into operation, which have included extensive aerial surveillance by unarmed civilian aircraft, normally of a peripheral character, but occasionally by penetration. And on May 11th, Eisenhower finally acknowledged that he was fully aware of the U2 program. And this is what he said and it’s just so masterful, because he takes, I lied to you and makes it a virtue. He said …

President Dwight D. Eisenhower (archival):

No one wants another Pearl Harbor. This means that we must have knowledge of military forces and preparations around the world, especially those capable of massive surprise attack. Secrecy in the Soviet Union makes it essential. In most of the world, no large scale attack could be prepared in secrecy, but in the Soviet Union, there is a fetish of secrecy and concealment. This is a major cause of international tension and uneasiness today. Our deterrent must never be placed in jeopardy. The safety of the whole free world demands this.

Joanne Freeman:

That boy. That is a statement.

Heather Cox Richardson:

It’s kind of mind-blowing because knowing Eisenhower as I do, I actually buy this from Eisenhower, but many people I’m sure would not. And think of that coming from any number of presidents where you would say, “What? You’ve had a secret surveillance program to protect us and you didn’t think that you needed to let anybody know?” Speaking of gobsmacked, it’s a huge deal.

And so what comes out to say next is how should we view all of this activity? It is a distasteful, but vital necessity. We prefer and work for a different kind of world in a different way of obtaining the information essential to confidence and effective deterrence. Open societies in the day of present weapons are the only answer.

Joanne Freeman:

I want to point out something in what you just read. The first few sentences that you read about how no one wants another Pearl Harbor. He sets up an atmosphere, competitive secrecy and concealment, right? He says in the Soviet Union, there is a fetish of secrecy and concealment, which is kind of a way of saying, “Well, they do a lot of it there.” So there’s a sort of weird call in response justification of some secrecy in America, because this Soviet Union, that’s all they’re about.

Heather Cox Richardson:

He actually says, “We were lying to you because we wanted to be honest,” which is mind-boggling. We are being secret because we want to be open and it worked. I mean, that’s the other thing that’s just astonishing about it. Eisenhower later says in his memoir, when he accepts responsibility for the incident, he said, “To deny my own part in the entire affair, would’ve been a declaration that portions of the government of the United States were operating irresponsibly in complete this regard of proper presidential control.” And it would’ve been untrue.

So he took responsibility himself to say, “Well yes, the president was involved.” But the fact that the president was involved under these circumstances seems like something that speaks directly to this question of secrecy and when should we have access to what our government is doing in foreign affairs?

Joanne Freeman:

Think about the bundle of things that have been wrapped up in the stories that we’ve been discussing today. You have presidents who are on the one hand, they have to think about national security in some way. And so there has to be a policy dimension here. There is the component of congress and how whatever they have to do, they have to deal with congress in some way and how will that work and how can that be interwoven with policy and also whatever their personal approach to wanting to do this is.

You have the American public and how do they weigh in here and what should they know and what should they not know? You have the appearance of the secrecy to the American public. And the fact that that seems anti-democratic, although you’ve just described Heather, Eisenhower in a way kind of saying, “Oh no, it’s all about you.” So that in a sense it democratic. Think about the weird mix of democratic, I don’t want to say rhetoric, because there’s a reality to it. Democratic ideology, small D, ideology about how a democracy works and about transparency, about partisanship getting woven into these affairs that in many cases do have something to do with national security and have a big impact on a presidency and his party.

This is what strikes me at the end of this discussion is the ways in which all of this is blended together. And in a sense, it feels as though secrecy has to be a part at least some cases of what’s going on here. The question is on the part of a president, how do you manage that?

Heather Cox Richardson:

Well, and that seems then to pick up exactly where we started with the exchange between Ned Price and Matt Lee that there was a case where the administration was trying to be as transparent as it could be under the circumstances and a reporter was challenging that and saying, “Why on earth should we trust anything that you have to say?”

Joanne Freeman:

Speaking as a reporter on behalf of the public.

Heather Cox Richardson:

Of the public. The difference between how Adams and Eisenhower ended up with the power of the American people behind them and Grant did not speaks perhaps as much as anything to the fact that Grant’s fight was within his own country and both Adams and Eisenhower were facing off against a different country and in both Adams’s cases and Eisenhower’s case, the proof was in the pudding, if you will, that is in both cases, what they were keeping secret turned out to seem at least to be for the good of the American people in a way that Grant was not able to convince voters was in their interest.

And so maybe a lot of it, once again comes back to the nature of the domestic sphere in America, but I still think that question of secrecy and when secrecy is good and when secrecy is not good comes down to watching how it comes out in the wash. I mean, at the end of the day, Biden’s people gave us information that turned out to be true, but we could have done this entire episode on secrecy that comes out and it turns out to have been a lie.

Joanne Freeman:

You’re right. That in the end, how it all comes out in the wash ultimately determines the fate of the things that we’re talking about here. But part of that wash is what foreign countries do. Part of that is how the American public responds. We started out by saying the documents, the boxes, former President Trump took to Florida, belong to us, belong to the American people, right? That component complicates this in a good way it’s supposed to. We are supposed to count in these kinds of discussions, but it’s so complicated as to how you deal with other countries within that democratic context.