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http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/14681-men-of-action-richard-the-big-bluffer-nixon
Frank Gannon, who conducted 38 hours of interviews with Nixon on video in 1983, asked him, “Do you subscribe to the theory that a great President must be a great poker player?”
“It helps,” Nixon said. “The Russians of course, are chess players. I never understood chess, it’s much more complicated, much more complex. But many of the things you do in poker are very useful in politics, and are very useful in foreign affairs.”
“One of the problems you see in foreign affairs, particularly, especially dealing with great leaders abroad — particularly those who are adversaries — is the almost insatiable tendency of American politicians to put everything on the table, their inability to know when to bluff, when to call, and, above everything else, to be unpredictable.”
“Unpredictably is the greatest asset or weapon that a leader could have of a major country. Unless he’s unpredictable, he’s going to find, he loses a great deal of his power.”
Richard Nixon was one of our great foreign relations Presidents, and it appears that the President has been doing some historical reading.
Frank Gannon, who conducted 38 hours of interviews with Nixon on video in 1983, asked him, “Do you subscribe to the theory that a great President must be a great poker player?”
“It helps,” Nixon said. “The Russians of course, are chess players. I never understood chess, it’s much more complicated, much more complex. But many of the things you do in poker are very useful in politics, and are very useful in foreign affairs.”
“One of the problems you see in foreign affairs, particularly, especially dealing with great leaders abroad — particularly those who are adversaries — is the almost insatiable tendency of American politicians to put everything on the table, their inability to know when to bluff, when to call, and, above everything else, to be unpredictable.”
“Unpredictably is the greatest asset or weapon that a leader could have of a major country. Unless he’s unpredictable, he’s going to find, he loses a great deal of his power.”
Richard Nixon was one of our great foreign relations Presidents, and it appears that the President has been doing some historical reading.
