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A book entitled, "The Nixon Years", by Victor Leaky. RE: The facets of the Nixon Administration including: foreign policy, political support, and the Nixon papers. Covers chapters 1-9. 222 pgs. [Subject: Foreign Policy] [Book], no date
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Richard Nixon Presidential Library
Contested Materials Collection
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Document Description
17
1
Foreign Policy
Book
A book entitled, "The Nixon Years", by
Victor Leaky. RE: The facets of the Nixon
Administration including: foreign policy,
political support, and the Nixon papers.
Covers chapters 1-9. 222 pgs.
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
Page 1 of 1
DOCUMENT WITHDRAWAL RECORD [NIXON PROJECT]
DOCUMENT
DOCUMENT
NUMBER
TYPE
SUBJECT/TITLE OR CORRESPONDENTS
DATE
RESTRICTION
N-1
MSS.
The nizon years by Victor
n.d.
C
[DOC=1]
Lasky, prologue, chapte1-8
FILE GROUP TITLE
BOX NUMBER
HRH
267
FOLDER TITLE
The mixon years by Victor Lasky [ Rant 10/3]
RESTRICTION CODES
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E. Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential commercial or
B. National security classified information.
financial information.
C. Pending or approved claim that release would violate an individual's
F. Release would disclose investigatory information compiled for law
rights.
enforcement purposes.
D. Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy
G. Withdrawn and return private and personal material.
or a libel of a living person,
H. Withdrawn and returned non-historical material.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION
NA FORM 1421 (4-85)
Presidential Materials Review Board
Review on Contested Documents
Collection: H. R. Haldeman
Box Number:
267
Folder:
The Nixon Years by Victor Lasky [Part 1 of 3]
Document
Disposition
1
Return Private/Personal
THE NIXON YEARS
by
Victor Lasky
CONTENTS
Prologue
1 Run
2 Oath
3 World
4 Asia
5 Method
6 Viet
7 Return
8 Home
9 Economy
10 Court
11 Reform
12 Ho
13 Break
14 Report
15 Cambodia
16 Student
17 Jordan
18 Campaign
19 Sontay
20 Transition
21 Message
22 Laos
23 Domestic
24 China
25 Salt
26 Papers
27 Year
Prologue 1
PROLOGUE
On the 27th of May 1970, forty-five of the nation's
top financial and industrial executives were invited to a private
dinner at the White House. It had been one of the most turbulent
months in the nation's history. Controversy still raged over the
American incursion into Cambodia. Reverberations over the tragic
deaths at Kent State University were still being felt on the
nation's campuses. And from the point of view of business, things
didn't look too good either. Among other things, the stock
market had been on a long, scary slide. The nation's future looked
gloomy indeed.
It was at this dinner in the State Dining Room that
Richard Nixon sought to demonstrate that the ship of state was
being steered through troubled waters by competent hands. Speak-
ing without notes, the President briefed the troubled executives
on his Cambodian decision as well as his economic policies. Then
the floor was thrown open to questions.
The floor was grabbed by Isidore Cohen, an olderly
clothing manufacturer from New York who, as it later turned out,
had been invited by mistake. It was another Cohen, also in the
same business, who was supposed to have been invited. At any rate,
the man who did come to dinner got up and, after congratulating
the President for meeting businessmen face-to-face, launched into
a twelve-minute attack on the condition of the economy as well as
the President's failure to end the war in Vietnam. Uneasiness
and embarrassment rippled through the ornate room as Cohen droned
Prologue 2
on and on. Stage whispers of "Sit down!" and "Shut up!" could
be heard. The President, sitting just four places down the
dinner table from Cohen, cupped his chin in his hand and listened
closely.
As Cohen later recalled the episode, "The fellow next
to me gave me a tug at my coat, but I would not sit down until
I had said what I wanted to say. Toward the end of my comments,
the President started to rise, but I said, 'Please, Mr. President,
may I add one remark?' and he let me continue. He was wonderful.
He was the one who could have cut me short, but he let me go on
for twelve minutes."
When the peppery little New Yorker began to take the
President to task for having invited "those hardhat bullies" to
the White House, some of the guests began to boo. The President
rose to quiet the group. "Please don't do that," he said. "This
man has a right to his convictions. I understand his feelings,
and the feelings of all those who are convinced this war is
morally wrong. But to set the record straight, let me tell you
about those hardhats who came to see me."
And the President told the story of George Daley, a
gold star father in the construction workers' delegation which had
visited him in the Oval Room to voice support for his Cambodian
action. Daley, said Mr. Nixon, had commented sadly that if only
the incursion had taken place earlier "the Allies might have
captured the bullet that killed my son in Vietnam" some months
previously.
Prologue 3
Then President Nixon turned to Cohen and said quietly,
"The doors of the White House will always be open to a man like
that. So don't let anyone give me any crap about inviting the
hardhats to the White House." With that the tension was dispelled,
Cohen was chastened without being humiliated and the business
executives gave the President a thunderous standing ovation.
The extraordinary thing about the dinner was not the
Cohen episode but the fact that, despite all the seemingly
insoluble problems facing him, President Nixon exuded an air of
confidence which, as one of the guests put it, was "almost
infectious."
"Here we were with our elected leader at a time when
the country seemed to be coming apart," the guest explained.
"But there was no sign of the panic that seemed to be gripping
the editorial writers and some of the boys on the tube. Mr. Nixon
and his top advisers calmly and forthrightly explained what they
were doing and most of us knew they had things under control."
And, as the President predicted, things eventually
did quiet down.
Crises rarely faze Richard Nixon. He's lived through
so many he's lost count. Unlike others who preceded him in the
Oval Room in the White House, you will hear no moaning from the
thirty-seventh President of the United States about the terrible
demands of office or the loneliness of his exalted position.
"After all," as he told this writer quite candidly,
"no one forced me to run for the Presidency."
Run 1
CHAPTER 1
Indeed, no one had forced Richard Nixon to run for
President. But as he had written back in 1962, once a man has
"drunk too deeply of the stuff which makes life exciting" he can
never be satisfied again with just the "froth."
And "the stuff which makes life exciting" for Richard
Nixon was, of course, politics. To reach the highest pinnacle
of politics -- the Presidency of the United States -- had been his
ultimate ambition. He had had his chance, a golden chance, in
1960, but he lost it by an eyelash -- 113,000 votes.
He could have contested that loss to John F. Kennedy.
There was ample evidence to back up Republican contentions that
the election had been "stolen." And there could be little doubt
that a lot of hanky-panky had indeed occurred at the polls,
particularly in Chicago and in certain Texas counties.
The pressure on Nixon to charge that he had been cheated
of the Presidency was enormous.
Dissappointed as he was about losing the election, Mr.
Nixon resisted the pressure. In fact, he called his top advisers
together in order to discourage speculation that he might demand
recounts in several states. He also called in Earl Mazo, then
national political editor of the New York Herald Tribune, to request
the discontinuance of publication of a series of articles detailing
the election frauds allegedly perpetrated by the Democrats. And
he did so in the name of "national unity."
Run...2
"Earl," he said, "our country can't afford the agony of
a constitutional crisis -- and I damn well will not be a party to
creating one just to become President or anything else."
This, incidentally, was the only time Mr. Nixon was ever
known to have exerted influence to stop a newspaper from running
articles. That is, until his third year in the White House when
his Attorney General sought to prevent further publication of
top-secret documents pilfered from the Pentagon.
In both cases, none of the material could have been harmful
to Mr. Nixon's personal interests. What was at stake in both
instances, he believed, was the institution of the Presidency itself.
A week after the bitter 1960 contest, John F. Kennedy
paid a visit on the man he had so narrowly beaten. It was obvious
what was on Mr. Kennedy's mind. "Well," said the President-elect,
"it's hard to tell who won the election at this point." Mr. Nixon
replied that while the verdict was close the final result had been
pretty well determined. And that remark obviously set Mr. Kennedy's
mind at ease.
"Oh," Mr. Nixon was to tell me later on, "I could have
contested the election. It would have cost millions and have taken
years for the courts to decide. Meanwhile, the country would have
been ripped apart and American democracy would have been made to
look ridiculous in the eyes of the world."
Deferring his political dreams, Richard Nixon returned
to his home state of California where he joined a prestigious
Los Angeles law firm. For a man of his extraordinary energy,
Run 3
however, it was not an ideal life -- "unless you like to golf
all day, II as he told me in the summer of 1961. One of the high-
lights of a typical day was receiving the airmail edition of The
New York Times which kept him in touch with national and inter-
national problems. Extremely restless, he decided to try his hand
at writing a book on his political experiences. The result was the
best-selling Six Crises, an analysis of various crises in which he
was a participant ranging from the Alger Hiss case to his race for
the Presidency.
But politics still was his number one interest. The
question was how he could make a comeback. After considerable
reflection, he decided to make a try for the Governorship of
California, running against the incumbent Edmund G. (Pat) Brown.
A week before Election Day, Mr. Nixon talked to me in his campaign
plane, a Convair in which he was flying around the state. It was
a far cry from the huge Boeing 707 in which he had campaigned in
all fifty states just two years before. And he told me matter-of-
factly that he didn't think he could win the election. In his
opinion, what with Californians having just gone through the
traumatic experience of a direct confrontation with the Soviet Union
over missile sites in Cuba, few voters could get overly excited
about who would be the next Governor. Besides "Pat" Brown, bumbler
that he was in so many ways, hadn't been that bad a Governor. And,
ironically, many Californians considered Mr. Nixon a "carpetbagger,"
seeking the Governorship as a steppingstone to a Presidential
nomination.
"Do you still want to be President?" I asked him.
Run .4
The man who for eight years had been a heart-beat away
from the Presidency turned to stare through the plane window.
"Victor," he said finally, "after this election I doubt whether I
could be elected dog catcher."
Mr. Nixon, no matter his private thoughts, kept fighting
right down to the wire. In speech after speech, he hammered away
at the opposition and staged an eve-of-election telethon-type
television show in which he replied to questions phoned in from
onlookers. But, as he knew it would be, it was all for naught.
Once it came, his defeat was difficult to stomach,
particularly when certain members of the press corps began to taunt
his press spokesman, Herb Klein, because the candidate had failed
to come down to go through the public motions of conceding. "What's
the matter, Herb, is Nixon afraid to face us?" asked one television
reporter who had never hidden his hostility during the campaign.
/
Mr. Nixon, who was preparing to slip out of the hotel
while Klein was talking to the press, heard the question on the
television set in his suite. Ignoring entreaties of some of his
staff, the defeated candidate made his way down to the Beverly
Hilton ballroom where before a startled audience he held what he
termed "my last press conference." And in that dark moment of
despair Richard Nixon meant it. As a two-time loser he was through
with elective politics. And most observers of the political scene
could only agree. "Barring a miracle," as Time put it, Mr. Nixon's
public career was over.
But such are the ironies of politics that actually the
best thing that ever happened to Mr. Nixon was to lose the guberna-
Run 5
torial contest. He himself now recognizes that had he won he
undoubtedly would have again been nominated for the Presidency
in 1964 and while he probably would have done better than the
GOP nominee, Barry Goldwater, he nonetheless would have lost to
Lyndon Johnson. And that loss would have doomed any possibility
of his ever reaching the White House.
None of this went through his mind, however, when in the
bleak post-election weeks he pondered his future. Eventually he
decided to move to New York not out of political considerations
but because, frankly, unlike others who had spent years in public
service and somehow had prospered, he was financially hardpressed.
And for a lawyer, Manhattan was "the center, the hub" and also "a
very challenging place to live. You have to bone up to keep alive
in the competition here. " Moreover, he was bored stiff with
Los Angeles and missed the stimulation of the Washington-New York
axis.
He joined the Wall Street firm of Mudge, Stern, Baldwin
& Todd.
And ironically for a man who but for 113,000 votes could
have been President of the United States, Richard Nixon had to
prove himself to his colleagues as one who could carry his weight.
This he did by immersing himself in his work and bringing in some
prestigious clients including Pepsi-Cola, for which he was to do
considerable traveling around the world.
Many of the firm's lawyers were Democrats, as Mr. Nixon
soon discovered.
But that did not faze him a bit. In fact, he
became
quite
fond of one outspoken liberal who headed the litigation
department, - ex-jazz clarinetist, Leonard Garment, who once
Run 6
"filled in" for a week with the old Woody Herman Band. The
Brooklyn-born-and-educated Garment considered himself as "sort of
Democrat of convenience" who was wont to shop around among
candidates and causes. In fact, as he informed Mr. Nixon in one
of their early talks, he had voted for Jack Kennedy in 1960.
[sueh
candor seemed to intrigue and even amuse Mr. Nixon.
"What surprised me, as it does most people who get to
know him, was his real openness," says Garment. "He is always
receptive to new 1deas and opinions. What he was primarily interested
in those days was information about the firm and the corporate law
practice in New York. And he couldn't have cared less about my
politics, though he was interested in what I -- as & typical liberal
New Yorker -- thought of things."
Some months later, Mr. Nixon gained admittance to the
New York bar and he so impressed his examiners with his cogent essay
on constitutional principles that they did an unusual thing by
agreeing to make it public. Still he remained very green in
Manhattan law circles. Len Garment decided to rectify this situation
by hosting a cocktail party for Mr. Nixon, to which he invited all
the judges in town. There were no turndowns and for Garment this
alone did much to answer office mumblings that the Nixon name would
lend the firm but scant prestige. Garment also observed that the
guest of honor, while still feeling his way as a New York lawyer,
came off superbly as an instinctual politician in the politically-
charged milieu of that evening. And he recalls thinking that,
however much Mr. Nixon was discouraging such speculation, public
office was still very much a part of his future.
Run 7
Others were thinking in those terms, too. On the very
morning President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, this is what
James P. Reston had to say in The New York Times:
"The argument for Nixon is that he would have ready-made
strategy against the President. He lost to Kennedy by only 113,000
votes, and he could argue with considerable force that Kennedy's
performance has fallen far short of all the promises he made about
leadership, economic growth, unemployment, education, Latin America
and the Atlantic alliance.
"The Kennedy emphasis in the last election that the
Republicans had allowed the defenses of the nation to fall into a
dangerous state is particularly vulnerable to attack. For the
so-called 'missile gap' vanished miraculously almost as soon as
Kennedy entered the White House, and Nixon feels that this alone
is sufficient to assert that he lost the election of 1960 on a
deception.
If
That morning, by a strange coincidence, Nixon was preparing
to leave Dallas just as President Kennedy was about to arrive. In
Texas on business, Mr. Nixon the previous day had held a press
conference at which reporters asked him about rightwing demonstra-
tions reportedly being planned against the President.
Nixon
said that "disagreement with his views is no excuse for discourtesy
to the office of President of the United States. "
n.
Nixon was on his way home from the airport when he
heard the President had been shot. His first thought was that
some sort of rightwing kook must have been responsible for the
Run 8
deed. But, shortly after he arrived at his Fifth Avenue
apartment, J. Edgar Hoover called to tell him that the suspected
assassin, one Lee Harvey Oswald, had a Communist record and had
once even defected to the Soviet Union.
Despite their intense political rivalry, Mr. Nixon had
a great deal of admiration for John F. Kennedy. They had been
fairly good friends, having entered the House of Representatives
on the same day in January 1947 and having shared a common antipathy
to leftwing activities. In fact, Jack Kennedy 80 admired Dick
Nixon's role in exposing Alger Hiss and other Communist shenanigans
that in 1950 he made a contribution of $1,000 to Nixon's Senate
campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglas. Kennedy's father, former
Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, contributed even more substantially
to the campaign.
In a note of condolence to Jacqueline Kennedy, which he
wrote in longhand, Mr. Nixon told of his great affection for the
slain President and how fate had made them political rivals but
never personal enemies. Apparently touched by the heartfelt
message, Mrs. Kennedy responded with a handwritten note of her own
telling how much she and her late husband had admired Mr. Nixon.
Somewhat cryptically, she wrote that she had not wanted her
husband to travel to Dallas.
Eight years later, the President's widow, who by now
had become Mrs. Aristotle Onassis, called on President and Mrs.
Nixon at the White House. The occasion was a private viewing of
the official paintings of her and her late husband. This was her
first visit to the White House since her husband's death.
Run 9
Though he was being increasingly talked about in 1963
as a compromise choice for the 1964 Presidential nomination, as
between Goldwater and Rockefeller, Mr. Nixon decided to forgo
the privilege. For one thing, he knew Barry had the nomination
sewed up. But he also knew it wasn't going to be a very good
year for Republicans. Nevertheless, he worked tirelessly for
Goldwater and did all he could to try to heal party wounds after
the Republicans were beaten.
Meanwhile, he did not neglect the law. Under his leader-
ship, the firm eventually doubled in the number of lawyers and the
name was changed to Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie & Alexander.
In 1966, the name of Mitchell was added when Nixon, Mudge merged
with a smaller firm which specialized in municipal bonds and whose
chief partner was John N. Mitchell. A softspoken, pipe-smoking
former Naval Commander, Mitchell had commanded a PT-boat flotilla
in the South Pacific in World War II and one of his junior officers
had been a young man from Massachusetts named John Fitzgerald
Kennedy.
All in all, it was a good life for Richard M. Nixon.
He was averaging $200,000 a year, about three-quarters of it from
the firm and the rest from royalties, investments and occasional
articles. But as he said at the time he had no overwhelming
desire to build up a fortune. His life in those years was centered
around his twelve-room cooperative apartment at 810 Fifth Avenue
and his office at 20 Broad Street.
For the most part it was a quiet existence. Except for
occasional nights out at the theater, the Nixons generally avoided
Run 10
New York night life and society. Occasionally they would dine
out at some of the tonier restaurants, preferring those that
featured live musicians. But mostly they entertained at home.
Their big event was the annual Christmas party which always
attracted a mixture of people from the arts, politics, law and
business. The highlight usually was when Mr. Nixon played the
piano.
Except when he was traveling, Mr. Nixon's routine rarely
varied. Up early, he usually would breakfast by himself and be
driven downtown to his office by Manolo Sanchez, a Cuban refugee
who with his wife Fina ran the Fifth Avenue household. The
Sanchezes had been recommended by Mr. Nixon's old friend, C.G.
"Bebe" Rebozo, and had joined the Nixon family in California.
When Mr. Nixon was beaten for the Governorship, the Sanchezes
thought he would no longer be able to afford their services, so
they decided to obtain day work elsewhere, work evenings for the
Nixons and contribute part of their earnings to help support the
Nixons. Genuinely moved by the generous offer, the Nixons assured
them they could afford to keep them. The Sanchezes have remained
with the Nixons, and are today working in the President's private
quarters at the White House.
Though he was a member of several prestigious luncheon
clubs, Mr. Nixon -- as he still does today in the White House --
preferred to remain at his desk for a snack usually consisting of
cottage cheese and fruit. He once told me over such a lunch that
he could thus get more things accomplished in a half-hour than at
a two-hour lunch elsewhere.
Run 11
Except when he had social obligations, Mr. Nixon usually
spent his evenings in his den / reading and contemplating, a yellow
legal pad always at hand. He has long maintained that "people
with responsibilities" should spend more time thinking. And he
still feels that way. The "loneliness" of the Presidency suits
him fine. It gives him time to think.
In his early days in New York, Mr. Nixon would walk his
dog in Central Park. After he was advised by police it wasn't
too safe at night, he walked along Fifth and Madison Avenues,
occasionally dropping in at the big Doubleday book store on
Fifth near 57th Street to browse among the latest offerings. His
tastes ran to history and biography. He rarely read fiction.
And except for sports events and an occasional documentary, Mr.
Nixon rarely watched television. He considered most of it a waste
of time. He particularly disliked -- as he does today -- looking
at himself on the tube. If he did, as he once explained, "I'd
become self-conscious and begin to worry about my smile and hair."
Mr. Nixon did join several country clubs but he was far
from being a "golf nut. " Time was too precious to while away on
the greens. And, anyway, Richard Nixon was not one for the
camaraderie of the locker room. Small talk generally bored him.
Once, driving home from the office, Mr. Nixon was deep
in conversation with young Washington lawyer Charles Colson.
Suddenly traffic was halted. Up ahead they could see that a minor
collision had occurred between a truck and an automobile. It was
in many ways a typical New York scene with both drivers shouting
Run 12
at the top of their voices and about to do battle. Much to Colson's
amazement, Mr. Nixon got out of the car and walked up front. There
Mr. Nixon physically pulled the combatants apart, talked to them
until they calmed down, and coaxed them back into their vehicles.
It was obvious that Nixon's presence had awed both men.
When he returned to the car, Colson expressed mild
Uning
amazement.
"What did I do that was so unusual? Mr. Nixon asked.
thus
That Richard Nixon did not conform to the Herblockian
images of him assiduously promoted in liberal circles over the
years soon became apparent to Len Garment, one of the more liberal
partners at the law firm. Once Garment received a call from an
old friend, film producer Jerry Hellman, who needed help. It
seemed that Jack Warner was holding up production of Hellman's
"A Fine Madness. " Garment mentioned the fact that Nixon was close
to Warner and that something might be done there. But how would
Nixon take to Hellman -- hip, tough, a high school dropout with
earthy ways?
A date was made and Hellman flew into New York from L.A.
on the "red-eye special, " going directly from the airport to the
Nixon's Fifth Avenue apartment for breakfast. Mr. Nixon welcomed
the producer and without preliminaries the two sat down and plunged
?
into a ninety-minute rap session on the meaning and methods of
communications. Then Mr. Nixon telephoned Jack Warner in California
and endorsed Hellman highly. As a result, the film starring Sean
Connery went forward.
Run 13
"A Fine Madness" did not do too well at the box office,
but a later production, "Midnight Cowboy," established Hellman's
reputation as a top-notch producer.
As a lawyer, Mr. Nixon's finest moment probably came in
1966 when he argued a case against Time Inc. before the United
States Supreme Court. Nixon's clients, the James Hill family, had
won a case against Life (owned by Time Inc.) on the grounds that
the magazine had violated the family's privacy in publishing an
article. By all accounts, Nixon's oral argument was masterful,
considering the complexity of the case, the maze of First Amendment
doctrine he had to master, as well as the overtones and hidden
pressures of the stormy relationship that existed between Mr. Nixon
and Chief Justice Earl Warren through the years.
After the court session, there was much more to the day --
several Washington meetings, a cocktail party, the flight back to
New York, and a formal dinner that night.
The next morning Garment dragged into the office at
10:00 o'clock and was astounded to discover on his desk a rigorously
self-critical five-page memorandum from Mr. Nixon reviewing the oral
argument he had presented to the Supreme Court. In it, Mr. Nixon
probed every weakness of his position, where he might have pressed
harder on a particular point or cited an additional case to
strengthen his position. Garment had never known anyone who took
it upon himself to prepare such an instant post mortem, particularly
after the conclusion of a physically and emotionally exhausting
day. The episode provided Garment with still additional evidence
Run 14
"of the man's extraordinary intellectual discipline and more than
any other one thing it locked me in as a loyal Nixon man."
Garment's involvement with Nixon's political operations
"just sort of happened. I was going out to San Francisco in the
summer of 1964 to check on some litigation there, and RN in his
longheaded way suggested that, 'Maybe it would be good for you to
start learning what goes on at a political convention. The
Republicans were assembling at the Cow Palace and "he told me whom
to look up -- a couple of guys named Haldeman and Ehrlichman."
H.R. "Bob" Haldeman, a Los Angeles advertising executive,
and John Ehrlichman, a Seattle lawyer, were in San Francisco
representing Mr. Nixon's interests. They were among an informal
group of largely young men who were usually available for duty
whenever Mr. Nixon called. Over the years these trusted part-time
aides would take time off from work to travel with "the Boss" on
his political forays or "advance" his trips by arranging hotel
accommodations, press conferences and the like.
Among the self-styled "bag carriers" were former Congress-
man Patrick J. Hillings of California; Edward O. (Ned) Sullivan,
Pat Nixon's cousin; Nick Ruwe, oil executive from Detroit;
Cincinnati lawyer Sherman Unger; John S. Davies, a California
telephone company official; Ray Arbuthnot, a Pomona Valley rancher;
Jack Drown, a West Coast magazine distributor whose wife, Helene,
taught school in the old days with Pat Nixon; John C. Whitaker, a
Washington-based geologist; and jovial John Nidecker of New York.
Run 15
Others in the entirely unstructured Nixon camp were
Herb Klein, a San Diego newspaper editor who had been his press
secretary; New Yorker Stephen Hess, a book writer who performed
occasional editorial chores; Paul Keyes, producer of the then
?
highly-rated Jack Paar Show; William Safire, a New York public
relations man; and Charles McWhorter, an American Telephone and
Telegraph Company executive who possessed an encyclopedic knowledge
of political personalities and trends.
There were others who came aboard as time went on --
young men like Roy Goodearle, Ed Morgan, Dale Grubb and Dwight
Chapin who "advanced" Mr. Nixon's tireless 1966 swing in behalf
of GOP Congressional candidates across the country. Many of these
young men were to staff key positions in the Nixon Administration
later on.
test
for his first two years in New York, Mr. Nixon operated
without a political staff -- except, of course, for Rose Mary Woods,
who had been his secretary since 1951 when he was a United States
Senator. As a result Miss Woods, who had been with "the Boss"
through five of his "Six Crises," was overwhelmed by political
chores as well as an unusually large correspondence.
Early in 1966 Mr. Nixon hired as his first fulltime
political assistant a 27-year-old editorial writer at the St. Louis
Globe-Democrat, Patrick J. Buchanan, who despite his conservative
views was to become quite popular with even the most liberal Nixon-
watchers in the press corps. Later on Mr. Nixon hired Raymond K.
Price, 36, chief editorial writer for the now-defunct New York
Run. It
Herald-Tribune. Price had come highly recommended by Walter Thayer,
one-time president of the Tribune and a key member of the so-called
GOP Establishment. Price's convictions generally were on the
liberal side.
It was in this period that Mr. Nixon came to believe he
had as good a chance for the 1968 nomination -- and even the
Presidency -- as any of the other possible GOP contenders. He
conceded there were some drawbacks, as for example his "last press
conference" following his 1962 defeat in which he had stated, "You
won't have Nixon to kick around any more " About this he said
that surely an Irishman is permitted one monumental outburst in
his lifetime. And, anyway, he now was getting along well with the
press.
Much more of a problem, however, was his image as a "loser"
and that, in the final analysis, was what he would have to circumvent
if he were to obtain support from the party faithful seeking a
"winner" to head the ticket in 1968. Which is one reason why Mr.
Nixon threw himself so wholeheartedly into the 1966 Congressional
elections, appearing for eighty-six Republicans in thirty-five
states. It felt good to be back in action unloosing verbal salvoes
at the Man in the White House, a testy Texan named Lyndon Baines
Johnson.
President Johnson played right into his hands late in the
campaign by lashing out at Mr. Nixon, calling him "a chronic
campaigner [who] never did really recognize and realize what was
going on when he had an official position in the Government" and
who, even in private life, "doesn't serve his country well."
Run 17
What had gotten the President's goat was a Nixon critique
of the communique on Vietnam issued after Mr. Johnson's meeting in
Manila with Asian leaders. So angry was Mr. Johnson that, at a
press conference, he appeared to have lost control and at one point
Mrs. Johnson was heard by reporters to urge her husband to "Stop!"
For Mr. Nixon the unexpected Johnson attack was too good
to be true. He kept his cool and played the statesman. When the
returns were in Mr. Nixon looked good as a prophet, too. He had
predicted GOP gains in forty House seats and forty-seven were won.
More importantly, however, Richard Nixon now had no doubts as to
what lay ahead for him politically.
"I think I can take the big man," he told friends, meaning,
of course, Lyndon Johnson, who was coming under increasingly bitter
criticism particularly from within his own party -- unfairly in
B
Mr. Nixon's opinion -- on the issue of Vietnam.
And then Richard Nixon went about winning the nomination
in an unorthodox fashion. He shocked the political world by
announcing he was taking "a holiday from politics for at least six
months with no political speeches scheduled whatever." And he kept
true to his word. For most of the year 1967 he practiced law,
wrote articles and travelled to such places as Europe, the Soviet
Union and the Far East. There was behind-the-scenes politicking,
but it was done in low-key fashion.
George Romney, who had a clear track for the nomination,
began to trip over his own rhetoric. The Michigan Governor's worst
Run 18
blunder was an indiscreet confession that he had been "brainwashed"
on Vietnam by the Johnson Administration. By the time of the New
Hampshire primary, Romney dropped out of contention. Another
leading prospect, Nelson A. Rockefeller, vacillated so long that
he didn't have a chance when he finally decided by convention time
to make a run for it. And a third major contender, Ronald Reagan,
could hardly get his campaign for the nomination going.
The main reason Reagan couldn't get going was because
Nixon had done effective missionary work among the conservatives.
As Nixon explained the facts of political life to William F. Buckley
Jr. in 1967: "Barry Goldwater found out you can't win an important
election with only the right wing behind you. But I found out in
1962 that you can't win an election without the right wing."
Richard Milhous Nixon was nominated on the first ballot
at the Republican Convention in Miami Beach. The tally came out
pretty much the way his delegate-counting aides Richard Kleindienst
and John Sears had figured that very afternoon. The candidate
watched the proceedings on television in his suite at the Hilton-
Plaza. The moment was one of quiet exhilaration. "It is a
wonderful moment," he told newsmen that night, "but you know I am
somewhat fatalistic about it. I feel the Presidency seeks the man.
I was ready. I was willing. The events all fell together. About
tonight, I was confident
Yes, I expected to win tonight."
Events appeared to be going Mr. Nixon's way as he opened
his campaign. The national ferment and torment that had forced
Run 19
Lyndon Johnson out of contention were problems the Democratic
candidate, Hubert Humphrey, appeared unable to cope with. Mean-
while, Mr. Nixon had united the Republican party to a degree few
observers had thought possible following the 1964 debacle.
As they jetted around the country with the candidate,
Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman began to ponder the significance
of the victory which seemed almost in their grasp. As Ehrlichman
tells the story: "We decided we had better be prepared to advise
Mr. Nixon the day after election on how to go about getting hold
of the Government. So we began to have some research done on the
problems of transition."
The candidate himself had other things on his mind. When
his aides advised him of what they were doing, Mr. Nixon said:
"Look, I think it's good that you're thinking about it, but I
can't spend any time on that now. My job is to get elected."
The research was done in New York by several employees
of the Electronic Data Systems Corporation, the Dallas-based com-
puter firm headed by H. Ross Perot. As Ehrlichman recalls their
duties: "First, we had them researching the transition statute --
what monies would be available to us to help in the changeover,
problems of office space, paying personnel, mundane things like
that. And then we wanted to find out about the jobs that were
to be filled, which ones were Presidential appointments and which ha
civil service inhibitions."
Haldeman and Ehrlichman would meet with the researchers
in New York usually during weekend campaign breaks. "We began to
Run 20
talk about problems of organizing the White House," Ehrlichman
said. "How was the White House organized in the past? How would
it best be organized for Richard Nixon, knowing how he worked and
so on? So we put a few things down on paper that appealed to us
and we began reading books that the researchers were dredging up
for us." Ironically, very little literature exists on the past
transition periods. "There's one university professor out in
Santa Barbara who is a kind of student on the subject, but almost
no one in the country has really made a study of it."
In the final weeks of the campaign, however, there were
excruciating moments in the Nixon camp. Ehrlichman began to wonder
whether all the intensive researching into the transition period
might wind up as a mere academic exercise.
There were several reasons for this. The Wallace move-
ment, on balance, / was hurting the Republicans more than the
Democrats. There was a pronounced and perceptible shift of votes
from Wallace to Humphrey, particularly in the big industrial states,
as the "white backlash" appeared to be losing potency.
Another reason was the calculated decision in the Humphrey
camp to turn more "dovish" in handling the Vietnam question. From
an all-out defender of LBJ's policies, the Democratic candidate
now began to use terminology more pleasing to the vociferous
followers of Eugene McCarthy, many of whom had vowed to stay home
rather than vote for the "warmongers" in either party.
Even more important were the last-minute diplomatic
initiatives being taken by the White House to obtain a settlement
Run 21
with Hanoi. Shortly before election eve, the White House announced
that President Johnson had ordered a halt to the bombing of North
Vietnam.
The final public opinion polls cast further gloom in the
Nixon camp. Dr. Gallup, canvassing the last weekend of the cam-
paign, declared Nixon was ahead by only two points -- 42 to 40
percent -- in an election "too close to call. " Lou Harris actually
had Humphrey ahead by three points, 43 to 40 percent. And Nixon's
own pollster was waffling on the final outcome.
Finally -- and blessedly -- it was all over. As an
estimated 73,000,000 Americans went to the polls on November 5,
Richard Nixon -- who had already voted by absentee ballot -- was
flying across the continent from Los Angeles to New York. With
him were his family and staff. Although the big jet was gaily
festooned with decorations, few aboard were exactly exuberant.
Robert H. Finch, one of the candidate's oldest and most trusted
friends, kept walking up and down the aisle and, as he told me
later, "I couldn't help but remember another long plane ride East"
-- the one back to Washington after Mr. Nixon's bitter 1960 defeat.
Of all the staffers, only Haldeman was in a jovial mood.
He had it all figured out that the candidate would win. And he
even reeled off the states. "I even thought we would take New York,
he recalled later. Significantly, while most of his fellow-staffers
were brooding about a possible loss, Haldeman spent most of the
trip concentrating on the problems President-elect Nixon would face
during the transition period.
Run 22
The candidate, himself, was not that cheerful. Shortly
after takeoff, Mr. Nixon summoned his family to the privacy of
his compartment up front. There he warned Mrs. Nixon, his daughters
Tricia and Julie and the latter's fiance, David Eisenhower, to be
prepared for the worst. He said he had done all he could to win
the election, but that the outcome would be close and could go
either way. Julie, more than anyone else in the family, was
shocked.
After lunching with his old friend from Key Biscayne,
C.G. "Bebe" Rebozo, Mr. Nixon strolled through the plane dispensing
cheer to an otherwise disconsolate group of staffers. But Bob
Finch kept pacing the aisle.
Shortly after 7:00 p.m., the Nixon party arrived at the
Waldorf Towers and the candidate retired immediately to his thirty-
fifth floor suite to begin what he knew would be another long vigil.
Ironically, for a candidate who had put so much effort into reaching
the electorate via television, Mr. Nixon rarely looked at the tube
during the long night. Rather he relied on his own experts to
obtain the vote from key states while he, himself, worked out
projections.
"There were one or two times during the night when we
thought we were beaten," recalls John Ehrlichman. But, then, in
the early hours of the new day things began to topple into place.
Crucial states had fallen -- or were expected to fall on the basis
of projections -- into the Nixon column. Moreover, word was coming
Run .23
from Humphrey headquarters at the Leamington Hotel in Minneapolis
that, in talking privately with newsmen, the Democratic candidate's
associates now were practically conceding defeat.
At 3:00 a.m., Mr. Nixon called in his top aides including
Finch, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, John Mitchell and Murray Chotiner.
After presenting a rundown of the latest vote tallies as well as
his own projections, Mr. Nixon said quietly, "I believe I have won
the Presidency."
Then he reminded his friends that at precisely that hour
eight years ago he had walked into the press room of the Hotel
Ambassador in Los Angeles to make his concession speech to John F.
Kennedy.
"I just thought we should have a little toast," he
suggested.
It was, according to Bob Finch, "a most moving moment.
And 1t was a moment, too, when all the pent-up emotions and tensions
of a hard fought campaign seemed to evaporate. This was indeed the
moment of triumph for Richard Nixon. He began to banter with Murray
Chotiner, who had been at his side during earlier controversial
campaigns.
"Murray," he said, "what ever made you put out those
vicious pink sheets against Helen Gahagan Douglas?"
Everyone laughed and Chotiner, joining in the spirit of
the occasion, replied, "Mr. President, you know I had a pretty good
reputation until I joined up with you. If
Run. 24
Amid the hilarity, it did not go unnoticed that this was
the first time that anyone had called Mr. Nixon by his new title.
No longer would even his closest associates and friends address
him as "Dick."
But for the country at large there were still long hours
of waiting before the final outcome was determined. By 11:00 a.m.
the last of the three networks finally announced that "Richard Nixon
will be the thirty seventh President of the United States." At
that moment, the new President emerged from his bedroom to tell
his aides, "Well, they've been at it so long that I'm not sure
I'll accept it."
A half-hour later he received a telephone call from the
man he had defeated. Mr. Humphrey said he would go on television
in fifteen minutes to make his concession statement. Mr. Nixon
thanked him for calling and said, "You put up a great fight, a
great fight."
And it had been a great fight indeed. Despite a divided
party and early polls showing him way behind, Mr. Humphrey had waged
an incredibly effective campaign, assisted in no small measure by
the last-minute "peace" maneuvers staged by the White House.
Nevertheless, despite George Wallace's third-party inroads,
Nixon's plurality of nearly 500,000 votes was almost four times as
large as the 113,000 margin by which he had lost to John F. Kennedy.
In electoral votes, Nixon took 302 to Humphrey's 191 and 32 states
to Humphrey's 13.
Run 25
An hour after he had talked to Humphrey, the President.
elect appeared in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria where
he told a cheering crowd of campaign workers that his would be an
"open Administration, open to new ideas, open to men and women of
both parties, open to the critics as well as those who support us.
We want to bridge the generation gap. We want to bridge the gap
between the races. We want to bring America together
If
Before descending to the ballroom, Mr. Nixon had decided
to fly down to his Florida retreat in Key Biscayne to begin creating
his new Administration. He asked Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Finch,
Mitchell and Bryce Harlow to join him. Mitchell had to clean up
some business before he could fly down. For Harlow, a former top
Eisenhower aide, the request proved to be a problem. On leave of
absence as Washington representative of Procter & Gamble, Harlow had
agreed to return to his company following the election. As it
turned out, he did not return for two years.
The Nixon party left the Waldorf and headed for LaGuardia
Airport just at the beginning of the rush hour. "And we had our
first taste of the Presidency," recalls Ehrlichman. "Man, what a
mess! All highways were cleared by the police and traffic piled
up for miles around. People trying to get home must have been furiou
That was the time the President decided never to drive again from
Manhattan to the airport. From then on he always helicoptered
from the Sheep Meadow in Central Park."
At any rate, the Nixon group got to the airport in record
time and was quickly airborne in a windowless government-owned
Run
26
KC-135 transport which had been assigned to the President-elect.
"The footnote to this anecdote," says Ehrlichman, "is
that President Johnson happened to be watching television when we
got off the KC-135 in Florida -- there was lots of TV coverage --
and he upbraided his staff very vehemently for having provided the
President-elect with that kind of aircraft instead of Air Force One,
or Air Force Two that have windows and are tricked out with all
kinds of fancy accommodations. And so we received a telephoned
apology from someone the White House.
As far as Mr. Nixon was concerned, no apology was needed
It had been a fast, comfortable trip and he had no complaints.
But the episode did demonstrate the excellent relations that
existed, from the very beginning, between the outgoing and incoming
Administrations.
First order of business at Key Biscayne was sleep.
Everyone from the President-elect down was totally exhausted. The
next afternoon, however, conversations began on how the Government
was to be organized.
The Florida sojourn was punctuated by a meeting with
Hubert Humphrey and his runningmate Edmund S. Muskie. The
President-elect had heard they were heading towards the Virgin
Islands for a well earned rest and he asked them to stop off in
Florida for a short meeting. Mr. Nixon was at the Opa-Locka Air
Force Base when they arrived in a Convair and he took them to
a nearby Coast Guard Operations office for a private talk.
Run 27
At first nothing really profound was said. Nixon and
Humphrey compared notes on the heckling each had encountered during
the campaign. They recounted various incidents and tried to
establish who had had the rougher time. Muskie, however, said very
little. And then Hubert Humphrey began to cry, big tears running
down his face. The emotions of the moment had gotten to the
defeated Democratic candidate. He told the man who had vanquished
him how much he appreciated the fact that he had taken time to meet
with him.
Nixon said he understood his feelings, pointing out
that in 1960 the then President-elect, John F. Kennedy, had called
on him in Florida in mrs Mxon's moment of defeat. (Several years
later,
Humphrey had come to think that his defeat in 1968 "may
have been the best thing for everyone," because "the country wanted
a change -- of party, of Administration, and of personality. ")
Mr
Nixon then got down to business. He asked the man
he had just defeated to accept the position of chief U.S. representa-
tive at the United Nations. It was, as Mr. Humphrey later confided,
an antraordinarily generous offer as it would have permitted him
to continue to pursue his political ambitions even including the
possibility of his once again running against Mr.
Nixon.
"That
is
a risk I am prepared to take," Иг. Nixon said. What the President-
elect was seeking was a government of "national unity" with bi-
partisan participation at the Cabinet level. During the campaign
he had proclaimed his intention of bringing Democrats into his
Administration. Though momentarily interested, Mr. Humphrey
Run 28
eventually turned down the offer, explaining that his own political
interests would perhaps better be served outside the Administration.
Farewells were expressed and the Humphrey plane took off
for the Virgin Islands. When Humphrey and Muskie arrived at their
destination they were surprised to see President Johnson's Air
Force II jet standing idle on the tarmac. Humphrey, who after all
was still the Vice President, wondered who had outranked him
sufficiently to warrant that kind of Presidential courtesy. Inquiry
disclosed it was the Vice President-elect, Spiro T. Agnew.
Such are the fortunes of politics.
There was no time for relaxation back at Key Biscayne.
A government had to be formed. The major immediate problem revolved
around staffing the Cabinet as well as sub-cabinet positions.
The following week the Nixon party was back in New York.
Quarters for Mr. Nixon were obtained at the Hotel Pierre on Fifth
Avenue which was most convenient for the President-elect since he
could walk over from his apartment without causing too much
commotion. And there in a tower suite, overlooking a frosty Central
Park, Mr. Nixon began to select the key people who would staff his
Administration's top levels. It wasn't something that he particularl
enjoyed doing. He confessed he was much more interested in ideas
than personnel. But ideas are only ideas if they're not carried
out. And to carry them out he needed good people.
Two of his more interesting appointments were those of
Dr. Henry Kissinger as his national security adviser and Daniel
Patrick Moynihan as his domestic affairs counselor. Both came out
Run 29
of the intellectual community and neither had previously shown
any particular ardor for Mr. Nixon. In fact, Dr. Kissinger had
been the chief foreign policy adviser for Nelson Rockefeller and,
as such, had been quite vocal in his antagonism. Though Mr. Nixon
had read several of Kissinger's books, he had never met him. There
was one book that he had read as Vice President which he found
impressive -- Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy.
How did the appointment come about?
"In the final weeks of the campaign," the President told
me, "Henry sent some memoranda through John Mitchell which were
helpful. Then, during the transition period I had a meeting at the
Pierre to thank him for the memoranda. And it went from there.
Just like that."
There was much more to the appointment than that. Mr
Nixon saw in Dr. Kissinger the ideal person to assist him in taking
hold of foreign policy operations of the Government and making
them more workable than in the past. Too often in previous Adminis-
trations major decisions had been made in a chaotic, crisis atmos-
phere. The Cuban missile crisis under Kennedy and the Dominican
intervention under Johnson were the kinds of emergencies Mr. Nixon
wanted to avoid.
Mr. Nixon, of course, had been aware of Dr. Kissinger's
critical views but, as he told me, "such things don't bother me."
Nor was he disturbed by Pat Moynihan's iconoclastic views
on social affairs. He had called for "new ideas" and in Moynihan
the President-elect knew he would get them by the bushel-ful.
Run 30
It was Bob Finch who had first talked to Moynihan about
joining the new Administration. Then Haldeman took a look at him.
"We both were intrigued by his bouncy, provocative personality,"
says Finch. "He was the kind of refreshing catalyst we would need
in the White House. "
Though Moynihan wanted to serve, he wondered how long
he would be able to take the heat from some of his more liberal
friends who, he knew, would consider him some sort of a traitor
for joining the camp of their leading bête noire, Richard Nixon.
Several long talks with the President-elect convinced Moynihan
to give it a try at least for six months. As it turned out, he
remained two years.
The making of the Cabinet turned out to be a tedious,
tiring business. Hundreds of names were considered to head the
twelve departments making up the Executive branch. In fact,
according to Ehrlichman, "the Cabinet must have changed its
makeup at least twenty-five times between the original group
the President had in mind to the one we finally wound up with. "
As his Attorney General, Mr. Nixon turned to his law
partner and campaign manager, John N. Mitchell. But Mitchell at
first wasn't buying. All he wanted to do was return to the law
firm and he just wasn't interested in going to Washington. "John
really fought it," recalls Bob Finch. "He just wasn't going to
be budged." The argument raged at the Nixon villa in Key Biscayne
for several hours. Present were Nixon, Haldeman, Finch and Mitchell.
Everyone pounded at Mitchell to take the post. What turned the
argument was Mr. Nixon's plea that he needed a decisive man at
Run 31
the helm of the Justice Department, one who would seek to carry
out his campaign pledges on law and order. Mitchell finally
buckled.
At that point, Finch announced he would like to serve
as Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. This was Finch's
own idea. Mr. Nixon had originally offered him the Interior
Department. But Finch had declined because "I felt I would be
in an indefensible position" since as a lawyer he had represented
so many oil companies in the past.
HEW was more to his liking, even though he knew it to be
a "can of worms" which had driven previous Secretaries up the wall.
For example, Abe Ribicoff, who had headed HEW during the Kennedy
years, had dubbed it "unmanageable" and then resigned to run for
the Senate. Little had improved in the intervening years. In some
ways, HEW had become even more unmanageable. But this didn't faze
Finch who resigned as Lieutenant Governor of California to take
over the huge sprawling agency.
Another old and trusted friend, William P. Rogers, who
had served as Attorney General under Eisenhower, was tapped for
Secretary of State. And Maurice Stans, who had raised money for
Nixon's political forays ever since the ill-fated try for the Calif-
ornia Governship, became Secretary of Commerce. George Romney was
selected as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) while
another former Governor, who likewise had worked hard for Nixon
during the 1968 campaign, John A. Volpe of Massachusetts took over
the Transportation Department.
Run 32
Others named to the Cabinet were George P. Schulz as
Secretary of Labor; Clifford M. Hardin, as Secretary of Agriculture;
David M. Kennedy, Secretary of the Treasury; and Walter J. Hickel,
as Secretary of the Interior. Of this group only Hickel had been
extremely active during the Nixon campaign. Ehrlichman recalls
seeing him during a flight from Chicago to Seattle walking up and
down the aisle, pinning Nixon buttons on fellow passengers and talk-
ing up the virtues of the Republican candidate.
For Postmaster General, the President-elect recruited
Winton M. "Red" Blount, a self-made Alabama businessman whom he
had known over the years. Blount at first was not too happy about th
assignment. "Anything but the Post Office Department," he pleaded.
But Mr. Nixon would not take no for an answer. He needed someone
of Blount's stature -- he had headed the U.S. Chamber of Commerce --
to push through the Kappel Commission recommendations for a govern-
ment-owned corporation to deliver the mail. "Red," Mr. Nixon said,
"this is the biggest problem the Government has had to face since
I can remember."
Finally Blount said, "Mr. President, if that's what you
want me to do, I'll do it."
Finding the right man to be Secretary of Defense proved
to be a more difficult problem. Mr. Nixon very much wanted a
Democrat for the job. At first he considered retaining Clark
Clifford, but then he decided against keeping Johnson holdovers.
The man he really wanted for the job was Henry "Scoop" Jackson
Run. 33
because the Senator from Washington, despite his domestic liberalism,
was sound on foreign policy matters, especially Vietnam. Jackson
was interested, but he wanted the President-elect to agree to ask
Governor Dan Evans, a Republican, to appoint a Democrat as
Jackson's successor. Mr. Nixon agreed and Jackson was on the
verge of accepting when the flak began coming in. His fellow
Democrats warned the Senator that running the Defense Department
was politically hazardous and he could conceivably become the light-
ning rod for criticism from within his own party. Jackson thereupon
sent his regrets.
The President-elect's next choice was Melvin Laird who
had just been re-elected to Congress from his Wisconsin district
with a smashing majority. Laird had already turned down several
other Cabinet posts including HEW. And he was reluctant to take
Defense, pointing out that he was a lifelong legislator, not an
administrator and that with his sixteen years of Congressional
seniority he could assist in getting the Nixon program through the
House. Mr. Nixon listened and then said, "Mel, I need you." And
Mel finally said okay.
Another post Mr. Nixon had some difficulty in filling --
largely because he wanted a big-name Democrat, or at least a big
name -- was the Ambassadorship to the United Nations. After
Humphrey turned it down, Mr. Nixon approached Sargent Shriver who,
after consulting with his in-laws, said no. Mr. Nixon then turned
to Senator Eugene McCarthy who said he would take it if Minnesota
Governor Harold LeVander could be prevailed upon to appoint Hubert
Run 34
Humphrey as his successor. LeVander would not cooperate, a fact
which the President-elect himself telephoned to McCarthy who was
lunching at Washington's Sans Souci restaurant. The President-
elect finally settled upon a little known foreign service officer,
Charles W. Yost, as his Ambassador to the world organization.
And then Richard Nixon went on national television and,
in one fell swoop, introduced his entire Cabinet to the American
people. Early in the game he had decided against emulating the
Kennedy technique of feeding out Cabinet choices one by one. It
did not strike the new President as too neat or orderly a procedure.
And neatness and orderliness -- as well as a passion for privacy --
were to become trademarks of the incoming Administration.
The next morning each Cabinet member received two paper-
bound books of speeches and statements made by the man who chose
them for their jobs. Entitled Nixon Speaks Out and Nixon On The
Issues, they had been rushed to publication at the height of the
campaign in order to refute Democratic charges that Mr. Nixon had
said very little of a substantitive nature while seeking the
Presidency. Mr. Nixon had said quite a bit about many subjects
and the Cabinet officers, informed that the books would serve as
the starting point for the new Administration's policies, were
urged to study them carefully and plan accordingly.
Meanwhile, at the Pierre most everyone continued to work
sixteen-hour days. There was a daily deluge of mail, much of it
dealing with job requests. The overworked switchboard operators
couldn't keep up with the flood of calls. Handling calls from
Run 35
Very Important People -- Senators, Congressmen, Governors and
the like -- was Bryce Harlow who had to enlist his daughter and her
friends to assist him.
"It was a wild, zany period," recalls Harlow, who was
slated to become the White House aide for Congressional relations.
John Ehrlichman agrees. "First of all, the Pierre was
a tough place to work. Space was at a premium. By now people were
scattered on various floors. I shared a room with my administrative
assistant, Chuck Stuart, and two secretaries. It was a lovely
room with a magnificent view of the park, but for some reason the
thermostat was set eternally at ninety-eight degrees. Finally we
devised a method of propping the window open about two inches and
keeping the door open. As a result, we had winds of gale force
clearing the heat out."
But it is always calmest in the eye of a hurricane and
so it was up on the thirty-ninth floor of the Pierre where the
President-elect quietly conducted business in an elegantly furnished
living room. An old President-watcher like Bryce Harlow could not
help but marvel "at the incredible ease, calmness and confidence
with which Mr. Nixon made the transition from political candidate
to President-elect. It astonished me how anyone could have so
quickly put on the royal robe with all that it means -- all the
burdens, formalities and responsibilities. It was almost as if
he were born to it."
Much of his time was devoted to world problems and he saw
Bill Rogers and Henry Kissinger a good deal. There was a steady
Run 36
stream of visitors -- politicians, diplomats, journalists and a
few old friends. On top of everything else, his daughter Julie
was getting married to David Eisenhower. And, as the day of the
ceremony drew near, the Father of the Bride began to talk like one.
"This is the hardest part, Mr. Nixon said, half-jokingly. "I
don't think I can make it."
But he did make it, of course, even though he had to
contend with a low-grade flu. The next day he flew off to Key
Biscayne for his first real vacation in many months. And he began to
think of the kind of speech he wanted to deliver at the Inauguration.
As that momentous day approached more and more of the
transition work was being done in Washington. Harry Fleming had
set up an office solely concerned with filling several thousand
jobs in various Governmental agencies. And Frank Lincoln, of the
Nixon, Mudge firm, was working closely with the Johnson people at
the White House. Key Nixon aides began spending more time in
Washington, conferring with their opposite numbers in the Johnson
Administration.
Personal relations between the incoming and outgoing
groups could not have been better. Ehrlichman, as counsel to the
President-elect, met frequently with Harry McPherson, counsel to
President Johnson. "We'd be in a meeting and President Johnson
would walk in and say, 'Are you getting everything you want? If
there's anything that you're not getting, you let me know!"
Relations between Mr. Nixon and Mr. Johnson couldn't
have been better either. They had a long private session together
Run. 37
at the White House. And, as they talked in the Oval Room, Mr.
Nixon couldn't help noticing the remote-controlled three-receiver
television console on which Mr. Johnson would watch news shows,
as well as two wire service news tickers, which kept him instantly
informed of world and domestic developments.
As Mr. Nixon was leaving, he whispered to an aide, "Get
those things out of there!"
Of course, he had to wait a little while before that
was done. But shortly before noon on January 20, 1969, while
the eyes of the nation were trained on the Inaugural platform, a
team of fifteen employees of the General Services Administration
swarmed into the just-vacated Oval Room and stripped it bare.
Eventually the specially constructed three-screen television
console was expropriated by Herb Klein for his office as director
of communications for the Nixon Administration.
The day after the Inauguration, the Nixon team moved
into various offices to discover that all files had been removed
from the White House. "I mean literally not one piece of paper
remained," recalls Ehrlichman. "It had all been trucked off to
Austin for eventual deposit in the Johnson Library. This, of
course, is normal procedure. When a President leaves the White
House, he is entitled to take all his papers with him."
This presented some immediate problems. For example,
there was the controversial issue of trans-Pacific airline routes
awarded just before President Johnson left office. "We felt there
were some obvious inequities in the awards," says Ehrlichman, "but
we couldn't find any of the documents. They had all been taken
away."
Run. 38
So Peter Flanigan, who had left Dillon Read to serve
Mr. Nixon, had to reconstruct the file from the ground up. He
spent many weeks talking to officials at the Civilian Aeronautics
Board and others involved in the awards.
"But it's a very difficult way to do business," says
Ehrlichman, "and I'm inclined to think that, whatever the
circumstances, the next transition will involve turning over to
the incoming Administration many more documents than we received."
Another extraordinary thing the Nixon people discovered
was that the President-elect had to fight for tickets to his own
Inaugural. All the tickets were in the hands of the Congress
and every Senator and Congressman was entitled to a batch. This
left only a handful for the President-elect to distribute.
"So," says Ehrlichman, "I was soon involved in some very
high level diplomatic negotiations to get us some tickets." The
negotiations were largely with Senator Everett Dirksen and Mark
Trice, the executive secretary of the Joint Congressional
Inauguration Committee, and there were a few shouting matches in
Trice's office.
"Finally, we got Murray Chotiner down to Washington to
fight the ticket battle for us. It was a rough Job, but Murray
managed to wangle enough tickets for the President's friends and
supporters.'
For the most part, the President-elect remained aloof
from the nitty-gritty details of the transition period. He had
Run. 39
assembled a topnotch staff of "generalists" who almost instinct-
ively knew what "the Boss" wanted done -- and they did it. This
was the way the new President would operate in the White House,
concerned mainly with the major problems. Thus, in a way, the
transition period proved most valuable for all concerned as a
sort of shakedown cruise.
And, finally, at noon on January 20, 1969, Richard
Milhous Nixon was sworn in as President of the United States.
He had waited a long time for that moment.
Oath
1
CHAPTER 2
It had taken Richard Nixon a long time, And it had
been a difficult journey. But now, finally, he was President
of the United States and, as such, the most powerful man in the
world. For better or worse, his decisions would influence the
course of mankind.
Truly awesome were his responsibilities. He had taken
the oath of office at a time when, in his opinion, the nation
seemed on the verge of social revolt. Bitter dissension particu-
larly among young people had been engendered by a long, bloody
war in a faraway land which few Americans could even place on a
map. Across the country, campuses were seething with a discontent
that often broke out into violence. The nation's cities likewise
were troubled with ever-mounting crime statistics and racial
disorders were commonplace. And there had been two dreadful
assassinations in the year 1968 alone. Also facing the new
President was an economic situation so fraught with peril that the
nation's very vitality was at stake.
But, above all else, Richard Nixon's most immediate
concern was an increasing lack of confidence in Government itself.
Americans generally had come to believe they had been constantly
misled by previous Administrations and the new President knew that
sooner or later this belief, whether warranted or not, could
easily rub off on his Administration.
Mr. Nixon also knew that his victory over Hubert Humphrey
had not occasioned great joy among significant sections of the
Oath 2
communications media. He had not taken lightly the warning of a
Washington newspaper columnist, wise in the ways of the Capital,
that "an important segment of the press has come to feel that
it has the God-given mission to frustrate, hamstring and finally
destroy the men who have been chosen to lead the nation" and if
there was anything 1t could do to cut Nixon down "you can be quite
sure that it will be done."
But the hostility of such powerful organs as The New York
Times was nothing new to him. For two decades, he had felt the
sting of the Times' editorial writers and he well knew that, unless
he capitulated to their demands, he would -- even as President --
continue to be a major target. But capitulate he would not.
Rather he would face the issues on the basis of what he considered
to be in the best interests of the nation and not what would please
Johnny Oakes and his fellow editorialists in their ivory tower on
West 43rd Street.
Then inevitably there would be resistance from a Congress
controlled by members of the opposite party. As Mr. Nixon ruefully
observed during the transition the Democrats would have little
difficulty becoming the party of opposition. For many of them had
considerable practice during the Johnson Administration. And as a
centrist Republican the new President also knew that not all his
policies would be greeted rapturously by those on the right.
As a longtime student of the Presidency and its inevitable
travails, Mr. Nixon came into office with the knowledge that he
undoubtedly would have a breathing spell before the critics, both
Oath 3
political and journalistic, would begin firing away at him. How
long the détente would last he did not know. But he resolved that
every precious moment would be fully utilized not only to unsnarl
the tangled workings of the vast federal bureaucracy but to come
up with ways and means of coping with the almost disastrous
conditions he had inherited in both domestic and foreign areas.
A fairly dispassionate rendering of the legacy left
Mr. Nixon was provided shortly after the Inauguration by Walter
Lippmann in one of his final columns. Mr. Nixon, he wrote, "inherits
a situation in which there is great fiscal and moral and political
inflation, where money is being spent that is not being earned,
when more has been promised than can be done, when more responsi-
bilities and commitments have been assumed than any nation, however
rich and powerful, can bear."
The aging columnist, who had not always seen eye-to-eye
with Mr. Nixon over the years, had lunched with the President-
elect at the Pierre during the interregnum and had apparently
come away with the feeling that Mr. Nixon had a sober grasp of the
basic realities facing him and the nation.
"Because of the objective situation," continued Lippmann,
"the task imposed on President Nixon has become one of deflating
the economy, of reducing the political promises, of cutting down
the commitments to the realities and the human scale.
"The role of the deflator is never glamorous. Has there
ever been a 'charismatic' deflator? Sobering up the morning after
is not nearly so much fun as the festivities the night before. But
Oath 4
it is President Nixon's fate to become President on the morning
after, and the question about him is whether he will recognize
and accept this destiny, or whether he will shrink from it as have
all his predecessors in this century."
So, on January 20, 1969, when he took the eath of office
as the thirty-seventh Chief Executive of the United States,
Richard M. Nixon knew he had his work cut out for him and that
nothing would come easy. And as he looked out on the vast throng
gathered in the Capitol Plaza that dreary, cloudy day he could not
help but think of the day just eight years past when John F. Kennedy
had taken the same oath. Brimming with confidence, at home and
abroad, we had been off to conquer New Frontiers. The white-haired
poet Robert Frost had written a special poem for the occasion, one
in which he had suggested that under President Kennedy we were
entering a new "Augustan age."
Buth unfortunately, the "Augustan age" did not ensue.
Instead the decade that had been launched with a quest for greatness
appeared to be ending on the defensive, mired in desperate efforts
to keep society from disintegrating.
Nevertheless, Mr. Nixon took over the reins of leadership
of a troubled nation with an assurance that, no matter how difficult
the problems he inherited, he personally was fully equipped to deal
with them. Rarely had any President stepped into the highest
office in the land with such ease and confidence. There was no
hesitancy, no awkward moment. From the moment he entered the Oval
Office, which was completely stripped of everything that had belonged
to his predecessor, he knew exactly what he had to do. And he began
doing it.
Oath 5
This writer, who had the opportunity to view the new
President in action at the White House his first day in office,
found him to be smiling, thoroughly relaxed and seemingly without
a care in the world. But the cares were there; and he, more than
anyone else in the Republic knew 1t. And that mood of low-keyed
self-assurance was to prove a decided contrast to the frenzy of
the Johnson years; and the nation, at least at first, appeared to
be enjoying a sense of decompression.
Mr. Nixon's ebullience was remarked on by other observers
surprised by what they considered his new-found sense of humor.
After taking the oath, he was wisecracking all over the place.
"Hail to the Chief" was his favorite tune, he said, and he had
never had choicer seats for a parade than at the Inaugural march.
"of course," he added, "I sent for my seats eight years ago."
About to return to the White House for his first night in residence,
he said, "They've given me the keys and I have to go home to see
if they fit."
Even before he had been sworn in, the President made it
clear to his closest associates that under his leadership there
would be little of the well-publicized ballyhoo that dominated the
White House years of his predecessor. And he made it clear again
in his Inaugural speech: "In these difficult years, America has
suffered from a fever of words; from inflated rhetoric that promises
more than 1t can deliver; from angry rhetoric that fans discontents
into hatreds; from bombastic rhetoric that postures instead of
persuading.'
Oath 6
Instead of bombast and over-inflated promises, the new
Chief Executive intended to "tell it as it is" -- then one of Mr.
Nixon's favorite expressions -- and the soft-spoken manner in which
he delivered his Inaugural Address was the style he intended to
follow. In that speech, Mr. Nixon also said: "We cannot learn
from one another until we stop shouting at one another -- until
we speak quietly enough BO that our words can be heard as well
as our voices."
Which all meant, as he explained later, that he intended
to give short shrift to those who not only were demanding the
millenium but were doing so in obnoxiously loud voices. Mr. Nixon
was well aware of the extremist pressure groups and, as he noted,
he is not the kind to be overwhelmed by their abrasive tactics.
In short, intemperance would get them nowhere.
Even before his Inauguration, as President-elect, he
had sought to get a handle on the machinery of Government in order
to permit his new Administration to move quickly in an orderly
way on major problems. It wasn't easy. The Federal establishment
consists of overswollen bureaucracies highly jealous of their
prerogatives and not always responsive to the wishes of those who
happen to get elected to the Presidency.
Thus, while still ensconsed in the Hotel Pierre, Mr.
Nixon had his first taste of battle when he made what may have been
one of his more fateful decisions in terms of how he intended to
operate in the making of foreign policy. He took on the State
Oath. 7
Department in deciding to bolster the functions of the National
Security Council (NSC) as "the principal forum for Presidential
consideration of foreign policy issues." This triggered deep-
seated resentment at State which felt that its traditional role as
the President's chief adviser on foreign affairs would be under-
mined. And a flock of memoranda flew between Foggy Bottom and
the Pierre. After considering all the pros and cons, Mr. Nixon
dispatched a directive to the State Department calling a halt to
the first major internal dispute of his fledgeling Administration.
The President-elect stipulated there would be no further appeal
from his decision to revitalize the NSC, and there wasn't any.
Still, feelings were hurt.
Basically what Mr. Nixon wanted from the newly-bolstered
NSC, headed by Henry Kissinger, were the "real options and not
simply what compromise has found bureaucratic acceptance." More
than anything else, the new President dreaded being handed a single
policy recommendation for either acceptance or rejection. Instead
he wanted alternatives presented by the various agencies -- not a
concensus -- to which he would give a "fair hearing." And then,
after studying all viewpoints, he and he alone would make the big
decisions. And he and he alone would take the rap if things
went wrong. That's what he was hired to do.
While still at the Pierre Hotel, Kissinger ordered an
"options study" on the war in Vietnam. For the first of his
National Security Study Memoranda -- or NSSM One' as the Vietnam
project came to be known -- Kissinger brought together a staff of
Oath 8
experts to prepare questions that were to be submitted to the
State and Defense Departments as well as the Central Intelligence
Agency. Because he wanted to determine whether any weaknesses
existed in any of the departmental positions, Kissinger brought in
several critics of the war as consultants. Among them were Dan
Davidson (recommended by Averell Harriman), Morton Halperin and
Daniel Ellsberg. All three were to become disenchanted with the
Kissinger operation early in the game and they departed the scene.
Ellsberg, of course, went on to make a name for himself as the
purveyor of top-secret documents which became known as the Pentagon
Papers.
The new President's preoccupation with world affairs
was demonstrated his first day in office when he held an NSC
meeting to hear a report by CIA Director Richard Helms on the world's
trouble spots. The discussion centered around Vietnam and the
Middle East, but incipient crises from Berlin to Peru were also
touched upon. And then there was a bitter civil war raging in
Nigeria with civilian suffering widespread, particularly in the
secessionist enclave called Biafra.
"Don't you have any good news at all?" Mr. Nixon asked
the CIA Director.
"No, I'm afraid not," replied Helms.
(Helms was retained as Director of the CIA on the basis
of a recommendation of a secret task force headed by Franklin A.
Lindsay, president of Itek Corporation. The task force, appointed
by President-elect Nixon, was empowered to investigate the CIA and
recommend changes.)
Oath. 9
Mr. Nixon's hunger for facts was translated into still
memo
another NSSM calling on the CIA as well as State, Defense and
Treasury to respond to questions dealing with every quarter of the
globe. In a covering letter, Henry A. Kissinger -- or HAK in NSC
jargon -- advised recipients that the purpose of the exercise was
to provide the President with an "inventory" of the international
situation as of the day he was inaugurated. The questions were
exhaustive. Does Israel possess the atom bomb? What about Britain
and the Common Market? Could Portugal hold on to her African
colonies? The possibilities of strategic arms limitation talks?
How viable is West Berlin?
A considerable number of questions concerned the Soviet
Union and Communist China, their bitter rivalry and whether there
was any chance of a rapprochement. Also wanted was detailed
information on Soviet capabilities to deploy ground, naval and air
forces in the Mediterranean as well as in Africa and Asia, Data
on the Soviet economy and the possibilities of stepped-up trade
with the West as a whole and the U.S. in particular was also
requested.
Questions on China concerned the nature of its political
makeup following the cultural revolution as well as who the future
leaders of the Middle Kingdom might be following the departure of
the present leadership. And what about the effect of the cultural
revolution on the Chinese economy? Is China facing food shortages?
What are its foreign exchange resources? What progress has China
Oath 10
made in its nuclear weapons program? And what will Peking's
position be once it is in position to deploy nuclear-armed ballis-
tic missiles? How strong is China in conventional military forces
and in defensive air power? What are Peking's relations with
Hanoi and the Vietcong? Would the Chinese seek to participate in
any large Vietnam negotiations?
Dr. Kissinger asked that all replies including back-up
materials be forwarded to the NSC by February 20. That gave the
given
,
several departments and agencies ^ less than a month to come up with
hard information which, after processing in Kissinger's shop, would
go to the President in abbreviated form. As a result, a lot of
bureaucratic noses got out of joint. Things had rarely been done
that way before or that quickly.
Just as vexatious for the President were problems on the
home front. And to them he devoted most of his second day in
office, Wednesday, January 22. The President began that day by
attending 8:00 a.m. ceremonies in the East Room (covered "live" on
television by NBC's Today Show) during which Chief Justice Earl
Warren swore in the members of the new Cabinet -- that is all
members but one, Walter Hickel, who was still unconfirmed by the
Senate as Secretary of Interior. Hickel had come under heavy
attack as industry oriented in his views on environment. And he had
outraged the Audubon-minded by announcing he did not favor conserva-
tion for conservation's sake.
As the President called on each member of the Cabinet to
be sworn in, it was apparent that there was considerable truth to
Oath 11
press comments that this was a conservatively attired group. All
wore dark suits and quiet ties. Also striking was the fact that
with the exception of Finch and possibly Transportation Secretary
Volpe, President Nixon was the youngest-looking of the lot. Which
struck one insider as "kind of funny" since, shortly after his
election, Mr. Nixon had mused to his aides about the possibility
he would appoint a Cabinet made up of men all younger than he.
One quip making the rounds was that the Cabinet looked like "Horace
Heidt's band twenty years later." But, as Paul Healy noted in the
New York Daily News, "what was so exciting about a Kennedy Cabinet
that boasted a McNamara, a Rusk, a Udall and a Celebrezze? Or a
Johnson Cabinet that leaned on some of those same old faces plus
Marvin Watson?"
Then the President and his "Working Cabinet," as he had
referred to it, retired to the Cabinet Room. There was little
sense of high historical drama at that first meeting. Getting right
down to business, the President acted as if he had been through it
all before which, as a matter of fact, he had -- considering the
numerous times he had presided over Cabinet meetings in the absence
of President Eisenhower. And it was the same Cabinet table at
which he had sat so often as Vice President. There was one innova-
tion left under the lip of the table by President Johnson -- a
series of buttons which when pressed would summon such things as
coffee, tea or Fresca. The buzzer panel was gone the next day.*
* In the President's living quarters upstairs was a special
bathroom shower that sprayed in every direction. Mr. Nixon ordered
Oath 12
an ordinary nozzle. He also got rid of a bedside push-button
device which his predecessor had used to raise and lower his
bedroom window. "I was afraid," said Mr. Nixon, "that if I pushed
the button, I'd blow up the world." The President is not gadget-
minded. When aides tried to get him to use a Picturephone -- a
device which would permit him to view a televised picture of
staff members whom he phoned -- the President said no, saying he
did not want to catch Dwight Chapin, one of his young assistants,
"with a hair out of place."
Mr. Nixon quickly outlined his views on the functions
of the Cabinet. Unlike President Eisenhower, he did not believe
the Cabinet ought to be a forum for debating major issues. Rather,
he planned to initiate various sub-Cabinet committees, one of
which he would announce the next day -- the Council for Urban
Affairs. Basically the President's thinking was that it was sense-
less to involve either the Secretaries of State or Defense in purely
domestic matters; and that it was likewise time-wasting for either
the Postmaster General or Secretary of Interior to involve himself
in defense or foreign policy issues. This, of course, did not mean
there shouldn't be communication between the Secretaries. For
example, while making the social rounds at the various Embassies,
the Secretaries might pick up "spot information" for transmittal
to the Secretary of State.
During the meeting, Walter Hickel seemed a lonely figure.
The still-unconfirmed Secretary of Interior, shaken by the controvers
Oath 13
surrounding his appointment, asked for advice on how to "clear"
his phones because he feared wiretapping by his enemies on the Hill.
Bill Rogers, a former Attorney General in the Eisenhower years,
calmed him down. "Wally," he said, "you're in the big leagues
now." (Two days later, following his confirmation by the Senate,
Hickel finally was sworn in. In an East Room ceremony, Mr. Nixon
noted that the Alaskan "already has rendered service far beyond the
call of duty. In the first four days of this Administration he,
rather than I, has been the subject of the Herblock cartoons. I
am grateful for that.")
On that first day the new President, posing for an official
photograph in the Oval Room, told reporters that he intended to
establish a second office in the Executive Office Building -- the
rococo pile just across the street where his speechwriters and
other staffers had been assigned offices. "I like to work in a
very small room," he explained. The reporters appeared incredulous.
They could hardly believe that the President would foresake the
magic and grandeur of his Oval office for more mundane quarters
elsewhere. No President had ever done that before. But this
President, as they were to learn, did not do things by the book.
The fact was that Mr. Nixon liked to work in less formal surround-
ings, away from reminders of pomp and circumstance.
The next day Mr. Nixon announced the "major appoint-
ment" of Dr. Arthur F. Burns, "a longtime friend and trusted adviser,"
as Counsellor to the President with Cabinet rank. With Martin
Anderson as his deputy, Dr. Burns' "prime responsibility will be
Oath 14
the coordination of the development of my domestic policies and
programs." Dr. Burns, who had first met Mr. Nixon in 1953 when he
headed President Eisenhower's Council of Economic Advisers, had
remained in close touch with the young Californian over the years.
And following his election, Mr. Nixon had asked him to pull together
his campaign statements, the Republican platform planks, as well as
the confidential reports of the twenty-two Nixon task forces set
up to study specific problems, and come up with a domestic program
for the new Administration. "Nixon was eager to get the machinery
started so he could move ahead a little faster once he assumed the
reins of government," says Burns. The first week of January Burns
presented the President-elect with a blue-covered notebook containing
domestic proposals which he felt deserved priority attention. The
day after the Inauguration he placed additional recommendations in
the notebook.
Whenever he had a chance, Mr. Nixon studied the notebook
and began shooting off directives to his Cabinet officers and White
House staff advisers. In all, close to one hundred memoranda were
to be sent out for action. Many of the early directives were based
on Mr. Nixon's campaign calls for reorganizing and reordering the
Government, with a heavy emphasis on returning money and decision-
making to the states and private sector. Others dealt with such
complex proposals as black capitalism, welfare reform and tax
sharing with the states. Some could be acted upon immediately --
the computer job bank, a student tutoring corps and legislation
to prevent obscene materials from being mailed to children.
Oath 15
That day, too, Mr. Nixon signed his first Executive
Order, one establishing the Urban Affairs Council to cope with the
crisis of the cities. Besides the President, the membership
included the Vice President and various Cabinet members. Named as
the Executive Secretary was Daniel P. Moynihan who announced the
formation of nine subcommittees, each chaired by a Cabinet officer,
to deal with such problems as the future of the poverty and Model
Cities programs; minority business enterprises; welfare; crime;
internal migration; mass transit; and surplus food and nutrition.
At the Council's first meeting, the President noted that
urban problems had begun to surface after World War II and "then
exploded under the Kennedy Administration and reached an even greater
crescendo during the Johnson years." He felt that his predecessors
had tried to do thingstoo fast, without much thought and perhaps
too politically. So, as a result, the nation was saddled with
numerous expensive social programs, some working at cross purposes,
with results not overly satisfactory.
The President urged each Council member to do a "complete
inventory" of the various programs that had accumulated over the
years. "Be merciless!" he said. At the same time he stressed the
need for innovation, observing that "the time to take the political
heat is now, whether it is for stronger law enforcement, or a
change in the welfare system or OEO. We must resist the natural
tendency to say, 'Let's look at it a little longer.' The magic
time to change is the first couple of months, for later we will
have problems with the press, and with the problems themselves...
The country recognizes the need for change and we don't want the
record written that we were too cautious."
Oath 16
Arthur Burns suggested it might be a good idea if Pat
Moynihan were to prepare an outline of "a national urban policy.
The President agreed.
"I would be glad to undertake such a task," said Moynihan,
"on the condition that -- and I realize that one does not ordinarily
impose conditions on the President of the United States -- on the
condition that no one takes it seriously."
At that, the room exploded into laughter. The President,
momentarily taken aback, joined in.
It was Moynihan's point that the task was formidable and
could only be approached -- considering the complexity of the
problems involved -- with a high degree of skepticism.
The subject of hunger in America came up. Agriculture
Secretary Hardin and Moynihan insisted it was a problem for millions
of people. The President at first appeared skeptical about such
claims. He suggested it was not constructive for leading Americans
to say people were starving, especially when "our friends on the
other side of the curtain" could gain a propaganda advantage.
Nevertheless, after considerable probing of both Hardin and
Moynihan, particularly of how their estimates were established,
the President evinced concern and said, "Let's get the facts. Then
we'll act appropriately."
It was at these early meetings that Pat Moynihan quickly
established rapport with the President. For one thing, Moynihan
always spoke his mind -- even outrageously at times -- a character-
istic which Mr. Nixon found particularly refreshing in a milieu
Oath
17
traditionally occupied by subordinates more subdued in their
comments. The President did not always agree with his iconoclastic
adviser, but he always listened to him, frequently with unconcealed
amusement. Moynihan had an Irish way with words which invariably
intrigued the President.
Probably the toughest issue confronting the new President
on the domestic front was the virulent, almost runaway inflation
which had plagued the nation's economy since the United States
escalation in Vietnam in the mid-sixties. As a candidate, Mr.
Nixon had campaigned long and hard against interminably rising
prices. Once in the White House, he immediately got to work on
the issue.
On January 23, Mr. Nixon met with the Quadriad, a mini-
Cabinet group then consisting of Chairman William McChesney Martin
of the Federal Reserve Board, Secretary of the Treasury David M.
Kennedy, Budget Director Robert P. Mayo, and Paul W. McCracken,
Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. In the free-wheeling
discussion there was general agreement on the obvious; namely that
the overheated economy would have to be cooled down in a careful,
gradual way so as to minimize the adverse effect of such actions
on unemployment.
* The Troika, another mini-Cabinet group, is the Quadriad, minus
the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, who is an independent
official serving a fixed term.
The following day, Mr. Nixon convened the first meeting
of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Policy. Present in the Cabinet
Oath 18
Room were Chairman McCracken of the Council of Economic Advisers,
Treasury Secretary Kennedy, Commerce Secretary Maurice Stans,
Agriculture Secretary Hardin, Labor Secretary George Shultz, Budget
Director Mayo and Counsellor Burns.
Apparently the naming of the mini-Cabinet group had
presented something of a problem since the President noted that,
"We felt 'board' would be wrong, and 'council' would confuse it
with the Council on Economic Advisers. We originally had 'economic
growth' in the title, but we don't use the word 'growth' because we
may be meeting in times when growth would sound ridiculous -- let's
hope not."
The President said that formation of the Cabinet Committee
-- or Cabcomecopol as it soon was affectionately dubbed by its
members -- had its origins in proposals of the task forces he had
appointed following his election. Its purpose was "to look at
economic policies long-range.. "
Happening to notice William Safire busily scribbling
notes, the President introduced the former New York public relations
executive as a member of his writing team "who's supposed to know
something about economics."
"Well," interjected Maurice Stans, "he does know something
about speech writing.'
The President had another sudden thought. "I think the
Vice President ought to be here," he said.
"I don't want the
press saying we're overlooking the Vice President."
Arthur Burns said that Spiro Agnew had been invited but
that he had an engagement in Baltimore.
Oath 19
The President then called upon McCracken to give a
general economic review. An economics professor at the University
of Michigan, the cool, almost pedantic McCracken had been a member
of the CEA during the Eisenhower years. Mr. Nixon had brought
him back to Washington on the recommendation of Arthur Burns.
"We assume responsibility in difficult times," McCracken
began, which of course was hardly news to those seated around the
table. But the Chairman brought the group up short when he stated
flatly: "The economy is more vulnerable to a recession now than it
has been in some time."
McCracken quickly summed up the problem: "Consumer
spending is flat, while new facilities by business is up ten percent.
"Do you mean that business spending is just a hedge against
inflation?" asked the President.
"Yes."
"More now than ever?"
"Yes."
"Also," interrupted Secretary Kennedy, "there's the
worry about tightness of money."
"What about consumer intentions?" the President asked.
"Prognosis is flat," replied McCracken.
"If consumer spending stays flat," Secretary Stans asked,
"won't the investment in new facilities ultimately slow down?"
"Yes," said McCracken.
Throughout the discussion, the President listened intently.
He occasionally made notes on one of those ever-present yellow pads.
Oath. 20
And he kept asking questions. Though he never claimed the Dismal
Science to be his strongest forte, he probably knew more about
the subject than did most of his predecessors. Moreover, he
thoroughly understood the intimate relationship between economic
trends and domestic and international politics.
For example, Mr. Nixon had long been convinced that he
lost the Presidency to John F. Kennedy in 1960 largely because
the jobless rolls increased by over 450,000 during the election
period. Along with Dr. Burns, he had desperately sought to
convince President Eisenhower of the need to stimulate the economy;
but Ike failed to heed their warnings and the rest is history.
But it was still vivid history to Mr. Nixon and something he was
to repeatedly recall in private sessions with his economic advisers,
The issue of unemployment arose at the first meeting of
the Cabinet Committee. Chairman McCracken said the new Administra-
tion should not attempt "to create the impression that we can cool
off the economy" without some rise in joblessness. The nation must
be prepared for that possibility.
McCracken summed up by stating that what was needed was
a strategy of economic policy. "Up to now, it's been too ad hoc,"
he added. "We haven't had a series of plays within a game plan,
if I may use that metaphor.'
It was a figure of speech that appealed to the nation's
number one sports fan. It connoted the kind of long-range, thorough
planning which the new President sought to institute in his policy-
making. And it took into account the fact the President did not
want to be caught short by surprises.
Oath 21
This the President made abundantly clear when he questione
David Kennedy about whether the Treasury Secretary had been
adequately consulted on & decision to raise the interest ceiling
on Federal Housing Administration and Veterans Administration
mortgages. Kennedy said he had no complaints and Messrs. Mayo and
Stans thought it a good decision. But the President was making
the point that the decision had come up too quickly to suit him;
that, in fact, he had been notified of it the very day it was to
be made. From now on the President indicated he wanted to be alerte
as far in advance as possible about such moves.
By this time the meeting had gone longer than had been
scheduled and appointments secretary Dwight Chapin was at the
doorway making faces. The President finally took the hint. Before
departing, he said: "Let's think in radical terms, if I may use
that word. I know there are no easy answers. But that doesn't
mean there are no answers. Rather than 'running it better' or
temporizing, we have to come up with those answers and in the
economic area that's what this committee will have to do."
The President then lunched with several old friends from
the House of Representatives -- Gerald Ford, Glenn Davis, John
Byrnes and former Congressman Donald L. Jackson. The purpose of
the luncheon was to discuss the future activities of the Chowder
and Marching Society, a group that had its origins back in the late
forties when fifteen freshmen Republican Congressmen including
Dick Nixon began meeting once a week to discuss pending legislation.
Oath 22
Most of the original members went on to bigger and better
things. Ford, of course, was now minority leader of the House
while Byrnes became the ranking Republican on the powerful Ways
and Means Committee. Don Jackson, who had served in a California
district next door to Nixon's, had left the Congress to make
a career in public relations.
Jackson's presence at the White House was a poignant
reminder to those with long memories of the fickle nature of
politics. Both Jackson and Nixon had arrived on the Washington
scene as a result of the extraordinary 1946 Congressional election
which led to Republican control of the Eightieth Congress. They
became close friends. But, from the beginning, it was Don Jackson
who captured the imagination of some observers as a politican who
would go a long way -- even, possibly, to the White House. The
best that was said of Nixon in those early days was that he would
remain in Congress for a long time. More than two decades later,
President Nixon appointed Don Jackson a member of the Interstate
Commerce Commission.
The second Cabinet meeting was held on February 7 and
again domestic problems dominated the discussion. With one
exception, all again were conservatively dressed. The exception
was Bob Finch, who was attired in irridescent green and a tie that
one insider described as looking as if it had been designed by
"deKooning in a nightmare." The mood, set by the President, was
relaxed and good humored.
Oath 23
First to be introduced by the President was Economist
McCracken with a report on the economic situation and outlook.
"Well, Paul, said the President, "we're putting you on right
at the beginning so we can get the good news at the start."
But the news, as everyone in the Cabinet room well knew,
wasn't that good. In precise terms and with charts in front of
him, McCracken quickly got to the key question: "Can we level out
prices without causing unemployment?" Then the no-nonsense answer:
"Looking at it realistically we can't bring down the price level
without affecting unemployment, but if we are skillful we won't
affect it too much."
In the ensuing discussion, it was obvious that the
problem of unemployment was one that troubled the President deeply.
He made the point that part of the problem was the fear on the part
of the employed that they may become unemployed, and thus the
heart of the matter is "talk of unemployment."
The President then introduced Dr. Lee A. DuBridge,
Director of the Office of Science and Technology, to report on
various matters dealing with science. Mr. Nixon asked if he would
like to remain seated while making his report. "No," replied
DuBridge, "teachers like to stand up." And like the teacher he
was, DuBridge quickly and methodically brought up problems of
concern in the scientific community. One of those problems had to
do with nuclear tests. Some scientists had expressed fears that
such tests might trigger earthquakes. After listening to the
argument, the President asked whether the real concern of these
Oath. 24
scientists was not the danger of earthquakes but their general
objection to any kind of nuclear test. Dr. DuBridge did agree that
this was the case with many scientists but added there had been a
considerable amount of discussion about the issue.
The President then said he would not make any firm
decisions on testing until he had studied all the relevant facts.
In another area, DuBridge proposed formation of a committee
to report to the President on the future of the space program.
Mr. Nixon not only thought it a good idea but he urged all possible
speed in getting the report to him. What he wanted most of all was
to take the initiative in planning the future of the space program.
What he did not want, he added, was the kind of situation in which
public opinion would "push us into, for example, a manned trip to
Mars."
Public opinion, however, was playing a major role in
alerting the Government to the problems of environment. And that
was all to the good, the President said, referring specifically to
the "tragedy" that resulted from an oil blowout at an offshore
drilling site off Senta Barbara, California. Miles of shoreline
and offshore islands were fouled. Beyond the immediate problem of
how to restore the beaches and waters around Santa Barbara, the
President proposed the formation of a Cabinet Committee on Environ-
ment and he asked DuBridge and Moynihan to determine which Cabinet
members should be involved.
Attorney General Mitchell then took the floor. His subject
was crime legislation and he raised the question of whether the first
Oath 25
message to Congress should be centered on organized crime or
whether it should deal with more than that. The President said
he was not very keen on a message dealing solely with organized
crime. What he would like to see was a series of crime messages
and not a blanket statement. He also proposed an early move in
the narcotics field. Pointing out that Nelson Rockefeller had
attributed his last re-election as Governor of New York State to
his dealing with the narcotics issue, Mr. Nixon smiled and said,
"I was going to say he went on a narcotics kick -- but I guess I'd
better not say that.
The Cabinet discussion then turned to the strong link
that reportedly exists between organized crime, which makes a huge
profit out of narcotics, and street crime, which in large measure is
committed by addicts trying to maintain their expensive habit.
Whereupon the President said he wanted to make a key
point about the crime program. Suggesting that Budget Director Mayo
"plug your ears here," the President asked the Attorney General to
find out what was needed in the fight against crime "and we'll ask
Congress for 1t whether it is for more narcotics agents or whatever."
The President was certain that Congress would provide what was
needed. In this area, he indicated, cost would not be & controlling
factor.
"My ear plug fell out at just the right moment," said the
Budget Director. "My plea to you is that when we are about to send
a message or program, let's cost it out." He cited the President's
statement of a week before on "curbing crime and improving conditions
Oath...26
of life in the city of Washington" as something he had first read
about in the newspapers. "That was all right but we didn't cost
it."
"We moved on that one pretty fast," smiled the President
and then, turning to the Budget Director, he added, "From now on,
we'll give you at least twenty-four hours."
The Attorney General next turned to the subject of
electoral reform. The key question, he said, was whether OF not
any message should be sent to the Congress. The President said
he felt he was committed to a change in the electoral system.
This brought a comment from Mitchell that if the proportional plan
which the President had espoused during the campaign had been used
in the 1968 election, "you would have won by only six electoral
votes." To which Arthur Burns remarked; "But he would have won."
The President said a message should be sent but it ought
to be couched in as general terms as possible because "every lawyer
on the Hill has ideas on" the subject. He also suggested that
Mitchell send letters to the concerned Committee Chairmen advising
them of his availability as an Administration spokesman on reform.
"We'll just give you running room to make your own mistakes," the
President grinned. Whereupon the Attorney General muttered some-
thing about how he would soon be sent back to Wall Street.
Secretary of State Rogers had a joking thought about all
this. "John," he smiled, "can we abolish elections? I like things
the way they are now."
Oath 27
More seriously, Arthur Burns volunteered his thinking
that the President had actually declared for a straight popular
election as a result of his challenge to Humphrey late in the
campaign to agree that, if the electoral balance threw the election
into the House, the candidate who obtained the most popular votes
should be declared President. However, it was generally agreed
that Mr. Nixon's position on this referred only to a specific
situation of an election being thrown into the House. At the end
of the discussion, the President told Mitchell: "Well, with all
these specific instructions, you and Arthur Burns work it out."
Other problems discussed had to do with what Treasury
Secretary Kennedy termed an approaching crisis in the debt ceiling
and what Budget Director Mayo described as a high level of federal
employment.
The President then turned to one of his favorite subjects
-- press coverage. Noting that this Cabinet had more discretion
in making news than any in recent history, he urged the Cabinet
officers to continue to hold their own press conferences. However,
if they had big news they would probably get a bigger break if they
made their announcements at the White House. He pointed out that
this pattern had already been tried successfully in some instances,
the President having appeared with a Cabinet officer to make an
announcement. Then, with a smile, he added: "Of course, all the
bad news goes out at the local level!"
And so the Cabinet meeting came to an end. Everyone had
said what he wanted to say. Problems were faced with enthusiasm
Oath 28
and good humor. No one was taking himself too seriously and every-
one was prepared to take a little kidding. And while there hadn't
been too many hard decisions, this was not necessarily the time
or place for hard decisions. In sum, the meeting constituted a
nugget of the new Administration at work. The President clearly
was in charge, advising, suggesting, asking, proposing, ordering
-- but never pounding. In this approach there was an ease of tone
that, even after several weeks of his exposure as President, would
still continue to surprise many outside observers.
One of those most pleasantly surprised was John Gardner,
Chairman of a citizens' group called the Urban Coalition which
later was to develop into something called Common Cause. Gardner,
who had been Secretary of HEW under Lyndon Johnson, had brought
together a group of civic-minded citizens, among them Bayard
Rustin, Andrew Heiskell, Max Fisher and Arthur Fleming, to meet
with Mr. Nixon and the newly organized Cabinet Council on Urban
Affairs. After the meeting ended, Gardner remarked to Pat Moynihan
that in more than three years of such conferences he had never
heard so much "open conversation" and that it was apparent that
under President Nixon "an utterly different atmosphere" had been
created.
World 1
CHAPTER 3
On February 22, 1969, a day before he was to leave for
Europe on his first diplomatic mission abroad as President, Mr.
Nixon sat in the Oval Office, pouring over briefing books and
making notes on one of those ubiquitous yellow legal pads. In
all there were some two thousand pages of material on European
problems plus personality sketches of the many leaders he was
scheduled to meet on the Continent.
The President had left orders that except for emergencies
he was not to be disturbed.
The door flew open. It was Henry Kissinger bearing bad
tidings. The Communist enemy had taken the offensive throughout
South Vietnam, hitting about seventy target areas including Saigon
and Danang. There was great concern at the Pentagon. In fact,
the Defense Secretary and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
were waiting for word to rush to the White House.
"What for?" asked the President.
"To meet with you on the emergency," replied Kissinger.
"Do they want me to make a decision?"
"No."
"Is there anything they want me to do right now?"
"No."
"Then tell them I don't want to see them."
Thus, from the start, Richard Nixon made it clear to his
subordinates that he does not like to "worry" a problem unless
the time has come for a decision. The problems facing the President
World 2
both foreign and domestic, are so numerous and often so complicate
that he prefers dealing with each of them in as orderly & way as
possible. True, the enemy offensive on that February 22 looked
bad, very bad. But its launching had not particularly surprised
the President. At an meeting some weeks before, he had referr
to the possibility of some sort of major enemy action as & means
of testing his steadiness of nerve. And he had resolved to play
it cool, without getting frantically involved in emergency meeting
with Pentagon or other officials. That was not his style.
On that particular day the President was devoting almost
his full attention to his forthcoming visit to Western Europe. He
had long been thinking about our European allies. As a private
citizen he had observed with increasing dismay the rapid deteriora
tion of the Atlantic Alliance under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson
During the 1968 campaign Mr. Nixon demonstrated his concern by
dispatching William Scranton to meet with European leaders in
his behalf. The former Pennsylvania Governor had returned with
a report which confirmed what Mr. Nixon already knew: America's
voice in Europe, once so strong and so respected, was, according
to Scranton, "now muffled in confusion -- if it is listened to
at all." And Mr. Nixon was to quote that remark during the
campaign.
It was to unmuffle America's voice in Europe, as well as
to buck up the flagging spirits of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization, that led Mr. Nixon, within days of entering the Whit
House, to decide on a flying trip to Europe. To "advance" the
World...3
trip he sent John Ehrlichman who, with the temporary rank of
Ambassador, made the arrangements in the principal capitals of
Europe. Everything went well, according to Ehrlichman. In fact,
his European counterparts were quite vocal in their pleasure that,
finally, after so many years, an American President seemed intereste
in the problems of their continent. The last President to visit
Europe had been John F. Kennedy, following the Bay of Pigs. That
trip, frankly, had been a disaster. Nikita Khrushchev, with whom
John F. Kennedy conferred in Vienna, treated him brutally and the
young President returned home convinced of a possible nuclear war
over Berlin that very year. And Charles de Gaulle, though far more
cordial, seemed unimpressed. In fact, Franco-American relations
plummeted to a new low following the much heralded Kennedy visit.
And they were to remain that way all through the Johnson years.
There was nothing personal in de Gaulle's distrust of
whoever happened to be occupying the White House. The French
president had long suspected that Washington was trying to organize
a European coalition against France and that the U.S. sought to
dominate Europe forever.
And Richard Nixon felt that de Gaulle
had good reason to suspect the U.S. For, in his opinion, the
French leader had indeed been treated shabbily by most American
Presidents ever since Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
So that fruitful talks with the suspicious deGaulle
became one of the principal objectives of the Nixon trip. But
talks with other European leaders were planned. The President wante
to brief them about possible new approaches towards a breakthrough
in the Middle East impasse. And he also wanted to assure them
World.
that their vital interests would not be jeopardized in direct
U.S.-Soviet conversations looking towards a pause in the arms race.
Mr. Nixon was well aware that there was considerable fear in
Europe that the two giant super-powers might be conspiring to
divide the world into spheres of domination.
From the beginning, however, the President sought to
underscore the fact that his trip would not produce instant
miracles. As he put it in his departure remarks on February 23:
"It is a trip, I wish to emphasize, which is not intended and
will not settle all of the problems we have in the world. The
problems we face are too complex and too difficult to be settled
by what I would call the 'showboat' diplomacy." "@
# Among those bidding the President bon voyage was the
Congressional leadership including Senator Edward M. Kennedy,
then Senate Majority Whip. Kennedy, who had turned 37 the
previous day, had recently stated that his youth would have been
made a campaign issue had he run against Mr. Nixon in 1968. As
he shook Kennedy's hand, Mr. Nixon said, "You certainly don't look
37!" Politicians nearby roared with laughter, and the Senator
from Massachusetts managed a faint smile.
Leftwing demonstrations against the new President were
not as bad as had been expected. A few heads were cracked in Rome
World .5
and Berlin but the agitators never got near the President.
All of
which was a pleasant surprise to Mr. Nixon since, as he had privatel
informed the joint leadership of the Congress before his departure,
he believed there would be "substantial dissent" to his visit.
"We cannot allow the threat of demonstrations to deter us from a
mission designed to reduce the dangers of war," the President had
told them. His policy would be to go where and when he wanted
to go, knowing full well he would face demonstrators. He said he
would not remain "chained" to his desk.
In all, Mr. Nixon spent seven hours talking with Charles
de Gaulle. Mr. Nixon informed the French President of his plan to
wind down the war in Vietnam and of his desire to break crack through
the barriers that separated the U.S. from Communist China. On the
Middle East, Mr. Nixon impressed on the French leader that he felt
that the threat of war did not come from a preemptive strike by
Israel, since war would not be in its interest; rather it comes from
a potential attack by Soviet backed Arab nations inspired by revenge.
To deter such an attack and to preserve peace, the President felt
the balance of power in the Mideast should be in Israel's favor.
De Gaulle said he understood.
about
Mr. Nixon then asked the French President to explain the
background of a heated diplomatic flap between Paris and London
that erupted on the eve of Mr. Nixon's trip.
The dispute was over what De Gaulle had told British
Ambassador Christopher Soames in a private conference. In a report
to his Government, Soames, a son-in-law of Winston Churchill, said
World. 6
that De Gaulle had proposed that the Common Market be replaced by
a larger, more loosely organized European organization to which
Britain would be admitted provided it renounced its "special
relationship" with the U.S. De Gaulle was also quoted as proposing
that the new organization be run by a "directorate" consisting of
France, Britain, West Germany and Italy.
A confidential memorandum on the conversation was sent
by the British to the State Department and, according to Bill
Rogers, the De Gaulle remarks appeared to be anti-American and
undercutting NATO.
Charles de Gaulle told Mr. Nixon that the British had
over-reacted. He had been thinking aloud, as was his wont, and
his musings were of a "metaphysical-historical" nature and had not
been meant as an immediate proposal. For example, he had not suggest
that the four largest nations in Western Europe would inevitably
dominate any European grouping.
For forty-five minutes, De Gaulle explained his position
and, according to Mr. Nixon, there was nothing anti-American about
anything he said. As Mr. Nixon later observed, such consultations
as he had with De Gaulle were most valuable if only to clear up
misunderstandings.
After Mr. Nixon's visit was over, the French President
made it clear that he could get along very well with the American
President, as evidenced by a promise to visit Washington formally
early in 1970 -- a coup that had eluded John F. Kennedy and Lyndon
B. Johnson.*
World 7
#
The De Gaulle visit was never to take place. On April 27,
1969, De Gaulle, having been repudiated during a referendum on
Governmental reforms, resigned. He was succeeded as President of
France by Georges Pompidou, who the following year came to the U.S.
on an official state visit. De Gaulle died in November 1970 and
President Nixon cut short a post-election holiday to fly to France
for the funeral services.
The general French attitude toward the talks was perhaps
best expressed by a huge headline in France's largest newspaper
France-Soir. It read TOUT VA TRES BIEN -- which is, roughly, the
French equivalent of "All is A-OK." And other newspapers in Britain,
West Germany, Italy and smaller European states also described the
Nixon trip as most successful. Some editorial writers even described
it as "triumphant."
The brief visit to London was a triumph if only for one
small incident. For it demonstrated what Henry Kissinger described
as the kind of Presidential gesture which "does not change foreign
policy, but helps enormously to change a climate." The incident
occurred at a small private dinner held at Ten Downing Street.
The atmosphere was tense and awkward, since one of the guests was the
British Ambassador to the United States, John Freeman. As editor
of the New Statesman, Freeman had criticized Mr. Nixon BO severely
that some Britons felt his usefulness in Washington definitely
impaired. The appointment was made by Harold Wilson long before the
Prime Minister ever considered the possibility of Mr. Nixon's becomin
President.
World. 8
In proposing a toast, the President stepped up to the
problem and resolved it with a nice turn of phrase. Noting Freeman's
past and his own, and suggesting that they both might have changed,
the President added: "We can let bygones be bygones. After all,
now he's the new diplomat -- and I'm the 'new statesman. This was
greeted with smiles, stomping of feet, "hear-hears" and a sense of
relief. Prime Minister Wilson scribbled a note to the President on
the back of a menu which reflected both astonishment and delight.
And the way was opened for Freeman to become an effective envoy.
Most significantly the Russians made no waves. Prior
to his departure, a new crisis over Berlin had been building up.
The East Germans had banned travel to Berlin for all West Germans
involved in electing a new federal President. The three Western
allies -- France, England and the U.S. -- immediately rejected the
East German travel restrictions, reminding the Soviet Union of its
responsibility to maintain free access to Berlin.
The President and Secretary Rogers had talked with Soviet
Ambassador Anatoly F. Dobrynin, who took great pains to assure the
American leaders that it was the East Germans, and not the Russians,
who were responsible for rising tensions in Berlin and that, in
fact, the Russians had urged the East Germans to (in the Ambassador's
phrase) "cool it." Moreover, Dobrynin assured the President that
the Soviets would do nothing to embarrass him on his forthcoming
visit to the city.
of necessity, the Soviets figured prominently in the
President's thinking in those early days at the White House. Whereve
World. 9
he looked on the map the Russians appeared to be up to no good --
particularly in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. And the
President believed quite strongly that if Soviet aid to North Vietnam
were curtailed, or if Soviet assistance to the "more aggressive
neighbors" of Israel were halted, then the major world problems
would be reduced to a level where there would be no necessity of
thinking in terms of American intervention. Thus, in his opinion,
the Soviets did have the "big stroke" in helping resolve these
problems. The President, however, realized that getting the Soviets
to cooperate would be no easy matter. For example, while it was
obviously in the Soviet interest as a nation-state to resolve the
potentially dangerous Vietnam conflict, it would not do them much
good as a competitor for the leadership of the world communist
movement to collaborate with the U.S. in removing a source of tension
-- at least too publicly. But the Russians had cooperated behind-
the-scenes by halping get the Vietnam peace talks going in Paris.
For example, they were instrumental in settling the "table crisis"
so that talks could proceed.
And true to Ambassador Dobrynin's word, the Soviets did
succeed in cooling down the East Germans and the threatened crisis
over Berlin evaporated.
On March 4, at 8:30 a.m., less than two days after he had
returned, the President, looking surprisingly rested and even tanned,
sat down with the leaders of both parties of the Congress to
provide a firsthand account of his journey to the Continent. Asked
how he managed the arduous tour, the President replied it was just
World 10
like campaigning - -- "you can do anything for a week." Then, without
any notes, he began a monologue which lasted for nearly fifty
minutes, moving from topic to topic with a well trained lawyer's
precision.
The President noted first that his conversations on the
Continent covered not only European, but extra-European problems
as well. His purpose was to obtain support where possible for
U.S. policy around the world and, by prior consultation, to reduce
criticism if we could not get that support.
Secondly, Mr. Nixon iterated a point he had made repeatedly
in the past: we should have no illusions that a trip of this nature
can necessarily resolve basic disagreements between nations. However
on this journey we "did set a climate which can settle the close
ones" and help us toward settlement of the more difficult problems.
Third, we must remember that while the alliance was
brought together out of fear, that fear no longer exists to the exteni
it once did. True, some observers felt the Soviet invasion of
Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1968 might have reawakened the fear
which kept the alliance together, but even "the fear quotient"
resulting from Czechoslovakia was receding and we must "find a new
cement" for the West.
Fourth, the President had discovered a considerable amount
of dissatisfaction with the failure of the U.S. to consult with
our European allies on discussions with the Soviets, as for example
on the subject of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
World 11
Fifth, as we move toward strategic arms talks with the
Russians, we must keep in mind the imperative that we consult with
our allies along the way.
Sixth, even leaving De Gaulle out of the picture, the
forces for European unity are not as strong as they once were.
"The dream of European unity is not dead," said the President,
"but the steam has gone out of it." As the European nations have
become economically self-sufficient, they have become more
politically independent.
Seventh, the President found that European leaders were
becoming increasingly concerned about their young people. This was
not only true in France, where student revolts the previous year
had threatened the stability of the nation, but also in Italy and
even in Germany and Great Britain. In these countries, as in the
United States, the problem lies with largely affluent young men
and women, for whom Western "materialism" not only had become
"irrelevant" but was to be condemned. The search for a "purpose"
was perhaps the common denominator of all these disaffected youths
--- in Europe as well as the U.S.
Turning to the problem of NATO on the eve of its twentieth
anniversary, Mr. Nixon outlined the U.S. position as he gave it
to the European leaders. The U.S. presence in Europe in a "solely
symbolic" fashion was not enough, he said. Nevertheless, had he as
a candidate last year proposed withdrawal of two or three divisions
from Europe, he would have scored heavily among the electorate.
World 12
The President pointed out to the Europeans that they needed NATO
more than we do. The European concern about beefing up contribu-
tions to NATO, the President continued, was based on the fear "that
if they did more, we would do less." But the President told them
that "the reverse is true. As others helped themselves, we would
be willing to help them more." The President emphasized that it
was simply a hard fact that the heavy American commitment could not
continue indefinitely. We did not threaten the Europeans with any
withdrawal, but we did make clear the above fact. All this presented
some sort of dilemma because, as the President warned the Europeans,
the Soviets had not only made great strides in closing the strategic
gap since the Cuban confrontation of 1962, but they had "widened
the gap" in conventional weapons.
On the other hand, the President was convinced that the
Soviets were interested in moving soon on arms control talks. And
he felt the European attitude was surprisingly realistic and hard-
headed. One leader, for example, told the President that the major
factor that has kept the peace 1s the stregth of the United States
and that if he made an error with this key element of peace, then
everything else "goes out the window." On any arms control agreement,
the President went on, a basic ingredient is some assurance that
the other side can be trusted. If the other side shows no inclina-
tion to resolve the outstanding political divisions between us, like
the Middle East and Vietnam, or in reducing tensions, then that
would most certainly raise a question of trust that would in turn
call for caution in arms control talks.
World 13
The bubbling Middle East caldron continued to cause the
President grave concern. In his first press conference on January
27, the President had declared the Middle East to be "a powder keg,
one that could involve "a confrontation between the nuclear powers.
And when he took off for Europe, the President feared that the pro-
posed four-power talks would wind up in a three-to-one situation wd
the British, French and the Russians in general agreement on a
settlement while the United States would be assigned to "deliver"
the Israelis, "dragging them into an untenable solution." Now,
however, in the wake of the President's trip, the British, French
and Americans were in closer accord.
The American position was that anything decided at the
four-power talks could not be "imposed." Any settlement must be
based on acceptance by the parties themselves. Otherwise it would
never work. What kind of settlement did the U.S. have in mind?
Basically, three points: (1) Israel should withdraw from the occupi
territories and "some sort of belt" should be established in these
areas to insure they not be used as a jumping-off point for an
assault on Israel; (2) the Arab powers should finally recognize the
existence of Israel; and (3) the four major powers would guarantee
the settlement. The important element here, of course, was the
Soviets' guarantee.
On Vietnam, the President said the problem was trying to
find a settlement with the North that would not be interpreted as
dishonoring our commitments to South Vietnam, a settlement that
would provide some opportunity for South Vietnam to exist as a
World 14
nation. The Europeans understood this and were quite aware that
we are acting with restraint.
According to the President, the bombing halt of the North
had removed a lot of the pressures -- particularly from the street
-- that had weighed so heavily on our European friends. The Prime
Minister of a small nation had told the President that the U.S.
was wrong in going into Vietnam, wrong to fight the war the way
we did, wrong to bomb the North, but that it would be equally
wrong for the U.S. to now agree to a settlement where it was clear
that we did not get what we went in there for.
The President concluded his report by saying he had
returned from Europe convinced that "diplomacy cannot be conducted
in a goldfish bowl," that there was a need for private meetings,
and he hoped the Congressional leaders would understand the need.
We can "move ahead with De Gaulle," said the President, but not
"if we are going to fight out our differences in the newspapers."
Likewise, in the Paris talks seeking a Vietnam settlement,
the President felt that progress would come in private meetings,
not public ones, and our men in Paris, experienced negotiators all,
had some running room of their own. But "Bill Rogers will be
quarterbacking these talks" from Washington.
Under questioning, the President returned to the subject
of the Soviets. Their objectives, he said, remain the disintegra-
tion of NATO and a stronger hold on Eastern Europe. But because
the Soviets do not feel a confrontation would be wise, and because
our interests sometimes intersect, we may get an assist from them
World 15
in cooling off hotspots. Majority opinion in Europe on why the
Soviets want to talk at this time is (in this order): (1) their
concern with China; (2) their need for time for & cooling off in
Eastern Europe, particularly after Czechoslovakia; and (3) the
possibility of a nuclear confrontation had induced a measure of
concern on their part.
Even before he left for Europe, Mr. Nixon had come to
feel that the disarray in the Communist world was far greater than
in the West. And he knew of the deep fears the Soviet invasion of
Czechoslovakia had aroused in Eastern Europe and the Communist
parties in Western Europe. Most bitterly resented was Moscow's
pronouncement of limited sovereignty among Communist states and this
only served to fuel anti-Soviet antagonisms which he noted were
being openly expressed in Rumania and Yugoslavia.
Continuing his remarks on our relations with the Soviets,
the President observed that it was the "law of life" for great
nations to compete and disagree, that this situation would continue
with the Russians for our lifetime, that we had to make certain,
however, that the time never came when in terms of power "they were
looking down our throats."
Asked whether the time hadn't come for the U.S. to make
some economic overtures to the Chinese Communists, Mr. Nixon stated
that he did not feel that now was the time to trade with them or
bring them into the United Nations.
Then, how about siding with the Russians against the
Chinese? The President was opposed to that, too. It might be good
short-range policy, but from the long range, it would be suicidal.
World 16
There were some people, the President said, who felt
that the Sino-Soviet split was not deep or lasting, but he felt that
fights between exponents of the same ideologies were usually more
severe than fights between those of differing ideologies and, even,
religions. Prime Minister Harold Wilson had told the President
and the Secretary of State about how he had heard horrible insults
passed between quarrelling Arabs and Jews, but they were nothing
compared to what the British leader had heard Soviet Premier Kosygin
say about his Chinese "allies."
The President then recounted what Andre Malraux had told
him in Paris. An old friend of Mao Tse-tung from the twenties when
the French writer had spent considerable time in China, Malraux
had recently visited the Chinese Chairman in Peking. The United
States can never destroy us, Mao had told him, but as Malraux
informed the President, it had never occurred to Mao that the United
States did not want to destroy China. As for the Soviets and the
Americans, Mao said there was only one difference. The Russians
"are barbarians who come by land" to invade us and the Americans
"are barbarians who come by sea." Malraux felt it was one of
history's greatest tragedies that "the richest and most productive
people in the world" (the Americans) were at odds with the Chinese,
"the poorest and most populous nation in the world."
It was obvious to those present that Andre Malraux had
given the American President food for thought. But what they did
not know was that Richard M. Nixon had already set into motion a
series of steps that would eventually take him to Peking.
World
17
At the time the President was not overly optimistic about
any great "breakthroughs" in U.S. relations with Communist China,
but, as he told a televised press conference that very night,
"Looking further down the road, we could think in terms of a better
understanding with Red China."
The press conference was the second he had held since
taking office. An hour-long session, it was devoted almost entirely
to the President's just concluded European trip. With only a
microphone in the East Room -- Lyndon Johnson's multigadgeted
lectern nicknamed "Mother" had been stowed away -- Mr. Nixon also
skillfully answered a wide range of questions on subjects from
Vietnam to Peru.
That it was a bravura performance was conceded by even
the most pronounced anti-Nixonites in the press corps. The columnist
who signs himself TRB in the New Republic was almost lyrical in his
commentary: "Daszling death-defying tightrope He talked
swiftly, deftly It was a brilliant performance." A more sober
account was provided by Max Frankel, Washington bureau chief of
The New York Times: "The President has handled a great deal of
complicated and even tricky diplomatic material with great skill.
He's addressed himself to some very subtle policy questions with an
amazing sense of balance and awareness of the underlying facts."
The not unfriendly Richard Wilson, Washington bureau chief of the
Cowles publications, wrote: "His discussion
was the most complete
and open that I had heard from a President in thirty-five years."
Another accomplishment of the President in those early
weeks was to demonstrate to the American people as well as to
World, 18
Europeans that he did not have horns and a tail. Two decades of
virulent anti-Nixon propaganda had taken their inevitable toll.
To a great many people, particularly in opinion-making circles in
Washington and New York, it had become an article of faith that
Richard Nixon was some sort of mm monster. Now they began to
discover that he wasn't. The man in the White House was not the
Richard Nixon they had loved to hate.
For the President this was no minor satisfaction. It
was absolutely essential, if he were to conduct the affairs of
state properly, that the prestige of the Presidency -- tarnished
in recent years -- be restored. Thus, the "demonsterization of
Nixon," as Stewart Alsop put it, was an essential first step.
Asia
1
CHAPTER 4
Awaiting President Nixon, on his return from Europe,
were the final results of an exhaustive survey of the problems
facing the United States in Vietnam. This was the first National
Security Study Memorandum, or "NSSM One," which the Kissinger
staff had prepared on the basis of responses from the State and
Defense Departments as well as the CIA.
Vietnam, of course, was the major foreign problem
immediately facing the new President. American boys had been
dying in that faraway land ever since President Kennedy had begun
to send in "military advisers" and now the American people clearly
wanted out of the conflict that had been sharply escalated under
Lyndon Johnson. Richard Nixon himself had shifted his thinking
about Vietnam. He had given full support to two Democratic Presi-
dents in their conduct of the war. By 1967, however, he began to
have his doubts, which he voiced to this reporter. In early 1968,
during the New Hampshire primary, those doubts coagulated into
a "pledge [to] end the war and win the peace in the Pacific." The
"pledge" was misconstrued by the press as meaning a "plan" to end
the war. Though Mr. Nixon had never used the word "plan," that
word continued to haunt him thoughout the campaign. He tried
repeatedly to get off the hook by saying there were "no magic
formulas or push-button solutions" to peace in Vietnam.
And indeed there weren't.
From the start of his Administration, Mr. Nixon rejected
counsel that he immediately disengage from Vietnam by ordering all
Asia. 2
American forces to withdraw as quickly as possible. He did not have
to be reminded that such an announcement could prove most popular
with an electorate weary of a seemingly interminable war. But he
also believed that such a move would spell disaster to the Saigon
Government, completely demoralize our friends throughout Asia and
give aid and comfort to the "hawks" in the Communist world who
might be encouraged to try aggression some place else.
On the other hand the President rejected outright proposals
for new air strikes on a wide range of carefully selected military
targets in North Vietnam, an exercise conducted "in such a manner
as to be free of the militarily confining constraints which have
characterized the conduct of the war in the past. The President
was told that "an interdiction campaign, when employed in conjune-
tion with denial of sea imports, would in large part isolate Hanoi
and Haiphong from each other and from the rest of the country.
Isolation of Hanoi, the focal point of the road and rail system,
would be highly effective in reducing North Vietnam's capability
to reinforce aggression in South Vietnam."
In the President's view, a swift, overwhelming blow might
have been decisive two or three years before. But now it was too
late for a military solution. The time had come to ease out of
the war as gracefully and honorably as possible. That's what he,
in effect, had pledged during the campaign and that's what he believed
most Americans wanted. And that's what he intended to do. First,
he hoped to get the stalled Paris peace talks off the ground, aiming
Asia, 3
at a negotiated settlement. Failing that, he was thinking in terms
of "de-Americanizing" the war. Meanwhile, he publicly warned the
enemy not to underestimate America's capacity to retaliate.
What the President wanted most of all was information
about Vietnam and, as a result, scads came pouring into the basemen
of the White House where Dr. Kissinger was then ensconsed in tiny,
cramped quarters. Working almost around the clock, the NSC staff
processed an avalanche of reports triggered by Kissinger's original
memorandum of January 21, 1969 and subsequent inquiries.
The preparation of "NSSM One" probably constituted the
most soul-searching debate on Vietnam ever conducted within
Governmental confines. No effort was made to cover up or sugarcoat
differences between the agencies. In fact, differences were
encouraged. An estimated one million words were channelled through
the Kissinger operation on the pros and cons of such questions
as the capabilities of the growing South Vietnamese forces, the
effectiveness of B-52 strikes, the tortuous Vietnamese political
scene and possible U.S. force reductions.
The report to the President showed that there was general
agreement among the various Government agencies on these proposi-
tions: the South Vietnamese and allied positions had improved
considerably of late, but the South Vietnamese, by themselves,
would be incapable of coping with the Vietcong and sizable North
Vietnamese units. Though Saigon had improved its political position
in certain respects, the Government remained weakest (and the
Communists strongest) in rural areas. Still unclear was the
Asia...4
question of whether the non-Communist groups would be able to
survive a peaceful competition for political power in South Vietnam.
And while the Communists had suffered some reverses, they had not
shifted from their ultimate objective of gobbling up South Vietnam.
Meanwhile, all evidence indicated that enemy casualties were being
replenished by stepped-up recruiting and infiltration. And despite
allied operations, the enemy was kept going by major infusions of
Soviet and Chinese supplies and could still launch major offensives,
though not at 1968 Tet levels.
The concensus also was that Hanoi was participating in
the Paris talks for a variety of reasons, not excluding a desire
to pursue his objectives at lower costs. But he most definitely
was not there out of any sense of weakness. Moreover, Hanoi was
pursuing a policy independent of Moscow, which favored negotiations,
and of Peking, which opposed them. In competing for influence with
Hanoi, Peking and Moscow, in effect, tended to cancel each other out.
There were widespread differences of opinion within the
U.S. Government. They were generally reflected in two schools of
thought. The first school, called Group A, included MACV (Military
Assistance Command, Vietnam), CINCPAC (Commander in Chief, Pacific),
JCS (Joint Chiefs of Staff) and the United States Embassy in Saigon.
Group A took a more optimistic view of current and future prospects
in Vietnam
Group B, including 0SD (Office of the Secretary of Defense)
CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) and (to a lesser extent) the
State Department, was decidedly more skeptical about the present
Asia. .5
and pessimistic about the future. Within the agencies themselves
in both groups there were substantial disagreements.
The basic thrust of Group A's thinking was that an
overall allied momentum on various fronts had been largely
responsible for Hanoi's sitting down at Paris. Group A, therefore,
while not forecasting victory, urged that our negotiators proceed
on the basis that the tides are favorable.
While acknowledging improvements in the allied position,
Group B nevertheless was not as sanguine about South Vietnamese
prospects and suggested that, while our negotiators were in a stronger
position, they should seek a compromise settlement.
One of the major problems confronting the President was
trying to figure what was in the mind of the enemy. Despite all
the appropriations expended on intelligence, less hard information
was coming out of Hanoi than he had expected. There was a lot of
guesswork about the existence and significance of possible factions
within the North Vietnamese leadership, much of it based on what the
intelligence community described as "open sources."
These "open sources," however, did give some sort of feel
about what was happening inside North Vietnam. Such sources included
the observations of travelers as well as members of the foreign
diplomatic community, North Vietnamese public radio broadcasts,
the interrogations of prisoners of war as well as captured North
Vietnamese fishermen.
Then there was a group of Spanish citizens and their
dependents who returned to Spain after living for many years in
Asia. 6
North Vietnam. Without exception, they described how the aerial
bombings (called off by President Johnson the previous fall) had
made life miserable for the North Vietnamese. One repatriate told
of a talk he had in Hanoi with a lieutenant colonel who said, prior
to the bombing halt, how difficult it would be to continue fighting
because of widespread demoralization and bomb damage.
Other evidence of internal difficulties could be found
in a decree published in Hanoi, the subject of which was "the punish-
ment of counter-revolutionary crimes." Covering a wide range of
activities harmful to state security and the war effort, the decree
prescribed a variety of punishments ranging from a few years'
imprisonment to the sentence of death. In addition, foreign
travelers reported an enormous increase in black market activities
as well as corruption in the ranks of low-level officials.
All these facts, coupled with personal observations,
led one Ambassador to Hanoi to conclude in June 1968 that the main
reason behind Hanoi's agreement to talk with the U.S. was the need
for a breather because of a deteriorating economic situation. In
his opinion, peace negotiations were essential to the North
Vietnamese at least for a "pause of calm," if not a permanent peace
settlement.
On the other hand, as the State Department observed, the
North Vietnamese had confounded many predictions by managing to
hold their country together and simultaneously send ever increasing
amounts of supplies and personnel into the South during the three
and a half years of heavy aerial bombings. According to this analysh
Asia 7
it was clear that the bombing campaign, as conducted, had not
lived up to the expectations of its proponents. Therefore, there
was little reason to believe that any new bombing would accomplish
what previous bombings had failed to do, unless it was conducted
with much greater intensity and readiness to defy criticism and
risk of escalation.
Aware that among the agencies there was a battle for his
mind, the President kept his own counsel, saying very little that
would give the slightest inkling of what he intended to do about
Vietnam. About the only men privy to his innermost thoughts were
Bill Rogers and Henry Kissinger and even they, at this time, did
not really know which way he would go.
The Secretary of State was somewhat encouraged in those
early days by signals that Hanoi was getting ready for peace. For
example, word had been relayed by diplomatic sources that the
North Vietnamese had made contacts with such neutral states as
Sweden, asking what kind of commercial agreements could be arranged
once the war was over.
Meanwhile the President made a secret offer to Hanoi for
a settlement which was quickly rejected by the Communist side. And
his chief negotiator at the Paris talks, Henry Cabot Lodge, was
not reporting any great success in getting the Communists to engage
in substantive discussions, even privately, and it was Lodge's
feeling that the enemy was playing for time, hoping that the Americ
peace movement would force the President's hand with the kind of
pressures, including street demonstrations, that had so terribly
frustrated and embarrassed his predecessor.
Asia 8
Despite all this, an air of expectancy was abroad in the
land. Pressures for some kind of solution were beginning to build.
Powerful newspapers like The New York Times, which had done so
much to get the U.S. into Vietnam in the first place, had made a
180-degree switch and were now demanding we get out. The President
knew he did not have much time.
Nor did he have much time when it came to the growing
tensions of the Middle East. This was an even bigger "can of
worms" than Vietnam because it was less controllable. As the
President viewed the situation, the harsh but simple fact was that
the all-controlling, all-consuming aim of the Arabs was to destroy
Israel. But the Israelis, whose guts and patriotism the President
plainly admired, refused to be pushed into the sea. They served
notice that they would not only protect themselves but mete out
punishment for every attack launched against them. So, when the
Egyptians sank an Israeli warship, the Israelis responded by knock-
ing out Gamel Abdel Nasser's largest oil refinery. When commandos
staged hit and run raids, Israeli forces destroyed their base deep
inside Jordan. And when Arab terrorists shot up an El Al plane in
Athens, Israeli paratroops helicoptered to the Beirut airport
where they blew up thirteen Arab aircraft. According to the
Israelis, this was the only kind of language their enemies under-
stood.
But it was a language which could conceivably involve the
United States in a direct confrontation with the Soviet Union.
The Russians, of course, were doing everything to heat up the
Asia 9
situation, pandering to Arab war fever. All that was needed, as
Mr. Nixon put it, was "a single chance spark" to trigger World
War III.
And he frequently recalled the history of World War I
when the Great Powers had been dragged into a conflict not by the
own choice but because of (in Bismarck's phrase) "some damned
foolish thing in the Balkans" -- an assassination over which the
Balkan nations themselves had no control.* This was one thing
# Like John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon had been vastly impress
by Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August, an account of the origin
of World War I.
Mr. Nixon wanted to avoid in the Mideast squabble. The Russians
and the Americans must seek to avoid letting the fedayeen or
other anyone crazy people" drag us into a confrontation.
So concerned was Mr. Nixon that, during the transition
period, he dispatched former Governor William Scranton to meet
with Israeli and Arab officials. On his return, Scranton made a
comment that was to prove most embarrassing to the incoming Nixon
Administration. He said that, in his opinion, the United States
should exercise "a more even-handed policy" toward all countries
in the Middle East. The implication, of course, was that much of
the crisis stemmed from an uneven U.S. policy of the past, which
favored Israel. What troubled Mr. Nixon about the remark was the
it could lead the Russians and the Arabs to believe that the U.S.
Asia 10
under his leadership, might be considering a "hands off" policy -
a belief which, in itself, could encourage Soviet "adventurism."
To assure the Israelis that American policy had not
shifted against them, President-elect Nixon conferred with Defens
Minister Moshe Dayan and Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin while still at
the Pierre Hotel in New York. The hour-long session was a friend:
one, with Mr. Nixon asserting his belief in a policy that would
provide Israel with a technological military margin that would
more than offset her hostile neighbors' numerical superiority.
But this did not mean, Mr. Nixon emphasized, that under his guidar
the U.S. would not seek to restore lines of communication with
America's friends in the Arab world which had been broken off
following the Six-Day War.
Once in the White House, the Nixon Administration made
known its position to a bipartisan group of Congressmen who came
armed with a pro-Israel statement which they said represented the
sense of the majority of their colleagues. The Congressmen include
Democrats Manny Celler, John Rooney, Leonard Farbstein and Republi
cans Jerry Ford, H.R. Gross and Seymour Halpern. First they
spoke with Kissinger and then with the President.* What they were
# After this meeting, Dr. Kissinger was to deliberately absent
himself from most major discussions on the Middle East. Though he
kept himself fully informed, he felt that his Jewish background
could conceivably make him appear & partisan.
Asia
11
most concerned about, the Congressmen said, was that the four-
power talks sought by the President might lead to an imposed
settlement that was closer to the Arab-Soviet-French line than
to ours and Israel's. They insisted that the terms of any
proposed settlement should include boundaries which would provide
security for Israel.
The White House position was this: We would not impose
a settlement on anyone. No such settlement could possibly work.
But the President was interested in an agreement acceptable to al
parties concerned. Meanwhile, what the Administration was trying
to do was to "position" the issue so that the American people cou
understand it. In Vietnam we found ourselves in a situation wher
our involvement was explained in terms which the American people
did not support. In the Middle East, if it ever came to involve-
ment, we should be able to explain that involvement in terms of
what the American people would support. For example, the U.S.
could not be placed in the position of justifying intervention
in order to preserve Israel's conquests. Our policy would have t
be explained solely in terms of preserving peace.
Then the Congressmen moved into the Oval Office where t
President greeted them as old friends, having known most of them
when he himself was serving on the Hill. The President explained
that his approach to a Middle East settlement was a measured one;
that he had authorized exploratory talks and no more for the time
being. When one Congressman spoke of Soviet objectives as "keepi
the pot boiling," the President agreed, pointing out that this wa
Asia
12
the reason why he keeps talking about relating all major issues
to each other in our talks with the Soviet Union. For instance,
he saw no reason why the Soviets should be able to keep the pot
boiling in the Middle East and at the same time get something that
it wants for itself such as a strategic arms freeze. Asked whether
Israel would receive the Phantom F-4 jets she had requested, the
President quickly replied that he assumed from what he had been
told that preparations for delivery were proceeding on schedule.
The President then asked the Congressmen not to believe everything
they read in the press about U.S. policy. If they were puzzled
about something they read, would they please call Dr. Kissinger?
The Congressmen, saying that they were fully reassured by the
President's remarks, then departed.
There were pressures from the other side, too, from those
who sympathized with the Arab position. They could be found in
Government circles, international business and even in the churches.
They, too, had their say. In March 1969, three distinguished
Protestant clergymen told the President of a recent visit to the
Middle East where they had had a chance not only to talk with co-
religionists but with Arab leaders. Without exception, they said,
the Arabs were troubled about the U.S. position, feeling there
was "very little present hope" of an equitable solution for their
troubles with Israel. Nasser, for example, had phrased it to them
quite succinctly: "Israel is illegal, not Egypt."
Responding, the President emphasized that he was hoping
to find a position or a posture which would be attractive to both
Asia. 13
the Israelis and their neighbors, something that the four powers
including, of course, the Soviet Union, could stand behind. It
was not an easy task, he went on, but the alternative -- another
war -- could be catastrophe. As for Nasser, the President indicated
it was a grave error to "leave him out there -- completely controlled
by the Soviets."
In the final analysis, peace in the Middle East -- as
elsewhere -- depended a great deal on the cooperation of the Soviet
Union. Could Richard Nixon get that cooperation? The new President
thought it was worth a try. All his instincts told him that behind
the grim fastness of the Kremlin were men as concerned about the
possibility of a nuclear war as he was. And he knew that just as
he faced seemingly insoluble problems the Soviet leaders had more
than their share and might be seeking a lessening of tensions with
the West.
Thus, the new President started the machinery rolling for
eventual talks with the Soviet Union on taking some of the heat
out of the arms race. And he quickly gave a go-ahead to the Senate
to ratify the treaty on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons,
stating that such a move "at this time would advance this Adminis-
tration's policy of negotiation rather than confrontation with
the U.S.S.R." But, in his message to the Senate, he observed that
while he had always supported the goal of halting the spread of
nuclear weapons, he had "opposed ratification of the Treaty last
fall in the immediate aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Czecho-
slovakia. My request at this time in no sense alters my condem-
nation of that Soviet action.'
Asia. 14
Facing the new President was the problem of whether to
continue work on the Sentinel anti-ballistic missile system. As
espoused by President Johnson and as initially approved by Congress,
Sentinel was supposed to be a "thin" ABM system geared toward
protection of a dozen or so major cities. The reaction to Sentinel
was decidedly unfavorable. Spokesmen for several of the cities
denounced the program, contending in somewhat alarmist fashion
that those great metropolitan centers would be endangered by
possible nuclear accidents. Congressional voices also argued
vehemently that escalation of the arms race with the Soviets would
result.
The opposition was building when Mr. Nixon entered the
White House. Among the first things he did was to instruct
Defense Secretary Laird to review the Sentinel program and to come
up with "alternatives." On March 14, the President first revealed
his decision to a White House gathering of the bipartisan Congress-
ional leadership.
The President began by noting that he was on record as
supporting the Sentinel program as devised by his predecessor but,
now that he was in office, he had wanted to hear all the objections
and possible other alternatives. He had come to the conclusion
that a "modified Sentinel System" would serve the purpose. Instead
of installing ABMs close to cities, he now favored protection of
some of our own Minuteman intercontinental missile sites.
The President conceded that when all the arguments were
put on the table, people could reach other conclusions. He would
Asia 15
frankly have preferred to have put off the whole problem for
another year. Yet the experts he trusted most had informed him
quite candidly that further delay might jeopardize the entire
defense of the nation. The way things stood the U.S. would not,
even with a go-ahead signal, be able to have an ABM operationally
deployed until 1973. Of this he was fully convinced, and being
convinced, he did his duty as President, adding: "I do not believe
a President of the United States can do less; I do not believe
a President of the United States can run the risk of leaving us
naked" to a Soviet missile attack.
The President said he favored a modified Sentinel system
because of our changed estimate of what the Russians were doing.
When we see where the Soviets will be not only in 1973, but 1976
and 1977 and 1978, we feel this is the right decision. This is
not 1962 when we had a five to one advantage over the Soviets in
missiles. Though we are strong today, the situation has changed;
not because of anything we did, but because of what the Soviets
have done. In 1962, they determined to close the strategic gap
and they have come very far along that road. They have widened
their lead over us in conventional arms; they have developed and
deployed the world's only ABN system while we have none; they
have increased their submarine force in quantity and quality; and
their plans for the future are very significant.
of special concern was the Soviet development and deploy
ment of the 88-9, a very heavy intercontinental ballistic missile
which carries a warhead in the range of 20-25 megatons, far larger
Asia 16
than anything in the U.S. inventory. Because of its size and its
accuracy, the SS-9 was regarded as a weapon designed to knock out
our Minuteman ICBMs. According to the President, the SS-9 missile
force, in which the Soviets had made tremendous strides, presented
a major hazard to our deterrent force.
As for the argument that any kind of ABM system would
provoke the Soviets, the President took pains to point out that
the Russians -- apparently unconcerned about provoking the United
States -- had already provided for their own ABM system which we
could not overtake for several years. And that included a city
defense for Moscow.
Another argument against deploying Sentinel was the fear
it might prejudice the opportunity for meaningful negotiations
with the Russians. To the President this was a dubious argument.
He noted that it was the Russians who had asked for arms talks
after the Sentinel program was announced; that the Russians
themselves had dubbed the ABM "a defensive weapon"; and that the
construction of more Polaris missiles -- as advocated by an anti-
ABM Senator present -- would immediately be taken as a provocation
by the Russians since they might believe we were thinking in terms
of a first strike. The ABM has "no first strike capability" and
there could be no such implications.
It was obvious that the modified Sentinel System would
need a change in name and the President asked speechwriter Pat
Buchanan to quickly come up with some suggestions. Leaving the
Asia 17
meeting in the White House, Buchanan trotted across the street
to his office in the Executive Office Building and there he came
up with the following names: Watchman, Sentry, Gendarme, Shield,
Custodian, Scabbard, Deterrent Sentinel, Deterrent Defense,
Caretaker, Safeguard, Screen, Shelter, Safeguard Sentinel, Safeguard
System.
At his noon press conference that day, the President
used "Safeguard System," emphasizing "1t safeguards our deterrent. If
Essentially, Safeguard was a compromise between violently
opposing views. But Mr. Nixon, as an old hand at the art of the
possible, obviously realized that this modified "half-loaf" was
all that he could expect to obtain from Congress.
For Congress was deeply divided on the issue. Needless
to say, there were those legislators including members of the
President's own party who were opposed to any kind of ABM for
sincere reasons. But, at the same time, it could be said that the
hard core of the opposition consisted of tough Democratic politiciar
seeking to inflict a smashing defeat on a Republican President and
the ABM was the most convenient issue at hand. Otherwise how could
one explain the anti-ABM position announced by Hubert Humphrey,
then a private citizen dreaming of a political comeback, when not
too many months before he had supported the much more complex and
expensive Sentinel program proposed by Lyndon Johnson?
This was the nature of American politics and the Presiden
fully understood the necessity of the "outs" to tweak the noses of
Asia 18
the "ins." He had done quite a bit of it himself when the Democrate
were in power. But, and this was a big but, he had rarely criti-
cized Democratic Administrations for doing what was necessary in
the area of national security.
The anti-ABM campaign did stir up quite a fury and was
capably led by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who at the time was
considered the leading contender for the Democratic Presidential
nomination in 1972. It seemed as if much of the liberal community
had been mobilized to defeat the Safeguard program. One of the more
temperate opponents, Theodore C. Sorensen of Camelot fame, had this
to say in the pages of the Saturday Review:
"John F. Kennedy's hundred days of glory were ruined
when he yielded to those cold warriors urging the Bay of Pigs
invasion. The ABM-defense budget decision, urged upon President
Nixon by much the same kind of military minds, may prove over a
much longer run to have been his Bay of Pigs. If, as a result, the
Soviet-American arms race is heated up again, carrying the buildup
on both sides past the point where effective limitations on strategic
and defensive missiles can be negotiated, Mr. Nixon's flexibility,
in both foreign and domestic affairs, as well as his hopes for
serious accomplishment in either, will be drastically curtailed."
Equating Safeguard with the Bay of Pigs was rather far-
fetched. If anything, Mr. Nixon's decision demonstrated his
independence of those who argued for a more complex ABM system.
Moreover, future events even then shaping up were to more than
adequately demonstrate the groundlessness of Ted Sorensen's other
fears.
Asia 19
Safeguard was discussed thoroughly at a Cabinet meeting
on March 20. The opposition was building up and the President
thought it would be useful if the Cabinet members would make them-
selves more knowledgeable on the issue.
Secretary Laird said he was going to the Hill that very
day to testify on the program and that, in the process, he would
disclose information never before made public about the Soviet
escalation of the arms race. He aimed to make the case that
Safeguard was "a people protection program" and "one of the most
important tools for peace" as well as an important part of U.S.
leverage in talks with the U.S.S.R.
Then Secretary Rogers said it should be stressed that
Safeguard would not have any negative effects on arms limitation
talks. He thought that most well informed people now understood
that point. In fact, he had come to the conclusion that "opponents
are really quite disappointed that this program was presented so
ably." Even Senator Edward Kennedy said he was "disarmed."
Postmaster General Blount wanted to know why we kept
information on Soviet military installations classified. He felt
by making such data public the U.S. might be enhancing the approach
to more open societies. "Don't the Russians know what we know
about them?" he asked.
It was a good question and the President asked Lee DuBridge
to respond. The Science Advisor replied simply that the Soviets
did not know how good U.S. intelligence was.
About the question of open societies, the President said
that the Russians were not overly concerned that the Americans would
Asia 20
get to know too much about their military capability. What they
were afraid of, he said, was that their people would develop a
greater understanding of the American system.
Bill Rogers then recalled that when Nikita Khrushchev
visited the United States, the Soviet Premier said during one
conversation at Camp David: "We know everything you are doing in
a military way and you know everything we are doing. Why don't
we just agree to trade information and stop spending all this money
on intelligence?"
The President laughed at the story and suggested it might
not be a bad idea. The Government had to start saving money some-
where.
The President then turned again to the general outlook
for public discussion of national security problems. He said that
in the coming weeks Laird would be taking a strong and, at times,
pessimistic position about the military situation. The purpose was
not to scare anyone, but to be truthful. Previous Administrations,
he implied, had not always been candid. "Secretary Laird could
go up there to the Hill and be as popular as McNamara." But this
Administration will not play that game. Talking straight was "the
best way to get our negotiating position firmed up."
Taking a hard, realistic line will bring criticism. "The
hawks won't like us and the doves won't like us." While we may
sound pessimistic, the President added, there were some optimistic
aspects. Progress was being made at the disarmament talks in
Geneva. As for Vietnam, every diplomatic channel was being explored.
Asia 21
When we look back a year or so from now, said the President, we
may ask and we may be asked why we were so pessimistic. But for
the next four or five months we are going to have to stand up and
take the criticism even though we will be making progress.
Rogers observed that every time he made the point that
progress could come only through secret talks, members of the press
would ask: 'Are you having those secret talks and what progress
is being made?"
As the President had expected, the Congressional battle
over Safeguard was 80 tight that in the end the proposal was carried
in the Senate by one vote. That was too close for comfort and there
were some observers, particularly on the right, who believed the
President should have argued his case more aggressively and person-
ally. But that just wasn't the President's style.
In the words of Plutarch, "Temperance is the greatest of
all the virtues." And Richard Nixon, despite his critics, is a man
of temperance - a trait nowhere better seen than in his handling
of the first major crisis of his Administration.
That crisis began when the Pentagon received word at 12:55
a.m., Tuesday, April 15, that a U.S. intelligence-gathering plane
was missing over the Sea of Japan.
Ten minutes later, after the news was flashed into the
Situation Room -- the NSC communications center in the basement of
the White House -- the duty officer immediately notified Henry
Kissinger's military aide, Colonel Alexander Haig.* In turn, Haig
Asia. 22
# The little known Haig was no stranger to crises. A West
Point graduate, he had served as deputy special assistant to
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and as a military assistant
to the Secretary of the Army Cyrus Vance when Vance's office was
named by President Kennedy to handle a study during the Cuban
missle crisis. Haig, who had spent more time in South Vietnam than
any other official in the Nixon Administration, having served there
as a commanding officer in the First Infantry Division, had received
the Distinguished Service Medal for leading an isolated company
back to friendly territory during one of the most savage battles
of the war, shortly before the Tet offensive. When it later became
apparent he was handling far more responsibilities than normally
dealt with by White House military assistants, Haig was given the
title of Deputy Assistant to the President and upgraded to
Brigadier General.
telephoned Kissinger, who was asleep in his apartment overlooking
Rock Creek Park.
Kissinger asked the colonel to check into the plane's
mission and to keep him informed. And instead of heading for the
White House to begin an all-night vigil, as his predecessors had so
frequently done in past years, the Presidential adviser remained
in his apartment, making himself a fresh pot of coffee. He soon
learned, however, that the missing plane was an unarmed U.S. Navy
EC-121 spy plane whose primary mission was to monitor North Korean
military communications. The crew consisted of thirty-one men.
Asia...23
At 2:30 a.m., Haig called again, this time to report that
a just-monitored North Korean broadcast had boasted that its MIGs
had shot down the U.S. plane off its coastline.
At 4:00 a.m., after receiving confirmation of the incident,
Kissinger decided to notify the President. Awakened from a deep
sleep, the President listened quietly as his aide outlined the basic
facts. As of that moment, the key fact was that the episode
apparently was over.
The President then made his first decision in the crisis -
to wait until all the facts were in before making a reasoned decision
After telling Kissinger to meet him in his office the first thing
in the morning, the President went back to sleep, He knew he would
have a rough day shead of him.
Over at the State Department, an emergency operation had
already been launched, as prescribed in long-standing crisis pro-
cedures. In charge was Win Brown, a former Ambassador to South
Korea and, since the Pueblo incident of the previous year, the
head of a special inter-agency Korean task force. Among his first
moves, after consulting with Secretary Rogers and coordinating with
Kissinger, was to arrange for other nations in the area -- Japan,
South Korea and the Soviet Union - to assist in the search for the
missing plane and possible survivors.
As it turned out, Soviet ships in the area made a sub-
stantial contribution to the recovery of debris. But this didn't
occur until Wednesday, at least twenty-four hours after the incident.
Asia. 24
It was shortly before 7:00 a.m. on Tuesday when Kissinger
arrived at the White House and within the hour he was closeted with
the President. Not much new information had come in but the
President wanted Kissinger to get from the Pentagon and State a
full outline of possible military and diplomatic responses. By
chance an NSC meeting had previously been scheduled for the next
morning. Did the President want it moved up to today? No, he
replied emphatically. There would be little point to 1t since not
all the facts were in.
How Mr. Nixon acted in the first major crisis of his
Administration was in startling contrast to the way Presidents
Kennedy and Johnson had responded in similar circumstances.
Seasoned reporters who had lived through the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban
missile confrontation, the Dominican revolution and a dozen other
tension-packed situations marveled at the President's calmness in
the midst of a gathering storm. During the Kennedy and Johnson
years, crises of this magnitude would have involved a sleepy-eyed
Chief Executive conferring with the Secretaries of State and
Defense in pre-dawn meetings, the frantic comings and going of b1g,
black limousines carrying lesser officials, and the inevitable
mobile TV trucks with dozens of technicians preparing for the live
Presidential statements of alarm.
Instead, President Nixon carried on as if nothing untoward
had occurred. Needless to say, a larger turnout of newsmen than
usual crowded into the press area, anxiously awaiting some official
Asia. 25
word as to what had happened in the Sea of Japan and what the
White House planned to do about it. Finally, when Ron Ziegler did
appear, the press secretary asked with a grin, "What's everybody
here for?" Briefed personally by the President, Ziegler had been
instructed to say as little as possible for the time being. And
as the newsmen had already learned, Ziegler was expert in carrying
out the President's wishes.
By conducting himself as usual, the President deliberately
low-keyed the crisis. The first official function on his agenda
that day was a Cabinet meeting which, for the first time ever,
included the wives. With Mrs. Nixon sitting to his right and Mrs.
Laird to his left, the President jovially recalled that when he had
met with his Cabinet members and their wives during the transition
period he had promised that they would all get together again
after the Insuguration. "And we thought this would be a good time
to do it," he went on. "We had the bad news about the budget last
time, and we wanted something to cheer us up today."
First to report was HEW Secretary Finch on the subject of
the Administration's "First Five Years of Life" program designed to
give underprivileged children a better start. The subject of a new
Westinghouse study, which placed serious doubt about the effective-
ness of the Head Start program for assisting culturally deprived
children, was brought up. Under questioning by the President,
Finch said he was not entirely satisifed with the depth of the study.
A point that troubled him was the fact that the children show a
Asia. 26
drop-off in motivation and achievement when they enter school.
This could be as much an indictment of the public education system
as it was of Head Start.
In the course of his response, Finch referred to another
controversial study then in the news, the so-called Jensen Report,
which had been widely interpreted as showing that black people are
genetically inferior to whites. The study had led some analysts
to conclude that special learning programs such as Head Start would
never be of much value for Negro children.
Asked by the President if he would discuss that interpre-
tation, "Pat" Moynihan said, "I'd rather not, because no sane man
would." But then Moynihan had this to say: "No confident knowledge
exists on genetic differences in intelligence. What is known is
that IQ is not fixed at birth. What is fixed is a range. A child
can develop anywhere within that range."
Scheduled to discuss the purposes of the still unannounced
Council on Environmental Quality, Science Advisor Lee DuBridge
began with a slight diversion. He passed around a slide, two by
one-and-one-half inches in size, which he said contained the entire
Bible. With the proper projector, obtainable from the National Cash
Register Company, each line of type could be shown at reading size.
To place this new film process in perspective, DuBridge said that
the entire contents of the Library of Congress could be reduced to
the space within the Cabinet Room.
During the discussion on the Environmental Quality Council,
the President noted suggestions that the Administration begin
Asia. 27
attacking pollution by working on the problem of the Potomac. "We
have always heard it's a beautiful river," he said, "and as you
know, it stinks."
At this point a number of press photographers and reporters
were shepherded into the Cabinet Room for a photo session. After
they had spent a few minutes shooting pictures, the President
remarked: "It's only coincidental that we were discussing pollution
when the press came into the room." When the laughter subsided,
the President remarked to Ron Ziegler: "You might tell them we were
discussing how to attack pollution in the Potomac. But tell them
not to drink the water until we let them know."
Transportation Secretary Volpe then brought up the subject
of equal opportunity responsibilities within the Executive Branch.
He said that, contrary to press reports, the Nixon Administration
had appointed more black people to high level positions than any
previous administration. The press reports, he went on, "were
erroneous. We are performing and we must let the country know that
we are."
"Here's what our standard must be," the President said.
"Let's do the right thing. Wherever the federal government is
involved, we must be sure that we are abolutely fair and absolutely
equal. But let's have no illusion about the reaction to our efforts.
The professional protestors -- and the press as well -- will never
be satisfied. The protestors need this issue and so they will do
everything they can to keep it alive. For the press, progress is
not news. Trouble is news. They don't win Pulitzer prizes for
NAMMI
Asia. 28
being for something. So don't get too excited when you read
criticism in the papers. We have to do the right thing and then be
strong enough and decent enough to take the criticism and not be
bitter about it. You have to learn to laugh it off."
Then Mr. Nixon turned to his communications director,
Herb Klein, a newspaper editor in private life, and asked: "Herb,
do you want to defend the newsmen a little?" Replied Klein: "I
don't think I'm in the proper environment."
Next to speak was Budget Director Mayo who pointed out
that the item on the typewritten agenda listed his subject as "The
Budget's Roll in Controlling Inflation." This wasn't necessarily
a mistake, Mayo said, because he looked up the definition of "roll"
in the dictionary and found it meant: "to press, spread or level;
make smooth, even, or compact. And so he thought the word had
been used properly.
Just that week the President had announced a prospective
budget surplus of $5.8 billion for the coming year and as he now
explained: "The point I hope all of us could make is that in this
budget the Administration faced up to the necessity of stopping
inflation. In fact, there was no choice. Unless we cut the budget
the cost of living could rise five or even six or seven percent
this year. We have to try to develop an anti-infiation psychology.
Cautiously optimistic, the President looked to "two most important
possibilities" in the following year: growth in the economy and
progress toward peace in Vietnam.
Asia 29
On the latter possibility, Mr. Nixon spoke particularly
to the wives, saying it will be necessary for them to simply have
confidence in his efforts to wind down the war. He could say
very little about those efforts, but there was a very substantial
chance for progress. "Nothing has a higher priority than bringing
the war to a close," he went on. "We hope this is an area of
policy that we will be proud of next year."
As the Cabinet meeting was about to end, Herb Klein
suggested that since the ladies would probably be questioned by
the press about what had taken place it might be a good 1dea if
they agreed on the general pattern of their statements.
The President disagreed. He could see no reason why the
ladies could not discuss with the press the subjects that were
covered. With a smile, he said, "Talk as much as you want."
And the session ended with a chorus from the ladies of, "Wellll---"
The significant thing about the Cabinet session, which
lasted from 10:47 a.m. until 12:40 p.m., was that not once was there
any mention of the fact that the nation faced a serious crisis as
a result of the shooting down of an American plane over the Sea
of Japan.
Following the meeting, the President conferred briefly
with Bill Rogers and Henry Kissinger. There was still nothing
definite about the fate of those aboard the EC-121. The shadow
of the Pueblo incident, in which eighty-one American hostages held
captive were forced to "confess" violation of Korean waters, was
Asia. 30
on everyone's mind. Obviously, survivors could change the whole
picture of what would be a proper response.
In view of the limited facts available, the President
deliberately maintained a posture of coolness in the face of the
crisis which was making big headlines around the world. He
released a statement praising the life insurance industry's pledg
to provide a second billion dollars in investment capital for urb
core areas. And he met on the South Lawn with a group of younget
from Brooklyn and actress Eva Gabor. Meanwhile, the White House
was overrun by Republican ladies from all over the country. They
were in town for the seventeenth annual Republican Women's Confer
ence and, according to the President, "there were 4,762 women who
consumed 24,500 cookies, 235 gallons of punch, and came over in
forty-four buses."
The President made that statistical evaluation at a
meeting of several thousand of the ladies at the Sheraton Park
Hotel the following night. Earlier he had saluted the League of
Women Voters on its fiftieth anniversary, forecasting the electic
of a woman as President "in the next fifty years - maybe sooner
than you think." And he also found time in that crisis-laden wee
to stroll with Mrs. Nixon under Washington's pink and white cherr
blossoms. It was their first stroll there together since 1947.
But there was a lot of action behind the scenes.
At 2:00 p.m. Tuesday, the Korean task force headed by
Win Brown met at the State Department to begin preparation of a
list of options for possible action. Besides Brown, the force
Asia. 31
consisted of his assistant, James Leonard; G. Warren Nutter, newl
appointed Assistant Defense Secretary for International Security
Affairs; Richard L. Sneider, an East Asian expert from the
Kissinger staff; and Richard F. Pederson, Counselor to the State
Department. The Pentagon, meanwhile, was preparing its own pro-
posals.
At 6:00 p.m. came the next step in the President's new
lineup of emergency procedures -- a White House meeting of the
National Security Council Review Group headed by Kissinger.
Purpose of the meeting was to go over all the proposed options,
analyzing them thoroughly one by one for transmittal to the NSC
the following morning. The Review group concluded its delibera-
tions nine hours later, at 3:00 a.m. The participants were
exhausted. Win Brown, who had been up for twenty-four hours,
"looked like walking death," in the words of a colleague.
The President, meanwhile, had retired. He had spent a
long evening working on other matters. But he had been kept
informed about all developments including the rumblings of dis-
content up on the Hill over this latest act of Communist piracy,
already being described as the "flying Pueblo."
Well in advance of the 10:00 a.m. NSC meeting, each
Council member had received a document containing the options ope
to the President in confronting the Korean challenge. With the
finding of shrapnel-marked debris, the range of options had been
narrowed. Two bodies had been fished out of the water and the
evidence now indicated there were no survivors.
Asia 32
Not lost on the NSC or, for that matter, the President
was the fact that Russian destroyers had assisted in the search
for the plane which had been shot out of the skies by Soviet-
supplied aircraft. The Soviets thus let it be known they had had
no part in the episode.
The President, who presided over the meeting in the
Cabinet Room, listened attentively as the pros and cons of each
possible course of action were debated. The alternatives ranged
across the board from proposals to do nothing at all to retaliator
non-nuclear attacks on major North Korean industrial and military
facilities.
After exactly sixty-one minutes, the President concluded
the meeting. Which was unusual, for such sessions generally last
longer. But it was apparent that this one was deliberately kept
short so that the nation and the world would appreciate the
collective calm with which the Nixon Administration was confront-
ing its first major crisis.
However, later that day, the President met privately
with Kissinger, Laird, Rogers and General Earle Wheeler of the
Joint Chiefs. And it was obvious the President had not made up
his mind. He still wasn't satisfied with the proposed responses.
He now called for another contingency planning group to prepare
two highly detailed "scenarios" of both a military and non-militar
response. The group, consisting of Kissinger and officials from
State, Defense, CIA and Joint Chiefs, began work immediately.
Asia. 33
It happened that the American Society of Newspaper
Editors (ASNE) was meeting in Washington and that afternoon Bill
Rogers was scheduled to put in an appearance. The Secretary of
State, genial as always and seemingly more relaxed than usual,
was to discuss the first ninety days of the Nixon Administration.
But on the minds of the nation's top editors was the
question of what the President intended to do about the "flying
Pueblo."
All Rogers would say was that the President would reply
to questions about the episode at his press conference on Friday,
two days hence. But he did give a hint about Administration
thinking in his remarks: "One lesson is quite clear. Great power
does not mean great freedom of action and decision. On the contrary,
it often means very narrow choices of action, and what we can do
to influence events in a given case may well be marginal.'
That pretty much summed up the President's thinking.
Above all else, the President was deliberately seeking to avoid
the enormous mistakes made by his predecessor in dealing with the
Pueblo crisis of over a year before. When the U.S. intelligence
ship and its crew of eighty-three were seized by the North Koreans,
President Johnson immediately ordered the nuclear aircraft carrier
Enterprise and two destroyers to steam towards the Korean coast.
Then he rushed interceptors and fighter-bombers to South Korea.
Within two days, he had ordered up nearly 15,000 Air Force and
naval air reservists for possible duty against North Korea. After
Asia 34
six emotion packed war-or-peace days, Mr. Johnson, in a televised
report to the nation, warned the North Koreans that seizure of the
Pueblo "cannot be accepted" and the United States was mobilizing
its military forces "for any contingency."
It was all a gigantic bluff. The U.S., pinned down with
over half-a-million men in South Vietnam, was powerless to act.
Instead the crisis was taken to the United Nations where it was
quickly buried. Eleven months later and only after an abject
double-talking apology from the U.S. did the North Koreans release
the Pueblo's crew. The release was announced the day Julie Nixon
married Dwight David Eisenhower. I happened to be standing close
to the President-elect when he made the announcement at the wedding
reception at the Plaza Hotel. It was obvious that Mr. Nixon was
pleased that at least one therny problem had been resolved prior
to his Inauguration.
During the 1968 campaign Richard Nixon had scored points
by saying it was time for new leadership in Washington when a
"fourth-rate military power" could get away with seizing a U.S. ship
on the high seas. Now these remarks were being dredged up and at
least one newspaper, the usually friendly Chicago Tribune, demanded
to know whether they were just "campaign oratory." But, actually,
Mr. Nixon had always carefully refrained from recommending military
action. Moreover, there was a major difference between the two
episodes. In the case of the "flying Pueblo" there had been no
survivors and, therefore, no hostages in North Korean hands.
Asia 35
Not once did Mr. Nixon give the slightest clue as to
what course of action he intended to pursue.
As a consequence,
statements were being prepared to cover all contingencies. One,
in fact, would have been an announcement that the President had
authorized the bombing of military and industrial installations
in North Korea. But it was never used.
Actually, from the beginning the President had pretty
much ruled out military action. Bombing the daylights out of
enemy targets could well have made him momentarily popular. But
the risk involved was not worth taking. North Korea was ruled by
real thugs who, for the sake of "face-saving," could well have sent
their armies into South Korea. This of course would have triggered
another land war at a time when one war in Asia was more than enough
for the U.S. to handle. Also there was always the somber possibili
of a confrontation with China and/or Russia.
The President, however, did not come to a final decision
until Thursday night after he had poured over the two "scenarios"
which had been prepared for him on the possible results of both a
military and non-military response. Then, in the privacy of the
Lincoln Study on the second floor of the White House, he began to
study & briefing book prepared by Pat Buchanan on other possible
questions that might be asked of him at the next morning's press
conference.
at h persions
The first question as expected was about the Korean crisi
Asked by Frank Cormier of the Associated Press, it was to the point
Asia 36
what further action, diplomatic and military, was the President
contemplating?
First the President went into the background. He stressed
that the unarmed EC-121 was on a normal reconnaissance mission that
never took it nearer than forty miles to North Korea and the North
Koreans knew all this from their radar. "Therefore, this attack
was unprovoked. It was deliberate. It was without warning." And
he noted that a protest had been filed at Panmunjom, without res-
ponse.
Disclosing that the intelligence-gathering flights had
been discontinued right after the incident, Nixon added: "I have
today ordered that these flights be continued. They will be
protected. This is not a threat; it is simply a statement of fact."
Actually the President knew that he had little real
alternative. But even such critics as Hubert Humphrey conceded
he had "kept his cool" in a very difficult situation. And The New
York Times which rarely had a good word for the new Administration,
editorially complimented the President for giving "a reasonable
and responsible answer to the shameful North Korean attack
His
low-key but persuasive statement of the American case is welcome
as evidence of a new sobriety in the management of world affairs..."
In less than a week the case of the "flying Pueblo" was
forgotten.
But the President knew that the plane episode could be
the first of many. And he knew his critics and political antagonists
were waiting to see how he would perform in future crises, domestic
Asia 37
and foreign. That performance would determine whether he could
make good on his confident prediction that his record in the coming
years would win him reelection in 1972.
Method
1
CHAPTER 5
Slowly, cautiously and very methodically, the shape of
the Nixon Administration began to emerge. In many ways, it brought
back memories of the eight years of Dwight David Eisenhower, who
believed firmly that a Chief Executive should reserve himself almost
entirely for basic problems, eschewing whenever possible the minute-
to-minute involvement with the excitement, emotionalism and drama
that invariably accompany momentous Presidential decisions.
Richard Nixon will concede that a lot of Kisenhower has
rubbed off on him. There is a formality about him quite similar
to the late General. At the same time, his style has very little
in common with that of his predecessor, of whom it had been said
that he could work at a desk right in the middle of Grand Central
Station. Unlike Lyndon Johnson, Mr. Nixon does not involve himself
in everything, day and night and around the clock. For that purpose
he deliberately developed a tightly organized staff headed by H.R.
"Bob" Haldeman whose chief aim is to keep the President from getting
immersed in anything other than the big problems.
But there the resemblance with General Eisenhower ends.
For, unlike Ike, Richard Nixon clearly believes in the exercise of
Presidential power -- as his first three years in office copiously
illustrates. There were several occasions when, as Ike's Vice
President, Richard Nixon had urged upon the President a more activist
role in certain areas -- only to be overruled. Whatever differences
developed between the two men were kept behind the scenes and the
Method 2
public rarely learned of them. However, there were one or two
times during the first Eisenhower Administration when Nixon did
seriously consider returning to private life. But the misunder-
standings were cleared up and, towards the end of his second term,
the General happily looked forward to the possibility of being
succeeded by his protégé.
But that was not to be and in the eight years that
followed the two men kept in close touch. But then in May 1968
General Eisenhower was struck down by still another heart attack
and was taken to Walter Reed Army Hospital. The General's remark-
able vigor kept him alive through the Republican convention and the
election. And, needless to say, he was overjoyed by the outcome.
He was just as pleased to learn that his grandson, David, the apple
of his eye, intended to marry Julie Nixon. Unable to leave the
hospital, the old soldier viewed the wedding ceremony on a private
television circuit, his wife Mamie by his side.
After taking office, President Nixon occasionally dropped
in to visit with the General, who cheerfully asked about the progress
of the new Administration. At one Cabinet meeting, the President
asked the Secretaries to go out and call on him. And most of them
did. But then in the last week of March 1969 the old soldier's
heart progressively weakened. The President was informed and he
immediately drove out to Walter Reed.
The next morning Mr. Nixon told visitors that he had found
the General heavily sedated and surrounded by intravenous and oxygen
tubes. Despite his being in semi-conscious condition, the General
Method
grinned broadly and said, "Oh, Dick, how are you? Good to see you!
How's the Administration going?"
"We're going to do all right, the President replied.
"You bet we are," the General said, slumping back into
unconsciousness.
That was the last time the President ever talked to the
General. The following day, Dwight David Eisenhower died at the
age of 78. And two days later the President delivered the eulogy in
the Rotunda of the Capitol where the 34th President of the United
States lay in state. It was a heartfelt tribute which he had written
himsel in the privacy of Camp David.
In Richard Nixon's view, the Eisenhower years were years
of comparative tranquility. He kept us out of war and "he restored
calm to a divided nation. He gave Americans a new measure of self-
respect. He made Americans proud of their President, proud of their
country, proud of themselves...
They had indeed been good years. A lot of what had been
taken as clumsy bumbling on Ike's part was, in retrospect, neither
clumsyne bumbling. "He knew when not to do something," commented
Professor Harvey Wheeler, of the Center for the Study of Democratic
Institutions. One thing he knew not to do was to get this country
involved in a land war in Asia.
Shortly before Eisenhower died, the first large-scale
demonstration against the war in Vietnam since Mr. Nixon became
President was staged outside the White House as several thousand
women, many wearing black clothes and waving black balloons, urged
the President to end the "immoral war" and "bring the boys home."
Method
Oh, wouldn't the President have loved to do that. No
doubt if he had announced a complete withdrawal of our forces from
Vietnam his popularity would have soared -- until the consequences
had become manifest. Among other things, be was convinced, a prec:
pitous ithdrawal would mean the fall of South Vietnam and a "blood
bath" of gigantic proportions as the Communists went about liquida-
ting their opponents. And he wondered how Americans would react
to that sort of spectacle, particularly after thirty thousand
American lives had been expended to prevent a Communist takeover.
of one thing he was convinced: a rightwing backlash would result
which would make the who-lost-China debate of two decades ago
resemble a tea party.
Meanwhile, the names of those thirty thousand war dead
had been entered into the Congressional Record by a Republican
Congressman from Illinois, Paul Findley, who observed that the hond
roll "presents the precise width, breadth and depth of the war
Mr. Nixon has inherited."
The President did not have to be reminded of the tragic
costs of war. Every time he signed a ltter to the wife or parents
of a dead soldier he was made aware of American boys dying in an
unpopular war. And he was reminded every time he presented a
posthumous Medal of Honor to the bereaved families of servicemen
who had died heroic deaths. These were ceremonies he could easily
have foregone. In the past such posthumous presentations were
usually the lot of some assistant Secretary at the Pentagon.
When his military aide, Don Hughes, pointed this out,
the President agreed that those who had given loved ones to their
Method 5
country were fully as deserving of a Presidential ceremony as those
who had earned the Medal and lived. His first presentation was to
Mr. and Mrs. Joseph L. Newlin of Wellsville, Ohio, whose Marine
Corps sons Melvin, had been mortally wounded two years before
while holding off an entire Vietcong unit. During the ceremony,
Mrs. Newlin began to sob uncontrollably and the President took her
in his arms to comfort her. The President found it difficult to
keep his composure as he signalled for the lights to be turned off,
thus stopping the picture taking.
"Only a few people knew the anguish the President felt at
that moment," says his secretary Rose Mary Woods. From then on the
President ordered that the ceremonies be held in private.
One of the byproducts of Vietnam was the unrest that
gripped the nation's campuses. Richard Nixon could sympathize with
the feeling of frustration that afflicted many young people when it
came to the war. Prior to World War II, he himself had entertained
pacifist ideas which perhaps was only natural considering his Quaker
heritage. And the President can still remember the keep-America-out-
of-war movements which swept the campuses of his day until the
Japanese struck at Pearl Harbor.
The big difference was that the so-called peace movement of
more recent years has been accompanied by a mounting wave of lawless-
ness which threatened the very stability of America's colleges
and universities, the training grounds of the nation's future leaders.
At times it did appear as if an entire generation was in danger of
running amok.
Method 6
From the beginning, the President was under great pressure
"to do something" about campus violence and vandalism. But with his
customary caution he decided to handle the youth mess he had
inherited in gingerly fashion. On February 22, 1969, he sent a
letter to the Reverend Theodore M. Hesburgh, President of the Univer-
sity of Notre Dame, praising his efforts to thwart a handful of
radicals from closing down that venerable institution. And then he
conferred with numerous experts. Among the more knowledgeable on the
subject was S.I. Hayakawa, President of San Francisco State College,
who had almost singlehandedly saved that school from destruction at
the hands of black militants and white radicals. And one way he did
it was by keeping the groups divided.
The President listened intently as Hayakawa expounded some
of his theories. For one thing, he said there were many faculty
members and teaching assistants who were themselves alienated or
semi-alienated from society and who therefore graded their students
on the basis of how strongly they expressed their alienation. Another
point that interested the President was Hayakawa's contention that
many faculty members and to a lesser degree, administrators, were
reluctant to suspend or dismiss unruly students because that would
make them likely to be drafted. In turn, this was viewed as being
tantamount to a death sentence since the draftee in all likelihood
would be sent to Vietnam. This kind of thinking, said Hayakawa,
was very prevalent on the campus and was a major reason for the
prevalent reluctance to take positive action against student trouble-
makers.
Method 7
In the final analysis, Hayakawa emphasized that the lawless
challenge must be confronted by the university and college administra-
tors themselves rather than by Government agencies. However, this
did not preclude moral support from the outside.
The next day, March 18, 1969, the President met with six
top officials to discuss the problem of campus disorders. They were
Attorney General Mitchell, Secretary Finch, Pat Moynihan, Ray Price,
John Ehrlichman and Charles B. (Bud) Wilkinson of football fame.
Eloquent as usual was Moynihan MM argued that the univer-
sities, as liberal bastions, must be defended from leftwing totali-
tarians whom he described as "Fascists." No one disputed that prem-
ise, but the question was how. The Attorney General, for example,
pointed out that while persons who cross state lines to incite riots
could be prosecuted under the 1968 civil rights act, it was extremely
difficult to prove intent and gain convictions under this piece of
legislation.
Citing Hayakawa, the President said it was essential to
firm up the backbones of administrators of institutions of higher
learning. It was agreed that Secretary Finch would write a letter to
the presidents of all colleges and universities calling their
attention to legislation which provided for the withdrawal of various
forms of federal support to students found guilty of violating crimins
statutes in connection with campus disputes.
Then the President said he would follow up with his own
statement, one that was not opposed to dissent as such but rather to
Method
8
its expression in the form of mindless lawlessness. In his state-
ment, the President intended to emphasize that basically it was up
to the schools themselves to keep the peace on the campuses.
Four days later, the President did issue a statement in
which he warned that intellectual freedom was in danger in America.
"Violence -- physical violence, physical intimidation -- is seeming
on its way to becoming an accepted or, at all events, a normal and
to be avoided element in the clash of opinion within university
confines. Increasingly it is clear that this violence is directed
to a clearly perceived and altogether too conceivable objective:
not only to politicize the student bodies of our educational instit
tions but to politicize the institutions as well. Anyone with the
least understanding of the history of freedom will know that this
has invariably meant not only political disaster to those nations t
have submitted to such forces of obfuscation and repression, but
cultural calamity as well. It 1a not too strong a statement to
declare that this is the way civilizations begin to die."
But it was up to the educational communities themselves
to clean up the problem, the President added, for the federal
Government could not and should not intrude into educational proces
The problem of disaffected youth continued to trouble the
President. It came up in a private discussion which he had with
Senator Eugene McCarthy, who had done so well attracting young peoj
to his banner as a "peace" candidate for the Democratic Presidenti:
nomination the previous year. McCarthy and Nixon had known each
other for many years and, despite obvious political differences, tl
Method
respected each other.* In fact, as President-elect, Mr. Nixon had
# There may have been another bond between them. Both Nixon and
McCarthy over the years had run afoul of the ambitions of the
Kennedy dynasty. McCarthy, himself, never made any secret of his
anti-Kennedy sentiments. Prior to his meeting with the President,
he had supported Russell Long against Ted Kennedy for the bitterly
contested post of Senate Whip. And at this moment in history, the
President believed that Kennedy would most likely be his 1972
opponent.
unsuccessfully sought to enlist the Minnesota legislator in his new
Administration as the U.S. Representative to the United Nations.
The discussion between the two men was informal and relaxed
The President remarked on the "magnificent job" that Jacqueline
Kennedy had done with the Rose Garden and he took the Senator outside
to gaze upon it. McCarthy agreed it was most lovely. Then they
returned to the Oval Room where the President briefed the Senator on
the status of the Paris talks, his efforts to bring peace to Vietnam
and the Korean crisis. The conversation then moved to the subject
of student unrest and the Senator suggested the need for closer
relations between faculty and students in running universities. The
Senator also expressed concern over the apparent negativism of
student attitudes. But he appeared hesitant about giving the
President any advice.
Method 10
Previously the President had met with a West European
leader and again the subject of rebellious youth was discussed.
The President observed it was a worldwide problem, recalling that
Italian leaders had mentioned the possibility of of youth-led riots
in their country on the occasion of NATO's twentieth anniversary
meeting later in the month. Obviously there was a serious disillusio
ment with the policies and organizations which have worked so success
fully since the end of World War II. Part of the feeling, the
President thought, derived from the young peoples' belief that there
no longer was any serious threat from the East.
The European leader noted that even his small country, one
that was comparatively peaceful, had been having its problems with
young people. He told of his own recent experience in addressing
some fifteen hundred university students. The authorities had taken
the precaution of pointing out an escape door through which he could
make a hasty exit if things got rough. But he did manage to get his
say. For example, he had asked the students, most of whose education
expenses were paid for by the state, to explain why they were
demanding a greater political role than other young people who were
either serving in their nation's armed forces or were gainfully
employed as civilians. Then he told them that, despite all the
incredible means of communication available to them, they obviously
knew less and less about what was really happening. In this regard,
he told the President that television programming in his country
lacked objectivity and was playing a role in stirring up the student
Method 11
Also causing great concern were propaganda campaigns directed from
the East. In fact, there was hard evidence that the Communist
Chinese were subsidizing leftwing activities.
The role of the intellectuals in all this came up for
examination. The President observed that the worst arrogance was
the arrogance of some intellectuals. Generally elitist, they believe
that only they know what's best for humanity. Although they claim
to be liberal, they're generally intolerant of other points of view.
As far as the President could determine, their views and reactions
are of & kneejerk variety and are rarely the product of real thinking.
Unfortunately this type of negative intellectual has had a pernicious
effect on young people. The irony is that these so-called intellectum
themselves have become horrified by what they helped create, for the
youth, whom they have so decidedly influenced, have been turning on
them as well, as witness recent events on the campuses. It all goes
back to pride and arrogance, the most grievous of the seven deadly
sins.
The President then cited the case of a leading American
newspaper which prides itself on publishing only news that's fit to
print. Though it has a great reputation around the world, the fact
is that it has been wrong in its editorial policy towards most of
the major world issues of the past generation, beginning with its
vehement criticism of the late Winston Churchill for his opposition
to the Munich Fact. One exception was its support of NATO. The
problem here is that the prople who decide on the paper's editorial
policy are intellectuals who are insufficiently concerned with the
realities of the issues on which they so freely express their opinions
Method 12
The European leader agreed with the President's remarks
and quoted an old French proverb: "Les gens qui pensent sont la
perte d'un pays." (or freely translated: "Intellectuals are the
ruination of a country.")
Laughing, the President said he wouldn't go that far. He
pointed out there were quite a number of intellectuals in his
Administration.
One of those intellectuals -- unmistakably and unabashedly
-- was Henry A. Kissinger who by now had moved from an initial
skepticism to a genuine respect for his new boss. And without
trying to seem like a sycophant, Kissinger was so advising his many
friends in the academic community to whom, at the very best, the
President was an enigma.
Seeking to demonstrate how things really were at the
White House -- and not as variously imagined in the pages of the
Nation or New York Review of Books -- Kissinger invited some forty
academicians to a day of conferences with his NSC staff. As the
piece de résistance, he brought in the President himself for a brie
speech.
The President was in fine form. He made it clear from
the outset that he did not expect the academicians to endorse his
policies. Neither were they going to be used as a sounding board.
Rather they had been invited to the White House as a source of new
approaches and new perspectives. He had high hopes that "by tradin
and testing your thoughts and opinions with those of our own NSC
staff you can help us come up with decisions...' As for the NSC
Method 13
staff, the President thought that the academicians would be "sur-
prised to see how many different views are held on the various
issues Normally decision makers are given only two options by
their staff members -- a recommended course of action and an
alternate plan. But Henry's memoranda to me always lay out four
or five options."
The President concluded with what he termed "a humorous
item -- at least I thought it was humorous." It happened at a
reception for NATO Ministers the other night. "The point was made
by someone that many of the world's best known statesmen are 'look-
alikes.' For instance, someone said that Anthony Eden looked
much like Dean Acheson. Then Henri Spaak said he was always told
that he talked like Charles Boyer and looked like Winston Churchill,
but that he would have much preferred to look like Charles Boyer
and to be able to talk like Churchill. Of course, my 'look-alike'
has always been Andrei Gromyko and I have often thought if we could
only change places perhaps most of the world's problems would be
solved overnight."
Meanwhile, seven campus leaders, who had vowed to refuse
military induction as long as "the immoral and unjust" war in Viet-
nam continued, asked for a meeting with the President. The Presiden
decided they should talk with Dr. Kissinger and White House special
counsel John Ehrlichman.
The meeting, which lasted ninety minutes, took place
April 29, 1969 in the Situation Room. The room was unlike what
Method 14
the students had imagined. Popular imagination as fed by Hollywood
had pictured it as consisting of a Strangelovian complex of gadget:
Instead the room was fairly nondescript, containing Teletype machir
connecting with the Pentagon, various clocks giving the different
times around the world, a large globe which was more picturesque
than utilitarian and a table around which they were seated.
Kissinger, talking like the professor he recently was,
pointed out that the Nixon Administration had inherited a war from
which it was seeking to disengage in an "honorable" fashion. With
over 550,000 Americans serving in Vietnam, it would be immoral to
withdraw precipitously. But unlike the Johnson days, when the
talk was of winning the war, the Nixon Administration "is talking
about achieving peace." And added Kissinger: "There will be some
things over the next six months which will indicate we are not
following the Johnson policy."
One of the students put it bluntly: "We can't believe
what you say. The Johnson Administration used up all the govern-
ment's credibility."
At one point, Kissinger observed: "Society is not healthy
when a group of idealists come to say to the nation's policymakers
what you have said today."
Pleading for patience, Ehrlichman noted that the Nixon
Administration, which had been in office less than four months,
was seeking to solve a problem which had begun twenty years ago.
The students said they had run out of patience. They
predicted that campus unrest would once again begin to focus on
Method 15
Vietnam. And later a full report of the meeting was presented
to the President.
Earlier in the day, in a twenty-minute impromptu speech
to a meeting of the United States Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Nixon
had drawn frequent applause as he upheld what he called the princi-
ple of responsible, creative dissent while denouncing those who
went beyond dissent to disruption.
"When we find situations in numbers of colleges and
universities," he said, "which reach the point where students in
the name of dissent and in the name of change, terrorize other
students and faculty members, when they rifle files, when they
engage in violence, when they carry guns and knives in the class-
rooms, then I say it is time for the faculties, boards of trustees
and school administrators to have the backbone to stand up against
this kind of situation."
His remarks, though consistent with his statement of
March 22, were sharper in tone, obviously reflecting the rapid rise
in the number of college demonstrations that had occurred in the
interim.
On May 1, Attorney General Mitchell picked up the President
theme in a Law Day speech in Detroit. Emphasizing that the federal
criminal jurisdiction was quite limited, he demanded action by
university officials, local law enforcement agencies and the courts
to put an end to "minority tyranny on the nation's campuses."
Whereupon the annual convention of the American Association
of University Professors adopted a resolution condemning the Nixon
Method
16
Administration's policy on campus violence as "a direct threat to
academic freedom and autonomy."
The President told a visitor that the professorial state
ment was predictable. And he called attention to recent articles
that pointed up the fact that faculties generally had defaulted in
their responsibility to defend academic freedom.
One of the articles, published in the Wall Street Journa
was by J.C. Helms, a Harvard graduate student and teaching fellow
in the classics department. "The problem at Harvard," he wrote,
"1s not the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society). The problem
is not the use of police, nor is it the student strike. The probl
is the Harvard faculty: its leniency, its blindness, and its
cowardice."
Then there was the Saturday Review article by Sidney Hoc
of New York University which the President found so enlightening
that he ordered it reproduced and circulated to key members of
his staff. Professor Hook, whose credentials as a liberal were
impeccable, made the point that the SDS could not be considered a
Trojan horse in higher education for the obvious reason that it
never concealed its desire to destroy American democracy through
force and violence. "No," wrote Hook, "the Trojan horse...is the
rickety structure of doctrinaire thought that shelters the SDS
even when it takes official responsibility for violent actions,
gives it's free field for operation, retreats before the politics
of confrontation, and either shrinks from applying fairly and
firmly the rules of reason that should bind the academic community
Method 17
or interprets them as if they had no more restraining force in
times of crisis than ropes of sand."
Administration statements notwithstanding, the nation's
campuses continued to seethe in turmoil. At Harvard, SDSers seized
University Hall and battled the police summoned to expel them.
At Dartmouth, rebels began a sit-in at the administration building
with a demand that the ROTC unit be abolished. City College of
New York was shut down because of disorders by Negro and Puerto
Rican students; and Brooklyn College was disrupted by fires and
vandalism. But, probably the most shocking episode occurred at
Cornell, where black students armed with rifles, shotguns and
bandoliers, seized control of a student union building. Photographs
of these self-styled revolutionaries sent shock waves of angry
reaction across the country.
"America Under Siege" was the title of an editorial
published by The Richmond News Leader. "A new and sinister bar-
barism, not unlike that which has brought down other civiliza-
tions" was the way this leading Virginia newspaper described the
violence gripping educational institutions. "Since college adminis-
trators have generally proved themselves to be pitifully incapable
of dealing with the rising menace, the American people must look
to their Government for suppression of this revolution and a
restoration of law and order. President Nixon is now summoned to
exercise his authority and his leadership in putting down the
gravest peril to confront the country since 1860; he alone can
provide for the nation's security and survival."
Method 18
These tough words, and others like them, were brought
to the President's attention by the Daily News Summary prepared
under the direction of Pat Buchanan. Irate demands for action
were being voiced in the Congress, too. His own Administration
was divided on how to handle the campus situation.
President Nixon knew that things would get worse before
they got better. But he also believed that what the revolutionaries
wanted most was for the Government to crack down in more repressive
fashion, thus proving their thesis that underneath its democratic
veneer the U.S. was basically a fascist society. The President
did not intend to play into the hands of the radicals. For it
was his contention that the majority of American students opposed
the violence and vandalism perpetrated by a tiny minority. In the
long run, he believed, the good sense of most students and, hope-
fully, increasing numbers of faculty members would gain the
upperhand.
Much more troubling to the President was the state of
race relations. Despite all the years of legislative programs
designed to assist minority people in moving up the ladder, there
was more evident discontent than ever in black communities. The
assassination of Martin Luther King in the Spring of 1968 had
touched off bloody riots across the nation. The nation's capital,
itself, had come under siege as angry blacks pillaged and plundered
within sight of the White House. To Richard Nixon, as to most
Americans, it had been a "frightening spectacle."
Method 19
Less than ten percent of the Negro vote went to Mr. Nixo
in 1968, about half of what he received eight years earlier runnin
against John F. Kennedy. He wasn't disappointed because, in fact,
he hadn't expected to do better. He was aware of the deep feeling
of distrust towards him within the black community. The word was
widespread that he was anti-Negro. Which, of course, was nonsense
All through his years in Congress and the Vice Presidency, he had
fought hard for civil rights. In 1957, it was his key ruling as
Vice President which paved the way for passage of the Civil Rights
Act. Ironically, it was Jack Kennedy who voted with the South
on this issue.
And for seven years as Vice President, Mr. Nixon headed
the Committee on Government Contracts which aimed at ending dis-
crimination in the hiring practices of companies doing business
with the Government. That he did a "very good Job" was even
conceded by one of his arch foes, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, in her
column of August 11, 1960.
Following the Nixon victory in 1968, Negro leaders wonde
how the new President would handle racial issues. One hint came
from Bob Finch in an interview some weeks before the Inauguration.
He said that because no political debts were owed to the "black
establishment" -- which invariably supports Democrate - the new
Administration hoped to bring "a new kind of candor and realism"
to the drive for racial equality. He added that practical program
would be designed to give both black and white youths "the same
chance at the starting line" and that guaranteeing Negroes equal
Method 20
opportunities with whites was "chiefly a matter of education."
Militants would have very little influence. "I find," said Finch,
"that many of these so-called militants have a very narrow
constituency. I hope that our programs can be geared to the
responsible members of these minority communities."
Shortly after this interview and a week before the
Inauguration, Mr. Nixon invited six black leaders to meet with him
at the Pierre. They included Reverend Ralph Abernathy, president
of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC); John H.
Johnson, publisher of Ebony; John Murphy, publisher of the Afro-
American; Reverend Sandy Ray, Vice President of the National
Baptist Convention; Hobson Reynolds, black Elks Grand Exalted Rule
and Dr. Nathan Wright, Chairman of the Black Power Conference. The
meeting went well. Mr. Nixon said he hoped to establish communica
tion between the incoming Administration and black Americans. He
said he was seeking advice from black leaders to give him "direction
advice and criticism" in affairs that affect black citizens. And
declaring he wanted to put qualified blacks in responsible position
serving the needs of all Americans, he hinted at meaningful appoin
ments.
What he didn't tell them was that he was finding it
difficult to interest Negroes of stature and ability in Cabinet
positions. Among those who rejected his offers were Whitney Young
Jr., executive director of the National Urban League, and Senator
Edward Brooke of Massachusetts.
Method. .21
Nixon scouts didn't have too much luck hunting for black
officials at the sub-Cabinet level. In several instances, they
were rebuffed by people who frankly turned down important posts
because they said they did not want to be labeled "Uncle Tom" by
other, more militant blacks.
The President's first breakthrough to a nationally known
black leader came when James Farmer agreed to join HEW as an
Assistant Secretary for Administration. Farmer, former national
director of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), said there was
"a great need for some people to get on the inside and try to
have some influence."
The top Negro on the White House staff itself is Robert
J. Brown, whose office is across the hall from Mr. Nixon's hideawa
quarters in the Executive Office Building. A former public relati
man from High Point, North Carolina, Brown's bailiwick is minority
problems with emphasis on "black capitalism." Formerly a member
of the board of directors of the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, Brown traveled with the late Martin Luther King raisin
money for the cause. He, himself, was twice arrested in High Poin
for "sitting in" in restaurants which refused to serve black peopl
Eventually the charges were dropped. The irony is that a year
after his second arrest, the High Point Junior Chamber of Commerce
named him "outstanding young man of the year."
As Assistant to the President, Brown serves as liaison
between Mr. Nixon and Negro leaders. He helped arrange the sessic
Method 22
at the Pierre and on February 7, 1969 he set up a meeting between
the President and Roy Wilkins, president of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People. As a Congressman, Mr. Nixon
had contributed to the NAACP -- a fact which Southern Democrats
had used against him during the 1960 campaign. And the President
had known Roy Wilkins, an indefatigable lobbyist for his people,
for nearly two decades.
A wide range of racial subjects was discussed, including
the need to include more black people in high-level Government
positions. Wilkins made clear his disapproval of HEW's decision
to grant five southern school districts an additional sixty days
to present acceptable desegregation guide lines. He feared it
might represent an Administration concession to Southern pressures.
But Wilkins did approve of the President's press conference state-
ment of the day before on "freedom of choice" plans. The President
had stated that such plans would not be satisfactory if they tend
to perpetuate segregation in the schools.
The President, who had just talked to Mrs. Martin Luther
King about a Memorial Park for her late husband in Atlanta, wanted
to know Wilkins' feeling about it. The NAACP leader said it would
be very well received in the Negro community.
Talking to reporters after the hour-long meeting, Wilkins
said he was "gratified by the President's grasp of individual
problems and of the urgency of the crisis situation. He is deter-
mined to be President of all of the people which means black as
well as white. He intends to address himself to all of the problems.
Method 23
Wilkins also had been impressed by the President's forth-
right response at his news conference to a question regarding the
distrust toward him felt by black Americans. Mr. Nixon could
easily have passed it off as a political slur. But he met it head-
on by acknowledging the distrust was real and disturbing to him,
adding that "those who have raised this question are not simply
those who are political opponents. My Task Force on Education
pointed up that I was not considered -- I think the words they used
-- as a friend by many of our black citizens in America."
"I can only say," he went on, "that by my actions as
President, I hope to rectify that." Then he observed that the
President of the United States "does not represent any special
group. He represents all the people. He is the friend of all the
people." And he made it clear it would be lamentable if any part
of the American public felt excluded from that friendship. "Putting
it another way," he said, "the President is the counsel for all
the people of this country, and I hope that I can gain the respect
and I hope eventually the friendship of black citizens and other
Americans."
To help gain that respect, the President put on Arthur A.
Fletcher as an Assistant Secretary of Labor. A former professional
football player (he broke the color bar on the Baltimore Colts),
Fletcher in 1968 ran on the Republican ticket for Lieutenant Governor
of Washington -- the first black to run for major office in that
state. Though he didn't win, he obtained forty-nine percent of the
vote.
Method 24
Big, tough and street-wise, Fletcher has little difficulty
communicating with "the brothers on the sidewalk." And his major
function within the Nixon Administration is to get those "brothers"
into jobs. He helped devise the Philadelphia Plan, a pilot program
which sets goals for the employment of non-whites in federally
subsidized construction. From the start the Plan ran into vocal
opposition. Members of the construction workers union felt they
would be pushed out of well paying jobs by blacks, which wasn't BO.
And some civil rights advocates immediately labeled it "tokenism."
But, fully backed by the President, Fletcher began getting an
increasing number of brothers on construction payrolls. As for
"tokenism," Fletcher says: "You put one hundred and fifty people
to work and twenty percent of them are non-white. That's hardly
a landslide, to be sure, but it doesn't mean the program failed.
The year before only four percent of them were non-white."
Fletcher freely concedes the great credibility gap
between the ghetto and the Government. "A great deal of legislation
was passed in the fifties and the sixties, but very little of it
has been felt by the black guy. He asks what bearing all this has
had on his status in society, and the answer is none. He's still
in the ghetto, still in a lousy school, still looking for a decent
job."
He frankly blames the Democrats for "making too many
promises, building up too many hopes and then not following up."
Then, he points out, in came Richard Nixon "with no black
support, a President with no sympathy in the black community. There
Method. 25
is suspicion. I don't like that. But I'll tell you one thing. It
gives us a chance. The black community expects so little from
this Administration we got a chance to go a long way."
Another Negro leader with whom the President conferred
was the Reverend Leon Sullivan, pastor of Zion Baptist Church in
Philadelphia, who founded the Opportunities Industrialization
Centers (OIC), a very successful self-help project, in 1964. Sulliv
had recently returned from Africa and he wanted to inform the
President of his findings. Also present were Bob Brown and Dr. John
Hannah, head of the Agency for International Development (AID).
With Sullivan seated beside him in the Oval Room, the
President picked up a large blue notebook, entitled Catalog of
Federal Programs for Assistance to Minority Entrepreneurs, and
handed it to the minister. The President thought it might come
in handy as a reference. Sullivan, who seemed momentarily over-
whelmed, asked the President if he would sign it.
As an inscription, the President wrote: "To Dr. Leon
Sullivan -- a shining example of minority entrepreneurship at
work. Richard M. Nixon."
Then Sullivan produced a book which he himself had
authored -- "the first copy off the press." It was entitled Build
Brothers Build. Sullivan asked the President if he would accept it.
"Only if you autograph it first," the President said. With that,
the minister opened the book and wrote hastily, "To my President,
who will become one of the great examples of leadership in America
-- Leon Sullivan."
Method 26
With the pleasantries out of the way, Sullivan talked
about his OIC program which, in part, was financed by the Departme
of Labor. The emphasis was on self-help through savings and inves
ment. "I encouraged members of my congregation to save ten dollar
a week for thirty-six weeks," he said. There were now some ten
thousand members.
Job training programs were instituted by OIC for hard-
core unemployed and low-paid underemployed. Community-owned
businesses were launched. Successful efforts were a shopping cent
a garment company and an aerospace enterprise. The Reverend
Sullivan had also established management training institutes,
designed to train community leaders so that they could themselves
operate community oriented businesses. In all there were some
seventy OICs throughout the country, directed by community leaders
mostly from the religious sector.
Sullivan then told of his "fantastic receptions and
subsequent successes" in Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria, where
much interest was shown in developing the OIC job-training concept
for Africa. What he now needed was help from AID, whose staff he
had already briefed. The President was definitely interested. He
suggested that Sullivan and Hannah work out the details for a
"pilot project."
As Bob Brown puts it, "From the beginning, the President
has been result-oriented. He wants results to take precedence
over rhetoric. Some people don't seem to want to look at results.
Method 27
They're more interested in how many speeches he made and how many
ghettos he visited. The President has & great sensitivity and
feel for the poor. After all, he was poor himself.'
What the President most definitely was not interested in
was confrontation politics in the name of the poor. And that was
what was practiced on him when Reverend Ralph Abernathy of the
Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) appeared before the
Urban Affairs Council along with a delegation from his Poor People's
Campaign.
It was quite a show and, unfortunately, did very little
good for the poor people Abernathy claimed to represent. Whether
it did Abernathy any good personally in terms of the internal
politics of black militancy was also questionable.
The year before Abernathy had staged a Poor People's
March on Washington as well as an encampment of what was called
Resurrection City on federal property near the Lincoln Memorial.
It had not been an edifying spectacle, as Everett Dirksen reminded
Mr. Nixon at at Republican leadership meeting at the White House
on April 29. The Senator from Illinois had had two hours of
conversation with Abernathy at that time and, as far as he was
concerned, he had "more than enough" of the good Reverend.
The President then analyzed the issue in some detail. The
SCLC, he said, was in deep trouble. There was a power struggle
going on within the movement and it was too early to determine
exactly who would wind up as the anointed heir of Dr. Martin Luther
Method. 28
King, assassinated the year before. We don't propose to get into
that kind of internal argument, the President said. Like Dirksen,
the President wasn't overly impressed with Abernathy, whom he thought
was kind of limited. According to reliable information, Dr. King's
widow, Coretta, was no great admirer of Abernathy either.
However, the President said he didn't propose to shut
people like Abernathy out so tightly that they would appear as
martyrs, thus enhancing their stature. At the same time, he did
not intend to give in to every one of their demands.
Eventually a White House meeting was arranged for Dr.
Abernathy and his associates to present their views. The meeting
had been scheduled for 10:15 a.m., May 13, but the group arrived
late. They were greeted individually by Vice President Agnew and
by various members of the Cabinet and then, when they had taken
their places around the Cabinet table, by the President.
After the initial words of greeting, Abernathy took over.
Slowly and ponderously, he read every word of a nine-page statement
which had already been distributed to every member of the Council.
In an apparent effort to evoke echoes of Martin Luther King ("I Have
A Dream..."), Abernathy launched paragrph after paragraph with
"I am concerned... Concerned about the war, about the ABM, about
military spending, about jobs, about hunger, about school desegre-
gation, about Title I school funds, about equal employment opportuni-
ties, about the Administration's "inadequate response" to the SCLC-
backed hospital workers' organising drive in Charleston, South
Carolina. He also expressed "concern" at the refusal of the
Method 29
individual Cabinet members to schedule individual meetings with
his delegation as part of that week's "second chapter" in his
Poor People's Campaign.
Conceding that the recently announced hunger program was
"better than anything the previous Administration did," Abernathy
still branded it as "inadequate." He presented a "demand" for an
expanded food program costing an additional $2.5 billion a year,
which he characterized as "modest," and argued it could be financed
by scrapping such things as the ABM or eliminating the farm
subsidies.
Characterizing "the right to work at a decent wage and
the right to collective bargaining" as the "most fundamental human
rights," Abernathy urged the President to intervene in the Charleston
hospital situation with "all the prestige of your great office."
He asked for immediate action on welfare reform, including a
federal standard to guarantee an income above the poverty line
for all.
Raising what he called "perhaps the most fundamental issue
which I can place before you today," Abernathy asked for a re-examina
tion of national priorities that would cut the military budget -
"a noose which is gradually strangling our country."
Then Abernathy declared that "one of your (Cabinet) members
was quoted as saying that this Administration owed nothing to the
black citizens of America," arguing that "this Administration, this
Government, this nation owe justice to every American." He concluded
with this plea: "Let history record that this Administration, of
Method. 30
which little was expected, was the one which made America truly keep
its long-deferred promise to all of its citizens."
The President then responded.
Referring to the post-election remark about the new Admini
tration "owing nothing" to the blacks, the President said to
Abernathy: "You are right; any Administration owes justice to every
American." And he emphasized the determination of his Administratic
to do right, without regard to what groups voted predominantly for
what candidate.
Then he pointed out that in addressing the Urban Affairs
Council, the Poor People's leaders were "speaking to a group of men
that has spent more time than any other Cabinet group in history"
on problems of the poor, the cities and so forth. This Administra-
tion, he added, wants to rid the country of its blemishes and to
devote its wealth to meeting its "terrible problems."
Since the Reverend Abernathy had expressed concern about
the war, Mr. Nixon proceeded to discuss the considerations a Presi-
dent must face in the making of foreign policy.
He pointed out that on taking office he could have ordered
all American troops home from Vietnam; and that, for the most part,
his action would have been applauded. He had been to Vietnam many
times and he had seen the wounded and "what I want most is to stop
the killing." Of course, he wanted to get our boys out -- but not
in a way that would have their younger brothers fighting another
war in three or four or five years. He referred to a comment by a
Method. 31
recent visitor, Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, a Socialis
from a poor Chinese family, who had said that the effect of a
unilateral American withdrawal would be "peace now," but a devastati
increase in aggression two or three or four years from now.
In Europe, the President went on, we have six divisions,
black men, white men, and they cost a lot of money. If he ordered
them home -- which he has the power to do -- there would be cheering
But, as President, he has to look at what might happen if he did
this without any reciprocal action by those who threaten a free
Europe.
With regard to Vietnam, he said, "You want peace. I want
peace. We're going to get it. We're making progress. But I have
to take the responsibility for the kind of peace it is. I have to
think of the next man who sits in this chair. I have to think about
peace for the balance of this century."
The President said he appreciated the fact that Dr. Aber-
nathy and his colleagues had come to Washington to petition Congress
as well as the Administration, and that this was a right which ought
to be exercised. He also expressed appreciation for the fact that
while Dr. Abernathy had criticized the Administration for what he
thought was wrong he nevertheless had been "objective" in noting,
for example, that this Administration had done more on hunger than
anyone before.
"I don't go to bed each night feeling good about hunger,
or poverty, or Vietnam," he said. "But we are developing policies
to deal with each of these."
Method 32
The President then pointed out that while the men around
the table now wore fine suits, drew good salaries and had attained
a comfortable station in life, most of them also had known poverty
and want in their earlier years. "What I am trying to say," he
added, "1s that you have here a group of men who are really trying
to find answers. Most of us haven't known the kind of poverty
you have seen. And we don't want others to know it."
Explaining that he had to deal with an urgent message from
the Secretary of State who was then in Saigon, the President rose
to leave.* But he said the meeting would continue under the chair-
manship of the Vice President.
* The President was then in the midst of composing his first
major -- and long awaited -- address to the nation on the subject
of Vietnam. Time had been obtained for broadcasting the statement
on all television networks the following night.
However, Dr. Abernathy asked the President to remain and
listen to his reply. The President sat down.
Abernathy expressed to the President "our profound thanks
for turning aside from a very heavy schedule. I know you have the
problems of the world resting on your shoulders." Then, continuing
for several minutes in the same penderously affected cadence in
which he had read his original statement, he went on to say that
"we have always moved in the American tradition of orderly petition-
ing of government," but he contended "our job is made difficult
Method 33
when we make such little progress." The hungry complain that non-
violence does not work, that it is the way of the weak, and call
people like Abernathy "Uncle Toms." Though people in his delegation
were not dressed in fine suits, they truly loved America. Then
he quoted Lincoln, "a house divided cannot stand." And though it
was true that a majority of the blacks and the poor did not vote for
Mr. Nixon, "you are our President, and you will have our support.
We want to help you lead," and to help make America what its found-
ing fathers had intended.
Abernathy then launched into another pitch appeal for individual
meetings with the various Cabinet secretaries, adding that the rest
of the Poor People's delegation were then waiting in the Indian
Treaty Room. He asked that the President take the time to stop by
and greet "these poor people, who have never had the opportunity
to see a President," and further, that he urge the Cabinet members
to set up individual appointments.
Noting that the Cabinet members would remain, the President
finally made good his exit. "You have an hour, so have at them,"
he said as he headed through the door.
The Vice President took over the meeting and Abernathy
introduced an Indian woman from Oklahoma. "We're common, grass-
roots poor people," she said. "We're the poor-poor. This is my
fourth trip to Washington, D.C., to get this problem licked."
She deplored the plight of the Indians, saying they had been put
on reservations and told to wait. "We waited five hundred years.
From now on, I don't intend to go to bed hungry, and to get up
Method. 34
hungry. I'm the mother of eleven children." She declared that
"we're not going to let you decide for us any more. All you want
is to terminate. You're going to exterminate us." She described
in detail her troubles with & local school official, who refused
to provide Indian children with hot lunches, referred to her four
trips to Washington and said, "I'm so in debt now, I'll probably
have to go to work to pay these expenses I've been running up."
Secretary Finch noted that the new Administration, for
the first time, was asking full funding of the school lunch program.
Abernathy then introduced a black lady from Birmingham,
Alabama, who declared that "I am here to speak for every poor
black and white in Birmingham." And she spoke in a full, powerful,
angry voice, declaring she had a swollen heart but couldn't get a
doctor or medicines.
Among her other complaints, demands and observations:
"I'm tired of living in three rooms with ten children."
"You can't get food if you got no money for stamps. I
have to feed my kids leftover peas for breakfast. You can't live
like that."
"Mr. Nixon left to avoid hearing our statements."
"American black and white will come to Washington and
wait till Mr. Nixon give us food and clothing."
"Mr. Nixon said we should go back to Africa. We gonna
come here to Washington instead."
"President Kennedy died for the Poor People's Campaign."
Method 35
"God ain't never told nobody to come and live on the
moon....Those people (who say men have been to the moon) are tellin
lies. If you come up there God gonna destroy you. If God don't
destroy you, we gonna destroy you. I better stop now before I say
too much."
The Cabinet members fidgeted as Abernathy introduced a
heavyset, frazzled white woman from Chicago. Saying there was lit
she could add to the eloquence that had preceded, the lady did ticl
off a few complaints:
"Nixon wants the rich to get richer and the poor to get
poorer."
"We're gonna stay here till something gets done. We
want it now."
Next it was the turn of a burly, middle-aged white man,
who described himself as representing the poor of Appalachia. He
was brief, saying that "I believe brother Abernathy's demands are
reasonable. We'll back him till Hell freezes over." He expressed
regret that the President had left, because "I wanted to congratule
Mr. Nixon on being the only Republican ever elected at a Democratic
convention." But unless the President shaped up, he'll be the last
Republican ever elected. "I'm tired of coming here and getting
nothing."
The Reverend Joseph Lowery of the United Methodist Churcl
of Atlanta then said: "We are desperately hopeful that this Adminis
tration will be sensitive and responsive to the cries of misery
that come out of the poor. I think you may have sensed some of
Method. 36
the urgency in the voices, the emotions, of those who spoke
here today."
Taking the floor, Abernathy proceeded to make another
callen
extended speech, in which he made another pitch for separate appoint-
ments with the Cabinet members. "Last year," he said, "we came one
hundred thousand strong, and we were permitted to see the Cabinet
officials. I have prepared papers for each Secretary I can't
believe Secretary Finch won't see us....I don't believe Secretary
Hardin would be SO hard. I just shook hands with him. He impresses
me as being a fine, concerned person, a Baptist Christian person
I don't see how you could send the poor people away, and then see
the stark segregationists from Arkansas. I don't see how the
party of Lincoln could turn its back on us."
And on and on he went along these lines, making still
another plea for those waiting in the Indian Treaty Room. He assumed,
he said, the President had not gone to see them, so he hoped that
some members of the Cabinet would -- "aniplease don't send your aides.
The Vice President then spoke briefly. He said he thought
everyone in the room had been moved by the eloquence of Dr. Abernathy
and his group in detailing the problems of the poor; and that the
President had been equally eloquent in describing some of the
problems he faced, including ones not of his own making. And since
Dr. Abernathy said he had detailed statements prepared for each
Cabinet department, he could be assured that they would be carefully
considered, and suggested that the best way to proceed for the
Method 37
balance of the meeting would be for each Cabinet official to
address himself to the points involving his department.
Secretary Finch, who took the floor, noted that the Poor
People's demand for an end to the freeze on ADC (Aid to Dependent
Children) payments was also Administration policy. Genuinely
surprised, Abernathy asked: "Are you saying that it's your policy
to end the freeze?" Finch: "Yes. We've asked that it be ended, and
we've budgeted for it." On desegregation guidelines, Finch
explained that these were simply an explanation of what the Supreme
Court says; and that as the Court refined its interpretations the
guidelines change.
Finch then suggested that groups such as Dr. Abernathy's
and the Administration should "work together day by day," instead
of having the Poor People come marching to Washington once a year,
get a lot of promises, and then return disappointed the following
year.
The Reverend Lowery said he wanted an answer from Finch
on whether he would meet with the group. Finch held his ground,
noting that he and his department had been meeting with representa-
tives of various groups on a continuing, working basis and not
just once a year for show.
Then came Cliff Hardin's turn. The Secretary of Agri-
culture said he agreed with Dr. Abernathy's "philosophical state-
ments" but not with his arithmetic. In preparation for this meeting,
he had researched the demands made by the Poor People's campaign
a year ago.
Method 38
Point by point, he ticked off what the Foor People had
asked, and then analyzed what the Nixon Administration had done.
He pointed out that the value of food stamps had been increased,
that a pilot program had been launched to get some experience with
free food stamps, and that "the President has recommended a move
across the board in this direction." Dr. Abernathy "may not have
understood," but while free food stamps would be cut off at a given
income level, the cost would be adjusted substantially for those
above that level, with the whole concentration of the program on
moving it "more and more to fit the needs of those in the lowest
income groups, which is what it should have been in the first place."
As for school lunches, Hardin noted the increase in the
program, doubling by 1970 the number of children involved.
On direct distribution, there were now twenty-two foods
included in the package, which makes it a pretty good deal. of
course, there were problems in local distribution which thus far
had made it impossible to get all the foods into all areas. For
example, some places do not have refrigerated storage. But these
problems were being worked out.
of the 256 counties cited by the Poor People last year
as being without food programs, 253 now have them; and the one
thousand poorest counties in the nation all have food programs.
A special program for pregnant women has now been launched
in fifty-three counties. However, again there were distribution
problems because of special foods. The Administration places a
Method 39
high priority on this program, recognizing that human life is
especially vulnerable during pregnancy and the first five years.
At this point, the Vice President excused himself,
observing he was already half an hour late in the Senate. He said
he felt Secretary Finch had made one of the outstanding points of
the session -- namely, that a single meeting was not enough, that
we should instead look toward continuing meetings, not just for
show purposes, but for the exchange of information.
He turned the chair over to Transportation Secretary
Volpe.
Volpe observed that as a member of a minority group
himself -- he is of Italian origin -- he had some understanding of
the problems under discussion He, too, had come up the hard way;
as a child, he had lived next door to a Negro family, with a Negro
Baptist Church across the street. Yet there had been no racial
dissension. On coming to Washington, however, he was "shocked"
to discover that of the two hundred and sixty supergrade jobs in
the Department of Transportation, not a single one was held by a
Negro. This, despite the fact that the Democrats, who had written
much of the equal employment legislation, had been inpower twenty-
eight of the past thirty-six years. Now, with the Republicans in
control, eight blacks had been assigned to topgrade jobs in his
department -- not enough to be sure, but at least a start.
Volpe also discussed the urgency of providing adequate
public transportation to ghetto areas -- for access not only to
jobs but also to hospitals, colleges, etc.
Method 40
"I hope you will have a little patience," he said. "We
won't make big promises, but we will make promises we're going to
keep.'
At this point, Pat Moynihan interrupted the meeting with
an urgent report from the Indian Treaty Room. The Poor People
who had been assembled there at 10:00 a.m. had been led to believe
that Dr. Abernathy would be returning within the hour. By now
it was 1:00 p.m. and the Poor People, restive and impatient, were
threatening a demonstration inside the White House. Some subcabinet
personnel had gone over to talk with them, only to be greeted
with catcalls.
We'd be delighted to continue with this meeting, Moynihan
said; we have no particular concern with the prospect of a demon-
stration; but since it was Dr. Abernathy's problem and since their
ire was directed at him, perhaps he might prefer to end the
meeting and to visit his troops.
Professing dismay at this turn of events, Abernathy
insisted that they hadn't come with any intention of staging a
demonstration; and he hoped that some of the Cabinet would accompany
him, to give evidence to the Poor of the Administration's concern.
Volpe immediately said that, although he was long overdue for
another appointment, he would be glad to do so. After a brief
report from Secretary of Labor Shultz, the meeting adjourned.
Secretaries Volpe and Romney accompanied Rev. Abernathy to the
Indian Treaty Room.
Method 41
Then Dr. Abernathy went before the television cameras
to denounce the President and his Administration, calling the
session with the Urban Affairs Council "the most disappointing
and the most fruitless of all the meetings we have had up to this
time." And that's what got on the national news shows that night
Thus ended what could have been a productive day for
America's economically disadvantaged. It was anything but.
Abernathy's principal interest quite obviously was in managing
somehow, by implied threat or otherwise, to demonstrate he could
deliver a President on demand to his assemblage in the Indian
Treaty Room. He failed. More importantly, he failed to make a
case before a key Cabinet group whose busy members had literally
wasted three hours listening to witnesses who offered little more
than invective. Abernathy himself had come across as a pompous,
tiresome charlaten
The poor of America deserved better.
Viet 1
CHAPTER 6
Just before going to the meeting with Ralph Abernathy and
the Poor People delegation, the President of the United States
had briefed a breakfast session of the Republican leadership on
the speech he was to make the following night.
It was, he said, going to be the most important speech thus
far in his Administration. It would be about Vietnam. And it
would be the first time that a President would go on national
television to explain and clearly outline what our objectives were
in that country, what we were trying to accomplish and where we
were headed.
The President told the GOP leaders that he had brought
General Creighton Abrams, the U.S. military commander in Vietnam,
home from Saigon to report to him firsthand. Abrams, who had spent
considerable time with the President the day before, had told him
that the Nixon Administration had gone a good deal further than the
Johnson Administration ever had in winning the confidence of the
South Vietnamese Government, and establishing a basis of trust
with President Nguyen Van Thieu. Prior Administrations hadn't done
this. One result of the failure to take the South Vietnamese into
confidence was that it had taken two or three months to get them
to the conference table in Paris after the bombing halt was called
just before the American election in November 1968.
As evidence of the new spirit, the President said that
his speech was at that very moment being cleared with the South
Vietnamese to make certain they were aware of everything it contained.
Viet 2
One thing the President was seeking to avoid was the
kind of situation which developed during the Korean war, when the
majority of casualties occurred after peace talks began at Panmunjon
Right now, the President added, we have been talking in Paris with
the North Vietnamese for twelve months, the war is still going on
and casualties are still running at an unacceptable level. Obviously
we don't want to continue this sort of thing indefinitely. That
is why the U.S. will take new steps in an effort to get the Paris
negotiations off dead center.
The President then disclosed that General Abrams had
informed him that the then largely terrorist attacks of the enemy
might well be the prelude to a full-scale offensive that would
occur either later that month or in early June. The purpose of
the offensive was purely propaganda. For, according to Abrams, the
enemy could hardly hope to achieve anything of a really significant
military value.
Then the President observed that if Hanoi felt that com-
bining a military offensive with a peace offensive was the way to
negotiate with him, they would be sadly mistaken.
Though it was a brief and somber dissertation, the Presi-
dent seemed to have about him an air of confidence that he was
making progress. He indicated that he realized there were people
in his own party who, critical of the Administration on Vietnam,
were equating his actions with those of his predecessor. To which
the President suggested that these people were making a serious
mistake.
Viet
3
Then he left for his meeting with Ralph Abernathy. Once
it was out of the way, he got back to making last-minute revisions
on his Vietnam speech.
The document had been in the works for several weeks.
Separate drafts had been prepared by Ray Price and Bill Safire.
The President had taken them down to Key Biscayne, and had worked
on them in the sun. Kissinger, who flew down for consultations,
returned with a half-dozen pages of scribbled instructions for
revisions.
In the interim -- on May 8 -- the Vietcong had proposed
a ten-point plan to end the war. It was based mainly on previously
rejected proposals.
In his televised speech to the nation, the President
responded with his own eight-point proposal including a plan for
a mutual pull-out of major forces over a twelve-month span, super-
vised by an international body acceptable to both sides. Because
of the importance of every word and shade of meaning, the President
-- in uncharacteristic fashion -- read the speech before the cameras
As a result, he raced and fumbled a bit.
In his concluding remarks, he said: "In my campaign for
the Presidency, I pledged to end this war in a way that would
increase our chances to win true and lasting peace in Vietnam, in
the Pacific, and in the world. I am determined to keep that pledge.
If I fail to do so, I expect the American people to hold me account-
able for that failure."
Viet
4
The following morning there was 1 meeting of
Cabinet and the National security Council, the purpose of which
the President said was to brief everyone on the proposals he had
made in his televised speech of the night before.
First up was Henry Kissinger who began his remarks by
saying, "I will not summarize the speech." With slightly raised
brows, the President replied: "Please don't."
When the laughter subsided, Kissinger proceeded to
summarize the speech, calling it the most comprehensive statement
made by an American President about Vietnam. He said the Presi-
dent's presentation could be summarized in two broad, basic
principles: (1) we will not collapse our effort; and (2) we will
be extremely flexible in trying to make a settlement, not quibbling
about language or form.
Kissinger said the speech went as far as it was possible
to go in testing the willingness of the other side to have serious
negotiations. Remarking on just one new element, he pointed out
that "we no longer will expect the North Vietnamese to admit their
troops are there so long as they stop being there."
The President then said that one of the significant
aspects of his speech was that the South Vietnamese Government had
agreed to its content. Six months ago, he observed, no one would
have predicted that President Thieu would have approved the sub-
stance of the speech. The cooperation of the South Vietnamese was
extremely important because while some say it will be impossible
to make a peace with them, it will surely be impossible to make a
peace without them.
Viet 5
Commenting on the attitude of other nations in Southeast
Asia, the President said their reactions were most important.
"They are like rice in the wind," he said. "If they think we are
going to lose, they will go the other way." And this suggests, the
President added, that while some people scoff at the domino theory,
the dominoes make it a reality because they seem to accept it as
fact.
It had been a most difficult speech to prepare, the Presi-
dent went on. Before it was in final form, it was necessary to
get agreement among the various areas of the U.S. Government that
were involved as well as the approval of the Saigon regime. "And
if any of you think that writing your speeches is tough," the
President grinned, "you should try to write one involving State,
Defense and Henry Kissinger."
Undersecretary of State Elliot L. Richardson suggested that
President Thieu be added to the "list of speech writers" since he
had been consulted and had made suggestions that were included.
Richardson reported that the State Department had transmitted the
basic elements of the speech through our Ambassadors to the
Governments of Australia, Thailand, New Zealand, South Korea and
the Philippines. Such advance notice, he said, was most important
in "keeping our friends with us."
In his analysis, Secretary of Defense Laird emphasized
there was nothing inconsistent in the mutual withdrawal plan pro-
posed by the President and the Vietnamization of the war. He also
noted that the speech contained a veiled reference to the reduction
Viet 6
of U.S. forces in Vietnam. The question of whether some of our
troops would be withdrawn would be discussed when Secretary of
State Rogers returned from Vietnam.
The President then explained that "apart from any progress
in Paris, we are considering withdrawals based upon the strengthen-
ing of the Vietnam forces."
Postmaster General Blount then asked whether the South
Vietnamese have the will to "stay the course if we Vietnamize the
war." To which the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General
Earle G. Wheeler, gave a guarded "yes." He quoted General Abrams
as saying he "sees no problem in that." However, Wheeler added
that "we must move gradually so that we don't shake the confidence
of the South Vietnamese. So far they are willing and pleased to
take on more of the responsibility." And the President noted that
General Abrams aimed to give South Vietnam air and artillery support
while letting them do the infantry work. This, he said, WELS a very
important aspect of the shifting roles.
The President asked Richard Helms to discuss the possible
reaction of North Vietnam to his speech. The CIA Director said that
as far as Hanoi was concerned the most effective point was the
commitment that we wouldn't "chicken out." Their whole policy, he
went on, has been based on the theory that domestic dissent will
force the U.S. to pull out. According to Helms, the North Vietnamese
had lost half a million men and want to terminate the war as much
as we do but they think time is on their side. The President's
speech has told them that we will stick to our basic principles
and will not run out.
Viet. 7
In the course of his remarks, Helms mentioned Pham Van
Dong and the President interjected: When you use names like that,
you ought to give some identification so everyone knows whom you
are talking about. Helms said that Pham Van Dong was Prime Minister
of North Vietnam, adding, "You might say he's the young Ho Chi Minh
of the Hanoi Government."
"oh," said the President, "you mean he's their Finch."
As the room rocked with laughter, HEW Secretary Finch
mopped his brow.
Then the President introduced our man at the United
Nations, Ambassador Yost, with the comment that the U.N. post was
"one of the most difficult jobs in the Cabinet because he has to
try to explain U.S. positions to the representatives of all those
nations. And besides that, he has to go to all those luncheons,
teas, cocktail parties and dinners and that I think is about
the most boring work I can imagine.
"How do you keep your weight down?" he asked Yost.
"By running from one cocktail party to another," the
Ambassador replied.
Yost said he found a growing sympathy for the U.S. at the
United Nations because of the feeling that we are really seeking
peace. The President's speech will accentuate that feeling. When
Yost asked whether there might be a U.N. role in Vietnam, the
President said he had purposely used extremely general language
about the proposed international supervisory group.
Viet. 8
Henry Cabot Lodge, our chief negotiator in Paris who
had been summoned back to Washington in connection with the speech,
then discussed the possible effects of the President's speech on
the negotiations. He began by observing that for seventeen weeks
he had heard nothing from the North Vietnamese except: (1) the
U.S. should get out; and (2) South Vietnam should be under the
control of the National Liberation Front. These things were
always said in a tone which he could only describe as "nasty."
The North Vietnamese constantly referred to the South Vietnamese
as "puppets and lackeys of the imperialist United States" while
he was always described as an "odious neo-colonialist."
"Well, Cabot," the President interjected, "you may be a
neo-colonialist, but you are not odious."
Lodge explained that in the week before the President's
speech the North Vietnamese brought up their new package of ten
points which in his judgement contained some new approaches.
Significantly, too, they had made their presentation "with no
epithets." Lodges immediate reaction was "now we need a compre-
hensive position statement of our own." And almost in the next
mail, he said, he received a draft of the President's forthcoming
speech and "it was like manna from heaven for me." From the
standpoint of the Paris negotiations, "it was the best thing that
could have happened to us."
Why did the North Vietnamese come forward with their ten
points? Lodge thought they did so because President Thieu had
indicated a new flexibility and a willingness to consider new
approaches.
Viet. 9
Was it not true, asked the President, that the first
North Vietnamese reaction to his speech was negative? Yes, replied
Lodge, but that should not be taken as & significant response; it
was just the first automatic reaction.
The President introduced Lawrence Walsh, a member of
Lodge's team who had just returned from his first visit to South
Vietnam. Walsh had found the Vietnamese to be vital, energetic
and "a great people." In the course of Walsh's discussion, it
came out that he was an old friend of the Attorney General, and
John Mitchell commented that they used to see one another at the
Wall Street Club. This brought from the President a somewhat
arch question addressed to the Attorney General: "You didn't say
that with any nostalgia, did you?" And the reply from Mitchell:
"It varies."
Lodge then went into the subject of secret talks, saying
"it is very important that secret talks be kept secret." Whenever
the press asks about them, he always says simply that "we don't
discuss the subject." The North Vietnamese approach the question
differently. "Fifteen minutes after I have left a secret talk,
they are saying there are no secret talks."
Summing up, the President began by noting ed that the end
of World War II was definitely delayed by the Allied insistence on
unconditional surrender. MIS the enemy knows there is no way out
he partal ant
but military defeat, he has nothing to gain by offering a settle-
ment. What we have provided is a way out. On the other side of
the coin, some people feel that it is only necessary to put out a
Viet 10
proposal to get peace. What must be realized is that we are talking
to an enemy whose first objective is not peace. They want South
Vietnam.
The President listed four principal points in the U.S.
position. One, we are for peace; we are reasonable. Two, we aim
to convince the enemy that if there is no settlement, we have an
option which 18 military action. Three, we want to make it clear
they can't win by sitting us out. And four, we want to convince
them they aren't going to get what they want by erosion of the
U.S. will.
So, the President continued, we have offered the North
Vietnamese a way out. We have tried to indicate that we will not
tolerate a continuation of their fight-talk strategy. We have
tried to convince them that the time is coming when South Vietnam
will be strong enough to handle a major part of the load. Beyond
all this, said the President, it was necessary to give the
impression to the enemy that the American people were going to
support a sound peace proposal and not accept peace at any price.
Then and only then will the enemy realize that the war must be
ended.
The President expressed the hope that members of the
Cabinet in their television appearances and speeches would explain
that the Administration had presented a sound, reasonable, coordin-
ated plan for peace. How the war would end, the President said,
was not clear. It may not be by formal agreement; it may simply
be by negotiations leading to gradual understanding.
Viet 11
"What is on the line is more than South Vietnam,"
the President concluded. "It's a question of what happens to
the balance of Asia and to the rest of the world. If we fail to
end the war in a way that will not be an American defeat, and in a
way that will deny the aggressor his goal, the hawks in Communist
nations will push for even more and broader aggression. What
concerns me more than anything else is what happens to the United
States. If a great power fails to meet its aims, it ceases to be
a great power. When a great power looks inward, when it fails to
live up to its commitment, then the greatness fades away. The
road to peace will be difficult but we aim to get there."
When the Cabinet members applauded his remarks, the
President said, "I really didn't mean to make a speech to the
Cabinet."
Following the meeting, Ambassador Lodge flew back to
Paris, expressing hope that the Nixon peace plan would lead to
"solid meat and potatoes" discussions with the Communists. The
next day North Vietnam and the Vietcong attacked the plan, but
agreed to study it further.
And on May 20, at a meeting of the Republican Congress-
ional leadership, the President, who was in a buoyant mood, disclose
that he would meet with General Thieu on June 8 on Midway Island
to discuss common policy.
Henry Kissinger then reported that, despite what the
leaders may have read in the press, the South Vietnamese were
Viet
12
pleased with the President's speech and were behind us. In fact,
the speech contained some specific phraseology which had been
dictated by Thieu.
The President, interrupting, said that one of the proble
with the previous Administration had been a basic split between
Washington and Saigon. He noted that some members of the past
Administration as well as some highly placed members of Congress
were urging the President to "dump" Thieu and not be concerned
about his views. In the long run, this would be suicidal, for
while it was difficult to make peace with Saigon, it was impossibl
to make a genuine peace without them. The President said that we
had established a degree of cooperation with the South Vietnamese
which would have been considered unimaginable not too long ago.
Kissinger, going into the background of the speech, said
it had been in the oven a good while before it was finally deliver
In no sense was it a response to the Vietcong's ten-point proposal
The President had been thinking about addressing the nation on the
subject for some months. Finally, on March 28, he had ordered his
NSC staff to prepare his proposals for presentation some time in
the middle of May.
There were two reasons for the delay: first, we did not
want to announce our proposals in the face of a military attack
by the enemy; and secondly, we wanted to restore a good working
relationship with Saigon.
According to Kissinger, the enemy had been counting on
the pressure of world public opinion to affect U.S. actions in
Viet 13
Vietnam. Since January, Hanoi had been repeating the same slogans
and tactics they had used against the Johnson Administration,
blaming the U.S. for every deadlock in the Paris talks. Our
objective was to counter those tactics.
The far-ranging effects of the President's speech were
significant. Kissinger noted that in the Senate John C. Stennis
was joined by the more doveish Charles Percy in supporting the
President's position. In his opinion, most of whatever criticism
there was in the U.S. press really amounted to nit-picking. The
foreign press generally was favorable. Outside of the Soviet
orbit, the only critical comments Kissinger had noted thus far had
come from Sweden, which was sort of anti-American anyhow.
Particularly heartening to Kissinger was an extraordin-
arily positive report on the speech published in Le Monde in Paris.
This was crucially important since the newspaper is read by the
negotiators at the peace talks. Japanese press reaction was
favorable, and the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo had endorsed the
speech.
In the Communist world, criticism was generally muted.
Moscow had published a partial text using some of the more concili-
atory extracts. The satellites gave the speech amore positive
appraisal. Yugoslavia's reaction was particularly positive.
As for the peace-keeping body proposed by the President,
it originally was conceived in terms of consisting solely of Asians.
But the President decided against calling for Asian participation
as such, simply because if one or two of the countries in the area
Viet 14
decided against getting involved, that fact would become the big
news. Thus, it was left an open-ended thing. However, since the
speech Japan and Indonesia had expressed interest in participating.
One of the great effects of the speech, Kissinger went
on, was to dramatize to Hanoi the failure of its efforts to affect
us psychologically. Though there was a long list of nit-picks in
Hanoi's detailed reaction, the basic facts were not rejected out
of hand, and that could be construed as somewhat hopeful.
The President here interrupted again, pointing out that
in the wake of his speech we were getting not only private support
abroad which we had never had before, but public support of the
U.S. position as well. of course, he pointed out, he realized
that we had taken more casualties in the past twelve months than
in the previous two years, adding: "The United States cannot
settle for a traditional talk-fight strategy." Because it takes
the other side two to three months to move, we will need that
much time to discover the real reaction to the speech.
The President then said that if and when a withdrawal
of U.S. forces began, it would come from & position of strength,
not weakness. It would come because the relative strength of the
South Vietnamese forces had increased to a level making it
possible for them to replace U.S. troops. "We are now in a better
position to control events rather than reacting to them," he said.
The President described American policy in terms of
playing a violin and playing it well. The previous Administration,
Viet 15
he said, would play one string -- the military string -- and then
another string -- the peace and propaganda string. The enemy,
meanwhile, played the violin the way it should be played, using
all strings at once. And that is what we are going to do from now
on, he said.
On June 3 another joint meeting of the Cabinet and the
National Security Council was convened at the White House -- this
time to hear Secretary of State Rogers report on his around-the-
world trip.
The first point of interest, naturally, was Vietnam. The
Secretary said he had listened to the President's May 14 speech
at the American Embassy in Saigon. "Contrary to what you might
have read in the papers," Rogers said, "there are no differences
between the U.S. and South Vietnam about what the President said."
Thieu had gone over the speech in advance, made some suggestions
that were accepted, and approved the final draft.
"As a matter of fact," the President interjected, "you
were there when he made some changes."
Rogers had found Thieu to be mature and intelligent
and the one man in the Saigon Government who has potential for
national leadership. The Secretary said that the South Vietnamese
were ready to take over & major part of the burden of the war,
although they were fearful that if their casualty rate increased
substantially, they might be in difficulty. But they fully
realized the problems that the war was creating in the United
States, he said.
Viet 16
One thing the South Vietnamese do not understand, said
the Secretary, is freedom of the press. "They lock people up for
printing something they don't want printed and then later think
perhaps they made a mistake."
The Secretary flatly denied speculation in the American
press that the President's forthcoming trip to Midway to meet
Thieu had been arranged hurriedly because the South Vietnamese
President had demanded it. Absolutely wrong, Rogers said. The
fact was that the meeting had been suggested by President Nixon
and it was he, Rogers, who had proposed the timing.
Relations between the U.S. and the South Vietnamese were
very good, the Secretary reported, although the Saigon leaders
"had some questions" about the U.S. position on elections in
their country. They found it difficult to comprehend that all the
U.S. was suggesting was an election that would permit the people o
South Vietnam to express their views. Nevertheless, they have
agreed there should be such an election but were uncertain about
how it should be conducted.
The critical political problem in South Vietnam, said
Rogers, is that there is no cohensiveness, no real national
interest even in such things as national sports or national radio
programs. And President Thieu, himself, was having difficulty
establishing a national image.
President Nixon noted that criticism of South Vietnam,
particularly with regard to the condition of its democracy, had
become terribly distorted. Complaints that the South Vietnamese
Viet 17
have defective elections and a partially controlled press are
leveled without regard to the fact that North Vietnam has no free
elections and a completely controlled press. There are really
serious questions, the President went on, as to whether a country
like South Vietnam is really ready for a democratic system, and
whether it is possible to have complete freedom of the press in
a country engaged in full scale war. "Lincoln didn't allow much
freedom of the press in the Civil War," he pointed out. And in
World War I and World War II the American press operated with SOB
forms of censorship.
Vice President Agnew raised the question of whether
statements attacking the United States role in Vietnam -- particu
ly when made by eminent persons -- had an effect on the South
Vietnamese. Secretary Rogers said there was no doubt that all
such statements were followed closely and studied for their
possible effects on U.S. policy.
Moving on to other countries he visited, the Secretary
of State said that at a meeting of the Southeast Asia Treaty
Organization he found that representatives of the nations which
were contributing troops to the Vietnam war thought the U.S.
should begin to reduce its forces there.
In India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, Rogers disco
"the feeling that the Soviet Union is not a threat." What the
leaders of all these nations feared, however, was internal sub-
version. And most of them wanted the U.S. to have more "presence
in their countries.
Viet 18
One of the more interesting leaders on Rogers' calling
list was General Yahya Khan of Pakistan. He is, said Rogers, a
"reluctant dictator," who got into that position after the former
President, Ayub Khan, unable to maintain power, turned the country
over to Yahya, who had headed the army. Now, reported Rogers,
Yahya wanted elections as soon as possible so he could get out.
The President was particularly interested in how Pakistan
was faring. He had been there five times, twice as Vice President
and three times as a private citizen. And he had many friends there,
particularly Yahya's predecessor, Ayub Khan, with whom he had kept
in touch over the years.
As Rogers kept referring to the Pakistani leader as Yahya,
the President broke in: "I think we have a secret weapon here.
If we ever get into trouble with Pakistan, we'll send Zsa Zsa to
see Yahya."
As for Iran, Secretary Rogers said it was evident that
the country was doing tremendously well under the strong leadership
of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi. "The Shah feels very close to you,
Mr. President," Rogers said.
Nowhere he went, Rogers continued, did he find any
hostility to the United States. "No one said, 'Yankee, go home'
or take your troops out or anything like that." On the contrary,
he felt that leaders of most of the countries he had visited wanted
the United States to be more active in their areas. But Rogers
said he promised only that the U.S. would keep its commitments,
citing domestic problems as putting limitations on what this country
Viet. 19
could do. Everywhere he went, however, he urged more regional
organizations so that countries in various parts of the world could
do more for themselves. On the whole, he felt that he had quite
a successful trip.
The President asked Rogers to say a word about the mood
he found in Great Britain because "this could be an indication of
what might happen to us." The Secretary said that he found the
British in a very defensive mood because everyone was scolding them
for reducing their commitments around the world.
Then, at the President's request, Secretary of Defense
Laird reported briefly on the NATO planning meeting he had just
attended. First, Laird said that U.S. credibility had been complete
restored by Mr. Nixon's European trip early in his Administration.
Our allies now understand that we intend to consult with them on
European policy. And, with a knowing sidelong glance at Secretary
Rogers, Laird said he found the NATO military people "far more
realistic about the threat from Russia than the Foreign Ministers."
The military people, for example, were disturbed by the Soviet
operation in Czechoslovakia while the Foreign Ministers seemed to
take the view that detente was just around the corner. However,
even the Defense Ministers were under pressure to reduce their
military commitments. Asked by the President whether the European
leaders had confidence in the credibility of the U.S. deterrent,
Laird said, "They do."
According to Laird, Canada had come in for some sharp
criticism for its rather negative position on NATO. One European
Viet 20
leader, in fact, had referred to Canada's Prime Minister Pierre
Elliott Trudeau as "a combination of Frank Sinatra and Hamlet."
Laird also reported that British Prime Minister Harold
Wilson was anxious to visit the United States, particularly since
Conservative Party leader Edward Heath, on a private visit, had
been entertained by the President. "We'll give him equal time,"
the President said with a smile.
Commenting on the trips taken by the Secretaries of
State and Defense, the President suggested that other members of
the Cabinet should and would soon have occasion to travel abroad.
It was the general feeling, he went on, that such trips were very
much in the nation's interest. He urged the Secretaries to get
good briefings in advance and, particularly in the case of Eastern
Europe and the Soviet Union, to coordinate their trips through
Cabinet Secretary John Whitaker so that there would be no conflict
with this country's best interests.
Such a check, he said, had prevented a situation which
could have found Secretary of the Interior Walter Hickel in the
Soviet Union on the first anniversary of the Soviet's military
action in Czechoslovakia. "We didn't want Wally drinking vodka
in Moscow on the anniversary of the day when Russian troops went
stomping over the Czechs," said the President.
Secretary Rogers said that, taking a lesson from Nelson
Rockefeller's unfortunate experiences in Latin America, Cabinet
officers should avoid trips to places where major demonstrations
Viet...21
might occur. The New York Governor, on a Presidential mission
beginning in mid-May, had been greeted by anti-American, mostly
leftwing, student demonstrations in several countries.
"The place where you will be safest," the President said,
"will be in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. You can bet
there won't be any demonstrations there." He went on to say that
if any Cabinet members were going to Latin America, it would be
best if they went on a low-key basis. Even then, he added, they
should expect demonstrations, particularly from students.
"Summer is not a bad time to go to Europe," the President
smiled, "unless they have summer school."
But, the President said, in the final analysis the Cabinet
members should not fail to make trips just because they might
encounter a few people along the way demonstrating against the
United States. This was a fact of political life we will have to
live with. The thing to remember, however, is that these demon-
strators, violent as they may be, very rarely reflect majority
sentiment - just as a handful of Black Panthers don't represent
the many millions of law-abiding black citizens in this country.
The President then urged travel to Africa and Asia as
well as the other areas that had been mentioned.
"But wherever you go," the President cautioned his
Cabinet officers, "please remember one thing: Don't promise anything.
The President, of course, had his own travel plans in mind,
First, of course, was his trip to Midway to size up
President Thieu, upon whom his still unpublicized plans
Viet 22
for disengagement from South Vietnam would depend. And, as the
President later told me, he liked what he saw -- a softspoken man
with the potential for leadership which his nation sorely needed.
It was during a two-hour meeting in the freshly repainted
home of Captain Albert S. Yesensky, Commanding Officer of the U.S.
Naval Station on Midway Island, that the two men ironed out details
for the first withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam.
Thieu made it clear he had no objections. "After all,"
he said, "we have been saying for years we were getting stronger.
And if that is the case, then we have to be willing to see some
Americans leave."
"I would not like to be breaking the umbilical cord to
your people " Mr. Nixon responded.
"No, you will not."
Thus assured the President asked Thieu to read a statement
he planned to read to the newsmen assembled outside. "Is it agree-
able to you?" the President asked. It was. After which the Presi-
and yoursel
dent read a draft statement which Thieu intended to read. Then both
leaders emerged into the bright sunlight to meet the press.
"I have decided," Mr. Nixon said, "to order the immediate
redeployment from Vietnam of a division equivalent of approximately
25,000 men. This troop replacement will begin within the next thirty
days and it will be completed by the end of August. During the
month of August and at regular intervals thereafter, we shall review
the situation, having in mind three criteria
Viet. 23
"First, the progress insofar as the training and equipping
of South Vietnamese forces; second, progress in the Paris peace
talks; and third, the level of enemy activity.
"I will announce plans for further replacements as decisions
are made. As replacement of U.S. forces begins, I want to emphasize
two fundamental principles: No actions will be taken which threaten
the safety of our troops and the troops of our allies; and second,
no action will be taken which endangers the attainment of our
objective, the right of self-determination for the people of South
Vietnam."
As Mr. Nixon has more recently recalled, he took this
first guarded step towards disengagement despite fears of senior
military men who frankly felt the South Vietnamese were not yet
ready to take over the burdens of fighting the war. No doubt, it
was a gamble. But the President felt he had to move in that
direction if only to cope with dissatisfaction at home. And, of
course, there was always the hope that Ho Chi Minh and his associ-
ates might begin to negotiate more seriously.
"
"
Would the South Vietnamese really be able to hack it on
their own? No one really knew. As a top Saigon official told
Secretary of State Rogers: "It's like a man learning to ride a
bicycle. We think we can do it, but you never know until the man
running alongside takes his hand away."
The American hand would be gradually taken away in a pro-
gram which already had been dubbed by Secretary of Defense Laird
as "Project Vietnamization."
Viet. 24
North Vietnam's immediate response was hardly encouraging.
For the first time in three months, there was sharp fighting in the
demilitarized zone. Even more depressing, from the viewpoint of
the White House, was the fact that, if anything, the Communists
had become more intransigeant in Paris.
Again there was a deep-seated division within the United
States Government on the meaning of it all. There were those who
continued to feel that North Vietnam, unable to sustain its present
level of combat losses, would be forced to bite the bullet and
negotiate seriously. Another group of advisers felt, however,
that Hanoi was counting on anti-war sentiment in this country to
force a panicky withdrawal of American troops. Hanoi's leaders,
it was said, had long memories. Just fifteen years ago the Vietminh,
led by Ho Chi Minh, had beaten the more powerful French forces
largely because the French home front had caved in.
The President well knew what he was facing at home. He
felt at this time that the war could be lost in the crumbling
of support, not on the battlefield, but within the country itself.
He was aware that a sector of the American people had become so
alienated that no appeal or summons in the nation's interest could
possibly reach it.
And, sure enough,
the Midway meeting was not enough to
pacify the more virulent critics either in Washington or among the
peace-at-any-price clique. Senator George McGovern, speaking for
many critics of the war, asserted: "I don't see that as anything
more than token action."
Viet. 25
But at least McGovern had the virtue of consistency on
his side. He had long been opposed to the war and had made no
secret of it. But what about an establishment Democrat such as
W. Averell Harriman? Here was a gentleman who had long supported
the war and was one of the most ardent apologists for Lyndon
Johnson's policies. And, as chief negotiator in Paris during the
Johnson Administration, he had gotten nowhere dealing with the
Communists. Now, with a Republican in the White House, Harriman
within a matter of several months was loudly impatient to terminate
an involvement for which he bore a large share of responsibility.
Another establishment Democrat who piqued the President
was Clark Clifford, Secretary of Defense in the previous Adminis-
tration, who in an article published in Foreign Affairs recommended
removing one hundred thousand troops from Vietnam by the end of
1969, and the rest by the end of 1970.*
# A half-year earlier, during the 1968 Presidential campaign,
Hubert Humphrey, seeking to break out of the stranglehold of LBJ's
hardnosed Vietnam policy, floated a timid balloon proposing a
modest withdrawal of U.S. troops. Clark Clifford, at LBJ's behest,
took to television to knock down the balloon.
Asked about this piece of gratuitous advice at his
June 19 press conference, the President appeared to depart from
the cool composure which had marked his previous appearances and
delivered an acid recapitulation of Democratic failures to end the
Viet...26
war. He pointed out that "for five years in the Administration
in which [Clifford] was Secretary of Defense in the last part,
we had a continued escalation of the war; we had 500,000 Americans
in Vietnam; we had 35,000 killed; we had over 200,000 injured.
"And, in addition to that, we found that in the year,
the full year, in which he was Secretary of Defense, our casualties
were the highest of the whole five-year period and, as far as
negotiations were concerned, all that had been accomplished, as
I indicated earlier, was that we had agreed on the shape of the
table.
"This is not to say that Mr. Clifford's present judgement
is not to be considered because of the past record. It does
indicate, however, that he did have a chance in this particular
respect, and did not move on it then.
I believe that we have changed that policy. We have
started to withdraw forces. We will withdraw more. Another
decision will be made in August. I will not indicate the number,
because the number will depend upon the extent of training of
the South Vietnamese, as well as developments in Paris, and the
other factors I have mentioned previously.
"As far as how many will be withdrawn by the end of this
year, or the end of next year, I would hope that we could beat
Mr. Clifford's timetable, just as I think we have done a little
better than he did when he was in charge of our national defense."
The President's statement that he hoped to better the
schedule suggested by Clark Clifford produced headlines and created
Viet. .27
high expectations around the world. And all that weekend Adminis-
tration personnel busily explained that Mr. Nixon's expression of
hope that he could withdraw all combat troops by the end of 1970
was just that -- a "hope" and not, as some would have it, a time-
table or schedule. It was quite obvious that his spokesmen wanted
to extricate the President from the trap of making frivolous
promises or of indulging in the language of "turning corners" and
"bringing the boys home by Christmas" -- the sort of jargon that
destroyed the credibility on Vietnam of previous Administrations.
That the President indeed had had an off day at the press
conference was demonstrated by other slips of the tongue. Thus,
he referred to "President Rockefeller" and chided himself for the
"Freudian" slip; and he casually cut the nation's Negro population
approximately in half, referring to eleven million law-abiding
black citizens. But these were of more minor consequence.
On June 28, 1969 while he was in New York for a dental
appointment, it was announced that the President would go behind
the Iron Curtain in August for an unprecedented official visit to
Rumania, the first American President to visit a Communist country
since Franklin Delano Roosevelt did so during World War II. The
visit would follow a tour that would take the President to the
planned splashdown of the Apollo 11 moon vehicle on July 24 and
then to five Asian nations --- the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand,
India and Pakistan -- in less than a week.
The journey to Rumania had been proposed by President
Nicolae Ceausescu a month after Mr. Nixon had come into office.
Viet 28
And Mr. Nixon liked the idea very much. So much so he assigned
Kissinger to quietly make the arrangements.
As a private citizen, Richard Nixon had been treated
royally -- if that is the word -- by the Rumanians when he visited
Bucharest in March 1967. This, in fact, had been the high point
of his trip behind the Iron Curtain. Poland had refused him a
visa to stop over in Warsaw. Soviet leaders had declined to see
him. And Czechoslovakia had given him third-class treatment.
Mr. Nixon had had a two-hour talk with Ceausescu and not
long afterward the Rumanian President told a viaiting newspaperman:
"Nixon is a practical man. He wants peace and so do we. I think
we can do business with him."
But the President had other reasons, besides saying hello
once again to a gracious host, in returning to Bucharest. Probably
the most important was to get word through to the Communist rulers
in Peking that he seriously desired a break with the past.
Under the leadership of Ceausescu, Rumania had established
excellent relations with Peking. For one thing, Rumania had
refused to go along with Moscow's criticisms of China, seeking
instead to mediate the Sino-Soviet dispute. And although his
country was a member of the Warsaw Pact, Ceausescu termed the
invasion of Czechoslovakia by other pact members as "an infamous
moment in the history of the revolutionary movement...a flagrant
violation of the national sovereignty of a free and independent
state."
Ceausescu had done more than that to antagonize the men
in the Kremlin. He established diplomatic relations with West
Viet...29
Germany and sought greater diplomatic and trade ties with the West
generally. And Rumania maintained neutrality in the Arab-Israeli
dispute. In a very real sense, therefore, Rumania was a bridge
between the East and the West.
As President Nixon had expected, there were those
"Kremlinologists" in the State Department who immediately raised
objections to the forthcoming trip. They declared it to be a
diplomatic gamble -- for Rumania in a tense period of its relations
with the Soviet Union, and for the U.S. as we moved gingerly towards
arms limitation talks with our most powerful ideological opponent.
Sure enough, the Russians quickly registered their anger
with the White House.
And Richard Nixon told his aides there would be no
turning back. He would visit Bucharest, no matter what the Russians
or the State Department thought. It would not be the last time
that the President would ignore such counsels.
Before leaving on the round-the-world trip that would
take him to Rumania, the President played host at a baseball
reception at the White House. He was in rare form, disclosing
that "if I had to live my life over again, I would have liked to
have ended up as a sports writer." He had planned to attend the
All-Star game at RFK Stadium that night but, because of heavy
rains, it was cancelled.
And then, in a whisk of a jet across a continent and
half an ocean, the President was on board the U.S.S. Hornet greeting
Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins on their return from
Viet 30
the moon. The President had gambled on the successful completion
of their Apollo 11 mission.
The following day the President arrived in Guam where,
before newsmen, he spelled out what has become known as the Nixon
Doctrine: We should help countries fight internal subversion but
not fight for them. In other words, hopefully, no more Vietnams.
And in the various nations of Asia that he visited his
message was essentially the same: the U.S. intended to keep a lower
silhouette in that part of the world once the Vietnam war was over.
In other words, our friends abroad were given notice that U.S.
ties would be loosened, although not cut entirely.
From Bangkok, Mr. Nixon flew secretly to Saigon, the
first American President ever to visit the capital of South Vietnam.
Aboard Air Force One, the President was in a relaxed mood, remin-
including Amos
iscing about his previous trips to Southeast Asia Suddenly, he
asked: "How would you like to go to Hanoi?" His listeners were
startled. But then the President smiled, recalling a visit he
had made there in 1953.
After meeting with President Thieu at Independence
Palace, Mr. Nixon helicoptered to Di An, the 1st Infantry Division
base about thirteen miles from Saigon, where he spoke to troops
preparing to go on night patrol.
"This war," he said, "1s the most difficult war any army
has ever fought. Certainly, it is the most difficult war any
army of the United States of America has fought. Because this is
Viet 31
the first time in our history when we have had a lack of under-
standing of why we are here, what this war is all about, where we
have had real division at home But also out here in this dreary,
difficult war, I think history will record that this may have been
one of America's finest hours, because we took a difficult task and
we succeeded.
"You are doing your job. I can assure you we are going
to try to do ours to see that you didn't fight in vain."
And then as he stepped into the jeep that would take him
back to his helicopter, he had a sudden thought. He turned and
said: "I'll see you all back home."
Return 1
CHAPTER 7
Exactly two years after the President's two-day visit
to Rumania, the Village Voice in New York, one of the more Nixon-
phobic of leftwing weeklies, published a dispatch from Bucharest
which came to Mr. Nixon's attention through his Daily News Summary.
Written by Elliot Brewster, the dispatch began: "Richard
Nixon is very popular here, particularly among intellectuals. I
was astonished when I heard a young professor at the University
of Jassy tell me, 'How lucky you are to have so well educated a
President, so humane a man, so good a speaker, a man of such depth,
and even a handsome man.' I tried to explain that, as a matter of
fact, Nixon was quite unpopular among young academics in the U.S.,
but after being told the same thing over and over again, I stopped
protesting.
"Vietnam? No one cares very much, even though the party
newspaper loyally devotes a few column inches every other day to the
triumphs of the popular forces of resistance in Indochina. The
talk about the evil imperialist dogs of Wall Street is gone from
Rumanian newspapers -- a bad memory of the days of Stalinism --
and everyone sees the U.S. as a golden land of kindly rich people.
Old peasant women in villages would come up to me to see an American
who actually spoke Rumanian, and say, 'God bless you and your
country.' In a far northern village an old woman showed me a
U.S. flag she had made. She cried while talking to me. A noted
art critic in Bucharest told me he cried when Nixon visited
Return 2
Bucharest in 1969, and said that never in its history had Bucharest
been so full of enthusiasm as during that visit."
Just hours after his return from that trip to Asia and
Rumania, the President briefed the bipartisan legislative leader-
ship in the White House. Despite his exhausting trip, the President
was unusually buoyant, obviously feeling enthusiastic about his
accomplishments.
The President, who was greeted with warm applause by the
Congressional leaders of both parties, said that his visits with
Nicolae Ceausescu in Rumania and Yahya Khan in Pakistan were valuabl
The two leaders had been particularly illuminating on the status
of the Sino-Soviet conflict and provided information that the
President could not obtain from his own intelligence sources.
And then the President spoke of the changing U.S. policy
in Asia, noting he would not be particularly surprised if some
people in the room had been somewhat confused by seeming contradic-
tions in his statements in various Asian nations.* They were
* In Thailand, for example, the President assured that Asian
ally that the U.S. would stand by it in the face of a Communist
threat. Some correspondents cabled back dispatches that the pledge
seemed to conflict with the low silhouette doctrine enunciated in
Guam a few days earlier.
indeed contradictions, the President said, and they were quite
deliberate. Our policy in Asia is in a transition stage and differe
Return. 3
countries require different approaches. The U.S., in his view,
must begin to move away from a monolithic approach to a country-by-
country approach in this area. However, this must be done subtly
and gradually and could only work on the basis of general operative
principles.
Nevertheless, the President went on, the U.S. would keep
the commitments it has made thus far, because a failure here would
bring drastic repercussions in terms of American credibility and
what would happen to the people in the area. However, we do not
intend to expand any treaty; the time has come for a painstaking
examination of our commitments on a country-to-country basis. He
was not suggesting, he said, that the American role in Vietnam
had been all wrong. Were it not for the U.S. keeping the cork in
the bottle in Vietnam, the one hundred and fifteen million people
of Indonesia would now be under Communist rule.
These then were the basics of the President's new policy:
To maintain the credibility of America's existing commitments and
to make no new ones in the area. In other words, a "limit on
commitments." However, if a major power should move across a border
openly, this could mean a different ball game; but because that
would involve a confrontation of some kind with the U.S., the
President felt this to be an unlikely development.
In the event an Asian nation is faced with an internal
threat, it will in the future be forced to deal with the difficulties
entirely on its own. However, if the internal troubles are being
provoked and subsidized from the outside, then we will provide
Return
4
assistance in the form of arms and materials, but we will not
provide troops. This is the new approach: we will help in a
material, not a manpower, way.
The President, who was interrupted by a burst of applause,
then talked about the need for Japan to play an increasing role
in the area, a theme he had touched upon before. However, in
talking with the leaders of the non-Communist states in Asia, he
had discovered that Japan was considered a hard bargainer.
As for Vietnam, the President said he was not quite certain
but it seemed evident that the military situation had improved
substantially in recent months. Casualties were decreasing, but,
as far as he was concerned, the rate was too high. We had been
expecting an enemy offensive in late June or early August, but it
hadn't taken place. Perhaps one reason for the lull was the
effective tactics employed by General Abrams. We have been doing
things to keep the enemy off balance that have not been publicly
known, the President said.
The President said that General Thieu, whom he had seen
again on his quick trip to Vietnam, continued to impress him as
one of the more able and sophisticated Vietnamese leaders, which,
he added, wasn't saying a great deal. He said that Thieu had opened
up the elections to the Vietcong because he realized that this was
as much a political war as a military one.
As for the Paris talks, the President said we were making
no progress whatsoever. Though we had made concession after con-
cession, the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong had not moved an
Return 5
inch. We would be happy to negotiate without conditions, but we
cannot and must not while the enemy sits with his feet planted in
concrete waiting for us to go further. However, there was the
possibility that the lull in the fighting might indicate that the
enemy was hurting and wanted to bring an end to the conflict.
The President said it was his guess that if the enemy
does seek serious negotiations he will do so in private, not public,
talks. What the U.S. has offered them, the President went on,
was a peace with justice and honor for both sides. If they don't
take that, then we will have to look in other directions. He
said the trick was to end the war in a way that would make a future
war unlikely, as well as not leaving such countries as India,
Thailand and Indonesia with the impression that the mighty United
States, after expending blood and treasure, had been defeated.
That could only leave a vacuum of power in Asia which would be filled
by either the Chinese or the Soviets. If a Vietnamese settlement
results in a Communist Government in Saigon in one or two years,
the American people would simply throw up their hands and get out
of Asia. And we couldn't let that happen. We couldn't let
Communism dominate Asia because that's where sixty percent of the
world's people live.
Almost every Asian leader asked whether he agreed with a
Soviet proposal for a collective security pact for Asia, the
President noted. His answer had been a categorical no. If the
United States entered into what would amount to an anti-Chinese
security pact with the Russians, it would enormously enhance Soviet
Return 6
influence in Asia; would strengthen the Communist party in non-
Communist countries; but it would also permit the Chinese to level
the charge that the Russians and Americans had joined together
in "a white alliance" against the non-white peoples in the area.
Not only was the President opposed to a Soviet-American condominium
over Asia, but he was anxious to find a way to communicate with
the Chinese, he added.*
Of course, unknown to the Congressional leadership and, for
that matter, to most everyone but a tiny handful of White House
experts, the President was already taking a number of behind-the-
scenes steps to establish communication with Peking.
The President then turned to his visit to Bucharest.
Something most extraordinary happened in that Communist capital.
Though he had expected a good reception, he frankly had not been
prepared for the overflow crowds which greeted him wherever he
went. In Eastern Europe, said the President, there are about one
hundred and fifty million people, most of whom like the United
States. Though liberation was now no longer possible, increased
communication with these peoples behind the Iron Curtain most
definitely was in our interest. Thus, he heartily recommended
that Senators and Congressmen travelling abroad program time for
Eastern Europe. And, incidentally, the President went on, he
predicted "those Soviet troops won't move into Rumania," as had
been feared.
Return 7
The President said he believed that the unusually friendly
reception that he had received in Bucharest would not be lost on
the men in Hanoi. That coupled with the Apollo mission had brought
a tremendous increase in American prestige around the world.
At this point, a Congressman asked what the President's
position was on East-West trade. The President said that he did not
favor trade with East European count ies which furnish arms to the
North Vietnamese. Once we get Vietnam out of the way, however, we
could open up East-West trade dramatically. He conceded that at
one time he was of the opinion that trading with a Communist country
only helped strengthen its iron hand over its people. But now he
believed in trade in order to open up those countries to other
influences. Adding consumer goods to their economies tends to
leaven their repressive societies, the President added.
As far as an exchange of persons goes, he generally
thought that to be good.
Another Congressman, noted for his interest in military
affairs, spoke up. If we are going to stop propping up the Asians,
he asked, why should we continue to prop up the Europeans? He also
asked about the possibility of bringing home American troops.
The President answered that he didn't think that this was
the time to discuss the problem, especially with German elections
imminent. He said if we do lay it on the line, we ought to do it
privately, not publicly.
A Senator raised the question about an American agreement
with Thailand, an agreement with which the President did not seem
Return 8
familiar. According to the Senator, the agreement called for the
U.S. to provide a division and two brigades of ground troops to
serve under a Thai General in the event of external aggression.
The President said he had talked with the Thais and that
they did not want any American personnel in their country. He
said that he and Prime Minister Thanom Kittikachorn had a frank
discussion, that Thanom had stated they could take care of their
own problems. The main problem, of course, was the presence of an
estimated twenty-five thousand North Vietnamese in Thailand. The
President emphasized to the leadership that "there is no commitment
for American ground troops in Thailand."
In fact, he had not made any commitments or passed out
any money in any of the countries he visited.
Home...1
CHAPTER 8
To no surprise to the President he began to draw flak
from certain segments of the press. Most of the attacks did not
unduly concern him. In the course of a crowded political lifetime,
many harsh things had been said about him and, as he put it, he
had developed relative immunity. On this subject he likes to quote
an old political foe, Harry S Truman, "If you can't stand the heat,
get out of the kitchen."
And Richard Nixon makes it clear he likes being in the
kitchen.
Sometimes, in his opinion, the attacks have been absurd.
A case in point was an editorial in the July 19, 1969 edition of
The New York Times which, under the heading Nixoning the Moon,
took the President to task for his "attempt to share the stage
with the three brave men on Apollo 11" by talking by telephone
with two of them.*
At a July 22 leadership meeting, the President said he hoped
the surtax would be extended so that he could pay for the phone
call to the moon.
According to the editorial, it was President Kennedy who
initiated the Appllo program and Lyndon Johnson who was the program's
most strenuous advocate. But now, the Times continued, because
Mr. Nixon is President "by accident of the calendar" when the moon
Home 2
shot actually was being made, he was engaging in a self-serving
performance "unworthy of the President of the United States."
Obviously it was difficult for the editors of the Times
to accept Mr. Nixon as President. But he was President and, as
such, it was entirely fitting for him as the representative of the
American people to commend the astronauts on their historic
achievement. Only a bad case of Nixonphobia could lead the Times'
editorial board to view the President's phone call as nothing more
than "a publicity stunt of the type Khrushchev used to indulge in."
A telling reply, brought to the President's attention by
his Daily News Summary as he flew to greet the astronauts aboard
the U.S.S. Hornet, was written by Murray Kempton in the New York
Post. An iconoclast whose writings frequently "amused" the President
in his New York days, Kempton accused the Times of "bad manners,"
noting that "Mr. Nixon does happen to be commissioned to be our
national voice" and that if he "should announce that all men are
created equal, will the Times point out that these sentiments are
Jefferson's and denounce the intrusion?
can it be that [the
Times] annoyance with Mr. Nixon has broken the conventional bounds
of courtesy because it feels a greater anger with America displaced
to him? That, of course, would be an anger at things for which
Mr. Nixon is not responsible, an anger at a history made by murder,
and a war of which we are ashamed."
There were other critics who did not reach into the depths
of the picayune for ammunition against the new President. Their
Home...3
most common complaint in those early months seemed to be not so
much that Mr. Nixon had been wrong, but that he had not been active
enough. They recalled with nostalgia that the first hundred days
of the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations had been filled with
furious activity -- new policies proclaimed, Congress flooded with
legislative proposals, the nation rallied to action behind a new
leader.
Of course, it could be argued that there was no Bay of Pigs
either. But that was generally overlooked by such partisan critics
as Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who quite predictably described Mr. Nixon
as "an almost invisible President," contending that "no new Presi-
dent in memory has made so little effort in his first weeks in
office to define his purposes.'
The President had indeed defined his purposes in his
Inaugural speech. And one of those purposes was to avoid the kind
of overblown rhetoric which in Mr. Nixon's opinion had led his
predecessors into promising things that could not easily be fulfilled.
As a matter of fact, Mr. Nixon had carefully gone over the final
drafts of his speech to make certain that it contained no heart-
lifting slogan that could be construed as promising immediate cure-
alls. The nation's problems were too deeply-rooted to be resolved
by empty phrase-mongering.*
* Ten years after the dawn of Camelot, a number of liberal
writers looked back on the Kennedy Administration and discovered
Home 4
they did not like what they saw. "How could we have been thrilled
by that pompous Inaugural Address?" asked Gerald Clarke in The New
Republic of January 16, 1971. "It was jingoistic, a Monroe Doctrine
for the globe itself. How could we have been excited by its swollen,
Cold War Phetoric? 'Now the trumpet summons us again -- not as a
call to battle, though embattled we are -- but a call to bear the
burden of a long twilight struggle year in and year out In the
long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted
the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do
not shrink from this responsibility -- I welcome it.' Nineteen-
sixty-one, the hour of maximum danger? Were things all that bad?
Had good old Ike left us in that bad a state?"
The Schlesinger view of the Presidency calls for a Chief
Executive to write instant history practically from his first day
in office. It cultivates the notion that a President must be a
semi-royal style setter a la Camelot. And, as during the first
frantic spring of Franklin Roosevelt, results should become apparent
after the first one hundred days.
The Nixon theory of the Presidency, however, was something
that called for judgement over the long haul. Taking note of the
fretful chatter among some Washington observers that the first
hundred days of his Administration were undramatic, if not inanimate,
the President said in effect the pace was deliberate: listen for
a steady humming noise, not the William Tell overture. "I don't
count either the days or the hours, really," he told reporters.
Home 5
"I have never really thought in terms of one hundred days. I
plan for a long term."
The liberals may not have been happy with the new Admini-
stration but neither were some conservatives who began to learn
that the President was not the man they thought he was. "In the
euphoria that followed upon Mr. Nixon's election in November,"
wrote James Jackson Kilpatrick, "some of us on the troglodyte Right
fell into dreams we had no business dreaming. We imagined new
brooms in the State Department, dramatic coups at Paris, the eloquent
enunciation of sound conservative doctrine, the appointment of
advisers who bore some modest resemblance to the Goldwater image
"But, alas, very little of this had taken place and "we
chafed in unwarranted disappointment. Perhaps the spirit of
moderation is contagious. These first hundred days have been days
of constructive non-accomplishment. It isn't another Camelot this
spring -- it's more like Paducah in August -- but one Camelot in
a generation may suffice. As he promised on Inauguration Day,
Mr. Nixon has invoked a lowering of voices. After eight years of
uproar, it's a pleasant change of pace."
On the hundredth day of his Administration, April 30,
President Nixon held a Cabinet meeting at which, among other things,
he introduced Rogers C.B. Morton, a Congressman from Maryland who
was also Chairman of the Republican National Committee. The Presi-
dent said he had asked Morton to attend Cabinet meetings since it
was important for him to be "closely clued in on what we are
thinking and doing." The President added that he was not trying
to make the Cabinet a partisan body but "if some of you can be
Home 6
partisan from time to time, we wouldn't mind." He then called on
Morton to report on what the Republican National Committee had
been doing, commenting: "He didn't know I was going to call on
him but a Congressman is always ready to talk. Someone told me
that this is the one hundredth day of this Administration and
Rogers can tell us what we have done and what is coming in the next
hundred days."
"Well," began Morton, "what we've done in the first
hundred days is elect Barry Goldwater Jr. to Congress from California.
In his travels around the country, Morton went on, he had
found people generally pleased with what the Administration was
doing, although some Republicans were still grumbling about not
enough of the party faithful getting jobs. But the big question on
peoples' minds was the war. "What they want to know is, 'When
are we going to get some good news about Vietnam?" said Morton.
The President then introduced to the Cabinet his new
assistant and director of the Office of Economic Opportunity,
Donald Rumsfeld of Illinois, who had given up a safe Congressional
seat to take over one of the toughest jobs in the Administration
-- the poverty program.
"Have you been approved?" the President asked Rumsfeld.
"No," said Rumsfeld, "the hearing won't be for another
two weeks."
"Is Dirksen for you?" the President asked, with an
ironic grin.
"I think I'm all right there."
Home 7
"Well, if Dirksen is for you," said the President,
"you're in."
Most of the session was devoted to a discussion of an
Administration plan to enlist volunteers in the work of aiding
domestic programs. Among those who did the briefing were George
Romney, as Chairman of a newly formed Cabinet Committee on Voluntary
Action; Max Fisher, the President's Special Consultant on Voluntary
Action; and Mrs. Patricia Reilly Hitt, Assistant Secretary of
Health, Education and Welfare.
One of the principal matters of concern that came up was
the relationship between the volunteers and career employees. Mrs.
Hitt pointed out that "we are likely to run into resistance from
the professional . the so-called bureaucrat. We have already found
this out in HEW." That, said HEW Secretary Finch, was "the under-
statement of the day." Finch said that the professional employees
needed to be assured that the volunteers will be well-trained.
The volunteer's role must be clearly understood on all sides, he
said. "We must get over the old concept of Lady Bountiful from
the suburbs running down into the city scattering rays of sunshine."
The President conceded that there was a great deal of
skepticism on the part of Government people about what volunteers
can do. To a degree, such skepticism was natural. "We learned a
lot about volunteers in the campaign," he said. "We knew we
couldn't run it without them, but sometimes it was hard to run it
with them -- the way they squabbled with one another. But still
they were tremendously important and valuable."
Home 8
"We are not saying volunteers can take over everything,"
the President went on. "We are trying to mobilize a great many
people who want to do something that is useful. There is a reser-
voir of well motivated potential power here, and we must make good
use of it."
The President had a wry thought: "Someone said one of
the problems with volunteers is that you can't fire them. Do any
of you have a way that we can fire some paid people?'
The President also mentioned in passing the "very exciting
time" he had the night before in hosting a dinner honoring Edward
Kennedy "Duke" Ellington on the musician's seventieth birthday. The
President had not yet found the time to throw many parties, but
this was by far the liveliest.
The idea for the evening had come from Charles McWhorter,
a longtime Nixon friend who has broad contacts in the musical
community. McWhorter, a lawyer for the American Telephone & Tele-
graph Company in New York, passed the idea along to Leonard Garment.
The President's reaction was "go."
The President took the opportunity to award Ellington
the Medal of Freedom. He was the first American Negro to be so
honored at an official White House dinner, this man whose father
had once worked in the White House as a butler for Warren G. Harding.
After dinner in the State Dining Room, the President
presented the Medal of Freedom in the East Room. Reading the
recipient's name, the President paused humorously after "Edward
Home 9
Kennedy," drew a big laugh, and concluded with "Ellington." Then
he added: "In the royalty of American music, no man swings more
or stands higher than the Duke."
Ellington showed his gratitude characteristically by
kissing the President twice on each cheek. Then the President
asked everyone to stay. "Duke was asking me earlier if I would
play, and I said I had never done so yet in the White House. But
it did occur to me that one number was missing Would you all
stand and sing -- and please, in the key of G." Then he sat down
at the imposing Steinway and proceeded to thump out "Happy Birthday,"
as everyone sang heartily and joyfully.
There followed a jam session, the likes of which could
probably never be duplicated. The White House had never seen any-
thing like it. Some of the nation's greatest jazz musicians played
Ellington hits. Even Vice President Agnew pounded out a few
convincing bars of "Sophisticated Lady."
"Can you imagine Coolidge ever doing anything like this?"
asked composer Harold Arlen.
Not everything had gone well in those early months. There
was the flap over the appointment of Willie Mae Rogers, director
of the Good Housekeeping Magazine's Institute, as Special Assistant
to the President for Consumer Affairs. Miss Rogers had stirred up
sharp criticism by refusing to quit her Good Housekeeping job. When
the dust had settled four days later, Miss Rogers had resigned.
And the President gave the post to Mrs. Virginia Knauer of Phila-
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delphia, who had headed consumer protection in Pennsylvania. And,
in the President's later opinion, she turned out to be one of his
better appointments.
The President did not shrink from confirming that he had
vetoed the appointment of Dr. Franklin A. Long, vice president for
research at Cornell University, as director of the National Science
Foundation. Criticism of the still-unannounced appointment had come
from a number of prominent Republicans including Ev Dirksen who
had pointed out that Dr. Long had written an article opposing the
Sageguard anti-ballistic missile system proposed by the President.
The President said that in view of the disagreement over
the ABM issue Dr. Long's appointment might be "misunderstood."
But partisans of Dr. Long howled long and loud and The
New York Times fired off a broadside. Then the President had a
session with the National Science Foundation's board, which formally
had deplored the "winds of political change" involved in the incident
The President said he had been wrong in denying Dr. Long the
directorship. He said he had asked Dr. Long if he wanted his name
resubmitted but that he refused because he did not want the con-
troversial case reopened.
It had been a long time since a President of the United
States had confessed making an error, but there was another aspect
to the story which was brought out by John P. Roche, who had been
Lyndon Johnson's intellectual-in-residence. Roche, a liberal
Democrat who has taken to writing a column since his exit from the
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White House, made this point: "As Senate Minority Leader, Dirksen
has taken on the job of protecting the Nixon Administration from
bipartisanship. Now I share some of the Senator's views -- had
we won the election, I would certainly be doing my best to keep
any of his political 1lk out of high Federal posts. Under present
circumstances, therefore, I hardly expect him to give his apostolic
blessing to liberal Democrats. Dirksen is perfectly consistent
in arguing that Dr. Long's opposition to the ABM should bar him
from high office. He is indeed far more consistent than some of
Long's supporters who claim that the post is 'non-political, but
who would scream like banshees if Nixon had appointed a distinguished
scientist who, for instance, indorsed a preemptive nuclear strategy."
A similar case was the nomination of Dr. John Knowles,
director of Massachusetts General Hospital, as Assistant Secretary
of health in HEW. The nomination was opposed by Ev Dirksen and
the American Medical Association which considered Knowles too
liberal. Eventually Knowles was vetoed by the White House. In his
place, Secretary Finch nominated Dr. Roger Egeberg who, though as
much a medical "activist" as Knowles, did not arouse AMA disapproval.
Administration critics tried to make capital out of the
foregoing flaps. But, as the President stated privately, they
would be largely forgotten in a matter of weeks. What really counted
were the big issues and on these most objective observers gave him,
in the words of Dean Acheson, "good marks." The former Secretary
of State was commenting on the President's European travels which
Acheson had opposed at the outset.
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"I was wrong, " Acheson said.
Acheson also defended the President's decision to proceed
with the Safeguard ABM project, then under heavy fire from Senate
doves. He compared it with Harry Truman's judgement in going ahead
with the hydrogen bomb in 1948, even though many eminent scientists
had voiced disapproval. U.S. intelligence had reported to President
Truman that the Soviets were building their own bombs and would
proceed no matter what the U.S. might or might not do. "Under
these circumstances," said Acheson, "it required no special know-
ledge" to arrive at the right course of action. "If we had not
developed this weapon, the Russians would have been well ahead."
What made Acheson's remarks all the more interesting
was the fact that he and the President had had many well-publicized
differences over the years. But now all that was forgotten and the
former Secretary of State became a familiar figure around the
White House.
Mr. Nixon went out of his way to bury the hatchet with
former President Truman. The occasion was a visit to the Truman
Library in Independence, Missouri, where Mr. Nixon presented the
Steinway piano which had been in the White House during the Truman
years. The President took the occasion to note the bipartisanship
on foreign policy in those years: " where the defense of the
United States is concerned, or peace is concerned, we are not
Republicans or Democrats, but Americans."
The President concluded his short visit by playing The
Missouri Waltz on the Truman piano.
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All of which proved disconcerting to the President's
would-be detractors. Where was the "Tricky Dick" they had so loved
to hate? Except for his momentary irritation with Clark Clifford
(and that was mild compared with some Presidential outbursts of
the past), Richard Nixon was just not acting the way they had
expected Richard Nixon to act.
The truth was that his lack of partisanship even confused
his political allies. Key Federal jobs were being filled slowly
and there were gags about awaiting the start of the Nixon Adminis-
tration. Party loyalists up on the Hill were screaming to high
heaven about not being able to get jobs for their constituents.
Senator Robert Dole complained about his inability to place a
single Kansan in the Administration in those early months. "There
must be a spot for one between now and 1976," he said. "A janitor
maybe?"
At one Republican leadership meeting, Ev Dirksen brought
up the problem and noted that the man who shot President Garfield
was an office-seeker disgruntled by a lack of patronage. The
President laughed and said he had better lay on some more security.
Eventually, under the guidance of 28-year-old Harry
Flemming, the Republican furor over the President's talent hunt
subsided. Flemming, hired by the President for what proved to be
one of the tougher assignments, had been a businessman, member of
the Alexandria, Virginia, City Council and a Special Assistant to
the Republican National Chairman.
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One of Flemming's problems was the fact that the President
had only about 2,300 patronage Jobs (out of a total of three
million Federal positions) to bestow, of which three hundred were
at the Cabinet and sub-Cabinet level, with the rest a little lower
than the angels but a little higher than civil service. Another
problem arose from the fact that the President, himself, had told
his Cabinet Secretaries that they could do their own hiring. Later,
the President conceded that this instruction had been unwise. By
that time, however, it was too late. And Harry Flemming was soon
involved in some pretty tough battles trying to get good Republicans
into some of those vacancies.
What really stunned many Republican legislators was
Richard Nixon's insistence on removing postmasterships from the
political spoils system. This was a principal source of patronage
for the Congressmen and they couldn't understand why, after eight
years out in the wilderness, it had to be snuffed out so quickly.
But the President was adamant about pushing through
postal reform even though he knew full well it wouldn't gain him
many votes.
And he knew he was heading for political trouble in
trying to cope with inflation. For, in the early weeks of his
Administration, he made one of his templess risklest decisions. And that
was to slow down the economy, after four successive years of
inflation, by reducing Federal expenditures as well as adopting
fiscal policies designed to hold back business expansion even at
the risk of increasing unemployment. It was a gamble, but Richard
Nixon could see no other way.