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Richard Nixon Presidential Library
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Foreign Policy
Book
A book entitled, "The Nixon Years", by
Victor Lasky. RE: Chapters 17-27. 230 pgs.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
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The nixon years by victor
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[DOC*3] *
Lashn, charts 17-27
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267
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The nipon years by Victor Kashy (Part 30/3]
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Jordan
1
CHAPTER 17
Even before he took the oath of office, Richard Nixon
had been warning that the Middle East constituted a "powder keg"
that could well explode into a nuclear confrontation between the
superpowers. This was one of the "nightmares" he inherited and,
in terms of complexity and emotions, it was to prove more difficult
a problem than anything he was to face in his first term in office.
In fact, by mid-1970 the United States and the Soviet Union were
being propelled on a collision course which could have touched off
World War III. However, by a series of decisive moves, the President
managed to dampen the crisis -- the most serious to confront his
Administration during his first years in office.
The basic reason for the crisis, of course, was the
bitter hatred felt by the Arab powers toward Israel. As the Presi-
dent had repeatedly observed, both privately and publicly, it was
the Arabs' principal ambition "to drive Israel into the sea."
The Israelis, on the other hand, just wanted to be left alone.
And whatever the merits of the Arab case, the President's primary
concern was to prevent their almost fanatical bitterness from
dragging the Soviet Union and the United States closer to the
ultimate conflict.
By May of 1970 all United States efforts to get a settle-
ment of the Israeli-Arab conflict proved fruitless. Instead of
cooperating with the United States, the Soviet Union, following
its mechanistic catechism of exploiting trouble while expanding its
Jordan 2
sphere of influence, kept supplying the U.A.R. with arms, taking
the position that arms control could only follow, not contribute to,
a settlement. In April the President was informed that Soviet
pilots were flying operational missions over the U.A.R. Meanwhile,
fighting was taking place almost daily along the Suez Canal.
And, in retaliation, the Israeli Air Force struck deep into the
U.A.R. At the same time, Israeli forces conducted a thirty-two-hour
sweep against Arab guerrilla positions in neighboring Lebanon. The
"explosion" that the President had feared seemed in the making.
This led the Nixon Administration to propose a cease-fire
for ninety days, one which called for "a just and lasting peace
based on (1) mutual acknowledgement by the United Arab Republic,
Jordan and Israel of each other's sovereignty, territorial integrity
and political independence, and (2) Israeli withdrawal from terri-
tories occupied in the 1967 conflict, both in accordance with" the
U.N. Security Council Resolution of November 22, 1967.
The presence of Soviet personnel -- both technicians and
combat pilots -- in the U.A.R. was of particular concern to the
President. So much so that at an off-the-record briefing with top
publishers and broadcasters in San Clemente early in July, Dr.
Kissinger warned it might become necessary to "expel" the Russians
from Egypt before they became firmly entrenched. Asked how he
would carry this out, Kissinger said he was reminded of the World
War II story of the man who was asked how to deal with German U-boats
in the Atlantic. The man had said the answer was to heat up the
Jordan. 3
ocean and boil the submarines to the surface. When a persistent
questioner had then asked, "How do you do that?" the man had replied:
"I have given you the idea. The technical execution is up to you.'
The Kissinger statement caused some concern in the State
Department which had for weeks been conducting an intensive diplo-
matic campaign to obtain support for the U.S. cease-fire initiative.
Finally, Jordan, the U.A.R. and Israel accepted the military stand-
still. As did the Soviet Union. And on August 7, the guns were
stilled along the Suez Canal. And Gunnar Jarring of Sweden, the
special United Nations Mideast envoy, in accordance with the new
agreement, began separate talks with the representatives of Israel,
the U.A.R. and Jordan. It appeared that negotiations might be begun.
In the early hours of the cease-fire the United States
received evidence that the Egyptians were massively moving surface-
to-air missiles toward the Suez Canal. The missiles, Soviet-supplied
and Soviet-manned, could now hit incoming Israeli planes over
Israeli territory. There was nothing clandestine about any of this.
The Soviets knew full well that U.S. and Israeli aerial reconnaisance
were monitoring the moves.
Obviously the Russians didn't care. And they didn't care
because they apparently believed that the Nixon Administration,
preoccupied as it was with political turmoil resulting from the
explosive campus reaction to Cambodia, would say and do nothing
about their cynical Suez trickery. But they guessed wrong.
Nevertheless, at first, Israeli confidence in American
pledges was seriously eroded because of the Soviet-inspired cheating.
Jordan
4
And just as troubling to the Israelis was the fear that anti-war
sentiment had so poisoned America's will to resist Communist aggres-
sion that, in the event of a crunch, the United States would capitu-
late. And there was the complicating factor that Israel herself
had lost much popularity in the world, largely because of her
unwillingness to return the territories captured in the June war
of 1967. In the final analysis only Richard Nixon could prevent
the destruction of Israel.
* These were the sentiments expressed to the writer by top
Israeli officials during a ten-day visit to Israel at the height
of the crisis in the fall of 1970. The Israelis talked about the
Soviet Union the way American anti-Communists did twenty years ago
-- in terms of Moscow seeking world domination. The Israelis viewed
the Soviet military presence in Egypt as part of their political
strategy for Asia and Africa.
The Soviet doublecross angered the President. "It will
not be overlooked," he said at the time.
Against this background there occurred a well planned
series of hijackings of jet planes bound for New York from Europe.
The hijackings, beginning on September 6, were committed by the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a pro-Marxist terrorist
group seeking the "liberation" of Palestine from the "Zionist
invaders." The leader of the Popular Front, Dr. George Habash, said
he was opposed to a peace settlement in the Middle East and that
Jordan 5
he would not hesitate to risk a third world war if it served
his objectives.
Three of the planes, with hundreds of passengers aboard,
many of them Americans, were flown to a desert airstrip outside
of Amman, the capital of Jordan. By now the passengers had become
hostages and attempts to get them released were unavailing. The
demands of the Arab guerrillas holding the hostages were rejected
by the United States, Britain, West Germany, Switzerland and Israel.
The President himself talked by telephone to the leaders of the
other nations in order to coordinate a united response. The Presi-
dent was spending a considerable amount of time on the problem. *
* And he looked it, too. I had a chance to talk with the Presi-
dent for about ten minutes during this period. I had run into him
as he was leaving his EOB office for the White House. He asked me
to accompany him across the street. I remarked to the President
that he looked tired. He said he was indeed. He had been going
with little sleep for several nights, working on the problem of
getting the terrorist-held hostages out of the Jordanian desert.
I told him I was leaving for Israel. He asked me to go to the
small kibbutz of Godot in the Golan Heights that he had visited
shortly after the Six Day War. He said he had been greatly impressed
by the remarkable courage of these people who had been under constant
Syrian fire for years. "Tell those people in the kibbutz that I
am thinking of them in this moment of crisis," the President said.
I carried out the President's request.
Jordan 6
Obviously unforeseen by all parties in the Middle East
dispute, the hijackings nevertheless had the effect of undermining
confidence, particularly among the Israelis, in the Arabs' ability
to control their constituents or to deliver on any settlement that
might result from serious negotiations.
And more specifically, the Fedayeen's flagrant disregard
of King Hussein's authority was precipitating a crisis within Jordan.
On the night of September 15, many of the nation's high-
est officials had gathered at Airlie House in Warrenton, Virginia,
for a dinner honoring Defense Secretary Laird. During the dinner
Henry Kissinger received an urgent telephone call. The message was
that the White House had received a "hotline" call from London
advising that a full-fledged civil war was about to break out in
Jordan. The call had come from Sir Dennis Greenhill, the Permanent
Undersecretary of State, who wanted to know what the United States
intended to do. Sir Dennis also reported that Prime Minister
Edward Heath (who had bested Harold Wilson in the general elections
the previous June) might want to talk with the President.
Kissinger left for the White House immediately. With him
went other members of the Administration's crisis-management team,
the Washington Special Actions Group (WSAG), which was organized
following the North Korean shooting down of the U.S. spy plane in
1969. They included Admiral Thomas Moorer, Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of staff; Deputy Secretary of Defense David Packard; CIA
Director Richard Helms and Assistant Secretary of State Joseph Sisco
Jordan
7
in charge of the Middle East. Arriving at the White House at
10:30 p.m., they were joined by three members of the NSC staff:
General A1 Haig, Harold Saunders and Talcott Seelye.
Kissinger called Sir Dennis. Sisco was also on the line.
One of the issues discussed was how to rescue and evacuate the
hijacked hostages whom the Fedayeen were threatening to kill --
unless their demands were immediately met.
Out of this talk and the WSAG meeting came the following
preparatory measures: The aircraft carrier Independence, cruising
in the eastern Mediterranean, was ordered to sail eastwards;
evacuation planes were flown from Europe to Turkey; and an airborne
brigade in Germany was placed on semi-alert.
By this time word was received that Hussein had proclaimed
martial law and had installed a military government. And WSAG
considered the major possibilities as a result of Hussein's moves.
They included: the routing of the Fedayeen with Hussein coming out
on top; victory of the commandos and the fall of the King; and a
prolonged stalemate. But one eventuality was the most ominous --
the fear that other Arab states, Iraq and Syria, long sympathetic
to the commandos, might intervene. If that should happen, the
Israeli Government would feel they had no alternative but to move
militarily. Then Egypt would respond and that would most definitely
involve Soviet technicians and airmen.
Shortly after midnight Dr. Kissinger called the President,
who had been working late on a speech he would deliver later that
Jordan
8
day. He summarized the latest intelligence from Amman, what the
WSAG had discussed, and said that a memorandum summarizing the
options would be ready for the President the first thing in the
morning.
On Wednesday morning, September 16, the President met
with Dr. Kissinger before taking off to deliver an Alfred M. Landon
lecture before students and faculty members at Kansas State Univer-
sity. He took the WSAG memo with him.
In his speech, the President declared: "When Palestinian
guerrillas hijacked four airliners in flight, they brought to two
hundred and fifty the number of aircraft seized since the skyjacking
era began in 1961. And as they held their hundreds of passengers
hostage under threat of murder, they sent shock waves of alarm around
the world at the spreading disease of violence and terror and its
use as a political tactic.
"That same cancerous disease has been spreading over the
world and here in the United States."
The President then flew to Chicago where he conferred for
ninety minutes with Kissinger and Sisco. At this time, the Presi-
dent was concerned about making it clear that there was a limit to
how far the United States could be pushed in the Middle East. But
he was also worried about the Israeli troops perched on the Golan
Heights and the West Bank of occupied Jordan. Any intervention on
their part could bring the Egyptians -- and the Russians -- into
the steadily deteriorating situation.
Jordan 9
Kissinger flew back to Washington. At 2:00 a.m., Thursday,
September 17, the National Security Adviser was awakened at home.
The Situation Room reported that widespread civil war had broken
out in Amman. Kissinger immediately called for a WSAG meeting to
be held at 7:30 in the morning and he talked with Secretary Rogers
and Admiral Moorer on the telephone. The primary concern at this
point was the American hostages in Jordan and the American citizens
living there.
At 3:00 a.m. Kissinger telephoned the President in Chicago.
The President mulled over the bad news and decided not to inflate
the crisis by rushing back to Washington. But he did intend to
signal the Soviet Union that the United States would not stand idly
by in this crisis. The President was still smarting from the cease-
fire violations of both the Egyptians and the Russians. Another dis-
play of indecisiveness could well embolden the Russians into doing
something even more serious.*
# Discussing Israel's plight as a result of the cease-fire
violations, William F. Buckley Jr. wrote in his column, "Why would
any country in the future accept an American assurance if it is so
glibly over-ridden by the Soviet Union?"
At 10:00 a.m. that Thursday the President drove up to the
building on North Wabash Avenue that houses the Chicago Sun-Times
and the Chicago Daily News, where in the corporation's board room
on the seventh floor he expounded on the state of the world for
nearly two hours.
Jordan 10
Out of that session came the report to the effect that
the United States "is prepared to intervene directly in the
Jordanian civil war should Syria and Iraq enter the conflict and
tip the military balance against the Government forces loyal to
King Hussein If That was the way the Sun-Times reported on the
session which supposedly was off-the-record.
Considerable confusion as to what the President had said
ensued. And what the President later said he had said was that
intervention was one of several hypothetical options open to him,
but that he did not think it desirable. There was also a Presidential
hint that the U.S. might use the holding of the hostages as an
excuse for attacking the Palestinian commandos. And he indicated
that it might be helpful if the Russians believed the United States
was capable of "irrational or unpredictable" actions. After all
the President did unexpectedly send troops into Cambodia some months
before.
As a result of two WSAG meetings that day, and with the
President's approval, a number of moves were made which, as antici-
pated, were picked up by the press -- thus deliberately heightening
the sense of American determination. First, another aircraft
carrier, Saratoga, was sent into the eastern Mediterranean. Second,
a third carrier, the John F. Kennedy, which had been scheduled for
NATO exercises in the Mediterranean, was sent over ahead of time.
And third, the helicopter team Guam and its Marine battalion landing
team was ordered to leave North Carolina for the same exercises a
day earlier. This would establish two landing teams afloat in the
"Med."
Jordan
11
At the same time WSAG decided to warn the Fedayeen that
they would be held fully responsible for any harm befalling the
hostages being held on the Jordanian desert. And a tough statement
to that effect was issued later in the day by Ron Ziegler.
Thursday night, September 17, the President returned from
Chicago and went to Dr. Kissinger's office where they discussed
the developments of the day and the thinking of WSAG. Over this
period the U.S. had kept a careful watch on Israeli actions, noting
that they were not sitting idly by. They were moving quietly,
calling up reserves, and were concentrating additional forces on
the Golan Heights.
On Friday unconfirmed reports began reaching the Situation
Room of movements inside Jordan of both the Iraqis and Syrians.
Iraq, of course, had kept some seventeen thousand troops in Jordan
with Hussein's approval since the Six-Day War. And the White House
thought the Iraqis more likely to attack the Hussein forces. During
the day the President met with Kissinger on four occasions, one
of them a briefing by the CIA. He also met with Golda Meir who
advised him that Israel would not take part in peace talks until
the new missiles were removed from the Egyptian-held side of the
Suez Canal truce zone. However, Israel would continue to observe
the ninety-day cease-fire.
Friday night a note was received from Moscow advising
the White House that the Russians had no intention of intervening
in Jordan; that they were hoping that the United States would not
Jordan
12
intervene and that the United States would discourage others,
specifically Israel, from intervening. The United States declined
to reply.
Actually the reports of Iraqi and Syrian intervention
turned out to be premature. And Hussein's forces seemed to be
gaining the upper hand in the struggle against the Fedayeen. The
crisis appeared to be ending. The President didn't think so, however.
For one thing, he took the Soviet assurances with a grain of salt.
After all, they had callously violated the Suez standstill agreement.
Take it easy, he told Kissinger. We've had that sort of thing
before
And then the worst happened. On Sunday, September 20,
word reached Washington that the Soviet-advised Syrians had invaded
Jordan. Syrian tanks were reported to be rolling southward to
relieve the hardpressed commandos. The Jordanian crisis had taken
a new -- and most ominous -- turn.
There were various conversations between the President,
Rogers, Sisco and Kissinger that day. Some thought was given to
going to the United Nations. Then the proposal was made for an
international conference in Cairo, Paris or London. But the Presi-
dent felt that a conference held under these circumstances really
would give an advantage to the aggressor and would hinder unilateral
counter-action.
Furthermore, it had become clear that if the situation
continued, what with the intervention of the Syrians, the Hussein
regime was doomed. It was a classical situation, in many ways similar
Jordan 13
to that in Vietnam, where -- as the President noted -- you are
fighting both main forces and guerrilla units. The King could
handle one or the other, but not both.
Though early reports indicated that Hussein was doing
well, the President decided that a tough note should be sent to the
Soviets in light of the fact that their Syrian friends had attacked
as well as the fact that the Russians, in their note of the past
Friday, were extremely critical of any intervention. The note --
the toughest the Nixon Administration ever sent to Moscow -- warned
of the "gravest consequences" if the Syrians did not withdraw.
After dispatching the warning, Secretary Rogers decided to spend
the night on a cot in his office, something he had never done before.
Meeting piled on meeting that Sunday of crisis. The
possibility of American intervention had suddenly become very real.
And the President was concerned that all options be explored. At
one point, he told Kissinger: "Let's you and me war-game this,"
the idea being, according to the President, to see "where the weak
points might be" in the proposed plans.
The President, himself, did something unusual Sunday
evening by joining an Action Group session in the Situation Room.
The discussion revolved around the question of how much time there
was before a basic decision had to be made. There was a difference
of opinion of from twenty-four hours to a week or ten days.
The question was resolved just as the Action Group was
ending its meeting. The Situation Room teletypes were tapping out
word that Syrian tanks had overrun Irbid, a small town in northern
Jordan 14
Jordan.* The Action Group members were hastily reassembled to
*
By coincidence, the writer was inside occupied Jordan, about
ten kilometers from Irbid, a few days later. Accompanied by
Israeli Army officers, he could hear the explosions of the tank
battle as the Jordanians fought to regain control of the pivotal
town.
consider how far the Syrians now intended to go. At the same time,
Kissinger called Rogers to get the Secretary's views.
From this WSAG meeting came the following actions: the 82nd
Airborne at Fort Bragg was alerted and the airborne unit in Germany
was put on full alert. The assumption was that Soviet intelligence
would pick up both these moves. Simultaneously, Kissinger checked
with the British and Israeli embassies to learn what they knew. By
now, U.S. intelligence was being coordinated with the British and
the Israelis.
At about 10:30 p.m. the intelligence net reported that
about three hundred Syrian tanks had crossed the border and had
broken through Jordanian defenses. From that moment until 11:30 p.m.
the President, Sisco and Kissinger met in the latter's office. The
Action Group was reassembled again at midnight. The issue before
them was simply what to do if the Syrian breakthrough succeeded and
Jordan completely disintegrated. The session lasted long enough
to give each of the Action Group members his assignment and to set
up a twenty-four hour intelligence watch.
Jordan 15
At 3:00 a.m. Kissinger received really bad news. Jordan
appeared to be in dire straits. Kissinger immediately telephoned
the President who had been asleep. That was the first of several
calls during that long night. What the President wanted was a new
reading on what should be done. Others whom Kissinger called on
the President's behalf the next four hours were Secretaries Rogers
and Laird, Sisco and Moorer. In the morning President Nixon organized
a new crisis group, called "the principals," to carefully go over
each Action Group recommendation before submission to the President.
The first meeting of "the principals" was at 8:30 a.m.,
Monday, September 21. Members of this select group were Rogers,
Laird, Packard, Moorer and Kissinger. The possibility of U.S.
military intervention was raised at this and other meetings. But
it was ruled out for the time being. Among those who raised bitter
objections to sending troops were the State Department and the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, who made it quite clear they did not want to get
involved in another Vietnam. That ugly war had burned deep into
their psyches and, in a sense, had paralyzed their capacity to react
affirmatively. In fact, they even looked askance at suggestions
to rescue the hijacked hostages and other American citizens in Jordan.
For one thing, landlocked Jordan was a logistical nightmare. But
if ordered to do so, the Pentagon would of course make the effort,
though reluctantly. It was pointed out, for example, that the sight
of U.S. paratroops dropping down from Jordanian skies could well
result in the execution of the hostages and reprisals against
Americans living there.
Jordan
16
But there was another, even greater, argument against
military intervention in the tangled affairs of the Middle East.
As the President put it to a visitor that week, "The American people
do not have the heart to go into another war. "
Somehow the President had to find a way to convince the
Russians to tell their Syrian puppets to get their armor the heck
out of Jordan. Consequently the Administration continued to sound
and act tough. When the Russians Monday night delivered another
note, saying pretty much what they had said in their previous note,
the Administration failed to reply. And the Administration rejected
a British-French effort to seek a Four Power declaration urging an
end to the fighting, knowing full well it would only result in
fruitless, time-consuming arguments. Meanwhile, the carefully-
orchestrated series of military alerts was no doubt being analyzed
at the Kremlin.
On that Monday, the President met with Israeli Ambassador
Yitzhak Rabin -- one of favorite diplomats -- and out of their
secret talks came an informal understanding that, in the event the
Syrians reached Amman and Hussein was imperilled, the Israelis
would themselves go into Jordan. The U.S. not only would not object
but the reinforced Sixth Fleet would protect the Israeli rear.
Another private visitor that day was Representative Mendel
Rivers of South Carolina, the powerful Chairman of the House Armed
Services Committee, who had asked for the interview because he wanted
to talk about the growing Soviet naval presence around the world.
Jordan 17
Rivers voiced his concern that not all of the President's advisers
understood the need for a strong Navy.
The President sought to disabuse Rivers of that notion.
"Mendel," he said, "you are among friends here. As you know, I am
a Navy man. You can be proud of Mel Laird and Admiral Moorer and
their awareness of the problems facing us. The very fact that I
am taking this trip to Europe and the Mediterranean, if conditions
now permit, is because we want an in-depth review not only of our
Sixth Fleet, but of other conditions in that area and to show that
the United States has a plan" to deter aggression. The President
then discussed the contingency plans being devised for the rescue
of the skyjacked hostages and other Americans in Jordan.*
* The President had previously announced a trip to Europe that
would include a visit to the Sixth Fleet and conversations in
Rome, Belgrade, Madrid and London. Also planned was a visit to
the grave sites of ancestors in Ireland.
They then talked about Mrs. Meir's recent visit. Both
agreed that the Israeli Prime Minister was a "remarkable woman."
And Rivers said, "We've just got to help Israel," even if the
consequences were unpleasant. The President said that he would do
whatever was necessary for the security of the United States,
adding, "The President needs freedom to act." Rivers nodded in
agreement. The President then gave the Congressman a copy of an
article by Cyrus L. Sulzberger, entitled: "Power Is as Power Does,"
and commended it to his reading.
Jordan
18
All day Tuesday the White House meetings continued. And
that evening Henry Kissinger went to a U.A.R. Embassy reception.
Asked why later, Kissinger said that, in part, it was to "show
the flag" and also to show that "we were not anti-Arab." It was
at this affair that Yuly Vorontsov, Minister Counselor of the
Soviet Embassy, asked Kissinger why he had not received any reply
to the latest Soviet note. Aware he was being overheard by other
guests, Kissinger said quite bluntly there was no need for a reply
since "our friends haven't done anything.' Besides, Kissinger
went on, a prior note had stated the Soviet hope that no one would
intervene. Yet the Syrian tanks had advanced. Would the United
States be satisfied if the Syrian tanks stopped advancing? No,
Kissinger said, they must all be withdrawn.
The next morning a WSAG meeting was followed by an NSC
session. The question of what the U.S. should do in the event of
King Hussein's collapse was still being threshed out. That after-
noon, the President was meeting with Secretary Rogers and Kissinger,
when word came at 2:30 p.m. that the Syrian tanks had begun to
withdraw. The President's first reaction was to have the informa-
tion double-checked. Within the hour there was confirmation. The
Syrians were indeed returning home.
What had happened almost overnight was the success of a
devastating counterattack by Jordanian troops and aircraft. They
literally began to chew up the Syrian armor. Another reason for
the sudden withdrawal was the knowledge that the Israelis were in
Jordan 19
position to come swooping down after them. In addition, the threat
of American intervention had helped convince the Syrians they had
no chance. And it was possible that their Russian advisers, not
knowing what the Americans might do, had informed the Syrians they
were on their own.
On September 25, fighting between Jordanian troops and
the Palestinian commandos ended with the announcement of a cease-
fire agreement. And within days the hostages, mostly Americans,
were liberated by the Jordanian Army. Soon they were on their way
home.
And, ironically, only a handful of close Presidential
advisers had any idea of the urgency of the crisis, one that was
in many ways as hair-raising as the Cuban missile crisis during the
Kennedy years when a good part of the nation's population was almost
frightened to death. This time the eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation
was kept behind the scenes. As the President told a visitor when
it was over, he aimed "to show great power but also to show great
restraint." And, as even his political critics conceded, he did
so most successfully. He had managed to preserve the hope of
peace in the Middle East.
Ironically, too, another crisis involving Cuba was building
at the very time President Nixon was seeking to dampen the Middle
East situation. And that had to do with the construction of a
Soviet submarine base in Cuba.
At first, United States intelligence had no idea of what
was taking place. In late August 1970, U-2 reconnaissance planes
Jordan 20
discovered signs of construction taking place in Cienfuegos Bay,
an ideally situated deep-water harbor on the southern coast of
Cuba. On September 9, a Soviet naval task force arrived at Cien-
fuegos. Additional U-2 photographs were taken on September 16.
A "readout," available on Friday morning, two days later, disclosed
the following:
-- A complex of barracks buildings, a wharf, recreation
grounds, and other extensive administrative, communications and
support facilities -- begun less than a month before -- was nearing
completion on Alcatraz Island.
-- The Soviet submarine tender accompanying the task force
was moored in permanent fashion to four large buoys in the deep-
water basin.
-- Anti-submarine nets were in place across the approaches
to the basin.
-- Though no Soviet submarines were in evidence, two
barges of a type used by the Soviets at facilities supporting nuclear-
powered submarines were in the harbor.
All this information was immediately reported to the
President, who by this time, of course, was deeply involved in the
Jordanian crisis. The President, however, immediately ordered, on
an urgent basis, a detailed analysis of all that was known of the
full scope of Soviet military activity in Cuba and of its strategic
implications. And he ordered that the latest information be restricted
only to the most senior officials, in order to prevent a leak which
could precipitate an unwanted crisis.
Jordan 21
The following morning, September 19, the President told
Kissinger, "We have to be clear about what it is and what it is
not. We shouldn't run around excited. Our own people must be very
careful. I do not mean I don't consider it serious. It could mean
a hell of a crisis. I don't want that sort of thing."
Later that day the NSC Senior Review group met in the
Situation Room -- Kissinger, Packard, Johnson, Helms, Haig and
Moorer -- to analyze the latest intelligence data, the background
provided by the 1962 missile crisis and its aftermath, and the
military significance of the various uses to which the Cienfuegos
facility could be put. They agreed that further study was needed
before possible U.S. responses could be considered. Detailed papers
were provided the White House by the State and Defense Departments
and the CIA.
The President called an NSC meeting on Wednesday, Septem-
ber 23, for a clearer assessment of the Soviet moves in Cuba, the
issues they raised for the United States, and of the range of
choices open to him. If used to service missile-carrying submarines
of the powerful Yankee class, the President's advisers agreed, the
Cienfuegos facility would mean a material and instantaneous increase
in the number of Soviet missiles targeted at any one time against
the United States.
Beyond this, what was the political implication of such
a Soviet move in the context of the SALT talks and against the back-
ground of Soviet actions in the Middle East? About the only quick
Jordan 22
answer was the oldest of maxims about the Soviet Union: Moscow will
move into any situation where it can find an opening, provided that
the risks were not too great.
As usual, the President made no final decision at the NSC
meeting. But it was clear to everyone in the room, he said, that
a Soviet submarine base in Cuba would be a violation of the 1962
understanding.*
+
That understanding was spelled out by President John F. Ken-
nedy at a press conference on November 20, 1962, following the
missile crisis. "As for our part," Mr. Kennedy said, "if all
offensive weapons are removed from Cuba and kept out of the Hemis-
phere in the future, under adequate verification and safeguards,
and 1f Cuba is not used for the export of aggressive Communist pur-
poses, there will be peace in the Caribbean." As Mr. Nixon observed,
the operative part of the statement was: "If all offensive weapons
are removed from Cuba and kept out of the Hemisphere in the future."
That remained the policy of the Nixon Administration.
The President also told his keti advisers that he saw the
Cuban problem as two-fold: our private communication with the Soviets,
and our public posture. Privately, he went on, we should leave no
doubt in the Kremlin's mind that a submarine base would be unaccept-
able. But in our public posture we should avoid blustering and
avoid stirring up a great domestic clamor or crisis atmosphere against
the Soviets -- because if we took a bellicose public stance, this
Jordan 23
could force the Soviets to react in the same way. Therefore, if
the story leaked prematurely, we should make clear -- calmly and
firmly -- that the U.S. Government was aware of the situation and
was watching it very carefully, that we considered the 1962 under-
standing in effect, and that we would of course hold the Soviets
to it
The President then instructed the WSAG to develop precise
options and a scenario for public and private responses. The senior
WSAG advisers met the next day and agreed on the language of a
public position in line with the President's instructions.
The language was put to use fairly quickly. The next day
Cyrus Sulzberger reported in The New York Times that the Soviets
were building an installation for missile-carrying subs at Cien-
fuegos. At his noon briefing, the Defense Department spokesman
Jerry Friedheim responded to questions along the agreed line. He
reported the construction of what appeared to be a submarine base,
adding that Soviet activities were being kept under close surveillance
-- which they were.
Later in the afternoon, anxious questions were put to
Henry Kissinger conducting a background briefing on the President's
forthcoming trip to Europe. Talking very quietly, but deliberately,
the President's national security adviser declared, "The Soviet
Union can be under no doubt that we would view the establishment
of a strategic base in the Caribbean with the utmost seriousness."
The statement was in accordance with the guidelines agreed to the
day before.
Jordan 24
"Dr. Kissinger," a reporter asked, "with the possible
establishment of Soviet submarine bases in Cuba, isn't this a bad
time to be taking a foreign trip?"
"Let's be careful about what has been said," Kissinger
replied. "We are watching the events in Cuba. We are not at this
moment in a position to say exactly what they mean. We will continue
to observe them and at the right moment we will take the action
that seems indicated. We are in excellent communication. Nothing
very rapid and dramatic is likely to occur, and we are going to be
in very close touch with the situation."
Then, at the President's direction, word was passed directly
to the Soviet Government that a submarine base was indeed unacceptable
to the United States Government. The message further said it was
up to the Soviets whether to go the route of conciliation or con-
frontation; the President, it was emphasized, was prepared for
either eventuality.
The official Soviet reply came soon after the President's
return from Europe. On October 9, Radio Moscow reported that a
commentator in Izvestia had stated that reports of a Soviet missile-
submarine base in Cuba "have no basis whatsoever" for the simple
reason that the Soviet Union was opposed to bases on foreign soil
and was strictly adhering to the 1962 understanding. On October 13
Tass, the Kremlin's official news agency, issued an authoritative
statement along the same lines. Shortly afterward the United States
Government stated, "We have noted the Tass statement and consider it
to be positive, but we will of course continue to watch the situation."
Jordan 25
Meanwhile, the Defense Department disclosed that aerial
reconnaissance photographs revealed that the Soviet submarine tender,
the barges with their indispensable cranes, and the equally
necessary tug, had steamed out of Cienfuegos harbor. At the same
time, work had stopped on the communications center. Two days later,
the tender and a salvage tug had stopped at Mariel, a port about
twenty-five miles west of Havana. It was noted that the port of
Mariel had been used by the Russians in 1962 to remove their long-
range missiles.
For the present, at least, the Soviets had no nuclear
submarine base at Cienfuegos. And, in a pledge to the United States,
the Soviets said they would not install one at any time in the future.
The pledge came after several diplomatic talks with the
Russians. They were in low-key fashion because the President did
not want the Russians to lose face at a time of critical negotiations
on other issues such as arms limitations and the Mideast.
It was decided by the Nixon Administration to avoid the
eyeball-to-eyeball public confrontation that had occurred during
the Kennedy years. The result, however, was the same. The Russians
backed off a second time, but in a manner that did not involve
worldwide embarrassment for either side. And once again the American
public was saved from the kind of heart palpitations it suffered
during the 1962 missile crisis. With extreme calm and precision,
Richard Nixon had defused yet another potentially explosive situation.
It was while the President was in Europe, visiting with
American clergymen at the Vatican, that he told a poignant story
Jordan 26
about himself. Sometimes in the middle of the night, he said, he
comes half awake and thinks of some probelm he ought to talk to the
President about. "Then, when I am fully awake, I realize that I am
the President. "
And, as President, he still had the Vietnam problem to
contend with. At his first Cabinet meeting following his return,
he provided a preview of the speech he was to deliver later that
evening, October 7, 1970. The Vice President was on the road
campaigning vigorously for Republican candidates and drawing a lot
of flak for his use of such picturesque expressions as "radical
liberals" in denouncing the opposition.
The President noted Agnew's absence. "There is an empty
chair here," he said, with a smile. "I wonder what he's doing."
After the laughing stopped, the President got down to
business. He said that in his speech he was going to propose an
immediate cease-fire in place throughout Indochina; an immediate
and unconditional release of prisoners of war; convocation of an
Indochina Peace Conference, and a political settlement that met
the aspirations of "all" South Vietnamese. He said he would offer
to negotiate an agreed timetable for complete withdrawals as part
of an overall settlement.
He said the political settlement he sought was based on
"the relative strength of the existing political forces in South
Vietnam." This, he explained, contained "a subtlety that will be
seen only by the sophisticates. It means that the Viet Cong would
have the opportunity to participate in the political process." Of
Jordan 27
course, he went on, one could expect on the basis of the V.C. track
record a rejection of his proposals. "But rejection might not
necessarily mean rejection."
This is a serious proposal, the President went on. "It
goes very far -- frankly as far as we can go."
The President said that the U.S. was making the proposal
from a position of strength. For one thing, Vietnamization was
progressing nicely and the Cambodian operation had been extremely
successful. A year ago, he pointed out, his military commanders
would have been opposed to a standstill cease-fire and so would he.
Now, it was possible to offer this step because South Vietnam could
handle much more of its own defense. If this initiative for a
political settlement failed, the President said, "then we are ready
to go the longer route. We will continue our withdrawals. We will
be out of Vietnam."
An important positive factor was the low casualty rate.
"While one is too many," the President said, weekly casualties
had been reduced dramatically: 281, two years ago; 181, a year ago;
and this week, 38.
Secretary Rogers said the reception to the President's
plan had been highly favorable and that Secretary General U Thant
might make a statement urging the other side to consider the Nixon
proposals.
"Don't bank on it," the President said quickly.
General William Westmoreland, Army Chief of Staff and
former Commander in Vietnam, told the Cabinet members that he would
Jordan 28
not have wanted to accept a cease-fire as recently as six months
ago, but "now a cease-fire is an acceptable risk."
The President said that while the war in Vietnam was being
brought to an end, he felt there was another problem in that
unhappy country that should be kept very much in mind. This was
the problem of the economy -- particularly inflation and corruption.
"We are very aware of this terribly difficult situation and are
examining it," he said, noting that he had dispatched George Shultz,
the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, to study the
problem first-hand. Shultz reported briefly that the problems
were indeed "staggering" but he felt there were some good men in
the Saigon regime wrestling with them and the situation was not
entirely hopeless.
The President then called on Kissinger to present a brief
appraisal of the recent European trip. "Henry didn't know he was
going to be called on SO he will be short."
"You're being excessively optimistic, Mr. President,"
Kissinger commented.
However, Kissinger was brief. He pointed out that by
visiting such countries of such diverse politics as Spain and Yugo-
slavia the President had demonstrated that deterring Soviet aggres-
sion was a unifying force. And it enabled countries with very
different points of view to consult and communicate for the common
interest. The trip was also helpful in disabusing those who may
think that the Nixon doctrine spells a decline in America's world
responsibilities.
Jordan 29
The President then took over. Suggesting that Cabinet
members plan to visit Spain, he said he had been tremendously
impressed by the able, effective young people in the Spanish
Government. They could be expected to handle well the transition
period when General Franco stepped down. The President offered his
own estimate that Spain in the next thirty years will move into
the first ranks of Europe."
The President also suggested visits to Yugoslavia, where
he also found a group of very able young men in the upper levels
of the Government.
Turning to a more general theme, the President remarked,
"We have been through some difficult times since we came here."
But he said he was not pessimistic about the international situation.
On his European trip, he said, he found that "other countries want
the United States to play a role in the world." While there often
is shouting against the U.S., he went on, the attitude becomes
quite different when the suggestion is made quite seriously that
the U.S. should "go home." Then, he said, the attitude becomes,
"Oh, no, please don't go!"
He said that President Marcos of the Philippines had once
told him that while it was politically popular in some countries
to say publicly the United States must go, it was also quite
necessary to say privately, "I hope that you won't."
"We are the most powerful nation in the world, the
President said. "But no nation in the world fears the United States.
Jordan 30
This is the greatest asset we have in diplomacy." The United
States is "the only nation in history that hasn't used its great
power to acquire more power. This country can be proud of its role
in the world and we should stand up and say so."
A hush fell on the Cabinet room and George Romney began
to speak. The HUD Director said that everyone in the room "thanks
God that you, Mr. President, are at the head of this country's
Government at this time and are handling our role in the world with
such great skill."
The President returned to his forthcoming speech. He said
he believed "it may take forty years for it to be written but it
is the truth that America has never worked for a better cause than
it has in Vietnam. If we can bring this war to a close, if we can
give South Vietnam a chance, this will be an achievement of which
we can be extremely proud. I am sorry that a Republican Mayor
[Lindsay] said that our best young men went to Canada to avoid
serving in the armed forces. I say our best young men went to
Vietnam."
As the President left the room, the entire Cabinet gave
him a standing ovation.
Campaign
1
CHAPTER 18
There was one thing the President did not have to worry
about those long hot summer months of 1970. Except for minor riots
here and there, the nation's cities had come through relatively
unscathed by racial flareups. For the second year in a row, there
were no burnings of cities, as had been widely predicted by the
doom-sayers.
And as the colleges and universities re-opened in the
fall the nation's students, despite their widely advertised bitter-
ness over Cambodia, for the most part were peaceful. Major campus
violence, which many experts had said was now a way of life, had
been reduced to isolated acts of terrorism.
Another, perhaps even more remarkable thing, occurred
that fall. And that was the swift and massive termination of dual
school systems across the South. This Nixon Administration triumph
went largely unheralded. The Administration had long been saying
to civil rights advocates: "Judge us not on what we say, but what
we do." Of course, the oft-repeated remark constituted an oblique
slap at previous Administrations which had talked big about such
issues as school desegregation but accomplished very little. As
Alexander M. Bickel noted in The New Republic: "Lyndon Johnson
uttered the words, 'we shall overcome,' to the applause of a joint
session of Congress in 1965. John Kennedy and later his brother
Robert held out their hands to the blacks. There was no rush of
desegregating activity in the first two years of John Kennedy's
Campaign 2
Administration. Lyndon Johnson did not desegregate the schools
of Clarendon County, South Carolina, and Robert Kennedy had no
thought of moving Watts bodily into Orange County, and said so
"
But under Nixon the stepped-up desegregation of the schools
in the South was done quietly and with dispatch. Central to the
success of the Southern transition to unitary schools were the
State Advisory Committees on Public Education, biracial panels of
civic leaders formed by the Nixon Administration in seven states.
As each of these Committees was organized, the members
came to Washington for briefings on their role in smoothing the
integration process and for a meeting with the President. They
came in groups of twelve to fifteen individuals, uncertain of each
other and of the Federal intent, apprehensive about the risks of
taking a stand on the touchy school issue. But, in each case, they
went home with the beginnings of a team feeling, a determined
confidence and a sense of mission.
And without doubt the President's meetings with these
groups in the Oval Office helped make most of the difference.
First, the President let these groups know that he under-
stood the South, believed in the South, and would not stand for the
South to be treated as a second-class region of second-class
citizens. He invariably displayed a staggering knowledge of detail
about each State, the people, places and problems -- far more than
could have come from any briefing paper. And often he recognized
old friends and acquaintances among the committee members, and
greeted them warmly. Thus the initial impression he made on all
Campaign 3
of them was that here was a man who knew and cared -- an impression
seldom left upon Southerners facing Federal authority.
Then he spoke to them about leadership, relating it to
the Oval Office where the leadership burden has been so heavy
over the years and where so many momentous decisions have been
made. The point he really drove home was that each of them, in
his own community, had leadership responsibilities as challenging,
as full of opportunity, as a President has in the Nation. And he
called on the committee members, both black and white, to rise to
the challenge of bringing their States peacefully in line with the
law of the land. Exercise your own "Oval Office responsibility,"
he said; step forward for principle and your act of courage will move
others to step in behind you.
Meanwhile, the President began to pay attention to the
forthcoming Congressional elections. On August 19, prior to the
flareup in the Middle East, he called the Cabinet together to
discuss what he described as appropriate activities for the
Secretaries during the coming campaign. He announced that Bob
Finch, now a Counselor to the President, would act as the general
coordinator of all campaign activities.
Finch, along with Senator John Tower of Texas and GOP
Chairman Morton, reviewed the situation for the Cabinet, covering
the races in both the House and the Senate, paying particular
attention to the key states.
At one point, Tower, who was Chairman of the Senate
Republican Campaign Committee, said the minimum hope was that the
Campaign 4
new Senate would be divided fifty-fifty -- "which will leave the
Vice President casting the deciding vote on our side."
"Are you sure he'll vote that way?" asked the President,
and the room echoed with laughter.
When the state-by-state discussion got to the Virgin
Islands race for Governor, the President smiled and said, "Well,
I said all states are important but I don't want all of you running
off to the Virgin Islands to campaign."
The President suggested that the Cabinet members speak
on general Administration themes rather than simply on subjects
in their own area. (The Secretaries of Defense and State, by the
nature of their positions, were excused from campaigning.) "As
you know," the President went on, "out there in the boondocks when
the Attorney General talks about foreign policy, they really
think he knows something about it." The President turned to
John Mitchell and grinned.
Then he turned to another favorite subject -- press
relations. He urged that emphasis be placed on television. He
said the "name of the game" was local television. Remember, he
said, out there in the country a Cabinet member is a big name.
"Maybe you won't be getting coverage in the Washington Post -- but
be thankful for small favors."
Speaking as "a voice of considerable experience," Vice
President Agnew had something to say about dealing with the press.
"Everybody here thinks he's a political pro, but until you've dealt
Campaign 5
with the press in a campaign situation, you don't know what can
happen to you. Be damn careful what you say. A casual remark can
blow you right off the tube."
At one point in the session, the President turned to
Secretary Laird and said, "Mel, if you're going to close any bases
during this period, close them in some nice, safe Republican
districts."
The President said that the 1970 election would turn chiefly
on the state of the economy -- and if the economy was in reasonably
good shape by Election Day, the Republican party could expect to
win control of the Senate.
The state of the economy -- as reported to the President
at a meeting of the Quadriad on September 14 --- was as follows:
One, evidence was accumulating that the economic decline
was ending, that inflation was abating and that recovery would come.
Two, the key question now was whether the revival would
move at an adequate but not excessive pace, the more probable danger
being too slow a rise.
Three, the time was not opportune for any marked change
of policy, and present uncertainties did not call for a change.
The appropriate posture for the present was to watch closely and be
prepared for possible changes, which might have to be in a more
stimulative direction, when final budgetary and program decisions
were to be made in December and January.
Arthur Burns, however, warned against excessive optimism
about the imminence of an upturn, though he did agree with the
Campaign
6
evidence indicating an end to the decline. With this minor amend-
ment of emphasis, there was no other dissent.
One issue the President believed he had defused for the
coming campaign was Vietnam. His October 7 speech proposing a
standstill cease-fire was wholeheartedly endorsed by the loyal
opposition. Democratic National Chairman Larry O'Brien welcomed
the proposal, claimed that the Democrats had advocated it before,
and acknowledged that "I know I speak for the vast majority of
Democrats when I say that this issue of ending the Indochina war
is not in the political arena The President and our Paris negotiating
team have the goodwill of all Americans -- Democrats, Republicans
and those in-between." Presidential hopefuls effused goodwill, too.
Hubert Humphrey pledged his support for the President's "sound,
welcome and heartening" proposals. And even Senator George McGovern,
while patting himself on the back for his own peace moves, said
the Nixon effort "is clearly the most advanced peace proposal yet
made by the White House. "
And so it was. But, unfortunately, the North Vietnamese
and the Vietcong thought otherwise. One week after the speech, they
declared their "firm, total, and categorical" rejection of the
President's peace proposals.
Nevertheless, Vietnam was a non-issue, for the most part,
during the 1970 campaign. As syndicated columnist Nick Thimmisch
put it: "People have the idea that Skipper Nixon's even hand at
the tiller will sail us out of the stormy waters that he didn't
sail us into in the first place."
Campaign 7
What did become a viable issue for the Democrats was the
state of the economy. Prices continued to rise and jobless rates
continued to climb. Which spelled trouble for the Republicans.
The Consumer Price Index in the crucial election month of October
rose at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of six percent. There
were special factors -- the General Motors strike, for one -- but
there was no blinking the fact that the progress against inflation
had been slower than the Administration wanted.
And the fact that unemployment had climbed to the highest
rate in seven years was due to cutbacks in defense and aerospace
spending as well as the introduction into the labor market of tens
of thousands of veterans returned from Vietnam. In other words, the
rise in joblessness could be explained as a direct consequence of
winding down the war.
The President, who reads statistics very well, knew he
was in trouble on the economic issue. But he also knew there was
no point in saying, as he was urged to do, that his Democratic
predecessors had faced up to the problem of unemployment by sending
men to Vietnam. That argument, even if true, hardly can be expected
to satisfy a man looking for work or afraid of losing his job.
"Nixonomics," in other words, was a phoney issue. It
permitted the Democrats to blame the Nixon Administration for both
inflation and unemployment, without at the same time making any
serious suggestions on how either one of these ills could be cured
without aggravating the other.
Campaign 8
With bad times as their chief issue, the Democrats could
conceivably gain at least two or three more Senate seats and any-
where between thirty to forty-five more House seats, according to
figures provided the President on his return from Europe. This,
of course, spelled bad political trouble.
The President felt that if the situation were left to
drift, it could be highly detrimental to his leadership in the next
Senate. On defense and foreign policy issues, every vote was vital.
So he had to get into the campaign -- even though he was aware
that history indicated that presidential intervention in mid-term
elections was of doubtful effectiveness.
The President feared the consequences of a Senate more
deeply infected by neo-isolationism and pacifism. This was not
partisanship, as far as the President was concerned. For example,
he wanted to see Democrats like Senator Henry Jackson of Washington
re-elected. For Jackson, like Senator Richard Russell of Georgia,
Chairman of the Appropriations Committee and second ranking Democrat
on the Armed Services Committee, was devoted to the cause of the
nation's security and held no illusions about Soviet intentions. *
*
Russell was moved to despair in commenting on the continuing
Soviet deployment of the huge SS-9 intercontinental missile even
while Russia was talking strategic arms limitation with the U.S.
"It's no use," said Russell, "I've never seen a Senate like this
one. They won't believe the facts if you tell them the facts; or
if they believe the facts they will not understand what the facts
"
mean.
Campaign 9
Hoping to cut his Congressional losses, the President
therefore took the offensive, throwing himself into the fray
(instead of sitting out the election, as he had hoped). He hit
the liberal Democrats where they were most vulnerable -- on the
"Social Issue." The "Social Issue" -- meaning crime, riots,
violence, permissiveness, "kidlash," drugs, etc. -- was a term
made popular in a new book by two Democratic partisans, Richard
Scammon and Ben Wattenberg, entitled The Real Majority. It was a
book that made a tremendous impression on the men around the
President.
*
The President read a thirteen-page analysis of the book
prepared for him by Pat Buchanan, who described the volume as
containing "realistic cogent strategy
Much was written about the President's role in the 1970
campaign that was just plain untrue. The charge that was repeatedly
made was that it was one of the "dirtiest" campaigns in American
history. And all sorts of "fear and smear" tactics were ascribed
to Republican campaigners, including the President himself. A
writer for Time, for example, reported: "Particularly in the last
ten days, Nixon's campaign was an appeal to narrowness and selfish-
ness, and an insult to the American intelligence. He diminished
the Presidency."
It seemed to be a thesis assiduously promoted by other
pundits (including James Reston of The New York Times), few of
Campaign 10
whom apparently took the time either to travel with the President
or even read the transcripts of the speeches he delivered in twenty-
two states during the eight days he devoted to intensive campaigning.
But such is the power of political myths that this thesis may well
go down in the history books as gospel.
The truth was something else. This reporter, who traveled
with the President for most of the campaign, heard him make what
amounted to the "basic" speech in state after state. In this basic
speech he listed what he called the "three key issues. "
The first was Vietnam, Mr. Nixon hitting hard on the theme
that he was winding down the war "not just for the next election,
but for the next generation. "
Next came inflation, the President blaming rising prices
on his Democratic predecessors and on "runaway spenders" in Congress.
Passing quickly to the next subject, he discussed Government
reform, with particular emphasis on the welfare system. And invari-
ably he received a tremendous response when he denounced "a system
that makes it more advantageous for a man not to work than to work!"
And then the grand finale: a call for law and order. This
was always most effective when he was being heckled. And almost
every place he spoke it was the same: kids chanting such slogans as:
"One-two-three-four - we don't want your fucking war" and "Five-six-
seven-eight --- we don't want a fascist state. " The President's
response went something like this: "Let me say that I respect their
right to be heard even if they do not respect my right to be heard.
And
I can assure them that they are a very live minority in this
Campaign 11
country, but they are a minority, and it is time for the majority
to stand up and be counted. The way you can be counted is not by
trying to shout speakers down, not by throwing rocks, not by bombing
buildings, not by shouting obscenities, but I will tell you how
you can be counted: with the most quiet, powerful voice in the world,
by voting on November 3 for
"
That was the show stopper. That invariably brought cam-
paign audiences to their feet, with deafening cheers. It also
brought flak from some reporters, who claimed that the obscenity-
shouting kids could have been denied entrance to the rallies. But
if they had been kept out, as one of the President's men observed,
"then the same critics would be writing about how nasty we are to
dissenters. You just can't win."
Not once in any of his speeches did the President attack
an opponent. Not once did he use "fear and smear" tactics against
anyone. Rather he stated the case for the election of those he
endorsed in positive terms. Yet the myth still persists that some-
how the President had stepped across the line in attacking the
opposition.
The confusion undoubtedly stemmed from the slashing attacks
levelled against "radic-libs" in both parties by Vice President
Agnew. Interviewed during the campaign by the editors of the New
Orleans Times Picayune and States Item, Agnew laughingly referred
to the Republican Senatorial candidate Charles Goodell as "a political
Christine Jorgensen.
Campaign 12
*
It was the President who gave the signal for the dumping of
Republican Goodell, who had veered sharply leftward since moving
from the House to the Senate in 1968 to fill out the term of the
late Robert F. Kennedy. Goodell, who apparently felt the only way
to retain his Senate seat was by catering to the Kennedy constituency,
had gone out of his way to annoy the President. On September 15,
1970, meeting privately with William F. Buckley Jr., the President
said that it was essential that the conservative writer's brother,
James Buckley, running as a Conservative, win the three-way Senate
race. The President said that there was no possibility of Goodell's
winning. The polls that had come to his attention showed that
Democrat Richard Ottinger was running ahead, Jim Buckley slightly
behind, and Goodell practically out of the running.
Liberals who complained about rhetoric, of course, had
short memories. Franklin Roosevelt was a master at the technique,
labelling Republicans as "economic royalists" and gluttons of
privilege. And Harry Truman, in his "give 'em hell" campaign of
1948 recited how his foes put pitchforks in farmers' backs, and
warned of Republicans who would cut the throats of workingmen. More
recently, in 1964, the Democrats blanketed television with "paid
political announcements" which made Barry Goldwater out to be a
mad bomber and an evil fellow ripping up old people's social
security cards.
"Behind the hypocritical complaints on Administration
rhetoric," commented Nick Thimmesch following the 1970 election,
Campaign 13
"is the terrible truth that there are influential people, especially
in Washington, who plain hate Richard M. Nixon and want him to fail
as President. These haters include the 'liberal-academic complex':
editorialists, cartoonists and pundits of our most influential
magazines and newspapers; and a passel of rich lawyers, consultants
and lobbyists who grew fat and sleek here during Democratic Admini-
strations. "
The President appeared to enjoy campaigning. Leaving his
Chicago hotel on Thursday before Election Day, he cheerfully greeted
a splendidly-uniformed doorman wearing a gaudily-spiked helmet.
The President shook the doorman's hand warmly and said, "That's
quite a uniform. You're giving me some ideas for the White House. "
Laughing at his own joke, the President got into his limousine to
launch a sixteen-hour day of campaigning which took him from a
Chicago suburb to San Jose in California.
The episode with the doorman was indicative of the
President's relaxed mood in the closing days of the mid-term election.
He was "feeling pretty good, " as he put it, and aides said that it
was the first time they could recall the President's making reference
to the fiasco of the fancy uniforms he had ordered -- and then had
revoked -- for the White House police earlier in the year.
San Jose, of course, nearly turned into a terrible tragedy.
From a vantage point in a press bus, this reporter observed with
horror the dozens of frenzied, hate-ridden youths who hurled rocks
at the Presidential limousine and motorcade.
Campaign 14
The next day, Friday, Bill Safire worked on a speech
dealing with the San Jose rioters. The President delivered the
speech at an airport rally in Phoenix, Arizona. It was a hard-
hitting reply to those who engaged in violence. One of the more
effective lines was: "Those carrying a banner that says 'peace' in
one hand while hurling a rock or bomb with the other are the super-
hypocrites of our time."
Another statement was: "The terrorists, the far left,
would like nothing better than to make the President of the United
States a prisoner in the White House. Well, let me just set them
straight. As long as I am President, no band of violent thugs is
going to keep me from going out and speaking with the American people
whenever they want to hear me, and wherever I want to go. This is
a free country, and I fully intend to share that freedom with my
fellow Americans. This President is not going to be cooped up in
the White House. 11
It was a tough, hardhitting speech which pleased the
audience in Phoenix. And it was the speech which the Republican
National Committee paid to have televised nationally on the eve
of the election. But a bad videotape, in black and white, was
broadcast. As a consequence, the President looked bad. In contrast,
Senator Muskie, who delivered the Democratic reply, looked good.
Sitting behind a desk, the man from Maine read a speech written by
Richard N. Goodwin. The Democratic rebuttal was in color, a decided
contrast to the badly prepared Nixon videotape. Even the Republicans
Campaign 15
had to admit that Muskie came off the better and there were those
who saw in the encounter a preview of possible campaign debates
of 1972.
Another problem for the Republicans lay in the fact that
the Democrats had also read the Scammon-Wattenberg book and, as a
result, many of them shifted from the soft line on drugs, crime and
violence they had previously taken to a position of strong condemna-
tion, thus warding off the GOP attack on the "Social Issue. In
addition to Muskie, the Democrats wound up with a national television
appearance by E.G. Marshall, the actor known for his firm, public
service and law-and-order roles. And through the campaign, American
flags sprouted on the lapels of Democratic candidates, no longer
the monopoly of their Republican rivals. And in a widely quoted
speech at Boston University, Senator Edward M. Kennedy deplored
"those who seek change by the threat or use of force" and urged
that they "be identified and isolated, and subjected to the sanctions
of the criminal law."
When the votes were counted they showed a net Republican
gain of several Senate seats; and a net Republican loss of only
nine House seats, against a projected loss of between thirty to
forty. And it was noted at the White House that a near-identical
off-year result in 1962 was widely hailed as a personal triumph
for President Kennedy.
The President took the attitude that in the Senate he had
won "a working majority of four" -- in ideology if not in party
Campaign 16
label. But he did view with some satisfaction that five of his
most antagonistic Senate foes would no longer be around to harass
him on defense and foreign policy matters. He was particularly
happy that Jim Buckley had beaten Senator Goodell in New York.
Also beaten were Senators Albert Gore of Tennessee and Joe Tydings
of Maryland, both of whom voted against the President on such key
issues as the ABM. In Texas a conservative Democrat emerged the
victor, taking the seat held by the very liberal Ralph Yarborough.
And Bob Taft, a Nixon Republican, emerged victorious in Ohio.
As the President told it at a Cabinet meeting, the real
victory was that his vigorous campaign had staved off an even worse
He
Regaltines
defeat.
I knew we were behind everywhere but Tennessee, he said,
but when it's something you believe in and that's worth fighting
for, you go all out whether you're behind or ahead.
And then it was back to Presidential business.
Sontay 1
CHAPTER 19
On November 5, 1970, two days after the mid-term elections,
the President was briefed by Defense Secretary Laird on a top-secret
plan to stage a raid on a North Vietnamese prison camp in order to
rescue American prisoners of war.
The President had been thinking of that plan for two months.
He had long been concerned about the Americans being held prisoner
by the Communists, some as long as five years. He had spent consider-
able time listening to the stories of wives and other relatives of
the POWs or men missing in action.
One of the more poignant stories was told by the President's
chief delegate at the Paris talks, Ambassador David K.E. Bruce. A
young woman, whose airman-husband had been missing for five years,
had come to see him. Within the past year she had met another
young man and they had fallen in love. Was she wrong, she asked.
Was she a widow or not? What should she do?
For over a year, the President had sought to put pressure
on the Hanoi regime either to release the Americans or to treat them
in more humane fashion. He used every channel known to diplomacy,
including an offer to release the twenty-five to thirty thousand
North Vietnamese and Vietcong held in South Vietnam for the four
hundred Americans held captive in North Vietnam. He even appealed
to left-leaning Governments such as Sweden to use their influence,
but to no avail. It became obvious to the President that the reason
Sontay 2
for Hanoi's recalcitrance was the Communists' belief that the POWs
"constituted a tremendous political asset in their ever-dwindling
pile of assets."
Since Hanoi had indicated no desire to exchange prisoners,
senior American military men of all four services had decided that
an effort should be made to free the Americans forcibly. First,
there was talk of an amphibious landing by a Marine division in
North Vietnam aimed at so unnerving Hanoi that the Communist leaders
might quickly sue for peace and release all prisoners. But this was
ruled out after it was argued that the White House would never permit
any such widening of the war. Then a concensus developed that the
job could be performed expeditiously by small, handpicked teams,
using surprise to overwhelm local guards and extricate the prisoners
by helicopter. A study in depth was made of the Israeli use of
helicopters on intelligence missions. The Israelis, of course,
relied on absolute surprise and were usually dramatically successful.
The plan had been brought to the President's attention in
late August. Laird had called Kissinger just before the President's
two-day goodwill visit to Mexico to say he was considering a very
daring operation which would entail a considerable amount of risk,
and that he wanted the President's judgement on whether the planning
should continue. Laird also said that new information received
at the Pentagon indicated that "some of our men" in the POW camps
were dying.
Kissinger received a summary briefing from Laird at the
Pentagon on August 18 on the objectives of the operation, and
Sontay 3
passed the information on to the President at San Clemente on
August 21 after the President returned from Mexico.
The President quickly decided that planning for the opera-
tion should continue, and that Kissinger should get a further briefing
from the Pentagon as soon as they were back in Washington. Informed
of the President's tentative approval, Laird authorized the assembly
and training of a special task force, called Joint Contingency Task
Group Ivory Coast. Picked to plan the mission was Brigadier General
Leloy Manor, 49, commander of the Air Force Special Operations Force
-- the air commandos -- at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.
Chosen to lead the raid itself, if and when it was finally
approved, was Colonel Arthur ("The Bull") Simons, 52, who had consider-
able experience leading intelligence-gathering units on forays
into North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. These units, composed of
Americans and South Vietnamese, gathered information on such things
as location of enemy troops, supply dumps and concentrations of air
defenses. A near-legendary figure, Simons is considered to be the
finest derring-do combat commander in the U.S. Army.
Back in Washington in September, Kissinger met with both
General Manor and Colonel Simons. Then he decided that the two men
should brief the President directly. The President was informed
that he did not have to give the go-ahead signal until two weeks
prior to the operation. There were two possible dates, October 21-23
and November 21-23, which met the requirement of a waning quarter
moon. The position of the moon was most essential. It had to provide
Sontay 4
just enough light for the raiders to operate but not enough for
the enemy to discover their approach.
The President kept his own counsel. First, he decided
that the October date was too soon. He did not want the raid to
get mixed up in the mid-term election. And he also thought it would
be better to wait until the North Vietnamese had an opportunity to
respond to his October 7 ceasefire initiative, for which he had great
hope. The initiative had also proposed "the immediate and uncondi-
tional release of all prisoners of war held by both sides."
As it turned out, the Hanoi regime was as intransigeant
as ever. And, following the election, the North Vietnamese became
more belligerent than ever. At the Paris negotiations, for example,
they accused the President of having "lied" throughout the campaign,
adding, "However, the results of the November 3 elections have proved
the failure of his enterprise." U.S. negotiator Bruce responded by
saying that the North Vietnamese "distorted analysis" showed "how
little you understand our democratic process."
It was at the November 5 meeting that Laird pretty much
convinced the President to approve the plan to liberate the Americans
from a North Vietnamese prison camp. The President ordered the
Defense Secretary to proceed with the planning, but in the strictest
secrecy.
On November 11 -- Veterans Day, renamed "Prisoners of War
Day" that year by Presidential proclamation -- the President summoned
his principal advisers, Rogers, Laird, Kissinger and Moorer, to his
Sontay 5
office. Admiral Moorer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
reviewed the plans. All the pros and cons were discussed. The
entire operation could backfire. But the President said to go ahead.
"If we can get fifty men out, it will be worth it, IL said one adviser.
"No," replied the President, "if you can rescue ten men,
it will be worth it. If
The date for the operation was tentatively set at November 21.
Early the next week, Kissinger and Al Haig drove over to
the Pentagon to make sure that all details were in order. Training
for the operation was going on at Eglin. The planning was so detailed
that a full-scale mock-up of the prison camp to be raided was
constructed on the basis of aerial reconnaisance photographs and
every phase of the operation was rehearsed again and again. #
# The reproduction of the camp was destroyed after the training
exercises were over, for fear that Soviet satellites might photograph
it.
The actual prison camp was at Sontay, a scant twenty miles
west of the center of Hanoi. It had been selected from about half
a dozen other prison sites because of its flat terrain which would
permit the landing of enough large helicopters to remove the Ameri-
cans believed to be housed inside.
Kissinger reported back to the President that Admiral
Moorer estimated the chances of success at eighty percent while
Secretary Laird thought they were fifty-fifty. On November 18, the
Sontay 6
President gave the final go-ahead. He said he was aware of the
possibility of failure. In fact, at a meeting of the National
Security Council, the President passed as note to Laird saying that
"there will be no second-guessing from me" if the worst should happen.
A primary concern was whether Sontay still held the seventy to
one hundred Americans seen on reconnaissance photos taken a month
before. As the day for the Presidential decision neared, reconnais-
sance over the target area was limited so as not to arouse suspicions
on the part of the North Vietnamese.
The men who had been assembled for the special operation
were by then at a base in Thailand, awaiting final instructions.
All volunteers, they had been taken from military assignments all
over the world, one even from a desk at the Pentagon. But most of
the men were "green Berets," members of the Army Special Forces
with headquarters at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, while others were
from Eglin, home of the Air Force's special air warfare teams.
Their training had begun in late August and had lasted for two and
a half months.
Because of an approaching typhoon, the operation, origin-
ally scheduled for November 21, was moved up a day. When the
operation began, the President ordered that he be informed instantly
of every development.
The rescue party, consisting of about fifty men led by
Colonel Simons in ten helicopters, crossed into North Vietnam about
eight minutes ahead of schedule, touching down at the Sontay compound
exactly on the minute. The lumbering helicopters had skimmed the
Sontay 7
treetops in a roundabout route in from Thailand, but were not
detected by the North Vietnamese. One reason was that a number of
diversionary flights had been flown by Navy aircraft, which had
dropped flares and jammed the enemy's radar. Many North Vietnamese
thought the U.S. was invading their country.
Back in the White House, the President was informed that
everything appeared to be going well. As usual in periods of crisis,
Mr. Nixon was calm, cautioning his advisers against speculating on
the impact of a successful raid -- because, as he said, "That's bad
luck. Don't speculate.'
A waning half-moon was up as one helicopter crash-landed
right in the cramped yard of the Sontay compound, and the American
commandos spread out, cutting the locks of the buildings and doing
battle with the guards who had been caught completely by surprise.
At least five of the enemy were killed and an undetermined number
were wounded. Only one American was wounded -- a minor flesh wound
caused by AK-47 automatic-rifle fire. The other helicopters had
landed on the outside of the camp, awaiting the prisoners who were
thought to be inside the buildings.
While the party was still on the ground at the compound,
a message was flashed to the White House by Admiral McCain, Commander
in Chief of U.S. Forces in the Pacific, suggesting the possibility
of a "dry hole. #
Which, unfortunately, proved to be the case. As it turned
out, the American prisoners, unknown to U.S. intelligence, had been
moved to another compound several weeks earlier. All the courage,
the long training, the perfectly executed mission, had been for naught.
Sontay 8
However, word reached the White House that the raiding
party had departed the compound exactly on schedule, one hour after
it had arrived, the plan having been flawlessly carried out, even
in the face of hostile fire.
But a careful search of the abandoned cells showed no
American prisoners in the compound. The President, who had been
summoned out of a meeting to be informed of the disheartening
development, asked Kissinger to immediately call Secretary Laird
and Admiral Moorer to tell them he was proud of them, that the effort
had been the crucial thing, and that they should think of other
efforts of this nature which hopefully would be more successful.
There were some positive aspects to the daring raid. It
was believed that the audacious rescue strike so close to Hanoi
may have unnerved the men who set North Vietnam's war policies.
That Hanoi was embarrassed was demonstrated by its week-long
silence on the helicopter landings, a startling indication that
its air defenses had been so easily penetrated.
The raid also served to let the families of the American
POWs know that "we will not let them be forgotten." As for the
prisoners themselves, they quickly learned through the "grapevine"
about the Sontay mission, thus providing a spark of hope to
desperate men.
In that sense, therefore, the President felt the Sontay
effort was most worthwhile -- if only in dramatically bringing the
plight of the American prisoners to the attention of the world.
Sontay 9
The knowledge that some four hundred Americans were rotting away
in barbarous conditions in North Vietnamese prisons troubled him
more than most problems.
Of course, the rescue attempt drew flak from some of the
President's more dovish critics up on the Hill. Though they vied
with each other in praising the gallantry of the raiders, they
deplored the risks undertaken in the operation. Senator Fulbright,
for example, said the maneuver certainly was " very provocative.
It may lead to other things. Who knows?"
Laird, in testimony before Congress, hinted there might
be other rescue attempts: "We shall continue to make every effort
to free our prisoners of war." And he warned that Hanoi's leaders
would be held personally responsible for any reprisals against
prisoners as a result of the raid.
On November 25, five days after the Sontay attayst eaper, the
President pinned the Distinguished Service Medal on General Manor
and the Distinguished Service Cross on Colonel Simons. He awarded
the Distinguished Service Cross to Army Specialist Tyrone J.
Adderly of the Army for "neutralizing" the enemy on the ground with
grenade fire, and the Air Force Cross to Sergeant Leroy M. Wright,
a helicopter crewman, who helped lay down covering fire during the
party's departure despite a foot injury. The Sergeant was on
crutches during the White House ceremony.
In his remarks, the President described the raid as a
"mission of mercy" and said that this was "a day that makes us very
proud of the United States."
Transition
1
CHAPTER 20
Traditionally the weeks following a national election are
marked by a President and his staff turning their energies away from
the exigencies of partisan politics to the business of running the
government. Rarely does any "hard" news emanate from the White
House as the President keeps to himself, working on such chores as
the budget and the ground work for legislative programs for the
new year.
The 1970 post-election period, at first, followed precedent.
Newly elected Democratic Senators Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota,
Lawson Chiles of Florida, and Lloyd Bentsen of Texas were invited
to the Oval Office for friendly chats.
And the President breakfasted with his former neighbor
from New York, Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who had just been re-
elected to a fourth term after what at first had appeared to be an
uphill battle against Democrat Arthur Goldberg. The ostensible
purpose of the two-hour session was to discuss New York's need for
more federal aid and the Governor found the President most receptive.
With Attorney General Mitchell sitting in, political matters were
also discussed, among them the election of James Buckley as a
Conservative Senator from New York and the future of John Lindsay.
According to Rockefeller, the New York Mayor, who had endorsed the
Governor's Democratic rival, was desperately trying to figure a way
to run for President. After the meeting was over, sources close to
Transition 2
the President and the Governor agreed that the two men were person-
ally closer to each other than they had ever been.
The President also found time for a talk with Pearl Bailey,
the songstress who had entertained at his state dinner for Chancellor
Willy Brandt of West Germany. He had named her "Ambassador at Love"
and Miss Bailey later made inquiries as to whether this didn't
entitle her to diplomatic license plates. The State Department,
somewhat flustered, said no.
However, in her meeting with the President, Miss Bailey
did not raise that issue. Rather, she talked at length about her
concern over the drug problem and the President explained what the
Government was doing to contend with a situation that had reached
epidemic proportions. Towards the end of their conversation, the
President proposed that Miss Bailey visit countries behind the Iron
Curtain as a "cultural" Ambassador of the United States.
The President also held lengthy meetings with his principal
economic advisers. Singly and in pairs they met in his office.
Stans of Commerce and Kennedy of Treasury came on November 19.
McCracken and Burns came the following day. Sandwiched in between
was Professor Milton Friedman, the conservative economic theoretician.
As usual, the President wanted to hear all sides. And, as usual,
he got it.
Friedman, for example, thought things were going well on
the economic front and he counseled against paying too much attention
to short-term developments and moods on Wall Street. He believed
Transition 3
inflation was definitely being curbed and a mild expansion was
under way. And he advised the President not to adopt the formal
wage-price guidelines and boards that were, as he pointed out,
being proposed largely by the Democrats.
The following day, Arthur Burns, speaking now as Chairman
of the Federal Reserve Board, urged the President to adopt some
form of incomes policy, some form of Government restraint on wages
and prices. Specifically, he proposed that the President suspend
the Davis-Bacon Act which provided that construction workers on
Federal projects be paid high prevailing union-wage rates. This,
according to Burns, would serve as a warning to the powerful build-
ing trades unions to hold down their inflationary wage demands as
well as greatly reduce the costs of Federal construction.
In all of these conversations, inflation appeared to be
less the issue than recession. As the President reminded his aides,
he had been hurt by it in the recent elections and he did not want
to be hurt by it two years hence. Nevertheless, he did not plan
to leap at any proposal without giving it plenty of thought.
The week of all these talks was also the week that the
President gave the final go-ahead signal to the Sontay mission.
And though the raid failed of its primary objective, the President
nevertheless hoped that his adversaries in Hanoi would begin to
recognize that, while winding down the war, he was still prepared
to go to extraordinary lengths to keep Hanoi off balance. He had
demonstrated that his actions could not be taken for granted. And
Transition
4
he had repeatedly warned Hanoi not to interfere with the American
withdrawal.
Also shattering the somnolence that appeared to be gripping
the White House in those post-election weeks was the President's
dismissal of Walter J. Hickel as his Secretary of Interior. This
had been a matter that had hung fire since his famous letter com-
plaining about how the Administration was mishandling the problems
of dissenting youth. Though addressed to the President, it had
been published in the newspapers before the President had read it.
No one admitted leaking the letter to the press, but it was a
mistake, striking the President from behind when he was under bitter
attack because of Cambodia. And there had been other reasons for
the President's lack of confidence in his Interior Secretary
Hickel had left much to be desired as an administrator of a most
sensitive department.
All this had been spelled out for Hickel in late May by
John Ehrlichman when the President's Domestic Affairs Assistant
told him of Mr. Nixon's desire that he leave. But Hickel asked to
remain and it was agreed that the Secretary would leave following
the elections.
Now the moment of truth had arrived. But Hickel did not
want to leave. This Ehrlichman determined from a conversation with
him following the election. On November 20, Attorney General
Mitchell all but invited him to resign, but Hickel characteristically
became stubborn, stating publicly, "If he [the President] wants me
to quit, he'll have to fire me."
Transition 5
Hickel also told a television audience on November 24,
"I'm going out with an arrow in my heart and not a bullet in my
back. "
And that did it. Late the next afternoon Hickel was
ushered into the Oval Office. After greeting the Secretary, the
President sat behind his desk. Hickel took a seat to the President's
left and Ehrlichman to his right. The music of a military band
rehearsing on the South grounds filtered through during the twenty-
five minute meeting.
The President quickly came to the point. He said he had
decided to "make a change" at Interior; that he did not wish to
recriminate or specify the basis for his decision; but he had thought
the matter through and had concluded the change must be made.
Hickel responded by saying he understood and that he
respected the President's decision. Then he recited what he judged
were his accomplishments during his twenty-two months at Interior.
The President said nothing. Hickel said he assumed the President
intended that the transfer be made the first of the year. "No,"
the President said, "it should be effective immediately." Hickel
obviously was taken aback.
The President told Hickel that his successor would be
Republican National Chairman Rogers C.B. Morton, a four-term Maryland
Congressman; and that Fred J. Russell would be Acting Secretary
until January. The two men then shook hands and said goodbye.
Hickel left by a rear exit before newsmen could question him. And
Transition 6
Ron Ziegler told reporters: "The President feels that the required
elements for a good and continued relationship -- which must exist
between a President and his Cabinet members -- simply do not exist
in this case."
Another of the President's personnel problems was up in
the air that Thanksgiving week. This one had to do with Pat Moyni-
han, whom the President wanted as his Ambassador to the United
Nations. On November 17, Moynihan informed Mr. Nixon he would
accept the post and both men talked at some length about the U.N.
and the President's desire to somehow turn it into a more active
organization.
Three days later, Moynihan was in Acapulco, attending a
housing conference sponsored by Time Inc. And two things happened
that day that were to change Moynihan's mind about the U.N. post.
First, the Boston Globe published the story of Moynihan's selection
for the U.N. The premature disclosure was embarrassing because
the incumbent Ambassador, Charles Yost, had not yet been informed
he was leaving.
On the same day, the Family Assistance Program --
Moynihan's baby -- was killed in the Senate Finance Committee. At
the moment of decision, Senator Fred Harris, the populist Democrat
from Oklahoma, had reversed his previous position in support of
FAP, voted Gene McCarthy's proxy in the same manner, and in the
process Family Assistance was defeated.*
Transition
7
"It is now a commonplace observation that if the Family
Assistance Program is killed by the Congress it will have been the
victim of a combined attack by the left and the right,' Moynihan
said in a letter to the Washington Post a week later. "There is,
however, one further thing to be said. By and large the attacks
on the proposal from ultra conservatives have been factually
accurate
What is so disappointing about the critics on the left
is that from the day President Nixon proposed FAP they have persis-
tently, egregiously -- and can it really be unwittingly? --
misrepresented both the principles of the legislation and the details
of the proposal."
Moynihan returned to Washington on Sunday, November 22,
terribly dejected about both developments -- the premature disclosure
and the killing of FAP. By Monday night he had determined that he
really ought not go to the U.N. and the following morning he wrote
a letter to the President to that effect. On Wednesday Haldeman
asked if his decision was irrevocable. Moynihan said it was. That
morning, in fact, there was an hysterical attack on the appointment
in The New York Times. Though Moynihan "has exhibited outstanding
qualities in public life," the editorial maintained he had "practic-
ally no experience in diplomacy," a factor which did not appear to
trouble the Times in 1965 when LBJ named Arthur Goldberg to the same
post. Moynihan, the Times went on, "is likely to be bored stiff at
the glacial pace of United Nations diplomacy, but however that may
be he is simply not qualified for this job." Of course, Moynihan
Transition
8
had already changed his mind, deciding finally to return to Harvard
and the Joint Center for Urban Studies, as he originally had planned,
and this information was released to the press on Friday, November
27. In leaving, however, Democrat Moynihan -- unlike Republican
Hickel -- had only praise for the President.
It took several weeks before Mr. Nixon resolved this most
awkward personnel problem by naming Congressman George Bush as his
man at the U.N., succeeding Charles Yost who had been somewhat
embarrassed by speculation about his future. * What the President
*
Administration unhappiness with Yost had to do basically with
the low-profile presence he established after the President brought
him out of retirement as a career diplomat two years before. The
White House was also annoyed because Yost, an Arabist, had failed
to prevent the recent General Assembly debate on the Middle East
in which the U.S. was virtually isolated along with Israel.
wanted in New York was a bright, hardworking and attractive
representative who believed completely in what Mr. Nixon stood for
in foreign policy and would not be adverse to selling the Nixon
programs. In Bush he found exactly what he wanted. Actually,
Bush, who had just been beaten in his race for the Senate, had been
proposed as the new Chairman of the Republican National Committee.
But, at a meeting with the President on December 9, Bush argued he
could do better serving the cause in New York. The President agreed
and two days later the story broke in the papers, somewhat to Mr.
Transition 9
Nixon's annoyance. "There have been more leaks out of this
Administration than public statements out of most Administrations,'
the President observed to a visitor.
The President's most annoying problem in the closing
weeks of 1970 continued to be the economy. On December 4, in a
speech before the National Association of Manufacturers in New York,
Mr. Nixon signalled that his efforts would now be concentrated on
economic expansion. And he also signalled his intention of engaging
in more "jawboning" about the need to hold wages and prices in line.
Concretely he came out against "the recent increase of twenty-five
cents per barrel in the price of crude oil" and wage increases in
the construction industry. "When you have an industry in which one
of three negotiations had led to a strike," he said, "when construc-
tion-wage settlements are more than double the national average for
all manufacturing, at a time when many construction workers are
out of work, then something is basically wrong with that industry's
bargaining process." At the same time the President's Council of
Economic Advisers issued a^so-called "inflation alert," labeling the
continued sharp increase of wages as "the major concern." And
before that Herb, Stein, one of the economic advisers, said, "The
rate of inflation from this point forward will depend on the rate
of wage increase probably more than anything else."
On December 7, in a speech at Pepperdine College in Los
Angeles, Arthur Burns publicly called for an "incomes policy," a
catch-all term applied to efforts by the Government to influence
private behavior. This would include "establishment of a high-level
Transition
10
price and wage review board that, while lacking enforcement power,
would have broad authority to investigate, advise and recommend on
price and wage changes. 11
Meanwhile, the stock market reacted most favorably to
the President's speech. In fact, the market had gone up consider-
ably for some weeks, a fact that puzzled the President. On December
12, talking to his advisers, he wondered what it was that people
buying stocks knew that he didn't know about the economy. The
response was that they didn't know anything different; that indivi-
dual buyer's confidences build on each other and eventually result
in increased stock prices.
The President also noted that in previous years unemploy-
ment rates had been substantially higher than those the country now
faced but, somethow, in those years there was little public notice.
For example, he recalled, the jobless rate in 1961 was nearly seven
percent.
The economy was very much on the President's mind. He
had read the election returns and realized the old ways were not
working. Changes had to be made.
The most dramatic, far-reaching move was made on Decem-
ber 14. That was the day he stunned the nation by naming John M.
Connally as his Secretary of Treasury, succeeding David Kennedy.
Connally, who had been called "the most powerful Democrat in Texas,"
had served three terms as Governor of that state, where he was
re-elected by huge majorities. A fifty-four year old lawyer,
Transition
11
rancher and oilman, Connally had served on the boards of banks and
corporations and had ties to the Wall Street financial community.
During the Kennedy presidency, he served as Secretary of the Navy.
As Governor, Connally was riding in the car with President Kennedy
when he was killed in Dallas. In fact, Connally himself was seriously
wounded by the assassin.
Like President Nixon, Connally started life as a poor boy,
acquiring some wealth in a lifetime of law, business and politics.
But what really impressed the President was the forceful manner in
which Connally conducted himself on the Ash Council, created to study
the reorganization of government. The President also arranged for
Connally to serve on the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.
On November 19, at a ninety-minute meeting of the Ash
Council, there was a spirited discussion of proposed reforms to make
government more responsive to the needs of the people. Connally,
in eloquent fashion, argued the political merits of the proposals,
the thrust of his argument being that, win or lose, the President
would be on the side of change while his opponents would be forced
to contend the status quo was fine. The President appeared to agree.
A few days later Connally was notified by the White House
of a meeting of the intelligence advisory group and, also, that the
President would like to talk to him privately while he was in
Washington. It was then that the President offered him the Treasury
position. The fact that Connally had previously expressed opposi-
tion to some of the Administration's economic views, specifically
his tight-money policy, did not trouble the President. What the
Transition
12
President wanted was a man with Connally's take-charge attitude
who would be most helpful on Capitol Hill, particularly among the
Democrats, and who would help sell the Administration's new
expansionist economic policies.
Connally, though flattered, did not accept immediately.
Instead, he thought it over that Thanksgiving weekend. On Monday,
breakfasting with the President, he said yes. And several nights
later, he and the President sat for three hours in the privacy
of the Nixon office in the Executive Office Building discussing the
Texan's role in the Administration. They even had dinner together,
served by Manolo Sanchez at a small table in the corner of the
office. From the beginning, it was obvious, the President was
"comfortable" with his Secretary-to-be.
Because the President had asked him not to discuss his
appointment with anyone, Connally had not informed his old friend
and longtime political associate, Lyndon B. Johnson. The former
President, however, was notified several hours before the announce-
ment by Mr. Nixon. Then the President handed the phone to Connally.
"I talked to Mr. Johnson very briefly," said Connally, "and he
just expressed hope that all would go well. He was very kind to me,
and if he looked with disfavor at it, he has certainly not reflected
it since, because our relationship is unchanged from what it has
been for years."
A few days after the surprise announcement, the President
met with former Governor Scranton, who had headed the Commission
on Campus Unrest. In its general report, the Commission had declared
Transition 13
that the Government, students and universities shared the responsi-
bility for preventing campus disorders, and pleaded with all sides
"to draw back from the brink" of a dangerous division. It condemned
fanatical student terrorists, complacent campus officials, brutal
law-enforcement officers, and the inflammatory speech of politicians.
Above all, it urged the President to exercise the moral leadership
of his office and bring the nation to a period of reconciliation.
Vice President Agnew said the Scranton Commission, in
asking for the President's leadership, had indulged in "'scapegoatism'
of the most irresponsible sort," adding that the report was "sure
to be taken as more pablum for the permissivists." Earlier, the
Vice President had personally attacked one of the Commission members,
a twenty-two-year-old black youth, Joseph Rhodes Jr., a junior
fellow at Harvard. Rhodes, who had previously been student body
president at the California Institute of Technology, had charged
that Nixon and Agnew "are killing people" and that Governor Reagan
was "bent on killing people for his own political gain." After
quoting these remarks, the Vice President publicly called on Rhodes
to get off the Commission. But young Mr. Rhodes, enjoying his new
national eminence, said no.
On December 10, 1970, the President wrote to Scranton
about his Commission's report. He made these observations: "Responsi-
bility for maintaining a peaceful and open climate for learning
in an academic community does not rest with the Federal Government
-- it rests squarely with the members of that academic community
Transition
14
themselves
Removing the causes of legitimate dissent has in my
lifetime been one of the constant endeavors of the American Govern-
ment. It remains the business of this Administration. Though
optimistic about our capacities to redress just grievances, I am
not so utopian as to believe all will be redressed in this Adminis-
tration, or even in our lifetime. And so, in this democratic
society, we shall always have and shall always need dissent."
As for his own role, the President wrote, "Throughout my
public life I have come to know the immense moral authority of the
Presidency. During these past twenty-two months I have tried to
exercise that authority to bring an end to violence and bitterness;
and I have sought to use the power of this office to advance the
cause of peace abroad and social justice at home. These are matters
upon which every President answers daily to his conscience and
quadrennially to his judge -- the American people. "
A week later, the President met with Scranton in the Oval
Office. The President was still full of his visit to the Agri-
cultural Station in Beltsville, Maryland. In fact, he was bubbling
over about what he had learned -- i.e., increasing the birth rate
of lambs from one every year to three lambs in two years. He was
even more struck by the fact that on the basis of the technique
used on sheep, the Beltsville scientists thought they could reverse
the trend in humans and double the time of pregnancy to eighteen
months in women, thus affecting population growth.
Scranton thanked Mr. Nixon for his letter and he offered
a semi-apology for the conduct of Joe Rhodes, saying his problem
Transition
15
was that he was "young and black" and had to play to his own
constituency. Scranton said that he thought more Presidential
gestures toward the young and the black were in order. And the
President went into considerable detail on just what the Adminis-
tration had accomplished for black people and it was a long list
ranging from franchises for service stations to dealerships in
automobiles. Unfortunately, the President noted, his Administration
just wasn't getting any credit.
As a matter of fact the President had begun to view with
alarm the growing animosity toward his Administration by leaders
of black organizations. Bishop Stephen G. Spottswood, chairman of
the board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People, an organization long regarded as moderate, bitterly described
the Administration as "anti-Negro."
"An unfair and disheartening attack," replied Leonard
Garment in a telegram to Spottswood. Such an accusation, Garment
said, paints a false picture, rallies every fear, reinforces every
anxiety and makes a just society more difficult to achieve.
Garment's telegram enumerated substantial acts the Nixon
Administration had taken in its effort "to achieve equal opportunity
for every American.' It was, indeed, a substantial record. But
apparently when such programs bear the Nixon label, certain Negro
leaders refuse to give him the credit he deserves.
One outstanding black leader, Whitney Young, thought the
spat between the NAACP and the White House was thoroughly unproductive.
Transition
16
And despite his Democratic credentials, the President had sought
to interest Young in a Cabinet post during the interregnum. But
Young had turned down the offer, believing that he could be more
useful to his people as the activist executive secretary of the
Urban League. *
* In March 1971 Whitney Young died on an African visit. The
President attended his graveside services in Lexington, Kentucky,
and eulogized the civil rights leader as a "genius" who "knew how
to accomplish what other people were merely for. It is really easy
to be for what is right. What is more difficult is to accomplish
what is right. The President spoke slowly and without notes,
confirming for the first time that in 1968 he had offered Young a
Cabinet position.
The Urban League, a service organization which sought to
get blacks into industry and the professions, had long had the
President's respect. By late 1970, however, the League had run
into financial difficulties and Whitney Young was in touch with
Len Garment about getting some Federal funding.
Garment suggested a meeting with the President and some
of the Cabinet members. This was arranged for December 22. As the
President came into the Cabinet Room he noticed a black lady sitting
with his advisers against the wall.
"Doesn't she belong at the table?" the President asked
Young.
"I don't want to get in trouble with Women's Lib," said
Young.
Transition
17
"Neither do I," said the President, who invited Beth
Whaley to sit at the Cabinet table.
In the course of his remarks, Young described the financial
plight of the Urban League and observed, "Maybe we will have to
get a new President.'
"You mean a new President of the Urban League, of course,"
Mr. Nixon interjected.
When Young asked the President to designate a member of
the White House staff to serve as liaison with the League, Mr.
Nixon looked at Garment, who was using a cane because of a tennis
injury.
"Do you have the time?" he asked Garment, who nodded
affirmatively. "Don't go playing tennis," the President warned.
"These athletes around here!"
Later in the session, Young volunteered that Secretary
Volpe has "the best fair employment record of any Cabinet member
in history."
The President nodded, "He's told me that."
George Romney piped up: "I challenge that."
The President: "He's told me that, too."
At the end of the meeting, the President said, "If I can
paraphrase what a former Secretary of Defense said, 'What's good
for the Urban League is good for America. " And he directed that
a search for funds be instituted among the various Federal agencies
in order to insure the continuance of the Urban League. On the way
out, a member of the Urban League staff was heard to say in a warm,
loud voice: "It sure helps to go to the top."
Transition
18
Within a matter of weeks money was found for the League.
Eventually, a total of twenty-seven million dollars was put
together to help keep the League's activities across the nation
going. And it was done without any fanfare.
Another visitor -- one completely unexpected -- was
Elvis Presley. The rock-and-roll star had shown up the morning
of December 21 at the White House gate and asked to see the Presi-
dent. Bud Krogh was notified and he brought the singer inside
for a talk. Krogh, one of John Ehrlichman's top assistants, then
arranged for Presley to see the President.
Attired in tight-fitting white clothes, as befits an
idol of young people, Presley told Mr. Nixon of his enormous concern
over the spreading drug problem and that he wanted to help the
Government in combatting the scourge. Presley also said he wanted
to help restore respect for the American flag. He was a poor boy
from Tennessee and had gotten a lot from this country, which in
some way he wanted to repay. And he indicated that one London-
based singing group, highly popular with American youngsters, was
a real force for anti-Americanism, despite the fact they had made
millions in this country. The President seemed surprised by this
piece of information. But he agreed that drugs had become "Public
Enemy Number One. " And he urged that Presley use his influence, in
his public appearances, to convince young people that drugs could
destroy them.
Then Presley told the President how much he supported him
and, in a spontaneous but touching gesture, put his left arm around
Mr. Nixon and hugged him.
Transition
19
Later that afternoon, the East Room was the setting for
a gathering of some one hundred and fifty members of the Cabinet,
sub-Cabinet, senior White House staff and senior agency officials
to hear a review of what the Administration had done in foreign and
domestic affairs in the year gone by.
Declaring that "we are now in the middle of the journey,"
the President said that Secretary Rogers would review foreign
affairs and George Shultz the domestic scene, to be followed by
a "surprise clean-up hitter. If He said it was particularly important
that those deeply involved with the concerns of their own agencies
have the opportunity to get the "big picture" now that the Adminis-
tration was at "half-time."
Rogers noted that at last year's meeting he had expressed
himself as optimistic about the trend of world affairs and that he
felt his optimism had proved justified. He recalled a session with
a briefing officer in which things appeared to be going badly all
over the world. Finally, the Secretary interrupted to ask: "Tell
me, isn't there any good news?"
"No," the briefer responded, "but at least there's some
bad news that we're not responsible for. The Aswan Dam is leaking. "
The Secretary recalled that when the Nixon Administration
took over three wars were going on. One of them, the civil war in
Nigeria, was now largely forgotten -- a fact which illustrates that
sometimes not getting involved can be a good policy. In Nigeria,
the Administration resisted heavy pressures to get involved, staying
out of that conflict in terms of military, diplomatic and political
Transition
20
activity. But the United States gave more humanitarian aid than
any other country. The results were good.*
* One of those demanding deeper involvement was Senator Edward
M. Kennedy.
In the Middle East, where there had been continuous war-
fare since 1967, Richard Nixon had decided to take strong political
initiatives, knowing there would be criticism, Rogers said. But
the situation had been greatly improved. There had been no fight-
ing for one hundred and ten days and all parties wanted the cease-
fire to continue. The Mideast had been on a verge of a major
catastrophe. There were still tensions, but "there's hope."
Turning to Vietnam, the Secretary used charts to point
out that when the Nixon Administration took over there were more
U.S. armed forces personnel in South Vietnam than South Vietnamese
troops. Now there were one million South Vietnamese in uniform
while the number of Americans by May 1 would be down to 284,000.
And casualties were down significantly. In fact, one of the reasons
the supplemental appropriations bill recently went through the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- and Chairman Fulbright lost
control of the Committee eight to four -- was that the Nixon policies
had been very successful and the Congress knew it.
When Rogers concluded, the President commented, "He made
me feel better. " He noted that the important thing was not just
withdrawals and reductions in casualties but the fact that we're
ending the war in a way we can build the peace. The most effective
Transition 21
chart that Rogers displayed was the one showing that the South
Vietnamese were developing the capability to defend themselves.
George Shultz spoke of the calming of the United States
in the past two years and he said that most of it was directly attri-
butable to the calming in Vietnam. As a result, managing the
transition from war to peace had become one of the great and welcome
challenges, the OMB Director added. It is striking, he said, how
much the scene has changed and how much promise there is of more
change. The campuses were quieting down and Southern school desegre-
gation had taken place -- "an unnoticed miracle" -- without violence.
There still were problems, but these were problems subsequent to
desegregation. In short, things were looking up.
The President then noted that it was time to introduce the
"mystery guest," who had been delayed a few minutes because he had
been meeting with some Senators on the Family Assistance Program
which was stuck in the Senate. "While Pat Moynihan was the creative
thinker who brought that program into being for all of us, he's been
the inspirational man -- with his emphasis on reform and on the need
for idealism as well as the pragmatic approach. Now, the time
has come when we're going to lose him, when he is going up -- or
down -- to Harvard. "Harvard's gain will be our loss."
Turning the floor over to Moynihan, the President said,
it's time for "the Christmas charge."
And the assembled Nixon men plus the President himself
certainly got the "charge," delivered with considerable oratorical
flourish by a ruddy-faced Moynihan. He began by outlining the problems
Transition
22
that the Administration faced on coming to power two years before
and he described what had been done -- the diminishing war, govern-
mental reform, "racial rhetoric calmed, the great symbol of racial
subjugation -- the dual school system of the South -- quietly and
finally dismantled." All in all, he went on, "a record of some good
fortune and much genuine achievement."
"And yet," he added, more in sorrow than in anger, "how
little the Administration is credited with what it has achieved
Depressing, even frightening things are being said about the Admini-
stration. They are not true. This has been a company of honorable
and able men, led by a President of singular courage and compassion
in the face of a sometimes awful knowledge of the problems and the
probabilities that confront him."
And then he pleaded with the "members of this Administra-
tion, the men in this room, to be far more attentive to what it is
the President has said, and proposed. Time and again, the President
has said things of startling insight, taken positions of great
political courage and intellectual daring, only to be greeted with
silence or incomprehension even within our own ranks."
"I am one of those who believe that America is the hope
of the world, and that for that time given him the President is the
hope of America. Serve him well. Pray for his success. Understand
how much depends on you. Try to understand what he has given of
himself.
"This is something those of us who have worked in this
building with him know in a way that perhaps only that experience
Transition 23
can teach. To have seen him late into the night and through the
night and into the morning, struggling with the most awful complexi-
ties, the most demanding and irresolvable conflicts, doing SQ
because he cared, trying to comprehend what is right, and trying
to make other men see it, above all, caring, working, hoping for
this country that he has made greater already and which he will make
greater still.
"Serve him well. Pray for his success. Understand how
much depends on you.
"And now, goodbye, it really has been good to know you. If
It was an exceptionally moving performance and when Moyni-
han finished he was greeted by a thunderous standing ovation. A
few of the Nixon men were seen wiping away tears as they stood to
applaud.
After the applause subsided, the President said, "You can
see why I referred to him as our 'clean-up hitter.
So obviously delighted was the President that he announced
that he was himself buying Moynihan's Cabinet chair as a farewell
present, noting that the cost of these chairs had lately gone up.
The chair, incidentally, now cost five hundred dollars.
Later in the week, talking to Time's Hugh Sidey, Daniel
Patrick Moynihan explained why he had delivered his warm farewell
speech: "Look what they have been told: liberals get more women than
they do, make more money, are smarter, are better looking. Their
art is the best, their books are better. These fellows here are
Transition 24
told that constantly, and what's worse, they have begun to
believe it."
I
Message
1
CHAPTER 21
In an hour-long telecast "conversation" with network
correspondents on January 4, 1971, almost two years after he had
assumed office, Mr. Nixon was asked if he felt the Presidency had
changed him. In reply, he mused on the age-old disparity between
aspirations and achievements: When a man comes into the Presidency
"he believes he can accomplish a great deal, even though he may have
a Congress that is not part of his own party. But, then, after he
gets in, he finds that his actual performance may not measure up to
his goals.
"So
while we must set high goals and always seek them,
we must not become impatient. We must plow forward, recognizing
that in the end we are going to make some progress, if not all of
the progress that we had hoped."
While the President expressed himself as pleased with certain
accomplishments and optimistic about the next two years, the dis-
appointments of his first two years in office were manifest enough.
For example, he had hoped to end the war in Vietnam in the first two
years. Nevertheless, "we are on the way out, and we are on the way
out in a way that will bring a just peace " And that, he believed,
could be considered one of his primary accomplishments.
Domestically the President was disappointed by the failure
to get welfare reform. Another "disappointment" was the tragic
events at Kent State, Jackson State and the University of Wisconsin. #
# The #tragedy* at the University of Wisconsin had occurred
Message 2
August 24 when a bomb blast destroyed the Army Mathematics Research
Center, resulting in the death of one graduate student and injuries
to four other persons. Destroyed in the explosion was a $1.5 million
computer.
These were "three tragedies that left a very deep impression
upon me."
As for the economy, the President was concerned about
unemployment and persistent inflation. Nevertheless he did claim
progress in tempering inflation. He noted that "while the progress
has not been as fast as we would have liked, the wholesale price
index is turning down -- not as much as we would like but turning
down."
Unemployment was, of course, too high, "even though we
could perhaps point to the fact that over the past twenty years
there have been only three peacetime years in which unemployment was
less than five percent -- the years of '55, '56 and '57."
"But," the President noted, "on that score let me say that
I take no comfort in that statistic. I know what unemployment does
to somebody. I have seen an unemployed man come into my father's
store. I have seen the look in his eye when he can't pay the bill.
I have seen the look in his children's eyes when he can't pay that
bill."
And then the President got down to specifics.
"What we are going to do first is to have an expansionary
budget. It will be a budget in deficit, as will be the budget in
1971. It will not be an inflationary budget because it will not
Message 3
exceed the full-employment revenues. We also, according to Dr.
Arthur Burns, will have an expansionary monetary policy, and that
will, of course, be a monetary policy adequate to meet the needs
of an expanding economy.
"Now, in addition to that, we are going to have a program
that we will present to the Congress -- a program that I believe in
terms of Government reform will be the most significant reform that
we have had perhaps in a century. I think that this program will
also have an indirect effect in restoring confidence in the economy."
And he predicted that "1971, in essence, will be a good
year, and 1972 will be a very good year."
"Having made that prediction, I will say that the purpose
of this Administration will be to have an activist economic policy
designed to control inflation but at the same time to expand the
economy so that we can reduce unemployment, and to have what this
country has not had for twenty years, and that is a situation where
we can have full employment in peacetime without the cost of war
and without the cost of excessive inflation.'
After the broadcast was over, the President turned to one
of the correspondents, Howard K. Smith, and chuckled, "I am now a
Keynesian in economics." Smith, in reporting this off-handed comment,
noted that this was "a little like a Christian crusader saying, 'All
things considered, I think Mohammed was right. " But actually that
wasn't exactly the case. The President was making a little joke
because he was preparing an unbalanced budget as one means of com-
bating rising unemployment; and he did so regretfully rather than
Message
4
as a follower of the borrowed theories of the unorthodox British
peer. In fact, in talking privately with Walter Trohan of the
Chicago Tribune he referred to himself as a conservative and explained
that was one of the reasons why he had named John Connally, a
conservative Democrat, as his Secretary of Treasury.*
In his conversation with Trohan, the President, among other
things, stated his belief that the recently-published reminiscenses
of Nikita Khrushchev were not genuine; that they were manufactured
by the Kremlin for still unclear reasons but probably as a means
of continuing the desanctification of Joseph Stalin. The President
was clearly fascinated by the power groupings within the Kremlin
leadership.
At the same time the President took a pot shot at the
Ninety-first Congress, especially the Senate, as one which presented
in the final weeks of 1970 the spectacle of a legislative body
that had "seemingly lost the capacity to decide and the will to act. "
Though he did not say so, the President was aware that the increasing
partisanship of the Senate lay in the fact that it had developed
into a launching pad for Presidential candidates. There were at
least ten Democratic Senators who aspired to a place on the Presiden-
tial ticket in 1972, aiming for Number One but willing to settle,
in some instances, for Number Two.
The one big surprise at the beginning of the new Congress
was the ouster of Senator Edward M. Kennedy from his job as Assistant
Democratic Leader of the Senate and his replacement by Senator Robert
Message 5
C. Byrd of West Virginia. "While this will not change the Ninety-
second Congress and its determination to get rid of Nixon," wrote
Gould Lincoln in the Washington Star, "the defeat of Kennedy by a
vote of thirty-one to twenty-four has effectively knocked Kennedy
out of the race for President in 1972 and probably out of the
Presidency at any time in the future. As one wag put it: 'A second
Chappaquiddick is one too many.
And it did look that way to the White House at the time.
The man to beat in 1972, it was then believed, was Senator Edmund
S. Muskie. The Maine Democrat, who had picked up remarkable strength
as the Democratic front-runner, was then traveling abroad, seeking
to absorb knowledge of foreign affairs. He spent four hours with
Soviet Premier Kosygin, talking over U.S.-Soviet relations and
other world problems and, it was generally agreed, was out of his
depth.
In his State of the Union Message, the President outlined
to Congress his "six great goals" of domestic legislation:
-- To complete the "unfinished business" of the Ninety-
first Congress by passing more than thirty-five pieces of holdover
legislation including, in particular, the plan to reform welfare by
placing a "floor under the income of every family with children in
America."
-- To achieve "full prosperity in peacetime" by approving
an "expansionary budget" that would propel the economy forward
without relighting "the fires of inflation."
Message 6
-- To "restore and enhance our natural environment," the
President pledged to submit a "strong new set of initiatives" to
combat air and water pollution, as well as a new program to expand
parks and open spaces around cities.
-- To improve America's health care, especially for the
poor, by providing fresh funds, increasing the number of doctors,
improving the delivery of health services and encouraging better
preventive medicine. He also disclosed he would support a one
hundred million dollar campaign to find a cure for cancer.
-- A large revenue-sharing program "to reverse the flow
of power and resources from the states and communities to Washington
and start power and resources flowing back from Washington to the
states and communities and, more important, to the people all over
America.
-- A major reorganization of the Federal Government which
would leave intact only Justice, Defense, Treasury and State while
consolidating seven other Cabinet-level departments into four new
ones -- Human Resources, Community Development, Natural Resources
and Economic Development.
The most appealing part of the "new American revolution"
described in the President's Message was perhaps his suggestion
that Government power should be decentralized. The idea that a
"bureaucratic elite" in Washington knows best what is good for every-
body had indeed been abundantly discredited and, as the President
said, is "completely alien to the American experience." And he
Message
7
went as far as appropriating a slogan from the New Left in calling
for "a peaceful revolution in which power was turned back to the
people.
The phrase "power to the people" troubled William F.
Buckley Jr., but a fellow conservative columnist, James Kilpatrick,
noted that "under our Federal system, the ultimate power of sovereignty
-- the power to make or unmake -- lies with the people in their
states. In his invocation of this abiding truth, Mr. Nixon wasn't
embracing a Marxist future. With Jefferson, Adams and Madison,
he was going back to the point of beginning."
Bob Hope, appearing at the White House, remarked on the
President's words: "I heard the State of the Union message -- he
called for a new revolution. Since then he has been tailed by the
CIA, the FBI, Army intelligence and the Pasadena branch of the DAR.
And he's had three obscene phone calls from Barry Goldwater."
Unlike other conservatives, Goldwater did support the
President's domestic initiatives. But such publications as Human
Events and National Review were decidedly critical of what they
considered overly liberal aspects of the President's program.
Editorial support, however, was overwhelming. Even the
Washington Post, which rarely found anything good to say about the
Nixon Administration, termed the address "distinctive, innovative,
and committed to both some proper concerns and some excellent ideas. 11
Tom Wicker in The New York Times suggested that "the proposal for
reorganizing the executive branch appears to be the most brilliant
Message
8
stroke of Mr. Nixon's Administration The managerial program also
is squarely in line with the President's campaign pledges and with
the managerial tradition on which Republicans pride themselves."
And Joseph Alsop said the Message "was bolder and more innovating
than anything heard from a President since the time, nearly forty
years ago, when Franklin D. Roosevelt was putting the country on a
new course."
Nevertheless, the President knew he had a pretty tough
battle on his hands selling the Congress on his six goals -- with
the most bitter controversy likely to be generated over revenue
sharing and Government reorganization. The proposed reduction in
the number of executive departments from twelve to eight, for example,
would cut deeply into the established divisions of power. The
Congressmen who were being asked to preside over the dissolution
of the specialized committee kingdoms were the chairmen of those
committees, and they had the power to block the legislation. Other
groups, lobbying for the farmer and organized labor, would undoubtedly
be opposed to abolishing the Agriculture and Labor Departments
respectively. The President knew only too well that LBJ's sensible
plan to merge the Labor and Commerce Departments was sunk by George
Meany without a ripple of public reaction.
Consequently, the President authorized an ambitious White
House campaign to sell his "new American revolution" to the public.
The President himself participated in numerous bipartisan meetings
with leaders of Congress and business explaining his legislative
program.
Message 9
The President was thoroughly relaxed at these meetings,
which were arranged by Clark MacGregor who had become the new White
House liaison with Congress. MacGregor, a former Congressman from
Minnesota, had arranged for White House personnel to wear "I Care
About Congress" buttons.
At one such meeting, the President turned to his old
friend, Representative Florence Dwyer of New Jersey, and asked,
"Flo, do you play golf?"
"No, I don't," the Republican lady said.
"Do you have any rich constituents who do?"
"Yes."
"Fine," said the President, turning to the others in the
room, "I'll send you each a golf ball. That's all you get for
coming here."
Then he added: "I'm a man of the Congress. I respect
you. I want to work with you."
And he also talked turkey with fellow Republicans over
breakfast. "Look," he said, "we've been against things a lot in
the past. We've been identified with special interests. I know
that a lot of people are saying we can't get this program through
because of the special interests -- the lobbies. Let's be the
movers this time. Let the Democrats have the lobbies and the special
interests. The only thing that can damage us is to go out and
start nitpicking. We might pick up the wrong nits."
In covering all bases, the President also met with
network officials. The first group was from the American Broadcasting
Message 10
Company on January 28. The President's knowledge of broadcasting
problems and personalities astonished the ABC executives. In
discussing the "fairness doctrine," as it applied to Democratic
demands for air time to reply to the President's television appear-
ances, Mr. Nixon said, "All I ask is that you give them the same
amount of time you gave us when we were out. I think we got time
once during the eight years. " This drew a lot of nervous laughter.
#
Some weeks later, the President said the same thing to a
group of Columbia Broadcasting System executives, who also laughed
nervously.
Early in February, while talking with Dr. John C. Lundgren,
medical consultant to the President, about what he would say about
health insurance before the American College of Cardiology, Mr.
Nixon was interrupted by a message that Prime Minister Heath was
calling from London and that he should pick up his "secure phone. "
The President started to do so. Dr. Lundgren took his leave. But
then the President said, "Oh, that damn 'secure phone' 1s no good.
You can't hear anyone at the other end of the line. Tell them to
transfer it to the regular line -- you know, the White House line."
The Prime Minister was calling on a matter of utmost
importance -- Laos.
Laos
1
CHAPTER 22
Although you would never get the President's critics to
admit it, the strike into Cambodia in the Spring of 1970 had been
a remarkable success by any reasonable standards. At a cost of
227 American dead and 847 wounded, U.S. and South Vietnamese troops
(the latter's losses: 751 killed, 3,083 wounded) captured enough
rifles to arm thirty-four Vietcong battalions, enough heavy weapons
to equip twenty-eight more battalions, and enough rice and ammunition
to maintain these units in the field for a year. And there were
over 9,600 enemy dead -- another significant allied victory.
Perhaps as important was the undisputed fact that the
South Vietnamese (ARVN) forces had proved themselves in battle. This
meant that the President's policy of Vietnamization could be speeded
up. As Zbigniew Brzezinski was to note in the Summer 1971 issue of
Foreign Policy, "The Administration has so far been successful in
effecting a very substantial decrease in the U.S. military involve-
ment in the war while avoiding the military risks involved in that
decrease. In retrospect, its Cambodian operation deserves major
credit
"
More concretely, the success in Cambodia meant that the
port of Kompong Som (formerly Sihanoukville) was closed to the
Communists. This meant that the main enemy supply route was now the
so-called Ho Chi Minh Trail, a complex of roads and trails running
south from North Vietnam through the Panhandle of Laos.
And intelligence reports in the fall of 1970 indicated that
the Communists were gearing for a major offensive in early 1971.
Laos 2
The President determined in November 1970 that the United
States had to be prepared for the Communist attacks and should be
willing to help the South Vietnamese seize and hold the initiative
during the dry season of February and March. These are the months
in which the Red forces had traditionally launched their most
extensive operations in all regions of South Vietnam, from base areas
and supply routes they illegally occupied in southern Laos and
eastern Cambodia.
On November 4, the day after the 1970 mid-term election,
and again on November 28, the President issued directives for State,
Defense and CIA to carry out intensive studies of the full range of
contingencies - military and political -- in Southeast Asia. He
dispatched General Haig of the NSC staff to Vietnam and Cambodia;
and Secretary Laird and Admiral Moorer to Vietnam and Thailand to
assess the situation, confer with American and local officials, and
bring back their ideas on how the U.S. could assist the South
Vietnamese.
From these joint studies, there emerged in December the
idea of South Vietnamese preemptive operations in the Chup Plantation
area of Cambodia and the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos -- to disrupt the
North Vietnamese buildup of men and supplies.
On December 23, the President told his advisers that if
he should decide to proceed with these operations he would order
U.S. air and logistics support for the South Vietnamese forces.
On the morning of January 18, 1971, the President met with
Secretaries Rogers and Laird, Admiral Moorer, CIA's Helms, Al Haig
Laos 3
and Henry Kissinger in the Oval Office to hear Laird and Moorer
report on their just completed trip to Southeast Asia, They reported
that the North Vietnamese were trying to re-establish their
sanctuaries as well as redoubling their supply efforts, making
unmistakably clear their intentions to attack during the upcoming
dry season. At the same time, they reported that the ARVN were
consistently getting better both in capability and morale, and had
developed workable plans for disrupting the enemy's sanctuaries.
Both Rogers and Laird gave their blessings to those plans.
The President, however, withheld final approval. But he
declared in favor of U.S. support for one phase of the operation --
the Chup campaign in Cambodia and combined U.S.-ARVN actions along
the portion of Route Nine in the northwestern corner of South Vietnam.
The President wanted further WSAG analysis of the desirability of
backing Phase II -- the South Vietnamese thrust along Route Nine to
the heart of the Ho Chi Minh Trail supply system inside Laos.
On January 26, the eve of Tet, the President discussed
the military aspects of Phase II in detail with Admiral Moorer. On
the same day in Saigon, General Abrams, Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker
and General Cao Van Vien, Chief of the Vietnamese Joint General
Staffs, met with President Thieu in Independence Palace. Thieu
approved the full invasion plan.
On January 27, the President met with all of his advisers
on the Laos operation -- Rogers, Laird, Moorer, Helms, Kissinger
and Haig -- to hear their views. He then requested that Ambassador
Bunker be brought back from Saigon to join in the deliberations.
Laos 4
Meanwhile, the President studied a concise but detailed
five-page single-spaced memorandum summarizing all the pros and
cons of Phase II, prepared by the NSC staff. It included all the
arguments on the issues that had been raised in the prior discussions
-- such as the effects of the contemplated action on Vietnam, on Laos,
on the Paris talks, on relations with other countries; the likely
enemy response; the risks of failure; possible gains; the risk of
U.S. casualties; alternative operations and timing; and U.S. domestic
and Congressional opinion.
As the President pondered the alternatives, he asked Dr.
Kissinger to brief the Vice President, the Attorney General and
Secretary-designate John Connally on the issues involved; and
Kissinger did so on February 1.
In South Vietnam, meanwhile, three U.S. battalions landed
at Khe Sanh. Because he believed there would be heavy fighting at
this northern outpost, General Abrams embargoed all news of the
operation. Fortunately the Americans met no resistance at Khe Sanh.
Unfortunately, however, not all correspondents in Saigon
were advised that the news embargo itself was embargoed and, as a
result, wild rumors -- many of them reaching the states -- began to
circulate. If the correspondents were confused, so was the enemy.
The North Vietnamese had no idea of what was going to happen next.
On the afternoon of February 2, 1971, Mr. Nixon met again
with his chief advisers, this time joined by Ambassador Bunker. Once
again the President asked for all the pros and cons they could think
Laos 5
of. As Mr. Nixon subsequently observed, "There were twenty-eight
good reasons for not doing it and only two for doing it. But if
you analyzed them carefully the two reasons for completely outweighed
the twenty-eight against -- which were mostly domestic political
reasons anyway. II
Meanwhile a Japanese news agency reported (falsely, as
it turned out) that the invasion was on. Still more confusion was
created when General Abrams dispatched a small naval task force into
the Gulf of Tonkin. This generated rumors of a landing in North
Vietnam.
At 11:30 p.m. that February 2, after a White House concert
by opera star Beverly Sills, the President once again went over
the pros and cons, this time with Kissinger. The President understood
the arguments in behalf of the operation: if it accomplished the
maximum objectives, it could cripple Hanoi's supply system for an
indefinite period and could mean a decisive turn in the war. But
even if it did not achieve its maximum objectives, it would damage
the enemy's ability to launch offensives in 1971, and thus save
lives and further Vietnamization. And, given the President's
withdrawal program, this would be the last time that U.S. air and
logistical support would be sufficiently available to make a
strategic difference.
But in this conversation the President still was not eager
to give the go-ahead. He was acutely conscious of the risks --
likely domestic criticism, possible adverse diplomatic consequences,
and the certainty that the North Vietnamese would fight hard to
Laos 6
defend the supply system on which they were now totally dependent
for prosecution of the war in South Vietnam.
The next morning, February 3, the President called
Kissinger into his office and said he had decided to approve U.S.
support of Phase II. Essentially, the decision meant that the
South Vietnamese advance into Laos would be supported by U.S. air
power. Kissinger immediately notified all of the President's senior
advisers and word was flashed to Saigon that the invasion was on.
At the same time, the President let about thirty key Senators and
Congressmen in on the invasion secret. But he, himself, kept the
operation low-key by flying down to the Virgin Islands for the
weekend and acting for all the world as if nothing extraordinary
was taking place.
In fact, the President spent considerable time reading
several of the books which he had brought with him for his weekend
in the sun. These were books which had been recommended by Pat
Moynihan, who had compiled the reading list at the President's
request. One of the books that interested Mr. Nixon was a biography
of Disraeli by Robert Blake. And as Bill Safire noted to corres-
pondents, Disraeli was the first statesman to use the phrase peace
with honor" which, as the speechwriter-cum-lexicographer observed,
was what the President was trying to obtain in Vietnam.
* The other Moynihan-recommended books -- all political biograph-
ies -- were John Adams' Autobiography; Lord Charnwood's Lincoln;
The Education of Henry Adams; Talleyrand by Duff Cooper; Melbourne
by David Cecil; Hitler, a Study in Tyranny by Alan Bullock; The
Laos 7
Republican Roosevelt by John Morton Blum; Alexander Hamilton and
the Constitution; and Zapata and the Mexican Revolution by John
Womack.
Perhaps because Laos was deliberately played down by the
White House, major domestic opposition failed to materialize.
Except for isolated protests, largely by radical extremists, the
nation appeared to take the President's decision calmly and without
the furor that had greeted the Cambodian announcement of the previous
Spring. Only in the Congress was there serious opposition.
Senator Kennedy, the memory of Chappaquiddick apparently
receding in his mind, went so far as to complain that no one had
been really aroused over the President's "gross" incursion into
Laos. In a speech, Kennedy said: "No trains are coming from New
York filled with the finest legal minds. No law schools have
prepared their briefs on the constitutionality of it all. My mail
room is not flooded with telegrams; no Senate committees are meeting
in public. Rather, we read in weekly magazines that America is
cooling off, that we are entering a period where each person will
be more interested in literally doing his own thing and less
interested in the larger events that do not seem to submit to control. #
To the White House the speech was also significent because
it indicated that, no matter how much he denied having 1972 Presiden-
tial ambitions, the Senator from Massachusetts quite obviously was
setting himself up just in case.
What the outside world did not know at the time was the
fact that there were members of the White House staff who had come
Laos 8
close to panic in the post-Laos political atmosphere. The President
later told this writer that he himself had to reassure some of these
dissidents. Bob Haldeman, however, had to use even stronger language
to rally some of these troops on the staff. It had become obvious
that the constant downgrading of the Laos operation in press and
over television was taking its toll.
On February 9, the President told legislative leaders that
he realized that the press generally was not enthusiastic about the
Laos operation. Nevertheless, the action should have been taken
five or six years ago. In fact, the President recalled that back
in 1965, on a visit to Saigon as a private citizen, he had recommended
to General Westmoreland cutting the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Since that
year, the President noted, the CIA estimated more than six hundred
thirty thousand North Vietnamese troops, along with uncounted tons
of equipment, had come down the trail to help inflict forty-five
thousand U.S. deaths and a quarter of a million casualties.
The President warned the leaders that in this operation
"there are going to be some hairy days." The best indications were
that the North Vietnamese were going to have to stand and fight because
the ARVN had begun to cut their lifelines.
On that day, too, the President granted one of his rare
interviews to a member of the press. Some months earlier Peregrine
Worsthorne, a noted British journalist, had arranged with Patrick
Buchanan for a visit to the Oval Office. And it wasn't so much what
Mr. Nixon said that impressed Worsthorne as the manner in which he
said it. What really impressed the visiting newsman was the fact
Laos 9
that during his two hours with the President, Worsthorne forgot
that he was talking to the most powerful man in the free world.*
#
As President, Mr. Nixon has talked privately with only
of
handful of newsmen, including Cyrus L. Sulzberger of The New York
Stewnt
Times, Richard Wilson of the Cowles Publications, Allen Drury,
and this writer.
"What a contrast with LBJ, whom I visited in the same
Oval Room some three years earlier and who conducted the interview
stretched out on an easy chair, feet on a footstool, exuding great
clouds of barroom bonhomie."
Mr. Nixon sat upright behind his desk and never learned
back once. "The formality," wrote Worsthorne, "does not give an
impression of awkward stiffness or unapproachability. Rather the
opposite. With LBJ, the deeper he sank back into slumberous
relaxation in his chair the more nervously I was forced to lean
forward onto the edge of mine. His exaggerated ease made me nervous.
Could it be the lull before the storm?
"With President Nixon there is never any doubt," wrote
Worsthorne. He promises an interview and he gives one, "not a
beer garden display of personality a la Johnson or Khrushchev, or
a bravura show of charm a la Kennedy, but an hour or two of serious
conversation.
"This was not a politician putting on an act or using me
for his purposes. The approach was more like that of a good lawyer
who is being consulted about a problem and wants to give you your
money's worth."
Laos 10
On February 16 the President met with his Cabinet. He
noted that this was the first session attended by John Connally as
a member. Then he turned to Mel Laird and said, "Now we'll see
whether what we read in the papers is untrue, true, or half-true."
He was referring, of course, to the press reports and nightly TV
news shows which generally were stressing the downbeat on develop-
ments inside Laos.
The Defense Secretary said that, despite reports to the
contrary, the South Vietnamese forces were acquitting themselves well.
They had disrupted many of the trails and had uncovered and destroyed
a considerable amount of equipment and supplies. Another major
objective was to destroy a pipeline in the area. Even if terminated
tomorrow, the Secretary went on, the operation could be considered
a success. Not only had a great deal of damage been done, but the
operation had demonstrated to the North Vietnamese that they were
not invulnerable.
Though all planned objectives were being met on schedule,
the Secretary warned that, looking ahead, there would be difficult
times. The enemy would stand and fight and the South Vietnamese
could not be expected to win all battles.
Now, as for the other operation in Cambodia, the South
Vietnamese were performing excellently under the leadership of the
flamboyant but able General Do Cao Tri. With less than two ARVN
divisions, General Do had been taking on Hanoi's Fifth, Seventh
and Ninth divisions -- which used to be three of the most feared
enemy units in South Vietnam. According to Laird, the South Vietnamese
Laos 11
were flying seventy-five percent of all air and gunship sorties.
Laird reported that Do was upset because his extremely successful
Cambodian campaign was virtually being ignored in the American press.
Before the campaign was over, General Do Cao Tri was killed
in a helicopter crash.
The war, therefore, had narrowed to Laos and Cambodia,
Laird went on. The situation in South Vietnam was now pretty well
stabilized. The enemy was now relying mainly on terrorist attacks.
Unfortunately, Laird said, many Americans had failed to realize that,
from the U.S. standpoint, the war was indeed winding down.
Summing up, the President said the Laotian operation was
extremely successful and it had been undertaken with strong political
opposition, especially in the Senate, and with almost no support
from what he termed "the Establishment."
Patriotic feelings were close to the surface the next
night when the President entertained generals and admirals from the
various armed services at a White House reception. He cited Washington
and Pershing in his tribute to the leadership qualities his guests
had displayed in the difficult war now ending, and he spoke of the
challenges they will face in the peacetime period ahead. Singing
groups of cadets from each of the service academies then performed.
The Army, Navy and Air Force offered folk and barbershop selections
and bantered about football -- but the Coast Guard trio, last on
the program, changed the mood sharply with a moving, original talk-
and-song medley about the American dream.
Laos 12
For the finale, all four groups combined to cap the American
theme with such songs as "This Is My Country, "This Land Is Your
Land" and "God Bless America." A few bars into the Irving Berlin
classic the President stood and joined in the singing, His guests
rose with him, with more and more voices joining in. And when they
came to "God bless America, my home sweet home!" all in the East
Room were singing in unison.
As the President and his Defense Secretary had predicted,
the North Vietnamese soon began to fight with unparalleled ferocity.
They actually had no alternative if they were to keep supplies
flowing to their forces in both South Vietnam and Cambodia. The
television news shows began to exaggerate South Vietnamese setbacks.
Then there were journalistic efforts to "prove" that American
ground forces had become involved in the fighting in Laos. Every
anonymous GI willing to say he had been shot at across the border
made immediate headlines. Every rescue mission to pick up air
crews or helicopters downed by enemy fire was cited as proof that
Congressional injunctions were being defied.
"It is utterly astounding," wrote Crosby S. Noyes in the
Washington Star, "how many reporters have been struck simultaneously
with the idea that the Laotian operation is really & sort of war
by proxy, in which the Americans are calling all the shots -- in
other words, that the South Vietnamese are inept stooges while the
North Vietnamese are all 'battle-tested veterans,' even if many of
them seem to be about fifteen years old All this, of course, 1s
merely an extension of what has long been accepted as the savvy
Laos 13
journalistic attitude in Vietnam, somewhat heightened by a greater-
than-usual ignorance of what is really happening. No reporter has
ever gone wrong in assuming the worst in every situation, by knocking
the natives, extolling the qualities of the enemy and impugning
the honesty and intelligence of anyone in authority. Indeed, this
is the stuff that Pulitzer prizes are made of."
"Laos," Noyes went on, "has simply added a new dimension
to these standard attitudes. There is in this operation the inherent
risk of calamity. And through much of the reporting shines a barely
disguised hope that it will end in a disaster great enough to
confirm the reporters' blackest misgivings.'
The critics, journalistic and otherwise, had a field day
when the South Vietnamese forces began to withdraw from Laos ahead
of schedule. Probably the most disheartening development, however,
occurred when the nation's television screens showed panicky ARVN
troops, who were seeking to escape from encircling Communist units,
clinging to the skids of American helicopters evacuating the wounded.
The pictures had an unsettling effect on the nation.
One immediate consequence was that the President's credi-
bility suffered. Although the domestic reaction had produced no
new surge of street demonstrations, the first public opinion surveys
were disturbing. George Gullup reported that public approval of
the Nixon Presidency had fallen to fifty-one percent, the lowest
point in his Administration; while only nineteen percent agreed with
the President that Laos would shorten the war. And Senator Jacob
Javits warned that Richard Nixon might wind up a one-term President,
Laos 14
the victim of the same vision of military victory in Vietnam that
undid Lyndon B. Johnson.
At a press conference on March 4, the President tried to
stem the tide. He reported that his Vietnam commander, General
Abrams, had informed him that the South Vietnamese troops had proved
in Laos that they could "hack it" against "the very best units that
the North Vietnamese can put into the field. It Moreover, the President
said, the disruption of enemy supply lines already "assures even
more the success of our troop-withdrawal program." Then he referred
to the fact that there had been "a drumbeat of suggestion" from
commentators that the Laos incursion "isn't going to work.' As to
the correctness of that policy, the President said: "I hope for
the good of the country [the decision] is [correct]; and if it is
right, what you say now doesn't make any difference."
The President recalled that much the same criticism had
accompanied the move into Cambodia the previous year, when the doom-
sayers were saying that the operation was bound to be a failure.
Warning his critics against too-quick judgements on Laos, the
President noted that "the jury is still out..."
On March 22, two days before the Laos operation was ended,
the President was asked about his credibility problem by Howard K.
Smith in the ABC commentator's one-hour televised "conversation"
with Mr. Nixon. The President noted that the nation was reaching
"the key point when we see that we are ending America's involvement
in a war that has been the longest, the most bitter, the most difficult
war in our nation's history. And once we go over the hump, once the
Laos 15
American people are convinced that the plans that have taken so
long to implement have come into effect, then I think the credibility
gap will rapidly disappear. It 1s the events that cause the credi-
bility gap, not the fact that a President deliberately lies or
misleads the people
"
As far as Laos was concerned, events were to prove the
essential correctness of the President's position. As of this
writing -- nearly one year after Laos -- the North Vietnamese had
not launched any largescale actions inside South Vietnam. And the
President made good on his pledge to keep withdrawing U.S. forces
as well as on his pledge to reduce American casualties and involve-
ment in ground combat action.
Despite all his pledge-keeping, the President well knew
that he was ensnared in the pedantry that anything having to do
with Vietnam was all lies and deception. And he was resolved to
adhere to his definition of Vietnamization, in which U.S. withdrawals
were dependent on South Vietnam's expanding capabilities, no matter
how much pressure was exerted to get him to "bug out. II
That pressure took an unusual turn. Having failed to
bring down the Government of President Thieu in Saigon, the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee turned its sights down the street in an
effort to bring down the Nixon regime. The orchestration was well
done. First, Missouri Democrat Stuart Symington denounced Henry
Kissinger for usurping the authority of Secretary of State Rogers.
Chairman Fulbright described Kissinger as "the principal architect
of our war policy in Indochina," and James Reston wrote an uneasy
column about Kissinger's power.
Laos 16
According to Symington, Rogers had become a "laughing
stock" along Washington's cocktail circuit because Kissinger had
become "Secretary of State in everything but title." Obviously
the purpose of this provocative ploy was to put the President in a
position where he would have to choose between Rogers and Kissinger.
The stated reason, however, was to get Kissinger to come out from
behind his claim of executive privilege and to testify before the
Fulbright Committee.
Ironically, while the Senators were seeking to portray
Kissinger as some sort of Svengali exercising his persuasive powers
over a presumably innocent and naive Richard Nixon, the same thesis
was being promoted on the ultra-right by anti-Semites who bluntly
stated the President was being victimized by a "Zionist Jew."
At his March 4 press conference, the President described
Symington's statement as an "attack upon the Secretary and a cheap
shot." He praised Rogers as his "oldest and closest friend in the
Cabinet," adding that he "participates in every foreign policy
decision that is made by the President."
The clash over executive privilege, however, is a recurring
and complex one. Of course, the Senate has a right to review foreign
policy; but at the same time a President needs candid advice from
his aides, which he is unlikely to obtain if the aides know that
they may be publicly grilled on what they tell the President.
One morning in his news summary, the President read portions
of a column written by John P. Roche, a former LBJ adviser. The
concluding paragraph was this: "The great minds of the Foreign
**
Laos 17
Relations Committee have not had any real competition since Dean
Rusk and George Ball left town. A public hearing on our foreign
policy featuring the President and the Foreign Relations Committee
would be a fascinating innovation. It would be even more interest-
ing if neither were permitted to consult staff during the hearing!
The results, I suspect, would at best dispose of the committee for
the next decade; at worst, teach it some manners. How about it,
Mr. President?"
But the President had other problems to worry about.
The economy, for one, still was not responding as he had hoped.
Domestic
1
CHAPTER 23
Within the Administration in the early months of 1971
debate continued on what, if anything, to do about economic problems.
They had proved to be more stubborn than expected. From the begin-
ning the President's "game plan" had been to check inflation
gradually, thus minimizing the resulting impact on economic activity
and employment. And inflationary pressures had indeed begun to
subside and even the rise in unemployment, at least by historical
standards, was unusually small.
One of the problems was that the economists and economic
writers who like to indulge in Democratic politics began to grind
out an awful lot of gloom-and-doom prognostications. The President
himself noted the role of the press in a March 5, 1971 meeting
with Secretary Connally, Arthur Burns, George Shultz and Chairman
McCracken. He said that in some ways the situation was parallel
to Vietnam: that there were those people in the press who do not
want to see the Administration succeed; and what was most important
was to strengthen confidence because, after all, the Administration
was doing the right things.
At this session, McCracken noted that the employment
picture was "mixed," despite the decline of the unemployment figures
in February.
The unemployment problem seemed more dramatic than ever
before because it affected many in the white-collar, professional
class. As Herb Stein observed, "If an engineer or Ph.D. has to
take his daughter out of college, you'll hear about it." And a
Domestic
2
major reason for increased unemployment in this professional group
was the sharp cutback in aerospace and defense plant spending. This
was one of the prices to pay for what the President had begun to
call the "transition" from a war-time to a peace-time economy.
On March 23, the President met with Republican leaders to
discuss the controversy over the Administration program to proceed
with a supersonic transport plane -- the SST. At issue was Federal
funding of the project which had developed during the Johnson years.
Opposition to the SST was strong in both houses of Congress and
within the Administration itself there was a strong feeling to let
it die. The President decided on the basis of all the evidence that
the SST was good for the country. But he knew he was in for a fight.
To explain his position in detail the President met with
his leaders. First he examined the arguments against the SST. There
was, for example, the environmental issue which "bugs a lot of our
friends" like James Buckley of New York. This most definitely is
a legitimate concern, the President said. But he added he could
not see the United States giving up its undisputed lead in the
world to "save" its environment. If we do, we will have lost world
leadership. The truth is that the Administration was not asking for
a fleet of SSTs, but just two prototypes, and if the environmental
danger from these two was shown to be real, he planned to cancel
the project.
Therefore, as far as he was concerned, the environmentalists
had no strong case, the President said.
Domestic 3
The second argument was economic. The costs were too high.
But, as the President observed, the American people did not want to
go ahead with jet aircraft when the British first built them. They
felt the jets weren't worth the investment. But we went ahead and
built them and we caught up with the British. As a result, the
United States now has eighty-seven percent of the business. There-
fore, it was worth it. As for the SSTs, the fact was that the
airline companies who know more about the economics than we do, were
ready to buy the supersonic aircraft. Obviously they were not going
to buy anything that was uneconomical.
The third argument against the SST, the President went on,
was why put money into the project when the cities and the poor
needed funds so badly. He then told a personal story of how as
Vice President in 1953 he visited Burma and called on Premier U Nu.
He informed Mr. Nixon that, as a dedicated Socialist, he was going
to build schools, build roads and guarantee an annual income, among
other things.
"Where are you going to get the money?" Mr. Nixon had asked.
And U Nu's answer was, "on, we're going to appropriate it."
The President described U Nu as "a wonderful man" but not
an altogether "practical fellow." The fact was that Burma was one
of the poorer countries in Southeast Asia.
Once fully developed and a going concern, the SST could
mean an extra ten to twelve billion dollars a year in taxes, the
President said. And that money could be utilized among the poor
and in the ghettoes.
Domestic 4
The President said he was aware that the public opinion
polls showed considerable opposition to the SST. But he contended
that "if they had polled the people on the Wright Brothers," they
probably would have been against airplanes, too. The President
noted that the U.S. was the number one country in the world in
transport; and we don't want to lose that lead the way we lost the
lead in electronics to Japan. Look at the spin-off from the moon
project, in terms of computers. Now we seem to be turning away
from space and the SST. Whenever a great nation drops out of the
race to explore the unknown, it ceases to be a great nation. The
President said he was convinced the SST constituted a "dramatic
breakthrough" since, among other things, it would help bring the
nations of the world closer. Sooner or later the United States will
find that it won't be able to keep out of the race, the President
concluded.
Secretary Connally, seconding the President's views, said
that while he sits over at Treasury and sees ten billions in
balance of payments deficits and, at the same time, hears people
knocking the SST that would bring the U.S. perhaps twenty-two
billions, he is "utterly astounded."
The next day the Senate voted to kill Federal funding for
the SST. The vote hardly came as a surprise. The President had
fought what he had considered the good battle and had lost. And
as one of his Democratic supporters on the SST, Senator Henry M.
Jackson of Washington, candidly put it, "The know-nothings are
taking over."
Domestic 5
And that was the tragedy of the SST vote. As Jackson
pointed out, it signified a growing anti-technology crusade "without
proper reflection and thought." For the opponents went to absurd,
almost hysterical, lengths in their campaign against the SST. One
Senator, in fact, said the SST would produce skin cancer. He had
no scientific basis for the statement. It was an unproved opinion.
Instead of being laughed out of the Senate chamber, there were those
who seemed to take him seriously.
At the end of the year, Richard Nixon met with President
Pompidou on Terceira Island, The Azores. In her United Press Inter-
national dispatch, Helen Thomas reported: "In a bit of aviation one-
upmanship, Pompidou arrived aboard the French-British Concorde SST
-- a supersonic transport of the type which Congress refused to
build despite Nixon's efforts. Pompidou winged in from Paris in
about one and three quarter hours -- covering the 1,875 miles in
less than half the time it took Nixon to fly the slightly longer
distance from Washington.'
Prior to leaving for Washington, the President inspected
the sleek white and blue Concorde. After moving down the plane's
narrow passageway, accompanied by Henri Ziegler, president of the
French aerospace industry, Mr. Nixon said: "I congratulate you for
building an SST. I said I was not envious, but I wish we had built it."
"Well, he continued, his voice trailing off, "maybe some-
time
"
Another not so incidental aspect of the SST defeat was that
it threatened to throw an estimated thirteen thousand scientists,
Domestic
6
technicians and other workers out of their jobs -- at a time when
they could not readily find other employment. As the President
noted to a visitor, it is easy to say that the nation must reorder
its priorities. But how are you going to put those people trained
in aviation into jobs dealing with mass transit or housing?
On March 26, the Cabinet met for a discussion on what to
do about cost inflation in the construction industry. The meeting
began on a light note. Transportation Secretary Volpe arrived
shortly after the President and the other Cabinet members were seated.
"What's the matter?" the Attorney General asked Volpe. "Did your
transportation break down?"
Volpe muttered an apology and James Hodgson took the floor.
The Labor Secretary began by recalling how the President in January
had called on the construction industry -- both labor and manage-
ment representatives -- to come up with a voluntary wage-price
stabilization plan within thirty days. But they had come up with
nothing.
So on February 23 the President had suspended the Davis-
Bacon Act, a law that tends to prop up wages on Federal construction
projects. This, said Hodgson, finally got the industry's attention
"the way a two-by-four gets the attention of a mule." Generally,
the public felt this was the right thing to do, but the parties
themselves -- both labor and management -- fulminated about being
abused.
The President, at this point, noted that management had
been highly irresponsible. The big contractors, who had union
Domestic 7
contracts, had not wanted Davis-Bacon suspended because it might
leave them open to greater competition. The unions themselves,
looking down the road, knew if suspension of Davis-Bacon continued
it would mean a serious erosion in Organized Labor's power in
certain areas. Hodgson noted that it could lead over a period of
three or four years to a restructuring of the entire construction
industry. The President agreed, emphasizing again that management
in this case had been just as irresponsible as labor.
The President conceded that his moves would not raise his
political stock among the "hard hats." While the Administration
may get a few individuals, the President said, most labor people
would be against us. But, as President he could not make decisions
affecting the nation's wellbeing on that basis.
The President said he also faced opposition from the
"bosses." At the Republican fund-raising dinner the other night,
the oil men gave only twenty-five percent of what they had given the
previous year. "I respect them for it," the President said. "We've
done things they didn't like. We did them because they were the
right things to do and it's understandable that some people are
unhappy."
Three days later, the President issued an executive order
formally establishing wage-and-price-stabilization machinery in
the construction industry that would be manned largely by labor and
management. And, as a sop to the unions, he reinstated Davis-Bacon.
The order, in retrospect, was a significant break in the President's
hitherto adamant refusal to approve wage-price controls generally.
Domestic 8
He hoped it would serve as a significant warning to labor and
management elsewhere to begin thinking in terms of the public interest.
The President, however, hadn't given up on the "hard hats."
He invited sixteen construction union leaders for an hour-long heart-
to-heart talk in the Cabinet room. The leaders were in town for a
meeting of the Building and Construction Trades Department of the
AFL-CIO, at which some four thousand lesser chiefs and business
agents heard a series of Democratic speakers -- and labor officials
-- rip into President Nixon, warning him of political reprisals
in 1972.
In effect, the President told the sixteen hard-hat leaders
that there would be a construction boom. He added that no longer
was there any question of whether the economy was going up. What
the economists were arguing about was how swiftly or slowly it was
going up -- but never that it was going down. The President said
he understood their problems, but he pointed to the nearly four-
dollar-an-hour increase per man won by a handful of unions in
Kansas City. This meant, he said, a jump in labor costs of about
one hundred and fifty eight dollars a week, over a three-year
contract period. And, he added, the rest of the nation follows the
construction industry. Which was why he had to take some action.
The President made it clear that the hard-hats were his
kind of people and he felt most comfortable with them. He added:
"If every man around this table opposes me for partisan reasons or
if every man around this table opposes every one of my domestic
Domestic 9
programs, for what you have done for your country on the vital
issues which affect our nation's security, you will always be welcome
in this room as long as I am here.
"I want you to know you can always come in. I don't want
only those groups that hold up their hands and say, 'we support
you, Mr. President.
Then the President took the group out to the Rose Garden
for some picture taking.
To demonstrate his even-handedness, the President also
rapped the knuckles of Bethlehem Steel and got them to give up half
of a proposed twelve percent price increase. But it was done with-
out the furor which had greeted President Kennedy when he sought
to bring down steel prices. Which again demonstrated the difference
in approach taken by these two Presidents.
And in a speech entitled "The Right To Be Confident,"
the President told the annual meeting of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
on April 26 that he would continue to use the power of his office
"to persuade business and labor to act responsibly in making further
progress against inflation.' At the same time he promised to do
"all that I can in my present office" to preserve "the economic
freedom that built this nation." But he also said there were times
when economic freedom "must be protected from its own excesses."
The President obviously was turning away from his previous
instinct to interfere as little as possible in the workings of the
market-place.
Previously, on April 7, the President had once again
addressed the nation on the subject of Vietnam. Announcing he would
Domestic 10
withdraw another one hundred thousand troops between May 1 and
December 1, he also flatly refused to set a terminal date for a
total pullout. But he emphasized the U.S. was getting out of the
war, adding that the withdrawal would be on our terms, agreed to
by the South Vietnamese, not the terms of Hanoi. He insisted, too,
that the U.S. would not withdraw completely until all American
prisoners of war had been released by the enemy. And he warned
that "a nightmare of recrimination" would sweep the country if "I
should move to end this war without regard to what happens in South
Vietnam. If
The possibility of such a "nightmare" was far from
hyperbole. On March 31, First Lieutenant William Laws Calley Jr.
was sentenced to life imprisonment by a military court after being
found guilty of the premeditated murder of at least twenty-two
South Vietnamese civilians at My Lai in March 1968.
For millions of Americans, Calley's fate was the catalyst
which crystallized much of the national ambivalence, frustration
and confusion over the war in Vietnam. It was, said one of the
jurors who had convicted Calley, "tearing the country apart."
And for a few days it looked that way. A record amount
of mail, phone calls, telegrams and petitions descended on Congress,
other public officials, radio and television stations as well as
the White House, where they were running one hundred to one in
favor of Calley. Many were outraged over what they saw as the
conviction of a soldier for "doing nothing more than obeying his
orders." Others viewed Calley as a scapegoat, bearing the entire
Domestic 11
burden of guilt for My Lai while everyone else involved went free.
Still others saw in the verdict condemnation of the U.S. role in
Vietnam.
And still others, like Senator J. William Fulbright,
suggested that perhaps an appropriate followup would be for war
crimes charges to be preferred against President Nixon. For good
measure, he said, he would bring Lyndon Johnson and General Westmore-
land into the dock, too. Fulbright's argument was that Calley
had been put in his position by policies originating in the White
House.
The fact was that Richard Nixon had not been elected when
the tragedy of My Lai occurred. And what of Fulbright's role in
the escalation of the war? After all, the Chairman of the Foreign
Relations Committee was the author of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution
of 1964, which gave President Johnson the go-ahead to start bombing
North Vietnam and dispatching more troops, one of whom was Lieutenant
Calley. By his own logic, Senator Fulbright could also have been
charged with war crimes.
Such was the bitterness which swept the nation in the
wake of the Calley verdict.
The President himself was disturbed by the verdict and
the reflection it might have on other U.S. fighting men. The verdict
had been brought to his attention as soon as it came off the news
tickers at San Clemente. He pondered over it that evening and
still had it on his mind when he went to bed. At about 2:00 a.m.
he awoke, unable to sleep. All through the night he thought the
Domestic 12
issue through. In essence, he felt Calley had been tried in the
public spotlight and would be in the stockade for an extended period
while his case was being reviewed. He decided there was no need
for Calley to remain in the stockade. After all, there were draft-
dodgers -- heavyweight champion Cassius Clay came immediately to
his mind -- who were free on bond or bail pending their appeals.
The President's decision was this: Calley was to be released
immediately from the stockade at Fort Benning and returned to his
quarters on the post where he would remain under loose house arrest
until all his appeals to higher courts -- military and civilian --
were decided.
Three days later, on April 3, the President took further
action. Through John Ehrlichman, he announced that before any
sentence against Calley took effect, the President would personally
review the conviction and make the final decision about the lieuten-
ant's fate.
Actually the President was breaking no new ground. He was
merely saying he would perform his Constitutional function as
Commander-in-Chief to review the Calley case. Nevertheless he was
denounced by those who rarely hestitated to urge the President's
intervention in civil rights cases -- no matter what their court
status. "In yielding to what may have seemed an irresistible surge
of public emotion," commented the New York Post, "Mr. Nixon may
have unleashed long-range passions and reflections that extend far
beyond the furor over Calley."
Domestic 13
The Post was to be proved wrong again. Most of the public
clamor over the Calley case ended almost as quickly as it had
begun. As the President later noted, his entrance into the Calley
case aimed at calming down the nation's emotions -- emotions which
could have erupted into violence. And he succeeded.
In his April 7 speech on Vietnam, the President shied
away from adding any additional emotional fuel to the issue. But
he did praise "the two and one-half million fine, young Americans
who have served in Vietnam." And he added: "The atrocity charges
in individual cases should not and cannot be allowed to reflect on
their courage and their self-sacrifice."
In the speech, the President fought back against swelling
demands for a de facto surrender in Vietnam. The seeming ambiguity
of the Laotian operation along with the Calley sentencing had
angered the President's critics in the Senate and had brought
renewed pressures for immediate withdrawal along a prearranged and
preannounced timetable. A considerable amount of opposition was
building in the President's own party. And the once solidly pro-
war Southern flank of the Democratic party began to break, as former
super-hawks demanded that the U.S. get out of Vietnam immediately.
The President and his advisers were fully aware that by
now most Americans wanted the war over at whatever cost. "Neville
Chamberlain's sellout of Czechoslovakia at Munich was supported by
at least eighty-five percent of the British people," noted Henry
Kissinger. "A few months later the popular will reversed itself,
and he was a tragically ruined man. 11
Domestic 14
The Chamberlain specter also haunted Mr. Nixon. At a
White House meeting with Senate Republicans on April 20 in the
Cabinet Room, he emphasized that no matter how much opposition he
faced he meant to go forward, come hell or high water, with the
orderly Vietnamization of the war.
"I know that you gentlemen are concerned about the war,"
said the President. And he recognized that there were many in his
own party who "would like me to announce a specific date of with-
drawal. But "the real issue" is where the United States "will be
after Vietnam." We need to end the war so that the South Vietnamese
will have a chance to survive. We can't guarantee their perpetual
survival, but we certainly owe it to them and to the Free World to
give them a chance for survival -- not only for their sake, but for
our sake, because the other nations on the perimeter of Asia such
as the Philippines, Korea, Japan and others cannot be allowed to
lose confidence in us and they would if we leave precipitously.
And, the President continued, "if the world begins to
think that the United States is content to be a second-rate power
(and even if that seems to fit well within the United States) it will
not be conducive to peace in the world." He then went on to explain
that there were two great and key nations on the periphery of the
Communist world who looked to the U.S. for guarantees of their
security. They were Japan and Germany, neither of whom is a nuclear
power. These nations are with us not simply because of economics,
though there are strong economic ties, but because the U.S. is the
number one power in the world. When the U.S. ceases to be the first
Domestic 15
power and when these countries lose confidence in the American
nuclear umbrella, they inevitably are going to look elsewhere for
their arrangements. When that happens, the U.S. will be in serious
trouble.
"What this would do to our nation's soul is frightening
to contemplate," the President said. And that is why, with the
delicate power balance existing in the world, the President needed
strength and evidence of such strength -- not only in the military
sphere but in a cohesive political support which would enable him
to play the proper cards as well as have the "blue chips" for the
high stake international poker game.
"Let's analyze just where we are in terms of national
strength," the President said. The U.S. was ahead in conventional
power and roughly equal with the Soviets in air power. As for ICBMs,
the Russians have approximately one thousand five hundred while we
have one thousand. But they possess a bigger warhead. And by
1974, they will catch up to us in nuclear submarines.
The President called on Kissinger, who compared Soviet
power in the year 1962 with 1971. In 1962, the Soviets had only
sixty ICBMs. The U.S., therefore, had a ten-to-one advantage at
a time when, Kissinger noted wryly, there was supposed to be a
missile gap. As of now, Kissinger went on, we still have a greater
ICBM accuracy, but once the Russians close the "miniaturization
gap" their accuracy will become so improved that they will be equal
to us.
The President noted that the U.S. was engaged in difficult
negotiations around the world. For example, the fourth session of
Domestic 16
the SALT talks was then under way in Vienna and the President said
he believed the Soviets had strong reasons" for an agreement.
However, "we know for a fact that they will only deal from strength
and that they respect those who have strength. Otherwise, they
have historically moved into power vacuums."
Springtime had come to Washington. The crocuses, jasmine
and forsythia were out in all their glory. It was symptomatic of
the times, however, that the big event celebrating Spring --- the
blossoming of the cherry trees -- was somewhat marred by smog damage.
Up on the Hill, Congress was in a lethargic mood. There was the
usual fussing about the President's war-making powers. But Adminis-
tration legislation moved slowly and the outlook for favorable
action on the President's revenue-sharing bills, executive reorgani-
zation proposals, health care program and family assistance plan
was only fair.
But all wasn't smog for the President. As he had predicted,
the stock market began to move up, busting through the nine hundred
barrier. And the unemployment picture seemed to be getting better,
the jobless rate falling below six percent. The President hoped
it would fall to five percent or less by the end of the year.
And with great Joy he confirmed the worst-kept secret in
Washington -- the fact that his eldest daughter, Tricia, would
marry Edward Finch Cox in June. The President was quite fond of
his future son-in-law. He had had many discussions with him over
the dinner table. Young Cox had a mind of his own. Having once
Domestic 17
worked for Ralph Nader and the New Republic, Cox frequently took a
liberal position. Which was quite amusing, considering Tricia's
innate conservatism.
But Spring also meant the season for demonstrations. And
the first one took place on a cold but sunny Saturday, April 24,
when an estimated two hundred thousand anti-war demonstrators
gathered in the nation's capital for what turned out to be a
generally peaceful protest. But all the previous week a new dimen-
sion was provided by one thousand Vietnam Veterans Against the War
who camped on a shady patch of the green Mall which stretches from
the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial. How many of these "veterans"
actually fought in Vietnam was subject to question. But there was
no gainsaying the fact that they were extremely effective. They
staged impressive street theater, simulating search and destroy
missions in Vietcong villages; they picketed the White House; they
disobeyed a Supreme Court ruling against them; and they wound up
their week-long activities by hurling their military decorations
onto the Capitol grounds.
A great deal of media attention was paid their leader,
John F. Kerry, a former naval officer who had served in Vietnam.
He made a particularly impassioned statement (reportedly written by
Adam Walinsky, a former Robert Kennedy speechwriter) before the
Fulbright Committee.
If
How do you ask a man to be the last man
to die in Vietnam?" Kerry asked. "How do you ask a man to be the
last man to die for a mistake?"
Domestic 18
Because of his eloquence, good looks, his twenty-four carat
social connections and the right set of initials (JFK), Kerry became
a national celebrity. And, in his groovy fatigues bedecked with
battle ribbons, he became an overnight hero among the radical chic
in Washington. In fact, he and his socialite wife found lodgings
in a fashionable Georgetown home and were the guests of honor at
several cocktail parties that week. Meanwhile, Kerry's "brothers"
and their groupie girl friends slept onthe ground, drinking cheap
wine and whisky, smoking pot, singing folk songs and showing anxiety
only when the bullhorn proclaimed that "narcs" -- narcotics agents
-- were in the area.
In retrospect, this was a prize example of a media event.
The Washington Post and the networks presented the story as if this
ragtag lot represented a portentous uprising. And the politicians
catered to them. Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark acted as
their lawyer in their dealings with the Justice Department. And
Senator Ted Kennedy gave out with a stream of anti-Nixon rhetoric,
completely ignoring the fact that it was his late brothers who had
gotten the U.S. into the war in the first place. And after an early
morning visit to their campsite, the Massachusetts Senator stated
that the protestors represented "the best of America." As Nick
Thimmisch noted, "It's ironical that the one-time fans and followers
of the Ivy League liberals who came down to Washington a decade ago
to plan, administer and execute the terrible Vietnam war are now
making the most absurd statements about it and use the unfortunate
Domestic 19
delegation of earnest, conscience-stricken, anti-war Vietnam vets
to further indulge in their favorite sport of masochism."
The remarkable aspect of the week-long events was that
they came off peacefully. Only a handful of arrests were made.
What was ahead was another story. A militant group headed by
Rennie Davis, one of the Chicago Seven defendants, who organized the
street fighting at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago
in 1968, announced it intended to block commuter traffic in downtown
Washington and suburban Virginia, shutting down the Pentagon, the
Capitol and the Justice Department. Davis said this "spring offen-
sive" would take place the following week beginning May 1 -- May Day.
Fully informed of all developments, the President gave
Attorney General Mitchell specific responsibility for the law
enforcement response of the entire executive branch. In essence,
Mr. Nixon set forth a general guideline -- to keep the government
open for business, consistent with the public safety. Meanwhile,
the President kept to his schedule. On April 26, for example, he
met with a delegation of Tennesseans who had come to present him
with a portrait of himself. Senator Howard Baker mentioned that one
of his last visits to the White House had involved discussions of
the Tennessee Valley Authority.
"Didn't we sell that?" the President deadpanned. Then
he reassured the delegation, which included representatives of union
locals at the TVA, "That's a standard joke the Senator and I have.
Everyone now is talking so much about selling the Pentagon,' he
added -- an oblique reference to a controversial CBS documentary --
"they've stopped worrying about selling the TVA."
Domestic 20
As he was being photographed standing next to the nearly
life-size oil portrait of himself, the President commented to the
artist, "I can't be caught looking at the picture -- they'd say
I was admiring myself."
Told by State Representative Ben Longley that Republican
Governor Winfield Dunn's budget had come within one vote of adoption,
Mr. Nixon asked the party composition of the Tennessee legislature.
Longley said both Houses were fifty-eight percent Democratic.
"Obviously many of them are statesmen," the President remarked dryly.
Next on the schedule was a visit from the Ohio Youth Choir
which was scheduled to tour Europe in the summer. The mythical
President-who-can't-relate-to-youth was nowhere in evidence as he
walked with the youngsters and talked with them in a low, easy voice.
He struck a chord in the group with wry recollections of his
experiences on his high school glee club. "I was such a bad bass
that they always made me master of ceremonies," he said. "The
singing was fun, but the bus rides were even better." From the
back of the choir came a scandalized "ooohhh."
As thousands of youthful demonstrators began to stream
into the city, the President felt it necessary, at an April 29 press
conference, to deny that Washington is "in a state of siege," and
to remind Americans that neither the Congress nor the President was
intimidated. "It doesn't mean that we are not going to listen to
those who come peacefully, but those who come and break the law
will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law."
In their raggedy camps as well as at all-night rock-concert
festivals in West Potomac Park, the youngsters geared for their
Domestic 21
moment of truth by smoking pot, guzzling all manner of booze,
fornicating in sleeping bags and tents, urinating in public, burning
American flags, and leaving a monumental litter for environmentalists
to weep over.
The Washington police moved in early Sunday morning,
May 2, to clear an estimated thirty thousand demonstrators out of
West Potomac Park after their camping permit was revoked because
of open violation of its conditions. Though this left the scrubby
legions confused, they did cause enough disruption Monday morning
in their efforts to "shut down the government" that police arrested
them en masse, bagging seven thousand in one day. Even the Washing-
ton Post was later to concede that "the behavior of large numbers
of demonstrators on Monday was destructive and dangerous --
dangerous not only or even primarily to the community, but equally
to themselves
#
With but few exceptions major traffic arteries were kept
unclogged for the movement of officials and government workers,
though considerable damage was done to vehicles. The prisoners
quickly filled the city's jails and the overflow was removed to a
fenced-in athletic field.
After the first day of trashing and traffic-blocking was
over, Rennie Davis said, "We failed this morning to stop the U.S.
Government. "
There were other mass arrests during the week, but
essentially the worst was over. Rennie's May Day Tribe followers
dribbled out of detention and out of town, and nobody seemed sorry
Domestic 22
to see them go. Up on the Hill, only a handful of militants like
Bella Abzug and Ted Kennedy were upset by the firm measures taken
to control the "nonviolent" children who had blocked traffic, thrown
bricks, bottles, boards and manure, slashed tires and ripped out
distributor caps and otherwise dramatized their opposition to the
war.
#
* Mrs. Abzug was seeking to take over the anti-war leadership
in Congress. Despite her lengthy record of leftwing activities, she
was elected the previous November as a Representative from Manhattan.
Her demanding ways infuriated even fellow radicals in the Congress.
On one occasion she angrily berated the vigorously anti-war Ronald
Dellums, a black Congressman from California, for not having
attended a Democratic caucus at which an amendment to end the war
was the topic. Dellums' reply to Bella was brief: "Why don't you
shut up -- you white elitist motherfucker!"
Most anti-war spokesmen were horrified by the May Day
activities. Oregon's Representative Edith Green, a Democrat, spoke
for many when she said: "Only the police and the FBi stand between
us and anarchy." The new Democratic Senator from California,
John Tunney, agreed, bemoaning the fact that the May Day antics
"well might have ruined several months of hard work by the real
advocates of peace."
Still high on the thrill of it all, the Washington Post's
house radical, Nicholas von Hoffman, made what in retrospect was
an important point: "It's very hard for the respectable, working
and shaving doves to understand that their real leaders are the
Domestic 23
freaks and the crazies
What the freaks say today the respectables
will say in about a year
The freaks break the ice with some new
outrage which gets everyone apoplectic and then people think about
it and often agree. So it is that Rennie Davis and the rest of
his sordid lot have done more to shape and change American public
opinion than the last three Presidents.'
Before the week was over, cries of "repression" and
"concentration camps" filled the air. The media began to catalogue
every single Serious Constitutional Question raised by the mass
arrests. Fading into the background were the issues raised by
the efforts of those who sought to interfere with the functioning
of government and the civil rights of citizens. And Americans for
Democratic Action, once an estimable liberal-intellectual organiza-
tion, at the closing session of its twenty-fourth annual convention
actually resolved that Congress institute impeachment proceedings
against Richard Nixon "on the grounds of high crimes committed by
him" in the prosecution of the war. "We passed this resolution,"
said Joseph Rauh, ADA's illustrious Vice President, "because we
have the same feeling of frustration that the kids do who sit and
block the streets here. Kids are arrested for idealism, and yet
there is the criminality of this immoral war. I can't get angry
at the kids.
# Oh, how they were laughing only ten years ago when Robert
Welch of the John Birch Society announced that his solution to it
all was to "Impeach Earl Warren." Hubert Humphrey, one of ADA's
founder-members, said that a small number of delegates "apparently
Domestic
24
acted more out of emotion and passion than reason and prudent
judgement in calling for the impeachment of the President. I
find their action irresponsible and unwarranted."
On May 8, the President met privately with Mayor Walter
Washington, Police Chief Jerry Wilson and several army officers
to thank them for preventing what he described as the spectacle of
a Government being shut down by anarchy in the streets. Referring
to the Monday Morning Quarterbacks now busily criticizing the
successful defusing of the May Day caper, Mr. Nixon said: "Why
don't you ask them how they would have dealt with the situation
and what they would have done to keep the city open?"
The civil libertarians, led by Ted Kennedy, kept harping
on the few cases of innocent bystanders who were grabbed during the
mass roundup for little more than having long hair or a floppy
look. But none of the critics could come up with any plausible
suggestions for containing the tens of thousands of militants. In
fact, John P. Spiegel, director of the Center for the Study of
Violence at Brandeis University, thought that the Government
should have permitted the demonstrators to have a "half-hour of
blocking streets to make their point
It's not going to bring the
Government down."
At his June 1 press conference, the President was asked,
"Regarding the mass arrests in Washington -- you seem to have thought
that keeping the Government running was so important that suspending
Constitutional rights was justified. Was it that important?"
Domestic 25
"I think," replied the President, "when you talk about
suspending Constitutional rights that this is really an exaggera-
tion of what was done. What we were talking about here basically
was a situation where masses of individuals did attempt to block
traffic, did attempt to stop the Government. They said in advance
that is what they were going to do. They tried it, and they had
to be stopped. They were stopped without injuries of any significance.
They were stopped, I think, with a minimum amount of force, and
with a great deal of patience.
"And I must say that I think the police showed a great
deal more concern for their rights than they showed for the rights
of the people of Washington.
As the debate over police tactics and the legal processing
of the arrested demonstrators continued, few of the experts in the
media paid much attention to a significant remark made by the
President. And that was when he said flatly that he expected to
visit Communist China at some point in his life.
"I hope and, as a matter of fact, I expect to visit
Mainland China sometime in some capacity," the President volunteered
at his April 29 press conference. "I don't know what capacity,
but that indicates what I hope for the long term. I hope to contri-
bute to a policy in which we can have a new relationship with Main-
land China."
It was a noteworthy remark if only because no President
before him would have dared to have said any such thing in the
years since Mao Tse-tung had seized control of the Chinese mainland.
China 1
CHAPTER 24
Though recent years have
accustomed us to political ironies,
the idea of a Washington-Peking detente under
the presidency of Richard M. Nixon strains
the imagination. Could anything be more
bizarre than a Nixon-Mao summit?
Yet considerably less bizarre,
indeed almost plausible, would be a meeting
between Nixon and Chou En-lai, two of the
most skilled practitioners of political
survival in the postwar world.
And more than merely plausible
would be the new administration's seizure
of an opportunity for maneuver and progress
in Sino-American relations. Mr. Nixon's
bitterest critics denounce his bent toward
"opportunism," but it may take just such
a tried-and-true talent to break the 20
years of deadlock between Washington and
Peking.
-- James C. Thomson Jr.
Atlantic Monthly
February 1969
Rarely has any major shift in American foreign policy
been so thoroughly signalled in advance. But, as far as is known,
only one expert -- Dr. Thomson, a history lecturer at Harvard --
China 2
foresaw the possibility of "a Washington-Peking detente under the
presidency of Richard M Nixon. II
Richard Nixon, however, had been dropping clues of his
intentions all over the place. In October 1967 he had written:
"Any American policy toward Asia must come urgently to grips with
the reality of China Taking the long view, we simply cannot afford
to leave China forever outside the family of nations, there to
nurture its fantasies, cherish its hates and threaten its neighbors.
There is no place on this small planet for a billion of its
potentially most able people to live in angry isolation. II
But he added this warning: "The world cannot be safe until
China changes. Thus our aim should be to induce change; to persuade
China that it cannot satisfy its imperial ambitions, and that its
own national interest requires a turning away from foreign adventuring
and a turning inward toward the solution of its own domestic problems.
*
The article, "Asia After Vietnam," was condensed in the March
1968 issue of the Reader's Digest.
Within two weeks of his inauguration, President Nixon set
into motion the systematic process of review and the patient process
of policy evolution that laid the groundwork for his dramatic
announcement -- two and a half years later -- of his forthcoming
trip to Peking.
It began with a brief personal note from the President to
Henry Kissinger on February 1, 1969 commenting on an intelligence
report of the day before having to do with China. Mr. Nixon told
China 3
his national security adviser, "I think we should give every
encouragement to the idea that this Administration is seeking
rapprochement with the Chinese." Moreover, the President wanted
private efforts launched to see whether communication with Peking
was possible. This could be done through informal contacts with
East European Communists. Thus, the U.S. cautiously set out to
find an avenue to Peking. It meant blazing a trail through a
thicket of mutual distrust and hostility.
Four days later, a Presidential directive (NSSM 14,
February 5) went out to the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense
and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency ordering a
systematic study of U.S. policy toward China. It was to examine
specifically the current status of U.S. relations with Communist
China and the Republic of China (Formosa); the nature of Chinese
Communist intentions in Asia; and the interaction between U.S. policy
and the policies of other major nations toward China.
It was a formidable task and ultimately engaged the talents
of all agencies of the Government concerned with aspects of China
policy. The guiding rule was that nothing should be done or
proposed that could conceivably invite a rebuff from Peking. The
resulting study was finally screened on May 15 by the NSC Review
Group which, in turn, sent its analyses and options to the President.
On the basis of this paper, the President decided to take
the first big step. But at the time it didn't seem that important.
No blowing of bugles or clanging of gongs accompanied the unveiling
China 4
of the new China policy. Instead, on July 21, 1969, the State
Department announced modifications of U.S. trade, travel and
cultural restrictions that had been applied to Communist China
since 1950. U.S. citizens traveling abroad would be allowed to
bring back one hundred dollars worth of goods produced in Communist
China and six categories of citizens -- journalists, teachers,
doctors, scholars, Congressmen and Red Cross representatives --
were automatically cleared for travel to China.
The Chinese Communists themselves appeared to show no
immediate interest. They had passed early judgement on the Nixon
Administration by notifying the American Ambassador to Poland on
February 18, 1969 that they would not participate in the one hundred
and thirty-fifth meeting of the Sino-U.S. ambassadorial talks on
February 20 as scheduled. They accused the U.S. of having incited
a former member of the Chinese diplomatic mission in The Nether-
lands to betray his country and defect. "All this once again
enables the people of China and the rest of the world to see clearly
the vicious features of the Nixon Administration, which has inherited
the mantle of the preceding U.S. Government in flagrantly making
itself the enemy of seven hundred million Chinese people," proclaimed
Peking's Foreign Ministry.
But statements like these were to be expected and the
President did not take them too seriously. In his meetings with
Charles de Gaulle early in his Administration, the President brought
up the China question. He emphasized his determination to normal-
ize relations with Peking. He frankly did not know whether he could
China 5
be successful in ending two decades of distrust between the two
nations, but the President said he would try.
De Gaulle, who was most pleased with what he privately
described as Nixon's realism, instructed his Ambassador to Peking,
Etienne Manac'h, to inform Premier Chou En-lai that it was President
Nixon's determination not only to re-establish diplomatic relations
with China but to withdraw from Vietnam. Then similar word was
spread through other diplomatic channels as well as by Premier
Ceaucescu of Rumania, whom the President had visited in Bucharest.
At first, Chou En-lai did not appear impressed. Convincing him of
the genuine goodwill of the United States was to prove a difficult
exercise.
On August 8, 1969, Secretary Rogers rose in Canberra,
Australia, to observe that "we recognize, of course, that the
Republic of China on Taiwan and Communist China on the mainland are
facts of life.' The speech went virtually unnoticed by the pundits.
But it was the first time that any major American spokesman had
recognized that fact of life for twenty years.
The statement was accompanied by numerous behind-the-scenes
probings. Messages were sent to Peking through carefully selected
third countries. Among other things, the U.S. expressed interest
in reviving the moribund ambassadorial talks with the Chinese in
Warsaw. In approving these moves, the President let it be understood
that the Chinese could not necessarily be expected to respond
immediately and he said we should be patient. There was always an
awareness that the slightest slip could blow the whole project
sky-high.
China 6
On August 14, 1969, the President met with the National
Security Council at the Western White House for a broad review of
China policy. The meeting began with a briefing and discussion
on China's internal situation, posture toward the rest of the world,
and her military potential.
The President told his advisers that it was important
that we examine all our assumptions dealing with Soviet and Chinese
policies toward us and our policies toward them. "Let's look at
what has actually been happening," he urged. "Can we sustain our
previous assumptions?" He also emphasized that "we must look at
China on a long-term basis. We cannot let China stay permanently
isolated." Our basic interest was to help build a safer world for
the future. The key question was what kind of policy toward China
would best serve this interest -- isolation or a dialogue?
A major evaluation by the NSC was that the internal
convulsions that had occurred on the mainland in the course of the
recent Cultural Revolution had left China in some confusion That,
plus Peking's preoccupation with the Soviet Union, would very likely
limit China's aggressiveness elsewhere.
The fact was the the USSR had begun an enormous military
buildup along four thousand miles of Chinese frontier. There
already had been clashes along the Ussuri River in the east and the
Dzungarian Gates in the west. The Soviets employed a variety of
other tactics clearly calculated to exacerbate Peking's perennial
fear of "encirclement." Thus, the Soviets' unprecedented briefing
of the French, Japanese, West German and other non-Communist govern-
China 7
ments on the border clashes was interpreted by Peking as a ploy to
mobilize international opinion against China. Moreover, Soviet
officials in Washington had demanded urgent audiences with top
Nixon Administration officials to underscore the gravity of Chinese
"provocations" and wern of the consequences.
Then, at a Communist Congress in Moscow, Soviet Party
Chief Leonid Brezhnev made a curious proposal for an Asian "security
pact" aired at containing Chinese expansionism. There were even
well founded reports that the Soviets might be considering a pre-
emptive strike against China's rapidly developing nuclear potential.
Thus, the possibility of a full fledged Soviet-Sino war was not
being discounted.
In addition to the Soviet threat, Red China faced a
resurgent Japan and a hostile India.
On September 5, 1969, at a time of continuing tensions
along the Sino-Soviet border, Undersecretary of State Elliot Richard-
son publicly disclaimed any U.S. desire to exploit or take sides
in the angry dispute between the two Communist giants. "Our national
security would in the long run be prejudiced by associating ourselves
with either side against the other," he told the American Political
Science Association. "Each is highly sensitive about American
efforts to improve relations with the other. We intend, nevertheless,
to pursue 8. long-term course of progressively developing better
relations with both. We are not going to let Communist Chinese
invective deter us from seeking agreements with the Soviet Union
where those are in our interest. Conversely, we are not going to
China 8
let Soviet apprehensions prevent us from attempting to bring
Communist China out of its angry, alienated shell. 11
In a year-end background briefing on December 18, 1969,
a White House official said that the U.S. had made it clear that
we have no permanent enemies and will judge other countries, including
Communist China, on the basis of their actions and not their domestic
ideology. The official emphasized there had clearly been a change
in American policy, that we were prepared to have serious, concrete
and, hopefully, constructive talks with Peking. The problem was
one of restoring a degree of confidence for a possible dialogue.
The new U.S. approach to the Chinese showed skill and
patience. The President knew they were not ready for the bold step
of reciprocating. Therefore he patiently built a record of low-key
public statements and actions which did not require a Chinese
response, but which unmistakably established the American willingness
to open a dialogue. The President knew that their response would
come (if at all) in their own good time. By not trying to force
them prematurely, he made the decision easier for them. By avoiding
melodramatic overtures, he made clear his seriousness. In his
opinion, a hasty approach -- or one based on abstract sentimentality
-- would undoubtedly have been rebuffed.
On December 19, 1969, the State Department announced the
removal of the one hundred dollar ceiling on non-commercial tourist
importations of mainland Chinese goods. And there was further
alteration of the regulations to permit foreign subsidiaries of
U.S. firms to trade with mainland China in non-strategic goods.
China 9
On January 8, 1970, the U.S. and China agreed to reopen
the Warsaw ambassadorial talks.
On February 18, 1970, the President, in his first Foreign
Policy Report to the Congress, outlined the steps that had been
taken to normalize relations with the Peking regime. "We have
avoided dramatic gestures which might invite dramatic rebuffs,'
he stressed. "We have taken specific steps that did not require
Chinese agreement but which underlined our willingness to have
a more normal and constructive relationship."
On March 16, 1970, the State Department announced that
U.S. passports would now be validated for travel to mainland China
for any legitimate purpose. On April 29, the U.S. authorized
the selective licensing of American-made components and spare parts
for non-strategic foreign goods exported to mainland China. And
in August 1970 the U.S. lifted the prohibition preventing American
oil companies abroad from supplying their foreign-produced oil to
free world ships bearing non-strategic cargoes to Chinese ports.
Red China's response to all these overtures was non-
committal -- but none of them was denounced out of hand. The
Chinese obviously were watching and waiting. A more moderate
trend in Chinese foreign policy was beginning to assert itself.
In a reflective interview with Time on foreign policy
following the Jordanian crisis of October 1970, the President
expressed again his hope of improving relations with China and
said: "If there is anything I want to do before I die, it is to go
to China. If I don't, I want my children to."
China 10
Then, making a toast to the visiting Rumanian Premier
Ceausescu on October 26, 1970, an American President for the first
time referred to Communist China by the name it uses -- "The
Peoples Republic of China." The President did so again in February
1971. The following month Premier Chou noted publicly that the
President had used the "proper name" of his country.
For some months, there had been other indirect but encour-
aging responses. Evidence was accumulating that the Chinese would
not be adverse to opening the dialogue which Mr. Nixon was seeking.
Thus, toward the end of 1970, the President decided it was time for
another systematic stocktaking. Two Presidential directives were
issues on November 19, 1970 -- NSSM 106 on China policy in general
and NSSM 107 on the United Nations membership question. By then,
it appeared virtually certain that Peking would be admitted into
the world body. The review of China policy was to cover U.S. long-
range goals, short-range goals, coordination with other interested
nations, and implications for U.S. relations with the Soviet Union
and our interests in Southeast Asia.
In a year-end review of foreign policy, a top White House
official on December 24, 1970, said that the Nixon Administration
was prepared to resume talks with the Chinese Communists "at Warsaw
or elsewhere."
And in his second Foreign Policy Report to the Congress,
the President on February 25, 1971 gave a status report on the two
years of his new China policy. He traced the measures he had taken
China 11
to remove "needless obstacles" to a dialogue. He noted that the
turmoil of the Cultural Revolution seemed to be ending, and that now
"there could be new opportunities for the Peoples Republic of
China to explore the path of normalization of relations with its
neighbors and with the world." At the same time, he emphasized
that "an honorable relationship with Peking" could not be constructed
at the expense of our commitments to international order or to our
allies. He recalled with pride the vitality of our relationship
with the Republic of China and the defensive nature of our alliance.
With these principles established, and with two years of
preparation and exploration behind him, the President continued to
unfold his China policy in the spring of 1971. In response to
NSSM's 106 and 107, the U.S. Government carried through another
thorough interagency assessment of the issues and choices facing
U.S. policy toward China.
On the Chinese side there were signs of receptivity.
Among other things, there was Chou En-lai's visit to Hanoi in
March -- at the height of bitter fighting in Laos. But the Chinese
Premier said little that was disconcerting to Washington. In fact,
the North Vietnamese reportedly were displeased by Chou's unwilling-
ness to sound more aggressively anti-American.
Then came a dramatic public breakthrough. On April 6,
1971, an American table tennis team competing in a world champion-
ship in Nagoya, Japan, received an invitation from the Chinese team
to play in mainland China. Graham Steenhoven, president of the
U.S. Table Tennis Association, accepted the invitation the next day.
China 12
On April 10, the Chinese granted visas to seven Western newsmen
to cover the U.S. team's tour. The team traveled extensively in
China, playing exhibition matches, and was received on April 14
by Premier Chou En-lai who told them: "With your acceptance of our
invitation, you have opened a new page in the relations of the Chinese
and American people.'
On April 15, Ron Ziegler expressed the President's agree-
ment that "a new page" was indeed being turned. At the same time,
the White House continued to ease controls to permit still more
U.S. exports to China. And on April 16, in a question-and-answer
session with the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the President
stated his belief that "the steady ordered process" of a U.S. shift
in China policy "now begins to bear fruit." He told the editors of
a recent conversation he had had with his daughters on the possibility
of going to China some day. "I hope they do. As a matter of fact,
I hope sometime I do."
The assembled editors, of course, had no way of knowing
that secret soundings had been made with the Chinese looking toward
a possible Presidential visit to Peking. Hints about this extra-
ordinary possibility were being dropped all over the place. For
example, in its April 30, 1971 issue, Life published Edgar Snow's
account of an interview he had had the previous December 18 with
Mao Tse-tung. The Foreign Ministry, Mao had mentioned, was considering
the matter of inviting Americans, including the President, to China.
"He should be welcomed because, Mao explained, at present the
problems between China and the U.S.A. would have to be solved with
China. 13
Nixon. Mao would be happy to talk with him, either as a tourist
or as President."
In the course of an hour-long interview with this reporter
on April 12, the President dropped another hint. He asked when
this book would be completed. I told him sometime in the late fall.
Good, he said. There was something coming up which he couldn't
discuss at the moment, but he urged me to keep a chapter open. That
something would be pretty exciting, he indicated.
The President told me that he had encountered opposition
to his China policy from the Kremlinologists in the State Department
who feared it might offend the Russians. This was the last thing
he had in his mind, the President said. This country was seeking
good relations with both Communist powers. What the President seemed
to be saying, in effect, was this: for too long the United States
had simplified the Kremlin's international life by treating China
as an outcast. The fear had been that any evidence of Sino-American
"collusion" would cause the Russians to froth at the mouth, walk out
of SALT, blockade Berlin and generally act nasty toward us. The
President had decided we should no longer play this Soviet game.
As for Taiwan, the President said he had just talked with
the Nationalist Chinese Ambassador. "They know I'm their best
friend," he said. "But there will be a problem at the next session
of the General Assembly. We will keep our commitment to Taiwan.
However, looking ahead to twenty-five years from now, I would like
to make certain that everything possible is done to make the world
a little safer."
China
14
Then, at his press conference on April 29, the President
stated flatly that he expected "to visit mainland China sometime in
some capacity. I don't know what capacity, but that indicates
what I hope for the long term. I hope to contribute to a policy
in which we can have a new relationship with mainland China."
The President also acknowledged that Vice President Agnew
had privately offered candid views on China that were not necessarily
in accord with Administration policy. The Vice President had held
a supposedly off-the-record midnight session with selected reporters
at which he said he had opposed the trend away from unqualified
U.S. support of Taiwan. Asked about this, the President replied:
"I think it is very hard for the Vice President to be
off the record. As far as this particular conference was concerned,
the Vice President in his usual, very candid way expressed some
views with regard to our policy that he expressed previously in
meetings that we had in which he participated, the National Security
Council and other forums.
"However, now that the decision has been made with regard
to what our policy is, the Vice President supports that decision.
He has so stated since he was quoted on his off-the-record conference,
and I think you will find the Vice President in all areas where he
may disagree, as he should disagree when he has strong convictions
with policies, once a decision is made, will publicly support those
policies.
"I expect him to and he always has."
And then on July 15, 1971 came the President's dramatic
announcement that Dr. Kissinger had secretly visited Peking for
China 15
talks with Premier Chou En-lai, and that President Nixon himself
would be visiting the Chinese capital some time before May 1972.
Kissinger's mission to Peking had been meticulously
planned. A major problem was how to get Kissinger and those who
would accompany him into China without letting the trip become public
knowledge. The decision was made for the party to go in through
Pakistan, a nation on China's border that had the confidence of
the two principal nations.
The entire mission was masterminded by the President. He
worked on it often late into the night in the secrecy of the Lincoln
Sitting Room or at his hideaway in the Executive Office Building.
Both he and Kissinger, for example, worked five hours on the
opening statement Kissinger would read to Chou. And they prepared
at least a dozen drafts of a possible joint announcement to be made
by Nixon and Chou. At the same time both men studied all relevant
material regarding Chou himself so that they would know what kind
of adversary Kissinger would be facing.
And then Kissinger was on his own. On July 9 he slipped
secretly into Peking. He had flown from Pakistan under cover of
a story that he had developed stomach trouble while on a "fact-
finding trip" abroad and was going to a resort. The trip to China
was so secret that even one of the two secret service agents
accompanying him didn't know the destination. On the last leg
of the trip, the agent spotted a Chinese navigator and, according
to Kissinger, "nearly dropped his teeth."
Chou's first words to Kissinger after they had met and
had shaken hands was that the President's representative was one
China 16
American who "was not ashamed to shake hands." This was a reference
to an episode at the 1954 Geneva Conference when John Foster Dulles,
then Secretary of State, had turned his back on Chou at a diplomatic
reception. Obviously the incident still rankled the Premier.
Both men got down to business quickly. Kissinger talked
in English -- "with the verbs more carefully placed than usual, II
as he later reported. Chou spoke in Chinese, though he understood
English and occasionally corrected his interpreter.
Chou, himself, used no notes. And, according to Kissinger,
he was extremely well informed about American affairs. In fact,
one of the first things Chou asked about was an off-the-cuff briefing
Mr. Nixon had held three days earlier for news executives in Kansas
City. Kissinger explained that he had been traveling and had seen
only news accounts of the President's speech -- not the full text.
The next morning, Chou sent his guest an English text of
the speech. It included marginal notes in Chinese and a note
reading, "Please return, our only copy."
Although the President's speech had attracted little
attention at the time, one passage dealt in detail on the subject
of future relations between the U.S. and China. The President had
also praised the Chinese as "one of the most capable people in the
world."
The talks were not all smooth sailing. Twice the negotia-
tions threatened to fall apart. But the differences were patched
up. Ideological diatribes were few and far between. Slowly, pains-
takingly, the two men sought out an avenue that would lead them to
China 17
common ground. Finally, they agreed on terms for a Nixon visit.
But Chou held up the wording of the announcement until he had
checked back with Mao Tse-tung. Chairman Mao gave his blessing and,
Chou volunteered, had stated he wished to see the President
personally when he came to Peking.
Many subjects were touched upon in the twenty hours of
intellectually stimulating conversation -- Vietnam, Taiwan, the
United Nations, the Soviet Union, India and trade relations. Chou
En-lai appeared satisfied that the United States no longer would
resist Peking's admission to the U.N. as the China member. However,
he was also told that Washington would fight for the retention of
Taiwan in the General Assembly.
Also discussed was Peking's willingness to take part in
an international conference aimed at settling the whole Indochina
problem, as the President had proposed in a speech the previous
October. Previously the Chinese (as well as the North Vietnamese)
had rejected a similar proposal when it was made by the Russians.
In a lighter mood, Kissinger warned Chou that China had
seen many barbarian invasions but never one like a Presidential
visit with its caravan of advance men, newsmen, photographers and
secret service agents.
And then, as secretly as he had arrived in Peking, Henry
Kissinger flew back to Pakistan, then on to San Clemente to report
to the President.
In his four-minute announcement of his forthcoming trip
to Peking, the President was at pains to point out that the drive
China 18
"to seek normalization of relations between the two countries and
also to exchange views on questions of concern to the two sides"
was "not directed against any other nation." This, of course,
was an effort to soothe the fears of the Kremlin.
The Russians were stunned. Soviet officials expressed to
Americans their suspicions of Washington's motives. Even harsher
was their attitude toward Peking. Soviet magazines accused the
Chinese of having sold out "the national liberation movement" --
meaning, the Vietnamese Communists -- to curry Mr. Nixon's favor.
For the first week, both North Vietnam and North Korea
failed to tell their people of the Chinese invitation to the Presi-
dent to visit their country.
There was similar apprehension about the trip in Japan
and Taiwan. And in a dispatch to The New York Times, Max Frankel
reported India's anger over "the evidence that its hostile neighbors
in Pakistan were used to arrange the American contacts with its
other unfriendly neighbors in Peking. Already perturbed by the
domestic strife in Pakistan, the flood of refugees from East
Pakistan and American arms sales to Pakistan, the Indians are
said to be in an extremely belligerent mood, and some are believed
to be toying with thoughts of war."
A significant side effect of the President's Peking
diplomacy was the disarray it caused in the ranks of those seeking
to displace him in the 1972 national elections. For the first time
in many months, the Democratic contenders were left almost speech-
less. Senator Kennedy broke the silence. "Rarely," he said, "has
China 19
the action of any President SO captured the imagination of the
American people as President Nixon's magnificent gesture last week."
A group of New York-based conservatives took issue with
the President immediately. Led by William F. Buckley Jr., the 80-
called Manhattan Twelve "suspended" their support of the Nixon
Administration. Probably the best commentary came from Senator
James Buckley of New York. Buckley said he was not ready to join
his brother and the others in a declaration of non-support because
in his six months in Washington "I have occupied a position from
which I have been able to get a better appreciation of the political
constraints within which the President is required to operate."
Another conservative thinker, Russell Kirk, praised the
President's initiative as "a lively exercise in the balance of
power, an art this country nearly had forgotten. The attainment
of a balance of power in the world kept the general peace through-
out considerable periods of history. Maintaining that balance was
Britain's great function in the Nineteenth Century; it may
become America's function in the last quarter of the Twentieth
Century.
"The Soviet empire is the second greatest power in the
world, aspiring to become the first soon; China is actually or
potentially the third greatest power. Can the greatest power of
all, America, contrive to balance China and Russia on either side
of the scales, so that neither Communist domination might achieve
overwhelming strength? If Mr. Nixon does that, he will have
performed a feat of diplomacy that will cast into shadow such
China 20
previous American accomplishments as the Monroe Doctrine and the
Open Door policy. 11
The President, meanwhile, was seeking to dampen the
euphoria that gripped the country. The road ahead, as demonstrated
by our negotiations in Paris with the North Vietnamese and with
the Chinese themselves in Warsaw, would be both long and tortuous.
Expect no miracles, the President told Republican Congressional
leaders.
Kissinger, in briefing the leadership, declared there
had been no secret agreements or understandings reached during
his talks with Chou, whom he described as one of the most impressive
leaders he had ever met. The Presidential adviser also emphasized
that the Chinese have nothing but contempt for someone who "runs
after them like a puppy. "
Noting speculation the President's trip might be cancelled,
Kissinger observed that once the Chinese had "lost their virginity"
by inviting the President, they would not get it back by disinviting
him. As for conservative criticism of the China initiative,
Kissinger made the point that, faced with a complex of opponents,
it would be unrealistic for us to deny ourselves access to one
of them.
The President said that his forthcoming trip to China
was dictated by our interests and not the desire for atmospherics.
Thus far, the basic disagreements between our two countries con-
tinue. There might not even be any perceptible change in the anti-
China 21
American tone of Chinese propaganda, he added. Because the Chinese
consider themselves to be the vanguard of world revolutionary
forces, any statement coming out of Peking will only iterate their
ideological purity. Asked what will happen to the Republic of China,
the President said we will have to do what we can to save Taiwan's
seat at the U.N.
In a special briefing in the Roosevelt Room, the President
told his senior White House staff that he had no illusions of
instant success. He put it this way:
"What does our moving in this direction do? It doesn't
at all mean that we're with them; it means a dialogue, that's all.
But looking to the future, the world will not be worth living in
if we can't get the great potential explosive forces under control.
"So it's not because we have illusions or are euphoric.
I know that pleasant smiles and small talk about our grandchildren
don't solve problems. Where vital interests are involved, great
powers consult their vital interests. But interests sometimes may
coincide.
"We're taking this step not for the next year or the next
four years, but for the next twenty. It may make the world a little
safer. It
As another President would have put it, a beginning had
been made. That in itself was sufficient cause for an optimism
which was guarded but nevertheless real. It was, as the sports-
loving Chief Executive might have said, a whole new ball game.
Sal 1
CHAPTER 25
There was an air of expectation in the Cabinet Room when
the various Cabinet members arrived for a session that had been
hastily called just the day before. No agenda had been announced
and the Secretaries wondered aloud what was going on. The date was
May 20, 1971. At precisely 9:00 a.m. the President, a big smile
on his face, entered. After bidding his Cabinet officers to be
seated, the President got down to business.
Glancing at a piece of paper, the President announced that
the deadlock had finally been broken in U.S.-Soviet arms limitation
talks. For nineteen months, ever since the talks had begun, the
negotiations never seemed to get off the ground. But now in their
fourth round of SALT negotiations in Vienna, the U.S. and the Soviets
had agreed to agree this year on limiting anti-ballistic missile
systems and to try to agree later on some limitation of offensive
nuclear weaponry.
Warning that there was still much hard negotiating to be
done, the President admonished his Cabinet officers: "Let the experts
do the talking. " And then, at 10:00 a.m. in the same room, the
President met with Congressional leaders of both parties and repeated
the news.
At noon, Mr. Nixon took to the air waves to inform the
American people of the new development. It required less than two
minutes for him to read the brief statement that was issued simultan-
eously in Moscow. Mr. Nixon described the agreement as a major step
Salt 2
in "breaking the stalemate on nuclear arms talks," even though
intensive negotiations lay ahead in translating "this understanding
into a concrete agreement."
"If we succeed," the President concluded, "this joint
statement that has been issued today may well be remembered as the
beginning of a new era
"
The strategic arms limitation talks had been stalled over
the question of what to negotiate about. The Russians had insisted
on limiting any SALT agreement to the deployment of ABMs alone. They
were the first nuclear power to install this type of defense; while
only recently had the U.S. begun installing its own Safeguard ABM
system, and that after bitter debate. Conversely, the U.S. position
had been that any agreement must be a total package, embracing not
only the ABM systems but all offensive nuclear weapons as well.
Thus, in reaching the agreement to negotiate, both sides
appeared to have given a little.
Mostly praise and optimism greeted the announcement in
Congress. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield said the U.S.-Soviet
agreement for hard bargaining made "prospects for achieving something
of substantial value this year in terms of both offensive and defensive
missiles seem very good." There were a few skeptics, among them
Senator Fulbright, who said he was also puzzled. "They seem to think
it is significant," the Arkansas Democrat said. "Whether it is or
not, I don't know." Another skeptic was Thomas Plate of Newsday,
who observed "the talks need the fuel of concrete deeds to keep going."
But Plate, author of a recent book on the SALT talks and
the arms race, also made this point: "It is important to note that
Salt
3
in any evaluation of the Nixon Administration's policy toward the
arms race, the President must be granted the best of intentions.
He would not even have made yesterday's announcement had he been
disinterested in arms control. And he certainly seems one of the
less militaristic American Presidents -- given any rational view
of the Administration of Harry S Truman, who after all actually used
the bomb (and twice); or even of John F. Kennedy, who contributed
more to the acceleration of the nuclear arms race than any President
to date. So in the perspective of the American Presidency, Mr. Nixon
is quite a bit further from the Dr. Strangelove category than some
of the competition."
The President's unexpected announcement -- unexpected
because there had been no news leaks along the way -- had a secondary
effect. It succeeded in raising questions about the judgement of
several Democratic Presidential aspirants who, to a man, had argued
that going ahead with the Safeguard system of nuclear defense would
undermine the arms limitation talks.
As Senator Muskie put it, deployment of Safeguard "is a
provocation we cannot afford." Senator Humphrey said it would
"imperil the arms control talks and trigger another round in the
strategic arms race. " Senator McGovern said it would "greatly
reduce the likelihood that an arms control agreement which is
acceptable to both the United States and the Soviet Union can be
found. " And Senator Kennedy said that arguments that moving ahead
with ABM would strengthn the U.S. in bargaining with the Russians
are "particularly fallacious. "
Salt 4
Fallacious or not, the President was able to announce
that we had gotten off dead center in the talks. In this case at
least, he was able to prove that he understood what motivated Soviet
leaders. Pragmatic and realistic, the Russians respect power, not
weakness or abnegation.
Thus, the President also took personal charge of the all-
out effort to defeat the attempt of Senate Majority Leader Mike
Mansfield to force a reduction in the number of U.S. troops in Europe
from 310,000 to 150,000. Expressing no interest in reductions
unless the Soviet Union agreed to reduce its troops in Eastern Europe,
the President held a ninety-minute meeting with Democratic and
Republican elder statesmen to enlist thei r support in the battle.
He told this group, which included Dean Acheson and George Ball,
both Democrats, that he was opposed to any compromise with the
Mansfield proposal and would fight it and win.
The President never permitted the in-fighting to turn
personal. At a GOP leadership meeting, for example, a Congressman
began talking about "how to defeat Mansfield. " But the President
interrupted. "I'm not interested in that," he said. "Senator
Mansfield is an honorable man." He added that, as President, he
had to take the long view -- "to maintain the peace and to keep
the confidence of our allies and maintain our credibility in that
area. "
And win he did, with some unexpected tactical help from
a surprising source -- Leonid Brezhnev. The Soviet leader's offer
to negotiate troop reductions in Europe gave credence to Mr. Nixon's
Salt 5
assertion that our soldiers overseas were too valuable as bargaining
chips to be recalled unilaterally.
By a two-to-one vote the Senate voted to reject the
Mansfield amendment. It was an important victory for the President.
In his opinion, it was also a victory for the Constitution which
solely empowers the President to deploy and to command American
troops. And it also served to give notice that we were not
prepared to abandon unilaterally and without consultation our
commitments to our NATO allies.
Meanwhile, acting on Presidential orders, the Defense
Department began an extraordinary effort to dispose of the enormous
stockpile of chemical and biological weapons that had been accumu-
lated since World War II. Though CBW (chemical-biological warfare)
had been feared by his predecessors, it had never been rejected by
Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy (who greatly increased its
research) or Johnson.
Soon after taking office, President Nixon directed Defense
Secretary Laird to undertake a comprehensive study of CBW policies
and programs, the first in fifteen years. Military, scientific
and diplomatic experts, in and out of the Government, concluded
there were no military advantages in such warfare, and many
diplomatic disadvantages.
On November 25, 1969, the President renounced use of
biological warfare and asked the Defense Department to find ways
of expeditiously disposing of existing stocks. In still another
statement on February 14, 1970, the President renounced use of
Salt. 6
chemical toxins. But, at the same time, he said the U.S. would
continue to develop defenses against CBW directed at us through
vaccines and early detection and warning systems.
"It's a little amusing now to hear critics say that
President Nixon really isn't doing much in getting rid of this
awful stuff and that any President would have done it," commented
Nick Thimmesch. "That's like saying anyone could create the simple
artistic lines of a Picasso painting. But it took Picasso to
paint Picasso paintings. And it took President Nixon to act on
the question of disposing of infectious and chemical horrors. In
any field, it takes a man-made decision and effort."
From the beginning of his Administration, too, the
President had devoted considerable time to dealing with the illegal
drug traffic which had been spreading with all the evil speed of a
great cancer. He had beefed up appropriations for the law enforce-
ment aspects of the problem. His Administration had used its
political and economic power to cut off the supply of drugs in
Turkey, Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East. And it had
sought the cooperation of the French Government to break up the
processing of drugs in Marseilles and elsewhere in the Mediterranean.
And under the supervision of a most dynamic Customs Commissioner,
Myles Ambrose, the Administration quadrupled the number of agents
watching the drug trade across the Mexican border and at all
international airports in the country.
But that wasn't enough. The problem continued to grow
so rapidly that it had assumed the dimensions of a national emergency
Salt 7
On June 3, 1971 the President addressed an inter-departmental
group that had been working on the problem for over a year. He
stressed that fuller cooperation between all Government departments
would now be required, adding that fooling around would not be
tolerated. He praised the Japanese for having so successfully
controlled the problem. If they can do it, we can do it, he
insisted. He announced that he intended to bring in a tough,
ruthless, line-drawing administrator who understood the problem
to coordinate all Government drug programs.
The President said that we would have to persuade our
allies, particularly France and Turkey, of the necessity of further
cracking down on the heroin traffic in their countries. American
youth were being destroyed by the illicit trade and, the President
said, the time had come to forego diplomatic niceties and
temporizing on this subject. We will also have to get tougher
with the South Vietnamese. Especially disheartening was the use
of drugs by American servicemen in Vietnam. Though this was not a
problem peculiar to the military, it was being used as an issue
by adversaries of our Vietnam policy in order to impugn the
armed forces.
Two weeks later, the President asked Congress for $155
million a year more for a campaign of rehabilitation, research,
education, enforcement and international control of drug traffic.
And he named Dr. Jerome H. Jaffe, 37-year-old chief of the Illinois
drug abuse program, to head a new Special Action Office of Drug
Salt 8
Abuse Prevention. This meant that Jaffe, a psychiatrist and expert
in pharmacology, would coordinate the activities of nine agencies
now concerned with rehabilitation, education and research. In
addition, he was assigned to direct compulsory testing of all
veterans returning to this country and compulsory detoxification
and treatment of those found to have been taking drugs.
Dr. Jaffe's appointment drew praise from an unusual source
-- the Village Voice. The hip anti-Establishment New York weekly
newspaper called the appointment the best one the President had made
in any field during his entire term.
One of those anxious to assist in combatting drugs, partic-
ularly in the black communities, was Sammy Davis Jr. On July 1 the
entertainer met with the President to offer his cooperation. The
President said that as a famous entertainer Davis could get the
message across to young people far better than any politician. The
President then told Davis of a call he had just placed to Congressman
Charles Rangle, who represented Harlem, an area with a high drug
addiction rate. He had called Rangle regarding the successful
negotiations whereby Turkey had agreed to curb the cultivation of
the poppy. Rangle was pleased with the news, knowing what it meant
for his community. Then the Congressman told the President how
pleased his late grandfather would have been to know that he had just
received a call from the President of the United States.
Turning to another subject, the President said he knew
of Davis' great interest in black colleges. In all, the Administra-
Salt 9
tion had earmarked $150 million in that area, the President said.
Davis, an exponent of education for his people, said he was pleased.
On leaving the Oval Room, the entertainer remarked to Stan Scott,
one of the President's black assistants, that this was the first
time he had ever entered the White House through the front door.
Another visitor to the Oval Office was Chicago Mayor
Richard Daley, a leading Democratic king-maker. But the hour-long
visit was not about politics. It was largely about the enormous
problems the nation's cities were facing. And the President put in
a pitch for the advantages of federal revenue sharing.
The President also flew to Alabama -- George Wallace
country -- to sell the virtues of revenue sharing at a public affairs
briefing of Southern editors. But first Mr. Nixon participated in
a public works dedication in Mobile of the Tennessee-Combigbee
Waterway. On hand to introduce him was none other than George
Wallace, himself. "I am the incoming President, Wallace intoned --
and here the Governor paused for breath -- "of the Tennessee-Combigbee
Authority. " The huge crowd began to laugh even before he could finish,
startling the Governor. The President took the microphone with a
smile to acknowledge the presence of "President-Elect Wallace."
At the editors briefing in Birmingham, the President also
discussed school desegregation. "I went to school in the South, so
therefore I'm more familiar with how Southerners feel about that
problem than others," he observed. "And I have nothing but utter
contempt for the double hypocritical standard of Northerners who look
at the South and point the finger and say, 'Why don't those Southerners
Salt 10
do something about their race problems?' The President noted that
thirty-eight percent of all black children in the South go to
schools with majorities of white students, while only twenty-eight
percent of the blacks in the North were attending such schools.
Undoubtedly, genuine integration was one of the toughest
problems the President had to face. And he faced it, even in the
deep South. As Charles Evers, the black mayor of Fayette, Mississippi,
and brother of the slain civil rights leader, Medgar Evers, put it:
"Man, Nixon's really cracked down. There's not a school in this
state that some blacks are not in." Agreeing bitterly with Evers'
assessment were the diehard segregationists.
In seeking to follow a middle course which would show
results without tearing up the country, the President found that his
biggest enemies were not only the diehard Southern segregationsts
but the Northern liberal hypocrites, who argued that the President
was pandering to the South in order to obtain 1972 support. The
President, of course, was well aware that most of his liberal critics
in the Congress and the press corps failed to practice what they
preach when it came to the schools. With one exception, even those
seeking the Democratic Presidential nomination sent their school-age
children to expensive private schools where blacks are rare. * But
*
The only Presidential hopeful whose child went to a Washington
public school was Senator Henry Jackson.
that didn't prevent any of them from publicly berating the President
Salt 11
for alleged derelictions including his opposition to full-scale
busing as an integration tool.
Another problem that was causing the President great
concern was the rash of slayings of policemen across the country.
On May 26, 1971, Mr. Nixon met with J. Edgar Hoover to discuss the
problem. Also present were Attorney General Mitchell, John Ehrlichman
and Egil Krogh.
After reviewing the slayings thus far in the year, the FBI
Director reported that to the best of his knowledge no national
conspiracy was involved. Though there had been considerable specu-
lation about the role of the Black Panthers, there was no evidence
that they or any other militant group plotted any police killings
in a conspiratorial fashion.
Krogh, a Presidential assistant in domestic affairs, then
reported on legislation pending before Congress to make police
killings a Federal offense. But Hoover voiced strong opposition
to such legislation, contending that it would make the Bureau into
a national police force -- something that he had fought against for
decades. Hoover also pointed out that 94.6 percent of police
killings were solved by local police within thirty days of the
offense. Moreover, the FBI always was prepared to put some of its
investigative resources at the disposal of local police forces --
if requested.
The President agreed with Hoover. He said he did not
want legislation which would "federalize" police killings. But
he did want to do something for the nation's police departments and
Salt 12
particularly for the widows and children of slain officers --
perhaps some direct payments to tide them over during the hardship
periods. He instructed Krogh to draft legislation to that effect.
To underscore his concern, and to unveil a proposal to
aid the families of slain policemen, the President decided to hold
a special meeting at the White House on June 3. He asked Hoover
to invite the officers of the International Association of Chiefs
of Police and the National Sheriffs Association as well as police
chiefs of the major cities.
To the annoyance of the President, the meeting generated
controversy because of two men who were not invited. They were
Patrick V. Murphy, police commissioner of New York City, and Quinn
Tamm, executive director of the International Association of Police
Chiefs. Both men had long been at odds with the FBI Director.
Attending the two-hour meeting in the Cabinet Room were
two dozen police chiefs and sheriffs along with Attorney General
Mitchell, Hoover, several Senators and Congressmen. Among other
things, the President called for Federal legislation to pay $50,000
to the family of any policeman slain in the line of duty. The
President also assured his guests of the prompt availability of
the resources of the FBI in cases involving police killings.
In the general discussion, the President asked Hoover
about FBI cooperation with the New York City police department in
the case of two policemen who, a few days before, had been shot to
death after having responded to a call for help in a Harlem housing
project. Hoover assured the President that from the very beginning
Salt 13
the FBI had been in touch with the New York police and, in fact,
had been able to develop latent fingerprints from some evidence
which helped identify the suspects who were being sought.
The Director volunteered that some people might be wonder-
ing why Pat Murphy was not present at the meeting. Well, for one
thing, because of the recent killings, the Commissioner obviously
was a very busy man. Hoover also noted that Michael J. Codd, the
Chief Inspector of the New York Police Department, would soon be
attending a two-day FBI seminar on ways to prevent police killings.
In New York, Pat Murphy issued a statement expressing
"disappointment and dismay" that his views, as police commissioner
of the largest city, had not been sought by the White House. Of
course, the President had no idea that Murphy had not been invited.
In the President's view, it was a needless controversy;
police work is one area where you don't play favorites or demonstrate
partisanship. And that was made clear to all parties concerned.
But he was distressed because the flap overshadowed his
deep concern over the problem of ten policemen being killed each
month.
At this time, it appeared likely that Hoover's stewardship
of the FBI was likely to become an issue in the 1972 election. Two
Democratic presidential hopefuls, Ed Muskie and George McGovern,
had already called for the 76-year-old Director's resignation. And
for a time there was even considerable speculation as to who would
be Hoover's successor.
But the campaign backfired. The reason was the avalanche
of anti-Hoover publicity. On a day early in April, for example,
there occurred the following:
Salt 14
A column by Rowland Evans and Robert Novak asserted that
Hoover presents "the prospect of serious embarrassment" to the
White House; that the "love affair between the Nixon Administration
and Hoover" has cooled; that the dilemma was "how to ease him out.' "
Then Life arrived in the nation's households with a cover
depicting Hoover in the guise of an ancient Roman and calling him
"Emperor of the FBI." Its lead article stated: "It has been widely
charged that the Director's imperious disregard for any but his own
views of the national interest diminishes the bureau's effectiveness
and has even become a serious infringement on civil rights
And
at times his behavior has infuriated and embarrassed high officials
in the Nixon Administration."
This was topped off by the extraordinary charge by Represen-
tative Hale Boggs, leader of House Democrats, that the FBI was
adopting "the tactics of the Soviet Union and Hitler's Gestapo"
by, among other things, wiretapping the telephones of members of
Congress. Boggs said he could prove all of this. Even his best
friends conceded he was not able to do SO.
"One of the saddest aspects of the whole sordid affair is
that it will be used to discredit those who believe for other and
more valid reasons that Hoover ought to accept the honorable retire-
ment which he has surely earned after forty-seven years at the helm
of the FBI," commented the Washington Star. "Boggs' failure to
substantiate his wild charges has only served to delay the day when
Hoover will admit that it is in everybody's best interest for him
to hand over the direction of the FBI to a younger man."
Salt 15
The almost immediate result of all this was that any
White House thinking about replacing Hoover was dissipated. In
the Director's favor was his extraordinary record of crime enforce-
ment and dedication to country. The White House felt that this
record far outshone a few lapses in judgement. Eventually, of
course, Hoover will resign. When this occurs, the President will
make certain that the Director will be accorded the fullest honors
any American can receive after such loyal service to his country.
At a press conference on May 1, the President termed
"hysterical" much of the recent criticism of the FBI. He had been
asked to comment on accusations made by Congressman Celler. The
Brooklyn Democrat had stated he feared the nation was on the verge
of becoming a police state because of wiretapping.
"Well," replied the President, "I have great respect for
Congressman Celler as a lawyer
However, where was he in 1961?
Where was he in 1962? Where was he in 1963?" These were years
when John F. Kennedy was President and his brother Robert was
Attorney General.
There were less than one hundred wiretaps authorized
then without court order on grounds they were necessary for national
security, and there are less than fifty now, the President said.
"Today, right today, at this moment, there are one-half
as many taps as there were in 1961, '62, and '63 and ten times as
many news stories about them," the President added. "Now, there
wasn't a police state in 1961, '62 and '63, in my opinion, and
there is none, now, at the present time.
Salt 16
"All of this hysteria -- and it is hysteria, and much of
it, of course, is political demagoguery to the effect that 'the FBI
is tapping my telephone' and the rest -- simply doesn't serve the
public purpose
This isn't a police state and isn't going to
become one. If
In the same vein, the President also asked where the
critics were during the Johnson Administration when there was Army
surveillance at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. #
*
It was Ramsey Clark who, as Attorney General, authorized the
use of Army personnel to spy on extremist groups in Chicago and
elsewhere. The purpose was legitimate. So overtaxed was the FBI
in that troubled year of 1968 that extra help was required in the
area of surveillance. Clark, who has since emerged as a foe of the
FBI, thought otherwise as Attorney General. In 1967, he described
the Bureau as "an illustrious institution
unsurpassed in the
excellence of its performance." And though he later had a change
of heart about J. Edgar Hoover, he then described the Director
in the most superlative terms.
"We have stopped that," the President said. "This
Administration is against any kind of repression, any kind of action
that infringes on the right of privacy. However, we are for, and
I will always be for, that kind of action necessary to protect
this country from those who would imperil the peace that all people
are entitled to enjoy."
Salt 17
On June 5, 1971 the President breakfasted with Spiro
Agnew to discuss the Vice President's forthcoming trip to Korea
to attend the inauguration ceremonies of President Chung Hee Park.
The trip had been broadened to include goodwill visits to nine
other countries in Asia, Africa and Europe. Also at this session,
at which the President passed along some last-minute thoughts, were
Henry Kissinger, Ron Ziegler and Art Sohmer, the Vice President's
administrative assistant.
Then there was a brief discussion of U.S. relations with
the People's Republic of China. The President emphasized we must
open up such relations but in a sophisticated, restrained way.
Kissinger then relayed a story involving Graham Steenhoven, head
of the table tennis team that had visited China. At a recent dinner,
Steenhoven was asked how he felt about having played such a signifi-
cant role in opening contact with China.
According to Kissinger, Steenhoven replied: "I did not
break the Great Wall of China. President Nixon did that. I just
walked through it."
The Vice President, turning to another subject, expressed
reservations as to whether the Administration's economic policy
was working, contending that leading indicators appeared to show
that recovery was not coming about as quickly as anticipated.
Which was pretty much what Chairman McCracken reported
on June 14 at a meeting of the Quadriad, also attended by Secretary
Connally, Arthur Burns and George Shultz. McCracken told the
President that while the economy was advancing, the pace continued
Salt 18
to be sluggish. Some further stimulus was necessary if a satis-
factory pace of expansion was to be achieved. Also, McCracken
stressed, some overt action on the wage-price-cost front was now
called for.
Secretary Connally said he couldn't agree more.
Between the Secretary and the President, there had
developed an extraordinary rapport. Both self-made men, each had
come up the hard way from modest beginnings. In introducing
Connally as his "clean-up man" at a meeting of the Citizens Committee
on Government Reorganization, the President said:
"I brought him in from the Texas League. Sometimes he
singles, sometimes he doubles, and he often gets a home run.
Furthermore, when one comes at his head, he knows how to duck."
Papers 1
CHAPTER 26
When the ceremonies were over, after months of planning
and preparation, Mrs. Richard M. Nixon retired to her upstairs
quarters with some friends to watch a televised account of the
proceedings. A well-known TV newscaster was giving a glowing
account of the day's events. Mrs. Nixon was quite surprised.
The network man was not known for any excessive friendliness
towards the Nixon Administration.
For the First Lady it was a perfect ending for a near-
perfect day. Earlier the rain had threatened to force the wedding
of Tricia Nixon and Ed Cox inside from the Rose Garden to the East
Room. That would have broken Tricia's heart and the President,
after studying the unpromising weather advisories, decided to hold
up the ceremony. The gamble paid off. Forty-five minutes later
the rain stopped falling and the master of the house escorted his
daughter to the Rose Garden altar. And, as the President was to
tell a visiting group of broadcasters a week later, "Every network
did a beautiful job covering my daughter's wedding. And, believe
me, I checked all three!"
As the eyes of the nation were focussed on the Rose
Garden that Saturday, June 12, 1971, a project on which a select
group of New York Times editors and writers had worked for several
months was nearing fruition. The first of a series of articles
(including original documents) based on a classified Pentagon study
of the Vietnam war was being readied for publication in the Sunday
editions of the Times. As it later was determined, the Times had
Papers 2
decided to publish this material without seeking to declassify
the documents in its possession through the use of established
Government procedures.
Appropriately it was the Pentagon that first learned of
the forthcoming Times articles. This was about 6:00 p.m. Saturday
when the newspaper began putting its initial story on the news
wire to subscribing clients. Secretary Laird, who was immediately
informed, recognized quickly what was being disclosed.
Shortly after taking office in January 1969, Laird had
learned of the existence of a forty-seven volume history of how
the United States got involved in Indochina. It had been commissioned
in the summer of 1967 by the then Defense Secretary Robert S.
McNamara who, privately disillusioned and guilt-ridden about the
war, said he wanted to leave a record of what went wrong.
McNamara assigned a member of his staff, Leslie Gelb, to
head the project. With the help of a team of at least thirty
civilian and military officials, who were given access to the files
of the Pentagon, Gelb produced the lengthy study in a year.
How good was it? Gelb, himself, noted that his team had
only limited access to State Department and CIA materials, and
absolutely none to the personal papers of the Presidents. "The
result," he later wrote, "was not so much a documentary history,
as a history based solely on documents
Pieces of paper, formid-
able and suggestive by themselves, could have meant much or nothing.
Perhaps this document was never sent anywhere, and perhaps that
one
was irrelevant. Without the memories of people to tell us,
Papers 3
we were certain to make mistakes This approach to research was
bound to lead to distortions and distortions we are sure abound
in these studies. If
Though his staff was "superb," Gelb conceded they were
"not always versed in the art of research." He added, "Of course,
we all had our prejudices and axes to grind, and these shine through
clearly at times, but we tried, we think, to suppress or compensate
for them. "
"Writing history," Gelb concluded, "especially where it
blends into current events, especially where that current event
is Vietnam, is a treacherous exercise."
Like McNamara, Mel Laird had not read the study. His
most immediate concern, however, was what he was going to say
about it during his appearance on the CBS television program
Face the Nation, at 11:30 a.m. Sunday. After consulting with
Attorney General Mitchell by telephone, Laird decided to say --
if asked -- that the disclosure of secret documents endangered
national security and the Justice Department had been asked to
investigate.
Ironically, the question was not raised during the TV
show.
Meanwhile, as the Attorney General had suggested, Laird's
aides were busy all day Sunday trying to determine what had been
stolen from the files and how serious the breach of security was.
The main problem was that few Pentagon officials had even heard of
the seven-thousand-page study, let alone had read it.
Papers 4
On Monday, the second article appeared in The New York
Times. By this time, the Justice Department was fully involved.
Under the direction of Robert Mardian, the assistant attorney
general in charge of internal security, there were consultations
on whether the Government should seek to halt publication of
future documents. A hasty examination of the Vietnam report had
disclosed that some of the materials pointed the finger to the
identity of foreign nationals working with the CIA and other
American agencies while other portions highlighted secret diplomatic
negotiations, some of which were still in progress.
Attorney General Mitchell, meanwhile, met with the Presi-
dent and the Secretaries of State and Defense. The President,
who had not even known of the existence of the Pentagon study, was
provided with a quick fill-in. He had glanced at the two articles
(plus documentation) already published by the Times. There was
nothing in them, or in the Pentagon study (which went up to mid-
1968), which in any way involved his Administration. In fact,
the study already was being universally interpreted as a sharp
indictment of both the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations --
so much so, that a common first reaction by many was to suspect
that it had been leaked to the Times by the Nixon Administration.
One of those who publicly accused the Administration of so doing
was none other than Pierre Salinger, press secretary to the late
President Kennedy.
As Mr. Nixon later recalled, all he had to do was to
sit back and enjoy the discomfiture of the political opposition,
Papers 5
profiting from the disclosures of the misjudgements of two Democratic
administrations that had gotten the country into Vietnam.
The President's immediate reaction was that a "massive
breach of security" had taken place in the previous Administration
and that something had to be done. Involved, he believed, was
the confidentiality of our nation's dealings with other countries. *
#
On June 11, several days before the Times disclosures, the
President explained to a dovish Republican Senator why he was
opposed to publicizing the details of the intensive efforts to
negotiate a political settlement in Vietnam. He cited the example
of where a leak of information regarding a secret negotiation
with the Russians almost stopped further progress in the SALT talks.
Also involved was the confidentiality of a President's dealings
with his own advisers. It was Mr. Nixon's thinking that no
President could be absolutely sure of receiving candid opinions
if his aides feared that, sooner or later, what they wrote or said
might be spread across newspaper headlines, out of context, exploited
for political advantage, and used against them for retribution.
The President also noted the peculiar role of The New York
Times in exposing the very Vietnam policies its editors had advocated
during the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations. And he could
remember the sigh of relief with which the Times had greeted the
assassination of South Vietnam's President Ngo Dinh Diem. * There
*
On November 3, 1963, in an editorial entitled "Opportunity in
Papers 6
Vietnam, = the Times asserted: "Fortunately, the new Vietnamese
rulers are dedicated anti-Communists who reject any idea of neutralism
and pledge themselves to stand with the free world
If the new
regime succeeds in identifying itself with the aspirations of the
people, it will have taken a long step toward repulsing further
Communist inroads throughout Southeast Asia."
were other Times editorials in the early years of the Johnson
Administration calling for tougher measures against the Vietnamese
Communists.
In view of all this, the President believed that the
Kennedy and Johnson Administrations were taking a bum rap. None
of his predecessors, he explained, had acted out of evil impulses
or had conspired to drag the nation into an unnecessary war.
Presidents Kennedy and Johnson had acted in what they believed to
be the nation's best interests. And for many years they had done
so with the blessing of The New York Times. This was not to say that
mistakes had not been made, according to the President. One of
them may well have been the often unwarranted use of "secret" stamps
which prevented the public from learning much it should have known.
But who had given the Times the right to declassify secret documents?
By Monday night, a Government concensus had developed in
favor of filing suit for an injunction to prevent the Times from
continuing further publication of the articles. However, there was
lively dissent within the Administration against using the doctrine
of "prior restraint" to interfere with a newspaper. It was argued
Papers 7
that the Nixon Administration would appear to be seeking to hide
the mistakes and bad judgement of previous Presidents. Moreover,
the suit would involve the Administration in a bitter argument over
the Constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press. And, win
or lose, the Administration would be hurt politically.
The President knew this. He was well aware that the
press generally would mass against him. But, as he informed GOP
Congressional leaders the morning of Tuesday, June 15, he had no
choice but to approve the law suit. If he did not, he would be
setting a precedent -- every time an official disagreed with the
Government, he'd sneak secret papers from the files and give them
to the press in hopes of changing policy.
Sure, the President went on, the Democrats look bad in
the Times stories. And it was a fact that they had been involved
in the b1g Vietnam decisions. And it was also a fact that many of
them were now doing everything possible to thwart his efforts to
extricate us in an orderly way from "the mess they had created."
In that regard, it was curious that the Times, which had the secret
documents in its possession for many months, had begun disclosing
them just days before the Senate vote on the McGovern-Hatfield
amendment which would require withdrawal of all U.S. troops from
Vietnam by December 31. The effect of those articles was to
increase mistrust of all Government, including the present one.
The Republican leaders agreed that the anti-war forces
in the Congress had been buoyed by the leak of the Pentagon Papers.
Also impressive had been the lobbying on the Hill of the Vietnam
Papers 8
Veterans Against the War. However, Minority Leader Scott predicted
that McGovern-Hatfield would be defeated the next day.
If the amendment should pass, the President said, he
would have no choice but to bring Ambassador Bruce and his team
back from Paris, because the setting of an arbitrary withdrawal
date by Congress would cripple any meaningful negotiating efforts.
He added that those who voted what, in effect, would be lack of
confidence in the President would have to take the consequences.
"There is much more going on than many of you know, he stated.
So, he went on, don't underestimate the power of the President; don't
underestimate what can be done; don't underestimate the possibility
that the negotiations may get off dead center.
Henry Kissinger said that, while there was a chance of
success in Paris, it was counter-productive to speculate on the
negotiations. We would like the enemy to negotiate with us and not
with the Washington Post. There is a school of thought, he went
on, which believes that the North Vietnamese conduct negotiations
by dropping vague clues whose meaning we are supposed to guess.
We are supposed to hunt around for the answers and when we miss
one of their clues we go out and flagellate ourselves. The history
of negotiations with the North Vietnamese is that they will wring
out of us every concession they can realize and, in return, they
will promise us "constructive talks." For example, the North
Vietnamese have gone beyond the "deadline" for withdrawal. Now
they are demanding an end to all military and economic aid to
South Vietnam. What we want is to get them to talk to us, not to
Chalmers Roberts.*
Papers 9
#
A diplomatic correspondent of the Washington Post.
Nevertheless, Kissinger said, there were grounds for hope.
Over three hundred thousand American troops had been brought home.
Yet, the military situation was better now than when all those
troops were serving in Vietnam. Casualties were way down. At the
same time, there was evident war weariness in the North. Hanoi had
suffered between seven hundred to eight hundred thousand deaths
which, in terms of our population, would be between seven to
eight million.
Moreover, Hanoi's leaders were perplexed by the international
situation. With their Vietnamese suspicions and their Communist
paranoia, they are deeply troubled about what is going on between
the U.S. and China. There is nothing the Chinese can tell them
that will convince them that no double-cross is in the offing. They
have fought for twenty-five years and now they see great things
happening around them; great decisions being made; and they fear
they may be left out.
Turning to McGovern-Hatfield, the Presidential adviser
contended that what the enemy most wanted was to be able to tell
everyone all over Asia that the United States was leaving. For us
to give the deadline away, therefore, was to give away the biggest
bargaining card we have.
The President concluded the session by saying he was aware
that the polls showed most Americans want to get out of Vietnam
Papers 10
quickly. But, he said, we weren't sent here to follow the polls.
In two key votes, both upholding the President, the
Senate the next day defeated the McGovern-Hatfield and a companion
measure that would have imposed a later deadline for a U.S. pullout
from Indochina. McGovern-Hatfield was beaten fifty-five to forty-
two. The milder substitute was defeated fifty-two to forty-four.
The two votes represented an important, if relatively close,
victory for the Administration.
Meanwhile, New York District Court Judge Murray Gurfein
ordered The New York Times to halt publication of its Pentagon
Papers series in order to give the Government a chance to prove
its charges of dire injury. This did not stop the Washington Post
from popping into print with its own account of the Vietnam story.
In fact, this turned out to be one of the more peculiar incidents
in the entire controversy. For the reader got the definite
impression that the Post had based its stories on the Pentagon
documents. Yet, in an affidavit filed later in Supreme Court,
the Post's executive editor disclosed that its stories were based
on a manuscript whose authors had had access to the documents, but
not on the documents themselves, of which the Post at that time
had only "two fragments.' When the Post itself was enjoined from
publishing the Vietnam materials, newspapers across the country
began racing into print with bits and pieces of the story, much of
it already published before in standard works on the long war.
"To a disinterested observer," commented Orr Kelly in
the Washington Star, one of the few newspapers whose editors kept
Papers 11
their heads, "it must have seemed as though much of the nation's
press was involved in a rather juvenile game of 'papers, papers,
who's got the papers?' rather than in a serious effort to present
their readers with a balanced and informative insight into this
important period in the nation's history."
But there was another aspect to the frenzy which gripped
much of the press, the President told John E. O'Neill, one of the
leaders of the newly-formed Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace.
And that was that Hanoi's negotiators in Paris may be led to believe
that the revelations of the alleged "duplicity" of every American
President from Truman to Johnson would so stir American protest
as to force him to surrender now. Certainly, said the President,
if a negotiated peace was in our interest, then none of these
recent events had helped our bargainers get one.
O'Neill had helped organize the Vietnam Veterans for a
Just Peace to support the President's Vietnamization program as
well as to counter the impression that John F. Kerry and his Vietnam
Veterans Against the War, which had captured the fancy of the media,
amounted to much more than "an embittered little group of one
thousand.' However, O'Neill, who at twenty-five had seen more
Vietnam duty than Kerry, did not receive the same sort of media
attention as did Kerry. Perhaps it was because he wasn't in the
Social Register or because he hadn't gone to St. Paul's and Yale.
O'Neill had to settle for Central Catholic High in San Antonio,
Texas, and the U.S. Naval Academy.
Papers 12
The President, meeting with O'Neill on June 16, urged the
young Texan to continue to speak out so that the American public
would be made aware that people like Kerry do not represent most
Vietnam veterans. Moreover, what O'Neill had been saying was
"right," though not necessarily the "popular view." The President
said he was aware of the rough treatment O'Neill had been receiving
at the hands of the media, adding that he himself was no stranger
to such treatment.
Responding, O'Neill said he didn't know how the President
could put up with it. If the people were made aware of how their
news was being written, they would turn off their TV sets and cancel
their newspaper subscriptions. For example, the anti-war veterans
led by John Kerry actually represented a tiny percentage of the
total number of men who had served in Vietnam, yet the media had
made it appear they represented a significant number.
The articulate O'Neill also told the President he had
repeatedly challenged John Kerry to a nationally televised debate.
(Eventually, the debate was arranged.)
Though judges in New York and Washington upheld the right
of newspapers to publish what had beome known as the Pentagon Papers,
the injunction remained in force on order of appeals courts in both
cities to permit the issue to be decided by the United States
Supreme Court. Meanwhile the identity of the individual who had
filched the secret papers and had leaked them to the Times had
become known. He was Daniel Ellsberg, a former obscure Pentagon
Papers 13
analyst who had served briefly on Henry Kissinger's NSC staff at
the beginning of the Nixon Administration.
The President had never met Ellsberg But he received a
fill-in on his background. A former Marine Corps lieutenant,
Ellsberg had served in a number of Government posts. His chief
interest was in Vietnam and saving it from the Communists. For a
time, Ellsberg served with Ed Lansdale as an assistant to the
legendary American adviser in Saigon. Though a civilian, Ellsberg
was wont to put on military fatigues and go out hunting Vietcong.
This aspect of Ellsberg's background fascinated the Presi-
dent. For as he told visitors June 23, Ellsberg had been a hawk,
who while in Vietnam had gone around with a machine gun shooting
at anyone dressed in black pajamas." Somewhere along the line
Ellsberg decided the war was wrong. He resigned from the Rand
Corporation, where he had continued to do secret government work as
a consultant, to become senior research associate at the Center
for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology.
In turning the Pentagon documents over to The New York Times, Ellsberg
knew what he was doing. As he told columnist Flora Lewis, he knew
he risked "going to jail for a very long time." But he was prepared
to pay that price. On June 28, Daniel Ellsberg was indicted.
The Times, of course, argued before the Supreme Court
that an informed public had the right to know right now what indivi-
dual diplomats and military men had recommended over the years of
the Vietnam escalation. But the Times had not always held to this
view. Thus, on December 12, 1962, the Times in an editorial titled
Papers
14
"Breach of Security," denounced "an article in the current Saturday
Evening Post purporting to tell what went on in the executive
committee of the National Security Council at the height of the
Cuban crisis six weeks ago
The secrecy of one of the highest
organs of the United States Government has been seriously breached
How can advisers to the President be expected to give advice
freely and easily and at all times honestly and with complete
integrity if they have to worry about what their arguments will
look like in print a few weeks later? What kind of advice can the
President expect to get under such circumstances? How can there be
any real freedom of discussion or of dissent; how can anyone be
expected to advance positions that may be politically unpopular or
unprofitable? Does no one in Washington recall the McCarthy era
and the McCarthy technique?"
Stewart Alsop, who had co-authored the article, later
noted that contrary to what the Times reported, "it contained no
word from any NSC paper, or from any other secret document."
As had been expected, the Supreme Court decided that under
the First Amendment the Government could not use prior restraint
to halt publication of the Pentagon Papers. The six to three vote
was generally hailed as a resounding victory for freedom of the
press. And so it was up to a point. For five of the justices
went out of their way to emphasize that the court's ruling in no
way precluded the possibility of criminal prosecution -- not only
of the man accused of making top secret information available to
the press but of the newspapers for using that material. Justice
Papers 15
Byron White, a John F. Kennedy appointee who voted against prior
restraint, observed that if publication of any of the material by
the Times or other publications violated sections of the Criminal
Code prohibiting the release of classified material, the papers
"must face the consequences." White added: "I would have no
difficulty in sustaining convictions under these sections on facts
that would not justify the intervention of equity and the imposition
of a prior restraint." And in his separate opinion, Chief Justice
Burger stated he was "in general agreement with much of what Mr.
Justice White has expressed with respect to penal sanctions concern-
ing communication or retention of documents or information relating
to the national defense."
The Chief Justice also made this point: "To me it is
hardly believable that a newspaper long regarded as a great institu-
tion in American life would fail to perform one of the basic and
simple duties of every citizen with respect to the discovery or
possession of stolen property or secret Government documents. That
duty, I had thought -- perhaps naively -- was to report forthwith,
to responsible public officers. This duty rests of taxi drivers,
justices and The New York Times. The course followed by the Times,
whether so calculated or not, removed any possibility of orderly
litigation of the issues. If the action of the judges up to now
has been correct, that result is sheer happenstance."
The Washington Star, which approved of the Supreme Court
decision, nevertheless noted that "the administration's position
was more logical than that of the press." It added: "In theory,
Papers 16
the majority position is unassailable. The Constitutional guarantee
of a free press means that the press must be allowed to publish
whatever it believes is worthy of publication. It does not mean
the press is free of the responsibility after publication. News-
papers are subject to obscenity laws and to the laws of libel,
including criminal libel. There is no reason to suppose the
Constitution can serve as an impervious shield against prosecution
for wilfully or carelessly endangering national security. There is
no logic in the argument that the press, alone among the country's
institutions, stands above the law, invulnerable, answerable only
to itself. A free press is not and should not be a press free from
all legal responsibility. It should never become a refuge for
incompetence or treason. "
Thus ended a major confrontation between the Government
and the press, a battle that on the face of it seemed almost
certain to go the way it did. But the case of the Pentagon Papers
was far from over. On December 30, 1971, Daniel Ellsberg was
again indicted by a Federal grand jury on twelve criminal charges
including conspiracy, theft of Government property and violation
of espionage statutes. The new charges were considerably more
severe than those previously leveled against him by the same grand
jury. Also indicted on four counts was Anthony Russo Jr., a former
colleague of Ellsberg at the Rand Corporation. Both men declared
their innocence, Ellsberg contending he was not aware of having
"violated any criminal statutes. 11
Papers 17
The unfortunate aspect of the case was that, at long last,
it provided "evidence" to hysterical liberals that the Nixon
Administration was anti-civil-libertarian. A long-winded Times
editorial on the Supreme Court decision urged "the present Adminis-
tration to re-examine its own attitudes toward secrecy, suppression
and restriction of the liberties of free men in a free society."
Of course, the Times conveniently overlooked its own past demands
that high level Government deliberations remain secret. But that
was during the Kennedy era when Adlai Stevenson was the victim of
Presidential leaks. Also forgotten was the Times attitude when the
late Senator Joseph McCarthy had appealed to Federal employees to
provide him with secret documents. The Times then called it an
"invitation to anarchy." A curious moral code, indeed, one that
holds it wrong to give classified material to Joe McCarthy but a
great public service to leak classified data to The New York Times.
"As in so many areas," commented James J. Kilpatrick,
"it makes a difference whose Ochs is gored. 11
Of course, one of the problems Richard Nixon faced with
the press was that he failed to pay homage to James Reston, whose
oracular effusions in the Times are frequently mistaken for Gospel
among opinion-makers. Thus Reston, who never had any trouble talking
to JFK or Lyndon, was moved to say that "in plain fact, this is the
most closed administration" in many years. The truth is otherwise.
For no President has tried harder to acquaint the people with his
plans and hopes. Richard Nixon's oral and printed output, via press,
radio, television and official channels, runs about half a million
Papers 18
words a year. But, still, there could be little doubt the
President does have communications problems.
And the basic reason was spelled out by Daniel Patrick
Moynihan, the liberal Democrat formerly on the White House staff:
"President Nixon has had the least generous press of anyone I have
ever known in the White House. It has been one long presumption
of malfeasance, sinister intent, trickery and double-dealing."
Nowhere was this better demonstrated than with the publica-
tion of the so-called Anderson papers early in January 1972.
These were copies of "secret-sensitive" minutes of four White House
meetings dealing with the Indo-Pakistan war which broke out in
late 1971.* They had been illegally transmitted to Jack Anderson,
* "Secret-sensitive" is a designation which falls between the
official designations of secret and top secret.
who had inherited the Washington Merry-Go-Round column from Drew
Pearson.
All through December, Anderson had published columns
disclosing policy discussions of the Washington Security Action
Group (WSAG), composed of experts from the National Security Council,
State Department, Pentagon and other Government agencies. According
to Anderson, the documents from which he quoted demonstrated the
Nixon Administration to be anti-Indian and pro-Pakistan.
The Anderson revelations were actually out of context.
For one thing, between March and mid-December of 1971 there had
been twenty-two WSAG meetings; seven meetings of the Review Group
Papers 19
which supplies the raw material for the National Security Council;
and two full-dress sessions of the Council itself. In all, there-
fore there were thirty-one sessions devoted to the Indo-Pakistan
crisis. If all the documents flowing out of these meetings had
been made public, the overall picture of the crisis would have been
quite different from that which emerged from the handful of WSAG
papers which had fallen into Anderson's hands.
The Anderson papers, incidentally, were not official WSAG
documents. They were notes hurriedly taken by subordinates who
sat along the wall of the Situation Room behind their superiors
who were trying to figure out how best to handle the crisis in
South Asia. Much of the discussion dealt with contingency planning
and one detects sympathy for the plight of the emerging nation of
Bangladesh; it promises to become "an international basket case. "
The conferees came to no specific decisions. They agreed to
prepare option papers for the President. Their discussion was
candid, spontaneous and unreserved. They had no idea their words
would soon be in the hands of an outsider.
Yet, on the basis of these stilted minutes, Anderson
stated that Henry Kissinger had "lied" during a background briefing
when he told newsmen that United States policy was not "anti-Indian."
But, in the same briefing of December 7, 1971, Kissinger had also
stated -- and this was completely overlooked by Administration
critics -- that the United States "which in many respects has had
a love affair with India, can only with enormous pain accept the
fact that military action was taken in our view without adequate
H
cause
Papers 20
In other words, Kissinger was not being anti-Indian in
general; but only on a specific Indian policy, namely, its long-
standing desire to wreak havoc on neighboring Pakistan. As President
Nixon stated privately, it was difficult to comprehend contentions
that the Administration should have supported India's military
adventure. For the most part, those contentions came from liberal
partisans who were simultaneously insisting that getting involved
in Vietnam was all wrong. As the President noted, some of our
liberal friends are always looking for wars to get involved in.
If ever there was a "can of worms, II in the President's
view, it was the bitter mutual hatred felt by Pakistan and India.
It was a religious-based conflict which reaches back into misty
emotions about Kashmir and irreconcilable Hindu-Moslem differences
over the centuries. Not only were atavistic hatreds beyond most
Americans' comprehension involved, but also the whole power relation-
ship between China, Russia and the U.S. There was a serious danger
of a direct confrontation between the big powers.
In his December 7 briefing, Kissinger reminded newsmen
that the Nixon Administration had in the past year contributed
$700 million in economic assistance to India. He also pointed out
that the U.S. had "contributed $500 million for the relief of
(East Pakistan) refugees and to ease suffering in India, and to
prevent more refugees from coming into India. TI These were hardly
actions by an Administration with an anti-Indian bias.
Concerning the allegation that the U.S. did nothing in
the face of West Pakistan's crackdown on East Pakistan's autonomy-
Papers 21
minded Awami League, Kissinger observed that "the United States
did not condone what happened in March 1971; on the contrary, the
United States has made no new development loans to Pakistan since
March 1971. 11 At the same time, the U.S. suspended shipments of
military supplies to Pakistan. "The only arms that were continued
to be shipped to Pakistan were arms on old licenses in commercial
channels, and those were spare parts. There were no lethal end-
items involved.' In other words, the U.S. cut off $35 million
worth of arms while continuing to ship less than $5 million in
spare parts that were in commercial channels under existing licenses.
It was true that the U.S. did not make any public state-
ments on the tragic events in East Pakistan. On August 4, 1971,
the President told a news conference: "We are not going to engage
in public pressure on the Government of West Pakistan. That would
be totally counter-productive. These are matters that we will
discuss only in private channels. 11
Actually the Nixon Administration was working behind
the scenes, trying to convince both India and Pakistan to reach
a political settlement that would permit the East Pakistani
refugees to return.
"At the request of the President, this was explained
by me to the Indian Foreign Minister when I was in New Delhi in early
July, and both indicated that they understood our decision in this
respect and made no criticism of our decision," said Kissinger.
"Secondly, we consistently used our influence
to urge
the Government of Pakistan in the direction of a political evolution
Papers 22
The Government agreed that a timetable be established for
returning Pakistan to civilian rule by the end of December. We
urged a mutual withdrawal of troops from the border, and when India
rejected this, we urged a unilateral withdrawal of Pakistan troops
from the border, and that was accepted by Pakistan and never
replied to by India. "
The United States urged Pakistan to extend amnesty to all
refugees so they could return to East Pakistan without fear of
reprisals. That was accepted by Islamabad.
The Nixon Administration went even further. American
diplomats made contact with Bangladesh representatives in Calcutta
to sound them out about meeting with Pakistani officials to discuss
a political settlement. Eight such contacts were made in August,
September and October.
"We approached President Yahya Khan three times in order
to begin negotiations with the Bangladesh people in Calcutta,"
Kissinger said. "The Government of Pakistan accepted. We were told
by our contacts in Calcutta that the Indian Government discouraged
such negotiations. In other words, we attempted to promote a
"
political settlement
Between them, Kissinger and Rogers conferred with the
Indian Ambassador in Washington twenty-five times. Both men, speak-
ing for President Nixon, informed the Ambassador "that political
autonomy for East Bengal was the inevitable outcome of a political
evolution, and that we favored it. The difference may have been
that the Government of India wanted things so rapidly that it was no
longer talking about political evolution, but about political collapse
Papers 23
"We told the Indian Prime Minister when she was here that
we would try to arrange negotiations between the Pakistanis and
members of the Awami League, specifically approved by (Sheikh)
Mujibur, who is in prison. We told the Indian Ambassador shortly
before his return to India that we were prepared even to discuss
with them a political timetable, a precise timetable for the establish-
ment of political autonomy in East Bengal. That conversation was
held on November 19th.'
Three days later, Indian forces crossed into East Pakistan.
In her November talks with the President at the White
House, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had given no indication that
military action was imminent, though she had indicated war with
Pakistan, under the circumstances, was inevitable. She left no
doubt that she hankered for the actual dismemberment of all of her
hated neighbor including even West Pakistan. In fact, she complained
to Mr. Nixon that in the British division of India, Pakistan had
been most unjustly allotted 'both Baluchistan and Pushtunistan."
For the President, it was an extraordinary experience.
Here he was pleading for peace with a supposed disciple of the
sainted Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of a nation supposedly devoted
to pacifist ideals, yet he was unable to get across his plea that
India should not stubbornly risk triggering off World War III.
For, in the President's opinion, Mrs. Gandhi was engaging in a
deadly game by seeking to play off Soviet power against the Communist
Chinese.
Papers 24
Emboldened by her alliance with the Soviet Union (U.S.
estimates were that Russia had provided India with $2.5 billion
in arms since 1967), Mrs. Gandhi returned from Washington to give
the signal which, she hoped, would settle once and for all the
issues which had festered since the British divestiture of the
subcontinent. In fact, India's deployments for an attack on
Pakistan had begun even before Mrs. Gandhi had left for Washington.
As India's forces overwhelmed East Pakistan, the White
House was provided with "conclusive proof" of India's intention to
invade West Pakistan and crush the main body of the Pakistani army.
The "hard intelligence" obtained by the CIA indicated that India
would make her move as soon as she could shift her forces from
East Pakistan -- an action calculated to destroy Pakistan as a
state. This was the situation the President faced when he ordered
elements of the Pacific fleet to steam towards the Indian Ocean.
And, through Henry Kissinger, he allowed it to be hinted he might
not be able to go to Moscow for an already-announced summit conference.
On December 9, the President directed Henry Kissinger
to discuss the matter with India's Ambassador to Washington, L.K.
Jha. The Ambassador replied three days later. He could offer no
assurances that India would not cross into West Pakistan. By this
time, the President had personally intervened in an effort to
resolve the crisis. In the strongest terms, the President warned
the Kremlin of the possible dire consequences of any further rash
actions on India's part. The Soviet leaders were thus faced with
the choice of an ugly showdown with the United States or telling
the Indians to вфор their army in its tracks.
Papers 25
On December 12, the Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister,
Vasily V. Kuznetsov, flew to New Delhi to talk to Mrs. Gandhi.
The purpose of his hurried mission was to warn the Indians against
attacking West Pakistan. As a consequence, Mrs. Gandhi declared
a general cease-fire on December 16. The President let the Soviets
know that they deserved "credit" for helping bring the Indo-Pakistan
conflict to a halt.
As its "Man of the Year," the President told Time in a
year-end interview: "The basic point in South Asia was the principle
that any nation has a right to its integrity, and that the attempt
of its neighbors to engulf it with the support of a superpower
from outside will be resisted. That was the principle at stake."
Of course, publication of the Anderson papers -- and all
the sensationalism they evoked -- tended to overshadow the President's
efforts to keep the peace in the historically-troubled subcontinent.
And Mr. Nixon's critics had a field day suggesting a "credibility
gap" when none really existed. As Time put it, "Anderson's charges
notwithstanding, he did not catch the Administration in a gross
deception.' Anyone who read a newspaper knew where the President
stood. Secretary Rogers had early in the game blamed India and
the "tilt" towards Pakistan, ordered at the President's urgent
behest by Kissinger, had been clear on the face of events. In fact,
the President's ever-ready Senatorial critics had already seized on
those events to condemn his South Asia policy.
Moreover, hardly anything that occurs on the subcontinent
is central to international affairs. As the President views the
Papers 26
emerging era, there will be five major power centers -- the United
States, Europe, Japan, Russia and China -- each pursuing its own
interests, which will, in a process of shifting alignments, balance
each other and prevent a preponderance of any group. In the classic
theory of power politics, such a system should make for stability
on a global scale for the first time in history.
As for the argument that the U.S. suffered a setback in
South Asia, the President's views were best expressed by a senior
White House official: "We didn't lose India because we never 'had'
India in the first place. The Indians have so consistently opposed
U.S. policies and interests over the years that our relationship
hasn't benefited us in any political sense. So what have we lost?
In any event, the Indians will be looking to us for much of what
they need for future development that they cannot get from the
Russians."
In the President's opinion, criticism of his South Asia
policies will have little effect on Election Day. And there could
be no arguing the fact that, from the viewpoint of most Americans,
the President did not do too badly. How do you argue with the fact
that, when everything is said and done, not one American life was
lost?
Year 1
CHAPTER 27
Astonishingly, in the end, 1971 proved to be Richard
Nixon's year. It had not begun that way. The year had opened with
unemployment at its highest level since 1961, business in the
doldrums, consumer prices continuing to climb, half a dozen Democratic
hopefuls jostling to challenge the White House, and a South Vietnamese
army preparing to invade Laos. The polls indicated that the Presi-
dent's popularity was at a low ebb and the pundits were confidently
discussing the inevitability of a one-term presidency. On July 12,
The New York Times editorialized that "his re-election is in doubt,"
largely because he had "systematically moved the Republican party's
center of gravity to the right.'
Three days later the President made his stunning announce-
ment that he would visit China. With this one stroke, he regained
the initiative. Not only had he ended the quarter-century of
vitrolic estrangement between two of the great powers, but he had
won worldwide acclaim and had begun to transform the political
scene at home. Though there was scattered protest from the right,
a Harris poll found the American public approving the China trip
by a margin of sixty-eight to nineteen percent.
But, as the President told Al Chamie, national commander
of the American Legion on July 27, he was going to China without
any great illusions. Chamie had praised the President for his
"boldness" and "courage" on China. Noting that he had received a
lot of flak from Legion members on the subject, Chamie had urged
them to withhold criticism until they could see the outcome. The
Year...2
President assured Chamie he did not intend to be a "patsy," adding
that "no one is going to blow smoke in my eyes."
At the same time, Chamie relayed greetings from Golda
Meir. The Legion commander had visited Israel and was impressed
with this tiny bastion of freedom in the Middle East. He urged
the President to provide whatever arms Israel requested. The
President assured Chamie he was keeping a watchful eye on the
military balance in the Middle East to assure Israel would not fall
behind. It had, in fact, been a year of unprecedented U.S.-Israeli
cooperation in military and intelligence matters.
At home, the state of the economy remained Mr. Nixon's
number one domestic problem. On the last weekend of June, the
President and his top advisers held a long, searching discussion
at Camp David. The meeting was held against the background of a
rising clamor for tax cuts and tougher wage-price restraints.
George Shultz, who had catapulted from a career in industrial
relations to a kind of deputy Presidency as head of the Office of
Management and Budget, argued strongly for retention of the "steady
as you go" policy. What was at stake was long-term stability,
not short-term gain, he argued. Any further prodding of the
economy now would be excessive and trigger a new burst of inflation.
The President appeared to buy the argument. But out of
the Camp David meeting came one surprise development. Mr. Nixon
formally designated Secretary Connally, the only Democrat in his
Cabinet, as his "chief economic spokesman." At Camp David, the
President had stressed the necessity for the Administrations speaking
with one voice to restore business and consumer confidence.
Year .3
As that voice, Connally promptly set out to put things
straight. The economy, he announced, was moving along pretty much
as expected -- gradually upward. He saw no cause for alarm. He
also saw no need for a tax cut to juice up business activity. And
while the unemployment figure was an annoyance, it was not critical.
At the same time, he said there would be no controls on prices and
wages.
Connally, however, had his doubts about the economic
"game plan" which he expressed to the President privately. In his
talks with business leaders around the country, the Secretary had
found an increasing pessimism. Sure, they told Connally, there
were signs of an upturn, but recovery was not proceeding fast enough.
"Let's talk about it," the President said.
For several hours at a time throughout the early part
of the summer, they did talk about it. They talked about the cruel
dilemma the country was facing -- business stagnation and rising
unemployment on the one hand and inflation on the other. Never
before in economic history had those two forces converged at the
same time.
Neither the President nor his Treasury Secretary kept
any notes of their fateful conversations. No one was present as
they sketched out the options available to the President. So
secret were their deliberations that not one rumor of their doubts
about the game plan seeped out of the White House. In fact, a
deliberate effort was made to make it appear that no major economic
changes were in prospect. One reason was that the President was not
Year 4
quite certain whether he should bite the bullet. Thus, on July 6
he told a group of newspaper executives in Kansas City, Missouri,
that "you cannot have wage and price controls without rationing.
They do not work in peacetime." And White House aides disclosed
their displeasure with Arthur Burns for publicly dissenting from
the President's policies. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve
Board kept urging a get-tough incomes policy. Asked by Bill
Safire how he could call for tough wage-price controls, in direct
contradiction of his past writings on the subject, Burns replied:
"There's a time in life when you realize that everything you've
written is not chiseled into granite."
On the other hand, Dr. Milton Friedman, leader of the
prestigious monetarist school of economic thought, announced the
President's economic game plan was working; that inflation had
been slowed, although less than had been desired; and that the
recession -- one of the mildest in U.S. history -- was about over.
On top of such conflicting counsels, the Democrats went
on the offensive, denouncing the floundering U.S. economy and the
seeming inability of the Administration to put it right. And
almost in unison the Democrats called for among other stern
measures, immediate institution of stiff wage-price controls.
Leaders of labor were making similar demands. On July 11, George
Meany was asked on Meet the Press what he would do about the economy
if he were Mr. Nixon. The AFL-CIO President replied: "I can tell
you this: If I was in his position, I would impose controls at
this time. I don't see any other way that this situation is going
to get under control."
Year 5
Republican Congressional leaders were worried, too, and
at a White House session they voiced their concern to the President.
This came after an economic briefing from George Shultz who, after
going through a vast array of statistical data, voiced his judgement
that 1971 would be a good year and 1972 a very good year. The OMB
Director warned against pessimism. He said that such economic doom-
sayers as Eliot Janeway were seldom held to account when events
proved them wrong.
However, a number of Senators and Congressmen replied that
they were not getting such rosy reports from the folks back home.
The Administration's stance of "aggressive passivism" was not getting
across to the people, they said. Moreover, the unemployment figures
had begun to cause concern.
The President took up the subject of unemployment. He
said that never in our history, since World War II, "have our
Democratic friends had unemployment in the four percent area without
war. We are trying to get unemployment down without war. If
the 1,300,000 men who were in the armed forces at the beginning
of this Administration were still in the armed forces, or in defense
plants, then unemployment would probably be in the vicinity of four
and one-half percent. We would have no problems in this particular
area and everybody would be saying, 'Isn't it great, we don't have
unemployment.' But others, probably the same people, would be
saying at the same time, 'It sure is bad that we are losing three
hundred men a week in Vietnam.' So I wouldn't be put on the
defensive on that issue."
Year 6
Whether merited or not, the general feeling in the country
was that the economy was not moving fast enough. Total output was
rising but not as much as had been hoped. "On the other hand, "
commented the Washington Post on July 24, "things are not so bad
that those out of power can allow themselves the emotional release
of yelling at the Administration for making such a mess No one
envies the President or his economic advisers. Indeed, any economist
who claims to have a sure prescription for reducing unemployment
without adding to inflation is either lying or does not understand
the situation. This particular set of circumstances -- the slow
recovery with such persistent inflation -- has not risen before and
economists are actively debating what it means " The Post urged
the President to revive wage-price guideposts, conceding, however,
"1t is not clear that guideposts would do very much good All in
all, it is a difficult situation in which to shine up one's image
as a problem solver and leader of men. If we were the President
we would go to Peking. "
In fact, it was at the time the President disclosed his
plans to visit Peking that he had about decided to institute controls
as well as other temporary activist measures. Chairman McCracken
had put it this way: "There may come a time for an economic 'trip
to Peking. That time came -- but sooner than anybody expected.
The President's original plan was to await the return of Congress,
then in mid-summer adjournment, before making the big announcement.
Only his top advisers knew of the President's decision -- Connally,
McCracken and Shultz.
Year 7
Though he was the adviser most associated with the stand-
pat game plan, Shultz was placed in charge of contingency planning
for the new program. He assigned a group of Government technicians
to gather information and work out details. But he split the
assignments in such a way that no technician could see more than
a tiny part of the entire fabric. Several technicians, however,
complained their work appeared to be futile in view of the President's
repeated public assurances that the economy was on course. Shultz
managed to assuage these restless subordinates after thirteen
Republican Senators announced legislation to create a federal wage-
price guideline board that would seek voluntary restraint from
industry and labor. Shultz then told his troubled employees that
their work was to prepare the Administration's response to the bill.
The President, meanwhile, dropped a hint of coming events
when, at a news conference August 4, he said he might consider a
wage-price review board if he became convinced such a policy would
not lead to "stifling the economy." At the same time, the Presi-
dent sought to downplay reports of a rift between him and Arthur
Burns, saying that the Fed Chairman had been "most responsible"
on monetary and fiscal policy. By this time Burns had been
informed of the President's plans -- and that closed the circle of
insiders.
Burns, meanwhile, laid out what proved to be the theoretical
basis of the anti-inflation program in testimony before a Congress-
ional Committee. He explained that the original Nixon game plan
relied on the rules of classical economics. But the classical
Year 8
rules no longer worked because a power shift at the union-
management bargaining table had put the unions in command. There-
fore, Federal intervention was essential because market economics
had been aborted.
Other than this, the President did not tip his hand.
Meeting with a top group from the Republican National Committee
on August 9, Mr. Nixon commented favorably on his Vice President's
recently-completed round-the-world trip and unfavorably on the
press coverage of that trip that had taken Spiro Agnew to Asia,
Africa and Europe. The President had been particularly disturbed
by a Newsweek story of Agnew's visit to a hunting lodge in Kenya
where, according to the magazine's reporter, the Vice President,
his private physician and his pretty, red-haired secretary watched
two rhinos copulating. *
*
Actually there were about thirty-five persons present at
Treetops, a favorite spot for visiting dignitaries and tourists
to watch wild life. Later, when asked about the rhinos, Agnew
laughed and said it was like watching Senator George McGovern
welcoming Mayor John Lindsay into the Democratic party.
The President also said he was pleased with the speeches
delivered by Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller calling for
party unity at an RNC meeting several weeks before. He said that
Goldwater had emerged with increased stature as a result of the
disclosures in the Pentagon Papers. Moreover, the President was
Year 9
pleased that Barry had been invited in the first place. Since the
1964 election, the Senator from Arizona had not once been invited
to address the National Committee.
On Thursday, August 12, the President spent a few minutes
with Arnold R. Weber, a former University of Chicago professor who
had joined the Administration as an Assistant Secretary of Labor.
A close friend of George Shultz, he followed him into the White
House as associate director of the Office of Management and Budget.
He had now decided to return to the university and "revalidate my
credentials." And in the Oval Room, the President of the United
States was bidding him goodbye. The President, of course, was aware
of Weber's liberal credentials. As Weber was leaving, the President
called out: "Don't forget to tell those professors that this
Administration also believes in truth and justice."
"I will, Mr. President," Weber called back.
Weber never got the chance to pack his bags. The next
afternoon he was at Camp David. The President had called together
all his top economic counselors to discuss the nation's economic
problems. For weeks there had been a staggering amount of politic-
ally damaging economic news. Secretary Stans said there might be
a trade deficit for the whole year, something that had not happened
in this century. The stock market was in another downspin, and the
index of "leading indicators" of economic activity declined after
seven months of struggling upward.
But, as Tom Wicker pointed out in The New York Times, "All
of this difficulty cannot merely be charged to Mr. Nixon; steel
Year
10
imports, for instance, in anticipation of an American steel strike,
were a major factor in the second-quarter trade deficit. And the
whole country continues to pay heavily in inflated dollars for the
Johnson Administration's reluctance properly to fund the Vietnam
war. Moreover, unemployment is increased by thousands of the
servicemen Mr. Nixon is bringing home from Vietnam. "
Meanwhile, European money traders, believing devaluation
was inevitable, frantically cashed in dollars for gold and other
foreign currencies. On the important Frankfurt, West Germany,
exchange, the dollar declined to its lowest level since currency
rates were realigned after World War II. And Undersecretary for
Monetary Affairs Paul A. Volcker put in a call to Secretary Connally,
who had begun a much-needed vacation in Texas. It was Friday,
August 13, and Volcker reported that more than a billion dollars
had shifted on the European monetary markets the day before, another
half-billion that very morning. The dollar was in trouble and gold
reserves were dwindling. The troubled British wanted confirmation
that some three billions held in reserve would not be devalued.
Fearing a possible panic, Connally flew back to Washington -- and
on to Camp David.
The climactic Camp David meeting was attended by what was
considered to be the bare minimum number of persons. Included were
the President, Connally, Volcker, McCracken, Burns, Weber, Ehrlichman,
Haldeman and Shultz. Also, speechwriter Bill Safire; Herb Stein
of CEA; Caspar W. Weinberger, deputy director of OMB for budget;
Peter G. Peterson, adviser for international economic matters;
Year 11
Kenneth Dan, assistant director of OMB; Michael Bradfield, a
Treasury Department attorney; Rose Mary Woods, the President's
personal secretary; and Marge Acker, Miss Woods' assistant. Strict
secrecy prevailed for nearly three days. Phone calls outside the
compound were kept to a minimum. At the President's orders, calls
were restricted to those who needed specific pieces of information.
No personal calls, for example, were to be made, even to wives.
On leaving for Camp David via helicopter from the White
House grounds, Bill Safire asked Herb Stein, "What's cooking this
weekend?" Stein, an historian as well as an economist, replied:
"I don't really know, but I have a feeling that this may well be
the most important weekend in economic history since March 4, 1933."
That was the date of the inauguration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt
and marked the beginning of the New Deal. Stein, an ardent foe of
wage-price controls, later recalled, "I felt a sense of exhilera-
tion. I left all sorts of conventional notions behind."
At Camp David, the President outlined the problems and
his proposed solutions in a crisp, off-the-cuff speech. Then
he
told his audience of carefully selected advisers: "Where do we go
from here? What do we do now? You get off your butts and go to
work.")
Then Secretary Connally detailed the steps. He said action
would have to be fast since, as he later put it, "much of the
problem was psychological; much of the solution had to be psychologi-
cal." Friday night, the group broke into subcommittees: budget
and taxes headed by Shultz; wages and prices headed by Weber; and
Year
12
international monetary matters by Connally. The subcommittees
worked into the early morning hours, meeting in the three-room
Laurel Cabin next to the President's Aspen Lodge. For all the
wrench in policy the meetings were remarkably harmonious.
Safire, meanwhile, worked on the draft of a speech which
the President would deliver on Sunday. The next day Safire discovered
that the President had awakened at 4:30 a.m., scribbled out six
pages of text on White House stationery, then dictated the first
version of the speech into a Dictaphone, making adjustments in his
notes as he went along. All this material was turned over to
Safire for polishing.
Most of Saturday was devoted to getting the necessary
papers ready -- the executive orders for the wage-price freeze and
the import surcharge as well as additional material for the Presi-
dent's speech. Herb Stein had prepared summaries of the discussions
later
that were so trenchant that, with slight editing, they were/handed
out to the press as fact sheets explaining each Presidential action.
By Sunday morning all final details were settled and most of the
participants flew back to Washington by 1:00 p.m. The President
decided to remain at Camp David to put the finishing touches on
his speech. Late Sunday afternoon, he helicoptered back.
It had been a hot, muggy Sunday in Washington. Ron Ziegler,
John Scali, Al Haig and other Presidential staffers were playing
tennis on the White House courts against Bob Pierpoint, Herb Kaplow,
Tom Jarriel and others of the correspondents corp. The President's
Year 13
son-in-law, Ed Cox, also played in a doubles match -- as Tricia
watched from the sidelines. Among the visitors watching the
matches were Jeannine Cusson of the Rive Gauche Restaurant; this
writer and his wife, Patricia, and a guest down from New York for
a few days, Joan Marsh.
At about 3:00 p.m. the phone rang. A secret service
agent motioned to Ziegler. The word was soon out that the President
had asked the three networks for time that night. "It's going to
be a major speech," Ziegler told me.
Which was putting it mildly. For in his surprise twenty-
minute speech at 9:00 p.m., the President unveiled a stunning
turnabout in economic strategy -- a bold new program which in its
way was as dramatic and momentous as his recent China initiative.
The President announced a set of economic measures to deal with
the nation's domestic and international economic problems --
including a ninety-day freeze on all wages, prices and rents. He
also, in effect, opened the way for devaluation of the dollar
(which took place December 18) by announcing that the United States
temporarily would stop exchanging foreign-held dollars for gold,
thus allowing U.S. currency to "float" in the international money
markets. He coupled this with imposition of a temporary ten percent
surcharge -- in effect a tax -- on imports into the U.S., which he
said was designed to help relieve the nation's worsening deficit
in international trade. And he outlined a package of tax breaks
designed to stimulate the economy, along with a set of Federal budget
cutbacks to curb inflation.
Year 14
The President was not indulging in hyperbole when he
described his scheme as "the most comprehensive new economic policy
to be undertaken by this nation in four decades." At another point,
he said, "Every action I have taken tonight is designed to nurture
and stimulate the competitive spirit, to help snap us out of the
self-doubt, the self-disparagement that saps our energy, and
erodes our confidence in ourselves." Then, he predicted: "We are
going to move forward to the new prosperity without war as befits
a great people -- all together If
The reaction to the speech was overwhelmingly favorable.
The President had apparently succeeded in defusing his critics on
the economic homefront even as he moved to wind down the war in
Vietnam. There was no doubt that he had left his political opponents
stranded and gasping for air. In fact, as he addressed the nation
Sunday night, one of those opponents, Senator Henry Jackson, was
distributing the text of a Monday speech calling for "vigorous
economic growth that will require the wise use of economic tools
ranging from tax cuts to wage-price controls." And only the
previous Monday, Senator Muskie had promised the AFL-CIO in Texas
to introduce "a comprehensive program to combat unemployment and
control inflation," including tax cuts and a government board to
set wage-price guidelines.
For months, Hubert Humphrey had called on the Administra-
tion to create a wage-price board. He had argued that the President
had been following "the economic policy of no policy. " On one
occasion, the former Vice President did plead guilty to the charge
Year 15
that the Johnson-Humphrey Administration had touched off the infla-
tion which plagued the economy. In a speech before the National
Economics Club on February 24, 1971, Humphrey said there would not
have been any inflation in 1965 "had it not been for the increase
in military expenditures. In retrospect, it is now clear that
fiscal policy should have been sharply reversed in 1966 and we should
have continued to exercise monetary restraint even after the
[income tax] surcharge was enacted in 1968."
Now, with one exception, the Presidential hopefuls on
the Democratic side were either forced to praise the President or
sound a sour-grapes complaint of "Why did he wait so long." The
exception was Senator George McGovern who promptly termed the
President's new program "economic madness." Criticism from the
right came from monetarist Milton Friedman who observed that "wages
and prices are symptoms, not causes, of inflation," and called
the freeze "purely cosmetic." Friedman's old adversary, Pierre
Rinfret, retorted that Friedman's "approach had been tried for the
past three years" and it didn't work. "The President has taken a
giant step in economic affairs," Rinfret added. "He is striding
where others have feared to tread. His actions befit the office
of the most powerful man in the world. Nixonomics are great
economics.' "
"And," as John Kenneth Galbraith wrote in New York, "a
further truth had better be faced by my fellow Democrats. Twice
in recent weeks the President has taken the initiative. First on
the approach to China and now on the economy. On both matters the
Year 16
Democrats were proceeding with exemplary caution where they were
not sitting in solid concrete. China, so far as it was being
discussed at all, was being approached with the dynamism one
associates on this subject with Dean Rusk and men whose mothers
had been frightened by Mao Tse-tung. The Democrats in Congress
can claim real credit for authorizing the price and wage freeze
that Mr. Nixon invoked. Not all expected it to be used quite
so dramatically. It is entirely possible that on both China and the
price-wage freeze Mr. Nixon will stumble. Certainly a lot of
people are hoping that he will. I find myself wishing him well
on both matters and hoping rather that his inclination to play
a long hand (for things that make sense) will commend itself to
Democrats. "
George Meany, however, didn't think SO. Still bellowing
at the age of seventy-eight, the AFL-CIO President, who only a
few weeks before had publicly advocated wage-price controls, now
opposed them. "We just won't cooperate," said Meany. As Pierre
Rinfret observed: "It's incredible how adroitly and easily he can
change his mind once he's got what he asked for. "
The position of Organized Labor was that the freeze was
inequitable; that, for example, there was no machinery for enforcing
the price freeze while wages were effectively frozen because employers
had complete control over paychecks. "By its very nature," said
The New York Times, "a freeze is bound to be inequitable. But
it provides the breathing time the country requires to set up more
durable machinery for economic stability on a basis of fairness."
Year 17
The White House let it be known that it felt George
Meany was "out of step" with the rank and file of the labor move-
ment. And the pollsters showed that to be true. George Gallup,
for example, reported on August 29, 1971 that "two of every three
adults (65 percent) in union member families hold a favorable opinion
of the President's program, not far behind the proportion of adults
in non-union households (75 percent) who express support." This,
of course, was in sharp contrast with the position of the labor
leaders, most of them septuagenarians still locked into the class
struggle of a bygone day.
Then on October 7, the President went on television again
to outline Phase II, the program that would follow when the ninety-
day freeze expired November 13. Boards would be created to limit
increases in wages, prices and rents. The aim would be to reduce
the annual rise in consumer prices to the rate of two to three
percent by the end of 1972. No formal controls were established
on profits. And employees would not be able to receive retroactive
pay benefits for the ninety days of the freeze. The program
represented the most comprehensive controls on the economy since
the Korean war.
And even before Phase II went into operation, Phase III
-- the dismantling of the complicated economic control machinery
-- was under consideration. In typical, long-range Nixon fashion,
the President's economic planners began working on plans to
release the nation from uncomfortable restrictions when they became
intolerable, unworkable or unnecessary. From the beginning, the
Year 18
President made it clear he was not creating a huge bureaucracy with
a vested interest in continuing controls. Hopefully, the President's
aim was to end controls in advance of the 1972 election.
George Meany, who had not been consulted on any of this,
reacted with typical gut-fighter instincts, counter-attacking with
a no-holds-barred campaign that was continued despite an illness
that kept him hospitalized for three weeks towards the end of the
year. First he directed his fire against Arnold Weber, who first
had been drafted to oversee the ninety-day wage-price freeze and
then, in Phase II, had been named as one of the five public members
of the Pay Board.
Meany publicly assailed Weber as a hatchet-man who was
doing all the Administration's dirty work. To which the Bronx-born
Weber, a registered Democrat and the son of a labor leader, replied:
"The only hatchet man I ever knew was the kosher butcher down the
street. "
Meany had gone to the hospital with a heart condition
after he had unwillingly played host to Mr. Nixon at the AFL-CIO
Convention held in the traditional non-proletarian environs of
Bal Harbour, Florida. Instead of showing Mr. Nixon the courtesies
normally shown to Presidents, the aging labor leader treated him
as "just another guest. If For example, he ordered the band out of
the hotel ballroom so that "Hail to the Chief!" would not be played.
And he sat the President in a back row. Previously, Meany had
passed the word to his minions to sit on their hands in "silent
contempt" during the President's visit.
Year 19
Across the country on television newscasts that night,
many Americans, regardless of party, took umbrage at the spectacle
of their President being treated like dirt. As a consequence, the
President emerged from the episode as a gutsy guy determined to do
what he considered right not only for labor but for all the American
people. In his remarks at the convention, Mr. Nixon made it
perfectly clear that Phase II of his new economic program would
proceed with or without the cooperation of Organized Labor. He
took up the challenge hurled the day before when Meany said that
labor would only continue its participation on the new Pay Board
under certain conditions. If the President did not want labor
membership "on our terms," Meany went on, then he "knows what he
can do."
The President, quoting these words, told his labor
audience, "Well, you know President Meany is correct. I know
exactly what I can do and I'm going to do it." And he added:
"It is my duty to make this program succeed in the best interests
of all the American people and I fully intend to do so."
By speaking at the convention, the President brought into
sharp focus the intemperate nature of Organized Labor's demands.
In effect, the labor movement wanted a freeze on everything but
their ever-zooming wage settlements, the basic cause of inflation.
"But," reported financial columnist Hobart Rowen in
the Washington Post of January 9, 1972, "despite labor's loud
objections for public (and union member) consumption, Meany and
his associates will probably be forced by public opinion to rock
Year 20
along with the wage-price control program in the clear knowledge
that the jerry-built system is better than nothing; and that it is
in labor's interest as well to cut the inflationary cycle."
As Herb Stein (who succeeded McCracken as Chairman of
the Council of Economic Advisers on January 1, 1972) observed,
union members are consumers, too.
Secretary Connally was more than ever in the public eye.
There was considerable speculation that the tall, colorful Texan
would become the President's vice presidential runningmate in 1972.
Spiro Agnew, himself, joked about these rumors. At the annual
Governors Conference in San Juan in September, the Vice President
told of the Texas-accented voice that kept interrupting his phone
calls saying, "Your four years are up. Would you please signal
when you're through?" Agnew also noted that four former Governors
were prominent in the Nixon Administration -- "one as Vice President,
another as Secretary of Housing, another as Secretary of Transporta-
tion, and another in a holding pattern."
Several days later, this writer interviewed the Vice
President in his office one floor above the President's hideaway
quarters in the Executive Office Building. The trip to San Juan
had gone very well. Agnew's speech had been well received; and,
for once, the press clippings were overwhelmingly favorable. Yet,
in talking with Agnew, one could detect that he hadn't been overly
happy in the Vice Presidency. For one thing, he had not been fully
accepted in the Senate, over which it was his chief duty to preside.
He confessed he had gotten off to a bad start when, in the early
Years 21
days, he was "carrying the lobbying ball for the Administration"
on the ABM. "I was a brand new boy in the club and some of the
resentment came from my failure to realize the hypersensitivity
of some members regarding my suggestions on what had to be done.
That hurt my relations with a lot of liberal Senators, though a
lot of that has since been repaired."
Waxing philosophical about the role of the Vice Presidency,
Mr. Agnew noted that throughout history those who occupied the
number two spot invariably complained. For example, John Nance
Garner, an F.D.R. Vice President, contended the office was "not
worth a bucket of spit." As Agnew put it: "Most of the responsibili-
ties are designated by the President, so everything depends on
the President." In other words, there isn't much for a Vice
President to do on the Administrative side, except to promote
Administration policies both at home and abroad. "I think the
reason many of my predecessors said terribly demeaning things
about the office is that Vice Presidents are often forgotten in
some things where their pride is offended. Some of them have felt
hurt, even paranoid. This is a difficult office because the Vice
President frequently is a man who can make decisions and then when
he comes in he finds he has no power to make decisions. Nevertheless,
I have been lucky because President Nixon has used me very
effectively -- in many ways -- to present his positions on things
that he didn't want to say himself." And that, of course, included
the Vice President's role during the 1970 campaign which, he noted,
was "orchestrated" out of the White House.
Year 22
"The President gives me a lot of guidance," Agnew went
on, "but sometimes I don't ask him. I'd rather leave him the option
of saying, 'I didn't know what that crazy Vice President was doing.
As for the President's new China policy, Agnew was all
for it. What he was opposed to, he told me, was the "euphoria"
which had greeted the development back in April of "ping-pong
diplomacy," particularly as manifested in the media.
On October 12, 1971, the President announced he would visit
Soviet leaders in Moscow the following May after his trip to Peking.
Among the topics he would discuss, he said, were the continuing
arms limitation talks, the troubled Middle East, and other areas
which present the hope of "significant progress" by talks at the
highest level. The visit would have the added purpose of demonstrat-
ing to the Russians that the U.S. considered the Soviet Union to be
of equal importance to Red China in its design to achieve world
detente. In making his announcement, Mr. Nixon emphasized that
neither trip was being taken for the purpose of exploiting the
existing differences between the two giant Communist powers.
At a Cabinet meeting the next day, the President explained
that his plan to visit Moscow had not developed out of the blue.
It had been under discussion for two years. "We felt and they
agreed," the President said, "that we shouldn't hold a meeting at
the summit until progress in other areas indicates it would be
useful." Andref Gromyko, the Soviet Foreign Minister, had discussed
the summit a year ago. "This time he brought a formal invitation,
and we accepted." The summit was being held in Moscow because it was
our turn to return the state visit paid us by Chairman Khrushchev.
Year 23
The record of U.S. Soviet agreements during his Adminis-
tration was not insignificant, the President said. He cited the
Seabed Treaty; the completion of the Nuclear Non-proliferation
Treaty; the bacteriological warfare agreement; and the treaty to
take steps against accidental nuclear explosions. In addition,
there were the historic new Berlin accords which helped defuse a
major flash point of disagreement between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.
"Any one of these would have been hailed as the second
coming" if achieved by another President, Mr. Nixon said.
The President said he did not intend to take a large
delegation with him to Moscow. "It will be a working visit," he
emphasized. What will be discussed will depend on the situation
at that time. Of course, Vietnam and the Middle East would probably
be high on the agenda. Also, questions dealing with arms controls.
"We are concentrating on reaching agreements on limiting offensive
and defensive weapons, he went on. Also of great interest to
the Soviets is the area of trade.
As for our allies, anything involving them will be
discussed with them in detail, the President went on. In fact,
most of our allies favored the President's forthcoming visits to
the Communist capitals.
The President then warned his Cabinet officers against
euphoria. Our differences with the Communist powers are very deep,
he said, and they may well be irreconcilable. All we have agreed
to do in both cases is to discuss those differences at the highest
level, and possibly in the case of China to talk about a means of
Year 24
discussing them when they arise. We are on a very high wire vis-a-vis
the Soviet Union and China, the President warned. It is true that
each views the other as a greater enemy than the U.S. But the U.S.
-- to deal with either -- must deal evenhandedly, not playing off
one Communist power against the other. And that we intend to do,
the President said.
The President said he had been reading some "political
stuff" the other day -- and one of the Democratic candidates had
said something to this effect: "We hear about the 'new prosperity.
What was wrong with the old prosperity?"
"The answer," the President said, "is war." For obvious
reasons, our Democratic friends never point out that the prosperity
they gave the nation was accompanied by deaths on the battlefield.
We have to go back fifteen years to find prosperity -- with unemploy-
ment below five percent -- without war.
Turning to Mel Laird, the President said: "I understand
the casualties are pretty low this week."
"They'll be announced Thursday as seven," the Defense
Secretary replied.
"One is still too many," the President told his Cabinet
officers, "but remember when we first sat around this table, it was
up to three hundred and fifty a week."
Asked by the President the reason for the low figure,
Laird said: "The South Vietnamese are still suffering large casualties.
They're doing the fighting. They're taking over."
Year 25
In his interview with Time at the end of December, Mr.
Nixon remarked that "the issue of Vietnam will not be an issue in
the campaign, as far as this Administration is concerned If Two
weeks later he announced "the withdrawal of an additional 70,000
troops from Vietnam over the next three months. This means that
our troop ceiling will be down to 69,000 by May 1
There will be
another announcement that will be made before May 1 with regard
to a further withdrawal
11
By election day in November, therefore,
it appeared likely that the number of Americans in South Vietnam
may number as few as twenty-five to thirty-five thousand -- the
size of the residual force he implied in a January 2 television
interview with Dan Rather.
At the same time the President could take comfort from
the fact that the U.S.-sponsored cease-fire in the Middle East had
lasted into 1972. For one thing Egypt's President Anwar Sadat
disentangled himself from his repeated declarations of resumed
war with Israel. Nasser's successor had gone through the motions
of ordering an assault on Israel to begin early in 1972. So long
as that threat existed there could be no renewal of the peace talks
with Israel which Mr. Nixon so ardently desired. Then on January 13,
1972 Sadat got himself off the hook at the expense of the Soviet
Union. In a long, rambling speech, the Egyptian leader said he had
cancelled his nation's assault on Israel because the U.S.S.R. was
too busy helping India against Pakistan to have the time to help
Egypt. This, of course, meant that the road once again was open
to diplomacy.
Year 26
However, Sadat made very clear his distress that President
Nixon had agreed to resume delivery of military aircraft to Israel.
The arrangement had been made following a visit to the White House
by Prime Minister Golda Meir on December 2, 1971, where for two
hours Mrs. Meir and the President spoke very privately and frankly.
They were alone. No notes were taken. They shook hands after
they reached an agreement. Once again the President had made it
clear to Mrs. Meir that the United States would not permit the
destruction of Israel. However, he did appeal to the Prime Minister
for more flexibility on the part of her Government toward negotia-
tions with the Arabs. Mrs. Meir was also reassured that the
President in his forthcoming trip to Moscow would not agree to any
Middle East settlement that would be counter to Israeli interests.
Cairo propagandists contended that the President's
friendliness toward Israel -- as demonstrated by the shipment of
Phantom jets to the tiny Jewish nation -- was calculated to win
votes among the important Jewish minority in the United States.
The truth was that the President did not expect to win any new
votes on that issue; the overwhelming majority of American Jews
traditionally vote Democratic.
Ironically, Mr. Nixon's stock was much higher among the
Jews of Israel. On January 12, 1972, the Washington Star reported
that a poll taken by Public Opinion Research of Israel Ltd. showed
that Mr. Nixon was the third biggest "hero" in that country, topped
only by Mrs. Meir and Defense Minister Dayan. Mr. Nixon was the
only non-Israeli named by those who were polled.
Year 27
Then the President embarked on a round of mini-summit
conferences with major allies that was unprecedented in its inten-
sity. These were a necessary prelude to the already-scheduled
summit meetings in Peking and Moscow. The surprise announcements
of these Presidential trips had left some U.S. allies bewildered,
hurt and apprehensive; and reassurance about American intentions
was very much in order. Also important was a show of Western
unity to strengthen the President's hand as he met with the
Chinese and Russian leaders.
First was a brief pre-Christmas visit at the White House
by Prime Minister Trudeau who, upon shaking hands with Secretary
Connally on a reception line, jokingly began to count the number
of his fingers. "I still have all of them, " he laughingly told
the President. This, of course, was a reference to the ten percent
surcharge which Canada particularly resented, since it relies so
heavily upon U.S. markets. But the Canadian leader joyfully left
the White House with the first news that the currency crisis might
be nearing its end. And, just as important, considering the
sensitivity of many Canadians, Trudeau flew back to Ottawa
convinced (he said) of President Nixon's respect for his country's
national feelings.
Then the President flew off to the Azores for a meeting
with French President Pompidou, who was insisting on the devaluation
of the dollar. After the first day of talks, Secretary Connally
sounded as if a stalemate was in the offing. "If we can't resolve
it
" he told newsmen, "then I think we ought to agree that we
can't agree. "
Year 28
The possible deadlock did not appear to trouble the
President unduly. He listened to the Armed Forces Radio coverage
of the Washington Redskins' victory over the Los Angeles Rams
before retiring at 4:00 a.m. After a final huddle with M. Pompidou,
the President read a joint communique which said there should be a
"prompt realignment of exchange rates through a devaluation of
the dollar and revaluation of some other currencies." This, of
course, foreshadowed the first devaluation of the dollar since
Franklin D. Roosevelt slashed its value by forty-one percent in
1934. The Azores statement made headlines around the world. In
Paris, an excited French radio commentator crowed: "This is the
island of Elba for the emperor dollar."
A week later, the commentator was to change his tune.
The Group of Ten ministers, representing America's principal trading
partners, met in Washington at the Smithsonian's "old red Castle,"
a multi-turreted replica of a twelfth century Norman monastery,
to bargain over the extent of devaluation and the rules for future
trading. Out of the two-day meeting came a pact which was hailed
with relief by all sides. The President termed it "the most
significant monetary agreement in the history of the world." Who
came out ahead? "The whole free world has won," the President said.
But, when the chips were down, Europe and Japan had made
far more sweeping concessions than they had expected. As Newsweek
put it, the President had won a "colossal gamble." In the bargaining
with the non-Communist world's top financial officials, the President
sought to recapture some of the economic advantage that the U.S. had
Year 29
lost to Europe and Japan over the years. "And," according to
Newsweek, "that is what America's principal trading powers conceded
last weekend in the working agreement that ended the long monetary
crisis."
The Paris daily France Soir put it this way: "If one looks
coldly at the result of this big monetary battle between the U.S.
and the rest of the world, one can only state that the Americans
have won practically down the line."
Then, in the balmier setting of Bermuda, the President
announced the lifting of the import surcharge. At the same time,
he and Prime Minister Heath went on to seal the fate of the "special
relationship" between both countries. Then, on to Key Biscayne,
where the President had a friendly session with Chancellor Willy
Brandt of West Germany. Early in the New Year, the President flew
to San Clemente for the most crucial of all these consultations,
his meeting with Prime Minister Eisaku Sato of Japan. More than
any of America's friends, Japan had been sent reeling by the
successive "Nixon shocks" of the China initiative, the new economic
policy, textile quotas and the devaluation of the dollar.
The talks went well. The President assured Sato there
would be no more shokkus; that in his talks in Peking he would make
no agreement that affected Japan; and that the U.S. would be out
of Okinawa sooner than had been previously announced.
As he had told all the other heads-of-state with whom he
had conferred, Mr. Nixon told Sato that he expected only modest
progress in China: some steps to expand trade, tourism and diplomatic
Year 30
contacts. In all of his conversations, the President had emphasized
he had no intention of selling out the interests of our allies in
any deals with either China or Russia. All the leaders appeared
reassured by the President's words. In fact, the atmosphere in
which the mini-summit meetings was conducted augured well for the
future. There was promise of easier dialogue and more conscientious
consultation.
"In sum," commented Time, "it was a year of brilliant
beginnings for Nixon in international affairs, a year in which
the U.S. clearly regained the initiative and displayed both
imagination and skill."
Domestically, the President did well, too. After a slow
start, he succeeded in getting out of the Democratic-controlled
Congress most of the things he believed he needed to head into the
1972 election year. True, the President failed to get his six
"great goals" of the "New American Revolution" through Congress.
But, he fully expected to get some of those goals -- welfare reform
and revenue sharing, specifically -- in the new year. And though
he had been beaten on the SST issue, he won a loan for Lockheed
Aircraft, a tax bill to stimulate the economy, a full year's
extension of wage-price controls and the freedom to withdraw from
Vietnam at his own pace. He came out ahead on other issues, too,
such as school busing, moving toward an all-volunteer Army, and
the nomination of Earl Butz as Secretary of Agriculture. Senate
confirmation of Butz was close, but the President, believing he
had nominated an extremely capable man for one of the toughest jobs
in his Cabinet, swore in the new man that very afternoon.
Year 31
When the Congress tried to take the initiative on the
domestic front, it found itself blocked. The Congress, for example,
passed a child development program with provisions for child care
centers which the President, in a stinging veto, dismissed as
fiscally irresponsible, administratively unworkable and a form of
Federally-sponsored communalism. The veto was sustained in the
Senate.
The President also stared down the Democrats in an eyeball-
to-eyeball confrontation over a plan for Federal financing of
Presidential elections. This was a plan which would have provided
up to $20 million to the major party candidates and up to $6 million
to George Wallace. Without any hearings, the Democrats had attached
the one-dollar tax checkoff amendment to the tax bill. The
Republicans called the amendment a "raid on the treasury" and the
President threatened to veto the entire tax bill because of it.
Chairman Wilbur Mills of the House Ways and Means Committee, who
had said he was for the amendment, backed away from it at the
last minute. This, of course, was a severe blow to the Democratic
party, which had inherited an $8 million debt from the turbulent
1968 campaign.
That same Thursday, December 2, the President also did
something which won him the rare plaudits of Mary McGrory. As Ms.
McGrory put it, Mr. Nixon "did something for the common people of
Washington, the ecologists, and the forces of progress in the
House. "
Year 32
The issue had to do with the construction of the subway
system which would link Washington with its suburbs. The $3 billion
project had become bogged down in an argument over the relative
merits of freeways and a bridge over the Potomac. As Ms. McGrory
reported, the President "took command of the pro-subway troops,
defied highway-happy William Natcher of Kentucky, chairman of
the District Appropriations subcommittee, defied his own leader
Gerald R. Ford, and the Democratic leader Carl L. Albert, and
insisted on a floor fight "
The issue was clearly drawn. It was between the President
and the House leadership. Whereupon the House voted one hundred and
ninety-five to one hundred and seventy-four to back the President.
As a result, $72 million was released from the House-imposed freeze.
As Ms. McGrory noted, the President "won the plaudits of House
liberal Democrats, who were mortified by the old guard stand of
Speaker Albert. Two Democratic Presidents fought Natcher. Richard
Nixon beat him. 11
After winning a majority in a chamber where he had only
minority support, the President confessed himself "well pleased. "
The President was also "well pleased" when the Senate
confirmed his two nominees to the Supreme Court -- Lewis F. Powell
and William H. Rehnquist. Both men were regarded as "strict
constructionists" in line with the President's thinking that the
most important long-term legacy he will leave to the country is a
remade Supreme Court less activist in its socio-legal approach and
content with interpreting the Constitution as it is written.
Year 33
Powell, a Virginia Democrat and former president of the
American Bar Association, had only one vote cast against him.
Senator Fred Harris of Oklahoma, a self-styled "populist," had
voted against Powell because he was an "elitist," something above
the common man.
Rehnquist, an Arizona Republican who had served under
John Mitchell as an Assistant Attorney General, had a more difficult
time. The Senate, which had defeated two of Mr. Nixon's previous
nominees, approved Rehnquist by a vote of sixty-eight to twenty-six.
Not all liberals, however, had voted against Rehnquist. Voting
for confirmation were Eagleton and Symington of Missouri; Pastore
and Pell of Rhode Island; Stevenson of Illinois; Proxmire of
Wisconsin; and Montoya of New Mexico.
All in all, it had been a good year in Congress for a
Republican President. And he won high marks from the leader of
the opposition in the Senate, Mike Mansfield. In an interview
with U.S. News & World Report, the Majority Leader gave forthright
answers to some pertinent questions:
Yes, President Nixon has increased his prestige because
of his foreign policy -- including his forthcoming visits to Peking
and Moscow; and in progress in the SALT talks.
Yes, President Nixon had changed the direction of the war
in Vietnam from in to out. Yes, he had substantially reduced the
number of men in the armed forces and was bringing these American
boys home.
Year 34
Yes, he is on the right track in the field of domestic
policy, engaging in reasoned controls to combat inflation.
"So," said Senator Mansfield, "I think that, over-all,
Mr. Nixon has done a good job, and it's made him stronger, and
according to the latest polls, it appears that the people think
so, too."
Probably one of the President's greatest achievements
in his first three years in office was to help cool national
passions. Racial tensions generally were subsiding; the campuses,
for the most part, had returned to the pursuit of learning; and the
spectre of revolutionary outbreaks was lifted. He had scaled
down expectations and had given the nation a greater sense of
realities. But, at the same time, he was troubled about the
unwillingness of the nation to embark on new enterprises, as
demonstrated by the Congressional defeat of his SST proposal.
Talking to me about that defeat, the President termed
the "America needn't try so hard" argument dangerous and unworthy.
The tendency for a nation to "drop out of the race" and coast,
cropping up in any one area, could spread contagiously into all
areas of national life, he added. Then he quoted DeGaulle's
dictum that "France is never her true self unless she is engaged
in some great enterprise," an alarm that was sounded for France
too late. The President made it clear he intends to sound that
alarm for America before it is too late.