After the Fall

by Kasey S. Pipes

  Nixon realized that his influence with the Bush administration was waning. So once again he turned to the media to ensure his voice was heard. In the June 2 Washington Post, he went public with the views he had expressed at the White House. He prescribed his own plan for U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union:

  Instead of promoting political and economic reform, premature Western assistance would ease the mounting pressure on Gorbachev to expand perestroika into a comprehensive dismantlement of the Soviet system. Since the Soviet Union only reforms when under pressure, a helping hand would hinder the cause of democracy. Although they are on the ropes, the forces of reaction are not down and out. They will exploit Western aid to preserve the communist system, even if only in a modified form.

  The West should therefore set three preconditions to any consideration of major economic aid to Moscow: Geopolitical accommodation: While relations have improved, important issues still divide the superpowers. Until Gorbachev resolves satisfactorily the date disputes in the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, signs a stabilizing and verifiable Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, accepts a settlement giving genuine self-determination to the Afghan people, and cuts off aid to Third World client states like Cuba, aiding the Soviet economy would simply enhance Moscow’s ability to challenge our interests. Market reforms: It would require a great leap of faith to offer the Soviet Union massive assistance in exchange for a verbal promise from Gorbachev that he will adopt more radical reforms. Some have touted the proposed one hundred billion dollar aid package as a “grand bargain.” But a “grand con job” sounds like a more appropriate term.

  Nixon concluded the op-ed essentially by calling for an election that he knew Yelstin would win:

  A new revolution of free nations, free peoples, free ideas, and free markets has driven the communists from power in Eastern Europe and is now sweeping across the Soviet Union. Gorbachev’s only long-term hope is to set aside the ideological and imperialist baggage of the Soviet past and lead this new revolution. To do so, he must establish his legitimacy by submitting his fate to a nationwide free election. By showing the same boldness in economic and political reform that he has demonstrated in his foreign policy reforms, he could save his nation and his place in history.16

  Events soon got ahead of the analysis, as is often the case in foreign affairs. When the Soviet military briefly arrested Gorbachev that August, the rise of Yeltsin became inevitable.

  The moment was not lost on Nixon. The great Cold Warrior who had debated Krushchev in Moscow in 1959, had gone on to create détente with Brezhnev as president, and then had urged Reagan to take a hard line in the negotiations that helped accelerate the Soviet demise had been a part of the Cold War from beginning to end.

  “When Khrushchev said, ‘Your grandchildren will live under Communism,’ ” Nixon, said referring to their 1959 debate, “and I said ‘Your grandchildren will live in freedom,’ I knew he was wrong, but I wasn’t sure I was right. Now it turns out that I was.”17

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Greatest Honor

  “Everyone goes about God differently.”

  The 1990s were off to a great start for Nixon. When historian Richard Norton Smith reviewed a biography of Nixon in the New York Times and praised it for its objectivity, Nixon joked to his friends that the paper of record usually had something good to say about him once a decade. In this case, he joked, “they decided to get it out of the way early.”

  Then in early 1992, Richard Nixon's tenth book, Seize the Moment: America’s Challenge in a One-Superpower World, appeared in bookstores. In it the former president celebrated the end of the long Cold War, but also gave stern warnings for the U.S. in the coming years. In describing what American policy toward Russia should look like, Nixon continued downplaying Gorbachev, who, he pointed out, carried the “baggage of the Communist past.” The real key, Nixon wrote, was for the U.S. to work alongside the countries newly freed from the Soviet bloc and offer support as they sought to build democratic institutions and free markets.

  To promote the book, Nixon agreed to an interview with C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb on Booknotes. On February 2, 1992, Nixon, dressed in a dark grey suit with a striped blue tie, calmly explained why his proposed solutions represented the best way forward for the U.S. and the world.

  In one of the most telling—and self-revealing—moments of the interview, Nixon talked about the differences between the two main figures in Russia. Gorbachev, Nixon told Lamb, had always been popular with the U.S. foreign policy establishment because of his “style,” while Yeltsin had too often been disregarded as “boorish.” Nixon recounted the story of an observer criticizing Yeltsin’s table manners at a State Dinner at the White House.

  “Well, let me tell you,” Nixon said to Lamb, “Yeltsin may not know what fork to use at a State Dinner, but he has a very sharp mind.” Nixon undoubtedly saw some of himself in Yelstin, who, in his view, offered more substance while Gorbachev focused more on style. Nixon, never known for having the style of Kennedy or Reagan, felt a kinship with Yeltsin.

  That spring, the U.S. presidential election was well under way. A slew of candidates had emerged on the Democratic side, including a relatively obscure Arkansas governor named Bill Clinton. On the Republican side, euphoria over the Persian Gulf War had long given way to concern over a somewhat anemic economy. And Bush now faced an uprising on his right flank led by none other than Nixon’s old staffer Pat Buchanan. Nixon still liked Buchanan and admired his fire. “Buchanan is a bulldog,” he said, “he’ll go after them.” But he had no doubt that Bush would emerge victorious from the primaries, although a bit bloodied.1

  Nixon worried about the emerging Democratic frontrunner, Bill Clinton. The charismatic Southern governor possessed shrewd political instincts. Clinton had decided early on that he couldn’t win the election on foreign policy; more importantly, he had decided that voters weren’t really interested in foreign policy. His campaign headquarters in Little Rock was decorated with a sign that the staffers could see every day reading, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Clinton ran a relentless campaign on domestic issues and vowed to be a “New Democrat” who would not tack to the left as Dukakis and Mondale had in the previous two presidential elections.

  Bush also found himself challenged by a third-party candidate: Texas billionaire Ross Perot. In some ways, Perot’s campaign provided a preview of Donald Trump’s later success in presidential politics. Perot was an outsider with little discernible ideology who promised voters he would bring his business acumen to the job and get things done. Initially, he appealed strongly to voters and even led in some polls that spring.

  But to Nixon, foreign policy still mattered most. And he worried that not only was President Bush not making it a central campaign issue, but that he wasn’t making the right moves regarding Russia. In particular, Nixon worried that Yeltsin, who had taken over as president of Russia at the end of 1991, was not receiving the support he needed from the U.S. The former president decided to write yet another memo detailing his concerns. This one would go to his friends and to the press.

  Nixon spent weeks working on the memo with his assistant, Monica Crowley. To her it represented an “exercise in defiance” because Nixon refused “to accept defeat” and was determined to have his voice heard.2

  “The hot-button issue in the 1950’s was ‘Who lost China?’ ” Nixon wrote in the memo in March of that year that he called, “How the West Lost the Cold War.” He offered a brutal assessment of what he saw as Washington’s failed policy. “If Yeltsin goes down, the question ‘Who lost Russia’ will be an infinitely more devastating issue in the 1990’s.” The memo went on to say that the “stakes are high, and we are playing as if it were a penny-ante game.”

  Nixon sharply criticized the Bush administration’s lackluster support of Yeltsin. “What has the United States and the West done so far to help Russia’s first democratic, free-market oriented, non-expansionist government?” he asked. “We have provide
d credits for the purchase of agricultural products. We have held a photo-opportunity international conference of 57 foreign secretaries that was long on rhetoric but short on action.” To Nixon, the Bush policy was “pathetically inadequate.”

  Ironically, some of the reasoning for Bush’s reticence to do more for Russia came from Nixon’s old friend Pat Buchanan. Although Bush clearly would prevail in the primaries, Buchanan was still hammering away his “America First” theme and denouncing the administration as too focused on matters beyond the U.S. border.3

  As President Bush began a meeting with congressional Republicans at the White House on March 11, reporters asked him about the Nixon memo, which by now had appeared in the press. “I didn’t take it as personally critical,” the president said unconvincingly, “and I think he would reiterate that it wasn’t.”4

  In a note he sent later to Nixon, Bush acknowledged reading the memo. But he struck a defensive tone and suggested that the U.S. was doing quite a bit to help the Russians and that it was the Europeans who “must open their markets more.”5

  Bill Clinton was quick to pounce on the news of the memo and essentially side with Nixon. “I think Baker and Bush have good instincts on what to do in the former Soviet republics,” he told reporters, “but I think they’ve been a little too timid in doing it. I think they know they ought to be with the republics. They know they ought to be trying to dismantle nuclear weapons. They know they ought to be trying to help convert the currency, but I think they’re just a little timid on it. I think they’re afraid of looking like they’re too preoccupied with foreign policy.”6

  Nixon followed up, taking advantage of the momentum from his memo. It had always been planned as the appetizer for the main course: a conference on Russia that the Nixon Library hosted at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington on March 11. There, Nixon delivered a speech in which he cited Truman’s policy of sending aid to help Greece and Turkey resist Communism during the first years of the Cold War. “We responded magnificently to the threat of war then,” he told the audience, “Can we not respond to the promise of peace now?”7

  President Bush was scheduled to deliver the keynote address that night at the conference’s black tie banquet. Nixon had essentially boxed him in—how could the president not embrace some of the Nixon strategy at the event Nixon was hosting?

  But if Nixon hoped Bush would accept his agenda on Russia, he was disappointed. Bush’s speech nodded in Nixon’s direction but didn’t offer any substantive changes in course on Russia. Afterwards Nixon fumed to Crowley. “I gave him everything he needed,” he complained, “including, incidentally, the political protection from both Buchanan and Clinton, and he didn’t take the bait.” But the media coverage of the event was largely positive. And within days, the Bush administration reconsidered. “Baker is going to claim the idea is his,” Nixon joked when the news broke.8

  The Elder Statesman (Nixon in 1992). (Maureen Keating)

  For the Bush administration, the change represented a step forward. But for the Bush campaign, the damage had already been done. The Nixon memo and the subsequent conference created a devastating moment for the Bush campaign. Nixon’s image had been successfully rehabilitated to the point that he was now widely regarded as one of the preeminent minds on foreign policy. And here he was sharply critiquing Bush on one of the former president’s strongest issues—foreign policy. That the Nixon memo was being praised by the Democratic candidate for president—whose wife had worked as a lawyer on the Nixon impeachment hearings—showed how respected and how important Nixon’s voice had become again.

  Nixon couldn’t help but be impressed to see Clinton praise his memo. But he still had ambivalent feelings about the Arkansas governor. Much of it had to do with the candidate’s wife, Hillary Clinton. Nixon found her too partisan and too left-wing, and he told reporters that “if the wife comes through as being too strong and too intelligent, it makes the husband look like a wimp.”9 The comment was not well-received in the Clinton campaign. Nixon also remained doubtful about the candidate’s abilities on foreign policy.

  That June, Nixon traveled to Moscow to meet with Yeltsin. The trip was timed so that Nixon could meet with the Russian before he traveled to the U.S. later that month to visit with President Bush. Nixon was determined to try and influence events. Afterward, Nixon tried to throw Bush some cover and put the onus on Congress to pass the aid legislation that Bush was proposing. “Congress should stop its foot-dragging and pass President Bush’s Freedom Support Act, which provides for America’s contribution to twenty-four billion dollars in Western aid,” he urged in the New York Times. “Congress’s approval of International Monetary Fund assistance will create an incentive for the Parliament to approve the Yeltsin reforms. If we link our aid to passage of those reforms, we will give President Yeltsin greater leverage in his battle.”10

  When Yeltsin arrived in Washington a week later, he agreed to another reduction in nuclear weapons with President Bush. But the economic aid package was still stuck in Congress. And with the presidential conventions fast approaching, the odds of Congress doing anything on Russia diminished with each passing day.

  Indeed, the Bush-Yeltsin meeting provided the last high point of the Bush presidency. That summer and fall, voters told pollsters that they weren’t much interested in foreign policy. And Bush proved no match for Clinton on domestic policy. The Arkansas governor operated like a smooth insurance salesman—he had policies for everyone at every stage of life. On Election Day in 1992, the American people chose William Jefferson Clinton as the forty-second president of the United States.

  Nixon immediately wrote to the new president-elect to congratulate him. “The strongest steel must pass through the hottest fire,” he wrote to Clinton. “In enduring that ordeal you have demonstrated that you have the character to lead not just America but the forces of peace and freedom in the world.” When no response came, he assumed the Clintons were still bitter over his comments about Hillary during the campaign. Still, too much was at stake in world affairs. Clinton would be the next president and Nixon wanted to try to influence him.11

  In a November 19 op-ed for the New York Times, Nixon once again returned to the theme of America’s responsibility to support Yeltsin’s reforms. “If Mr. Yeltsin survives,” he wrote, “and freedom and democracy succeed in Russia, we will live in a safer world.” Still Nixon received no response from Clinton or anyone on the transition team.

  In early 1993, President Clinton announced plans to meet Yeltsin. Nixon, who had just returned from another trip to Russia, was pleasantly surprised to see the new president taking an interest in Russia. “It’s smart,” he said privately. “Shows he’s presidential. And at least he’s thinking about the goddamned issue.”12

  Then, on March 2, an improbable chain of events began that would eventually lead Nixon into an advisory role with yet another president. Senator Dole called Nixon and said that Clinton had told him that he wanted to call Nixon to discuss Russia. Dole, knowing that the new president needed all the help he could get on foreign policy, encouraged the idea. Within hours, the phone at Nixon’s home in Saddle River rang. The voice on the other end announced itself as calling for the White House and asked if Nixon could speak to the president. Nixon waited several minutes on hold before the operator came back on the line and asked if Clinton could call back. Just before ten o’clock that night, the phone rang again, and this time Clinton was on the line. The two men talked for forty minutes.

  Clinton was particularly interested in Nixon’s recent trip to Russia. Nixon told him that with Yeltsin, “what you see is what you get.” Clinton concurred, but wondered if the Russian president could survive. Nixon seized on Clinton’s comment to make the case that Yeltsin would survive only if the U.S. helped him out. Toward the end of the call, Nixon promised Clinton that any advice he would offer in the coming years would only be on foreign policy.

  “It was the best conversation with a president I’ve had since I was president,
” Nixon said, clearly impressed with the new president. “This guy does a lot of thinking.”

  For Nixon, the moment was personally poignant. He was acutely aware that his advice to Reagan and Bush had been in private and that neither president had seemed eager to be seen with him in public. But here was a president from the opposition party reaching out on his own to seek his opinion. And Nixon knew that Clinton, as a Democrat, could provide him with that that extra bit of approval that would seal his comeback.13

  Later, Nixon heard that Clinton told associates the phone call was “the best conversation” he had conducted with anyone since becoming president. And he told a colleague that Nixon’s post-election letter had touched him.

  Soon, the Nixon-Clinton courtship was ready to go to the next level—a personal meeting. On March 8, Nixon arrived at the White House and met with Clinton. When Nixon appeared inside the White House, he was greeted by several Clinton associates, including First Lady Hillary Clinton. Then President Clinton took him aside for a private talk.

  “The meeting at the White House was the best I have had since I was president,” Clinton would say. The two men talked about Russia at length. And Nixon sensed the president was becoming more engaged on foreign policy. But beyond the substance of the meeting, the symbolism of it meant a great deal to Nixon. “I think that Clinton showed real guts by having me there,” he told Crowley back in his office in New Jersey. “And I think we could work together on the Russian thing,” he added.14

  On March 24, Clinton again called Nixon. With Yeltsin now feuding with his own parliament, Clinton had chosen to stand by Yeltsin and sought reassurance from Nixon that he was doing the right thing. Nixon affirmed the president’s decision, telling Clinton that it was “a risk to support Yeltsin, but if he goes down without U.S. support, it will be far worse.”