The Last of the President's Men

by Bob Woodward

  Meir said that a peace plan proposed by King Hussein “would lead to the eventual liquidation of Israel.”

  She added, “Under no conditions will we return to the boundaries of 1967.” Israel would not give up the occupied territory on the West Bank and in Gaza won during the Six Day War.

  “No one wins in wars,” Meir said.

  “Our plan is to get the majority of Palestinians, who are moderate, into one block in order to isolate and destroy the extremists,” Hussein said. “Do you object?”

  “Yes,” Meir said, “you will create more extremists. It is dangerous to call a people to a cause that cannot be implemented.”

  • • •

  On September 26, 1972, Bruce Kehrli, the White House staff secretary, sent Butterfield a Top Secret memo about a potentially serious security violation. The most highly classified CIA Top Secret CIA Bulletin containing information on satellite imagery (codeword RUFF) and the most sensitive Category III communication intercepts (codeword UMBRA) had been found “between a couple of newspapers” in the office that produced the unclassified news summary for the president.

  The document had been traced to the office of John Scali, a foreign affairs adviser to Nixon on the White House staff and later United Nations ambassador. Scali had become famous as an ABC news reporter during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis when he had claimed to be an intermediary between the United States and the Soviets.

  “Suggest you reprimand Scali for the violation,” Kehrli recommended. (Butterfield recalls he did not.)

  The CIA Bulletin showed how the United States was spying on Israel by monitoring its missile development. A TOP SECRET RUFF report said: “ISRAEL: THE JERICHO SURFACE-TO-SURFACE MISSILE PROGRAM APPARENTLY IS NEARING THE TESTING PHASE.

  “SATELLITE PHOTOGRAPHY OF THE YAVNE MISSILE TEST CENTER IN EARLY SEPTEMBER SHOWS WHAT APPEAR TO BE AT LEAST 11 MISSILE STAGE CANISTERS.”

  Israel, the Bulletin said, “HAS HAD THE INDUSTRIAL FACILITIES AND TECHNICAL EXPERTISE TO TURN OUT AT LEAST ONE JERICHO MISSILE A MONTH. IN ADDITION TO PRODUCTION FACILITIES AND A TEST RANGE, THE ISRAELIS ARE CONSTRUCTING WHAT IS BELIEVED TO BE AN OPERATIONAL SITE IN THE MOUNTAINS BETWEEN JERUSALEM AND TEL AVIV.”

  On the facing page the Bulletin had a detailed map of the Middle East showing the 260-nautical-mile range of the Jericho missile in a full circle. It demonstrated how the missile could reach Egypt (including Cairo), deep into Syria, all of Jordan and the outer edges of Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

  An equivalent report and satellite photograph (TOP SECRET RUFF UMBRA) on China showed development of a new silo in the early stages of construction in the Wu-Chai missile test complex southwest of Peking.

  Top Secret “intercepted messages” involving the Soviets and Japan were also detailed, as were communications involving China and Vietnam. “Peking is moving to make up part of Hanoi’s fighter aircraft losses of the past few months. According to intercepts, 12 MiG-19s were scheduled to fly from China to North Vietnam.”

  In other words the same expensive, TOP SECRET intelligence technologies used on the most important targets such as China were being used to spy on Israel.

  18

  * * *

  The Vietnam War inherited from the Kennedy and Johnson administrations was an ongoing nightmare.

  As Butterfield was aware, the centerpiece of Nixon’s strategy was the so-called Vietnamization of the war—withdraw U.S. troops as fast as possible so the South Vietnamese could take over the major share of their own defense. The other aim was Peace with Honor. The goal was to avoid anything that could be labeled defeat. Nearly all reports and classified memos on the war passed through Butterfield. “I had a good feel for the plan.” At the same time he was not in the official loop for foreign, military and war policy, and he did not attend the endless meetings on the war—neither the small nor the large, the ultra top secret nor the routine.

  “I read everything that went into him and that was sent out,” Butterfield recalled. “I did not study every page.”

  One critical document that he kept has never been made public. As best I can tell, following a thorough search and discussion with archivists at the Nixon Library and elsewhere, the document does not exist in the official record, even among documents still considered classified. On May 15, 2015, I requested that Michael D. Ellzey, director of the Nixon Library, initiate a search for the memo. He forwarded an email on June 5, 2015, from Jason Schultz, his supervisory archivist, saying that the key locations had been searched and an archivist “was unable to find” the memo though it “is something that should be in our collection.”

  I also could not find the memo mentioned in any of the major books on the Vietnam War, including the memoirs of Nixon, Kissinger or other key players.

  John Negroponte, a foreign service officer and specialist in Vietnam who was the National Security Council staffer most directly involved in Vietnam for Kissinger from June 1971 to early 1973, said he remembered nothing like it. “I never heard of the memo,” he said when I described it to him.

  It is an arresting document. In the president’s own handwriting he makes an unambiguous declaration that a major and controversial part of his strategy—the intensive bombing for the first three years of his presidency and previous four years by Johnson—had achieved “zilch” and was a “failure.”

  This is the background. On January 2, 1972, five days before he would formally declare that he would run for reelection, Nixon gave an hour-long, prime-time television interview to Dan Rather of CBS News.

  “On everyone’s mind is the resumption of the widespread bombing of North Vietnam,” Rather said. “Could you assess the military benefits of that?”

  “The results have been very, very effective,” Nixon replied, “and I think that their effectiveness will be demonstrated by the statement I am now going to make.” He said that he soon would announce a withdrawal of more U.S. troops.

  It was an unqualified endorsement of the bombing as a successful strategy and its positive military impact. Up to that point, Nixon had ordered the U.S. military to drop more than 2.9 million tons of bombs in Laos, South Vietnam, North Vietnam and Cambodia, according to a 2013 study, “Electronic Records of the Air War Over Southeast Asia.”

  That staggering number of 2.9 million tons of bombs exceeds the 1.7 million tons dropped by President Johnson in those same countries from 1965 to 1968 during his presidency.

  The day after the Rather interview, January 3, 1972, Kissinger sent a one-page memo to the president that was a routine update on the war. It was classified TOP SECRET—SENSITIVE, CONTAINS CODEWORD.

  The memo said, “The Communists have launched heavy artillery attacks” in Laos and “Heavy cloud cover and haze have hampered U.S. air strikes.” In addition, a force of 1,000 irregular Vietcong guerrilla forces had arrived. “The irregulars . . . have been highly effective.” There also have been “continued reports of sizeable Communist troop movements” in two other regions of Laos. Da Nang Air Base also had been struck with rockets, causing minor damage. The printed contents from Kissinger are part of a routine update but what happened next is anything but routine.

  Nixon took the update memo, tilted it sideways and in pen wrote in longhand to Kissinger: “K. We have had 10 years of total control of the air in Laos and V.Nam. The result=Zilch. There is something wrong with the strategy or the Air Force. I want a ‘bark off’ study—no snow job—on my desk in 2 weeks as to what the reason for the failure is. Otherwise continued air operations make no sense in Cambodia, Laos etc. after we complete withdrawal.”

  And then at the bottom, he scrawled: “Shake them up!!”

  A copy of the memo with Nixon’s handwritten note to Kissinger is reproduced here.

  The commander-in-chief who had directed the bombing in Southeast Asia for nearly three years was declaring that the result was “zilch” and a “failure.” That 2.9 million tons translates into more than 5 billion pounds of explosives. Nixon was acknowledging no strategic gain. He ask
ed for a new “bark off,” “no snow job” review. I could find no evidence that one was done.

  I reached Kissinger by phone Monday, June 29, 2015, as he traveled on the Amtrak train for a meeting in Washington, D.C. I summarized the orders Nixon wrote to him on the January 3, 1972, memo.

  Kissinger said he didn’t remember that specific memo from 43 years ago. But he was not at all surprised by such an order from Nixon. “Periodically things would come in from him and sometimes they were meaningful,” Kissinger said, “and sometimes you would just wait and see.”

  Had there been 10 years of bombing failure, as Nixon maintained? I asked.

  “That is true,” Kissinger said. I was utterly surprised at his candor so I asked it again. “Almost certainly that is true,” he said.

  Kissinger said Nixon usually wanted to intensify the bombing. “He was in the habit of wanting more bombing . . . his instructions most often were for more bombing.”

  But Nixon wrote to you that it wasn’t working, that something was wrong with the strategy or the air force? “I could find you fifty memos that said the opposite,” Kissinger responded.

  But didn’t Nixon sound frustrated and angry? “It is true he was frustrated,” Kissinger said. He said he recalled that no study was done in response to Nixon’s order for one that was “bark off” and “no snow job.”

  He said the Nixon Library should have this memo as should the Library of Congress, which he complained has been too slow to release his documents. I said I would continue to seek out a copy from the archival records and that I would enlist the assistance of one of Kissinger’s former aides.

  “Now, you’re not going to quote me on this, are you?”

  Yes, I said I would.

  It is significant to see what happened after Nixon declared that the bombing had achieved “zilch.” In 1972, he ordered increased bombing and the U.S. military dropped 1.1 million tons in that year alone—more than in any single year of the Johnson presidency. Included in the 1.1 million tons was 207,000 tons in North Vietnam alone. The most Johnson had dropped on North Vietnam was 198,000 tons and that was in 1968. In 1973, Nixon dropped 440,000 tons in the four countries.

  Rather than forsaking bombing, Nixon once again embraced it.

  MEMORANDUM

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  WASHINGTON

  TOP SECRET-SENSITIVE

  CONTAINS CODEWORD

  January 3, 1972

  MEMORANDUM FOR:

  THE PRESIDENT

  FROM:

  HENRY A. KISSINGER

  SUBJECT:

  Information Items

  Military Situation in Laos: The Communists have launched heavy artillery attacks against Long Tieng. So far friendly casualties at Long Tieng have been light, but the shelling is causing morale problems among the irregular forces defending the base. Since December 31, North Vietnamese 130-mm guns have fired more than 300 rounds into the Long Tieng complex. All ordinance and building of the Lao Air Force have been destroyed. The airstrip is still usable, but the shellings have caused air operations to be shifted to Ban Son, about 18 miles southwest of Long Tieng.

  Heavy cloud cover and haze have hampered U.S. air strikes in the area of the Plaine. However, U.S. pilots believe they may have damaged three of the enemey’s 130-mm guns. Meanwhile, ground activity in the Long Tieng area has been limited to scattered clashes and a four-battalion irregular task force, totaling over 1,000 men, has arrived in Long Tieng from Savannaket. The irregulars, who have been highly effective in south Laos, have been deployed north of Long Tieng.

  In the central Panhandle, there are continued reports of sizeable Communist troop movements north and south of Dong Hene. Parther south, the North Vietnamese are now in a position to exert pressure against Pakse. Although the town is not immediately threatened, the U.S. Ambassador has approved the evacuation of all U.S. dependents. A similar action was taken in May when enemy rocket attacks against the town were expected.

  Rocket Attack on DaNang Air Base: Yesterday DaNang air base was struck by four 122-mm rockets. One U.S. Air Force EC-47 aircraft received extensive damage and two other U.S. EC-47s were damaged to a lesser degree. In addition, damage was reported to several pieces of ground support equipment. One U.S. airman, was slightly injured.

  TOP SECRET-SENSITIVE

  CONTAINS CODEWORD

  [HANDWRITTEN NOTE]

  K. We have had 10 years of total control of the air in Laos and V.Nam. The result=Zilch. There is something wrong with the strategy or the Air Force. I want a ‘bark off’ study – no snow job – on my desk in 2 weeks as to what the reason for the failure is. Otherwise continued air operations make no sense in Cambodia, Laos etc. after we complete withdrawal. Shake them up!!

  The opponents of the war probably could not have imagined such a clear condemnation of Nixon’s policy written in his own hand. The bombing had achieved “zilch.” This is not a stray comment on one of his taped conversations. The language is plain and direct from the commander-in-chief.

  When I went over the copy of the memo with Butterfield in his apartment in La Jolla, California, he confirmed it was Nixon’s handwriting. Without question. He had seen thousands of examples in notes and marginal comments.

  “I can tell by the way he writes here that he’s upset,” Butterfield added. At my request, Butterfield then read the memo aloud before a camera filming him.

  He noted that “Shake them up!!” was underlined twice. “I’m sure he pressed into the paper on that. He’s furious. And that is an amazing memo.”

  As I think the history of the Vietnam War shows, Nixon’s “zilch” memo was accurate. The bombing was not working. It was a failure, and certainly not “very effective” as he had assured Dan Rather.

  “We’re going back to The Best and the Brightest,” Butterfield said, referring to David Halberstam’s landmark book that excoriated the architects of the Vietnam War. “We’re in something that we never had any business getting involved in.”

  “Now we’ve been doing this for three years and what is the result?” Butterfield asked. “Zilch.”

  “But,” I said, “here’s the commander-in-chief saying it’s a failure.”

  “Yes,” Butterfield replied.

  “We’ve achieved zilch,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he replied.

  “And hundreds of thousands of [tons] have been dropped.”

  “Hundreds of thousands,” Butterfield repeated, “that’s right.”

  “In Vietnam,” I said, “and he’s saying it’s done nothing.”

  “The air operations are making no sense,” he said.

  “What gives here?” I asked. “What is somebody to make of this? It’s ‘very, very effective’ publicly, and then on a top secret memo he says we’re achieving zilch and it’s a failure.”

  Butterfield said he could not explain. “I can’t put it together. I didn’t have a very optimistic view of how it would end even when I was over there flying [in the early 1960s]. And prior to that, for three years, I was working for General O’Donnell, who was the commander-in-chief of all air forces in the Pacific Theater. When we would go over there, we went over about once a month and we would always meet with [South Vietnamese] President Diem. It was always worse than it had been on the previous visit. There was no reason to be very optimistic. And you know, the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese were 20 times more persistent than we anticipated. We always thought we could do this easily, with one hand tied behind our back. And they continued to wear us down.”

  Suppose, I asked Butterfield, that a reporter for The Washington Post in January 1972 had obtained a copy of the memo with Nixon’s declaration of “zilch” and “failure.” Suppose it had been published then with his handwritten conclusions, what would have happened?

  The reporter would have been made editor of The Washington Post, Butterfield said facetiously, been given Ben Bradlee’s job. It would have been a real exposé.

  What is so crucial about Nixon’s scrawled de
claration is that it could not have been something that dawned on him on January 3, 1972.

  The “zilch” conclusion had grown over three years. In what way and when did he realize this? History may never know. Maybe Nixon never knew, never grasped the full weight of his own conclusion. What gives that assessment credibility is that it was not Nixon’s alone. Read and sort through all the documents, tapes, books, speeches and histories on Vietnam and it leads to that conclusion. It was “zilch.” It was not working. There is a note of panic in the note in his demand for a “bark off” study, “no snow job,” on his desk in two weeks. As if two weeks of honest study could somehow remedy three years.

  What is to be said about a wartime leader who goes on with war knowing a key part of the strategy is not working? The memo bolsters the conclusion about the senselessness of the war. How much anguish had been inflicted on Americans, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians and others? How could the devastation and human suffering be measured?

  Neil Sheehan in his Pulitzer Prize–winning book perhaps says it best with his title, A Bright Shining Lie. It was a lie, and here Nixon made clear that he knew it.

  “When you’re in the White House,” Butterfield said, “everyone lies. You can sort of get feeling immune.”

  • • •

  There remains the question of what did Kissinger know?

  The real psychological study of the Nixon-Kissinger relationship may never be done. It is often described as a partnership, but it was marked by deep distrust, rivalry and self-protection.

  The only hint I could find in the rest of the Vietnam record that Nixon had some second thoughts in January 1972 was in Haldeman’s diary. In an entry for Saturday, January 1, 1972—two days before the “Zilch” memo—Haldeman wrote: