I came to believe it was only a matter of time before the federal government and the country would have to take the idea of an all-volunteer military seriously. I was convinced then, and remain convinced now, that if the country had had a volunteer system in place during the Vietnam War, the level of violence and protest across the country would have been considerably less.
The conventional wisdom is that because of the opposition to the Vietnam War, Lyndon Johnson’s political fate was sealed by early 1968. In fact, at first things were looking pretty good for President Johnson. Though later changing his mind, one of LBJ’s chief rivals for the Democratic nomination, Robert F. Kennedy, had announced he would not challenge Johnson in the Democratic primaries. The nature of some of the more radical antiwar demonstrations seemed to have increased sympathy for Johnson across Middle America, and he was holding steady in the polls. Like many, I was amazed to see pictures of American celebrities, such as Jane Fonda, expressing solidarity with the North Vietnamese. It is one thing to oppose a war policy. It is quite another to support the enemy. Indeed, even though I thought President Johnson brought some of his problems on himself, I didn’t like to see any president so hounded, and I certainly did not like to see our troops besmirched.
Then, in January 1968, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces broke a truce during their country’s Tet holiday. Their surprise offensive consisted of assaults on more than a hundred cities across South Vietnam. In military terms, the Tet Offensive was not a victory for the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese. But military victory was not the enemy’s intent. Their effort was targeted at war-weary Americans watching the bloodshed on their TV screens. And the message was unmistakable. The enemy was telling the American people, “We will never give up.” Toward the end of the Johnson administration, I had mistakenly accepted as credible the certainty in the media that the 1968 Tet Offensive had been a defeat for America and the South Vietnamese. But, in fact, after the initial surprise, our forces had pushed back effectively. The fury of the Tet Offensive, coupled with the fact that the mighty U.S. military was taken by surprise, made a powerful impression. At home, Americans were ill prepared for the shocking images from the attacks and the increasing impression that the United States might actually lose the war.
A few weeks later, CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite traveled to Vietnam. Returning to the United States, he aired a special commentary on February 27 that may have been the single most devastating moment for the Johnson administration in the long years of the Vietnam War. Cronkite soberly concluded that we were “mired in stalemate” and needed to negotiate with the Viet Cong. After the broadcast aired, the President was reported to have said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.” It was undoubtedly true.
On March 31, the President appeared before television cameras for an address from the Oval Office. He talked about making 1968 “the year of decision in South Vietnam—the year that brings, if not final victory or defeat, at least a turning point in the struggle.” By then there had been so many turning points, so many decisive moments, so many tides turned that it seemed to ring hollow. LBJ then uttered words that deliberately had not been included in his teleprompter text, surprising everyone but those closest to him. “With America’s sons in the fields far away, with America’s future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world’s hopes for peace in the balance every day,” he said, “I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office—the presidency of your country. Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”29
The war in Vietnam had been a test of political wills. But it was not our enemy’s will that had been broken. The turmoil of the year had left the Johnson administration in ruin and American policy on the war uncertain. It also abetted a most unlikely political comeback.
PART IV
In Nixon’s Arena
Provence, France
AUGUST 8, 1974
The French seaport of Saint-Tropez was the landing site for Operation Dragoon during World War II, where the Allies began their drive to liberate southern France from Nazi control. A decade later the town again achieved notoriety as the setting for a film that launched the career of actress Brigitte Bardot. With its pristine beaches and skies as clear and blue as the nearby Mediterranean, it soon became a haven for European glitterati.
If there was anything the Rumsfelds were not, it was part of the glitterati. We passed through the town’s narrow, winding roads in an aging but resilient maroon Volvo.1 Our three young children were squeezed together in the backseat, and our trunk was stuffed with bags and suitcases. Our destination was Grimaud, a small, sleepy village where Ambassador André de Staercke, the distinguished dean of the North Atlantic Council, had a vacation home.
While most Americans were transfixed by the Watergate scandal we were thousands of miles away from those epic events. As the U.S. ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, I had to fly back to Washington for meetings periodically. But for the most part Joyce and I were removed from the day-to-day Watergate developments that spring and summer. We were living in Belgium, where the news on TV was in either French or Flemish, and I didn’t speak either language. Two of our children were in neighborhood Belgian schools, and I couldn’t even read their report cards. We received English newspapers, of course—the International Herald Tribune and some British papers—but we weren’t able to keep up to speed with events in Washington as one would expect today with the internet and cable TV.
Instead, during that period I had been deeply involved in helping alleviate a dispute teetering on the verge of war between two of our NATO allies, Turkey and Greece, over the island of Cyprus. Every once in a while I would turn on the local television and see pictures of President Nixon and sometimes hear an announcer say recognizable names like “Hahl-dah-mann” and “Err-leek-mann” in a thick accent. I didn’t need to speak Flemish to know that what they were describing wasn’t good.
But that was half a world away. And when tensions lessened over Cyprus, I welcomed the chance for some time away from official business with my family. En route to Grimaud, Joyce purchased a copy of the International Herald Tribune. She was so absorbed in it that I noticed she wasn’t paying the slightest attention to the picturesque countryside along the French coast.
“Don,” she finally said, with a tone of unusual insistence, “I think you should stop and read this.”
I knew that what had caught Joyce’s attention had to be something to do with Watergate, but we didn’t talk about those problems in the car, because mentions of the scandal seemed to bother our seven-year-old son, Nick, who had met Nixon several times. I had taken Nick with me on my last visit with the President in the Oval Office before leaving for NATO headquarters in Belgium. Having the undivided attention of our nation’s commander in chief—who allowed Nick to sit in his chair—had left a strong impression on him. So Joyce and I avoided discussing accusations against the President when Nick was within earshot.
I was not all that eager to learn the bad news, either, so I kept driving until we reached a beach where our kids could go swimming. I took Nick’s hand and walked with him across the white sand. As our son saw for the first time what passed for typical swim attire for women on a Mediterranean beach, his expression was one of amazed innocence. He had not seen anything like that along the shores of Lake Michigan. It was another reminder that the Rumsfelds were a long way from home.
Eventually, I sat down on the sand and turned my attention to the newspaper. President Nixon, the reports said, might be close to resigning. Despite his deteriorating political and legal situation, I never thought he’d actually have to surrender the office. I thought at worst he might be forced to accept a reduced presidency with less influence. Knowing the tenacious Richard M. Nixon, I found it hard to envision him giving up. I
f the news stories were accurate, however, it seemed that my friend from my days in the Congress, Vice President Gerald R. Ford, could become president of the United States.
Early that evening we arrived at Ambassador de Staercke’s house. De Staercke had assembled an eclectic group for dinner, including the Belgian ambassador to the United Kingdom, Baron Robert Rothschild, and Brigitte Bardot’s business manager. While the gravity of the situation in Washington, D.C., had become clearer to Joyce and me, the European dinner guests were surprised by the Herald Tribune’s assessment that the situation might be coming to a head. To the Europeans, Watergate seemed a relatively minor problem. Even Nixon’s secret tapings in the White House were shrugged off as not particularly unusual.
My secretary at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Leona Goodell, telephoned de Staercke’s house to tell me that an aide from Vice President Ford’s office was trying to reach me, and shortly thereafter his call came through. The Grimaud telephone switchboard was not used to receiving calls from the White House, and our dinner companions began to appreciate the seriousness of the matter. The Vice President’s aide made it clear that Ford wanted me to fly back to Washington at once. We all stayed up and listened to President Nixon’s dramatic remarks to the nation. “I have never been a quitter,” the President said solemnly. Then Richard Nixon did exactly that, announcing that he would resign his office at noon the very next day. The man who had spent much of his adult life in pursuit of the White House was suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, returning to his home in San Clemente, California.
CHAPTER 7
1968: Year of Turmoil
The familiar portrait of Richard Milhous Nixon is of a bitter, haunted figure who became the first American president to resign. I worked for a notably different Richard Nixon, conferring with him dozens of times as a member of his cabinet and periodically in smaller meetings. Nixon had serious failings, which became all too evident when his secret tapes were revealed. But I knew him to be a thoughtful, brilliant man—certainly one of the brightest presidents I observed. He was indeed a paradox who managed to reach the apex of power and then came crashing down, which I suppose is why decades later so many Americans still find him fascinating.
By 1968, during my third term in Congress, Richard M. Nixon was on the road to an improbable political comeback. His second presidential bid took place during one of the more tumultuous years in modern American history—a year punctuated by the escalating debate over Vietnam. The Tet Offensive, which had sealed the fate of President Johnson, accelerated the nearly continuous protests outside the gates of the White House. Marchers were routinely chanting things like “Hey! Hey! LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?!” There were so many protests, in fact, that the President had difficulty leaving the White House. That year saw 16,592 Americans killed in the war—the highest number of any year of that conflict.
Our country was rocked by violence and heartbreak. On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr., the man in whom so many Americans had placed their hopes, was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Joyce and I were in Florida with our family when we heard the news and flew back to Washington immediately. His death sparked an ugly backlash. Things were so tense that we had to show identification to National Guardsmen before they would let us cross the bridge from National Airport in Virginia into Washington, D.C. As we drove into the nation’s capital, we saw rioting in the streets, with buildings and cars set on fire. The next school day the city decided to keep the public schools open, leaving us with the indelible image of our twelve-year-old daughter, Valerie, serving as a school safety monitor on one corner of the street while National Guardsmen with guns at the ready stood watch on the others.
That June, Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles, just after winning the California Democratic presidential primary. His death, along with King’s, stirred up the still vivid memories of his brother’s assassination. The succession of murders, combined with a war with mounting casualties and the frequent and often violent demonstrations in Washington and around the nation, gave many of us a palpable sense that the country could be spiraling out of control.
Amid anger and protest, Nixon offered himself as a source of reassurance and stability. For voters it was a welcome change from the anguished presidency of Lyndon Johnson. But because he had been defeated in two high-profile elections during the past decade, he had to battle the impression that he was a loser.
When Nixon’s law partner and close associate, John Mitchell, asked me to head up the Nixon campaign in Illinois I declined, telling him I wanted to watch the race for a bit. It seemed to me that Nixon had spent much of his adult life getting ready to do something but not actually doing much besides running for the next office and serving in the standby role as vice president for eight years. As the campaign developed I was increasingly impressed by his steadiness and focus. Eventually, I agreed to be an assistant floor leader for Nixon at the 1968 Republican convention in Miami, and then as a surrogate speaker for him in the presidential election.
On the third day of the convention Mitchell, by then Nixon’s campaign manager, sent me a note asking that I attend a meeting in Nixon’s suite at the Hilton Plaza Hotel to discuss his vice presidential selection. The private gathering, with most of the leading figures of the Republican Party, would start immediately after the balloting for president was concluded. It was an unexpected invitation for a thirty-six-year-old congressman who did not know the candidate well, and in fact had been slow to support him, but I accepted with interest.1
After Nixon’s nomination, which ran late into the evening, I drove to the Hilton and made my way to his suite. Twenty-one people were gathered there, including such Republican luminaries as former Governor Thomas Dewey of New York, the 1944 and 1948 Republican presidential candidate; Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, the Dixiecrat’s presidential candidate in 1948; and Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, seemingly well recovered from his 1964 defeat. I was the youngest and without question the least experienced person in the room.
Nixon soon arrived and shook hands with everyone. Never one for small talk, his greetings went rather quickly. Nixon seemed quite energetic despite the late hour. He sat in a swivel chair toward one end of the room. The rest of us were seated in an oblong circle.2 Nixon leaned back in his chair and extended his feet onto the edge of a coffee table.
I was impressed with how he handled himself as he held forth—he was businesslike and authoritative. He started off by giving his vision of the coming campaign, which he expected to be another close one. In considering possible vice presidential candidates, Nixon pointedly said he would not do what John F. Kennedy did in 1960 by picking Lyndon Johnson. I took that to mean he didn’t want a running mate who was a regional candidate chosen to help the ticket carry a particular state. Instead, Nixon said he wanted someone with broader appeal. I assumed he wanted to set aside individuals with close ties to the party’s left or right wings.
“I don’t want to select someone who will have the effect of dividing this party,” Nixon said in his baritone voice.3 From time to time he fiddled with his watchband as he spoke. He asked us to indicate who we believed would run best in our part of the country.4 “Now let’s go around the room,” he said. He first looked to Congressman Sam Devine of Ohio, sitting to my immediate left. “Sam, start it off,” Nixon said.
I figured Devine would talk for a while to give me a chance to collect my thoughts. No such luck. Sam said he had responded to a written request from Nixon with his choice of a running mate—and that he had nothing further to add. Then Nixon and the room full of Republican luminaries turned to the next person in line. “Don, what do you think?” Nixon asked. I barely knew most of the Republican bigwigs in the room, including Nixon, but now it was my turn.
I had something of a problem, as Nixon seemed to have just ruled out some of the people I thought would run best in my area in Illinois, most of whom were identified as being toward the left of the party: Charles P
ercy, Nelson Rockefeller, and John Lindsay. I had opposed Rockefeller as a presidential candidate that year, but as a vice presidential candidate I thought he might bring some strength to the ticket in places like Cook County. The Republican Party was still recovering from 1964, and I felt our local candidates would have a better chance to win in 1968 if we broadened the GOP base. I also thought it would be useful to have a vice presidential candidate who could help the party make inroads in the northern, industrial, urban, and particularly the suburban areas. A candidate who would demonstrate an interest in the problems that were of concern to people in America’s cities—education, crime, drugs, and the enduring racial divisions—might attract more independent-leaning voters. I said that Senator Charles Percy in particular would be helpful in my home state, which promised to be a bellwether. I then went on to say that I thought it would be a mistake to pick a candidate from below the Mason-Dixon Line. The South was still polarized, and I thought that it might send an unfortunate message that Republicans were not supportive of civil rights. I said this knowing that one of the most prominent Southerners in the party, Strom Thurmond, was sitting only a few feet away.*
On several occasions during the discussion, Nixon would ask, “What about Volpe?” or “What about Agnew?” John Volpe was the governor of Massachusetts. Spiro T. Agnew was the recently elected governor of Maryland. Nobody seemed to know much about either of them. But as the discussion went on, it occurred to me that Nixon very likely had all but made up his mind to select either Volpe or Agnew before any of us had arrived.5
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