RN

by Richard Nixon

  As I read the legislative messages that poured out of the White House during the first few months of 1965, I could see that Johnson had fallen into the trap that snares so many believers in big government: he was promising far more than ever could be achieved. Even allowing for a healthy dose of oratorical overstatement, the Great Society promised so much to so many that, instead of inspiring people to work hard to attain its goals, it made people impatient and angry when the goals were not immediately achieved without effort on their part.

  I knew that Johnson would soon be bitterly disappointed by the ingratitude of those he tried to help. His Great Society programs spawned a new constituency of government dependents who would always demand more than he could give. Johnson was a man who needed praise, but he would get precious little of it from them.

  I also anticipated the breakdown of performance of the Great Society programs themselves. The Great Society was created by liberal academics and bureaucrats steeped in the myths of the New Deal. When its theoretical high-mindedness ran up against the self-interested tough-mindedness of the people it was intended to serve, there was certain to be conflict.

  The philosophical distinction between the Republican and Democratic parties was never clearer than in the middle 1960s. It was therefore the perfect time for Republicans to lead an active opposition. I fully recognized, however, that one of our biggest problems lay in our public image as a “negative” party. Goldwater’s rhetoric had much to answer for in this regard. Republicans had always been tagged as reactionary, but after his campaign we were portrayed as reckless and racist.

  Republicans needed to leapfrog the Democrats on the Great Society issues and get ahead of them. The Democrats were the majority party, but it seemed to me that the great strength of the Republicans lay in our ability to lead effectively on the local level, much as the great strength of the Democrats rested on their ability to mobilize the resources of Washington.

  In a number of speeches during 1965, I urged my audiences to be Lincoln Republicans: liberal in their concern for people and conservative in their respect for the rule of law. I deliberately used the terms liberal and conservative, which in 1964 had been the sorrow of the party, to show how they had been abused and distorted almost beyond recognition. I said, “If being a liberal means federalizing everything, then I’m no liberal. If being a conservative means turning back the clock, denying problems that exist, then I’m no conservative.”

  I stressed that the Republican Party must have no room for racism. I made it clear that contrary to what some conservatives might have thought, George Wallace did not belong in the Republican Party. I was equally critical of the black activists and the extremists in the civil rights movement. When the Watts district of Los Angeles was swept by black rioters, arsonists, and looters in the summer of 1965, I refused to accept that such outbursts were the inevitable result of any systematic racism of American society. In my judgment, the real culprits in the race riots of the 1960s were neither society nor the police, but the extremists of both races who encouraged the idea that people need obey only the laws with which they agree.

  Another widespread concern during this period was the general tone of American society and the growth of permissiveness. Psychologists, preachers, and parents worried as traditional standards of social and sexual behavior were flouted or abandoned. I felt that to a large degree these excesses reflected the malaise of affluence. In some cases, however, they represented a real change in American culture, and I felt that rather than just bemoaning them Republicans should try to understand them.

  Increasingly in the forefront in 1965 was the war in Vietnam. I had become deeply concerned about the contrast between the actual situation I found when I visited Vietnam in 1964 and what the Johnson administration was telling the American people. I concluded that Johnson hoped to achieve a quick negotiated settlement before antiwar dissent within the Democratic Party and media criticism began undercutting his Great Society legislation.

  Johnson had not leveled with the American people and told them why we were fighting in Vietnam or how deeply American troops were actually involved. To some extent he was trapped by his own words in the campaign. He had said: “We are not about to send American boys 9,000 or 10,000 miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.” He was expanding the war, and it would be difficult to explain why he considered it necessary without arousing the ire of the antiwar forces and the skepticism of the average citizen.

  The price of Johnson’s dissembling was high, and I was to inherit that debt: the “credibility gap.” The government lost the confidence of the people, which I believe it could have kept had Johnson taken the risk and fully explained the war and patiently educated the people about it.

  This was Johnson’s strategic mistake—and it was a serious one. It was compounded by a no less serious tactical mistake.

  By limiting the military effort to retaliation and small-scale operations, he forfeited the military initiative to the Communists. Johnson seemed to believe that restraint on his part—partly an effort to placate the left wing of his party—would be interpreted by the Communists as proof of his sincerity in seeking a negotiated settlement. He did not see how they could refuse to come to the conference table when faced with anyone as reasonable as he was determined to be.

  Successful negotiation requires the creation of conditions that make it advantageous for the other party to do what you want. For a favorable outcome in Vietnam, it would have been necessary for the United States to employ its great economic and military power to demonstrate convincingly to the Communists that aggression would not pay and that it would be more desirable for them to negotiate a settlement. The Johnson administration pursued a policy of only the most gradual escalation of the air and ground war. What this policy actually accomplished was to convince the Communists that the United States lacked the will to win in Vietnam and could be worn down with propaganda directed against both our domestic front and our allies around the world.

  As I saw it, Johnson should have told the American people about our role in Vietnam frankly and without any rosy predictions. The country should have been informed how difficult and costly the struggle would be. He also should have portrayed the stakes more convincingly. The United States was not just fighting to maintain an independent South Vietnam, but also to defeat the indirect aggression of China and the Soviet Union under the guise of a “war of national liberation.” General Vo Nguyen Giap, the North Vietnamese military commander, had stated that the war against South Vietnam was a model for the Communist movement around the world: if such a style of aggression could succeed there, it could work elsewhere.

  After the Munich Conference in 1937, Winston Churchill warned the House of Commons that “the idea that safety can be purchased by throwing a small state to the wolves is a fatal delusion.” What had been true of the betrayal of Czechoslovakia to Hitler in 1938 was no less true of the betrayal of South Vietnam to the Communists advocated by many in 1965. The fall of free Vietnam to outside aggression would have sent shock waves throughout Asia. As I put it in many of my speeches, “If America gives up on Vietnam, Asia will give up on America.”

  To me the choice lay not, as many doves thought, between this war and no war—but between this war and a bigger war later when the Communists would be stronger and more confident.

  In my speeches in 1965 I sought to justify and explain the American commitment in Southeast Asia. I pointed out that we were not like the French colonialists, who had been fighting to stay in Vietnam. We were fighting to get out once aggression had been defeated.

  On January 26, 1965, in a speech to the Sales Executives Club of New York I stated bluntly that we were losing the war in Vietnam. I urged that we take the war to North Vietnam by naval and air bombing of the Communists’ supply routes in South Vietnam and by destroying the Vietcong staging areas in North Vietnam and Laos. “It is dangerous and foolhardy to try to gloss over the truth as to what the war
in Vietnam really involves,” I said. “The war in Vietnam is not about Vietnam but about Southeast Asia.” I warned that we must not delude ourselves with schemes for coalition governments or neutralization. “Neutrality where the Communists are concerned means three things: we get out; they stay in; they take over.” Any negotiated settlement would inevitably lead only to further Communist demands. “We finally get back to the very difficult decision we have to make,” I said. “We must realize that there is no easy way out. We either get out, surrender on the installment plan through neutralization, or we find a way to win.”

  Unlike some of the extremist “hawks,” I did not think that we should use nuclear weapons in Vietnam. Nor did I think that we should rely on a strategy of committing increasing numbers of American troops to land battles. I said that we should instead “quarantine” the war in Vietnam by using our air and sea power to close off the outside interference from Laos and North Vietnam that made it possible for the Vietcong to practice their guerrilla terrorism. “If that were accomplished,” I said, “the South Vietnamese would have a fair chance to defeat the Vietcong in battle.”

  I was aware that this policy would risk involving Red China, so I added: “There are risks, yes. But the risks of waiting are much greater. This becomes apparent when we look ahead and realize that if South Vietnam is lost, and Southeast Asia is lost, and the Pacific becomes a Red Sea, we could be confronted with a world war where the odds against us would be far greater.”

  At the end of the speech I acknowledged that “the course of action I advocate is one that is not popular in America and would probably not get a vote of confidence in Congress or by a Gallup or Harris poll.” But I felt that what I had proposed was the right way, in fact the only way, to deal with the problem of Vietnam.

  Two weeks later, on February 6, the Vietcong began a new stage in the escalation of the war by shelling the Army barracks at our air base near Pleiku; Johnson responded with a statement that since Hanoi had embarked upon a more aggressive course of action, “We have no choice now but to clear the decks and make absolutely clear our continued determination to back South Vietnam in its fight to maintain its independence.” He ordered retaliatory air raids in North Vietnam.

  I spent another four days in Saigon in September 1965. I found the situation a bit improved from eighteen months before, particularly in terms of the morale among the South Vietnamese. But American and Vietnamese military officials still seemed frustrated. They felt they were being held back because Washington thought this would encourage negotiations, while the enemy was making advances. When I appeared on Meet the Press after my return from Vietnam, for example, I said: “I don’t know what President Johnson presently thinks with regard to negotiations, but certainly I think continued talk on his part . . . suggesting that we only want peace, that we want to negotiate, has the effect of prolonging the war rather than bringing it to a close. I think President Johnson has got to make it clear to the world and to the people of South Vietnam that our objective is a free and independent South Vietnam with no reward and no appeasement of aggressors.” I repeated my call for more air and sea power against North Vietnam.

  During 1965 the volume of political mail, phone calls, and speaking requests coming into my office took a quantum leap. Rose was working twelve and fourteen hours a day. Pat came down to pitch in. By the end of the year it was clear that I would have to begin building a personal staff—not just for the 1966 campaign but with an eye to being ready for 1968. In January 1966, Pat Buchanan, a young editorial writer for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, joined my staff as a researcher and speech-writer.

  1966 ELECTIONS

  As the 1966 elections neared, I began carefully assessing the opportunities they presented and the risks they entailed for me. The risks were obvious. If the party went down to defeat or even failed to make a reasonable comeback, my adversaries in the press and my political competitors in the party would say that Nixon, the perennial loser, had once again dragged the party down to defeat, and that we needed new faces to win in 1968. However, Republicans had good reason to be optimistic about the 1966 elections, and if I had a hand in a sweeping party victory, it would not go unnoticed in the party ranks.

  Between the end of the 1964 debacle and the beginning of the 1966 campaign, I had logged 127,000 miles visiting forty states to speak before more than 400 groups. I helped to raise more than $4 million in contributions to the party.

  Early in 1966 I began to concentrate specifically on the fall campaign. My speaking schedule intensified. Tom Evans and Len Garment, both lawyers with our firm, were often in my office talking more politics than law. John P. Sears, a twenty-five-year-old associate in the firm, volunteered afterhours work. The fund-raising efforts of Cole, Stans, and Flanigan were stepped up and formalized in three committees, the major one of which was called Congress ’66. RNC Chairman Ray Bliss refused our request for committee funds to rent a plane on the ground that this would be showing favoritism for me over other potential presidential candidates. So we raised the money on our own. It was a political miracle that we were able to do it all by ourselves.

  On March 12 I attended the Gridiron Dinner of the press in Washington. Johnson had sent his regrets, and Hubert Humphrey was sitting in for him. Later in the evening, however, after many of the speeches and skits were completed, Johnson burst into the room, followed by the presidential entourage.

  As he was being escorted from the dais after the toasts he greeted me and said that he would like me to stop by to have coffee with him the next morning.

  As I got off the elevator on the second floor of the White House, a butler greeted me and escorted me to Johnson’s room. He was sitting in bed in his pajamas. “Hello, Dick,” he said. His voice was extremely hoarse, and he looked tired, almost to the point of exhaustion.

  We discussed the situation in Vietnam. I told him my views regarding the need to take stronger actions to bring the North Vietnamese to the conference table. I said that I had defended the administration’s policy in all the foreign countries I visited. He nodded. “I am receiving the benefit from the support I gave you and Ike in the foreign policy field in the eight years you were here,” he said.

  He then turned to my recommendations regarding a harder line in Vietnam. “China’s the problem there,” he said. “We can bomb the hell out of Hanoi and the rest of that damned country, but they’ve got China right behind them, and that’s a different story.”

  I had not been in the room long when the door opened and Mrs. Johnson walked in, wearing a dressing gown. She greeted me warmly, got into bed beside her husband, and joined us for the remainder of our conversation.

  He shifted gears and in muted tones began talking like a man arriving at the end of his term, rather than a President in full control of events. “When I leave this office, Bobby, Hubert, or you will have the problem of China on your hands,” he said. I urged a diplomatic communication with China as soon as possible. “Mr. President,” I said, “time is on their side. Now is the time to confront them on the diplomatic front.” Johnson did not respond, but I sensed he agreed with me.

  I said that since it was an election year, I would be out campaigning and making speeches for Republican candidates just as he had done for Democrats in 1954 and 1958 when the Republicans were in office. “I know you will understand and not take any criticism I make on issues as being directed personally at you,” I said.

  “I know, Dick,” he replied. “We politicians are just like lawyers who get together for a drink after fighting each other like hell in the courtroom.”

  Johnson got up and walked to his dressing room closet, where he chose a pair of presidential cufflinks from his jewelry box and gave them to me. We shook hands and I said goodbye.

  The 1966 campaign was one that I thoroughly enjoyed. With very few exceptions I was able to give my enthusiastic endorsement to the Republican candidates. I personally picked the districts and states in which I felt I could be effective, and I was pretty
much on my own because the other big guns on the national scene were tied up with their own campaigns. The polls indicated that the Democrats were going to take a fairly substantial beating, and I could feel a tremendous confidence and enthusiasm in the crowds I met and spoke to. But rumors began to circulate that Johnson was planning a last-minute grandstand play that would restore public confidence right before the election. I knew him well enough to know that such a move would be entirely in character for him, so I assumed a position of watchful waiting.

  At the end of September Johnson made a surprise announcement that he was going to meet with President Nguyen Van Thieu of South Vietnam and other Vietnamese and allied leaders in Manila in late October, just two weeks before the election. In the newspaper column I was writing at this time I bluntly noted the widespread skepticism that greeted this announcement. I wrote, “From diplomats in Tokyo to members of the President’s own party in Washington, the question is being posed: Is this a quest for peace or a quest for votes?”

  At the conclusion of their Manila meetings on October 25, Johnson, Thieu, and the leaders of Australia, Korea, New Zealand, the Philippines, and Thailand issued a joint communiqué. It offered an American and allied troop withdrawal from South Vietnam within six months, contingent upon a North Vietnamese withdrawal of forces, cessation of their support of Vietcong infiltration, and a general lessening of the levels of violence in the war.

  I was on a campaign trip when we received a copy of the Manila Communiqué, and I stayed up a good part of the night analyzing it. I called in Rose Woods and Pat Buchanan and dictated several pages of notes. I asked them to travel ahead to the next stop so that Buchanan could begin incorporating my thoughts into a working draft.