RN

by Richard Nixon

  By the time I got back to New York, I had a long, point-by-point analysis of what Johnson had agreed to at Manila, which I issued to the press on November 3, five days before the election. It began by pointing out that the apparently promising offer of mutual U.S. and North Vietnamese troop withdrawals was far more illusory than real.

  I stated that “the effect of this mutual withdrawal would be to leave the fate of South Vietnam to the Vietcong and the South Vietnamese Army. . . . The South Vietnamese Army could not prevail for any length of time over the Communist guerrillas without American advisers, air support, and logistical backing. Communist victory would most certainly be the result of ‘mutual withdrawal’ if the North Vietnamese continued their own logistical support of the Communist guerrillas. . . .” The situation in 1966, when the South Vietnamese were totally untrained and unprepared to defend themselves, was very different from that in 1969, when in my presidency we were able to propose a mutual withdrawal with the assurance that our Vietnamization policies would prepare the South Vietnamese to defend themselves. I said that if I understood the Manila Communiqué correctly, it offered to tie American withdrawals to the level of fighting indulged in by the Vietcong. “If this inference is accurate,” I continued, “then we have offered to surrender a decisive military advantage at the Manila Conference.”

  My statement was printed in full in the New York Times and was widely reviewed and discussed. It was treated as major news, particularly because up to that time I had consistently supported our goals in Vietnam, even while I raised questions about the tactics being used to achieve them.

  If the Manila meeting had been intended to help the Democrats in the election, it backfired completely. The press was almost insultingly cynical about Johnson’s motives. The doves attacked the Manila Communiqué as bellicose, and the hawks attacked it as amounting to surrender on the installment plan.

  My criticism of the Manila Communiqué apparently hit a particularly raw nerve in the White House. Johnson’s press conference on November 4 opened with some questions that revealed the cynical attitude of the press toward him. Johnson was tired and testy, and when a reporter asked him for a comment on my statement, something inside him seemed to break.

  “I do not want to get into a debate on a foreign policy meeting in Manila with a chronic campaigner like Mr. Nixon,” he replied. “It is his problem to find fault with his country and with his government during a period of October every two years. If you will look back over his record, you will find that to be true. He never did really recognize and realize what was going on when he had an official position in the government. You remember what President Eisenhower said, that if you would give him a week or so he would figure out what he was doing.

  “Since then he has made a temporary stand in California, and you saw what action the people took out there. Then he crossed the country to New York. Then he went back to San Francisco, hoping that he would be in the wings, available if Goldwater stumbled. But Goldwater didn’t stumble. Now he is out talking about a conference that obviously he is not well prepared on or informed about.”

  Reporters stole glances at one another to make sure that they were hearing correctly. Lady Bird Johnson was seated behind her husband. She was trying to smile, but shaking her head slightly.

  Johnson began defending the terms of the Manila Communiqué against the charges in my statement. He said that the Communists should have no doubts about our determination to leave Vietnam as soon as the conditions of mutual withdrawal, suspension of infiltration, and a decrease in fighting were met. “They know that,” he said, “and we ought not try to confuse it here and we ought not try to get it mixed up in a political campaign here. Attempts to do that will cause people to lose votes instead of gaining them. And we ought not have men killed because we try to fuzz up something. When the aggression, infiltration, and violence cease, not a nation there wants to keep occupying troops in South Vietnam. Mr. Nixon doesn’t serve his country well by trying to leave that kind of impression in the hope that he can pick up a precinct or two, or a ward or two.”

  While Johnson was holding this press conference in Washington, I was at La Guardia Airport in New York, about to board a plane for a campaign appearance in Waterville, Maine. As soon as we were strapped into our seats, Pat Buchanan leaned over and said, “You remember that you asked me to listen to Johnson’s press conference just in case he said something about your statement on the Manila Communiqué? Well, I listened, and you’re not going to believe what he did.”

  When Buchanan told me what had happened I realized for the first time how worried Johnson was beneath his booming exterior. He had spoken in desperation, not in malice. I knew that if I handled myself well, this could turn into both a Republican and a personal windfall. When I returned to the airport after my speech at Waterville, a reporter asked me what I thought and how I felt about being personally attacked by the President of the United States. I said, “Now President Johnson and I can disagree about that, but let’s disagree as gentlemen. Let’s disagree as men who are trying to find the right way. Let me say that the best way is not a one-man way, not just LBJ’s way but the two-party way. We need a bipartisan program for Vietnam in which both participate, rather than just a one-party program in which he says, ‘I know best and all of the rest of you, if you ever take me on, then I’ll hit you personally.’ That’s all I’m asking him to do. Let’s be gentlemen about this and have our discussions in a reasonable way.”

  With just a few days left before the election, I suddenly found myself the center of national attention. Editorialists and columnists who had had little use for me in the past defended my integrity against Johnson’s intemperate attack. Eisenhower called me from Gettysburg and said, “Dick, I could kick myself every time some jackass brings up that goddamn ‘give me a week’ business. Johnson has gone too far on this, and there will be a very strong backlash in your favor. I just wanted you to know that I’m issuing a statement down here.” Eisenhower’s statement, which was widely reported, said that I was “one of the best informed, most capable, and most industrious Vice Presidents in the history of the United States.”

  The Republican Congressional Campaign Committee offered me a half-hour of the network television time that had been allotted to it by NBC.

  I opened the broadcast by getting right to the point. I said:

  As you have no doubt gathered from that introduction, I was subjected last week to one of the most savage personal assaults ever leveled by the President of the United States against one of his political opponents. . . .

  I shall answer it not for myself but because of a great principle that is at stake. It is the principle of the right to disagree, the right to dissent. That means the right to disagree with any government official, even the President of the United States.

  I used most of the speech to make the case for a Republican Congress, but at the end I returned to Johnson’s attack. I said:

  I understand that the President of the United States may be listening to this program tonight. I want to direct these comments to him personally. Mr. President: For fourteen years I had the privilege of serving with you in Washington. I respected you then, I respect you now. I respect you for the great office you hold—an office that we both sought and that you won. I respect you for the great energies you devote to that office, and my respect has not changed because of the personal attack you made on me. You see, I think I understand how a man can be very, very tired and how his temper then can be very short. And if a Vice President or a former Vice President can be bone weary and tired, how much more tired would a President be after a journey like yours?”

  I closed the broadcast by offering Johnson my continued support in his search for peace and freedom abroad and progress at home.

  The speech was a success, it renewed my credentials as a national spokesman and a fighting campaigner. It also served to identify me with the Republican victory that now seemed almost certain in the election two days henc
e.

  I enjoyed listening to the 1966 election returns. By the end of the night, Republicans had won a net of 47 House seats, 3 Senate seats, 8 governorships and 540 seats in state legislatures. My predictions—that we would win 40 House seats, 3 Senate seats, 6 governorships and 700 state legislature seats—which had seemed so unrealistically optimistic when I made them six months earlier were vindicated with a vengeance.

  The election was personally satisfying to me in that the Republicans made gains in the South, defeating Democratic backlash candidates in Arkansas, where Winthrop Rockefeller won, and in Maryland, where Spiro Agnew defeated a Democrat who was running on a subtly racist line. I had specifically predicted that Rockefeller and Agnew would win.

  After the last returns were in and our victory was confirmed, I rounded up a small party to go to El Morocco for a victory supper of spaghetti and red wine. There was a lot for me to celebrate. The first major hurdle had been met, faced, and surmounted in style. There were more hurdles ahead, but this was an auspicious start. It was gratifying to know that I had played a major part in this Republican victory—a prerequisite for my own comeback.

  “A HOLIDAY FROM POLITICS”

  I fully realized that my efforts in the campaign had been only one of many factors in the Republican triumph. We had been the recipients of a massive anti-Johnson windfall. But no matter what the reasons, I had indisputably played a central part, and for the first time in ten years I was identified with a smashing victory.

  The campaign of 1966 had another important effect: it softened the remaining jagged memories of the “last press conference.” For one of the few times in my political career, Johnson’s attack made me the wounded party. He had not, in fact, been far off. I was something of a chronic campaigner, always out on the stump raising partisan hell. But my years in the “wilderness” and the simple process of growing older had probably rounded off some of the hard edges of the younger Nixon. I emerged from the campaign of 1966 as a seasoned senior Republican statesman who could still deliver some effective political licks.

  On the day after the election I issued a statement of my belief that the results represented a repudiation of Johnson’s policies. I also underscored the message for Hanoi and Peking that the new House of Representatives would be much stronger than its predecessor in supporting a U.S. policy of “no reward for aggression.”

  Throughout the campaign many of my friends, advisers, and supporters had urged me to gear up my own organization to be ready to go public with my presidential candidacy as soon as the election—and, we hoped, the great Republican victory—had taken place. Such advice made perfect sense in traditional terms, but I had already decided to try a highly unconventional idea: instead of plunging into the arena, I was going to bide my political time. When I had appeared on Issues and Answers two days before the election, I announced: “I am going to take a holiday from politics for at least six months with no political speeches scheduled whatever. What the future holds I don’t know.”

  I wanted to run for President in 1968, but I wanted to leave open, until the last possible moment, the option of deciding not to run.

  Our family spent a relaxed holiday in Key Biscayne. We went sailing with Bebe Rebozo on his boat, the Coco Lobo, and spent hours on the beach reading, swimming, and talking about everything except politics. I knew that Pat and the girls were secretly hoping that the moratorium on politics would go on and on.

  Shortly after we got back to New York, Peter Flanigan and Maury Stans came to see me. It was the day before Thanksgiving. They said that the time had come to make a move if I had any intention of being a candidate in 1968. Romney was off and running, and Reagan’s supporters were talking about renewing the Goldwater conservative movement. There was even talk of another Goldwater candidacy. Nelson Rockefeller was in the wings, ready to pick up the ball if others stumbled. Each hopeful was trying to get party leaders and workers committed to him, and unless I could give my personal supporters some reason to hold out, I might one day find that they had been snatched up by my rivals. Flanigan and Stans wanted to organize a Nixon for President Club and begin some preliminary low-key organizing and fund-raising. I told them that I considered the ability to remain officially undecided for as long as possible to be one of my greatest advantages. Not only would this allow me more independence, but the speculation about my intentions guaranteed far more media attention than I would have if I announced. Therefore, I would publicly neither approve nor disapprove their activity. But I assured them that I agreed completely with their analysis of the need to begin organizing.

  A few months later, about the time I was emerging from a meeting with Willy Brandt in Bonn, the formation of the first Nixon for President Committee was announced in Washington.

  On January 7 and 8, 1967, I held planning meetings at the Waldorf Towers. I said: “I’m not going to be coy with my oldest friends and closest advisers. I want you to proceed with plans for winning the Republican presidential nomination next year.”

  I made it clear that my six-month moratorium, while admittedly a risk, was carefully calculated. George Romney could be out front taking the heat from the press and the pundits while I continued my quiet planning and foreign travel. “But make no mistake,” I said, “while I am lying back I want you to work your tails off getting the job done. We will have to work harder and better than the other candidates to win.”

  I decided to begin building a personal political staff so that I could be ready to plunge into the battle as soon as my moratorium ended. I enlisted Raymond K. Price, Jr., a former chief editorial writer for the New York Herald Tribune, to be my principal idea man and speechwriter; he would also work on a book I was considering along the lines of Wendell Willkie’s One World. In addition to Price, Dwight Chapin, a young advertising executive, joined the staff to serve as a personal aide.

  On January 1, 1967, my law firm had merged with the firm of Caldwell, Trimble, and Mitchell, which specialized in municipal bonds. I struck up an immediate friendship with the husky, outwardly gruff senior partner, John Mitchell. Although he had never been involved in a campaign, I felt from our conversations that he had an instinctive talent for politics. As a result of his extensive work with state and local governments in providing legal advice on bond issues, he had an exceptionally wide network of political contacts. Within a few months I was beginning to turn increasingly to him for advice and counsel on political matters.

  I decided to use the time during my moratorium on active politics to make a series of foreign study trips. I wanted to bring my impressions up to date and to renew my contacts and refine my ideas about current conditions in the world. By undertaking these trips I was building on my political strong suit, my knowledge of foreign affairs. I also believed this was the best possible way to ensure that I would be able to frame foreign policy issues in a way that would be both effective and responsible, and, if I becamé President, to ensure that I could get a head start on what to me were the most important decisions a President faces.

  I scheduled four trips: to Europe and the Soviet Union in March, to Asia in April, to Latin America in May, and to Africa and the Middle East in June. By this time Robert Ellsworth, an exceptionally able former congressman from Kansas then practicing law in Washington, had arranged to spend approximately half his time helping with my campaign-that-was-not-yet-a-campaign. Ellsworth had a special interest in foreign and defense matters, and he helped make arrangements for the trips through the State Department and the embassies of the countries I would visit. He accompanied me on the first trip and on part of another; Ray Price was on the second; my friend Bebe was on the third to Latin America; and Pat Buchanan on the fourth.

  In these 1967 worldwide trips I met the leaders, met the people, and saw at first hand the problems, opportunities, and dangers confronting the United States. The result was to reinforce some views I already strongly held and to modify others.

  The trip to Europe and the Soviet Union was to begin on March 5.
As usual I requested a CIA briefing before departure; and for the first time since I had left office it was refused. Since such briefings are a privilege—not a right—for a private citizen, no official explanation was given. Unofficially I was told that Johnson was still furious over the Manila Communiqué incident and that he had expressly forbidden the CIA to give me any help or guidance.

  This was a very disturbing trip for me. I had not made a systematic tour of the NATO nations since 1963, and I was shocked by the extent to which our relations with them had deteriorated. The Europeans were deeply offended by our failures to consult with them, or even to inform them of decisions we made that touched on their defenses and their destinies. Everywhere I heard the same story: under Kennedy and Johnson, we had shown in a variety of ways how little we valued our allies and how little we appreciated the importance of NATO.

  I saw Konrad Adenauer, for the last time. As I entered his room, he embraced me with almost embarrassing warmth. Standing back, his hands still on my shoulders, he said, “Thank God you are here. Your visit is like manna from heaven.” This great architect of postwar Europe was depressed about Europe’s future. “I am worried, my friend,” he said. He predicted that when de Gaulle left the scene, the Communist Party in France, and then in Italy, would gain strength. He completely discounted the Soviet Union’s alleged interest in hastening peace in Vietnam, and the popular speculation that the Soviets would turn toward the West out of fear of China. “Make no mistake about it,” he said, “they want the world. The whole world. Most of all they want Europe, and to get Europe they know they must destroy Germany. We need you to keep us strong and free. But you also need us.” Adenauer urged—as had de Gaulle four years before—that we tilt our policy toward Communist China to counterbalance the growing Soviet threat.

  I was surprised to find a similar concern about Soviet strategy expressed by almost everyone I talked with on this trip. In Rome President Saragat and Foreign Minister Fanfani agreed that the Soviets were determined to keep the war going in Vietnam. Like Adenauer, however, they felt that the primary threat from communism was in Europe rather than in Asia. Fanfani said, “NATO is what really counts, but too many people in your country take it for granted and think that Vietnam is the most important thing because that is where you are fighting the Communists. America is like the man confronted with a small fire in his barn when his house is falling apart for want of repairs.”