It was decided that when leaks occurred Kissinger would supply Hoover with the names of individuals who had had access to the leaked materials and whom he had any cause to suspect. I authorized Hoover to take the necessary steps—including wiretapping—to investigate the leaks and find the leakers.
On May 1 the New York Times ran a leak from an administration study of the U.S. strategic force posture, including options for improvement ranging from antiballistic missiles to offensive systems and the cost estimates for each. On May 6 the same reporter had an inside story of our deliberations during the EC-121 crisis.
I was in Key Biscayne on May 9, when the early edition of the New York Times carried on its front page a disclosure we had been fearing for months. The secret bombing was no longer secret. The headline read: Raids in Cambodia by U.S. Unprotested. The story was filed from Washington, and the reporter attributed his information to Nixon administration sources.
The Cambodian bombing policy had worked well. It had saved American lives, the enemy was suffering, and the pressure to negotiate was building. The Times leak threatened everything.
Kissinger was enraged, and I was as well. He immediately speculated that the leak must have come from State or Defense. We knew that State Department bureaucrats routinely leaked. But in this particular case, Rogers was the only person at State who had been told about the bombing, and I was certain that he would never leak secret information.
Nor were we naïve about the Pentagon’s proclivity for leaking whatever would make the Pentagon look good or advance its positions. But this leak would embarrass Mel Laird and was likely to cause him some uncomfortable moments at coming Capitol Hill hearings.
As I had when several of the earlier leaks had appeared, I suggested that Kissinger take a hard and objective look at his own staff: if there were any leakers in the NSC, better to find out now. Kissinger agreed and during the day he talked by phone with Hoover.
According to Hoover’s memo of the conversations, Kissinger expressed our shared feeling that the leaks were more than just damaging; they were potentially dangerous to national security. Kissinger sent Hoover the names of four individuals who had access to the leaked materials. The FBI immediately installed four wiretaps.
I wanted maximum secrecy on this wiretap project and I also instructed that the taps be taken off as soon as possible. I knew that a leak about the wiretaps would be a blow to the morale of the White House staff, and provide a potent issue for the domestic antiwar groups and a propaganda weapon for the North Vietnamese. In fact the average number of warrantless wiretaps per year during my presidency was less than in any administration since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s. But I felt that what previous Presidents had done in this regard would matter little if the press and the antiwar activists found out about what Nixon was doing.
Meanwhile, the leaks continued. On May 20 the Washington Post carried a leak of my plans to meet with President Thieu. On May 22 the New York Times reported sensitive details of an administration debate over whether to test a new missile warhead before the SALT talks began. On June 3 the Times published an article based on an NSC memo, issued only a week earlier, outlining our fallback position for the negotiations with the Japanese on Okinawa. Its premature revelation seriously undermined our bargaining position; even before the negotiations began, the Japanese side knew how far we were willing to compromise.
That same day the Washington Star published a story about the administration’s decision to begin troop withdrawals from Vietnam. This leak undercut Thieu, whom we had assured that we would make the announcement jointly lest the Communists interpret it as a sign that we had begun to abandon South Vietnam.
From 1969 to early 1971, seventeen individuals were wiretapped by the FBI in an effort to find the source of national security leaks. The group included four newsmen and thirteen White House, State, and Defense Department aides. I was only asked to approve the program itself and not each individual tap. Today, nine years later, I cannot reconstruct the particular events that precipitated each of them.
There was an eighteenth national security tap, one on syndicated columnist Joseph Kraft. I remember being disturbed that Kraft, who had very good sources in the White House and NSC staffs and at the State and Defense Departments, was in direct contact with the North Vietnamese. I know that I told Ehrlichman on at least one occasion that Kraft’s contacts with the North Vietnamese were all that we were interested in.
I cannot recall specifically, however, what made me decide to act. I authorized a tap on Kraft’s home phone in Washington, but the FBI was reluctant to place a tap at that location. Consequently I authorized a plan to install a tap without using the FBI, but we abandoned this effort when the FBI arranged for a tap on Kraft during one of his trips to Paris to see the North Vietnamese.
Unfortunately none of these wiretaps turned up any proof linking anyone in the government to a specific national security leak.
For at least twenty-five years, every President and Attorney General authorized wiretaps to obtain intelligence in both foreign and domestic security matters. It was not until 1972—over a year after the last of our national security taps had been removed—that the Supreme Court ruled that national security taps on American citizens must be authorized by a court-ordered warrant if the subject had no “significant connection with a foreign power, its agents or agencies.”
In the early years of my administration I saw the government’s ability to function effectively in international affairs being undermined by leaks which I felt were a violation of law as well as of the code of honorable behavior. Particularly where leaks involving Vietnam were concerned, as long as Americans were fighting and dying there I had no patience with the argument that the people who leaked information did so because they opposed the war on moral grounds. So even though I disliked wiretapping and felt that it was at best a technique of only limited usefulness, it seemed to be our only chance to find out who was behind the leaks, and to stop them.
When our efforts to discover the source of the leaks failed, we began conducting our foreign policy planning in smaller groups. It is an ironic consequence of leaking that instead of producing more open government, it invariably forces the government to operate in more confined and secret ways. So it was that the widely reported impression of a Nixon administration “paranoia” about secrecy developed. Secrecy unquestionably exacts a high price in the form of a less free and creative interchange of ideas within the government. But I can say unequivocally that without secrecy there would have been no opening to China, no SALT agreement with the Soviet Union, and no peace agreement ending the Vietnam war.
VIETNAM: PUBLIC OFFERS AND SECRET OVERTURES
During the first months of the administration, despite the Communist offensive in February and despite the stalemate at the Paris talks, I remained convinced that the combined effect of the military pressure from the secret bombing and the public pressure from my repeated invitations to negotiate would force the Communists to respond. In March I confidently told the Cabinet that I expected the war to be over in a year. We had taken the initiative in Paris and proposed the restoration of the DMZ as a boundary between North and South Vietnam and advanced the possibility of a simultaneous withdrawal of American and North Vietnamese troops from the South. For his part, President Thieu offered to begin talks with the North Vietnamese on the question of a political settlement, and to permit free elections.
But the North Vietnamese yielded nothing. They insisted that political and military issues were inseparable, that American troops must be withdrawn unilaterally, and that Thieu must be deposed as a precondition to serious talks.
In mid-April we increased the diplomatic pressure. Kissinger showed Dobrynin a page of three points that I had initialed. In diplomatic usage, this was a sign that I considered them to be extremely important. Their message was unmistakable:
1. The President wishes to reiterate his conviction that a just peace is achievable.
2. Th
e President is willing to explore avenues other than the existing negotiating framework. For example, it might be desirable for American and North Vietnamese negotiators to meet separately from the Paris framework to discuss general principles of a settlement If the special US and DRV negotiators can achieve an agreement in principle, the final technical negotiations can shift back to Paris.
3. The USG is convinced that all parties are at a crossroads and that extraordinary measures are called for to reverse the tide of war.
Kissinger told Dobrynin that U.S.–Soviet relations were involved because, while we might talk about progress in other areas, a settlement in Vietnam was the key to everything.
Dobrynin said that we had to understand the limitations of Soviet influence on Hanoi, and he added that the Soviet Union would never threaten to cut off supplies to their allies in North Vietnam. He promised, however, that our proposals would be forwarded to Hanoi within twenty-four hours.
After weeks passed with no response, we decided to take the initiative once again. In a televised speech on May 14 I offered our first comprehensive peace plan for Vietnam. I proposed that the major part of all foreign troops—both U.S. and North Vietnamese—withdraw from South Vietnam within one year after an agreement had been signed. An international body would monitor the withdrawals and supervise free elections in South Vietnam. I warned the enemy not to confuse our flexibility with weakness. I said, “Reports from Hanoi indicate that the enemy has given up hope for a military victory in South Vietnam, but is counting on a collapse of will in the United States. There could be no greater error in judgment.”
There was no serious response from the North Vietnamese, either in Hanoi or Paris, to my May 14 proposals. I had never thought that peace in Vietnam would come easily; for the first time I had to consider the possibility that it might not come at all. Nonetheless, I decided to continue on the course we had planned, in the hope that the enemy would decide to take up our proposals and join us in the search for a settlement.
Early in the administration we had decided that withdrawing a number of American combat troops from Vietnam would demonstrate to Hanoi that we were serious in seeking a diplomatic settlement; it might also calm domestic public opinion by graphically demonstrating that we were beginning to wind down the war.
Mel Laird had long felt that the United States could “Vietnamize” the war—that we could train, equip, and inspire the South Vietnamese to fill the gaps left by departing American forces. In March Laird returned from a visit to South Vietnam with an optimistic report about the potential of the South Vietnamese to be trained to defend themselves. It was largely on the basis of Laird’s enthusiastic advocacy that we undertook the policy of Vietnamization. This decision was another turning point in my administration’s Vietnam strategy.
President Thieu was among those who objected to the proposed plan for American withdrawals from South Vietnam. I privately assured him through Ambassador Bunker that our support for him was steadfast. In order to dramatize this pledge, I proposed that we meet on Midway Island in the Pacific. Thieu readily accepted, and we met there on June 8.
After our meeting we both made brief statements to reporters. I announced that, as a consequence of Thieu’s recommendation and the assessment of our own commander in the field, I had decided to order the immediate redeployment from Vietnam of approximately 25,000 men. This involved some diplomatic exaggeration, because both Thieu and Abrams had privately raised objections to the withdrawals.
I said that in the months ahead I would consider further troop withdrawals, based on three criteria: the progress in training and equipping the South Vietnamese armed forces; the progress of the Paris talks; and the level of enemy activity.
Although Thieu was somewhat mollified by the Midway meeting, he was still deeply troubled. He knew that the first American withdrawals would begin an irreversible process, the conclusion of which would be the departure of all Americans from Vietnam.
To make sure the message of Midway was not lost on Hanoi, I spelled it out when we arrived back at the White House. I told the people gathered on the South Lawn to welcome us that the combination of my May 14 peace plan and the Midway troop withdrawal left the door to peace wide open. “And now we invite the leaders of North Vietnam to walk with us through that door,” I said.
At the end of June it looked as if we might be getting a response of sorts from Hanoi. There seemed to be a lull in the fighting, and our intelligence indicated that some North Vietnamese units were being withdrawn from South Vietnam. Le Duc Tho, the Politburo member who was the Special Adviser to the North Vietnamese delegation at the Paris talks, suddenly returned to Hanoi, and there was speculation that he had been called back to receive new negotiating instructions.
This military lull continued through early July. Although the evidence was still entirely circumstantial, and although the dangers of appearing overeager were as great as ever, I decided to try once again to cut through whatever genuine doubts or misunderstandings might still be holding Hanoi back. I decided to “go for broke” in the sense that I would attempt to end the war one way or the other—either by negotiated agreement or by an increased use of force.
One reason for making this decision at this time was my feeling that unless I could build some momentum behind our peace efforts over the next several weeks, they might be doomed to failure by the calendar. Once the summer was over and Congress and the colleges returned from vacation in September, a massive new antiwar tide would sweep the country during the fall and winter. Then, with the approaching dry season in Vietnam, there was almost sure to be a renewed Communist offensive during the Tet holiday period in February. By early spring the pressures of the November 1970 elections would make congressional demands for more troop withdrawals impossible to stop and difficult to ignore.
After half a year of sending peaceful signals to the Communists, I was ready to use whatever military pressure was necessary to prevent them from taking over South Vietnam by force. During several long sessions, Kissinger and I developed an elaborate orchestration of diplomatic, military, and publicity pressures we would bring to bear on Hanoi.
I decided to set November 1, 1969—the first anniversary of Johnson’s bombing halt—as the deadline for what would in effect be an ultimatum to North Vietnam.
Since November 1 was only three and a half months away, there was no time to waste. On July 15 I wrote a personal letter to Ho Chi Minh. Once again Jean Sainteny acted as our courier. I met with him at the White House so that he would be able to talk at firsthand about my strong desire for peace. But I also told him to say that, unless some serious breakthrough had been achieved by the November 1 deadline, I would regretfully find myself obliged to have recourse “to measures of great consequence and force.”
My letter to Ho Chi Minh was sent to Sainteny by secret courier and on July 16 he delivered it to Xuan Thuy, head of the regular North Vietnamese delegation in Paris, for transmittal to Hanoi. In it I tried to convey both the sincerity and the urgency of our desire for a settlement:
I realize that it is difficult to communicate meaningfully across the gulf of four years of war. But precisely because of this gulf, I wanted to take this opportunity to reaffirm in all solemnity my desire to work for a just peace. . . .
As I have said repeatedly, there is nothing to be gained by waiting. . . .
You will find us forthcoming and open-minded in a common effort to bring the blessings of peace to the brave people of Vietnam. Let history record that at this critical juncture, both sides turned their face toward peace rather than toward conflict and war.
With this letter I felt that I had gone as far as I could until the North Vietnamese indicated that they too were interested in an agreement. Now we would have to wait to see how Ho Chi Minh responded. As far as I was concerned, my letter put the choice between war and peace in his hands.
In a few days word was flashed to us that the North Vietnamese were proposing a secret meeting between Kissinger
and Xuan Thuy.
On July 23, I flew to the South Pacific for the splashdown of Apollo XI. This was to be the first leg of an around-the-world trip that included stops in Guam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, South Vietnam, India, Pakistan, Romania, and Britain. In honor of Apollo’s accomplishment, we gave the trip the codename Moonglow.
The trip provided the perfect camouflage for Kissinger’s first secret meeting with the North Vietnamese. It was arranged that Kissinger would go to Paris, ostensibly to brief French officials on the results of my meetings. While there he would meet secretly with Thuy.
The first stop after the Apollo splashdown was on the island of Guam. Shortly after we arrived I conducted an informal press conference with the reporters covering the trip. It was there that I enunciated what at first was called the Guam Doctrine and has since become known as the Nixon Doctrine.
I stated that the United States is a Pacific power and should remain so. But I felt that once the Vietnam war was settled, we would need a new Asian policy to ensure that there were no more Vietnams in the future. I began with the proposition that we would keep all our existing treaty commitments, but that we would not make any more commitments unless they were required by our own vital interests.
In the past our policy had been to furnish the arms, men, and matériel to help other nations defend themselves against aggression. That was what we had done in Korea, and that was how we had started out in Vietnam. But from now on, I said, we would furnish only the matériel and the military and economic assistance to those nations willing to accept the responsibility of supplying the manpower to defend themselves. I made only one exception: in case a major nuclear power engaged in aggression against one of our allies or friends, I said that we would respond with nuclear weapons.
The Nixon Doctrine announced on Guam was misinterpreted by some as signaling a new policy that would lead to total American withdrawal from Asia and from other parts of the world as well. In one of our regular breakfast meetings after I returned from the trip Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield articulated this misunderstanding. I emphasized to him, as I had to our friends in the Asian countries, that the Nixon Doctrine was not a formula for getting America out of Asia, but one that provided the only sound basis for America’s staying in and continuing to play a responsible role in helping the non-Communist nations and neutrals as well as our Asian allies to defend their independence.
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