RN

by Richard Nixon

  Lyndon Johnson had a taping system for his office phone, his bedroom phone, the phone at Camp David, the phone at his ranch in Johnson City, and the phone at his office in Austin. In addition to the phone equipment, he had room microphones placed in the Cabinet Room and in the private office next to the Oval Office. At one point there was also a recording device that could pick up conversations in the room outside the Oval Office where Johnson’s visitors would wait before being ushered in to see him. The Johnson system was operated manually, which permitted him to decide which conversations to record. In the Cabinet Room buttons were attached to the underside of the table in front of his chair, and I have been told that in the private office the system was activated by buttons concealed behind the television console in the Oval Office.

  Johnson frequently had the tapes transcribed as soon as the conversation had ended. According to the White House grapevine, Johnson taped the conversation when he met privately with Bobby Kennedy to inform him that he would not be the 1964 vice presidential nominee. Immediately after their meeting Johnson asked to have the tape transcribed. When the typist played the tape, however, she found that the entire conversation was inaudible. A tape technician concluded that Kennedy must have carried a small scrambling device with him as a precaution.

  Johnson thought that my decision to remove his taping system was a mistake; he felt his tapes were invaluable in writing his memoirs.

  Although I was not comfortable with the idea of taping people without their knowledge, I was at least confident that the secrecy of the system would protect their privacy. I thought that recording only selected conversations would completely undercut the purpose of having the taping system; if our tapes were going to be an objective record of my presidency, they could not have such an obviously self-serving bias. I did not want to have to calculate whom or what or when I would tape. Therefore, a system was installed that was voice-activated; talking would trigger the tape machines. Beginning in February recording devices were placed in the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room, and the EOB office. I rejected the suggestion that recording equipment be placed on phones in the Family Quarters and in Key Biscayne and San Clemente; I wanted to record only the official business of the presidency. Recorders were installed on phones in the Oval and EOB offices, the Lincoln Sitting Room, and on the office phone at Camp David.

  Initially, I was conscious of the taping, but before long I accepted it as part of the surroundings.

  I never listened to a tape until June 4, 1973, when I had to do so because of the Watergate investigation. None of the tapes was transcribed until September 1973, when I was faced with the subpoenas of the Ervin Committee and the Special Prosecutor.

  THE KENNEDY PORTRAITS

  In February 1971, Pat invited Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and her children to have dinner with our family and see the official portraits of President Kennedy and herself before the public unveiling ceremony. It was a particularly moving occasion for us because none of them had been inside the White House since the agonizing days immediately after President Kennedy’s assassination.

  Pat gave explicit orders that the visit be kept secret until it was over so that no reporters or cameramen would intrude on their privacy. We welcomed them in the Diplomatic Reception Room and then took them to see the portraits, which had been painted by a New York artist Jackie had personally chosen.

  John Kennedy, Jr., who was ten, and his sister, Caroline, who was thirteen, were very enthusiastic about each of the portraits. Jackie, however, did not make any comments about them. I thought that this might be because she was embroiled in a controversy with the artist who had sold a reproduction of the painting and sketches of her to a national magazine. Pat later told me that when she invited Rose Kennedy to see the portraits, Mrs. Kennedy had stood silently in front of her son’s bowed figure for a long time. Finally she said, “I never saw Jack look like that.”

  Later I made some notes about our dinner:

  We had drinks in the West Hall before going in to dinner. The butler, Allen, had been in the White House while the Kennedys were here, and he greeted Jackie warmly. I noticed that he put ice in her white wine at dinner, and she explained that it had been her custom to have this when she was here.

  The children were served milk at Jackie’s request, and John, Jr., said, “Milk is so bad in foreign countries. It’s icky!”

  Jackie was very bright and talkative. As we went into the second-floor Dining Room, which she had had converted from Margaret Truman’s bedroom, we talked about how Alice Longworth had her appendix out in it. She said that Jack and she practically suffocated when the room was being renovated because of the paint smell. In fact, they had moved to the other end of the floor until the painting was completed.

  I recalled that one of the problems of campaigning was that in many hotels, and particularly in the smaller cities, the rooms were often freshly painted before we arrived. It is difficult enough to sleep on the road, but the smell of paint makes it impossible.

  She recalled that once when Jack was in the Senate, she had “peeked into your office just across the hall.” She also recalled the picture that was taken in Chicago when the three of us arrived on the same plane early in 1960. I reminded her that she had been reading Allen Drury’s Advise and Consent on the plane. “I never finished it,” was her response.

  We talked in very general terms about all the changes that had taken place in the years since she had been in the White House. Of course I was determined to keep the conversation away from anything that would distress her or make the visit sad. At one point she looked at me and said, “I always live in a dream world.”

  TRICIA’S WEDDING

  Tricia first met Ed Cox at a high school dance in 1963. A year later, when she was a freshman at Finch College and he was a freshman at Princeton, he was her escort at the International Debutante Ball, an annual charity event held in New York. They began to date but found themselves at times falling into disagreements about politics. Ed was a Republican, but in the Eastern liberal tradition; during the summer of 1968 he worked for Ralph Nader.

  One day late in 1969 Tricia told me that they were becoming serious about each other, but she was concerned about their continuing political differences. Since both of them were extremely strong-willed and articulate, these discussions were often heated. I said that the important thing was the way they felt about each other; if they were truly in love, I said, that was all that mattered and political problems would work themselves out. As time went on, their political differences virtually evaporated as their affection for each other grew steadily stronger.

  One November weekend in 1970, Ed Cox came into my study at Camp David and said rather formally, “Mr. President, as I’m sure you know, I am very much in love with Tricia. I would like your permission to ask her to marry me.”

  I had known Ed for several years, and I told him that what was important was what Tricia wanted and that I was sure she would say yes.

  We announced their engagement on Pat’s birthday, March 16, after a dinner in honor of Prime Minister John Lynch of Ireland. We asked Tricia if she would like to have a White House wedding. It was entirely up to her and Ed, but we felt it would be something they would remember all their lives. Pat suggested that, since they had chosen June 12, we could have it outdoors in the Rose Garden.

  The night before the wedding I wrote a short note to Tricia and slipped it under her door after she had gone to bed.

  The day of the wedding dawned cloudy. Intermittent light drizzle was predicted until around four—just when the ceremony was scheduled to begin. I called Tricia and asked her how she felt about taking the risk and counting on the weather clearing as forecast.

  “I would prefer to have it in the Rose Garden as we planned,” she said.

  “Then that’s the way we’ll do it,” I replied.

  When I left for the Residence around three, the rain had tapered off slightly, but the sky was still a threatening, sullen gray.

&n
bsp; Tricia has described the scene in the Family Quarters when she emerged from her room, dressed in her wedding gown and veil, to join Pat and Julie, who were waiting for her in the West Hall.

  Mama and Julie looked so beautiful that suddenly I felt the event would be beautiful too. They exclaimed over the wedding gown and the fact that the diamond pendant necklace Edward had given me was the perfect length for the V-neck gown. Daddy appeared from the elevator, and said that everyone looked lovely. He went into his room and reappeared shortly in morning coat and striped pants which suited him well because he has the height to do it justice.

  By 4:15 the young military officers who serve as White House social aides had gathered the 400 guests into the long ground-floor corridor and were waiting to learn whether to usher them outside into the Rose Garden or upstairs into the East Room. I called for the latest Air Force weather report. Now a clearing front that would last for about fifteen minutes was expected to move into the area at about 4:30. I told Haldeman to pass the word along: we would begin at 4:30.

  The rain stopped, the plastic covers were removed from the chairs, and the guests were ushered to their places. At 4:30 Julie and the bridesmaids began the procession down the long curving white staircase into the garden. Tricia described the scene:

  Along the green carpeted path Daddy and I smiled at each other as if to say, “No rain yet!” The Army Strings sounded glorious as we approached the garden entrance. Lucy Winchester smiled from ear to ear like the Cheshire Cat as we walked through the entrance. Julie was ahead of us in her ephemeral-looking palest of mint gown, walking in a stately manner into the most breathtaking sight I had ever seen in the United States.

  The Rose Garden was a crown of natural beauty, with the gazebo the most spectacular jewel of the crown. Flowers which were exquisite in their own right were intertwined with one another, and out of this composition emerged a creation of beauty that surpassed the beauty of the individual flowers. For once, mankind had improved on nature.

  When Julie had almost reached the steps leading to the platform where the minister stood waiting, Lucy whispered, “Go,” to us. I released my train which Lucy quickly bent to arrange. Then I turned to Daddy and said, “All right.”

  We proceeded slowly down the aisle. I recall smiling generally but seeing no specific face. The crowd was one blur until we reached the first row and I saw Mama and gave her a special smile. Eddie and I exchanged little happy smiles as Daddy and I ascended the steps.

  The marriage ceremony, which Tricia and Ed had written themselves, was beautiful. When it was over and the groom had kissed the bride, instead of walking immediately up the aisle they went over first to Pat and me and then to the Coxes, to embrace us and to thank us for this day.

  There was dancing at the reception in the East Room afterward. Ed and Tricia had chosen “Lara’s Theme” from Dr. Zhivago for the first waltz. When the band began playing “Thank Heaven for Little Girls,” I broke in to dance with Tricia while Ed danced with Pat. This was the first time I danced in the White House. After dancing with Tricia, I cut in and danced with Pat. She is an excellent dancer, and the guests broke into delighted applause as she steered me around the floor. Then I danced with Julie. I knew that she missed David, who was now in the Navy and had been assigned to sea duty in the Mediterranean. I whispered in her ear that I would never forget how beautiful she was on her wedding day two and a half years before.

  I saw Lynda Bird Johnson, standing alone, and I asked her to dance and told her how impressed I had been by her beauty and grace when I saw her on television when she and Chuck Robb had been married in the White House in 1967.

  After the newlyweds had left for a honeymoon at Camp David, Pat, Julie, Bebe Rebozo, and I sat in the Residence watching the TV specials.

  It had been a wonderful day. Even the weather had turned out to be a friend. It was a day that all of us will always remember, because all of us were beautifully, and simply, happy.

  THE PENTAGON PAPERS

  On Sunday morning, June 13, I picked up the New York Times. In the top left-hand corner there was a picture of me standing with Tricia in the Rose Garden. Tricia Nixon Takes Vows was the headline. Next to the picture was another headline: Vietnam Archive: Pentagon Study Traces 3 Decades of Growing U.S. Involvement.

  The story described a 7,000-page study of American involvement in Southeast Asia from World War II through 1968, which had been commissioned by Robert McNamara, Johnson’s Secretary of Defense. It contained verbatim documents from the Defense Department, the State Department, the CIA, the White House, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Times announced that it planned to publish not only portions of the study but many of the original documents as well. The newspaper did not say that all these materials were still officially classified “Secret” and “Top Secret.” In fact, this was the most massive leak of classified documents in American history.

  The McNamara study had been officially titled “The History of U.S. Decision-Making Process on Vietnam.” Before long, however, the media had created a more dramatic label: “The Pentagon Papers.”

  The documents had been illegally turned over to the Times, and I believed that the paper acted irresponsibly in publishing them. The Times admitted having been in possession of them for more than three months before publishing them, but had never once sought comment from anyone in the government, or inquired whether publication of any of the classified material might threaten national security or endanger the lives of our men in Vietnam.

  The defense and intelligence agencies raced to obtain copies of the study in order to assess the impact of its disclosure. The National Security Agency was immediately worried that some of the more recent documents could provide code-breaking clues. They feared that information about signal and electronic intelligence capabilities would be spotted by the trained eyes of enemy experts. The State Department was alarmed because the study would expose Southeast Asia Treaty Organization contingency war plans that were still in effect. The CIA was worried that past or current informants would be exposed; they said that the study would contain specific references to the names and activities of CIA agents still active in Southeast Asia. In fact, one secret contact dried up almost immediately. A tremor shook the international community because the study contained material relating to the role of other governments as diplomatic go-betweens; several of them made official protests. Dean Rusk issued a statement that the documents would be valuable to the North Vietnamese and the Soviets.

  On consideration, we had only two choices: we could do nothing, or we could move for an injunction that would prevent the New York Times from continuing publication. Policy argued for moving against the Times; politics argued against it.

  The McNamara study was primarily a critique of the way Kennedy and Johnson had led the nation into war in Vietnam. It recounted Kennedy’s decision to support the coup that ousted President Diem in 1963 and resulted in Diem’s death, causing General Maxwell Taylor to comment that one of our worst mistakes was our connivance in the Diem overthrow—“nothing but chaos came as a result.” News reports said the document proved that Johnson had told the American people that he was not going to escalate the war, while privately planning an escalation from 17,000 to 185,000 American men. After the release of the papers James Reston wrote of the “deceptive and stealthy American involvement in the war under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson.”

  Nevertheless, publication of the Pentagon Papers was certain to hurt the whole Vietnam effort. Critics of the war would use them to attack my goals and my policies.

  But to me, there was an even more fundamental reason for taking action to prevent publication. An important principle was at stake in this case: it is the role of the government, not the New York Times, to judge the impact of a top secret document. Mel Laird felt that over 95 percent of the material could be declassified, but we were all still worried about whatever percent—even if it were only 1 percent—that should not be. If we did not move against the Times it wo
uld be a signal to every disgruntled bureaucrat in the government that he could leak anything he pleased while the government simply stood by.

  The Times’s decision to publish the documents was clearly the product of the paper’s antiwar policy rather than a consistent attachment to principle. In the early 1960s Otto Otepka, a State Department employee, had shown classified documents relating to lax security procedures in the department to senators who were investigating the problem. Otepka believed that his action was justified because it was the only way to correct what he considered a dangerous situation. The Times had no sympathy for Otepka’s action and expressed its editorial indignation:

  Orderly procedures are essential if the vital division of power between legislative and executive branches is not to be undermined. The use of “underground” methods to obtain classified documents from lower-level officials is a dangerous departure from such orderly procedures.

  The Washington Post had also been outraged:

  If any underling in the State Department were free at his own discretion to disclose confidential cables or if any agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation could leak the contents of secret files whenever he felt like it, the Executive Branch of the Government would have no security at all.

  When the Times’s publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, was asked about the government’s concern that publication of the Pentagon Papers undermined the faith of foreign governments in our ability to deal in confidence, he was reported to have said, “Oh, that’s a lot of baloney. I mean, really.”

  On Tuesday, June 15, the Justice Department moved to enjoin the Times from publication until the government could review the documents and verify that they caused no national security problems. In the meantime, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch had obtained copies and started publication on their own.