RN

by Richard Nixon

  Dick Kleindienst, who at the time of the Anderson columns had been nominated to succeed John Mitchell as Attorney General, immediately called for new Senate hearings at which he could defend his honor. This turned out to be a tactical disaster. The committee holding the hearings included Teddy Kennedy—a front-running noncandidate—and his friends Birch Bayh and John Tunney. They quickly turned the hearings into a forum in which to berate the administration. Larry O’Brien at the Democratic National Committee joined in and the networks gave prominence to the easy accusations while the sometimes complicated explanations got lost in the clamor. I thought that the committee’s Democrats had traded in hearsay and indulged in melodramatics.

  Diary

  If I ever get time to write a book, at some time in the future, there is going to be a hard-hitting chapter on this point. Where a committee is investigating subversives, inevitably the press attacks the procedures which the committee is following. When a committee is investigating business or government officials, including even the President, the press is totally silent with regard to outlandish procedures that it would immediately condemn if the investigation were being aimed at subversives.

  Of course, what is needed is a single standard. Fair procedures should be followed in both cases—something I have always insisted upon. It bugs the press that I have done so, because they know that their objection is not to how a committee investigation is conducted, but to what is being investigated.

  They just don’t like to admit they had a double standard.

  A year later I was to find out how hypocritical Kennedy in particular had been. Testifying before Congress, former Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission William Casey reported that for all Kennedy’s sanctimonious grandstanding during the ITT hearings, three months later he had phoned Casey to urge that an investment banking firm headed by one of his friends not be named as a defendant in a civil suit the SEC had filed against ITT. Casey ignored Kennedy’s intervention.

  Day after day the White House staff raced around trying to minimize the political damage and keep any embarrassing material from the committee’s partisan clutches. There were rumors that the memo itself was a forgery, so Colson sent someone out to see Mrs. Beard and to encourage her to deny publicly its authenticity. I later learned the man’s name: E. Howard Hunt. In fact, Mrs. Beard did subsequently testify that the memo Anderson had published was a forgery; her secretary filed an affidavit that she had not typed the Anderson version; the man to whom it was addressed testified that he had never received it.

  The whole ITT episode left us, and particularly Mitchell and Kleindienst, worn out. We had lost a massive partisan public relations battle; ITT left a sour taste in the mouths of the public even though they did not know exactly what had been involved.

  Since I had no other choice, I tried to be philosophical about this situation.

  Diary

  Colson gave me a report on the ITT case, and said that he had really tried to shake up the staff a bit in terms of their pessimism with regard to the attacks. I told him this is only the beginning of a much greater assault at a later point—for us to stand firm.

  I think we have got to find tougher language to throw at some of our Democratic friends. Instead of doing the nation’s business, they are spending all their time in smears.

  Haldeman had pointed out that Joe Kraft in his column, and Connally later in the day, in recounting a conversation he had with [NBC news anchorman John] Chancellor, made the same point to the effect that the administration was reacting too much to the disclosures. It is likely that this is the case, but I think that at the beginning the problem was that we didn’t know what really was involved, and the mistake was that we should have, as Haldeman suggested, simply laid the whole record on the table, and not have been concerned about it.

  NORTH VIETNAM INVADES THE SOUTH

  The optimistic days when I had envisioned ending the Vietnam war within a year were now long past. For more than a year the North Vietnamese had played a cynical game with the peace talks in Paris. Whenever Kissinger would make a substantial new proposal in one of the private sessions, they would either ignore or reject it. Then in the public sessions they would vehemently attack us for not showing any flexibility or interest in reaching an agreement. They would haggle about details, but on the bottom line they never wavered: they would not agree to a settlement unless we agreed to overthrow Thieu.

  On August 16, 1971, we offered the complete withdrawal of American and allied forces within nine months after an agreement; on September 13 they rejected this proposal and continued to insist on the overthrow of Thieu as the sine qua non for reaching any agreement. In the meantime they used the public meetings in Paris to berate us for not wanting to negotiate seriously.

  It was a very skillful propaganda maneuver, and it took in many American critics of the war. For example, in September 1971 McGovern visited Paris and spent six hours talking with Xuan Thuy. Afterward he told reporters that he had been assured that the North Vietnamese would return all our POWs as soon as we agreed to set a date for our withdrawal. These were exactly the terms that we had offered on May 31, 1971, and they had rejected, on June 26, 1971. When Kissinger confronted Xuan Thuy with this duplicity at their next meeting, Thuy coldly replied, “What Senator McGovern says is his problem.”

  More to make sure that we had overlooked no opportunity for a settlement than out of any belief that we would succeed in obtaining one, I decided to make another attempt at breaking the deadlock. Therefore in October we got Thieu’s approval on a major new plan that provided for all U.S. and allied forces to be withdrawn from South Vietnam within six months of an agreement, for all POWs to be exchanged on both sides, and for a cease-fire throughout Indochina. Thieu also accepted an internationally supervised presidential election in South Vietnam within six months after an agreement was reached and went to the extraordinary length of agreeing that he and Vice President Ky would resign from office one month before the election so that all candidates would run on an equal footing.

  Armed with this dramatic new plan, we proposed another secret session for November 1, 1971. The North Vietnamese countered by suggesting November 20, and we accepted. On November 17 they canceled, saying that Le Duc Tho was ill. We offered to meet as soon as he was recovered or to meet with any other qualified representative.

  No further word came from Hanoi, but there were ominous reports of a big military buildup north of the DMZ as well as a continued stepping up of enemy activity in the South. When Saigon was shelled—in clear violation of the terms of the 1968 bombing halt agreement—I ordered that our bombing raids be resumed over North Vietnam. The domestic outcry was immediate and intense.

  On January 13, 1972, I approved the withdrawal of 70,000 more American troops from Vietnam over the next three months. Coming on the eve of a new session of Congress and just before the beginning of the presidential primaries, I felt that the number had to be significant in order to underscore the downward direction of my withdrawal policy. By May 1, less than four months away, there would be only 69,000 Americans remaining in Vietnam, and they too would be getting ready to leave. Even as I made this announcement, however, I was facing the unsettling prospect that a successful Communist invasion of South Vietnam might seriously jeopardize the safety of those decreasing numbers of Americans still there.

  The leak to columnist Jack Anderson during the Indo-Pakistan war had added a disturbing new element to our situation. The Navy yeoman we suspected of being the source of the leak had had access to papers dealing with Kissinger’s secret negotiations in Paris, and we had no way of knowing whether any information about them had been passed on to Anderson or others. If the American people learned about the secret negotiations through a newspaper leak, there would be political and diplomatic hell to pay. I was also concerned because one of Kissinger’s aides who had resigned because of Cambodia was now working as Muskie’s foreign policy adviser in his presidential campaign. Since this man ha
d been privy to the secret negotiations in Paris, we could not be certain that he would not tell Muskie.

  Therefore I decided to make a speech revealing publicly the peace plan that the North Vietnamese had not been interested in hearing from us privately and, at the same time, to reveal the existence of the secret channel. The time had come to show the sincerity of our approach and expose the cynical tactics of the Communists.

  In the speech, which I made from the Oval Office on January 25, 1972, I said that Kissinger had been holding secret meetings with the North Vietnamese since August 1969. I explained that over the past thirty months Kissinger, Rogers, and I had carefully tailored our public statements to protect the secrecy of the meetings because we were determined to do nothing to jeopardize any chance they had for success. But there had been no success, and it was time to try another way.

  Referring to the cynical game the North Vietnamese had played with McGovern regarding the POWs in September 1971, I said, “Nothing is served by silence when it misleads some Americans into accusing their own government of failing to do what it has already done. Nothing is served by silence when it enables the other side to imply possible solutions publicly that it has already flatly rejected privately.”

  I said that just as secret negotiations can sometimes break a public deadlock, I now felt that public disclosure might help to break a secret deadlock. I described the major points of our dramatic new proposal that Hanoi had not even deigned to receive.

  I said that we were still interested in almost any potential peace agreement, but I repeated that the only kind of plan we would not consider was one that required us to accomplish the enemy’s goals by overthrowing our South Vietnamese ally. I also warned, “If the enemy’s answer to our peace offer is to step up their military attacks, I shall fully meet my responsibility as Commander in Chief of our armed forces to protect our remaining troops.”

  I concluded, “Honest and patriotic Americans have disagreed as to whether we should have become involved at all nine years ago; and there has been disagreement on the conduct of the war. The proposal I have made tonight is one on which we all can agree.”

  While the path to the Chinese Summit had unfolded relatively smoothly, the way to the Soviet Summit was strewn with pitfalls. During the first few months of 1972, our intelligence indicated that vast quantities of Soviet arms were pouring into North Vietnam. “I think that what offends me most about the Soviets is their utter lack of subtlety,” Kissinger said when we learned this. “They’re just trying to blacken China’s eyes because of your trip. They want to increase their influence in Hanoi, but they don’t see the danger of giving new toys to the North Vietnamese fanatics.”

  On January 25, I wrote a letter to Brezhnev informing him of my speech that night and stating, “The Soviet Union should understand that the United States would have no choice but to react strongly to actions by the North Vietnamese which are designed to humiliate us. Such developments would be to no one’s benefit and would serve to complicate the international situation.” Dobrynin pretended to be surprised that we were thinking so negatively, and Brezhnev’s reply a few days later was terse and testy.

  On March 30 I was sitting in the Oval Office talking to Kissinger when one of his staff members sent a note into him. He read it and said, “The North Vietnamese have attacked across the DMZ. This is probably the beginning of the offensive we have been expecting.”

  It was more than just an offensive. It was a full-scale invasion, and over the next few weeks the main force of the North Vietnamese Army—an estimated 120,000 troops—trampled across the internationally recognized neutral territory of the DMZ and pushed deep into South Vietnam.

  Tragically, the Communist spring offensive also once again unleashed that barbaric strain of North Vietnamese brutality that so marked their conduct of the Vietnam war. I was shocked by the reports that came in. At both An Loc and Quangtri, as terrified civilians rushed to flee the scene of combat, North Vietnamese troops indiscriminately slaughtered thousands of them.

  During the spring offensive, the Communists took over Binh Dinh province on the central coast of Vietnam, and intelligence reports came in telling of public executions by the Communists of hundreds of individuals suspected of having connections with the Saigon government. In one hamlet forty-seven local officials were reported to have been buried alive. A few months later we learned of still another barbaric mass murder near Quang Ngai province, where Communist forces gathered together more than a hundred civilians and selected forty of them for execution. They added a grisly twist by stringing land mines around the chosen victims and then, as their wives and children watched, detonated the mines, blowing the helpless captives to bits.

  I viewed the North Vietnamese invasion as a sign of desperation. They clearly felt that Vietnamization was working. If it were not, they would have waited and let it fail. I felt that if we could mount a devastating attack on their home territory while pinning down their Army in the South, we would be in a very good position for the next round of negotiations. We decided to go all out in applying military pressure to North Vietnam and diplomatic pressure to its Soviet suppliers. I issued orders for the Pentagon planners to begin assembling a massive attack force of aircraft carriers, cruisers, and destroyers for sea bombardment and B-52s for aerial raids on North Vietnam. On April 4 the State Department publicly announced that Soviet arms were supporting the North Vietnamese invasion. At their next meeting, Kissinger confronted Dobrynin with the alternatives that either the Soviets had actually planned the invasion or their negligence had made it possible.

  Despite this, Brezhnev gave a noticeably warm reception to Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz when he arrived in Moscow to discuss trade agreements, and during this period we signed several joint agreements dealing with education and cultural exchanges. We also began talks aimed at settling the lend-lease debts the Soviets had owed since World War II. It seemed clear that Moscow was moving ahead on the summit regardless of the flare-up in the war.

  Without making any specific promises, Dobrynin told Kissinger that the North Vietnamese would adopt a very responsive approach when the private talks resumed in Paris on April 24. He also repeated an earlier suggestion that Kissinger make a secret visit to Moscow so that Vietnam and other agenda items could be discussed with Brezhnev before the summit. I agreed with Kissinger that he should accept this invitation.

  We were also completely agreed on our overall strategy and goals as he prepared for his trip to Moscow. However, his opinion on the tactics he should follow in his talks was somewhat different from mine. In my conversation with Kissinger and in the instructions I sent him in Moscow, I stressed that I wanted him to make Vietnam the first order of business and to refuse to discuss anything that the Soviets wanted—particularly the trade agreements for which they were so eager—until they specifically committed themselves to help end the war. Kissinger, however, continued to feel that flexibility must be the cornerstone of any successful negotiation, and he urged me to let him feel out the situation rather than risk everything by imposing any rigid preconditions.

  We were in complete agreement on the importance of keeping up the military pressure on North Vietnam, including the bombing. Any sign of weakness on our part might encourage the Soviets to provide more arms in hopes of giving the North Vietnamese a military advantage. I also wanted the South Vietnamese to be confident that we still stood resolutely behind them. The morale of the South Vietnamese government and armed forces would be crucial to their ability to resist this attack.

  I felt that the North Vietnamese invasion had moved the war into a final stage. Now one of two things must happen: if the South Vietnamese, with American air support, could repel the invasion or even halt it, then we would effectively have won the war and a negotiated settlement on favorable terms would result. If, however, the North Vietnamese armies were able to sweep down and join with the Vietcong in routing the South Vietnamese forces and taking Saigon, then the war would be lost
and the remaining 69,000 American troops in serious danger.

  Kissinger agreed, and, perhaps to cheer me up, said that even if the worst happened and we had to pull out in the face of an enemy victory, I would still be able to claim credit for having conducted an honorable winding down of the war by the dignified and secure withdrawal of 500,000 troops. Most people would give me credit for that, and everyone would be so glad the war was over that the domestic situation would not be impossible to handle.

  I considered this prospect too bleak even to contemplate. “I don’t give a damn about the domestic reaction if that happens,” I said, “because if it does, sitting in this office wouldn’t be worth it. The foreign policy of the United States will have been destroyed, and the Soviets will have established that they can accomplish what they are after by using the force of arms in third countries.” Defeat, I said, was simply not an option.

  I recorded my reflections on the situation that had now developed in Vietnam.

  Diary

  It is ironic that having come this far, our fate is really in the hands of the South Vietnamese.

  If we fail it will be because the American way simply isn’t as effective as the Communist way in supporting countries abroad. I have an uneasy feeling that this may be the case. We give them the most modern arms, we emphasize the material to the exclusion of the spiritual and the Spartan life, and it may be that we soften them up rather than harden them up for the battle.

  On the other hand, the enemy emphasizes the Spartan life, not the material, emphasizes sacrifice and, of course, with the enormous Soviet technical help on missiles, guns, etc., they have a pretty good advantage.