RN

by Richard Nixon

  When I became President, I asked Hoover to stay on as Director, but I was aware that because of his advancing age and the internal problems his long tenure was causing within the Bureau, I would have to begin thinking about a replacement.

  In 1971, John Ehrlichman and others on the staff felt strongly that in the interests of the FBI, the administration, and of Hoover himself, we should take the initiative and get him to resign voluntarily before we reached the point where he might be forced to resign under pressure. We heard the reports that the Bureau’s morale was sagging and that the characteristics that had once been Hoover’s source of strength—his discipline and his pride—were now seen as temperament and ego.

  That year Robert Mardian, an Assistant Attorney General under Mitchell, was told about still other problems. He reported a message of concern from William Sullivan, who had been one of Hoover’s closest aides in the FBI. Sullivan apparently felt that Hoover was trapped in outdated notions of the communist threat and was not moving with flexibility against the new violence-prone radicals. Sullivan also worried that Hoover was becoming personally erratic and had recently turned on Sullivan himself and planned to fire him.

  Mardian reported that Hoover might try to use the seventeen wiretaps we placed on administration aides and reporters in 1969 as blackmail leverage in order to retain his position in the Bureau. I did not believe that he would ever do such a thing. There had long been rumors that Hoover kept his position because of threats and subtle blackmail of various Presidents, but I had always regarded them with skepticism. I was also convinced that however much he might be tempted to disclose political shenanigans, Hoover would never deliberately expose national security wiretaps, the disclosure of which might have an adverse effect on our efforts to end the war and on our other foreign policy initiatives. But the FBI was in a period of great upheaval, and even though the taps had been discontinued, I could not permit the reports of them to fall into the hands of someone who, like Ellsberg, would see the chance to publicize them and become a media hero.

  Sullivan had the FBI’s copies of the wiretap reports, so I told Mardian to get them from him so that all copies would be kept at the White House. Later Ehrlichman said he was going to keep them himself, and I approved. That was the last I heard of any supposed threat from Hoover. I never said anything to him about it.

  In October 1971 Ehrlichman sent me a brilliantly argued memorandum written for him by G. Gordon Liddy, a member of the White House staff and a former FBI agent. The memorandum analyzed in detail the complex situation presented by Hoover’s long tenure as Director and concluded with a strong recommendation that he should resign.

  While Ehrlichman favored immediate action, John Mitchell had a more restrained view. He knew Hoover’s weaknesses, but he felt that an attempt to replace him—especially if it involved a public confrontation—could be very difficult for me and could make the administration very unpopular. He pointed out that despite all the criticism, Hoover still had very substantial support in the country and in Congress. To millions of Americans J. Edgar Hoover was still a folk hero.

  I told both Ehrlichman and Mitchell that I thought most of the new wave of anti-Hoover criticism involved predictable charges from predictable sources. His most prominent public critics opposed him not because of his policies but because he was a symbol of beliefs and values that they opposed, particularly his crusade against domestic communism and subversion, his strong stand for tougher anticrime legislation, and his opposition to legal and judicial permissiveness. I would never desert a great man, and an old and loyal friend, just because he was coming under attack.

  I did, however, have two other concerns: one pragmatic and one political. What bothered me most deeply was the fact that Hoover’s increasingly erratic conduct was showing signs of impairing the morale of the FBI. I told Mitchell, “The real problem, as so often happens in cases like this, is that the man himself has become the issue. That great ego which for so many years was directed almost totally to serving the Bureau and the nation is now being put into the service of the man himself. I’m sure Edgar isn’t even aware that it is happening. But we have to face the fact that he is thinking too much of himself and not enough about the cause he wants to serve.”

  My second concern was based on my own political realism: I could not be sure that I would be re-elected for a second term. I was aware of what could happen to the FBI in the hands of a politically motivated opposition party, and the last thing I wanted to do was give the Democrats a chance to appoint a new Director who would unquestioningly carry out their bidding against Republicans for the next four or eight years.

  Mitchell finally suggested that the ideal compromise would be to persuade Hoover that he should voluntarily announce his decision to retire on his seventy-seventh birthday in 1972. Such an announcement would both undercut the mounting criticism and avoid charges that he had been forced out.

  Since the Director of the FBI is under the administrative control of the Attorney General, Mitchell would ordinarily have been the one to raise the question of Hoover’s voluntary resignation with him. But as Mitchell put it, “Mr. President, both you and I know that Edgar Hoover isn’t about to listen to anyone other than the President of the United States when it comes to this question.” I knew that he was right. Although it would be painful for both of us, I decided to invite Hoover to have breakfast with me at the White House and to raise the subject with him then.

  At our breakfast Hoover was as alert, articulate, and decisive as I had ever seen him. It was obvious that he was trying to demonstrate that despite his age he was still physically, mentally, and emotionally equipped to carry on.

  I told him that I knew he was sensitive about some of the recent attacks on him in Congress, and about a very negative conference on the FBI at Princeton University.

  “You shouldn’t let things like that get you down, Edgar,” I said. “Lyndon told me that he couldn’t have been President without your advice and assistance, and as you know, I have the same respect for you as well as a deep personal affection that goes back nearly twenty-five years.” Having said this, I tried to point out as gently and subtly as I could that as an astute politician he must recognize that the attacks were going to mount in number and intensity in the years ahead. It would be a tragedy if he ended his career while under a sustained attack from his long-time critics instead of in the glow of national respect that he so rightly deserved.

  He responded very directly. He said, “More than anything else, I want to see you re-elected in 1972. If you feel that my staying on as head of the Bureau hurts your chances for re-election, just let me know. As far as these present attacks are concerned, and the ones that are planned for the future, they don’t make any difference to me. I think you know that the tougher the attacks get, the tougher I get.”

  It was obvious that he was not going to take the initiative in offering his resignation. I had been through this kind of situation in 1952 when I told Eisenhower that he should make the decision whether or not I was a liability to his campaign. Now Hoover was taking exactly the same position with me: he would submit his resignation only if I specifically requested it. I decided not to do so. My personal feelings played a part in my decision, but equally important was my conclusion that Hoover’s resignation before the election would raise more political problems than it would solve.

  It has now become fashionable to think of our years of concern over organized crime and subversive communism as a national neurosis. Because Hoover was at the forefront of the anticrime and anticommunist movements of the postwar period, he has been painted, since the revision, as the chief neurotic. But Hoover had done the job that the public demanded for forty-eight years.

  During his long and controversial life he made many enemies. He received much criticism, some of it deserved. But he took a bad rap from the critics who charged him with being “anti” one group or another. He was strongly pro-American and only against any group or individual he concluded migh
t be engaging in activities that threatened the security of his country.

  Diary

  He died at the right time; fortunately, he died in office. It would have killed him had he been forced out of office or had he resigned even voluntarily. I remember the last conversation I had with him about two weeks ago when I called him and mentioned the fine job the Bureau had done on the hijacking cases. He expressed his appreciation for that call and also expressed his total support for what we are doing in Vietnam. I am particularly glad that I did not force him out at the end of last year.

  I tried Buchanan on the statement [on Hoover’s death] and I think improved upon it in one respect when I said that while I had ordered the flags to be flown at half-mast the flag at the FBI would always fly high due to the courage of J. Edgar Hoover in resisting the vicious attacks on his organization.

  While we were trying to decide on Hoover’s successor, I received Kissinger’s report of his May 2 meeting with the North Vietnamese in Paris. The Communists had been icy and snide, and after putting up with three hours of insult and invective, Kissinger broke off the talks.

  Diary

  I found with no surprise that the North Vietnamese had given nothing whatever, and that it was the most unproductive of all of Henry’s trips. This is the one weakness in his approach to some of these problems. He is so understandably obsessed with the idea that there should be a negotiated settlement and that we ought to be able to obtain it with everything that we have set in motion, that he cannot get himself to see clearly why there really isn’t enough in it for the enemy to negotiate at this time. I had a long talk with Haig, in which we concluded that we had to have a two-day strike rather than the one-day-separated-by-another-day as Henry had recommended earlier in the week. We have very few cards to play at this point.

  I have sent Henry a message indicating that I thought he should think seriously on the plane on the way back about our breaking off the summit before the Russians make that move.

  Haig emphasized that even more important than how Vietnam comes out is for us to handle these matters in a way that I can survive in office. I am not sure that this will be possible and in any event I am totally committed to the idea that rather than going out like Johnson did, that I must make whatever hard choices have to be made, and take whatever risks need to be taken, to preserve the position of the U.S. in Vietnam.

  Of course, the weak link in our whole chain is the question as to whether the South Vietnamese have the will to fight. Certainly Abrams has been very strongly shaken in this respect as we compare his memorandum of May 1, with his memorandum of just a week before. I wired Thieu today personally to keep his spirits up, because I think it is vitally important that we not be responsible for his losing his courage at this very difficult time when bad news is coming in from the war front. The real problem is that the enemy is willing to sacrifice in order to win, while the South Vietnamese simply aren’t willing to pay that much of a price in order to avoid losing. And, as Haig points out, all the air power in the world and strikes on Hanoi-Haiphong aren’t going to save South Vietnam if the South Vietnamese aren’t able to hold on the ground.

  When Kissinger returned from Paris that night he was still discouraged by Le Duc Tho’s arrogant conduct. He felt that there was now almost no chance that the Soviet Summit could take place, and he agreed with my initial inclination that we should cancel it immediately in order to prevent the Soviets from doing so first.

  We discussed the overriding questions: Would cancellation of the summit be the key to winning the war? Would it shock the Soviets into finally putting some pressure on the North Vietnamese? Would it free us to lift all restrictions and bomb them until they gave in? We agreed that it was unlikely to do any of these things.

  Then, I said, I would have to consider the problems it would cause. It would dash a lot of domestic hopes for peace, and that would give the Democrats a real issue. It would unleash a worldwide propaganda offensive in which the Soviets could claim that they had crumbled our foreign policy. “It’s hard to see how cancellation is a really rational choice when you look at it this way,” I concluded.

  The problem, as Kissinger saw it, was that we could not bomb and have the summit too. And now we would have to bomb because we had said we would unless we got some meaningful action in Paris. The Soviets knew this, and unless they thought we were going to back down on our threat, it was highly likely that they would cancel the summit themselves and blame the cancellation on our bombing. That would be the worst possible outcome: a domestic outcry over the bombing and cancellation of the summit as well.

  The arguments on both sides seemed persuasive. It was hard to see how I could go to the summit and be clinking glasses with Brezhnev while Soviet tanks were rumbling through Hué or Quangtri. That would show callousness, or weakness, or both. For us to cancel the summit, however, would inevitably be criticized as an impulsive action that dashed the hopes for progress toward a more peaceful world.

  I decided to take the risk of postponing a decision for at least a few days. In the meantime I was determined to keep up a strong front despite all the recent setbacks. I began by sending a blunt reply to Brezhnev’s letter of May 1 in which he had warned me against taking any actions in Vietnam that might hurt the chance of a successful summit. I said that the North Vietnamese had tricked us and apparently hoped that their offensive would force concessions from us:

  But this, Mr. General Secretary, will not happen, and I must now decide on the next steps in the situation that has been created. In the light of recent events, there does not seem much promise in communicating to you additional substantive considerations; there is now no basis for believing that this will have a positive effect on the situation. As Mr. Le Duc Tho made clear, Hanoi is contemptuous of communications transmitted by a third party. The fact remains that Soviet military supplies provide the means for the D.R.V.’s [Democratic Republic of (North) Vietnam] actions and promised Soviet influence if it has been exercised at all has proved unavailing.

  I told Haldeman that he and Kissinger should brief John Connally on the situation and get his opinion. Haldeman reported that Connally emphatically said, “Most important—the President must not lose the war! And he should not cancel the summit. He’s got to show his guts and leadership on this one. Caution be damned—if they cancel, and I don’t think they will, we’ll ram it right down their throats.”

  I discussed the issue with Kissinger, Haldeman, Connally, and Haig: “As far as I’m concerned, the only real mistakes I’ve made were the times when I didn’t follow my own instincts,” I told them. “After the EC-121 was shot down I knew that we should have moved in and bombed North Korea. When we didn’t, everybody figured we were pushovers, and we’ve been paying for that ever since. When we went into Cambodia, I knew that we should have bombed North Vietnam at the same time. If we’d done that then, the damned war would be over now. Now in this case, my instinct is that one thing is clear: whatever else happens we cannot lose this war. The summit isn’t worth a damn if the price for it is losing in Vietnam. My instinct tells me that the country can take losing the summit, but it can’t take losing the war.”

  I believed that it was essential that we take decisive action to cripple the North Vietnamese invasion by interdicting the supplies of fuel and military equipment the enemy needed for its push into South Vietnam. I consequently directed that plans be prepared immediately for mining Haiphong Harbor and for bombing prime military targets in Hanoi, particularly the railroad lines used for transporting military supplies.

  I went to Camp David to prepare the speech announcing my decision. On Sunday night I recorded the events of that tense weekend.

  Diary

  Julie went up with me Friday at four o’clock, and Tricia and Eddie joined us around six o’clock. We saw a good comedy with Bob Hope that night.

  I told Julie about the decision on Friday and Tricia on Saturday.

  Julie seemed concerned about it in terms of whether it
would work. She obviously has done a lot of reading about past failures on the military side in Vietnam. She also was aware of the fact that many had become so disillusioned with the war that we might not have enough public support for it. I mentioned the fact that if we did not do this the United States would cease to be a respected great power. She rejoined with the observation that there were many who felt that the United States shouldn’t be a great power. This, of course, is the kind of poison that is fed into so many of the younger generation by their professors. She was sure, however, that David would totally agree with the decision, and she seemed sensitive to what the needs were.

  Tricia’s reaction was immediately positive because she felt we had to do something, and frankly didn’t know what else we could do to avoid a continued deterioration in the battle areas.

  Pat came up very late Friday night. I had just come back from Birch where I had been working on the speech. I saw the light on in Pat’s room, and when I went in, she got up and came over, and put her arms around me, and said, “Don’t worry about anything.”

  Over the weekend I talked to John Mitchell and he said he thoroughly approved of the decision.

  Henry seemed pleased by the fact that all but one of his staff were for the blockade, including his Vietnam expert, who is somewhat of a dove. All of his staff say that it will kill the summit. Mitchell disagrees with that as did Connally.

  I discussed with Kissinger the necessity to prepare a contingency plan for summit cancellation. As of this morning, he had raised his 20 percent possibility of a noncancellation to 25 percent, although he still cannot see how the Russians can react otherwise. I constantly bring him back to the point that Connally had made when we reached the decision: we can lose the summit and a number of other battles but we cannot lose in Vietnam. Not only the election, but even more important, the country, requires that the United States not lose in Vietnam. Everything is to be concentrated toward the goal now of seeing that we do not lose now that we have crossed the Rubicon.