RN

by Richard Nixon

  It was especially gratifying to receive calls of support from Nelson Rockefeller and Ronald Reagan. Senator James Buckley also stood behind me, as did Howard Baker, Bob Taft, and Chuck Percy. One of my strongest supporters was John Connally, who called daily to report some new and positive sampling of public opinion.

  As the criticism outside mounted, the pressure inside the White House became intense. I could feel the tension in the people I passed and greeted as I walked back and forth to the EOB. I knew how sincerely troubled many of them were because of the bombing; I understood how difficult the bombing made it for many of them to face their friends and even their families during what should have been a happy holiday season.

  Pat and I spent Christmas at Key Biscayne. It was the first Christmas we had been alone without the girls. Tricia and Ed were in Europe traveling, and Julie was also there to be with David. Pat and I naturally urged them to go, but I think we were both depressed to find how empty the house seemed without them. Casting a dark shadow over everything was the knowledge that if the bombing did not succeed in forcing the North Vietnamese back to the negotiating table, there was no way of knowing how—or whether—the Vietnam war would end. I made several diary entries during this holiday period.

  Diary

  This is December 24, 1972—Key Biscayne—4 A.M.

  The main thought that occurred to me at this early hour of the morning the day before Christmas, in addition to the overriding concern with regard to bringing the war to an end, is that I must get away from the thought of considering the office at any time a burden. I actually do not consider it a burden, an agony, etc., as did Eisenhower and also to a certain extent Johnson. As a matter of fact, I think the term glorious burden is the best description.

  On this day before Christmas it is God’s great gift to me to have the opportunity to exert leadership, not only for America but on the world scene, because of the size of the mandate and also the strength of the country.

  In a sense, of course, this is not true because immediately after World War II our power was greater because of the monopoly of the bomb and the weakness of Europe and Japan as well as the weakness of China and Russia. But then, there were other world leaders on the scene. Today, except for Chiang Kai-shek most of the World War II greats are gone. This, on the one hand, imposes an enormous responsibility but, of course, at the same time the greatest opportunity an individual could have.

  From this day forward I am going to look upon it that way and rise to the challenge with as much excitement, energy, enthusiasm, and, wherever possible, real joy that I can muster.

  God’s help will be required as will the help of loyal people on the staff and the family.

  A new group of Nixon loyalists, of course, is an urgent necessity, but this really begins a new period and this tape concludes with that thought—a period of always reminding myself of the glorious burden of the presidency.

  At 6 P.M. Saigon time on December 24 a twenty-four-hour Christmas truce I had approved began in Vietnam. No planes flew. No bombs were dropped. For a day we were at peace.

  On Christmas Day I made phone calls to many of our long-time friends and supporters across the country.

  Diary

  All in all, the Christmas calls didn’t produce anything important or different, except not too much talk about the bombing. My guess is that they were all concerned about the media handling of it. Reagan mentioned that and said CBS under World War II circumstances would have been perhaps charged with treason.

  Martha Mitchell sounded very up when I called her, which is encouraging because John Mitchell has gone through hell with her and I am glad that she is finally recovering. Perhaps the two weeks or so down here will make a great difference in getting all of them back on the track in a way that John can continue to be effective politically because he is one of the wisest men, one of the strongest men, we have on our whole team.

  Henry called to wish us a Merry Christmas but obviously needed a little cheering up, which I was totally able to do because I am confident we are doing the right thing.

  It is inevitable that not only the President but the First Lady become more and more lonely individuals in a sense who have to depend on fewer and fewer people who can give them a lift when they need it, even though ironically there are millions more who know them and who would help if they could just be given the chance to do so. It is a question not of too many friends but really too few—one of the inevitable consequences of this position.

  As this Christmas Day ends I am thankful for Manolo and Fina, for the wonderful Filipinos and the staff, for Bebe, for Julie and Tricia, Pat, for all of those who basically are our family at a time that the girls are so far away.

  Harry Truman died on the day after Christmas. According to his wishes, he lay in state at the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri. On December 27 Pat and I flew there to pay our respects to him and to call on Mrs. Truman.

  There was considerable pressure from some of the staff to continue the Christmas truce for a few more days. But I disagreed completely. In fact, I personally ordered one of the biggest bombing raids for December 26: 116 B-52 sorties were flown against targets in the Hanoi-Haiphong area.

  That afternoon the North Vietnamese sent the first signal that they had had enough. We received a message from them condemning what they called “extermination bombing,” but they did not require that the bombing be stopped as a precondition to their agreeing to another meeting, which they proposed for January 8 in Paris. We replied that we would like the technical talks to begin on January 2 if the Kissinger meeting was to be delayed until January 8. We offered to stop the bombing above the 20th parallel once the arrangements for the meeting had been completed and had been publicly announced. On December 28 the North Vietnamese gave in and confirmed the January 2 and January 8 dates.

  At 7 P.M. Washington time on December 29 bombing above the 20th parallel was suspended. The next morning we announced that the Paris negotiations would be resumed and that Kissinger would meet with Le Duc Tho on January 8.

  Diary

  The real question is whether the announcement today will be interpreted in the public mind as having been the result of a policy that worked. Of course, it will not be so interpreted by our opponents in the media and the Congress.

  I have gone over this with Chuck Colson and he in turn with John Scali [Special Consultant to the President]. They both recognize that much of the media will try to say, “Why was the bombing necessary?” or might even try to say we were forced back to the table because of the world outcry and all that sort of thing.

  Henry always looks at it in terms of the merits, and on the merits we know that what this is is a very stunning capitulation by the enemy to our terms.

  Most of the TV reporters and the next morning’s newspapers put the emphasis on the bombing halt rather than the resumption of talks, and most of them indicated that it was not clear whether the return to negotiations was the result of the bombing, or whether the bombing halt was the result of the enemy’s agreement to return to negotiations. It was frustrating not to be able to set them straight. As I said to Colson, “We’ll just have to trust to the good judgment of the people to see it. Certainly the press isn’t going to make the point for us.”

  Pat and I spent New Year’s Eve at Camp David. I watched the Redskins beat the Cowboys on television, 26 to 3. Just before midnight I looked back over the day and then ahead to the coming year.

  Diary

  I let all the staff off today and had Manolo cook some eggs and bacon [for dinner]. I had about half a martini and then some white wine, bacon and eggs.

  As the year 1972 ends I have much to be grateful for—China, Russia, May 8, the election victory, and, of course, while the end of the year was somewhat marred by the need to bomb Hanoi-Haiphong, that decision, I think, can make the next four years much more successful than they otherwise might have been.

  1973 will be a better year.

  On January 2 I called
Lyndon Johnson at his ranch in Texas. We shared a few reminiscences of Harry Truman, and he said that he did not know whether he would be able to attend the memorial service in Washington because he had experienced severe heart pains after attending the recent Texas-Alabama football game and his doctor had told him not to travel.

  The conversation turned to Vietnam, and Johnson said, “I know what torture you’re going through over the war, and I want you to know that I’m praying for you every day.”

  I told him, “I know that you tried to do the right thing when you were here, and that is what I am trying to do as well.”

  We continued to play the Soviet and Chinese strategies for whatever they might turn out to be worth. Kissinger went to see Dobrynin and told him that the things the Soviets wanted—a Mideast settlement, a European security conference, nuclear weapons agreements—would have to stay on the back burner until Vietnam was settled. And I wrote a letter to Chou En-lai, saying that the Vietnam war impeded the kind of further progress that would benefit both our countries.

  On January 2, 1973, the day before Congress officially reconvened, the House Democratic Caucus voted 154 to 75 to cut off all funds for Indochina military operations as soon as arrangements were made for the safe withdrawal of U.S. troops and the return of our POWs. Two days later Teddy Kennedy proposed a similar resolution to the Senate Democratic Caucus, where it passed 36 to 12. The atmosphere of the congressional leadership breakfast at the White House the next morning was tense. At the end I made a short speech about my reasons for the bombing and why I was sure it was the only way to get a settlement. I concluded, “Gentlemen, I will take the responsibility if these negotiations fail. If they succeed, then we will all succeed.”

  I was not surprised at the conduct of the Democratic liberals. Ever since the election I had virtually written off any hope of receiving support or cooperation from them. I could see that they were going to try to use the Vietnam issue to pull themselves together after the McGovern debacle. Their strategy seemed obvious: if we got an agreement, they would say that it was because they had pressured me to stop the bombing and return to the negotiating table; if we failed to get an agreement, they would insist on the military withdrawal that most of them had favored all along.

  On January 6, before he left for Paris, Kissinger and I met at Camp David to discuss the negotiating strategy he should follow. During the last round of negotiations in December he had described the two options from which we had to choose. Under Option One we would agree to an immediate settlement on the best terms we could negotiate. Under Option Two we would break with Thieu and continue the bombing until the North Vietnamese agreed to return our POWs in exchange for our complete withdrawal.

  I was determined that this round of negotiations would produce an agreement, and I strongly conveyed my sentiments to Kissinger.

  Diary

  Adding it all up I put it to Henry quite directly that even if we could go back to the October 8 agreement that we should take it, having in mind the fact that there will be a lot of details that will have been ironed out so that we can claim some improvement over that agreement. I told him that a poor settlement on Option One was better for us than Option Two at its best would be.

  He has finally come around to that point of view, although he believes that both from the standpoint of South Vietnam and perhaps our own standpoint in the long term, we might be better off with Option Two. I think he overlooks the fact that as far as our situation here is concerned, the war-weariness has reached the point that Option Two is just too much for us to carry on.

  The war continues to take too much of our attention from other international issues, such as the Mideast, and it also has a detrimental effect on our international relations, not only with the Soviet and the Chinese but even with our allies.

  As I told him goodbye at the door of Birch Lodge, I said, “Well, one way or another, this is it!” That night I tried to list all the pluses and minuses to see if I could find some clue to the way things would turn out.

  Diary

  The first day may tell us a great deal. Certainly as of the end of last week there was a good chance that the enemy was coming back to negotiate a settlement. The international support they have had and the support from the Democrats in Congress may cool them off and convince them that they can hang on longer.

  Henry, of course, is going to continue to play the hard line, indicating that I might resort to resumption of the bombing in the Hanoi area, even though I have told him that as far as our internal planning is concerned we cannot consider this to be a viable option.

  He feels that another card we have is the threat to withdraw the agreement altogether. He believes that Hanoi wants an agreement now for the reason that this gives them some standing in the South, whereas an American bug-out ironically would still leave them with the necessity of winning militarily in the South.

  Some minor straws in the wind are that the technical talks have made some progress this week on the four easier issues, with the four tougher ones left for next week. Also, the fact that the North Vietnamese have launched offensives in the South may indicate that they are trying to grab territory and villages, etc., prior to the time that a cease-fire takes place.

  Another plus item is that the South Vietnamese seem to be coming more into line. Our intelligence indicates that Thieu is telling visitors that it is not a peace agreement that he is going to get, but a commitment from the United States to continue to protect South Vietnam in the event such an agreement is broken. This, of course, is exactly the line I gave him in my letter which Haig delivered to him.

  In the midst of the tense days of the December bombing and the furore it provoked, new Watergate problems began to surface. On December 8 Howard Hunt’s wife was killed in a plane crash; since then Hunt had apparently been disconsolate and on the verge of a breakdown. Now that Hunt was about to face a jail term, Colson began to worry about him.

  On the White House staff there were the first signs of finger-pointing, tentative and without evidence. I could sense that people were getting unsettled and worried. I dictated in my diary on January 3.

  Diary

  One disturbing note was Haldeman’s comment to the effect that Colson may have been aware of the Watergate business. I am not sure actually that he was. Haldeman’s point was that Colson was insisting on getting information with regard to attempts of the Democrats to disrupt our convention, etc. Of course, Colson may have been insisting on such information but he may not have been aware of what means were being used to obtain this information. I simply can’t believe, based on my conversations with Colson, that he would have been so stupid as to think we could get such information through attempting to bug the other side.

  I made another note about this problem three days later, on Saturday, January 6.

  Diary

  Colson told me on Friday that he had tried to do everything he could to keep Hunt in line from turning state’s evidence. After what happened to Hunt’s wife, etc., I think we have a very good case for showing some clemency.

  It was Colson’s view apparently that either Haldeman or Ehrlichman or both might have been more deeply involved than has been indicated. Of course, it is all hearsay. Colson’s point is that Magruder is a name-dropper and that Magruder may have mentioned the names of Haldeman and Ehrlichman in telling the Watergate people to get information. Apparently, according to Colson, too, some of the meetings took place in Mitchell’s office at the Justice Department. This would seem hard for me to believe but then again during the campaign people are not as rational or responsible as they normally would be. This, I know, must be a great burden for Haldeman and Ehrlichman during this past tough week and I could see that something was eating them without knowing what.

  I was concerned about these speculations, but I saw them at least in part as manifestations of the routine staff animosities that had long existed between Colson and Mitchell and Colson and Ehrlichman.

  It now seems clear th
at I knew Colson was sending messages of reassurance to Hunt through his lawyer—messages that Hunt took to be signals of eventual clemency. I did not believe that any commitments had been made. I cannot even rule out the possibility that I knew similar reassurance was being given the other defendants. I certainly do not remember it, but where Watergate is concerned I have learned not to be categorical. In any event, I was relieved when, in early January, Hunt and the others pleaded guilty. I thought this would spare us the difficulties of a noisy public trial and all the distraction that would produce at such a critical time.

  On Monday, January 8, Kissinger met with Le Duc Tho for four and a half hours. Nothing was accomplished, but in Kissinger’s report to me that night he pointed out that it would probably not be realistic to expect the Communists to give in or give up on the first day back after the bombing. I was naturally disappointed, but there was nothing to do but wait and hope. That night I recorded some reflections on the eve of my sixtieth birthday.

  Diary

  All in all, as the day is finished I look back over the past ten years and realize how life can seem to be at an end as it appeared to be on January 9, 1963, and then has turned completely around by January 9, 1973. It all has to do with spirit, as I emphasized to Colson, who is only forty-one years of age. He was obviously depressed tonight, probably because of the Hunt matter, etc., but I think I lifted him a bit by what we said.

  We will get a report from Kissinger today which should tell us one way or another whether there is going to be any breakthrough in the talks.

  I noted in the paper this morning that they made a great point out of the fact that the protocol was icy when Henry arrived. This does not bother me because so far when they have had a warm reaction to Henry’s arrival, they make no progress. Perhaps having it exactly the opposite may bring a different result.

  About noon on January 9 Haldeman came into the Oval Office with a cable from Kissinger.