“What happened?” I asked.
“I think you should read this for yourself, Mr. President,” he said solemnly.
I took the paper, put on my glasses, and began to read: “We celebrated the President’s birthday today by making a major breakthrough in the negotiations. In sum, we settled all the outstanding questions in the text of the agreement.”
Kissinger warned against undue optimism: “The Vietnamese have broken our heart several times before, and we just cannot assume success until everything is pinned down, but the mood and the businesslike approach was as close to October as we have seen since October.” He concluded, “What has brought us to this point is the President’s firmness and the North Vietnamese belief that he will not be affected by either congressional or public pressures. Le Duc Tho has repeatedly made these points to me. So it is essential that we keep our fierce posture during the coming days. The slightest hint of eagerness could prove suicidal.”
I immediately dictated my reply:
I greatly appreciated your birthday greetings and your report. I totally agree with the need to maintain absolutely “eyes only” secrecy on developments until we have everything completely nailed down. . . .
You should continue a tough posture and, above all, not let the other side filibuster. If the other side stays on this track and doesn’t go downhill tomorrow, what you have done today is the best birthday present I have had in sixty years.
The momentum continued through the next session, and Kissinger reported that at the current rate of progress the agreement should be concluded within three or four days.
On January 11 Kissinger cabled, “We finished the complete text of the agreement, including the provisions for signature.” It was nine days short of four years since I had entered the White House and inherited the task of ending the Vietnam war.
When the announcement was made that Kissinger was going to fly directly to Key Biscayne from Paris in order to report to me on the progress of his meetings with the North Vietnamese, there was widespread speculation that an agreement had been concluded. In a brief statement at the airport before leaving Paris, Kissinger flashed one of his enigmatic, owlish smiles and said the talks had been “useful.”
He arrived in Key Biscayne several hours later, and we talked until after 2 A.M. He described all the tension and drama of the intricate negotiations. Even though he was tired from the talks and the long flight, he still displayed his characteristic thoroughness and enthusiasm. In the early hours of the following morning I recorded some notes about the conclusion of our meeting.
Diary
After we met, I walked out to the car with him and I told him that the country was indebted to him for what he had done. It is not really a comfortable feeling for me to praise people so openly. I prefer to do it a little bit more discreetly. I recall this was one of Eisenhower’s characteristics as well. On the other hand, Henry expects it, and it was good that I did so. He, in turn, responded that without my having the, as he put it, courage to make the difficult decision of December 18, we would not be where we are today.
On January 15 at ten o’clock in the morning all bombing and mining of North Vietnam were stopped for an indefinite period, and we made a public announcement of our actions. The bombing had done its job; it had been successful, and now it could be ended. It was good news for all of us.
Diary
I had Henry call Pat and give her a rundown on affairs shortly after the announcement. Henry said that the four years he had known Mrs. Nixon he had never heard her sound so elated—that she was enormously pleased.
Julie just wanted to call. She was bubbly and upbeat and she and her mother, who was apparently in the room with her, were very proud of what had happened. I began to answer by indicating that the stopping of the bombing I suppose was pretty popular and all that sort of thing. She says, no, that isn’t what she meant. She and her mother were proud of the fact that I had gone ahead and done what was right.
I had heard that Mike Mansfield was telling people how restrained and responsible the Senate had been during the past week of negotiations, and I noted in my diary, “It is interesting to note that Mansfield had reacted as he had. Of course, they cut Henry’s legs off before he ever went.”
There was also a discordant note to record that same day.
Diary
It is ironic that the day the news came out stopping the bombing of North Vietnam, the Watergate Four plead guilty. When I saw the headlines in the Times—spies plead guilty in Watergate—I realized what the press would have done if they had not had another story that would override it.
There is a new wrinkle to this which is rather curious. Colson told me that the problem in Hunt’s case and with the case generally was that a confession might lead to Haldeman and even Ehrlichman. On the other hand, Haldeman told me that what the Time magazine and New York Times’s exposés were going to say was that the line ran from Liddy to Colson to Mitchell. Only an ultimatum served on the Times that if they used this they would be subject to a libel suit with malice being proved kept them from using that particular item.
I frankly am at a loss to know how it happened and it is probably just as well, but my guess is that Colson was not as aware of it as Haldeman et al. thought he was.
Whether Haldeman was aware of it, I simply don’t know, although I think he would be intelligent enough to have stayed a mile away from such stupid activity.
Obviously the judge is going to throw the book at them and this will present quite a problem when it comes to a pardon. It is interesting to note that funds for providing income for them are coming from a Cuban committee here in Florida and it is also interesting to note that just this week Teddy Kennedy comes out with an article indicating that we should renew relations with Castro. Certainly these men would not have taken such enormous risks unless they felt deeply that the McGovernites et al. and the Democrats generally represented a threat to institutions and ideas they deeply believed in.
We had reached agreement on terms with the North Vietnamese but we still had to persuade Thieu to join us in signing the agreement. Thieu had made good use of the time since October and was in a considerably stronger position vis-à-vis the Communists than he had been then. I had always believed that his common sense and patriotism—if not his instinct for survival—would make him come along when we reached the absolute deadline for concluding an agreement before Congress intervened and took the conduct of the war out of my hands. Now we were at that point, and my estimation of Thieu would be put to the test. Soon after Kissinger had returned to Washington on January 14, Haig left for Saigon.
On the morning of January 16 he met with Thieu and handed him a letter from me. In it I said that I had irrevocably decided to initial the agreement on January 23 and sign it on January 27. “I will do so,” I wrote, “if necessary, alone.” I continued:
In that case I shall have to explain publicly that your government obstructs peace. The result will be an inevitable and immediate termination of U.S. economic and military assistance which cannot be forestalled by a change of personnel in your government. I hope, however, that after all our two countries have shared and suffered together in conflict, we will stay together to preserve peace and reap its benefits.
To this end I want to repeat to you the assurances that I have already conveyed. At the time of signing the agreement I will make emphatically clear that the United States recognizes your government as the only legal government of South Vietnam; that we do not recognize the right of any foreign troops to be present on South Vietnamese territory; and that we will react strongly in the event the agreement is violated. Finally, I want to emphasize my continued commitment to the freedom and progress of the Republic of Vietnam. It is my firm intention to continue full economic and military aid.
With this letter and this guarantee I did not feel that I could do any more. Up to this point I had not felt that I could do any less. The decision now lay with Thieu.
Diary
Thieu’s choice is simply whether he wants to commit suicide or go along with a settlement that could save his country as well as himself. The question, as he put it to his National Security Council, was whether he should be a hero now by turning down the settlement, or a statesman that would save his country later. This is exactly the case. I just told Henry, however, that I doubted if he would be a hero if he turned down the settlement, because the South Vietnamese are losing upward of 250 to 300 killed in action every week, and I imagine they are pretty tired of the war too and would like to have a cease-fire.
It appeared that, true to form to the end, Thieu was going to play it right down to the wire.
In their second meeting on January 17 Haig and Thieu had a brief and emotional encounter during which Thieu gave him a sealed letter addressed to me. Haig returned to the embassy and read the letter. It was, as Haig described it, brittle and uncompromising. I immediately sent a letter in return challenging Thieu’s points one by one and confronting him with an inescapable conclusion: “We have only one decision before us: whether or not to continue in peacetime the close partnership that has served us so well in war.”
On January 18 it was jointly announced in Washingon and Hanoi that the Paris negotiations would resume on January 23 “for the purpose of completing the text of an agreement.” Peace fever broke out everywhere, and reporters flatly stated, with an assurance they could not know was justified, that a settlement was in the bag.
As we anxiously awaited further word from Saigon, Bunker cabled that he had not been able to get an appointment with Thieu because he was engaged in all-day religious ceremonies connected with his daughter’s marriage. Bunker and Haig both felt that Thieu was stalling simply in order to be able to say that he had done all he could. They felt he saw my inauguration on January 20 as his last deadline.
In the meantime Haig had traveled to Bangkok and Seoul. The Thai leaders and President Park had no confidence that the North Vietnamese intended to abide by the agreement. But they understood the political realities of the American scene, and they agreed to support the settlement publicly and privately to urge Thieu to sign it.
After one last stab at resistance and another series of letters between us, Thieu finally decided to accept the agreement. Looking across his desk at Bunker, he said, “I have done my best. I have done all that I can do for my country.” Even though his conduct had been almost unbearably frustrating, I had to admire his spirit.
Now we had to wait while the final arrangements were made and until the North Vietnamese locked themselves into signing the agreement by announcing it publicly in Hanoi.
On January 20 I was sworn in for my second term as the thirty-seventh President of the United States. I had hoped that my second inauguration would take place in peacetime. But the inevitable delays, added to the dangers of becoming committed publicly to any specific date, pushed the peace agreement into the post-inaugural period. Instead of being able to describe in my inaugural address the blessings of a peace achieved, I could only describe a peace that was near achievement and talk about the ways we could try to make it more than just an interlude between wars.
I am sure that many who heard my words on that cold January afternoon thought I was engaging in conventional inaugural rhetoric when I said, “We have the chance today to do more than ever before in our history to make life better in America—to ensure better education, better health, better housing, better transportation, a cleaner environment—to restore respect for law, to make our communities more livable—and to ensure the God-given right of every American to full and equal opportunity.” But I fully believed that, backed by my November mandate and based on my determination to proceed despite the opposition or the political cost, we could actually succeed during my second term in bringing America closer than ever before in history to the attainment of these goals.
This would be my last inaugural address, and I had decided to use it in order to impart a sense of the inspirational tone that I wanted to give to my second term.
I concluded, “We shall answer to God, to history, and to our conscience for the way in which we use these years. As I stand in this place, so hallowed by history, I think of others who have stood here before me. I think of the dreams they had for America and I think of how each recognized that he needed help far beyond himself in order to make those dreams come true. Today I ask your prayers that in the years ahead I may have God’s help in making decisions that are right for America, and I pray for your help so that together we may be worthy of our challenge. . . . Let us go forward from here confident in hope, strong in our faith in one another, sustained by our faith in God who created us, and striving always to serve His purpose.”
That night, before leaving for the inaugural balls, I went to the Lincoln Sitting Room and recorded some memories and impressions, beginning with inaugural concerts at the Kennedy Center the night before.
Diary
When Mike Curb stepped up at the end of the performance and said that the President had done more to bring peace in the world than anybody else, I thought we would get a few boos. Interestingly enough, he got a pretty good cheer for it, which allayed one of the fears I had as we went to these inaugurals, having read earlier that eleven of Eugene Ormandy’s orchestra members requested the right not to come, and he had put his foot down and told them to come. When Steve Bull informed him that I would not be coming down to the platform because it simply couldn’t be worked out from a logistic standpoint, Ormandy said that he would have liked to have me come to the stage and stand there beside him “just to show those left-wing sons of bitches.” What a man he is.
Inaugural morning, after getting up, I ran 500 steps in place. It left me a little breathless, but I thought it was a good idea to be in as good shape as I could for the ceremonies to take place later in the day.
Before going downstairs, I stepped into the Lincoln Bedroom in the spot where the Emancipation Proclamation was and where I understood Lincoln’s desk was located and bowed my head for a moment, and prayed that I might be able to give the country some lift, some inspiration, and some leadership in the rather brief inaugural that I had prepared.
The ride down to the Capitol gave us some indication of what we could expect later in the way of demonstrators. Little clusters of them had gotten into strategic places along the route. Pat and the others didn’t hear them, but they were yelling “f-u-c-k,” etc., and were a pretty vicious lot.
The inauguration went on schedule—perhaps the best of any that I have seen. The public address system was superb, no hecklers could be heard, although way in the background I think there were a few who let out a few obscenities as I began to speak and then subsided or probably somebody subsided them.
Mrs. Agnew kissed Agnew—Pat did not kiss me. I am rather glad she didn’t. I sometimes think these displays of affection are very much in place, as was the case election night. Other times, I don’t think they quite fit and on this occasion I didn’t really think it quite fit.
[At the inaugural luncheon in the Capitol] I could feel somewhat of a chill. I was thinking how much worse it would have been if we hadn’t had the recent developments this week with regard to the possible settlement in Paris. It came not far ahead of the sheriff, and not far enough, I am sure, to avoid some jolt in the polls.
I don’t give one damn what the polls say insofar as affecting my decisions. I only care about them because they may affect my ability to lead, since politicians do pay attention to them.
I stood up all of the way through the inaugural parade. Pat got up about a third of the way down and when the demonstrators began to throw eggs and debris, the Secret Service asked her to sit down, and she refused. She was absolutely right. There was one incident where a demonstrator broke out and started to charge the car. The Secret Service agents were on top of him like lightning and brought him down with a tackle.
My feeling is that this may well be the last of the inaugural balls. I just can’t imagine t
hat people pay all that money to stand in that huge mob. One girl from Massachusetts was practically hysterical crying, “I love and respect you so much!” Even though we were leaving, I danced with her for a few minutes. Pat, who notices those things a little more than I do, said that the girl was dressed in a rather plain gown, one that perhaps she had made herself, and it had probably cost her a great deal to come. In any event, the dancing was the great hit of the evening. People who came in afterward said the girls and even some of the boys were crying because we had mixed with them so much.
It is obvious that we have to get across more of what Rossiter has called “affability.” The staff just hasn’t been able to get it across and so I am going to have to do all of these things publicly which demonstrates that. On the other hand, you can’t overplay it.
Time passed slowly waiting for January 23 and the announcement of the Vietnam settlement. In the early evening of January 22, while our waiting had yet to be rewarded, Lyndon Johnson died.
Diary
With his death there will be, I trust, the same reappraisal of his place in history as was the case of Truman on his death, although, of course, it will not be nearly as fulsome because not enough years have passed and because there are too many current hatreds which divide the country.
The sadness in Johnson’s case is that he did not live to see his position in history really established by reason of our winning a peace with honor in Vietnam. On the other hand, his family will see it and that is, of course, extremely important, and he will know it I am sure.
I also had an interesting reaction as I was thinking about the reason LBJ went down in the polls and so forth in early 1968. What happened was that he did isolate himself—he quit fighting for his policies in public—he did not generate the public support for them. As a matter of fact, he seemed to be running away from them. It was when my November 3 speech came along that we really ginned up some public support for winning a peace with honor. LBJ gave away this ground, and that was why he really failed in the end and was driven out of public office.
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