RN

by Richard Nixon

  Richardson’s Deputy, William Ruckelshaus, was the next in line to succeed as Attorney General, but he let us know that he too would resign rather than fire Cox. I feared that we were in for a whole chain of such resignations, and I was not sure where it would end. I was, however, prepared to see it through.

  The third-ranking official in the Justice Department was the Solicitor General, Robert Bork. The resignations of his two superiors placed Bork in a painfully difficult position. He was no “yes man.” But however much he might personally have opposed my decision to fire Cox, he was a constitutional scholar and he felt that I had the constitutional right to do so and that he therefore had the duty to carry out my orders. He said that he would fire Archibald Cox.

  At 8:22 P.M. on Saturday, October 20, Ziegler went to the White House briefing room and announced that Cox was being fired, that Richardson and Ruckelshaus had resigned, and that the office of the Watergate Special Prosecutor was being abolished and its functions transferred back to the Justice Department.

  The television networks broke into their regular programming with breathless, almost hysterical, bulletins. Later that evening there were special reports on all networks. Commentators and correspondents talked in apocalyptic terms and painted the night’s events in terms of an administration coup aimed at suppressing opposition. John Chancellor of NBC began a broadcast thus: “The country tonight is in the midst of what may be the most serious constitutional crisis in its history. . . . That is a stunning development and nothing even remotely like it has happened in all of our history. . . . In my career as a correspondent, I never thought I would be announcing these things.” Some called it the “Night of the Long Knives” in a tasteless and inflammatory comparison with Hitler’s murderous purge of his opposition in 1934. Within twenty-four hours the television and press had labeled the events with the prejudicial shorthand of “Saturday Night Massacre.”

  On Monday evening the network news shows ran nineteen different attacks on me by various congressmen; these were balanced by only five defenses, three of them by Bork.

  “Has President Nixon gone crazy?” asked columnist Carl Rowan; Ralph Nader said I was “acting like a madman, a tyrant, or both”; “smacks of dictatorship” was Edmund Muskie’s judgment. “A reckless act of desperation by a President. . . who has no respect for law and no regard for men of conscience,” was Teddy Kennedy’s comment. Senator Robert Byrd said that the Cox firing was a “Brownshirt operation” using “Gestapo tactics.” “The wolves are in full cry,” countered the New York Daily News. The Star stated, “The jackboots that some observers seem to hear . . . are largely in their own minds.”

  By Tuesday, October 23, there were twenty-one resolutions for my impeachment in varying stages of discussion on Capitol Hill. Six newspapers that had formerly been staunch supporters of the administration now called for my resignation. By October 30, in a straight party-line vote, the House Judiciary Committee had voted itself subpoena power; on November 15 the House voted to allocate $1 million to begin the process of impeachment.

  Although I had been prepared for a major and adverse reaction to Cox’s firing, I was taken by surprise by the ferocious intensity of the reaction that actually occurred. For the first time I recognized the depth of the impact Watergate had been having on America; I suddenly realized how deeply its acid had eaten into the nation’s grain. As I learned of the almost hysterical reactions of otherwise sensible and responsible people to this Saturday night’s events, I realized how few people were able to see things from my perspective, how badly frayed the nerves of the American public had become. To the extent that I had not been aware of this situation, my actions were the result of serious miscalculation. But to the extent that it was simply intolerable to continue with Cox as Special Prosecutor, I felt I had no other option than to act as I did.

  In Moscow on Sunday, October 21, Kissinger and Brezhnev produced the draft of a proposed cease-fire agreement. Brezhnev was to inform Sadat and Asad of its terms, and Kissinger left for Tel Aviv to present it to the Israelis. While he was en route, I sent Mrs. Meir a letter expressing my regret that there had not been more time for consultation and describing the provisions of the proposed agreement:

  1. A cease-fire in place.

  2. A general call for the implementation of UN Resolution 242 after the cease-fire.

  3. Negotiation between the concerned parties aimed at establishing a just and durable peace in the Mideast.

  These terms were especially notable because they were the first in which the Soviets had agreed to a resolution that called for direct negotiations between the parties without any conditions or qualifications. It was also the first time that they had accepted a “general call” for adherence to Resolution 242 and not insisted on Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories as a prerequisite for any further negotiations.

  Both the Arabs and the Israelis accepted the terms—without much enthusiasm, to be sure—and on Monday, October 22, the cease-fire went into effect. Within hours, however, the Israelis charged that the Egyptians were violating it and resumed an active offensive and completed their encirclement of the 20,000-man Egyptian Third Army on the east bank of the Suez Canal.

  Kissinger, now back in Washington, received a message from the Soviets blaming the Israelis for the breakdown of the cease-fire and informing him that Sadat had suggested that the United States and the Soviet Union agree on measures to ensure the physical disengagement of Egyptian and Israeli forces. Twenty minutes later, at 11 A.M. on October 23, I received an urgent message from Brezhnev over the Washington-Moscow hot line. Although it began, “Esteemed Mr. President,” the words were hard and cold. Brezhnev ignored the Egyptian provocations and charged the Israelis with rupturing the cease-fire. He urged that the United States move decisively to stop the violations. He curtly implied that we might even have colluded in Israel’s action.

  I sent a reply that, according to our information, Egypt was the first party to violate the cease-fire. I added that this was not the time to debate the issue. I said that we had insisted that Israel take immediate steps to cease hostilities, and I urged Brezhnev to do the same on the Egyptian side. I closed by saying that he and I had achieved a historic settlement over the past weekend and should not permit it to be destroyed.

  By the time I reached Camp David that afternoon, Brezhnev had sent a message that the Egyptian side was ready for another cease-fire if the Israelis would agree. We sent back a reply urging him to press Syria as well as Egypt to accept the cease-fire. I concluded, “I continue to believe that you and we have done a distinct service to the cause of peace.”

  That same day, Tuesday, October 23, Charles Alan Wright was scheduled to appear before Judge Sirica and announce my decision on the subpoenaed tapes. The Stennis compromise had fallen apart in the wake of the Cox firing, and shortly before Wright was to leave for the court I met with him, Haig, Garment, and Buzhardt to make the final decision.

  I could see that we were going to have to act swiftly or risk an impeachment resolution being raced through the House. This threat argued for yielding the tapes. At the same time, I knew the implications of such compliance, both for the principle of executive privilege and for my personal situation. As a third option I could appeal the decision to the Supreme Court. But that would force an even more binding decision, possibly a negative one, and even greater damage would be done to the presidency and the doctrine of separation of powers.

  There were other considerations as well: some congressmen were hinting that Ford’s confirmation would be dependent on my surrendering the tapes. Finally, I felt that there was a need to relieve the domestic crisis in order to reduce the temptation the Soviets would feel to take advantage of our internal turmoil by exploiting the international crisis in the Middle East. Everyone at the meeting agreed that I should yield the tapes. It was a wrenching decision for me. I consoled myself that at least these tapes might finally prove that Dean had lied in his testimony against me. That aftern
oon Wright appeared before the bench and announced, “This President does not defy the law.”

  On October 24 the second Mideast cease-fire went into effect. But there were alarming new intelligence reports: we received information that seven Soviet airborne divisions, numbering 50,000 men, had been put on alert; and eighty-five Soviet ships, including landing craft and ships carrying troop helicopters, were now in the Mediterranean.

  That afternoon Sadat publicly requested that Brezhnev and I send a joint peacekeeping force to the Middle East. The Soviets would obviously back this idea, viewing it as an opportunity to re-establish their military presence in Egypt. Through John Scali, now our ambassador to the UN, we also picked up rumors that the Soviets were plotting for the nonaligned nations to sponsor and support a joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. force whether we liked it or not.

  I decided to use our newly opened lines of communication with Egypt to send Sadat a straightforward message:

  I have just learned that a resolution may be introduced into the Security Council this evening urging that outside military forces—including those of the U.S. and U.S.S.R.—be sent to the Middle East to enforce the cease-fire. I must tell you that if such a resolution is introduced into the Security Council, it will be vetoed by the United States for the following reasons:

  It would be impossible to assemble sufficient outside military power to represent an effective counterweight to the indigenous forces now engaged in combat in the Middle East.

  Should the two great nuclear powers be called upon to provide forces, it would introduce an extremely dangerous potential for direct great-power rivalry in the area.

  At nine o’clock that night a new message arrived from Brezhnev. He claimed to have hard information that Israeli armed forces were fighting Egyptian forces on the east bank of the Suez Canal. We knew that this was not true; it had been a relatively quiet day on the battlefront. There was clearly some ulterior motive behind Brezhnev’s message, and we would have to wait and see what it was.

  An hour later another message from Brezhnev arrived. Kissinger called Dobrynin and read it to him just to be sure there was no mistake, because this message represented perhaps the most serious threat to U.S.-Soviet relations since the Cuban missile crisis eleven years before. Brezhnev repeated his assertion that Israel was fighting despite the Security Council cease-fire. Therefore he urged that the United States and the Soviet Union each immediately dispatch military contingents to the region. He called for an immediate reply and stated that if we did not agree to the joint action he proposed, the Soviets would consider acting unilaterally.

  When Haig informed me about this message, I said that he and Kissinger should have a meeting at the White House to formulate plans for a firm reaction to what amounted to a scarcely veiled threat of unilateral Soviet intervention. Words were not making our point—we needed action, even the shock of a military alert.

  Late that night I sent Sadat another message, outlining the Soviet proposal and explaining, as I had in my earlier message, why I found intervention unacceptable:

  I asked you to consider the consequences for your country if the two great nuclear countries were thus to confront each other on your soil. I ask you further to consider the impossibility for us for undertaking the diplomatic initiative which was to start with Dr. Kissinger’s visit to Cairo on November 7 if the forces of one of the great nuclear powers were to be involved militarily on Egyptian soil.

  We are at the beginning of a new period in the Middle East. Let us not destroy it at this moment.

  In the meantime Kissinger, Haig, Schlesinger, Scowcroft, Moorer, and Director Colby of the CIA met at eleven o’clock in the White House Situation Room. Their unanimous recommendation was that we should put all American conventional and nuclear forces on military alert. In the early morning hours we flashed the word to American bases, installations, and naval units at home and around the world.

  When we were sure the Soviets had picked up the first signs of the alert, I sent a letter to the Soviet Embassy for immediate transmission to Moscow. It was directly to Brezhnev from me, and beneath the diplomatic phraseology it minced no words:

  Mr. General Secretary:

  I have carefully studied your important message of this evening. I agree with you that our understanding to act jointly for peace is of the highest value and that we should implement that understanding in this complex situation.

  I must tell you, however, that your proposal for a particular kind of joint action, that of sending Soviet and American military contingents to Egypt, is not appropriate in the present circumstances.

  We have no information which would indicate that the cease-fire is now being violated on any significant scale. . . .

  In these circumstances, we must view your suggestion of unilateral action as a matter of the gravest concern involving incalculable consequences.

  It is clear that the forces necessary to impose the cease-fire terms on the two sides would be massive and would require closest coordination so as to avoid bloodshed. This is not only clearly infeasible but it is not appropriate to the situation.

  I said that I would be prepared to agree that some American and Soviet personnel go to the area, but not as combat forces. Instead, they might be included in an augmented UN force. But even this kind of arrangement would have to follow carefully prescribed lines:

  It would be understood that this is an extraordinary and temporary step, solely for the purpose of providing adequate information concerning compliance by both sides with the terms of the cease-fire. If this is what you mean by contingents, we will consider it.

  Mr. General Secretary, in the spirit of our agreements this is the time for acting not unilaterally but in harmony and with cool heads. I believe my proposal is consonant with the letter and spirit of our understandings and would ensure a prompt implementation of the cease-fire. . . .

  You must know, however, that we could in no event accept unilateral action. . . . As I stated above, such action would produce incalculable consequences which would be in the interest of neither of our countries and which would end all we have striven so hard to achieve.

  At 7:15 A.M. on October 25 a message arrived from President Sadat that he understood our position and that he would ask the UN to provide an international peacekeeping force.

  I met with Haig and Kissinger at eight, and less than an hour later I briefed the bipartisan leadership on these latest events. The room was hushed as I described the exchanges of the last few hours. When the leaders left, they said that they were fully in support of my actions and my policy, including the military alert.

  While we were still waiting for word from Brezhnev that would indicate the Soviet reaction, Kissinger held a press conference. It had been a severe shock to the American people to wake up and find that during the night our armed forces had been placed on worldwide alert, and four of the questions at Kissinger’s press conference specifically related to whether the decision to call the alert had been based entirely on the military aspects of the situation. Some even obliquely wondered whether the decision had been totally rational. One reporter commented, “As you know, there has been some line of speculation this morning that the American alert might have been prompted as much perhaps by American domestic requirements as by the real requirements of diplomacy in the Middle East.”

  Kissinger was taken aback by the hostile and skeptical atmosphere in the room, and he replied icily: “It is a symptom of what is happening to our country that it could even be suggested that the United States would alert its forces for domestic reasons. We do not think it is wise at this moment to go into details of the diplomatic exchanges. . . . Upon the conclusion . . . we will make the record available. . . . And I am absolutely confident that it will be seen that the President had no other choice as a responsible national leader.” Later in the press conference he acknowledged that we were undergoing a major domestic crisis, and he added: “It is up to you ladies and gentlemen to determine whether this is the moment
to try to create a crisis of confidence in the field of foreign policy as well. . . . But there has to be a minimum of confidence that the senior officials of the American government are not playing with the lives of the American people.”

  As Kissinger was parrying these questions, a message arrived from Brezhnev. In a few short sentences he announced that the Soviet Union was going to send seventy individual “observers” to the Middle East. This was completely different from the military contingent he had described in his earlier letter. I responded to his message in a similarly low-keyed tone, but strongly expressed my opposition to sending even independent observers:

  I propose that at this time we leave the composition of the UN Observer Force to the discretion of the Secretary-General. . . . We do not believe it necessary to have separate observer forces from individual countries operating in the area.

  I evaluated the Soviet behavior during the Mideast crisis not as an example of the failure of détente but as an illustration of its limitations—limitations of which I had always been keenly aware. I told the bipartisan leadership meeting on October 25, “I have never said that the Soviets are ‘good guys.’ What I have always said is that we should not enter into unnecessary confrontations with them.”

  The Soviet Union will always act in its own self-interest; and so will the United States. Détente cannot change that. All we can hope from détente is that it will minimize confrontation in marginal areas and provide, at least, alternative possibilities in the major ones.

  In 1973 the Soviets, with their presence in the Middle East already reduced, feared that they would lose what little foothold they had left. As our direct approaches to Egypt and the Arab countries had met with increasing success, the Soviets had undoubtedly compensated with increased anti-Israeli bravado. Perhaps this indirectly encouraged the Arab countries, which were fanatically determined to regain the occupied territories from Israel if the Soviets would supply the means. Although Brezhnev heatedly denied it when I talked to him at Summit III in Moscow in June 1974, the Soviets may have gone even further and directly urged the Arabs to attack, lured by the tantalizing prospect that they might actually win a quick victory over the Israelis if they could combine surprise with their vastly superior numbers. The Soviets might also have assumed that the domestic crisis in the United States would deflect or deter us from aiding Israel as much or as fast as we had in the past.