“Why Does the Air Force Constantly Undercut Us?”
Nixon exploded when he heard that even after May 8, 1972, Adm. John McCain Jr. had complained about bombing restrictions.
“Apparently, the attitude that I understood was that there’s some remorse over the fact that there have again been limits put on bombing,” Vice President Spiro Agnew reported to Nixon on May 19 after returning from a trip to Asia.
“Now what in the hell is—”
“Those sons of bitches of the Air Force!” said Kissinger, cutting off the president. “If we hit this once more, I’m going to recommend to the president to fire that bastard of a chief of staff of the Air Force. There are no limits on the bombing.”
“Who’d you get this from?” Nixon asked. “Abrams?”
“McCain,” said Agnew.
As commander of American armed forces in the Pacific arena, Admiral McCain was Abrams’s superior. Nixon had considered making McCain his “supreme allied commander” in Vietnam to take control of the bombing and mining away from Abrams. “I have more confidence in the admiral than I have in Abrams,” Nixon told Haig on May 5. “Actually, you know, he’s got a son who’s a POW.”
“That’s right,” said Haig.
“And he is a little hard-line son of a bitch. Now, I know he’ll make the mining work. But for example, with regard to the allocation of bombers and everything else, I want him to do it rather than Abrams.”
Haig wasn’t sold on McCain: “I don’t have much confidence in his brainpower. His heart is great.”1
After hearing from Agnew, Nixon summoned the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Thomas Moorer, for an Oval Office dressing-down. Waiting, Nixon fumed: “The Air Force just dropped the ball in a miserable way. They aren’t worth a goddamn. They aren’t worth a goddamn. Incidentally, I want the head of that son of a bitch at the Air Force [Gen. John] Ryan today. He’s out. Out, out, out,” said the president. “They’ve got total freedom to bomb anyplace they want.”
“Of course,” said Kissinger.
Moorer entered.
Nixon began an angry monologue: “Ryan has got to get off his goddamn ass or he’s out. I’m tired of him anyway. He’s a soft man. I mean, of course, he should be, I mean, his son killed and all that sort of thing. But let me say, you know and I know, I have ordered that goddamn Air Force time and time and again to do anything, and they can’t bomb, because they say these 4[,000]—they need a 4,000-foot ceiling.” The cloud ceiling affects flight visibility. “You know and I know that they do not have restrictions. The only restriction they’ve got is the one within ten miles of Hanoi at the present time.” (American bombers were ordered to steer clear of Hanoi starting May 20 so they wouldn’t accidentally bomb the Soviet embassy while Nixon and Kissinger were attending the Moscow summit.) Nixon railed:
[]President Nixon: The Air Force didn’t do a goddamn thing for the last three days, as you know. Not one goddamn thing in North Vietnam, because the little bastards were afraid that they might not—they might lose a plane because they couldn’t see. I am tired of this bullshit! It’s been in every paper in this town. They’re telling the vice president this. As you know, they’re whining around. Now, never have they had the backing they’ve got today, and I want the military to shape up or there’s going to be a new chief of staff all up and down the line.
The president slammed his desk as he said, “Now you go take care of it right now. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, get off your ass. Now, I want you to get that son of a bitch Ryan on the phone. I want you to get McCain on the phone. Are you restricted?”
“No, sir,” said Moorer, noting the exception for the Moscow summit.
“Yeah, yeah. Are you bitching about it?”
“No, sir.”
“What the hell is the matter with these people? Why are they whining? Because they’re afraid to go in and do the job that they’ve been ordered to do? What in the hell is the matter with them now?”
Agnew intervened: “I must say that, for example, there was a spot where they had taken out some very important rail that if they had been able to go back and really take it out, they were told they couldn’t go back, so …”
“Now that is absolutely false,” said Nixon. “That is absolutely false. Not only have they been able, but I have watched every day, and the goddamn air force doesn’t go back, because they’re afraid that the weather isn’t good enough. They’ve got to have 5,000-foot ceilings. The goddamned Israelis fly at 1,000-foot ceilings. Now, tell them to get off their goddamn ass and do the job. And I—like, for example, I want some [B-] 52s to hit them. Oh, no, Abrams needs them in the South. All right, fine, we’ll keep them in the South, but for Christ’s sakes, why does the air force constantly undercut us and bitch when they’ve never been backed as they’re backed today? Tell them to do the job. Now, incidentally, I really mean it. Ryan is going to have a resignation on this desk. I’ll fire his ass out of here unless he gets some discipline in that damn outfit. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Mr. President,” said the JCS chairman.2
Nixon and his fellow Republicans, along with conservative Democrats, had turned “restrictions” and “restraints” into political curse words. He would not allow the military to apply these terms to his bombing.