Gov. Ronald Reagan welcomed delegates to the 1972 Republican convention with the perfect words to kick off the president’s reelection campaign: “The last American combat team is on its way home from Vietnam.” The delegates roared. It seemed like vindication at last. A wave of good news was cresting at the best possible time. It was beginning to look a lot like peace with honor.
Republicans gathered in the same Miami Beach Convention Center that the Democrats had filled one month earlier, offering home viewers a clear contrast.1 This time things went according to schedule, for maximum political benefit. Not knowing that he was speaking of a president who had timed American military withdrawal to his reelection campaign, who did not believe that prolonging the war for four years had made the South capable of standing on its own, who had secretly assured the Communists they could overthrow the Saigon government without fear of American intervention if they just waited a year or two, Reagan praised Nixon’s “idealism with integrity: [Nixon] inherited a full-blown war that had gone on seven years under two presidents. Never once after taking office did he criticize his predecessors for their conduct of the war, nor has he ever charged one of them with killing young Americans for personal political ambition.” Reagan made idealism his theme. “President Nixon’s idealism is such that he believes the people of South Vietnam should have the opportunity to live under whatever form of government and with whatever society they themselves choose,” said Reagan. “President Nixon’s idealism caused him to say this nation will do whatever has to be done so long as one young American remains in enemy hands.”2 It sounded beautiful.
Nixon accepted the nomination in a speech that used the word “peace” thirty-six times: “Peace is too important for partisanship.… There is no such thing as a retreat to peace.… We have the opportunity in our time to be the peacemakers of the world, because the world trusts and respects us.” He recalled his pledge four years earlier in that hall “to seek an honorable end to the war in Vietnam. We have made great progress toward that end.” As an example of that progress, he declared, “We have reduced our casualties by 98 percent”—the very best face he could put on the deaths of 19,118 Americans in Vietnam during his presidency. (The number of casualties per month may have declined, but no one can reduce casualties without first acquiring the power to raise the dead. Forty-one more American soldiers would die that month.)
To close, the president invoked the dearest dream of humankind: “I ask you, my fellow Americans, to join our new majority not just in the cause of winning an election, but in achieving a hope that mankind has had since the beginning of civilization. Let us build a peace that our children and all the children of the world can enjoy for generations to come.”3
In Paris on September 26–27, Le Duc Tho continued to make concessions. Hanoi’s overriding goal in the negotiations was the complete withdrawal of all American military forces—ground, naval, and air.4 The North Vietnamese hoped that the upcoming American election would put pressure on Nixon to settle.
Kissinger told them that with Nixon far ahead of McGovern in the polls, “the only danger we face in the election is not from our opposition; the only danger we face in the election is if we are accused of betraying our allies.”
The North’s proposal for a three-party coalition government was starting to look more and more like Nixon and Kissinger’s three-party election commission. Both could act only by unanimity, meaning neither would act at all.
Kissinger had come up with another synonym for “decent interval,” one that confused Le Duc Tho. “We don’t understand why you propose that the timing for the reunification will be decided upon ‘after a suitable interval following the signing of an overall agreement,’ ” said Tho. “I don’t understand the reason why. I think that this formulation of yours is vague and not necessary.”
Kissinger, as he generally did when discussing what he called the “political” issue during negotiations, spoke the language of elections: “We believe that a Committee of National Reconciliation representing three forces should be organized to insure genuinely fair and free elections, so that the Vietnamese could choose their definitive government.”5
The three-party election commission was just a smoke screen, as Kissinger told Nixon back in Washington on September 29. “You see, Mr. President, this is all baloney, because the practical consequence of our proposal, as of their proposal, is a ceasefire. There’ll never be elections. The elections would be run by a committee—or, in their case—by a government of national concord which makes decisions by unanimity. There’ll never be an electoral law. They’ll never agree on an electoral law on the basis of unanimity,” said Kissinger. “Therefore, there’ll never be elections. In either case.”
“So then what happens? They—they just resume the war later, huh?” asked the president. “But we’ll be gone.”
“Yeah. This is their face-saving way …” Kissinger didn’t finish the thought. Nixon and Kissinger’s face was being saved by the three-party election commission. It helped with the illusion that who would rule South Vietnam was a “political” question when, as this conversation confirms, it was, in fact, the decisive military question. As Kissinger said, there would never be elections.
The closer Nixon and Kissinger got to agreement with the North, the more they had to worry about confrontation with the South. Nixon and Kissinger were not the only ones who thought South Vietnam wouldn’t survive without American ground troops. So did South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu.
“He doesn’t want us out. I mean, let’s face it,” said Kissinger. “The real point is that our interests and his are now divergent. We want out and we want our prisoners. We want a ceasefire. He wants us in, he thinks he’s winning, and he wants us to continue bombing.”6
“For another two or three years,” said Nixon.
“For as long as needed,” said Kissinger.7
With a deal seeming closer than ever, there was a subtle change in the way the president talked about the war. Before meeting with Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko at the White House, Nixon spoke of drawing a line in the sand. “I intend to hit Gromyko hard,” he said on September 30. “They’ve got to hear that things are going to be goddamn tough.” The next round of negotiations would begin in one week, and Nixon was making his final offer: “If they want to settle it diplomatically, this is it.” Otherwise, “we’re just going to have to seek a military solution, and we will.”
“We can do anything that doesn’t collapse the non-communist side,” Kissinger said.
“The non-communist government of South Vietnam has got to survive.”
“Right.”
“Period.”8
Survive, period? That wasn’t a “decent interval.” Did Nixon mean that? Kissinger needed to know before he closed the deal.
On October 2, the tough talk surged. The president said he might continue to bomb and mine the North for six months after the election, even if public opinion turned against it. “So be it. Let it turn,” said Nixon. “I have determined that I am not going to sit here and preside over 55,000 American dead for a defeat. Now goddamn it, we’re not going to do it.”9
What did he mean?
To prepare Thieu for what was to come, Nixon and Kissinger dispatched Haig to Saigon. From there Haig reported on “a major confrontation” with just about every foreign policy official in the South Vietnamese government. As he and Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker “entered the palace there was a clear atmosphere of crisis.” Instead of seeing Thieu in his office, the Americans were ushered into a large conference room where he had gathered his entire National Security Council. Thieu started assailing the American proposal for a three-party commission (he called it a government) operating by unanimity.
President Thieu pointed out that under this concept a stalemate would result and culminate in his removal and in the ultimate collapse of the government of South Vietnam.… After a lengthy counter-attack by me, the session became highly charged and emotional, with Thieu in tears through much of its duration. I used just about every argument conceivable in an effort to move Thieu and his associates. In the final analysis, Thieu stated that he could not serve as president of South Vietnam and acquiesce in accepting U.S. proposals which would only result in the collapse of his government and contribute to the realization of Hanoi’s objectives.10
That was just Haig’s preliminary report. He later sent a transcript:
President Thieu: In the proposal you have suggested, our government will continue to exist. But it is only an agonizing solution and sooner or later the government will crumble and Nguyen Van Thieu will have to commit suicide somewhere along the line.11