“We Can Blame Them for the Whole Thing”

Unfortunately, there are no White House tapes from June 23 to July 8, 1973, when Nixon was in San Clemente, so they can’t give us a direct answer. Earlier tapes, however, show that Nixon recognized the political value of letting Congress “tie his hands” in at least one country of Indochina.

“On Cambodia, we’ve got to bomb the goddamn place until the Congress takes away the power,” Nixon told Kissinger on March 29. “We can blame them for the whole thing going to pot.” Could the Cambodian government survive without American bombing?

“No,” said Kissinger. “Cambodia cannot survive without it. It may not even survive with our bombing. In fact, I was wondering—”

“Maybe we just let her go. Make a deal now,” said the president.1

If Cambodia fell while Nixon was still bombing there, he’d get the blame for losing it. But if it fell after Congress stopped the bombing, he could pin the blame on the legislature.

“We really have to think about whether we are not better off saying these sons of bitches just are responsible for the defeat,” Kissinger told Laird on June 25, 1973—that is, just four days before Nixon issued the invitation that allowed him to blame Congress for defeat not only in Cambodia, but in Vietnam.

“Politically, you’d be better off. I don’t think Cambodia will ever work out very well anyway and I’d like to be able to blame these guys for doing it myself,” said Laird. “Henry, you know I’m kind of a black character, and I’d like to blame these guys for the incapability of getting these things resolved, because I think it’s damn touch-and-go to get it resolved as far as Cambodia is concerned anyway.”

“Yeah,” said Kissinger.

“I’d like to be able to blame them,” said Laird.2

Nixon didn’t need to save Cambodia from Communism; to profit politically, all he had to do was blame its loss on the Democrats. This was how Cold War politics was played. Republicans didn’t come up with a way to save Eastern Europe from Communism after World War II, but blaming FDR and Truman for its loss helped the GOP win the House and Senate in 1946. No one came up with a way to save China from Mao and Zhou, but claiming the Democrats lost it helped Republicans gain House and Senate seats in 1950. A Republican president was unable to achieve the victory his party called for in Korea, settling instead for an armistice dividing the country, but Reagan found a way to blame Democrats for defeat in that war. Likewise, Democrat JFK never found a way to save Cuba from Castro, but blaming Republicans for its loss helped make him president. Time after time throughout the Cold War, blaming political opponents for losing countries to Communism proved to be a highly effective way of winning elections. Politically, it paid.

Nixon clearly saw the political benefits to be reaped by allowing Congress to bar American combat of any sort in, over, and off the shores of Cambodia (and let’s not forget Laos). Could he have failed to see the political benefits of allowing Congress to “tie his hands” in North and South Vietnam as well?

With free hands, the president would face an unpalatable choice. The most likely outcome of either of his two alternatives—to bomb or not to bomb—was that Nixon himself would have gotten the blame for losing Vietnam. Both alternatives pointed to surrender or defeat. Either would have undone all his political accomplishments, destroyed the conservative coalition he had painstakingly constructed to replace FDR’s, and carved the following epitaph into every obituary, encyclopedia entry, and textbook biographical box: “Richard M. Nixon was the first American president to lose a war.”

As an alternative, he could extend his hands to Congress and tell Jerry Ford that it could go right ahead and tie them. This would solve his political problems. (It also prevented other, more thorny, political, diplomatic, and military problems from arising.) When Saigon fell, he could blame Congress.

He didn’t even wait for it to fall. The day he signed the bill, August 4, 1973, the president wrote an open letter to the Democratic Speaker of the House and Senate majority leader castigating Congress for being so irresponsible as to accept his invitation:

I would be remiss in my constitutional responsibilities if I did not warn of the hazards that lie in the path chosen by Congress.… With the passage of the congressional act, the incentive to negotiate a settlement in Cambodia has been undermined, and August 15 will accelerate this process.

This abandonment of a friend will have a profound impact in other countries, such as Thailand, which have relied on the constancy and determination of the United States, and I want the Congress to be fully aware of the consequences of its action. For my part, I assure America’s allies that this Administration will do everything permitted by Congressional action to achieve a lasting peace in Indochina.…

I can only hope that the North Vietnamese will not draw the erroneous conclusion from this Congressional action that they are free to launch a military offensive in other areas in Indochina. North Vietnam would be making a very dangerous error if it mistook the cessation of bombing in Cambodia for an invitation to fresh aggression or further violations of the Paris Agreements. The American people would respond to such aggression with appropriate action.3

“In congressional quarters,” the New York Times reported, the letter “was widely interpreted as an attempt to shift onto Congress the blame and the responsibility if Cambodia should fall to the Communists after the halt in the bombing.”4 The liberals should have foreseen that Nixon would likewise blame Congress for the loss of Vietnam. Of course, they didn’t believe he would ever allow Saigon to fall. For the remainder of his presidency, however, Nixon did not once ask Congress for authority to use American military force in North or South Vietnam.

In Years of Upheaval, the second volume of his three-part memoirs, Kissinger wrote that he objected to the decision to accept a ban on American combat in Indochina: “When I protested to Nixon, he said it was too late; he had yielded to force majeure,” a legal term for uncontrollable events that excuse people from fulfilling their contractual obligations.5 Force majeure is French for “greater force,” but Nixon had yielded to a lesser force, one he had the power to overcome. An explanation presents itself in the pattern of Nixon’s secret political decision making. We know from Nixon’s tapes that he timed the withdrawal of American ground troops to the 1972 election so he could avoid blame for losing Vietnam. We also know from his tapes and declassified documents that he had Kissinger negotiate a “decent interval” deal so he could avoid blame for losing Vietnam. We do not know from Nixon’s tapes and documents that he invited a congressional ban on American combat throughout Indochina so he could avoid blame for losing Vietnam—but to do so would have followed the pattern he set. To do otherwise would have required a profound change of character.

Vote counters inside and outside of the White House said Nixon could beat back an all-Indochina combat ban.6 It was, however, to his political advantage simply to throw the fight. I think he did.