Introduction
1. Richard M. Nixon, No More Vietnams (New York: Arbor House, 1985), 9.
2. Ibid., 97, 145.
3. George W. Ball, “Block That Vietnam Myth,” New York Times, 19 May 1985.
4. Nixon himself used the term “immoral” to describe the “decent interval” exit strategy when he claimed not to have adopted it. Nixon, No More Vietnams, 103.
5. Drew Westen, “Why Voters Say They Don’t Really Know Barack Obama,” Huffington Post, 6 September 2008, www.huffingtonpost.com/drew-westen/why-voters-say-they-dont_b_117238.html.
Fatal Politics
1. Louis Sims to Eugene P. Dagg, “Secret Service Participation in Tapings,” 6 December 1973, “RG 87 Records of the U.S. Secret Service, Memoranda, CO-1-23206—WH Taping System 1971–1974, 4” folder, RG 87, Records of the U.S. Secret Service, Installation and Maintenance of the White House Sound Recording System and Tapes, CO-1-23206—WH Taping System … to Rm 522, Box 1, Richard M. Nixon Library (hereafter RMNL).
2. Alvin Snyder, “The Final Minutes,” TV Guide, 6 August 1994, www.alvinsnyder.com/the_final_minutes_a_white_house_insider_s_intimate_look_at_a_vividly_historic_m_4636.htm.
3. Conversation 476-002, 7 April 1971, 8:59–9:20 p.m., Oval Office. All Nixon White House tapes come from the collection of the Nixon Presidential Library and are available online from the University of Virginia’s Miller Center at www.millercenter.org or from www.nixonlibrary.org.
4. “Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia,” 7 April 1971, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard M. Nixon, 1971 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1972), www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2972 (hereafter PPPUS: Nixon, 1971).
5. H. R. Haldeman, The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House: The Complete Multimedia Edition (Santa Monica, CA: Sony Electronic Publishing, 1994), 15 and 21 December 1970 (hereafter Haldeman Diaries); George Gallup, “73% Want Viet Pullout by Dec. 31,” Los Angeles Times, 31 January 1971, www.proquest.com.
6. Kissinger was still calling Haldeman “Robert” in 2003, a decade after Haldeman’s death (Henry Kissinger, Ending the Vietnam War: A History of America’s Involvement in and Extrication from the Vietnam War [New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003], 63).
7. Haldeman’s handwritten notes and memos to and from subordinates following up on presidential directives fill boxes at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California (www.nixonlibrary.gov/forresearchers/find/textual/special/smof/haldeman.php). The Nixon Library also has copies of home movies shot in the then-popular Super 8 format by Haldeman and other Nixon aides (www.nixonlibrary.gov/forresearchers/find/av/motion_film/super_8.php).
8. H. R. Haldeman, “The Decision to Record Presidential Conversations,” Prologue Magazine, Summer 1988, www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1988/summer/haldeman.html.
9. Haldeman Diaries, 8. The historian Stephen E. Ambrose describes Haldeman’s diary-recording practice in his introduction to the Diaries.
10. Ibid., 15 December 1970. Published version corrected with cassette copy of original tape-recorded entry at NARA, College Park, Maryland.
11. Ibid.
12. Egil Krogh, The Day Elvis Met Nixon (Bellevue, WA: Pejama Press, 1994), 9–12, 14, 31–37.
13. National Security Archive, “The Nixon-Presley Meeting 21 December 1970,” www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/elvis/elnix.html.
14. Haldeman Diaries, 21 December 1970.
15. Henry Kissinger, interview by Barbara Walters, The Today Show, NBC, aired 21 December 1970, White House Communications Agency Video Collection, WHCA VTR #4044.
16. “Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia,” 7 April 1971, PPPUS: Nixon, 1971, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2972.
17. Jim Stockdale and Sybil Stockdale, In Love and War: The Story of a Family’s Ordeal and Sacrifice during the Vietnam Years (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1984), 302–4.
18. William Beecher, “Laird Appeals to Enemy to Release U.S. Captives,” New York Times, 20 May 1969, www.proquest.com.
19. “Excerpts from Transcript of News Conference by Secretary of State Rogers,” New York Times, 6 June 1969, www.proquest.com.
20. Michael J. Allen, Until the Last Man Comes Home: POWs, MIAs, and the Unending Vietnam War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), Kindle edition, chap. 1, “Go Public: The Construction of Loss.”
21. Philip Fradkin, “U.S. Team Reassuring Families of Viet POWs,” Los Angeles Times, 11 July 1969, www.proquest.com.
22. Lael Morgan, “Doubt Rules Lives of POW Families,” Los Angeles Times, 14 August 1969, www.proquest.com.
23. “Hanoi Officially Tells U.S. of POW Release,” Los Angeles Times, 4 July 1969, www.proquest.com.
24. William Robbins, “Ex-P.O.W.’s Charge Hanoi with Torture,” New York Times, 3 September 1969, www.proquest.com; John S. McCain III, “John McCain, Prisoner of War: A First-Person Account,” U.S. News and World Report, 14 May 1973, www.usnews.com/news/articles/2008/01/28/john-mccain-prisoner-of-war-a-first-person-account.
25. “First Annual Report to the Congress on United States Foreign Policy for the 1970’s,” 18 January 1970, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard M. Nixon, 1970 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1971), www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2835 (hereafter PPPUS: Nixon, 1970).
26. Bryce Nelson, “List of 59 U.S. POWs in N. Vietnam Released,” Los Angeles Times, 27 November 1969, www.proquest.com.
27. Tad Szulc, “Hanoi Radio Says U.S. Prisoners Can Receive Christmas Parcels,” New York Times, 18 November 1969, www.proquest.com.
28. Conversation 471-2, 19 March 1971, 7:03–7:27 p.m., Oval Office.
29. Ibid.
30. “Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia,” 7 April 1971, PPPUS: Nixon, 1971, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2972.
31. Wayne Thompson, To Hanoi and Back: The United States Air Force and North Vietnam, 1966–1973 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000), Kindle edition, chap. 7, “Prisoners and Other Survivors.”
32. “The President/Mr. Kissinger,” 21 November 1970, 11:45 a.m., Kissinger Telcons Box 7, RMNL.
33. Richard M. Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Touchstone, 1978), 860.
34. Conversation 456-22, 23 February 1971, 4:12–6:18 p.m., Oval Office.
35. Haldeman Diaries, 23 November 1970.
36. Carol Mason, Killing for Life: The Apocalyptic Narrative of Pro-Life Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002), 28.
37. “Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia,” 7 April 1971, PPPUS: Nixon, 1971, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2972.
38. Conversation 475-016, 8 April 1971, 9:18–10:07 a.m., Oval Office. Nixon, of course, was demanding more than the POWs, and Hanoi was demanding more than American withdrawal, but this conversation shows that Nixon realized that the release depended on the withdrawal.
39. Allen, Until the Last Man Comes Home, Kindle edition, chap. 1, “Go Public: The Construction of Loss.”
40. “Text of Announcement by McGovern on 1972 Race,” New York Times, 19 January 1971, www.nytimes.com.
41. Spencer Rich, “Senate Rejects End-War Plan by 55–39 Vote,” Washington Post, 2 September 1970, www.proquest.com.
42. Conversation 465-008, 10 March 1971, 10:42 a.m.–1:15 p.m., Oval Office.
43. Conversation 456-005, 23 February 1971, 10:05–11:30 a.m., Oval Office.
44. “Address to the Nation on the War in Vietnam,” 3 November 1969, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard M. Nixon, 1969 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1971), www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2303 (hereafter PPPUS: Nixon, 1969).
Vietnamization
1. “Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia,” 7 April 1971, PPPUS: Nixon, 1971, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2972.
2. Ibid.
3. Louis Harris, “Public Backs Cambodia Step by Narrow 50–43% Margin,” Washington Post, 25 May 1970, www.proquest.com; Louis Harris, “61% Now Believe Nixon Justified in Cambodia Move,” Washington Post, 10 August 1970, www.proquest.com.
4. Henry Kissinger, The White House Years (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1979), 1004.
5. Conversation 457-001, 24 February 1971, 10:19–11:35 a.m., Oval Office.
6. Conversation 459-002, 27 February 1971, 9:35–11:57 a.m., Oval Office.
7. Conversation 464-012, 9 March 1971, 12:26–1:30 p.m., Oval Office.
8. “Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia,” 7 April 1971, PPPUS: Nixon, 1971, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2972.
9. Ibid.
10. E. W. Kenworthy, “Nixon Would Push for a Bigger Role by Saigon in War,” New York Times, 30 September 1968, www.proquest.com; “Transcript of Speech by the Vice President on Foreign Policy,” New York Times, 1 October 1968, www.proquest.com.
11. “Address to the Nation on the War in Vietnam,” 3 November 1969, PPPUS: Nixon, 1969, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2303.
12. “The President’s News Conference,” 30 July 1970, PPPUS: Nixon, 1970, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2603.
13. NSC to Vice President’s Office, “Revised Summary of Responses to NSSM-1: The Situation in Vietnam,” 22 March 1969, Digital National Security Archive, http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:dnsa&rft_dat=xri:dnsa:article:CPD01323.
14. “Address to the Nation on the War in Vietnam,” 3 November 1969, PPPUS: Nixon, 1969, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2303.
15. “Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia,” 7 April 1971, PPPUS: Nixon, 1971, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2972.
16. Ibid.
17. Conversation 466-012, 11 March 1971, 4:00–4:55 p.m., Oval Office.
18. Ibid.
“A Nightmare of Recrimination”
1. “Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia,” 7 April 1971, PPPUS: Nixon, 1971, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2972.
2. Conversation 474-008, 26 March 1971, 4:09–4:53 p.m., Oval Office.
3. Conversation 457-001, 24 February 1971, 10:19–11:35 a.m., Oval Office.
4. “Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia,” 7 April 1971, PPPUS: Nixon, 1971, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2972.
5. Conversation 246-007, 7 April 1971, 12:16–2:00 p.m., Executive Office Building.
6. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, The Final Days (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1976), Kindle edition, “Wednesday, August 7.”
7. Conversation 001-010, 7 April 1971, 9:31–9:39 p.m., White House Telephone.
8. Conversation 246-017, 7 April 1971, 3:15–3:55 p.m., Executive Office Building.
9. Conversation 001-010, 7 April 1971, 9:31–9:39 p.m., White House Telephone.
1. Max Frankel, “Nixon Promises Pullout of 100,000 More G.I.’s by December,” New York Times; Chalmers M. Roberts, “Nixon Sets 100,000 Troop Cut; President Refuses to Fix a Deadline,” Washington Post; David Kraslow, “Vietnamization Success—Nixon.” All three stories are from 8 April 1971, www.proquest.com.
2. James M. Naughton, “Salute Returned to Boy by Nixon; President Recalls Son of a Hero in Ending Speech,” New York Times, 8 April 1971, www.proquest.com; Carl Bernstein, “Kevin Taylor, 4, Saluted Nixon February and Didn’t Forget,” Washington Post, 8 April 1971, www.proquest.com.
3. Summaries of ABC Evening News and CBS Evening News, 8 April 1971, http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu.
4. Carl Bernstein, “Kevin Taylor, 4, Saluted Nixon February and Didn’t Forget,” Washington Post, 8 April 1971, www.proquest.com.
5. Conversation 475-016, 8 April 1971, 9:18–10:07 a.m., Oval Office.
6. Conversation 001-017, 7 April 1971, 10:07–10:16 p.m., White House Telephone.
7. Conversation 475-021, 8 April 1971, 1:12–2:00 p.m., Oval Office.
8. Conversation 460-028, 26 February 1971, 6:09–6:45 p.m., Oval Office; Brigadier General James D. Hughes to Haldeman, 2 March 1971, “General [James D.] Hughes March 1971” folder, Haldeman Box 75, Staff Member and Office Files—White House Special Files (hereafter WHSF-SMOF), RMNL.
9. Conversation 475-021, 8 April 1971, 1:12–2:00 p.m., Oval Office.
10. Ibid.
11. Conversation 476-014, 9 April 1971, 11:40 a.m.–1:30 p.m., Oval Office. Haldeman didn’t name the pollster.
12. “3 Senators Aver Nixon Said He Had Pullout Deadline,” New York Times, 9 April 1971, www.nytimes.com; David S. Broder and Spencer Rich, “White House, Scott Split on Pullout Date,” Washington Post, 9 April 1971, www.proquest.com.
13. Conversation 476-007, 9 April 1971, 8:52–9:58 a.m., Oval Office.
How to Kill a Withdrawal Deadline
1. Conversation 479-007, 14 April 1971, 12:40–2:11 p.m., Oval Office.
2. Conversation 481-003, 17 April 1971, 8:56–9:13 a.m., Oval Office.
3. Ibid.
4. “Panel Interview at the Annual Convention of the American Society of Newspaper Editors,” 16 April 1971, PPPUS: Nixon, 1971, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2982.
5. John Chancellor, NBC Evening News, aired 17 April 1971, White House Communications Agency Video Collection, WHCA #4300.
6. Don Oberdorfer, “President Links U.S. Withdrawal to POW Release; Capability of Saigon Also Stressed,” Washington Post, 17 April 1971, www.proquest.com.
“I’m Being Perfectly Cynical”
1. “Address to the Nation on the War in Vietnam,” 3 November 1969, PPPUS: Nixon, 1969, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2303.
2. Henry Kissinger, Henry Kissinger: The Complete Memoirs E-book Boxed Set: “White House Years,” “Years of Upheaval,” “Years of Renewal” (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2013), Kindle edition, chap. 12, “The War Widens.”
3. “Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia,” 7 April 1971, PPPUS: Nixon, 1971, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2972.
4. Conversation 465-008, 10 March 1971, 10:42 a.m.–1:15 p.m., Oval Office.
5. Jeffrey Kimball, The Vietnam War Files (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004), 133–34. Nixon repeated his public demand that all outside forces withdraw when he revealed the secret talks in 1972 (“Address to the Nation Making Public a Plan for Peace in Vietnam,” 25 January 1972, PPPUS: Nixon, 1972, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3475).
6. Conversation 507-004, 29 May 1971, 8:13–10:32 a.m., Oval Office.
7. William F. Buckley, Right Reason (Boston: Little, Brown, 1986), 311.
8. Conversation 507-004, 29 May 1971, 8:13–10:32 a.m., Oval Office.
9. Ibid.; “Memorandum of Conversation,” 31 May 1971, 10:00 a.m.–1:30 p.m., “Camp David—Vol. VII” folder, NSCF Box 853, RMNL.
“We Want a Decent Interval”
1. “Polo I Kissinger (Briefing Book) July 1971 Trip to China,” NSCF Box 850, RMNL.
2. Winston Lord, “Nixon in China, 40 Years Later,” Huffington Post, 22 February 2012, www.huffingtonpost.com/winston-lord/nixon-in-china-40-years-l_b_1293643.html.
3. Conversation 002-052, 27 April 1971, 8:16–8:36 p.m., White House Telephone; “The President/Mr. Kissinger,” 8:18 p.m., NSCF Box 1031, National Security Archive, RMNL, www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB66/ch-18.pdf.
4. Richard M. Nixon, “Asia after Viet Nam,” Foreign Affairs (October 1967), www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/23927/richard-m-nixon/asia-after-viet-nam.
5. William Bundy, A Tangled Web: The Making of Foreign Policy in the Nixon Presidency (New York: Hill and Wang, 1998), 106.
6. Conversation 001-081, 14 April 1971, 7:27–7:40 p.m., White House Telephone.
7. Associated Press, “In ’51, Nixon Criticized Truman Secrecy on Korea,” New York Times, 24 June 1971, www.proquest.com.
8. Reagan found the perfect way to express both military-industrial supremacy and strategic frustration on this point: “It’s silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas.” Paving North Vietnam, however, would have given the Chinese a highway south (Rick Perlstein, The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan [New York: Simon and Schuster, 2014], Kindle edition, chap. 5, “A Whale of a Good Cheerleader”).
9. Reuters, “China Won’t Be Idle; Hanoi Warns Nixon,” Washington Post, 19 February 1971, www.proquest.com.
10. Conversation 451-023, 18 February 1971, 6:16–6:37 p.m., Oval Office.
11. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 9 July 1971, 4:35–11:20 p.m., attached to Lord to Kissinger, “Memcon of Your Conversations with Chou En-lai,” 29 July 1971, NSCF Box 1033, RMNL.
12. Conversation 001-091, 14 April 1971, 8:05–8:12 p.m., White House Telephone.
13. Conversation 001-101, 15 April 1971, 7:31–7:33 p.m., White House Telephone.
14. Conversation 534-002, 1 July 1971, 8:45–9:52 a.m., Oval Office.
15. Conversation 532-011, 30 June 1971, 10:18–10:30 a.m., Oval Office.
16. Conversation 534-003, 1 July 1971, 9:54–10:26 a.m., Oval Office.
17. Conversation 534-002, 1 July 1971, 8:45–9:52 a.m., Oval Office.
18. Conversation 534-003, 1 July 1971, 9:54–10:26 a.m., Oval Office.
Meeting Zhou
1. Kissinger, White House Years, 743.
2. Ibid., 743, 745.
3. Ibid., 746.
4. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 9 July 1971, 4:35–11:20 p.m., attached to Lord to Kissinger, “Memcon of Your Conversations with Chou En-lai,” 29 July 1971, NSCF Box 1033, RMNL.
5. Kissinger, White House Years, 743–49.
6. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 9 July 1971, 4:35–11:20 p.m., attached to Lord to Kissinger, “Memcon of Your Conversations with Chou En-lai,” 29 July 1971, NSCF Box 1033, RMNL.
7. Jussi Hanhimäki deserves credit for first uncovering most of the quotes from Polo I in this chapter (Hanhimäki, “Some More ‘Smoking Guns’? The Vietnam War and Kissinger’s Summitry with Moscow and Beijing, 1971–1973,” Passport, December 2001).
“Old Friends”
1. “Remarks to the Nation Announcing Acceptance of an Invitation to Visit the People’s Republic of China,” 15 July 1971, PPPUS: Nixon, 1971, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3079.
2. John Chancellor, “Richard Nixon Announcement Re: Trip to China,” NBC Special Program, 15 July 1971, http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu; Seymour Topping, “ ‘Journey for Peace’; President Will Seek to Break Down 21-Year-Old Great Wall of Hostility,” New York Times, 16 July 1971, www.proquest.com; David Kraslow, “Profound Impact on Foreign Affairs Expected,” Los Angeles Times, 16 July 1971, www.proquest.com; Frank Starr and John W. Finney, “Congress Chiefs Pleased; Support Is Bipartisan,” New York Times, 16 July 1971, www.proquest.com; Associated Press, “NBC Bids for Live TV on Nixon in China,” Chicago Tribune, 16 July 1971, www.proquest.com.
3. Sezig S. Harrison, “Taiwan Protests Nixon Announcement,” Washington Post, 16 July 1971, www.proquest.com; William Fulton, “17 Nations Ask U.N. to Seat Red China,” Chicago Tribune, 16 July 1971, www.proquest.com; Tribune Wire Service, “Ford Sees Indochina Peace Talks Resulting from Visit,” Chicago Tribune, 16 July 1971, www.proquest.com.
4. Carroll Kilpatrick, “Groundwork Laid by Kissinger, Chou in Secret Meeting,” Washington Post, 16 July 1971, www.proquest.com; Tad Szulc, “Kissinger Visit Capped 2-Year Effort,” New York Times, 16 July 1971, www.proquest.com; Chicago Tribune Press Service, “Kissinger Sure to Be a Legend: Already a Swinger,” Chicago Tribune, 16 July 1971, www.proquest.com; Time cover, 26 July 1971, www.timecoverstore.com/product/henry-kissinger-and-richard-nixon-1971-07-26; Bernard Law Collier, “The Road to Peking, or, How Does This Kissinger Do It?,” New York Times, 14 November 1971, www.proquest.com.
“He Deserves Our Confidence”
1. United Press International, “Nixon Move Pleases Reagan,” New York Times, 17 July 1971, www.proquest.com.
2. “New Policy for China Imperative, Says Nixon,” Los Angeles Times, 7 November 1950, www.proquest.com.
3. The House has a handy chart of membership by party throughout its history at http://history.house.gov/Institution/Party-Divisions/Party-Divisions/. Robert C. Albright, “Senate Count, 49-97, Aids Coalition Power; GOP Boosts House Membership by 31,” Washington Post, 9 November 1950, www.proquest.com.
4. Carl Greenberg, “Nixon’s Convention Delegation Open to All, Reagan Says,” Los Angeles Times, 3 October 1971, www.proquest.com.
5. Ibid.
6. “The Two Worlds: A Day-Long Debate,” New York Times, 25 July 1959, www.proquest.com.
7. “Address before a Joint Session of Congress,” 25 January 1984, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan, 1984 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1986), www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1984/12584e.htm.
8. Carl Greenberg, “Nixon’s Convention Delegation Open to All, Reagan Says,” Los Angeles Times, 3 October 1971, www.proquest.com.
9. Consider Nixon’s attacks on Adlai Stevenson, the 1952 Democratic presidential nominee. Nixon called him “Adlai the appeaser … who got a Ph.D. degree from [Secretary of State Dean] Acheson’s College of Cowardly Communist Containment” (David Greenberg, Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image [New York: Norton, 2004], 55). While claiming not to question the Democrat’s loyalty, Nixon said, “Mr. Stevenson has lined up consistently with those who minimize and cover up the Communist threat” (Associated Press, “Nixon Declares Adlai ‘Color Blind’ on Reds,” Washington Post, 26 October 1952, www.proquest.com).
JFK v. Nixon
1. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965), Kindle edition, chap. 9, “The Hour of Euphoria: Castro and Kennedy.”
2. “Text of Statement by Kennedy on Dealing with Castro Regime,” New York Times, 21 October 1960, www.proquest.com.
3. Peter Kihss, “Kennedy Asks Aid for Cuban Rebels to Defeat Castro,” New York Times, 21 October 1960, www.proquest.com.
4. Jack Raymond, “Pentagon Backed by Key Democrat,” New York Times, 4 May 1960, www.proquest.com; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, Kindle edition, chap. 12, “New Departures: The Reconstruction of National Strategy”; Robert S. McNamara and Brian VanDeMark, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lesson of Vietnam (New York: Times Books, 1995), 20.
5. Jack Raymond, “President Backs Defense Program as Criticism Rises,” New York Times, 28 August 1958, www.proquest.com.
6. Jack Raymond, “Kennedy Defense Study Finds No Evidence of a ‘Missile Gap,’ ” New York Times, 7 February 1961, www.proquest.com; McNamara and VanDeMark, In Retrospect, 21.
7. “September 26, 1960 Debate Transcript,” Commission on Presidential Debates, www.debates.org/index.php?page=september-26-1960-debate-transcript. Kennedy misquoted Lincoln, who asked if America could endure “half slave and half free.” Asking if the nation or world could exist “half-slave or half-free” is like asking if a glass of milk is half-full or half-empty.
8. “Eisenhower Gives Nixon His Full Backing, Says He Took Part in Many Key Decisions,” Wall Street Journal, 30 September 1960, www.proquest.com.
9. Richard M. Nixon, “Nixon Calls Kennedy’s Foreign Policy Weak,” Washington Post, 24 July 1961, www.proquest.com.
10. United Press International, “Nixon Says Kennedy Erred in Cuba, Laos,” Los Angeles Times, 14 September 1961, www.proquest.com.
11. Don Shannon, “Macmillan, Kennedy OK Laos Plan,” Los Angeles Times, 7 April 1961, www.proquest.com.
12. Richard M. Nixon, “Nixon Calls Kennedy’s Foreign Policy Weak,” Washington Post, 24 July 1961, www.proquest.com.
13. Reuters, “Coalition Regime in Laos Abolished,” New York Times, 4 December 1975, www.proquest.com.
14. United Press International, “Nixon Backs Kennedy Build-Up of U.S. Armed Force in Vietnam,” New York Times, 16 February 1962, www.proquest.com.
15. Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers (New York: Viking, 2002), 195.
16. “I didn’t say I was going to force a coalition government on South Vietnam,” McCarthy replied (“Excerpts from the Kennedy-McCarthy Televised Discussion,” New York Times, 2 June 1968, www.proquest.com; R. W. Apple Jr., “Kennedy Disputes M’Carthy on War in TV Discussion,” New York Times, 2 June 1968, www.proquest.com; Ellsberg, Secrets, 195).
17. Cong. Rec. 18,783 (8 June 1971) (qtd. in statement of Sen. Philip Hart).
18. R. W. Apple Jr., “Nixon Would Bar Forced Coalition in South Vietnam,” New York Times, 28 October 1968, www.nytimes.com.
19. “Address to the Nation on the War in Vietnam,” 3 November 1969, PPPUS: Nixon, 1969, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2303.
1. Cong. Rec. 18,783 (8 June 1971) (qtd. in statement of Sen. Philip Hart).
2. Kenneth O’Donnell, “LBJ and the Kennedys,” Life, 7 August 1970.
3. Debate about JFK’s intentions regarding Vietnam rages on. Some of it is captured by James Blight, Janet M. Lang, and David A. Welch in Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived: Virtual JFK (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009).
4. Kenneth P. O’Donnell, David F. Powers, and Joe McCarthy, Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye: Memories of John Fitzgerald Kennedy (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970, 1972), 18.
5. Ellsberg, Secrets, 195.
6. Rusk is quoted in Michael Charlton, Anthony Charlton, and Anthony Moncrieff, Many Reasons Why (New York: Hill and Wang, 1978), 82. See also Dean Rusk and Richard Rusk, As I Saw It, ed. Daniel S. Papp (New York: Norton, 1990), 441–42.
7. Ronald Reagan, untitled speech at Republican fund-raising dinner in Boston, Massachusetts, 14 June 1971, Tape #432, Gubernatorial Audiotape Collection, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library; David Kraslow, “Reagan Scores Kennedy for Stand on War,” Los Angeles Times, 15 June 1971, www.proquest.com.
8. In the 1968 presidential campaign, Sen. Bourke Hickenlooper, R-Iowa, accused Lyndon Johnson of halting the bombing of North Vietnam to sway the election in favor of Vice President Hubert Humphrey, saying, “It’s tragic that American lives are being played with this way.” John W. Finney, “Doves and Hawks Divided on Johnson’s Move,” New York Times, 1 November 1968, www.nytimes.com. For a thorough examination of LBJ’s motives for halting the bombing, see Ken Hughes, Chasing Shadows: The Nixon Tapes, The Chennault Affair, and the Origins of Watergate (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2014), 1–43. More than one Republican accused Franklin Roosevelt of advance knowledge of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Although LBJ and FDR were thoroughly political men, these specific allegations of playing politics with American lives were false—unlike the one that Kennedy was leveling against Nixon. Nevertheless, Republicans cheered Reagan’s paean to the nobility of their party’s politicians (David Greenberg, “Who Lost Pearl Harbor?” Slate, 7 December 2000, www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history_lesson/2000/12/who_lost_pearl_harbor.html).
9. David Kraslow, “Apologize to President, Reagan Tells Kennedy,” Los Angeles Times, 16 June 1971, www.proquest.com.
10. United Press International, “Humphrey Says Nixon Shuns Politics on War,” New York Times, 10 June 1971, www.proquest.com.
11. Cong. Rec. 18,936 (9 June 1971) (statement of Sen. Hubert Humphrey).
12. United Press International, “Humphrey Says Nixon Shuns Politics on War,” New York Times, 10 June 1971, www.proquest.com.
13. Conversation 005-002, 10 June 1971, 2:53–2:57 p.m., White House Telephone.
14. Ibid.
15. “Transcript of Speech by the Vice President,” New York Times, 1 October 1968, www.proquest.com.
16. It’s interesting to note that Humphrey said he, too, would have appointed Henry Kissinger national security adviser if he, not Nixon, had won the 1968 election. With the same adviser, President Humphrey would have received much the same advice. Hubert H. Humphrey, The Education of a Public Man: My Life and Politics, ed. Norman Sherman (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976), 9.
17. Mark Katz has made the phrase “leaving without losing” famous with a book of that title. I independently came up with the same alliteration and used it publicly before his book came out, but Katz deserves credit for coining it as well and for getting it into print first (see Mark N. Katz, Leaving without Losing: The War on Terror after Iraq and Afghanistan [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012]).
18. “Address to the Nation on Vietnam,” 14 May 1969, PPPUS: Nixon, 1969, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2047; “Nixon’s Popularity Found at High Point,” New York Times, 6 February 1973, www.proquest.com.
19. David R. Derge, Vice President and Dean of Indiana University, to President Nixon, “The Public Appraises the Nixon Administration and Key Issues (With Particular Emphasis on Vietnam),” 11 August 1969, “E.O.B. Office Desk—August 10, 1974” folder, Box 185, President’s Personal File, Materials Removed from President’s Desk, 1969–74, [EOB Office Desk … Administration] to [Blank Stationery—… August 9, 1974], RMNL.
20. “Address to the Nation on the War in Vietnam,” 3 November 1969, PPPUS: Nixon, 1969, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2303.
21. George Gallup, “Nixon’s Popularity Rises to New High,” Los Angeles Times, 23 November 1969, www.proquest.com.
22. “Nixon’s Popularity Found at High Point,” New York Times, 6 February 1973, www.proquest.com.
23. “Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia,” 30 April 1970, PPPUS: Nixon, 1970, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2490.
24. “Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia,” 8 May 1972, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard M. Nixon, 1972 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1974), www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3404 (hereafter PPPUS: Nixon, 1972).
The Liberal Mistake
1. Hughes, Chasing Shadows, 94–96.
2. Hoover to Nixon, 29 December 1969, and undated handwritten notes between Ehrlichman and Haldeman, in House Committee on the Judiciary, Statement of Information: Book 7, Part 1: White House Surveillance Activities and Campaign Activities (Washington, DC: GPO, 1974), 359–68.
3. Halperin affidavit, 30 November 1973, in House Committee on the Judiciary, Statement of Information: Book 7, Part 1: White House Surveillance Activities and Campaign Activities, 218–21.
4. “Address to the Nation on the War in Vietnam,” 3 November 1969, PPPUS: Nixon, 1969, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2303; “Address to the Nation on Progress toward Peace in Vietnam,” 15 December 1969, ibid., www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2370; “Address to the Nation on Progress toward Peace in Vietnam,” 20 April 1970, PPUS: Nixon, 1970, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2476.
5. Les Gelb and Morton H. Halperin, “Only a Timetable Can Extricate Nixon,” Washington Post, 24 May 1970, www.proquest.com.
6. Leslie H. Gelb and Morton H. Halperin, “Two ‘Offers’ on Vietnam Are Still Far Apart,” Washington Post, 11 October 1970, www.proquest.com.
7. Townsend Hoopes and Paul C. Warnke, “Nixon Is Really Just Digging In,” Washington Post, 21 June 1970, www.proquest.com.
8. See John Herbers, “Clifford Terms War Key ’72 Issue,” New York Times, 23 June 1972, www.proquest.com.
9. “Reaction to Talk Mixed in Capitol,” New York Times, 8 April 1971, www.proquest.com.
10. “Excerpts from Democrats’ Remarks on Vietnam,” New York Times, 23 April 1971, www.proquest.com.
11. Ellsberg, Secrets, 229.
12. Ibid., 257–58.
“Super Secret Agent”
1. Richard Reeves, Alone in the White House (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001), 428.
2. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 22 February 1972, 2:10–6:10 p.m., President’s Office Files Box 87, RMNL.
3. Ibid.
Sixty-Six Percent for Six Months
1. “Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia,” 8 May 1972, PPPUS: Nixon, 1972, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3404.
2. Nixon, No More Vietnams, 145.
3. David R. Derge, Vice President and Dean of Indiana University, to President Nixon, “The Public Appraises the Nixon Administration and Key Issues (With Particular Emphasis on Vietnam),” 11 August 1969, “E.O.B. Office Desk—August 10, 1974” folder, Box 185, President’s Personal File, Materials Removed from President’s Desk, 1969–74, [EOB Office Desk … Administration] to [Blank Stationery—… August 9, 1974], RMNL.
4. Nixon, RN, 603.
5. “Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia,” 8 May 1972, PPPUS: Nixon, 1972, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3404.
6. Craig R. Whitney, “Foe Sweeps across DMZ; Saigon Troops Fall Back; Clouds Block U.S. Plans; Advisers Uneasy,” New York Times, 2 April 1972, www.proquest.com; Craig Whitney, “Half of Province in South Vietnam Lost to Invaders,” New York Times, 3 April 1972, www.proquest.com; “N. Viet Invasion Stalls as Allies Launch Huge Counteroffensive,” Los Angeles Times, 4 April 1972, www.proquest.com; Associated Press, “Reds Open Front near Saigon; South Vietnam Fights for Life, Thieu Says,” Los Angeles Times, 5 April 1972, www.proquest.com; Michael Getler, “U.S. Sternly Warns Hanoi, Readies New Air Buildup,” Washington Post, 7 April 1972, www.proquest.com; “Laird Confirms U.S. Will Bomb until Reds Withdraw, Negotiate,” Los Angeles Times, 7 April 1972, www.proquest.com.
7. Craig R. Whitney, “U.S. Analysts in Saigon Say Hanoi Threw All but One Division into the Offensive,” New York Times, 10 April 1972, www.proquest.com. Hanoi had two additional “training” divisions in the North (Associated Press, “U.S. Identifies Hanoi Divisions in Fighting,” Los Angeles Times, 22 April 1972, www.proquest.com). George McArthur, “100,000 Enemy Force Seen in Action Soon,” Los Angeles Times, 10 April 1972, www.proquest.com.
8. Malcolm W. Browne, “Key Highlands Base Reported Overrun in a Major Offensive by Enemy Tanks,” New York Times, 24 April 1972, www.proquest.com; Craig R. Whitney, “Saigon’s Forces Flee in Disorder toward Kontum,” New York Times, 25 April 1972, www.proquest.com.
9. William M. Hammond, Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1968–1973, United States Army in Vietnam series (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1996), 538.
10. Reuters, “U.S. War Dead at Six-Month High,” Los Angeles Times, 7 April 1972, www.proquest.com.
11. Hammond, Public Affairs, 1968–1973, 538–39.
12. “Address to the Nation on Vietnam,” 26 April 1972, PPPUS: Nixon, 1972, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3384.
13. Alexander M. Haig Jr., Inner Circles: How America Changed the World: A Memoir (New York: Warner, 1992), 282.
14. Malcolm W. Browne, “Fear of Foe Grips People of Pleiku; Hundreds Try to Flee Town in Highlands Expecting the Enemy to Overrun It Soon,” New York Times, 29 April 1972, www.proquest.com; Fox Butterfield, “Enemy Artillery Batters Quangtri as Ring Tightens,” New York Times, 30 April 1972, www.proquest.com; Malcolm W. Browne, “Thousands Flee Kontum in Panic as Enemy Nears,” New York Times, 1 May 1972, www.proquest.com; Peter Osnos, “Quangtri’s Fall Stuns South Vietnam; Loss of Quangtri Province Shakes Vietnam’s Morale,” Washington Post, 3 May 1972, www.proquest.com; Sydney Schanberg, “ ‘It’s Everyone for Himself’ As Troops Rampage in Hue,” New York Times, 4 May 1972, www.proquest.com; Fox Butterfield, “Enemy Overruns Base near Pleiku, Killing about 80,” New York Times, 6 May 1972, www.proquest.com.
15. “Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia,” 8 May 1972, PPPUS: Nixon, 1972, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3404.
16. Nixon, No More Vietnams, 145.
17. Conversation 334-010, 2 May 1972, 9:28–10:00 a.m., Executive Office Building.
18. Qtd. in Hammond, Public Affairs, 1968–1973, 567.
19. Conversation 726-001, 19 May 1972, 10:30–11:42 a.m., Oval Office.
20. Hammond, Public Affairs, 1968–1973, 568.
21. Conversation 335-033, 5 May 1972, 2:10–3:15 p.m., Executive Office Building.
22. Lewis Sorley, A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam (San Diego: Harcourt, 1999), 327–28.
23. Lewis Sorley, Vietnam Chronicles: The Abrams Tapes, 1968–1972 (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2004), 833.
24. Terence Smith, “ ‘Test Has Finally Come’: Administration Officials Are Cautious but Optimistic on Vietnamization Fate,” New York Times, 6 April 1972, www.proquest.com.
25. Sorley, A Better War, 329–30.
26. Ibid., 325.
27. Hammond, Public Affairs, 1968–1973, 564–66.
28. Ibid., 567–68.
29. John Randolph, “U.S. Leaving Khe Sanh Because It Became a Military Liability,” Los Angeles Times, 30 June 1968, www.proquest.com.
30. Ibid.
31. Nixon, No More Vietnams, 150–51. The “debacle” quote of Abrams comes from Hammond, Public Affairs, 1968–1973, 553. The Office of Joint History agreed that “it should have been equally clear that if Saigon’s forces alone had been pitted against Hanoi’s, the South Vietnamese would not have fought successfully” (Willard J. Webb and Walter S. Poole, The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973 [Washington, DC: GPO, 2007], 160).
32. Stephen P. Randolph, Powerful and Brutal Weapons: Nixon, Kissinger, and the Easter Offensive (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007), 337.
33. Sorley, A Better War, 327; Webb and Poole, The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973, 177; Randolph, Powerful and Brutal Weapons, 338; Nixon, No More Vietnams, 148–49; Kimball, The Vietnam War Files, 238. Kimball quotes an 11 August 1972 CIA memo assessing the bombing and mining’s impact.
34. Nixon, No More Vietnams, 149.
35. Webb and Poole, The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973, 187.
36. Tad Szulc, “Hanoi Held Able to Fight 2 Years at Present Rate,” New York Times, 13 September 1972, www.proquest.com.
37. CIA Intelligence Memorandum, 11 August 1972, qtd. in Kimball, The Vietnam War Files, 238; Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1969–1976: Vietnam, January–October 1972, ed. John M. Carland (Washington, DC: GPO, 2010), 8: Document 236 (hereafter FRUS 1969–1976, 8).
38. Stephen Randolph writes that Linebacker was indeed “crippling” the North, yet he finds that despite this, the North’s troops managed to stay in the South “and ultimately to achieve their minimum strategic objectives” (Randolph, Powerful and Brutal Weapons, 338).
39. Laird to Kissinger, 6 April 1972, Digital National Security Archive, http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:dnsa&rft_dat=xri:dnsa:article:CVW00105.
40. Nixon, No More Vietnams, 145.
41. Ellsberg, Secrets, 416.
42. Spencer Rich, “A Kissinger Study,” Washington Post, 25 April 1972, www.proquest.com.
43. R. J. Smith to Kissinger, “NSC Staff Review of Response to NSSM 1,” 19 March 1969, Digital National Security Archive, http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:dnsa&rft_dat=xri:dnsa:article:CPR00283.
44. Tad Szulc, “1969 Study Shows War Policy Split,” New York Times, 26 April 1972, www.proquest.com. Only latter-day muckraker Jack Anderson focused on NSSM-1’s implications for Vietnamization: “All the experts agreed that the South Vietnamese armed forces, ‘in the foreseeable future,’ couldn’t fight off the Vietcong and North Vietnamese ‘without U.S. combat support in the form of air, helicopters, logistics and some ground forces’ ” (Jack Anderson, “’69 Study Told of Saigon Weakness,” Washington Post, 26 April 1972, www.proquest.com). Ellsberg didn’t have the final version of NSSM-1, which put Saigon’s dependency in stronger terms by saying the South needed the United States to provide “major ground forces” (NSC to Vice President’s Office, “Revised Summary of Responses to NSSM-1: The Situation in Vietnam,” 22 March 1969, Digital National Security Archive, http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:dnsa&rft_dat=xri:dnsa:article:CPD01323).
45. Nixon, No More Vietnams, 146.
46. Merle L. Pribbenow, trans., Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002), 301.
47. Nixon, No More Vietnams, 150.
48. Louis Harris, “59% of Public Backs Nixon Viet Moves,” Washington Post, 13 May 1972, www.proquest.com.
49. Conversation 726-001, 19 May 1972, 10:30–11:42 a.m., Oval Office.
50. Conversation 773-012, 8 September 1972, 11:49 a.m.–12:12 p.m., Oval Office.
51. James Mann, The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War (New York: Viking, 2009), 233.
“One Arm Tied Behind”
1. Earl Mazo, “Nixon Asserts U.S. Risks Defeat Soon in Vietnam Conflict,” New York Times, 27 January 1965, www.proquest.com; Nixon, RN, 270–71.
2. “Goldwater Asks More Air Strikes,” New York Times, 22 February 1965, www.nytimes.com.
3. James Reston, “Washington: The Politics of Vietnam,” New York Times, 16 June 1965, www.nytimes.com.
4. E. W. Kenworthy, “G.O.P. House Chief in Vietnam Plea,” New York Times, 2 July 1965, www.nytimes.com.
5. David S. Broder, “G.O.P. Finds Rising Peril of ‘Endless’ Vietnam War,” New York Times, 14 December 1965, www.nytimes.com.
6. 112-a Cong. Rec. 6404 (daily ed., 21 March 1966) (statement of Sen. Richard Russell).
7. “How We Can Win in Viet Nam,” Human Events, 28 January 1967, www.proquest.com.
8. “Reagan Urges Escalation to Win the War ‘Quickly,’ ” New York Times, 13 September 1967, www.proquest.com.
9. Qtd. in Bernard von Bothmer, Framing the Sixties: The Use and Abuse of a Decade from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010), Kindle edition, chap. 4, “Reagan and the Memory of the Vietnam War: Purging the Ghosts of Vietnam.”
“Why Does the Air Force Constantly Undercut Us?”
1. Conversation 335-033, 5 May 1972, 2:10–3:15 p.m., Executive Office Building.
2. Conversation 726-001, 19 May 1972, 10:30–11:42 a.m., Oval Office.
The Appearance of Success
1. Webb and Poole, The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973, 164–65.
2. Jacques Leslie, “S. Vietnam Troops Turn Back Red Attack at Kontum,” Los Angeles Times, 15 May 1972, www.proquest.com; George McArthur, “S. Viet Units Break Long Kontum Siege, Push on Quang Tri,” Los Angeles Times, 1 July 1972, www.proquest.com; Joseph B. Treaster, “Saigon Reports Its Troops Enter Quangtri Capital,” New York Times, 5 July 1972, www.proquest.com; Associated Press, “Saigon Reports Repulsing an Enemy Attack on a Pleiku Outpost,” New York Times, 6 September 1972, www.proquest.com.
3. “I will only say the bombing and mining was essential to turn around what was a potentially disastrous situation in South Vietnam. The back of the enemy offensive has been broken. They hold no provincial capitals now at all. This could not have been accomplished without the mining and the bombing,” Nixon said (“The President’s News Conference,” 5 October 1972, PPPUS: Nixon, 1972, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3617).
4. Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary translates it from the Latin as “after this, therefore on account of it (a fallacy of argument)” (www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc).
“Any Means Necessary”
1. Nixon, No More Vietnams, 149.
2. Larry Berman, No Peace, No Honor: Nixon, Kissinger, and Betrayal in Vietnam (New York: Free Press, 2001), 37–39.
3. Unsigned and undated document in “Sensitive Camp David—Vol. 1” folder, NSCF Box 852, RMNL. The document is unidentifiable as the ultimatum Sainteny issued on Nixon’s behalf because Nixon quoted the “to measures of great consequence and force” passage in his memoirs, but not the more threatening “by any means necessary” passage (Nixon, RN, 393–94).
4. Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, “ ‘Nixon Is Talking about the War Just Like Johnson Used to Talk,’ ” Washington Post, 8 October 1969, www.proquest.com; Nixon, RN, 400.
5. Nixon and Eisenhower are quoted in Jeffrey Kimball, Nixon’s Vietnam War (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998), 82–83.
6. William Burr and Jeffrey Kimball, “Nixon’s Nuclear Ploy,” Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 59, no. 1 (January 2003): 28–37, 72–73, http://bos.sagepub.com/content/59/1/28. Burr and Kimball will dig deeper into Nixon’s secret nuclear alert in Nixon’s Nuclear Specter: The 1969 Secret Alert, Madman Diplomacy, and the Vietnam War (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, forthcoming).
7. Nixon, RN, 401.
8. Ibid., 402.
9. David R. Derge, Vice President and Dean of Indiana University, to President Nixon, “The Public Appraises the Nixon Administration and Key Issues (With Particular Emphasis on Vietnam),” 11 August 1969, “E.O.B. Office Desk—August 10, 1974” folder, Box 185, President’s Personal File, Materials Removed from President’s Desk, 1969–74, [EOB Office Desk … Administration] to [Blank Stationery—… August 9, 1974], RMNL.
10. Nixon, RN, 402.
11. Lien-Hang T. Nguyen writes that Ho “might have been amenable had he not been marginalized in the Politburo and nearing the end of his life,” but Nixon’s offer was rejected by Le Duan, general secretary of the Central Committee of North Vietnam’s Communist Party (Hanoi’s War: An International History of the War for Peace in Vietnam [Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012], Kindle edition, chap. 4, “To Paris and Beyond: The Nixon Doctrine and Kissingerian Diplomacy”).
12. Nixon, RN, 404–5.
13. Kissinger to Nixon, “Contingency Military Operations against North Vietnam,” 2 October 1969, “Top Secret/Sensitive Vietnam Contingency Planning, Oct. 2, 1969 [2 of 2]” folder, NSCF Box 89, RMNL.
14. Qtd. in Kimball, The Vietnam War Files, 105.
15. “Address to the Nation on the War in Vietnam,” 3 November 1969, PPPUS: Nixon, 1969, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2303.
“A Russian Game, a Chinese Game and an Election Game”
1. Nixon, No More Vietnams, 146–47.
2. Conversation 700-002, 3 April 1972, 8:40–9:09 a.m., Oval Office.
3. Nixon, No More Vietnams, 147.
4. Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1969–1976: Soviet Union, October 1971–May 1972, ed. David C. Geyer, Nina D. Howland, and Kent Seig (Washington, DC: GPO, 2006), 14: Document 271 (hereafter FRUS 1969–1976, 14).
5. Ibid., Document 290.
“It Could Be a Bit Longer”
1. Kissinger, White House Years, 1304. Jussi Hanhimäki deserves credit for first uncovering most of the quotes below (Hanhimäki, “Some More ‘Smoking Guns’? The Vietnam War and Kissinger’s Summitry with Moscow and Beijing, 1971–1973,” Passport, December 2001).
2. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 20 June 1972, 2:05–6:05 p.m., “China—Dr. Kissinger’s Visit, June 1972 Memcons” folder, NSCF Kissinger Office Files Box 97, RMNL.
3. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 9 July 1971, 4:35–11:20 p.m., attached to Lord to Kissinger, “Memcon of Your Conversations with Chou En-lai,” 29 July 1971, NSCF Box 1033, RMNL.
4. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 20 June 1972, 2:05–6:05 p.m., “China—Dr. Kissinger’s Visit, June 1972 Memcons” folder, NSCF Kissinger Office Files Box 97, RMNL.
5. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 21 June 1972, 3:25–6:45 p.m., “China—Dr. Kissinger’s Visit, June 1972 Memcons” folder, NSCF Kissinger Office Files Box 97, RMNL.
6. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 22–23 June 1972, 11:03 p.m.–12:55 a.m., “China—Dr. Kissinger’s Visit, June 1972 Memcons” folder, NSCF Kissinger Office Files Box 97, RMNL.
7. Zhou is quoted in Odd Arne Westad, Chen Jian, Stein Tonnesson, Nguyen Vu Tungand, and James Hershberg, eds., 77 Conversations between Chinese and Foreign Leaders on the Wars in Indochina, 1964–1977, Working Paper No. 22, Cold War International History Project, May 1998, 179–82, http://wwics.si.edu/topics/pubs/ACFB39.pdf.
The Democrats
1. Theodore H. White, The Making of the President 1972 (New York: Bantam, 1973), Kindle edition, chap. 7, “Confrontation at Miami.”
2. Ibid., chap. 8, “The Eagleton Affair.”
3. George McGovern, Grassroots: The Autobiography of George McGovern (New York: Random House, 1977), 193–94, 197–98, 223–24.
“No One Will Give a Damn”
1. Conversation 759-005, 2 August 1972, 10:34–11:47 a.m., Oval Office.
2. Ibid.
3. Kissinger, Complete Memoirs E-book, Kindle edition, chapter 31, “From Stalemate to Breakthrough: Testing the Stalemate.”
4. Conversation 760-006, 3 August 1972, 8:28–8:57 a.m., Oval Office.
“Idealism with Integrity”
1. United Press International, “GOP Show Opens,” Los Angeles Times, 21 August 1972, www.proquest.com.
2. Ronald Reagan speech, “Republican Convention,” NBC, aired 21 August 1972, http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu.
3. “Remarks on Accepting the Presidential Nomination of the Republican National Convention,” 23 August 1972, PPPUS: Nixon, 1972, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3537.
4. Luu Van Loi and Nguyen Anh Vu, Le Duc Tho–Kissinger Negotiations in Paris (Hanoi: Gioi, 1996), 302–3. Randolph says the continued presence of Hanoi’s troops in the South was another overriding goal (Powerful and Brutal Weapons, 325). Achievement of that goal had already been assured by the May 1971 proposal by Nixon and Kissinger for a ceasefire-in-place.
5. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 26 September 1972, 10:30 a.m.–4:20 p.m., “Sensitive Camp David—Volume XVIII” folder, NSCF Box 856, RMNL. Kissinger simply dropped the “suitable interval” line from the American proposal the next day (“Memorandum of Conversation,” 27 September 1972, 10:03 a.m.–3:38 p.m., “Sensitive Camp David—Volume XVIII” folder, NSCF Box 856, RMNL).
6. To say that Thieu thought he was winning the war was something of an exaggeration. South Vietnamese leaders routinely credited battlefield successes to the strength and valor of their armed forces. At the same time, they lived in mortal fear of being forced to depend exclusively on those forces. Apart from that, Kissinger’s summary of the basic conflict between Nixon’s interests and Thieu’s was accurate. It was the right time politically for Nixon to get out of Vietnam, but Saigon wanted him to stay in.
7. Conversation 788-011, 29 September 1972, 3:16–3:30 p.m., Oval Office.
8. Conversation 789-006, 30 September 1972, 10:56 a.m.–12:00 p.m., Oval Office.
9. Conversation 790-008, 2 October 1972, 11:20–11:39 a.m., Oval Office.
10. Haig to Kissinger, 4 October 1972, “Sensitive Camp David—Volume XIX” folder, NSCF Box 856, RMNL.
11. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 4 October 1972, 9:00 a.m.–12:50 p.m., “Sensitive Camp David—Volume XIX” folder, NSCF Box 856, RMNL. Haig’s memoir account of this trip to Saigon is somewhat distorted. Nixon and Kissinger’s proposals did not call for “the replacement of the existing government with a transitional body.” The three-party commission was only supposed to work on arrangements for elections and was designed to fail, as we have seen, thanks to its requirement for unanimity (Haig, Inner Circles, 294–95).
“Our Terms Will Eventually Destroy Him”
1. Conversation 793-006, 6 October 1972, 9:30–10:03 a.m., Oval Office.
2. See “M’Govern Details a Foreign Policy Tied to ‘Idealism,’ ” New York Times, 6 October 1972, www.proquest.com.
3. See “The President’s News Conference,” 5 October 1972, PPPUS: Nixon, 1972, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3617.
4. Murrey Marder, “Election, Peace Bid Separated,” Washington Post, 6 October 1972, www.proquest.com.
5. “One could imagine the public outcry if we rejected Hanoi’s acceptance of our own proposals” (Kissinger, White House Years, 1348).
6. Kissinger to Bunker, 5 October 1972, “Sensitive Camp David—Volume XIX” folder, NSC Box 856, RMNL.
7. “Telegram from the Central Intelligence Agency Station in Saigon to the Agency,” 5 October 1963, FRUS, 1961–1963, 4: Document 177 and Document 192. President John F. Kennedy personally oversaw the drafting of and approved the cable giving General Minh assurances that US aid would continue under the new South Vietnamese regime (Tape 114/A50, 8 October 1963, 5:30–6:15 p.m., Oval Office, John F. Kennedy Library, President’s Office Files, Presidential Recordings Collection).
8. Douglas Robinson, “Saigon Reports a Coup Attempt; Seizes Officers; But a U.S. Official Denies There Was Any Effort to Overthrow Thieu Regime,” New York Times, www.proquest.com.
9. See Situation Room to Haig, “Responses to Questions,” 30 September 1972, “Sensitive Camp David—Volume XIX” folder, NSCF Box 856, RMNL.
10. Kissinger to Bunker, “Deliver Immediately upon Receipt,” 4 October 1972, “Sensitive Camp David—Volume XIX” folder, NSCF Box 856, RMNL.
11. Ibid.
12. Nixon, No More Vietnams, 82.
13. See “Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia,” 30 April 1970, PPPUS: Nixon, 1970, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2490.
14. Nixon, No More Vietnams, 136.
15. Conversation 793-006, 6 October 1972, 9:30–10:03 a.m., Oval Office.
16. Richard Nixon, Leaders (New York: Warner, 1982), 42, 46, 47, 57, 58, 59, 65, 66, 84.
17. Ibid., 76; Robert Donovan, “Nixon, De Gaulle Trade Warm Greetings Despite Differences,” New York Times, 1 March 1969, www.proquest.com.
18. Haldeman Diaries, 28 February 1969.
19. Nixon, Leaders, 48, 76, 78–79; Nixon, RN, 374.
20. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 22 February 1972, 2:10–6:00 p.m., “Beginning February 20, 1972” folder, President’s Office Files, Box 87, RMNL.
21. Nixon, Leaders, 61; Henry Tanner, “De Gaulle to Visit the U.S. in ’70,” New York Times, 3 March 1969, www.proquest.com.
22. Conversation 793-006, 6 October 1972, 9:30–10:03 a.m., Oval Office.
23. Ibid.
Blowup 1968
1. See Hughes, Chasing Shadows, 1–56.
“We’re behind the Trees!”
1. See “Memorandum of Conversation,” 8 October 1972, 10:30 a.m.–7:38 p.m., “Sensitive—Vol. XX, C.D. Memcons, Oct. 8–11 & Oct. 17, 1972” folder, NSCF Box 856, RMNL. Kissinger, White House Years, 1335, 1341–50.
2. Kissinger, Ending the Vietnam War, 550.
3. Seymour Hersh, The Price of Power (New York: Summit Books, 1983), 584.
4. Ibid., 584–85.
5. Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), 449.
6. See “Memorandum of Conversation,” 9 October 1972, 3:58–6:08 p.m., “Sensitive—Vol. XX, C.D. Memcons, Oct. 8–11 & Oct. 17, 1972” folder, NSCF Box 856, RMNL.
“Saving Face or Saving Lives”
1. Ernest R. May and Janet Fraser, eds., Campaign ’72: The Managers Speak (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), 229.
2. “Transcript of Senator McGovern’s Speech Offering a Plan for Peace in Indochina,” New York Times, 11 October 1972; Jules Witcover, “McGovern Outlines Plan to End War,” Los Angeles Times, 11 October 1972, www.proquest.com.
3. Conversation 364-004, 5 October 1972, 12:26–1:36 p.m., Executive Office Building.
“Brutalize Him”
1. See H. R. Haldeman and Joseph DiMona, The Ends of Power (New York: Times Books, 1978), 75.
2. Haldeman Diaries, 12 October 1972; Nixon, RN, 691.
3. Nixon wrote that “Haig seemed rather subdued” in RN, 693. “A better word might have been despondent,” wrote Haig in Inner Circles, 300.
4. See Kissinger, White House Years, 1347.
5. Associated Press, “French Mission Hit in U.S. Hanoi Raid; 6 Killed, Chief Diplomat Hurt; Paris Protests,” Los Angeles Times, 12 October 1972; Bernard Gwertzman, “U.S. Is Regretful: But Pentagon Says a Hanoi Missile May Have Caused Blast,” New York Times, 12 October 1972, www.proquest.com.
6. Nixon danced delicately around the word “reparations” in his memoir account of this meeting: “The Communists tried to claim that this money would be reparations for the war they charged we had unleashed upon them; but however they tried to justify it, taking money from the United States represented a collapse of communist principle” (Nixon, RN, 692).
7. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 26 September 1972, 10:30 a.m.–4:20 p.m., “Sensitive Camp David—Volume XVIII” folder, NSCF Box 856, RMNL.
8. Conversation 366-006, 12 October 1972, 6:10–8:46 p.m., Executive Office Building.
9. Haldeman Diaries, 12 October 1972.
10. See Haig, Inner Circles, 299.
11. Haldeman Diaries, 12 October 1972. See Haig, Inner Circles, 300.
12. Washington Star-News, “Thieu Bars Coalition and Would Kill Foe ‘to Last Man,’ ” New York Times, 13 October 1972, www.proquest.com.
13. Joseph Kraft, “The Vietnam Timetable,” 8 October 1972, Washington Post, www.proquest.com.
14. “Max Frankel/Mr. Kissinger,” 13 October 1972, 9:16 p.m., Kissinger Telcons Box 16, RMNL.
15. “Bob Toth/Mr. Kissinger,” 13 October 1972, 4:20 p.m., Kissinger Telcons Box 16, RMNL.
16. Conversation 149-14, 15 October 1972, 12:00–12:14 p.m., Camp David Study Table.
17. Conversation 798-004, 14 October 1972, 10:03–10:39 a.m., Oval Office.
18. Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, “FBI Finds Nixon Aides Sabotaged Democrats,” Washington Post, 10 October 1972, www.proquest.com.
19. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, “Lawyer for Nixon Said to Have Used GOP’s Spy Fund,” Washington Post, 16 October 1972, www.proquest.com.
20. Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, “Key Nixon Aide Named as ‘Sabotage’ Contact,” Washington Post, 15 October 1972, www.proquest.com.
21. Haldeman Diaries, 16 October 1972.
22. Conversation 799-009, 16 October 1972, 9:33–10:12 a.m., Oval Office.
23. John Chancellor and John Cochran, “Campaign ’72 / Nixon on POW’s and Amnesty,” NBC Evening News, aired 16 October 1972, http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu; “Remarks to a Meeting of the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia,” 16 October 1972, PPPUS: Nixon, 1972, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3632.
24. James M. Naughton, “McGovern Sees ‘Sabotage,’ ” New York Times, 17 October 1972, www.proquest.com.
25. Conversation 031-084, 16 October 1972, 7:20–7:21 p.m., White House Telephone.
Kissinger v. Thieu
1. Kissinger, White House Years, 1364.
2. Kissinger to Haig, 17 October 1972, 8:48 p.m., “HAK’s Saigon Trip Oct 16–Oct 23, 1972 HAKTO & TOHAK Cables [2 of 2]” folder, NSCF Kissinger Office Files Box 104, RMNL.
3. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 17 October 1972, 10:37 a.m.–10:10 p.m., “Camp David Vol. XX,” NSCF Box 856, Digital National Security Archive Item Number KT00584.
4. Kissinger, White House Years, 1364–65.
5. See Isaacson, Kissinger, 363.
6. Kissinger, White House Years, 1369.
7. Ibid., 1320.
8. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 19 October 1972, 9:10–12:20 p.m., “Sensitive Camp David—Volume XX” folder, NSCF Box 857, RMNL.
9. Isaacson, Kissinger, 463.
10. Haig to Nixon, “Meeting with President Thieu,” 19 October 1972, “HAK Paris/Saigon Trip 16–23 Oct 1972” folder, NSCF Box 25, RMNL; “Memorandum of Conversation,” 19 October 1972, 9:10–12:20 p.m., “Sensitive Camp David—Volume XX” folder, NSCF Box 857, RMNL.
11. Nixon, RN, 697; Kissinger, White House Years, 1371.
12. Guay to Haig, 19 October 1972, 5:14 p.m., “Sensitive Camp David—Volume XX” folder, NSCF Box 857, RMNL.
13. Kissinger, White House Years, 1371.
14. Haig to Nixon, “Message from the North Vietnamese,” 20 October 1972, “Sensitive Camp David—Volume XX” folder, NSCF Box 857, RMNL.
15. Haig to Nixon, “Meeting with President Thieu,” 19 October 1972, “HAK Paris/Saigon Trip 16–23 Oct 1972” folder, NSCF Box 25, RMNL.
16. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 20 October 1972, 2:10–5:35 p.m., “Sensitive Camp David—Volume XX” folder, NSCF Box 857, RMNL.
17. Conversation 799-023, 16 October 1972, 3:59–4:30 p.m., Oval Office.
18. “Third Annual Report to the Congress on United States Foreign Policy,” 9 February 1972, PPPUS: Nixon, 1971, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3736.
19. Conversation 823-001, 14 December 1972, 9:59–11:46 a.m., Oval Office; Thieu to Nixon, 26 November 1972, “Sensitive C.D.—Volume XXII (1)” folder, NSCF Box 858, RMNL.
20. See Conversation 799-023, 16 October 1972, 3:59–4:30 p.m., Oval Office.
21. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 20 October 1972, 2:10–5:35 p.m., “Sensitive Camp David—Volume XX” folder, NSCF Box 857, RMNL.
22. Kissinger to White House, attached to Haig to Nixon, 20 October 1972,
23. Kissinger, White House Years, 1377.
24. Ibid., 1377–78.
1. Memorandum of Conversation, 21 October 1972, 10:16 a.m.–1:10 p.m., “Sensitive Camp David—Volume XX” folder, NSCF Box 857, RMNL.
2. Conversation 806–002, 23–24 October 1972, 11:35 p.m.–12:05 a.m., Oval Office; Kissinger, White House Years, 1379.
3. Kissinger, White House Years, 1380.
“The Man Who Should Cry Is I”
1. Bunker to Haig, 22 October 1972, Digital National Security Archive Item Number KT00589; Kissinger, White House Years, 1382.
2. Kissinger, White House Years, 1382.
3. Kissinger to Haig, 22 October 1972, “NCS—Top Secret” folder, WHSF-SMOF Haldeman Box 180, RMNL, www.nixonlibrary.gov/virtuallibrary/releases/dec10/29.pdf and Digital National Security Archive Item Number KT00590; Kissinger, White House Years, 1385.
4. See Nixon, RN, 702.
5. Haldeman Diaries, 22 October 1972.
6. Newsweek excerpt, “The Aim: ‘A 3-Sided Coalition,’ ” Washington Post, 22 October 1972, www.proquest.com; Kissinger, White House Years, 1388–89; Kissinger to Haig, 22 October 1972, “HAK Paris/Saigon Trip; HAKTO 16–23 Oct 72” folder, NSCF Kissinger Office Files Box 25, RMNL.
7. Nguyen, Hanoi’s War, Kindle edition, chap. 8, “War for Peace: Sabotaging Peace.”
8. “Dr. Kissinger’s Meeting with President Thieu, October 23, 1972,” attached to Haig to Nixon, “Meeting with President Thieu,” 23 October 1972, “Sensitive Camp David—Volume XX” folder, NSCF Box 857, RMNL.
9. “Secretary Peterson/Kissinger,” 25 October 1972, 11:00 a.m., Kissinger Telcons Box 16, RMNL.
“The Fellow Is Off His Head”
1. “Ambassador Dobrynin/Mr. Kissinger,” 23 October 1972, 11:22 p.m.; and “Ambassador Dobrynin/HAK,” 15 October 1972, 8:35 p.m., both in Kissinger Telcons Box 16, RMNL.
2. Conversation 806-001, 23 October 1972, 11:20–11:35 p.m., Oval Office.
3. Conversation 371-019, 23 October 1972, 8:34–9:17 a.m., Executive Office Building. Credit goes to Jeffrey Kimball for discovering this passage.
4. Louis Harris, “Nixon Has Lead on Issues,” Chicago Tribune, 17 July 1972, www.proquest.com.
5. Conversation 806-001, 23 October 1972, 11:20–11:35 p.m., Oval Office.
6. Negroponte to Kissinger, 23 October 1972, “Sensitive; Camp David—Volume XXI” folder, NSCF Box 857, RMNL.
7. Conversation 806-002, 23–24 October 1972, 11:35 p.m.–12:05 a.m., Oval Office.
8. “Veterans Day Message,” 23 October 1972, PPPUS: Nixon, 1972, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3644.
9. Conversation 801-004, 17 October 1972, 8:36–9:59 a.m., Oval Office.
10. Conversation 806-002, 23–24 October 1972, 11:35 p.m.–12:05 a.m., Oval Office.
11. “Ambassador Dobrynin/Mr. Kissinger,” 24 October 1972, 12:10 a.m., Kissinger Telcons Box 16, RMNL.
12. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 24 October 1972, 6:55–7:45 p.m., Digital National Security Archive Item Number KT00592.
13. James F. Clarity, “Nixon Honors Veterans with a Fellowship,” New York Times, 25 October 1972, www.proquest.com; Carroll Kilpatrick, “Nixon Vows Jobs for Vietnam Veterans,” Washington Post, 25 October 1972, www.proquest.com. The Toledo Blade ran the AP story under the enthusiastic, but ultimately false, headline: “Nixon Puts Action Where Signature Is; Army Veteran Gets White House Fellowship on the Spot,” 25 October 1972, http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1350&dat=19721025&id=6uhOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=9QEEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6598,2076598.
14. “18 White House Fellows Selected; Enthusiasm Undimmed by Watergate,” New York Times, 22 May 1973, www.proquest.com.
15. Nixon, RN, 704.
No Coalition Government
1. Tom Streithorst, “Vietnam/Thieu and Peace; Kissinger,” NBC Evening News, aired 24 October 1972, http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu. R. W. Apple Jr., “Nixon Would Bar Forced Coalition in South Vietnam,” New York Times, 28 October 1968, www.nytimes.com.
“Coalition is a code word in international settlements, and wherever there have been coalition governments that include Communists it usually means that the Communists have, of course, prevailed and eventually expelled, if I may use that term too, expelled the non-Communists from the government” (“The President’s News Conference,” 20 July 1970, PPPUS: Nixon, 1970, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2588).
“We will not negotiate with the enemy for accomplishing what they cannot accomplish themselves and that is to impose against their will on the people of South Vietnam a coalition government with the Communists” (“The President’s News Conference,” 29 June 1972, PPPUS: Nixon, 1972, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3480).
2. Craig R. Whitney, “Speech in Saigon: Ceasefire Obstacles Seen, but President Expects Agreement,” New York Times, 25 October 1972, www.proquest.com.
3. Jules Witcover, “Could Have Had Peace in 1968, McGovern Says; Democrat Charges Nixon with Continuing War to Avoid Hawks’ Criticism,” Washington Post, 25 October 1972, www.proquest.com; George Lardner Jr., “McGovern: Viet Peace Could ‘Destroy’ Nixon,” Washington Post, 25 October 1972, www.proquest.com.
4. “Remarks on Election Eve,” 6 November 1972, PPPUS: Nixon, 1972, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3701. He made nearly identical remarks in seven campaign speeches delivered on 2–4 November 1972.
5. Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, “Testimony Ties Top Nixon Aide to Secret Fund,” Washington Post, 25 October 1972, www.proquest.com.
6. Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, All the President’s Men (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974), Kindle edition, chap. 9.
7. Vanderbilt Television News Archive, 25 October 1972, http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu.
“Peace Is at Hand”
1. Conversation 807-007, 26 October 1972, 9:22–9:54 a.m., Oval Office.
2. See “CBS News Special: Kissinger News Briefing on the War,” aired 26 October 1972, Reference Cassette WHCA #5843; and “Transcript of Kissinger’s News Conference on the Status of the Ceasefire Talks,” New York Times, 27 October 1972, www.nytimes.com.
3. See John J. O’Conner, “CBS Wins Network Race on Kissinger Briefing,” New York Times, 27 October 1972, www.nytimes.com.
4. Isaacson, Kissinger, 459.
5. Haldeman Diaries, 26 October 1972.
6. See Conversation 032-063, 26 October 1972, 11:44–11:53 p.m., White House Telephone.
7. Conversation 032-065, 26–27 October 1972, 11:53 p.m.–12:21 a.m., White House Telephone.
8. Jules Witcover, “McGovern Sees Peace Terms as Similar to France’s in 1954,” Los Angeles Times, 27 October 1972, www.proquest.com.
9. Jack Perkins, “Campaign ’72/McGovern on Vietnam Peace,” NBC Evening News, aired 26 October 1972, http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu.
10. Jules Witcover, “McGovern Sees Peace Terms as Similar to France’s in 1954,” Los Angeles Times, 27 October 1972, www.proquest.com.
11. Douglas E. Kneeland, “McGovern Says He Hopes Nixon View Is Confirmed,” New York Times, 27 October 1972, www.proquest.com.
12. Conversation 032-065, 26–27 October 1972, 11:53 p.m. –12:21 a.m., White House Telephone.
13. “Senator James Buckley/Mr. Kissinger,” 26 October 1972, 6:25 p.m., Kissinger Telcons Box 16, RMNL.
14. “Amb. Bush/Kissinger,” 28 October 1972, 1:35 p.m., Kissinger Telcons Box 16, RMNL.
15. “Gov. Ronald Reagan/Mr. Kissinger,” 27 October 1972, 11:55 a.m., Kissinger Telcons Box 16, RMNL.
16. “Senator Mansfield/Kissinger,” 28 October 1972, 2:00 p.m., Kissinger Telcons Box 16, RMNL.
17. “McG. Bundy/Mr. Kissinger,” 26 October 1972, 2:34 p.m., Kissinger Telcons Box 16, RMNL.
18. Associated Press, “Nixon Political Gain Seen by Humphrey,” Los Angeles Times, 27 October 1972, www.proquest.com.
19. “James Reston/Mr. Kissinger,” 26 October 1972, 3:05 p.m., Kissinger Telcons Box 16, RMNL.
20. Associated Press, “Evolving Peace Terms Resemble ’69 Kissinger Plan,” New York Times, 27 October 1972, www.proquest.com.
21. Henry A. Kissinger, “The Viet Nam Negotiations,” Foreign Affairs 47, no. 2 (January 1969): 211–34, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost.
22. Associated Press, “Evolving Peace Terms Resemble ’69 Kissinger Plan,” New York Times, 27 October 1972, www.proquest.com.
1. United Press International, “ ‘There’ll be no S. Vietnam Peace until I Sign’—Thieu,” Los Angeles Times, 27 October 1972, www.proquest.com.
2. Craig R. Whitney, “Doubt Is Voiced; South Vietnam Resists Accord against Its People’s Interests,” New York Times, 27 October 1972, www.proquest.com.
3. “Thieu Insists That a Cease-Fire Hinges on Hanoi Troop Pullout,” New York Times, 28 October 1972, www.proquest.com.
4. Conversation 810-001, 31 October 1972, 11:04–11:10 a.m., Oval Office.
5. Conversation 810-002, 31 October 1972, 11:10–11:36 a.m., Oval Office.
6. “Peace at Last?,” New York Times, 27 October 1972, www.proquest.com.
7. Richard L. Madden, “Rockefeller Stumps for Nixon; Hints He Will Seek 5th Term,” New York Times, 1 November 1972, www.proquest.com.
8. See Conversation 810-005, 31 October 1972, 2:52–3:23 p.m., Oval Office.
9. Craig Whitney, “Thieu Calls Draft Accord ‘Surrender to the Communists,’ ” New York Times, 1 November 1972, www.proquest.com.
10. Vanderbilt Television News Archive, 1 November 1972, http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu.
11. Christopher Lydon, “Shriver Criticizes Proposal for Coalition in Vietnam,” New York Times, 1 November 1972; Stuart Auerbach, “Shriver Hits Viet Plan as a Sellout by Nixon,” Washington Post, 1 November 1972, www.proquest.com.
12. See Christopher Lydon, “Shriver Dubious about War Pact,” New York Times, 2 November 1972, www.proquest.com.
13. Richard M. Cohen, “Shriver, in Baltimore, Assails Nixon,” Washington Post, 3 November 1972, www.proquest.com.
14. “The Junior Partners,” Time, 6 November 1972, 54, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost.
15. “He accused the South Vietnamese president, Nguyen Van Thieu, of jeopardizing peace negotiations” (Frank Lynn, “M’Govern Draws a Cheering 20,000 in Garment Area,” New York Times, 2 November 1972, www.proquest.com).
16. See Nicholas C. Chriss, “McGovern Calls Peace Move ‘Cruel Deception,’ ” Los Angeles Times, 4 November 1972; and James M. Naughton, “M’Govern Asserts Nixon Pretended to Be Near Peace,” New York Times, 4 November 1972, www.proquest.com.
17. Christopher Lydon, “Shriver Criticizes Proposal for Coalition in Vietnam,” New York Times, 1 November 1972, www.proquest.com.
18. See Christopher Lydon, “Shriver Dubious about War Pact,” New York Times, 2 November 1972, www.proquest.com.
19. Craig Whitney, “Thieu Calls Draft Accord ‘Surrender to the Communists,’ ” New York Times, 1 November 1972, www.proquest.com.
20. “Peace Delays Help No One,” Los Angeles Times, 3 November 1972, www.proquest.com.
21. Donald Kirk, “In-Fighter Thieu: Champ Is Unpopular,” Chicago Tribune, 6 November 1972, www.proquest.com.
22. Robert Keatley, “U.S. Says Vietnam Accord Isn’t Imperiled Despite Sparring,” Wall Street Journal, 3 November 1972, www.proquest.com.
23. Victor Zorza, “The Real Issues of Renegotiation,” Washington Post, 1 November 1972, www.proquest.com.
24. Henry Kamm, “Gen. Minh Opposes Draft Agreement,” New York Times, 2 November 1972, www.proquest.com.
25. See Thomas Lippman, “Thieu Calls Draft Pact a Sellout,” Washington Post, 1 November 1972, www.proquest.com.
26. Henry Kamm, “Gen. Minh Opposes Draft Agreement,” New York Times, 2 November 1972, www.proquest.com.
The Chennault Affair
1. See Robert B. Semple Jr., “Nixon Denounces Welfare Inequity, Calls for National Standards—Repudiates Criticism of Johnson Peace Efforts,” New York Times, 26 October 1968; and Peter H. Silberman, “Nixon Reports Cease-Fire Hint,” Washington Post, 26 October 1968, www.proquest.com.
“The Clearest Choice”
1. Douglas E. Kneeland, “M’Govern Warns Nixon Lacks Plan to Quit Vietnam,” New York Times, 5 November 1972, www.proquest.com.
2. So successful was Nixon at concealing extreme partisanship behind a nonpartisan pose that one scholar who has devoted a long and celebrated career to the study of political rhetoric wrote that “Nixon’s election eve speech is an almost nonpartisan get-out-the-vote appeal that specifies the issues he hopes voters will keep in mind as they ballot” and “an almost nonpartisan appeal to the country to vote” (Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Packaging the Presidency: A History and Criticism of Presidential Campaign Advertising [New York: Oxford University Press, 1996], Kindle edition, chap. 6, “1968: The Competing Pasts of Nixon and Humphrey”).
3. “Remarks on Election Eve,” 6 November 1972, PPPUS: Nixon, 1972, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3701.
Election Day 1972
1. Nixon, RN, 717.
2. Ibid., 714.
3. Theodore H. White, The Making of the President 1972 (New York: Bantam, 1973), Kindle edition, chap. 1, “The Solitary Man.”
4. Ibid.
5. Nixon, RN, 715, 717.
6. Ibid., 715.
7. White, The Making of the President 1972, Kindle edition, chap. 13, “Appeal to the People: Verdict in November.”
8. Grantland Rice, “Alumnus Football,” Pittsburgh Press, 2 November 1914, http://news.google.com/newspapers.
9. “Remarks on Being Reelected to the Presidency,” 7 November 1972, PPPUS: Nixon, 1972, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3702, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PimoaXdTsE.
10. “Transcript of the Speech by McGovern,” New York Times, 8 November 1972, www.proquest.com.
11. White, The Making of the President 1972, Kindle edition, chap. 13, “Appeal to the People: Verdict in November.”
12. Conversation 033-060, 8 November 1972, 1:16–1:28 a.m., White House Telephone.
13. Ibid.
Promises and Threats
1. Nixon to Thieu, 8 November 1972, “Sensitive Camp David—Volume XXI (1)” folder, NSCF Box 857, RMNL.
2. Ibid.
3. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 20 November 1972, 10:45 a.m.–4:55 p.m., “C.D. Vol. XXI—Minutes of Meetings, Paris, Nov. 20–Nov. 25, 1972” folder, NSCF Box 858, RMNL.
4. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 21 November 1972, 3:02–7:26 p.m., “C.D. Vol. XXI—Minutes of Meetings, Paris, Nov. 20–Nov. 25, 1972” folder, NSCF Box 858, RMNL.
5. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 24 November 1972, 11:00 a.m.–12:20 p.m., “C.D. Vol. XXI—Minutes of Meetings, Paris, Nov. 20–Nov. 25, 1972” folder, NSCF Box 858, RMNL.
6. Kissinger, White House Years, 1419.
7. Nick Thimmesch, “Dr. Henry Kissinger Gives an Interview,” Chicago Tribune, 26 November 1972, www.proquest.com.
8. See Conversation 816-003, 29 November 1972, 2:52–5:32 p.m., Oval Office; “Memorandum of Conversation,” 29 November 1972, 3:05–5:10 p.m., “GVN Memcons, Nov. 20, 1972–Apr. 3, 1973 [2 of 3]” folder, NSCF Kissinger Office Files Box 104, RMNL. Nixon mentioned that the threat of a cutoff came from the political right in RN, 724, but Kissinger leaves out that crucial point in White House Years, 1425–26. See also Nixon to Thieu, 24 November 1972, in “Memorandum of Conversation,” 24 November 1972, 7:30–8:45 p.m., “C.D. Vol. XXI—Minutes of Meetings, Paris, Nov. 20–Nov. 25, 1972” folder, NSCF Box 858, RMNL.
9. Conversation WH6811-04-13723-13724-13725, 8 November 1968, 9:23 p.m., Mansion.
10. Conversation 817-016, 30 November 1972, 12:17–1:11 p.m., Oval Office.
Christmas Bombing
1. See Nixon, No More Vietnams, 157.
2. Conversation 806-001, 23 October 1972, 11:20–11:35 p.m., Oval Office.
3. See Conversation 810-005, 31 October 1971, 2:52–3:23 p.m., Oval Office.
4. “The President,” 6 November 1972, 10:00 a.m., Kissinger Telcons Box 17, RMNL.
5. See “Mr. Kissinger/Governor Reagan,” 15 December 1972, 11:00 a.m., Kissinger Telcons Box 17, DNSA http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:dnsa&rft_dat=xri:dnsa:article:CKA09150. Seth Center quoted this transcript in “Confronting Decline: The Resilience of the U.S. Conception of America’s Role in the World, 1968–1975” (PhD diss., University of Virginia, 2011), Proquest UMI 3484467.
6. Kissinger explained Le Duc Tho’s position to the Chinese: “He has demanded that we return to the old agreement without change or to a new agreement in which he proposes so many significant changes that it will be worse than the old one.” The North could play the carrot-and-stick game too (“Memorandum of Conversation,” 7–8 December 1972, 11:25 p.m.–12:15 a.m., Digital National Security Archive Item Number KT00632).
7. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 7 December 1972, 3:00–7:00 p.m., Digital National Security Archive Item Number KT00630; Kimball, Nixon’s Vietnam War, 358.
8. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 12 December 1972, 3:07–7:35 p.m., Digital National Security Archive Item Number KT00640.
9. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 13 December 1972, 10:30 a.m.–4:24 p.m., Digital National Security Archive Item Number KT00642.
10. Conversation 034-069, 13 December 1972, 8:55–9:07 p.m., White House Telephone.
11. See Haig to Kissinger, 13 December 1972, “Sensitive C.D.—Volume XXII (2)” folder, NSCF Box 858, RMNL, www.scribd.com/doc/16332927/Dec-13-1972-Haig-to-Kissinger.
12. Nixon, RN, 735.
13. Webb and Poole, The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973, 293–99.
14. Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (New York: Penguin, 1991), 667–68.
15. Webb and Poole, The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973, 300.
16. Kissinger, White House Years, 1371.
17. Kissinger, Complete Memoirs E-book, Kindle edition, chap. 33, “Peace Is at Hand: The January Round”; Kissinger, Ending the Vietnam War, 424–25.
18. Transcript of Kissinger’s News Conference on the Status of the Ceasefire Talks,” New York Times, 27 October 1972, www.nytimes.com.
19. Conversation 793-006, 6 October 1972, 9:30–10:03 a.m., Oval Office.
20. Kissinger, Ending the Vietnam War, 425.
21. Conversation 366-006, 12 October 1972, 6:10–8:46 p.m., Executive Office Building.
22. Kissinger, Ending the Vietnam War, 425.
23. Webb and Poole, The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973, 300.
24. “House Democrats Condemn Nixon’s Policies on Vietnam War in a 154–75 Caucus Vote,” Wall Street Journal, 3 January 1973, www.proquest.com.
25. Spencer Rich, “Democrats Vote to Bar War Funds,” Washington Post, 5 January 1973, www.proquest.com.
26. See Conversation 823-001, 14 December 1972, 9:59–11:46 a.m., Oval Office.
27. Richard L. Lyons, “Senate Unit Set to Act on Jan. 20,” Washington Post, 3 January 1973, www.proquest.com.
28. Spencer Rich, “Democrats Vote to Bar War Funds,” Washington Post, 5 January 1973, www.proquest.com.
29. Conversation 816-003, 29 November 1972, 2:52–5:32 p.m., Oval Office; “Memorandum of Conversation,” 29 November 1972, 3:05–5:10 p.m., “GVN Memcons, Nov. 20, 1972–Apr. 3, 1973 [2 of 3]” folder, NSC Kissinger Office Files Box 104, RMNL.
30. “Mr. Kissinger/The President,” 18 January 1973, 9:40 a.m., Digital National Security Archive Item Number KA09303.
31. “Senator Goldwater/Mr. Kissinger,” 18 January 1973, 11:13 a.m., Digital National Security Archive Item Number KA09307.
32. Ibid. In his 1979 memoir, Kissinger wrote that Goldwater and Stennis acted at “our” suggestion, but in 2003’s Ending the Vietnam War, he changed “our” to “Nixon’s” in a sentence otherwise identical to the one in the earlier book (see Kissinger, White House Years, 1470; and Kissinger, Ending the Vietnam War, 428). He was once again trying to hide his own hand, but not Nixon’s.
33. David E. Rosenbaum, “Goldwater and Stennis Tell Saigon Not to Balk,” New York Times, 19 January 1973, www.nytimes.com.
34. Kissinger, Ending the Vietnam War, 424.
35. Program listings for the 18 January 1973 newscasts on CBS, NBC, and ABC, Vanderbilt Television News Archive, http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu.
36. See Conversation 036-021, 20 January 1973, 9:32–9:59 a.m., White House Telephone.
37. “Oath of Office and Second Inaugural Address,” 20 January 1973, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard M. Nixon, 1973 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1975), www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=4141 (hereafter PPPUS: Nixon, 1973).
38. See Kissinger to Bunker, 20 January 1973, FRUS 1969–1976: Vietnam, October 1972–January 1973, 9: Document 313.
39. See Nguyen Tien Hung and Jerrold L. Schecter, The Palace File (New York: Harper and Row, 1986), 155.
40. Ibid.
“Let Us Be Proud”
1. “Address to the Nation Announcing Conclusion of an Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam,” 23 January 1973, PPUS: Nixon, 1973, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3808.
2. George Gallup, “Cease-Fire Gives Nixon 68% Again,” Washington Post, 6 February 1973, www.proquest.com.
3. George Gallup, “40% Favor Rebuilding N. Vietnam,” Washington Post, 26 January 1973, www.proquest.com. Even then, after the bombing but before announcement of the accords, Nixon’s approval rating was 54 percent.
4. George Gallup, “Public Hails Peace Accord, Opposes a New Involvement,” Washington Post, 30 January 1973, www.proquest.com.
5. The impression persists that the Christmas bombing had more than a temporary impact on public approval of Nixon, despite the poll results showing very high ratings for him (and the bombing) once the Paris Accords were announced in January 1973. Nixon did enjoy a few months of great popularity after the Paris Accords announcement and before the congressional Watergate investigations became daily, televised events. Some writers, however, portray a steep, uninterrupted decline: “Critics dubbed the December air attacks the Christmas bombings, and Democratic congressional leaders promised to take immediate action to prevent a continuation of the American military role in Vietnam. Nixon, after winning a landslide victory in November, saw his approval ratings plummet into the mid-30 percent range, a level they never recovered from with the revelations about Watergate. Thus, for Nixon to achieve his goal of a settlement that kept Thieu in power and allowed for future American military strikes, he needed to force Saigon to comply with the treaty negotiated by the United States” (David F. Schmitz, Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War: The End of the American Century [Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2014], Adobe Digital Edition, chap. 6, “Denouement”). Nixon’s 68 percent approval rating of 26–29 January 1973 and 65 percent approval rating of 16–19 February 1973 reflect public opinion after the Christmas bombing and Paris Peace Accords announcement and before the long Watergate decline (George Gallup, “Nixon Popularity Remains Near Viet Cease-Fire Peak,” Washington Post, 10 March 1973, www.proquest.com).
6. Sylvan Fox, “Fighting Goes On; Saigon Reports Slight Decline in Level of Military Activity,” 1 February 1973, New York Times, www.proquest.com.
7. Sylvan Fox, “Cease-Fire Violations Said to Be Minor: Toll of 4,295 Reported,” New York Times, www.proquest.com.
8. Henry Kamm, “Cease-Fire and 10,000 Corpses,” New York Times, 25 February 1973, www.proquest.com.
9. Conversation 879-005, 14 March 1973, 11:10 a.m.–12:25 p.m., Oval Office.
10. Conversation 881-002, 16 March 1973, 10:18–10:33 a.m., Oval Office.
The Prisoners Dilemma
1. Nixon to Thieu, 29 October 1972, 14 November 1972, and 5 January 1972, qtd. in Hung and Schecter, The Palace File, 380, 386, and 392. Hung and Schecter helpfully provide facsimiles of these letters and others between Nixon and Thieu.
2. Kennedy to Kissinger, “Thieu’s Comments on Agreement,” 20 December 1972, Digital National Security Archive, Item Number VW01169.
3. Webb and Poole, The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973, 300.
4. Conversation 876-013/877-001, 12 March 1973, 4:24–6:34 p.m., Oval Office.
5. Nixon actually wanted to be viewed as someone who would use excessive force against North Vietnam. “I call it the Madman Theory,” he told Haldeman. “I want the North Vietnamese to believe I’ve reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war. We’ll just slip the word to them that, ‘for God’s sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about Communism. We can’t restrain him when he’s angry—and he has his hand on the nuclear button’—and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace.”12 At least with American liberals, Nixon did succeed in crafting a Madman image (H. R. Haldeman and Joseph DiMona, The Ends of Power [New York: Times Books, 1978], 82–83). For a complete discussion of Madman Theory, including the views of those who doubt Nixon practiced it, see Jeffrey Kimball, The Vietnam War Files (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004), 15–20. His tapes leave no doubt: “Henry’s got them convinced there’s a madman in the White House who doesn’t care about polls or anything and might bomb you again” (Conversation 846-004, 1 February 1973, 10:35 a.m.–12:35 p.m., Oval Office).
6. Conversation 846-004, 1 February 1973, 10:35 a.m.–12:35 p.m., Oval Office.
The Final Cutoff
1. “Veto of the Supplemental Appropriations Bill Containing a Restriction on United States Air Operations in Cambodia,” 27 June 1973, PPPUS: Nixon, 1973, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3883.
2. John Herbers, “Test Intensifies; Rider Put on Another Bill after the House Fails to Override,” New York Times, 28 June 1973, www.proquest.com.
3. 119 Cong. Rec. 22304-22325, 22336-22364 (29 June 1973).
Stabbed in the Back
1. Nixon, No More Vietnams, 165.
2. Nixon, RN, 888. Haig offers an alternative explanation in Inner Circles, which blames it all on one big misunderstanding. In Haig’s version, he, not Nixon, talks by phone to Ford before the big vote:
Ford, as honest as the day is long, made no effort to hide his surprise and dismay. He said he had been led to believe by Mel Laird that this bill was acceptable to the President. I told him that Laird’s support was news to the President. Ford was stunned. If he reversed himself now, he might have to resign as Republican leader.
Despite my concern, Nixon could not bring himself to ask Ford to do that: “Al, I can’t afford to lose Jerry Ford.”
According to Haig’s account, Nixon would rather lose Vietnam than the House minority leader (see Haig, Inner Circles, 316–17). As we have seen, White House records show that the decisive phone conversation was between Ford and Nixon, not Ford and Haig, and as we shall see, Ford and Laird thought Nixon had the votes in the House to sustain a veto.
3. “Laird/Kissinger,” 28 June 1973, Kissinger Telcons Box 20, RMNL, http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:dnsa&rft_dat=xri:dnsa:article:CKA10348.
4. “House Again Clears Bill to Bar Bombing, This One ‘Veto-Proof,’ ” Wall Street Journal, 27 June 1973, www.proquest.com.
5. John Herbers, “Test Intensifies; Rider Put on Another Bill after the House Fails to Override,” New York Times, 28 June 1973, www.proquest.com.
6. Richard L. Madden, “Nixon Agrees to Stop Bombing by U.S. in Cambodia by Aug. 15, With New Raids up to Congress,” New York Times, 30 June 1973, www.proquest.com.
7. Ellsberg, Secrets, 453.
“We Can Blame Them for the Whole Thing”
1. Conversation 424-026, 29 March 1973, 10:50 a.m., Executive Office Building.
2. “Melvin Laird/Kissinger,” 26 June 1973, Kissinger Telcons Box 20, RMNL, http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:dnsa&rft_dat=xri:dnsa:article:CKA10340.
3. “Letter to the Speaker of the House and the Majority Leader of the Senate about the End of United States Bombing in Cambodia,” 3 August 1973, PPPUS: Nixon, 1973, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3929.
4. John W. Finney, “Nixon Sees Peril in Bombing Halt; Warns Congress,” New York Times, 4 August 1973, www.proquest.com.
5. Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, 359.
6. According to Kissinger’s book, “Laird insisted that we had no choice if we wanted the government to continue to function.” According to Kissinger’s telcon, Laird said the opposite regarding a combat ban for countries of Indochina other than Cambodia (Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, 359; “Laird/Kissinger,” 28 June 1973, Kissinger Telcons Box 20, RMNL, http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:dnsa&rft_dat=xri:dnsa:article:CKA10348).
Nixon’s Dolchstoßlegende
1. David E. Sanger, “Panel Urges Basic Shift in U.S. Policy in Iraq,” New York Times, 7 December 2006, www.proquest.com. Members included James A. Baker III, Lee H. Hamilton, Sandra Day O’Connor, Edwin Meese III, Vernon E. Jordan, William J. Perry, and Alan K. Simpson.
2. Michael R. Gordon, “Will It Work on the Battlefield?,” New York Times, 7 December 2006, www.proquest.com.
3. Nixon, No More Vietnams, 165.
4. Berman, No Peace, No Honor, 8–9.
Unearthing Nixon’s Strategy
1. Jeffrey Kimball, “Fighting and Talking,” Diplomatic History 27, no. 5 (2003): 763–66.
2. Pierre Asselin, “Featured Review: Kimball’s Vietnam War,” Diplomatic History 30, no. 1 (2006): 163–67.
3. Ibid., 164 (both quotations).
4. Ibid., 165.
5. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 9 July 1971, 4:35–11:20 p.m., attached to Lord to Kissinger, “Memcon of Your Conversations with Chou En-lai,” 29 July 1971, NSCF Box 1033, RMNL.
6. Kissinger used “reasonable interval” and “sufficient interval” in “Memorandum of Conversation,” 21 June 1972, 3:25–6:45 p.m., “China—Dr. Kissinger’s Visit, June 1972 Memcons” folder, NSCF Kissinger Office Files Box 97, RMNL.
7. For the evidence that Kissinger negotiated a “decent interval” settlement, see Kimball, The Vietnam War Files, 186–91, 322n19.
8. Asselin, “Featured Review,” 165.
9. Ibid., 165n3.
10. Kimball, The Vietnam War Files, 192.
11. Pierre Asselin, A Bitter Peace: Washington, Hanoi, and the Making of the Paris Agreement (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 169.
12. John Carland, “A Roundtable on Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War,” Passport: The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Review 43, no. 3 (January 2013): 23.
13. I find the FRUS volumes, by and large, enormously helpful overall, as anyone who checks my notes can see.
14. H-DIPLO, the H-NET network on Diplomatic History and International Affairs, published Kimball’s review, “H-Diplo FRUS Review No. 5—Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976: Vietnam, January–October 1972. Volume VIII,” on 23 November 2011.
15. FRUS 1969–1976, 8: Document 282.
16. Conversation 793-006, 6 October 1972, 9:30–10:03 a.m., Oval Office.
17. FRUS 1969–1976, 8: Document 284.
18. Ibid., 8: Document 5.
19. Carland, “A Roundtable on Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War,” 23.
20. Ibid.
21. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 9 July 1971, 4:35–11:20 p.m., attached to Lord to Kissinger, “Memcon of Your Conversations with Chou En-lai,” 29 July 1971, NSCF Box 1033, RMNL; FRUS 1969–1976, 14: Document 271.
22. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 20 June 1972, 2:05–6:05 p.m., “China—Dr. Kissinger’s Visit, June 1972 Memcons” folder, NSCF Kissinger Office Files Box 97, RMNL.
The University of Virginia’s Miller Center
1. Conversation 451-023, 18 February 1971, 6:16–6:37 p.m., Oval Office.
2. Conversation 471-002, 19 March 1971, 7:03–7:27 p.m., Oval Office.
3. “Address to the Nation on the War in Vietnam,” 3 November 1969, PPPUS: Nixon, 1969, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2303.
4. “Panel Interview at the Annual Convention of the American Society of Newspaper Editors,” 16 April 1971, PPPUS: Nixon, 1971, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2982.
5. “Second Annual Report to the Congress on United States Foreign Policy,” 25 February 1971, PPPUS: Nixon, 1971, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3324.
6. “The President’s News Conference,” 30 July 1970, PPPUS: Nixon, 1970, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2603.
1. Conversation 475-016, 8 April 1971, 9:18–10:07 a.m., Oval Office.
2. There’s some ambiguity over exactly when Nixon and Kissinger first proposed a ceasefire-in-place. Kimball notes correctly that in the September 1970 secret negotiations with the North, Kissinger “had not directly called for North Vietnamese troop withdrawal, which implied that Washington was abandoning its longstanding demand for mutual withdrawal” (Kimball, The Vietnam War Files, 133–34). After that session, however, Nixon proposed a different kind of ceasefire-in-place in October 1970—an immediate one in which American and allied troops—as well as the North and South Vietnamese—would remain in place while an Indochina Peace Conference worked out a settlement. “I propose that all armed forces throughout Indochina cease firing their weapons and remain in the positions they now hold. This would be a ‘cease-fire-in-place.’ It would not in itself be an end to the conflict, but it would accomplish one goal all of us have been working toward: an end to the killing,” Nixon announced in a televised address (“Address to the Nation about a New Initiative for Peace in Southeast Asia,” 7 October 1970, PPPUS: Nixon, 1970, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2708). Nixon said nothing about abandoning his demand for North Vietnamese withdrawal in return for American withdrawal. In fact, the next day he reaffirmed his demand for mutual withdrawal in the final settlement, telling reporters: “We made this proposal because we wanted to cover every base that we could. And so, that is why we offered the cease-fire, a total cease-fire. That is why we offered a total withdrawal of all of our forces, something we have never offered before, if we had mutual withdrawal on the other side” (“Replies to Reporters’ Questions about Reaction to Address on Southeast Asia,” 8 October 1970, PPPUS: Nixon, 1970, italics added, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2710). Nixon clarified once again that he was calling for mutual withdrawal in his next televised address: “I am sure most of you will recall that on October 7 of last year in a national TV broadcast, I proposed an immediate cease-fire throughout Indochina, the immediate release of all prisoners of war in the Indochina area, an all-Indochina peace conference, the complete withdrawal of all outside forces, and a political settlement” (“Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia,” 7 April 1971, PPPUS: Nixon, 1971, italics added, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2972). Kissinger wrote that in the 31 May 1971 proposal, “We gave up our demand for mutual withdrawal, provided Hanoi agreed to end all additional infiltration into the countries of Indochina,” and “proposed … a ceasefire-in-place throughout Indochina to become effective at the time when US withdrawals began” (Kissinger, White House Years, 1018). More specifically, they formally proposed a ceasefire-in-place (“Memorandum of Conversation,” 31 May 1971, 10:00 a.m.–1:30 p.m., “Camp David—Vol. VII” folder, NSCF Box 853, RMNL).
3. Conversation 507-004, 29 May 1971, 8:13–10:32 a.m., Oval Office.
4. Conversation 532-011, 30 June 1971, 10:18–10:30 a.m., Oval Office.
5. Nixon, RN, 689. “Hanoi,” Kissinger wrote, “was obviously in full retreat from its hitherto unyielding position that Thieu would have to resign before anything else happened” (Kissinger, Ending the Vietnam War, 307).
6. Conversation 760-006, 3 August 1972, 8:28–8:57 a.m., Oval Office.
7. Ibid.
8. Conversation 789-006, 30 September 1972, 10:56 a.m.–12:00 p.m., Oval Office.
9. Nixon wrote that Hanoi’s 8 October 1972 proposals “amounted to a complete capitulation by the enemy: they were accepting a settlement on our terms” (Nixon, RN, 692). “Le Duc Tho’s draft agreement,” Kissinger wrote, “in effect accepted what we had put forward on May 31, 1971, and on May 8, 1972” (Kissinger, White House Years, 1347).
10. Kissinger, Ending the Vietnam War, 329.
The Nixon Tapes
1. Douglas Brinkley and Luke Nichter, eds., The Nixon Tapes: 1971–1972 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014), 627.
2. Conversation 793-006, 6 October 1972, 9:30–10:03 a.m., Oval Office.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Brinkley and Nichter, The Nixon Tapes, 9–10.
6. Jeffrey Kimball, “Decent Interval or Not? The Paris Agreement and the End of the Vietnam War,” Passport: The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Review 34, no. 3 (December 2003): 26–31.
7. Brinkley and Nichter, The Nixon Tapes, 152–57.
8. Ibid., 16.
9. Conversation 451-023, 18 February 1971, 6:16–6:37 p.m., Oval Office.
10. Del Quentin Wilber, “Nixon Fixation Pushes Professor to Listen to All Tapes,” Bloomberg Businessweek, 9 August 2014, www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-08/nixon-fixation-pushes-professor-to-listen-to-all-tapes.html.
Interpretive Inertia
1. Passing mentions of the phrase in newspapers indicate that it was not unknown, but they do not define its meaning. “Assuming [a settlement] comes unstuck, does it matter how soon—what would be a decent interval between our departure and disaster?” asked one editorial (“Vietnam: The Missing Ingredient,” Washington Post, 5 April 1970, www.proquest.com). “As the geopoliticians sometimes put it,” Robert G. Kaiser wrote, “could the Americans withdraw and leave behind a decent interval before fate took its course in South Vietnam?” (Washington Post, 31 May 1970, www.proquest.com).
2. Frank Snepp, Decent Interval: An Insider’s Account of Saigon’s Indecent End Told by the CIA’s Chief Strategy Analyst in Vietnam (New York: Random House, 1977), 50.
3. Kissinger, White House Years, 1359.
4. Nixon, No More Vietnams, 103.
5. Bundy, A Tangled Web.
6. Jeremi Suri, Henry Kissinger and the American Century (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009), 227.
7. Ibid., 232–33.
8. Conversation 760-006, 3 August 1972, 8:28–8:57 a.m., Oval Office.
9. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 9 July 1971, 4:35–11:20 p.m., attached to Lord to Kissinger, “Memcon of Your Conversations with Chou En-lai,” 29 July 1971, NSCF Box 1033, RMNL; “Memorandum of Conversation,” 22 February 1972, 2:10–6:10 p.m., President’s Office Files Box 87, RMNL; “Memorandum of Conversation,” 20 June 1972, 2:05–6:05 p.m., “China—Dr. Kissinger’s Visit, June 1972 Memcons” folder, NSCF Kissinger Office Files Box 97, RMNL; “Memorandum of Conversation,” 21 June 1972, 3:25–6:45 p.m., “China—Dr. Kissinger’s Visit, June 1972 Memcons” folder, NSCF Kissinger Office Files Box 97, RMNL; “Memorandum of Conversation,” 22–23 June 1972, 11:03 p.m.–12:55 a.m., “China—Dr. Kissinger’s Visit, June 1972 Memcons” folder, NSCF Kissinger Office Files Box 97, RMNL.
10. Conversation 793-006, 6 October 1972, 9:30–10:03 a.m., Oval Office; FRUS 1969–1976, 14: Document 271.
11. Nixon, No More Vietnams, 165. Kissinger likewise bemoaned the “consequences … for America’s reputation as a reliable ally” of the Nixon-invited congressional ban on American combat in Indochina (Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, 360).
12. Niall Ferguson, “The Jewish Key to Henry Kissinger,” Times Literary Supplement, 28 May 2008, www.the-tls.co.uk; Joe Hagan, “The Once and Future Kissinger,” New York, 26 November 2006, http://nymag.com; Jacob Heilbrunn, “Got Your Back,” New York Times, 19 July 2009, www.nytimes.com.
13. In Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power, Robert Dallek is vague on the subject, writing, “To ensure against subsequent complaints of failure in Vietnam, which seemed certain to follow a quick Saigon collapse after a U.S. departure, Nixon and Kissinger hoped Hanoi would allow a ‘decent interval’ before it toppled Thieu’s government” (Robert Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power [New York: HarperCollins, 2007], 620). They did more than hope: they provided secret assurances (of nonintervention if Hanoi gave them an interval of about eighteen months) and made implicit threats (of intervention if Hanoi tried to overthrow Saigon too quickly). Dallek includes bits and pieces of evidence, but for some reason he leaves out the most compelling and illuminating passages from Kissinger’s negotiations with Zhou in July 1971 and June 1972.
Last Days in Vietnam
1. Last Days in Vietnam, documentary, directed by Rory Kennedy, Moxie Firecracker Films.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. “Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress Reporting on United States Foreign Policy,” 10 April 1975, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Gerald R. Ford, 1975 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1977), www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=4826 (hereafter PPPUS: Ford, 1975).
5. John H. Averill, “Congress Votes Viet Aid, Use of Troops,” Los Angeles Times, 24 April 1975, www.proquest.com.
6. United Press International, “Conferees Agree on $327 Million Evacuation Bill,” Los Angeles Times, 25 April 1975, www.proquest.com.
7. Douglas E. Kneeland, “Goal Put at 8,000 a Day,” New York Times, 25 April 1975, www.proquest.com.
8. Last Days in Vietnam, documentary.
9. “Remarks and a Question-and-Answer Session at the Annual Convention of the American Society of Newspaper Editors,” 16 April 1975, PPPUS: Ford, 1975, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=4837.
10. Murrey Marder, “Last Exit,” Washington Post, 11 April 1975, www.proquest.com.
11. Louis Harris, “Harris Finds Most Against Troop Use,” Washington Post, 24 April 1975, www.proquest.com.
12. Ann Hornaday, “ ‘Last Days in Vietnam’ Movie Review: The Stories behind the Iconic Images,” Washington Post, 11 September 2014, http://wapo.st/1qHC3f9.
13. George Packer, “Obama and the Fall of Saigon,” New Yorker, 10 September 2014, www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/obama-fall-saigon.
14. Douglas E. Kneeland, “Goal Put at 8,000 a Day,” New York Times, 25 April 1975, www.proquest.com.
15. Cong. Rec. 18,783 (8 June 1971) (quoted in statement of Sen. Philip Hart).
16. R. W. Apple Jr., “Nixon Would Bar Forced Coalition in South Vietnam,” New York Times, 28 October 1968, www.proquest.com.
A Better War
1. Sorley, A Better War, 217.
2. Ibid., 218–19.
3. Ibid., 161.
4. Lewis Sorley, Thunderbolt: General Creighton Abrams and the Army of His Times (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), 343, italics added.
5. Sorley, A Better War, 357, italics added.
6. “Remarks in Detroit at the Annual Convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars,” 19 August 1968, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1968 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1970), www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29085.
7. Conversation 823-001, 14 December 1972, 9:59–11:46 a.m., Oval Office.
8. Peter Spiegel and Jonathan Weisman, “Behind Afghan Debate, a Battle of Two Books Rages,” Wall Street Journal, 7 October 2009; Fred Kaplan, “We Still Don’t Have a Plan,” Slate, 16 November 2005, slate.com; David Ignatius, “A Better Strategy for Iraq,” Washington Post, 4 November 2005, www.washingtonpost.com.
The Aid-Cutoff Myth
1. Melvin R. Laird, “Iraq: Learning the Lessons of Vietnam,” Foreign Affairs 84, no. 6 (November–December 2005): 22–43, www.jstor.org/stable/info/20031774.
2. Nixon, No More Vietnams, 193; Sorley, A Better War, 367.
3. Laird used the term “Iraqization” in an interview with James Glanz, “Saving Face and How to Say Farewell,” New York Times, 27 November 2005, www.nytimes.com.
4. Liz Sly and Ahmed Ramadan, “Insurgents Seize Iraqi City of Mosul as Security Forces Flee,” Washington Post, 10 June 2014; Loveday Morris and Liz Sly, “Iraq Disintegrating as Insurgents Advance toward Capital; Kurds Seize Kirkuk,” Washington Post, 13 June 2014, www.washingtonpost.com.
5. Martin Chulov, Fazel Hawramy, and Specer Ackerman, “Iraq Army Capitulates to Isis Militants in Four Cities,” Guardian (United Kingdom), 11 June 2014, www.theguardian.com.
6. Eric Schmitt and Michael R. Gordon, “The Iraqi Army Was Crumbling Long before Its Collapse, U.S. Officials Say,” New York Times, 12 June 2014, www.nytimes.com.
How Wars Don’t End
1. Gideon Rose, “What Would Nixon Do?” New York Times, 25 June 2011, www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/opinion/sunday/26afghan.html. The Times replaced “The Week in Review” with the “Sunday Review” on 26 June 2011 (The Editors, “To Our Readers,” New York Times, 25 June 2011, www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/opinion/sunday/26note.html). I once started drafting a humor piece called “What Would Nixon Do?” I meant it ironically, in the vein of The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis, but Rose was seriously advising Obama to follow Nixon’s example.
2. The Miller Center released the transcript in connection with the thirtieth anniversary of Nixon’s resignation (Associated Press, “Tape: Nixon Mulled Vietnam Exit in 1972,” USA Today, 8 August 2004, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-08-08-nixon_x.htm).
3. Ken Hughes, “Fatal Politics: Nixon’s Political Timetable for Withdrawing from Vietnam,” Diplomatic History 34, no. 3 (June 2010): 497–506.
Questions Unasked
1. Associated Press, “US Review Finds Iraq Deadlier Now Than a Year Ago, as Officials Weigh Extending Troop Presence,” Washington Post, 30 July 2011, www.washingtonpost.com; Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, “Quarterly Report and Semiannual Report to the United States Congress,” 30 July 2011, http://cybercemetery.unt.edu/archive/sigir/20130930185834/http://www.sigir.mil/publications/quarterlyreports/index.html.
2. Carl Hulse, “Pelosi Cautions Bush Not to Veto an Iraq Bill,” New York Times, 11 March 2007, www.nytimes.com.
3. Glenn Kessler, “White House Postponing Loss of Iraq, Biden Says,” Washington Post, 5 January 2007, www.washingtonpost.com.
4. “An American Century: A Strategy to Secure America’s Enduring Interests and Ideas; A Romney for President White Paper,” 7 October 2011, Romney for President, Inc., www.MittRomney.com.
5. Ibid.
6. James Dao and Andrew W. Lehren, “In Toll of 2,000, New Portrait of Afghan War,” New York Times, 21 August 2012, www.nytimes.com. In 2014, Obama announced plans to keep approximately 10,000 American soldiers in Afghanistan past the end of that year and to reduce the American presence by the end of 2016 to a small force protecting the embassy and handling other security matters (Mark Landler, “U.S. Troops to Leave Afghanistan by the End of 2016,” New York Times, 27 May 2014, www.nytimes.com).