One Man Against the World: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon (50 page)

“Put the past behind”: Notes prepared by President Nixon for Oct. 22, 1970, meeting with Gromyko, undated, Washington, DC, President’s Personal Files, Nixon Presidential Materials, Nixon Library.

“The US”: Nixon to Kissinger, Oct. 12, 1970, 6:10 p.m., Washington, DC, Kissinger Telephone Conversations.

“Anyone who had lived in Chile”: Phillips testimony, United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, vol. VII, pp. 55ff., July 13, 1975, declassified 1994.

CONTACT THE MILITARY
: The CIA’s operations are fully documented in
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v21
and Peter Kornbluh,
The Pinochet File
(New York: New Press, 2003)
.

A VIAUX COUP
and
OVERTHROWN
: Ibid.

“come up with nothing”: Sept. 15, 1970, entry in
Haldeman Diaries
.

“We wanted some confrontation”: Oct. 29, 1970, entry in ibid.

“I could not resist showing them how little respect I had for their mindless ranting”: Nixon,
RN
, pp. 492–93.

“a terrifying flying wedge of cops”: Oct. 29, 1970, entry in
Haldeman Diaries
.

Larger government studies estimated: Lee N. Robins, “Lessons from the Vietnam Heroin Experience,”
Harvard Mental Health Letter
, Dec. 1994. See also Alfred W. McCoy with Cathleen B. Read and Leonard P. Adams II,
The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia
(New York: Harper and Row, 1972), pp. 223ff.

“a significant political failure” … “absolutely ruthless”: Nixon,
RN
, pp. 495–97.

“amazing array of trivia” and “handling super fat cats and special assignments”: Nov. 10 and 19, 1970, entries in
Haldeman Diaries
.

“John Dean asked me if I would set up a safe house” … He was also “quite dangerous”: Miller oral history, FAOH.

“He started vying for favor on Nixon’s dark side”: Tim Weiner, “Charles Colson, Nixon’s Political Enforcer, Dies at 80,”
New York Times
, April 23, 2012.

11: “We’re not going to lose this war”

“break the back of the enemy”: CJCS Memo M-218-70, Dec. 23, 1970, Washington, DC, “SUBJECT: Conference with President Nixon,” in Moorer Diary, July 1970–July 1974, Records of the Chairman.

“we’ve discovered that the enemy has our plan and is starting to mass their troops to counteract”: Jan. 26, 1971, entry (declassified Nov. 2014) in
Haldeman Diaries
.

“we had received intercepts yesterday”: Memorandum for the president’s file by the president’s deputy assistant for national security affairs Haig, Jan. 27, 1971, Washington, DC, “SUBJECT: Meeting of the President, Secretary of State Rogers, Secretary of Defense Laird, Director of CIA Helms, Chairman of JCS Moorer, Henry A. Kissinger and Alexander M. Haig in the Oval Office,”
FRUS
VII: Vietnam.

“there could be no perception of defeat”:
History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–1973
, Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Washington, DC (declassified 2007), p. 5, Historical Division, Joint Secretariat, JCS.

“He did not agree with the connotation that the Laos operation was merely a raid”: Memorandum for the president’s file by Haig, Jan. 27, 1971, Washington, DC, “SUBJECT: Meeting of the President, Secretary of State Rogers, Secretary of Defense Laird, Director of CIA Helms, Chairman of JCS Moorer, Henry A. Kissinger and Alexander M. Haig in the Oval Office,”
FRUS
VII: Vietnam.

“The pressure back here”:
History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–73
, pp. 5–6.

“prodded remorselessly by Nixon and Kissinger”: Alexander M. Haig,
Inner Circles
(New York: Warner Books, 1992), p. 273.

“The best legacy”: Nixon to Kissinger, Jan. 24, 1971, Kissinger Telephone Conversations.

“our army’s greatest concentration of combined-arms forces”:
History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–73
, p. 9.

“Tchepone, a tiny town”: Maj. Gen. Nguyen Duy Hinh,
Lam Son 719
(Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1979), p. 90.

“We’re not going to lose it”: Feb. 18, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“We can win in ’72”: Ibid.

“This is the moment of truth”:
History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–73
, pp. 10–13.

THE PRESIDENT’S DECISION TO SUPPORT LAM SON 719
: Kissinger to Bunker, March 1, 1971, Washington, DC,
FRUS
VII: Vietnam.

“the surface of the moon”: Howland oral history, FAOH.

“Why is it that Hanoi”: Minutes of a meeting of the 40 Committee, March 31, 1971, San Clemente, CA,
FRUS
VII: Vietnam.

“They’ve now fought for ten years against us”: March 18, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“It would be hard to exaggerate”: Back-channel message from Kissinger to Ambassador Bunker, March 18, 1971, Washington, DC,
FRUS
VII: Vietnam.

“lost their stomach for Laos”:
History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1971–73
, pp. 10–13.

“What has dramatically demoralized”:
New York Times
, March 28, 1971.

“a bloody field exercise”: Hinh,
Lam Son 719
, p. 163.

“a concrete demonstration”: Military History Institute of Vietnam,
Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975
, trans. Merle L. Pribbenow (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002), p. 278.

“Tonight I can report”: President Nixon, “Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia,” April 7, 1971, Public Papers of Richard Nixon, full text online at
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid
=
2972
.

“The war has eroded America’s confidence”: April 21, 1971, NWHT, telephone tape.

“want to destroy you and they want us to lose in Vietnam”: April 23, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“All of this is a bunch of shit”: Ibid.

“All that matters”: May 10, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“We’ll bomb the goddamn North like it’s never been bombed”: April 6, 1971, NWHT, Old Executive Office Building.

“They relived”: Statement by John Kerry to the Senate Committee of Foreign Relations, April 22, 1971, Cong. Rec. (92nd Cong., 1st Sess.), pp. 179–210.

“You’ll find Kerry running for political office”: April 23, 1971, NWHT, White House.

“Any military commander who is honest with himself”: McNamara interview in
The Fog of War
, directed by Errol Morris (2003).

12: It’s a conspiracy”

“This goddamn
New York Times
expos
é
”: June 13, 1971, NWHT, telephone tape.

“It just shows massive mismanagement”: June 13, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“Goddamn it”: June 15, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“You can blackmail Johnson on this stuff”: June 17, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“Do you remember Huston’s plan? Implement it”: Ibid.

“You need a commander … It could be Colson”: July 1, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“We’re up against an enemy” … “Is that clear?”: Ibid.

“I just want to make that big play”: June 29, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“fears of what the President might do”: Memorandum for the president’s file, July 1, 1971, “China Trips, July 1971,” Briefing Notebook, Kissinger Papers.

“We’re not going to turn the country over”: July 1, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“You can say ‘I cannot control him’”: April 23, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“I understand you are going to Beijing”: Memorandum of conversation, Oct. 25, 1970, Washington, DC, “SUBJECT: Meeting Between the President and Pakistan President Yahya” (notes taken by Kissinger),
FRUS
E-7: Documents on South Asia, 1969–1972.

“The Chinese Government reaffirms its willingness”: Memorandum of conversation, May 7, 1971, Palm Springs, CA, Participants: Joseph S. Farland, U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Henry A. Kissinger, assistant to the president for national security affairs,
FRUS
E-13: Documents on China, 1969–1972.

“President Nixon was ambivalent”: Lord oral history, FAOH.

“this was about as mysterious as you can get”: Farland oral history, FAOH.

“‘Do you know what I’m going to talk about’”: Ibid.

“We were stepping into the infinite”: Holdridge oral history, FAOH.

“As the sun came up”: Lord oral history, FAOH.

“Kissinger and I and the others walked around”: Ibid.

“as forthcoming as we could have hoped”: Kissinger to President Nixon, July 14, 1971, San Clemente, CA., “SUBJECT: My Talks with Chou En-lai,”
FRUS
XVII: China.

“repeatedly stressed—in an almost plaintive tone”: Ibid.

“Krogh and his guys”: July 20, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“I listened intently”: Egil Krogh, “The Break-in That History Forgot,”
New York Times
, June 30, 2007.

“Where does Krogh stand now?”: Sept. 8, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“permanent tails”: Ibid.

“On the IRS”: Sept. 8, 1971, NWHT, Old Executive Office Building.

“We had one little operation” … “It may pay off”: Sept. 8, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

13: “I can see the whole thing unravel”

“Our goal is clear”: Conversation among President Nixon, Ambassador Bunker, and Kissinger, June 16, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“There are no fair elections”: Ibid
.

“re-elect Nguyen Van Thieu”: CIA memorandum for the 40 Committee, Feb. 3, 1971, Washington, DC, “SUBJECT: Covert Actions in Support of U.S. Objective in South Vietnam’s 1971 Elections,”
FRUS
VII: Vietnam.

“Turn on him? Never, never”: Aug. 19, 1971, Washington, DC, Kissinger Telephone Conversations.

“Unless there is a real contest”: Back-channel message from Ambassador Bunker in Saigon to Kissinger, Aug. 20, 1971,
FRUS
VII: Vietnam.

“For the hundredth [
sic
] and twentieth time”: Kissinger, memorandum of conversation, Sept. 13, 1971, Paris,
FRUS
VII: Vietnam.

“The heart of the problem”: Kissinger to Nixon, Sept. 18, 1971, Washington, DC, “SUBJECT: Vietnam,”
FRUS
VII: Vietnam.

“A swift collapse”: Ibid.

“I think we have to consider withdrawing the son-of-a-bitch”: Sept. 14, 1971, Kissinger Telephone Conversations.

“Having been in the military” … “It was a grim picture”: Lange oral history, FAOH.

“We have to keep in mind” … “not to overthrow Thieu”: President Nixon’s news conference, Sept. 16, 1971, online at
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=3146
.

“He started the damn thing!”: April 7, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“everything that flies” … “And with a victory”: Sept. 17, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“The behavior of the U.S.”: NSC meeting on Vietnam, Sept. 20, 1971, Kissinger Papers.

WE ARE LAUNCHED ON A COURSE
: Memorandum of conference with the president, Aug. 29, 1963, National Security file, JFKL. Richard Helms was at a White House meeting at noon on August 29, 1963, with the president, McNamara, and Rusk, among a dozen other top officials. The note taker recorded that Ambassador Lodge had already sent the message to the Vietnamese generals plotting to overthrow Diem that the United States would support them. “The President asked whether anyone had any reservations about the course of action we were following,” and Rusk and McNamara did. The president decided that “Ambassador Lodge is to have authority over all overt and covert operations” in Vietnam.

“We must bear a good deal of responsibility for it”: Nov. 4, 1963, JFK Tapes, JFKL.

“the Kennedy Administration was deeply implicated”: Neil Sheehan, “‘Vietnam Hindsight’ on the Kennedy Years,”
New York Times
, Dec. 22, 1971.

“We have those tapes”: Oct. 8, 1971, NWHT, White House.

“We’ve got to avoid the situation”: Oct. 25, 1971, NWHT, White House.

“We will bomb the bejeezus” … “‘Oh, horrible, horrible, horrible’”: Nov. 20, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

14: “It is illegal, but…”

“These people are savages”: Dec. 15, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“a special feeling”: Kissinger note attached to memorandum of conversation with ambassador to India Kenneth Keating and NSC aide Harold Saunders, June 21, 1971, National Security Council Files, Nixon Library.

“The Pakistani army was just murdering people”: Veliotes oral history, FAOH.

“
Don’t
squeeze Yahya”: Nixon’s handwritten note on Kissinger’s memo, April 28, 1971, “SUBJECT: Policy Options Toward Pakistan,”
FRUS
XI: South Asia Crisis, 1971.

“If they’re going to choose to go with the Russians”: Aug. 9, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“She is a bitch”: Nov. 5, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“We will do everything we can”: Nov. 15, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“Yahya is beginning to feel cornered”: Back-channel message from Ambassador Farland to Kissinger, Nov. 19, 1971, Islamabad,
FRUS
XI: South Asia Crisis.

“Is Yahya saying it’s war?”: Nov. 22, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“didn’t have any confirmation”: Nov. 22, 1971, entry in
Haldeman Diaries
.

STRICTEST PRESIDENTIAL INSTRUCTIONS TO TILT TOWARD PAKISTAN
: Back-channel message from Kissinger to Ambassador Farland, Nov. 24, 1971, Washington, DC,
FRUS
XI: South Asia Crisis.

“To the extent that we can tilt it toward Pakistan”: Nov. 24, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“Pakistan thing makes your heart sick”: The president was in Key Biscayne, Florida; Kissinger in Washington, DC. Dec. 3, 1971, Kissinger Telephone Conversations.