Richard Nixon, elected by a minority of voters in the bitterly contested election of 1968, gave his highest priority to foreign affairs, especially to ending the war in Vietnam. He sought "peace with honor"--a combination that took him nearly five years to achieve. When Nixon sent U.S. troops into Cambodia in the spring of 1970, the nation's already seething college campuses erupted. Nixon weathered the subsequent storm of unpopularity and finally succeeded in extricating the United States from Vietnam. In the process he established diplomatic contact with the People's Republic of China and initiated a period of détente, or relaxed relations, with the Soviet Union. Nixon also had the opportunity to appoint several Supreme Court justices. He expected them to share his conservative judicial philosophy, which emphasized "law and order" and frowned on the kind of judicial activism on behalf of minorities that had characterized the Court in the 1950s and 1960s under Chief Justice Earl Warren. Nixon handily won reelection in 1972 but was soon ensnared in a controversy concerning his role in a break-in at the Democratic party offices in Washington's Watergate apartment complex. Threatened with formal impeachment and trial, Nixon resigned the presidency in August 1974. Gerald Ford, who had been appointed vice-president after Nixon's original running mate, Spiro Agnew, had resigned amid scandalous accusations, became the first person ever elevated to the presidency solely by act of Congress. He speedily lost the public's confidence when he extended an unconditional pardon to the fallen Nixon. Little-known Jimmy Carter of Georgia, promising that he "would never lie," capitalized on public disgust with Nixon and Ford to win the presidency in 1976. But Carter, though intelligent and well meaning, seemed unable to master the art of exercising the power of the presidency. He negotiated an arms-control agreement with the Soviet Union but failed to secure its approval by the Senate. He scored some diplomatic gains in arranging for the peaceful relinquishment of the Panama Canal and in facilitating the peace process in the Middle East, but his presidency was soon engulfed by the problems of runaway inflation, a global energy crisis, and the capture of some fifty American hostages by Iranian revolutionaries. Crippled by these blows, Carter was no match for Ronald Reagan, the attractive, conservative candidate nominated by the Republicans in 1980.
The President
Defends His Incursion (1970)
Nixon's scheme for ending the Vietnam War and winning the peace came to be known
as Vietnamization. Pursuant to his "Guam Doctrine" or "Nixon
Doctrine" of turning over Asia's wars to Asians, he announced on November
3, 1969, that he would gradually withdraw U.S. troops from Vietnam in the
expectation that an ever-stronger South Vietnam would take up the slack and hold
its own. On April 30, 1970, Nixon dramatically appeared on nationwide
television. Pointing out that areas along the border of supposedly neutral
Cambodia were being used as hideouts from which enemy troops had long been
attacking U.S. and South Vietnamese forces, Nixon announced that he was taking
steps to wipe out these sanctuaries. Which of the reasons that he gives for
doing so seem the most valid and which the least valid? How could an extension
of the fighting save American lives?
Cambodia . . . has sent out a call to the United States, to a number of other nations, for assistance. Because if this enemy effort succeeds, Cambodia would become a vast enemy staging area and a springboard for attacks on South Vietnam along 600 miles of frontier--a refuge where enemy troops could return from combat without fear of retaliation.
North Vietnamese men and supplies could then be poured into that country, jeopardizing not only the lives of our own men but the people of South Vietnam as well.
Now confronted with this situation, we have three options.
First, we can do nothing. Well, the ultimate result of that course of action is clear. Unless we indulge in wishful thinking, the lives of Americans remaining in Vietnam after our next withdrawal of 10,000 would be gravely threatened. . . .
Our second choice is to provide massive military assistance to Cambodia itself. Now unfortunately, while we deeply sympathize with the plight of 7 million Cambodians whose country is being invaded, massive amounts of military assistance could not be rapidly and effectively utilized by the small Cambodian Army against the immediate threat. . . .
Our third choice is to go to the heart of the trouble. That means cleaning out major North Vietnamese and Vietcong occupied territories, these sanctuaries which serve as bases for attacks on both Cambodia and American and South Vietnamese forces in South Vietnam. Some of these, incidentally, are as close to Saigon as Baltimore is to Washington. . . .
In cooperation with the armed forces of South Vietnam, attacks are being launched this week to clean out major enemy sanctuaries on the Cambodian-Vietnam border. . . .
This is not an invasion of Cambodia. The areas in which these attacks will be launched are completely occupied and controlled by North Vietnamese forces. Our purpose is not to occupy the areas. Once enemy forces are driven out of these sanctuaries and once their military supplies are destroyed, we will withdraw. . . .
Now let me give you the reasons for my decision.
A majority of the American people, a majority of you listening to me, are for the withdrawal of our forces from Vietnam. The action I have taken tonight is indispensable for the continuing success of that withdrawal program.
A majority of the American people want to end this war rather than to have it drag on interminably. The action I have taken tonight will serve that purpose.
A majority of the American people want to keep the casualties of our brave men in Vietnam at an absolute minimum. The action I take tonight is essential if we are to accomplish that goal.
We take this action not for the purpose of expanding the war into Cambodia but for the purpose of ending the war in Vietnam and winning the just peace we all desire. We have made and we will continue to make every possible effort to end this war through negotiation at the conference table rather than through more fighting on the battlefield. . . .
Tonight, I again warn the North Vietnamese that if they continue to escalate the fighting when the United States is withdrawing its forces, I shall meet my responsibility as Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces to take the action I consider necessary to defend the security of our American men.
The action that I have announced tonight puts the leaders of North Vietnam on notice that we will be patient in working for peace, we will be conciliatory at the conference table, but we will not be humiliated. We will not be defeated. We will not allow American men by the thousands to be killed by an enemy from privileged sanctuaries. . . .
If, when the chips are down, the world's most powerful nation, the United States of America, acts like a pitiful, helpless giant, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations and free institutions throughout the world.
It is not our power but our will and character that is being tested tonight. The question all Americans must ask and answer tonight is this: Does the richest and strongest nation in the history of the world have the character to meet a direct challenge by a group which rejects every effort to win a just peace, ignores our warning, tramples on solemn agreements, violates the neutrality of an unarmed people, and uses our prisoners as hostages?
If we fail to meet this challenge, all other nations will be on notice that despite its overwhelming power the United States, when a real crisis comes, will be found wanting.
During my campaign for the Presidency, I pledged to bring Americans home from Vietnam. They are coming home.
I promised to end this war. I shall keep that promise.
I promised to win a just peace. I shall keep that promise.
We shall avoid a wider war. But we are also determined to put an end to this war.
Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents 6 (1970): 597ff.
The St. Louis
Post-Dispatch Dissents (1970)
The sudden invasion of "neutral" Cambodia by U.S. troops, at a time
when Nixon was supposedly winding down the war rather than widening it, provoked
an angry uproar in the United States. No doubt taken aback by the furor, Nixon
gave assurances that U.S. forces would withdraw within two months (as they did)
and penetrate no farther than about twenty miles (which they did). Some stores
of rice, arms, and trucks were captured. The assumption was that the enemy
forces would return, as they did, when the Americans left. Nixon was widely
upbraided for having turned the Vietnam War into an Indochina war (which to a
degree it already was), and this charge was redoubled when, in February 1971, a
U.S.-supported South Vietnamese force invaded Laos and was quickly driven back.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a prominent Democratic newspaper, found the
Cambodian incursion illogical and deceptive. Which of its various criticisms
seems most trenchant in the light of subsequent events?
President Nixon now has his own Indochina war and his own credibility gap. Neither one is inherited any longer. In asking the American people to support the expansion of the Vietnam war to Cambodia, as he has already expanded it to Laos, he asks them to believe the same false promises which have repeatedly betrayed them against their will into ever deeper involvement on the mainland of Asia.
They are asked to seek peace by making war; to seek withdrawal of our troops by enlarging the arena of combat; to diminish American casualties by sending more young men to their death; to save the lives of 450,000 American troops by one more round of escalation. And all this Mr. Nixon asks in the name of preserving the credibility of America as a great power!
Such an exercise in double-think and double-talk would be unbelievable if the whole nation had not seen an uneasy President floundering in illogic and misrepresentation before its very eyes. It is still hard to understand how a President who saw his predecessor destroyed by manipulating the people into an unwanted war would now attempt to manipulate them into enlarging the war he promised to end.
When all of Mr. Nixon's patchwork rationalizations are stripped away, it is quite clear what has happened. His policy of Vietnamization is a failure. It always was a fatuous assumption that as American troops withdrew the South Vietnamese would become stronger and Hanoi would be intimidated into accepting defeat. Now that the assumption has been exposed as false--now that the Communists refuse to give up fighting on Mr. Nixon's command--the Pentagon has sold him the bill of goods that escalation will rescue a bankrupt policy.
It is the same bill of goods, slightly worn, that the generals sold Lyndon Johnson. First they promised that a merciless air war would bring Hanoi to its knees; and it didn't. Then, 500,000 ground troops would cow the Viet Cong; and they didn't. Now, "cleaning out" the bases on the Cambodian border, which our forces have lived with for five years, will suddenly win the war--and who can believe, honestly, that it will?
Nor can rational men honestly believe that sending American troops into Cambodia is necessary to save the lives of our garrison in Vietnam. The 450,000 men there, equipped and armed to the hilt, are perfectly able to protect themselves and Mr. Nixon knows it. So he fuzzes up the argument by saying that the object is to protect the lives of those Americans who will be left in Vietnam after mid-1971, when the current withdrawal schedule has been fulfilled.
This adds up to an interesting confession that Mr. Nixon intends to leave some 300,000 troops in Vietnam after his third year in office, but it is no more persuasive than the other. The plain truth is that Vietnamization has failed, the withdrawal schedule is threatened, Mr. Nixon because of his marriage to the Thieu-Ky regime [in South Vietnam] refuses to negotiate a compromise political settlement, and so he buys the old, battered nostrum of escalation. . . .
It is no wonder that moderate and thoughtful men like Republican Senator Mark Hatfield of Oregon are coming to the conclusion that the only way left to carry out the public will is to exercise the constitutional powers of Congress in a way that guarantees an end to the war. . . . Senator Hatfield is proposing that Congress stipulate a cut-off date after which no more funds will be appropriated for military operations in Indochina.
We favor such a measure. The cut-off date could be set far enough ahead to avoid any perils of precipitate withdrawal. It would not interfere with, but would reinforce, an orderly and secure disengagement. It would do no more than to write into law what Mr. Nixon claims to be his policy of ending the war. Its most immediate effect, we imagine, would be to compel Mr. Nixon to negotiate a reasonable political settlement based on a coalition government, to be followed by elections in which the Vietnamese people determine their own future. And what is wrong with that?
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 3, 1970.
Henry Kissinger
Dissects the Dissenters
Henry Kissinger, a brilliant, German-born former Harvard professor, was serving
in 1970 as President Nixon's national security assistant--a powerful position
from which he exerted great influence on foreign policy. (He would later
exercise still more power as secretary of state in both the second Nixon
administration and the short-lived Ford administration.) In the following
passage from his memoirs, he offers his view of the antiwar protesters who
convulsed the country in the wake of the Cambodian incursion. How does he judge
the behavior of the Nixon administration toward the protesters? What is his
assessment of their motives? of their effect on policy? What did the crisis do
to his relations with his one-time academic colleagues?
. . . I had entered government with the hope that I could help heal the schisms in my adopted country by working to end the war. I sympathized with the anguish of the students eager to live the American dream of a world where ideas prevailed by their purity without the ambiguities of recourse to power. The war in Vietnam was the first conflict shown on television and reported by a largely hostile press. The squalor and suffering and confusion inseparable from any war became part of the living experience of Americans; too many ascribed its agony to the defects of their own leaders.
Repellent as I found the self-righteousness and brutality of some protesters, I had a special feeling for the students. They had been brought up by skeptics, relativists, and psychiatrists; now they were rudderless in a world from which they demanded certainty without sacrifice. My generation had failed them by encouraging self-indulgence and neglecting to provide roots. I spent a disproportionate amount of time in the next months with student groups--ten in May alone. I met with protesters at private homes. I listened, explained, argued. But my sympathy for their anguish could not obscure my obligation to my country as I saw it. They were, in my view, as wrong as they were passionate. Their pressures delayed the end of the war, not accelerated it; their simplifications did not bring closer the peace, of the yearning for which they had no monopoly. Emotion was not a policy. We had to end the war, but in conditions that did not undermine America's power to help build the new international order upon which the future of even the most enraged depended. . . .
. . . The President's statements, oscillating between the maudlin and the strident, did not help in a volatile situation where everything was capable of misinterpretation. His May 1 off-the-cuff reference to "bums . . . blowing up campuses," a gibe overheard by reporters during a visit to the Pentagon, was a needless challenge, although it was intended to refer only to a tiny group of students who had firebombed a building and burned the life's research of a Stanford professor. When on May 4, four students at Kent State University were killed by rifle fire from National Guardsmen dispatched by Ohio Governor James Rhodes to keep order during several days of violence, there was a shock wave that brought the nation and its leadership close to psychological exhaustion.
The Administration responded with a statement of extraordinary insensitivity. [Press secretary] Ron Ziegler was told to say that the killings "should remind us all once again that when dissent turns to violence it invites tragedy."
The momentum of student strikes and protests accelerated immediately. Campus unrest and violence overtook the Cambodian operation itself as the major issue before the public. Washington took on the character of a besieged city. A pinnacle of mass public protest was reached by May 9 when a crowd estimated at between 75,000 and 100,000 demonstrated on a hot Saturday afternoon on the Ellipse, the park to the south of the White House. Police surrounded the White House; a ring of sixty buses was used to shield the grounds of the President's home. . . .
All this accelerated the processes of disenchantment. Conservatives were demoralized by a war that had turned into a retreat and liberals were paralyzed by what they themselves had wrought--for they could not completely repress the knowledge that it was a liberal Administration that had sent half a million Americans to Indochina. They were equally reluctant to face the implications of their past actions or to exert any serious effort to maintain calm. There was a headlong retreat from responsibility. Extraordinarily enough, all groups, dissenters and others, passed the buck to the Presidency. It was a great joke for undergraduates when one senior professor proclaimed "the way to get out of Vietnam is by ship." The practical consequence was that in the absence of any serious alternative the government was left with only its own policy or capitulation.
The very fabric of government was falling apart. The Executive Branch was shell-shocked. After all, their children and their friends' children took part in the demonstrations. Some two hundred and fifty State Department employees, including fifty Foreign Service Officers, signed a statement objecting to Administration policy. The ill-concealed disagreement of Cabinet members showed that the Executive Branch was nearly as divided as the country. Interior Secretary Walter Hickel protested in public. The New York Times on May 9 reported that the Secretary of State had prohibited any speculation on his own attitude--hardly a ringing endorsement of the President. A group of employees seized the Peace Corps building and flew a Viet Cong flag from it. Robert Finch, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, refused to disagree publicly with his President and old friend--as indeed he did privately--and a large number of his officials occupied the department's auditorium in protest. The President saw himself as the firm rock in this rushing stream, but the turmoil had its effect on him as well. Pretending indifference, he was deeply wounded by the hatred of the protesters. He would have given a great deal to gain a measure of the affection in which the students held the envied and admired Kennedys. In his ambivalence Nixon reached a point of exhaustion that caused his advisers deep concern. His awkward visit to the Lincoln Memorial to meet students at 5:00 A.M. on May 9 was only the tip of the psychological iceberg.
Exhaustion was the hallmark of us all. I had to move from my apartment ringed by protesters into the basement of the White House to get some sleep. Despite the need to coordinate the management of the crisis, much of my own time was spent with unhappy, nearly panicky, colleagues; even more with student and colleague demonstrators. I talked at some length to Brian McDonnell and Thomas Mahoney, two young pacifists who announced they would fast in Lafayette Park until all American troops had been withdrawn. I talked in the Situation Room with groups of students from various colleges and graduate schools about the root causes, as I saw them, of their despair, which I thought deeper than anxiety about the war.
I found these discussions with students rather more rewarding than those with their protesting teachers. When I had lunch in the Situation Room with a group of Harvard professors, most of whom had held high governmental posts, at their request, I offered to engage in a candid discussion of the reasoning behind the decision, but on an off-the-record basis. Most had been my close colleagues and friends. They would not accept this offer. They were there not as eminent academicians but as political figures representing a constituency at home, a campus inflamed by the Kent State tragedy as much as by the war. They had proclaimed to the newspapers beforehand--but not to me--that they were there to confront me; they announced that they would henceforth refuse any research or advisory relationship with the government.
Their objections to the Cambodian decision illustrated that hyperbole was not confined to the Administration. One distinguished professor gave it as his considered analysis that "somebody had forgotten to tell the President that Cambodia was a country; he acted as if he didn't know this. Had we undertaken a large commitment to Cambodia? If we had, this was rotten foreign policy. If we hadn't, this was rotten foreign policy." He was convinced that this action "clearly jeopardized American withdrawals"--though in fact it did the opposite. This professor was prepared to believe, on the basis of no evidence whatsoever, that Secretary of Defense Laird had been unaware of the military operations before the President announced them. He held the amazing view that "it was a gamble that shouldn't have been taken even if it succeeds on its own terms." Others said the decision was "incomprehensible," "more horrible than anything done by LBJ," "dreadful." One professor advanced the extraordinary hypothesis that an operation lasting eight weeks to a distance of twenty-one miles might lead our military commanders to believe that the use of nuclear weapons was now conceivable. Another declared that we had provoked all the actions of the other side.
The meeting completed my transition from the academic world to the world of affairs. These were the leaders of their fields; men who had been my friends, academicians whose lifetime of study should have encouraged a sense of perspective. That they disagreed with our decision was understandable; I had myself gone through a long process of hesitation before I became convinced that there was no alternative. But the lack of compassion, the overweening righteousness, the refusal to offer an alternative, reinforced two convictions: that for the internal peace of our country the war had to be ended, but also that in doing so on terms compatible with any international responsibility we would get no help from those with whom I had spent my professional life. The wounds would have to be healed after the war was over; in the event, these were not.
Cambodia was not a moral issue; neither Nixon nor his opponents should ever have presented it in those terms. What we faced was an essentially tactical choice: whether the use of American troops to neutralize the sanctuaries for a period of eight weeks was the best way to maintain the established pace and security of our exit from Vietnam and prevent Hanoi from overrunning Indochina. Reasonable men might differ; instead, rational discussion ended. The President's presentation that elevated his decision to the same level of crisis as some of the crucial choices of World War II was countered by the critics with the image of an out-of-control President acting totally irrationally, who had provoked the enemy and whose actions were immoral even if they succeeded.
But it was not the incursion into Cambodia that was the real subject of debate. It was the same issue that had torn the country during the Moratorium the previous year: whether there were any terms that the United States should insist on for its honor, its world position, and the sacrifices already made, or whether it should collapse its effort immediately and unconditionally. A political settlement as urged by Senator Fulbright--other than the quick imposition of a Communist government in Saigon--was precisely what Hanoi had always rejected, as Le Duc Tho had confirmed to me in the most unqualified terms not three weeks earlier. What none of the moderate critics was willing to admit was that if we followed their recommendations of refusing aid to Cambodia, we would soon have no choice but to accept Hanoi's terms, which none of them supported. Our opponents kept proclaiming an assumption for which there did not exist the slightest evidence--that there was some unspecified political alternative, some magic formula of neutrality, which was being willfully spurned. The panicky decision to set a June 30 deadline for the removal of our forces from Cambodia was one concrete result of public pressures. . . .
Unfortunately, the arguments for a withdrawal deadline had not improved with age. Either the deadline was compatible with Vietnamization, in which case it coincided with our own policy but would deprive us of negotiating leverage. Or it was arbitrary, in which case it was euphemism for a collapse; and it would have been nearly impossible to justify risking lives in the interval before the deadline expired. So we ended the Cambodia operation still on the long route out of Vietnam, confronting an implacable enemy and an equally implacable domestic opposition.
From White House Years by Henry Kissinger, pp. 510-517.
Nixon's Grand Plan
in Foreign Policy (1968-1969)
Richard Nixon built his prepresidential career on a strong reputation as a
hawkish cold warrior--and thus, ironically, he was in a particularly favorable
position to bring some thaw to the chilly Cold War. As a certified conservative,
he had a freedom of maneuver that would not have been available to a liberal
Democrat, who would have been vulnerable to criticism from the very right wing
that Nixon could easily control. Nixon shrewdly saw the implications of the
split between China and the Soviet Union that had developed in the 1960s, and he
was determined to turn that split to U.S. advantage. In the following passage
from his memoirs, Nixon describes his thinking about global affairs as he
embarked upon his presidency. What does he mean when he says that "the key
to a Vietnam settlement lay in Moscow and Peking rather than in Hanoi"?
In the late 1940s and during the 1950s I had seen communism spread to China and other parts of Asia, and to Africa and South America, under the camouflage of parties of socialist revolution, or under the guise of wars of national liberation. And, finally, during the 1960s I had watched as Peking and Moscow became rivals for the role of leadership in the Communist world.
Never once in my career have I doubted that the Communists mean it when they say that their goal is to bring the world under Communist control. Nor have I ever forgotten Whittaker Chambers's chilling comment that when he left communism, he had the feeling he was leaving the winning side. But unlike some anticommunists who think we should refuse to recognize or deal with the Communists lest in doing so we imply or extend an ideological respectability to their philosophy and their system, I have always believed that we can and must communicate and, when possible, negotiate with Communist nations. They are too powerful to ignore. We must always remember that they will never act out of altruism, but only out of self-interest. Once this is understood, it is more sensible--and also safer--to communicate with the Communists than it is to live in icy cold-war isolation or confrontation. In fact, in January 1969 I felt the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union would probably be the single most important factor in determining whether the world would live at peace during and after my administration.
I felt that we had allowed ourselves to get in a disadvantageous position vis-à-vis the Soviets. They had a major presence in the Arab states of the Middle East, while we had none; they had Castro in Cuba; since the mid-1960s they had supplanted the Chinese as the principal military suppliers of North Vietnam; and except for Tito's Yugoslavia they still totally controlled Eastern Europe and threatened the stability and security of Western Europe.
There were, however, a few things in our favor. The most important and interesting was the Soviet split with China. There was also some evidence of growing, albeit limited, independence in some of the satellite nations. There were indications that the Soviet leaders were becoming interested in reaching an agreement on strategic arms limitation. They also appeared to be ready to hold serious talks on the anomalous situation in Berlin, which, almost a quarter century after the war had ended, was still a divided city and a constant source of tension, not just between the Soviets and the United States, but also between the Soviets and Western Europe. We sensed that they were looking for a face-saving formula that would lessen the risk of confrontation in the Mideast. And we had some solid evidence that they were anxious for an expansion of trade.
It was often said that the key to a Vietnam settlement lay in Moscow and Peking rather than in Hanoi. Without continuous and massive aid from either or both of the Communist giants, the leaders of North Vietnam would not have been able to carry on the war for more than a few months. Thanks to the Sino-Soviet split, however, the North Vietnamese had been extremely successful in playing off the Soviets and the Chinese against each other by turning support for their war effort into a touchstone of Communist orthodoxy and a requisite for keeping North Vietnam from settling into the opposing camp in the struggle for domination within the Communist world. This situation became a strain, particularly for the Soviets. Aside from wanting to keep Hanoi from going over to Peking, Moscow had little stake in the outcome of the North Vietnamese cause, especially as it increasingly worked against Moscow's own major interests vis-à-vis the United States. While I understood that the Soviets were not entirely free agents where their support for North Vietnam was concerned, I nonetheless planned to bring maximum pressure to bear on them in this area.
I was sure that [Soviet leaders] Brezhnev and Kosygin had been no more anxious for me to win in 1968 than Khrushchev had been in 1960. The prospect of having to deal with a Republican administration--and a Nixon administration at that--undoubtedly caused anxiety in Moscow. In fact, I suspected that the Soviets might have counseled the North Vietnamese to offer to begin the Paris talks in the hope that the bombing halt would tip the balance to Humphrey in the election--and if that was their strategy, it had almost worked.
After the election Johnson proposed that as President and President-elect he and I attend a summit meeting with the Soviets in the period before my inauguration. I understood his desire to make one last dramatic demonstration of his dedication to peace, but I saw no solid basis for concluding that the Soviet leaders were prepared to negotiate seriously on any critical issue. Nor did I want to be boxed in by any decisions that were made before I took office.
The most that might come from such a last-minute summit would be a "spirit," like the "Spirit of Glassboro" that followed Johnson's meeting with Kosygin in New Jersey in 1967 or the "Spirit of Camp David" that followed Eisenhower's meeting with Khrushchev in 1959. It was my feeling that such "spirits" were almost entirely spurious and that they actually worked heavily to the Soviets' advantage. Since public opinion played no role whatever in the Communist system, such summit "spirit" was a one-way street in their direction, because the optimistic attitudes that characterized American public opinion after a summit made it harder for us to assume a tough line in our postsummit dealings with the Soviets.
During the transition period Kissinger and I developed a new policy for dealing with the Soviets. Since U.S.-Soviet interests as the world's two competing nuclear superpowers were so widespread and overlapping, it was unrealistic to separate or compartmentalize areas of concern. Therefore we decided to link progress in such areas of Soviet concern as strategic arms limitation and increased trade with progress in areas that were important to us--Vietnam, the Mideast, and Berlin. This concept became known as linkage.
Lest there be any doubt of my seriousness in pursuing this policy, I purposely announced it at my first press conference when asked a question about starting SALT [Strategic Arms Limitation Talks] talks. I said, "What I want to do is to see to it that we have strategic arms talks in a way and at a time that will promote, if possible, progress on outstanding political problems at the same time--for example, on the problem of the Mideast and on other outstanding problems in which the United States and the Soviet Union acting together can serve the cause of peace."
Linkage was something uncomfortably new and different for the Soviets, and I was not surprised when they bridled at the restraints it imposed on our relationship. It would take almost two years of patient and hard-nosed determination on our part before they would accept that linkage with what we wanted from them was the price they would have to pay for getting any of the things they wanted from us.
We made our first contacts with the Soviets during the transition period. In mid-December Kissinger met with a Soviet UN diplomat who was, as we knew, actually an intelligence officer. I wanted it made clear that I was not taken in by any of the optimistic rhetoric that had characterized so much of recent Soviet-American relations. Kissinger therefore stated that while the tendency during the last few years had been to emphasize how much our two nations supposedly had in common, the Nixon administration felt that there were real and substantial differences between us and that an effort to lessen the tension created by these differences should be the central focus of our relationship. Kissinger also said that I did not want a pre-inauguration summit meeting and that if they held one with Johnson I would have to state publicly that I would not be bound by it. Nothing was heard about this summit project.
We received a prompt reply from Moscow. Our UN contact reported that the Soviet leadership was "not pessimistic" because of the election of a Republican President. He said that the Soviet leadership had expressed an interest in knowing if I desired to "open channels of communication." It was with this in mind that I said in my inaugural address, "After a period of confrontation, we are entering an era of negotiation. Let all nations know that during this administration our lines of communication will be open."
The Memoirs of Richard Nixon.
Nixon's Address to
the Nation (1973)
President Nixon had inherited the unwanted Vietnam War, but he kept the
bloodshed going for more than four years--longer than the United States'
participation in either World War I or World War II. When the North Vietnamese
balked at the peace table in Paris in 1972, Nixon launched his awesome
"Christmas blitz" against the North Vietnamese capital, thus prompting
the so-called cease-fire that Nixon hailed as "peace with honor." By
its terms the United States retrieved some 560 prisoners of war and withdrew its
remaining 27,000 troops. The South Vietnamese government of dictatorial
President Thieu was permitted to receive replacements of weapons from the United
States, as well as other kinds of nontroop support. Yet the North Vietnamese
forces still occupied about 30 percent of South Vietnam, and they were allowed
to retain there about 145,000 troops that were in a position to renew
hostilities. Such was the "honorable" peace that North Vietnam
immediately flouted and that vanished in about two years. To what extent does
Nixon gloss over the truth in this section of his televised report to the nation
on January 23, 1973?
Good evening. I have asked for this radio and television time tonight for the purpose of announcing that we today have concluded an agreement to end the war and bring peace with honor in Vietnam and in Southeast Asia. . . .
We must recognize that ending the war is only the first step toward building the peace. All parties must now see to it that this is a peace that lasts, and also a peace that heals, and a peace that not only ends the war in Southeast Asia, but contributes to the prospects of peace in the whole world.
This will mean that the terms of the agreement must be scrupulously adhered to. We shall do everything the agreement requires of us and we shall expect the other parties to do everything it requires of them. We shall also expect other interested nations to help insure that the agreement is carried out and peace is maintained.
As this long and very difficult war ends, I would like to address a few special words to each of those who have been parties in the conflict.
First, to the people and Government of South Vietnam: By your courage, by your sacrifice, you have won the precious right to determine your own future and you have developed the strength to defend that right. We look forward to working with you in the future, friends in peace as we have been allies in war.
To the leaders of North Vietnam: As we have ended the war through negotiations, let us now build a peace of reconciliation. For our part, we are prepared to make a major effort to help achieve that goal. But just as reciprocity was needed to end the war, so, too, will it be needed to build and strengthen the peace.
To the other major powers [China, the Soviet Union] that have been involved even indirectly: Now is the time for mutual restraint so that the peace we have achieved can last.
And finally, to all of you who are listening, the American people: Your steadfastness in supporting our insistence on peace with honor has made peace with honor possible. I know that you would not have wanted that peace jeopardized. With our secret negotiations at the sensitive stage they were in during this recent period, for me to have discussed publicly our efforts to secure peace would not only have violated our understanding with North Vietnam, it would have seriously harmed and possibly destroyed the chances for peace. Therefore, I know that you now can understand why, during these past several weeks, I have not made any public statements about those efforts.
The important thing was not to talk about peace, but to get peace and to get the right kind of peace. This we have done.
Now that we have achieved an honorable agreement, let us be proud that America did not settle for a peace that would have betrayed our allies, that would have abandoned our prisoners of war, or that would have ended the war for us but would have continued the war for the 50 million people of Indochina. Let us be proud of the 2 1/2 million young Americans who served in Vietnam, who served with honor and distinction in one of the most selfless enterprises in the history of nations. And let us be proud of those who sacrificed, who gave their lives so that the people of South Vietnam might live in freedom and so that the world might live in peace.
Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents 9 (1973): 43-44.
Canadians See
Neither Peace nor Honor (1973)
Much of the free world, in addition to the communist countries, had deplored the
U.S. intervention in Vietnam. Canada, to which many draft dodgers had fled, was
conspicuous among the critics. The "peace with honor" that Nixon
announced was actually violated in a wholesale fashion by both sides from the
day of signing in January 1973 until the disgraceful rout in April 1975. During
the first year of "peace" alone, an estimated fifty thousand
Vietnamese were killed. To what extent does the following editorial from the
Toronto Star seem justified in the light of the facts?
It's evidently impossible for a president of the United States to come clean about Viet Nam; there is too much shame and failure in the American record there to be even hinted at. Thus President Nixon kept proclaiming the achievement of "peace with honor" last night, when all he can really promise is that the Americans are going to pull out of that wretched war in fairly good order, with their prisoners returned, instead of fleeing in abject humiliation.
"Exit with face saved" would have been a more accurate phrase than peace with honor; for, whatever the terms of the Paris agreement may say, it's obvious that there is no guarantee of peace between North and South Viet Nam. Hanoi maintains its goal of unifying all Viet Nam under Communist rule, while the government of South Viet Nam and a considerable number of its people mean to resist that dubious blessing.
The president felt obliged to insist that the principal war aim of the United States had been achieved; he told the South Vietnamese that their right to determine their own future has been won. That's uncertain, to put it mildly, since they have so far been incapable of defeating the Communists with the full participation of the United States on their side.
It would have been enough good news for Nixon to say what he can say credibly, that the United States is getting out. Not that the basic purpose of the American intervention--to keep South Viet Nam from being taken over by the Communists--was dishonorable. But the way the Americans fought the war has been calamitous for both Viet Nam and the United States.
The United States waged war with incredible stupidity and callousness. Counting social as well as material and human destruction, it probably harmed its ally South Viet Nam more than its enemy North Viet Nam. The land was transformed from one of hamlets and villages to one of shantytown cities living off the American war machine. Bombing and clearance orders--in South Viet Nam--created millions of refugees and caused hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties. In terms of military efficiency, the profligate American operation was comparable to shooting mosquitoes with a machine-gun. The Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese troops were equally callous, but couldn't match the American power to destroy and disrupt.
Let us hope that peace is indeed near for the tortured people of Viet Nam. But the prospects are highly doubtful, and depend heavily on the willingness of the Soviet Union and China on one side, and the United States on the other, to restrain their respective allies. For now, it is sufficient to know that the most blunderingly destructive element of all--the American presence--is to be removed.
The Toronto Star, January 24, 1973.
The Expulsion from
Vietnam (1975)
Early in 1975 the North Vietnamese launched a furious assault, and the South
Vietnamese defenses crumpled like cardboard. As Saigon was caving in,
helicopters airlifted out U.S. personnel and also rescued an estimated 140,000
Vietnamese who were supposedly marked for extermination by the victors. The
escape from Vietnam was a defeat not so much for the United States as it was for
the U.S. policy of supporting communist-threatened regimes in distant parts of
the globe. The U.S. forces had fought the enemy to a standstill and had
withdrawn "with honor" after fighting to at least a stalemate in 1973.
The South Vietnamese, with continued U.S. military supplies, lost the war, and
the United States consequently lost face. In the light of these circumstances,
was the Des Moines Register unduly critical in its assessment?
The war in Vietnam, like the war in Cambodia, has ended with a victory for the Communist-led revolutionary forces and a defeat for the upholders of the old ruling classes. That includes the United States, which for 25 years--since the first aid to France in support of that country's effort to maintain its Indochina colony--has been upholding the old regimes.
The incredible thing, still, is the stubborn failure of United States leaders to see what was going on, to see the hopelessness of their cause and to get out. A quarter of a century!
The American public and press must share the blame for this disaster of American foreign policy. With rare and honorable exceptions, Americans went along, bemused by the concept of American leadership of a "free world" struggle against Communism.
A succession of American presidents, secretaries of state, defense secretaries and generals told the people over and over that America was winning. They distorted the evidence; they told outright lies. The facts were that the side America was supporting was losing.
Each American president since Eisenhower has had the opportunity to move toward a political compromise in Vietnam. Each one lacked the courage to take a step which he feared might look like an American "defeat" or, as President Ford and Secretary Kissinger have been putting it, like a failure to make good on a commitment.
In the end, this policy led to a much worse defeat and a much worse discrediting of America's international behavior than early withdrawal would have meant.
The fear of Communist takeovers, of a phony "domino" theory of collapsing "democracies," has been dominant in U.S. policy--even after the moves toward détente with the big communist countries.
The misguided quarter century is now behind America, as President Ford said recently, although not in those words. Instead of losing face or encouraging Communism or losing confidence of the rest of the world, the United States probably will gain in these respects from finally ending its military role in Asia.
The nation would have gained respect sooner if the government had acted on its own--10, 15 or more years ago. Instead, action to end the Indochina connection came only after the arousal of public opinion which drove one president out of public life, and led to the near-impeachment of another on charges of abuse of constitutional power. Even the ending was a foot-dragging business with Ford, Kissinger and Ambassador Graham Martin holding the line in Saigon.
But public opinion finally did prevail; the machinery of democracy did work, though slowly. The country will be stronger; wiser and more effective in world affairs, we believe, as a result of ending this misadventure. The illusions of imperialism, of world leadership in terms of military power, of executive primacy in foreign affairs--those illusions, we hope and believe, are vanishing.
Des Moines Register, April 30, 1975.
The Outlawing of
Third-Degree Confessions (1966)
In the 1960s and even earlier, the Supreme Court was a target for abuse by
conservative groups. The more vocal extremists raised the insulting cry
"Impeach Earl Warren" against the liberal chief justice. Conservatives
were first outraged by a series of rulings that extended constitutional
guarantees to communists and that ordered desegregation in the schools. Then, in
1962 and 1963, came two decisions banning the recitation of prayers in the
public schools. Such a practice was declared to be in violation of the First
Amendment, which required a separation of church and state.*
In 1963 an epochal decision held that accused criminals must be provided with lawyers in noncapital offenses. In 1964 and 1966 other decisions decreed that confessions obtained by the police in private (and hence under suspicion of physical force) could not be used to convict. The Fifth Amendment had long barred self-incrimination. Finally, on June 13, 1966, the Supreme Court, in a five-to-four decision, reversed the conviction of a confessed kidnapper-rapist, Ernesto Miranda, together with three men accused of other felonies. Chief Justice Warren, speaking for the majority, ruled in part as follows. In view of the fact that the crime rate was rising alarmingly and that this decision would make convictions harder to obtain, was the Court to be commended for emphasizing the rights of the individual at the expense of social order?
Prior to any questioning, the person must be warned that he has a right to remain silent, that any statement he does make may be used as evidence against him, and that he has a right to the presence of an attorney, either retained or appointed.
The defendant may waive effectuation of these rights, provided the waiver is made voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently.
If, however, he indicates in any manner and at any stage of the process that he wishes to consult with an attorney before speaking, there can be no questioning.
Likewise, if the individual is alone and indicates in any manner that he does not wish to be interrogated, the police may not question him. The mere fact that he may have answered some questions or volunteered some statements on his own does not deprive him of the right to refrain from answering any further inquiries until he has consulted with an attorney and thereafter consents to be questioned.
The constitutional issue we decide in each of these [four] cases is the admissibility of statements obtained from a defendant questioned while in custody and deprived of his freedom of option. In each, the defendant was questioned by police officers, detectives, or a prosecuting attorney in a room in which he was cut off from the outside world. In none of these cases was the defendant given a full and effective warning of his rights at the outset of the interrogation process. In all the cases, the questioning elicited oral admissions, and in three of them, signed statements as well which were admitted at their trials.
They all thus share salient features--incommunicado** interrogation of individuals in a police-dominated atmosphere, resulting in self-incriminating statements without full warnings of constitutional rights. . . .
From extensive factual studies undertaken in the early [19]30s . . . it is clear that police violence and the "third degree" flourished at that time. In a series of cases decided by this Court long after these studies, the police resorted to physical brutality--beatings, hanging, whipping--and to sustained and protracted questioning incommunicado in order to extort confessions. The 1961 Commission on Civil Rights found much evidence to indicate that "some policemen still resort to physical force to obtain confessions."
The use of physical brutality and violence is not, unfortunately, relegated to the past or to any part of the country. Only recently in Kings County, N.Y., the police brutally beat, kicked and placed lighted cigarette butts on the back of a potential witness under interrogation for the purpose of securing a statement incriminating a third party. . . .
The examples given above are undoubtedly the exception now, but they are sufficiently widespread to be the object of concern. . . .
Even without employing brutality, the "third degree" or the specific stratagems described above, the very fact of custodial interrogation exacts a heavy toll on individual liberty and trades on the weakness of individuals. . . .
If an individual indicates that he wishes the assistance of counsel before any interrogation occurs, the authorities cannot rationally ignore or deny his request on the basis that the individual does not have or cannot afford a retained attorney.
The financial ability of the individual has no relationship to the scope of the rights involved here. The privilege against self-incrimination secured by the Constitution applies to all individuals. The need for counsel in order to protect the privilege exists for the indigent as well as the affluent. . . .
This does not mean, as some have suggested, that each police station must have a "station-house lawyer" present at all times to advise prisoners. It does mean, however, that if police propose to interrogate a person they must make known to him that he is entitled to a lawyer and that, if he cannot afford one, a lawyer will be provided for him prior to any interrogation. . . .
Our decision is not intended to hamper the traditional function of police officers in investigating crime. . . . When an individual is in custody on probable cause, the police may, of course, seek out evidence in the field to be used at trial against him. Such investigation may include inquiry of persons not under restraint.
General on-the-scene questioning as to facts surrounding a crime or other general questioning of citizens in the fact-finding process is not affected by our holding. It is an act of responsible citizenship for individuals to give whatever information they may have to aid in law enforcement. In such situations the compelling atmosphere inherent in the process of in-custody interrogation is not necessarily present.
In dealing with statements obtained through interrogation, we do not purport to find all confessions inadmissible. Confessions remain a proper element in law enforcement. Any statement given freely and voluntarily without any compelling influence is, of course, admissible in evidence. . . .
In announcing these principles, we are not unmindful of the burdens which law-enforcement officials must bear, often under trying circumstances. We also fully recognize the obligation of all citizens to aid in enforcing the criminal laws.
*The Court also decreed reapportionment in the state legislatures (1962) and in the congressional districts (1964) on the basis of "one man, one vote" rather than on the lopsided basis that often gave agricultural areas greater voting power than more populous urban areas.
**That is, without outside communication.
Official Reports of the Supreme Court, vol. 384 U.S. pt. 3 (Preliminary Print), pp. 444-481, passim.
The Minority
Supports the Police (1966)
An angered, fist-pounding Mr. Justice John Harlan, speaking for three of the
four dissenters, put his finger on some of the weaknesses of the majority
opinion. In these excerpts from his dissent, is he more realistic than the
majority in his approach to the problem, and if so, in what respects?
I believe the decision of the Court represents poor constitutional law and entails harmful consequences for the country at large. How serious these consequences may prove to be only time can tell. But the basic flaws in the Court's justification seem to me readily apparent, now once all sides of the problem are considered. . . .
The new rules are not designed to guard against police brutality or other unmistakably banned forms of coercion. Those who use "third degree" tactics and deny them in court are equally able and destined to lie as skillfully about warnings and waivers.
Rather, the thrust of the new rules is to negate all pressures, to reinforce the nervous or ignorant suspect, and ultimately to discourage any confession at all. The aim, in short, is toward "voluntariness" in a utopian sense, or, to view it from a different angle, voluntariness with a vengeance.
To incorporate this notion into the Constitution requires a strained reading of history and precedent and a disregard of the very pragmatic concerns that alone may on occasion justify such strains. . . .
What the Court largely ignores is that its rules impair, if they will not eventually serve wholly to frustrate, an instrument of law enforcement that has long and quite reasonably been thought worth the price paid for it.
There can be little doubt that the Court's new code would markedly decrease the number of confessions. To warn the suspect that he may remain silent and remind him that his confession may be used in court are minor obstructions. To require also an express waiver by the suspect and an end to questioning whenever he demurs must heavily handicap questioning. And to suggest or provide counsel for the suspect simply invites the end of the interrogation.
How much harm this decision will inflict on law enforcement cannot fairly be predicted with accuracy. Evidence on the role of confessions is notoriously incomplete. . . .
We do know that some crimes cannot be solved without confessions, that ample expert testimony attests to their importance in crime control, and that the court is taking a real risk with society's welfare in imposing its new regime on the country. The social costs of crime are too great to call the new rules anything but a hazardous experimentation.
Official Reports of the Supreme Court, vol. 384 U.S. pt. 3
A Green Light for
Criminals (1966)
The increase of crimes of violence in the large cities had become frightening,
particularly stabbings, "muggings" (assaults to commit robbery),
rapes, and murders. In Washington, D.C., where citizens were frequently attacked
within sight of the Capitol dome, one newspaper responded to the Miranda
decision under the heading "Green Light for Criminals." In what
additional respects does this commentary strengthen the view of the Court's
minority as to the visionary character of the majority decision?
The Supreme Court's 5 to 4 ruling on police questioning of criminal suspects will be received with rejoicing by every thug in the land. For without a doubt it is a ruling which will grievously handicap the police and make it much easier for a criminal to beat the rap.
The murky torrent of words embodied in Chief Justice Warren's opinion tends to obscure some aspects of the ruling. But the salient points come through clearly enough.
Henceforth, once the police have taken a suspect into custody, they cannot lawfully ask him any questions unless four warnings have been given. (1) The suspect must be plainly advised that he need not make any statement. (2) He must be informed that anything he says may be used against him in a trial. (3) He must be told that he has a right to have an attorney present throughout the questioning. (4) If the suspect is an indigent, he must be assured that he will be furnished a lawyer free of charge. Unless all of these conditions are met no confession or other evidence obtained during an interrogation can be used against the suspect.
The Chief Justice makes the remarkable observation that "our decision is not intended to hamper the traditional function of police officers in investigating crime." Intent aside, he must know that this is in fact a decision which will not only hamper but will largely destroy the traditional police function, at least as far as interrogation is concerned.
Why? Because any lawyer called in to sit beside a guilty prisoner is going to tell him to say nothing to the police. He would be derelict in his duty were he to do otherwise. In the face of this, the Chief Justice blandly suggests that there is nothing in the decision which requires "that police stop a person who enters a police station and states that he wishes to confess to a crime." How true! And how often in the proverbial blue moon will this happen?
The deplorable fact is that this ruling, as far as the public is concerned, will most directly affect the vicious types of crime--the murders, the yokings* the robberies and the rapes where it often is impossible to assemble enough evidence, without a confession, to obtain convictions. All the criminal need do is to demand a lawyer--and then the police, under the practical effect of this decision, will be unable to ask him question No. 1. What was it the President said about ridding our cities of crime so law-abiding citizens will be safe in their homes, on the streets and in their places of business?
The dissents by Justices Harlan, Clark, Stewart and White were sharply-worded. It is necessary to read them to understand the frailty of the grounds upon which the majority rests this unprecedented ruling.
[An extreme case of the application of the Miranda ruling came in February 1967. In Brooklyn a factory worker had confessed to stabbing to death his common-law wife and her five children. But he had not been advised of his "right to silence," and, in the absence of concrete evidence, he was turned loose. The presiding judge remarked, "Even an animal such as this one . . . must be protected with all legal safeguards. It is repulsive to let a thing like this out on the streets." (Time, March 3, 1967, p. 49.)]
*Beating or humiliating another person into submission.
From the Washington Star, June 15, 1966.
President Nixon
Outlines His Judicial Philosophy (1971)
Before his election, Nixon made clear his determination to change the complexion
of the liberal Warren Court. He clearly wished to reverse some recent landmark
decisions. Two of his early appointees, Justices Warren Burger and Harry
Blackmun, were distinguished conservatives. Two other nominees, both rejected by
the Senate, were of a similar stripe, though conspicuously less able and
obviously chosen to discharge a political debt to the South. The next nominees
were Lewis F. Powell, Jr., and William H. Rehnquist, both rock-ribbed
conservative lawyers with noteworthy intellectual qualifications. In presenting
these two nominees, the president set forth at length his judicial philosophy.
How did it differ from the values that animated the Warren Court?
These are the criteria I believe should be applied in naming people to the Supreme Court.
First, the Supreme Court is the highest judicial body in this country. Its members, therefore, should, above all, be among the very best lawyers in the Nation. Putting it another way: In the legal profession, the Supreme Court is the fastest track in the Nation, and it is essential that the Justices on that Court be able to keep up with the very able lawyers who will appear before that Court arguing cases. The two individuals I am nominating to the Court meet that standard of excellence to an exceptional degree.
The second consideration is the judicial philosophy of those who are to serve on the Court. Now, I emphasize the word "judicial" because whether an individual is a Democrat or a Republican cannot and should not be a decisive factor in determining whether he should be on the Court.
By "judicial philosophy" I do not mean agreeing with the President on every issue. It would be a total repudiation of our constitutional system if judges on the Supreme Court, or any other Federal court, for that matter, were like puppets on a string pulled by the President who appointed them.
When I appointed Chief Justice Burger, I told him that from the day he was confirmed by the Senate, he could expect that I would never talk to him about a case that was before the Court.
In the case of both Chief Justice Burger and Mr. Justice Blackmun and in the case of the two nominees that I shall be sending to the Senate tomorrow, their sole obligation is to the Constitution and to the American people and not to the President who appointed them to their positions.
As far as judicial philosophy is concerned, it is my belief that it is the duty of a judge to interpret the Constitution and not to place himself above the Constitution or outside the Constitution.
He should not twist or bend the Constitution in order to perpetuate his personal political and social views.
Now, this does not mean that judges who adhere to this philosophy that I have just described will find that they always agree on their interpretation of the Constitution. You seldom find two lawyers who will agree on any close question.
We have an excellent example of this in the record of the two judges whose vacancies I now have the duty to fill, Mr. Justice Black, Mr. Justice Harlan. When they retired from the Court a month ago, most observers labeled Mr. Justice Black as a liberal and Mr. Justice Harlan as a conservative. There was a measure of truth in this, but I would say that both were constitutionalists.
It is true, they disagreed sharply in many cases, but as I learned, not only from reading their opinions over the years, but from appearing twice before them and arguing a case before the Supreme Court, both were great judges with the brilliant ability to ask questions that went to the heart of a matter and then to make a decision based on their honest interpretation of the Constitution.
In the debate over the confirmation of the two individuals I have selected, I would imagine that it may be charged that they are conservatives. This is true, but only in a judicial, not in a political sense.
You will recall, I am sure, that during my campaign for the Presidency, I pledged to nominate to the Supreme Court individuals who shared my judicial philosophy, which is basically a conservative philosophy.
Now, let me give you an example of what that philosophy means.
Twenty-one months ago, Mr. Walter Lippmann wrote, ". . . the balance of power within our society has turned dangerously against the peace forces--against governors and mayors and legislatures, against the police and the courts." I share this view.
Over the past few years, many cases have come before the court involving that delicate balance between the rights of society and the rights of defendants accused of crimes against society. And honest and dedicated constitutional lawyers have disagreed as to where and how to maintain that balance.
As a judical conservative, I believe some court decisions have gone too far in the past in weakening the peace forces as against the criminal forces in our society. In maintaining, as it must be maintained, the delicate balance between the rights of society and defendants accused of crimes, I believe the peace forces must not be denied the legal tools they need to protect the innocent from criminal elements. And I believe we can strengthen the hand of the peace forces without compromising our precious principle that the rights of individuals accused of crimes must always be protected.
It is with these criteria in mind that I have selected the two men whose names I will send to the Senate tomorrow.
Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents 7 (1971): 1431-1432.
The First Article of
Impeachment (1974)
During the Nixon-McGovern campaign of 1972, a bungled burglary had occurred in
the Democratic Watergate headquarters in Washington, D.C. After Nixon's
reelection, evidence turned up that the culprits, with close White House
connections, had been working for the Republican Committee for the Reelection of
the President (which came to be known as CREEP). A Senate investigating
committee uncovered proof that the president had secretly recorded relevant
White House conversations on tape. After much foot-dragging and legal
obstruction by Nixon, enough of the damning tapes were surrendered to prove
beyond doubt that he had known of the attempted cover-up from an early date and
had actively participated in it. After extensive hearings, the House Judiciary
Committee voted three articles of impeachment, of which the following, relating
to the crime of obstructing justice, was the first. This article was approved on
July 27, 1974, by a committee vote of 27 to 11, with all the Democrats being
joined by 6 Republicans. Assuming that these charges were true, did they add up
to "high crimes and misdemeanors" as specified by the Constitution?
Article I
In his conduct of the office of President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has prevented, obstructed, and impeded the administration of justice, in that:
On June 17, 1972, and prior thereto, agents of the Committee for the Re-election of the President committed unlawful entry of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, District of Columbia, for the purpose of securing political intelligence. Subsequent thereto, Richard M. Nixon, using the powers of his high office, engaged personally and through his subordinates and agents, in a course of conduct or plan designed to delay, impede, and obstruct the investigation of such unlawful entry; to cover up, conceal and protect those responsible; and to conceal the existence and scope of other unlawful covert activities.
The means used to implement this course of conduct or plan included one or more of the following:
1. making or causing to be made false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States;
2. withholding relevant and material evidence or information from lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States;
3. approving, condoning, acquiescing in, and counseling witnesses with respect to the giving of false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States and false or misleading testimony in duly instituted judicial and congressional proceedings;
4. interfering or endeavoring to interfere with the conduct of investigations by the Department of Justice of the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Office of Watergate Special Prosecution Force, and Congressional Committees;
5. approving, condoning, and acquiescing in, the surreptitious payment of substantial sums of money for the purpose of obtaining the silence or influencing the testimony of witnesses, potential witnesses or individuals who participated in such unlawful entry and other illegal activities;
6. endeavoring to misuse the Central Intelligence Agency, an agency of the United States;
7. disseminating information received from officers of the Department of Justice of the United States to subjects of investigations conducted by lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States, for the purpose of aiding and assisting such subjects in their attempts to avoid criminal liability;
8. making false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States into believing that a thorough and complete investigation had been conducted with respect to allegations of misconduct on the part of personnel of the executive branch of the United States and personnel of the Committee for the Re-election of the President, and that there was no involvement of such personnel in such misconduct; or
9. endeavoring to cause prospective defendants, and individuals duly tried and convicted, to expect favored treatment and consideration in return for their silence or false testimony, or rewarding individuals for their silence or false testimony.
In all of this, Richard M. Nixon has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore Richard M. Nixon, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
House of Impeachment as a Partisan Issue (1974)
The second and third articles of impeachment approved by the House Judiciary Committee related to repeated abuses of presidential power and to prolonged contempt of Congress. The second article passed the committee by a tally of 28 to 10; all the Democrats, as well as 7 Republicans, voted yea. The third article charged Nixon with contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with eight subpoenas for the White House tapes. It was regarded as the least damaging of the three, for it failed to gain broad partisan backing when it squeezed through by a narrow vote of 21 to 17. Even after his complete disgrace, Nixon had millions of supporters who believed that his removal was unjustified. The following is a part of the minority report of the House Committee, signed by 10 of its 17 Republican members, and dated August 20, 1974, eleven days after Nixon's formal resignation. What light does it throw on the alleged partisanship of the impeachment move?
Richard Nixon served his country in elective office for the better part of three decades and, in the main, he served it well. Each of the undersigned voted for him, worked for and with him in election campaigns, and supported the major portion of his legislative program during his tenure as President. Even at the risk of seeming paradoxical, since we were prepared to vote for his impeachment on proposed Ar- ticle I had he not resigned his office, we hope that in the fullness of time it is his accomplishments--and they were many and significant--rather than the conduct to which this Report is addressed for which Richard Nixon is primarily remembered in history.
We know that it has been said, and perhaps some will continue to say, that Richard Nixon was "hounded from office" by his political opponents and media critics. We feel constrained to point out, however, that it was Richard Nixon who impeded the FBI's investigation of the Watergate affair by wrongfully attempting to implicate the Central Intelligence Agency; it was Richard Nixon, who created and preserved the evidence of that transgression and who, knowing that it had been subpoenaed by this Committee and the Special Prosecutor, concealed its terrible import, even from his own counsel, until he could do so no longer. And it was a unanimous Supreme Court of the United States which, in an opinion authored by the Chief Justice whom he appointed, ordered Richard Nixon to surrender that evidence to the Special Prosecutor, to further the ends of justice.
The tragedy that finally engulfed Richard Nixon had many facets. One was the very self-inflicted nature of the harm. It is striking that such an able, experienced and perceptive man, whose ability to grasp the global implications of events little noticed by others may well have been unsurpassed by any of his predecessors, should fail to comprehend the damage that accrued daily to himself, his Administration, and to the Nation, as day after day, month after month, he imprisoned the truth about his role in the Watergate cover-up so long and so tightly within the solitude of his Oval Office that it could not be unleashed without destroying his Presidency.
House of Representatives Report No. 93-1305 (House Calendar No. 426), 93d Congress, 2d sess., p. 361.
Representatives Report No. 93-1305 (House Calendar No. 426), 93d Cong., 2d sess., pp. 1-2.
Nixon Incriminates
Himself (1972)
By August 5, 1974, much evidence of presidential misconduct and wrongdoing had
been uncovered, but where was the high crime? Where was the "smoking
pistol"? It finally surfaced on that day, when Nixon, forced by a unanimous
decision of the Supreme Court to yield crucial tape recordings, revealed a White
House conversation of June 23, 1972. In it the president was heard instructing
his chief aide, H. R. Haldeman, to use the Central Intelligence Agency to quash
an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Obstruction of justice
of this type was a clear-cut crime. Support for Nixon in Congress collapsed, and
he was faced with the dilemma of resigning or being thrown out of office without
retirement benefits amounting to more than $150,000 a year. He wisely chose to
announce his resignation on August 8. How damning is the evidence in the
following transcript of the conversation of June 23, 1972?
Transcript of a Recording of a Meeting Between the President and H. R. Haldeman, the Oval Office, June 23, 1972, from 10:04 to 11:39 A.M.
Haldeman.
Okay--that's fine. Now, on the investigation, you know, the Democratic break-in thing, we're back to the--in the, the problem area because the FBI is not under control, because [acting director of the FBI, Patrick] Gray doesn't exactly know how to control them, and they have, their investigation is now leading into some productive areas, because they've been able to trace the money, not through the money itself, but through the bank, you know, sources--the banker himself. And, and it goes in some directions we don't want it to go. Ah, also there have been some things, like an informant came in off the street to the FBI in Miami, who was a photographer or has a friend who is a photographer who developed some films through this guy, Barker, and the films had pictures of Democratic National Committee letter head documents and things. So I guess, so it's things like that are gonna, that are filtering in. [U.S. Attorney General, John] Mitchell came up with yesterday, and [presidential counselor] John Dean analyzed very carefully last night and concludes, concurs now with Mitchell's recommendation that the only way to solve this, and we're set up beautifully to do it, ah, in that and that . . . the only network that paid any attention to it last night was NBC . . . they did a massive story on the Cuban . . .
President.
That's right.
Haldeman.
. . . thing.
President.
Right.
Haldeman.
That the way to handle this is for us to have [deputy director of the CIA, Vernon] Walters call Pat Gray and just say, "Stay the hell out of this . . . this is ah, business here we don't want you to go any further on it." That's not an unusual development, . . .
President.
Um huh.
Haldeman.
. . . and, uh, that would take care of it.
President.
What about Pat Gray, ah, you mean he doesn't want to?
Haldeman.
Pat does want to. He doesn't know how to, and he doesn't have, he doesn't have any basis for doing it. Given this, he will then have the basis. He'll call [assistant director of the FBI] Mark Felt in, and the two of them . . . and Mark Felt wants to cooperate because . . .
President.
Yeah.
Haldeman.
. . . he's ambitious . . .
President.
Yeah.
Haldeman.
Ah, he'll call him in and say, "We've got the signal from across the river to, to put the hold on this." And that will fit rather well because the FBI agents who are working the case, at this point, feel that's what it is. This is CIA.
President.
But they've traced the money to 'em.
Haldeman.
Well they have, they've traced to a name, but they haven't gotten to the guy yet.
President.
Would it be somebody here?
Haldeman.
[GOP fundraiser] Ken Dahlberg.
President.
Who the hell is Ken Dahlberg?
Haldeman.
He's ah, he gave $25,000 in Minnesota and ah, the check went directly in to this, to this guy [Watergate burglar, Bernard L.] Barker.
President.
Maybe he's a . . . bum. . . . He didn't get this from the committee though, from [finance chairman for the Committee for the Re-election of the President, Maurice] Stans.
Haldeman.
Yeah. It is. It's directly traceable and there's some more through some Texas people in--that went to the Mexican bank which they can also trace to the Mexican bank . . . they'll get their names today. And [pause].
President.
Well, I mean, ah, there's no way . . . I'm just thinking if they don't cooperate, what do they say? They they, they were approached by the Cubans. That's what Dahlberg has to say, the Texans too. Is that the idea?
Haldeman.
Well, if they will. But then we're relying on more and more people all the time. That's the problem. And ah, they'll stop if we could, if we take this other step.
President.
All right. Fine.
Haldeman.
And, and they seem to feel the thing to do is get them to stop?
President.
Right, fine.
Haldeman.
They say the only way to do that is from White House instructions. And it's got to be to [CIA director, Richard] Helms and, ah, what's his name . . . ? Walters.
President.
Walters.
Haldeman.
And the proposal would be that Ehrlichman [coughs] and I call them in . . .
President.
All right, fine.
Haldeman.
. . . and say, ah . . .
President.
How do you call him in, I mean you just, well, we protected Helms from one hell of a lot of things.
Haldeman.
That's what Ehrlichman says.
President.
Of course, this is a, this is a [Watergate burglar and former CIA employee, E. Howard] Hunt, you will--that will uncover a lot of things. You open that scab there's a hell of a lot of things and that we just feel that it would be very detrimental to have this thing go any further. This involves these Cubans, Hunt, and a lot of hanky-panky that we have nothing to do with ourselves. Well what the hell, did Mitchell know about this thing to any much of a degree?
Haldeman.
I think so. I don't think he knew the details, but I think he knew.
President.
He didn't know how it was going to be handled though, with Dahlberg and the Texans and so forth? Well who was the asshole that did? [unintelligible] Is it [legal counsel for the Committee for the Re-election of the President, G. Gordon] Liddy? Is that the fellow? He must be a little nuts.
Haldeman.
He is.
President.
I mean he just isn't well screwed on is he? Isn't that the problem?
Haldeman.
No, but he was under pressure, apparently, to get more information, and as he got more pressure, he pushed the people harder to move harder on . . .
President.
Pressure from [U.S. Attorney General, John] Mitchell?
Haldeman.
Apparently.
President.
Oh, Mitchell, Mitchell was at the point that you made on this, that exactly what I need from you is on the--
Haldeman.
Gemstone, yeah.
President.
All right, fine, I understand it all. We won't second-guess Mitchell and the rest. Thank God it wasn't [presidential aide, Charles] Colson.
Haldeman.
The FBI interviewed Colson yesterday. They determined that would be a good thing to do.
President.
Um hum.
Haldeman.
Ah, to have him take a . . .
President.
Uh hum.
Haldeman.
An interrogation, which he did, and that, the FBI guys working the case had concluded that there were one or two possibilities, one, that this was a White House, they don't think that there is anything at the Election Committee, they think it was either a White House operation and they had some obscure reasons for it, nonpolitical. . . .
President.
Uh huh.
Haldeman.
. . . or it was a . . .
President.
Cuban thing--
Haldeman.
Cubans and the CIA. And after their interrogation of, of . . .
President.
. . . Colson.
Haldeman.
Colson, yesterday, they concluded it was not the White House, but are now convinced it is a CIA thing, so the CIA turnoff would . . .
President.
Well, not sure of their analysis, I'm not going to get that involved. I'm [unintelligible].
Haldeman.
No, sir. We don't want you to.
President.
You call them in. . . . Good. Good deal. Play it tough. That's the way they play it and that's the way we are going to play it.
Haldeman.
O.K. We'll do it.
President.
Yeah, when I saw that news summary item, I of course knew it was a bunch of crap, but I thought, ah, well it's good to have them off on this wild hair thing because when they start bugging us, which they have, we'll know our little boys will not know how to handle it. I hope they will though. You never know. Maybe, you think about it. Good! . . . When you get in these people . . . when you get these people in, say: "Look, the problem is that this will open the whole, the whole Bay of Pigs thing, and the President just feels that" ah, without going into the details . . . don't, don't lie to them to the extent to say there is no involvement, but just say this is sort of a comedy of errors, bizarre, without getting into it, "the President believes that it is going to open the whole Bay of Pigs thing up again. And, ah because these people are plugging for, for keeps and that they should call the FBI in and say that we wish for the country, don't go any further into this case," period!
Haldeman.
O.K.
President.
That's the way to put it, do it straight [unintelligible].
Haldeman.
Get more done for our cause by the opposition than by us at this point.
President.
You think so?
Haldeman.
I think so, yeah.
Transcript of a Recording of a Meeting Between the President and H. R. Haldeman, the Oval Office, June 23, 1972, from 1:04 to 1:13 P.M.
[Background noise, sound of writing and some unintelligible conversation]
Haldeman.
[On the phone] [Unintelligible] Where are they? Okay. I'll be up in just a minute.
[40-second pause, with sounds of writing]
Haldeman.
I see a time way back [unintelligible] might find out about that report before we do anything.
President.
[Unintelligible]
[35-second pause]
President.
Okay [unintelligible] and, ah, just, just postpone the [unintelligible, with noises] hearings [15-second unintelligible, with noises] and all that garbage. Just say that I have to take a look at the primaries [unintelligible] recover [unintelligible] I just don't [unintelligible] very bad, to have this fellow Hunt, ah, you know, ah, it's, he, he knows too damn much and he was involved, we happen to know that. And that it gets out that the whole, this is all involved in the Cuban thing, that it's a fiasco, and it's going to make the FB, ah CIA look bad, it's going to make Hunt look bad, and it's likely to blow the whole, uh, Bay of Pigs thing which we think would be very unfortunate for CIA and for the country at this time, and for American foreign policy, and he just better tough it and lay it on them. Isn't that what you . . .
Haldeman.
Yeah, that's, that's the basis we'll do it on and just leave it at that.
President.
I don't want them to get any ideas we're doing it because our concern is political.
Haldeman.
Right.
President.
And at the same time, I wouldn't tell them it is not political . . .
Haldeman.
Right.
President.
I would just say "Look, it's because of the Hunt involvement," just say [unintelligible, with noise] sort of thing, the whole cover is, uh, basically this [unintelligible].
Haldeman.
[Unintelligible] Well they've got some pretty good ideas on this need thing.
President.
George Schultz did a good paper on that, I read it . . .
[Unintelligible voices heard leaving the room]
Statement of Information, Appendix 3, Hearings before the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, 93d Cong., 2d sess., pursuant to H.R. 803, p. 39.
A Critical Canadian
Viewpoint (1974)
From the objective vantage point of Canada, the Toronto Star newspaper
pronounced this judgment on Nixon's resignation. It is unduly harsh?
Richard Nixon leaves the presidency the way he operated it--dishonestly.
The man who approved the Watergate cover-up six days after the break-in continued to hide his guilt right to the end. In his resignation speech last night, there was no admission of wrong-doing, no acceptance of personal responsibility for the scandal that ripped apart U.S. society, paralyzed its government and, for a time, threatened to destroy public confidence in the democratic system.
It is happily true that ultimately the process that forced Nixon from office was a triumph of the system he tried to subvert. A free press in its role as watchdog uncovered the scandal and an independent judiciary affirmed the principle that under the rule of law, no men are above the law. The checks and balances needed to make democracy work came through when it counted.
All this is the positive side of Watergate, and its significance is great. An open society has openly met its problems and emerged healthier and stronger. The American system has shown that it could meet stern tests. The confidence of ordinary people in the institutions that govern them has been restored, and they can make a fresh start with a fresh president. The western world, which depends on U.S. leadership, is grateful.
But it wasn't the rule of law and his own personal culpability that Nixon cited as his reason for leaving office. No one would know from his speech last night that he had done anything wrong. Oh, some errors in judgment, sure. But nothing serious. The reason he gave for leaving rested on the narrow base that he had lost the political support in Congress that he needed both to stay in office and to fight the attempts to oust him.
If 20 or so senators hadn't changed their minds, he'd still be in there fighting.
That in effect is what he was saying.
This manner of leaving does not satisfy the rule of law, for if it is true that no man is above the law, it must also be true that all men are equal before it.
So what is Richard Nixon's punishment for breaking the law? The $60,000 pension that he gets because he resigned and which he would have lost if he had been ousted by impeachment? Where is the equality in a jail sentence for John Dean, the former presidential counsel whose Watergate testimony first accused Nixon, while the man who gave him his orders goes free? Where is equality in proceeding with cover-up charges against former presidential chief-of-staff H. R. Haldeman with the prime evidence a tape on which Nixon is approving the cover-up?
If Nixon had openly admitted his guilt and responsibility, then it would at least be clear that his resignation was his punishment. This was the formula followed by Spiro Agnew when he resigned as vice-president. He pleaded guilty but avoided jail. One might then argue whether the punishment fitted the crime, but at least the record would be clear about guilt.
At present there is no such clear-cut record. Nixon is out, but he has admitted nothing. Congress, by halting the impeachment process, has not declared its judgment of his actions.
This judgment may yet come. Leon Jaworski, the special Watergate prosecutor, has made it clear he is prevented by no agreement or understanding from bringing charges against Nixon. State courts or even private citizens could bring suits against him. More taped conversations are to be made public and some of the material may have an impact on the public's judgment about whether a former president should be pursued like a common criminal.
But don't count on it. The Americans have been sweating through Watergate for a long time and many are tired of it. There is a strong feeling that a man shouldn't be kicked when he is down. Many undoubtedly will argue that every effort should go towards a fresh start rather than try further to cleanse the past.
If this is the course then America will be whole again, but the stain will remain. Nixon's manipulations will have succeeded. The phony transcripts. The lies. The obstruction. They did not save his office but they saved him from the law.
He left politics as he arrived. Tricky Dick.
[Despite the three long categories of accusations voted by the House Judiciary Committee, Nixon was not impeached by the full House, tried by the Senate, or even convicted in the courts of any crime. The closest he came to conviction was his uncontested disbarment as a lawyer by the appellate division of the state supreme court of New York. The decision (July 8, 1976), by a four-to-one vote, was the most severe punishment that this body could impose. As for obstruction of justice, the court found Nixon guilty on five specifications, including improper interference with an FBI investigation of the Watergate break-in; improper authorization of bribes to silence conspirators; and improper encouragement of others to commit perjury by concealing evidence of wrongdoing.]
The Toronto Star, August 9, 1974.
Nixon Accepts a
Presidential Pardon (1973)
To complicate the Watergate uproar, Vice-President Agnew, facing unrelated
criminal charges, had avoided jail by resigning in August 1973. Nixon, pursuant
to the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitution, had chosen as his successor
Gerald R. Ford, the House minority leader. For about a month the nonelected
president enjoyed a "honeymoon," which he abruptly ended by granting
Nixon "a full, free, and absolute pardon" for "all offenses
against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have
committed or taken part in" during his presidency. Nixon promptly accepted
the pardon but was careful not to confess that he had committed any crimes.
Mistakes, indecision, poor judgment, yes--but crimes, no. Yet, as President Ford
agreed, testifying before a House Judiciary Committee, acceptance of the pardon
is "tantamount to an admission of guilt." Moreover, many of Nixon's
admirers felt that he had humbled himself enough by admitting remorse for acts
he had committed in the line of duty for what he regarded to be the good of the
country. Is Nixon's self-justification convincing?
I have been informed that President Ford has granted me a full and absolute pardon for any charges which might be brought against me for actions taken during the time I was President of the United States.
In accepting this pardon, I hope that his compassionate act will contribute to lifting the burden of Watergate from our country.
Here in California, my perspective on Watergate is quite different than it was while I was embattled in the midst of the controversy, and while I was still subject to the unrelenting daily demands of the presidency itself.
Looking back on what is still in my mind a complex and confusing maze of events, decisions, pressures and personalities, one thing I can see clearly now is that I was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate, particularly when it reached the stage of judicial proceedings and grew from a political scandal into a national tragedy.
No words can describe the depths of my regret and pain at the anguish my mistakes over Watergate have caused the nation and the presidency--a nation I so deeply love and an institution I so greatly respect.
I know many fair-minded people believe that my motivations and action in the Watergate affair were intentionally self-serving and illegal. I now understand how my own mistakes and misjudgments have contributed to that belief and seemed to support it. This burden is the heaviest one of all to bear.
That the way I tried to deal with Watergate was the wrong way is a burden I shall bear for every day of the life that is left to me.
San Francisco Chronicle, September 9, 1973.
Carter Diagnoses the
National Mood (1979)
In July 1979 Jimmy Carter unexpectedly canceled a scheduled television address
and retired to the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland. There for ten
days he sought the advice of scores of Americans about the state of the nation's
soul. Finally, he ended his period of contemplation and delivered the following
remarkable address on network television. What exactly does Carter mean by a
"crisis of confidence"? Where does he lay the blame for the crisis?
What does this speech reveal about Carter's character?
Good evening.
This is a special night for me. Exactly 3 years ago, on July 15, 1976, I accepted the nomination of my party to run for President of the United States. I promised you a President who is not isolated from the people, who feels your pain, and who shares your dreams and who draws his strength and his wisdom from you.
During the past 3 years I've spoken to you on many occasions about national concerns, the energy crisis, reorganizing the Government, our Nation's economy, and issues of war and especially peace. But over those years the subjects of the speeches, the talks, and the press conferences have become increasingly narrow, focused more and more on what the isolated world of Washington thinks is important. Gradually, you've heard more and more about what the Government thinks or what the Government should be doing and less and less about our Nation's hopes, our dreams, and our vision of the future.
Ten days ago I had planned to speak to you again about a very important subject--energy. For the fifth time I would have described the urgency of the problem and laid out a series of legislative recommendations to the Congress. But as I was preparing to speak, I began to ask myself the same question that I now know has been troubling many of you. Why have we not been able to get together as a nation to resolve our serious energy problem?
It's clear that the true problems of our Nation are much deeper--deeper than gasoline lines or energy shortages, deeper even than inflation or recession. And I realize more than ever that as President I need your help. So, I decided to reach out and listen to the voices of America.
I invited to Camp David people from almost every segment of our society--business and labor, teachers and preachers, Governors, mayors, and private citizens. And then I left Camp David to listen to other Americans, men and women like you. It has been an extraordinary 10 days, and I want to share with you what I've heard.
First of all, I got a lot of personal advice. Let me quote a few of the typical comments that I wrote down.
This from a southern Governor: "Mr. President, you are not l