The political reviews were stellar. Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, the "Conscience of the Senate," released a statement: "I think the President performed a very wise and useful service to his nation.... It was impressively evident that the President caused many Americans to pause in their judgement, to gain perspective, and to replace emotion with reason." Senator Robert Taft (whom Nixon called in other contexts a "son of a b.i.t.c.h...peacenik") said Nixon had restored the morale of the military. The White House"s private polling showed his actions found favor with 75 percent of the American people. Only 17 percent disapproved.
The legal reviews were not so salubrious. Privately, Secretary Laird complained, "Intervention in the Calley case repudiates the military justice system." The case"s prosecutor, Captain Aubrey Daniel, wrote the president, arguing in a four-page, single-s.p.a.ced letter-made available by presidential candidate George McGovern"s office-"The greatest tragedy of all will be if political expedience dictates the compromise of such a fundamental moral principle as the inherent unlawfulness of the murder of innocent persons." William Greider, who had covered the trial in the Washington Post, Washington Post, wondered, "Should it open the doors at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and release all the other soldiers convicted of the same offense as Calley?" wondered, "Should it open the doors at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and release all the other soldiers convicted of the same offense as Calley?"
John Dean once more proved his usefulness to the president by crafting the White House"s subsequent talking point: that in such ongoing legal cases "it would be improper and inappropriate for White House staff members to make any comments or statements." Secretary Laird, Captain Daniel, the Washington Post, Washington Post, and all the rest would just have to howl in the wilderness. and all the rest would just have to howl in the wilderness.
Luckily for the president the papers weren"t howling as loudly as they might. On April 5 Senator Hatfield read Winter Soldier testimony into the Congressional Record: Congressional Record: that GIs were trained to believe the Vietnamese "subhuman"; that atrocities were caused by "policies adopted by our military commanders"; that crowded fishing boats were used for target practice. One witness told the story of a woman stabbed in both b.r.e.a.s.t.s when she asked for water, then raped with an entrenching tool. "And then they took that out and they used a tree limb, and then she was shot." A POW interrogator described as "normal" "utilizing a knife that was extremely sharp, and sort of filleting them like a fish. You know, trying to check out how much bacon he could make of a Vietnamese body to get information." The that GIs were trained to believe the Vietnamese "subhuman"; that atrocities were caused by "policies adopted by our military commanders"; that crowded fishing boats were used for target practice. One witness told the story of a woman stabbed in both b.r.e.a.s.t.s when she asked for water, then raped with an entrenching tool. "And then they took that out and they used a tree limb, and then she was shot." A POW interrogator described as "normal" "utilizing a knife that was extremely sharp, and sort of filleting them like a fish. You know, trying to check out how much bacon he could make of a Vietnamese body to get information." The Times Times and and Post Post didn"t report on Hatfield"s speech. The didn"t report on Hatfield"s speech. The Times Times did, however, run a sentimental story on Nixon"s April 7 address: "SALUTE RETURNED TO A BOY BY NIXON / President Recalls Son of a Hero in Ending Speech." did, however, run a sentimental story on Nixon"s April 7 address: "SALUTE RETURNED TO A BOY BY NIXON / President Recalls Son of a Hero in Ending Speech."
Nixon went on TV after reading a handwritten pick-me-up from Henry Kissinger: Before you go on tonight I want you to have this note to tell you that-no matter what the result-free people everywhere will be forever in your debt. Your serenity during crisis, your steadfastness under pressure have been all that has prevented the triumph of ma.s.s hysteria. It has been an inspiration to serve. Before you go on tonight I want you to have this note to tell you that-no matter what the result-free people everywhere will be forever in your debt. Your serenity during crisis, your steadfastness under pressure have been all that has prevented the triumph of ma.s.s hysteria. It has been an inspiration to serve.
The speech was the usual: it announced new troop withdrawals, gave an optimistic a.s.sessment for the future ("Tonight I can announce Vietnamization has succeeded"), affirmed the pure-heartedness of the American effort ("never in history have men fought for less selfish motives-not for conquest, not for glory, but only for the right of a people far away to choose the kind of government they want"), included a mournful lament that the only roadblock to progress was the recalcitrance of the enemy negotiators in the face of generous American offers, and excoriated the wild-eyed insanity of setting a date for withdrawal ("Shall we leave Vietnam in a way that-by our own actions-consciously turns the country over to the Communists?"). Then, after a cheap shot at those who disagreed ("I know there are those who honestly believe that I should move to end this war without regard to what happens in South Vietnam"), he moved in for the sentimental climax, a masterpiece: "While we hear and read much of isolated acts of cruelty, we do not hear enough of the tens of thousands of individual American soldiers...building schools, roads, hospitals, clinics, who, through countless acts of generosity and kindness, have tried to help the people of South Vietnam. We can and we should be very proud of these men. They deserve not our scorn, but they deserve our admiration and our deepest appreciation...."
His voice took on a honeyed Norman Rockwell tone.
"Every time I talk to a brave wife of an American POW, every time I write a letter to the mother of a boy who has been killed in Vietnam, I become more deeply committed to end this war, and to end it in a way that we can build lasting peace."
(You care about peace because you care about those brave Americans left behind in the Hanoi Hilton. care about peace because you care about those brave Americans left behind in the Hanoi Hilton. They, They, on the other hand, do not.) on the other hand, do not.) "I think the hardest thing that a president has to do is present posthumously the nation"s highest honor, the Medal of Honor, to mothers or fathers or widows of men who have lost their lives"-he was nearly whispering-"but in the process have saved the lives of others....
"We had an award ceremony in the East Room of the White House just a few weeks ago. And at that ceremony I remember one of the recipients, Mrs. Karl Taylor." Her husband had "charged an enemy machine gun single-handed and knocked it out. He lost his life. But in the process the lives of several wounded marines in the range of that machine gun were saved.
"After I presented her the medal, I shook hands with their two children, Karl junior-he was eight years old-and Kevin, who was four. As I was about to move to the next recipient, Kevin suddenly stood at attention and saluted."
Pause.
"I found it rather difficult to get my thoughts together."
His voice deepened.
"My fellow Americans, I want to end this war in a way that is worthy of the sacrifice of Karl Taylor."
He was speaking very slowly.
"And I think he would want me to end it in a way that would increase the chances that Kevin and Karl, and all those children like them here and around the world, could grow up in a world where none of them would have to die in a war; that would increase the chance of America to have what it has not had in this century-a full generation of peace."
The after-action review: "We"ve thrown the best punch we could, Henry.... That little conclusion we stuck on there," the president said, "that"s what made it for Mr. Average Joe."
"Absolutely. Oh, yes."
"Don"t you think? They couldn"t help but be moved by that."
"They couldn"t very well go up there afterwards and start nit-picking you.... Haig had tears in his eyes, I had tears in my eyes-even though I had heard it before! I talked to a friend on the right who usually thinks you aren"t tough enough, and she said, gosh, she was so proud of you, and she says your whole bearing was in command, and it was the best she"d ever seen you.... Even the parts you didn"t write you put into your idiom.... And I talked to a young man at Harvard who"s one of my few remaining friends there-I have no intention of going back there...I would under no circ.u.mstances go back to Harvard-but this man who also says of course the war must be ended very quickly was tremendously moved, says it was a very tremendous speech."
Nixon picked up the thread when Kissinger ran out of steam: "Any person knows deep down I"m right, he knows G.o.dd.a.m.ned well I"m right!"
Nixon changed the subject, rambling, like someone on a high. Senator Bayh had thundered that "President Nixon is playing political football with a very sensitive issue," noting that the fifty-nine servicemen convicted for murder of Vietnamese civilians could now demand similar presidential intervention. Nixon scorned Bayh"s political opportunism. "I know what it is. The doves are really, really, you"re right, deeply worried about Calley. They"re worried because-they realize that what it is, is an animal instinct in this country coming up, and most of the people don"t give a s.h.i.t whether he killed them or not!"
"Zhat"s right"-Kissinger"s amen; then the president: "I don"t-I don"t-I don"t impugn military justice at all! I uphold it!" right"-Kissinger"s amen; then the president: "I don"t-I don"t-I don"t impugn military justice at all! I uphold it!"
That was one of the things the president liked to do in these conversations: probe novel ways to salve his guilty conscience.
Kissinger, perhaps moved beyond the bounds of what sycophancy would allow, changed the subject, relating the story of a Republican he had spoken with in Georgia. "He said how moved and proud he was by the president, and he said, of course, your major problem, your basic problem is-and I think it"s right-he said the basic problem is "the American people want to win this war. It drives them crazy to be in a war they can"t win." But he said, "We recognize at least the president wants to win. Maybe those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds won"t let let him win."" him win.""
This was useful political intelligence. It meant the falsehood Nixon had been selling since 1966 was taking root: that we could could "win." "win."
"We aren"t going to "win,"" Nixon growled. "You realize that if we get out the way we want, we win! If the Communists don"t win, we win!...We"ll say it at the right time. We can"t say it now because every G.o.dd.a.m.ned dove will go off the wall."
Nixon warmed now to his least favorite subject, the press: "I don"t give the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds an inch!" He complained that his staff, "G.o.dd.a.m.n it, they"re people who, they"re in Washington, the Establishment"s brainwashing them, they"re reading the Washington Post, Washington Post, the weekly newsmagazines.... The Congress beats their G.o.dd.a.m.ned brains out." the weekly newsmagazines.... The Congress beats their G.o.dd.a.m.ned brains out."
His voice crescendoed as smoothly as it had softened on TV the night before.
"And they get sort of discouraged and so forth, they don"t realize that that that is the time to get tough, to kick the guys"-he shouted at the top of his lungs- is the time to get tough, to kick the guys"-he shouted at the top of his lungs-"in the b.a.l.l.s!"
(It overdrove the room"s microphones.) "That"s what they won"t do. what they won"t do. That"s That"s what I always do. They won"t do it.... Some do. Colson does, but he"s not in the top group." (Colson had "the b.a.l.l.s of a bra.s.s monkey," Nixon elsewhere observed. Replied Haldeman, "He"s going to get caught at some of these things, but he"s got a lot done he hasn"t been caught at.") what I always do. They won"t do it.... Some do. Colson does, but he"s not in the top group." (Colson had "the b.a.l.l.s of a bra.s.s monkey," Nixon elsewhere observed. Replied Haldeman, "He"s going to get caught at some of these things, but he"s got a lot done he hasn"t been caught at.") Haldeman came in to discuss the overnight polls. The president who rated himself a deeply committed pacifist had something else he wanted to discuss first. "I don"t have any use for weak men, Bob, I have no use for "em. I don"t want to have "em around. I"d rather have a bunch of right-wing fascists around me than weak men. I really mean that. I feel very strongly about it."
Haldeman said that those who had seen the speech gave it the highest "very favorable" rating Nixon had ever gotten. At that Nixon wondered what Birch Bayh could possibly be up to: "He"s going against the vote." The presidential approval rating was up to 54 percent from 51. (Leak it, Nixon ordered, and say it was taken before the speech.) Then Haldeman presented his boss with a treat: the New York Times New York Times"s "SALUTE RETURNED TO A BOY BY NIXON." Halderman said, "It"s a great story.... Got some great quotes from her about her husband..."and he believed in what he was doing and he thought he had to do it for the sake of his children."...If we"d staged it, we couldn"t have thought it up better....
"A dream story," Haldeman concluded with a sigh. "I tell you, if they had called her up and she"d said, "I"m sick of this G.o.dd.a.m.ned war"..."
The pair was heartily relieved. Everyone was sick of this G.o.dd.a.m.ned war.
On Sunday, April 18, Vietnam Veterans Against the War"s John Kerry appeared on Meet the Press. Meet the Press. Their Washington pageant began the next morning, the anniversary of the "shot heard "round the world" in 1775. Eleven hundred veterans, most in wrinkled fatigues, medals pinned to hippie headbands, marched to Arlington National Cemetery, five Gold Star mothers in the lead; two vets carrying the VVAW banner; then a contingent in wheelchairs and crutches, blind men walking with canes. Two mothers and two veterans approached the Tomb of the Unknowns with a wreath. The great iron gates shut in their faces. One of the marchers threw his toy M16 against the iron; the plastic shards scattered. TV cameramen crowded around a screaming mother. "My boy was killed in Vietnam," she sobbed. "I didn"t speak out then. It"s my fault." She gestured toward the rest of the marchers: "They"re all my boys now." Their Washington pageant began the next morning, the anniversary of the "shot heard "round the world" in 1775. Eleven hundred veterans, most in wrinkled fatigues, medals pinned to hippie headbands, marched to Arlington National Cemetery, five Gold Star mothers in the lead; two vets carrying the VVAW banner; then a contingent in wheelchairs and crutches, blind men walking with canes. Two mothers and two veterans approached the Tomb of the Unknowns with a wreath. The great iron gates shut in their faces. One of the marchers threw his toy M16 against the iron; the plastic shards scattered. TV cameramen crowded around a screaming mother. "My boy was killed in Vietnam," she sobbed. "I didn"t speak out then. It"s my fault." She gestured toward the rest of the marchers: "They"re all my boys now."
(Haldeman called Daniel Patrick Moynihan, now teaching at Harvard, who observed, "One of them looked like she couldn"t have been over forty.... I felt like going up there and saying, "Honey, if you"re a Gold Star mother, you sure started early."") They marched in formation to the Capitol. Congressman Pete McCloskey, who"d led a marine platoon in Korea, joined them. He"d just returned from Laos, where he"d toured refugee camps filled to bursting by Operation Dewey Canyon II. (Haldeman: "Someone has to demolish McCloskey. He staged a phony operation over there to try to discredit the American effort.") A bus full of air force recruits pa.s.sed the procession. The men inside cheered them and flashed the V-sign.
They pa.s.sed Const.i.tution Hall, where President Nixon would address the Daughters of the American Revolution that night; the ladies turned up their noses. They pa.s.sed the Justice Department, where lawyers were working out a plan to keep the veterans from camping on government property. A young staffer went out on the balcony and flashed them a V-sign.
At the Capitol they fanned out to lobby. Hawks spurned them outright. Some antiwar liberals seemed to find them unclean. On the underground congressional tramway, a group cornered Strom Thurmond and tried to prevail upon a fellow soldier"s sense of honor (Thurmond had parachuted behind enemy lines before D-day). He answered them with a lecture on duty to country. So they pulled out their toy M16s and staged a guerrilla theater raid.
"G.o.dd.a.m.n gook VC!"
"Commie a.s.shole pink b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, get a job!" came the spittle-flecked response.
VVAW spokesmen convened a "Five o"Clock Follies" briefing on the day"s activities-named after the comically upbeat afternoon briefings Pentagon spokesmen gave in Saigon. They retired to bars to watch the news. Walter Cronkite gave them respectful attention.
Colson told the president in his hideaway office that one of his secret agents was having "quite a job keeping his people from, uh, raising h.e.l.l with some of the demonstrators."
Nixon: "Why doesn"t he let them do it?"
Haldeman: "All the hard hats could go in and bust "em up."
The president was convinced most weren"t even veterans. He suggested they get "our reporter"-a White House secret agent within the press corps-to, as an agent provocateur, suggest reporters investigate the protesters" credentials. It was a good thing for Nixon the reporters didn"t: the demonstrators had taken to carrying their discharge papers and medal citations everywhere they went.
The D.C. Court of Appeals lifted the government"s injunction that Winter Soldiers couldn"t camp outdoors. They bedded down behind the Lincoln Memorial; scores of young men in civilian clothes and brush cuts-soldiers from Fort Belvoir and Fort Meade-mixed easily among the crowd, joining arguments about whether their movement should be violent or nonviolent; whether their medals should be returned to Congress or tossed on the White House lawn or, as the angriest vets preferred, dropped into "s.h.i.t cans filled with blood."
The next day, at the Old Executive Office Building, Haldeman was delighted to see "a nice, decent American lady from Texas" on TV requesting the microphone from the veterans, then accusing them of being welfare cheats: "I"m a taxpayer. I pay tremendous amounts of money to support you people. Now get out of here and go to work and earn a living." A Winter Soldier contingent ducked inside the ropes at the Capitol Rotunda, draped an American flag over a "dead" comrade, and staged a military funeral. Itchy Capitol police moved to arrest them. Tourists angrily shouted the cops down.
The vets ducked in to watch hearings before Senator Fulbright"s Foreign Relations Committee on the six bills pending to end the war, frustrated they hadn"t been able to get any senators to put them on the schedule. That night Senator Phil Hart hosted a party for the vets at his home. John Kerry was given the floor. Fulbright was so impressed he decided to let Kerry testify the next day. Meanwhile the Justice Department submitted an emergency pet.i.tion to Chief Justice Warren Burger to reverse the vets" license to sleep on the Mall. As the party was breaking up, in what some called the speediest decision on record, Justice Burger announced he was reinstating the camping ban "in full force and effect," giving the vets until four thirty Wednesday afternoon to vacate government property.
Wednesday"s papers were sympathetic to the campers. Nixon was livid: "The press is so, so desperately trying to show only the good-looking ones, aren"t they?" He had first noticed it Tuesday afternoon, after his customary lunch of cottage cheese with a pineapple ring on top: "Those veterans down there looked pretty scrubby on TV." Haldeman chimed in, "It"s great...the Washington Star Washington Star last night had a great story about how they"re, they got girls all in their sleeping, in their sleeping bags with "em, and they"re all smoking pot and drinking beer on the Mall." And yet, they noted, George McGovern had been quoted saying, "I"ve never been as proud of a group of Americans as I am of this group." last night had a great story about how they"re, they got girls all in their sleeping, in their sleeping bags with "em, and they"re all smoking pot and drinking beer on the Mall." And yet, they noted, George McGovern had been quoted saying, "I"ve never been as proud of a group of Americans as I am of this group."
"They could"ve could"ve really done some harm if those guys had put on their neat uniforms, worn their ties, and done themselves up," Haldeman noted. "Yeah, to look like Calley," Nixon responded. Nixon decided to call off the Justice Department"s plan for ma.s.s arrests. really done some harm if those guys had put on their neat uniforms, worn their ties, and done themselves up," Haldeman noted. "Yeah, to look like Calley," Nixon responded. Nixon decided to call off the Justice Department"s plan for ma.s.s arrests. Not Not arresting them would be more effective. Film of police hauling off amputees-"That"ll kill us," Nixon told Henry Kissinger. Clouds, fortuitously, were gathering. "Let those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds stay there throughout. It"ll start raining one of these days. It"ll rain good." arresting them would be more effective. Film of police hauling off amputees-"That"ll kill us," Nixon told Henry Kissinger. Clouds, fortuitously, were gathering. "Let those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds stay there throughout. It"ll start raining one of these days. It"ll rain good."
What"s more, it was hard to say how they"d be able able to do it-and how many of these combat veterans were hair-trigger crazies ready to snap. They had visions of the "bonus marchers" in 1932-when General MacArthur"s troops had shot down aged World War I vets in cold blood. Or maybe not, this time, in cold blood. Maybe those crazies would be armed. to do it-and how many of these combat veterans were hair-trigger crazies ready to snap. They had visions of the "bonus marchers" in 1932-when General MacArthur"s troops had shot down aged World War I vets in cold blood. Or maybe not, this time, in cold blood. Maybe those crazies would be armed.
Ron Ziegler told the press that the president "was taking no part in handling the situation." In fact he did little else. "Leave the sons of b.i.t.c.hes there," he directed, "and I want them up there at the Capitol. I"d like a few scruffy people up there grabbing congressmen when they come through, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g their secretaries." John Mitch.e.l.l visited the president"s command post to spell out how they"d be handling the arrests. Nixon stopped him: "Leave "em there."
Mitch.e.l.l: "Well, uh, we, we can"t get a court order and then ignore it-"
The law-and-order president commanded, "John, ignore it as much as you can." (To Haldeman later in the day: "Mitch.e.l.l was arguing strenuously about the law law this morning. I said, "G.o.dd.a.m.n it, forget the law!"") this morning. I said, "G.o.dd.a.m.n it, forget the law!"") The only problem was that Ramsey Clark, arguing for the veterans, filed for a poll of the full Supreme Court on Burger"s ruling. And the Supremes unanimously joined Burger. The Justice Department now said they"d allow them to stay stay overnight, but not to sleep. After spirited debate the entire encampment voted 480400 for defiance: to stay overnight, but not to sleep. After spirited debate the entire encampment voted 480400 for defiance: to stay and and to sleep. to sleep.
Twilight fell; a Vietnam-like tension descended. Another group of protesters, the People"s Coalition for Peace and Justice, a Weatherman-like formation led by Chicago 7 defendant Rennie Davis, was planning to bring seventy thousand to camp out in Rock Creek Park in May and shut down Washington, D.C. Would these Vietnam veterans serve as the revolutionaries" shock troops? The Eighty-second Airborne was put on standby. Some marines, and four hundred of five hundred military guards from Arlington, refused orders to partic.i.p.ate.
The Winter Soldiers posted a perimeter guard, just as if they were deep in the boonies. Haldeman"s last lame hope was to pray for rain: "That"ll fix the veterans: their sleeping bags"ll leak and their girls"ll get damp."
It started drizzling. Some thought the cl.u.s.ters of bedraggled warriors in their rubber ponchos looked like men in body bags. With each pa.s.sing hour more Americans were perceiving them as martyrs to a heartless president. Congressmen started to arrive, Shirley Chisholm of Brooklyn, Bella Abzug of Manhattan, Senator Kennedy.
The next day John Kerry testified, proud in his rumpled fatigues. He related the findings of their Winter Soldier panels-the first time most Americans had heard of them. He explained where the name had come from-the "words of Thomas Paine in 1776 when he spoke of the sunshine patriots and summertime soldiers who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough. We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now." Point by point, he debunked the war"s "thousands of rationalizations."
Then he cut to the quick.
"We are asking Americans to think about that, because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"
This "Kennedy-type guy," Haldeman called him, wasn"t balling chicks in his sleeping bag. He was putting a president on trial: "This administration has done us the ultimate dishonor. They have attempted to disown us and the sacrifice we made for this country. In their blindness and fear they have tried to deny that we are veterans or that we served in "Nam."
The next day, solemn and respectful, eight hundred veterans lined up in front of the wood-and-wire fence erected in front of the Capitol to protect Congress. Each presented his discharge papers, then got a turn at the microphone. The first man said his medals were "a symbol of dishonor, shame, and inhumanity." He threw them over the fence as an offering to the Vietnamese people, "whose hearts were broken, not won." Some cast off their medals in memory of fallen comrades; others were too choked up to speak at all; one said, "I am prouder today of the service I have given my country than at any time when I was in uniform." A Gold Star mother took the microphone: "I am here to join these men. In each one of them I see my son." Others, though, were less dignified. One called his medals "merit badges for murder." Another intoned, "Death to the fascist pigs." Still another, throwing away a Purple Heart, said, "I hope I get another one fighting these f.u.c.kers."
If that blood-l.u.s.ting soldier stuck around Washington, he might just get the chance. Two more protests were left that spring, the first designed to be a peaceful ma.s.s rally, the second-the May Day Tribes-designed to be anything but. The organizers of the second, Haldeman briefed the president, "want a riot."
The rally on Sat.u.r.day, April 24, was by now a routine affair: the speeches, the singing, the chanting, the banners. But it was organized from behind the scenes, Rowland Evans and Robert Novak had pointed out in a column, by the Socialist Workers Party, the disciplined Trotskyist masters of turning out ma.s.sive and photogenic rallies for the consumption of what they called among themselves the "bourgeois press." "We had a great break in Evans and Novak this morning," Haldeman had told the boss, reading "Muskie and the Trotskyites" aloud: ""That Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine endorsed Sat.u.r.day"s anti-war demonstration here without even considering its domination by Trotskyist Communists typifies the cloak of respectability inadvertently provided for the far left by liberals."" ""That Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine endorsed Sat.u.r.day"s anti-war demonstration here without even considering its domination by Trotskyist Communists typifies the cloak of respectability inadvertently provided for the far left by liberals.""
"Inadvertently, huh?" the president responded. "Circulate that to every member of the House and Senate.... The word is, Evans and Novak, from these liberal liberal columnists." columnists."
Though the column wasn"t entirely a good break. Evans and Novak went on to note that "Muskie as president would continue-for a time, at least-aiding the Saigon regime." They wrote, in other words, as if a Muskie presidency was likely-which, given current polling, it was. Destroying him was another White House obsession. "There"s a separate organization called May Day that"s pretty much the Weathermen," Haldeman had briefed the president on April 12. "Their whole thing is that they"re the ones that want to bring the government to a halt."
"Good," the president p.r.o.nounced. "Let"s get Muskie on that one, too."
The May Day Tribes" goal was keeping federal workers from getting to their jobs: blocking bridges with barricades, sitting in the middle of busy intersections, vandalizing cars-"If the government won"t stop the war, we"ll stop the government." Haldeman read the president an intelligence report: "...knocking out the telephone system, having Hanoi radio announce a state of martial law and insurrection in Washington and the cutting of all power sources in capital. They"ve decided to take over Rock Creek Park as a campsite for the demo and have stated that federal troops will be required." Haldeman advised ma.s.s arrests.
"That"s the one we bust," Nixon agreed. "If they start blocking bridges, we"ll throw them right off the culverts."
These protesters began hit-and-run attacks Monday the twenty-sixth. Some 224 were arrested by Wednesday; on Friday, 224 more. They started moving on the key arteries in the middle of the night Monday, May 3. Cops incarcerated seven thousand in pens in the RFK Stadium parking lot, sans toilets or food. (They made b.u.t.tons: I WAS AN AMERICAN POW. CAMP NIXON, MAY "71. I WAS AN AMERICAN POW. CAMP NIXON, MAY "71.) On Tuesday insurgents surrounded the Justice Department and 2,680 more were taken into custody. Processing them for court dates proved a problem. So the Justice Department told the D.C. police to doctor the forms. a.s.sistant Attorney General Rehnquist provided the legal cover: "qualified martial law." When the polls arrived, 75 percent approved of the ma.s.s detentions. Meanwhile the May Day Tribes tarred the antiwar veterans, of whom only 32 percent now said they approved. "Tying them all together" had been Haldeman"s strategy all along.
That part was working. The problem, however, was that polls also showed two-thirds of the country thought they weren"t being told the truth about what was going on in Vietnam.
As the White House started gearing up in earnest for the November 1972 presidential election, it seemed an inauspicious time to be building its new majority. Conservative icons were falling-heroes the White House had relied on as surrogates.
Papers ran a mind-blowing AP dispatch on May 8: EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (AP)-District Attorney Lawrence W. Dunning said today that a warrant charging Al Capp, the cartoonist, with a morals offense against a 20-year-old Eau Claire State University coed had been issued by County Judge Thomas H. Barland....The District Attorney said Mr. Capp had been charged with sodomy, attempted adultery, and indecent exposure, following an investigation by his office and Eau Claire city policemen....The complainant, who is married, told the authorities that the alleged offense took place April 1 in Mr. Capp"s motel suite, where she had gone to report to him on the liberal point of view on the Eau Claire campus. Mr. Capp, a conservative, had requested the information, and the woman had been a.s.signed to brief him on opinions and viewpoints, she said.
Other women started coming forward. The cartoonist came out with a statement: "The allegations are entirely untrue. I have been warned for some time now that the revolutionary left would try to stop me by any means from speaking out on campuses. My home has been vandalized and I have been physically threatened. This is also part of their campaign to stop me. Those who have faith in me know that I will not be stopped."
The president of the United States seemed to have faith in him. Or perhaps Nixon just feared embarra.s.sment if his ties to a s.e.x criminal were exposed. Either way, Chuck Colson sent an operative to pressure the Eau Claire DA to drop the case. (He refused, then won a conviction against Capp the following February, shortly after Capp filed a column averring, "The shock is not that there"s so much anti-Americanism in America, but there is still so much anti-anti-Americanism left.") The most popular box office attraction of 1971 had also attenuated his political usefulness to the White House in an interview in the May issue of Playboy. Playboy. "I believe in white supremacy until blacks are educated to a point of responsibility," John Wayne said. And: "I don"t feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from the Indians. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves." "I believe in white supremacy until blacks are educated to a point of responsibility," John Wayne said. And: "I don"t feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from the Indians. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves."
An article in the new issue of Armed Forces Journal Armed Forces Journal by retired Marine Corps colonel Robert D. Heinl argued that "morale, discipline, and battleworthiness" were "lower and worse than at any time in this century and possibly in the history of the United States." On May 24 at Travis Air Force Base in California, the primary point of embarkation for flights to Indochina, the bachelor officers" quarters were burned down by rioting airmen. by retired Marine Corps colonel Robert D. Heinl argued that "morale, discipline, and battleworthiness" were "lower and worse than at any time in this century and possibly in the history of the United States." On May 24 at Travis Air Force Base in California, the primary point of embarkation for flights to Indochina, the bachelor officers" quarters were burned down by rioting airmen.
The president scheduled a televised press conference for June 1 that was supposed to show off his foreign policy advances: a breakthrough in the stalemated Strategic Arms Limitation talks with the Soviets, his unexpected advances toward opening relations with China, possible Soviet troop reductions in Europe. Instead, it was an inquisition.
"Mr. President, what are you going to do about the tens of thousands of American soldiers who are coming back with an addiction to heroin?"
"How do you respond to the suggestions that the bombing const.i.tutes immoral, criminal conduct?"
"Mr. President, women make up more than 50 percent of the population.... Out of the top ten thousand federal supervisory posts, only one hundred and fifty are filled by women, and in two years you have appointed only two hundred women to federal jobs, sixty-two of them to one single arts commission."
"Mr. President, a Republican congressman who is a Marine Corps veteran from your own state, Pete McCloskey, has been going around the country talking against your Vietnam policies and has plans to run against you in the primaries next year. Do you welcome this as a challenge...?"
Then Herb Kaplow of NBC asked whether it was an admission of impropriety that charges against two thousand protesters arrested on May 3 had been dropped. The president responded, "That kind of activity which is not demonstration, but vandalism, lawbreaking, is not going to be tolerated in this capital."
Then, two questions later: "Mr. President, regarding the ma.s.s arrests, I wonder-you seem to have thought that...keeping [government] running...was so important that some methods such as suspending const.i.tutional rights was justified. Was it that important?"
A follow-up: "...if that is true, then why are the courts releasing so many of the people that have been arrested?"
Because, Nixon said, their guilt wasn"t proven.
Another follow-up: "But they are not being released on the grounds that guilt hasn"t been proved. They are being released on the grounds they weren"t properly arrested."
Visibly shaken, the president turned to a conservative reporter, a favorite lobber of softb.a.l.l.s. She asked him what would happen to all the surplus goods like trucks and telephone poles after he"d wound up involvement in Vietnam. Reporters saw the tension release from his face.
The next week"s Gallup poll revealed that in a trial heat for the 1972 presidential election, Nixon ran two points behind Edmund Muskie. Two days later Gallup reported a record 61 percent of Americans saying sending troops to Vietnam had been a mistake. Nixon didn"t submit himself for another prime-time TV grilling for over a year and in 1972 held a historical low of seven press conferences. "What we a.s.sumed, and it seems sort of dumb in retrospect," David Broder later reflected, "was that just because the press conference had grown up from Wilson on and seven or eight presidents had adhered to it, it had somehow become inst.i.tutionalized. It"s not inst.i.tutionalized at all. In fact, you could effectively say that Richard Nixon has abolished the presidential press conference as an inst.i.tution."
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT.
Ping-Pong STAKES WERE HIGH FOR THE PRESIDENT TO REHABILITATE HIS IMAGE. Negotiations for his new global structure of peace were entering a critical stage. Negotiations for his new global structure of peace were entering a critical stage.
Nixon had told his patron Elmer Bobst in 1966 that his profoundest dream was "to bring China into the world." It was a radical notion. Americans counted the Soviet Union as an enemy. But they spoke of China as an unmitigated horror. Madmen ruled it. Nixon"s diplomatic mentor John Foster Dulles caused an international incident by rebuffing rather than shaking Premier Chou En-lai"s hand at the 1954 Geneva conference. President Kennedy"s people had talked about letting China have a seat in the United Nations. Richard Nixon said that would "irreparably weaken" the rest of Asia, and Eisenhower warned that if any rapprochement began-say, if Kennedy recognized Outer Mongolia, a territory claimed by Taiwan-he would come out of retirement to beat it down.
China"s alleged expansionism was why they said we were in Vietnam. Secretary of State Rusk menacingly warned, "Within the next decade or two there will be a billion Chinese on the mainland, armed with nuclear weapons, with no certainty about their att.i.tude toward the rest of Asia." Time, Time, whose founder Henry Luce"s parents had been missionaries in China, claimed China provided 80 percent of the Vietcong"s weapons. A 1966 Harris poll found 58 percent of Americans would vote against a candidate who advocated giving mainland China the UN seat; a right-wing publicist claimed to have collected over a million pet.i.tion signatures protesting the very notion. whose founder Henry Luce"s parents had been missionaries in China, claimed China provided 80 percent of the Vietcong"s weapons. A 1966 Harris poll found 58 percent of Americans would vote against a candidate who advocated giving mainland China the UN seat; a right-wing publicist claimed to have collected over a million pet.i.tion signatures protesting the very notion. China China was the word Nixon used when he wanted to scare an audience-as on October 28, 1966, in Boise, Idaho, after the most recent Chinese nuclear tests, saying that if Lyndon Johnson didn"t win Vietnam, "We are then running an immense risk of World War Three." was the word Nixon used when he wanted to scare an audience-as on October 28, 1966, in Boise, Idaho, after the most recent Chinese nuclear tests, saying that if Lyndon Johnson didn"t win Vietnam, "We are then running an immense risk of World War Three."
Any notion that Nixon Nixon would change his mind seemed perfectly absurd. "Our leader has taken leave of reality," Henry Kissinger told his staff in February of 1969. "He thinks this is the moment to establish normal relations with Communist China. He has just ordered me to make this flight of fancy come true...China!" would change his mind seemed perfectly absurd. "Our leader has taken leave of reality," Henry Kissinger told his staff in February of 1969. "He thinks this is the moment to establish normal relations with Communist China. He has just ordered me to make this flight of fancy come true...China!"
And yet Kissinger dutifully went to work: such an achievement would redound to his greater glory as well. That first summer, Kissinger met with potential go-betweens: General Yahya Khan, the military dictator of Pakistan; Nicolae Ceauescu of Romania, Nixon"s favorite Communist. That August the president met privately in San Francisco with South Korean president Park Chung Hee and explained a strategic rationale: "I do not want to give the impression to the eight hundred million people of Communist China that they have no choice but to cooperate with the Soviet Union." A crucial piece of the rationale was the Vietnam War: that China and Russia, as rivals, might someday compete for America"s favor by directing North Vietnam to reach a negotiated settlement.
When Ceauescu visited America in the fall of 1970, the president toasted him as the man who "heads a government which is one of the few in the world which has good relations with the United States, good relations with the Soviet Union, and good relations with the People"s Republic of China." Nixon had sounded a dog whistle that only connoisseurs of diplomatic code could hear: previously, American presidents had only referred to the government domiciled in Peking as "mainland China" or "Communist China."
That November, Pakistan"s Yahya met with Chou En-lai, who told him, for American ears, "A special envoy of President Nixon"s will be most welcome in Peking." The Pakistan channel was secret. The general had won a b.l.o.o.d.y concession in return for his favor to Richard Nixon. In December 1970, "East Pakistan," the Muslim province controlled by Pakistan and later known as Bangladesh, had its first free election in a decade. The wrong man won, General Khan kept the new government from convening, and at the end of March, he sent troops through India to put down what he called an insurrection. Ten thousand civilians were slaughtered the first three days. America said nothing.