Silly Leon. HEW general counsel Robert Mardian, a top operative in Barry Goldwater"s presidential campaign, marveled, "Doesn"t he understand Nixon promised the Southern delegates he would stop enforcing the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts?"
Nixon announced his replacement for Abe Fortas: Clement Furman Haynsworth Jr., a fifth-generation South Carolinian. On September 8, flying back from a sojourn at the Western White House in San Clemente, California, Nixon touched down in Gulfport, Mississippi, for what was planned as a ten-minute stopover. He was met at the airport by his most delirious reception since he"d returned from South America in 1958, seventy-five thousand patriots who"d waited hours for his arrival in furnacelike heat. A sign read NOT MANY REPUBLICANS HERE, BUT LOTS OF NIXONCRATS. NOT MANY REPUBLICANS HERE, BUT LOTS OF NIXONCRATS.
Everywhere else it was open season.
In San Francisco, slogans from six thousand protesters drifted humiliatingly from Union Square into the ballroom where he hosted a state dinner for President Park Chung Hee of South Korea-the first trip where his handlers had been unable to keep demonstrators from the president"s sight lines. Back in Washington, he read a column by Kissinger"s friend Joe Kraft listing all the the national security experts quitting the administration because they could not get past the "former adman" Haldeman-"an ultraloyalist with little feel for substantive problems." Newsweek Newsweek was preparing a "Nixon in Trouble!" cover. was preparing a "Nixon in Trouble!" cover. Time Time led its "National Affairs" dispatch with "Nixon"s Worst Week." led its "National Affairs" dispatch with "Nixon"s Worst Week." U.S. News U.S. News reported "Nixon"s Staff in Disarray." David Broder would soon file a column that came to Nixon"s aid. "A Risky New American Sport: "The Breaking of the President"" argued, "It is becoming more and more obvious with every pa.s.sing day that the men and the movement that broke Lyndon B. Johnson"s authority in 1968 are out to break Richard M. Nixon in 1969." He begged his colleagues to effect a cease-fire: for "when you have broken the President, you have broken the one man who can negotiate the peace." reported "Nixon"s Staff in Disarray." David Broder would soon file a column that came to Nixon"s aid. "A Risky New American Sport: "The Breaking of the President"" argued, "It is becoming more and more obvious with every pa.s.sing day that the men and the movement that broke Lyndon B. Johnson"s authority in 1968 are out to break Richard M. Nixon in 1969." He begged his colleagues to effect a cease-fire: for "when you have broken the President, you have broken the one man who can negotiate the peace."
The president dictated eight memos outlining a public relations pushback. It was part of the foreign policy game. De-escalation was contingent on the enemy believing Nixon would escalate; which was contingent upon keeping presidential approval ratings high; which was contingent on the appearance of de-escalation. As one of the big syndicated columnists, Roscoe Drummond, observed, only grasping one-tenth of the complexity, unless Vietnam looked to be winding down, "popular opinion will roll over him as it did LBJ." At which Nixon thundered upon his printed news summary, "E&K-Tell him that RN is less affected by press criticism and opinion than any Pres in recent memory." Because he was the president most most affected by press criticism and opinion of any president in recent memory. Which if known would make him look weak. And any escalatory bluff would be impossible. Which would keep him from credibility as a de-escalator; which would block his credibility as an escalator; which would stymie his ability to de-escalate; and then he couldn"t "win" in Vietnam-which in his heart he didn"t believe was possible anyway. affected by press criticism and opinion of any president in recent memory. Which if known would make him look weak. And any escalatory bluff would be impossible. Which would keep him from credibility as a de-escalator; which would block his credibility as an escalator; which would stymie his ability to de-escalate; and then he couldn"t "win" in Vietnam-which in his heart he didn"t believe was possible anyway.
Through the looking gla.s.s with Richard Nixon: this stuff was better than LSD.
The public relations didn"t work. Senator Birch Bayh (D-Ind.) dug up financial conflicts of interests on Judge Haynsworth that made Abe Fortas smell like a rose. On Sat.u.r.day, September 20, Nixon initiated the next phase of his anti-Moratorium agitating: he met with 225 student council presidents, accompanied by university presidents and deans, none from schools to which any of the best circles would send their children, for a conference called Evolution Not Revolution: A Time for Constructive Action. But even this carefully sanitized group berated administration officials. "It was a mistake to even invite them," Nixon fumed, and went off to golf at Burning Tree with Bob Hope.
The frustrations were enough to drive a president crazy, just like the political science professor said. Nixon started making mistakes-losing his temper, and not deliberately. On September 26 he held his first press conference since June. Aides urged him not to sneer at something so obviously broad-based as the new antiwar surge. Asked first about the proposal of Charles Goodell, the Republican senator Nelson Rockefeller had appointed to fill out the late Bobby Kennedy"s term, to cut off funding for the war after December 1, 1970, he responded like something out of 1984: 1984: "That inevitably leads to perpetuating and continuing the war." The third question was a softball: "What is your view, sir, concerning the student moratorium and other campus demonstrations being planned for this fall against the Vietnam War?" He replied, with monarchical bluntness, "Under no circ.u.mstances will I be affected whatever by it." "That inevitably leads to perpetuating and continuing the war." The third question was a softball: "What is your view, sir, concerning the student moratorium and other campus demonstrations being planned for this fall against the Vietnam War?" He replied, with monarchical bluntness, "Under no circ.u.mstances will I be affected whatever by it."
Mistake.
The remark was the next day"s lead story. VMC leaders put on a press conference timed for the Sunday papers. Dozens of reporters showed up instead of the usual five or six. The VMC had done what Nixon had done in 1948 with Truman, and 1966 with Johnson: ma.s.sively inflated their stature by making themselves debating partners of a president. They also played skillfully into the emerging media narrative: that the stresses of the job were getting to Nixon. They said what distressed them about his statement "is the degree of isolation which it reflects. It is the kind of rigid stance which contributed so much to the bitterness of debate during the last days of the Johnson administration."
The VMC was speaking the Establishment"s language, and the Establishment suddenly started showing respect. Newsweek Newsweek reported, "Originally, October 15 was to have been a campus-oriented protest. But it has quickly spread beyond the campus. And, if everything goes according to the evolving plans, the combination of scheduled events could well turn into the broadest and most spectacular antiwar protest in American history." reported, "Originally, October 15 was to have been a campus-oriented protest. But it has quickly spread beyond the campus. And, if everything goes according to the evolving plans, the combination of scheduled events could well turn into the broadest and most spectacular antiwar protest in American history."
Everything was going better than planned. As Weathermen tore up Chicago, the New York Times New York Times reported on a letter from six of the top Vietnam experts from the Rand Corporation, the top defense think tank. America should withdraw, they said, unilaterally and immediately-not "conditioned upon agreement or performance by Hanoi or Saigon." They went on, "Short of destroying the entire country and its people, we cannot eliminate the enemy force in Vietnam by military means." Even further, if every enemy soldier or sympathizer reported on a letter from six of the top Vietnam experts from the Rand Corporation, the top defense think tank. America should withdraw, they said, unilaterally and immediately-not "conditioned upon agreement or performance by Hanoi or Saigon." They went on, "Short of destroying the entire country and its people, we cannot eliminate the enemy force in Vietnam by military means." Even further, if every enemy soldier or sympathizer was was somehow magically eliminated, the other side would still not make "the kinds of concessions currently demanded"-a divided Vietnam with the South overseen by a government that the people there thought fundamentally illegitimate. ""Military victory" is no longer the U.S. objective," despite what the American government told the American people, and that wasn"t even the worst of the lies: "The importance to U.S. national interests of the future political complexion of South Vietnam has been greatly exaggerated, as has the negative impact of the unilateral U.S. withdrawal"-whose risks "will not be less after another year or more of American involvement." The somehow magically eliminated, the other side would still not make "the kinds of concessions currently demanded"-a divided Vietnam with the South overseen by a government that the people there thought fundamentally illegitimate. ""Military victory" is no longer the U.S. objective," despite what the American government told the American people, and that wasn"t even the worst of the lies: "The importance to U.S. national interests of the future political complexion of South Vietnam has been greatly exaggerated, as has the negative impact of the unilateral U.S. withdrawal"-whose risks "will not be less after another year or more of American involvement." The Times Times called them "men of considerable expertise who normally shun publicity" and said that one, "Daniel Ellsberg, spent two years working for the State Department in Saigon before joining Rand." The called them "men of considerable expertise who normally shun publicity" and said that one, "Daniel Ellsberg, spent two years working for the State Department in Saigon before joining Rand." The New Yorker, New Yorker, in the issue that hit newsstands three days before the Moratorium, ran a report called "Casualties of War" about a five-man reconnaissance squad who kidnapped and gang-raped a South Vietnamese girl, then murdered her. The anti-antiwar side fought back with a national newspaper ad headlined, "Everyone who wants peace in Vietnam should: TELL IT TO HANOI." It listed in the left-hand column seven steps "the President of the United States has done to end the war in Vietnam." The right-hand column named Hanoi"s contribution: "Nothing." It printed a coupon to clip out and send to Citizens for Peace with Security, promising, "We"ll see to it that the evidence of your support for the President without dishonor for the United States is transmitted to the enemy in Hanoi. The time has come for the "silent Americans" to speak out." in the issue that hit newsstands three days before the Moratorium, ran a report called "Casualties of War" about a five-man reconnaissance squad who kidnapped and gang-raped a South Vietnamese girl, then murdered her. The anti-antiwar side fought back with a national newspaper ad headlined, "Everyone who wants peace in Vietnam should: TELL IT TO HANOI." It listed in the left-hand column seven steps "the President of the United States has done to end the war in Vietnam." The right-hand column named Hanoi"s contribution: "Nothing." It printed a coupon to clip out and send to Citizens for Peace with Security, promising, "We"ll see to it that the evidence of your support for the President without dishonor for the United States is transmitted to the enemy in Hanoi. The time has come for the "silent Americans" to speak out."
Two precisely incommensurate propositions: that either patience or impatience with the war was the road to national dishonor. On the fifteenth, the American people could vote on that referendum with their feet.
Richard Nixon lost. Life Life called it "the largest expression of public dissent ever seen in this country." Two million Americans protested-most for the first time in their lives. called it "the largest expression of public dissent ever seen in this country." Two million Americans protested-most for the first time in their lives.
Everywhere, black armbands; everywhere, flags at half-staff; church services, film showings, teach-ins, neighbor-to-neighbor canva.s.ses. In North Newton, Kansas, a bell tolled every four seconds, each clang clang memorializing a fallen soldier; in Columbia, Maryland, an electronic sign counted the day"s war deaths. Milwaukee staged a downtown noontime funeral procession. Hastings College, an 850-student Presbyterian school in Nebraska, suspended operations. Madison, Ann Arbor, and New Haven were only a few of the college towns to draw out a quarter of their populations or more (New Haven"s Vietnam Moratorium Committee had called up every name in the city phone book). The nation"s biggest college town brought out one hundred thousand souls in Boston Common. A young Rhodes Scholar out of Arkansas, Bill Clinton, got up a demonstration of one thousand people in front of the U.S. emba.s.sy in London. memorializing a fallen soldier; in Columbia, Maryland, an electronic sign counted the day"s war deaths. Milwaukee staged a downtown noontime funeral procession. Hastings College, an 850-student Presbyterian school in Nebraska, suspended operations. Madison, Ann Arbor, and New Haven were only a few of the college towns to draw out a quarter of their populations or more (New Haven"s Vietnam Moratorium Committee had called up every name in the city phone book). The nation"s biggest college town brought out one hundred thousand souls in Boston Common. A young Rhodes Scholar out of Arkansas, Bill Clinton, got up a demonstration of one thousand people in front of the U.S. emba.s.sy in London. Newsday Newsday publisher and former LBJ right-hand man Bill Moyers, Paris peace talks chief negotiator Averell Harriman, the mayor of Detroit, even the Connecticut state chairman of Citizens for Nixon-Agnew, partic.i.p.ated in protests. The publisher and former LBJ right-hand man Bill Moyers, Paris peace talks chief negotiator Averell Harriman, the mayor of Detroit, even the Connecticut state chairman of Citizens for Nixon-Agnew, partic.i.p.ated in protests. The Washington Post Washington Post drew a man-bites-dog conclusion: "Anti-Vietnam Views Unite Generations." drew a man-bites-dog conclusion: "Anti-Vietnam Views Unite Generations."
George McGovern spoke in Boston and Bangor, Maine-backyard of the new front-runner for the "72 Democratic nomination, Edmund Muskie-where the Great Plains backbencher was announced as "the next president of the United States." Conservative Houston was one of the cities where the names of the war dead were read out in public squares. (A reader stumbled and stopped; he had come upon the name of a friend.) The Duke student newspaper editorialized, "We believe a careful study of history shows that the war in Vietnam is an imperialist conflict. And we support the struggle of the Vietnamese people for their liberation." At the University of North Carolina, the Village Voice Village Voice"s Jack Newfield won an ovation from twenty-five hundred children of the Dixie elite for arguing that the United States had already lost "because we fought on the wrong side."
Another public square was Wall Street, where some twenty thousand businessmen gathered for a procession to Trinity Church, where the ceremony reminded communicants of Martin Luther King"s March on Washington. In midtown Manhattan, one hundred thousand marched to Bryant Park to hear Tony Randall, Lauren Bacall, Woody Allen, Shirley MacLaine, both Republican New York senators, and Mayor Lindsay, who draped City Hall with black crepe and ordered all city flags flown at half-staff. The lowly New York Mets were up two games to one against the mighty Baltimore Orioles going into the fourth game of the World Series at Shea Stadium-where the flag was also flying half-staff. People darted in and out of taverns to check the score. At Columbia, Jimmy Breslin reported what the day"s starting pitcher, Tom Seaver, had told him, "If the Mets can get to the World Series, the U.S. can get out of Vietnam."
And then there was Washington, D.C. On the evening of the fourteenth, twenty-three congressmen began an intended all-night session on Vietnam on the House floor. Gerald Ford managed to shut them down after four hours. It was the longest time Congress had ever talked Vietnam at a stretch. The next day, congressmen vigiled on the Capitol steps. At lunchtime, bureaucrats at the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare could choose from twelve different antiwar discussions. Or they could simply play hooky, joining the fifty thousand who gathered at the base of the Washington Monument listening to Coretta Scott King say that this war was "destroying the very fabric and fiber of our society."
Then, in ranks of ten, they moved out to the White House.
There wasn"t a single Vietcong flag in evidence. There were hardly any signs at all. There were candles, shimmering in an unbroken line all the way back to the Washington Monument. (Charleston, West Virginia"s police chief described his city"s pro-war counterdemonstration: "We won"t creep around in the dark with candles like those traitors do.... We"ll march at high noon on Monday and let free people fall right in line.") An NSC staffer took a break from working on the president"s November 3 speech on Vietnam to witness the flickering encirclement of the White House. He looked up with a start: it included his wife and children. The president affected to have noticed nothing: "I haven"t seen a single demonstrator-and I"ve been out."
Another public square was the nation"s high schools. At over a thousand, students boycotted cla.s.ses. In Blackwood, New Jersey, Craig Badiali, president of the drama society, and his girlfriend, Joan Fox, a cheerleader, chose Moratorium day to borrow the Badiali family sedan and to turn it into a carbon monoxide chamber: "Why-because we / love our fellow /man enough to / sacrifice our lives / so that they will. Try to find the ecstasy in just being alive."
The MIT student newspaper eulogized, "Two more of the domestic casualties of our war policy and the jungle which is called society. How many more will there be?"
The conspiracy to sabotage it all had consumed the West Wing. One black op consisted of sending a letter to every congressional office on simulated Moratorium letterhead announcing that the vigil had been moved to Union Station. Yet more ads from the supposedly independent Citizens for Peace with Security-a White House front-enjoined Americans to blame Hanoi for the continued warfare. (The man listed in the ads as the group"s chairman, William J. Casey, was a former intelligence officer who had lost a 1960 campaign for Congress as a Nixon Republican, then cemented his Orthogonian bona fides by having his membership application rejected by the Council on Foreign Relations; in 1971 Nixon nominated him for Securities and Exchange Commission chairman.) Conservative congressmen were recruited to a.s.sail antiwar colleagues for advocating a "bugout" that would bring "the slaughter of untold millions to Vietnam." Americans who"d been held hostage by the Communists in Vietnam were wheeled out as political props. Two POWs had been released by the North Vietnamese in August. In September, the Pentagon sent them around the country to describe their "ordeal of horror." And surely their confinements had been horrible. But journalists noticed their stories became more extravagant and inconsistent as time went on. The secretary of defense announced of their captivity: "There is clear evidence that North Vietnam has violated even the most fundamental standards of human decency." But two years later, when Seymour Hersh investigated, he discovered a letter from the Pentagon in which Laird rea.s.sured the prisoners" families he was exaggerating: "We are certain that you will not become unduly concerned over the briefing if you keep in mind the purpose for which it was tailored."
For the first time, the president sent out Spiro Agnew to do what Nixon used to do for Ike: call the administration"s critics traitors. On the eve of the protest North Vietnamese prime minister Pham Van Dong broadcast an open letter on Radio Hanoi praising the Moratorium"s efforts "to save the honor of the United States and to avoid for their boys a useless death in Vietnam." The vice president demanded the Moratorium"s leaders "repudiate the support of a totalitarian government which has on its hands the blood of forty thousand Americans" and said pro-Moratorium congressmen were "chargeable with the knowledge of this letter." The legalistic insinuation-chargeable-nicely recalled the master, in 1952, calling President Truman and Secretary Acheson "traitors to the high principles in which many of the nation"s Democrats believe."
Jack Caulfield was sent out to investigate the Red hand in the planning. He claimed the Communist Party "has maintained a background ident.i.ty," with the Socialist Workers Party making "the heaviest outlays of funds." The Kennedys were in on it, too-in order, he said, to keep the media focus away from Chappaquidd.i.c.k. Two new White House aides who shared a taste for blood, Governor Reagan"s former press secretary Lyn Nofziger and an eager former cosmetics company junior executive named Jeb Stuart Magruder, who had run the congressional campaign of Donald Rumsfeld in Illinois in 1962, cranked up the Nixon network to send angry letters to congressmen who supported the Moratorium. It can"t be known whether this letter in Time Time was their handiwork-"How tragic, too, Kennedy"s professed concern with the loss of lives in Vietnam when he was so negligent about saving the one young life over which he had direct control at Chappaquidd.i.c.k"-for the president specifically instructed Haldeman to discuss matters concerning Kennedy "only orally." was their handiwork-"How tragic, too, Kennedy"s professed concern with the loss of lives in Vietnam when he was so negligent about saving the one young life over which he had direct control at Chappaquidd.i.c.k"-for the president specifically instructed Haldeman to discuss matters concerning Kennedy "only orally."
As the conspiracy to blunt the antiwar upsurge unfolded, Senate minority whip Robert Griffin, a loyal Nixonite, warned the president to withdraw the Haynsworth nomination as yet more shady business deals were revealed. Griffin thought it was friendly advice; the president didn"t take it that way. He pledged to "destroy Griffin as whip." A White House that was already ruthless was becoming more so by the day. The hatred of the press became more obsessive. The political wisdom of press-baiting was b.u.t.tressed by the first major new poll on the subject since the Democratic National Convention: 40 percent trusted local news sources "very much," but only one in four trusted national news. Asked to name a syndicated columnist they paid attention to, only 16 percent of those polled could come up with one (the plurality were advice and humor columnists). The newsmagazine most trusted by its readers was conservative U.S. News. U.S. News. David Brinkley summarized the findings: they "want me to shut up." David Brinkley summarized the findings: they "want me to shut up."
On October 10 the White House attempted a distraction from the upcoming Moratorium, set for five days later. They announced a major policy address on Vietnam for November 3-which announcement, if tradition held, would lead to columnists" predictions that Nixon was about to announce a major disengagement. That same day the president announced the retirement of the hated General Lewis Hershey as head of the Selective Service Administration. On October 13 White House couriers pulled a kid out of cla.s.s at Georgetown for a photo opportunity. Randy d.i.c.ks had written to the president about his September 26 press conference, "It has been my impression that it is not unwise for the President of the United States to make note of the will of the people." d.i.c.ks was selected from thousands of letter-writers to hear back from the president, to show that he cared.
An NSC aide drafted Nixon"s response. Kissinger kept on tossing them back: "Make it more manly."
The president ended up saying, "Whatever the issue, to allow the government policy to be made in the streets would destroy the democratic process."
The press corps asked Randy d.i.c.ks what he thought of that. Not much, he said, before launching into a peroration about his indifference to "the democratic process": monarchy, he said, "was the superior form of government."
The aides had carefully selected one undergrad. They had carelessly neglected to learn that he was president of something called the Student Monarchist Society.
On Moratorium Day, the aides recruited parachutists to touch down on the Mall and in Central Park, bearing American flags: perhaps the crowd would seize them, maybe burn them, and that would become the story. Instead, the crowds just laughed.
One reason for the enormous Oval Office stress was that November 1 would be coming and going without any swift, savage blow to North Vietnam. The president had shut down Duck Hook, partly for military reasons-fear that the promised knockout blow would be greeted by the enemy as just another love tap-but also partly for political reasons: fear that any new escalation would increase the number of Americans willing to march in the street by an order of magnitude. They would need at least six more months, Kissinger said after the moment pa.s.sed, to build up the credibility a true escalation would take.
That left the problem of conveying madness some other way.
At an air base off the Atlantic City airport, MPs wondered why they were on twenty-four-hour alert. A team of soldiers stood guard around two B-52s. Their pilots sat in the ready room carrying guns. An MP madly scanned the newspaper in vain for some international crisis. He knew what it meant when B-52 copilots started carrying sidearms. It was for one copilot to shoot the other if he was too chicken to follow orders and drop the big one.
The nuclear alert to convince the Soviet Union that ending the Vietnam War was in their best interests was ordered October 6. It swung into action on October 13, eighteen planes flying eighteen-hour loops over the northern polar ice cap just shy of the USSR. The flights kept up through the end of the month, until Nixon was sure Moscow knew exactly what was taking place-but not a moment longer than that, for then someone else, say China, might notice, too. American bombers and refueling tankers danced so closely that the Strategic Air Command, which had no clue of the purpose of the exercise, worried it might cause an unthinkable accident.
Another antiwar happening was planned for Sat.u.r.day, November 15. This one might be a little different. White House intelligence had sniffed out a civil war within the antiwar forces. These organizers, the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, were an edgier crowd. The Weathermen were carving out a role for themselves. So was the Revolutionary Contingent in Solidarity with the Vietnamese People, and a faction calling themselves "the Crazies." The "New Mobe" was, for its part, recruiting thousands of marshals whose job it would be to make sure there wasn"t violence.
The Moratorium, the Mobe, these congressmen and senators mucking with the prerogatives of the commander in chief: to the White House, they were all tentacles of the same beast. The trick was to convince the country of that, too-"to seize the day and break the back of the sell-out movement in this country," as one White House a.s.sistant put it.
Haldeman"s desk was the clearinghouse. White House a.s.sistant Bill Gavin called for a full-scale "campaign of counterrevolution," an "unrelenting propaganda drive" to convince the media "that they"ve been had had by the radicals for the past few years." Dwight Chapin proposed, "In New York the networks should be visited by groups of our supporters-the highest level-and cold turkey should be talked"; then the following Monday morning they should put on a Justice Department press conference to reveal the interlocking revolutionary directorate common to both demonstrations, softening the ground for a weeklong showing of "the appearance of pro-administration sentiment": "thousands of wires, letters, and pet.i.tions to the networks"; letters to congressmen; "everyone wearing a flag lapel pin." Another aide suggested patriotic Americans "spontaneously" run their headlights all day November 15 (National Guard officers could order it of their troops). The New Mobe protest was set for a Sat.u.r.day; perhaps, Chapin suggested, the president could attend a college football game, with a tribute to the commander in chief at halftime. by the radicals for the past few years." Dwight Chapin proposed, "In New York the networks should be visited by groups of our supporters-the highest level-and cold turkey should be talked"; then the following Monday morning they should put on a Justice Department press conference to reveal the interlocking revolutionary directorate common to both demonstrations, softening the ground for a weeklong showing of "the appearance of pro-administration sentiment": "thousands of wires, letters, and pet.i.tions to the networks"; letters to congressmen; "everyone wearing a flag lapel pin." Another aide suggested patriotic Americans "spontaneously" run their headlights all day November 15 (National Guard officers could order it of their troops). The New Mobe protest was set for a Sat.u.r.day; perhaps, Chapin suggested, the president could attend a college football game, with a tribute to the commander in chief at halftime.
Tom Charles Huston"s memo was the most extravagant. "Secretly, of course, but nevertheless decisively," the White House could set up a phalanx of front groups to rally "in carefully selected sites where it is possible to turn substantial numbers out." Huston even suggested the slogan: "Support the President and End the War in Vietnam." (The adman Haldeman"s response: "Need to work on wording-there"s no s.e.x in Support the P. Support the P.") A warning came forth from Pat Moynihan: some of these war skeptics had supported the president or might do so in the future. Nixon perished the very thought: "No, RN $ and votes came from West and South," he wrote across the memo. It was a strange observation for him to make, considering that he"d won New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Vermont and raised plenty of money from Wall Street; and that the "West and the South" had protested the war on October 15, too. It made sense as a spiritual geography. Pat Buchanan, its most dedicated cartographer, wrote to the president October 17, "Americans are confused and uncertain and beginning to believe they may be wrong and beginning to feel themselves the moral inferiors of the candle carrying peaceniks who want to get out now." The "want to get out now" const.i.tuency, in other words, whatever their numerical or geographical distribution, no matter that they included the Sports Ill.u.s.trated Sports Ill.u.s.trated "Sportsman of the Year" Tom Seaver (who now recorded a TV commercial: "If the Mets can "Sportsman of the Year" Tom Seaver (who now recorded a TV commercial: "If the Mets can win win the World Series, the United States can get out of Vietnam"), were strangers to the group Buchanan labeled "Americans." the World Series, the United States can get out of Vietnam"), were strangers to the group Buchanan labeled "Americans."
The theory was further developed by Richard Nixon"s new bulldog, the vice president of the United States.
Agnew was scheduled to speak October 19 at a party fund-raiser in New Orleans. He was still sufficiently low on the White House totem pole that his speeches tended to fixate on the tiny policy portfolio they"d given him (maritime affairs, urban renewal, Native Americans), or to repeat what the president had said the week before. His public appearances ran to affairs like the ribbon-cutting for the Spiro T. Agnew Mental Health Center in Maryland. For New Orleans, his speechwriter drafted him seven dry pages of facts for the party faithful on the administration"s accomplishments and goals, thirty-nine methodical bullet points from "casualties for the first nine months of this year are down by two-thirds" to "the Soviets have already deployed 64 ABMs."
Agnew was of a mind to go further. On October 8 and 11, in Texas and Vermont, he"d delivered rip-roaring speeches on the nation"s moral crisis. The president, though few others, noticed: three days later he invited Agnew in for a one-on-one meeting and gave him the a.s.signment of answering Pham Van Dong"s congratulatory telegram to the peaceniks. Feeling his oats, Agnew decided to pen his own one-page introduction for the New Orleans speech. He turned to his favorite subject: order. order.
"Sometimes it appears that we are reaching a period when our sense and our minds will no longer respond to moderate stimulation. We seem to be approaching an age of the gross....
"The young, and by this I don"t mean all the young, but I"m talking about those who claim to speak for the young, at the zenith of physical power and sensitivity, overwhelm themselves with drugs and artificial stimulants. Subtlety is lost, and fine distinctions based on acute reasoning are carelessly ignored in a headlong jump to predetermined conclusion....
"Education is being redefined at the demand of the uneducated to suit the ideas of the uneducated. The student now goes to college to proclaim rather than to learn. The lessons of the past are ignored and obliterated in a contemporary antagonism known as the generation gap.
"A spirit of national masochism masochism prevails, encouraged by an effete corps of impudent sn.o.bs who prevails, encouraged by an effete corps of impudent sn.o.bs who characterize characterize themselves as intellectuals." themselves as intellectuals."
The Moratorium was "a reflection of the confusion that exists in America today," the product of a generation "conditioned since childhood to respond to great emotional appeals...an emotional purgative for those who felt the need to cleanse themselves of their lack of ability to offer a constructive solution to the problem. Unfortunately, we have not seen the end. The hard-core dissidents and the professional anarchists within the so-called "peace movement" will continue to exacerbate the situation. November 15 is already planned-wilder, more violent, and equally barren of constructive result." Time Time"s 1966 Man and Woman of the Year were just children after all. And not innocent ones at that.
Louisiana Republicans took it in with delight. That one unforgettable phrase-"effete corps of impudent sn.o.bs"-made front pages all over the country. The next night he spoke in Jackson. Bill Safire and Pat Buchanan helped with the speech. It folded in a bow to the Southern Strategy ("For too long, the South has been the punching bag for those who characterize characterize themselves as intellectuals"), then hit even harder: "These arrogant ones and their admirers in the Congress, who reach almost for equal arrogance at times, are bringing this nation to the most important decision it will ever have to make. They are asking us to repudiate principles that have made this country great." themselves as intellectuals"), then hit even harder: "These arrogant ones and their admirers in the Congress, who reach almost for equal arrogance at times, are bringing this nation to the most important decision it will ever have to make. They are asking us to repudiate principles that have made this country great."
Complaints from Republican Franklins flooded the RNC. Chairman Rogers Morton didn"t need to be prodded: he thought this war was too controversial to start using gutter language on its critics. The House and Senate minority leaders, Jerry Ford and Hugh Scott, met with John Mitch.e.l.l and Harry Dent at the White House and said the word from Republicans up on the Hill was that this was counterproductive, that Agnew should be shut up. They reminded the president of how he had rung in his administration: "Bring us together..." "Bring us together..."
Let them howl. "Now have to take the offensive," Haldeman had written in his diary. "Tag those involved with left-wing-and take the heat." For his own part, as if to top Agnew, Ronald Reagan charged antiwar demonstrators with manslaughter: "Some Americans will die tonight because of the activity in our streets." The left wing was scary, getting scarier. The Chicago conspiracy trial had become a spectacle consumed each night on the evening news through courtroom sketches and reporters" incredulous narrations. "I admonish you, sir," the judge would say to Bobby Seale, "that you have a lot of contemptuous conduct against you." "I admonish you," the Black Panther would return, "you are in contempt of people"s const.i.tutional rights." Their exchange of insults came to a head October 29, when the judge had Seale handcuffed, gagged, and bound to a metal chair like a slave.
There had, up to then, been a joke about Spiro Agnew: Bob Hope said he"d seen Mickey Mouse wearing a Spiro Agnew watch; that is, Spiro was Mickey Mouse even to Mickey Mouse. But after Agnew delivered his next speech, at a Republican dinner in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the day following Bobby Seale"s confinement, a new national Agnew was born.
"A little over a week ago," went Spiro"s opening witticism, "I took a rather unusual step for a vice president. I said something."
Laughter.
"Particularly, I said something that was predictably unpopular with the people who would like to run the country without running for public office. I said I did not like some of the things I saw happening in this country. I criticized those who encouraged government by street carnival.... It appears that by slaughtering a sacred cow I triggered a holy war. I have no regrets.... What I said before, I will say again. It is time for the preponderant majority, responsible citizens of this country, to a.s.sert their their rights." rights."
There were no more jokes from then on out. It was the night before Halloween, and this was a scary speech.
The antiwar leaders, he said, were "political hustlers...who would tell us our values are lies." They claimed to be for the people. But they "disdain to mingle with the ma.s.ses who work for a living." They claimed to be leading our youth. But "America cannot afford to write off a whole generation for the decadent thinking of a few," who "prey upon the good intentions of gullible men everywhere," and "pervert honest concern into something sick and rancid....
"They are vultures who sit in trees and watch lions battle, knowing that win, lose, or draw, they will be fed."
They were "ideological eunuchs."
They were "parasites of pa.s.sion."
"Their interest is personal, not moral."
But they claimed to be your moral betters.
This wasn"t "bring us together" anymore; now the administration was up to something else: the bad people, Spiro regretted to have to say, had to be challenged. And "if in challenging we polarize the American people, I say it is time for a positive polarization.... positive polarization.... It is time to rip away the rhetoric and divide on authentic lines." It is time to rip away the rhetoric and divide on authentic lines."
It was as if he"d been reading the New Left"s own theorists-the ones who spoke of "heightening the contradictions." Agnew closed by quoting what one revolutionary, Eldridge Cleaver, whose book Soul on Ice Soul on Ice had received warm reviews in all the best circles, had said from his "Moscow hotel room": "Many complacent regimes thought that they would be in power eternally-and awoke one morning to find themselves up against the wall. I expect that to happen in the United States in our lifetimes." had received warm reviews in all the best circles, had said from his "Moscow hotel room": "Many complacent regimes thought that they would be in power eternally-and awoke one morning to find themselves up against the wall. I expect that to happen in the United States in our lifetimes."
Liberals, Agnew said, coddled these outright insurrectionists-people hoping, praying, and working working for the collapse of American civilization. "Right now," he put it to the Harrisburg Republicans, "we must decide whether we will take the trouble to stave off a totalitarian state.... Will citizens refuse to be led by a series of Judas goats down tortuous paths to delusion and self-destruction?" for the collapse of American civilization. "Right now," he put it to the Harrisburg Republicans, "we must decide whether we will take the trouble to stave off a totalitarian state.... Will citizens refuse to be led by a series of Judas goats down tortuous paths to delusion and self-destruction?"
The bad cop had spoken. Then, on November 3, a Monday, the president filled TV screens from sea to shining sea.
The tone was gentle, grandfatherly, as if he were emulating Ike. He acknowledged the nation"s confusion and anger: "I believe that one of the reasons for the deep division about Vietnam is that many Americans have lost confidence in what their government has told them about our policy. The American people cannot and should not be asked to support a policy which involves the overriding issues of war and peace unless they know the truth about that policy.... Tonight, therefore, I would like to answer some of the questions that I know are on the minds of many of you listening to me."
There was an acceptance of responsibility (though a selective one: pulling out to "avoid allowing Johnson"s war to become Nixon"s war...would have been a popular and easy course to follow," but he refused to take the easy way out).
There was a history lesson (though selective, too: "Why and how did the United States become involved in Vietnam in the first place?" Because North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam, and we came to their aid "in response to the[ir] request").
There was a gesture of reconciliation: "Let us all understand that the question before us is not whether some some Americans are for peace, and Americans are for peace, and some some Americans are against peace.... The great question is, How can we win Americans are against peace.... The great question is, How can we win America"s America"s peace?... peace?...
"For the future of peace, precipitate withdrawal would thus be a disaster of immense magnitude...eventually even in the Western Hemisphere. Ultimately, this would cost more lives. It would not bring peace; it would bring more war.... Now that we are in the war," his aim was "the best way to end it."
For Americans disposed to trust their president-the vast majority of Americans-it was a convincing performance. It was, so far, a boring boring speech, intentionally so. It gained its trust by its quiet. speech, intentionally so. It gained its trust by its quiet.
Then he introduced a jarring note: "For the first defeat in our nation"s history would result-"
The first defeat in our nation"s history.
Lyndon Johnson had talked of being the first president to lose a war-but only in private. Nixon took the anxiety public. He spoke of the potential of "our defeat and humiliation in South Vietnam.... Let us be united for peace. Let us also be united against defeat."
He promised he had come up with a method to end the war: "Vietnamization"-slowly scaling back the American commitment by stepping up the military training of the South Vietnamese army. He a.s.sured 70 million Americans that it had already began, that it was already working: 20 percent of American troops would be home by the middle of December, air operations were down 20 percent. He couldn"t publicly announce a timetable the way some congressmen wanted-the "enemy would simply wait until our forces had withdrawn and then move in"-but, trust him, he had a timetable in mind, and if anything, the withdrawal was ahead of schedule.
"Honest and patriotic Americans have reached different conclusions as to how peace should be achieved," he allowed.
But there were two ways to end a war. One had been suggested to him in San Francisco.
"In San Francisco, San Francisco," he intoned, gaining intensity, "a few weeks ago, I saw demonstrators carrying signs reading "Lose in Vietnam""-that one word, in Vietnam""-that one word, lose, lose, was practically shouted-""bring the boys home." was practically shouted-""bring the boys home."
"Well, one of the strengths of our free society is that any American has the right to reach that conclusion....
"But as president of the United States, I would be untrue to my oath of office to be dictated by a minority who hold that view and who try to impose it on the nation by mounting demonstrations in the street."
Quieter than Agnew, Nixon repeated Agnew"s argument-about, implicitly, the violent spring offensive on the nation"s college campuses; about, implicitly, Woodstock; about the Black Panthers; and about the cultural elite that seemed to gladly countenance it all: "For almost two hundred years, the policy of this nation has been made under our Const.i.tution by those leaders in the Congress and the White House elected by all the people. If a vocal minority, however fervent its cause, prevails over reason and the will of the majority, this nation has no future as a free society."
The conclusion was drenched in bathos.
"It might not be fashionable to speak of patriotism or national destiny these days. But I feel it is appropriate to do so on this occasion." ("Nixon," Jack Newfield wrote in the Voice, Voice, "you are giving plastic a bad name.") "you are giving plastic a bad name.") "Two hundred years ago this nation was weak and poor. But even then, America was the hope of millions in the world.... Let historians not record that when America was the most powerful nation in the world, we pa.s.sed on the other side of the road and allowed the last hopes for peace and freedom of millions of people to be suffocated by the forces of totalitarians."
He then turned the phrase for which the speech became known.
"So tonight, to you, the great-silent-majority of my fellow Americans"-he sounded pleased with himself-"I ask for your support."
He"d spoken since 1967 of "quiet Americans," a "new majority," "forgotten American," "the forgotten majority," "the backbone of America," "the nonshouters, the nondemonstrators." Now he finally found the formulation he"d been grasping for: the s.e.x s.e.x Haldeman sought when he looked for better words than "Support the president and end the war in Vietnam." The Haldeman sought when he looked for better words than "Support the president and end the war in Vietnam." The silent majority: silent majority: the speech made that case brilliantly-that if you were a the speech made that case brilliantly-that if you were a normal normal American and angry at the war, President Nixon was the peacenik for you. "Let us be united for peace," he concluded. "Let us also be united against American and angry at the war, President Nixon was the peacenik for you. "Let us be united for peace," he concluded. "Let us also be united against defeat. defeat. Because let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that." Because let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that."
Some people wanted peace because they didn"t want America to be humiliated. Some people wanted peace because they preferred America"s humiliation. Now the president invited Orthogonians to join him in defining themselves by this split-in a wager that the majority on his side would grow for it. Forever more, he would point his speechwriters to "the November 3 speech" as what they should be aiming for. He had declared the United States of Nixonland, and planted Old Glory on her surface.
Nixon"s Silent Majority speech came, not coincidentally, the day before state and munic.i.p.al elections. The results, as the White House expected, provided Nixon a way to ill.u.s.trate his point. Virginia elected its first Republican governor since Reconstruction. In New Jersey, a Republican won the statehouse for the first time in sixteen years, having campaigned against p.o.r.nography and for government aid to parochial schools, and did best in areas of strong Wallace support. On the same day, New Jersey also voted down a referendum to lower the voting age to eighteen.
In the cities mayoral candidates succeeded by "making Alabama speeches with a Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and New York accent"-George Wallace said that. In Minneapolis a burglary squad detective named Charlie Stenvin won the mayoralty without the support of either party, against a Republican endorsed by Gene McCarthy and on a platform to "protect law-abiding citizens from hoodlums." (He was asked who his top adviser would be. "G.o.d," he replied. "G.o.d first of all.") In Los Angeles, a black former cop named Tom Bradley had been predicted to unseat Sam Yorty. Then Yorty said Bradley was the "antipolice" candidate of "black militants and left-wing extremists" and scored a come-from-behind victory. In New York John Lindsay barely won reelection-after losing the Republican primary to a man who called his declaration of the Moratorium on October 15 as a citywide day of mourning "a dagger in the back of American servicemen in Vietnam," and facing a third candidate, conservative Democratic Mario Procaccino, who labeled Lindsay a "limousine liberal" whose supporters "live in penthouses and who send their children to private schools and have doormen and who don"t ride the subways." Without that split conservative vote-and without a torrent of focus-group-driven commercials in which Lindsay admitted his mistakes, called his "the second toughest job in the America," and had actor Jack Klugman suggest New Yorkers take a day trip to Newark: "We haven"t had a Newark under Lindsay"-his career would have been over. Three out of five New Yorkers voted against him.
Jack Newfield, writing in Life, Life, trilled that Lindsay"s victory proved a left-wing presidential candidate could defeat Nixon-that "Lindsay has invented, in cynical, fragmented New York, the scale model for a national New Politics campaign in 1972." Nixon trumpeted the munic.i.p.al election results as clear proof that the nation was behind him, that the Silent Majority was real and the New Politics a chimera. The White House had the better of the argument. Fifty thousand telegrams and thirty thousand letters flooded in praising the Silent Majority speech-far too many to have merely been a Nixon Network setup. The president displayed bales of them, put his feet up among them on his desk, as if they were part of the Oval Office furniture. In an instant poll, 77 percent said they supported his handling of Vietnam (it had been 58 percent before the speech). Only 6 percent opposed it outright. His flash approval rating was 68 percent. Three hundred House members signed a resolution of support. trilled that Lindsay"s victory proved a left-wing presidential candidate could defeat Nixon-that "Lindsay has invented, in cynical, fragmented New York, the scale model for a national New Politics campaign in 1972." Nixon trumpeted the munic.i.p.al election results as clear proof that the nation was behind him, that the Silent Majority was real and the New Politics a chimera. The White House had the better of the argument. Fifty thousand telegrams and thirty thousand letters flooded in praising the Silent Majority speech-far too many to have merely been a Nixon Network setup. The president displayed bales of them, put his feet up among them on his desk, as if they were part of the Oval Office furniture. In an instant poll, 77 percent said they supported his handling of Vietnam (it had been 58 percent before the speech). Only 6 percent opposed it outright. His flash approval rating was 68 percent. Three hundred House members signed a resolution of support.
But the media still controlled the microphones. They were, Nixon was convinced, out to get him.
Before his speech pundits had noted that dovish senators had been letting up on their Vietnam criticism and surmised Nixon had perhaps promised them troop withdrawals, a cease-fire, a bombing halt. One betting line was that he would pledge a pullout of two hundred thousand soldiers over the next twelve months.
So when the network experts went on the air immediately afterward, "no new proposals" seemed to them the news. On ABC, hosted by Howard K. Smith, Averell Harriman held forth: "I"m sure it would be presumptuous to give a complete a.n.a.lysis of a very carefully thought-out speech by the president of the United States." He noted, "I"m sure he wants to end this war and no one wishes him well any more than I do," and that as former chief negotiator in Paris, he was "utterly opposed to these people that are talking about cutting and running." Then, he offered criticisms: Nixon had made out his speech to be a bold departure, but he was still following the advice of "many people who advised President Johnson." Nixon made out the North Vietnamese to be pushing for a military takeover of the South; but "I don"t think from the talks we"ve had that the North Vietnamese, or their colleagues, the VC-NLF-want to have a military takeover." Harriman especially scorned Nixon"s peroration that those who disagreed with him were a minority: support for Senator Goodell"s idea to pull out under a fixed timetable, he pointed out, was 57 percent. to have a military takeover." Harriman especially scorned Nixon"s peroration that those who disagreed with him were a minority: support for Senator Goodell"s idea to pull out under a fixed timetable, he pointed out, was 57 percent.
CBS put on Eric Sevareid (Nixon hated hated Eric Sevareid). He called Nixon"s position self-contradictory: "If this war and our presence there was of this cosmic and universal importance, then the war should be won, but he has said that it is not to be-a military victory is not to be sought." That cut rather nastily to the quick. Eric Sevareid). He called Nixon"s position self-contradictory: "If this war and our presence there was of this cosmic and universal importance, then the war should be won, but he has said that it is not to be-a military victory is not to be sought." That cut rather nastily to the quick.
It wasn"t all unflattering to Nixon. NBC was generous: they pointed out that after the Moratorium, support for his Vietnam policies had increased. increased. Many network commentators noted that if Nixon"s preferred candidates did well at the polls the next day-which in fact they did-Nixon would have accomplished something impressive with his Silent Majority bet. These were the proverbial mixed reviews-the kind of thing a president approaching the end of his first year in office with middling approval ratings could reasonably expect. Many network commentators noted that if Nixon"s preferred candidates did well at the polls the next day-which in fact they did-Nixon would have accomplished something impressive with his Silent Majority bet. These were the proverbial mixed reviews-the kind of thing a president approaching the end of his first year in office with middling approval ratings could reasonably expect.
Unless you were a president who considered these men not experts but enemies. He had spent weeks of twelve-hour days brooding over every comma of twelve drafts of that speech. Now the networks opened their microphones to Averell Harriman, who"d said at a 1950 c.o.c.ktail party, "I will not break bread with that man," and Howard K. Smith, who"d emceed the 1962 TV special The Political Obituary of Richard Nixon, The Political Obituary of Richard Nixon, so that they could do nothing but mock him. They had to be destroyed. so that they could do nothing but mock him. They had to be destroyed.
The White House was "shotgunning" their enemies in the press, Jeb Magruder argued, spraying instead of focusing their countermeasures. He pointed to two particularly high-powered and precise rifles at their disposal: the Federal Communications Commission, which handed out broadcast licenses, and the Justice Department, whose ant.i.trust division regulated media outlets that owned other media outlets-such as the Washington Post, Washington Post, which owned several TV stations. Magruder pointed out they had a new FCC commissioner coming in, one of Barry Goldwater"s campaign managers from 1964, Dean Burch. which owned several TV stations. Magruder pointed out they had a new FCC commissioner coming in, one of Barry Goldwater"s campaign managers from 1964, Dean Burch.
When Richard Nixon had a dirty job to get done, he often dispatched it to a Goldwater conservative. "Healthy right-wing exuberants" were more likely to understand that civilization was at stake in defeating the enemy, and that the end thus justified the means.
Dean Burch beforehand asked for transcripts of the network commentators" remarks. Herb Klein went down a list of local TV stations and asked if they, too, would be making editorial comment, to chill them before they began.