One Man Against the World: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon (51 page)

“We have had an urgent appeal”: Dec. 4, 1971, Kissinger Telephone Conversations.

Nixon authorized the arms transfers: Dec. 6, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“The way we would do that is to tell the King”: Dec. 9, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“I was too easy on the goddamn woman”: Dec. 6, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“cold-bloodedly make the decision”: Dec. 8, 1971, NWHT, Old Executive Office Building.

“I tell you, a movement of even some Chinese”: Telephone conversation between Nixon and Kissinger, Dec. 8, 1971, NWHT, White House.

“What do we do if the Soviets move”: Dec. 12, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“Savages”: Dec. 15, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“only one place in the whole federal government” … “a federal offense of the highest order”: Dec. 21, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“the house detective”: Memorandum for the record by David R. Young, “SUBJECT: Transcription of Tape Recorded Interview” of Admiral Welander by Ehrlichman and Young, Dec. 22, 1971, Nixon Library. This document, with handwritten annotations by Young on a hastily prepared typed transcript from the tape-recorded interview, was apparently purloined from Nixon’s presidential records, then returned to the Nixon Presidential Library. Young’s files remain almost entirely sealed. A copy of the document can be accessed at
http://nixontapes.org/welander.html
.

“Your alter ego” … “Almost anything you name”: Young, “SUBJECT: Transcription of Tape Recorded Interview,” ibid.

“What we’re doing here is, in effect, excusing a crime.… They had to”: Dec. 22, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“That’s the question” … “Everyone else should go to jail!”: Dec. 23, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“Got any ideas?” … “That would do it”: Dec. 24, 1971, NWHT, Old Executive Office Building.

“The main thing is to keep it under as close control as we can”: Telephone conversation between Nixon and Mitchell, Dec. 24, 1971, NWHT.

warrantless wiretap on Radford: Memorandum for the president from David R. Young, undated, “SUBJECT: Record of Investigation into Disclosure of Classified Information in Jack Anderson Articles,” Nixon Library.

“I don’t care if Moorer is guilty”: Dec. 24, 1971, NWHT, Old Executive Office Building.

“They can spy on him and spy on me and betray us!”: Ehrlichman,
Witness to Power
, p. 307.

“The worst thing about it” … “But it’s essential”: Dec. 23, 1971, NWHT, Oval Office.

“it might partially explain their origin”: Henry Kissinger,
Years of Upheaval
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), p. 808.

15: “Night and Fog”

“immense opportunities and, of course, equally great dangers”: Nixon,
RN
, p. 541.

“It isn’t about China”: Feb. 2, 1972, NWHT, Cabinet Room.

“Crack ’em, crack ’em, crack ’em”: Ibid.

“Let’s not have any illusions” … “they’re suckers”: May 4, 1972, NWHT, Oval Office.

“My order is to drop the Goddamned thing, you son of a bitch!”: April 19, 1971, NWHT, telephone tape.

“Operation Sandwedge”: The Operation Sandwedge plan is reproduced in the Final Report of the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, better known as the Senate Watergate Committee or SSC, SSC Vol. 2, pp. 240–52. Caulfield’s testimony on Sandwedge, its “covert intelligence-gathering capability,” and his assignment to keep Don Nixon under surveillance is in SSC Vol. 21, pp. 9687–937. McCord’s testimony on his role at CREEP and in the Watergate burglary is in SSC Vol. 1, pp. 125–248.

“From the campaign funds I need $800,000”: Strachan talking memo for Haldeman, Oct. 28, 1971, House Judiciary Committee, better known as the Impeachment hearings, HJC Appendix IV, p. 45, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1975.

“wheeler-dealers”: Caulfield to Dean, Feb. 1, 1971, “SUBJECT: Hughes Retainer to Larry O’Brien,” Senate Watergate Committee
,
SSC Vol. 21, p. 9755.

“Donald Nixon’s son” … “a huge flap in Washington”: Oakley oral history, FAOH.

“to move hard on Larry O’Brien”: March 4, 1970, entry in
Haldeman Diaries
.

“making sensitive political inquiries at the IRS”: To: H. R. Haldeman, From: Tom Charles Huston, July 16, 1970, Haldeman Papers, Nixon Library.

“As you probably remember there was a Hughes/Don Nixon loan controversy years ago”: EYES ONLY: Higby to Dean, Aug. 10, 1970 (Higby was a White House aide known as Haldeman’s Haldeman), Richard M. Nixon and Bruce Oudes, eds.,
From: The President: Richard Nixon’s Secret Files
(New York: Harper and Row, 1989), p. 151.

“Concerning Howard Hughes”: Chapin to Colson, Dec. 12, 1970, in ibid., p. 186.

“The Secretary of Commerce came down”: White oral history, FAOH.

“This Watergate thing kept coming back”: Magruder oral history, Strober and Strober,
Nixon
, pp. 329–31.

“If this obsession … seems irrational”: John W. Dean,
The Nixon Defense
(New York: Viking, 2014), p. 651.

“1972, as you know, was a very big year”: Nixon interview on
Meet the Press
, broadcast April 10, 1988, NBC.

16: “From one extreme to another”

“It had a tremendous impact”: Lord oral history, FAOH.

“the intangibles of your China visit”: Kissinger to Nixon, Feb. 19, 1972, Washington, DC, “SUBJECT: Mao, Chou and the Chinese Litmus Test,”
FRUS
XVII: China.

“We had no idea when they’d be back”: Feb. 21, 1972, entry in
Haldeman Diaries
.

“I have read the Chairman’s poems”: Memorandum of conversation, Chairman Mao Tse-tung, Prime Minister Zhou En-lai, President Nixon, Henry A. Kissinger, Winston Lord, National Security Council staff, Feb. 21, 1972, Beijing,
FRUS
XVII: China.

“a different kind of communiqu
é
”: Lord oral history, FAOH.

“The conventional way”: Memorandum of conversation, Nixon to Zhou, Feb. 21, 1972, Beijing,
FRUS
XVII: China.

“
Why not give this up?”: Memorandum of conversation, President Nixon and Prime Minister Zhou, Feb. 22, 1972, Beijing,
FRUS
XVII: China.

“the Taiwan question is the crucial question”: Memorandum of conversation, President Nixon and Prime Minister Zhou, Feb. 24, 1972, Beijing,
FRUS
XVII: China.

“This would almost certainly be seized upon”: Ambassador Marshall Green, FAOH oral history, privately published as
Evolution of US-China Policy 1956–1973: Memoirs of an Insider
(Arlington, VA: Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, 1998).

“all hell had broken loose”: Ibid.

“this communiqu
é
was a disaster”: Lord oral history, FAOH.

“Rogers arrived at the suite”: Feb. 27, 1972, entry in
Haldeman Diaries
.

“The symbolism escaped no one”: Green oral history, FAOH.

“Zhou En-lai handled the matter very skillfully”: Lord oral history, FAOH.

“had very little to do with substance”: March 21, 1972, NWHT, Oval Office.

“The network coverage” … “Shanghai at night”: Feb. 22 and 27, 1972, entries in
Haldeman Diaries.

“If the war in Vietnam”: Memorandum of conversation, President Nixon and Prime Minister Zhou, Feb. 28, 1972, Shanghai,
FRUS
XVII: China.

“to negotiate an end to the war”: Military History Institute of Vietnam,
Victory in Vietnam
, p. 289.

“We’ll bomb the hell out of the bastards”: March 14, 1972, NWHT, Oval Office.

17: “This is the supreme test”

“It looks as if they are attacking in Vietnam”: March 30, 1972, NWHT, Oval Office.

“I don’t know any more if I’m in northern South Vietnam or southern North Vietnam”: Quoted in Sydney H. Schanberg, “‘It’s Everyone for Himself’ as Troops Rampage in Hue,”
New York Times
, May 4, 1972.

“We lose if the ARVN collapses”: April 3, 1972, NWHT, Oval Office.

“For the President, battlefield success became paramount”: Brown oral history, FAOH.

“There will be no consideration of restraints”: April 4, 1972, entry in Moorer Diary.

“The P’s massing a huge attack force”: April 4, 1972, entry in
Haldeman Diaries
.

“God Almighty, there must be something”: April 4, 1972, NWHT, Oval Office.

“An enormously potent ordeal”: April 20, 1972, NWHT, Oval Office.

“I cannot impress upon you”: Moorer to Admiral McCain and General Abrams, April 8, 1972. Nixon called Admiral Moorer into the White House the following week and told him, “American foreign policy is on the line, as I’m sure you know … and putting it in melodramatic terms, the honor of the armed services of this country. The United States with all of its power has had 50,000 dead. If we get run out of this place now, confidence in the armed services will be like a snake’s belly. So we can’t let it happen.… Don’t lose. That’s all. It’s the only order you’ve got” (April 17, 1972, NWHT, Oval Office).

“The P called him and really laid it to him”: April 6, 1972, entry in
Haldeman Diaries
.

“break the North Vietnamese”: April 10, 1972, entry in
Haldeman Diaries.

“When I showed the President Abrams’ message”: April 15, 1972, entry in Moorer Diary,
FRUS
VIII: Vietnam, January–October 1972.

“Any sign of weakness on our part”: Nixon,
RN
, pp. 588–91 and 601.

“I have to leave this office”: April 17, 1972, NWHT, Oval Office.

“I’ll destroy the goddamn country”: April 19, 1972, NWHT, Oval Office.

“Brezhnev is simple, direct, blunt and brutal”:
FRUS
XIV: Soviet Union, October 1971–May 1972. Rose Mary Woods transcribed the memorandum from Nixon’s taped dictation. Copies of the final version are on file in the Nixon Library. A stamped notation indicates that the White House Situation Room sent the message at 12:03 p.m. on April 20, 1972. Kissinger was on the plane heading for Moscow when the president’s memorandum arrived.

“I put this brutally”: April 20, 1972, NWHT, Oval Office.

“If they don’t give anything”: Ibid.

“All that is bullshit”: Transcript of telephone conversation between President Nixon and Haig, April 21, 1972,
FRUS
XIV: Soviet Union.

“It was a tough speech”: Nixon,
RN
, p. 593.

“There are to be no excuses and there is no appeal”: Kissinger to Laird, April 28, 1972,
FRUS
VIII: Vietnam. The president had spent the day in the Bahamas and Key Biscayne. The full text of the message from Kissinger to Laird reads:

We have just received the following flash message from the President:

Immediate

From: The President

To: Henry Kissinger

1. The absolute maximum number of sorties must be flown from now thru Tuesday.

2. Abrams to determine targets.

3. If at all possible 1,000 sorties per day.

4. This will have maximum psychological effect.

5. Give me report soonest by message as to how this order is being specifically executed.

6. There are to be no excuses and there is no appeal.

“People didn’t want to hear about it”: Brown oral history, FAOH.

“I intend to cancel the Summit”: Nixon to Kissinger, April 30, 1972, from Connally ranch in Texas,
FRUS
XIV: Soviet Union.

“As the pressure has mounted”: Kissinger to Nixon, “SUBJECT: General Abrams’ Assessment of the Situation in Vietnam,” May 1, 1972, Washington, DC,
FRUS
VIII: Vietnam.

“The P kept telling him”: May 1, 1972, entry in
Haldeman Diaries
.

“We will lose the country if we lose the war”: May 4, 1972, entry in ibid
.

“Hoover experienced loneliness”: Mark Felt and John O’Connor
, A G-Man’s Life
(New York: Public Affairs, 2006), p. 160.

“He died at the right time”: June 2, 1972, NWHT, White House.

“Pat, I am going to appoint you”: L. Patrick Gray III with Ed Gray,
In Nixon’s Web: A Year in the Crosshairs of Watergate
(New York: Times Books, 2008), pp. 17–18.

“Never, never figure that anyone’s your friend”: May 4, 1972, NWHT, White House.

“We were now faced with three alternatives” … “The more the P thought about it”: May 4, 1972, entry in
Haldeman Diaries
.

“Admiral, what I am going to say to you now is in total confidence”: May 4, 1972, NWHT, Old Executive Office Building.

“The P very strongly put the thing”: May 4, 1972, entry in
Haldeman Diaries
.

“We’ve had a damned good foreign policy”: May 5, 1972, NWHT, Oval Office.

“I still think we ought to take the dikes out now”: April 25, 1972, NWHT, Old Executive Office Building.

“The best way to assure that we could win was to pick our opponent”: April 29, 1972, entry in
Haldeman Diaries
.

“The real question is whether the Americans give a damn anymore”: Memorandum for the president’s files, May 8, 1972, “SUBJECT: National Security Council Meeting,”
FRUS
VIII: Vietnam.

“We now have a clear, hard choice”: President’s Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia, May 8, 1972, Public Papers of Richard Nixon.

“I have determined that we should go for broke”: Memorandum from Nixon to Kissinger, May 9, 1972, Washington, DC,
FRUS
VIII: Vietnam.

“the biggest dogfight since World War Two”: Washington Special Actions Group meeting, May 10, 1972, Washington, DC, “SUBJECT: Vietnam,”
FRUS
VIII: Vietnam.

“The record of World War II”: Helms to Kissinger, Aug. 22, 1972, “An Assessment of the US Bombing and Mining Campaign in North Vietnam,”
FRUS
VIII: Vietnam. The full text of the cover note Helm wrote on this assessment reads: “The record of World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam since 1965 strongly suggests that bombing alone is unlikely to transcend the realm of severe harassment and achieve true interdiction in the sense of stopping the movement of supplies a determined, resourceful enemy deems essential and is willing to pay almost any price to move.”