HENRY A. KISSINGER

October 16, 2000

To the Editor of the New York Times:

We would like to raise some questions of fact about Christopher Hitchen's
tendentious account of a tendentious book, Anthony Summers' *Arrogance of Power*.

1. Neither of us was associated with Richard Nixon during the 1968 election campaign, but the allegations that he blocked a Johnson Administration Vietnam peace initiative remain, in our view, allegations unsubstantiated by persuasive evidence. In any case, the record shows that the South Vietnamese footdragging (alleged to be at the behest of Nixon underlings) -- even if the account were true -- could not have had the consequences that Mr. Summers claims. The expanded Paris peace talks began in early November, and any delay was therefore very brief; Nixon -- as President-elect and at the peak of his leverage -- encouraged South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu to cooperate with the Johnson Administration. Moreover, if the issue is political motivation, any discussion of this question has to begin with the indications from Soviet archives that Soviet leaders were led to believe that a main motive of rushing the bombing halt and peace talks was to get *Hubert Humphrey* elected.

2. It also needs to be borne in mind that the expanded Paris talks, once they began, were about procedure, not substance. Those talks immediately deadlocked, not on the substance of how to end the war but on whether the Viet Cong guerrillas should have the same status at the table as the Government of South Vietnam. No substantive proposal of any kind was put forward by the Johnson Administration. It is therefore nonsense to assert that Nixon in 1972 achieved no better terms than what Johnson "offered" in 1968. (Hanoi rejected compromise terms until 1972.)

3. The reviewer plays the usual numbers game with American soldiers killed in action, claiming that nearly half occurred on Nixon's watch. One third would be more nearly accurate. But that is not the essence of the misrepresentation. When Nixon came into office, America had already suffered 36,000 soldiers killed in action. Of the 20,000 killed in the Nixon period, 12,000 occurred in the first year before any new policy could take effect, 9,000 in the first six months - clear legacies of the previous administration. When Nixon came in, US soldiers killed in action had run at an average rate of 1,500 per month for a year. At the end of his first term, they had been reduced to fifty per month. When Nixon entered office, American troops in Vietnam stood at 525,000 and were still increasing according to plans made in the Johnson Administration. In 1972, they had been reduced to 25,000.

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October 16, 2000

Page 2 of 2

4. The Nixon Administration concluded the first strategic arms control agreement; the first agreement banning biological weapons; opened relations with China; ended the decades-long crisis over Berlin; launched the Arab-Israeli peace process; and initiated the Helsinki negotiations generally accepted as weakening Soviet control of its satellite empire and fostering German unification. Are these the actions of a "rogue leader" as Christopher Hitchens calls Nixon?

5. Nixon was a strategist. As a strategic ploy, he did want the notion to get around that, if provoked by a foreign aggressor, he might respond disproportionately. But it is important here to separate the Nixon who sometimes expressed extreme statements to his confidants for dramatic or rhetorical effect, and the Nixon who never made a really serious international move without the most careful and cautious analysis. It is laughable to imagine Richard Nixon ordering a domestic coup. James Schlesinger did apparently in Nixon's last days direct the JCS to ignore orders from their Commander-in-Chief - an unprecedented arrogation of authority. Whatever his motives, Schlesinger never came to either of us (or anyone else, so far as we know) with his concerns and what to do about them.

6. As for the story by Joe Laitin (a close associate of Schlesinger) that a frenetic Nixon came tearing down the stairs two at a time, pursued by six Secret Service agents, and literally knocked Laitin over - no way. Nixon could not have gone down a set of stairs two at a time if his life depended on it.

Sincerely,

Henry A. Kissinger

Brent Scowcroft

Mr. Joseph Lelyveld
Executive Editor
The New York Times
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## Letters

### In Defense of Nixon

To the Editor:

We would like to raise some questions of fact about Christopher Hitchens's tendentious account of a tendentious book, Anthony Summers's "Arrogance of Power" (Oct. 8).

1. Neither of us was associated with Richard Nixon during the 1968 election campaign, but the allegations that he blocked a Johnson administration Vietnam peace initiative remain, in our view, allegations unsubstantiated by persuasive evidence. In any case, the record shows that the South Vietnamese foot-dragging (alleged to be at the behest of Nixon underlings) — even if the account were true — could not have had the consequences that Summers claims. The expanded Paris peace talks began in early November, and any delay was therefore very brief; Nixon — as president-elect and at the peak of his leverage — encouraged President Nguyen Van Thieu of South Vietnam to cooperate with the Johnson administration. Moreover, if the issue is political motivation, any discussion of this question has to begin with the indications from Soviet archives that Soviet leaders were led to believe that a main motive of rushing the bombing halt and peace talks was to get Hubert Humphrey elected.

2. It also needs to be borne in mind that the expanded Paris talks, once they began, were about procedure, not substance. Those talks immediately deadlocked, not on the substance of how to end the war but on whether the Vietcong guerrillas should have the same status at the table as the government of South Vietnam. No substantive proposal of any kind was put forward by the Johnson administration. It is therefore nonsense to assert that Nixon in 1972 achieved no better terms than what Lyndon Johnson was "offering" in 1968. (Hanoi rejected compromise terms until 1972.)

3. The reviewer plays the usual numbers game with American soldiers killed in action, claiming that nearly half occurred on Nixon's watch. One-third would be more nearly accurate. But that is not the essence of the misrepresentation. When Nixon came into office, America had already suffered 36,000 soldiers killed in action. Of the 20,000 killed in the

Nixon period, 12,000 occurred in the first year before any new policy could take effect, 9,000 in the first six months — clear legacies of the previous administration. When Nixon came in, American soldiers killed in action had run at an average rate of 1,500 per month for a year. At the end of his first term, they had been reduced to 50 per month. When Nixon entered office, American troops in Vietnam stood at 525,000 and were still increasing according to plans made in the Johnson administration. In 1972, they had been reduced to 25,000.

4. The Nixon administration concluded the first strategic arms control agreement and the first agreement banning biological weapons; opened relations with China; ended the decades-long crisis over Berlin; launched the Arab-Israeli peace process; and initiated the Helsinki negotiations, generally accepted as weakening the Soviets' control of their satellite empire and fostering German unification. Are these the actions of a "rogue" leader, as Hitchens calls Nixon?

5. Nixon was a strategist. He did want the notion to get around, as a strategic ploy, that if provoked by a foreign aggressor, he might respond disproportionately. But it is important here to separate the Nixon who sometimes expressed extreme statements to his confidants for dramatic or rhetorical effect and the Nixon who never made a really serious international move without the most careful and cautious analysis. It is laughable to imagine Richard Nixon ordering a domestic coup. Defense Secretary James Schlesinger did apparently in Nixon's last days direct the Joint Chiefs of Staff to ignore orders from their commander in chief — an unprecedented arrogation of authority. Whatever his motives, Schlesinger never came to either of us (or anyone else, so far as we know) with his concerns and what to do about them.

6. As for the story by Joe Laitin (a close associate of Schlesinger) that a frenetic Nixon came tearing down the stairs two at a time, pursued by six Secret Service agents, and literally knocked Laitin over — no way. Nixon could not have gone down a set of stairs two at a time if his life depended on it.

HENRY A. KISSINGER

New York

BRENT SCOWCROFT

Washington

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6 **HOOKING UP.** By Tom Wolfe.
Reviewed by Maureen Dowd.

9 **GREEK FIRE:** The Story of Maria Callas and Aristotle Onassis. By Nicholas Gage.
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10 **THE UNABRIDGED JOURNALS OF SYLVIA PLATH, 1950-1962.**
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12 **JOURNAL:** 1935-1944. By Mihail Sebastian.
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14 **MILLENNIALS RISING:** The Next Great Generation.
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15 **W. E. B. DU BOIS:** The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963. By David Levering Lewis.
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17 **TELECOSM:** How Infinite Bandwidth Will Revolutionize Our World. By George Gilder.
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18 **ANYTHING GOES!** What I've Learned From Pundits, Politicians, and Presidents.
By Larry King with Pat Piper.
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19 **A PERSONAL ODYSSEY.** By Thomas Sowell.
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35 **FROM THIRD WORLD TO FIRST.**
The Singapore Story: 1965-2000. By Lee Kuan Yew.
Reviewed by Nicholas D. Kristof.

37 **ACROSS AN UNTRIED SEA:** Discovering Lives Hidden in the Shadow of Convention and Time.
By Julia Markus.
Reviewed by Christopher Benfey.

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8 **MASTER OF THE CROSSROADS.** By Madison Smartt Bell.
Reviewed by Jay Parini.

20 **TOO FAR AFIELD.** By Günter Grass.
Reviewed by James J. Sheehan.

24 **POBBY AND DINGAN.** By Ben Rice.
Reviewed by Jeff Giles.

26 **TIME'S FOOL:** A Tale in Verse. By Glyn Maxwell.
**THE BOYS AT TWILIGHT:** Poems, 1990-1995.
By Glyn Maxwell.
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28 **MRS. HOLLINGSWORTH'S MEN.** By Padgett Powell.
Reviewed by Robert Kelly.

31 **SEVERAL DECEPTIONS.** By Jane Stevenson.
Reviewed by Paul Baumann.

38 **PRODIGAL SUMMER.** By Barbara Kingsolver.
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3

HENRY A. KISSINGER

October 16, 2000

3. The reviewer plays the usual numbers game with Vietnam soldiers killed in action, claiming that nearly half occurred on Nixon's watch. One third would be more nearly accurate. But that is not the essence of the misrepresentation. When Nixon came into office, America had already suffered 36,000 soldiers killed in action. Of the 20,000 killed in the Nixon period, 12,000 occurred in the first year before any new policy could take effect, 9,000 in the first six months - clear legacies of the previous administration. When Nixon came in, US soldiers killed in action had run at an average rate of 1,500 per month for a year. At the end of his first term, they had been reduced to fifty per month. When Nixon entered office, American troops in Vietnam stood at 525,000 and were still increasing according to plans made in the Johnson Administration. In 1972, they had been reduced to 25,000.

Mr. Joseph Lelyveld

October 16, 2000

Page 2 of 2

7. Anthony Summers is certainly within his prerogatives to write his views about Nixon, and Christopher Hitchens to review them and add his own. But we feel that the *New York Times* has been derelict in its obligation of fairness by having a polemical book reviewed by a polemical reviewer.

Sincerely,

Henry A. Kissinger
New York

Brent Scowcroft
Washington, DC

HENRY A. KISSINGER

Corrected version
( led )

October 16, 2000

Mr. Joseph Lelyveld

October 16, 2000

Page 2 of 2

Sincerely,

Henry A. Kissinger

Brent Scowcroft

HENRY A. KISSINGER

October 16, 2000

We would like to raise some questions of fact about Christopher Hchen's
tendentious account of a tendentious book, Anthony Summers' *Arrogance of Power*.

1. Neither of us was associated with Richard Nixon during the 1968 election campaign, but the allegations that he blocked a Johnson Administration Vietnam peace initiative remain, in our view, allegations unsubstantiated by persuasive evidence. In any case, the record shows that the South Vietnamese footdragging (alleged to be at the behest of Nixon underlings) -- even if the account were true -- could not have had the consequences that Mr. Summers claims. The expanded Paris peace talks began in early November, and any delay was therefore very brief; Nixon -- as President-elect and at the peak of his leverage -- encouraged South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu to cooperate with the Johnson Administration. Moreover, if the issue is political motivation, any discussion of this question has to begin with the indications from Soviet archives that Soviet leaders were lead to believe that a main motive of rushing the bombing halt and peace talks was to get *Hubert Humphrey* elected.

October 12, 2000

(4)

Sincerely,

Henry A. Kissinger

Brent Scowcoft

October 12, 2000

1. Neither of us was associated with Richard Nixon during the 1968 election campaign, but the allegations that he blocked a Johnson Administration Vietnam peace initiative remain, in our view, allegations unsubstantiated by persuasive evidence. In any case, the record shows that the South Vietnamese footdragging (alleged to be at the behest of Nixon underlings) -- even if the account were true -- could not have had the consequences that Mr. Summers claims. The expanded Paris peace talks began in early November, and any delay was therefore very brief; Nixon -- as President-elect and at the peak of his leverage -- encouraged South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu to cooperate with the Johnson Administration. Moreover, if the issue is political interference during the campaign, any discussion of this question has to begin with the indications (not *revelat*.ms)

from Soviet archives that a main motive of rushing the bombing halt and
peace talks *before the election* was to get *Hubert Humphrey* elected.

6. As for the story by Joe Laitin (a close associate of Schlesinger) that a frenetic Nixon came tearing down the stairs two at a time, pursued by six Secret Service agents, and literally knocked Laitin over – no way. Nixon could not have gone down a set of stairs two at a time if his life depended on it.

Sincerely,

Henry A. Kissinger

Brent Scowcoft

October 12, 2000

1. Neither of us was associated with Richard Nixon during the 1968 election campaign, but the allegations that he blocked a Johnson Administration Vietnam peace initiative remain, in our view, allegations unsubstantiated by persuasive evidence. In any case, the record shows that the South Vietnamese footdragging (alleged to be at the behest of Nixon underlings) -- even if the account were true -- could not have had the consequences that Mr. Summers claims. The expanded Paris peace talks began in early November, and any delay was *very* brief; Nixon -- as President-elect and at the peak of his leverage -- encouraged South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu to cooperate with the Johnson Administration. Moreover, if the issue is political interference during the campaign, any discussion of this question has to begin with the *revelations*.

from Soviet archives that a main motive of rushing the bombing halt and
peace talks before the election was to get *Hubert Humphrey* elected.

2. It also needs to be borne in mind that the expanded Paris talks, once they began, were about procedure, not substance, they traded a U.S. bombing halt for the opening of four-party talks. Those talks immediately deadlocked, not on the substance of how to end the war but on whether the Viet Cong guerrillas should have the same status at the table as the Government of South Vietnam. No substantive proposal of any kind was put forward by the Johnson Administration. It is therefore nonsense to assert that Nixon in 1972 achieved no better terms than what Johnson "offered" in 1968. (Hanoi rejected compromise terms until 1972.)

5. Nixon was a strategist. As a strategic ploy, he did want the notion to get around that, if provoked by a foreign aggressor, he might respond disproportionately. But it is important here to separate the Nixon who sometimes expressed extreme statements to his confidants for dramatic or rhetorical effect, and the Nixon who never made a really serious international move without the most careful and cautious analysis. It is laughable to imagine Richard Nixon ordering a domestic coup. James Schlesinger did apparently in Nixon's last days direct the JCS to ignore orders from their Commander-in-Chief - an unprecedented allocation of authority. Whatever his motives, Schlesinger never came to either of us (or

7. Anthony Summers is certainly within his prerogatives to write his views about Nixon, and Christopher Hitchens to review them and add his own. But we feel that the *New York Times* has been derelict in its literary duty by having a hatchet job reviewed by a hatchet henchman.

Sincerely,

Henry A. Kissinger

Brent Scowcoft

INNFAK EUROPE

New opening for NY Times letter:

1. Neither of us was associated with Richard Nixon during the 1968 election campaign, but the allegations that he blocked a Johnson Administration Vietnam peace initiative remain, in our view, allegations unsubstantiated by persuasive evidence. In any case, the record shows that the South Vietnamese footdragging (alleged to be at the behest of Nixon underlings) -- even if the account were true -- could not have had the consequences that Mr. Summers claims. The expanded Paris peace talks began in early November, and any delay was very brief; Nixon -- as President-elect and at the peak of his leverage -- encouraged South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu to cooperate with the Johnson Administration. Moreover, if the issue is political interference during the campaign, any discussion of this question has to begin with the revelations from Soviet archives that a main motive of rushing the bombing halt and peace talks before the election was to get Hubert Humphrey elected.

2. It also needs to be borne in mind that the expanded Paris talks, once they began, were about procedure, not substance; they traded a U.S. bombing halt for the opening of four party talks. Those talks immediately deadlocked, not on the substance of how to end the war but on whether the Viet Cong guerrillas should have the same status at the table as the Government of South Vietnam. No substantive proposal of any kind was put forward by the Johnson Administration. It is therefore nonsense to assert that Nixon in 1972 achieved no better terms than what Johnson "offered" in 1968. (Hanoi rejected compromise terms until 1972.)

INNFAX EUROPE

P 09/12

P02

elect urged President Thieu to cooperate. (There is also mounting evidence (including from Soviet archives) that the Johnson Administration rushed the negotiations for its electoral purposes.

2. The Paris negotiations during the 1968-69 transition were about procedure, not substance; they traded an end of bombing for the opening of talks. They immediately deadlocked, not on substance but on whether the South Vietnamese guerrillas should have the same status as the government of the Republic of Vietnam. No substantive position of any kind was put on the table by the Johnson Administration at any point. It is therefore nonsense to say that Nixon achieved no better terms than what Johnson offered in 1968.

3. The reviewer plays the usual numbers game with Vietnam casualties, claiming that nearly half occurred on Nixon's watch. One third would be more nearly accurate. But that is not the essence of the misrepresentation. When Nixon came into office, America had already suffered 36,000 soldiers killed in action or killed in action and 20,000 casualties in the Nixon period, 12,000 occurred in the first year before any new policy could take effect, 9,000 in the first six months - clear legacies of the previous administration. When Nixon came in, US casualties had run at an average rate of 1,500 per month for a year. At the end of his first term, they had been reduced to fifty per month. When

INNIFAX EUROPE

P 10/12

P03

(4)

4. The Nixon Administration concluded the first strategic arms control agreement; the first agreement banning biological weapons; opened relations with China; ended the decades-long crisis over Berlin; launched the Arab-Israeli peace process; and initiated the Helsinki negotiations generally accepted as weakening Soviet control of its satellite empire and fostering German unification. Are these the actions of "rogue leaders" as Christopher Hitchens describes them? Calls Nixon?

5. Nixon was a strategist. As a strategic ploy, he did want the notion to get around that, if provoked by a foreign aggressor, he might respond disproportionately. But it is important here to separate the Nixon who sometimes took extreme measures to his confidants for dramatic or rhetorical effect, and the Nixon who never made a really serious international move without the most careful and cautious analysis. It is laughable to imagine Richard Nixon ordering a domestic coup. James Schlesinger did apparently in Nixon's last days direct the JCS to ignore orders from their Commander-in-Chief - in itself an extralegal act. If a fortuitous challenge to the existing order of things in Vietnam thought the President unfit to carry out his duty as Commander-in-Chief.

INNFAX EUROPE

P 11/12

P04

in Chief, the legal remedy is to ask the Cabinet to declare him incapacitated.

But whatever his motives, Schlesinger never came to either of us (or anyone else, so far as we know) with his concerns and what to do about them.

7. Anthony Summers is certainly within his preë ligatives to write his views about Nixon, and Christopher Hitchens to review them and add his own. But we feel that the New York Times has been derelict in its literary duty by having a hatchet job reviewed by a hatchet henchman.

Sincerely,

Henry A. Kissinger

Brent Scowcroft

OCT-13-2000 18:47

P.07/12

1. Neither of us was associated with Richard Nixon during the 1968 election campaign, but the allegations that he blocked a Johnson Administration Vietnam peace initiative remain, in our view, allegations unsubstantiated by persuasive evidence. In any case, the record shows that the South Vietnamese footdragging (alleged to be at the behest of Nixon underlings) -- even if the account were true -- could not have had the consequences that Mr. Summers claims. The expanded Paris peace talks began in early November, and any delay was very brief; Nixon -- as President-elect and at the peak of his leverage -- encouraged South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu to cooperate with the Johnson Administration. [Moreover, if the issue is political interference during the campaign, any discussion of this question has to begin with the revelations from Soviet archives that a main motive of rushing the bombing halt and peace talks before the election was to get Hubert Humphrey elected.]

OCT-13-2000 18:47

P.09/12

3. The reviewer plays the usual numbers game with Vietnam casualties, claiming that nearly half occurred on Nixon's watch. One third would be more nearly accurate. But that is not the essence of the misrepresentation. When Nixon came into office, America had already suffered 36,000 soldiers killed in action. Of the 20,000 casualties in the Nixon period, 12,000 occurred in the first year before any new policy could take effect, 9,000 in the first six months - clear legacies of the previous administration. When Nixon came in, US casualties had run at an average rate of 1,500 per month for a year.

OCT-13-2000 18:48

P. 10/12

5. Nixon was a strategist. As a strategic ploy, he did want the notion to get around that, if provoked by a foreign aggressor, he might respond disproportionately. But it is important here to separate the Nixon who *expressed statements* sometimes *mouthed extreme measures* to his confidants for dramatic or rhetorical effect, and the Nixon who never made a really serious international move without the most careful and cautious analysis. It is laughable to imagine Richard Nixon ordering a domestic coup. James Schlesinger did apparently in Nixon's last days direct the JCS to ignore *my own orders from their Commander-in-Chief* - in itself an extralegal act. If *my authority challenge to the autocrat* *my decision* Schlesinger thought the President unfit to carry out his duty as Commander-in-Chief.

0GT-13-2000 18:48

P.11/12

Sincerely,

Henry A. Kissinger

Brent Scowcoft

October 12, 2000

1. Neither of us was associated with Richard Nixon during the election campaign of 1968, and the allegations against him remain, in our view, allegations unsubstantiated by persuasive evidence. But the record shows that the consequences of South Vietnamese foot-dragging (allegedly at the behest of Nixon underlings), were – even if the account were true – nothing like what Mr. Summers alleges. The agreement between the Johnson Administration and the North Vietnamese was concluded on November 1, 1968, or one week before the elections. The negotiations, in fact, started November__. So the delay was inconsequential – and Nixon as president-

Killed in action.
Killed in action.

-casualties. Of the 20,000 casualties in the Nixon period, 12,000 occurred in the first year before any new policy could take effect, 9,000 in the first six months - clear legacies of the previous administration. When Nixon came in, US casualties had run at an average rate of 1,500 per month for a year.