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ZUS out adequately assessing the national interest and the likely cost. America's historic idealism had to be leavened with an assessment of national interest, and our approach to international relations had to move from episodic interventions to a strategic design which took account of the requirement of equilibrium. This was then--and probably still is at this writing--a minority view in a society which, never having experienced national tragedy, identifies the quest for peace with the missionary vocation of the spreading of its own domestic values around the world.

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In the end, this vision led both the President and me to be harrassed by what had originally been our normal constitutions. Liberals accused me of abandoning them in quest of power; conservatives thought that Nixon had been seduced by visions of Establishment legitimacy.

Nevertheless, we were prepared to assume the responsibility for extracating the United States from the debacle of Vietnam. We never blamed our predecessors for the mess. We would not, however, leave the country for which nearly forty thousand Americans had already died by turning over the Communist rule tens of millions who had staked their lives on our word.

The difference with the Vietnam War is that in effect it was not chemical.

▲▲▲▲▲▲

▲Nixon the Person

In the mythology of his traducers--and

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239 of some film portraits--Richard Nixon was
240 a man given to histrionics, to shouting his
241 prejudices at cowed subordinates, and to
242 dominating his environment by conveying
243 his views with great, even overpowering
244 insistence--frequently under the influence
245 of alcohol. Nothing could be further from
246 the real Richard Nixon--at least the
247 Richard Nixon with whom I dealt.

248 For example, the portrayals of Nixon
249 drinking himself into incoherence with a
250 bottle ever at his side are simply absurd. In
251 my experience, Nixon never took any
252 liquor during working hours or in the Oval
253 Office. Only his closest associates ever saw
254 him drink in any context. The trouble was
255 that Nixon could not hold even a small
256 quantity of alcohol. Two glasses of wine
257 were quite enough to make him boisterous,
258 just one more to grow bellicose or senti-
259 mental with slurred speech. Alcohol had a
260 way of destroying the defenses he had so
261 carefully constructed to enable him to suc-
262 ceed in a profession based on a conviviali-
263 ty unnatural to him. These episodes oc-
264 curred rarely, always at night and never in
265 the context of major decisions. The few of
266 us who actually witnessed such conduct
267 never acted on what he might have said;
268 we felt we owed the President another
269 chance to consider whatever the issue was.

270 The Richard Nixon with whom I
271 worked on a daily basis for five and a half
272 years was generally soft-spoken, with-

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137 sions: "You pay the same price for doing something halfway as for doing it completely. So you might as well do it completely."

L 138
L 139
140

141 The President and His Adviser

L 142 ▲ The breakthroughs of the Nixon Administration were due to the fact that both
143
144 Nixon and I subordinated our reservations

L 145 about each other to a close collaboration
146 based on mutual respect. The Quaker's son
L 147 from Yorba Linda and the son of a secondary school teacher in Bavaria comple-
148
149 mented each other's qualities in a special
L 150 way. Nixon had the best personal knowl-
151 edge of contemporary leaders around the
L 152 world of any American political figure I
L 153 have met. Foreign policy was his hobby,
154 and he deepened his understanding of it by
155 frequent travel. I had a better knowledge of
L 156 history and of the conceptual side of
L 157 geopolitics. Nixon operated by flashes of
158 insight to which he clung with remarkable
159 persistence. My forte was to translate gen-
160 eral goals into long-range strategies--a task
L 161 for which Nixon lacked the requisite pa-
162 tience.

163 Nixon had an instinct for the jugular.
L 164 With respect to several key decisions, I even knew
L 165 though I came to view their necessity
L 166 somewhat before he did, once Nixon de-
167 cided to act, he went frequently beyond my
168 recommendations. In 1970, after the North
169 Vietnamese forces stationed in Cambodia
- 170 broke out of their base areas and threat-

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L 205 27. FEB. 1999 19:49, the Communists base area
206 closest to Saigon; after hesitating for near-
207 ly a month, Nixon opted for attacking every
208 base area along the Vietnamese-Cambodi-
L 209 an border. In 1972, when we were dis-
L 210 cussing resuming the bombing of the
L 211 Hanoi-Haiphong area to break the dead-
212 lock in the Vietnam peace talks, I recom-
213 mended the established method by fighter
214 planes; Nixon ordered the use of B-52s (I
L 215 was not opposed to B-52s in principle;
216 their use simply had not occurred to me).

217 In 1973, when I tried to organize the Pen-
218 tagon's civilian reserve air fleet for an airlift
to Israel, Nixon overcame Pentagon foot-
dragging by ordering a military airlift and
using the giant C-5 planes. In each case,
Nixon's decision was vindicated by events.
L 219
220
221
222

L 223 ▲In the end, the cooperation between
L 224 the President and the National Security
225 Adviser worked not just because we com-
226 plemented each other's strengths (and per-
L 227 haps reinforced each other's weaknesses
228 with respect to our sensitivity to criticism
L 229 and proclivity for sudden diplomatic
230 coups) but above all because Nixon and I
231 viewed international relations from a near-
L 232 ly identical perspective. Both of us be-
233 lieved that we were in trouble in Vietnam
L 234 because our predecessors had launched
L 235 the United States into an enterprise in a
236 distant region for worthy causes but with-
237 out adequately assessing the national inter-
L 238 est and the likely cost.▲ America's historic

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out adequately assessing the national interest and the likely cost. ▲ America's historic idealism had to be leavened with an assessment of national interest, and our approach to international relations had to move from episodic interventions to a strategic design which took account of the requirement of equilibrium. This was then—and probably still is at this writing—-a minority view in a society which, never having experienced national tragedy, identifies the quest for peace with the mission-ary vocation of the spreading of its own domestic values around the world.

Nevertheless, we were prepared to assume the responsibility for extracting the United States from the debacle of Vietnam. We never blamed our predecessors for the mess. We would not, however, leave the country for which nearly forty thousand Americans had already died by turning over the Communist rule tens of millions who had staked their lives on our word.

This defense, the difference with the Vietnam president which in effect used for constitutional political capital.

▲▲▲▲▲▲

▲Nixon the Person

In the mythology of his traducers—and

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239 of some film portraits--Richard Nixon was
240 a man given to histrionics, to shouting his
L 241 prejudices at cowed subordinates, and to
242 dominating his environment by conveying
L 243 his views with great, even overpowering
244 insistence--frequently under the influence
245 of alcohol. Nothing could be further from
L 246 the real Richard Nixon--at least the
247 Richard Nixon with whom I dealt.
L 248 For example, the portrayals of Nixon
L 249 drinking himself into incoherence with a
250 bottle ever at his side are simply absurd. In
L 251 my experience, Nixon never took any
252 liquor during working hours or in the Oval
253 Office. Only his closest associates ever saw
254 him drink in any context. The trouble was
L 255 that Nixon could not hold even a small
L 256 quantity of alcohol. Two glasses of wine
257 were quite enough to make him boisterous,
L 258 just one more to grow bellicose or senti-
259 mental with slurred speech. Alcohol had a
260 way of destroying the defenses he had so
261 carefully constructed to enable him to suc-
262 ceed in a profession based on a conviviali-
L 263 ty unnatural to him. These episodes oc-
264 curred rarely, always at night and never in
265 the context of major decisions. The few of
L 266 us who actually witnessed such conduct
L 267 never acted on what he might have said;
L 268 we felt we owed the President another
269 chance to consider whatever the issue was.
L 270 The Richard Nixon with whom I
271 worked on a daily basis for five and a half
L 272 years was generally soft-spoken, with-

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R. 30

L 1 ▲ ▲ It is difficult to write about Richard

L 2 Nixon, who combined brilliance, patrio-

L 3 tism, and courage with self-destructive
4 flaws as in a Greek tragedy. The hatred he
5 evoked in his political opponents was ex-

L 6 traordinary even by the turbulent stan-
7 dards of American democracy. I served as
8 his principal adviser on foreign policy for
9 five and a half years and ▲ often saw him sev-
10 eral times a day. Yet, to some extent, I still
11 remain mystified by the personality of the
12 perhaps most complex President of the
13 twentieth century.

L 14 One of the questions posterity will
15 surely ask is what it was about Nixon that
16 caused passions to run quite so deep. Was
17 it because almost everything one could say
18 about Richard Nixon was both true and yet
19 somehow wrong? He was politically astute
20 and highly intelligent yet prone to self-de-
21 structive acts; exceptionally analytical yet
22 done in by yielding to ill-considered im-
23 pulse; deeply patriotic yet wont to hazard
24 his achievements on tawdry practices; pos-

L 25 sessed of a considerable capacity to feel
26 guilt coupled with an instinct to gravitate

L 27 toward actions guaranteed to evoke feel-
28 ings of guilt; an outstanding judge of peo-
29 ple except of those whose actions could af-
30 fect his own interests; successful in the
31 gregarious profession of politics although
32 introverted, almost reclusive.

33 Nobody who dealt with Nixon regular-
34 ly has ever doubted that here was a man ca-

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P. 03

L 35 pable of imposing his will on circum-

L 36 stances. But he could not handle

L 37 face-to-face disagreements and would go
38 to extraordinary lengths to achieve his aims
39 by indirection. Nixon aspired to greatness
40 and came close to it, at least in the conduct
L 41 of foreign policy. Yet he ruined his presi-
42 dency by acts as unnecessary as they were
43 unworthy.

44 It would take a poet of Shakespearean
L 45 dimension to do justice to the extraordi-
46 nary, maddening, visionary, and debilitat-
47 ing personality of Richard Nixon--at once
48 thoughtful and quirky, compassionate and
L 49 insensitive; sometimes fiercely loyal, at
L 50 other times leaving old associates in his
51 wake as casualties. Yet ultimately Nixon's
52 obvious and unending struggle with him-
53 self proved so unsettling, even threatening,
L 54 because deep down one could never be
55 certain that what one found so disturbing in
L 56 Nixon might not also be a reflection of
57 some suppressed flaw within oneself.

L 58 ▲ Inevitably our personal relationship
59 exhibited the ambivalences Nixon inspired
60 in his entire entourage. Nixon, who treated
L 61 acquaintances with a wary aloofness and
62 even close associates as foils, provided few
63 emotional footholds. His oblique, indirect
64 method of government and his tendency to
L 65 foment conflicts among his subordinates
L 66 could be nerve-racking. Occasionally I
67 would relieve the tension with exasperated
L 68 comments. For his part, Nixon resented

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P. U. S.

<table>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>103</td>
      <td>tapes pictures him as impulsive, even reckless. But the Nixon with whom I worked on</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>104</td>
      <td>foreign policy reached his major decisions</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>105</td>
      <td>only after almost maddening deliberation.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>106</td>
      <td>He might act intuitively, but he did not do</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>107</td>
      <td>so impulsively. Every significant foreign policy decision was preceded by weeks of</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>108</td>
      <td>solitary reflection and apparent indecision.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>109</td>
      <td>Sequestered in his hideaway in the Old Executive Office Building with the curtains</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>110</td>
      <td>drawn, Nixon would work out on a pad of</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>111</td>
      <td>yellow sheets permutations of the options I generally had submitted to him. And since,</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>112</td>
      <td>in any major decision, the pros and cons</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>113</td>
      <td>are closely balanced and unanimity among</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>114</td>
      <td>advisers is rare, he would muse endlessly</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>115</td>
      <td>about how to overrule fractious subordinates. But once he had overcome his premonitions of catastrophe and found someone (usually Bob Haldeman or John</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>116</td>
      <td>Mitchell) to bring the bad news to the overruled associates, Nixon would almost invariably take a big leap.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>117</td>
      <td>Afterward Nixon would retire to Camp</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>118</td>
      <td>David for a few days to recover from the ordeal but also to make it that much more difficult for opponents of the decision to reach</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>119</td>
      <td>him. It was hardly the decision-making process recommended in public administration textbooks, and it was emotionally</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>120</td>
      <td>exhausting for all the participants--including, especially, Nixon. But Presidents could</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>121</td>
      <td>do worse than to place on their desks the dictum Nixon would invoke on such occa-</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>122</td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>123</td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>124</td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>125</td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>126</td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>127</td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>128</td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>129</td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>130</td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>131</td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>132</td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>133</td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>134</td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>135</td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>136</td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

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P. 10

273 drawn, and quite shy. When talking to me
274 or to George Shultz, he rarely, if ever, used
275 the graphic language that proved so start-
276 tling in the transcripts of his conversations
277 with the political side of the White House.
278 Nixon was capable of dominating a conver-
sation only by conducting a monologue,
279 never in a genuine dialogue. To passive ad-
280 mirers or people who sought his views,
281 Nixon could appear overpowering and
282 confident. But Nixon abhorred face-to-face
283 disagreements of any kind. In his many
284 conversations with me, he would ask many
285 perceptive questions. And he would fre-
286 quently make very astute observations. He
287 was quite capable of changing his mind
288 upon reflecting on a counterargument. But
289 these were separate events. I cannot re-
290 member--nor have I encountered in my
291 records--any real dialogue in which we ar-
292 gued clashing points of view.
293

294 The way differences between us were
295 handled was that I would register more or
296 less passively some comment of Nixon's.
297 Sometime later, I would revert to the same
298 point without ascribing it to him and state
299 my contrary view. After yet another inter-
300 val, Nixon would either reaffirm his orig-
301 nal position or change it without acknowl-
302 edging the disagreement between us.
303

303 Since this was a method involving a
304 considerable risk of misunderstanding, I
305 conducted most of the major policy discus-
306 sions with Nixon and almost every presen-

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P. 11

L 307 tation of options by memorandum. Re-
308 lieved of the presence of the interlocutor,
L 309 Nixon felt no inhibitions about reading
310 contrary views. And he felt free to state his
311 response crisply and to issue unambiguous
L 312 orders. Future historians removed from
L 313 the passions of the moment will find a
L 314 study of the voluminous memoranda he
315 produced far more rewarding than the dia-
316 logues on the tapes.

L 317 The reason for Nixon's diffidence in
L 318 face-to-face encounters was the opposite
319 of arrogance: it was a reflection of his abid-
L 320 ing fear of being rejected. Others more
L 321 knowledgeable about Nixon's early years
L 322 may be better able to explain this handi-
323 cap--for such it was--in a man of such in-
L 324 telligence and possessed of extraordinary
325 powers of persuasion. Or the even greater
L 326 anomaly that Nixon seemed more para-
327 lyzed by the prospect of rejection than by
328 its actuality. Once the worst had, in fact, oc-
L 329 curred and the dreaded (and half-antici-
L 330 pated) rejection had finally taken place,
L 331 Nixon displayed extraordinary fortitude,
332 willpower, and resilience. ▲

L 333 To spare himself face-to-face contro-
334 versies as much as possible, Nixon avoided
335 office appointments wherever possible un-
L 336 less they were carefully orchestrated set-
337 piece encounters. Those of us in the inner
338 circle faced no more daunting task than to
L 339 persuade Nixon to meet some individual
340 he did not already know or to see someone

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P. 12

[LC]

L 341 who might produce an unpleasant situation--that is, anyone whose opinion Nixon
342
343 did not know in detail beforehand.

344 The reverse side of this fear of being rejected--its ballast, so to speak--was Nixon's
345
346 romantic image of himself as a fearless manipulator, marching to his own drummer,
347
348 unaffected either by turmoil around him or
349 contrary advice on the part of his Cabinet

L 350 and staff. Sometimes this was indeed the
351 case, but most often Nixon was not as alone
352 as he was wont to imply. His quest to receive sole credit for every achievement of
353
354 his administration and to have it perceived
355 as having been carried out as an entirely
356 solitary act explains why Nixon rarely, if
357 ever, had an approving word to say about
358 any of his associates▲. Subconsciously at
359 least, Nixon sought to enhance his eminence by denigrating his associates, thereby magnifying his own solitude.

L 362 Another aspect of this cult of the
L 363 ``tough guy'' was that, in conversations
364 with his entourage, Nixon might generate a
L 365 series of extravagant propositions that, in
366 his heart, he never expected to be implemented. Some of the more bloodcurdling
367
368 orders on the tapes released thus far have
369 their origin in this proclivity--as I believe to
L 370 have been the origin of Watergate itself.
L 371 Nixon was convinced, and repeated on
372 many occasions, that during the 1960 presidential campaign, his office and airplane
373
L 374 had been bugged by the Kennedy camp.

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375 And I suspect he felt that his near-certain
376 victory in 1972 would not be complete un-
377 til he had demonstrated his own ability to
378 play by the same rules as he imagined the
379 admired and feared Kennedy clan to have
380 done.▲
381
381 In foreign policy, these tough-guy or-
L 382 ders were much less frequent, though,
383 when they occurred, they could be unset-
384 tling (after a few months with Nixon, I was
L 385 able to distinguish between what he in-
386 tended to be carried out immediately and
387 what he deserved to be given an opportu-
388 nity to reconsider). For example, on a Sat-
389 urday night in August 1969, a TWA plane
L 390 with Americans aboard was hijacked and
391 flown to Damascus airport. I reported this
L 392 fact to Nixon, who was in San Clemente
393 with his two friends, Charles ``Bebe'' Re-
394 bozo and Robert Abplanalp. Obviously try-
395 ing to impress his pals, Nixon issued a curt-
L 396 sounding order: ``Bomb the airport of
397 Damascus.'' I was certain the order would
398 never survive the night and called Secre-
399 tary of Defense Mel Laird to tell him what
400 had happened. The two aircraft carriers in
401 the Mediterranean were out of range, and
402 bombing a country is not a simple matter of
403 giving an order; targets have to be selected,
404 a diplomatic scenario prepared, and press
405 guidance developed. So Laird and I decid-
406 ed to carry out the letter of the order by im-
407 plementing the first steps and leaving the
L 408 other measures for the next day. ▲In the ▲

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[LC]

409 morning, at my regular briefing, I brought
410 Nixon up to date on the events of the pre-
411 previous twenty-four hours, including the fact
412 that the Sixth Fleet carriers were now near
L 413 Cyprus. ``Did anything else happen?''
414 Nixon innocently asked. When I replied in
415 the negative, the President--without mov-
416 ing a facial muscle--said, ``Good.''
L 417 ▲▲▲The trouble arose when members of
418 the Nixon entourage with less access and
L 419 therefore less experience with exuberant
L 420 presidential statements got into the Oval
421 Office. When the full extent of Watergate
L 422 became apparent in April 1973, I asked
423 permanent elder statesman Bryce Harlow
L 424 how it could have happened: ``Some
425 damn fool got into the Oval Office and did
426 as he was told,'' Harlow remarked. ▲▲▲▲▲▲▲
L 427 The Operation of the Nixon White
428 House
429 ▲▲▲Nixon set in motion a fierce competi-
430 tion among his advisers while guarding the
431 mystery of his own ultimate destinations.
432 He was determined that foreign policy be
L 433 conducted from the Oval Office, but he
L 434 never said as much to his Secretary of
L 435 State. He would send me off on secret
436 back-channel negotiations without inform-
437 ing Bill Rogers--and while complaining to
L 438 Haldeman about the Kissinger-Rogers
439 feud which he himself never ceased stok-
440 ing. The result was that the State Depart-
441 ment would often pursue a course of action
442 that was in direct conflict with what I was

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[LC]

L 443 doing on behalf of the President and of
L 444 which the department was unaware. The
L 445 practical consequence was that the party
L 446 being overruled blamed the outcome on
L 447 some malign influence--as time went on,
448 most often on me.
449 ▲▲▲Nixon's reputation for ``trickiness'' resulted from his need to balance his abhor-
450 rence for direct confrontation against his
L 451 even stronger inward drive to live up to his
452 foreign policy convictions. Preposterous as
453 this may sound, what passed for trickiness
454 was Nixon's way of being principled.▲
455
456 Spending much of what would normal-
457 ly be considered personal time in his hide-
458 away in the Old Executive Office Building
459 or at Camp David, Nixon would sit in an
460 easy chair, his feet on a hassock, the shades
461 drawn, commenting on conceptual rather
462 than action memoranda and making notes
463 on his yellow pads. To relieve the inner ten-
464 sion, he would call in one of his advisers to
465 go over his notes and/or to recount again
L 466 and again the battles of his earlier years,
467 from the Alger Hiss case through the Cali-
L 468 fornia election of 1962. These grinding
469 conversations could go on for hours while
L 470 the designated listener, frantic over the
471 work and telephone calls piling up back in
472 the office, yearned even for some catastro-
473 phe to divert the President and permit one
474 to get back to one's regular chores.
L 475 ▲The incentives for Nixon's
476 advisers▲soon became exactly the opposite

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r. 10

477 of the normal assistant's ambition, which is
478 to log the maximum amount of time with
L 479 the President. Nixon's aides by contrast
480 tried to cut down their time with the Pres-
ident. In the process, they revealed some-
481
482 thing less creditable about themselves: the
483 degree to which the emotionally exhausting
L 484 White House atmosphere had robbed
485 them of sensitivity for the obvious and all-
L 486 encompassing loneliness of their Presi-
487 dent, who needed them as much to fill the
488 emptiness of his life as for practical advice.
489 ▲Though Nixon did not particularly en-
L 490 joy the mechanics of governing and was
generally leery of visitors, he did enjoy for-
491
492 eign guests. ▲But even in his area of exper-
L 493 tise, he would not meet a visitor without
L 494 meticulous preparation to minimize the
L 495 prospects of some unwanted or unantici-
pated direct confrontation.
496
497 My staff would prepare detailed mem-
oranda explaining the purpose of the visit,
498
L 499 the physical arrangements, what the for-
eign interlocutor was likely to say, our rec-
L 501 ommendations for the best response, the
L 502 optimum outcome, and the dangers to
503 avoid. Nixon would commit to memory ei-
504 ther the entire memorandum or the part he
505 thought useful. Since Nixon did not like to
506 admit that he needed any staff assistance in
L 507 foreign policy and▲ he never brought the
508 staff memorandum to the meeting. Instead
509 he would hold forth as if extemporaneous-
510 ly, not without sometimes skating as close

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[LC]

511 as he dared--and closer than I sometimes
512 considered wise--to the very subjects our
L 513 memorandum had warned represented
514 the areas of thinnest ice. Nixon liked to live
515 dangerously and to show off his skill at do-
516 ing so.

L 517 On one occasion, the arrangement
L 518 went awry, and it was the vaunted NSC
L 519 staff system, not Nixon, that misfired. As
L 520 part of some U.N. celebration, the Prime
521 Minister of Mauritius had been invited to
522 Washington. Mauritius is a subtropical is-
L 523 land located in the Indian Ocean off the
L 524 coast of South Africa. It enjoys plenty of
525 rainfall and a verdant agriculture; its rela-
L 526 tions with the United States were excel-
527 lent. Somehow my staff gained the impres-
528 sion that the visitor was from Mauritania,
L 529 an arid desert state in West Africa which
530 had broken diplomatic relations with us in
531 1967 as an act of solidarity with its Muslim
L 532 brethren in the aftermath of the Middle
533 East War.

L 534 This misconception produced an ex-
L 535 traordinary dialogue. Coming straight to
L 536 the point, Nixon suggested that the time
L 537 had come to restore diplomatic relations
538 between the United States and Mauritius.
539 This, he noted, would permit resumption of
540 American aid, and one of its benefits might
L 541 be assistance in dry farming, in which
L 542 Nixon maintained the United States had
L 543 special capabilities. The stunned visitor,
544 who had come on a goodwill mission from

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545 a country with, if anything, excessive rain-
546 fall, tried to shift to a more promising sub-
547 ject. He inquired whether Nixon was satis-
L 548 fied with the operation of the space
L 549 tracking station the United States main-
L 550 tained on his island. Now it was Nixon's
551 turn to be discomfited as he set about fran-
L 552 tically writing on his yellow pad. Tearing
L 553 off a page, he handed me a note which
554 read: ``Why the hell do we have a space
555 tracking station in a country with which we
do not have diplomatic relations?''

557 ▲▲▲The Changing of the Guard

558 After the so-called "smoking gun tape
559 was released on August 5,▲ Vice President
560 Gerald Rudolph Ford, at a cabinet meeting
561 the next day, took the unprecedented step
L 562 ▲of dissociating from the President. ▲He
563 would no longer defend the President's po-
564 sition on Watergate, he said, and indeed he
565 would not have done so in the past had he
566 known what was on the tape. Publicly he
L 567 would maintain silence on the matter on
568 the ground that he was a ``party in inter-
L 569 est''--pointedly reminding everyone that
570 he was next in line for Nixon's office. But
571 Ford stressed that even though he was dis-
L 572 sociating from the President, he would
573 continue to support Nixon's policies.

574 I did not speak with Ford at that meet-
575 ing or, indeed, until Nixon had decided to
576 resign. It was now certain that Ford would
577 become President. In that turbulent week
L 578 of Nixon's resignation, I had no time to

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579 speculate on how it would affect my own position. Before I could address the subject, Ford took the decision out of my hands by telephoning me on the morning of August 8 after Nixon had informed him of his decision to resign. Ford asked me to come to see him and, in his unassuming way, left the time up to me. In the course of the same conversation, he asked me to stay on and in a way that made it sound as if I would be doing him a favor by agreeing.

590 Dramatic events are not always ushered in by dramatic dialogue. As I recall this conversation from the perspective of two decades, I am struck by its matter-of-fact tone and concerns. At the time, I was affected by the understated way in which Ford conveyed Nixon's decision which would make him President, without rhetorical flourishes and without mentioning the emotional impact on himself. And I was moved by his tact in so swiftly putting an end to any personal uncertainty I might be experiencing.

603 The atmosphere of the conversation carried over into our meeting that afternoon. I sat on a sofa near the balcony overlooking the White House lawn, Ford on an easy chair with his back to the window. He seemed casual and calm, neither grandiloquent nor pretentiously humble. He opened the conversation by saying that he intended to announce even before he had taken the oath of office--in fact, that very

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[LC]

L 613 evening--that I would be staying. Ford
614 added that he had felt comfortable with me
L 615 ever since our first meeting at Harvard
616 some years before. Artlessly, he added that
617 he felt confident we would ``get along.'' I
618 replied that it was my job to get along with
619 him, not the other way around.

620 ▲Perhaps the most lasting impression of
L 621 that first conversation was its aftermath.
622 For the first time since I came to the White
L 623 House, I left the presidential presence
624 without afterthoughts, confident that there
625 was no more to the conversation than what
626 I had heard. ▲With Ford, what one saw was
627 what one got. Starting with that first meet-
628 ing, I never encountered a hidden agenda.
629 He was sufficiently self-assured to disagree
630 openly, and he did not engage in elaborate
631 maneuvers about who should receive cred-
632 it. Having been propelled so unexpectedly
633 into an office he revered but never thought
634 he would hold, he felt no need to manipu-
late his environment. Ford's inner peace
L 635 was precisely what the nation needed for
636 healing its divisions.
637

L 638 ▲▲▲▲ ▲ Gerald ▲ Ford was an uncomplicated
L 639 man tapped by destiny for some of the
640 most complicated tasks in the nation's his-
tory. The first non-elected President, he
L 641 was called to heal the nation's wounds af-
642 ter a decade in which the Vietnam War and
643 Watergate had produced the most severe
L 644 divisions since the Civil War. As different as
645 possible from the driven personalities who
646

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681 campaign costs a minimum of $15 million
682 for television and print media advertising.
683 But the money must be raised within strict
684 limits defined by law. To remain credible, a
685 candidate feels obliged to devote most of
L 686 his energies for the better part of three
L 687 years to accumulating a war chest from
L 688 fragmented and disparate constituencies.
689 In that process, his principal incentive--ap-
690 approaching an imperative--is to try to be all
691 things to all people. What starts as a tactic,
692 over the course of the grueling campaign
693 easily and imperceptibly turns into a defin-
L 694 ing characteristic. National recognition is
695 achieved at the price of nearly compulsive
696 personal insecurity.
697 ▲A curious blend of brittleness and flam-
698 boyance thus defines the modern political
L 699 persona: brittleness verging on obse-
700 quiousness in the quest for mass approval,
701 flamboyance turning into panic when the
702 public's mood shifts. Far more concerned
703 with what to say than with what to think,
704 the modern political leader too frequently
705 fails to fulfill the role for which he is need-
706 ed most: to provide the emotional ballast
L 707 when experience is being challenged by
708 ever-accelerating change. The inability to
L 709 fulfill these emotional needs lies behind
L 710 the curious paradox of contemporary
L 711 democracy: never have political leaders
L 712 been more abject in trying to determine
L 713 the public's preferences, yet, in most
714 democracies, respect for the political class

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7'15 has never been lower.▲▲.
716 Gerald Ford was about as different as
717 possible from what has become the famil-
718 iar political persona. Having risen through
719 the ranks of his party in the House of Rep-
L 720 resentatives--a career dependent on day-
721 to-day practical relations with his peers--
L 722 Ford was immune to the modern
723 politician's chameleon-like search for ever-
724 new identities and to the emotional roller
L 725 coaster this search exacts. Far too unas-
726 suming to think of himself as heroic, Ford
727 would have been embarrassed had anyone
728 suggested that Providence had imposed on
729 him just such a role.
730 Cartoonists had great fun with Ford's
731 occasionally fractured syntax. They forgot-
732 -if they were ever aware--that being artic-
733 ulate is not the same as having analytical
734 skill, which Ford had in abundance. For a
L 735 national leader, courage and devotion to
736 principle are, in any case, the more impor-
737 tant qualities.
738 Ford was well aware of his relative lack
739 of suavity and, unlike the modern political
L 740 leader, was not embarrassed to admit it.
741 ``I am not one of those oratorical genius-
742 es,'' he said to me on the telephone on Jan-
743 uary 15, 1975. ``There is no point in my try-
744 ing to be one. I just have to be myself.'' A
745 week later, he returned to the subject after
746 a press conference in which he thought he
L 747 could have done better (a view I did not
748 share). Unlike most political leaders of the

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L 749 Television Age, Ford blamed himself, not
750 the media:

L 751 "I came away feeling myself it could
752 have been a lot better....I get mad as hell,
753 but I don't show it, when I don't do as well
754 as I think I should....If you don't strive for
755 the best, you never make it."

756 Ford was always himself, and he always
757 did his best; in the process, he saved the co-
758 hesion and dignity of his country.

759 ▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲ Ford and the National Interest

L 760 Ford reacted to the seemingly inex-
761haustible volume of challenges without ei-
762ther self-pity or doubt about the good faith
763of his political adversaries.▲Ford viewed his
764role not unlike that of a doctor ministering
765to a patient just recovering from a debili-
766tating illness. He therefore resisted de-
767mands for heroic posturing and prescribed
768a regimen of building and conserving
769strength. ▲ ▲Ford thought it essential to prove
770to the American people that crisis and con-
771frontation were a last resort, not an every-
772day means of conducting foreign policy. ▲ ▲

L 773 Dedicated to the proposition that his
774presidency should be a time of healing (as
L 775he would entitle his memoirs),▲ Ford dis-
776played personal goodwill to friend and foe
L 777alike. At times, I thought his apparent
778equanimity excessive, especially when his
779reluctance to impose penalties made resis-
780tance to presidential authority appear free
L 781of risk. In retrospect, I have come to ap-
782preciate Ford's self-restraint, for it gradual-

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783 | ly drained the American political system of its accumulated poison and created the conditions for the restoration of faith in American institutions. In the end, societies thrive not on the victories of factions but on their reconciliations.
784
785
786
787
788
789 ▲▲ ▲▲ This unflinching sense of the national interest enabled Ford in his twenty-nine months in office to navigate his country through a series of crises which could have filled a two-term presidency. ▲Other Presidents were to receive the credit for winning the Cold War. But I am certain the time will come when it is recognized that the Cold War could not have been won had not Gerald Ford, at a tragicpoint of America's history, been there to keep us from losing it.
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801 ▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲. ▲ The Pardon
802 ▲ No decision President Ford made was more▲ important ▲ handling of Nixon's pardon. Nixon seemed nearly certain to be indicted by the special prosecutor--a painful prospect for the United States and for the fallen President. Such a spectacle would have been gravely damaging to America's standing in the world. And those of us who knew Nixon felt certain that he would never get through a trial or even an indictment without grave physical and psychological repercussions. Yet given the risks a pardon posed for Ford, it was a tricky subject to initiate with the new President, particularly for me as one of Nixon's close associates. I
803
804
805
806
807
808
809
810
811
812
813
814
815
816

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L 817 finally overcame my hesitations when, in
L 818 the second week of Ford's presidency,
819 Bryce Harlow called on me to express his
820 own deep concern.
821 ▲Harlow argued that putting Nixon on
822 trial would further divide our country and
823 probably compound the emotional disinte-
L 824 gration of a President who, with all his
825 faults, had rendered distinguished service
L 826 for the country. The conversation with
L 827 Harlow gave me the pretext to raise the
L 828 subject with Ford. I passed on Harlow's
L 829 views and endorsed them. When Ford
830 asked a few questions about the psycholog-
831 ical impact of a trial on Nixon, I argued that
L 832 equally important was the impact on the
L 833 world, where the former President was
L 834 highly respected. Ford mentioned that
835 some of his advisers thought he should wait
L 836 until an indictment was actually handed
837 down. I replied that I could not judge the
838 domestic situation, but delay would surely
L 839 complicate both the international impact
840 and Nixon's personal despair.
841 Ford made no further comment, and I
842 did not hear from him again on the subject
843 until the afternoon of Saturday, September
844 7, 1974, when he telephoned to inform me
845 of his decision to pardon Nixon the follow-
L 846 ing morning. The time had come, Ford
847 said, to lay the past to rest and, in a spirit of
L 848 Christian forgiveness, to permit Nixon to
849 live out the remainder of his days in digni-
L 850 ty. Ford did not invite my comments.

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<table>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>851</td>
      <td>Though the decision probably cost him his own election to the presidency, I am convinced that it was a courageous and human act which was necessary if the nation was ever to be liberated from the traumas of the previous decade.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>857</td>
      <td>Nixon in Exile</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>858</td>
      <td>▲After resigning from the presidency, Nixon lived for another two decades. The first few years in exile were excruciatingly difficult for him. Few except his closest friends telephoned him, and he disappeared from the public debate except in the sensational stories regarding his alleged abuses of power. During this period, he and I often spoke on the telephone, and I visited him once in San Clemente. While I was still in office, when major events occurred, I would brief him; when I was under attack--which happened more and more frequently--he would call with supporting and usually very insightful comments.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>870</td>
      <td>In February 1980, Nixon moved to New York and launched a spectacular career of reinventing himself as elder statesman. I hosted a small dinner to welcome him. For the first time, he sought to engage the Establishment. He would invite key representatives of the media and industry for an evening of discussion that usually turned into a briefing; he would send thoughtful little notes to authors of articles or books that caught his attention.</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

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[LC]

885 ly and tenaciously, Nixon earned himself a
886 position as a senior commentator whom, in
L 887 the end, the incumbent Presidents--be it
888 Ronald Reagan, George Bush, or Bill Clin-
889 ton--found it to their benefit to consult.

890 Nixon began to deliver public speech-
891 es. I attended a few of them and marveled
892 at how he used the occasion to overwhelm
893 his audience. Pushing the lectern ostenta-
894 tiously out of the way, he would deliver an
895 hour-long speech forcefully and extempo-
896 raneously. Only the few Nixon cognoscenti
897 In the audience understood just how much
L 898 the sheer effort of it had cost him. They
899 knew that, if it was an important group, he
900 would have written out the speech before-
L 901 hand or at least made a full outline and
902 probably rehearsed parts of it before a mir-
903 ror. They were participating in an extraor-
904 dinary feat of memory and self-discipline,
905 not a spontaneous effusion.

906 ▲ I saw Nixon for the last time in Janu-
907 ary 1994 when I was one of the speakers in
908 Yorba Linda at the launching of the Nixon
L 909 Center, a new foreign policy think tank
L 910 now located in Washington. Former key
L 911 Cabinet members spoke briefly▲. Nixon
912 concluded the event with a graceful speech
L 913 to a large and friendly audience. At the
914 lunch following, I toasted Nixon on behalf
915 of his former Cabinet.

L 916 A few months later, in April 1994,
917 Richard Nixon died.
918 We had lived together through periods

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L 919 of hope and of despair, through fleeting
L 920 moments of triumph and long domestic
921 travails. Nixon could be exasperating, mad-
922 dening, even treacherous. But the overrid-
923 ing feeling evoked by his death was one of
L 924 grief. ▲ Paradoxical as it sounds, Nixon's
L 925 endless machinations were apt to be for-
926 given especially by those closest to him and
927 therefore most likely to be damaged by his
L 928 wiles because we were also familiar with
929 the sweep of his aspiration and aware that
930 his most tormenting battles were ultimate-
931 ly with himself.

932 Assaulted on all sides and torn within
933 himself, Nixon had held on to a concept of
L 934 national honor, determined to prove that
935 the greatest free nation had no right to ab-
936 dicate. With a romantic and even lofty no-
L 937 tion of the hero-statesman, he sought to
938 point a way to overcome his nation's oscil-
939 lation between overcommitment and with-
940 withdrawal. Though in the end he fell short of
L 941 fulfilling his highest aspirations, Nixon's
L 942 goals were worthy even when the execu-
943 tion was occasionally flawed.

L 944 This is why his funeral on April 27,
L 945 1994, became a national occasion of
946 mourning attended by all surviving Presi-
947 dents, including Bill Clinton. And my eulo-
948 gy came from the heart:

L 949 " ▲ When I learned the final news, by
950 then so expected yet so hard to accept, I felt
L 951 a deep loss and a profound void. In the
952 words of Shakespeare: 'He was a man, take

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953 him for all in all, I shall not look upon his

954 like again.'...

955 "...So let us now say goodbye to our gal-

956 lant friend. He stood on pinnacles that dis-

957 solved into precipices. He achieved greatly

958 and suffered deeply. But he never gave up.

959 In his solitude, he envisaged a new inter-

960 national order that would reduce lingering

L 961 enmities, strengthen historic friendships,

L 962 and give new hope to mankind--a vision

963 where dreams and possibilities conjoined.▲

L 964 "Richard Nixon ended a war, and he

965 advanced the vision of peace of his Quaker

L 966 youth. He was devoted to his family, he

967 loved his country, and he considered ser-

L 968 vice his honor. It was a privilege to have

969 been allowed to help him."

970

971

972

973

974

975

976

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▲▲It is difficult to write about Richard Nixon, who combined brilliance, patriotism, and courage with self-destructive flaws as in a Greek tragedy. The hatred he evoked in his political opponents was extraordinary even by the turbulent standards of American democracy. I served as his principal adviser on foreign policy for five and a half years and▲often saw him several times a day. Yet, to some extent, I still remain mystified by the personality of the perhaps most complex President of the twentieth century.

One of the questions posterity will surely ask is what it was about Nixon that caused passions to run quite so deep. Was it because almost everything one could say about Richard Nixon was both true and yet somehow wrong? He was politically astute and highly intelligent yet prone to self-destructive acts; exceptionally analytical yet done in by yielding to ill-considered impulse; deeply patriotic yet wont to hazard his achievements on tawdry practices; possessed of a considerable capacity to feel guilt coupled with an instinct to gravitate toward actions guaranteed to evoke feelings of guilt; an outstanding judge of people except of those whose actions could affect his own interests; successful in the gregarious profession of politics although introverted, almost reclusive.

Nobody who dealt with Nixon regularly has ever doubted that here was a man ca-

KISSINGER EXCERPT

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L 37 face-to-face disagreements and would go
38 to extraordinary lengths to achieve his aims
39 by indirection. Nixon aspired to greatness
40 and came close to it, at least in the conduct
41 of foreign policy. Yet he ruined his presi-
42 dency by acts as unnecessary as they were
43 unworthy.

44 It would take a poet of Shakespearean
L 45 dimension to do justice to the extraordi-
46 nary, maddening, visionary, and debilitat-
47 ing personality of Richard Nixon--at once
48 thoughtful and quirky, compassionate and
49 insensitive; sometimes fiercely loyal, at
L 50 other times leaving old associates in his
51 wake as casualties. Yet ultimately Nixon's
52 obvious and unending struggle with him-
53 self proved so unsettling, even threatening,
54 because deep down one could never be
L 55 certain that what one found so disturbing in
56 Nixon might not also be a reflection of
57 some suppressed flaw within oneself.

L 58 ▲Inevitably our personal relationship
59 exhibited the ambivalences Nixon inspired
60 in his entire entourage. Nixon, who treated
L 61 acquaintances with a wary aloofness and
62 even close associates as foils, provided few
63 emotional footholds. His oblique, indirect
64 method of government and his tendency to
65 foment conflicts among his subordinates
L 66 could be nerve-racking. Occasionally I
67 would relieve the tension with exasperated
L 68 comments. For his part, Nixon resented

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69 the publicity I attracted, starting with the
70 secret trip to China on which he sent me in
71 1971. Presidents do not take kindly to assistants who compete with them for public attention--especially when some of Nixon's
72 closest advisers were arguing that I was up-
73 staging him deliberately. While the word
74 ``deliberately'' was inaccurate, it is certainly true that I did not exactly resist the
75 media's favors.
76

79 Nevertheless, and despite some mutual misgivings, Nixon and I worked extremely well together. Face-to-face, he always treated me with conspicuous courtesy. Though we were not emotionally close, I was touched by his vulnerability and often moved by his inner torments, as in the period just prior to his resignation (when I might well have been as close to Nixon as anyone, except his immediate family, ever got).

90 ▲▲▲▲▲Nixon's single most important quality was the ability to make bold decisions. That attribute was all the more remarkable because he was not by nature daring and by no means a happy warrior. On the contrary, he made his major decisions with a joylessness verging on despair, as if he was doomed by some malign destiny to have so much anguish brought to naught despite all the meticulous reflection and all the notepads crammed with options.

101 One of the paradoxes of the Nixon
102 presidency is that the evidence on the

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103 tapes pictures him as impulsive, even reckless. But the Nixon with whom I worked on
104 foreign policy reached his major decisions
105 only after almost maddening deliberation.
106 He might act intuitively, but he did not do
107 so impulsively. Every significant foreign
108 policy decision was preceded by weeks of
109 solitary reflection and apparent indecision.
110 Sequestered in his hideaway in the Old Executive Office Building with the curtains
drawn, Nixon would work out on a pad of
113 yellow sheets permutations of the options I
114 generally had submitted to him. And since,
115 in any major decision, the pros and cons
116 are closely balanced and unanimity among
117 advisers is rare, he would muse endlessly
118 about how to overrule fractious subordinates. But once he had overcome his premonitions of catastrophe and found someone (usually Bob Haldeman or John
119 Mitchell) to bring the bad news to the overruled associates, Nixon would almost invariably take a big leap.
120
121
122
123
124
125
126 Afterward Nixon would retire to Camp
127 David for a few days to recover from the ordeal but also to make it that much more difficult for opponents of the decision to reach
128
129 him. It was hardly the decision-making
130 process recommended in public administration textbooks, and it was emotionally
131
132 exhausting for all the participants--including, especially, Nixon. But Presidents could
133
134 do worse than to place on their desks the
135
136 dictum Nixon would invoke on such occa-

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142 The French political philosopher Raymond Aron once told me that exaggerating my influence was the American intellectuals' and media's alibi for their animosity toward Nixon. During a period of major accomplishment, Nixon's legion of enemies may well have given me disproportionate credit as a means of depriving the hated President of claims to a lasting legacy. In a strange way, some of Nixon's traditional supporters on the right strengthened the media's message by blaming me for what they considered Nixon's retreat from his original conservative vocation. At the same time, some of Nixon's entourage, in order to garner more credit for their chief--and occasionally Nixon himself--described me as a mere staff assistant, a kind of puppet pulled by strings in the hands of the master manipulator.

162 Both versions--that of the dominant adviser and that of the domineering President--misstate reality. The breakthroughs of the Nixon Administration were due to the fact that both Nixon and I subordinated our reservations about each other to a close collaboration based on mutual respect. The Quaker's son from Yorba Linda and the son of a secondary school teacher

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[cc]

L 171 in Bavaria complemented each other's qualities in a special way. Nixon had the best personal knowledge of contemporary leaders around the world of any American political figure I have met. Foreign policy was his hobby, and he deepened his understanding of it by frequent travel. I had a better knowledge of history and of the conceptual side of geopolitics. Nixon operated by flashes of insight to which he clung with remarkable persistence. My forte was to translate general goals into long-range strategies--a task for which Nixon lacked the requisite patience.

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Nixon had an instinct for the jugular. With respect to several key decisions, though I came to view their necessity somewhat before he did, once Nixon decided to act, he went frequently beyond my recommendations. In 1970, after the North Vietnamese forces stationed in Cambodia broke out of their base areas and threatened to take over the entire country, Nixon and I were studying ways to neutralize the North Vietnamese offensive in Cambodia and prevent the whole country from being turned into a vast base area aimed at South Vietnam. I recommended an assault on Parrot's Beak, the Communist base area closest to Saigon; after hesitating for nearly a month, Nixon opted for attacking every base area along the Vietnamese-Cambodian border. In 1972, when we were discussing resuming the bombing of the

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L 205 Hanoi-Haiphong area to break the dead-
206 lock in the Vietnam peace talks, I recom-
207 mended the established method by fighter
208 planes; Nixon ordered the use of B-52s (I
L 209 was not opposed to B-52s in principle;
210 their use simply had not occurred to me). ▲
L 211 In each case, Nixon's decision was vindi-
212 cated by events.
L 213 ▲In the end, the cooperation between
L 214 the President and the National Security
215 Adviser worked not just because we com-
216 plemented each other's strengths (and per-
L 217 haps reinforced each other's weaknesses
218 with respect to our sensitivity to criticism
L 219 and proclivity for sudden diplomatic
220 coups) but above all because Nixon and I
221 viewed international relations from a near-
L 222 ly identical perspective. Both of us be-
223 lieved that we were in trouble in Vietnam
L 224 because our predecessors had launched
L 225 the United States into an enterprise in a
226 distant region for worthy causes but with-
227 out adequately assessing the national inter-
L 228 est and the likely cost. ▲ America's historic
L 229 idealism had to be leavened with an as-
230 sessment of national interest, and our ap-
L 231 proach to international relations had to
L 232 move from episodic interventions to a
233 strategic design which took account of the
L 234 requirement of equilibrium. This was
235 then--and probably still is at this writing--a
L 236 minority view in a society which, never
237 having experienced national tragedy, iden-
238 tifies the quest for peace with the mission-

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239 ary vocation of the spreading of its own domestic values around the world.
240

L 241 In the end, this vision led both the
242 President and me to be harrassed by what
243 had originally been our normal constituencies. Liberals accused me of abandoning
244 them in quest of power; conservatives
L 245 thought that Nixon had been seduced by
247 visions of Establishment legitimacy.

248 Nevertheless, we were prepared to assume the responsibility for extracating the
249 United States from the debacle of Vietnam.
250 We never blamed our predecessors for the
251 mess. We would not, however, leave the
252 country for which nearly forty thousand
L 253 Americans had already died by turning
254 over the Communist rule tens of millions
256 who had staked their lives on our word.

257

258 ▲▲▲▲▲▲▲

259 ▲Nixon the Person

260 In the mythology of his traducers--and
261 of some film portraits--Richard Nixon was
262 a man given to histrionics, to shouting his
L 263 prejudices at cowed subordinates, and to
264 dominating his environment by conveying
L 265 his views with great, even overpowering
266 insistence--frequently under the influence
267 of alcohol. Nothing could be further from
L 268 the real Richard Nixon--at least the
269 Richard Nixon with whom I dealt.

L 270 For example, the portrayals of Nixon
L 271 drinking himself into incoherence with a
272 bottle ever at his side are simply absurd. In

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L 273' my experience, Nixon never took any
274 liquor during working hours or in the Oval
275 Office. Only his closest associates ever saw
276 him drink in any context. The trouble was
L 277 that Nixon could not hold even a small
L 278 quantity of alcohol. Two glasses of wine
279 were quite enough to make him boisterous,
L 280 just one more to grow bellicose or senti-
281 mental with slurred speech. Alcohol had a
282 way of destroying the defenses he had so
283 carefully constructed to enable him to suc-
284 ceed in a profession based on a conviviali-
L 285 ty unnatural to him. These episodes oc-
286 curred rarely, always at night and never in
287 the context of major decisions. The few of
L 288 us who actually witnessed such conduct
L 289 never acted on what he might have said;
L 290 we felt we owed the President another
291 chance to consider whatever the issue was.
L 292 The Richard Nixon with whom I
293 worked on a daily basis for five and a half
L 294 years was generally soft-spoken, with-
295 drawn, and quite shy. When talking to me
296 or to George Shultz, he rarely, if ever, used
297 the graphic language that proved so star-
298 tling in the transcripts of his conversations
299 with the political side of the White House.
300 Nixon was capable of dominating a conver-
L 301 sation only by conducting a monologue,
302 never in a genuine dialogue. To passive ad-
L 303 mirers or people who sought his views,
L 304 Nixon could appear overpowering and
305 confident. But Nixon abhorred face-to-face
L 306 disagreements of any kind. In his many

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307 conversations with me, he would ask many
308 perceptive questions. And he would fre-
309 quently make very astute observations. He
310 was quite capable of changing his mind
311 upon reflecting on a counterargument. But
312 these were separate events. I cannot re-
313 member--nor have I encountered in my
314 records--any real dialogue in which we ar-
315 gued clashing points of view.

316 The way differences between us were
317 handled was that I would register more or
318 less passively some comment of Nixon's.
319 Sometime later, I would revert to the same
320 point without ascribing it to him and state
321 my contrary view. After yet another inter-
322 val, Nixon would either reaffirm his origi-
323 nal position or change it without acknowl-
324 edging the disagreement between us.

325 Since this was a method involving a
326 considerable risk of misunderstanding, I
327 conducted most of the major policy discus-
328 sions with Nixon and almost every presen-
329 tation of options by memorandum. Re-
330 lieved of the presence of the interlocutor,
331 Nixon felt no inhibitions about reading
332 contrary views. And he felt free to state his
333 response crisply and to issue unambiguous
334 orders. Future historians removed from
335 the passions of the moment will find a
336 study of the voluminous memoranda he
337 produced far more rewarding than the dia-
338 logues on the tapes.

339 The reason for Nixon's diffidence in
340 face-to-face encounters was the opposite

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341 of arrogance: it was a reflection of his abid-
ing fear of being rejected. Others more
342
343 knowledgeable about Nixon's early years
344 may be better able to explain this handi-
cap--for such it was--in a man of such in-
telligence and possessed of extraordinary
345
346 powers of persuasion. Or the even greater
347
348 anomaly that Nixon seemed more para-
lyzed by the prospect of rejection than by
349
350 its actuality. Once the worst had, in fact, oc-
curred and the dreaded (and half-antici-
pated) rejection had finally taken place,
351
352
353 Nixon displayed extraordinary fortitude,
354 willpower, and resilience.▲

355 To spare himself face-to-face contro-
versies as much as possible, Nixon avoided
356
357 office appointments wherever possible un-
less they were carefully orchestrated set-
piece encounters. Those of us in the inner
358
359 circle faced no more daunting task than to
360
361 persuade Nixon to meet some individual
362 he did not already know or to see someone
363 who might produce an unpleasant situa-
tion--that is, anyone whose opinion Nixon
364
365 did not know in detail beforehand.

366 The reverse side of this fear of being re-
jected--its ballast, so to speak--was Nixon's
367
368 romantic image of himself as a fearless ma-
nipulator, marching to his own drummer,
369
370 unaffected either by turmoil around him or
371 contrary advice on the part of his Cabinet
372 and staff. Sometimes this was indeed the
373 case, but most often Nixon was not as alone
374 as he was wont to imply. His quest to re-

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[LC]

375 ceive sole credit for every achievement of
376 his administration and to have it perceived
L 377 as having been carried out as an entirely
L 378 solitary act explains why Nixon rarely, if
379 ever, had an approving word to say about
L 380 any of his associates▲. Subconsciously at
L 381 least, Nixon sought to enhance his emi-
382 nence by denigrating his associates, there-
383 by magnifying his own solitude.
L 384 Another aspect of this cult of the
L 385 ``tough guy'' was that, in conversations
386 with his entourage, Nixon might generate a
L 387 series of extravagant propositions that, in
388 his heart, he never expected to be imple-
389 mented. Some of the more bloodcurdling
390 orders on the tapes released thus far have
391 their origin in this proclivity--as I believe to
L 392 have been the origin of Watergate itself.
L 393 Nixon was convinced, and repeated on
394 many occasions, that during the 1960 pres-
395 idential campaign, his office and airplane
L 396 had been bugged by the Kennedy camp.
397 And I suspect he felt that his near-certain
398 victory in 1972 would not be complete un-
399 til he had demonstrated his own ability to
400 play by the same rules as he imagined the
401 admired and feared Kennedy clan to have
402 done.▲
403 In foreign policy, these tough-guy or-
L 404 ders were much less frequent, though,
405 when they occurred, they could be unset-
406 tling (after a few months with Nixon, I was
L 407 able to distinguish between what he in-
408 tended to be carried out immediately and

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409 what he deserved to be given an opportunity to reconsider). For example, on a Saturday night in August 1969, a TWA plane 410
411 with Americans aboard was hijacked and 412
413 flown to Damascus airport. I reported this 413
414 fact to Nixon, who was in San Clemente 415
415 with his two friends, Charles ``Bebe'' Re- 416
416 bozo and Robert Abplanalp. Obviously try- 417
417 ing to impress his pals, Nixon issued a curt- 418
419 sounding order: ``Bomb the airport of 419
420 Damascus.'' I was certain the order would 420
421 never survive the night and called Secre- 421
422 tary of Defense Mel Laird to tell him what 422
423 had happened. The two aircraft carriers in 423
424 the Mediterranean were out of range, and 424
425 bombing a country is not a simple matter of 425
giving an order; targets have to be selected, 426
427 a diplomatic scenario prepared, and press 427
guidance developed. So Laird and I decid- 428
429 ed to carry out the letter of the order by im- 428
430 plementing the first steps and leaving the 429
431 other measures for the next day. ▲In the ▲ 430
432 morning, at my regular briefing, I brought 431
433 Nixon up to date on the events of the pre- 432
434 previous twenty-four hours, including the fact 433
435 that the Sixth Fleet carriers were now near 434
436 Cyprus. ``Did anything else happen?'' 435
437 Nixon innocently asked. When I replied in 436
438 the negative, the President--without mov- 437
438 ing a facial muscle--said, ``Good.'' 438

L 439 ▲▲▲The trouble arose when members of
440 the Nixon entourage with less access and
L 441 therefore less experience with exuberant
L 442 presidential statements got into the Oval

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443 Office. When the full extent of Watergate

L 444 became apparent in April 1973, I asked

445 permanent elder statesman Bryce Harlow

L 446 how it could have happened: ``Some

447 damn fool got into the Oval Office and did

448 as he was told,'' Harlow remarked.

449 ▲▲

450 ▲▲▲▲▲

L 451 The Operation of the Nixon White
452 House

L 453 ▲Every White House reflects to some

454 extent the personal traits of the President.

455 But Nixon's were so singular as to require a

456 whole set of unprecedented arrangements

L 457 that sought to reconcile paradoxically in-

458 compatible traits. Nixon was decisive and

L 459 courageous but nearly obsessively reluc-

L 460 tant to settle disagreements face-to-face.

461 Those of us who dealt with him on a daily

462 basis were only too well aware that Nixon

L 463 was quite capable of undoing some pro-

464 nouncement he had made to an associate or

465 visitor with another set of comments later

L 466 to another associate or visitor that aug-

467 mented his options and prepared a hedge

468 for unexpected setbacks.

469 ▲Nixon set in motion a fierce competi-

470 tion among his advisers while guarding the

471 mystery of his own ultimate destinations.

472 He was determined that foreign policy be

L 473 conducted from the Oval Office, but he

L 474 never said as much to his Secretary of

L 475 State. He would send me off on secret

476 back-channel negotiations without inform-

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ing Bill Rogers--and while complaining to
Haldeman about the Kissinger-Rogers
feud which he himself never ceased stoking. The result was that the State Department would often pursue a course of action that was in direct conflict with what I was
doing on behalf of the President and of
which the department was unaware. The
practical consequence was that the party
being overruled blamed the outcome on
some malign influence--as time went on, most often on me.

Nixon's reputation for 'trickiness' resulted from his need to balance his abhorrence for direct confrontation against his even stronger inward drive to live up to his foreign policy convictions. Preposterous as this may sound, what passed for trickiness was Nixon's way of being principled.

Spending much of what would normally be considered personal time in his hideaway in the Old Executive Office Building or at Camp David, Nixon would sit in an easy chair, his feet on a hassock, the shades drawn, commenting on conceptual rather than action memoranda and making notes on his yellow pads. To relieve the inner tension, he would call in one of his advisers to go over his notes and/or to recount again and again the battles of his earlier years, from the Alger Hiss case through the California election of 1962. These grinding conversations could go on for hours while the designated listener, frantic over the

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511 work and telephone calls piling up back in
512 the office, yearned even for some catastro-
513 phe to divert the President and permit one
514 to get back to one's regular chores.

L 515 ▲The incentives for Nixon's
516 advisers▲soon became exactly the opposite
517 of the normal assistant's ambition, which is
518 to log the maximum amount of time with

L 519 the President. Nixon's aides by contrast
520 tried to cut down their time with the Pres-
521 ident. In the process, they revealed some-
522 thing less creditable about themselves: the
523 degree to which the emotionally exhausting
524 White House atmosphere had robbed
525 them of sensitivity for the obvious and all-
526 encompassing loneliness of their Presi-
527 dent, who needed them as much to fill the
528 emptiness of his life as for practical advice.

529 ▲Though Nixon did not particularly en-
L 530 joy the mechanics of governing and was
531 generally leery of visitors, he did enjoy for-
532 eign guests. ▲But even in his area of exper-
533 tise, he would not meet a visitor without
534 meticulous preparation to minimize the
L 535 prospects of some unwanted or unantici-
536 pated direct confrontation.

537 My staff would prepare detailed mem-
538 oranda explaining the purpose of the visit,
L 539 the physical arrangements, what the for-
540 eign interlocutor was likely to say, our rec-
541 ommendations for the best response, the
L 542 optimum outcome, and the dangers to
543 avoid. Nixon would commit to memory ei-
544 ther the entire memorandum or the part he

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545 thought useful. Since Nixon did not like to
546 admit that he needed any staff assistance in
L 547 foreign policy and he never brought the
548 staff memorandum to the meeting. Instead
549 he would hold forth as if extemporaneously-
550 ly, not without sometimes skating as close
551 as he dared--and closer than I sometimes
552 considered wise--to the very subjects our
L 553 memorandum had warned represented
554 the areas of thinnest ice. Nixon liked to live
555 dangerously and to show off his skill at do-
556 ing so.
L 557 On one occasion, the arrangement
L 558 went awry, and it was the vaunted NSC
L 559 staff system, not Nixon, that misfired. As
L 560 part of some U.N. celebration, the Prime
561 Minister of Mauritius had been invited to
562 Washington. Mauritius is a subtropical is-
L 563 land located in the Indian Ocean off the
L 564 coast of South Africa. It enjoys plenty of
565 rainfall and a verdant agriculture; its rela-
L 566 tions with the United States were excel-
567 lent. Somehow my staff gained the impres-
568 sion that the visitor was from Mauritania,
L 569 an arid desert state in West Africa which
570 had broken diplomatic relations with us in
571 1967 as an act of solidarity with its Muslim
L 572 brethren in the aftermath of the Middle
573 East War.
L 574 This misconception produced an ex-
L 575 extraordinary dialogue. Coming straight to
L 576 the point, Nixon suggested that the time
L 577 had come to restore diplomatic relations
578 between the United States and Mauritius.

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579 This, he noted, would permit resumption of American aid, and one of its benefits might
580
L 581 be assistance in dry farming, in which
L 582 Nixon maintained the United States had
L 583 special capabilities. The stunned visitor,
584 who had come on a goodwill mission from
585 a country with, if anything, excessive rain-
586 fall, tried to shift to a more promising sub-
587 ject. He inquired whether Nixon was satis-
L 588 fied with the operation of the space
L 589 tracking station the United States main-
L 590 tained on his island. Now it was Nixon's
591 turn to be discomfited as he set about fran-
L 592 tically writing on his yellow pad. Tearing
L 593 off a page, he handed me a note which
594 read: ``Why the hell do we have a space
595 tracking station in a country with which we
596 do not have diplomatic relations?''
597 ▲▲▲The Changing of the Guard
598 After the so-called ``smoking gun tape
599 was released on August 5,▲ Vice President
600 Gerald Rudolph Ford, at a cabinet meeting
601 the next day, took the unprecedented step
L 602 ▲of dissociating from the President. ▲He
603 would no longer defend the President's po-
604 sition on Watergate, he said, and indeed he
605 would not have done so in the past had he
606 known what was on the tape. Publicly he
L 607 would maintain silence on the matter on
608 the ground that he was a ``party in inter-
L 609 est''--pointedly reminding everyone that
610 he was next in line for Nixon's office. But
611 Ford stressed that even though he was dis-
L 612 sociating from the President, he would

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613 continue to support Nixon's policies.
614 I did not speak with Ford at that meet-
ing or, indeed, until Nixon had decided to
615 resign. It was now certain that Ford would
616 become President. In that turbulent week
617 of Nixon's resignation, I had no time to
speculate on how it would affect my own
618
619
620 position. Before I could address the sub-
ject, Ford took the decision out of my hands
621 by telephoning me on the morning of Au-
gust 8 after Nixon had informed him of his
622 decision to resign. Ford asked me to come
623 to see him and, in his unassuming way, left
624
625 the time up to me. In the course of the
same conversation, he asked me to stay on
626
627
628 and in a way that made it sound as if I
629 would be doing him a favor by agreeing.

630 Dramatic events are not always ush-
ered in by dramatic dialogue. As I recall
631 this conversation from the perspective of
632 two decades, I am struck by its matter-of-
633 fact tone and concerns. At the time, I was
634 affected by the understated way in which
635 Ford conveyed Nixon's decision which
636 would make him President, without
637 rhetorical flourishes and without mention-
ing the emotional impact on himself. And I
638 was moved by his tact in so swiftly putting
639 an end to any personal uncertainty I might
640 be experiencing.
641
642

L 643 The atmosphere of the conversation
L 644 carried over into our meeting that after-
645 noon. ▲▲ I sat on a sofa near the balcony over-
646 looking the White House lawn, Ford on an

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647 easy chair with his back to the window. He
648 seemed casual and calm, neither grandilo-
L 649 quent nor pretentiously humble. He
650 opened the conversation by saying that he
651 intended to announce even before he had
taken the oath of office--in fact, that very
L 652 evening--that I would be staying. Ford
653 added that he had felt comfortable with me
ever since our first meeting at Harvard
L 655 some years before. Artlessly, he added that
656 he felt confident we would ``get along.'' I
657 replied that it was my job to get along with
658 him, not the other way around.
659
660 ▲Perhaps the most lasting impression of
L 661 that first conversation was its aftermath.
662 For the first time since I came to the White
L 663 House, I left the presidential presence
664 without afterthoughts, confident that there
665 was no more to the conversation than what
666 I had heard. ▲With Ford, what one saw was
667 what one got. Starting with that first meet-
668 ing, I never encountered a hidden agenda.
669 He was sufficiently self-assured to disagree
670 openly, and he did not engage in elaborate
671 maneuvers about who should receive cred-
672 it. Having been propelled so unexpectedly
673 into an office he revered but never thought
674 he would hold, he felt no need to manipu-
late his environment. Ford's inner peace
L 675 was precisely what the nation needed for
676 healing its divisions.
677
L 678 ▲▲▲▲ Gerald ▲ Ford was an uncomplicated
L 679 man tapped by destiny for some of the
680 most complicated tasks in the nation's his-

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L 681 tory. The first non-elected President, he
682 was called to heal the nation's wounds af-
683 ter a decade in which the Vietnam War and
L 684 Watergate had produced the most severe
685 divisions since the Civil War. As different as
686 possible from the driven personalities who
687 typically propel themselves into the highest
688 office, Gerald Ford restored calm and con-
L 689 fidence to a nation surfeited with up-
690 heavals, overcame a series of international
691 crises, and ushered in a period of renewal
692 for American society.

L 693 A year before his inauguration, it
L 694 would not have occurred to Ford that he
695 was about to be thrust into the presidency.▲

L 696 Ford had, in fact, decided to retire from
697 Congress after the next election in Novem-

L 698 ber 1974. Suddenly, in October 1973,
699 Richard Nixon appointed him Vice Presi-
700 dent in the wake of Spiro Agnew's resigna-

L 701 tion. "I'm a Ford, not a Lincoln," Ford
L 702 said modestly when he assumed that re-
703 sponsibility on December 6, 1973.

704 Having never felt obliged to participate
L 705 in the obsessive calculations of normal
706 presidential candidates, Ford was at peace
L 707 with himself. To a world concerned lest
708 America's domestic torment impair its in-
L 709 dispensable leadership during what was
710 still the height of the Cold War, he provid-
711 ed a sense of restored purpose. On his own
L 712 people, Ford's matter-of-fact serenity be-
L 713 stowed the precious gift of enabling the
714 generations that followed to remain bliss-

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715 fully unaware of how close to disaster their

716 country had come in a decade of tearing it-

717 self apart. ▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲. ▲▲ ▲▲▲▲▲

718 ▲▲▲▲▲▲ The New President

L 719 The morning of August 9, 1974, wit-

720 nessed one of the most dramatic moments

L 721 in American history. At 9:30 in the East

722 Room of the White House, President Nixon

723 bade farewell to his staff, culminating the

724 greatest rupture of the American domestic

725 consensus since the Civil War. At 12:03 that

726 same day, in the same room, Gerald R. Ford

727 was sworn in as the thirty-eighth President

728 of the United States. The seats had been re-

729 arranged so that when Ford spoke, he was

730 facing in a different direction than Nixon

731 had, symbolizing a new beginning.

732 ▲When ▲Gerald Ford took the oath of of-

L 733 fice, he declared calmly and confidently

L 734 that ``our long national nightmare'' was

L 735 over. ▲ And his audience, exhausted by

L 736 struggling for nearly a year and a half

L 737 against a premonition of catastrophe and

738 by the emotional wringer of Nixon's parting

739 speech, placed its hopes on this unpreten-

740 tious man from Grand Rapids into whose

L 741 hands an extraordinary twist of fate had

742 placed America's destiny.

L 743 ▲▲▲▲▲ ▲Gerald Ford performed his task of

L 744 overcoming America's divisions and re-

L 745 deeming its faith so undramatically and

L 746 with such absence of histrionics that his

L 747 achievements have so far been taken far

748 too much for granted. ▲To a great extent, this

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749 neglect was because Ford bore so little resemblance to the prototype of the political
750
L 751 leader of the Television Age. The media
752 and many of his colleagues were at a loss
753 when it came to fitting him into the familiar stereotypes. The modern presidential
754
755 candidate ends up making a kind of Faustian bargain: a full-scale national primary
756 campaign costs a minimum of $15 million
757
758 for television and print media advertising.
759 But the money must be raised within strict
760 limits defined by law. To remain credible, a
761 candidate feels obliged to devote most of
L 762 his energies for the better part of three
763 years to accumulating a war chest from
764 fragmented and disparate constituencies.
765 In that process, his principal incentive--approaching an imperative--is to try to be all
766 things to all people. What starts as a tactic,
767 over the course of the grueling campaign
768 easily and imperceptibly turns into a defining characteristic. National recognition is
769
L 770 achieved at the price of nearly compulsive
771
772 personal insecurity.

773 ▲A curious blend of brittleness and
774 flamboyance thus defines the modern political persona: brittleness verging on obsequiousness in the quest for mass approval,
775
776 flamboyance turning into panic when the
777 public's mood shifts. Far more concerned
778 with what to say than with what to think,
779
780 the modern political leader too frequently
781 fails to fulfill the role for which he is needed most: to provide the emotional ballast
782

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L 783 when experience is being challenged by ever-accelerating change. The inability to fulfill these emotional needs lies behind L 785 the curious paradox of contemporary L 786 democracy: never have political leaders L 787 been more abject in trying to determine L 788 the public's preferences, yet, in most L 789 democracies, respect for the political class 790 has never been lower. 791

792

793 Gerald Ford was about as different as possible from what has become the familiar political persona. Having risen through the ranks of his party in the House of Representatives--a career dependent on day-to-day practical relations with his peers-- L 797 Ford was immune to the modern 798 politician's chameleon-like search for ever-new identities and to the emotional roller L 800 coaster this search exacts. Far too unassuming to think of himself as heroic, Ford 801 would have been embarrassed had anyone 802 suggested that Providence had imposed on him just such a role. 803

807 Cartoonists had great fun with Ford's occasionally fractured syntax. They forgot-if they were ever aware--that being articulate is not the same as having analytical 808 809 810 811 skill, which Ford had in abundance. For a L 812 national leader, courage and devotion to 813 principle are, in any case, the more important qualities. 814

815 Ford was well aware of his relative lack of suavity and, unlike the modern political 816

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L 817 leader, was not embarrassed to admit it.

818 ``I am not one of those oratorical genius-

819 es,'' he said to me on the telephone on Jan-

820 uary 15, 1975. ``There is no point in my try-

821 ing to be one. I just have to be myself.'' A

822 week later, he returned to the subject after

823 a press conference in which he thought he

L 824 could have done better (a view I did not
825 share). Unlike most political leaders of the

L 826 Television Age, Ford blamed himself, not
827 the media:

L 828 ``I came away feeling myself it could
829 have been a lot better....I get mad as hell,
830 but I don't show it, when I don't do as well
831 as I think I should....If you don't strive for
832 the best, you never make it.''

833 Ford was always himself, and he always
834 did his best; in the process, he saved the co-
835 hesion and dignity of his country.

836 The Domestic Crisis

837 ▲The irony of Ford's presidency was that
838 however much he might dedicate himself

839 to the renewal of his society, the patterns of

L 840 confrontation that had evolved over a
841 decade could not be abolished overnight.

L 842 ▲▲▲▲▲▲▲Paradoxically, Congress felt more free to

L 843 challenge Ford than it had Nixon. For a

844 while, Watergate had constrained congres-

845 sional challenges to foreign policy because

L 846 some of Nixon's critics feared being de-

847 flected from their quarry by the charge of

848 weakening national security. More impor-

849 tantly, Congress was restrained during the

850 later part of Watergate by genuine patrio-

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851 tism--a sense of responsibility lest the national tragedy tempt foreign adversaries to foment a major crisis.

L 854 Nixon's resignation seemed to still these concerns. A collective mania for ever
855 more sweeping investigations descended
L 856 over Congress, of which the intelligence
L 857 investigations were the most sensational,
858 exposing every covert operation in which
859 the United States had engaged during a period of over twenty years. These consumed
860 an exorbitant amount of time of the top officials of the Ford Administration in servicing the committees and in agreeing on how to deal with classified documents.

861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
L 870 In this new atmosphere, Congress felt more free to legislate specific policies than it ever had before. However virulent congressional opposition had been to the Vietnam War, Congress had confined its critique to ``sense of the Congress'' resolutions, which are not obligatory. But in
L 871
L 872
L 873 the twenty-nine months of the Ford Administration, Congress legislated an arms embargo on Turkey, cut off aid to Cambodia and eviscerated it for Vietnam, and legislated a prohibition against any military role in Angola. The micromanagement
L 874
875
876
877
878
879
880 went so far that, at one point, Congress voted antiaircraft missiles for Jordan only on the condition that they be in fixed positions. (The refusal of wheels was more humiliating than meaningful because as
L 881
882
L 883
884 King Hussein pointed out at the time, it

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885 was an easy matter to acquire such wheels in the markets of the Arab world.)
886
887 Ford and the National Interest
L 888 Ford reacted to the seemingly inexhaustible volume of challenges without either self-pity or doubt about the good faith of his political adversaries. ▲ Ford viewed his role not unlike that of a doctor ministering to a patient just recovering from a debilitating illness. He therefore resisted demands for heroic posturing and prescribed a regimen of building and conserving strength. ▲ Ford thought it essential to prove to the American people that crisis and confrontation were a last resort, not an everyday means of conducting foreign policy. ▲
L 894
895
L 896
897
898
899
900
L 901
902 Dedicated to the proposition that his presidency should be a time of healing (as he would entitle his memoirs), ▲ Ford displayed personal goodwill to friend and foe alike. At times, I thought his apparent equanimity excessive, especially when his reluctance to impose penalties made resistance to presidential authority appear free of risk. In retrospect, I have come to appreciate Ford's self-restraint, for it gradually drained the American political system of its accumulated poison and created the conditions for the restoration of faith in American institutions. In the end, societies thrive not on the victories of factions but on their reconciliations.
L 905
906
907
908
L 909
910
911
L 912
L 913
914
915
916
917 ▲▲ ▲▲ This unflinching sense of the national interest enabled Ford in his twenty-nine

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L 919 months in office to navigate his country
920 through a series of crises which could have
921 filled a two-term presidency. He kept the
922 ethnic conflict in Cyprus and a similar one
L 923 in Lebanon from escalating into interna-
924 tional war. He managed the collapse of In-
925 dochina with dignity and restraint and suc-
L 926 cessfully used military power to free an
L 927 American ship, the <I>Mayaguez, <P>
L 928 captured by the murderous Cambodian
L 929 Khmer Rouge. Ford concluded a major
L 930 breakthrough on strategic arms control
L 931 with the Soviet leaders in Vladivostok in
L 932 1974 and a breakthrough in the Middle
933 East peace process when Israel and Egypt
L 934 signed the Sinai interim agreement of
935 1975. Over passionate opposition, he con-
936 cluded the Final Act of the European Se-
L 937 curity Conference, widely credited today
938 with contributing to the collapse of the So-
939 viet empire. Ford urged the American ini-
L 940 tiative to bring majority rule to southern
L 941 Africa and supported a diplomacy which
942 led to its ultimate success. And he originat-
L 943 ed a program of cooperation on energy
L 944 among the industrial democracies which
945 has lasted to this writing and has become
946 institutionalized in the economic summits
947 which have become key components of the
948 contemporary international order.
L 949 Other Presidents were to receive the
950 credit for winning the Cold War. But I am
951 certain the time will come when it is rec-
952 ognized that the Cold War could not have

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L 987 equally important was the impact on the
L 988 world, where the former President was
L 989 highly respected. Ford mentioned that
990 some of his advisers thought he should wait
L 991 until an indictment was actually handed
992 down. I replied that I could not judge the
993 domestic situation, but delay would surely
L 994 complicate both the international impact
995 and Nixon's personal despair.

996 Ford made no further comment, and I
997 did not hear from him again on the subject
998 until the afternoon of Saturday, September
999 7, 1974, when he telephoned to inform me
1000 of his decision to pardon Nixon the follow-
L 1001 ing morning. The time had come, Ford
1002 said, to lay the past to rest and, in a spirit of
L 1003 Christian forgiveness, to permit Nixon to
1004 live out the remainder of his days in digni-
L 1005 ty. Ford did not invite my comments.

1006 Though the decision probably cost him his
1007 own election to the presidency, I am con-
L 1008 vinced that it was a courageous and hu-
1009 mane act which was necessary if the nation
1010 was ever to be liberated from the traumas
1011 of the previous decade.

1012 Nixon in Exile
L 1013 ▲After resigning from the presidency,
1014 Nixon lived for another two decades. The
1015 first few years in exile were excruciatingly
difficult for him. Few except his closest
L 1016 friends telephoned him, and he disap-
L 1017 peared from the public debate except in
L 1018 the sensational stories regarding his al-
1019 leged abuses of power. During this period,
1020

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1021 he and I often spoke on the telephone, and
1022 I visited him once in San Clemente. While
1023 I was still in office, when major events oc-
curred, I would brief him; when I was un-
1024 under attack--which happened more and
1025 more frequently--he would call with sup-
1026 porting and usually very insightful com-
1027 ments.
1028

1029 In February 1980, Nixon moved to
1030 New York and launched a spectacular ca-
1031 reer of reinventing himself as elder states-
1032 man. I hosted a small dinner to welcome
1033 him. For the first time, he sought to engage
1034 the Establishment. He would invite key
1035 representatives of the media and industry
1036 for an evening of discussion that usually
1037 turned into a briefing; he would send
1038 thoughtful little notes to authors of articles
1039 or books that caught his attention. Patient-
1040 ly and tenaciously, Nixon earned himself a
1041 position as a senior commentator whom, in
1042 the end, the incumbent Presidents--be it
1043 Ronald Reagan, George Bush, or. Bill Clin-
1044 ton--found it to their benefit to consult.

1045 Nixon began to deliver public speech-
1046 es. I attended a few of them and marveled
1047 at how he used the occasion to overwhelm
1048 his audience. Pushing the lectern ostenta-
tiously out of the way, he would deliver an
1049 hour-long speech forcefully and extempo-
1050 raneously. Only the few Nixon cognoscenti
1051 in the audience understood just how much
1052 the sheer effort of it had cost him. They
1053 knew that, if it was an important group, he
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1055 would have written out the speech before-
1056 hand or at least made a full outline and
1057 probably rehearsed parts of it before a mir-
1058 ror. They were participating in an extraor-
1059 dinary feat of memory and self-discipline,
1060 not a spontaneous effusion.
1061 ▲ I saw Nixon for the last time in Janu-
1062 ary 1994 when I was one of the speakers in
1063 Yorba Linda at the launching of the Nixon
1064 Center, a new foreign policy think tank
1065 now located in Washington. Former key
1066 Cabinet members spoke briefly▲. Nixon
1067 concluded the event with a graceful speech
1068 to a large and friendly audience. At the
1069 lunch following, I toasted Nixon on behalf
1070 of his former Cabinet.
1071 A few months later, in April 1994,
1072 Richard Nixon died.
1073 We had lived together through periods
1074 of hope and of despair, through fleeting
1075 moments of triumph and long domestic
1076 travails. Nixon could be exasperating, mad-
1077 dening, even treacherous. But the overrid-
1078 ing feeling evoked by his death was one of
1079 grief. ▲ Paradoxical as it sounds, Nixon's
1080 endless machinations were apt to be for-
1081 given especially by those closest to him and
1082 therefore most likely to be damaged by his
1083 wiles because we were also familiar with
1084 the sweep of his aspiration and aware that
1085 his most tormenting battles were ultimate-
1086 ly with himself.
1087 Assaulted on all sides and torn within
1088 himself, Nixon had held on to a concept of

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L 1089 national honor, determined to prove that
1090 the greatest free nation had no right to ab-
dicate. With a romantic and even lofty no-
tion of the hero-statesman, he sought to
L 1092
1093 point a way to overcome his nation's oscil-
lation between overcommitment and with-
1094
1095 withdrawal. Though in the end he fell short of
L 1096 fulfilling his highest aspirations, Nixon's
L 1097 goals were worthy even when the execu-
tion was occasionally flawed.
1098
L 1099 This is why his funeral on April 27,
L 1100 1994, became a national occasion of
1101 mourning attended by all surviving Presi-
dents, including Bill Clinton. And my eulo-
gy came from the heart:
1102
1103
L 1104 "▲When I learned the final news, by
1105 then so expected yet so hard to accept, I felt
L 1106 a deep loss and a profound void. In the
1107 words of Shakespeare: 'He was a man, take
1108 him for all in all, I shall not look upon his
1109 like again.'...
1110 "...So let us now say goodbye to our gal-
lant friend. He stood on pinnacles that dis-
1111
1112 solved into precipices. He achieved greatly
1113 and suffered deeply. But he never gave up.
1114 In his solitude, he envisaged a new inter-
1115 national order that would reduce lingering
L 1116 enmities, strengthen historic friendships,
L 1117 and give new hope to mankind--a vision
1118 where dreams and possibilities conjoined.▲
L 1119 "Richard Nixon ended a war, and he
1120 advanced the vision of peace of his Quaker
L 1121 youth. He was devoted to his family, he
loved his country, and he considered ser-

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