NIXON’S STRATEGY TO END THE WAR IN VIETNAM
Despite the volume of consequential domestic legislation during his administration, Nixon—unlike Johnson—never thought of domestic affairs as his first priority. Uppermost in his mind was the Vietnam War and international relations. Concerned with how his legacy as president would be viewed by future historians, Nixon focused his attention on ending the Vietnam War and making substantial progress in America’s Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union.
When Nixon began his presidency, he revealed his long promised “secret plan” for ending the war—summed up in the term Vietnamization. In practice this new policy meant that, going forward, the U.S. would require the South Vietnamese forces to shoulder a greater burden in fighting the Viet Cong. The plan involved the gradual withdrawal of over 500,000 American troops and their replacement with South Vietnamese soldiers who were to continue to receive funding, weapons, training, and air support through U.S. bombing campaigns. From the U.S. perspective, with South Vietnamese troops in charge, any defeat on the grounds would be that of the Vietnamese. At the same time that Nixon gradually withdrew troops, he increased bomb attacks on North Vietnam, hoping to weaken the enemy’s resolve to go on fighting.
Nixon calculated that drawing down troops in the conflict would reduce the number of American casualties. In doing so, he hoped to diminish Americans’ opposition to the war. Nixon also understood that the draft was a deeply unpopular policy that had been a major source of antiwar feelings throughout the country. For mostly political reasons, then, he sought to fulfill his campaign promise to end the draft as soon as possible. In fact, Nixon delayed action on this issue until a few years later. It was not until 1973—when the U.S. signed a peace treaty ending its involvement in the war—that the draft was finally abolished.
NIXON AND KISSINGER: NEW DIRECTIONS IN FOREIGN POLICY
Ending U.S. involvement in the Vietnam conflict (fighting between North and South Vietnamese forces continued until 1975) was without doubt one of Nixon’s greatest achievements. This goal had eluded three presidents and had brought about the abrupt ending of his predecessor’s political career. While Nixon cannot receive full credit for resolving the Vietnam dilemma, his flexible and shrewdly calculated maneuvers in the Cold War diplomatic arena help to explain why the war finally came to an end.
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In 1971 Nixon and his chief foreign policy advisor, Henry A. Kissinger, began pursuing a diplomatic strategy that came to be known as “Triangular Diplomacy.” Briefly, this was an attempt to exploit the longstanding rivalry between the Soviet Union and China to gain diplomatic advantages for the United States. Due to the strained relations between China and the USSR—tensions that had existed for many years prior to 1972—it became apparent to U.S. politicians like Nixon that these two major communist regimes could be divided. In fact, China had long refused to become fully integrated militarily and economically into the Soviet orbit in Europe and elsewhere. Recent border issues between the two communist powers further alienated them from one another. Given that both China and the USSR were supportive of the Viet Cong’s (formerly Viet Minh) struggle to unite Vietnam, the U.S. realized that it was proving exceedingly difficult to defend the corrupt and ineffectual South Vietnamese regime. One way of bringing both sides in the Vietnam civil war to the negotiating table was to reach agreement with one of the principal communist powers. The U.S.’s decision to move closer to China was therefore seen as a diplomatic move that could achieve two goals. One was to draw closer to China so that the U.S. could gain leverage in its relationship with the Soviet Union. The other was to use Chinese influence and power to help broker a cessation of hostilities in Vietnam. China’s able premier and former foreign minister, Zhou Enlai, was viewed by both Nixon and his shrewd National Security Advisor (and future Secretary of State), Henry A. Kissinger, as a person who could work with the U.S. in a joint effort to bring a negotiated settlement to the Vietnam conflict. Nixon was therefore prepared to meet with Mao in order to improve the chances of such an outcome.
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The diplomatic opening that allowed both China and the U.S. to develop closer ties began, not with formal negotiations, but with a friendly exchange of table tennis teams in 1971. For this reason, the process that led to a thawing of relations between communist China and America is usually referred to as “Ping Pong” diplomacy. After the U.S. table tennis team was invited to China to play their national team in April, 1971, Nixon seized the opportunity to begin opening diplomatic channels with the Beijing government. In July, the President secretly arranged for his National Security Advisor, Kissinger, to go to China and begin discussions with Chinese Premier, Zhou En lai. These meetings led to Nixon’s astonishing public announcement later that month that he would be traveling to China the following February.
Nixon’s trip to China went off as planned. At the time it seemed odd to Americans and the rest of the world that two ideological enemies who had never spoken to each other were warmly shaking hands and happily sharing photo opportunities with one another. However, as we have already pointed out, their meetings were above all designed to advance an important diplomatic agenda. Feuding with the Soviet Union and generally isolated from global affairs, Mao wanted to reach out to the U.S. in order to improve China’s foreign trade and establish better political and cultural relationships with other nations. For his part, Nixon hoped to use his visit to achieve the goals outlined in his strategy of “Triangular Diplomacy.” The most important diplomatic changes that resulted from this summit were summarized in a joint communication called the Shanghai Communiqué. Among other things, this official document outlined the main points of agreement between China and the U.S. that had been reached during Nixon’s visit. It was subsequently viewed as a major step towards normalizing relations—trade and cultural exchanges—between the two countries. What threatened to undo the progress being made towards reconciling former enemies was the vexing issue relating to Taiwan. Ever since the communists established their rule in 1949, the U.S. had refused to recognize the legitimacy of Mao’s government. Instead, Americans regarded the anti-communist Taiwanese regime headed by Chiang Kaishek as the “true” China. Now, some twenty three years later, the U.S. did not want to appear to the outside world that it was abandoning its pro-Western ally. Yet, in the end, Nixon agreed to recognize a “one China” policy which acknowledged the international legitimacy of the People’s Republic of China. Taiwan was from then on seen by the U.S. as part of China.
By securing an agreement with China, the U.S. strengthened its position vis-à-vis the Soviet Union in their Cold War rivalry. In the light of this new diplomatic development, the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev appeared more willing than before to cooperate with the U.S. on resolving a number of international issues, including the SALT or Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty negotiations. China also showed a willingness to diminish its aid to the North Vietnamese. This ultimately contributed to the peace process that finally ended the war in 1975.
NIXON’S DOWNFALL: WINNING AN ELECTION BUT LOSING THE PRESIDENCY
Perhaps Nixon’s biggest weakness was his tendency to bend the law and distort the truth in order to gain the upper hand over his political enemies. Throughout his political career there had been a pattern of this kind of behavior. As far back as 1950, Nixon was dubbed by his critics as “Tricky Dicky” for allegedly using false and malicious political ads to win the Senate election in California. Later, on the eve of the 1968 presidential elections, Nixon secretly interfered with President Johnson’s plans to end the Vietnam war. According to notes one of his political assistants recorded at the time, Nixon instructed one of his top aides, H.R. Haldeman, to go to Paris in order to “monkey wrench” or disrupt the peace talks that were then taking place in the French capital. The plan was to convince the South Vietnamese delegates that it was in their best interests to wait until Nixon had become president before signing a peace treaty. Though he adamantly denied his personal involvement in this affair, Nixon was widely viewed by his critics as the person who was behind the plot to thwart Johnson’s peace-making efforts. Nixon’s biggest blunder, however, was to persist in this type of behavior after he became president in 1968. During the 1972 presidential election campaign, Nixon was determined to defeat his opponents by any means, even if this meant breaking the law.
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When he took office in January, 1969, Nixon made it his personal mission to punish all of his past and present political enemies. Using the powers of the presidency, he began instructing his advisers and close associates to do all they could to attack his opponents. Two of his principal targets were the so-called liberal press and the academic community. According to a recorded White House conversation made in December 1972, Nixon told his security advisors never to forget “the press is the enemy, the press is the enemy. The establishment is the enemy, the professors are the enemy, the professors are the enemy. Write that on a blackboard 100 times.” Throughout the time he served as president, Nixon spent countless hours using his powers to investigate his predecessors—John F. Kennedy, for example—and current critics in order to prove that they had in the past or were currently unfairly maligning him. Nixon repeatedly denied ever conducing such a smear campaign during his time in office. He also refused to admit that he was abusing his presidential powers in order to silence his critics. Yet, the 198 hours of recordings (popularly known as the Nixon tapes) Nixon secretly kept of his conversations with others who visited him in the White House, and the 90,000 pages of preserved documents relating to his presidency tell a very different story. As one historian later noted, it was ironic that “one of the most secretive administrations in American history, will over time become the best chronicled because of the tapes.” In fact, it was Nixon’s obsession with documenting his own covert activities that would prove to be his undoing. The political scandal that led to Nixon’s downfall in 1974 is known as the Watergate scandal. In what would become the most notorious political affair of that era, the Watergate burglary and subsequent cover-up began during the 1972 presidential election campaign.
WATERGATE PHASE I: THE PLOT REVEALED
In the early morning hours of June 17, 1972, five men working for Nixon’s re-election campaign broke into the Democratic Party’s national headquarters in the Watergate building complex in Washington DC The burglars, who had entered the offices in order to repair a bugging device they had earlier installed to spy on the Democratic Party, were caught in the course of their illegal operation and arrested at the scene. Both Nixon and his aides immediately denied that they had anything to do with the break-in. Furthermore, to conceal any connections that the White House had to the hapless culprits (four of the men had been active in the CIA), Nixon and others began covering up their role in the affair. While news of the break-in aroused a great deal of suspicion about whether the President was in fact involved in an attempt to undermine the election process, the scandal died down quickly. Several months later, Nixon handily defeated his Democratic opponent, George McGovern, in a landslide victory. Winning over sixty percent of the popular vote and the Electoral votes of every state except Massachusetts, Nixon appeared to have escaped any damaging fallout from the Watergate incident.
Over the course of the next two years, however, evidence relating to the Watergate break-in began to surface that clearly indicated that the Nixon White House had deliberately deceived the American public about the President’s role in this affair. In April 1973 a grand jury and an ongoing Senate investigation uncovered information linking White House aides to the Watergate burglary attempt. Nixon insisted that he had no knowledge of either the break-in or cover-up. Pressured by members of both the Democratic and Republican parties, Nixon appointed a special prosecutor, Archibald Cox, to conduct an independent investigation into the matter.
In the meantime, a Senate investigating committee— popularly known as the Senate Watergate Committee— headed by Democratic Senator Sam Irwin continued interviewing various White House employees. The testimony of the White House counsel John Dean proved to be explosive. Under oath, Dean produced a narrative about the various projects he was told to undertake by the president which involved harassing Nixon’s enemies. He also revealed information that implicated the president in the Watergate cover-up. From this point on, Nixon did all he could to prevent both the Senate Watergate Committee and the special prosecutor Cox from obtaining any further evidence about White House involvement in the Watergate case. Nixon’s blatant attempts to prevent Cox from obtaining taped conversations that had occurred in the Oval Office, further undermined the president’s credibility. With each passing week more disclosures about Nixon’s wrongdoings, including his misuse of federal funds and tax evasion, created an atmosphere of uncertainty in the nation’s capital. After Nixon’s vice president Spiro Agnew got caught up in a separate scandal involving bribes he had taken while governor of Maryland, he was forced to resign, leaving the president more vulnerable to attacks from his critics.
Finally, with the accumulation of evidence and possible charges of illegal behavior mounting steadily, Nixon faced the prospect of being thrown out of office. An impeachment investigation began in the House of Representatives in the summer of 1974. In July, the House Judiciary Committee began listing the various charges that could be filed for an impeachment trial. The committee eventually decided that three charges, the obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt for Congress would be passed on to the House for a vote. Before a vote was taken, however, the Supreme Court ordered the president to hand over all White House tapes that were relevant to the Watergate investigation. Nixon himself then released transcripts of some of these which clearly implicated him in an attempt to obstruct the FBI’s investigation of the initial break-in. The prospect of undergoing an impeachment trial and then criminal indictment was too much for Nixon to bear. On August 8, 1974 he went before a national television audience and announced his resignation. The Nixon presidency was now over.
WATERGATE AFTERMATH: LESSONS OF A FAILED PRESIDENT
The Watergate scandal had presented the nation with a grave constitutional crisis that tested the separation of powers. Ultimately, Nixon’s abuse of his powers significantly undermined the “Imperial Presidency” of the postwar years. The political drama that unfolded tainted the office of the President, especially since the investigation revealed the extent of disdain and resentment Nixon had felt toward antiwar protesters, Democrats, and African Americans. Vice President Spiro Agnew’s conviction for corruption and his resignation only added to the crisis. The new Vice President Gerald Ford from Michigan was not part of Watergate, but disappointed many Americans when, as a new president, he pardoned his predecessor for all crimes related to Watergate.
At first, it appeared that Republicans were significantly damaged by the Watergate scandal. In the short term, that was borne out by the election of the Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976. But in the long run, Watergate sent a message to many Americans that the federal government could not be trusted. Along with the bitter struggles, tensions, and violence of the sixties, Watergate contributed to the disappointments of a decade that had initially seemed to offer hope for a fairer society, a safer world, and a better government.
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