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Biographer claims tape shows Nixon prolonged war 1972 recording reveals president weighed election
by Open-Publishing - Sunday 8 August 2004Biographer claims tape shows Nixon prolonged war
1972 recording reveals president weighed election in policy talks
By CHRIS KAHN
ROANOKE, VA. - Three months before the 1972 presidential election, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger huddled together in the Oval Office to discuss when and how to get out of Vietnam.
Despite a massive bombing campaign during the spring and summer in the north, the Republican president had concluded that U.S.-backed "South Vietnam probably can never even survive anyway."
"We also have to realize, Henry, that winning an election is terribly important," Nixon told his national security adviser. "It’s terribly important this year, but can we have a viable foreign policy if a year from now or two years from now, North Vietnam gobbles up South Vietnam? That’s the real question."
The conversation, recorded by Nixon’s voice-activated taping system, was transcribed by the University of Virginia Miller Center of Public Affairs to be released today, the 30th anniversary of Nixon’s resignation.
Some historians, including biographer Jeffrey Kimball, consider it evidence that Nixon sacrificed American forces in his quest for a second term, keeping them engaged to ensure that the South Vietnamese government wouldn’t collapse before the election.
"It became increasingly apparent to them by 1972, if not before, that they couldn’t win the war, and they’d have to end it," said Kimball, who has compiled similar conversations and documents.
Kissinger, now a foreign policy consultant, said in an interview with The Associated Press that Kimball and other historians are focusing too much on an informal conversation that he said did not reflect Nixon’s policies.
"Every once in a while he got discouraged and said ’Chuck the whole thing,’ but that was never his policy," Kissinger said. (AP)