Word: nixon
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Nixon dropped the subject after ten minutes and never returned to it. In retrospect I believe that we should have taken it more seriously. The bane of our military actions in Viet Nam throughout was their hesitancy and inconclusiveness...
...events, after the poolside strategy session at Camp David we flew back to the capital, and in the late afternoon Nixon invited John Mitchell to join Bebe Rebozo and me for a cruise down the Potomac on the presidential yacht Sequoia. The tensions of the grim military planning were transformed into exaltation by the liquid refreshments, to the point of some patriotic awkwardness when it was decided that everyone should stand at attention while the Sequoia passed Mount Vernon-a feat not managed by everybody with equal success. On the return to the White House, Nixon invited his convivial colleagues...
...Sunday evening, April 26, the President met with his principal NSC advisers-Rogers, Laird, Wheeler, CIA Director Richard Helms and me-in his working office in the Executive Office Building. Nixon tried to avoid a confrontation with his Secretaries of State and Defense by pretending that we were merely listening to a briefing. To my astonishment, both Rogers and Laird fell in with the charade that it was all a planning exercise, and did not take a position. They avoided the question of why Nixon would call his senior advisers together on a Sunday night to hear a contingency briefing...
...even this "double-barreled presidential imprimatur," as Kissinger calls it, settled things. Both Rogers and Laird were having second thoughts. Nixon agreed to think it over for 24 hours...
...South Vietnamese operation against the Fishhook. He noted that the Secretaries of State and Defense had opposed the use of American forces and that Dr. Kissinger was "leaning against" it. (This was no longer true; I had changed my view at least a week earlier. In my opinion Nixon lumped me with his two Cabinet members because he genuinely and generously wanted to shield me against departmental retaliation.) Nixon assured them he would assume full responsibility for the decision...