Word: nixonization
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...happened that I appeared for the first time on national television at the very end of Nixon's first term. The White House public relations people...
...favored resuming bombing over all of North Viet Nam, but using fighter-bombers over populated areas north of the 20th parallel. Haig favored B-52 attacks, especially north of the 20th parallel, on the ground that only a massive shock could bring Hanoi back to the conference table. Nixon accepted Haig's view. I went along with it-at first with slight reluctance, later with conviction. For Nixon and Haig were, I still believe, essentially right. We had only two choices: taking a massive, shocking step to end the war quickly, or letting matters drift...
...hurricane whose elemental force derived not only from the hatreds of the two Viet Nams and the hysteria of domestic critics, but also from a painful rift between Nixon and me [see box "Chagrined Cowboy"]. In early December, TIME magazine, with the best will in the world, added to earlier irritations by selecting Nixon and me as joint Men of the Year. I knew immediately how this would go down with my chief, whose limited capacity for forgiveness surely did not include being upstaged (and being given equal billing as Man of the Year with his assistant was tantamount...
When the bombing started, many journalists applied the very categories so assiduously fed out by White House p.r. people in the preceding weeks to cut me down to size: Nixon was identified with the "hard," I with the "softer" position. I did not indicate to any journalist that I had opposed the decision to use B-52s. But I also did little to dampen the speculation, partly out of a not very heroic desire to deflect the assault from my person. Some journalists may have mistaken my genuine depression about the seeming collapse of the peace efforts for a moral...
...Nixon was justifiably infuriated by assertions that I had opposed the bombing. I sensed that my period in office should draw to a close. If negotiations collapsed, I would resign immediately, assuming full responsibility. If they succeeded, I would see the settlement through and then resign toward the end of 1973. But for Watergate, I would have carried out this plan...