Part 9 (1/2)

As Johnson worked on diplomacy, Bill Moyers was on the horn, firming up a closing-weekend tour of compet.i.tive congressional races from one end of the country to the next, in case there was capital to reap from the trip. LBJ would be returning the next day armed with a communique outlining the agreements arrived at in Manila. If he could claim a dramatic breakthrough for peace, he might dash every hope Nixon had of claiming credit for a Republican sweep. Nixon tossed and turned, unable to sleep at the thought. Soon, his aides weren't sleeping either. At 4:29 a.m. Nixon woke them up so they could start game-planning their countermoves.

Thence to Albuquerque, thence to Arkansas, then to Indiana, where Nixon said the same thing he always said in Indiana: ”How can you have your mother be from Indiana and not be a fighting Republican?”

He was in Lodi, New Jersey, when Bill Safire, back in Manhattan, learned the Manila Communique had been released. No literary critic ever read text with the attentiveness Safire studied that entente between President Johnson and Prime Minister Ky. Just as Nixon worried, it held out the boilerplate promise that peace might soon be at hand. It also contained a restatement of the ”graduated pressure” doctrine under which America was fighting the war: that ”as the military and subversive forces of North Vietnam are withdrawn, infiltration ceases, and the level of violence thus subsides,” allied forces might be withdrawn-for continued action ”must depend for its size and duration on the intensity and duration of the Communist aggression.”

This was boilerplate. But as William Safire studied that language, he thought he saw an opening-something to light the fuse: if they fudged the words just right, they could spin this as a mutual mutual withdrawal, a sort of surrender. He started banging out notes, arranging for Len Garment to drive him out to New Jersey, and proposed they release some sort of open letter on the Manila Communique. The Old Man loved the idea of a public statement; it was sure to grab the press. But Nixon knew the flack's art better than Safire did. He told him an ”open letter” would be dismissed as gimmicky. This was about looking statesmanlike. He sent Safire back to the drawing board and arranged for them all to get together in two days at 20 Broad Street to go over the draft. In an aboard-plane interview with Tom Wicker, Nixon called for the formation of a war cabinet along the British models of 1917 and 1940, ”representatives of both political parties to develop a strategy for victory in Vietnam within the next year” to keep it from becoming a ”devastating political issue” in the presidential campaign. The American people would never ”tolerate a long, endless war.” So without a ”light at the end of the tunnel,” Republicans would be ”grievously tempted” to run on a peace platform, undercutting Johnson's hard-won commitment to Vietnam. withdrawal, a sort of surrender. He started banging out notes, arranging for Len Garment to drive him out to New Jersey, and proposed they release some sort of open letter on the Manila Communique. The Old Man loved the idea of a public statement; it was sure to grab the press. But Nixon knew the flack's art better than Safire did. He told him an ”open letter” would be dismissed as gimmicky. This was about looking statesmanlike. He sent Safire back to the drawing board and arranged for them all to get together in two days at 20 Broad Street to go over the draft. In an aboard-plane interview with Tom Wicker, Nixon called for the formation of a war cabinet along the British models of 1917 and 1940, ”representatives of both political parties to develop a strategy for victory in Vietnam within the next year” to keep it from becoming a ”devastating political issue” in the presidential campaign. The American people would never ”tolerate a long, endless war.” So without a ”light at the end of the tunnel,” Republicans would be ”grievously tempted” to run on a peace platform, undercutting Johnson's hard-won commitment to Vietnam.

To the president of the United States, these words were truly devious. Nixon was threatening him: make me your foreign-policy partner, or I'll blow the whole Vietnam mess sky-high. That was what Johnson learned when his plane arrived in the United States: that Richard Nixon was claiming a right to act as copresident.

On November 1, Nixon's syndicated column sought to disa.s.sociate him from the backlash once and for all. He wrote that he used to used to think the Republicans would do well in the South this year. Now, however, ”my prediction in the South must be revised-downward. The reason is that the Democratic Party-in a desperate throw of the dice-has gambled upon racism, demagoguery, and backlash to win for it what the caliber of its candidates cannot. The gamble will pay off in some backwaters of the South. But the Democratic Party has made a fatal mistake. It has risked the next generation, just to win the next election.” think the Republicans would do well in the South this year. Now, however, ”my prediction in the South must be revised-downward. The reason is that the Democratic Party-in a desperate throw of the dice-has gambled upon racism, demagoguery, and backlash to win for it what the caliber of its candidates cannot. The gamble will pay off in some backwaters of the South. But the Democratic Party has made a fatal mistake. It has risked the next generation, just to win the next election.”

That was brazen. The Republican National Committee had produced a film to be shown the Sunday before the voting called What's Going on Here?, What's Going on Here?, a jagged a.s.semblage of news clips that depicted America under Lyndon Johnson as an orgy of crime, riots, and caskets coming home from Vietnam, interspersed with clips of the president's soaring affirmations of the Great Society. Some Republicans were trying to get it canceled as a tasteless embarra.s.sment. Conservatives were complaining it wasn't hard-hitting enough. a jagged a.s.semblage of news clips that depicted America under Lyndon Johnson as an orgy of crime, riots, and caskets coming home from Vietnam, interspersed with clips of the president's soaring affirmations of the Great Society. Some Republicans were trying to get it canceled as a tasteless embarra.s.sment. Conservatives were complaining it wasn't hard-hitting enough.

On the Thursday morning before the election Pat Buchanan announced the imminent release of a doc.u.ment called ”Appraisal of Manila,” and the clerks at 20 Broad Street were scurrying madly to get it out by the deadline. In the afternoon, Lyndon Johnson stepped up to the podium in the White House pressroom to announce that his doctor recommended he undergo surgery in fifteen to eighteen days to fix a vocal polyp and to repair a defect at the site of his gallbladder incision from 1965 (the one whose scar a caricaturist imagined looked just like Vietnam). The White House doctor, he further noted, recommended ”a reduced schedule of activity in preparation for the operation.” He would be leaving the next day for Texas. There would be no final-weekend campaign tour. The stress would be bad for his surgery.

This was the confirmation: the Democrats were utterly without hope on Tuesday. Experienced observers had long ago learned to read the president's entrails like Greek oracles, seeking in his changing medical humors clues to his political fears. Whenever they were harshest, some genuinely debilitating psychosomatic illness always seemed to be popping up. On the eve of his first Senate election, when he won by the stolen votes of a single precinct, it was a kidney stone. There was another kidney stone in 1955, a heart attack later that same year. This time the procedure looked suspiciously elective. ”It's not an emergency in any way,” military surgeon George G. Burkley told the press after the president withdrew-just some routine maintenance of a protrusion that ”has enlarged somewhat in the last three weeks,” which ”indicates against a weekend trip.”

What also indicated against a weekend trip, of course, was the necessity of avoiding presidential a.s.sociation with a bloodbath of a congressional election. He was always coming down with symptoms like these when no choice was a good choice.

Meanwhile, at 20 Broad Street, they struggled to complete their ”Appraisal of Manila.”

”Do you think it will get any sort of play in the papers?” the Old Man asked the flack.

Not if they didn't finish it in time for the morning papers' deadlines, Safire replied.

At that, Nixon struck an idea: ”Do you suppose they would run the text in the New York Times New York Times?”

He referred to the Times Times's practice, as ”newspaper of record,” of running, in toto, papers of state, crucial public doc.u.ments, and speeches of paramount importance.

”That's what I had been thinking about, too.”

Get his ”Appraisal” printed there, and it would make Nixon more than some carping has-been political hack. It would make him the president's equal. It would set up a public showdown, in a fight they had jerry-built to win.

Safire got to work. He was acquainted with Harrison Salisbury, the Times Times's great foreign correspondent, now a.s.sistant managing editor. Safire wrote what happened next in his memoirs: ”I sold as hard as I ever sold anything in my life.” The Times Times had been neglecting Nixon, he flacked (that was absurd). It would be had been neglecting Nixon, he flacked (that was absurd). It would be partisan partisan not to give Nixon the s.p.a.ce (yet more absurd). Safire appealed to Salisbury's news sense (more absurd still: if its importance was its newsworthiness, a front-page article about it would do just as well). not to give Nixon the s.p.a.ce (yet more absurd). Safire appealed to Salisbury's news sense (more absurd still: if its importance was its newsworthiness, a front-page article about it would do just as well).

Finally, Safire pulled out his final argument. He appealed to the halcyon memories they shared of Moscow, in 1959, when Salisbury had been the pool reporter for the Kitchen Debate, and Safire was flacking the American exhibition.

Salisbury reminded Safire that for him to even consider the request the appraisal would have to be submitted before the afternoon deadline. If so, he promised to read and consider it.

A gaggle of reporters gathered in the Nixon, Mudge antechamber awaiting the promised doc.u.ment. Within unfolded a scene out of screwball comedy. Three secretaries typed up separate pages. Safire hurtled from station to station making corrections. Messenger boys hovered, awaiting instructions. Buchanan calmed the a.s.sembled scribes, promising them they'd get their copy in time for deadline. Safire s.n.a.t.c.hed pages out of the secretaries' typewriters as they finished each one. Pages flew. Staplers clomped. clomped. Buchanan dealt forth finished pages, announcing that the appraisal had eight points. Buchanan dealt forth finished pages, announcing that the appraisal had eight points.

There were only seven on the pages. Safire later wondered whether they had numbered it wrong or forgot to put in one of the paragraphs.

The lead article in the November 4 New York Times New York Times began, ”Richard Nixon said yesterday that the recent Manila Conference achieved nothing toward achieving peace in Vietnam.” It appeared right next to ”President Faces Minor Surgery; Calls Off Tour.” began, ”Richard Nixon said yesterday that the recent Manila Conference achieved nothing toward achieving peace in Vietnam.” It appeared right next to ”President Faces Minor Surgery; Calls Off Tour.”

The jump on Chapter One led to Nixon's entire twenty-five-hundred-word statement. ”The effect of this mutual withdrawal would be to leave the fate of South Vietnam to the Viet Cong and the South Vietnamese Army.... Communist victory would most certainly be the result of 'mutual withdrawal.'”

Nixon was now, for the world to see, Lyndon Johnson's equal: the shadow president of the United States, accusing the president of selling out his own policies in Vietnam. It was a lie: the words in quotation marks in Nixon's a.s.sessment, mutual withdrawal, mutual withdrawal, did not appear in the communique. It did not appear in the communique. It wasn't wasn't a call for mutual withdrawal. The language negotiated in Manila in fact specified that America could keep its troops in South Vietnam a call for mutual withdrawal. The language negotiated in Manila in fact specified that America could keep its troops in South Vietnam six months six months after the last enemy troops withdrew. Both Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon kept a careful eye on the polls, and they both knew that even where the war was most unpopular, withdrawal was the most poisonous option you could mention. It made America look cowardly. The after the last enemy troops withdrew. Both Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon kept a careful eye on the polls, and they both knew that even where the war was most unpopular, withdrawal was the most poisonous option you could mention. It made America look cowardly. The Times Times had sacralized a Nixon con job. The fuse had been lit. And now, the fireworks began. had sacralized a Nixon con job. The fuse had been lit. And now, the fireworks began.

Johnson yowled when he saw the morning's Times: Times: ”Don't they know it's all a lot of politics!?” ”Don't they know it's all a lot of politics!?”

He was ready to hit back. His His Nixon was still the Nixon of the Last Press Conference: the most vulnerable man in American politics. He Nixon was still the Nixon of the Last Press Conference: the most vulnerable man in American politics. He wanted wanted to run against Nixon-not Romney, not Rockefeller, not Percy. He couldn't lose. Nothing united Democrats like bas.h.i.+ng Richard Nixon. So he would build Nixon up. to run against Nixon-not Romney, not Rockefeller, not Percy. He couldn't lose. Nothing united Democrats like bas.h.i.+ng Richard Nixon. So he would build Nixon up.

The president, supposedly too sickly to travel, was apparently healthy enough to stride into a 10 a.m. press conference in the East Room to take questions. Someone asked whether the strenuous trip to Asia had contributed to his ill health. The president fidgeted out a lie: ”I didn't get weary.” Then, the question that gave him the opportunity he was looking for: ”Mr. President, in your estimation, will the outcome of the elections have any influence on the Communist willingness, or att.i.tude, toward continuing the war in Vietnam?”

He said he didn't think so, then expanded the scope: ”There is no one that I know of that thinks there is going to be any great change in the Senate. Although my delightful friend, Senator Dirksen, optimistic as he is, feels that there may be at least a gain of seventy-five, I notice the chronic campaigners, like Vice President Nixon, have begun to hedge and pull in their horns.”

Nudges. Murmurs. In the theater of Was.h.i.+ngton Kabuki, this was significant: the president had called out Nixon by name.

He returned to the subject while las.h.i.+ng out at a question from Chalmers Johnson of the Post, Post, who had the guts to ask, ”Does the cancellation of your big campaign trip mean that you do not intend to do anything to help Democratic candidates before the election, such as one little speech in Texas, or maybe a TV pep talk?” who had the guts to ask, ”Does the cancellation of your big campaign trip mean that you do not intend to do anything to help Democratic candidates before the election, such as one little speech in Texas, or maybe a TV pep talk?”

The heavy-lidded presidential eyes fixed intently. ”First, we don't have any plans, so when you don't have plans, you don't cancel plans.” He snapped, ”We get invited to most of the states. In the last six weeks we have been invited to forty-seven.... But we have not accepted those invitations.” we don't have any plans, so when you don't have plans, you don't cancel plans.” He snapped, ”We get invited to most of the states. In the last six weeks we have been invited to forty-seven.... But we have not accepted those invitations.”

Then, he weaseled. ”We do do contact the people who extend them. We do investigate in some instances going there.” contact the people who extend them. We do investigate in some instances going there.”

He couldn't hide that Secret Service men had scouted secure routes for at least eleven sites, including a lunchtime parade in Chicago, that 125 rooms were on hold at the Great Northern Hotel in Billings, that bands had been reserved in Portland.

”The people of this country ought to know that all these canceled plans primarily involve the imagination of people who phrase sentences and write columns and have to report what they hope or what they imagine.”

He was losing his cool: a Last Press Conference of his own.

He worked over Nixon some more: ”It is his problem to find fault with his country and with his government during a period of October every two years.... He never did really recognize and realize what was going on when he had an official position in the government. You remember what President Eisenhower said, that if you would give him a week or so he would figure out what he was doing. Since then he had made a temporary stand in California, and you saw what action the people took out there. Then he crossed the country to New York. Then he went back to San Francisco, hoping that he would be in the wings, available if Goldwater stumbled. But Goldwater didn't stumble. Now he is out talking about a conference that obviously he is not well prepared on or informed about.”

What was the conference about? Figuring out a way to declare victory and go home, Johnson implied. That ”if the violence would cease from the standpoint of our adversary, the allies would gladly reciprocate by withdrawing their troops, and that they would withdraw them in a period of not to exceed six months.... We think we did that, until some of the politicians got mixed up in it and started trying not to clarify it but to confuse it.... Mr. Nixon doesn't serve his country well by trying to leave that kind of impression,” Johnson wound up with particular vitriol, ”in the hope that he can pick up a precinct or two, or a ward or two.”

No wonder the president was angry. What he was accusing Richard Nixon of, and credibly, was working to make it harder to end the Vietnam War.

But to the untutored public the technicalities were cryptic. The message that was received was of a presidential rant against a political rival. ”Says Republican Does Not 'Serve Country Well,'” ran the second line of the New York Times New York Times headline. It made the president look like a McCarthyite, three days before the election. Which was exactly as Richard Nixon intended it: the old jujitsu at work. Johnson saw himself as pouncing on a mistake of Nixon's. That meant the mark had taken the bait. Johnson presumed the media would amplify his ridicule into one more political obituary of Richard Nixon. Instead he found himself cast as Goliath to d.i.c.k Nixon's David. It went back to old Jerry Voorhis, to the ”Pink Lady,” Helen Gahagan Douglas: let them pounce on your ”mistake,” then garner pity as you wriggle free by making the enemy look unduly aggressive. Then you inspire a strange sort of protective love among voters whose wounds of resentment grow alongside your performance of being wounded. Your enemies appear to die of their own hand, never of your own. Which makes you stronger. headline. It made the president look like a McCarthyite, three days before the election. Which was exactly as Richard Nixon intended it: the old jujitsu at work. Johnson saw himself as pouncing on a mistake of Nixon's. That meant the mark had taken the bait. Johnson presumed the media would amplify his ridicule into one more political obituary of Richard Nixon. Instead he found himself cast as Goliath to d.i.c.k Nixon's David. It went back to old Jerry Voorhis, to the ”Pink Lady,” Helen Gahagan Douglas: let them pounce on your ”mistake,” then garner pity as you wriggle free by making the enemy look unduly aggressive. Then you inspire a strange sort of protective love among voters whose wounds of resentment grow alongside your performance of being wounded. Your enemies appear to die of their own hand, never of your own. Which makes you stronger.

”He hit us! Jesus did he hit us!” Pat Buchanan yelped elatedly at the Old Man as he boarded an old rattletrap propeller plane in New York for a campaign flight to New England. ”You'll never believe how he hit us!”

All that needling, all that playing to Johnson's deepest anxieties, had paid off: a providential presidential loss of control, a huge strategic blunder. ”The only time to lose your temper in politics is when it is deliberate,” Zen master Nixon told a friend in 1953. ”The greatest error you can make in politics is to get mad.” Jules Witcover wrote that this was, ”in the memory of veteran reporters, the most brutal verbal bludgeoning ever administered from the White House by Johnson, or any of the Presidents for that matter, to a leader of the opposition party.” That testified to Nixon's mastery, too. Now the pundits were calling him leader of the opposition party. leader of the opposition party. The comeback could not be denied. Everyone was watching him now. He was running against the president. The comeback could not be denied. Everyone was watching him now. He was running against the president.

Nixon wasn't finished yet. Since the tirade included a proper name, the press would be extending him the parliamentary courtesy of the right of response, as Johnson more than anyone else on earth should have known they would. Mike Wallace of CBS secured the use of a Learjet that let him beat Nixon to the airport in Manchester to record his observations as he got off the plane. Nixon piously intoned what a shame it was that Johnson had ”broken the bipartisan line on Vietnam policy.” He must have been ”tired.” Of this ”shocking display of temper” on matters that must be discussed ”like gentlemen,” he said, ”I regret that the administration chose to reduce this debate to a personal level, and I will not travel that road with them.”

Then, speaking at the armory that every presidential candidate tried to book for his concluding rally for New Hamps.h.i.+re's first-in-the-nation primary, Nixon said, ”Like every other American I trust that the president's health problems are minor [Like every other American, I do not trust the president], and I regret that he could not exert his energies to the fullest in behalf of his own party in this national campaign.” (Maybe it was time for the president to retire?) Down at the LBJ Ranch, press secretary George Christopher said, ”I don't think the president showed any temper or personal attack toward Nixon. I think the president is in as good humor as he ever has been in his life. I know for a fact he rather likes Mr. Nixon personally.”

That was only stepping in the, er, credibility gap a little deeper.

Nixon said, ”Is every public figure who rationally questions the means to achieve goals in Vietnam to become the victim of a presidential attack to silence his dissent? More important than President Johnson or Richard Nixon are the lives of thousands of American men fighting in Vietnam. I believe that the current Johnson policies resign us to a war that could last five years and produce more American casualties than Korea.”

Resign! Korea!

Nixon was really on a roll now. He concluded his latest statement by urging the nation to watch him on TV on Sunday, where he would ”lay it on the line” and ”tell the president and the country what I believe is wrong with the means we are using to achieve our goals in Vietnam.”

Both parties had been provided a half hour of TV time on Sunday afternoon on NBC. The RNC had planned to show the scurrilous doc.u.mentary What's Going on Here? What's Going on Here? But that never suited Nixon's purposes at all: publicizing the nationalization of the election around the issue of anti-Negro backlash was the opposite of his master plan. For over a week now his ensigns had been strategizing about how they could get Nixon on TV instead. RNC chair Bliss resisted: he didn't want to give any one 1968 contender a leg up. They even considered one of his patented telephone campaigns to create a ”spontaneous,” ”gra.s.sroots” groundswell. Then came the Johnson blowup-and Nixon prevailed. House Republican Conference chairman Mel Laird announced that the film would be withdrawn out of respect for President Johnson's illness, and that, instead, Nixon would give a speech in the time slot. The Republicans also said they would make copies of But that never suited Nixon's purposes at all: publicizing the nationalization of the election around the issue of anti-Negro backlash was the opposite of his master plan. For over a week now his ensigns had been strategizing about how they could get Nixon on TV instead. RNC chair Bliss resisted: he didn't want to give any one 1968 contender a leg up. They even considered one of his patented telephone campaigns to create a ”spontaneous,” ”gra.s.sroots” groundswell. Then came the Johnson blowup-and Nixon prevailed. House Republican Conference chairman Mel Laird announced that the film would be withdrawn out of respect for President Johnson's illness, and that, instead, Nixon would give a speech in the time slot. The Republicans also said they would make copies of What's Going on Here? What's Going on Here? available to TV stations that wished to available to TV stations that wished to report report on the controversy. Which was all rather brilliant. You have to wonder how much Nixon had to do with that play-a reprise of the famous 1964 ”daisy commercial” affair, whose images, so devastating to Goldwater, appeared only once as a commercial, and several more times for free on the evening news. on the controversy. Which was all rather brilliant. You have to wonder how much Nixon had to do with that play-a reprise of the famous 1964 ”daisy commercial” affair, whose images, so devastating to Goldwater, appeared only once as a commercial, and several more times for free on the evening news.