The Great Silent Majority: Nixon's 1969 Speech on Vietnamization 1623491444, 9781623491444

Table of contents :
Front Cover
Contents
Acknowledgments
“The Great Silent Majority,” November 3, 1969
1. Introduction: Nixon, Vietnam, and the Cultural Context
2. A Short History of US Involvement in the Wars in Vietnam
3. Nixon’s War Rhetoric
4. Nixon’s Rhetorical Critics
5. Conclusion: The Power of Nixon’s Rhetoric
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

The Great Silent Majority

Library of Presidential Rhetoric

The Great Silent Majority

Nixon’s 1969 Speech on Vietnamization

karlyn kohrs campbell

Texas A&M University Press  •  College Station

Copyright © 2014 by Karlyn Kohrs Campbell First edition Manufactured in the United States of America All rights reserved This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). Binding materials have been chosen for durability.

Frontispiece: Richard M. Nixon, White House portrait, July 8, 1971 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Campbell, Karlyn Kohrs, author. The great silent majority : Nixon’s 1969 speech on Vietnamization / Karlyn Kohrs Campbell. — First edition pages cm. — (Library of presidential rhetoric) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-62349-034-8 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-62349-035-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-62349-144-4 (e-book) 1. Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous), 1913–1994. Great silent majority. 2. Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous), 1913–1994—Oratory.  3. Speeches, addresses, etc., American.  4. Vietnam War, 1961–1975—Protest movements. 5. Vietnam War, 1961–1975—Public opinion.  6. Presidents—United States— Messages.  7. Vietnam—Relations—United States.  8. United States— Relations—Vietnam. I. Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous), 1913–1994. Great silent majority.  II. Title.  III. Series: Library of presidential rhetoric. J82.E21C35  2014 959.704'31—dc23 2013030345

Contents Acknowledgments  vii “The Great Silent Majority,” November 3, 1969  1 c ha p ters 1. Introduction: Nixon, Vietnam, and the Cultural Context  14 2. A Short History of US Involvement in the Wars in Vietnam  22 3. Nixon’s War Rhetoric  41 4. Nixon’s Rhetorical Critics  72 5. Conclusion: The Power of Nixon’s Rhetoric  97

Notes  101 Bibliography  127 Index  137

Acknowledgments This book is dedicated to my husband, Paul Newell Campbell, whose encouragement and support were essential to my growth as a scholar and critic. What became this book originated when Larry Moss, the director of news programming at KPFK-Pacifica Radio, Los Angeles, invited me to present an analysis of a current speech as the editorial segment of their hour-long evening newscast. In January of 1970, the subject of my editorial was Richard Nixon’s November 3, 1969, speech. I am deeply grateful to KPFK for the opportunity to be a public rhetorical critic and for their lively and responsive audience. I appreciate the support of my present and former students who have listened to parts of this book and for the good fellowship of my colleagues in Communication Studies at the University of Minnesota who make my life as a teacher deeply satisfying.

“The Great Silent Majority” November 3, 1969

Pres. Richard M. Nixon

Good evening my fellow Americans.1 Tonight I want to talk to you on a subject of deep concern to all Americans and to many people in all parts of the world—the war in Vietnam. I believe that one of the reasons for the deep division about Vietnam is that many Americans have lost confidence in what their government has told them about our policy. The American people cannot and should not be asked to support a policy which involves the overriding issues of war and peace unless they know the truth about that policy. Tonight, therefore, I would like to answer some of the questions that I know are on the minds of many of you listening to me. How and why did America get involved in Vietnam in the first place? How has this Administration changed the policy of the previous Administration? What has really happened in negotiations in Paris and on the battlefront in Vietnam? What choices do we have if we are to end the war? What are the prospects for peace? Now, let me begin by describing the situation I found when I was inaugurated on January 20. 1. The war had been going on for four years. 2. 31,000 Americans had been killed in action. 3. The training program for the South Vietnamese was behind schedule

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4. 540,000 Americans were in Vietnam with no plans to reduce the number. 5. No progress had been made at the negotiations in Paris and the United States had not put forth a comprehensive peace proposal. 6. The war was causing deep division at home and criticism from many of our friends as well as our enemies abroad. In view of these circumstances, there were some who urged that I end the war at once by ordering the immediate withdrawal of all American forces. From a political standpoint, this would have been a popular and easy course to follow. After all, we became involved in the war while my predecessor was in office. I could blame the defeat, which would be the result of my action, on him and come out as a peacemaker. Some put it to me quite bluntly: This was the only way to avoid allowing Johnson’s war to become Nixon’s war. But I had a greater obligation than to think only of the years of my Administration and of the next election. I had to think of the effect of my decision on the next generation and on the future of peace and freedom in America and the world. Let us all understand that the question before us is not whether some Americans are for peace and some Americans are against peace. The question at issue is not whether Johnson’s war becomes Nixon’s war. The great question is how can we win America’s peace? Well, let us turn now to the fundamental question: Why and how did the United States become involved in Vietnam in the first place? Fifteen years ago North Vietnam, with the logistical support of Communist China and the Soviet Union, launched a campaign to impose a Communist government on South Vietnam by instigating and supporting a revolution. In response to the request of the government of South Vietnam, President Eisenhower sent economic aid and military equipment to [  ]

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assist the people of South Vietnam in their efforts to prevent a Communist takeover. Seven years ago, President Kennedy sent 16,000 military personnel to Vietnam as combat advisors. Four years ago, President Johnson sent American combat forces to South Vietnam. Now many believe that President Johnson’s decision to send American combat forces to South Vietnam was wrong. And many others, I among them, have been strongly critical of the way the war has been conducted. But the question facing us today is—now that we are in the war, what is the best way to end it? In January I could only conclude that the precipitate withdrawal of all American forces from Vietnam would be a disaster not only for South Vietnam but for the United States and for the cause of peace. For the South Vietnamese, our precipitate withdrawal would inevitably allow the Communists to repeat the massacres which followed their takeover in the North fifteen years before. They then murdered more than fifty thousand people, and hundreds of thousands more died in slave labor camps. We saw a prelude of what would happen in South Vietnam when the Communists entered the city of Hue last year. During their brief rule there, there was a bloody reign of terror in which 3,000 civilians were clubbed, shot to death, and buried in mass graves. With the sudden collapse of our support, these atrocities of Hue would become the nightmare of the entire nation—and particularly for the million and a half Catholic refugees who fled to South Vietnam when the Communists took over in the North. For the United States, this first defeat in our nation’s history would result in a collapse of confidence in American leadership, not only in Asia, but throughout the world. Three American Presidents have recognized the great stakes involved in Vietnam and understood what had to be done. In 1963, President Kennedy, with his characteristic eloquence and clarity, said: “We want to see a stable government there carrying on  [  ]

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the struggle to maintain its national independence. We believe strongly in that. We’re not going to withdraw from that effort. In my opinion for us to withdraw from that effort would mean a collapse not only of South Vietnam, but Southeast Asia, so we’re going to stay there.”2 President Eisenhower and President Johnson expressed the same conclusion during their terms in office. For the future of peace, precipitate withdrawal would be a disaster of immense magnitude. A nation cannot remain great if it betrays its allies and lets down its friends. Our defeat and humiliation in South Vietnam without question would promote recklessness in the councils of those great powers who have not yet abandoned their goals of world conquest. This would spark violence wherever our commitments help maintain the peace—in the Middle East, in Berlin, eventually even in the Western Hemisphere. Ultimately, this would cost more lives. It would not bring peace. It would bring more war. For these reasons, I rejected the recommendation that I should end the war by immediately withdrawing all of our forces. I chose instead to change American policy on both the negotiating front and the battlefront. In order to end a war fought on many fronts, I initiated a pursuit for peace on many fronts. In a television speech on May 14, in a speech before the United Nations, on a number of other occasions I set forth our peace proposals in great detail.3 We have offered the complete withdrawal of all outside forces within one year. We have proposed a ceasefire under international supervision. We have offered free elections under international supervision with the Communists participating in the organization and conduct of the elections as an organized political force. And the Saigon Government has pledged to accept the result of the election. We have not put forth our proposals on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. [  ]

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We have indicated that we are willing to discuss the proposals that have been put forth by the other side. We have declared that anything is negotiable except the right of the people of South Vietnam to determine their own future. At the Paris peace conference, Ambassador [Henry Cabot] Lodge has demonstrated our flexibility and good faith in forty public meetings. Hanoi has refused even to discuss our proposals. They demand our unconditional acceptance of their terms, which are that we withdraw all American forces immediately and unconditionally and that we overthrow the government of South Vietnam as we leave. We have not limited our peace initiatives to public forums and public statements. I recognized in January that a long and bitter war like this usually cannot be settled in a public forum. That is why in addition to the public statements and negotiations I have explored every possible private avenue that might lead to a settlement. Tonight I am taking the unprecedented step of disclosing to you some of our other initiatives for peace—initiatives we undertook privately and secretly because we thought thereby that we might open a door which publicly would be closed. I did not wait for my inauguration to begin my quest for peace. Soon after my election, with the leaders of North Vietnam, I made two private offers for a rapid, comprehensive settlement. Hanoi’s replies called in effect for our surrender before negotiations. Since the Soviet Union furnishes most of the military equipment for North Vietnam, Secretary of State [William] Rogers, my assistant for National Security Affairs Dr. [Henry] Kissinger, Ambassador Lodge, and I, personally, have met on a number of occasions with representatives of the Soviet Government to enlist their assistance in getting meaningful negotiations started. In addition we have had extended discussions directed toward that same end with representatives of other governments which have diplomatic relations with North Vietnam. None of these initiatives have to date produced results. In mid-July, I became convinced that it was necessary to make a major move to break the deadlock in the Paris talks. I spoke directly in  [  ]

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this office where I am now sitting with an individual who had known Ho Chi Minh on a personal basis for twenty-five years. Through him I sent a letter to Ho Chi Minh. I did this outside of the usual diplomatic channels with the hope that, with the necessity of making statements for propaganda removed, there might be constructive progress toward bringing the war to an end. Let me read from that letter to you now: “Dear Mr. President: “I realize that it is difficult to communicate meaningfully across the gulf of four years of war. But precisely because of this gulf, I wanted to take this opportunity to reaffirm in all solemnity my desire to work for a just peace. I deeply believe that the war in Vietnam has gone on too long and delay in bringing it to an end can benefit no one—least of all the people of Vietnam. . . . “The time has come to move forward at the conference table toward an early resolution of this tragic war. You will find us forthcoming and open-minded in a common effort to bring the blessings of peace to the brave people of Vietnam. Let history record that at this critical juncture, both sides turned their face toward peace rather than toward conflict and war.” I received Ho Chi Minh’s reply on August 30, three days before his death. It simply reiterated the public position North Vietnam had taken in Paris and flatly rejected my initiative. The full text of both letters is being released to the press. In addition to the public meetings that I have referred to, Ambassador Lodge has met with Vietnam’s chief negotiator in Paris in eleven private sessions. And we have taken other significant initiatives which must remain secret to keep open some channels of communications which may still prove to be productive. But the effect of all the public, private, and secret negotiations which have been undertaken since the bombing halt a year ago, and since this [  ]

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Administration came into office on January 20, can be summed up in one sentence: No progress whatever has been made except agreement on the shape of the bargaining table. Well, now, who’s at fault? It has become clear that the obstacle in negotiating an end to the war is not the President of the United States. It is not the South Vietnamese Government. The obstacle is the other side’s absolute refusal to show the least willingness to join us in seeking a just peace. And it will not do so while it is convinced that all it has to do is to wait for our next concession, and our next concession after that one, until it gets everything it wants. There can now be no longer any question that progress in negotiation depends above all on Hanoi’s deciding to negotiate—to negotiate seriously. I realize that this report on our efforts on the diplomatic front is discouraging to the American people, but the American people are entitled to know the truth—the bad news as well as the good news where the lives of our young men are involved. Now let me turn, however, to a more encouraging report on another front. At the time we launched our search for peace, I recognized we might not succeed in bringing an end to the war through negotiation. I, therefore, put into effect another plan to bring peace—a plan which will bring the war to an end regardless of what happens on the negotiating front. It is in line with a major shift in U.S. foreign policy which I described in my press conference at Guam on July 25. Let me briefly explain what has been described as the Nixon Doctrine—a policy which not only will help end the war in Vietnam, but which is an essential element of our program to prevent future Vietnams. We Americans are a do-it-yourself people, we’re an impatient people. Instead of teaching someone else to do a job, we like to do it ourselves. And this trait has been carried over into our foreign policy. In Korea and again in Vietnam, the United States furnished most of the money, most of the arms, and most of the men to help the people of those countries defend their freedom against Communist aggression. Before any American troops were committed to Vietnam, a leader of another Asian country expressed this opinion to me when I was  [  ]

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traveling in Asia as a private citizen. He said: “When you are trying to assist another nation defend its freedom [sic], U.S. policy should be to help them fight the war but not to fight the war for them.” Well, in accordance with this wise counsel, I laid down in Guam these three principles as guidelines for future American policy toward Asia: First, The United States will keep all of its treaty commitments. Second, We shall provide a shield if a nuclear power threatens the freedom of a nation allied with us or of a nation whose survival we consider vital to our security. Third, In cases involving other types of aggression, we shall furnish military and economic assistance when requested in accordance with our treaty commitments. But we shall look to the nation directly threatened to assume the primary responsibility of providing the manpower for its defense. After I announced this policy, I found that the leaders of the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea, other nations which might be threatened by Communist aggression, welcomed this new direction in American foreign policy. The defense of freedom is everybody’s business—not just America’s business. And it is particularly the responsibility of the people whose freedom is threatened. In the previous Administration, we Americanized the war in Vietnam. In this Administration, we are Vietnamizing the search for peace. The policy of the previous Administration not only resulted in our assuming the primary responsibility for fighting the war but even more significant did not adequately stress the goal of strengthening the South Vietnamese so that they could defend themselves when we left. The Vietnamization Plan was launched following Secretary [of Defense Melvin] Laird’s visit to Vietnam in March. Under the plan, I ordered first a substantial increase in the training and the equipment of South Vietnamese forces. In July, on my visit to Vietnam, I changed General [Creighton] Abrams’ orders so that they were consistent with the objectives of our new policies. Under the new orders the primary mission of our troops is to enable the South Vietnamese forces to [  ]

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assume the full responsibility for the security of South Vietnam. Our air operations have been reduced by over twenty percent. And now we have begun to see the results of this long overdue change in American policy in Vietnam. After five years of Americans going into Vietnam, we are finally bringing American men home. By December 15, over 60,000 men will have been withdrawn from South Vietnam—including twenty percent of all of our combat forces. The South Vietnamese have continued to gain in strength. As a result they have been able to take over combat responsibilities from our American troops. Two other significant developments have occurred since this Administration took office. Enemy infiltration, infiltration which is essential if they are to launch a major attack, over the last three months is less than twenty percent of what it was over the similar period last year. And most important, United States casualties have declined during the last two months to the lowest point in three years. Let me now turn to our program for the future. We have adopted a plan which we have worked out in cooperation with the South Vietnamese for the complete withdrawal of all U.S. combat ground forces and their replacement by South Vietnamese forces on an orderly scheduled timetable. This withdrawal will be made from strength and not from weakness. As South Vietnamese forces become stronger, the rate of American withdrawal can become greater. I have not and do not intend to announce the timetable for our program. And there are obvious reasons for this decision, which I am sure you will understand. As I have indicated on several occasions, the rate of withdrawal will depend on developments on three fronts: One of these is the progress which can be or might be made in the Paris talks. An announcement of a fixed timetable for our withdrawal would completely remove any incentive for the enemy to negotiate an agreement. They would simply wait until our forces had withdrawn and then move in. The other two factors on which we will base our withdrawal deci [  ]

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sions are the level of enemy activity and the progress of the training programs of the South Vietnamese forces. And I am glad to be able to report tonight progress on both of these fronts has been greater than we anticipated when we started the program in June for withdrawal. As a result, our timetable for withdrawal is more optimistic now than when we made our first estimates in June. Now this clearly demonstrates why it is not wise to be frozen in on a fixed timetable. We must retain the flexibility to base each withdrawal decision on the situation as it is at that time rather than on estimates that are no longer valid. Along with this optimistic estimate, I must in all candor leave one note of caution. If the level of enemy activity significantly increases, we might have to adjust our timetable accordingly. However, I want the record to be completely clear on one point. At the time of the bombing halt just a year ago, there was some confusion as to whether there was an understanding on the part of the enemy that if we stopped the bombing of North Vietnam, they would stop the shelling of cities in South Vietnam. I want to be sure that there is no misunderstanding on the part of the enemy with regard to our withdrawal program. We have noted the reduced level of infiltration, the reduction of our casualties, and are basing our withdrawal decisions partially on those factors. If the level of infiltration or our casualties increase while we are trying to scale down the fighting, it will be the result of a conscious decision by the enemy. Hanoi could make no greater mistake than to assume that an increase in violence will be to its advantage. If I conclude that increased enemy action jeopardizes our remaining forces in Vietnam, I shall not hesitate to take strong and effective measures to deal with that situation. This is not a threat. This is a statement of policy which as Commander-in-Chief of our Armed Forces I am making in meeting my responsibility for the protection of American fighting men wherever they may be. My fellow Americans, I am sure that you recognize from what I have said that we really have only two choices open to us if we want to [  ]

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end the war. I can order an immediate, precipitate withdrawal of all Americans from Vietnam without regard to the effects of that action. Or we can persist in our search for a just peace through a negotiated settlement if possible, or through continued implementation of our plan for Vietnamization if necessary—a plan in which we will withdraw all of our forces from Vietnam on a schedule, in accordance with our program, as the South Vietnamese become strong enough to defend their own freedom. I have chosen the second course. It is not the easy way. It is the right way. It is a plan which will end the war and serve the cause of peace— not just in Vietnam, but in the Pacific and the world. In speaking of the consequences of a precipitate withdrawal, I mentioned that our allies would lose confidence in America. Far more dangerous, we would lose confidence in ourselves. Oh, the immediate reaction would be a sense of relief that our men were coming home. But as we saw the consequences of what we had done, inevitable remorse and divisive recrimination would scar our spirit as a people. We have faced other crises in our history, and we have become stronger by rejecting the easy way out and taking the right way in meeting our challenges. Our greatness as a nation has been our capacity to do what has to be done when we knew our course was right. I recognize that some of my fellow citizens disagree with the plan for peace I have chosen. Honest and patriotic Americans have reached different conclusions as to how peace should be achieved. In San Francisco a few weeks ago, I saw demonstrators carrying signs reading: “Lose in Vietnam, bring the boys home.” Well, one of the strengths of our free society is that any American has a right to reach that conclusion and to advocate that point of view. But as President of the United States, I would be untrue to my oath of office if I allowed the policy of this nation to be dictated by the minority who hold that point of view and who try to impose it on the nation by mounting demonstrations in the street. For almost two hundred years, the policy of this nation has been made under our Constitution by those leaders in the Congress, in the White House who were elected by all the people. If a vocal minority,  [  ]

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however fervent its cause, prevails over reason and the will of the majority, this nation has no future as a free society. And now I would like to address a word, if I may, to the young people of this nation who are particularly concerned—and I understand why they are concerned—about this war. I respect your idealism. I share your concern for peace. I want peace as much as you do. There are powerful personal reasons I want to end this war. This week I will have to sign 83 letters to mothers, fathers, wives and loved ones of men who had given their lives for America in Vietnam. It’s very little satisfaction to me that this is only one-third as many letters as I signed during the first week in office. There is nothing I want more than to see the day come when I do not have to write any of these letters. I want to end the war to save the lives of those brave young men in Vietnam. But I want to end it in a way which will increase the chance that their younger brothers and their sons will not have to fight in some future Vietnam some place in the world. And I want to end the war for another reason. I want to end it so the energy and dedication of our young people, now too often directed into bitter hatred against those they think are responsible for the war, can be turned to the great challenges of peace, a better life for all Americans and for all people on this earth. I have chosen a path for peace. I believe it will succeed. If it does not succeed, what the critics say now won’t matter. Or if it does succeed, what the critics say now won’t matter.4 If it does not succeed, anything I say then won’t matter. I know it may not be fashionable to speak of patriotism or national destiny these days. But I feel it is appropriate to do so on this occasion. Two hundred years ago this nation was weak and poor. But even then, America was the hope of millions in the world. Today we have become the strongest and richest nation in the world. And the wheel of destiny has turned so that any hope the world has for the survival of peace and freedom will be determined by whether the American people have the moral stamina and the courage to meet the challenge of free world leadership. Let historians not record that when America was the most power[  ]

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ful nation in the world we passed on the other side of the road and allowed the last hopes for peace and freedom of millions of people to be suffocated by the forces of totalitarianism. And so tonight, to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans, I ask for your support. I pledged in my campaign for the Presidency to end the war in a way that we could win the peace. I have initiated a plan of action which will enable me to keep that pledge. The more support I can have from the American people, the sooner that pledge can be redeemed. For the more divided we are at home, the less likely the enemy is to negotiate at Paris. Let us be united for peace. Let us also be united against defeat. Because let us understand, North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that. Fifty years ago in this room and at this very desk, President ­Woodrow Wilson spoke words which caught the imagination of a war-weary world. He said: “This is the war to end wars.” His dream for peace after World War I was shattered on the hard realities of great power politics, and Woodrow Wilson died a broken man. Tonight I do not tell you that the war in Vietnam is the war to end wars. But I do say this: I have initiated a plan which will end this war in a way that will bring us closer to that great goal to which Woodrow Wilson and every American President in our history has been dedicated, the goal of a just and lasting peace. As President I hold the responsibility for choosing the best path to that goal and then leading the nation along it. I pledge to you tonight that I shall meet this responsibility with all the strength and wisdom I can command in accordance with your hopes, mindful of your concerns, sustained by your prayers.

 [  ]

c h a p t e r 1

Introduction Nixon, Vietnam, and the Cultural Context

In military terms, the war in Vietnam ended in April of 1975 when North and South Vietnam were unified as one nation. Yet the continuing influence of the Vietnam War was apparent in the 1989 inaugural address of Pres. George H. W. Bush when he said, “That war cleaves us still. . . . The final lesson of Vietnam is that no great nation can long afford to be sundered by a memory.”1 Despite his plea, the war’s influence persisted, in part because of the thousands of veterans who were injured or died there and in part because its story has been told and retold by journalists who experienced it, US veterans who lived it, and novelists who wrote about the war, such as Tim O’Brien, author of Going after Cacciato and The Things They Carried. The Vietnam War remains a powerful national memory because for the first time in modern history, the United States discovered that, despite its enormous resources, its power was limited, and, in spite of great efforts, it was unable to impose its will on a small Asian nation. The decision to focus on a speech by Pres. Richard Nixon is a result of his key role in the war’s history. Two figures who had opposed the war— the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy—had been killed in 1968 by assassins. Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson, although eligible to run for re-election, chose not to do so, in part because military

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success and success at the negotiating table in Paris still eluded him. As a senator, Vice Pres. Hubert H. Humphrey had opposed the war, but while he served under President Johnson, he was compelled to support the president’s policies. Accordingly, Humphrey was tainted; US voters did not trust him to end the war. Instead, a plurality cast their ballots in the hope that Richard M. Nixon would find a way to achieve peace. Thus, the focus of this book is on the speech in which President Nixon offered his plan to end the fighting and to achieve what always had been the primary US goal: the preservation of South Vietnam as an independent nation. Nixon’s November 3, 1969, speech announced consequential and controversial decisions about the war, and its importance and impact provoked several rhetorical critics to analyze and evaluate it. Moreover, President Nixon considered it his best speech, among his other best efforts, the 1952 “Checkers” speech that enabled him to remain the vice presidential candidate on the Republican ticket and his speech resigning the presidency in 1974, which attempted to frame the way in which his presidency would be remembered. This book is not a biography of Pres. Richard M. Nixon, although his personal history and his rhetorical experience informed his rhetorical and presidential choices on Vietnam.2 This book is not a history of the wars in Vietnam, although I devote a separate chapter to the history of US involvement in its wars to offer a wider context for understanding the issues that arose during the Nixon presidency. Like others in this series, this book focuses on a single speech, delivered on November 3, 1969, by Pres. Richard M. Nixon; however, no single speech can stand alone and in analyzing it, I refer to earlier speeches that previewed key elements that recur in it. I also refer to the speech he delivered on April 30, 1970, announcing the “incursion” of US troops into Cambodia. Not only did it echo arguments made on November 3, 1969, but he also characterized that decision as an effort “to guarantee the continued success of our withdrawal and Vietnamization programs,” which were the policies he announced on November 3.3 The choice to widen the war, even temporarily, re-energized antiwar protestors. In all of the speeches to which I refer, Nixon talked about  [  ]

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his policies for ending the Vietnam War, and each of them facilitates understanding the arguments he made and the strategies he used on November 3, 1969. The events surrounding that speech have faded from the memories of much of the US public, but I lived through them as a professor teaching courses in communication studies at what was then California State University, Los Angeles, a school of considerable diversity, whose student body was predominantly nonwhite and whose students’ average age reportedly was 26. Some students who enrolled in my classes were drafted, in some cases as a result of protesting against the war; some enlisted in the air force to avoid induction into the army. Some demanded that I cancel my classes because of their outrage over the war. Instead, in my public speaking classes I proposed that each student state a claim that he or she believed to be true about the war, research it, and report back to the class on what they found. The result was that all of us discovered how mistaken we were about so many aspects of this war and its history. The speech that is the focus of this book was delivered in the midst of three intersecting social and cultural movements, all of which affected reactions to it and to the US involvement in Vietnam. The first movement was concerted efforts by African Americans to gain their civil rights, efforts that became even more serious and determined in the period after World War II when returning African American servicemen who had fought for their country refused to accept segregation and discriminatory treatment. In 1948, Pres. Harry Truman issued an executive order ending racial discrimination in the US armed forces.4 The movement for civil rights that many of us remember most vividly began in 1957 with the Montgomery Bus Boycott, an effort that brought the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to the leadership of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Although peaceful efforts by African American groups continued, and in spite of passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, in the decade of the sixties over one hundred civil disorders occurred in urban centers that included fires that destroyed most of the downtown areas in major cities.5 One of these civil disorders occurred in South [  ]

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Central Los Angeles. The Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders linked those events directly to the failure to extend civil rights to all US citizens. The US Riot Commission in its report stated: “This is our basic conclusion: Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal. Reaction to last summer’s disorders has quickened the movement and deepened the division. Discrimination and segregation have long permeated much of American life; they now threaten the future of every American. . . . Segregation and poverty have created in the racial ghetto a destructive environment totally unknown to most white Americans. . . . What white Americans have never fully understood—but what the Negro can never forget—is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it.” The higher percentage of African Americans drafted to fight in Vietnam contributed to civil rights protests, a link that is clear in Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech on the war delivered at Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967.6 When King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, riots broke out in more than one hundred US cities, and my African American students became more militant. Many whites also reacted strongly to these devastating events, some resisting more intensely the desegregation of schools and neighborhoods. Accordingly, civil rights efforts aroused greater resistance. The second social movement, now usually referred to as the counter­ culture, was a mixture of lifestyle changes in clothing and hairstyles, in music, in sexual mores, and in the use of mind-altering drugs. California was a center of the counterculture, and Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles was a place where young people “hung out.” Obviously, many students listened to and danced to the Beatles; sang with protest singers like Joan Baez, Woody Guthrie, and Peter, Paul, and Mary; and attempted to break free of the “conformity” they associated with the 1950s. Many older adults were shocked and outraged and believed that such youth were a threat to the nation’s future. The counterculture was part of student activism generally and was linked to struggles against racism and poverty, including the freedom schools and voter registration drives in the South in which many white students participated  [  ]

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in the “freedom” summers of 1963 and 1964. Student activism was energized by the ongoing war in Vietnam, and much of the so-called counterculture fused with protests against the war.7 Perhaps the clearest link between agitation and the war was the claim that if you were old enough to fight, you were old enough to vote, an argument with special force in this era and that ultimately contributed to the ratification in 1971 of the 26th Amendment to the Constitution lowering the US voting age to 18. Third was the antiwar movement, which began with teach-ins at universities that attempted to educate students and professors about the history of Southeast Asia generally and the history of Vietnam in particular. These teach-ins raised doubts about whether there really were attacks on the USS Mattox and Turner Joy. These alleged attacks were the justification Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson used to gain passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which he used as authority to draft young men and send them to fight in Vietnam. The antiwar movement was fueled by the draft, which sent chills of fear into the lives of young men, including college students who feared that if their grades were poor, they would be sent to fight and die in the jungles of Vietnam. By the time that Nixon was elected in 1968, antiwar sentiment had been reinforced by the criticisms of Johnson’s policy offered by Democratic presidential candidates, such as Sen. Eugene McCarthy (D-MN), whose second-place (42 percent of the vote) showing against President Johnson in the New Hampshire primary revealed how dissatisfied Democrats were with Johnson’s prosecution of the war, and President Johnson shocked the nation by withdrawing as a candidate for re-election on March 31, 1968. The late entry of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-NY) into the Democratic primaries underscored this dissatisfaction, and he became another voice who offered a strong critique of the war while supporting antipoverty and civil rights efforts. When Robert Kennedy was shot and killed just after he had won the California Democratic primary in June of 1968, an event shown live on television, the drama of the campaign moved to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The presumptive nominee was the former Minnesota senator and current vice president, Hubert [  ]

introduction

Humphrey, who had entered no primaries but had gained a majority of delegates under the existing rules of the Democratic Party and was associated in protestors’ minds with the policies of President Johnson. Antiwar protestors planned a rally in Grant Park, a venue near the convention center. Rights in Conflict, the investigative account of the events during that Democratic National Convention submitted by Daniel Walker, reported that the police faced intense provocation, but “the response was unrestrained and indiscriminate police violence on many occasions, made all the more shocking by the fact that it was inflicted upon persons who had broken no law, disobeyed no order, made no threat.”8 Chicago had five thousand National Guardsmen on duty and the Chicago City Police had been reinforced, reflecting Mayor Richard Daley’s determination that protestors were not going to disrupt a convention held in his city. Perhaps the most devastating political moment for Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey was his appearance before the convention delegates accompanied by Mayor Daley, who put his arm around him. Nixon won the key state of California, in part because many former Democrats chose to vote for Peace and Freedom Party candidates in the general election rather than support Humphrey, a man associated with Johnson’s Vietnam War policies and with the harsh treatment of antiwar protestors in Chicago.9 By 1968, Richard Milhous Nixon had had a long political career. After he left the US Navy, where he served in World War II, he was first a US representative from California, elected in 1946, then a senator from California, elected in 1950, then US vice president from 1953 to 1961 during the two terms of Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1960 he was the Republican presidential candidate who lost in an extremely close race to John F. Kennedy. In 1962 he ran against and lost to incumbent Gov. Edmund G. “Pat” Brown for the governorship of California. During that campaign, he pledged not to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 1964, and true to his word, he campaigned actively for nominee Barry Goldwater, who lost, as did many Republican congressional candidates. In 1966 Nixon campaigned for Republican congressional candidates, hoping to increase Republican strength in the House and Senate, and was credited with the successful election of many of them.  [  ]

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In 1967 Nixon decided to run for the presidency, believing that conflicts among Democrats over the Vietnam War created an opportunity for a Republican candidate to win. The competition between McCarthy and Kennedy, the assassination of Kennedy, the horrific events at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago covered in vivid and visual detail by the media, and the selection of Vice Pres. Hubert Humphrey as the Democratic nominee, a man who had supported Johnson’s Vietnam War policies until late in the fall campaign, created opportunities for the Republicans generally and for Nixon in particular. There was a strong third party candidate, however. George Corley Wallace, the governor of Alabama for four nonconsecutive terms from 1963 to 1987 and three-time candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, became the presidential candidate on the American Independent Party ticket and ran a “law and order” campaign devoted primarily to resisting federal efforts to enforce desegregation of schools and other public facilities in the South. This is the historical, political, and cultural milieu in which the 1968 presidential campaign unfolded. Of the three major candidates, Nixon received 43.4 percent of the vote and 301 electoral votes; Humphrey received 42.7 percent of the vote and 191 electoral votes; and George Wallace received 13.5 percent of the vote and 46 electoral votes. ­Emmet John Hughes, an administrative assistant to President Eisenhower, wrote that “the result for Richard Nixon could be called a victory only with some serious abuse of the word,” and he cited another scholar’s conclusion that “only a political upheaval of near-cataclysmic proportions could have created the conditions in which his election was possible at all.” As Hughes notes, “Nixon began his 1968 campaign with a lead of 16 percent recorded in August—and he barely missed losing it.”10 Although Nixon was elected by a minority of the electorate, most US citizens fervently hoped that he would find a way to end the Vietnam War, but despite his best efforts to preserve the independence of South Vietnam and to end the war, he did not succeed. President Nixon resigned the presidency on August 9, 1974, after a majority of the House Committee on the Judiciary voted in support of three articles of impeachment. Only Article 4, defeated by a vote [  ]

introduction

of 12–26, was directly related to the Vietnam War. It alleged abuse of the war power in the secret bombing of Cambodia, but it was rejected primarily on the grounds that members of Congress were equally culpable. Why devote a book to this speech? First, it is a key speech on one of the most divisive issues that has troubled this nation. Second, it is a persuasive masterpiece delivered under very challenging circumstances. Third, it prompted rhetorical critics not only to evaluate it but also to argue with each other, focusing attention on key issues in the criticism of public discourse—in particular, just what criteria rhetorical critics might apply legitimately to the evaluation of a speech. Accordingly, Nixon’s speech not only captures a key event in US history but an important moment in the history of academic public address criticism that highlighted disputes about what rhetorical critics are warranted to do.

 [  ]

chapter 2

A Short History of US Involvement in the Wars in Vietnam

The United States has had a long and complicated history in Indochina, the name given by the French to their colonies, which included what today are the nations of Kampuchea (formerly Cambodia), Laos, and Vietnam.1 Although few members of the US public were aware of it, US military involvement in what is today Vietnam began during World War II.2 In June of 1940, France surrendered to Nazi Germany, and German-controlled Vichy France, headed by Marshall Philippe Pétain, became a Japanese ally. Accordingly, the Japanese took over the French colonies in Indochina, but they left many French colonial administrators in place.3 The US Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor of the CIA, aided Ho Chi Minh and his League for the Independence of Vietnam or Vietminh, formed in May of 1941, in their efforts to fight the Japanese and the Vichy French.4 The Vietminh, led by Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, who had been trained in Nationalist China, were supported by the Kuomintang (the Chinese Nationalist Party headed by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek), and in 1943 General Giap led Vietminh military units that fought against the Japanese 21st Division. The Vietminh were encouraged by the Atlantic Charter, issued as a joint declaration by the Allies on August 14, 1941, which included a promise of self-determination for former colonies. On March 9, 1945, as defeat

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neared, the Japanese imprisoned all the French administrators, took complete control of Vietnam, and on March 11, 1945, declared Vietnam independent under Emperor Bao Dai, who had been the titular head of government since 1935, which included the period when Vietnam was still under French control. By so doing, the Japanese “administered a deathblow to French colonialism in Indochina.”5 The Vietminh, now the Vietnamese Communist Party, led by Ho Chi Minh, responded to the postwar famine by distributing rice to starving peasants and placing their representatives in positions of leadership.6 In August, at the imperial capital of Hue, Emperor Bao Dai abdicated and transferred his authority and claim of legitimacy to representatives of Ho Chi Minh. On August 15, 1945, as the Japanese emperor announced his nation’s surrender, Ho asked President Truman to make good on his wartime rhetoric and on the pronouncements of his predecessor Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Ho requested that the United States make Vietnam a US protectorate “on the same status as the Philippines for an undetermined period” before full independence.7 President Roosevelt had fostered this hope: “[A]fter 1943 [Roosevelt] shifted his attack on colonialism to French Indochina, in his view no doubt a more convenient and vulnerable target [than British India]. . . . His position and the adamancy with which he expressed it reflected his general dislike of the French, reinforced by their collapse in 1940, and his particular contempt for the imperious Free French leader Charles de Gaulle. Unlike the British, the Dutch, and especially the Americans, FDR averred, France had brutally exploited the Indochinese and done nothing to prepare them for self-government. It had ‘milked’ Indochina for 100 years, he told the British ambassador. ‘The people . . . are entitled to something better than that.’”8 Two weeks later Ho Chi Minh publicly read aloud the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence, patterned on the US Declaration of Independence, and proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam before some 500,000 people in Ba Dinh Square in Hanoi.9 Efforts for Vietnamese independence had begun much earlier in the aftermath of World War I. Ho Chi Minh acquired a tuxedo and traveled to Paris in order to meet with US, French, and British leaders  [  ]

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who were negotiating the Versailles Treaty in an effort to persuade them to extend to Asians as well as Europeans what Pres. Woodrow Wilson had hailed as the principle of self-determination. Diplomatic representatives of these nations, however, refused to meet with him, even in formal dress, and he returned home determined to create an indigenous movement for eventual independence. At the end of World War II, the colonial powers reasserted their claims to their former colonies. When France was named to represent the Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian peoples (their former colonies and collectively the Indochinese) on the newly formed United Nations Advisory Commission for the Far East, Ho Chi Minh protested. He argued that France had lost any moral or legal claim to Indochina because the Vichy government in 1940 “had ignominiously sold Indochina to Japan and betrayed the allies” and cooperated with the Japanese until they were ousted in 1945, whereas the Vietminh had “ruthlessly fought against Japanese fascism” as allies of the United States.10 His pleas to Pres. Harry Truman, Prime Minister Clement Attlee, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, and Premier Joseph Stalin were met with silence. Consistent with Ho’s proposal, as noted, Pres. Franklin Roosevelt originally wanted to free the Indochinese people through a slow process beginning with a trusteeship, but British and French opposition, linked to their desire to retain their former colonies, especially British India, persuaded him to abandon that idea. On January 5, 1945, Roosevelt told British Ambassador Lord Halifax that he would not object to Britain’s reinstalling the French in Indochina, and at Yalta, he accepted as official policy a State Department proposal for the restoration of French rule. Accordingly, early in his presidency, President Truman had to decide whether to support Ho Chi Minh and the communist-dominated Vietminh or the French colonialists in Indochina. At the Potsdam Conference, held between July 16 and August 2, 1945, Truman “agreed to have the Japanese surrender to the British in the southern part of Vietnam, . . . [who] brought back the French, who were . . . backed . . . with supplies and financial aid. . . . It was assumed that the Viet Minh were part of a world strategy aimed against the free world and that their success in Indochina would seal the fate of Southeast Asia.”11 [  ]

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Truman adopted this policy, in part to gain French support against the perceived threat of the Soviet Union in Europe. Nonetheless, on October 27, 1945, in his Navy Day speech, President Truman made his first postwar foreign policy statement, which included this apparently contradictory statement: “We believe that all people who are prepared for self-government should be permitted to choose their own form of government by their own freely expressed choice, without interference from any foreign source. This is true in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, as well as in the Western Hemisphere.”12 On September 13, 1945, the first French troops arrived in Saigon to “restore order.”13 Later that year Truman initiated US military involvement when he approved a British request to turn over eight hundred Lend-Lease jeeps and trucks to the French, as well as large warships, which were deployed to Indochina. The Dixmunde, the first French ship to bomb the Vietminh, was a US vessel, and her pilots flew US planes. In the fall of 1945, the US Navy cleared the Haiphong harbor of US mines that had been sown earlier to block Japanese and Vichy French shipping in order to facilitate a French landing there.14 The First Vietnam War began in November 1946 when the French, in an effort to reclaim their colonies, bombed the port of Haiphong and killed six thousand people.15 In 1947, US support increased. Truman granted France a $160 million credit to buy vehicles and related equipment explicitly for Indochina, and as the Marshall Plan began to revive France’s economy, the colonial war became less onerous for the French financially.16 Truman’s Secretary of State Dean Acheson believed that the solution to the Vietnamese problem was to find an anticommunist alternative to Ho Chi Minh. Accordingly, former emperor Bao Dai was persuaded to return from his self-imposed exile in Hong Kong in mid-1949 under French and US sponsorship. The United States recognized his regime as the legal government of Vietnam in early 1950, but he was later deposed and replaced by Ngo Dinh Diem. The Vietnamese struggle now had become a battle in the Cold War.17 On August 4, 1953, shortly after the Korean War truce was negotiated, Pres. Dwight Eisenhower publicly called attention to the strategic,  [  ]

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economic, and political importance of holding Indochina as part of the US policy of containment developed by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Eisenhower supported this policy based on what he referred to as the “domino theory,” positing that if communist control was established in Vietnam, other nations in the area would become vulnerable to similar tactics.18 Accordingly, the United States committed funds to support the French, and by 1954, the US government was paying about 80 percent of the total French military expenditures in the Associated States of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Direct US aid, which began in 1950, had averaged $500 million annually, and included ammunition, vehicles, aircraft, naval vessels, small arms and automatic weapons, hospital supplies and technical equipment, delivered directly to the French Union forces under the supervision of a US Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG). In 1953, the Eisenhower Administration, on the basis of a French pledge “to intensify prosecution of the war” and make “every effort to break up and destroy regular enemy forces in Indochina,” promised France an extra $385 million.19 According to Ho Chi Minh, the Vietminh were “quite alone” in 1945; they were not being supplied by the Chinese or the Soviets until 1949, when the communists took control in China and offered aid. By the fall of 1950, the French were in retreat, and from that time forward, a Vietnamese army, organized and seasoned by its previous experience, was equipped with Soviet artillery, antiaircraft guns, and other heavy weapons that arrived with Chinese instructors. On May 7, 1954, in a key battle, Vietnamese forces occupied the French command post at Dien Bien Phu, and the French commander ordered his troops to cease fire. The battle had lasted fifty-five days; three thousand French troops were dead; eight thousand were ­wounded. The Vietminh suffered deeper losses with eight thousand dead and twelve thousand wounded, but the Vietnamese victory shattered France’s resolve to continue the war.20 After the French withdrawal from Indochina in 1954, a conference was held in Geneva, Switzerland, seeking to unify Vietnam and restore peace to Indochina. The Soviet Union, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and the People’s Republic of China participated. The [  ]

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Geneva Accords temporarily divided Vietnam (which comprised the former French colonies of Tonkin, Annam, and Cochin China) at the 17th parallel, creating a northern zone under the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) and a southern region dominated by the French Union, which became the Republic of Vietnam (RVN). Vietminh units retreated from their southern positions, in accordance with the agreement, to north of the ceasefire line, awaiting unification on the basis of internationally supervised free elections to be held in July 1956. The provision for elections was not accepted by delegates from South Vietnam and the United States. US conservatives condemned the Geneva Accords for rewarding communist aggression, but President Eisenhower and Secretary of State Dulles believed that they created an opportunity to build an anticommunist, capitalist bastion in Southeast Asia free of the taint of French colonialism. US officials rejected the intent of the Geneva Accords—that the partition be temporary—well before July 16, 1955, when South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem cancelled the 1956 elections with US assent. They all knew that in free elections, Ho Chi Minh would have been elected president overwhelmingly.21 As vice president in the Eisenhower administrations, Nixon was an active supporter of this policy; indeed, he urged US military involvement in support of Diem. Following the temporary partition of Vietnam, around a million Vietnamese migrated either to the North or to the South. An estimated 800,000 Catholics moved to the South based on an expectation of persecution of Catholics by the North Vietnamese government (DRV), fears spurred by publicity generated by Diem’s Saigon government. An estimated 130,000 people from the South who supported the Vietminh and would join the insurgency based in the South (the Vietcong, later the NLF or National Liberation Front) headed for the North with the aid of Polish and Soviet ships.22 Between 1953 and 1956, the North Vietnamese government instituted various agrarian reforms, including land distribution. Large landlords and rich peasants were publicly denounced and their land distributed to poorer peasants. In some cases, there were mass slaughters of landlords. Of course, there also were charges against Diem of political murders and other reprisals.23  [  ]

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Attracting considerable support because of his staunch and longstanding anticommunism, President Diem was victorious in a 1955 plebiscite widely considered fraudulent.24 Proclaiming himself the Republic of Vietnam’s first president, he skillfully consolidated his power, but his rule was authoritarian, elitist, nepotistic, and allegedly corrupt. A Roman Catholic, Diem pursued policies that oppressed the Republic’s Montagnard tribes and its Buddhist majority.25 Amid religious protest, including self-immolations by Buddhist priests, Diem was deposed and assassinated in a US-backed coup in 1963. During much of the escalated US military involvement, from 1967 to 1975, Gen. Nguyen Van Thieu led South Vietnam, and like his predecessor, he too established an authoritarian, corrupt rule over South Vietnam. He resigned and fled South Vietnam a few days before the fall of Saigon and the ultimate communist victory. Was greater US involvement in the Vietnam War inevitable? In his book Choosing War, historian Fredrik Logevall writes: If a unilateral American withdrawal [at the start of 1965] was too difficult for an American president to pursue, a fig-leaf extraction could in all likelihood be engineered, perhaps via a Geneva-type conference—so said not only de Gaulle’s government in Paris, but Harold Wilson’s in London, Lester Pearson’s in Ottawa, and Eisaku Sato’s in Tokyo; so said the UN’s U Thant; so said leading lawmakers on Capitol Hill; so said numerous columnists and editorial writers in the United States. . . . Already, then, in the months before escalation [late 1964–early 1965], what allied and nonaligned governments questioned was not America’s will but its judgment; already then, many wondered why, in the wake of Johnson’s massive election victory over Barry Goldwater, he did not take the cover that this victory (and large Democratic majorities in Congress) provided him and opt for a de-escalation of American involvement. Logevall recognizes that in 1961, John F. Kennedy inherited a difficult situation in Vietnam. He handed his successor a still more difficult [  ]

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situation: “Americans had already begun to perish in the war, and that fact, along with constant public reaffirmations in the 1950s and 1960s of South Vietnam’s importance to US security, complicated the situation that Kennedy and, especially, Lyndon Johnson confronted.”26 Accordingly, in October of 1961, the Kennedy administration decided to increase US troops in advisory and supportive roles to the South Vietnamese government to over sixteen thousand and to boost economic aid to one and a half million dollars per day. Although seven years and two billion dollars of US aid had been spent in the face of steadily increasing enemy strength, even more US material aid to the South, recommended by the Gen. Maxwell Taylor mission—helicopters and men to fly them—began to arrive in January 1962.27 Logevall concludes by noting that key rationales for escalation articulated by policymakers during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations were US credibility and prestige and the need to preserve both by avoiding a humiliating defeat in Vietnam. When Lyndon Johnson became president in 1963 following ­Kennedy’s assassination, some twenty thousand US troops were in Vietnam as military advisors; some, however, had been involved in combat operations. Immediately, in his National Security Action Memorandum No. 273 of November 26, 1963, Johnson reversed Kennedy’s order to withdraw one thousand military personnel by the end of 1963. Johnson’s memo stated: “It is a major interest of the United States Government that the present provisional government of South Vietnam should be assisted in consolidating itself and holding and developing increased public support.”28 In an address at Syracuse University on August 5, 1964, President Johnson offered a powerful rationale for US involvement in Vietnam and stated the grounds on which he would seek authorization for the use of additional military force. That authorization came in the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which the Congress passed on August 7 and which the president treated as equivalent to a congressional declaration of war. It stated: “That the Congress approves and supports the determination of the President, as Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to  [  ]

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prevent further aggression.”29 The basis was the claim that, as Johnson stated at Syracuse University, “On August 2 the United States destroyer Maddox was attacked on the high seas in the Gulf of Tonkin by hostile vessels of the Government of North Viet-Nam. On August 4 that attack was repeated in those same waters against two United States destroyers. The attacks were deliberate. The attacks were unprovoked. The attacks have been answered.” He then drew an analogy to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler at Munich: “The world remembers—the world must never forget—that aggression unchallenged is aggression unleashed.” By contrast, the North Vietnamese claimed that US ships had moved into their territorial waters on August 2 and had taken provocative actions. Clearly, on August 2, the Maddox was attacked, and North Vietnamese torpedo boats were destroyed. The claim that the two destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy were attacked August 4 is now attributed to a misreading of radar signals.30 What is important is Johnson’s demonization of the enemy as aggressors and treating the US response as equivalent to resisting Hitler. These comparisons constituted deeply emotional appeals to rouse and unify the nation behind presidentially authorized enhanced military action in Vietnam. In February 1965, shortly after Johnson was elected president in his own right in 1964, the United States began a program of air strikes known as Operation Rolling Thunder against military targets in North Vietnam.31 Despite the bombing of the North, the losses of South Vietnam’s Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) grew steadily, and the political situation in Saigon became precarious as one unstable government succeeded another. Gen. William C. Westmoreland, commander of the Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) from June 1964 to March 1968, urged the use of US combat troops to stop the Communist advance, which he predicted could take over the country within a year. The first two battalions of US Marines (3,500 men) arrived in Vietnam in March 1965 to protect the US airbase at Da Nang. Their mission was defensive, but this deployment was the beginning of US involvement in the war on the ground. In a statement similar to that he had made to the French almost two decades earlier, Ho Chi Minh [  ]

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warned that if the US leaders “want to make war for twenty years, then we shall make war for twenty years. If they want to make peace, we shall make peace and invite them to afternoon tea.” Former First Deputy Foreign Minister Tran Quang Co added that the primary goal of the war was to reunify Vietnam and secure its independence. He claimed that the policy of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) was not to topple other noncommunist governments in Southeast Asia.32 The following month, General Westmoreland convinced the ­Johnson administration to commit enough combat troops to secure base areas and mount a series of search and destroy missions. This was an important shift in policy. Instead of holding the South Vietnamese government and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) responsible for defeating the Vietminh and the Vietcong (after December 1960, the National Liberation Front or NLF), President Johnson approved a plan that required a commitment of US and allied forces sufficient to repel the forces in support of North Vietnam, including offensive actions to drive these forces from major population areas. This policy was a departure from the Kennedy administration’s insistence that the government of South Vietnam was responsible for defeating the guerrillas. The assumption underlying earlier policy, that the government of South Vietnam could manage its own affairs, had been abandoned.33 In many respects, President Nixon’s Vietnamization Doctrine was a return to the earlier policy of making the ARVN responsible for fighting and defending South Vietnam but with the important addition of significant amounts of supportive US air power. By late 1965, the US expeditionary force in South Vietnam numbered 180,000, and the military situation had stabilized somewhat. Infiltration from the North, however, had also increased, although it still was made up chiefly of southerners who had gone to the North in 1954 and had received military training there. By mid-1966 US forces, now numbering 350,000, had gained the initiative in several key areas, pushing the communists out of the heavily populated zones of the South into the more remote mountainous regions and into areas along the Cambodian border. By ignoring and replacing ARVN units with US forces, the US troop commitment to defending South Vietnam became open-ended.34  [  ]

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Protests against US military involvement in Vietnam began in 1964. On May 2, the first major student demonstrations took place in New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Madison, Wisconsin. On May 12, twelve young men burned their draft cards. On January 29, 1965, an antiwar protest at the University of Michigan attracted some 2,500 participants, and protests of this sort were repeated on thirty-five campuses across the country. These protests would continue until US military action in Vietnam ended. On January 31, 1968, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and the NLF broke the truce that traditionally accompanied the Lunar New Year or Tet holiday and launched a full-scale offensive, with simultaneous attacks on five major cities, thirty-six provincial capitals, sixty-four district capitals, and numerous villages. In Saigon, suicide squads attacked the Independence Palace (which was the president’s residence), the radio station, the ARVN’s joint General Staff Compound, ­Westmoreland’s headquarters, Tan Son Nhut airfield, and the US Embassy, causing considerable damage there and throwing the city into turmoil. US and South Vietnamese forces responded quickly and effectively, decimating the ranks of the NLF. Most of the attacking forces throughout the country collapsed within a few days, often under the pressure of US bombing and artillery attacks, which extensively damaged the urban areas. Throughout the offensive, the US forces employed massive firepower; in Hue, where the battle was the fiercest, that firepower left 80 percent of the city in ruins.35 Because the Tet offensive reached directly into Saigon, US journalists were able to film and report on these events in that city as they occurred, and in the face of the offensive, plus media coverage of the attack on the US Embassy in Saigon, public approval of Johnson’s handling of the war plummeted.36 Allied firepower eventually crushed the communists, but the faith of the US public in their president, and in an ultimate victory in Vietnam, was shaken, in part by news coverage that distorted these events. Robert F. Kennedy’s address in Chicago, on February 8, 1968, was, in the words of New York Times columnist Tom Wicker, “the most sweeping and detailed indictment of the war and of the administration’s policy yet heard from any leading figure in [  ]

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either party.” In the words of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, “the dangerous illusion of victory by the United States was therefore dead.”37 The Johnson administration had employed what Stanley Karnow called a “policy of minimum candor” in its dealings with the media. Military information officers attempted to maintain public support by emphasizing stories that portrayed progress in the war. Over time, this policy damaged public trust in official pronouncements. As press and Pentagon coverage of the war diverged, the Johnson Administration faced a growing “credibility gap.”38 The Tet offensive is widely viewed as a turning point in the war despite the high cost to the communists (approximately 32,000 killed and about 5,800 captured) for what appeared at the time to be small gains. Although they managed to retain control of some of the rural areas, the communists were forced out of all of the towns and cities, except Hue, within a few weeks. Nevertheless, the offensive convinced the Johnson administration that victory in Vietnam would require a greater commitment of men and resources than the US public was willing to support. On March 31, 1968, President Johnson announced that he would not seek his party’s nomination for re-election, declared a halt to the bombing of North Vietnam (except for a narrow strip above the Demilitarized Zone or DMZ), and urged Hanoi to agree to peace talks. In the meantime, with US troop strength at 525,000, a request by General Westmoreland for an additional 200,000 troops was refused by a presidential commission headed by the new US secretary of defense, Clark Clifford.39 When President Johnson issued the unexpected declaration that he would not seek re-election, he stated that “we and other allied nations are contributing 600,000 fighting men to assist 700,000 South Vietnamese troops in defending their little country,” a surprisingly high assessment of the size of the South Vietnamese army (ARVN).40 He also described our national goal as intended “to preserve South Vietnam’s control over its own destiny.” On October 31, 1968, Johnson had high hopes for a peace settlement. He reported: “A regular session of the Paris talks is going to take place next Wednesday, November 6th [just one day  [  ]

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before the US presidential election], at which the representatives of the Government of South Vietnam are free to participate. We are informed by the representatives of the Hanoi Government that representatives of the National Liberation Front or Vietcong, the insurgents in the South, will also be present.” These were the talks in which South Vietnamese President Thieu refused to participate, a refusal that President Nixon believed was crucial to his election. Shortly after his inauguration on January 20, on March 17, President Nixon approved the request of the new commander of US forces in Vietnam, Gen. Creighton Abrams, for a B-52 Stratofortress bombing attack on a communist base camp inside Cambodia, and on March 18, 1969, Operation Breakfast took place, the first of a series of attacks as part of Operation Menu (Breakfast was followed by Lunch, Snack, Dinner, Supper, and Dessert) that continued for four years. On May 9, the New York Times revealed for the first time that base camps inside Cambodia were being bombed. On May 14, Nixon made his first presidential speech on US policy in Vietnam, and in light of his approval of Operation Menu, made what appears to be a disingenuous statement: “To implement these principles, I reaffirm now our willingness to withdraw our forces on a specified timetable. We ask only that North Vietnam withdraw its forces from South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos into North Vietnam, also in accordance with a timetable. We include Cambodia and Laos to ensure that these countries would not be used as bases for a renewed war.” On July 25, in remarks made while on Guam where he was meeting with President Thieu, President Nixon announced the “Nixon Doctrine” on future US commitments in Asia.41 Some two weeks before President Nixon’s major policy speech on the war was presented to the US public on November 3, 1969, demonstrations organized by the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam took place on October 15, 1969. Millions of US citizens took the day off from work and school to participate in local demonstrations against the war. These were the first major demonstrations against the Nixon administration’s handling of the war. Less than two weeks after the speech, on November 15, 1969, crowds estimated at up to half a million [  ]

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people participated in an antiwar demonstration in Washington, DC, and a similar demonstration was held in San Francisco. These protests were organized by the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam and the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam. On April 24, 1970, President Nixon ordered US and South Vietnamese troops to secretly invade the “Parrot’s Beak” region of Cambodia, thought to be a Vietcong stronghold. The decision was controversial. The president’s decision first to secretly bomb and then send US troops into Cambodia was revealed in a speech to the nation on April 30, 1970, which triggered a new wave of campus protests across the nation on May 9, 1970.42 When Ohio National Guardsmen at Kent State University shot four students (two were not protestors) in the midst of an antiwar protest responding to the secret bombing, 115 colleges went on strike, and Gov. Ronald Reagan shut down California’s entire university system. These demonstrations and the response to the killings at Kent State had varied effects. One occurred in the White House. On June 5, 1970, President Nixon met with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, CIA Director Richard Helms, and the heads of the NSA and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to discuss a proposed new domestic intelligence system prepared by White House aide Tom Charles Huston. What later was referred to as the “Huston Plan,” which figured in the impeachment investigations, was based on the assumption that, as Nixon said, “hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Americans—mostly under 30—are determined to destroy our society.” Nixon decided that the group in his office would be called the “Interagency Committee on Intelligence,” and with J. Edgar Hoover chairing the new ad hoc group, he demanded an immediate “threat assessment” of domestic enemies of his administration. “Nixon was convinced that both the FBI and the CIA had failed to find the links he was sure bound domestic troubles and foreign communism. But bringing them to the White House was also part of a larger Nixon plan. He was determined to exert presidential control over the parts of the government he cared most about—the agencies dealing with foreign policy, military matters, intelligence, law, criminal justice, and general order.43  [  ]

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The second effect occurred in the Congress. On December 22, 1970, the Cooper-Church Amendment became law and prohibited the use of authorized funds for sending US troops into Cambodia or for attaching US advisors to Cambodian forces. The third occurred in June of 1971, when Daniel Ellsberg, a military analyst working at the Rand Corporation, provided the so-called Pentagon Papers, officially titled United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense, to the New York Times and the Washington Post, which, following a Supreme Court decision in their favor, published them.44 The Pentagon Papers revealed that the United States had deliberately expanded its war in Vietnam with the bombing of Cambodia and Laos, coastal raids on North Vietnam, and Marine Corps attacks, none of which had been reported by US media. The most damaging revelations were that, from Truman to Johnson, US presidents had misled the public about their intentions. For example, the Kennedy administration had planned to overthrow South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem before his death in a November 1963 coup. President Johnson had decided to expand the war while promising that “we seek no wider war” during his 1964 presidential campaign, including plans to bomb North Vietnam well before the 1964 election. This material included revelation of 1964’s “OP PLAN 34-A” with US frogmen demolishing bridges, special forces capturing prisoners, planes bombing railroad tracks, and other military actions, activities that prompted the North Vietnamese to harass US ships in the Gulf of Tonkin in August of 1974, a response that Congress was told was unprovoked.45 Dissent against the war continued to be fueled by this new information. On April 23, 1971, Vietnam veterans threw away over seven hundred medals on the west steps of the Capitol. The next day, antiwar organizers claimed that 500,000 marched, which, if accurate, would have made this the largest demonstration since the November 1969 march.46 In February of 1971, Vietnamization was tested when the ARVN launched an offensive aimed at cutting in two the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos. The ostensibly neutral Laos had long been the scene of a secret [  ]

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war. After meeting resistance, ARVN forces retreated in a confused rout. They fled along roads littered with their own dead. When they ran out of fuel, soldiers abandoned their vehicles and attempted to force their way onto US helicopters sent to evacuate the wounded. Many ARVN soldiers clung to helicopter skids in a desperate attempt to save themselves. US aircraft had to destroy abandoned equipment, including tanks, to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. Half of the invading ARVN troops were either captured or killed. The operation was a fiasco and represented a clear failure of Vietnamization. As Stanley Karnow noted, “the blunders were monumental. . . . The (South Vietnamese) government’s top officers had been tutored by the Americans for ten or fifteen years, many at training schools in the United States, yet they had learned little.”47 Vietnamization was tested again in the Easter offensive, a massive conventional invasion of South Vietnam by the North, begun on March 30 and continued through October of 1972. The Vietnamese People’s Army of the North (VPA) and the NLF quickly overran the northern provinces and threatened to cut South Vietnam in half. US airpower came to the rescue and halted the offensive with Operation Linebacker, an aerial campaign carried out by the US Seventh Air Force and US Navy Task Force 77 from May 9 to October 23, 1972. It was clearly evident, however, that without US airpower, South Vietnam could not survive. Nonetheless, the last US ground troops were withdrawn in August. The war was the central issue in the 1972 presidential election. Nixon’s Democratic opponent, George McGovern, campaigned on a platform of withdrawal from Vietnam, but he was deeply damaged by the disarray at the Democratic National Convention (McGovern delivered his acceptance address in the wee hours of the morning) and by his vacillation over whether to retain or discard his original vice presidential selection, Sen. Thomas Eagleton of Missouri, who had undergone shock treatments for mental illness. Sargent Shiver, former head of the Peace Corps, replaced him. By May of 1972, no US forces were on ground combat missions in Vietnam. By January 1973, only 25,000 US troops remained there. Fatalities and injuries dropped,  [  ]

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but the combat effectiveness of the South Vietnamese troops did not improve substantially. Escalation of the bombing and the withdrawal of US combat forces, however, resulted in a significant increase in presidential approval ratings.48 Peace talks had resumed on July 19, 1972, but by the end of the summer two things were clear to the US negotiators. Escalation of the bombing could not induce the North Vietnamese to agree to terms that would require them to withdraw from the South, and no pressure from the USSR or the People’s Republic of China could induce the North Vietnamese to agree to the terms offered by the United States. Nixon’s national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, continued secret negotiations with North Vietnam’s representative, Le Duc Tho. On October 12, 1972, they reached an agreement; two weeks later Kissinger announced, mistakenly, that “Peace is at hand,” but South Vietnamese President Thieu objected to the terms (ceasefire in place, recognition of territory controlled by each side, preparation for a political settlement that involved sharing power) and demanded major changes. When North Vietnam went public with the agreement’s details, the Nixon administration claimed that the North was attempting to embarrass President Nixon. The negotiations became deadlocked, and Hanoi in turn demanded additional changes.49 When the South rejected the agreement, Nixon was fearful that his Vietnam policy might lessen his chances of being reelected. Robert Dallek writes that in the autumn months leading up to Nixon’s 1972 reelection campaign, Nixon’s pronouncements about bringing home the troops and ending the war were optimistic; however, “A draft extension bill in September 1971 that allowed him to maintain a significant force in Vietnam contradicted his declarations on an early end to the conflict.” In a nationally televised speech on November 9, Nixon said he hoped to end the war and realize a goal not seen in the twentieth century—“a full generation of peace,” but, Dallek comments, “They were too wedded to a settlement on U.S. terms to accept the likelihood that an end to the Vietnam conflict, on whatever conditions, would be seen as in the larger national interest.” Moreover, when Kissinger said that debate on that issue “is not a winner,” “I know that,” Nixon replied. [  ]

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“The American people want us out.” Finally, Nixon demanded “that everyone at the White House slam Democratic critics as ‘the party of surrender,’ which wanted ‘a Communist South Vietnam.’ They should be described as ‘consciously giving aid and comfort to the enemy. . . . They want the United States to surrender.’”50 Following his re-election, on December 18, 1972, Nixon ordered massive bombing of the North with a two-fold purpose: to convince the South that the United States would not allow the Saigon regime to be overthrown and to reaffirm that the secret commitments to protect the separate existence of South Vietnam made in letters between Nixon and Pres. Nguyen Van Thieu would be honored. US B-52s began a twelve-day round-the-clock bombing of North Vietnam, during which the United States dropped more tons of bombs than during the entire 1969–71 period. This “Christmas Bombing” was a blatant attempt to bomb the North into submission, and it succeeded. The North returned to the negotiations; Thieu acquiesced to US pressures. On January 27, 1973, the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam was concluded between negotiators Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, paving the way for an end to US participation in the war and an exchange of prisoners. Nixon’s commitments to President Thieu could not be kept. Congress had imposed restrictions on presidential war-making powers in Southeast Asia, beginning in 1970 with the Cooper Amendment, which provided that no combat troops could be sent to Laos or Thailand, followed by the 1970 Cooper-Church Amendment, which prohibited the reintroduction of ground forces into Cambodia, and culminating with passage of the Eagleton Amendment, which called for a halt to all US land, sea, and air military operations in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam after August 15, 1973. In other words, any attempt by Nixon or his successors to use US armed forces to guarantee the survival of the Saigon regime would be illegal. Finally, the War Powers Resolution, passed by Congress over Nixon’s veto in 1973, required any US president to obtain congressional approval within sixty days of any military action, creating another barrier to shoring up the South Vietnamese government. On August 9, 1974, President Nixon resigned from the presidency after the House Committee on the Judiciary voted in support of three  [  ]

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articles of impeachment, and Gerald Ford became president. Nixon’s commitments to Thieu, therefore, could not be honored by the Ford administration, which resulted in the unification of Vietnam under communist rule after the Saigon government surrendered on April 29, 1975.51 Here is one description of the impact of that ending on the US public: “For most Americans, however, the impending defeat of South Vietnam presented a bitter irony. The United States had pulled its troops out of Vietnam in 1973, and the American prisoners of war had come home. Following that, millions of Americans had made peace with a conflict in which the country had sacrificed thousands of lives but had still not won. Yet the conflict had gone on, and American involvement had not really ended. Although the United States had withdrawn its soldiers, it was supporting South Vietnam’s continuing struggle with billions of dollars’ worth of economic aid and military equipment. To Americans watching the fall of South Vietnam on television [on April 30, 1975], it seemed as if they were losing the war a second time.”52 Andrew Alexander adds a sad coda to this history, noting the assumptions of decision makers and that those persons who might have presented a different perspective on Asians had been removed from the State Department. He writes: “The failure of Washington to understand the driving force of nationalism in Asia in all its various forms has been widely and ruefully acknowledged. The belief was that, under the skin, all Asians regardless of their divergent cultures, were longing to be Americans in all but colour [sic]. The notion that the American way of life and its culture must be everyone’s goal was ineradically set in the Washington mind. . . . The State Department had also been the victim of [Secretary of State] Dulles’ purge and those with expertise in Asia, regarded as being the cause of ‘losing China,’ were removed.”53

[  ]

chapter 3

Nixon’s War Rhetoric

Richard Nixon’s speeches presenting his policies to end the war in Vietnam are examples of a distinctive kind or genre of presidential public discourse: war rhetoric, that is, rhetoric responding to ­aggression or leading the nation into war. They occurred in an unusual set of circumstances because, as a result of many prior decisions, US involvement in the war in Vietnam was spread over the presidencies of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon. By contrast, World War II was concluded by Truman but was directed and fought primarily during the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt. The Korean War began under Truman, and the truce that still persists was negotiated by Eisenhower. The Gulf War was fought and concluded by Pres. George H. W. Bush. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq begun under the leadership of Pres. George W. Bush; that in Iraq was formally concluded during the first term of the presidency of Barack Obama, and the US combat presence in Afghanistan has, likewise, been reduced with further reductions pending. In other words, the Vietnam War stands alone because of its long and ongoing role in presidential foreign policy decision making. Like the Korean War, it was an undeclared war. Franklin Roosevelt connived in the decisions that led to the first war in Vietnam, and ­Truman and Eisenhower supported French efforts to reclaim their colonies with money and matériel. Kennedy introduced the first US troops,

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under the pretext that they were entirely advisory, although some took part in combat, and some died. Lyndon Johnson used reports of North Vietnam attacks, now challenged by some sources, on US ships Maddox and Turner Joy to gain passage of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which he treated as the equivalent of a declaration of war that authorized him to introduce combat troops into this arena.1 Intense conflict over the war led President Johnson to withdraw as a candidate for re-election in 1968. Nixon faced Vice Pres. Hubert Humphrey, who early had been a voice supporting withdrawal and ending the war, but who, despite reservations, backed Johnson’s policies almost to the end, in part because he needed Johnson’s support for the Democratic nomination and to gain funds for campaign expenditures. Nixon feared that Humphrey would be elected if Johnson was able to achieve his goal of reaching a peace agreement. Nixon allegedly used indirect means of communication to encourage President Thieu not to join the peace negotiations in Paris, and he believed that Thieu’s refusal to participate in them was an important factor in his election. Accordingly, his support of Thieu persisted to the very end. Thus, although his speeches on Vietnam clearly are examples of war rhetoric, these circumstances make them distinctive. Kathleen Jamieson and I have called attention to the warning offered by political scientist Edward Keynes: “Future presidents should recall one of the Vietnam War’s most important lessons—the nation should not wage a long, protracted, undeclared war without fundamental prior agreement between Congress and the president and broad, sustained public support for the government’s decision to send the nation’s sons and daughters off to war.” Keynes’s judgment benefits from hindsight, but his point is echoed by those in the military. They note that the constitutional provision that it is the Congress that must declare war is protection against wars made by the executive, wars that, as a result, lack the direct commitment of the US public.2 As this book will remind you, however, presidents who involved the United States in military action in Vietnam believed that they were fighting a battle in the Cold War, and much of the US public supported what they were doing almost until the end. [  ]

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The speeches that Jamieson and I identified as war rhetoric concern “the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by circumstances, and . . . the continued use of such force in hostilities or in such situations,” according to the language of the War Powers Resolution of 1973. In Presidents Creating the Presidency, Jamieson and I identified “five pivotal characteristics of this kind of discourse, that (1) every element in it proclaims that the momentous decision to resort to force is deliberate, the product of thoughtful deliberation; (2) forceful intervention is justified through a chronicle or narrative from which argumentative claims are drawn; (3) the audience is exhorted to unity of purpose and total commitment; (4) the rhetoric not only justifies the use of force, but also seeks to legitimize presidential assumption of the role of commander in chief; and as a function of these other characteristics, (5) strategic misrepresentations play an unusually significant role in its appeals.” In other words, because going to war is such a serious decision with such terrible consequences, the decision to go to war must be shown to be the best policy choice given the circumstances, and it must be carefully defended argumentatively. In that process, presidents attempt to unify the nation and gain a total commitment from the public and their representatives, which sometimes includes attacking those who dissent.3 In a war situation, the powers of the president increase substantially with the assumption of the role of commander in chief. Among others, these powers include decisions about drafting those who will fight, naming commanders and consulting with them about strategy in the war, requesting and defending large appropriations for equipment and troops from the Congress, reporting to the nation on the progress of the war, and not least, defending continuation of the war even when little progress is being made. Finally, gaining unanimity of purpose and total support is difficult, and because this is so, presidents are tempted to resort to strategic misrepresentations designed to overcome objections and strengthen public support for the president and for the war. As noted, the war had a long history of presidential involvement. On October 25, 1963, for example, President Kennedy sent a message to  [  ]

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South Vietnam’s President Diem to extend “greetings and best wishes to the Republic of Viet-Nam on its 8th anniversary.” What is particularly noteworthy is that Kennedy’s message treated “the Republic of Viet-Nam,” or South Vietnam, as an independent nation dating from the Geneva Accords of 1954. Similarly, on January 1, 1964, President Johnson sent a New Year’s message to then–head of state Gen. Duong Van Minh: “I want to wish you, your Revolutionary Government, and your people full success in the long and arduous war which you are waging so tenaciously and bravely against the Viet Cong forces [the insurgency in the South] directed and supported by the Communist regime in Hanoi.” Like Kennedy, Johnson presumed that there were two independent nations and that efforts to unseat the regime in the South constituted an insurrection against a legitimate government. He added, “Our aims are, I know, identical with yours: to enable your government to protect its people from the acts of terror perpetrated by Communist insurgents from the North.” In other words, the insurgency was instigated by the communist North; it was not a local insurgency against the government in the South. On April 27, 1965, at a news conference, President Johnson stated: “Independent South Viet-Nam has been attacked by North Viet-Nam,” again identifying two independent nations. It is no surprise, then, that President Nixon treated the existence of two separate, independent nations as a settled matter. By contrast, as the history of the war indicates, the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong were fighting for a single unified, independent nation. Given the unusual circumstances of President Nixon’s relationship to a war already underway involving some half million US troops, one might expect that his rhetorical approach would differ from presidents facing rather different circumstances, but that was not the case. Decisions to continue a war seem to require the same justifications as initiating military action or responding to attack. In his speeches, and particularly in his November 3, 1969, speech, the first four characteristics are easily identified. When the speech announcing what had been the earlier secret bombing of and the later incursion of US troops into Cambodia are included, strategic misrepresentations clearly had become a pivotal part in this case as well.4 In what follows, [  ]

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I focus on the November 3, 1969, speech, but I shall link it to three prior speeches and to his later speech defending the secret bombing of and the introduction of US and South Vietnamese ground troops into “neutral” Cambodia. Placing the November 3 speech in this sequence also highlights the development of the most important strategies in that address. The views Nixon expressed on November 3, 1969, were previewed in three earlier speeches. The first was his nomination acceptance address on August 8, 1968, at the Republican National Convention in Miami. There he defined the challenge the nation faced as “the future of peace and freedom in the world in the last third of the twentieth century,” an illustration of emphasizing the momentous decision involved in continuing the resort to force. He asked, “Can America meet this great challenge?” In seeking an answer, he urged his national audience toward unity and away from dissent. He counseled them to listen to “another voice, it is a quiet voice in the tumult of shouting. It is the voice of the great majority of Americans, the forgotten Americans, the non-shouters, the non-demonstrators. . . . They’re good people. They’re decent people; they work and they save and they pay their taxes and they care.”5 Those so identified in this earlier speech would be his primary audience in his presidential speeches on the war, and they became the “great silent majority” to which he appealed on November 3. In his acceptance speech, he referred to the Vietnam War in general terms and to the need for a change in policy, alluded to current peace negotiations, but promised to say nothing about them during the campaign. He added, however, “if the war is not ended when the people choose in November, the choice will be clear. . . . And I pledge to you tonight that the first priority foreign policy objective of our next Administration will be to bring an honorable end to the war in Vietnam.” Consistent with his stance not to interfere with current presidential policy, he offered no details, a stance he maintained throughout the 1968 presidential campaign. Nixon made no direct reference to the war in his inaugural on January 20, 1969, although he appealed to the US citizens he addressed to “lower our voices,” referred to “angry rhetoric that fans discontents  [  ]

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into hatreds,” and promised to listen “to the voices of quiet anguish . . . that have despaired of being heard.”6 On May 14, 1969, less than five months into his presidency, the president addressed the nation on the Vietnam War. Prior to that speech, on Friday, March 29, he told his speechwriters, Richard Whalen, Raymond Price, and Patrick Buchanan: “I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s no way to win the war. But we can’t say that, of course. In fact, we have to seem to say the opposite, just to get some degree of bargaining leverage.”7 His hard, realistic conclusion about prospects for victory conflicted with his assessment of the political realities. In other words, there were two distinct audiences: the US public, which could not be told that there was no way to win but had to be convinced to continue their support for the war, and the Vietminh in the North and the insurgent Vietcong in the South, who had to be convinced that Nixon would take whatever measures were necessary to achieve his goals, particularly to ensure an independent South Vietnam, and in order to negotiate the best terms for ending the war. Using themes that would recur in the November 3 speech, on May 14 he noted that some believed that immediately after his inauguration, he should have ended the war by withdrawing US forces, and as he would say again in his next speech, he characterized that choice as “the easy thing . . . the popular thing to do,” although polls showed positive although mixed attitudes toward the war.8 He also reported that an intensive review of the situation revealed that the other side was preparing a new offensive, that there was a wide gulf of distrust between Washington and Saigon, and that nothing had been achieved in the eight months of talks in Paris that overlapped the end of ­Johnson’s term in office and the beginning of his own. In response to this failure, military actions were being undertaken to frustrate attacks by the Vietcong and to strengthen the South Vietnamese forces. Nixon laid down a marker when he said that, in contrast to two or four or ten years ago, “we no longer have the choice of not intervening. We have crossed that bridge. There are now more than a half a million American troops in Vietnam and 35,000 Americans have lost their lives.” In the midst of protests at home, he narrowed the available options: “We have ruled [  ]

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out attempting to impose a purely military solution on the battlefield. We have also ruled out a one-sided withdrawal from Vietnam, or the acceptance in Paris of terms that would amount to a disguised American defeat. When we assumed the burden of helping defend South Vietnam, millions of South Vietnamese men, women, and children placed their trust in us. To abandon them now would risk a massacre that would shock and dismay everyone in the world who values human life. . . . It would threaten our long-term hopes for peace in the world. A great nation cannot renege on its pledges. A great nation must be worthy of trust.” In other words, he argued, the United States cannot win the war militarily (or was unwilling to do what that would require); we cannot withdraw; and we cannot agree to terms that would be tantamount to defeat, that is, unification that would eliminate South Vietnam as a separate political entity. He also cited international implications: “If Hanoi were to succeed in taking over South Vietnam by force—even after the power of the United States had been engaged—it would greatly strengthen those leaders who scorn negotiation, who advocate aggression, who minimize the risks of confrontation with the United States.”9 These arguments would reappear in his November 3 speech. On May 14, Nixon stated his goal clearly: “We seek the opportunity for the South Vietnamese to determine their own political future without outside interference. . . . What kind of a settlement will permit the South Vietnamese people to determine freely their own political future? Such a settlement will require the withdrawal of all non–South Vietnamese forces, including our own, from South Vietnam, and procedures for political choice that give each significant group in South Vietnam a real opportunity to participate in the political life of the nation [emphasis added].” Note that this was a settlement that would protect the existence of South Vietnam as an independent nation and that would treat both US and North Vietnamese troops as foreign.10 Underscoring that view, he added an important pledge: “To implement these principles, I reaffirm now our willingness to withdraw our forces on a specific timetable. We ask only that North Vietnam withdraw its forces from South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos into North Vietnam, also in accordance with a timetable.”11 Later in the speech he made a  [  ]

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pledge that was strengthened by powerful parallel phrasing: “Let me be quite blunt. Our fighting men are not going to be worn down; our mediators are not going to be talked down; and our allies are not going to be let down.” However sensible Nixon’s proposal might seem, it rested on the assumption that the North Vietnamese would accept a permanent partitioning of their country, a condition to which, as it turned out, they would never agree. Accordingly, Nixon’s proposals were rejected by Hanoi. As noted in the introduction, between this speech and the November 3 speech, massive rallies took place; 100,000 mostly college students heard Sen. George McGovern speak in Boston; 20,000 gathered on Wall Street to hear former LBJ aide Bill Moyers; 30,000 in Washington, DC, listened to Coretta Scott King, widow of Martin Luther King Jr., before she led a candlelight procession from the White House to the Washington Monument. Names of the war dead from Vietnam were read in schools and churches. Life magazine called it “the largest expression of public dissent ever seen in this country,” and Time wrote that the protests were “an unmistakable sign to Richard Nixon that he must do more to end the war and faster.”12 In response, Senate Republicans proposed a sixty-day halt to criticism to show that US resolve was undiminished, but Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D-MT) opposed such a move, although he praised Nixon’s reductions in US forces, and in the Senate on October 26, 1969, he said: “I would like to see the country get behind President Nixon, not for the purpose of prolonging the war but for the purpose of bringing about a responsible settlement and responsible peace at the earliest opportunity.” In addition, Mansfield pursued a secret initiative to influence the president. On October 31 he sent Nixon a “private and confidential” memorandum declaring that “the continuance of the war in Viet Nam, in my judgment, endangers the future of this nation,” not just because of loss of life and waste of resources but because of the deep divisions to which “this conflict of dubious origin” had contributed within US society, and he promised to “give articulate public support” to presidential decisions to bring an end to the war. Mansfield proposed consolidation of US forces into enclaves, an ac[  ]

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celerated program of troop reductions aimed at final US withdrawal, pressure on the Saigon government to pursue new political policies, and negotiations with all Vietnamese parties, including the National Liberation Front. Nixon took this memo with him to Camp David as he prepared his November 3 speech, but he concluded that ­Mansfield’s proposals amounted to a “unilateral cease fire and withdrawal” from the war, which contradicted “his own self-image and political instincts.” In his memoirs Nixon wrote that Mansfield was offering “the last chance for me to end ‘Johnson’s and Kennedy’s war’” and that “he would even allow me to claim that I was making the best possible end of a bad war my Democratic predecessors had begun.” However, Nixon concluded that “it would be wrong for me to end the Vietnam War.”13 Many Senators were disappointed by what Nixon proposed in his subsequent speech, but Mansfield refrained from outright opposition to the president’s decisions, a position that did not change until Nixon ordered the introduction of 12,000 US ground troops along with 8,000 ARVN troops into two Cambodian base areas, a decision that Nixon announced in his April 30, 1970, speech. Mansfield’s efforts and his unwillingness to criticize the president’s decisions are an index of his and others’ generally intense desire for Nixon to end the war and of an eagerness to support the president in whatever efforts he was making that seemed to move in that direction. Between the delivery of the relatively conciliatory May 14 speech and the speech on November 3, Nixon delivered the commencement address at the Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs. According to speechwriter and advisor William Safire, Nixon decided that “this was the time for a tough speech, for a reassertion of pride and confidence that would appall many liberals and unilateral disarmers and assorted weakeners of the national resolve. The forum Nixon chose was the Air Force Academy’s graduating class, and the time, four days before the first withdrawal announcement.” After some disagreements among his advisors, “the speech was shaped roughly in the way he wanted: the affirmative, patriotic thrust up front, then a statement of the fundamental differences in approach to defense policy, followed by a throwing down of the gauntlet to the new isolationists.” Safire added, “The President  [  ]

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disdained consensus and drew the battle line clearly.” What follows in Safire’s book is a detailed description of the process by which the speech was made ever more confrontational in order to “drive a wedge between a growing majority of Americans who were fed up with the war in Vietnam and a minority . . . who took that disenchantment a long step further, condemning America’s ‘arrogance of power’ and transfiguring US policy into unilateral disarmament.”14 That speech offered a clear basis for predicting the stance Nixon would adopt on November 3 in announcing his new policy on Vietnam. Behind the scenes another operation was underway. Just how desperate President Nixon was to find a way to end the war is apparent in a recently revealed, secret military operation that was undertaken just prior to the November 3 speech. On October 10, 1969, under the advice of National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, President Nixon initiated what was called Operation Giant Lance, which involved sending a squadron of eighteen B-52 Stratofortress bombers loaded with nuclear weapons, detectable by the Soviets because of their size and weight, to race toward Moscow. The squadron took off on October 27, 1969, and remained in the air, including refueling, threatening the Soviet Union until October 30. The aircraft were aimed at the Soviet Union, but the goal was to change the dynamics of the war in Vietnam. This foray reflected Nixon’s frustration. During his campaign, he had vowed to end the war, but in 1969, more than 4,500 US troops had died there in the first six months of his presidency, and peace negotiations in Paris had stalled.15 Nixon decided to try something new: threaten the Soviet Union with a massive nuclear strike and attempt to convince its leaders that he was crazy enough to go through with it. The hope was that, in response, the Soviets would pressure Hanoi to make concessions in Paris or face the loss of Soviet military support. The operation and its abrupt cancellation were part of the so-called “madman” theory, a development of “game theory,” and an attempt to create the impression that Nixon was unpredictable, even “out of control,” and would do anything to end the war in Vietnam.16 Clearly, Nixon was willing to act secretly and use extreme, even dangerous tactics in order to achieve his goal to end the war in Vietnam. [  ]

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On November 3, 1969, the president delivered his second major speech on Vietnam War policy from the Oval Office, which Nixon considered one of the most important speeches of his political career; he recalled it as his most “significant” and “effective” speech.17 The speech was deliberative; that is, it offered a new policy and defended it as the best available course of action under the circumstances. Because the speech responded to growing anti–Vietnam War protests, it also addressed and attempted to diminish dissent. In other words, it was crafted to be a highly persuasive speech that used all the available resources to marshal support for the president and his policy and to discredit the opposition.18 In an important way, the speech also was political because Nixon was responding to the central issue of the 1968 presidential campaign: ending the Vietnam War. During the campaign, Nixon indicated that he had a plan to end the war, and he was elected in the expectation that he would do so. The introduction of the speech ingratiated him to the audience by letting the US public know that he understood their concerns and was prepared to explain the policy decisions he had made. He described the military situation when he was inaugurated, and he acknowledged “the deep division at home and criticism from many of our friends, as well as our enemies, abroad,” noting that foreign critics of US policy included our enemies, presumably references to China and the Soviet Union. At the outset, Nixon described the policy choices in either-or terms, either his policy or “end the war at once by ordering the immediate withdrawal of all American forces,” an alternative he again characterized as “popular” and “easy,” despite polls reflecting the mixed attitudes of the US public and the difficulties involved in immediate withdrawal, given the number of US troops on the ground. He added that such a move would be politically savvy, enabling him to blame the defeat that inevitably would follow on President Johnson. Moreover, he argued, it would divest him of responsibility and enable him to “come out as a peacemaker,” a title that might be somewhat less appealing, however, if it were associated with a US defeat. In a single paragraph, Nixon showed his mettle by assuming the mantle of international leadership  [  ]

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to consider the impact of such a policy “on the future of peace and freedom in America and the world.” He summed up the situation by saying, “the question before us is not whether some Americans are for peace and some Americans are against peace,” which was a rather startling way to describe conflicting views on the war; then he added that the question “at issue is not whether Johnson’s war becomes Nixon’s war,” which personalized the policy alternatives for the audience. Finally, he posed what he called the great question: “How can we win America’s peace?”19 The form of that question is puzzling. We know what it is to win or lose a war, but just what does it mean to win or lose the peace? That question echoed post–World War II allegations that although the Allies won the war militarily, they “lost” the peace in Europe at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences at which Democratic Presidents Roosevelt and Truman participated, respectively. At those conferences these US presidents acknowledged Soviet control of much of Eastern Europe, but the claim that the United States “lost” the peace ignored the hard reality that at the end of the war, this territory was occupied by Soviet troops, whose military efforts had freed many of the occupied nations from their earlier conquest by the Axis Powers. To “free” these areas would have required military action by US troops to remove their Soviet occupiers, something that the United States and its allies were not ready to undertake especially as long as the war with Japan continued. Similarly, the Allies allegedly “lost” the peace in Asia by allowing Nationalist China to become communist in 1949, which ignored the weaknesses of Chiang Kai-Shek’s leadership and of the Kuomintang Party that he led.20 In other words, this language positioned Vietnam War policy as part of the Cold War and the struggle against a monolithic communist threat. It also implied that past Democratic presidents were responsible for the unfortunate way that the Cold War had developed in Eastern Europe and in Asia. Nixon then identified what he called “the fundamental question: Why and how did the United States become involved in Vietnam in the first place?” That question invited a recital of the lengthy US history in Vietnam summarized in chapter 2. Note that this section of the speech is an example of the use of narrative in war rhetoric, offering [  ]

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a chronicle out of which arguments can be drawn. However, instead of a more detailed, lengthier history, Nixon’s chronicle began: “Fifteen years ago North Vietnam, with the logistical support of Communist China and the Soviet Union, launched a campaign to impose a Communist Government on South Vietnam by instigating and supporting a revolution.” “Fifteen years ago” was 1954, the year of the Geneva Accords, an agreement reached to end the fighting and settle the issue between the Northern and Southern parts of Vietnam through free elections. The United States rejected the Accords and encouraged the South Vietnamese leadership to reject them. These Accords temporarily divided Vietnam at the 17th parallel, preparatory to national elections in 1956, which were intended to be the means to unify the country. Those elections were scuttled by South Vietnam’s Pres. Ngo Dinh Diem, with the approval of President Eisenhower, primarily because all knew that Ho Chi Minh would have been elected president by a wide margin, as Eisenhower acknowledged.21 This truncated history was rhetorically strategic. It ignored Vietminh support of the Allies against Japan in World War II, the Japanese takeover of the country after the French surrendered in 1940, Vietnam’s Declaration of Independence in 1945 at the end of World War II, and the Vietnamese victory over the French at Dien Bien Phu, ending their efforts to regain control of their former colonies. In other words, the history was limited to the time at which, as US leaders chose to interpret it and repeatedly declared, the presumably independent country of South Vietnam had come into existence as a result of what was to be the temporary division facilitated by the Geneva Accords. Nixon then rehearsed the commitments made to South Vietnam by past presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson, who had involved the United States militarily in South Vietnam, in order to pose the realistic question: “Now that we are in the war, what is the best way to end it?” Note that in Nixon’s unusual position as a president confronting a war that had been going on for many years, this was the key challenge that he faced. If Nixon’s earlier assessment was correct, that the war could not be won, but that the US public could not be told that, he had no good options for the future.22  [  ]

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Nixon presented his audience with only one alternative to his proposed policy of Vietnamization, the “precipitate withdrawal of all American forces,” which, he argued, would be a disaster for South Vietnam, the United States, and the cause of peace. If that policy were adopted, he forecast a repetition of the massacres that followed the communist takeover of the North, “atrocities” that would become a nightmare for that entire nation. In addition, he argued, “the first defeat in our nation’s history would result in a collapse of confidence in American leadership, not only in Asia, but throughout the world.” This was a reassertion of the domino theory, enunciated by President Eisenhower, which posited that Vietnam was the key to preventing the fall of other Southeast Asian countries to communist control.23 Nixon also quoted President Kennedy’s statements in his July 17, 1963, press conference, in which he had affirmed a permanent US commitment to South Vietnam and its key role in Southeast Asia. Like his predecessors, Nixon claimed that US credibility was on the line and asserted that withdrawal would encourage communists to increase their efforts to gain control of other countries in Asia. He rejected this alternative because, he concluded, it “would not bring peace. It would bring more war.” In effect, US policy in Vietnam would determine whether communists in other countries, such as Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, and other nations in the vicinity would attempt similar takeovers. Nixon next offered his peace proposal: withdrawal of all outside forces, that is, all US and North Vietnamese forces, from the South within one year; a ceasefire and free elections in the South under international supervision with participation by the communists; and Saigon’s pledge to abide by the results. Note that this is the identical proposal that he had made on May 14. What is unspecified here, although clear in the earlier speech, is that this assumes that Vietnam will be permanently divided between the North and South rather than become a unified country. A careful reading suggests what is clear in the earlier speech, that free elections would take place only in South Vietnam, which would remain independent. As he noted, negotiations with the North had failed in the past, [  ]

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and there was no present progress. In the speech Nixon referred to his diplomatic moves as his “quest for peace,” a phrase intensifying his strong personal commitment to end the war, and he detailed his many personal efforts to achieve peace, which had begun even before his inauguration. They included private offers to Hanoi, approaches to the Soviet Union for assistance, urging Moscow to pressure North Vietnam to agree to a comprehensive settlement of the war, and an offer in a private letter to Ho Chi Minh, part of which he read to the audience, an offer that had been rejected. All of these attempts had failed because of the intransigence of the North Vietnamese. It was Ho Chi Minh and the Vietminh who were preventing a peaceful settlement of the conflict. Accordingly, he asked, “Well, now, who’s at fault?” Based on the record as he presented it, there was only one answer to that question. In order to circumvent this barrier to a negotiated settlement and to promote a more flexible attitude among the Vietminh, Nixon offered what he referred to as the Nixon Doctrine or “Vietnamization.”24 This included a substantial increase in training and equipping the South Vietnamese military and a steady withdrawal of US ground forces, but he offered no timetable because announcing a schedule, he said, would “remove any incentive for the enemy to negotiate.”25 The Guam or Nixon Doctrine was made more appealing because it was presented as a broad international policy that extended far beyond Vietnam and included keeping our treaty commitments everywhere, providing a nuclear shield for any ally that was threatened, and, in other cases of aggression, providing military and economic assistance, whereas any nation attacked would be required to provide the manpower. Moreover, he reported, this new Nixon Doctrine had been greeted enthusiastically by our East Asian allies in the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and South Korea, among others. In other words, the president told US citizens that he had learned from our past experience in Vietnam, and he had developed a policy that would improve US ability to respond, not only to conditions in Vietnam but also to analogous situations. To underscore the policy shift and its implications, he said, “In the previous Administration, we Americanized the war in Vietnam. In  [  ]

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this Administration, we are Vietnamizing the search for peace.” That phrasing was clever and memorable. Deliberative rhetoric must address three interrelated issues: First, is the current situation so unsatisfactory that a change in policy is required? Second, is there a feasible policy to address and resolve identified problems? Finally, are there good reasons to believe that the proposed policy would remove or mitigate existing problems and be practical and beneficial, that is, involve an appropriate demand on personnel and resources and avoid creating new and serious problems? No one, I think, no matter what their attitudes toward the Vietnam War, would have disagreed that there was a need for a change in US policy. The key questions, then, are whether the proposed policy would address the unendurable problems in Vietnam and whether the policy would eliminate those problems without incurring unacceptable side effects? The withdrawal of US ground troops was a key element in the plan to “Vietnamize” the war and to reduce dissent at home, which was fueled by the impact of the draft and the high level of US casualties.26 Obviously, insofar as the impact of the draft and the number of casualties were concerned, the withdrawal of US ground troops would reduce these problems. However, Nixon placed conditions on withdrawal that suggested that the proposed policy might not achieve the desired results. He said that “withdrawal will depend on developments on three fronts”: (1) progress at the Paris peace talks; (2) progress in training South Vietnamese forces; and then he added this cautionary note: (3) “If the level of infiltration or our casualties increase while we are trying to scale down the fighting, it will be the result of a conscious decision by the enemy. . . . If I conclude that increased enemy action jeopardizes our remaining forces in Vietnam, I shall not hesitate to take strong and effective measures to deal with that situation. This is not a threat.” Note, however, that as yet there had been no progress at the peace talks, as Nixon had acknowledged, and there was little reason to believe that there would be in the near future. Similarly, since the time of the Kennedy administration, the United States had been training the South Vietnamese military forces, to little avail.27 Finally and rather surprisingly, Nixon gave the North Vietnamese control over the success [  ]

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or failure of his new policy: it required the collaboration of the enemy! What incentive did the North have to reduce infiltration or to decrease the number of casualties: in effect, to reduce their military activity? In other words, Nixon himself offered reasons to believe that this policy must fail. Moreover, despite his disclaimer, his words constituted a threat, and as experience teaches, threats often stiffen resistance. How can a critic explain the strong support for this flawed policy, which was reflected in increased and strong support for the president following the speech? The US public was eager for the war to end and to bring their sons home; insofar as this policy might lead to that, it would be approved enthusiastically. Obviously, postulating only two alternatives, one of which was a defeat that would destroy US credibility in the world and open the door to further efforts by the communists, invited approval of his policy from the audience. A second group of related strategies helps to explain why, in a Gallup Poll of those who heard the speech, 77 percent gave the president a vote of confidence.28 At three points in the speech, Nixon skillfully used a distinctive strategy: in each case, he “created” his audience, that is, he invited the audience to assume or to see themselves in attractive, flattering roles. He appealed particularly to his target audience, but presumably these roles were attractive to the US public as a whole, and they were particularly inviting to his more conservative supporters and to those who had voted for George Wallace, whom he was wooing. This strategy was executed brilliantly. First, he explained our involvement in Vietnam this way: “We Americans are a do-it-yourself people; we’re an impatient people. Instead of teaching someone else to do a job, we like to do it ourselves. And this trait has been carried over into foreign policy.” This is a characterization of US citizens with which many would agree, and it echoed the appearance in the 1950s of many commercial kits to enable “do-it-yourself ” for people undertaking home improvement and construction projects as creative-recreational and cost-saving activities. The role is consistent with our appreciation of self-reliance and of a willingness to accept individual responsibility. Accordingly, he said, “In Korea, and again in Vietnam, the United States furnished most of the money, most of the  [  ]

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arms, and most of the men to help the people of these countries defend their freedom against Communist aggression.” In other words, we impulsive, self-reliant, and capable US citizens, with the best of intentions, assumed a “do-it-yourself ” role in defending these peoples, and our involvement, thus, was wholesome and understandable, consistent with highly valued qualities of our national character. Note, however, that this statement treated conditions in Vietnam and Korea as if they were identical. In effect, he invited the audience to see them as essentially alike, and to assume that the war in Vietnam, like the war in Korea, involved a communist invasion, which was not the case. In Korea, the communist North led by Kim Il-Sung invaded the South hoping to unify the nation through a quick military conquest, an act of aggression defeated only by the most strenuous US and UN efforts; Vietnam, by contrast, was temporarily and artificially divided in 1954, and it was scheduled to be unified by free elections in 1956. When these were torpedoed by the South with the consent of the United States, the war began. The North Vietnamese and the Vietcong saw themselves as fighting to unify their country consistent with the Geneva Accords, and to make it independent, which included freedom from foreign interference, including that of the United States. Later, Nixon urged support for his policy by saying, “Let historians not record that, when America was the most powerful nation in the world, we passed on the other side of the road and allowed the last hopes for peace and freedom of millions of people to be suffocated by the forces of totalitarianism.” The language was vivid; it made a powerful appeal through an allusion that drew a parallel between our efforts in Vietnam and the story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10: 25–36 (KJV). Recall that after Jesus told a group of his listeners that they should love their neighbors as themselves, a skeptic challenged him by asking, “And who is my neighbor?” In response, Jesus told the story of a man, perhaps a Jew, who was set upon by thieves and left bleeding by the roadside. First a priest came by and carefully avoided the injured man by crossing to the other side of the road. Then a Levite, a member of a strict religious sect, came by and did likewise. Finally, a Samaritan, a member of a group despised by the Jews, came by and dressed the [  ]

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man’s wounds, took him to an inn, and paid the innkeeper to allow him to rest and recover. Jesus then asked, “Which of these three . . . was neighbor unto him that fell among the thieves?” Based on the biblical allusion, the United States is like the Good Samaritan caring for and helping a people who have been set upon by communist thieves and are the victims of aggression. In other words, through this analogy, US intervention was exonerated. Rather than interfering in the internal affairs of another country, we were protecting South Vietnam from its enemies, and like the Good Samaritan, we were following Jesus’ precepts and fulfilling our ethical responsibilities to our neighbors. This was a powerful moral and religious appeal. Finally, using a phrase that would come to characterize and entitle the speech, Nixon said, “And so tonight, to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans, I ask for your support.” Neither Nixon nor his speechwriting staff recognized the powerful appeal of “the great silent majority,” although that phrase crystallized and dramatized identification among Nixon’s target audience. William Safire later offered an explanation: “‘Pluralistic ignorance’ is how behaviorists describe a situation in which the members of a majority are unaware they are in the majority. . . . [O]n November 3, 1969, Nixon dispelled pluralistic ignorance and gave the majority both its identity and a new confidence.” Rhetorical scholars will recognize that this dynamic is a version in miniature of the constitutive rhetoric described by Maurice Charland in Quebec and Nathaniel Cordova in Puerto Rico.29 That identification was powerful in itself, appealing to ordinary citizens for their support, but it was strengthened greatly by Nixon’s creation of a highly unattractive alter ego. He said: “Honest and patriotic Americans have reached different conclusions as to how peace should be achieved.” He then vividly personified those who dissented from his views: “In San Francisco a few weeks ago, I saw demonstrators carrying signs that read, ‘Lose in Vietnam, bring the boys home.’” Obviously, as characterized, these demonstrators were not “honest and patriotic Americans.” They were eager for the United States to accept defeat and lose the war, and they were in San Francisco, a city associated with large antiwar protests as well as with the drug culture  [  ]

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of Haight-Ashbury and a growing gay community. Moreover, Nixon cast the rejection of this part of the audience in dramatic political terms: “I would be untrue to my oath of office if I allowed the policy of this nation to be dictated by the minority . . . who try to impose it on the nation by mounting demonstrations in the street. . . . If a vocal minority, however fervent its cause, prevails over reason and the will of the majority, this nation has no future as a free society.” Put differently, Nixon would be guilty of treason and impeachable if he violated the oath he had taken as president “to preserve, protect, and defend the United States of America,” if he harkened to these dissenting voices. This vocal minority of antiwar protestors was violating democratic principles by attempting to impose their will, not through the ballot box or via elected representatives, but by demonstrating on the streets. By contrast, the “great silent majority” was composed of those committed to democracy, to decisions made through voting, and its members would listen to and respond to reason as their elected leader with access to the best sources of information explained what was the best path to follow. Identification has a dual meaning; it refers both to what members of a group share and what differentiates them from others. Nixon not only created “the people” as a positive, unified identity, “the great silent majority,” but he also vividly characterized dissenters by creating a repulsive alter ego of loathsome Others—druggies, hippies, and gays from that Sodom of the West Coast, San Francisco. Of them, Nixon said: “Because let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.” Those who could defeat the United States were the protestors who were attempting to destroy national credibility and prestige, and the citizens who could do that had been identified and demonized. Nixon also used a strategy of personalization; that is, he marked this policy as belonging to a particular person—President Nixon—and he came to personify the proposed policy so it was specifically identified with him. Accordingly, it was difficult for members of the audience to separate support for the US presidency generally—especially because the policy was linked in fact and in the speech to Presidents Eisenhower, [  ]

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Truman, Kennedy, and Wilson—from support for President Nixon and his policy. Kenneth Burke argues that the person of the leader can become a means for transcending internal division, when the issue and the relationship between leader and followers are personalized. Unity occurs when the policy becomes indistinguishable from the leader who proposes it and when the relationship between leader and followers becomes intimate.30 Note that in the speech, Vietnamization became the Nixon Doctrine, and Nixon referred to the possibility that ­Johnson’s war might become Nixon’s war. He spoke of his private efforts for peace as “my quest,” as if he were a contemporary Galahad seeking the Holy Grail of peace in Vietnam. The policy became the fulfillment of his promise: “I pledged in my campaign for the Presidency to end the war,” a statement that invited the audience to see his proposals in these terms, and he concluded, “As President I hold the responsibility for choosing the best path and then for leading our nation along it.” In other words, the policy and the president became virtually indistinguishable. In addition to a pervasive use of personal pronouns, Nixon said that he knew what was in the minds of his audience; he “disclosed” his private efforts for peace; he spoke directly to the young people of the nation whose concerns he said he understood. Finally, he said: “There are powerful personal reasons I want to end this war. This week I will have to sign 83 letters to mothers, fathers, wives, and loved ones of men who had given their lives for America in Vietnam.” All of these references personalized and individuated his relationship to the policy and undermined the listeners’ ability to evaluate the policy on more impersonal, pragmatic grounds. Near the end of the speech, he made another set of statements that personalized this policy and set him apart from and in opposition to potential critics. He said: “I have chosen a plan for peace. I believe it will succeed. If it does not succeed, what the critics say now won’t matter. Or if it does succeed, what the critics say now won’t matter. If it does not succeed, anything I say then won’t matter.” These somewhat puzzling statements distinguish the president, his policy, and its success or failure from whatever critics or commentators might say about it. If critics  [  ]

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responded to his plan by suggesting that it might fail, whatever they said wouldn’t matter, presumably because the plan has been put into effect—no alterations could be made; it was done—a fait accompli. Alternatively, if the plan succeeded, he would be able to ignore whatever the critics said, presumably in the satisfaction of knowing that he made the right decision. Finally, if it did not succeed, nothing he could say then, presumably in defense of his decision, would make any difference.31 Nixon presumed that there would be critics of his policy, and there were, and this was one way to preempt whatever criticism they might offer. But that was not the sole effort the administration made to respond to his critics. In order to mute criticism, the Nixon administration designated Vice Pres. Spiro Agnew to be the point person to attack critics of the president’s policies. Accordingly, the vice president delivered two key addresses, the first to the Mid-West Regional Republican Committee at Des Moines, Iowa, on November 13, ten days after Nixon’s speech.32 In that speech Agnew severely criticized televised coverage of the news about the Vietnam War but focused specifically on responses to the president’s speech. He said that the president’s policies “were subjected to instant analysis and querulous criticism . . . by a small band of network commentators and self-appointed analysts, the majority of whom expressed in one way or another their hostility to what he had to say.” He singled out Averill Harriman, formerly the chief negotiator at the Paris peace talks, and said, “Mr. Harriman offered a broad range of gratuitous advice. . . . Where the President had issued a call for unity, Mr. Harriman was encouraging the country not to listen to him.” The focus of his attack, however, was the nightly television newscasts and “the network reporter who . . . becomes, in effect, the presiding judge in a national trial by jury.” He described network journalists as atypical, “commentators and producers [who] live in the geographical and intellectual confines of Washington, D.C., of New York City. . . . Both communities bask in their own provincialism, their own parochialism.” Accordingly, he argued, “The American people would rightly not tolerate this concentration of power in Government. Is it not fair and relevant to question its concentration in the hands of a tiny, [  ]

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enclosed fraternity of privileged men elected by no one and enjoying a monopoly sanctioned and licensed by the Government?” He used vivid alliteration to claim that “Normality has become the nemesis of the network news. Now the upshot of all this controversy is that a narrow and distorted picture of America often emerges from the network news.” He concluded that speech saying, “The great networks have dominated America’s airwaves for decades. The people are entitled to a full accounting of their stewardship.” On November 20, 1969, Agnew continued his attacks on critics as he spoke to the Montgomery, Alabama, Chamber of Commerce and extended his criticism to news coverage by the print press. Agnew became a formidable rhetorical weapon in the administration’s armory, in part because his Des Moines speech was covered live by all three television networks, and the Montgomery speech received extensive coverage in the print press. His defense of the administration was facilitated by the skillful concealment of a partisan attack behind a rather superficial analysis of a real and serious problem posed by the concentration and power of the mass media. In effect, Agnew argued that presidential statements should be immune from prompt criticism before the immediate audience so nothing would interfere with their persuasive impact. Moreover, despite his suggestion that reactions were “instant” and “querulous,” many journalists who responded to the president’s speech had on-the-ground experience of the war, and officials such as Harriman had firsthand information about the negotiations in Paris. In other words, despite Nixon’s dismissal of the critics, Agnew’s efforts suggest that the administration was very concerned about critical response to the president’s policies for Vietnam.33 Nixon’s relations with members of the press had been less than ideal in the past, reflected in his angry comment to journalists—that they wouldn’t have him to kick around anymore—after his loss in his 1962 campaign for the California governorship. Of some interest in understanding his comments in the November 3 speech is that Nixon greatly admired the words of Pres. Theodore Roosevelt in “Citizenship in a Republic,” a speech delivered at the Sorbonne in Paris on April 23, 1910. There is a paragraph, often entitled “The Man in the Arena,” to  [  ]

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which Nixon often referred.34 That paragraph reads as follows: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” The figure who emerges from these statements is the lonely man who struggles in the arena of conflict, who strives to do great deeds in a worthy cause in contrast to timid souls who do not dare to act but only criticize and, hence, never know the joy of victory or the pain of defeat. If this link is made, the speech deeply reflects the character and personality of the speaker and the image he wishes to project of himself—as a brave doer of great deeds. Did Nixon live up to that high standard? Regarding his policy, each reader must decide, but this address is a persuasive masterpiece that uses all the available means of persuasion to produce a desired result. The strategies employed are superlative examples of exceptionally skillful techniques for shaping assent. Among critics, there was no disagreement that this was an outstanding example of public persuasion, but as the next chapter shows, critics differed greatly in how they evaluated the speech. The speeches on the war that followed reprised many of the arguments made in Nixon’s earlier speeches. The situation on the ground continued to frustrate Nixon and to prevent him from achieving his goal of a peace that included a strong, independent South Vietnam. The most dramatic decision to seek a way out of the military and diplomatic impasse was authorization to extend military action, including US ground troops, into Cambodia, which was considered a neutral nation.35 Seeking a way to cope with Vietnamese use of Cambodia had a long history. [  ]

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Shortly after Nixon’s inauguration in 1969, the new commander of the US Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV), Gen. Creighton W. Abrams, proposed attacking the Cambodian base areas used by the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese Army (PAVN) by aerial bombardment using B-52 Stratofortress bombers. Initially Nixon rejected that proposal but changed his mind after North Vietnam’s People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) began a “Mini-Tet” Offensive in the South in 1969. Angered at what he saw as a violation of the supposed “agreement” with Hanoi after the cessation of the bombing of North Vietnam, Nixon authorized the covert air campaign. The first mission of Operation Menu was dispatched on March 18, 1969, and when completed fourteen months later, 3,630 sorties had been flown and 103,921 tons of ordnance had been dropped on eastern Cambodia. A variety of deceptions was used to maintain the fiction that only South Vietnam was being bombed.36 In his first speech on Vietnam on May 14, 1969, Nixon reinforced this fiction when he referred briefly to Cambodia and Laos and set forth the principles that would lead to a settlement of the war: “What kind of a settlement will permit the South Vietnamese people to determine freely their own political future? Such a settlement will require the withdrawal of all non–South Vietnamese forces, including our own, from South Vietnam, and procedures for political choice that give each significant group in South Vietnam a real opportunity to participate in the political life of the nation. To implement these principles, I reaffirm now our willingness to withdraw our forces on a specified timetable. We ask only that North Vietnam withdraw its forces from South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos into North Vietnam, also in accordance with a timetable. We include Cambodia and Laos to ensure that these countries would not be used as bases for a renewed war.” On April 20, 1970, in reporting progress in Vietnam, Nixon announced withdrawal of another 150,000 US troops: “This will bring a total reduction of 265,500 men in our Armed Forces in Vietnam below the level that existed when we took office 15 months ago. . . . Now, viewed against the enemy’s escalation in Laos and Cambodia, and in view of the stepped-up attacks this month in South Vietnam, this decision clearly involves risks. But  [  ]

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I again remind the leaders of North Vietnam that while we are taking these risks for peace, they will be taking grave risks should they attempt to use the occasion to jeopardize the security of our remaining forces in Vietnam by increased military action in Vietnam, in Cambodia, or in Laos.”37 This speech again reflects his tacit assumption that a kind of unspoken quid pro quo existed with the North, that reductions of US forces would be met with reduced enemy activity. It also repeated a threat similar to that in his November 3 speech, a threat that ceded control of success to the enemy. He also identified the risk posed by escalated military action in the neighboring states of Laos and Cambodia, an escalation that may have been a result of the increased US bombing of North Vietnam.38 In the meantime, the situation in Cambodia abruptly changed. Lon Nol overthrew its former leader, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, an opportunist who had attempted to play both sides against the other. The North Vietnamese viewed the overthrow of the neutralist Sihanouk by a pro-Western leader as a major military setback, and they began an effort to take control of Cambodia while Nixon and his advisors pondered what to do. According to William Safire, “Nixon went through eight drafts of the speech,” and “The speech gave it to the people ‘with the bark on,’ as Nixon liked to say—patriotic, angry, stick-with-me-or-else, alternatively pious and strident—and he would soon be criticized for heightening and harshening the crisis with his pitch. But he undoubtedly felt that honesty in this case was the best policy, that if he was going to take a strong step he was not going to pretend it was anything else.”39 On April 30, 1970, at 9:00 p.m., one and one-half hours after the US attacks on the “Fish Hook” area of Cambodia had begun, President Nixon went on television to deliver his “Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia.” It was a key speech, and it is the counterpart of the November 3, 1969, address. Here, too, Nixon announced an initiative, in this case an escalation of the war, referred to as an “incursion,” to distinguish it from an invasion, into the neutral nation of Cambodia. In the speech Nixon revealed that North Vietnamese military “sanctuaries” in Cambodia had been attacked. That news, too, [  ]

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was prefaced by a report of further withdrawals of US ground troops: “Ten days ago, in my report to the Nation on Vietnam, I announced a decision to withdraw an additional 150,000 Americans from Vietnam over the next year. . . . At that time, I warned that if I concluded that increased enemy activity in any of these areas endangered the lives of Americans remaining in Vietnam, I would not hesitate to take strong and effective measures to deal with that situation. Despite that warning, North Vietnam has increased its military aggression in all these areas, and particularly in Cambodia.” His decision was presented as realistic, a decision to authorize increased military action as a response to Vietnamese violations of Cambodian neutrality that forced Cambodia, now led by pro-Western Lon Nol, to send “out a call to the United States . . . for assistance.”40 He announced his military decision: “Tonight, American and South Vietnamese units will attack the headquarters for the entire Communist military operation in South Vietnam. This key control center has been occupied by the North Vietnamese and Vietcong for 5 years in blatant violation of Cambodia’s neutrality. This is not an invasion of Cambodia.” In effect, he seemed to want to have it both ways: this was a prudent, realistic response to an intolerable military use by the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong of the territory of a neutral nation, and it was not to be seen as an invasion. Calling the operation an “incursion” emphasized the limited character of this military operation, but it did not alter the perception that another supposedly neutral country was being dragged into the Vietnam War. The final sentence above is another example of Nixon’s tendency to make an assertion that invites a contrary interpretation, similar to his assertion in the November 3 speech, “This is not a threat.” Like his earlier speeches, he addressed himself to his primary audience, and characterized the incursion as essential to attaining his goals: to end the war and “win the peace.” Note, in particular, the repeated use of the phrase, “A majority of the American people” in this key section: A majority of the American people, a majority of you listening to me, are for the withdrawal of our forces from Vietnam. The  [  ]

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action I have taken tonight is indispensable for the continuing success of that withdrawal program. A majority of the American people want to end this war rather than to have it drag on interminably. The action I have taken tonight will serve that purpose. A majority of the American people want to keep the casualties of our brave men in Vietnam at an absolute minimum. The action I take tonight is essential if we are to accomplish that goal. We take this action not for the purpose of expanding the war into Cambodia but for the purpose of ending the war in Vietnam and winning the just peace we all desire. . . . Tonight I again warn the North Vietnamese that if they continue to escalate the fighting when the United States is withdrawing its forces, I shall meet my responsibility as Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces to take action I consider necessary to defend the security of our American men. Clearly, he wished to do what “a majority of the American people” desired. His statements also implied that the war could be won militarily or, perhaps, that peace could come only through military escalation, a view that he had questioned privately. This operation lasted for only eighteen months; a time limit had been imposed—all US forces out of Cambodia by June 30, limits that were strictly observed. South Vietnamese forces continued the fight in Cambodia for the next eighteen months. The operation was a success in military terms. US and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) combat forces in Cambodia captured or destroyed almost ten thousand tons of matériel and food: enough rice to feed more than 25,000 troops a full ration for an entire year; individual weapons to equip fifty-five full-strength battalions; crew-served weapons to equip thirty-three full battalions; and mortar, rocket, and recoilless rifle ammunition for more than nine thousand average attacks. In all, 11,362 enemy soldiers were killed and over 2,000 captured. In South Vietnam, large Vietcong and North Vietnamese Army attacks almost ceased for over a year because of their losses in Cambodia.41 [  ]

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As in the November 3 speech, he presented this decision as unavoidable, and blamed the enemy: “North Vietnam in the last 2 weeks has stripped away all pretense of respecting the sovereignty or the neutrality of Cambodia.” Once again the public was told that we faced limited options: do nothing; provide massive military assistance to Cambodia, which was not a feasible response to the immediate threat; or Nixon’s decision, to “go to the heart of the trouble” and attack the “sanctuaries” in Cambodia. Also as in the November 3 speech, he personalized the decision, including the use of powerfully gendered language.42 For example, he dismissed reacting to “this threat to American lives merely by plaintive diplomatic protests.” He said, “we will not be humiliated,” and added, “If when the chips are down, the most powerful nation, the United States of America, acts like a pitiful helpless giant, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations and free institutions around the world” (emphasis added to all above quotes). Here and later, preserving US prestige and credibility seemed to be indistinguishable from preserving President Nixon’s personal prestige and credibility. Shawcross describes the delivery of this speech as follows: “The President’s image that night, on television screens across America, was not comforting. His tone was strident, his words were slurred, and he mopped the sweat from his upper lip. His emotion was understandable, but his vision of the world was truly as nightmare. [He said,] ‘We live in an age of anarchy.’ . . . It was to these threats that the United States and he, the President, must respond.” Consistent with repeated personalization of the policy, he renewed pledges he had made earlier and asserted that he was fulfilling them: “During my campaign for the presidency, I pledged to bring Americans home from Vietnam. They are coming home. I promised to end this war. I shall keep that promise. I promised to win a just peace. I shall keep that promise.” As in the earlier speech, he referred to momentous decisions by Presidents Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Kennedy, but he added, “in those decisions the American people were not assailed by counsels of doubt and defeat from some of the most widely known opinion leaders of the Nation,” which suggested that he was deeply disturbed by criticism of  [  ]

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his performance and believed that, as a president in wartime, he should receive support from all sides and saw himself as treated unfairly. Echoing his words on November 3, he emphasized his actions as a brave initiative. He said that it was “tempting to take the easy path; to blame this war on previous administrations; . . . to get peace at any price now even though I know a peace of humiliation for the United States would lead to a bigger war or surrender later.” Moreover, he acknowledged the potential political impact of his decision as he dismissed any concern for re-election. He said, “I have rejected all political considerations in making this decision,” noting that some said that “this move against enemy sanctuaries will make me a one-term president.” Such statements ironically reminded listeners of the potential fallout of this policy on his re-election and presented him as brave and daring, “the man in the arena.” At the end of the speech, he seemed aggrieved. Instead of doing what he said was customary at the time, asking for support for the president, and seemingly implying that he might not receive it, he made a powerful patriotic and emotional appeal for what he said was “far more important, . . . your support for our brave fighting men halfway around the world—not for territory—not for glory—but so that their younger brothers and their sons and your sons can have a chance to grow up in a world of peace and freedom and justice.” Clearly, there are many similarities between this speech and that of November 3, 1969; on the other hand, the tone was different. This speech reflected the president’s exasperation with the progress of the war, and it was even more personal and emotional than that of November 3. At moments, he seemed defiant. What bleeds into Nixon’s language is his anger and frustration, perhaps arising out of the contradiction between what he said he knew to be impossible, winning the war militarily, and what seemed constantly to remain out of reach, a peace agreement that would include an independent South Vietnam.43 The fallout from his decision on Cambodia came quickly to university campuses, as protests erupted against what was perceived as an expansion of the war into another country. On May 4, the unrest escalated into violence when Ohio National Guardsmen shot and killed four unarmed students (two of whom were not protesters) at Kent State [  ]

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University. Two days later, at the University of Buffalo, police wounded four more demonstrators. On May 8, 100,000 protesters gathered in Washington, DC, and another 150,000 in San Francisco. Nationwide, thirty ROTC buildings went up in flames or were bombed; twenty-six schools witnessed violent clashes between students and police. National Guard units were mobilized on twenty-one campuses in sixteen states.44 The student strike spread nationwide, involving more than four million students and 450 universities, colleges, and high schools in mostly peaceful protests and walkouts. Public opinion polls following the speech during the second week of May presented a different picture. They showed that 50 percent of the US public approved of President Nixon’s actions. Fifty-eight percent blamed the students for what had occurred at Kent State.45 On both sides, emotions ran high. Most demonstrations, however, both pro- and antiwar, were peaceful.

 [  ]

chapter 4

Nixon’s Rhetorical Critics

This chapter is framed by disciplinary history. The development of rhetorical criticism is a story of efforts to free critics from the constraints of formulas, usually drawn from Greco-Roman principles, in order to foster critical practices adapted to the distinctive character of the works being analyzed. Rhetorical criticism as we now know it began in earnest in the 1960s. Prior to that time, criticism took the form of the essays in the three volumes of A History and Criticism of American Public Address, which were studies of prominent US speakers in the fields of law, politics, and religion emphasizing their biographies and historical influence, studies similar to the earlier work of Chauncey Goodrich on great British parliamentary speakers.1 The general approach to criticism found in those volumes had its origins in a 1925 essay in which Herbert A. Wichelns identified the distinctiveness that justified the study of public address and defined the character of rhetorical scholarship. He argued that “the conditions of democracy necessitate . . . the study of the [oratorical] art” (4), which, he argued, is “the art of influencing men [sic] in some concrete situation,” and the orator is “a public man whose function it is to exert influence by speech” (21). Accordingly, he asserted, rhetorical criticism “is not concerned with permanence, nor yet with beauty. It is concerned with effect. It regards a speech as a communication to a specific audience, and holds its business to be the analysis and appreciation of the

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orator’s method of imparting his ideas to his hearers” (22). Thus, he concluded, the study of oratory or public rhetoric lay “at the boundary of politics (in the broadest sense) and literature; its atmosphere is that of the public life, its tools are those of literature, its concern is with the ideas of the people as influenced by their leaders” (26). His essay did not prescribe an application of the rhetorical principles developed by Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian, among others, but these became standard and were elaborated in Speech Criticism: The Development of Standards for Critical Appraisal.2 Already in 1944, Loren Reid had begun to question whether such studies constituted critical analysis, and in 1965, Edwin Black issued a sustained critique of the dominant critical paradigm based on analysis of the essays in the volumes edited by William Brigance and Marie Kathryn Hochmuth.3 Black noted that these essays typically identified speeches by genre, as deliberative, or engaged in political decision making; forensic, or the rhetoric of law courts and legal decisions; or epideictic; or ceremonial and commemorative discourse. Critics also parsed speeches in terms of four basic standards or principles developed by the ancients: invention, or the apt selection and use of available materials; organization, or effective arrangement of materials; appropriate style or use of language; and suitable presentation or delivery. In addition, critics focused attention on logos, defined as the use of argument and evidence; pathos, defined as emotional appeals to values and beliefs held by the audience; and ethos, understood as the creation of an attractive persona by the speaker. Despite protestations to the contrary, the ultimate criterion of evaluation was whether a speech produced the desired effects on the immediate audience(s). As a basis for enlarging the critical perspective, Black used an unusual example, John Chapman’s address at Coatesville, Pennsylvania, in 1912, a speech heard possibly by three people and that produced no immediate effects but, he argued, still has the power to speak to contemporary audiences. He wished to identify works that had enduring power that illustrated what was possible in public discourse. He also urged the study of types or genres of discourse in addition to the three described above. In response to the dynamic events of the 1960s, critical essays  [  ]

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appeared analyzing the rhetoric of social movements; the rhetoric of Black Power and of woman’s rights activists; the civil rights rhetoric of key figures, such as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Stokely Carmichael, among others; and other protest discourse. Black’s book appeared at an apt moment. Alternative approaches to criticism were imperative in a period of social upheaval created by dissent from the Vietnam War policies; the resistance to segregation, disenfranchisement, and discrimination by African Americans; second-wave feminist demands for equal opportunity; and protests against discrimination by those seeking rights for gay citizens, supported by the rebellious attitudes and behaviors of the counterculture. The dominant critical paradigm had presupposed deliberation and decorum, emphasized argument and evidence, and disparaged confrontation, direct action, and other challenges to accepted forms of discourse.4 Alternative critical perspectives were needed to respond to a new discursive environment. At the same time, such proposals prompted lively disagreements about the appropriate way to analyze and evaluate a speech, disagreements illustrated in part by the critical essays evaluating Nixon’s November 3, 1969, address to the nation. As noted, that speech quickly aroused the interest of rhetorical critics, and four scholars published critiques not long after it was delivered. The first, by me, was broadcast as the fifteen-minute editorial segment of the evening newscast on KPFK-Pacifica, Los Angeles, on January 22, 1970. It was revised and published in a textbook in 1972, and its appearance prompted a critical rejoinder by Forbes I. Hill. In 1970, Robert P. Newman also published a critique, and in 1971 a critique by Hermann G. Stelzner appeared. Twenty years after the speech was delivered, as part of a commemorative program at which these critics discussed their differing views, I offered yet another analysis of the speech.5 These five critiques illustrate varied ways in which critics can approach a speech, and what follows is a brief overview of each followed by a more intensive analysis of each. The first critique of January 22, 1970, is an example of intrinsic criticism, by which I mean an analysis that drew its evaluative criteria from the text of the speech and closely analyzed what Nixon said. [  ]

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Because the critique was an editorial on public radio, I attempted to judge the speaker by his own standards, adopting the criteria he offered in the speech as a basis for judgment. That critique, however, reflected an altered approach to criticism because it emphasized an additional criterion, based on democratic political theory, about the role of the US president and the importance of sustaining a key element in democratic decision making, firm support for the idea of the loyal opposition. It also stepped outside the speech to raise broad foreign policy questions, specifically whether Vietnamization was another example of US foreign policy based on questionable premises about the role of the United States in the world. That critique, slightly edited, was published in an early textbook on rhetorical criticism, and it aroused an impassioned response from Forbes Hill, whose analysis of the speech adhered carefully and strictly to the principles of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, not solely by following the traditional principles of such criticism as described by Thonssen and Baird, but as derived from Hill’s careful scholarly study of Aristotle’s text.6 It rejected alternative approaches to critical analysis as falling outside the competence of rhetoricians who had not been trained as historians, political theorists, foreign policy analysts, or moral philosophers. In effect, his analysis disempowers ordinary citizens; only technical experts have the credentials to evaluate public rhetoric. His critique raised an important question: On what basis can rhetorical critics justify the evaluations that they make? In the meantime, Robert Newman’s critique was published. It was a historical and political analysis of the speech that evaluated how well Nixon responded to expectations and to the conditions that existed in Vietnam and in the United States at the time he delivered the speech. His critique identified a primary source for the policy outlined in the speech, because what Nixon proposed had been outlined in an essay by Herman Kahn that had appeared earlier in Foreign Affairs. It also focused on the ways in which Nixon failed to use the opportunities afforded him as a newly elected president, given the loss of credibility of his predecessor and the profound desires of the public and of journalists that he would end the war. In addition, there was the hope that  [  ]

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future presidential discourse would be candid about current conditions and proposed initiatives. In many ways, this critique is an outstanding example of the kind of criticism that Wichelns described and justified. Hermann Stelzner approached the speech differently. His critique adopted a literary perspective by focusing on a key phrase in the speech, “my quest for peace,” as the framework for analysis. That phrase, he argued, defined the persona of the speaker and reflected the identification of the president with his policy and the highly personalized character of the speech. On those grounds, Stelzner argued, the speech was unsatisfying because the quest motif was undeveloped and its potential unrealized. Stelzner also used the framework of the quest motif to comment on the surprising lack of a moral perspective in Nixon’s speech, a dimension that might be expected from heroes who go on quests. Twenty years after Nixon’s speech was delivered, I developed a second critique that incorporated theoretical concepts from the works of political scientist Murray Edelman and rhetorical theorist Kenneth Burke and in which I addressed issues about foreign policy rhetoric generally. Obviously, as Wichelns had urged, the public discourse of powerful elites continued to be of great interest to critics, particularly as they attempted to negotiate conflicting viewpoints and dissenting groups. Richard Nixon had been a somewhat controversial figure in Congress and as vice president, which continued into his presidency. While in Congress, he had been a central figure in efforts to eliminate those alleged to be communists who had served in the US government, and he was a powerful voice for the Cold War policies of the Eisenhower administration. He was elected to the presidency in the midst of intense conflict over US foreign policy in Vietnam, and his campaign promise to end the war made his speeches on that topic especially significant for the US public and for scholars of public discourse. Because of controversy over the Vietnam War, Nixon‘s speech of November 3, 1969, attracted special critical attention in the media and in academia. In his well-developed essay following more traditional concepts of criticism, Robert Newman’s critique followed the precepts of Wichelns, [  ]

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but it also incorporated attention to timing and approached the speech using the historical and political context as a basis for its evaluation; however, he did not refer to Nixon’s earlier speech on Vietnam of May 14.7 Newman noted that on October 13, Nixon announced that he would make a major speech on Vietnam and that the long lead time heightened expectations that the president would “produce good news for peace” (168). Newman also cited evidence that because the speech had to “convey an authentic note of personal involvement,” all ten drafts of the speech were “pristine Nixon,” which suggested that personalizing the policy as his own work was important and carefully planned, a decision consistent with Nixon’s eagerness to gain personal credit for all foreign policy initiatives. Newman traced Nixon’s views of the Vietnam conflict, including his support in 1954 while vice president of an effort to launch an expeditionary force against Ho Chi Minh and in support of the French.8 Moreover, until the 1968 presidential campaign, Nixon had strongly supported the war. Accordingly, Newman argued, one had to approach the speech with the assumption that if Nixon disengaged, he would do so reluctantly. Newman used the 1968 election as a way to identify key audiences: domestically, they included the conservative Republicans who had voted for Nixon; the hawkish supporters of George Wallace who had not; the “majority of . . . forgotten Americans, the non-shouters” to whom he had referred in his nomination acceptance address, many of whom had mixed feelings about the war; and the convinced doves, many of whom were young people. Internationally, Nixon was sending a message to South Vietnam that the United States would stay the course and to Hanoi that it would have to deal with President Thieu of the Republic of South Vietnam. Newman thus identified Nixon’s persuasive strategy: appeal to the patriotism of the silent majority, use tough talk to conservatives and Wallace supporters to show that he was their champion, and make no effort to placate the doves. That analysis echoed the view of conservative columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, who wrote that Nixon wanted to polarize opinion, “isolating dissenters and thereby dooming the extremist-led November 15 march on Washington.”9 Newman argued, however, that this strategy was  [  ]

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not inevitable, that Nixon could have made his proposals palatable to many of his opponents. He noted that, after all, Nixon was proposing a withdrawal in stages, keeping the timetable secret, and maintaining a noncommunist government in Saigon, proposals with wide popular appeal. Newman identified four policy alternatives that had been proposed by members of Congress and foreign policy elites, including that of Sen. Charles Goodell (R-NY), who favored a phased but definite withdrawal. Others proposed additional negotiation to reach agreement on withdrawal and steady withdrawal with a fixed terminal date, an option Newman argued deserved more careful attention in the speech, all of which were alternatives in addition to the two contrasting possibilities posited in Nixon’s speech. Newman identified Nixon’s plan as a scenario worked up by Herman Kahn of the Hudson Institute and set forth in an essay, “If Negotiations Fail,” published in Foreign Affairs in July 1968. Kahn’s de-escalation plan included building up the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, withdrawal of most US combat units, and leaving behind some 200,000–300,000 ground troops to “deter a resumption of major hostilities.”10 Nixon’s plan, however, included no announced long-range schedule. Newman also evaluated whether the proposed plan would work, pointedly asking, “Is it probable that the Vietminh and Hanoi would tolerate thousands of foreign troops while the hated Thieu regime attempted to develop combat effectiveness? Given its poor record, is it likely that the shaky Saigon regime will develop political and military effectiveness sufficient to keep the North at bay? Would the US public, including the silent majority, tolerate a semi-permanent occupation even if casualties drop to zero?” (174–75) Obviously, these questions suggest that there was little chance that Nixon’s plan could achieve his goals, and in critical terms, they go far beyond the traditional formulae for evaluation. Moreover, Newman argued that “we need some assurance that the President is capable of .  .  . ‘tough-minded empathy’ or the ability to see this plan as Hanoi sees it” (175), reminding readers of the key role of the North Vietnamese government in determining whether the policy could succeed, a special use of the effects criterion. He also quoted liberal columnist James [  ]

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Reston to identify a difficulty in the proposed policy, what debaters recognize as assessing whether a proposed plan has fatal flaws that may prevent it from achieving its goals: “For if his policy is to stick with the South Vietnamese until they demonstrate that they are secure, all they have to do is prolong their inefficiency in order to guarantee that we will stay in the battle indefinitely.”11 Newman also documented the effects of the speech on other audiences, apart from Nixon’s high approval ratings in the polls. He noted, for example, that the president’s credibility among journalists declined significantly. They had believed that, unlike Lyndon Johnson, he would be “open and candid,” but liberal columnist James Reston wrote instead that Nixon had been “personal and partisan. Like Johnson, he has dealt with the politics of the problem but not with the problem of Vietnam.”12 The effect in Saigon was dramatic because the speech greatly strengthened President Thieu (176). US doves were horrified, a reaction reflected in the increased size of the November 15 Moratorium demonstration in Washington, DC, over the demonstration in October. In assessing the speech, Newman made comments related to kairos, or timing, and to prepon, or adaptation, classical concepts referring to finding the ideal response when a moment of opportunity appears, or, put differently, that there is a propitious time when one can act, but once it passes, some options vanish. Newman concluded that, with the speech, “the most likely time for healing and realistic rhetoric has passed” (178). In support, he cited an assessment by liberal New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis: “The preeminent task of Richard Nixon’s Presidency is to heal a nation torn apart by Vietnam. . . . Part of that process must be to help the American people know, and accept, the unpleasant truths about the war: that we got into it by stealth and for reasons at best uncertain; that the Government we defend in South Vietnam is corrupt and unrepresentative; that in the course of fighting we have killed people and ravaged a country to an extent utterly out of proportion to our cause, and that, in the old sense of dictating to the enemy, we cannot ‘win.’ In those terms, Mr. Nixon’s speech to the nation last Monday evening was a political tragedy.”13 In Newman’s view, reflected in the words of Lewis, a newly elected president has a  [  ]

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real but limited window of opportunity in which to reframe issues, to confront hard truths, and to help the public face the limits of what can be accomplished. The criteria Newman applied are grounded in basic requirements for deliberative rhetoric and in requirements for political leadership. Proposed policies must be weighed for their ability to achieve their goals; presidents must be weighed by their willingness to aid the country in facing hard truths. True to the principles of Wichelns, Newman emphasized effects on immediate audiences, but he did so in a sophisticated way that acknowledged that there were multiple audiences that had diverse reactions. Using critical essays by noted literary critics of major US and British speakers, Wichelns’s 1925 essay repeatedly showed that when oratory or public address was evaluated by literary criteria, it was found wanting, and he concluded that such criteria were inappropriate or inadequate. Nonetheless, Hermann Stelzner focused on one aspect of the speech, and his analysis is distinctive, as an assessment growing out of Nixon’s reference to his efforts to end the war as “my quest for peace.” Stelzner was struck by the powerful connotations of a “quest” and of “Nixon’s strong, personal identification with it—‘my,’ not our or the . . . that suggest that this speech and the archetypal Quest story share similarities,” particularly as the speech was Nixon’s personal creation.14 Accordingly, he approached the speech in terms of the five essential elements of a Quest story: (1) a precious Object or Person to be found and possessed/married; (2) a long journey to find the Object; (3) a Hero; (4) Guardians of the Object who must be overcome; and (5) Helpers whose knowledge and/or magical powers assist the Hero and without whom he would never succeed. In the speech, the prized Object emerged as a “just and lasting peace.” An immediate peace would be the “popular and easy course,” an unworthy goal because it would not be a “lasting peace.” According to the speech, the long journey began fifteen years ago. Stelzner claimed that time was a key term in Nixon’s analysis (165) in part because the war had been “long and bitter.” Specifically, a “just peace” and an “immediate peace” were presented as antithetical. Two kinds of heroic images appeared in the speech—superior heroes such as President Kennedy, [  ]

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who emerged early in the speech, and President Wilson as hero who emerged in the conclusion. Both represented a tragic fall (assassination and the shattered dream of the League of Nations). Particularly in the conclusion, Nixon’s speech hints that he, too, may become a tragic figure if his plan does not succeed. Heroes were portrayed, not in ethical terms, but in relation to these evaluative pairs: practical-impractical, workable-unworkable, feasibleunfeasible. These categories framed Nixon’s criticism of the dissenting young, although he acknowledged their “energy and dedication” and “idealism.” In the speech “Nixon and his supporters are not those who wade into the conflict directly and precipitously, but the ‘second type of Hero’ who is more careful” (167). A policy based on the first type would be disastrous—it would “promote recklessness” and “spark violence.” By contrast, Nixon’s policy is “disciplined, cautious, and pragmatic” (168).15 Nonetheless, his heroic quest is manifested in the many efforts for peace he already has made as detailed in the speech. The Guardians, of course, are the government of North Vietnam, described in dramatic terms emphasizing their evil character. They test the Hero. The transition from these “heroic” efforts created a vivid division as Nixon asked, “Well, now, who’s at fault?” Stelzner wrote that, “Ideally, all citizens in a democracy will be Helpers, but in a ‘free society’ dissent is recognized and tolerated” (170).16 This posed a problem, however. Nixon countered the positive qualities of the young with a single negative particular that showed how the young had gone wrong (the San Francisco dissenter with the sign “Lose in Vietnam”). The president addressed them, but his approach was awkward and stilted: “I would like to address a word, if I may, to the young people of the nation.” Stelzner commented, “The deliberately artificial idiom creates a cool and distant relationship” that “suggests to others that the young are a serious problem” (170). By contrast, he wrote, “The Helpers in the citizen Chorus who were confused and perplexed are made cohesive and real. . . . They are also made visible and recognizable to others.” Presumably he is referring to the effective appeals to them as the “great silent majority.” In other words, Nixon created Helpers by offering his primary audience supportive roles.  [  ]

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After this detailed analysis, Stelzner concluded that the choice of “the word itself [quest] is wrong; in one sense, it is presumptuous.” He commented: “[Nixon’s] policy does differ from those of his predecessors. But it remains one of cautious, subtle modifications. He offers no imaginative whole; indeed, he blunts such considerations. . . . Those who call for a serious discussion of war as an important instrument of foreign policy ask questions of value. They are nearer to Wilson than to Nixon. To that call, Nixon is silent” (171). Those words point to the limitations of the speech, made more apparent by treating it as a quest story, which used language that seemed to offer a major policy initiative that, when analyzed more carefully, is seen as making only small changes and offering no overarching rationale. In addition, Stelzner noted that the speech failed to address ethical questions, usually a key element in a Quest story. In one sense, that omission called attention to Nixon’s realistic stance that what had been options two, four, or ten years ago no longer existed, and it emphasized the narrowly strategic character of the speech. Little attention has been paid to this critique although it perceptively called attention to aspects of the speech that were not featured in other analyses. My original critique illustrated intrinsic analysis, a combination of analyzing the text closely and evaluating the speech by the standards proposed by the speaker. President Nixon suggested three criteria: the US public should be told the truth, the address should increase the credibility of the administration, and it should unify the nation. Later he implied a fourth criterion based on responsibility and ethical principles. I argued that he misrepresented the opposition by treating them as a homogeneous group who sought immediate, precipitate withdrawal. Accordingly, he misrepresented the policy options available to him, the various options identified in Newman’s analysis of the speech. That he claimed that there were only two choices—immediate precipitate withdrawal or his plan—made the only apparent alternative to his plan as unattractive and radical as possible. In addition, Nixon misrepresented the history of US involvement in Vietnam, and his emphasis on the beginnings of the war as “an effort to impose a Communist government on South Vietnam” structured the argument so [  ]

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the primary justifications for his policy could be ideological, protecting democracy by fighting the communists, rather than pragmatic (how well will this plan work?). I argued that two contradictions damaged the president’s status as a truth teller. Early in the speech he told the audience that immediate withdrawal would be the popular and easy course, increasing his chances of reelection, but at the end of the speech, the president clearly believed that his opposition was a “vocal minority” and that his policy represented the will of “the great silent majority.” If so, contra Nixon, wasn’t his plan the popular and easy course most likely to lead to support by the majority? Early in the speech Nixon explained that immediate and total withdrawal would be a disaster for the South because it would allow the communists to repeat the massacres that followed their takeover of the North. In response, Sen. Charles Goodell (R-NY) commented that this argument assumed that the South Vietnamese Army would be powerless to prevent a complete takeover of the South. Yet at the time of the address, it was estimated that the South Vietnamese had close to a million men under arms, while the Vietcong had about 100,000, and the North Vietnamese had about 110,000 in the South.17 If these smaller armies could take over and massacre, then the president’s policy of Vietnamization was doomed because it assumed that the South Vietnamese army, with US equipment and training, could take over the fighting and defeat the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese. The overwhelming question about credibility is whether the president really intended to end the war or what he meant by ending the war. Although 77 percent of those polled by Gallup who had heard the speech gave the president a vote of confidence, not long afterward, another Gallup poll reported that the Nixon administration faced the same crisis in public confidence on the war as the Johnson administration: 69 percent felt that the administration was not telling US citizens all they should know about the war, and 46 percent disapproved of the president’s way of handling the situation.18 The speech did not heal divisions over the war; in fact, it made no attempt to do so and explicitly exacerbated them. The president pitted  [  ]

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the “silent majority” against a “vocal minority” fervently seeking to prevail “over reason and the will of the majority.” He characterized dissenters as trying to dictate policy “by mounting demonstrations in the streets,” descriptions that placed them outside acceptable processes for change in a democratic society. He implied that opposition was one cause of the continuation of the war when he said, “the more divided we are at home, the less likely the enemy is to negotiate.” Finally, he said that “only Americans,” presumably only “dissenting Americans,” can “humiliate and defeat the United States.” The president suggested a fourth criterion, the notion of responsibility or obligation, and he emphasized that his policy was not the easy way, but the right way. Despite his protestations, the address did not call on the public to assume responsibility. He never held the United States responsible for its part in the war, despite its role in undermining the Geneva Accords. He placed all blame for the escalation on Hanoi, China, and the Soviet Union as well as for the failure to negotiate a settlement, despite encouraging South Vietnam’s President Thieu not to join the negotiations in Paris. In addition, the president’s repeated assertions of his responsibility becomes the individual citizen’s irresponsibility: the president will decide; the president will lead, and the president will be responsible while the “silent majority” of “forgotten Americans” follow, patriotic and acquiescent, in the sure knowledge that his judgment is the path to victory, peace, and honor. The powerlessness felt by dissenters should be mirrored to some extent by all who encounter this speech. The president told us, in effect, that there was nothing we could do. By definition, if we were vocal and critical, we were the minority whose will must not prevail and to whom no heed will be paid. The only option was to join “the great silent majority” in support of his policy. Many commentators pointed out that the policy of Vietnamization was fighting a war by proxy in which the Vietnamese supplied the bodies as we supply the guns, money and advice.19 Moreover, the policy of Vietnamization made the pace of US withdrawal dependent on decisions made in Hanoi and on factors almost wholly beyond US control. Accordingly, the astute listener might well conclude that the policy was likely to fail. [  ]

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From the point of view of a critic, the most intriguing paragraph in the speech is this: “I have chosen a path for peace. I believe it will succeed. If it does not succeed, what the critics say now won’t matter. Or, if it does succeed, what the critics say now won’t matter. If it does not succeed, anything I say then won’t matter.” Presumably, the president expected the critics to be negative and dissatisfied, and many were. Put simply, whatever commentary they offered wouldn’t affect the outcome. Moreover, Nixon sent Vice President Agnew out on a speaking tour designed to attack those who criticized the president’s policies, specifically attempting to undermine the credibility of media and print journalists and foreign policy analysts who responded to his speech. Nixon himself was determined not to engage any of the critics, whatever the results of his policy. It was the stance of someone who expected the worst from all but his closest advisors.20 Finally, I looked at the speech as another example of presidential discourse that perpetuates an approach to US foreign policy based on claims of “American exceptionalism,” an approach that sugarcoats or overlooks US covert operations to remove leaders that the United States finds unsympathetic—operations the CIA has often been tasked to carry out in Latin America—and to protect predatory US businesses abroad. In my view, Nixon was describing “a mythical America whose business is the defense of freedom, whose strength has resulted from facing crises and rejecting the easy way, whose greatness has been the capacity to do what had to be done when it was known to be right.” I contrasted that with what I called “nonmythical America, which supports totalitarian governments such as the Thieu regime in South Vietnam.” I cited a commentator who wrote that “the only salutary aspect of Vietnam [is] . . . that it is forcing us to examine the misconceptions about ourselves and the world on which postwar foreign policy has been based.”21 Accordingly, my critique assumed that rhetorical critics could and should offer ethical judgments, particularly of presidential discourse on issues of great import such as war. I also raised a political question about the ethics of a presidential speech that attempted to divide, not unite, the citizenry, and attacked dissenting groups as undemocratic and unpatriotic. In my view, US presidents have an  [  ]

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obligation to unify the US public as much as that is possible. As Pres. Andrew Jackson asserted, the president uniquely represents and speaks for the whole people. Efforts to castigate dissenting segments of the public attack a fundamental principle underlying democracy, the concept of the loyal opposition, which treats dissent as healthy, patriotic, and productive, and a dynamic of special significance because each of us, on some issue, will belong to it. To Prof. Forbes Hill, such a critique was outrageous and wholly unacceptable as a rhetorical analysis.22 It was an intrusion of ethical and political considerations into what should be a careful strategic assessment of the persuasive skills of a speaker. Echoing more traditional approaches to criticism, Hill offered what he called a technical critique, focused wholly on what the ancient Greeks called techne—in other words, craft, craftsmanship, or art—based on Aristotle’s Rhetoric, a critique that he claimed was the only genuine and legitimate rhetorical critique, in contrast to ones that raised political, historical, and ethical issues. He affirmed the principles of Wichelns but linked them directly to Aristotle. He explained, “Neo-Aristotelian criticism compares the means of persuasion used by a speaker with a comprehensive inventory” found in Aristotle’s Rhetoric. Its purpose is to discover “whether the speaker makes the best choices from the inventory to gain a favorable decision from a specific group of auditors in a specific situation.” Accordingly, “the critic must outline the situation, specify the auditors, and define the kind of decision they are to make. Finally, the critic must examine the choices about and disposition of three intertwined factors—logical, psychological, and characterological [or logos, pathos, and ethos]—and evaluate each against the standard of the Rhetoric.” (374). This was a strong reaffirmation of traditional approaches to rhetorical criticism. Hill described the situation as seen by Nixon this way: “The goal of the war was not clear; presumably the United States wanted South Viet Nam as a stable non-Communist buffer state between Communist areas and the rest of Southeast Asia,” a goal “far from being realized” in 1969, prompting a growing movement to end the war. He concluded: “The policy of the Nixon Administration, like that of the [  ]

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Johnson Administration before it, was limited war to gain a position of strength from which to negotiate” (374). Note that how the situation is characterized and understood by the speaker is fundamental to this kind of critique. Moreover, according to Hill, the critic is expected to assume and accept the situation as defined by the speaker as the basis for analysis.23 Hill described the speech as a counterattack launched against antiwar demonstrations that threatened the future success of Nixon’s policy. In defining Nixon’s choice of audience, Hill argues that a US president speaking via television in prime time “reaches an audience of some hundred million adults of heterogeneous backgrounds and opinions. Obviously it is impossible to design a message to move every segment of this audience, let alone the international audience. The speaker must choose his targets” (375). Accordingly, Hill explained, Nixon did not address fanatical opponents of the war “who hoped that the Viet Cong would gain a signal victory over the Americans and their South Vietnamese allies, or those who denied that Communist advances were threats to non-Communist countries, or those against any war for any reason. These were the groups the President sought to isolate and stigmatize.” Ponder carefully the rather extreme terms with which Hill described those who opposed the president’s policy; in effect, he has adopted Nixon’s point of view. Hill concluded that “the primary target was those Americans not driven by a clearly defined ideological commitment to oppose or support the war at any cost”—or “the great silent majority of my fellow Americans” (375). Hill noted that the decision they are asked to support is a policy to be continued into the future; thus, he agreed that this was primarily a deliberative speech. Hill then considered the organization of the speech, its appeals to US values, and the ways in which it worked to enhance the credibility of the speaker. Hill identified Nixon’s commitment to “a greater obligation . . . to think of the effect” of his decision “on the future of peace and freedom in America and in the world.” He commented that “the better the moral end that the speaker can . . . be seen consciously choosing, the better the ethos he reveals,” according to Aristotle.24 Hill praised Nixon for his choice of narrative, beginning with “Fifteen years ago,” stating  [  ]

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that in it there were two thinly disguised propositions, that US leaders were right to intervene on behalf of the South Vietnamese government and that their mistake was over-reliance on US combat forces, which skillfully foreshadowed the proofs that would follow. This, of course, ignored the long history of US military involvement in Vietnam, detailed in an earlier chapter of this book. In spite of Nixon’s assertion that there were only two alternatives, Hill claimed that Nixon offered four plans: immediate withdrawal; a negotiated settlement; shifting the burden of the war to the Vietnamese with US withdrawal on a fixed timetable, all of which were rejected; and shifting the burden of the war to the Vietnamese with US withdrawal on a flexible schedule. As refutative proofs were introduced, Hill noted, opponents of the administration were characterized by a demonstrator carrying a sign, “Lose in Viet Nam.” This was followed by a passage appealing to and reassuring “the majority of young people that the President wants peace as much as they do.” Finally, the epilogue or conclusion reiterated the bad consequences of immediate withdrawal. Hill noted that, “Because of the residues-like structure, the message creates the illusion of proving that Vietnamization and flexible withdrawal constitute the best policy” (377). Hill recognized that there was some concealment, that the skeptical listener might not ask the crucial question: does the plan actually provide for complete US withdrawal? The answer lay in the phrase “complete withdrawal of all United States combat ground forces,” a “phrase that concealed the intention to keep in Viet Nam for several years a large contingent of air and support forces” (377). Hill claimed that “Central to an Aristotelian assessment of the means of persuasion is an account of two interdependent factors: (1) the choice of major premises on which enthymemes [or deductive arguments] that form ‘the body of the proof ’ are based, and (2) the means whereby auditors are brought into states of feeling favorable to accepting these premises and the conclusions following from them” (379). The premises were of two kinds: predictions and values. The first predictive argument or enthymeme claimed that immediate withdrawal followed by a communist takeover would lead to murder and imprisonment of innocent civilians; it followed the predictive rule that [  ]

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the future will resemble the past and is based on the value premise that life and freedom from bondage are primary goods for human beings. Again, note that Hill made no effort to evaluate the evidence for this claim. A related prediction was that immediate withdrawal would result in a collapse of confidence in US leadership, presuming that allies have confidence only in those who had the power and will to act to support them, a claim bolstered by citations from former US presidents. These premises, Hill argued, are “more likely to be accepted if the auditors are in a state of fear,” and the speech “promotes a state of fear” given the evil consequences that presumably would follow from withdrawal (379). Hill noted that Nixon claimed to have tried hard to reach a negotiated settlement, but could not because of the intransigence of the communists, with evidence developed at length. He commented that “A listener is prone to reject the likelihood of a negotiated peace if he [sic] is angry with his opponents,” and he added: “Nixon presents the American people as having been slighted: they value peace, and their leaders have with humility taken every peace initiative possible. . . . The Communist powers . . . have rebuffed with spite all initiatives and frustrated our good intentions by demanding the equivalent of unconditional surrender” (380). Hill pointed to the “third plan,” “withdrawal on a fixed timetable,” which Nixon claimed “would remove the incentive to negotiate and reduce flexibility of response,” a plan that relies on a commonplace of bargaining: negotiations rely on a quid pro quo; remove that, and there is no reason to negotiate. Hill claimed that Nixon offered an incentive, that “withdrawal will occur more rapidly if enemy activity decreases and the South Vietnamese forces become stronger” (381).25 Hill argued that “The enthymeme predicting loss of self-confidence consequent on immediate withdrawal . . . seems to tie together all previous arguments” (382). Finally, Hill argued, “Nixon’s choice of value premises is, of course, closely related to his ethos [or character] as conveyed by the speech” (383). For example, he promised to tell the truth, he was flexible and compromising, he chose the right way, not the easy way, and these premises were reinforced by his consistently serious tone.  [  ]

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No effort was made to assess the speaker’s goal(s). The general assessment of the speech is positive—it achieved its end with its immediate audience; it “brings into sharp focus the speechwriter’s greatest technical successes: the choice of the right premises to make a version of the domino theory plausible” for the targeted audience as well as “the creation of a controlled atmosphere of fear in which the theory is more likely to be accepted” (385). These comments referred to the argumentative and the emotional dimensions of the speech, respectively. Hill was careful to point out that his approach did not attempt to account for “some basic and long-run questions, including the speaker’s choice of target audience” or “predict whether a policy will remain rhetorically viable” (385). These limitations exclude critical evaluation of values or ethical questions. Finally, he wrote, “neo-Aristotelian criticism does not warrant us to estimate the truth of Nixon’s statements or the reality of the values he assumes as aspects of American life” (385). Clearly, this kind of analysis emphasized what was strategic: how the speaker defined the situation, how he identified his target audience, and how well the means that he uses achieved the ends that he desired. No critical judgments are to be made about these choices; the critic accepts the terms as defined by the speaker and makes an evaluation based on them. This, Hill argued, is the only genuinely rhetorical critique; assessments of the truth of the claims of the speaker and challenging the values espoused lie outside the purview of a rhetorical analysis; such moves, he argued, turn critics into historians, political scientists, and ethicists, raising issues requiring competencies that lie outside their disciplinary training and its parameters. Hill’s critique opened a lively debate about what rhetorical critics can and should do. I responded to Hill’s essay in the Forum of the Quarterly Journal of Speech, and Hill, in turn, offered a rejoinder.26 The exchange is worth reading in its entirety. In his response, Hill identified three key issues: “(1) Does neo-Aristotelianism warrant a critic to praise a leader for addressing a target audience and pushing the citizens who are off-target into an isolated and helpless position? (2) Does Aristotle’s text authorize excluding considerations of truth from rhetorical critiques, and [  ]

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should such considerations be excluded? (3) Does the text authorize excluding considerations of morality from rhetorical critiques, and should such considerations be excluded? To all parts of these questions I answer yes—though in some particulars it must be a qualified yes. I understand Professor Campbell to answer no in every particular” (455). Hill accurately characterized our differences and defended his choice of a target audience on the grounds that the auditors of a speech in ancient Athens were all adult male native-born citizens of that polis, some three to five thousand decision makers. Accordingly, to “extend Aristotle’s method to a great national audience of a modern country,” he wrote, “we are working along Aristotelian lines, not following his Rhetoric like a slavish copyist.” As we know from writings about the lawgiver Solon, penned long after his death, historians characterized Athens as once riven by conflicts based on tribes, clans, economic differences, and over differences about democracy as a political system as opposed to rule by a single powerful leader or tyrant. Solon is praised, perhaps apocryphally, for creating new configurations of these groups and developing laws that prevented these conflicts from destroying Athens. Such praise for Solon suggests considerable bases for conflict among those who heard speeches at the Pnyx, differences reflected in the trial of Socrates and the practice of ostracism that banished leaders such as Themistocles. Moreover, Aristotle spent twenty years studying under Plato at the Academy, and it is hard to believe that he did not absorb his teacher’s powerful concern for truth and ethics. Finally, the idea that you can or should judge an art without considering how it is used is virtually impossible, as if we were to evaluate the drone as a weapon based on its ability to elude attack and target and kill individuals but were prohibited from making ethical judgments of its actual use, or to praise the skill of a sniper without caring when or for what purpose that skill was used. Hill also defended Nixon by attacking other presidents—FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower—who, he argued, could not meet the truth standard, but, as the old saying goes, two wrongs do not make a right, and a more careful case is needed to support that claim in specific cases. He noted Aristotle’s indication that a good person uses rhetoric only to  [  ]

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argue conclusions the speaker believes to be true. However, Hill argued, “The means of persuasion themselves (enthymemes, examples, and the like) are considered free of truth, but we who use them should be committed to truth. Rhetoric is the study of the means, not the commitments to ends” (456), he says again, on the assumption that these can and should be separated. Hill concluded that “if a rhetorician examines accurately into this question [the truth of demonstrative arguments], he leaves the field ceasing to be a rhetorician and becoming some other kind of scholar” (457). It is as if the citizenry in a democracy, whether or not they are rhetorical critics, has no role in evaluating policy and no right to question the claims made by leaders, a strange position to adopt in a nation like our own. Hill also claimed that my view of the US role in Vietnam relies on a revisionist theory of the Cold War, a claim that can be assessed based on an earlier chapter detailing the history of US military involvement in Vietnam. Hill acknowledged that Aristotle introduced the section of the Rhetoric on values premises by calling “it [rhetoric] an offshoot (paraphues) of the ethical branch of politics. . . . an even better translation might be ‘a graft onto the ethical branch of politics’” (459), he adds, but I would counter that a graft can only survive by becoming part of the branch and of the tree. Nonetheless, he insisted that Aristotle sees rhetoric as amoral. Hill ignored Aristotle’s statement that the deliberative speaker must “know how many types of government there are; what conditions are favorable to each type; and what things naturally tend to destroy it” (1.4.1360a) or in George A. Kennedy’s translation, “it is necessary to know how many forms of constitution there are and what is conducive to each and by what each is naturally prone to corruption, both forces characteristic of that constitution and those that are opposed to it. . . . for example, democracy not only becomes weaker when its principle of equality is relaxed so that finally it leads to oligarchy” (1.12.1360a).27 That statement is directly related to my concern with Nixon’s attack on the principles underlying the concept of the loyal opposition. Clearly, our exchange leads to no easy conclusions, but the issues raised by our disagreement continue to be vital for critics of con[  ]

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temporary public address. Indeed, critic-theorist Raymie McKerrow “articulates the concept of a critical rhetoric” that “seeks to unmask or demystify the discourse of power.” He notes that “Within the world of the ‘taken-for-granted,’ discourse is shielded by accepting only certain individuals as the authorities who can speak,” chief among whom are powerful figures such as US presidents.28 The efforts of McKerrow and others are part of an endeavor to free rhetorical critics and theorists from the belief that contemporary rhetoric must adhere strictly to principles passed down to us by ancient Greeks and Romans. In 1989, as part of a special program on the twentieth anniversary of its delivery, Hill, Newman, Stelzner, and I revisited the speech and its criticism. In honor of that occasion, I attempted a critique that focused on reasons for the speech’s rhetorical power. I began by turning to The Symbolic Uses of Politics in which Murray Edelman considered “the conditions in which myth and symbolic reassurance become key elements in the governmental process,” and concluded, “they may well be maximal in the foreign policy area.”29 That is particularly true of policies involving places about which most US Americans know little. Even a casual reading of the speech suggests its reliance on cherished US beliefs. I argued that Nixon’s speech was a model of the rhetoric of quiescence described by Edelman, an illustration of the manipulative rhetoric of philosopher-kings described in Plato’s Republic (Bk 3. 378a– 378e, 389b–d), manipulation that Plato endorsed because he believed that the public addressed lacked the intellectual and moral capacity for political decision making. Accordingly, I offered an ideological critique of the ways in which presidential discourse can disempower the citizenry. Ideologies are human constructs; when they become a kind of civil religion, they become what critic Northrup Frye calls “anagogic,” that is, they become a system of belief that claims to encompass all of reality, to account for everything.30 Once a belief system gains such status, members of the community find it difficult to see it as constructed or error-prone. Instead, it becomes mythology, reality reconstructed in the shape of human desires, the world as we wish it to be. The war in Vietnam was a special kind of crisis for the US public because the  [  ]

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history of the war as described in chapter 2 generated conflicts that could not be accommodated by US civil religion. The Vietminh had been our allies in World War II; as former colonies, the Vietnamese had fought to gain their independence and to prevent France from forcing them back into colonial status, all of which should have led the United States to celebrate their efforts, given our Revolutionary War history. Instead, we forgot the ways in which they helped us, and instead of aiding them in their struggle for independence, we supported the French effort to recolonize them, and when the French were defeated, we, in effect, became surrogates for their former colonial masters. We framed the ongoing struggle in Vietnam as part of the Cold War, claiming that the fight for South Vietnamese independence was an effort to prevent a communist takeover, and by supporting Presidents Diem and Thieu, we made that frame become reality as the Vietcong and Vietminh felt compelled to seek support for their struggle from the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union, although their goal of Vietnamese unification and independence never changed. In his speech, Nixon reduced the issue of the war to the question, “How can we win America’s peace?” which meant negotiating so Vietnam would remain divided into two nations; in other words, winning the peace was the same as winning the war—establishing South Vietnam as an independent noncommunist nation. As Kenneth Burke remarked, “it is so easy to draw a doctrine of war out of a doctrine of peace, why should the astute politician do otherwise?”31 What Nixon could never acknowledge was that for the Vietminh and the NLF, there was a nonnegotiable demand: unification. Ideology also structured the argument. If the history of US-Vietnam relations was limited to the last fifteen years, there was no need to reexamine US intentions, no need to reconsider the motives of Ho Chi Minh and his compatriots, our role in supporting French attempts to retake the colony it had lost, or the allegedly corrupt leadership in South Vietnam. In my analysis of Nixon’s speech, I offered reasons that the proposed policy had to fail because it relied on the collaboration of the North. Why wasn’t this problem obvious to commentators and the US public? At least part of the answer lies in the roles Nixon “cre[  ]

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ated” for the audience, roles consistent with our civil religion and our role in the world. Those roles reinforced the view that our motives in supporting the South Vietnam leadership were well-intentioned, that we entered the fight because that was consistent with our character as a people, that we adopted the moral role of the Good Samaritan in helping a nation invaded by the Communists, and that if we were committed to our democratic system, we would not listen to the voices of protestors who told a different story of the war. In other words, instead of considering the possibilities for the failure of Vietnamization, we chose to reinforce tried and true notions of our national ideology. Nixon’s characterization of protestors highlights the relationship between our national mythology and the power of identification and division.32 In characterizing those who criticized US policy on the war as traitors who could “defeat or humiliate” the nation, Nixon divided the citizenry and made dissent un-American and unpatriotic, a view that came to be popular as a bumper sticker: “Love It or Leave It.” As Kenneth Burke has noted, internal division is deeply disturbing, and when it exists, resentment can easily be redirected against the person or group who compels acknowledgment of its existence.33 In Nixon’s speech, the cause of division was repulsive Others, and Nixon became the unifier by refusing to recognize their legitimacy or heed their concerns. In that process, Nixon became the one through whom national unification could occur. In personalizing the proposed policy, the president became the means of transcending internal division. Put differently, unity in the face of dissent can be achieved if the policy is indistinguishable from the leader who espouses it and if the relationship between leader and audience becomes intimate. In the speech, Vietnamization became the Nixon Doctrine; Nixon spoke of the possibility of Johnson’s war becoming Nixon’s war; his effort to end the war became “my quest,” and the policy became the fulfillment of his campaign promises. In the conclusion, he took full “responsibility for choosing the best path . . . and then for leading our nation along it.” Policy and president became synonymous. In addition, Nixon created a special, intimate, confidential relationship with his audience. He “disclosed” his efforts to achieve peace; he  [  ]

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spoke directly “to the young people of this nation” whose concerns he said he understood; he referred to “powerful personal reasons I want to end this war,” noting the letters to the families of casualties that he had to sign. All of these comments individualized and personalized his relationship to the issue and the audience and undermined the detachment citizens needed to evaluate the proposed policy on pragmatic grounds. “War rhetoric” or presidential discourse justifying military action reveals a dramatic conflict in our political system. On one hand, the life and death decision to use force can be justified only as a last resort, as a product of careful deliberation. On the other hand, such deliberation is unlikely to produce the level of commitment that justifies the extraordinary powers of the president as commander in chief.34 Hence, in rhetoric justifying military action, presidents face a dilemma. They are constrained to appear deliberative—logical, calm, aware of policy alternatives, and alert to potential problems. At the same time, they need strategically to present the use of force in ways that generate intense, widespread support. The techniques of identification and personalization used by Nixon were highly effective adaptations to this problem. Nixon was not the first president to use them, nor will he be the last.

[  ]

chapter 5

Conclusion The Power of Nixon’s Rhetoric

This book attests to the power of presidential rhetoric, a power illustrated by the impact of Nixon’s speech on November 3, 1969. It also attests to the power of the precedents set by earlier presidents, precedents that severely constrain what a subsequent chief executive can do, particularly in an era that shaped and framed foreign policy in terms defined by the Cold War. In this instance, given his long history as a devoted anticommunist, including urging the use of US combat forces in Vietnam when he was Eisenhower’s vice president, it is hard to imagine President Nixon heeding the voices of those who urged some form of withdrawal—immediate or in various stages as a way to end the war. Any policy that could have been interpreted as conceding to those who were seen as communists would have been impossible, particularly given commitments dating back to the Truman administration. Fredrik Logeval notes the shift in Sen. John Kennedy’s firsthand observation of the failing US policy during a trip to Vietnam during the Eisenhower administration to his later commitment to the war, including authorizing deployment of some 16,000 “advisors,” that he made when he became president.1 Given the economic and military power of the United States, Nixon believed that North Vietnam could be compelled to concede and accept a division of the country, which

chap ter 5

ensued when the extraordinarily heavy bombing of the North finally forced Le Duc Tho back to the negotiating table in Paris to agree to a division of the country. However, once the United States withdrew, unification followed shortly as South Vietnam capitulated and Vietnam unified as an independent nation at the end of April 1975. As indicated, Nixon’s speech is also evidence of the power of presidential persuasion, the impact of presidential leadership, and the popular trust in the president who has access to information that is available only to him and his close advisors. Nixon also was trained to be a powerful persuader by his educational experience as a debater, his extensive practice as a campaigner, his experience in Congress as a representative and senator, and his role as vice president for eight years under Eisenhower. No president could have been better prepared to speak effectively to the nation. Because the Vietnam War was a major US crisis and a crisis that affected the nation powerfully because of the nature of the draft, which increased the direct impact of the war on the citizenry, it was a policy whose rhetorical manifestations demanded and evoked critical response. The different critical approaches described in this book reflect the challenges that discourse about the Vietnam War posed for traditional approaches to critical analysis. The challenge that Nixon’s rhetoric posed is the essence of the disagreement between Forbes Hill and me and the differences in the approaches of all four critics. For me, it was unthinkable that Nixon’s speeches would not be evaluated in political and ethical terms, particularly as Nixon was so fond of appealing to political and ethical principles, but for Forbes Hill, rhetorical criticism needed to follow the principles of neo-Aristotelian criticism that tightly circumscribed what the critic could evaluate. The critiques of Hermann Stelzner and Robert Newman also sought to widen the parameters for evaluation, either based on literary principles or on principles related to political factors including timing and the special opportunities briefly available to new leaders. Finally, much later, I was able to step back and see this speech and the personalized role adopted by President Nixon as an example of the special unifica[  ]

conclusion

tion in situations of a foreign policy crisis that is facilitated by powerful leadership. Put briefly, this book contributes to an understanding of how the purposes and functions of rhetorical criticism have developed, aroused controversy among rhetorical scholars, and changed through time. In my opinion, a rhetorical critic who is not a student of our national history and of the political theory that underlies our system of government is not adequately equipped to respond to public discourse on national policy. From a time when critics struggled to differentiate the study of oratory from the study of literary works and to establish appropriate criteria for evaluation to later efforts to define criticism as tracing the history of public debates on great issues, rhetorical criticism has emerged as a form of critical rhetoric whose purpose is to engage dominant discourse and to challenge assumptions that limit our understandings of the threats and of the options available in responding to them.2 Finally, because much time has passed, it may seem to those of you who are reading this book that the Vietnam War has ended. It has not. It is still being fought in books about the war, books that present dramatically different pictures of US military action there. The most recent and most chilling publication is by Nick Turse, entitled Kill Anything that Moves, which is based on newly released classified information, court-martial records and other Pentagon reports, firsthand interviews in Vietnam and the United States, contemporaneous press accounts, and work by previous scholars.3 It is an unending tale of massacres and atrocities that show clearly that the horrific events such as the massacre referred to as My Lai were not atypical.4 Turse estimates that some two million Vietnamese civilians were killed and some five million were wounded during the war, and that US aircraft sorties dropped thirty billion pounds of munitions on Vietnam, chiefly on South Vietnam, releasing the equivalent in explosive force of 640 Hiroshima bombs. In a review of Turse’s book, Jonathan Schell, a journalist who covered the Vietnam War as a reporter for the New Yorker, attempted to explain just how US combat forces could have behaved as Turse describes. He wrote,  [  ]

chap ter 5

[F]rom its very inception, the war’s structure was shaped by the attempt to impose a false official narrative on a wholly different reality. In the official version of the war, the people of South Vietnam were resisting North Vietnam’s attempts to conquer them in the name of world communism, and the United States was assisting the South in its patriotic resistance. In fact, most people in South Vietnam, insofar as they were politically minded, were nationalists who sought to push out foreign conquerors—first the French, then the Japanese, then the Americans, along with their client state, the South Vietnamese government, which consequently was never able to develop independent strength in a land supposedly its own. The fictitious official narrative was not added on later to disguise the unpalatable facts; it was baked into the enterprise from the outset. Accordingly, the collision of policy and reality took place on the ground. . . . Expecting to be welcomed as saviors, the troops found themselves in a sea of nearly universal hostility. . . . It was in this gap between the fiction of high policy and the actuality of the conflict that the tragic, futile, abhorrent war on the people of Vietnam was born.5

[  ]

Notes

“The Great Silent Majority”

1. This text is a transcription of the speech as delivered. It was originally en-

titled “The President’s Pursuit for Peace.”

2. John F. Kennedy, “The President’s News Conference,” July 17, 1963. Online

by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project (hereafter cited as APP), http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9348.

3. Richard Nixon, “Address before the 24th Session of the General Assembly

of the United Nations,” Sept. 18, 1969, APP, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ ws/?pid=2236; Richard Nixon, “Address at the Air Force Academy Commencement Exercises in Colorado Springs, Colorado,” June 4, 1969, APP, http://www​ .presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2081; Richard Nixon, “Statement on United States Troops in Vietnam,” Sept. 16, 1969, APP, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ ws/?pid=2232. See also Richard Nixon, “Remarks Following Initial Meeting with President Thieu at Midway Island,” June 8, 1969, APP, http://www.presidency​ .ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2088; Richard Nixon, “Joint Statement Following the Meeting with President Thieu,” June 8, 1969, APP, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ ws/?pid=2089; Richard Nixon, “Remarks on Departure from Midway Island,” June 8, 1969, APP, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2091.

4. In the reading version of the speech, this sentence is omitted, but a line

space is left between the other two statements.

Chapter 1. Introduction

1. “Text of the President’s Address,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, Jan. 21 1969, 9A.



2. For a short, highly readable biography, I recommend Wills, Nixon  [  ]

notes to pages 15 –20 Agonistes, which tracks Nixon’s responses to the crises in his life. See also Reeves, Alone in the White House. 3. Richard Nixon, “Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia,” Apr. 30, 1970.

4. On July 26, 1948, President Truman issued Executive Order 9981, which

abolished racial discrimination in the US armed forces. The key section reads: “It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin. This policy shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible, having due regard to the time required to effectuate any necessary changes without impairing efficiency or morale.”

5. See Bill Moyers Journal, “Race and Politics in America’s Cities,” Mar. 28,

2008, broadcast on PBS stations on the fortieth anniversary of the Kerner Commission Report.

6. During the height of US involvement, 1965–69, African Americans, who

formed 11 percent of the US population, made up 12.6 percent of the soldiers in Vietnam. The majority of these were in the infantry, and although authorities differ on the figures, the percentage of African American combat fatalities in that period was a staggering 14.9 percent, a proportion that subsequently declined. The Oxford Companion to American Military History, found at http:// www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/stevens/africanamer.htm. For details about King’s speech, see “MLK: A Call to Conscience: A Tavis Smiley Special Report.”

7. See, for example, Gitlin, The Sixties.



8. Walker, director of the Chicago Study Team, to the National Commission

on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, Rights in Conflict. The report was based on the Chicago Study Team’s review of over 20,000 pages of statements from 2,437 eyewitnesses and participants, 180 hours of film, and over 12,000 still photographs.

9. Writing in the style of the “new journalism,” Norman Mailer covered these

two conventions in “Miami Beach and Chicago” for Harper’s Magazine, which became a book, Miami and the Siege of Chicago.

10. Walter Dean Burnham, “Election 1968—The Abortive Landslide,” cited by

Emmet John Hughes, “The Politics of the Sixties,” 192–214; cited material, 201.

[  ]

notes to pages 22 –23

Chapter 2. A Short History of US Involvement in the Wars in Vietnam

1. No short history of the Vietnam War can do justice to all of its many ele-

ments and ramifications. Many good sources of information are listed in notes in this chapter and those that follow. For a single volume, see Karnow, Vietnam. See also Ellen J. Hammer’s The Struggle for Indochina and Frances Fitzgerald’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Fire in the Lake.

2. Douglas Martin, in “Henry Prunier, 91, Dies; Was Part of US Mission to

Train the Viet Minh” (New York Times, Apr. 24, 2013, A17), records that Prunier and six other Americans, members of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), parachuted into a village seventy-five miles northwest of Hanoi in July 1945 on a clandestine mission to teach an elite force of two hundred Viet Minh guerrillas how to use modern US weapons, an elite force that included Ho Chi Minh and Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap.

3. “On July 18, 1941, Tokyo had demanded Vichy’s acquiescence in the occu-

pation of eight air and two naval bases in southern Indochina. . . . On the 24th, Vichy acceded to Tokyo’s demands” (Dallek, Franklin Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 274).

4. Ho Chi Minh (May 19, 1890–Sept. 2, 1969), born Nguyen Sinh Cung and

known by many other—perhaps eighty—aliases, was a Vietnamese MarxistLeninist revolutionary leader who was prime minister (1945–55) and president (1945–69) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). He was a key figure in the foundation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945, as well as the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Viet Cong (NLF) during the Vietnam War. He led the Vietminh independence movement from 1941 onward, establishing the communist-governed Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 and defeating the French Union in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu. He officially stepped down from power in 1955 due to health problems but remained a ­highly visible figurehead and inspiration for Vietnamese fighting for his cause— a united, independent Vietnam—until his death. After the war, Saigon, the capital of the Republic of Vietnam, was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in his honor.

5. Sheehan, A Bright and Shining Lie, 163. For more details, see also

Tø´nnesson, Vietnam 1946, 21–23 and passim. See also Logevall, Embers of War.

6. For more details, see Ho, Selected Writings, including his appeal on behalf  [  ]

notes to pages 23 –25 of the Vietminh of June 6, 1941, calling for an independence struggle against the Japanese and French, 45–46.

7. Sheehan, A Bright and Shining Lie, 147.



8. Cited material from Mark Philip Bradley, Imagining Vietnam and America,

81, in George C. Herring, From Colony to Superpower. See also “Memorandum from the Assistant to the President’s Naval Aide (George M. Elsey), top secret, [undated] c. July 1, 1945: indo-china.” It includes a March 24 conversation between President Roosevelt and Patrick Hurley, the ambassador in China, which was reported to President Truman on May 28 [29]: “In my last conference with President Roosevelt, I informed him fully on the Indo-China situation. I told him that the French, British and Dutch were cooperating to prevent the establishment of a United Nations trusteeship for Indo-China. The imperialist leaders believe that such a trusteeship would be a bad precedent for the other imperialist areas in southeast Asia. I told the President also that the British would attempt, with the use of our Lend-Lease supplies and if possibly our manpower, to occupy Indo-China and reestablish their former imperial control. . . . The President said that in the coming San Francisco conference there would be set up a United Nations Trusteeship that would make effective the right of colonial people to choose the form of government under which they will live as soon as in the opinion of the United Nations they are qualified for independence” (http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/the-grand-alliance-andthe-future-of-french-indochina-1945/#1, accessed Feb. 13, 2012).

9. Sheehan, A Bright and Shining Lie, 148. See also Ho, Selected Writings,

53–56.

10. Sheehan, A Bright and Shining Lie, 149.



11. Gosnell, Truman’s Crises.



12. Navy Day Address, Oct. 27, 1945, millercenter.org/president/speeches/

detail/3342.

13. Sheehan, A Bright and Shining Lie, 152.



14. Lt. Col. Peter Dewey, a US Army officer with the OSS in Vietnam, was

shot and killed in Saigon on September 26, 1945, and his name is the first on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Dewey was the head of a seven-man team sent to Vietnam to search for missing US pilots and to gather information on the situation in the country after the surrender of the Japanese. The first US soldier killed in the Vietnam War was Air Force T-Sgt. Richard B. Fitzgibbon Jr. He [  ]

notes to pages 25 –26 is listed by the US Department of Defense as having a casualty date of June 8, 1956.

15. Kissinger, On China, 341–48, refers to this as the First Vietnam War; the

Second Vietnam War began when the United States introduced ground troops under Lyndon Johnson; the Third Vietnam War was between China and Vietnam over Vietnam’s effort to take over Cambodia.

16. See National Security Council report 64, “The Position of the United

States with Respect to Indochina,” Feb. 27, 1950, which called for containment of communism in this region: “[T]he threat of communist aggression against Indochina is only one phase of anticipated communist plans to seize all of Southeast Asia.” President Truman approved this report on April 24 (Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, vol. 6 [Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1976], 744–47).

17. Logevall, in Embers of War, writes that “Harry Truman and his top aides

bought the [French] General’s [Jean de Lattre] argument that Korea and Indochina were the same struggle” (291). He also quotes Walter Lippmann as trying to nudge the administration away from what it seemed ready to do: increase involvement in Vietnam (Washington Post, Apr. 4, 1950).

18. Hammer, Struggle for Indochina, 3. President Eisenhower said, “If In-

dochina goes, several things happen right away. The Malayan Peninsula, the last little bit hanging down there, would be scarcely defensible—and tin and tungsten that we so greatly value from that area would cease coming. But all India would be outflanked. Burma would certainly, in its weakened condition be no defense. Now India is surrounded on that side by the Communist empire. Iran on its left is in a weakened condition. I believe I read in the paper this morning that Mossadegh’s move toward getting rid of his parliament has been supported and of course he was in that move supported by the Tudeh, which is the Communist Party of Iran. All of that weakened position around there is very ominous for the United States, because finally if we lost all that, how would the free world hold the rich empire of Indonesia? So you see, somewhere along the line, this must be blocked. It must be blocked now. That is what the French are doing” (found in Public Papers of the President, 1953, 540 and Eisenhower, “Remarks at the Governors’ Conference, Seattle, Washington,” Aug. 4, 1953, APP, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9663). In Triumph Forsaken (139), Moyar lays out the thinking behind the domino  [  ]

notes to pages 26 –27 theory, which is that after South Vietnam was taken over by the communists, Laos and Cambodia would have had no choice but to submit to communist domination; the next domino would have been Thailand, whose leaders warned of their vulnerability.



19. Hammer, Struggle for Indochina, 313–14. See also Pres. Dwight

­Eisenhower to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Apr. 4, 1954, in which he calls for an international coalition to back the French (Foreign Relations of the United States [FRUS], 1239–40). Also, Hammer, Struggle for Indochina, 313–14, citing Department of State Bulletin, Oct. 12, 1953.

20. See Logevall, Embers of War, for a detailed account of the process by

which France lost the war.

21. For a review of Diem’s career, see Jacobs, Cold War Mandarin. In Man-

date for Change (372), Eisenhower wrote: “Had elections been held at the time of the fighting [in 1954], possibly eighty per cent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader rather than Chief of State Bao Dai.”

22. UN High Commission on Refugees, State of the World’s Refugees 2000;

Truang Nhu Tang (former minister of justice, 1969–78) with David Chanoff and Doan Van Toai, A Viet Cong Memoir; UN High Commission on Refugees, State of the World’s Refugees 2000.

23. Qiang Zhai, China and the Vietnam Wars. In A Viet Cong Memoir, Tru-

ang Nhu Tang comments that “the mistake best known outside Vietnam was the bloody Northern land reform program, which involved the execution of thousands of so-called landlords. Most of them had simply been poor peasants who happened to own slightly larger plots than their neighbors—all the holdings being miniscule to begin with. The anger raised by these outrages led Ho Chi Minh to cancel the program and punish those directly in charge. Ho had then taken the unusual step of personally apologizing to the people, admitting that ‘injustices had been committed’” (299–300). See also Steve Harvey (“Would Real Rule mean ‘Bloodbath’ in South Vietnam?”), who reported that “Jean ­Lacouture, Ho Chi Minh: A Political Biography, wrote that a stepped-up land reform program between 1955 and 1956 ‘led to an uprising by the peasants of Nghe An (Ho’s native province) and the repression that followed probably cost tens of thousands of lives.’ . . . At the same time, the International Control Commission reported that more than 1,000 political murder complaints had been [  ]

notes to pages 28 –29 lodged against the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam in 1957, when Diem barred the ICC from further investigations. In addition, Diem himself reported 49,300 arrests of political prisoners between 1954 and 1960. Thousands of political prisoners are imprisoned today under the administration of President Nguyen Van Thieu, including Truong Dinh Dzu, who finished second in the 1967 presidential elections.”

24. See Mann, A Grand Delusion, 198–99. Moyar, in Triumph Forsaken, offers

a far more positive assessment of Diem as a successful leader whose effectiveness was undermined by hostile reporting by members of the US press and by the demands of US Ambassador Lodge for him to alter his style of leadership to conform to US ideas of democratic leadership, which Diem resisted as inappropriate for Vietnam, given its culture and history.

25. In his press conference of July 17, 1963, in response to religious conflicts

in South Vietnam, President Kennedy said, “I do realize of course, and we all have to realize, that Viet-Nam has been in war for 20 years. The Japanese came in, the war with the French, the civil war which has gone on for 10 years, and this is very difficult for any society to stand. It is a country which has got a good many problems and it is divided, and there is guerrilla activity and murder and all of the rest. Compounding this, however, now is a religious dispute. I would hope this would be settled, because we want to see a stable government there, carrying on a struggle to maintain its national independence.

“We believe strongly in that. We are not going to withdraw from that effort.

In my opinion, for us to withdraw from that effort would mean a collapse not only of South Viet-Nam, but Southeast Asia. So we are going to stay there. We hope with the great effort which is being carried by the Vietnamese themselves, and they have been in this field a lot longer than we have, and with a good deal more deaths and casualties, that behind this military shield put up by the Vietnamese people they can reach an agreement on the civil disturbances and also in respect for the rights of others. That’s our hope. That’s our effort” (John F. Kennedy: “The President’s News Conference,” July 17, 1963).

26. Logevall, Choosing War, 380, 384.



27. Halberstam, Making of a Quagmire, 33. For a defensive and somewhat

self-serving account long after the fact, see Richard Nixon, No More Vietnams. See also a review by James Chace, “How America ‘Lost the Peace,’” and a memorandum to President Kennedy, Nov. 11, 1961, by Secretary of Defense Robert  [  ]

notes to pages 29 –30 McNamara and Secretary of State Dean Rusk, contemplating an expanded commitment to South Vietnam (US Department of Defense, United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, 577–78). Halberstam, Making of a Quagmire, 69.

28. In Triumph Forsaken, Moyar writes that in 1962, Americans were “flying

combat missions in World War II–era propeller aircraft . . . that recently had been brought to South Vietnam and painted with South Vietnamese government markings. On the ground, American advisers were going on combat missions with South Vietnam forces” (148), activity that President Kennedy denied in a press conference on January 15 (National Security Action Memorandum No. 273, http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/nsams/nsam273​ .asp, accessed July 2, 2013).

29. Lyndon B. Johnson, “Remarks at Syracuse University on the Communist

Challenge in Southeast Asia,” Aug. 5, 1964, APP, http://www.presidency.ucsb​ .edu/ws/?pid=26419; Tonkin Gulf Resolution, H.J. Resolution 1145, Aug. 7, 1964.

30. Amid steadily rising tensions over North Vietnam’s activities in Laos and

South Vietnam, at the end of July 1964, USS Maddox entered the Gulf of Tonkin for a cruise along the North Vietnamese coast. The United States recognized only a three-mile limit; North Vietnam claimed a twelve-mile limit (see G ­ ibbons, US Government and the Vietnam War, 287). As part of a general US effort to collect intelligence in potential Far Eastern hot spots, this “Desoto Patrol” was particularly focused on obtaining information that would support South Vietnamese coastal raids against North Vietnam. One of these had just taken place as Maddox began her mission. On the afternoon of August 2, 1964, while steaming well offshore in international waters, Maddox was attacked by three North Vietnamese motor torpedo boats. The destroyer maneuvered to avoid torpedoes and used her guns against her fast-moving opponents, hitting them all. In turn, she was struck in the after gun director by a single 14.5-millimeter machine gun bullet. Maddox called for air support from the carrier Ticonderoga, whose planes strafed the three boats, leaving one dead in the water and burning. Both sides then separated. Maddox was soon ordered to resume her patrol, this time accompanied by the larger and newer destroyer Turner Joy. On August 3, the South Vietnamese conducted another coastal raid. Intelligence indicated that the North Vietnamese were planning to again attack the US ships operating off their shores, although this interpretation was incorrect. During the night of August 4, while they were underway in the middle of the Tonkin Gulf, Maddox and Turner Joy detected [  ]

notes to page 30 speedy craft closing in. For some two hours the ships fired on radar targets and maneuvered vigorously amid electronic and visual reports of torpedoes. Though information obtained well after the fact indicates that there was actually no North Vietnamese attack that night, US authorities were convinced at the time that one had taken place and reacted by sending planes from the carriers Ticonderoga and Constellation to hit North Vietnamese torpedo boat bases and fuel facilities. A few days later, the US Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which gave the government authorization for what eventually became a full-scale war in Southeast Asia. See Naval History and Heritage Command, USS Maddox (DD-731), 1944–1972 Actions on the Gulf of Tonkin, 1964, http:// www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-m/dd731-k.htm, accessed July 7, 2013. A sailor in the gun director on the USS Maddox, Patrick Park, reviewed radar and sonar records for the next three days after the incident on orders from his superiors. His conclusion: there were no attacks on August 4 against the Maddox and the Turner Joy. (See “The Gulf of Tonkin Incident Declassified,” presentation by Maureen Heilke, http://wn.com/tonkin_gulf_incident). This has been supported by evidence from the Vietnamese since the end of hostilities. See “McNamara asks Giap: What happened in Tonkin Gulf?” Nov. 9, 1995, AP, http://vi.uh.edu/pages/buzzmat/world198_4.html. In addition, Admiral Moore reported on August 7 to Admiral Sharpe that “Freak weather effects on radar and overeager sonar men may have accounted for the many reports” (http:// wn.com/Tonkin_Gulf_Incident). See also Moïse, Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War.

31. In a speech at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, April 7, 1965,

President Johnson laid out a detailed justification of US commitment to Vietnam (Public Papers of the Presidents, Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965, 1:394–99). This speech was the result of a two-week effort to which McGeorge Bundy, Richard ­Goodwin, and Jack Valenti all contributed, with Johnson playing a key role in the final stage of drafting. As part of Operation Rolling Thunder, US military aircraft attacked targets throughout North Vietnam from March 1965 to October 1968. This massive bombardment was intended to put military pressure on North Vietnam’s communist leaders and reduce their capacity to wage war against the US-supported government of South Vietnam. Operation Rolling Thunder marked the first sustained US assault on North Vietnamese territory and thus represented a major expansion of US involvement in the Vietnam War.  [  ]

notes to pages 31 –33

32. For an assessment of the leadership and military policy of this period,

see Sorley, Westmoreland; Ho Chi Minh, letter to Martin Niemoeller, Dec. 1966, quoted in Young, Vietnam Wars, 172; McNamara et al., Argument without End, 48.

33. See especially President Johnson’s speech on April 7, 1965, at Johns

­Hopkins University explaining and defending his policy toward Vietnam; ­McNamara et al., Argument without End, 353–54.

34. McNamara et al., Argument without End, 353.



35. The Hue Massacre is the name given to what were allegedly summary

executions and mass killings perpetrated by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army during their capture, occupation, and withdrawal from the city of Hue during the 1968 Tet Offensive, which began on January 31, 1968, and lasted a total of twenty-eight days. The estimated death toll was between 2,800 to 6,000 civilians and prisoners of war. This information comes from Douglas Pike, who worked for the US Information Agency (“Monograph prepared for United States Mission, Viet-Nam: The Viet-Cong Strategy of Terror,” Feb. 1, 1970). For a detailed critique of this report, including problems with the sources of information, and contradictory information that calls these charges into question, see D. Gareth Porter, “The 1968 ‘Hue Massacre,’” Indochina Chronicle 33 (June 24, 1974): 2–13. In particular, he cites reports that much of the death toll came from the heavy bombing of the city of Hue. Porter is a fellow of the International Relations of East Asia Project at Cornell University. Parts 1 and 2 are on the web at http://chss.montclair.edu/English/furr/porterhue1.html.

36. Stanley Karnow describes the televised attack on the US Embassy in Viet-

nam: A History, 526; Epstein, “The Televised War,” 210–32. See also Braestrup, Big Story; see chapter 13, pages 508 to 529 for a devastating critique of the news coverage of the war generally and of the Tet offensive in particular. By contrast, see reporter Halberstam, Best and the Brightest.

37. Robert F. Kennedy, “Address Delivered in Chicago, Illinois,” Feb. 8, 1968,

221–29; Tom Wicker, “Kennedy Asserts US Cannot Win,” New York Times, Feb 9, 1968, 1, 12; cited material on page 1. See a critique of this speech by Murphy, “Light of Reason,” 168–89. In Big Story, Braestrup writes that “Kennedy’s first two speeches [February 8, March 18] show how gaps, misplaced emphasis, and hasty assumptions in Vietnam coverage and Washington punditry could add up to a faulty context at home for public debate” (488). McNamara quote: ­McNamara et al., Argument without End, 366–67. [  ]

notes to pages 33 –35

38. Karnow, Vietnam, 18. For a detailed study of Johnson’s difficulties with

the press, see Turner, Lyndon Johnson’s Dual War. Braestrup comments that “President Johnson did not seize the initiative in terms of information or decision-making; and although Washington newsmen do not like to admit it, their dependence on the White House for a ‘news agenda’ and a ‘frame of reference,’ especially in crisis [here Tet], is considerable” (Big Story, 512, emphasis in original). He also wrote, “As several Washington reporters later noted, the primary reaction of many newsmen in the capital after Tet was to indulge in retribution for prior manipulation by the Administration” (511).

39. Cima, ed., Vietnam.



40. “No single factor more definitely illustrates Westmoreland’s neglect of

the South Vietnamese armed forces than the M-16 rifle, then a new, lightweight, automatic weapon considered ideally suited for the Vietnam environment. When improved weaponry and other materiel became available, US forces got first call on the M-16 rifle, the M-60 machine gun, the M-79 grenade launcher, and better radios. For much of the war the South Vietnamese were armed with castoff US equipment of World War II vintage, such as the M-1 rifle (not well suited in weight or configuration for the relatively slight Vietnamese, let alone in terms of its limited firepower) and the carbine. Meanwhile the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong were getting the most modern weaponry their communist patrons could provide, including the famous AK-47 assault rifle. As a consequence, during the Westmoreland years, the South Vietnamese were consistently outgunned, with predictable results in battlefield outcomes and morale, not to mention reputation” (Sorley, Westmoreland, 131). “Until after the Tet Offensive of 1968, our small soldiers carried heavy, eight-shot American M-1 rifles so obsolete that the US National Guard did not want them” (Air Vice Marshall Nguyen Cao Ky, Buddha’s Child, 336, cited in Sorley, Westmoreland, 132).

41. For a detailed history of Nixon’s policies on Cambodia, see Shawcross,

Sideshow. The book includes a short chronology of events related to the war in Cambodia (397–402). In response to the New York Times article, the White House demanded the first of seventeen wiretaps on government officials and journalists. The wiretap on syndicated columnist Joseph Kraft was illegal. See material on Operation Giant Lance in chapter 3.

42. In 1969, US B-52 bombers began to raid communist supply lines in neu-

tral Cambodia that were used to support military operations in neighboring  [  ]

notes to pages 35 –38 South Vietnam. Nixon sought to keep this secret by authorizing adjustments in their computerized navigational systems and provisions of two sets of flight plans, one to support the lie that the targets bombed were in South Vietnam, the other revealing the real targets for National Security Council (NSC) use. When a New York Times reporter broke the true story of the secret bombing on May 9, Nixon made this address. See Genovese and Morgan, “Introduction,” 6–7.

43. Reeves, President Nixon, 229–30.



44. New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 US 713 (1971), was a US Su-

preme Court per curiam decision. The ruling made it possible for the New York Times and Washington Post newspapers to publish the then-classified Pentagon Papers without risk of government censure.

45. The Pentagon Papers are a US Department of Defense history of the US

political-military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. Because all this happened under Democratic administrations, Nixon’s intense concern to suppress these materials is puzzling. Nonetheless, their release sparked the illegal wiretapping and break-ins that led to Nixon’s resignation.

46. “Vets Discard Medals in War Protest at Capitol,” New York Times, Apr. 24,

1971, 1. See information cited below on changes in US support for the war as measured by the Gallup Poll.

47. Karnow, Vietnam, 644–45.



48. At precisely 09:00 (local time) on May 8, 1972, six Navy A-7 Corsair

IIs and three A-6 Intruders from the Coral Sea entered Haiphong harbor and dropped thirty-six 1,000-pound Mark-52 and Mark-55 mines into the water. They were protected from attack by the guided-missile cruisers Chicago and Long Beach and by flights of F-4 Phantoms. The reason for the precise timing of the strike became apparent when President Nixon simultaneously delivered a televised speech on May 8 explaining the escalation to the US public: “the only way to stop the killing is to take the weapons of war out of the hands of the international outlaws of North Vietnam.”

49. The Paris Peace Talks, which, in various forms, spanned three and a half

years, were the attempt by Nixon to achieve his pledge of “Peace with Honor” made during the 1968 presidential election to end US involvement in the Vietnam War. Nixon wanted to achieve a peace agreement with North Vietnam be-

[  ]

notes to pages 39 –40 fore the 1972 presidential election, but intransigence at the negotiating table by both the North and South Vietnamese delegations led to many delays. The final agreement was called the Paris Accords and was signed on January 28, 1973. The two leading negotiators, Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 1973, but Tho refused his award. Subsequent events quickly rendered the Paris Accords meaningless.

50. Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger, 326, 327, 357, 359. Dallek adds: “Nixon was

reluctant to see an end to the war in the three months before the election. He feared a domestic political outcry that reelection politics rather than realistic expectations of South Vietnam’s autonomy were driving the settlement” (407). According to Dallek, “Vietnam was the one issue Nixon saw jeopardizing his reelection” (418), and he notes that “Thieu remained the key to delaying a settlement until after November 7 (the date of the election)” (423). Moreover, “In the run-up to November, Nixon’s greatest interest was not in the terms of the settlement ending the war but in what impact they might have on his appeal to voters” (425). On October 26, Kissinger was ordered to hold a press conference at which he announced, “We believe that peace is at hand” (428), which maximized the peace appeal without the downside of withdrawal, with the problems of avoiding unification.

51. The story of Truong Nhu Tang is particularly poignant because of his

deep commitment to the unification and independence of Vietnam, but when that occurred, the government that emerged was not committed to the values in which he believed, and he and his family were forced to flee into exile. See his A Viet Nam Memoir.

52. Edward Doyle, Samuel Lipsman, and the editors of Boston Publishing

Company, Setting the Stage, 17.

53. Alexander, America and the Imperialism of Ignorance, 177. Public support

for the war decreased as the war continued through the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s. William L. Lunch and Peter W. Sperlich collected public opinion data measuring support for the war from 1965 to 1971. Support for the war was measured by a negative response to the question: “In view of developments since we entered the fighting in Vietnam, do you think the US made a mistake sending troops to fight in Vietnam?” See Western Political Quarterly 32, no. 1 (1979): 21–44.

 [  ]

notes to page 40

Month

Percentage who agreed with war

August 1965

52 percent

March 1966

59 percent

May 1966

49 percent

September 1966

48 percent

November 1966

51 percent

February 1967

52 percent

May 1967

50 percent

July 1967

48 percent

October 1967

44 percent

December 1967

48 percent

February 1968

42 percent

March 1968

41 percent

April 1968

40 percent

August 1968

35 percent

October 1968

37 percent

February 1969

39 percent

October 1969

32 percent

January 1970

33 percent

April 1970

34 percent

May 1970

36 percent

January 1971

31 percent

May 1971

28 percent

After May 1971 Gallup stopped asking this question.

[  ]

notes to pages 42 –45

Chapter 3. Nixon’s War Rhetoric

1. See Johnson, “Radio and Television Report to the American People.”



2. Keynes, Undeclared War, 175. See Summers, On Strategy. Summers

writes: “One of the most frustrating aspects of the Vietnam War from the Army’s point of view is that as far as logistics and tactics were concerned, we succeeded in everything we set out to do” (1). Summers and others focus on the special problems created by undeclared wars, noting that the failure to make the war in Vietnam a people’s war—no declaration of war—ignores the role of Congress, which prevents war from becoming an “executive” war and not a “people’s war.” Gen. Fred C. Wayand, chief of staff, US Army, July 197?, stated, “In the final analysis, the American Army is not so much an arm of the Executive Branch as it is an arm of the American people” (cited on 7).

3. Campbell and Jamieson, Presidents Creating the Presidency, 221. The Alien

and Sedition Acts were passed in 1798 by the Federalists in the 5th US Congress in the aftermath of the French Revolution and during an undeclared naval war with France. They were signed into law by Pres. John Adams. Twenty-five people were arrested, eleven were tried, and ten were convicted; all were pardoned by Pres. Thomas Jefferson. Similarly, in May of 1918, during World War I, the Sedition Act (see http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/The_U.S._Sedition_Act for text) imposed “a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both . . .” upon anyone disposed to “utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States.” On June 16, 1918, Eugene V. Debs spoke in Canton, Ohio, in opposition to World War I and was arrested under the Espionage Act of 1917. He appealed his conviction unsuccessfully to the Supreme Court. In Debs v. United States Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that free speech does not include “the right to shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theater.” Debs went to prison on April 13, 1919. On December 25, 1921, Pres. Warren G. Harding commuted his sentence to time served, and Debs was released. This act is still operative and has been used against some whistle blowers.

4. See, in particular, Shawcross, Sideshow.



5. See also Richard M. Nixon, “Asia after Vietnam,” Foreign Affairs 46 (Oct.

1967): 111–25; “Nixon Accepts the Republican Party Nomination for President,”  [  ]

notes to pages 46 –50 Aug. 8, 1968, http://watergate.info/nixon/acceptance-speech-1968.shtml, accessed Sept. 29, 2010.

6. Richard Nixon, “Inaugural Address,” Jan. 20, 1969.



7. Quoted in “Viet 3rd Redraft,” in Whalen, Catch the Falling Flag, 137.



8. In November 1969, 55 percent counted themselves as doves, 31 percent as

hawks, and 14 percent as having no opinion, compared with 42 percent, 44 percent, and 31 percent thirteen months before. See Mueller, War, Presidents, and Public Opinion, fig 3.2 (p. 56), table 3.3 (pp. 54–55), and table 4.6 (p. 107).

9. Nixon, “Address to the Nation on Vietnam,” May 14, 1969.



10. Nixon associated the well-being of the South Vietnamese people and

their right to self-determination with the survival of Pres. Nguyen Van Thieu’s government. He wrote: “I would not agree to any terms that required or amounted to our overthrow of President Thieu” (RN, 348). In his memoir, ­William Safire wrote: “Nixon would not be President were it not for Thieu. Nixon remembered” (Before the Fall, 88). He is referring to Thieu’s refusal to join the Paris peace talks prior to the 1968 election, which eliminated the possibility of a resolution of the war, which might have increased the chances of Nixon’s defeat and Humphrey’s election.

11. “Opinion polls showing a continuing erosion of support for the war

made Nixon receptive to expanded peace efforts. Only about a third of the country continued to see the war as vital to US national security, with more than 50 percent declaring it a mistake. A Harris survey in July 1969 showed that 71 percent of Americans wanted the president to withdraw 100,000 troops from Vietnam by the end of the year. As for Nixon’s handling of the war, only 38 percent gave him positive marks, while “50 percent saw ‘at best little difference between the Nixon and Johnson approaches to the war.’ Johnson’s war was turning into Nixon’s war” (Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger, 149–50).

12. Zaroulis and Sullivan, Who Spoke Up? 269; Time quoted by Henry

­Kissinger, White House Years, 291–92.

13. Mansfield to Nixon, Oct. 31, 1969, President’s Personal Files, Name/Sub-

ject File: “Mansfield, Mike,” Box 11, Nixon Materials, cited in Oberdorfer, Senator Mansfield, 373–74.; Nixon, Memoirs, 407–409.

14. William Safire, Before the Fall, 136, 137, 140, 138.



15. Nixon intended to end the war quickly. “I’m not going to end up like LBJ.

. . . I’m going to stop the war. Fast” (H. R. Haldeman, The Ends of Power, 81). “To [  ]

notes to pages 50 –52 Republican Congressman Donald Riegle of Michigan, Nixon predicted that he could end the conflict in six months” (Riegle, On Congress, 20; cited in Mann, Grand Illusion, 627).

16. See Suri, “The Nukes of October: Richard Nixon’s Secret Plan to Bring

Peace to Vietnam,” Wired Magazine, Feb. 25, 2008. See also Jesse Ventura, 63 Documents the Government Doesn’t Want You to Read (170) for a photocopy of the original order. See also “National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 81,” edited by William Burr and Jeffrey Kimball, who report that “Today The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists published an article, ‘Nixon’s Nuclear Ploy’ by National Security analyst William Burr and Miami University history professor Jeffrey Kimball that discloses for the first time one of the Nixon Administration’s most secret military operations. During October 1969, President Richard Nixon ordered the Pentagon to undertake secretly a series of military measures designed to put US nuclear forces on a high state of readiness.” This article “draws upon a longer, fully sourced and footnoted essay, ‘Nixon’s Secret Nuclear Alert: Vietnam War Diplomacy and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Readiness Test, October 1969,’” that appears in Cold War History (vol. 3, no. 2, Jan. 2003, 113–156).

17. Nixon, In the Arena, 332; Nixon, No More Vietnams, 115.



18. See Schlesinger, White House Ghosts, 201–205, on Nixon’s sole authorship

and reactions to the speech: “The more than 50,000 telegrams and 30,000 letters set new records. An instant Gallup poll showed 77 percent approval. ‘Very few speeches actually influence the course of history,’ Nixon wrote in his memoirs. ‘The November 3 speech was one of them. Its impact came as a surprise to me; it was one thing to make a rhetorical appeal to the Silent Majority—it was another actually to hear from them.’ The speech became a touchstone for Nixon. He would refer his writers to the November 3 speech as an example of the style he liked” (204). “Nixon called Safire on November 4 to talk about the ‘Silent Majority’ speech. I hope you don’t plan to write all your speeches yourself, Safire told his boss. ‘No, thanks,’ the president replied with a chuckle. ‘I did write this one all by myself, you know, but that’s the last one I’m going to do alone for a long time’” (205).

19. This terminology echoes the policies advanced by President Eisenhower’s

Secretary of State John Foster Dulles who spoke often of “waging peace.” See, for example, War and Peace and “The Task of Waging Peace,” Department of State, Series S, no. 70. Aug. 18, 1958.  [  ]

notes to pages 52 –56

20. See Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, and New-

man, “Lethal Rhetoric: The Selling of the China Myths,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 61 (Apr. 1975): 113–28.

21. In Mandate for Change (372), Eisenhower wrote: “Had elections been

held at the time of the fighting [in 1954], possibly eighty per cent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader rather than Chief of State Bao Dai.”

22. In fact, one plausible explanation is that all of Nixon’s policies in Viet-

nam may have been a struggle to escape the unavoidable trap that he had earlier described to his speechwriters.

23. See notes 18 and 19 in chapter 2 on the history of the US role in Vietnam’s

wars. Regarding the “first defeat,” the rather ignominious end of the War of 1812 is frequently ignored. Regarding the domino theory, see note 12 in chapter 2.

24. See Kimball, “The Nixon Doctrine,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 36, no.

1 (Mar. 2006): 59–74, who notes that “The first and most important occasion [for incorporating the “Nixon Doctrine” into public pronouncements] was this speech” (71). See also Burr and Kimball, “Nixon’s Secret Nuclear Alert: Vietnam War Diplomacy and the Joint Chiefs,” Cold War History 3 (Jan. 2003): 113–56.

25. After greeting the astronauts after their successful landing on the moon

on July 20, 1969, Nixon flew to Guam where he held a background briefing for reporters on long-range policy in Asia, asserting there would be “no more Vietnams.” The press dubbed his announcement “the Guam Doctrine.” He directed Kissinger and others on his staff to identify it as “the Nixon Doctrine.” “He was determined to ensure that he got all possible credit for the new policy” (Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger, 144).

26. From 1968 on, the number of US casualties decreased, and from 1970 on,

the rate of US deaths declined significantly.

27. Neil Sheehan, a correspondent for UPI and the New York Times, offers

detailed evidence of the ignominious performance of the South Vietnamese military in the war in A Bright and Shining Lie. That evidence comes in part from the observations of John Paul Vann, a lieutenant colonel in the US Army who in 1962 was assigned as an advisor to Col. Huynh Van Cao, commander of the ARVN IV Corps, and in that capacity saw firsthand the ineptitude with which the South Vietnamese army was prosecuting the war, in particular the disastrous battle of Ap Bac. Sorley’s A Better War argues that under General [  ]

notes to pages 57 –63 Abrams, this began to change, and the United States and its South Vietnamese allies were beginning to succeed, but with the decline in public support after Tet and Nixon’s weakened position because of Watergate, the improved strategy turned out not to be significant. In a review of this book, Arnold Isaacs, who covered the last years of the Vietnam War for the Baltimore Sun, writes: “His flat assertion that ‘the fighting wasn’t over, but the war was won’ by late 1970 is not just an overstatement but defies logic. A war may be going well but it isn’t ‘won’ if the enemy is still fighting, much less if the bloodiest battles are still to come, as Vietnam’s were. And it most certainly isn’t won if, when the fighting stops, the flag over the battleground—in this case, the entire country of South Vietnam— is the enemy’s” (“A Better War Book Review,” Washington Post, Aug. 8, 1999, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/books/reviews/abetterwar0808 .htm, accessed Feb. 13, 2013).

28. See the Los Angeles Times, Nov., 5, 1969. In Nixon and Kissinger, Dallek

reports: “Where his approval ratings in the winter of 1969–1970 stood in the high sixties, largely as a result of the silent majority speech in November and public conviction that he was ending the Vietnam War, support for his job performance fell into the fifties by the spring. In late March he was down to 53 percent, with only 48 percent approving his “handling of the situation in Vietnam” (182–83).

29. This “real majority,” as Nixon and his speechwriters dubbed it, embraced

Republicans, conservative Democrats, “Poles, Italians, Elks and Rotarians, . . . Catholics,” hard hats, and southern whites but excluded “Jews, blacks, youths,” and, of course, radicals and liberals, who, lumped together, were designated “radiclibs.” Safire, Before the Fall, 178; Maurice Charland, “Constitutive Rhetoric: The case of the Peuple Québéçois,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 73 (May 1987): 215–31; Nathaniel I. Cordova, “The Constitutive Force of the Catecismo del Pueblo in Puerto Rico’s Popular Democratic Party Campaign of 1938–40,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 90 (May 2004): 212–33.

30. Burke, “Rhetoric of Hitler’s Battle,” 191–220; cited material 206.



31. In fact, of course, he responded strongly to his critics some years later in

No More Vietnams.

32. Congressional Record, vol. 115, part 25, 34257–59.

33. Congressional Record, vol. 115, part 26, 35330–31; Braestrup, Big Story. See pages 508–29 for a devastating critique of the news coverage of the war  [  ]

notes to pages 64 – 65 generally and of the Tet offensive in particular. For an extended critique of these two speeches, see my “An Exercise in Manichean Rhetoric,” 94–110, in Campbell, Critiques of Contemporary Rhetoric.

34. Following his defeat by Gov. Edmund G. Brown, Nixon said to reporters,

“You don’t [sic] have Nixon to kick around anymore because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.” See Hill, “Nixon Denounces Press as Biased,” New York Times, Nov. 8, 1962. Almanac of Theodore Roosevelt, “The Man in the Arena,” http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trsorbonnespeech.html, accessed Apr. 26, 2013. For an example of Nixon referring to Roosevelt’s speech, see Richard Nixon, In the Arena. For its role in the 1968 campaign, see McGinniss, Selling of the President. He quoted much of this paragraph in his resignation speech of August 7, 1974.

35. There was also an incursion into Laos, about which Nixon spoke. He

said: “Did the Laotian operation contribute to the goals we sought? I have just completed my assessment of that operation and here are my conclusions: First, the South Vietnamese demonstrated that without American advisers they could fight effectively against the very best troops North Vietnam could put in the field. Second, the South Vietnamese suffered heavy casualties, but by every conservative estimate the casualties suffered by the enemy were far heavier. Third, and most important, the disruption of enemy supply lines, the consumption of ammunition and arms in the battle has been even more damaging to the capability of the North Vietnamese to sustain major offensives in South Vietnam than were the operations in Cambodia 10 months ago.” Richard Nixon, “Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia,” Apr. 7, 1971.

36. Shawcross, Sideshow is devoted to the war in Cambodia. He writes of

Operation Menu: “In response to Nixon’s demands for total and unassailable secrecy, the military devised an ingenious system that the Joint Chiefs liked to describe as ‘dual reporting’” (30). “The night’s mission over Cambodia entered the records as having taken place in Vietnam. The bombing was not merely concealed; the official secret records showed that it had never happened. The system worked well by the book, but it took no account of the attitudes of the men who were expected to implement it. Hal Knight, for example, accepted the military logic of bombing Cambodia but intensely disliked this procedure. . . . Knight feared that the institutional safeguards that are integral to the maintenance of discipline and of a loyal, law-abiding army were being discarded” (31–32). [  ]

notes to pages 66 –70

37. BBC News report of November 17, 2005, “Nixon Ordered Cambodia

Cover-up,” states: “Richard Nixon told top aides involved in Vietnam to lie to the public about US operations in neighbouring [sic] Cambodia, files released in Washington show. He ordered the deception at a meeting of his top military and national security aides in 1970, a month after admitting publicly to a secret war.” In “Eyes Only, Top Secret Sensitive” memo, Nixon said, “Publicly we say one thing—actually we do another.” In “Nixon Ordered Cambodia Cover-up,” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4444638.stm, accessed Apr. 26, 2013.

38. In Hawaii on April 19, Nixon met with Adm. John McCain Jr., the head

of US military forces in the Pacific, whose son, a navy pilot, was a prisoner of war in Hanoi. “Admiral McCain spent an hour and forty minutes discussing Vietnam and Cambodia. The Cambodian government was in danger of falling to the North Vietnamese, he said. If Cambodia fell, it would threaten Vietnamization, and the South Vietnamese government—the entire war effort. The arguments were not new to Nixon and he found them persuasive.” Schlesinger, White House Ghosts, 209, citing Reeves, Alone in the White House, 197–204.

39. Safire, Before the Fall, 183.



40. This had been facilitated by a change in the government. While Norodom

Sihanouk was out of the country, a coup occurred. The Lon Nol government supported this military operation.

41. According to one estimate, 600,000 civilians died in Cambodia during

Operation Menu, and 350,000 civilians died in Laos from the bombing for Operation Dewey Canyon II. See Morgan, Nixon, 118. Dewey Canyon II began on January 30, 1971, as preparation for an incursion into Laos by South Vietnamese army troops. No US troops were to enter Laos. Shawcross, however, writes that “By fall 1969, Gen. Creighton Abrams and the Joint Chiefs had accepted that the Menu bombing had failed in its primary military purpose; neither COSVN headquarters nor the sanctuaries themselves were destroyed” (113).

42. The language of the November 3 speech is strong and “manly”; here,

alternatives to the policy he proposed appear weak—plaintive, humiliating, pitiful, and helpless.

43. A number of subsequent speeches reflect this frustration: “Address to the

Nation on the Cambodian Sanctuary Operation,” June 3, 1970; “Address to the Nation Making Public a Plan for Peace,” Jan. 25, 1972, which included a claim that Vietnamization was working; and “Address to the Nation on Vietnam” Apr.  [  ]

notes to pages 71 –78 26, 1972. All of these speeches included repeated assertions of progress and success. See Public Papers of the President.

44. Gitlin, Sixties, 410.



45. Lipsman and Doyle, Fighting for Time, 182.

Chapter 4. Nixon’s Rhetorical Critics

1. Brigance, ed., History and Criticism of American Public Address, vols. 1

and 2; Hochmuth, ed., History and Criticism of American Public Address, vol. 3; ­Goodrich, Select British Eloquence.

2. Wichelns, “The Literary Criticism of Oratory,” 3–27. Pages cited in the

text. Thonssen and Baird, Speech Criticism.

3. Reid, “The Perils of Rhetorical Criticism,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 30

(1944): 416–22; Black, Rhetorical Criticism.

4. Scott and Smith, “The Rhetoric of Confrontation,” Quarterly Journal of

Speech 55 (1969): 1–8.

5. Campbell, “An Exercise in the Rhetoric of Mythical America,” 50–58;

­Newman, “Under the Veneer: Nixon’s Vietnam Speech of November 3, 1969,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 56 (1970): 168–78; Campbell, “The Rhetoric of Mythical America Revisited,” 202–12.

6. Hill, “The Rhetoric of Aristotle,” 19–76.



7. Another essay by Newman discusses the ways in which the perceived

“loss” of China in 1949 influenced US foreign policy. See Newman, “Lethal Rhetoric: The Selling of the China Myths,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 61 (Apr. 1975): 113–28.

8. Semple, “Speech Took Ten Drafts, and President Wrote All,” New York

Times, Nov. 4, 1969, 17; other sources confirm Nixon’s sole authorship. See also Schlesinger, White House Ghosts, 200–205. The drafts of the speech in the Nixon Presidential Library, although they note comments from advisers, support this claim. Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger; Huston, “Asian Peril Cited: High Aide ­[Nixon] Says Troops May be Sent if the French Withdraw,” New York Times, Apr. 17, 1954, A1.

9. Evans and Novak, “Nixon’s Speech Wedded Doves to Mass of Americans,”

Washington Post, Nov. 6, 1969, 23.

10. Kahn, “If Negotiations Fail,” Foreign Affairs 44 (1968): 627–41. [  ]

notes to pages 79 –87

11. Reston, “Washington: the Unanswered Vietnam Questions,” New York

Times, Dec. 10, 1969, 54.

12. Reston, “Washington: The Elections and the War,” New York Times, Nov.

7, 1969, 46.

13. Anthony Lewis, editorial, New York Times, Nov. 8, 1969, 32.



14. Stelzner, “The Quest Story and Nixon’s November 3, 1969 Address,”

Quarterly Journal of Speech 57 (1971): 163–72. Stelzner cites Semple, “Speech Took 10 Drafts, and President Wrote All,” 17.

15. Stelzner mistakenly claims that the speech lacks biblical imagery; he

overlooks Nixon’s allusion to the story of the Good Samaritan.

16. This is a reference to the concept of the loyal opposition, essential in a

democracy.

17. An estimated 224,000 South Vietnamese troops died, while more than

58,000 US troops died during the war. From 1969 to 1971 there were about 22,000 ARVN combat deaths per year. Starting in 1968, South Vietnam began calling up every available man for service in the ARVN, reaching a strength of a million soldiers by 1972 (http://www.wordiq.com/definition/ARVN, accessed Apr. 26, 2013).

18. Los Angeles Times, Mar. 7, 1971, I.1.



19. “Nixon’s Non-Plan,” The New Republic, Nov. 15, 1969, 10. See also Sorley,

Westmoreland, 131–32, on the refusal to provide South Vietnamese troops with the best available weapons and those best suited to the size and weight of Vietnamese troops.

20. Nixon often quoted from the Theodore Roosevelt speech, “Citizenship

in a Republic,” delivered at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910, which includes the section referred to as “The Man in the Arena,” which is, in part, an attack on critics: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.”

21. Neal, “Government of Myth,” The Center Magazine, Nov. 1969, 2.



22. Hill, “Conventional Wisdom—Traditional Form—The President’s Mes-

sage of November 3, 1969,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 58, no. 4 (1972): 373–86. Subsequent page references are in the text.

23. Consider how Newman and Campbell define the situation as the basis

for their critiques and whether Hill accurately describes Nixon’s purpose. Can it incorporate Nixon’s absolute goal—to ensure an independent, non-communist South Vietnam?  [  ]

notes to pages 87 –99

24. Aristotle, Rhetoric III.16.1417a16–35.



25. Note that what Hill calls an incentive, I called a precondition that ensures

the failure of Nixon’s policy.

26. The Forum, Quarterly Journal of Speech 58 (Dec. 1972): 451–54.



27. Kennedy, Aristotle on Rhetoric, 33.



28. McKerrow, “Critical Rhetoric: Theory and Praxis,” Communication

Monographs 56 (June 1989): 91–111; cited material on 91 and 93.

29. Campbell, “Rhetoric of Mythical America Revisited,” 202–12; Edelman,

Symbolic Uses of Politics, 41.

30. Hart, Political Pulpit; Frye, Anatomy of Criticism, 119–22.



31. Burke, “The Rhetoric of Hitler’s Battle,” 191–220; cited material on 199.



32. Burke, Rhetoric of Motives.



33. Burke, “The Rhetoric of Hitler’s Battle,” 206.



34. See “Presidential War Rhetoric,” 217–53, in Campbell and Jamieson,

Presidents Creating the Presidency.

Chapter 5. Conclusion

1. Logeval, Embers of War. See also Halberstam, Best and the Brightest, 94.



2. See McKerrow, “Critical Rhetoric,” 91–111; Rosteck, “Form and Cultural

Context in Rhetorical Criticism: Rereading Wrage,” Quarterly Journal of Speech, 84, no. 4 (1998): 471–90.

3. Turse, Kill Anything that Moves. In a review on Huff Post Books, Peter Van

Buren (Mar. 18, 2013) writes: “What really happened is Turse’s story. His book began with a different focus when as a graduate student in Public Health, Turse began looking into post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among Vietnam vets. By chance an archivist asked Turse whether he thought witnessing war crimes might be a cause of PTSD and directed Turse to the forgotten papers of the Vietnam War Crimes Working Group. That group had been set up by the military in the wake of My Lai to compile information on atrocities, not so much to punish the guilty as to ‘ensure that the army would never again be caught off-guard by a major war crimes scandal.’ Turse tells us the group’s findings were mostly kept under cover and the witnesses who reported the crimes were ignored, discredited or pushed into silence” (“Review: Nick Turse’s Kill Anything

[  ]

notes to pages 99 –1 00 that Moves,” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-van-buren/nick-turse-killanything-that-moves_b_2897858.html, accessed Apr. 13, 2013).

4. The “Winter Soldier Investigation” was a media event sponsored by the

Vietnam Veterans against the War (VVAW) from January 31 to February 2, 1971, to publicize war crimes and atrocities by the US armed forces and their allies in the Vietnam War. The VVAW challenged the morality and conduct of the war by showing the direct relationship between military policies and war crimes in Vietnam. The three-day gathering of 109 veterans and 16 civilians took place in Detroit, Michigan. Discharged servicemen from each branch of military service, as well as civilian contractors, medical personnel, and academics, all gave testimony about war crimes they had committed or witnessed during the years 1963–70. See Stacewitz, Winter Soldiers; Hunt, Turning. A full transcript of the Winter Soldier Investigation is available online at http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/ sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Winter_Soldier/WS_entry.html.

5. Schell, “The Real Vietnam War,” The Nation, Feb. 4, 2013, 20–24, cited ma-

terial on 20 and 23.

 [  ]

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[  ]

Index

Abrams, Creighton, 8, 34, 65 Acheson, Dean, 25 Afghanistan, 41 Africa, 25 African Americans, 17, 74; servicemen, 16 Agnew, Spiro, 62–63, 85 Agreement on Ending the War and restoring Peace in Vietnam, 39 Alabama, 20, 63 Alexander, Andrew, 40 Allies (WWII), 22, 24, 52, 55 alliteration, 63 American exceptionalism, 85 American Independent Party, 20 anagogic, 93 Annam, 27 anticommunists, anticommunism, 25, 27, 28, 97 antiwar movement, 18, 19; antiwar protest, antiwar protestors, 15, 32, 60, 95 campus protests, 70; demonstrators, 35, 59, 71, 87; organizers 36; see also Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam; New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam; Student Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam, Aristotle, 73, 87, 90, 91; ethical branch of politics, 92; Rhetoric (classical text), 75, 86

Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), 30, 31, 32, 36, 37, 49, 68 Asia, 3, 8, 25, 34, 52 Associated States of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, 26 Athens (classical), 91 Atlantic Charter, 22 Attlee, Clement, 24 audience, 43, 73; and Agnew, 63; and Hill critique, 87, 90–1; and Newman criticism, 77, 80; and Nixon, 45, 46, 51, 52, 54, 57–58, 59, 60, 61, 81, 83; roles created for, 95; see also immediate audience, target audience Axis powers, 52 Ba Dinh Square, 23 Baez, Joan, 17 Bao Dai, (Emperor), 23, 25 Beatles, 17 Berlin, 4 Black, Edwin, 73–74 Black Power, 74 Brigance, William Norwood, 73 Brown, Edmund G. “Pat,” 19 Boston, 48 Buchanan, Patrick, 46 Buddhists, 28 Burke, Kenneth, 61, 76, 94; internal division, 95

index Burma, 54 Bush, George H.W., 14, 41 Bush, George W., 41 California, 17, 19, 35, 63 California Democratic Primary (1968), 18 California State University, Los Angeles, 16 Cambodia, 15, 21, 22, 24, 26, 31, 34, 35, 36, 39, 44, 45, 47, 49, 54, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70 Cambodian border (with Vietnam), 31 Campbell, Karlyn Kohrs, 42, 43, 74, 75–76, 82–83, 85, 90, 93–94, 98; critical differences with Hill, Forbes I., 91 Camp David, 49 Capitol Hill (United States), 28 Carmichael, Stokely, 74 Catholic(s) 3, 27; and Diem, 28 ceasefire line, 27 Chamber of Commerce, 63 Chamberlain, Neville, 30 Chapman, John, 73 Chiang Kai-Shek, 22, 24, 52 Chicago, 18, 19, 20, 32 Chicago City Police, 19 China, 2, 26, 38, 40, 51, 52, 53, 84, 94, Chinese Nationalist Party see Kuomintang Christmas bombing, 39 Choosing War, 28 CIA, 22, 35, 85 Cicero, 73 civil religion, 93, 94, 95 Civil Rights, 18; racial discrimination 17; rhetoric of, 74; social movement, 16 Civil Rights Act of 1964, 16 Clifford, Clark, 33

Coatesville Address, 73 Cold War, 42, 52, 76, 92, 94, 97 commander in chief, 29, 43, 96 Communist (party), 2–3, 4, 7, 8, 23, 39, 44, 53, 58, 67, 87, 95 communism, communists (as political ideology), 24, 26, 27, 28, 31, 32, 33, 34, 40, 52, 54, 57, 58, 59, 76, 83, 88, 89, 94, 97, Congress (United States), 11, 21, 28, 29, 36, 39, 42, 43, 76, 78, 98 conservatives (United States), 27, 57; and Republican, 77 Constitution (United States), 11, 18 constitutive rhetoric, 59; “the people,” 60 containment, 26 Cooper Amendment, 39 Cooper-Church Amendment, 36, 39 critical rhetoric, 93, 99 counterculture, 17, 18, 74 Daley, Richard J., 19 de Gaulle, Charles, 23, 28 Declaration of Independence, United States, 23 decorum, 74 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) 35 deliberative (genre), 51, 73, 87 deliberative rhetoric, 56, 80 deliberative speaker, 92 Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), 33 democracy, 60, 72, 81, 83, 86, 91, 92 Democratic National Convention, (Chicago 1968), 19, 20 Democratic National Convention, (Miami Beach 1972), 37 Democratic presidential primaries (1968), 18 democratic political theory, 75 Democratic Republic of Vietnam, see Vietnam, Democratic Republic of

[  ]

index Foreign Affairs, 75, 78 forensic (genre), 73 France, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 Free French, 23 French Indochina, see Indochina free society, 12, 60, 81 free world, 24 Frye, Northrop, 93

demonstrative arguments, 92 desegregation of schools, 17, 20 Diem, Ngo Dinh, 27, 28, 36, 44, 94; and Catholicism, 28 Dien Bien Phu, Battle of, 26, 53 disenfranchisement, 74 doctrine of peace, 94 doctrine of war, 94 do-it-yourself, 7, 57, 58 dominant discourse, 99 domino theory, 26, 54, 90 draft, 18, 38, 56, 98; draft cards, 32 drone, 91 Dulles, John Foster, 26, 27, 40 Dallek, Robert, 38 Duong Van Minh, see Minh, Duong Van Eagleton Amendment, 39 Eagleton, Thomas, 37 Easter Offensive, 37 Eastern Europe, 52 Edelman, Murray, 76, 93 Eisaku Sato, see Sato, Eisaku Eisenhower administration, 26, 76, 97 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 2, 4, 19, 20, 25–26, 27, 41, 53, 54, 60, 69, 91, 97, 98 Ellsberg, Daniel, 36 enthymeme, 88, 89, 92 epideictic, 73 ethos, 73, 86, 87, 89 Europe, 25, 52 Evans, Rowland, 77 FBI, 35 Fish Hook, 66 Ford administration, 40 Ford, Gerald, 40 foreign policy (United States), 7, 8, 25, 41, 45, 57, 75, 76, 77, 78, 82, 85, 93, 97, 99

Galahad, 61 game theory, 50 gay citizens, 74 gay community, 60 gendered language, 69 Geneva, 26 Geneva Accords, 27, 44, 53, 58, 84 genre (rhetoric), 41, 73 Giap, Vo Nguyen, 22 Going After Cacciato, 14 Goldwater, Barry, 19, 28 Good Samaritan, 58–59, 95 Goodell, Charles, 78, 83 Goodrich, Chauncey, 72 Grant Park, 19 great silent majority, 13, 45, 59, 60, 81, 83, 84, 87, Guam, 7, 8, 34 Guam Doctrine, see Nixon Doctrine Gulf of Tonkin, see Tonkin, Gulf of Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, 18, 42 Gulf War, 41 Guthrie, Woody 17 Haight-Ashbury, 60 Halifax, Lord (Wood, E.F.L), 24 Hanoi, 5, 7, 10, 23, 33, 34, 38, 44, 47, 48, 50, 55, 65, 77, 78, 84 Haiphong, Port of, 25 Harriman, Averill, 62, 63 Helms, Richard, 35 hero, heroes, 76, 80; and evaluative pairs, 81

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index Hill, Forbes I., 74, 75, 86–89, 92–93, 98; critical differences with Campbell, Karlyn Kohrs, 90–91 Hiroshima, 99 A History and Criticism of American Public Address, 72 Hitler, Adolf, 30 Ho Chi Minh, 6, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 30, 53, 55, 77, 94 Ho Chi Minh Trail, 36 Hochmuth, Marie Kathryn, 73 Hoover, J. Edgar, 35 House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, 20, 39 Hudson Institute, 78 Hue, 3, 23, 32, 33 Hughes, Emmet John, 20 Humphrey, Hubert H., 15, 19, 20, 42 Huston, Tom Charles, 35 Huston plan, 35 identification, 59, 60, 95, 96 ideological critique, 93 ideology, 93, 94, 95 immediate audience, 63, 73 Independence Palace, 32 India, British, 23, 24 Indochina, French Indochina, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 Interagency Committee on Intelligence, 35 intrinsic analysis, see intrinsic criticism intrinsic criticism, 74, 82 Iraq, 41 isolationists, 49 Jackson, Andrew, 86 Jamieson, Kathleen Hall, 42, 43 Japan, 22, 23, 24, 25, 52, 53, 100 Jesus, 58–59

Johnson administration, 29, 31, 32, 33, 83, 87; referenced by Nixon, 8, 55 Johnson, Lyndon B., 2, 3, 4, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 28, 31, 36, 41, 42, 44, 46, 49, 51, 53, 79; decision not to seek reelection, 33; dramatizing rhetoric, 30; public approval of handling of Vietnam War, 32; Syracuse University Speech (August 5, 1964), 29–30; Vietnam war policies, 19 Johnson’s war, 55; and Kennedy’s war, 49 Kahn, Herman, 75, 78 kairos, 79 Kampuchea, 22 Karnow, Stanley, 33, 37 Kennedy administration, 29, 31, 36, 56 Kennedy, George A., 92 Kennedy, John F., 3, 19, 20, 28–29, 41, 43–44, 49, 53, 54, 61, 69, 80, 81; as US Senator, 97 Kennedy Robert F., 14, 18, 22; February 8, 1962, speech in Chicago, 32 Kent State University, 35, 70–1 Keynes, Edward, 42 Kill Anything that Moves, 99, Kim Il-sung, 58 King, Coretta Scott, 48 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 14, 16, 17, 48, 74 Kissinger, Henry, 5, 38, 39, 50 Korea, 7, 57–58 Korean War, 25, 41 KPFK-Pacifica, Los Angeles, 74 Kuomintang, 22, 52 Laird, Melvin, 8 Laos, 22, 26, 34, 36, 39, 47, 54, 65–66 Latin America, 85 Le Duc Tho, 38–39, 98 League for the Independence of Vietnam see Vietminh

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index League of Nations, 81 Lewis, Anthony, 79 liberal(s) (United States), 49, 78, 79 Life (magazine), 48 Lodge, Henry Cabot, 5, 6 Logeval, Frederick, 28, 29, 97 logos, 73, 86 Lon Nol, 66, 67 Los Angeles, 17 loyal opposition, 75, 86, 92 Luke, Book of, 58 Lunar New Year, 32 Madison, Wisconsin, 22 Madman theory, see game theory Mansfield, Mike, 48–49 March on Washington, see Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam Marine Corps, United States, 30, 36 McCarthy, Eugene, 18, 20 McGovern, George, 37, 48 McNamara, Robert, 33 McKerrow, Raymie, 93 Middle East, 4 Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) see US Military Assistance Command Vietnam Minh, Duong Van, 44 Montagnard tribes, 28 Montgomery Bus Boycott, 16 Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, 34, 77, 79 Moscow, 50, 55 Moyers, Bill, 48 Munich, 30 My Lai massacre, 99 myth and mythology, 85, 93, 95 narrative, 43, 52, 87 National Liberation Front (NLF), 27, 31, 32, 34, 37, 49, 94; see also Vietcong

National Security Action Memorandum No. 273, 29 Nazi Germany, 22 Neo-Aristotelian criticism, 58, 86, 90, 98 New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, 35 New York (city), 17, 32, 62 New York Times, 32, 34, 36, 79 New Yorker, 99 Newman, Robert P., 74, 75, 76–80, 82, 93, 98 Ngo Dinh Diem, see Diem, Ngo Dinh Nixon administration, 34, 83, 86 Nixon Doctrine, 7, 34, 55, 61, 95; see also Vietnamization Nixon, Richard M., 14, 18, 31, 34, 37, 39, 42, 45–46, 48–60, 62–66, 69–71, 74–83, 78, 85–96, 98; Address to the Nation on Situation in Southeast Asia, 66; Air Force Academy Commencement speech, 49; “Checkers Speech,” 15; discourse on Vietnam, 41; first presidential speech on US policy in Vietnam, 34; impeachment, 20–1, 35, 40; “incursion,” 67; 1972 campaign, 38; on Mansfield, 49; Parrot’s Beak, 35; resignation, 39; rhetorical approach to Vietnam War, 44; support of Diem, 27; personalization of Vietnam policy, 61; political career and campaign activities, 19; rhetorical ability, 98; Vice President of the United States, 27, 97; vocal minority, 83 Nixon’s war, 2, 52, 61, 70, 95 North Vietnam, see Vietnam, Democratic Republic of; Vietnam, North North Vietnamese Army (NVA), 32 Novak, Robert, 77 NSA, 35

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index Ohio National Guard and Guardsmen, 35, 70 Obama, Barack, 41 O’Brien, Tim, 14 oligarchy, 92 OP PLAN 34-A, 36 Operation Breakfast, 34 Operation Giant Lance, 50 Operation Linebacker, 37 Operation Menu, 34, 65 Operation Rolling Thunder, 30 oratory, 73, 99: criticism of and literature, 73 Pacific, 11 parallel phrasing, 48 Paris, 1, 2, 5, 6, 13, 14, 15, 23, 28, 33, 42, 46, 47, 50, 63, 84, 98 Paris talks, 5, 9, 33, 46, 56, 62 Parrot’s Beak, 35 pathos, 73, 86 Peace and Freedom Party, 19 Pearson, Lester, 28 Pentagon, 33, 99 Pentagon Papers, 36 People’s Republic of China, see China persona, 73, 76 personalization (rhetorical technique), 52, 60, 61, 64, 69, 77, 95–96, 98 persuasion, 64, 86, 88, 92, 98 Pétain, Philippe, 22 Peter, Paul, and Mary, 17 Philippines, 8, 23, 55 Plato, 91, 93 pnyx, 91 polis, 91 Port of Haiphong see Haiphong, Port of Potsdam Conference, 24, 52 Presidents Creating the Presidency, 43 presidential discourse, presidential rhetoric 76, 83, 85, 93, 96

Price, Raymond, 46 poverty, 17 public address, 80, 93 public address criticism, 21 public discourse, 21, 41, 73, 76, 99 Quarterly Journal of Speech, 90 Quebec, 59 quest motif (rhetorical strategy), 61, 76, 80–82, 95 quiescence, 93 Quintilian, 73 racism, 17 Rand Corporation, 36 Reagan, Ronald, 35 Reid, Loren, 73 Republic of Vietnam, see Vietnam, Republic of Republican National Convention (Miami, 1968), 45 Republicans (in US Senate), 48 Reston, James, 78–9 Revolutionary War (United States), 94 rhetoric, 79, 80, 86, 91–92, 98 foreign policy rhetoric, 76; manipulative rhetoric, 93; of social movements, 74; time, 80; truth standard, 91; war rhetoric, 23, 41, 42, 43, 45, 52, 96 rhetorical critic(s), 15, 21, 71, 74, 85, 92–93, 98–99 role of, 92 rhetorical criticism, 72–73, 75, 86, 90–91, 99; ethical judgments, 85; historical and political analysis, 75; morality, 91; purpose of critique, 90; Roosevelt, Franklin D. (FDR), 23, 24, 41, 52, 69, 91, Roosevelt, Theodore, 63–64 Rogers, William, 5

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index Safire, William, 49, 50, 59, 66 Saigon, 4, 25, 27, 28, 30, 32, 39, 40, 46, 49, 54, 78, 79 San Francisco, 11, 32, 35, 59, 60, 71, 81 Sato, Eisaku [referred to in text as Eisaku Sato] 28 Seattle, 32 second-wave feminists, 74 Senate (United States), 48 Schell, Jonathan, 99 Segregation (racial): 17; see also desegregation 17th parallel, 27, 53 Shiver, Sargent, 37 Sihanouk, Norodom (prince), 66 social movements, 16–18, 74 Solon, 91 South (geographic region of the United States), 17, 20 Southeast Asia, 4, 18, 24, 27, 31, 39, 54, 66, 86 Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 16 South Korea, 8, 58 South Vietnam, see Vietnam, Republic of; Vietnam, South Soviet Union (USSR), 2, 5, 25, 26, 38, 50, 51, 52, 53, 55, 84, 94 Speech Criticism: The Development of Standards for Critical Appraisal, 73 Stalin, Joseph, 24 State Department, United States, 24 Stelzner, Hermann G. 74, 76, 80, 82, 93, 98 Student Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam, 35 strategic misrepresentation, 43, 44 Sunset Boulevard, 17 Supreme Court, United States, 36 The Symbolic Uses of Politics, 93

target audience, 57, 59, 90, 91 Thailand, 8, 39, 54, 55 Thant, U, 28 Themistocles, 91 Tan Son Nhut airfield, 32 Taylor, Maxwell, 29 techné, 86 technical critique, 86 Tet holiday, 32 Tet Offensive, 32, 33 Thieu, Nguyen Van, 28, 34, 38, 39, 40, 42, 77, 78, 79, 84, 85, 94 Time (magazine), 48 Tonkin, Gulf of, 30, 36 to prepon, 79 totalitarianism, 13, 58, 69; totalitarian government, 85 Truman administration, 97 Truman, Harry S., 16, 23, 24, 36, 41, 52, 61, 91; Navy Day Speech, 25 Turse, Nick, 99 26th Amendment (US Constitution), 18 undeclared war, 41, 42 unification (Vietnamese), 27, 40, 47, 94, 98 United Nations Advisory Commission, 24 United Kingdom, 26 United States, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 33, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 47, 52, 53, 54, 56, 57–58, 59, 60, 67, 68, 69, 70, 75, 77, 84, 85, 86, 88, 94, 97, 98, 99, 100 United States-Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense see Pentagon Papers University of Buffalo, 71 US Military Assistance Advisory Group, 26

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index US Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV), 30, 65 US Office of Strategic Services (OSS), 22 US Riot Commission, 17 USSR, see Soviet Union value premises, 88–89, 92 Versailles Treaty, 24 veterans, of Vietnam War, (United States), 14, 36 Vichy France, 22, 24, 25 Vietcong and Viet Cong, 27, 31, 34, 35, 44, 46, 58, 65, 67, 68, 83, 87, 94 Vietnam (as geographic place): 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 45, 47, 50, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 61, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 75, 76, 81, 82, 85, 92, 93, 94, 97, 98, 99, 100 Vietnam (as war) and Vietnam war: 1, 2, 7, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 25, 28, 38, 41, 42, 45, 46, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54, 56, 58, 62, 63, 67, 68, 74, 76, 77, 79, 98, 99 Vietnam, Democratic Republic of (DRV), 23, 27, See Vietnam, North Vietnam, North, 2, 5, 6, 10, 13, 27, 31, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 42, 44, 53, 55, 60, 65, 66, 67, 69, 81, 97 Vietnam, South, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15, 20, 27, 28, 29, 31, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 44, 45, 46, 47, 53, 54, 59, 64, 65, 67, 68, 70, 77, 79, 82, 84, 94, 95, 98, 99, 100; [in text as “South”] 34 Vietnam, Republic of, 27, 28, 44; see also Vietnam, South

Vietnamese Declaration of Independence, 23, 53 Vietnamese People’s Army of the North (VPA) (PAVN), 37, 65, 68 Vietnamization, Vietnamizing (Nixon), 8, 11, 15, 31, 36, 37, 54, 56, 61, 75, 83, 84, 88, 95 Vietnamese Communist Party, 23 Vietminh and Viet Minh, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 31, 46, 53, 55, 78, 94 Vo Ngyuen Giap, see Giap, Vo Nguyen voter registration, 17 Voting Rights Act of 1965, 16 Walker, Daniel, 19 Wall Street, 48 Wallace, George Corley, 20, 57 war power, 20 War Powers Resolution, 39, 43 Washington Post, 36 Washington, D.C., 35, 36, 40, 46, 48, 62, 71, 77, 79, Washington monument, 48 West coast (United States), 60 Western hemisphere, 4, 25 Westmoreland, William C., 30, 31, 33 attack on headquarters, 32 Whalen, Richard, 46 White House, 11, 35, 39, 48 Wichelns, Herbert A., 72, 76 Wicker, Tom, 32 Wilson, Harold, 28 Wilson, Woodrow, 13, 24, 61, 69, 81, 82 woman’s rights, rhetoric of, 74 Wood, E.F.L., see Hallifax, Lord World War I, 13, 23 World War II, 16, 19, 24, 41, 52, 53, 94 Yalta Conference, 24, 52

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