Nixon His Friends and His Enemies

...At that point, and we are in it now, Nixon's enemies disregard every other consideration...

...They had lost consistently on real issues, so they created a false issue with an unparalleled barrage of false statements and misleading inferences...

...And more specifically Western Europe will be dependent on the Persian Gulf due to North Africa's inadequate reserves...

...He took a hard line on international confrontations in general, but promised eventual withdrawal from Vietnam...

...The utility of bases in implementing "flexible response" has also been amply demonstrated by the United States in Korea and Vietnam...

...It requires the president to come before Congress within forty-eight hours after American troops have been committed to combat overseas and it compels him to cease operations after sixty days unless Congress has approved his action...

...Congress Reasserts Itself Had the prestige of the Administration not been so low pitched, the White House could have undoubtedly jawboned three more House members into voting to sustain the veto...

...Also important was having a less stodgy president than they thought Nixon would be...

...He made enormous ballyhoo out of the return of the POWs...

...By 1980 imports from Nigeria and the development of the North Atlantic might reduce the total to roughly 70 percent...

...Only Great Britain will have atomic energy available by 1980, but this will provide only 6 percent of her total requirement...

...It should also be kept in mind that approximately 80 percent of Japan's oil comes from the Middle East and the Soviets wish to export natural gas to Japan...

...Because N'Lxon is a criminal, he is also incompetent...

...The same was true on inflation...

...How could he have hidden his essential criminality for so long...

...There was almost no outcry at that calumny, and although the remark had not won the election for McGovern, the reaction to it had shown that Nixon could be called absolutely anything, no matter how evil or untrue, without any reproach to the speaker...

...Talk, Talk, Talk The most hotly-debated topic in Washington in recent weeks has been whether Nixon should resign or be impeached...

...But the issue now is whether the President is an honest, competent, and sane m a i l . The enemies of the President have been 14 The Alternative January 1974 telling the American people every day since March that the President is a criminal...

...They simply severed completely the last fraying threads that bound their remarks about Nixon to reality...

...On all those issues, Nixon was opposed violently by the liberal, upper-middle class people who control the dissemination of views on network television and in most of the famous newspapers and magazines...

...The Canal also has not reached its optimum size...

...Even such a staunch ally as Saudi Arabia felt compelled to stop oil shipments to the United States...

...The veto which Congress overrode by thirteen votes in the Senate (75-18) and by four votes in the House (284-185) prompted Senator John Tower (R-Texas) to state: "I realize this is a time when everyone can with impunity kick the President...

...Specifically, Nixon criticized Lyndon Johnson's conduct of the war, but wanted to maintain American honor and strength in confrontation with the Communists...

...They could appear before and after his speeches and press conferences and make up a whole new series of "reports from reliable sources" and erroneous implications about the President so as to completely blot out any appeal which the President might have had...

...On these issues, there was a consistent differing between Richard Nixon and his opponent, and most particularly, between Richard Nixon and Hubert H. Humphrey's most articulate supporters...

...But Senator McGovern had taught Nixon's enemies some things, and they knew how to use that knowledge...

...Gradually the sum of innumerable unsubstantiated charges and contemptuous tones becomes a fact itself---although severed from all connection with the truth...

...House Joint Resolution 542, the War Powers Resolution, now becomes law without the president's signature...

...To see clearly what is being done, one must look back to at least 1968...

...Of course, Nixon received a staggeringly large mandate to continue doing what he had been doing and, if the central issue really was Richard Nixon himself, the voters were obviously telling him to continue being himself...

...First, Cairo and Damascus will be heavily dependent on Moscow for resupplying and retraining their armies...

...Never mind that Nixon is not a criminal...

...Through the manipulation of the organs of mass communication in a concerted attack whose coordination and imagination would make the Beaverbrooks and Hearsts seem like pikers, the corps is close to taking over the government, inchiding all three branches, from the people who were lawfully elected to it...

...He offended some sensitive and decent people by praising those who attacked student demonstrators...

...He had said that Richard Nixon was like Hitler...

...Another provision in the legislation (which some critics argue make the resolution unconstitutional) gives Congress the power to order an end to American involvement by passing a concurrent resolution with a simple majority that does not have to be submitted to the president to become effective...

...Richard Nixon, because of his corny belief in the Constitution, will not be the one to take that step, but it will become inevitable for someone...

...Of course, Nixon won...

...On crime, both candidates took firm positions, but Nixon was able to make his position seem tougher through mere adroit discussion...

...On the issue of himself, Richard Nixon remained largely silent...

...He had done something almost incredibly shocking and had gotten away with it...

...The effect of America's world position, the future of a state in which a totalitarian press rules without any responsibility to anyone, the psychic effect of destruction of a government, all melt into insignificance compared to the possibility of at last doing something they could never do legitimately--to confound the entire democratic process and to rm~ke themselves rulers in a way they could not do according to any rules of law or decency...

...As President, he followed his mandate by actions which were popular among the lower-middle masses but utterly repellent to the more elevated, more educated, and perhaps even occasionally more correct upper-middle classes...

...Twelve years after the desegregation decision, millions of people wondered if desegregation had to include large-scale busing of "little children from here to kingdom come" and the destruction of public education which often followed...

...The North Sea alone could provide for all of Western Europe's oil (at the present rate of consumption) for only about one and a half years...

...He had girls in miniskirts sing at a reception for Brezhnev when ankle-length was in fashion in New York...

...However, until formal charges are levied against Nixon no one really expects the Administration to give this argument any serious thought...

...The enemies of Nixon are now operating in a realm in which they have complete control...

...Giving full credence to the accusations of a confessed perjurer, thief, and conspirator like John Dean while dismissing with sneers the remarks of men of impeccable background like John D. Ehrlichman and H.R...

...Far more than Humphrey, McGovern assumed the mantle of candidate of the poor, the students, liberated women, and those remnants of the New Left who voted...

...He should have omitted the word "effete" from "an effete corps of impudent snobs...

...Self-contained flotillas, however, require the maintenance of "fleet trains...

...Even daughter Trish did not recognize her father from the description...

...And they never questioned that it was their right to try to usurp by unfair means the power which had been given to Nixon by the people by constitutional procedures...

...Senator William Scott (a freshman Republican from Virginia) and an ardent Administration supporter received over 1,000 letters urging the resignation or impeachment of Nixon...

...All of the fury which they have felt at being frustrated by Nixon for so long on real issues, on his having succeeded with the electorate and with problem-solving despite their opposition, reaches a boiling point...

...He did other things too, such as open relations with China, and he improved relations with the Soviets, which won universal praise, but also some criticism from liberals who felt cheated that a man whom they hated should have done something great which they had been saving for themselves...

...It is the whole future of a free society basing its political decisions upon some measure of truth and implementing them through constitutionally prescribed means...

...This may well be the paramount foreign policy issue of the next few years...

...be open warfare between Ethiopia and SOviet-supported Somali for control of Djibouti...

...But Nixon's enemies could still destroy Nixon by carrying much further what Senator McC_~vern began...

...The combined dependence on the Middle East and the Soviet Union for vital energy resources must be an important element in the future political calculations of Western Europe and the United States...

...The lies become so widespread that they are their own truth...

...There was also concern that the resolution could erode the stature and consistency of American foreign policy, which they argue is necessary if the United States is to remain a credible power...

...If they continue to act without responsibility except to themselves and continue to have complete control over public opinion, no government will be able to function...

...Letter from a Whig "Few Die and None Resign" (WASHINGTON)--President Nixon was dealt his first defeat by Congress, after eight earlier attempts to override presidential vetoes had failed...

...In the conflict between blacks and whites about busing and about welfare, Nixon always took the hard hat position against The Alternative January 1974 13 busing and for a crackdown on what were called welfare chiselers...

...This necessitates the importation of gas from the Soviet Union...

...In his economic policies, the President acted with a mixture of expedience and principle...

...These who had always loathed the "square" Nixon who catered to the lowermiddle class found that if they called Nixon a criminal often enough, and called anyone who defended him a criminal, gradually defenders would become intimidated...

...Western Union alone, by October 28, had processed more than 250,000 telegrams to congressional and Senate offices after Nixon fired Special Watergate Prosecutor, Archibald Cox...

...Were the Soviets to realize a sphere of influence in the Middle East, a great deal of pressure could be brought to bear on Western Europe...

...Senator McOovern had taught them something else too...

...the Special Prosecutor's office received 10,000 telegrams (during the same period) and only a handful were favorable to the President...

...And finally comes the moment of exhilaration when Nixon's enemies make the same discovery that the killers of Charles I made...

...He continued to be corny and stodgy...

...A generation gap had opened which seemed to be unbridgeable, and whose outward signs included violent demonstrations in many forums, a feeling of contempt for democratic processes among the young, and huge differences in articulated thoughts about morality, especially about sex and drugs...

...Far more important, the television and newspaper aristocracy eventually realized that their power over the information of the average American was so enormous that they could eliminate even the voice of the President himself from serious consideration...

...The issues were basically the same however---the conflict between lower-middle class values and upper-middle class values remained central...

...Nixon's enemies saw that what they said became the news...

...White House officials quickly lay to rest the speculation that Nixon might resign, citing his fighting spirit and cool nature...

...The Soviets also supply 6.5 percent of Western Europe's oil...

...They have it in their power to kill a king...

...In that year the United States had several major real problems...

...There was also tremendous concern over the felt conviction that the idle poor were being subsidized by forced transfers from the working lower-middle class...

...Those are tangible things over which a president and a government have some measure of control...

...Such "fleet trains" are very expensive and make major repairs difficult...

...They will stop at nothing until they see the object of their scorn reduced to nothing and themselves confirmed in their new power...

...Second, due to its strong support of Israel, America's prestige has been dealt a severe blow...

...Finally, but very importantly, there was apprehension about what was then believed to be the excessively high rate of inflation...

...But the issue has reportedly produced more than 1,000,000 pieces of mail for Capitol Hill...

...In the scheme of Nixon's enemies, Nixon's seeming sanity despite his proved criminality is a measure of the cunning of the diseased mind of the man...

...Haldeman was a powerful beginning...

...Although no breakdown is available for all the correspondence received on Capitol Hill, a sample from different offices indicated that those who chose to write were overwhelmingly in favor of resignation or impeachment...

...He shocked many by giving special consideration to the case of Lieutenant William Calley...

...The majority of the American public still does not think Nixon should The Alternative January 1974 15...

...And surely some future government will decide that if the choice is between government by the president and Congress and government by a self-selecting elite of media barons and baronesses, it is the greatly abused freedom of the press which must go to the wall...

...Flexible response enhances what I believe to be the Soviet objective of containing or encircling China and also makes manifest what can be called Soviet Great Power aspirations...

...They learned that if they acted outraged when reporting something perfectly norreal or irrelevant, viewers would believe the legitimate and the irrelevant outrageous...

...Nixon consistently took the line favored by lower-middle class and upper class people, while Humphrey, and especially his supporters, consistently took the line of the middle class, upper-middle class, and poor people...

...What is happening is a long drawn-out coup, by which a small but powerful group of people are subverting the expressed will of the majority and are making the majority believe that their will is being done...

...Nixon's enemies on television and in the print media learned that if they quoted unnamed sources with a tone of great sincerity, unsubstantiated charges would look far more substantial than unreported, substantiated denials from the President...

...Will the goals of the Soviets ultimately frustrate President Nixon's efforts to erect a "structure of peace...

...Nixon's alleged criminality becomes proof of his incompetence...

...He was still bowling and watching football games...

...But this legislation came at a particularly inopportune time...

...There were over a half a million Americans fighting in Vietnam, in a conflict which appeared to be thoroughly meaningless to many people...

...He infuriated others by asking for legislation to limit busing...

...Although Nixon's enemies in the media do not see it, they are also on the precipice...

...The Suez Canal has not been made obsolete by the construction of huge tankers: 75 percent of the world's tankers can still travel through the Canal (though some would require ballast...

...No one can seriously claim that he has handled the real issues incompetently, so again, reference is make to the false Nixon created by the media...

...Ship servicing and repairs at sea are very arduous and physically exhausting...

...The dwindling coal supply has only been partially compensated by natural gas from the North Atlantic...

...In 1972, the issues were far more sharply drawn than in 1968...

...However, a shift in Soviet policy in the late 1970s is not to be lightly disregarded...

...And at the vortex of that center, immensely mere clearly than in 1968, was the issue of Richard M. Nixon himself...

...Now many people believe him to be a criminal and that is the proof that he is incompetent...

...Plans for enlargement were disrupted by the 1967 war...

...It takes a brave man to risk being accused of crimes in a national newsmagazine, no matter how false the charges, as recompense for his loyalty to the man and the program who were elected by two-thirds of the voters...

...The cutoff last October of Arab oil supplies to the United States emphasizes that when one is contemplating the strategic significance of the Middle East, one immediately thinks of oil...

...In any real sense, Nixon's legitimacy on the issues was unquestionable...

...The development of a flexible response capability requires a strong Middle East presence because of the access it provides to other areas...

...West Germany imports 7.5 percent of its natural gas and Italy 25 percent from the Soviet Union...

...So, when a trickle, then a steady stream of accusations against the President started to appear in connection with Watergate, the people who had been on the losing side about real issues for so long were given an opportunity to try out what they had learned...

...The commentators learned that they could say the names of Nixon's supporters with the same contempt they used for Nixon's own name, and the names would begin to sound just as scatological...

...Some analysts believe the Soviet Union is not interested in acquiring permanent bases or repair facilities...

...At another time, in different circumstances, the Virginia Republican's revelation might have brought a rallying battle cry--but not now...

...Unfortunately for the rest of the country, that particular body of men and women wield power far greater than anyone, including the corps itself, dreamed...

...Critics of the legislation also felt that the arbitrary language of the resolution would seriously diminish the deterrent value of our armed forces and that it would undermine our national interest, as well as any incentive on the part of a potential adversary to reach an early settlement...

...Clearly Western Europe will continue to be heavily dependent on the Middle East, and to a certain extent on the Soviet Union, in the foreseeable future...

...The Soviet decision makers, if not seeking immediate imperial aggrandizement, apparently perceive that Great Powers have global interests and concerns...

...The recent war may make this easier for at least two reasons...

...ran 80 to 1 against Nixon...

...Accordingly, they will try to strengthen their position in the Middle East while simultaneously expelling western, particularly American, influence...

...It was not so much a slap in Nixon's face as it was an attempt on the part of Congress to reassert itself...

...They are on the verge of doing something never before done in this country (although done in other countries in other times...

...Those people wanted a softer line on busing, welfare, anything to do with race, and a complete and unilateral withdrawal from Vietnam...

...The Middle East (including Algeria and Libya) provides 50 percent of Western Europe's total energy needs and 80 percent of its oil...

...There are at present four sources of energy available to a modern society: coal, natural gas, oil, and nuclear power plants...

...even the mail received by Senator Goldwater (R-Ariz...

...So leading Republican politicians began to keep their mouths shut, and the President became isolated in the public eye...

...As President, he lingered far too long for their taste in Vietnam...

...There is no objective thing the President can do to show the people he is still the man they elected and wanted to govern them...

...Senator George McGovern painted himself into a corner of extreme liberalism beloved by his uppermiddle class followers (who paid for his campaign far more lavishly than had Humphrey's supporters in 1968), but shared by few others in the country except the poor and the black...

...His actions against inflation were often criticized, but no responsible alternatives were suggested...

...Miller has astutely observed: "Strategy in an extensive oceanic environment does not involve control of the sea itself~ but of specific points of importance in and around it, of access to and routes between them for the purposes of trade or acquisition of supplies, or the movement of military forces, or maintaining communications...

...It is not about war or peace, or prosperity or depression...

...Again and again, Senator McGovern made the most stinging attacks on the President personally, calling him a "bungling, bugging burglar," likening him to Hitler, and repeatedly saying "The main issue in this whole campaign is Richard M. Nixon...

...Of the 8,000 telegrams received by the Senate Watergate Committee (by the end of October) only 10 were in support of the President...

...Nonfact becomes fact and then supports an endless chain of consequential nonfacts which become facts...

...Conclusion Soviet involvement in the Middle East must be attributed in a very general sense to strategic-geopolitical factors...

...Benjamin Stein Nixon: His Friends and His Enemies Spiro Agnew made a big mistake in his attack on the press in 1970...

...Today, it is not only Nixon who is at the brink...

...Thus Republicans like Crane, Bafalis, Ashbrook, Rousellot, Armstrong, and others, who normally can be counted upon by the Administration, felt that the constitutional issues at stake far outweighed any possible public relations damage to the Administration...

...In the conflict between the old and the new morality, Nixon invariably sided with the old morality, especially in calling for tough action against drugs and student demonstrations, and most of all, in his own rather old-fashioned and corny demeanor and speech...

...In general, then, Nixon acted as the agent of the large constituency which had elected him...

...William Smith asserts that " . . . in the near future a large part of Western Europe will be linked to the widely spread Soviet gas grid" (New York Times, July 21, 1970...

...The whole debate is not on real grounds any longer...

...They made Richard Nixon the central issue and then created a Nixon that did not really exist to be the loser on that issue...

...Again, Nixon took the point of view of the hard hats on real issues---against unilateral disarmament, against busing, against what were thought to be excessive welfare payments, against the new morality...

...At present the Soviet objective of promoting d6tente in Europe would preclude such provocative action...

...Racial antagonism was running high as a result of continuing legacies of repression of blacks by whites and a new reign of terror in cities being visited upon all by blacks...

...Again, Nixon responded to his mandate and continued to do things which infuriated the supporters of McGovern and others who had an upper-middle class, liberal, "swinging" point of view...

...He's at low ebb...

...They had learned that they could not destroy Nixon on any real issue or issues...

...Ain't What But How The efforts to impeach Nixon, throughout, have had a highly ideological and partisan tone, but more recently even supporters of the Administration have favored impeachment proceedings as the quickest way for the President to clear himself...

...There is literally no proof that he is, but that becomes an irrelevancy as the enemies of Nixon control all input to the American people...

...The Senator had his staff take a 15 percent sample poll of the anti-Nixon mail and he reported that 77 percent of those who had written calling for impeachment or resignation had voted for George McGovern in the 1972 presidential election...

...Unsubstantiated charges from unnamed sources were the prime ingredients in creating the monster which Nixon's enemies called Nixon...

...He was a certain kind of person, elected to do certain things, by a large majority, and he did them...