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The Conservative Lobby and Nixon's “Peace with Honor” in Vietnam

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2009

SANDRA SCANLON
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Abstract

This essay explores the responses of conservative political activists to the Nixon administration's policy of “peace with honor” in Vietnam. Conservatives sought to influence the administration by acceptance of Vietnamization, a policy they interpreted as affording a more conventional prosecution of the war, and by pushing for increased aerial bombardment of North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Divisions over the efficacy of détente derailed a unified conservative position on Vietnam and forced reassessments of the legitimacy of Nixon's promise of “peace with honor.” While highlighting the basic premises of conservative foreign policy during the late 1960s, this essay explores the means by which conservative leaders attempted to forge consensus regarding the Vietnam War and the impact of increased political power on the conservative movement's foreign-policy priorities.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , August 2009 , pp. 255 - 276
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

1 Early histories of the Vietnam War, characterized by a liberal orthodoxy, dealt less with the policies of conservatives than with relaying the flawed Cold War ideology and world view that dominated the interventionist foreign policies of Democratic administrations. Revisionist histories initially discussed why the United States lost an assuredly winnable war, and later appeared preoccupied with present political concerns (such histories were also, however, a reflection of conservatives' policies during the war years). It is not only historians of the Vietnam War who have failed to document the role of the right regarding the war. Recent histories of conservative activism during the 1960s have revealed, and to a large extent overcome, the earlier imbalance in analyses of the period, and attest to the significance of anticommunist mobilization in the organization of the conservative movement. Post-1945 grassroots conservative activism has been ably analysed by Lisa McGirr and Donald Critchlow. Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001); Donald Critchlow, Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism: A Woman's Crusade (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005). See also David Farber and Jeff Roche, eds., The Conservative Sixties (New York: Peter Lang, 2003). Mary Brennan, Rick Perlstein, Kurt Schuparra and Matthew Dallek contribute much to our understanding of the policy priorities and organizational techniques of the 1960s conservative movement. Mary C. Brennan, Turning Right in the Sixties: The Conservative Capture of the GOP (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995); Rick Perlstein, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001); Kurt Schuparra, Triumph of the Right: The Rise of the California Conservative Movement, 1945–1966 (Armonk: Sharpe, 1998); Matthew Dallek, The Right Moment: Ronald Reagan's First Victory and the Decisive Turning Point in American Politics (New York: Free Press, 2000). See also Godfrey Hodgson, The World Turned Right Side up: A History of the Conservative Ascendancy in America (New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1996); Jonathan Schoenwald, A Time for Choosing: The Rise of Modern American Conservatism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). Hijiya, James A., “The Conservative 1960s,” Journal of American Studies, 37 (2003), 201–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar. None of these histories, however, has systematically examined the complexity of the right's foreign-policy priorities, and the extent to which these priorities altered as a result of the Vietnam War.

2 Historians have accurately noted conservatives' general opposition to a ground war in Asia, principally because of the belief that such a war in Korea ended in stalemate, and that the United States should rely on its air power. Niels Bjerre-Poulsen, Right Face: Organizing the American Conservative Movement 1945–65 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2002) 270–72; Brennan, 117; George Herring, America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975, 4th edn, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002) 144.

3 The American Conservative Union's 1965 statement on Vietnam epitomized the conservatives' approach to a possible widening of the war. It denied that China would take the “suicidal” step of directly entering into war against the United States, while the Soviet Union “would hardly invite its own destruction as a nation” by increasing the possibility of a nuclear confrontation for the sake of Vietnam. ACU statement on Vietnam, 1965, Thomas A. Lane Papers, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, CA, Box 5, Folder: American Conservative Union.

4 Young Americans for Freedom, the student organization established with the financial and moral support of National Review activists during the first Draft Goldwater Campaign in 1960, organized a campaign, STOP-IBM, during the mid-1960s to prevent the IBM Corporation from trading with the Soviet Union. Its propaganda effort was very successful, leading the youth group to concentrate much of its later activity in this area. Its opposition, for reasons of military strategy and morality, to trade with communist countries remained resolute throughout its history. For details of the YAF campaign see Gregory Schneider, Cadres for Conservatism: Young Americans for Freedom and the Rise of the Contemporary Right (New York: New York University Press, 1999), 101–7.

5 William F. Buckley Jr. cited in Perlstein, 155.

6 George Nash wrote of the postwar conservative intellectuals' commitment to anticommunism: “Active anti-Communism at home and abroad fitted in very well with other strands of the multifaceted conservative intellectual revival.” George H. Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America since 1945, 2nd edn (Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 1996), 114. Sara Diamond elaborated on the point to include broader right-wing movements in America, stating that anticommunism suited the efforts by such movements to “bolster capitalism, militarism, and moral traditionalism.” Sara Diamond, Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States (New York and London: Guilford Press, 1995), 9. More recently, James Hijiya has noted that although “everybody seems to agree that it was anticommunism that enabled conservatives to stick together … unanimous agreement … does not make a proposition correct.” Hijiya, reference on 216. Hijiya argues that economic, racial and nationalistic issues, based principally on the “conviction that Americans, especially in recent years, had gone too far in the pursuit of human equality,” also brought conservatives together. Hijiya, 219. Certainly additional factors, not least the organizational drive for political power, fortified the conservative alliance. While economic and social factors contributed to the nature of the conservative political programme in the postwar period, strident anticommunism formed the basis of the cohesive conservative political and social revival after 1945.

7 While most conservatives opposed the eventual settlement of the Korean War, they praised the manner in which President Eisenhower was alleged to have ended it, essentially promoting the view that Eisenhower's implicit threats to use nuclear weapons forced a settlement. Largely without exception, conservatives opposed Kennedy's neutralization of Laos.

8 See Nash, Conservative Intellectual Movement, 304–6.

9 William F. Buckley, Jr. interview with David Butler, Playboy, May 1970.

10 William Rusher, quoted in James Southwell, “US decline projected,” Oregonian, 22 June 1969, William A. Rusher papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC, Box 212, Folder: Speaking engagements, presentations, speeches and lectures, 1969, June–July.

11 Letter, Barry Goldwater to Charles Batarseh, 15 March 1969, reprinted in Robert Alan Goldberg, Barry Goldwater (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 263.

12 James Burnham, National Review, 10 Jan. 1967.

13 Memorandum, William Rusher to the editors of National Review, 3 June 1969, Rusher papers, Box 122, Folder: Staff correspondence and memoranda, general, March–Dec. 1969, original underlining.

14 Richard Nixon was not the preferred candidate of many conservative political activists. His connection to the policies of the Eisenhower administration undermined his appeal to conservatives, as did the perception, mainly correct, that he was not a committed conservative ideologue. William Rusher and F. Clifton White, who orchestrated the original effort to nominate Barry Goldwater for the Republican presidential nomination in 1960 and 1964, organized a campaign to draft Governor Ronald Reagan of California for the nomination in 1968. Reagan, more suited in political temperament and ideology to the aims of the conservative political leadership, posed a favourable alternative to Nixon. National Review's failure to endorse Reagan was based on the realization that he did not have the political experience or support to win the nomination at that time.

15 Goldwater, grateful for Nixon's support during his effort to win the party nomination and presidency in 1964, publicly announced his support for a Nixon nomination in 1965. Buckley offered his support to the Nixon effort in early 1968, and later claimed responsibility for having introduced Henry Kissinger to the Nixon team through John Mitchell. Strom Thurmond's endorsement of Nixon was vital in bringing over the southern conservatives to the Nixon side.

16 President Richard Nixon, nationwide radio and television address, 14 May 1969, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Richard Nixon, 1969 (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1971).

17 For a discussion of Republicans' early approaches to the Vietnam War see Terry Dietz, Republicans and the Vietnam War, 1961–1968 (Westport, CT, Greenwood Press, 1986).

18 Melvin Small argues that Vietnamization was meant to assure the American people that the war was not endless and to convince Hanoi of full American support for administration policy, but had the effect, he concludes, of convincing Hanoi to hold out for longer. Melvin Small, Johnson, Nixon, and the Doves (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1988), 191–92, 230. Robert McNamara has observed that the Nixon administration fell victim to its own illusion of Vietnamization: “the idea that the United States could withdraw completely and that the South Vietnamese government would successfully defend itself against the NLF and North Vietnamese forces.” Robert McNamara et al., Argument without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy (New York: Public Affairs, 1999), 367. George Donelson Moss claims that Vietnamization “rested on a fantasy” that the “motley home guards” of South Vietnam “could be molded into a modern strike force that would be able to hold its own against the disciplined battle-tested units of the NVA.” George Donelson Moss, Vietnam: An American Ordeal (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990), 307. Gerard DeGroot assumes a similar approach, although he also argues that the administration was aware that Vietnamization was not going to work, concluding that it “did not actually need to work, as long as it appeared that progress was made.” The “charade,” as DeGroot described it, “worked too well; many Americans began to believe that Nixon had found the magic formula to get the United States out of the war and defeat the communists.” Gerard DeGroot, A Noble Cause? America and the Vietnam War (New York: Longman, 2000), 211.

19 Jeffrey Kimball, Nixon's Vietnam War (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998), 137–39, 154–55; and idem, The Vietnam War Files: Uncovering the Secret History of Nixon-Era Strategy (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004), 11–13, 82–83.

20 Larry Berman, No Peace, No Honor: Nixon, Kissinger, and Betrayal in Vietnam (New York: Free Press, 2001), 50–51, 261–62.

21 Conservatives, both traditionalist and libertarian, argued in favour of ending conscription and introducing a voluntary military. This was a consistent aspect of conservative lobbying and a topic of discussion among those dealing directly with the administration. The Nixon administration was responsive to such demands but argued that draft reform, rather than the abolition of the draft, would have to suffice until the ending of the Vietnam War.

22 During a brief press backgrounder at Guam in July 1969, Nixon offhandedly stated that in cases where a nuclear strike was unlikely, the United States would meet its treaty commitments through the provision of material and economic aid, rather than the direct deployment of American troops. Known as the Guam Doctrine, and following a concerted effort by the administration, the Nixon Doctrine, the policy had not been discussed at National Security Council meetings prior to this announcement. Jeffrey Kimball has demonstrated that the so-called doctrine was actually a means of adding legitimacy and clarity to Nixon's policy of Vietnamization. Kimball, Vietnam War Files, 11–12; and Kimball, Nixon's Vietnam War, 154–5, 225.

23 “YAF in the News,” April 1970, Patrick M. Dowd Collection, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, CA, Box 3, Folder: Subject files, YAF/Newsletter, “YAF in the News.” Presidential aide Jeb Magruder wrote at the time, “YAF did much to support us,” Memorandum, Jeb S. Magruder to H. R. Haldeman, 30 April 1970, Colson files, Box 125, Folder: YAF. YAF leaders reiterated this position in a report on Vietnam given to the administration in April 1971. The report dealt largely with YAF's recent fact-finding visit to Vietnam, and included details of their wider activities in support of the administration position. Letter, Ronald B. Dear, YAF director of regional and state activities, to Robert Odle, White House aide, 30 April 1970, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD (NARAII), Nixon presidential materials, White House special files, Staff member and office files, Charles Colson files, Box 125, Folder: YAF.

24 In his memoirs, Henry Kissinger acknowledged that both General Earle Wheeler and General Creighton Abrams opposed the policy of phased withdrawal in June 1969, but such concern remained largely private. Kissinger, White House Years (London: Phoenix Press, 1979), 35. Conservative support for the policy was also buoyed by the favourable analyses of Sir Robert Thompson, the British counterinsurgency expert, who became an official adviser to Nixon in October 1969 and, in December, proffered a favourable report on the prospects of Vietnamization succeeding.

25 Barry Goldwater, quoted in Goldberg, Barry Goldwater, 263.

26 Senator John Tower, writing in the New Guard, Sept. 1970, Rusher papers, Box 212, Folder: Speaking engagements, presentations, speeches and lectures, May–Sept. 1970.

27 Memorandum, Patrick Buchanan to the President, 1 April 1971, Nixon presidential materials, NARAII, White House Special Files: Staff member and office files, H. R. Haldeman files, Box 76, Folder: Patrick Buchanan, April 1971.

28 Memorandum, Jerry Norton to Randy Teague, n.d. (ca Oct. 1970), Dowd collection, Box 3, Folder: Subject files, YAF/National Board – memoranda, circulars and printed matter.

29 Buckley was humorous about his closeness to the White House during an interview with Playboy in 1970, claiming that he had “discovered a new sensual treat … It is to have the President of the United States take notes while you are speaking to him, even though you run the risk that he is scribbling, ‘Get this bore out of here.’” Playboy, May 1970.

30 David Keene, executive director of YAF, later claimed that Buckley had been “taken in” by Kissinger. John P. Judis, William F. Buckley, Jr., Patron Saint of the Conservatives (New York: Simon Schuster, 1990), 304. Buckley believed that he understood the nature of Kissinger's overall conception of foreign policy. The two met, and spoke via telephone, intermittently, and the President often requested that Kissinger assuage Buckley's concerns or queries regarding foreign policy.

31 Memorandum, Patrick Buchanan to the President, 6 Jan. 1971, Colson files, Box 52, Folder: Conservatives.

32 Memorandum, Ken BeLieu for the President's file, 21 April 1971, Box 84, Folder: April 18, 1971, President's personal files.

33 News release, “Prominent Conservative Leaders ‘Suspend’ support of President Nixon,” issued by William Rusher, 29 July 1971, Rusher papers, Box 168, Folder: Nixon, Richard, Conservative suspension of support, press releases, 1971.

34 The names of the following individuals appeared on the document: William F. Buckley Jr., Frank Meyer, William Rusher and James Burnham of National Review; Allan Ryskind and Tom Winter of Human Events; John Jones and Jeff Bell of the American Conservative Union; Randy Teague, executive director of Young Americans for Freedom; Neil McCaffrey of the Conservative Book Club; Anthony Harrigan of the Southern States Industrial Council; and Daniel J. Mahoney, chair of the New York Conservative Party. See Judis, 329, and Nash, Conservative Intellectual Movement, 319–20.

35 News release, “Prominent conservative leaders ‘suspend’ support of President Nixon.” On 1 Nov. 1971 the group submitted a series of proposals or questions to the administration, the main thrust of which was the need for increased defence spending in order to correct the strategic imbalance in conventional weapons, and to escalate the military research and development budget. Memorandum, Charles Colson to Alexander Haig, 2 Nov. 1971, Colson files, Box 52, Folder: Conservatives. The National Security Council staff responded with a series of statements relating to administration foreign policy and defence posture. Memorandum, Haig to Colson, 16 Nov. 1971, ibid. Goldwater expressed similar concerns in private, in an April letter to the President and during a November meeting with Kissinger. Letter, Senator Barry Goldwater to President Richard Nixon, April 13, 1971, Nixon presidential materials, NARAII, National Security Council files, Name files, Box 816, Folder: Goldwater, Senator Barry. Memorandum, J. F. Lehman to Henry Kissinger, 9 Nov. 1971, ibid.

36 News release, “Prominent Conservative Leaders ‘Suspend’ Support of President Nixon.”

37 Congressman John Ashbrook had served in the US House of Representatives since 1961, and continued to hold this office until his death in April 1982. He was chairman of the American Conservative Union from 1966 to 1982, and pushed for more open opposition to the Nixon administration from July 1969 onwards. His campaign was endorsed by leading conservative activists, including National Review, but not by his fellow conservatives in Congress, when he entered the Republican primary races in New Hampshire and Florida. Asserting that he would not run on a third-party ticket, and did not expect to win the nomination, Ashbrook claimed that his aim was to push the Nixon administration to the right, and to assert the independence of conservatives. Ashbrook's manifesto, published in Republican Battle Line, Jan. 1972, Rusher papers, Box 135, Folder: ACU, newsletter, Republican Battle Line, Printed versions, 1971–72.

38 Goldwater privately called on Kissinger to explain why the outlined bombing campaign had not been carried out. Letter, Senator Barry Goldwater to Henry Kissinger, 26 Jan. 1972, NSC, Goldwater file.

39 Admiral John McCain briefed Goldwater on the bombing campaign during the latter's en route journey to Vietnam over Christmas 1971. Barry Goldwater diary report, 3 Jan. 1972, Goldwater papers, Personal/political Series I, Box 5, Folder: Vietnam media.

40 The Mansfield amendment, introduced by Senator Mike Mansfield (D-Mont.) was finally passed on 24 June 1971. While originally calling for a national policy of complete withdrawal within nine months, the bill's language was later changed to “the earliest practical date.” Even so, the bill's passage was indicative of the growing probability that Congress would deny funds for the continuation of the war.

41 GOP leadership meeting, White House, 26 Jan. 1972. Memorandum, Patrick Buchanan for the President's file, 26 Jan. 1972, Nixon presidential materials, NARAII, White House Central Files, President's Office Files, Box 87, Folder: January 23, 1972.

42 Barry Goldwater diary report, 26 Jan. 1972, Goldwater papers, Personal/political Series I, Box 5, Folder 2.

43 Barry Goldwater speech on Senate floor, 17 April 1972, Congressional Record.

44 William F. Buckley, Jr., “Nixon's last stand,” 13–14 May 1972, Buckley papers, Box 437, Folder: Buckley columns, On the Right, May–June 1972.

45 William F. Buckley Jr., “Touchdown,” 6 June 1972, ibid.

46 Buckley rejected claims that, unlike the mining of Haiphong harbour, destruction of the dikes in North Vietnam posed a considerably difficult humanitarian problem. Rather, he asserted, “it is hardly humane to drag out a war so that people get killed and inconvenienced not over a period of months but a period of years.” William F. Buckley Jr., “Bomb the Dikes?” 17 Aug. 1972, Buckley papers, Box 438, Folder: Buckley columns, On the Right, Aug. 1972.

47 Letter, William Rusher to William F. Buckley Jr., 9 March 1972, Rusher papers, Box 121, Folder: Staff correspondence & memoranda, William F. Buckley, 1971.

48 Republican Battle Line, April 1972, Rusher papers, Box 135, ACU newsletter, Republican Battle Line, printed versions, 1971–72.

49 See Schneider, Cadres for Conservatism, 152–59.

50 Barry Goldwater press release, 24 Jan. 1973, Colson files, Box 120, Folder: Vietnam ceasefire, January 1973. Emphasis added.