LYNDON JOHNSON’S TELEPHONE RANG early on the afternoon of November 3. He picked up the receiver. The machine that recorded all of Johnson’s calls was rolling.
“Mr. President, this is Dick Nixon.”
“Yes, Dick.”
Nixon, sounding nervous, said he’d heard from Senator Dirksen. There had clearly been some kind of misunderstanding, he told Johnson. Nixon stated his position: he backed the president and believed Thieu should go to Paris.
“I just wanted you to know that I feel very, very strongly about this,” Nixon said. “Any rumblings around about somebody trying to sabotage the Saigon government’s attitude certainly have no, absolutely no credibility as far as I’m concerned.”
“I’m very happy to hear that,” Johnson replied, “because that is taking place.”
Nixon laughed. “My God, I would never do anything to encourage Saigon not to come to the table. We want them over in Paris, we’ve gotta get them to Paris, or you can’t have a peace.”
“Well, I think if you take that position you’re on very, very sound ground.”
Nixon assured Johnson he took that position, he wanted the war over. “The quicker the better,” he said, “and the hell with the political credit, believe me.”
“That’s fine, Dick.”
Johnson hung up. He was far from convinced by Nixon’s performance.
He still didn’t know what to do about it, though. The only evidence of Nixon’s shady dealings came from bugs and wiretaps, which Johnson certainly did not wish to make public. Besides, he agreed with Walt Rostow’s assessment: “The materials are so explosive, that they could gravely damage the country, whether Mr. Nixon is elected or not.”
Johnson finally decided to say nothing. It was one more secret from the American people.
Is it fair to say Nixon prevented the Vietnam War from ending in 1968? Probably not. President Thieu knew his government would not last long against the Communists without American help. He was in no rush to cut a deal that would send American soldiers home. So when Humphrey came out in favor of a quick end to the war, it was only logical that Thieu would favor a Nixon victory.
What does it say about a man’s character that he would sabotage peace talks to win votes? To Nixon, that’s just how the game was played. Politics and elections were high-stakes fights, not for the faint of heart. “And,” he told aides, “I play it gloves off.”
* * *
On the morning of November 5, Election Day, Nixon climbed the stairs to his campaign plane, Tricia, named for one of his daughters. The inside of the plane was decorated with balloons and campaign posters. He stopped in front of one of the posters and read the slogan: “Nixon’s the One.”
“I hope it’s right,” he said.
That afternoon, in New York City, Nixon joined his family in a suite of rooms on the thirty-fifth floor of a Manhattan hotel.
“I treated myself to a long hot soak in the huge bathtub,” Nixon recalled. “I took my time shaving and dressing, and then I called Haldeman to find out what was happening.”
Bob Haldeman, one of Nixon’s closest aides, was watching the news in the next room. Pat Nixon and the Nixon daughters, Julie and Tricia, both in their early twenties, also had the TV on. Nixon was the only one who wouldn’t watch—it made him too nervous.
Polls closed on the East Coast and results began pouring in. Nixon sat alone on a couch, sipping coffee, taking notes on a yellow legal pad on his lap. The vote was close, but he thought he saw a path to the 270 electoral votes needed for victory.
The counting went on all night. Nixon tried to nap, but couldn’t. Finally, at eight thirty the next morning, an aide came in with an update: “ABC just declared you the winner! You got it. You’ve won.”
November 11, 1968. President-elect Richard Nixon with outgoing president Lyndon Johnson.
Nixon ran down the hall to hug his wife and daughters.
Julie said, “Daddy, I never had any doubt you would win.”
* * *
“By November 6,” Daniel Ellsberg later said, “the day after the election, I was back to my regular obsession with Vietnam.”
Beginning to feel engaged again, and eager to get back to work, Ellsberg was in the Rand offices when Henry Kissinger came for a visit. The Harvard professor was known for his vast knowledge of international affairs—and his habit of insulting whoever was not in the room.
National Security Advisor and future Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, 1968
“Richard Nixon is not fit to be president,” Ellsberg heard Kissinger proclaim at Rand.
A few weeks later, Nixon asked Henry Kissinger to be his national security advisor. Kissinger jumped at the opportunity.
Ellsberg was encouraged. He had known Kissinger at Harvard, and had spent time with him in Vietnam. He knew Kissinger supported peace talks. He assumed Kissinger would advise Nixon that it was time to end the war.
And right away, Ellsberg got a chance to influence the new administration from the inside. When Kissinger accepted the job with Nixon, he called Ellsberg’s boss at Rand, Harry Rowen. Kissinger wanted Rand to prepare a paper analyzing the range of policy options open to Nixon in Vietnam. Rowen gave the job of drafting the paper to Ellsberg.
Ellsberg’s report didn’t argue for one option over another—that’s not what Kissinger wanted. But he did try to subtly emphasize the benefits of his preferred option: peace talks and the withdrawal of American troops.
“Dan, you don’t have a ‘win’ option,” Kissinger said when they met to review the paper.
“I don’t think there is a win option,” Ellsberg countered. “You could double the number of troops and that would keep things quieter—until they left. You could use nuclear weapons and kill all the people. I wouldn’t call that a win.”
Ellsberg had no idea if he had swayed Kissinger’s thinking. But he was satisfied. He had done all he could.
* * *
On January 20, 1969, Lady Bird and Lyndon Johnson ate breakfast looking out the White House windows at a gray and windy Washington morning. At ten thirty they stepped out onto the porch under the North Portico. A car drove up and stopped. Out stepped Richard Nixon, his wife Pat, and their two daughters, Tricia and Julie.
In the Red Room, in front of a warm fire, they shared coffee and awkward silence. Nixon so dreaded social events he sometimes asked aides to write ideas for conversation topics on index cards—when he got stuck, he could sneak a look at the cards.
Johnson tried to break the ice. “I’m curious,” he said to Nixon, “How long will your inaugural address take?”
About twenty minutes, Nixon replied. Turning to Hubert Humphrey, he attempted a joke.
“Hubert, why don’t you deliver the address for me?”
“Dick, I had planned to do that,” Humphrey said, “but you sort of interfered.”
They all drove to the Capitol for the traditional outdoor inauguration ceremony. Johnson watched Nixon take the oath of office, wondering what lay ahead. “I reflected on how inadequate any man is for the office of the American Presidency,” he later recalled. “The magnitude of the job dwarfs every man who aspires to it.”
Later that day, the Johnson family headed home to Texas.
* * *
The Nixon family attended a series of inaugural balls, finally making it back to the White House at one thirty in the morning. Scrounging in the fridge for a snack, Tricia and Julie were thrilled to find peanut-butter brittle ice cream and Dr. Pepper left behind by Johnson’s daughters.
Nixon sat at the piano in the family quarters and played a few melodies, including one he’d written specially for Pat before they were married. It was a happy moment. Yes, Nixon knew he’d just taken on the toughest job in the world. He knew the Vietnam War had destroyed Johnson’s presidency, and that it could do the same to him.
But Nixon was convinced he had something Johnson never had. He had a plan.
“I call it the madman theory,” Nixon had explained to his aide Bob Haldeman during a walk on the beach before the election. “I want the North Vietnamese to believe I’ve reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war. We’ll just slip the word to them that, ‘for God sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about Communists. We can’t restrain him when he’s angry—and he has his hand on the nuclear button’—and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace.”
The French, Lyndon Johnson—they simply hadn’t been tough enough, Nixon believed. He was confident he could frighten North Vietnam into backing down.
“I’m the one man in this country who can do it, Bob.”