PCGUIA 10/PC Guia 10.iso/database/power/nixon.txt

Text File | 1996-03-11 | 39KB | 864 lines

1.5
Nixon entered the
House of
Representatives in
1946 after fighting in
the second world war.
He achieved fame in
1948 for exposing
Alger Hiss, a
distinguished civil
servant, as a
communist and
perjurer. This success
helped get him elected
senator for California
in 1950, and he was
chosen to be Eisenhower's running-mate in 1952. Solid
work for the party earned him the Republican nomination
for president in 1960, but he was narrowly defeated by
Kennedy. In 1962 he was defeated in an attempt at
becoming governor of California. His political career
seemed to be over. But the result of his continuing hard
work for the Republican Party was an unprecedented
comeback in 1968: he won his party's presidential
nomination and the election. As president he had little
interest in domestic affairs, but hoped to make a
reputation in foreign policy. He was aided in this ambition
by Henry Kissinger. Together they engineered the formal
recognition of communist China, and ended America's war
in south-east Asia, though not until Nixon had widened
and intensified it. But he was undone by his phobias.
Convinced that he was being conspired against, he
launched a conspiracy of his own, which led into the
notorious Watergate affair. It soon became clear that most
of the key officials in the Nixon White House, including the
president, had been engaged in illegal activities and Nixon
tried to conceal the facts. This led to his impeachment.
Before the procedure was complete he resigned the
presidency in 1974, and spent the rest of his life trying to
restore his shattered reputation
@
2.2
In 1950, Joe McCarthy, an unimpressive junior senator
from Wisconsin, by no means sure of re-election, jumped
on to the anti-communist bandwagon and rode it for four
years. In retrospect his career appears one continuous
pseudo-event: nothing he did or said rings true, not even
the imaginary wound he claimed from war service. But he
did untold damage to the American tradition of freedom of
thought, and he destroyed the careers of a great many
men and women. He even denounced General Marshall,
Roosevelt's chief of staff and Truman's secretary of state as
a "front man for communism". Everything, including his
indignation at the "20 years of treason" seems simulated -
a mere device to grab the headlines. In this, at least, he
succeeded. Lies, threats, innuendo, promises of shattering
disclosures, all gave him a frightening notoriety. He has
been compared to Marat, but McCarthy was no ideologue,
just a con man masquerading as grand inquisitor. At last
he over-reached himself in the climactic half-sinister, half-
clownish televised trial hearings of 1954. His fellow-
senators decided that he had gone too far. He subsided into
alcoholic obscurity, and America recovered as from a bad
dream
@
2.3
Senator Nixon, the Republican vice-presidential candidate
in the United States elections, in a broadcast last night said
that none of the 18,000 dollars fund collected by his
supporters for political expenses had gone to him for
personal use.

Every penny was used to meet political expenses which he
did not think should be charged to the taxpayers.  Mr.
Nixon added: "I don't believe I ought to quit."  He left his
political fate to the Republican National Committee.

"NOT A QUITTER"

Senator Nixon, in a broadcast to-night on his personal and
political finances, said:-

I come before you to-night as a candidate for the Vice-
Presidency, and as a man whose honesty and integrity has
been questioned.  The usual political thing to do when
charges are made is either to ignore them or to deny them
without details.  We have had enough of this in the United
States, particularly with the present administration in
Washington.

To me the office of the Vice-Presidency is a great office,
and the people have got to have confidence in the integrity
of the men who run for that office.  I have a theory that
the best and only answer to a smear or misunderstanding
of the facts is to tell the truth.  I want to tell my side of the
case.

The charge is that I took 18,000 dollars from a group of
my supporters.  Was that wrong, apart from the question
of legality?  And I am saying it was wrong, morally wrong,
if it went to me for my personal use or was secretly given,
and I say it was morally wrong if any of the contributors
got special favours for their contributions.

Not one cent of the 18,000 dollars ever went to me for my
personal use.  Every penny of it was used to pay for
political expenses that I did not think should be charged to
the taxpayers of the United States.  It was not a secret
fund.  The purpose of the fund was to defray political
expenses.  No contributor to this fund or to my campaign
has ever received any consideration that he would not
have received as an ordinary citizen.  I can say that never
while I have been in the Senate, as far as the people of this
fund are concerned, have I made a telephone call for them.
The records will show that.

HOW FUND WAS USED

Some of you will ask, "what did you use the fund for?
Why did you have to have it?"  Let me tell you how the
Senate office operates.  A senator gets 15,000 dollars in
salary, and enough to pay for one round trip a year for his
family to Washington, and allowances to handle his office.
My office in California employs 13 people, and they are
paid not by me, but by the administration.  This is for
strictly official business.

There are other expenses which are not covered by the
Government.  Do you think that when I or any other
senator makes a political speech and has it printed he
should have the printing and mailing paid by the
taxpayers?  Do you think that when I make a trip to my
home state to make a political speech that the cost of it
should be charged to the taxpayer?

When a Senator makes political broadcasts, should that
expense be charged to the taxpayer?  The answer is "No";
the taxpayer should not be required to finance items
which are not official business but primarily political
business.

There are several ways in which it can be paid legally.
The first way is to be a rich man; I am not.  Another way is
to put your wife on the payroll.  My opposite number,
Sparkman, does have his wife on the payroll, and has had
her there for the past 10 years.  That is his business, and I
am not critical of him for doing that.

You will have to pass judgment.  I have never done that,
because there are so many deserving secretaries who
needed work that I did not think it was right to put my
wife on the payroll.  My wife used to teach shorthand in
high school, and she has worked many hours at night and
during the week-end in my office and has done a fine job.
In the six years I have been in the Senate, Pat Nixon has
never been on the Government's payroll.

Other members of Congress are lawyers-and I am one -
and they continue to practise law, but I am so far from
California that I have not engaged in any legal practice,
and the relationship between an attorney and his client is
a delicate one in cases that might involve Government
action.

I was born in 1913, my family was one of modest
circumstances, and most of my early life was spent in a
grocery store, one of those family enterprises, and the only
reason it ran was because we were five boys and all
worked in the store.  I worked my way through college
and law school.  Then, the best thing that happened to me,
I married Pat; I practised law, and she continued to teach.

Mr. Nixon continued with a stirring campaign speech
urging the election of Mr. Eisenhower.  "I don't believe I
ought to quit," he said.  "I'm not a quitter."
@
2.4
The Vice-President, Mr. Nixon, in a broadcast last night
made his reply to Mr. Adlai Stevenson's speech at Miami,
and in the course of it announced that he - and
presumably the President as well, as he said that they had
discussed it together - belonged to that large group who
approved what Senator McCarthy is doing but do not like
the way he is doing it.  He went perhaps even further and,
though never mentioning the senator's name, intimated
that until recently he had approved of the way he was
doing it.

"Men who had in the past done effective work exposing
Communists in this country," Mr. Nixon said, "have by
reckless talk and questionable methods made themselves
the issue rather than the cause they believe in so deeply."

His answer to the criticism of the Administration's
handling of the problem of Communists in the Government
was to repeat the figures produced by the chairman of the
Civil Service Commission and to say that surely most
people would agree that those with information in their
files indicating untrustworthiness, drunkenness, mental
instability, or possible exposure to blackmail should not be
working for the Government.  Nobody, however, has ever
suggested that they should.  The criticism has been
levelled at the Administration's habit of calling them all
"subversive."

His answer to the third criticism was, he said, "pretty
short" and "very simple" - "President Eisenhower is not
only the unquestioned leader of the Republican Party but
he has the confidence and the support of the great
majority of Americans, Democrats and Republicans alike."
Anyone , he said, who raised the question about his
leadership was probably mistaking abuse and rhetoric for
leadership.  President Eisenhower did not "engage in
personal vituperation and vulgar name-calling or
promiscuous letter writing."  But he thought that the
American people had had enough of that kind of
leadership.

THE CASE OF MR. SCHINE

President Eisenhower left Washington on Friday afternoon
for a quiet weekend at his cabin in Maryland, and soon
afterwards Senator McCarthy - having accused the
Secretary of the Army of blackmail and of treating Private
Schine as a hostage to ensure that the existence of
Communism in the Army should not be exposed - left to
fulfil some speaking engagements in Wisconsin without
calling a meeting of his sub-committee.  He intends to call
one on Tuesday, but as he leaves for another speaking tour
on Wednesday it is unlikely that anything can be decided
except what hearings shall be held next week.

Meanwhile Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Edward R. Murrow have
been continuing their personal fight, which was the main
news until the Army published its report.  In his speech at
Manitowoc last night the senator called Mr. Murrow a liar
and "one of the bleeding hearts of Press and radio."  But he
did not accept Mr. Murrow's offer to appear on his
programme on Tuesday and reply to last week's attack,
suggesting that somebody else should do it for him.
@
2.5
Television may be all very well as a means of bringing the
two presidential candidates face to face before a national
audience, but judging from the second Nixon-Kennedy
duologue on Friday night it is giving the men and the
issues a synthetic, almost disembodied, quality that makes
the White House itself look a little ghostly.

Their encounter in a Washington studio, bleakly austere in
the manner of modern courtroom settings, had none of the
fire and lustiness which one expects of an American
election - and which both candidates are imparting in full
measure as they go their separate ways along the
campaign trail.  Both, without saying anything memorable,
were again word perfect, but it had all been heard before
in stock campaign speeches, so much so that their answers
might have been elicited almost equally well from an
electronic computer.

Most observers are agreed that vice-president Nixon had
rather the better of this second round, not because he
scored more debating points but because he looked less
haggard and defensive than the first time.

Television lights do not show Mr Nixon at his best; they
accentuate a heavy growth of beard and the attempt to
conceal it for his first meeting with Senator Kennedy was
so ghastly that knowing people were saying afterwards
that Mr. Nixon had been in hospital with more than an
injured knee.

For a man so conscious of his "image," which he is always
retouching it is a little surprising that he should have
consented to these direct confrontations with an opponent
who, by contrast, looks far more dashing and debonair.

Perhaps that is why Mr. Kennedy is now proposing to wage
this eerie television contest over five rounds instead of
four, though on Friday, it may be noted, he was
complaining that too much light was shining on his corner
and peremptorily asked for more heating, which had been
lowered because Mr. Nixon perspires so freely - from
which the knowing had also made their deductions during
the first round.

In the upshot, Mr. Nixon drove home in damp clothes and,
though much encouraged by a thick bundle of
congratulatory telegrams, took off with a heavy cold today
to resume his campaign in Montana.

Such are the hazards of electioneering by television,
though the networks, it should be stated, are in no way
responsible for them.  The two candidates and their public
relations experts are making all the rules which this time
dispensed with opening and closing statements from the
two men and went straight into questions from a panel of
four journalists, who contrived to look suitably solemn and
judicious.  In fact, there was not a smile or touch of
humour anywhere during the whole hour - no memorable
phrases or even a gentle dig in the ribs; and if Mr. Nixon is
playing a Lincolnesque role he might remember that
President Eisenhower's big, happy grin was not the least of
his campaign attributes.

The Republican mangers have been imploring Mr. Nixon to
"pour it on in the manner of some of his past campaigns;
but, insisting on setting his own pace, he proposes to move
into top gear only in the closing phases of the election.  Too
much might be made of the fact that this second encounter
is given a rating of 60 per cent of possible viewers as
against 70 per cent for the first, since it was broadcast by
all networks much earlier than the first and would not
have coincided with peak viewing hours in the western
states; but professionals in both parties are acutely aware
that this sort of thing can be overdone.

WITNESS BOXES

Why so many observers are writing of the "great debates"
is hard to imagine; this confrontation, though more relaxed
than the first, especially for Mr. Kennedy's easy bearing,
was never a real battle of wits, in that there was little
opportunity to drive home a point or, as the panellists
used their ammunition to follow up a question. Many of
the domestic arguments may have assumed a deeper
knowledge of the affairs of Congress than the average
voter possesses.

The two candidates, standing stiffly for an hour, as if in
witness boxes, emerged with some differences between
them more clearly defined, especially on issues of foreign
policy, and the difficulty often is to distinguish one from
the other.

Mr. Nixon challenged his opponent's view - it tends to be
distorted by the Republicans - that the United States, as a
possible means of saving the Paris summit conference,
would have been merely conforming to international usage
had it expressed regret for the U2 incident.  The vice-
president stuck to the theory that nothing could have
saved the Paris meeting from Mr. Khrushchev's obvious
intention to wreck it; he never fails to reiterate that no
American President should ever be in the position of
having to apologise or express regret for defending the
security of the United States.  Mr. Khrushchev as President
there would be no suspension of American intelligence
activities.   They could not afford an "intelligence gap", he
said.

As for a future summit conference, he fully shared Mr.
Eisenhower's position that, while he was ready to meet Mr.
Khrushchev and other world leaders in the cause of peace,
such discussions could not be envisaged without adequate
preparation at the diplomatic level.  Mr. Kennedy was in
complete agreement, but added that the next president in
his first year was going to be faced with  the most serious
crisis over the defence of Berlin that had occurred since
the airlift.  It was, he said, going to be a test of American
nerve and will and of American strength; and because that
strength had not been maintained with sufficient vigour in
recent years he would first send a message to congress
asking for a "revitalisation of American military power."

The exchanges of the two candidates were taken without
interjection from either side, at a remarkable pace, but
surely no one could properly describe them as a debate.
@
2.6
After a day and night during which the spectre of electoral
deadlock was always present, Mr. Richard Nixon finally
emerged yesterday as the next President of the United
States.

Illinois, the state which cost him victory against Mr. John
Kennedy eight years ago, gave the Republican his winning
margin in the Electoral College.  The popular vote,
however, was almost as close as 1960, with the two
principal candidates each winning 43 per cent.

Vice-President Hubert Humphrey conceded with grace,
President Johnson congratulated the winner, and Mr.
Nixon's first act as President-elect was to pledge that he
would try to reunite the nation.

Mr. Richard Nixon won the presidential election today with
a narrow margin of the popular vote.  It was not much
more than the handful with which he lost to Mr. John
Kennedy in 1960 but his vote in the Electoral College was
decisive.

Illinois provided the necessary votes.  The results from its
last few precincts were still unreported when Mr. Hubert
Humphrey, the Democratic candidate conceded defeat at
noon.  At the time of writing, the results in three states
were still not known but Illinois's 26 votes raised the
Republican's electoral total above the required majority of
270 votes to 287.

An indecisive election and a grave constitutional crisis was
thus avoided, but as expected the Republicans failed to win
majorities in Congress.  The thirty-seventh President of the
United States, the two-time loser, who made one of
history's most dramatic comebacks, will have to govern a
divided country with the legislative branch controlled by
the opposition.

Mr. Humphrey conceded at noon.  His remarks to the loyal
crowd waiting at his headquarters in Minnesota were
brave and graceful, and sadly moving for all his outward
brightness.  He had, he said, already sent a telegram of
congratulations to Mr. Nixon: "According to unofficial
returns you are the winner in this election.  My
congratulations.  Please know you will have my support in
uniting and leading the nation."

Mr Humphrey said he would continue his public service
and the task of building a vital Democratic Party, and
added, in an impromptu afterthought: "I really don't feel
very badly.  I feel we have done a helluva job."  Now he
will take a rest from his mighty labour.

Mr. Nixon looked understandably happy but not wildly
exuberant, as accompanied by his family he appeared
before his supporters for the first time as President-elect
at his New York headquarters.

He is to visit General Eisenhower, whom he described as
elated at the victory in Walter Reed hospital in Washington
today, before going on with his family to Key Biscayne,
Florida, and three days of rest.

All last night and through most of this morning as the
whole nation waited in suspense, the final result remained
in doubt.  Mr. Nixon's victory was for many hours only a
projected victory - based on his carrying the big states of
California and Illinois.  But with the voting across the
nation so close, Mr. Humphrey was still in with a chance
early today of stopping Mr. Nixon getting the necessary
majority of electoral votes.
@
3.2
To its intense embarrassment, the Committee to Re-elect
President Nixon today admitted that one of its employees
was among five men arrested yesterday in the Washington
headquarters of the Democratic Party's national committee.

During a court arraignment, the prosecution alleged that
police had surprised the men during the night as they
attempted to plant electronic evesdropping equipment in
the office of some of the Democratic leaders.  They were
charged with attempted felonious burglary and possession
of criminal devices, and were held pending bail of up to
50,000 dollars .

Mr John Mitchell, the former Attorney General and now
manager of the campaign to reelect the President, today
admitted that one of the accused, James McCord, who
claimed to be a former agent of the Central Intelligence
Agency, had been retained by his committee "to assist with
installation of our security system".

Mr Mitchell said that Mr McCord was "not operating either
on our behalf or with our consent".  He claimed that the
Republicans had also experienced security problems.

Mr Stanley Griegg, Democratic Party deputy chairman, said
that is was "obviously important" that some of the group
came from the Miami Beach area, where the party
convention is to be held next month.

Mr Lawrence O'Brien, national committee chairman of the
Democratic Party, has demanded an inquiry by the Federal
Bureau of Investigation into the "attempt to spy on our
headquarters".
@
3.4
President Nixon acknowledged yesterday that there had
apparently been high-level efforts to cover up the
Watergate bugging scandal but he denied being in any way
involved.

In a long written statement he said he will remain in office
"to do the job I was elected to do."

President Nixon today admitted there had been a White
House cover-up of the Watergate bugging scandal and
lamented "with hindsight...I should have been more
vigilant".

Mr Nixon insisted upon his own ignorance of the cover-up
and all its ramifications.  He contrived to suggest that it
had occurred because his own men had either
misunderstood or "gone beyond my directives" to protect
what he called separate covert national security
operations.

The President acknowledged responsibility for a startling
range of secret Government tactics designed to counter
what he termed the "critical" internal security problem at
home in mid-1970.

It included a plan he approved - but which was
inexplicably aborted under a veto exercised by the late J.
Edgar Hoover, the Director of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation to authorize "surreptitious entry-breaking
and entering in effect" into national security "targets", that
apparently included embassies here.  The President stated
that this unimplemented plan was among the documents
Mr John Dean, his dismissed Counsel, removed from the
White House.  He insisted it had to remain secret to protect
the national interest.

It was the President's second personal statement within
three weeks - produced, his staff said, under "intensive
recollection like for a law suit".  The President vowed again
he had neither prior knowledge of the Watergate, nor had
been aware until recently, of the cover-up.  He insisted -
as further serious allegations were made before the Senate
investigation - that he had never authorized or known
about any offer to those facing trial of Presidential
clemency.

But the President conceded, with what seemed to
observers a touch of desperation, that "with hindsight it is
apparent that I should have given more heed to the
warning signals I received along the way about a
Watergate cover up and less to the reassurances".

President Nixon also declared, "I will not abandon my
responsibilities.  I will continue to do the job I was elected
to do."

The President's intensely defensive statement, admitting
the half of what has been alleged against his men, but
pleading some truly staggering misunderstandings over
what he thought he was about in the national security
field, was not offered as the definitive version.  The
detailed section ran to seven and a half pages of
typescript, and still Mr Nixon admitted-perhaps wisely -
that he had more to say.

The White House described the statements as a response to
a "Niagara of hearsay" - and it looked and sounded very
much as if the President at last realized he risked being
swept over the edge unless he spoke out more credibly.

His categorical denials were extended for the first time to
the question, newly raised these past two terrible weeks,
of White House attempts to implicate the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Watergate.  It was here that
Mr Nixon ventured in his own admissions on to what
seemed very thin ice.

He could not leave unchallenged last night's staggering
revelation that General Vernon Walters, Deputy Director of
the CIA, had recorded that the president had been warned
by the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
last July both against a cover-up of the Watergate, and
against attempts to implicate the CIA.

So today for the first time he revealed that last July he had
given personal instructions to his most senior assistants Mr
Haldeman and Mr Ehrlichman - to ensure that the
investigation of Watergate "not expose either an unrelated
covert operation of the CIA" or the secret activities "of the
White House investigations unit" (the so-called plumbers).

The President's statement admitted the telephone call
from Mr Gray, then Acting Director of the FBI, but in
contrast to General Walter's account that Mr Gray had
suggested to the President that everyone involved be
dismissed, Mr Nixon said only "Mr Gray suggested that the
matter of Watergate might lead higher.  I told him to press
ahead with his investigation".

From these apparently irreconcilable instructions flowed
the fatal cover-up, as Mr Nixon put it, "through whatever
complex of individual motives and possible
misunderstandings".
@
4.1
LBJ will be remembered for his initials and for the sorrows
that befell the United States during his presidency. This
harsh but unavoidable verdict results from the greatest
American political tragedy since the fall of Woodrow
Wilson. Johnson came to the highest office trailing a record
of brilliant success as Congressman, Senator and
campaigner and deputy to JF Kennedy. He became
president when Kennedy was shot in 1963. At first it
seemed that as president, Johnson would eclipse his earlier
achievements: he pushed through a vast reforming
legislative programme, including aid for the elderly with
food and medical care. But foreign affairs (which he never
properly understood) proved his bane. He got bogged
down inextricably in the foolish, hated Vietnamese War
and, against his election pledges, intensified it. The political
and economic costs of the war stopped him tackling the
problems of poverty and racism, with which he was
otherwise superbly equipped to deal. Riot became endemic
in America. Johnson was forced to renounce all hope of re-
election, and saw his chosen successor repudiated by the
people in favour of Richard Nixon. The monument to his
great talents is inscribed with the names of the dead in the
war abroad and the insurrections at home.
@
4.2
A ceasefire in Vietnam has been agreed at last.  In Paris
yesterday morning Dr Henry Kissinger, President Nixon's
special adviser, and Mr Le Duc Tho, the leading North
Vietnamese negotiator, initialled the text of an agreement.

President Nixon announced the ceasefire in a nationwide
broadcast at 3 am (GMT) today and said the agreement
would be signed in Paris on Saturday.  Identical
announcements were made in Hanoi and Saigon.

Mr Nixon said the agreement would bring "peace with
honour."  All United States prisoners-of-war would be
released within 60 days and the withdrawal of United
States troops from Vietnam would be completed within the
same period.

Speaking quickly and with a slight smile playing about his
lips, President Nixon announced that the agreement to end
the war and restore peace in Vietnam had been initialled
earlier today by the American and North Vietnamese
negotiators in Paris.

President Nixon read a statement which was announced
jointly in Washington and Hanoi: "At 12 o'clock Paris time
today, January 23, 1973, the Agreement on Ending the war
and restoring the peace in Vietnam was initialled by Dr.
Henry Kissinger on behalf of the United States and special
adviser Le Duc Tho on behalf of the Democratic Republic of
Vietnam.

"The agreement will be formally signed by the parties
participating in the Paris conference on Vietnam on
January 27, 1973, at the international conference centre in
Paris.

"The ceasefire will take effect at 2400 hrs GMT January 27,
1973.  The United States and the Democratic Republic of
Vietnam express the hope that the agreement will ensure
stable peace in Vietnam and contribute to the preservation
of lasting peace in Indo-China.

President Nixon's reference to all parties signing the
agreement means that it will be signed by both the South
Vietnamese Government and the Vietcong.  In this speech,
he went out of his way to emphasize that the agreement
had been achieved after full consultations with the South
Vietnamese Government which had given its assent.

Mr Nixon claimed that his insistence on "peace with
honour" had been vindicated.  He paid tribute to the
American people for their "steadfastness" in permitting
him to reach such a settlement.

He claimed that "all the conditions" that he had laid down
since last May had been met in reaching the settlement.
He confirmed that within 60 days from the
implementation of the ceasefire all United States and
foreign allied forces would be withdrawn from South
Vietnam and all American prisoners of war returned.

He added that the "fullest possible accounting" of those
Americans missing in action would be implemented under
the agreement.  He announced that the full text of the
agreement and its implementing protocols would be made
public tomorrow.

Mr Nixon stated that the United States would continue to
recognise the Government of South Vietnam as "the sole
legitimate Government" of South Vietnam and he promised
full continuing American support for the people of South
Vietnam to settle their problems in peace.

Mr Nixon made no explicit reference to possible American
retaliatory reaction if the terms of the agreement were
broken.  However, he seemed to imply such a possibility
by declaring that the United States fully expected "the
other parties" to do everything the agreement required of
them.

In an indirect reference to China and Russia he stated that
the United States expected "other interested nations" to do
their part.  In special remarks to those who have fought in
this war Mr Nixon said to the South Vietnamese people:
"You have won the precious right to determine your own
future."

He added that the South Vietnamese had also developed
the strength to defend themselves and he promised them
the United States would remain "friends in peace as we
have been allies in war".

To the leaders of North Vietnam, Mr Nixon declared: "Let
us build a peace of reconciliation."  He promised that the
United States was prepared to make a vigorous effort but
warned them that reciprocity would be needed.

To the other major powers involved, Mr Nixon said: "Now
is the time for mutual restraint", so that the peace
achieved would last.

To the American people, Mr Nixon gave assurance that the
important thing had been to "get the right kind of peace."
And he urged them to be proud of their soldiers, and the
sacrifice paid, so that the people of South Vietnam and
ultimately, the rest of the world, might live in peace.

Mr Nixon ended his brief broadcast by linking the Vietnam
settlement with a tribute to the courage of Mr Lyndon B.
Johnson.  He recalled that Mr Johnson suffered
"vilification" from those who called him a man of war,
when he had sought nothing more dearly than peace.

"No one would have welcomed this peace more than he",
Mr Nixon said, summoning the American people to
"consecrate the moment" by resolving to make this a peace
that would last.

SAIGON, WEDNESDAY MORNING.-

A brief North Vietnam News Agency announcement from
Hanoi reported the initialling of the agreement but did not
state its terms except to make clear that it did not affect
Cambodia and Laos.

Near Saigon a Government militia unit ambushed a squad
of communist troops in one of a series of fierce clashes as
the two sides fought for the control of the maximum area
of territory before the ceasefire freezes the situation.
 @
4.3
President Nixon began his week-long summit conference in
China today by receiving an unexpected audience with
Chairman Mao Tse-tung and exchanging unusual toasts
with Mr Chou En-lai, the Prime Minister.  Then he joined in
two rather extensive rounds of itinerant glass-clinking in
the Great Hall of the People and the Square of the Gate of
Heavenly Peace.

The meeting with Chairman Mao, leader of the communist
rulers of China, appeared to have been added hurriedly to
Mr Nixon's schedule on his first afternoon here.  Nothing is
known about what was said, however, and attention was
therefore focused on the remarkable banquet given for the
visiting Americans by Mr Chou this evening.

After the shark's fin in three shreds, Mr Chou rose to send
greetings across the ocean by television to the American
people and to describe Mr Nixon's long journey here as a
"positive move," responding to the wishes of the peoples of
both countries.

Mr Chou said that the reasons for 20 years of tension
without contacts were "known to all" - meaning, primarily
American support for the Nationalists on Taiwan.  He
credited both governments for "common efforts" to open
the gate to better contacts at last.  He also expressed
confidence that further pressure from the people who
"alone" shape world history, will bring the day when China
and the United States can establish "normal state
relations."

Mr Nixon responded, in a more expansive tone, after the
fried and stewed prawns.  Rising from Table 1, where he
had eaten with chopsticks after his hosts had loaded his
plate with a serving of each dish in succession, he found
the hospitality incomparable, the dinner magnificent, and
the American music as rendered by the People's Liberation
Army band, unsurpassed in a foreign land.

Although the Chinese have made it plain that they still
harbour suspicions about American "imperialism", the
President did his best to bury American fears of a Chinese
menace that he himself had once helped to arouse.

"There is no reason for us to be enemies", he said.  "Neither
of us seeks the territory of the other: neither of us seeks
domination over the other: neither of us seeks to stretch
out our hands and rule the world."

There were enmities in the past and there are differences
today, Mr Nixon asserted, but the common interests of the
moment transcend everything else.  Using the most vivid
image of Chinese revolutionary history, the President
proposed a "long march" on different roads to the common
goal of a "structure of peace".

This he defined is a structure in which all nations would
determine their own form of government without
interference, perhaps intending an allusion to Vietnam, but
definitely not Taiwan.

Using a quotation from Chairman Mao, the President said it
was time to seize the day and seize the hour "for our two
peoples to rise to the heights of greatness which can build
a new and better world".

After each of the toasts before 800 guests at round tables,
the principal conferees, thimble-size glasses in hand, went
clinking this way and that way from table to table.

The Americans warmed gradually to this routine, but the
band offered a bouncy tune and Mr Nixon, Mr Rogers, the
Secretary of States, and Dr Henry Kissinger, the President's
national security adviser, were soon scattered far from
their own sumptuous table.  The Prime Minister and his
principal Politburo colleagues for this visit, Mr Yeh Chien-
ying, who is in charge of the armed forces, and Mr Li
Hsien-nien, the deputy Prime Minister, in charge of most
other domestic matters, had moved into orbits of their
own.

By the time Mr Nixon had spoken the magic word
"friendship" at the end of his toast, everyone had learned
the routine.  Powerful spotlights encouraged the cameras
forward and the table-hopping began as if on signal.

The army band, which had already drawn applause for
"Home on the Range", now rendered a sweet version of
"America" that went on and on and on while the principals
smiled, clinked, milled and sipped from "sea to shining
sea".  Mrs Nixon, in a wine-red dress, stood demurely in
her place.

Each of the leading diners offered two or three dozen
toasts during each round of wandering.  They seemed to be
consuming more shoe leather than mao tal, the Chinese
firewater in their glasses, but bottle-bearers were close at
hand and Dr Kissinger, among others, was seen taking at
least two refills.
@
4.4
Kissinger's achievements as US secretary of State from
1973-1977 included restoring diplomatic ties between the
United States and China, and ending the Vietnam War, for
which he was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1973. He
was an adviser to Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson but
the high-tide of his influence was under Nixon, together
with whom he created a new foreign policy. This was
marked by a cool appraisal of American self-interest that
alienated moralising liberals and moralising cold warriors
alike. Its successes included warmer relations with the
Soviet Union, and the first strategic weapons treaty (SALT
1), the recognition of communist China, and the end of
entanglement in Vietnam. He also worked tirelessly to find
a settlement in the wake of the 1973 Israel-Arab war. He
was an ornament of Washington social life, and his taste of
glamorous blondes was a gift to gossip columnists, but his
contempt for Congress, his love of secret diplomacy, and
obsessive policing of his staff worked against him as the
Nixon presidency collapsed. After 1977, he became
lecturer and commentator on foreign affairs. Henry
Kissinger was and remains an object of suspicion to
liberals, who tend to distrust his ruthlessness, and to
conservatives, who distrust his intelligence