The Calm After the Storm

DAVID HUME KENNERLY -- THE WHITE HOUSE
APRIL 1975: AS VIETNAM WAS FALLING
He understood global business better than American politics

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THE WHITE HOUSE

BOLD STROKES
Inside the Kremlin in 1972

For example, the portrayals of Nixon drinking himself into incoherence with a bottle ever at his side are simply absurd. In my experience, Nixon never took any liquor during working hours or in the Oval Office. Only his closest associates ever saw him drink in any context. The trouble was that Nixon could not hold even a small quantity of alcohol. Two glasses of wine were quite enough to make him boisterous, just one more to grow bellicose or sentimental, occasionally with slurred speech. Alcohol had a way of destroying the defenses he had so carefully constructed to enable him to succeed in a profession based on a conviviality unnatural to him. These episodes occurred extremely rarely, always at night and never in the context of major decisions. The few of us who actually witnessed such conduct never acted on what he might have said; we felt we owed the President another chance to consider whatever the issue was.

The Richard Nixon with whom I worked on a daily basis for 5 1/2 years was generally soft-spoken, withdrawn and quite shy. When talking to me or to George Shultz, he rarely, if ever, used the graphic language that proved so startling in the transcripts of his conversations with the political side of the White House. Nixon was capable of dominating a conversation only by conducting a monologue, never in a genuine dialogue. To passive admirers or people who sought his views, Nixon could appear overpowering and confident. But Nixon abhorred face-to-face disagreements of any kind. In his many conversations with me, he would ask many perceptive questions and frequently make very astute observations. He was quite capable of changing his mind upon reflecting on a counterargument. But these were separate events. I cannot remember any real dialogue in which we argued clashing points of view.

The way differences between us were handled was that I would register more or less passively some comment of Nixon's. Some time later, I would revert to the same point without ascribing it to him and state my contrary view. After yet another interval, Nixon would either reaffirm his original position or change it without acknowledging the disagreement between us.

Since this was a method involving a considerable risk of misunderstanding, I conducted most of the major policy discussions with Nixon and almost every presentation of options by memorandum. Nixon felt no inhibitions about reading contrary views, and he felt free to state his response crisply and to issue unambiguous orders. Future historians removed from the passions of the moment will find a study of the voluminous memoranda he produced far more rewarding than the dialogues on the tapes.

The reason for Nixon's diffidence in face-to-face encounters was the opposite of arrogance: it was a reflection of his abiding fear of being rejected. Others more knowledgeable about Nixon's early years may be better able to explain this handicap--for such it was--in a man of such intelligence and possessed of extraordinary powers of persuasion. Or the even greater anomaly that Nixon seemed more paralyzed by the prospect of rejection than by its actuality. Once the worst had, in fact, occurred and the dreaded (and half-anticipated) rejection had finally taken place, Nixon displayed extraordinary fortitude, willpower and resilience.

To spare himself face-to-face controversies as much as possible, Nixon avoided office appointments wherever possible unless they were carefully orchestrated set-piece encounters. Those of us in the inner circle faced no more daunting task than to persuade Nixon to meet some individual he did not already know or to see someone who might produce an unpleasant situation--that is, anyone whose opinion Nixon did not know in detail beforehand.

The reverse side of this fear of being rejected--its ballast, so to speak--was Nixon's romantic image of himself as a fearless manipulator, marching to his own drummer, unaffected either by turmoil around him or contrary advice on the part of his Cabinet and staff. Sometimes this was indeed the case, but most often Nixon was not as alone as he was wont to imply. His quest to receive sole credit for every achievement of his Administration and to have it perceived as having been carried out as an entirely solitary act explains why Nixon rarely, if ever, had an approving word to say about any of his associates. Subconsciously at least, Nixon sought to enhance his eminence by denigrating his associates, thereby magnifying his own solitude.

Another aspect of this cult of the "tough guy" was that in conversations with his entourage, Nixon might generate a series of extravagant propositions which, in his heart, he never expected to be implemented. Some of the more bloodcurdling orders on the tapes released thus far have their origin in this proclivity--as I believe to have been the origin of Watergate itself. Nixon was convinced, and repeated on many occasions, that during the 1960 presidential campaign, his office and airplane had been bugged by the Kennedy camp. And I suspect he felt that his victory in 1972 would not be complete until he had demonstrated his own ability to play by the same rules as he imagined the admired and feared Kennedy clan to have done.