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Vietnam: Nixon and Kissinger in Foreign Affairs.

When discussing the politics of Nixon and Kissinger, Joan Hoff speaks of “Nixinger” – a term widely used in literature on the Nixon Years since. It does not only suggest that Nixon and Kissinger had the same approach. If being implied or not, it suggests Nixon shaping the plans and strategies and Kissinger carrying them out. Or even stronger: Nixon planning and Kissinger deciding on the actual outcome. Kissinger, as Stephen Ambrose says, had been a tool and agent of Nixon’s, but not a “generator of ideas”.

Nixon was trying to improve the American situation within the Cold War set-up. His policy was mainly a maintenance of the containment structure. Kissinger in contrast wanted to broaden the concept. The problems, the U.S. had to deal with, were manifold. The Soviet Union had risen to a nuclear power, threatening to overpower the United States. Germany and Japan rose to new economic power. So the U.S. was forced to alter its strategy.

As to the most serious problems of the Nixon Years – Vietnam; détente with the Soviet Union; arranging with China; the Middle East – the President and his National Security Adviser and later Secretary of State, were mostly of one opinion. As Jeffrey Kimball wrote in his book on Nixon’s Vietnam War, Nixon conducted a policy following his madman theory and Kissinger helped to carry it out. In constructing a détente with the Soviet Union, Kissinger was the main architect, because he had the hotline with Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko, which they used for phone calls 130 times in 1972 alone. Kissinger was also Nixon’s envoy carrying out publicly known as well as secret missions to Moscow and Beijing in order to prepare the President’s visits. Again, Kissinger carried out the missions Nixon had planned, acting on the President’s behalf. The Middle East, especially the Shuttle Diplomacy following the Yom Kippur War, was the one problem, Kissinger was free to act on the most. Nixon was preoccupied with problems at home, namely Watergate, didn’t even attend at least one NSC meeting on the war. So Kissinger conducted the Shuttle Diplomacy mainly on his own.

Although the two pursued more or less the same policies on the whole, they also had their difficulties. In carrying poicies out in a way Kissinger considered the best, he did not always consult the president. Two of the main differences they had were connected with the Vietnam War. When the press got to know of the incursion into Laos, the President stated that there were neither Americans involved nor killed. He relied on information, Kissinger gave him. But two days later, the Pentagon had to admit that both statements were wrong. Nixon, who “hated to be caught in a lie” (Ambrose), refused to see Kissinger for a week.

The other incident had to do with Vietnam as well. In the talks Kissinger and Le Duc Tho conducted, an agreement was almost reached in October 1972. As it was only weeks to the Presidential Elections, and as he had blamed Johnson of arranging the cease fire in 1968 only for tactical reasons, Nixon didn’t want to give the impression of using the talks only tactically himself. But Kissinger did not only state with Tho they more or less had reached an agreement. Worse, even without Thieu agreeing to the proposed outcome, Kissinger joined Tho in declaring that peace was at hand. He acted without asking Nixon, who was furious.