Paying The Price

By JOHN STACKS and STROBE TALBOTT Richard Nixon

Q. How do you expect the Watergate affair to be judged in the future?

A. Clare Boothe Luce once said that each person in history can be summed up in one sentence. This was after I had gone to China. She said, "You will be summed up, 'He went to China.' " Historians are more likely to lead with "He resigned the office."

The jury has already come in, and there's nothing that's going to change it. There's no appeal. Historians will judge it harshly. That's what I would say on that.

Q. Why did you write this book?

A. I really wrote this book for those who have suffered losses or defeats and so forth, and who think that life is over. I felt that if I could share with them my own experiences, it might help.

The problem with that, of course, is that resigning the presidency is something that is beyond their imagination. And so, consequently, that's why throughout the book I tried to put it in a context that they could understand. But I felt that if I could let them see what I went through, and how I at least recovered in part, that that might tell them that life wasn't over.

Q. You say in your new book that you recovered in part. You also say that you have paid, and in fact are still paying, the price for it.

A. By paying the price, I mean in terms of being able to influence the course of events. I mean, every time I make a speech, or every time I write a book, inevitably the reviewers refer to the "disgraced former President."

And I consider, for whatever time I have left, that what is most important is to be able to affect the course of events. My experience has been somewhat unique. I am probably wrong on a number of things, but at least it's a point of view.

The difficulty is that getting that point of view across is compromised by the fact that they say, Oh, this is the Watergate man, so we're not going to pay any attention to what he does. Now that attitude has receded substantially, and over a period of time it may recede more, but that's what I meant by that.

Q. Do you think the price you paid was fair, or do you think it was disproportionate to what happened?

A. I don't think I'm the best judge of that. It was a price that was inevitable, and I accepted the fact that it had to be paid. I must say that many of my friends and my family think it was very unfair and disproportionate, but I'm not going to even comment about if it was fair or disproportionate.

Q. I want to ask you a Watergate trivia question or two.

A. There's nothing trivial about Watergate.

Q. Do you have any reflections on the somewhat ambiguous role that was played by your White House chief of staff Al Haig?

A. I have never shared the mistrust that many have about Haig.

Al Haig was a consummate bureaucrat, and that's said with admiration rather than condemnation. You can't get up that high in the Army without being a consummate bureaucrat. Eisenhower was a consummate bureaucrat too.

I think in Al's case, he would engage in activities that might have a double meaning. But I think as far as his goal was concerned, it was always one of loyalty to the office, loyalty to me, and I think it was almost as hard on him as on me when he came to the conclusion that I should resign. That's my view about Al.

Q. Some say he is probably the best candidate for Deep Throat. Do you believe that?

A. I can't believe that's the case. It is possible. I mean, anything is possible.

Q. Had you planned, if the Supreme Court was less than unanimous, at 6-2 or + 5-3, on the tapes question to contest or to resist?

A. No. I had that as a possible option, but I hadn't planned it in advance, saying if we get one or two votes, that then we will resist it. No.

Q. One of the things Watergate derailed was your planned New American Revolution. Instead we got the Reagan revolution. How would you draw the contrast between the two?

A. I won't say anything in this interview that is critical of him and the Reagan revolution, but basically we had different approaches.

I think in his case, he had very little confidence in what Government could do in some of these areas because he thought Government could screw it up. He looked at the Great Society programs, and because they failed, he thought all Government action failed.

In my case, I just looked at the Great Society programs, and I said, Well, they failed, but they were aimed at real problems. And now I want to find some answers.

Q. How do you measure George Bush?

A. I consider him to be a progressive Republican. He is highly intelligent. He is hands-on. He's not a bomb thrower, but because he isn't a bomb thrower he doesn't have any interceptions. That's one of the reasons he's doing as well as he has. Bush -- I ought to leave it in football terms -- he's the Joe Montana. The short, sure pass. He has a very high percentage.

Q. You wrote that Gorbachev may turn out to be not only the man of the decade --

A. But man of the century.

Q. In the short time since you finished your book a great deal has happened in the Soviet Union. What do you make of events there in the past few weeks?

A. I look at Gorbachev somewhat this way: I see him as a troika. I seem him first as a communist. Second, he's a Russian nationalist. Maybe we should say he's proud of his country; he's a patriot. His purpose is not to abandon communism but to save it. But he also has another facet, which at times overrides the other two, that he is a great, pragmatic politician. And as a pragmatic politician, he sometimes will overrule even his basic communist instincts, or even his national instincts, in the event that his political survival requires it.

But also he's a great gambler. He's a great actor. He has decided that he would risk his power in order to save his reforms, rather than risk his reforms in order to save his power.

Now that was a mountaintop decision. And that's what Gorbachev has done. It was a gutsy decision. And he also believes, because he's so self-confident, that he'll win. Five years from now, he believes that reforms will work, and that if he goes before the people, he will not have lost his power.

One more point about Gorbachev. I compare him to Khrushchev. Khrushchev was not well educated, but he was smarter than Gorbachev and quicker than Gorbachev. But Khrushchev had a fatal weakness. He was rash. Gorbachev is not rash, but he does have a temper.

We have some who say that the changes in the Soviet Union happened because the U.S. under Reagan had a booming economy and a stronger military; it had SDI ((the Strategic Defense Initiative)), which the Soviet Union would have to spend billions of dollars to compete with, and had a firm foreign policy.

On the other side, some argue -- and I agree -- that the primary factor was internal. Communism didn't work: it didn't work there, it didn't work in Eastern Europe, it didn't work in the Third World. What we did may have accelerated the process.

But even had the U.S. not taken the line it did, this would have happened.

Q. If your policy of detente had continued, might it too have created the circumstances that we now see?

A. In my view, yes. Of course, I'm a prejudiced witness on that. Now, detente practiced with linkage would have worked. What has happened now might have happened sooner.

Q. Is the cold war really over?

A. The Soviets have lost the cold war, but the West has not won it. It is not enough to say now that people have rejected communism, that we're home free. Waging a revolution is difficult, but not nearly as difficult as governing. That is the problem in all the countries of Eastern Europe. I'm not enthused about this idea of sending our political experts over and telling these poor people how to win an election. I think it's a little silly and even insulting. What they need is economic experts from the private sector, and maybe some from the Government.

Q. Looking back on the Viet Nam War, what second thoughts do you have?

A. I was asked that about ((the invasion of)) Cambodia once after a speech at Oxford. I said, "Yes, I wish I'd done it sooner." That was a shocker. And going further, Why didn't you do the May 8 bombing and mining sooner? Why didn't you do the December bombing sooner? And the point was, it should have been done sooner, but for one thing, I didn't feel first that the traffic would bear it within the Administration.

We might have lost half the Cabinet, certainly. Neither ((Secretary of State William)) Rogers nor ((Secretary of Defense Melvin)) Laird -- not because they were doves, but because they just thought it was the wrong decision -- would have supported an all-out attack in order to bring the war to a conclusion.

Eisenhower and I were once talking in 1967; Eisenhower felt we should declare war. He said, "You can declare war, then you can handle all these debaters and the bomb throwers." But the problem with declaring war was that the Russians and the Chinese both had treaties with North Viet Nam.

So the declaration of war didn't appeal. But I was also thinking of what we could do after Viet Nam. It was essential to have a new relationship with the Russians, have a new relationship with the Chinese, and I felt that at that time, early on, it would have made it difficult, almost impossible, to develop that new relationship had we declared war. It would have broken it off. In retrospect, I don't think so. In retrospect, I think we could have done it. And it may have been a mistake of judgment, but at the time, that's the reason I didn't do it.

Q. Some people say that when all was finally said and done you --

A. Didn't get any more than we would have gotten earlier?

Q. That in 1969 you could have gotten just about what you got in the end -- a kind of a decent interval, the North Viet Nam army's forces in place in the South, POWs -- and that therefore the price in American lives was way too high.

A. I know that argument, and I don't agree with it. Kissinger and I have often talked about that. And there, we have to look at the intricacies of the peace agreement of '73. Had that agreement been implemented as it was, it would be a very different situation than it is at the present time.

But as you know, there were two aspects of the agreement. One has been totally forgotten. The two aspects were: one, that the U.S. would continue to support South Viet Nam, just as the Soviets would be expected to be supporting North Viet Nam. The other was that the U.S., in the event that the North Vietnamese complied with the terms, would also support them economically. In other words, there was the economic package.

Naturally, this is self-serving, but everything I say is self-serving. But had I survived, I think that it would have been possible to have implemented $ the agreement. South Viet Nam would still be a viable non-Communist enclave or whatever you want to call it. But because I think that I had enormous credibility with the North -- because of what I'd done on May 8 ((ordering the mining of North Vietnamese ports)), because of what I'd done in December ((ordering the bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong)) -- they thought, Well, this unpredictable so-and-so, we can't be sure if we attack. You've got to remember, too, that the peace agreement worked for two years.

Q. If you'll pardon me, this is the theory according to which you were a madman acting, or gambling, or whatever you want to call it.

A. You know, they all talk about the difference between Eisenhower and Dulles and Nixon and Kissinger. Eisenhower was the very reasonable fellow, he loved peace and all the rest, and Dulles was a hawk who was talking about the peaceful liberation of Eastern Europe.

And then the point is that they say that in Nixon's case and Kissinger's case, it is just the other way around. Kissinger is the reasonable fellow, he's from Harvard and all the rest, he'll be reasonable working these things out. But he's got this guy back there in Washington whom he just has to control. And if his warlike instincts prevail here, you'd better watch out. You see?

Now as a matter of fact, let me tell you, Dulles didn't do anything without Eisenhower's support. Eisenhower was really a hands-on President, particularly in foreign policy. And Eisenhower, he could be very curt at times. He'd just cut them short, his Cabinet members. He said, "Listen, I'll make the decisions regarding what the defense budget is going to be." He could be so genial, yet so cold.

And I would say the same was true with me and Kissinger. We would disagree politically at times. For example, a major disagreement we had was with regard to the war, but it was before the elections, you remember, in 1972. And Kissinger politically felt very strongly that it was important to get an agreement before the elections.

I knew that politically it was not a liability, particularly in view of the irresponsibility of the antiwar crowd. So we had a difference politically, and that's when Henry made his famous "Peace is at hand" statement, and I had to back off of it. Henry had greater confidence in the efficacy of negotiations than I had. I think that is the difference. He thought that even fanatics would be reasonable insofar as negotiating is concerned. He could not accept the fact of all of the forces going against him. I used to say, "Henry, I'll take care of the politics."

Henry is a world-class strategist. He has incredible stamina, which makes him a great negotiator. He'll wear you out. How he does it, I don't know. He has an insatiable appetite for all the treats they put on the table. Henry would sit there in negotiations, he'd have the peanuts out and the rest, and he'd be talking between mouthfuls. But on the other hand, that gave him the energy to keep going. But Henry needed it.

Q. I wanted to ask you again about '72, the fall period when Kissinger declares, "Peace is at hand." And you at that point are unsure. He feels it's necessary for the election, and you feel it's not a liability. Did you feel it was actually detrimental politically to arrive at a settlement?

A. Oh, no. I felt it would have been very helpful politically if we could have a settlement before the election. But I felt that until it was nailed, we should not even breathe a word about it, because I thought that then it put the responsibility on us to make the concessions.

The second point was, I felt we would be in a much stronger position after the election, after a tremendous mandate, after the antiwar crowd had been totally defeated. I thought that then we could really get these people to, shall we say, cry uncle.

Q. One could argue that during the last two years of your presidency, Kissinger was somewhat out of your control.

A. No, Kissinger never took a step without informing me. He was always very circumspect. Kissinger is a great bureaucrat.

Q. He makes quite a point in his memoirs of where he went off the reservation and did what he thought was right, making his own political judgment or his own strategic judgment or his own moral judgment.

A. That he does. I have heard that. I haven't read it. I don't read books about myself. I have read reviews of the books. I'm saying that as far as I'm concerned, I have never felt that he was out of control, that he was doing something he thought I would disapprove. And for example, I've noticed some columns indicating that he was really opposed to the so-called Christmas bombing . . . That's nonsense. He was for it, all the way. And so was I.

Q. But you were never crazy about the idea of making him Secretary of State, were you?

A. It was a difficult time, because Bill Rogers was my friend. And Rogers I . think had done, really, under the circumstances, a very credible job as Secretary of State. But Kissinger at that point I considered indispensable. With the Watergate problem, we didn't have any choices.

Q. There are no regrets on that score.

A. If I had them, I wouldn't tell you. Put it that way.

Q. You have conjured up the danger that Japan and China will get together in the next century.

A. It would be a very natural thing to happen. You look at what China has and what Japan has. China has resources; it has a potentially highly qualified, intelligent people. And here's Japan, with less arable land than the state of California and no oil reserve. So it's a natural. It's a marriage made in heaven, economically. And that could happen.

Let's look at it from China's standpoint. Let's assume the U.S. isolates them because of our concern about human rights. Where do the Chinese look?

They're not going to look to the Soviet Union because it's a failure, and even these latest announcements all indicate that the Chinese are all for economic reforms. And they're going to try to goose them up. Even ((Premier)) Li Peng ((favors that)), because I've talked to him. All the Chinese leaders, from the extreme reactionaries to the more progressive ones, are for economic reforms. Japan is an economic miracle, an economic success story. So they turn to Japan.

The U.S. needs to be in north Asia as a major player along with the Chinese, the Japanese and the Soviet Union.

Q. And one should not expect a flowering of democracy anytime soon?

A. Not soon, no. I don't mean the Chinese people do not have a potential interest in and, frankly, respect for and probably desire to have so-called democracy. But if you look at the country today and how far it is in its educational standards, it's a long way off before that seeps down. I think, without question, our strategic interests require that we re-establish a constructive relationship with China. Human rights requires it too, because Li Peng is not totally in control. There are others who will be contesting with him for power. The U.S. will always come down on the side of the progressives and the reformers, rather than the reactionaries.

Q. Have you set any specific goals for yourself?

A. No, not at this point. I see some of my contemporaries on television these days. I don't intend to reach that point. I haven't quite reached it yet. It's ; very important for somebody not to try to stay too long in the public life, particularly in the television age. Some people are surprised at me that I'm ambulatory.

Q. You've made so much of the importance to you of the struggle itself. Not just victory but, more important, the struggle. Do you feel that now the struggle's over for you?

A. No. I must find new challenges. Because the moment that you think the struggle is over, when you have nothing to live for other than yourself, you're finished.