RE: Motives and Actions of Political Executives

From: matus (matus@snet.net)
Date: Fri Mar 14 2003 - 23:49:30 MST

  • Next message: Hal Finney: "World of Knights"

    Max Plumm wrote in the thread "Peace? GOTTA LOVE THOSE POLLS"

    > I think it fair to say, and quite obviously, that
    > he [Nixon] believed when making decisions, as I
    > think is the case with most of our chief executives,
    > he was acting in the best interest of the people of
    > the United States.

    Lee Corbin said -

    "Recently, I have listed as the *top* priority of executives in modern
    democracies the object of getting re-elected. Though true, (and I'm
    wondering if I have been too cynical), it's also very likely that the highly
    partisan individuals who succeed to high office deeply believe that almost
    the worst thing that could befall their nation would be to let the
    political opposition start running things!"

    Since the topic here is Nixon, and Lee proposes to Judge one's action by
    thier motivations, and not on the actions themselves, and then further
    suggests that executirves in modern democracies focus solely on getting
    re-elected, I thought it would be prudent to post this. For those following
    this thread and following lee's comments, read through this speech of Nixon
    and see if you feel his primary motivation is indeed to get re-elected.

    Michael Dickey

    of those of limited time or attention spans, a notable excerpt.

    "I have noted, for example, that a Republican Senator has said that this
    action I have taken means that my party has lost all chance of winning the
    November elections. And others are saying today that this move against enemy
    sanctuaries will make me a one-term President.

    No one is more aware than I am of the political consequences of the action I
    have taken. It is tempting to take the easy political path: to blame this
    war on previous administrations and to bring all of our men home
    immediately, regardless of the consequences, even though that would mean
    defeat for the United States; to desert 18 million South Vietnamese people,
    who have put their trust in us and to expose them to the same slaughter and
    savagery which the leaders of North Vietnam inflicted on hundreds of
    thousands of North Vietnamese who chose freedom when the Communists took
    over North Vietnam in 1954; to get peace at any price now, even though I
    know that a peace of humiliation for the United States would lead to a
    bigger war or surrender later.

    I have rejected all political considerations in making this decision.

    Whether my party gains in November is nothing compared to the lives of
    400,000 brave Americans fighting for our country and for the cause of peace
    and freedom in Vietnam. Whether I may be a one-term President is
    insignificant compared to whether by our failure to act in this crisis the
    United States proves itself to be unworthy to lead the forces of freedom in
    this critical period in world history. I would rather be a one-term
    President and do what I believe is right than to be a two-term President at
    the cost of seeing America become a second-rate power and to see this Nation
    accept the first defeat in its proud 190-year history."

     -- end exerpty --

    President Richard Nixon addresses to the Nation on the Situation in
    Southeast Asia on April 30, 1970

    Good evening my fellow Americans:

    Ten days ago, in my report to the Nation on Vietnam, I announced a decision
    to withdraw an additional 150,000 Americans from Vietnam over the next year.
    I said then that I was making that decision despite our concern over
    increased enemy activity in Laos, in Cambodia, and in South Vietnam.

    At that time, I warned that if I concluded that increased enemy activity in
    any of these areas endangered the lives of Americans remaining in Vietnam, I
    would not hesitate to take strong and effective measures to deal with that
    situation.

    Despite that warning, North Vietnam has increased its military aggression in
    all these areas, and particularly in Cambodia.

    After full consultation with the National Security Council, Ambassador
    Bunker, General Abrams, and my other advisers, I have concluded that the
    actions of the enemy in the last 10 days clearly endanger the lives of
    Americans who are in Vietnam now and would constitute an unacceptable risk
    to those who will be there after withdrawal of another 150,000.

    To protect our men who are in Vietnam and to guarantee the continued success
    of our withdrawal and Vietnamization programs, I have concluded that the
    time has come for action.

    Tonight, I shall describe the actions of the enemy, the actions I have
    ordered to deal with that situation, and the reasons for my decision.

    Cambodia, a small country of 7 million people, has been a neutral nation
    since the Geneva agreement of 1954 agreement, incidentally, which was signed
    by the Government of North Vietnam.

    American policy since then has been to scrupulously respect the neutrality
    of the Cambodian people. We have maintained a skeleton diplomatic mission of
    fewer than 15 in Cambodia's capital, and that only since last August. For
    the previous 4 years, from 1965 to 1969, we did not have any diplomatic
    mission whatever in Cambodia. And for the past 5 years, we have provided no
    military assistance whatever and no economic assistance to Cambodia. North
    Vietnam, however, has not respected that neutrality.

    For the past 5 years as indicated on this map that you see here North
    Vietnam has occupied military sanctuaries all along the Cambodian frontier
    with South Vietnam. Some of these extend up to 20 miles into Cambodia. The
    sanctuaries are in red and, as you note, they are on both sides of the
    border. They are used for hit and run attacks on American and South
    Vietnamese forces in South Vietnam.

    These Communist occupied territories contain major base camps, training
    sites, logistics facilities, weapons and ammunition factories, airstrips,
    and prisoner-of-war compounds.

    For 5 years, neither the United States nor South Vietnam has moved against
    these enemy sanctuaries because we did not wish to violate the territory of
    a neutral nation. Even after the Vietnamese Communists began to expand these
    sanctuaries 4 weeks ago, we counseled patience to our South Vietnamese
    allies and imposed restraints on our own commanders.

    In contrast to our policy, the enemy in the past 2 weeks has stepped up his
    guerrilla actions and he is concentrating his main forces in these
    sanctuaries that you see on this map where they are building up to launch
    massive attacks on our forces and those of South Vietnam.

    North Vietnam in the last 2 weeks has stripped away all pretense of
    respecting the sovereignty or the neutrality of Cambodia. Thousands of their
    soldiers are invading the country from the sanctuaries; they are encircling
    the capital of Phnom Penh. Coming from these sanctuaries, as you see here,
    they have moved into Cambodia and are encircling the capital.

    Cambodia, as a result of this, has sent out a call to the United States, to
    a number of other nations, for assistance. Because if this enemy effort
    succeeds, Cambodia would become a vast enemy staging area and a springboard
    for attacks on South Vietnam along 600 miles of frontier a refuge where
    enemy troops could return from combat without fear of retaliation.

    North Vietnamese men and supplies could then be poured into that country,
    jeopardizing not only the lives of our own men but the people of South
    Vietnam as well.

    Now confronted with this situation, we have three options.

    First, we can do nothing. Well, the ultimate result of that course of action
    is clear. Unless we indulge in wishful thinking, the lives of Americans
    remaining in Vietnam after our next withdrawal of 150,000 would be gravely
    threatened. Let us go to the map again. Here is South Vietnam. Here is North
    Vietnam. North Vietnam already occupies this part of Laos. If North Vietnam
    also occupied this whole band in Cambodia, or the entire country, it would
    mean that South Vietnam was completely outflanked and the forces of
    Americans in this area, as well as the South Vietnamese, would be in an
    untenable military position.
    Our second choice is to provide massive military assistance to Cambodia
    itself. Now unfortunately, while we deeply sympathize with the plight of 7
    million Cambodians whose country is being invaded, massive amounts of
    military assistance could not be rapidly and effectively utilized by the
    small Cambodian Army against the immediate threat. With other nations, we
    shall do our best to provide the small arms and other equipment, which the
    Cambodian Army of 40,000 needs and can use for its defense. But the aid we
    will provide will be limited to the purpose of enabling Cambodia to defend
    its neutrality and not for the purpose of making it an active belligerent on
    one side or the other.
    Our third choice is to go to the heart of the trouble. That means cleaning
    out major North Vietnamese and Vietcong occupied territories these
    sanctuaries which serve as bases for attacks on both Cambodia and American
    and South Vietnamese forces in South Vietnam. Some of these, incidentally,
    are as close to Saigon as Baltimore is to Washington. This one, for example,
    is called the Parrot's Beak. It is only 33 miles from Saigon. Now faced with
    these three options, this is the decision I have made.

    In cooperation with the armed forces of South Vietnam, attacks are being
    launched this week to clean out major enemy sanctuaries on the
    Cambodian-Vietnam border.

    A major responsibility for the ground operations is being assumed by South
    Vietnamese forces. For example, the attacks in several areas, including the
    Parrot's Beak that I referred to a moment ago, are exclusively South
    Vietnamese ground operations under South Vietnamese command with the United
    States providing air and logistical support.

    There is one area, however, immediately above Parrot's Beak, where I have
    concluded that a combined American and South Vietnamese operation is
    necessary.

    Tonight, American and South Vietnamese units will attack the headquarters
    for the entire Communist military operation in South Vietnam. This key
    control center has been occupied by the North Vietnamese and Vietcong for 5
    years in blatant violation of Cambodia's neutrality.

    This is not an invasion of Cambodia. The areas in which these attacks will
    be launched are completely occupied and controlled by North Vietnamese
    forces. Our purpose is not to occupy the areas. Once enemy forces are driven
    out of these sanctuaries and once their military supplies are destroyed, we
    will withdraw.

    These actions are in no way directed to the security interests of any
    nation. Any government that chooses to use these actions as a pretext for
    harming relations with the United States will be doing so on its own
    responsibility, and on its own initiative, and we will draw the appropriate
    conclusions.

    Now let me give you the reasons for my decision.

    A majority of the American people, a majority of you listening to me, are
    for the withdrawal of our forces from Vietnam. The action I have taken
    tonight is indispensable for the continuing success of that withdrawal
    program.
    A majority of the American people want to end this war rather than to have
    it drag on interminably. The action I have taken tonight will serve that
    purpose.

    A majority of the American people want to keep the casualties of our brave
    men in Vietnam at an absolute minimum. The action I take tonight is
    essential if we are to accomplish that goal. We take this action not for the
    purpose of expanding the war into Cambodia but for the purpose of ending the
    war in Vietnam and winning the just peace we all desire. We have made we
    will continue to make every possible effort to end this war through
    negotiation at the conference table rather than through more fighting on the
    battlefield.

    Let us look again at the record. We have stopped the bombing of North
    Vietnam. We have cut air operations by over 20 percent. We have announced
    withdrawal of over 250,000 of our men. We have offered to withdraw all of
    our men if they will withdraw theirs. We have offered to negotiate all
    issues with only one condition and that is that the future of South Vietnam
    he determined not by North Vietnam, and not by the United States, but by the
    people of South Vietnam themselves.

    The answer of the enemy, has been intransigence at the conference table,
    belligerence in Hanoi, massive military aggression in Laos and Cambodia, and
    stepped-up attacks in South Vietnam, designed to increase American
    casualties.

    This attitude has become intolerable. We will not react to this threat to
    American lives merely by plaintive diplomatic protests. If we did, the
    credibility of the United States would be destroyed in every area of the
    world where only the power of the United States deters aggression.

    Tonight, I again warn the North Vietnamese that if they continue to escalate
    the fighting when the United States is withdrawing its forces, I shall meet
    my responsibility as Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces to take the
    action I consider necessary to defend the security of our American men.

    The action that I have announced tonight puts the leaders of North Vietnam
    on notice that we will he patient in working for peace; we will be
    conciliatory at the conference table, but we will not be humiliated. We will
    not be defeated. We will not allow American men by the thousands to be
    killed by an enemy from privileged sanctuaries.

    The time came long ago to end this war through peaceful negotiations. We
    stand ready for those negotiations. We have made major efforts, many of,
    which must remain secret. I say tonight: All the offers and approaches made
    previously remain on the conference table whenever Hanoi is ready to
    negotiate seriously.

    But if the enemy response to our most conciliatory offers for peaceful
    negotiation continues to be to increase its attacks and humiliate and defeat
    us, we shall react accordingly. My fellow Americans, we live in an age of
    anarchy, both abroad and at home. We see mindless attacks on all the great
    institutions, which have been created by free civilizations in the last 500
    years. Even here in the United States, great universities are being
    systematically destroyed. Small nations all over the world find themselves
    under attack from within and from without.

    If, when the chips are down, the world's most powerful nation, the United
    States of America, acts like a pitiful, helpless giant, the forces of
    totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations and free institutions
    throughout the world.

    It is not our power but our will and character that is being tested tonight.
    The question all Americans must ask and answer tonight is this: Does the
    richest and strongest nation in the history of the world have the character
    to meet a direct challenge by a group which rejects every effort to win a
    just peace, ignores our warning, tramples on solemn agreements, violates the
    neutrality of an unarmed people, and uses our prisoners as hostages?

    If we fail to meet this challenge, all other nations will be on notice that
    despite its overwhelming power the United States, when a real crisis comes,
    will be found wanting.

    During my campaign for the Presidency, I pledged to bring Americans home
    from Vietnam. They are coming home.

    I promised to end this war. I shall keep that promise.

    I promised to win a just peace. I shall keep that promise.

    We shall avoid a wider war. But we are also determined to put an end to this
    war. In this room, Woodrow Wilson made the great decisions, which led to
    victory in World War I. Franklin Roosevelt made the decisions which led to
    our victory in World War II. Dwight D. Eisenhower made decisions, which
    ended the war in Korea and avoided war in the Middle East. John F. Kennedy,
    in his finest hour, made the great decision, which removed Soviet nuclear
    missiles from Cuba and the Western Hemisphere.

    I have noted that there has been a great deal of discussion with regard to
    this decision that I have made and I should point out that I do not contend
    that it is in the same magnitude as these decisions that I have just
    mentioned. But between those decisions and this decision there is a
    difference that is very fundamental. In those decisions, the American people
    were not assailed by counsels of doubt and defeat from some of the most
    widely known opinion leaders of the Nation.

    I have noted, for example, that a Republican Senator has said that this
    action I have taken means that my party has lost all chance of winning the
    November elections. And others are saying today that this move against enemy
    sanctuaries will make me a one-term President.

    No one is more aware than I am of the political consequences of the action I
    have taken. It is tempting to take the easy political path: to blame this
    war on previous administrations and to bring all of our men home
    immediately, regardless of the consequences, even though that would mean
    defeat for the United States; to desert 18 million South Vietnamese people,
    who have put their trust in us and to expose them to the same slaughter and
    savagery which the leaders of North Vietnam inflicted on hundreds of
    thousands of North Vietnamese who chose freedom when the Communists took
    over North Vietnam in 1954; to get peace at any price now, even though I
    know that a peace of humiliation for the United States would lead to a
    bigger war or surrender later.

    I have rejected all political considerations in making this decision.

    Whether my party gains in November is nothing compared to the lives of
    400,000 brave Americans fighting for our country and for the cause of peace
    and freedom in Vietnam. Whether I may be a one-term President is
    insignificant compared to whether by our failure to act in this crisis the
    United States proves itself to be unworthy to lead the forces of freedom in
    this critical period in world history. I would rather be a one-term
    President and do what I believe is right than to be a two-term President at
    the cost of seeing America become a second-rate power and to see this Nation
    accept the first defeat in its proud 190-year history.

    I realize that in this war there art honest and deep differences in this
    country about whether we should have become involved. That there are
    differences as to how the war should have been conducted. But the decision I
    announce tonight transcends those differences.

    For the lives of American men are involved. The opportunity for 150,000
    Americans to come home in the next 12 months is involved. The future of 18
    million people in South Vietnam and 7 million people in Cambodia is
    involved. The possibility of winning a just peace in Vietnam and in the
    Pacific is at stake.

    It is customary to conclude a speech from the White House by asking support
    for the President of the United States. Tonight, I depart from that
    precedent. What I ask is far more important. I ask for your support for our
    brave men fighting tonight halfway around the world not for territory not
    for glory but so that their younger brothers and their sons and your sons
    can have a chance to grow up in a world of peace and freedom and justice.

    Thank you and good night.



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