Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume I, Foundations of Foreign Policy, 1969–1972

67. Interview With President Nixon¹

Los Angeles, California, July 1, 1970.

[Omitted here is the opening portion of the interview which dealt with Southeast Asia.]

Mr. Smith. Mr. President, one of the things that happened in the Senate last week was the rescinding of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution² by the Senate. Mr. Katzenbach,³ in the previous administration, told the Foreign Relations Committee that resolution was tantamount to a congressional declaration of war. If it is rescinded, what legal justification do you have for continuing to fight a war that is undeclared in Vietnam?

The President. First, Mr. Smith, as you know, this war, while it was undeclared, was here when I became President of the United States. I do not say that critically. I am simply stating the fact that there were 549,000 Americans in Vietnam under attack when I became President.

The President of the United States has the constitutional right—not only the right, but the responsibility—to use his powers to protect American forces when they are engaged in military actions, and under these circumstances, starting at the time that I became President, I have that power and I am exercising that power.

Mr. Smith. Sir, I am not recommending this, but if you don’t have a legal authority to wage a war, then presumably you could move troops out. It would be possible to agree with the North Vietnamese. They would be delighted to have us surrender. So that you could—

What justification do you have for keeping troops there other than protecting the troops that are there fighting?

The President. A very significant justification. It isn’t just a case of seeing that the Americans are moved out in an orderly way. If that were the case, we could move them out more quickly, but it is a case of moving American forces out in a way that we can at the same time win a just peace.

Now, by winning a just peace, what I mean is not victory over North Vietnam—we are not asking for that—but it is simply the right of the people of South Vietnam to determine their own future without having us impose our will upon them, or the North Vietnamese, or anybody else outside impose their will upon them.

When we look at that limited objective, I am sure some would say, “Well, is that really worth it? Is that worth the efforts of all these Americans fighting in Vietnam, the lives that have been lost”?

I suppose it could be said that simply saving 17 million people in South Vietnam from a Communist takeover isn’t worth the efforts of the United States. But let’s go further. If the United States, after all of this effort, if we were to withdraw immediately, as many Americans would want us to do—and it would be very easy for me to do it and simply blame it on the previous administration—but if we were to do that, I would probably survive through my term, but it would have, in my view, a catastrophic effect on this country and the cause of peace in the years ahead.

Now I know there are those who say the domino theory is obsolete. They haven’t talked to the dominoes. They should talk to the Thais, to the Malaysians, to the Singaporans, to the Indonesians, to the Filipinos, to the Japanese, and the rest. And if the United States leaves Vietnam in a way that we are humiliated or defeated, not simply speaking in what is called jingoistic terms, but in very practical terms, this will be immensely discouraging to the 300 million people from Japan clear around to Thailand in free Asia; and even more important it will be ominously encouraging to the leaders of Communist China and the Soviet Union who are supporting the North Vietnamese. It will encourage them in their expansionist policies in other areas.

The world will be much safer in which to live.

Mr. Smith. I happen to be one of those who agrees with what you are saying, but do you have a legal justification to follow that policy once the Tonkin Gulf Resolution is dead?

The President. Yes, sir, Mr. Smith, the legal justification is the one that I have given, and that is the right of the President of the United States under the Constitution to protect the lives of American men. That is the legal justification. You may recall, of course, that we went through this same debate at the time of Korea. Korea was also an undeclared war, and then, of course, we justified it on the basis of a U.N. action. I believe we have a legal justification and I intend to use it.

Mr. Sevareid. Mr. President, you have said that self-determination in South Vietnam is really our aim and all we can ask for. The Vice President says a non-Communist future for Indochina, or Southeast Asia. His statement seems to enlarge the ultimate American aim considerably. Have we misunderstood you or has he or what is the aim?

Mr. President. Mr. Sevareid, when the Vice President refers to a non-Communist Southeast Asia that would mean of course, a non-Communist South Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. That is the area we usually think of as Southeast Asia.

This is certainly something that I think most Americans and most of those in free Asia and most of those in the free world would think would be a desirable goal.

Let me put it another way: I do not think it would be in the interest of the United States and those who want peace in the Pacific if that part of the world should become Communist, because then the peace of the world, the peace in the Pacific, would be in my opinion very greatly jeopardized if the Communists were to go through that area.

However, referring now specifically to what we are doing in Vietnam, our aim there is a very limited one, and it is to provide for the South Vietnamese the right of self-determination. I believe that when they exercise that right they will choose a non-Communist government. But we are indicating—and incidentally, despite what everybody says about the present government in South Vietnam, its inadequacies and the rest, we have to give them credit for the fact that they also have indicated that they will accept the result of an election, what the people choose.

Let us note the fact that the North Vietnamese are in power not as a result of an election, and have refused to indicate that they will accept the result of an election in South Vietnam, which would seem to me to be a pretty good bargaining point on our side.

Mr. Chancellor. Mr. President, I am a little confused at this point because you seem in vivid terms to be describing South Vietnam as the first of the string of dominoes that could topple in that part of the world and turn it into a Communist part of the world, in simple terms.

Are you saying that we cannot survive, we cannot allow a regime or a government in South Vietnam to be constructed that would, say, lean toward the Communist bloc? What about a sort of Yugoslavia? Is there any possibility of that kind of settlement?

The President. Mr. Chancellor, it depends upon the people of South Vietnam. If the people of South Vietnam after they see what the Vietcong, the Communist Vietcong, have done to the villages they have occupied, the 40,000 people that they have murdered, village chiefs and others, the atrocities of Hue—if the people of South Vietnam, of which 850,000 of them are Catholic refugees from North Vietnam, after a blood bath there when the North Vietnamese took over in North Vietnam—if the people of South Vietnam under those circumstances should choose to move in the direction of a Communist government, that, of course, is their right. I do not think it will happen. But I do emphasize that the American position and the position also of the present Government of South Vietnam, it seems to me, are especially strong, because we are confident enough that we say to the enemy, “All right, we’ll put our case to the people and we’ll accept the result.” If it happens to be what you describe, a Yugoslav type of government or a mixed government, we will accept it.

Mr. Chancellor. What I am getting at, sir, is, if you say on the one hand that Vietnam—South Vietnam—is the first of the row of dominoes which we cannot allow to topple, then can you say equally, at the same time, that we will accept the judgment of the people of South Vietnam if they choose a Communist government?

The President. The point that you make, Mr. Chancellor, is one that we in the free world face every place in the world, and it is really what distinguishes us from the Communist world.

Again, I know that what is called cold war rhetoric isn’t fashionable these days, and I am not engaging in it because I am quite practical, and we must be quite practical, about the world in which we live with all the dangers that we have in the Mideast and other areas that I am sure we will be discussing later in this program.

But let us understand that we in the free world have to live or die by the proposition that the people have a right to choose.

Let it also be noted that in no country in the world today in which the Communists are in power have they come to power as a result of the people choosing them—not in North Vietnam, not in North Korea, not in China, not in Russia, and not in any one of the countries of Eastern Europe, and not in Cuba. In every case, communism has come to power by other than a free election, so I think we are in a pretty safe position on this particular point.

I think you are therefore putting, and I don’t say this critically, what is really a hypothetical question. It could happen. But if it does happen that way we must assume the consequences, and if the people of South Vietnam should choose a Communist government, then we will have to accept the consequences of what would happen as far as the domino theory in the other areas.

Mr. Chancellor. In other words, live with it?

The President. We would have to live with it, and I would also suggest this: When we talk about the dominoes, I am not saying that automatically if South Vietnam should go the others topple one by one. I am only saying that in talking to every one of the Asian leaders, and I have talked to all of them. I have talked to Lee Kuan Yew—all of you know him from Singapore of course—and to the Tunku⁴ from Malaysia, the little countries, and to Suharto from Indonesia, and of course to Thanom and Thanat Khoman, the two major leaders in Thailand—I have talked to all of these leaders and every one of them to a man recognizes, and Sato of Japan recognizes, and of course the Koreans recognize that if the Communists succeed, not as a result of a free election—they are not thinking of that—but if they succeed as a result of exporting aggression and supporting it in toppling the government, then the message to them is, “Watch out, we might be next.”

That’s what is real. So, if they come in as a result of a free election, and I don’t think that is going to happen, the domino effect would not be as great.

[Omitted here are the concluding questions relating to Southeast Asia and the Middle East.]

1. Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard Nixon, 1970, pp. 546-549. The interview, conducted by Howard K. Smith of ABC, John Chancellor of NBC, and Eric Sevareid of CBS, was broadcast live at 7 p.m. on television and radio from an ABC studio in Los Angeles. The interview focused primarily on the fighting in Southeast Asia and, to a lesser extent, on U.S. policy in the Middle East.
2. On August 7, 1964, Congress responded to a North Vietnamese attack on U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin by passing a joint resolution expressing Congressional approval and support of the “determination of the President, as Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.” On August 10 President Johnson signed the joint resolution into law as Public Law 88-408. (78 Stat. 384)
3. Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, Under Secretary of State from 1966 to 1968. [Footnote in the source text.]
4. A Malaysian title meaning Prince or My Lord; Tunku Rahman Al-Haj was Prime Minister. [Footnote in the source text.]