Known and Unknown - Donald Rumsfeld [57]
But that was half a world away. And when tensions lessened over Cyprus, I welcomed the chance for some time away from official business with my family. En route to Grimaud, Joyce purchased a copy of the International Herald Tribune. She was so absorbed in it that I noticed she wasn’t paying the slightest attention to the picturesque countryside along the French coast.
“Don,” she finally said, with a tone of unusual insistence, “I think you should stop and read this.”
I knew that what had caught Joyce’s attention had to be something to do with Watergate, but we didn’t talk about those problems in the car, because mentions of the scandal seemed to bother our seven-year-old son, Nick, who had met Nixon several times. I had taken Nick with me on my last visit with the President in the Oval Office before leaving for NATO headquarters in Belgium. Having the undivided attention of our nation’s commander in chief—who allowed Nick to sit in his chair—had left a strong impression on him. So Joyce and I avoided discussing accusations against the President when Nick was within earshot.
I was not all that eager to learn the bad news, either, so I kept driving until we reached a beach where our kids could go swimming. I took Nick’s hand and walked with him across the white sand. As our son saw for the first time what passed for typical swim attire for women on a Mediterranean beach, his expression was one of amazed innocence. He had not seen anything like that along the shores of Lake Michigan. It was another reminder that the Rumsfelds were a long way from home.
Eventually, I sat down on the sand and turned my attention to the newspaper. President Nixon, the reports said, might be close to resigning. Despite his deteriorating political and legal situation, I never thought he’d actually have to surrender the office. I thought at worst he might be forced to accept a reduced presidency with less influence. Knowing the tenacious Richard M. Nixon, I found it hard to envision him giving up. If the news stories were accurate, however, it seemed that my friend from my days in the Congress, Vice President Gerald R. Ford, could become president of the United States.
Early that evening we arrived at Ambassador de Staercke’s house. De Staercke had assembled an eclectic group for dinner, including the Belgian ambassador to the United Kingdom, Baron Robert Rothschild, and Brigitte Bardot’s business manager. While the gravity of the situation in Washington, D.C., had become clearer to Joyce and me, the European dinner guests were surprised by the Herald Tribune’s assessment that the situation might be coming to a head. To the Europeans, Watergate seemed a relatively minor problem. Even Nixon’s secret tapings in the White House were shrugged off as not particularly unusual.
My secretary at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Leona Goodell, telephoned de Staercke’s house to tell me that an aide from Vice President Ford’s office was trying to reach me, and shortly thereafter his call came through. The Grimaud telephone switchboard was not used to receiving calls from the White House, and our dinner companions began to appreciate the seriousness of the matter. The Vice President’s aide made it clear that Ford wanted me to fly back to Washington at once. We all stayed up and listened to President Nixon’s dramatic remarks to the nation. “I have never been a quitter,” the President said solemnly. Then Richard Nixon did exactly that, announcing that he would resign his office at noon the very next day. The man who had spent much of his adult life in pursuit of the White House was suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, returning to his home in San Clemente, California.
CHAPTER 7
1968: Year of Turmoil