Known and Unknown - Donald Rumsfeld [85]
Belgium undoubtedly seemed a world away to those in Washington mired in Watergate, but NATO was also embroiled in a serious crisis. Two of our NATO allies, Greece and Turkey, had a long history of differences over Cyprus, an island inhabited by both Greeks and Turks. Their disagreements had come to a boiling point during the summer of 1974, when Turkey invaded Cyprus. The dispute posed a difficult dilemma for the alliance.* NATO was established as a military alliance to deter and defend its member states against external threats—not conflicts between its members. Because Washington was consumed with Watergate, I received little or no guidance during much of the crisis.
I was being urged by Secretary General Luns to assert the weight and influence of the United States to help resolve the issue; he may have assumed that I had the authority to do that, and also undoubtedly hoped that the United States had the capability to step in and calm those ancient and intractable differences.9 That was not the only reason I declined to return to Washington when Haig called. It wasn’t at all clear what I could conceivably do. At the end of our phone call, Haig told me he understood my reasons for not returning to Washington, and as far as he was concerned the matter was settled.†
As a result, I was not present at the White House less than three weeks later, on August 8, 1974, when President Nixon announced his resignation. Nor was I present to see that now famous wave Nixon gave as he prepared to board Marine One—smiling, with his arms raised in an awkward swoop, and his fingers curiously signaling “V” for victory.
I had, however, seen a similar wave by Nixon some years earlier when he gave a speech in San Jose, California. It was an episode that had stuck in my mind. Outside the large hall there was a sizable gathering of angry anti-Vietnam war protesters held back by a fence. As Nixon came out to get in his car in the motorcade, they shouted at him and waved hostile signs.
Instead of getting into his car, Nixon climbed atop something so he could be better seen by the mob. Then he had made the same gesture that he made as he left the White House—the same forced grin, the same swoop of the arms, the same “V” for victory.
The message was clear, both times: Richard Milhous Nixon was determined not to let his opponents get the best of him.
In the years immediately after Nixon’s resignation, there was a sense among a number of us that we had emerged from a shared disaster. When Bill Safire sent me the book he wrote about his days in the Nixon administration, Before the Fall, he inscribed it: “To Don Rumsfeld—fellow survivor.”
Another survivor of Watergate, in a way, was Richard Nixon himself. Anyone who saw and felt the physical impact on Nixon of Watergate and the long impeachment process, capped by his resignation, exile, and subsequent serious illness, had to be surprised by his truly amazing comeback. But he was a most unusual human being. He seemed unable to accept defeat. Instead, he went to work using his impressive strength and fine mind to contribute to the national and international dialogue on important public issues.
I don’t know to this day how to reconcile the man I knew with the tragedies that he inflicted on himself and the nation. Like the man, the Nixon era defied easy definition. His administration