[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 71 (Thursday, June 9, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 9, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
         HALDEMAN DIARIES ARE A REALITY CHECK ON KISSINGER LIES

                                 ______


                        HON. FORTNEY PETE STARK

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 8, 1994

  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I would like to enter in the Record a column 
from the May 26, 1994 Wall Street Journal that further documents the 
lies and revisionist history surrounding the late Nixon administration.
  The column, by Albert R. Hunt, speaks for itself.

              [From the Wall Street Journal, May 26, 1994]

                  Haldeman Diaries Are a Reality Check

                          (By Albert R. Hunt)

       ``Richard Nixon's foreign policy goals were long-range. And 
     he pursued them without regard to domestic political 
     consequences.''--Henry Kissinger's eulogy at Richard Nixon's 
     funeral, April 27, 1994.
       ``Henry [Kissinger] argues against a commitment * * * to 
     withdraw all combat troops because he feels that if we pull 
     them out by the end of '71, trouble can start mounting in '72 
     that we won't be able to deal with and which we'll have to 
     answer for at the elections. He prefers, instead, a 
     commitment to have them all out by the end of '72 so that we 
     won't have to deliver finally until after the elections.--Bob 
     Haldeman's White House diaries, Dec. 21, 1970.
       The recently released dairies of President Nixon's chief of 
     staff, H.R. Haldeman--a 681-page edited book version and 
     twice as much unedited text available electronically on CD-
     ROM--haven't gotten as much attention as they deserve. ABC-
     TV's ``Nightime'' did an excellent two-part series, but 
     otherwise they have been depicted as chiefly kiss-and-tell 
     stories.
       They are much more. Historian Stephen Ambrose, author of a 
     highly acclaimed three-part volume on Richard Nixon, says the 
     diaries are so valuable that he could write another book just 
     on them. These are much more revealing than episodic accounts 
     from the Nixon tapes: Practically every day of the Nixon 
     presidency Mr. Haldeman, more than anyone else, was with the 
     president; every day, with extraordinary discipline, the 
     chief of staff recorded the day's events. (Mr. Haldeman died 
     last November shortly after the diaries, many of which were 
     dictated, were full transcribed.)
       There's plenty of titillation for Watergate wallowers. The 
     coverup of White House misdeeds begins almost innocently but 
     then is clear. There's shocking antisemitic and antiblack 
     bigotry attributed, without any ambiguity, to Richard Nixon. 
     A mean-spirited paranoia permeates. President Nixon not only 
     sought to viciously smear political opponents, but even 
     deliberately planted falsehoods about a longtime friend, 
     Federal Reserve Board Chairman Arthur Burns, an act that the 
     president vehemently denied at the time. The president 
     repeatedly talks of the press, bureaucrats, academics and 
     Congress as ``out to get us,'' or less dispassionately as the 
     ``bastards who are here to screw us.''
       This dispels any lingering doubt that it was Richard Nixon 
     who set the tone and mood that led to the Watergate break-in, 
     to the infamous plumbers unit, to illegal wiretaps and 
     bugging, to trying to use the Internal Revenue Service for 
     political purposes and to abusing the FBI and CIA.
       But the diaries also provide fascinating glimpses of Mr. 
     Nixon as a leader. The buildup to the opening to China, and 
     Mr. Nixon's prescience, make that achievement seem even ore 
     impressive.
       An incredibly insightful account of presidential decision-
     making is contained in the seven pages on the 1971 weekend 
     when the president summoned all his top economic advisers for 
     a secret marathon meeting at Camp David. The result was the 
     decision to institute wage-and-price controls and go off the 
     gold standard. Many Nixonites later regretted these moves, 
     but the Haldeman book shows a president skillfully navigating 
     the political, domestic and international ramifications, and 
     the differences among powerful advisers like John Connally, 
     Arthur Burns, Paul Volcker and George Shultz.
       Mr. Ambrose, the Nixon historian, says that his research 
     suggests that the diaries are amazingly reliable. Jo 
     Haldeman, the author's widow, says her husband saw the 
     diaries as ``a valuable research source for historians'' that 
     would ``help put the Nixon presidency in better 
     perspective.''
       Both Ms. Haldeman and Prof. Ambrose agree that other than 
     Richard Nixon the book's central figure is Henry Kissinger; 
     it's not a flattering portrait. When Ms. Haldeman called Mr. 
     Kissinger some weeks ago to tell him about the book, he 
     expressed displeasure, suggesting it would be better if it 
     never were published.
       Mr. Kissinger, who says he hasn't read the book, 
     nevertheless suggests that many conversations ``may have been 
     taken out of context.'' Moreover, he questions Mr. Haldeman's 
     expertise: ``Haldeman was not a foreign policy man.''
       Nice try, Henry, but no dice. Mr. Haldeman, a Kissinger 
     admirer at the time, shows an incredibly petty and insecure 
     man. Mr. Kissinger threatens to resign on at least seven 
     occasions when he feels he's not getting his own way. The 
     spiteful personal feud he conducts with Secretary of State 
     William Rogers, whom he believes is ``out to get'' him, is so 
     constant that President Nixon complains about what an 
     ``emotional drain'' Mr. Kissinger is. Walter Isaacson, who 
     recently wrote a superb, if critical, biography of Mr. 
     Kissinger, says that after reading the Haldeman diaries he 
     fears he ``understated the paranoid atmosphere'' that 
     affected the Nixon White House in general and Henry 
     Kissinger in particular.
       But Mr. Kissinger's greatest flaw was Vietnam. The 
     president's foreign policy czar initially envisioned a get 
     tough policy the first year that would drive Hanoi to the 
     bargaining table. ``He [Mr. Kissinger] wants to push for some 
     escalation, enough to get us a reasonable bargain for a 
     settlement within six months,'' Mr. Haldeman reports on July 
     7, 1969. This became a familiar, and movable, refrain.
       ``If we just had one more dry season, the opponents would 
     break their backs,'' Mr. Kissinger tells the president in San 
     Clemente on Aug. 24, 1971, more than two years later. The 
     ever-loyal chief of staff couldn't resist adding: ``This, of 
     course, is the same line he's used for the last two years, 
     over and over * * * it's amazing how it sounds like a broken 
     record,'' From 1970 through 1972 almost 6,000 Americans lost 
     their lives in Vietnam.
       Today Mr. Kissinger still is one who perpetuates the myth 
     that Vietnam was lost not because of a flawed policy, but due 
     to a lack of political will at home. The facts are that for 
     seven years America had more than 150,000 troops in Vietnam, 
     reaching a peak of 536,100; that in current dollars we spent 
     almost a quarter of a trillion dollars on operational costs; 
     and that the U.S. dropped four times as many bombs as during 
     the entire Second World War.
       Henry Kissinger remains a central figure in American life 
     today, the darling of much of the business community, the 
     foreign policy establishment and the media. He's on the board 
     of CBS, writes a column for the Los Angeles Times syndicate, 
     and can command space or airtime for his views almost at his 
     convenience. The next time Mr. Kissinger is pronouncing on 
     some momentous event, take a look at the Haldeman diaries. 
     They're a good reality check.

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