One Of Us: Richard Nixon And The American Dream
Wicker's theme is that Nixon personified a lamentable twentieth-century American preference for power over ideas-"one of us" even while being "a man alone, a man who was not much loved because he could not love." The book's strength derives from the author's insights and years of direct observation rather than from new research. The attention to the domestic as well as the international achievements of the Nixon presidency is admirable.
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During Richard Nixon's first term, when I served as secretary of defense, we withdrew most U.S. forces from Vietnam while building up the South's ability to defend itself. The result was a success -- until Congress snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by cutting off funding for our ally in 1975. Washington should follow a similar strategy now, but this time finish the job properly.
Since September of 1970 a renewal of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis has been in prospect Highly placed White House sources reported that the Soviet Union had begun work on a submarine base on the southern coast of Cuba at Cienfuegos, a base which could repair and refuel missile-firing submarines of the Soviet Navy. Warnings were issued that this would be viewed with the "utmost seriousness" by the United States as a violation of the 1962 agreement by which land-based missiles were withdrawn from Cuba. Cited explicitly were President Kennedy's words that peace would be assured only "if all offensive missiles are removed from Cuba and kept out of the Hemisphere in the future."
Our reactions to Soviet foreign policy have a way of jumping from one extreme to another, both in the long and short run, with more regard for changing superficial appearances than permanent objective factors. During the last year of the Second World War, we tended to idealize the Russians, Stalin became "Uncle Joe" to be charmed by Roosevelt into coöperation, and the United Nations, having done away with "power politics," was supposed to be the vehicle of that coöperation. From 1947 onwards, the Kremlin was perceived as the headquarters of the devil on earth, causing all that was wrong with the world and, more particularly, scheming the destruction of the United States. These extreme swings of the pendulum can also be observed in much shorter time spans.
