American Experience: Nixon
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Will LymanDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown)
Format: NTSC
Running Time: 170 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-08-26
Studio: PBS (Direct)
Movie Reviews of American Experience: Nixon
Movie Review: Best President Ever
Summary: 5 Stars
Richard Nixon died on April 22, 1994. His family held a funeral service five days later, on April 27. Robert Dole gave a speech at the funeral.
"I believe the second half of the 20th century will be known as the age of Nixon," said Senator Dole. "It is true that no one knew the world better than Richard Nixon. And as a result, the man who was born in a house his father built would go on to become this century's greatest architect of peace."
"Strong, brave, unafraid of controversy, unyielding in his convictions, living every day of his life to the hilt, the largest figure of our time whose influence will be timeless -- that was Richard Nixon," said Senator Dole.
It is ironic that Senator Dole spoke so highly of Richard Nixon. Most Americans do not have a favorable opinion of his presidency. Most Americans remember Nixon for Watergate. Historians take a similarly dim view of his presidency.
I think Senator Dole has a better understanding of history than the historians and the public. Nixon ended the Vietnam War. But not only did he end the war, he ended it in a way that brought lasting peace to East Asia.
Nixon could have ended the war much sooner. The terms of the peace agreement signed in January of 1973 were almost identical to the terms that the Johnson administration nearly achieved in the fall of 1968. The Johnson administration may have been able to achieve those terms, had the Nixon campaign not intervened. The Johnson administration had been negotiating with the Vietnamese in Paris since May of 1968. Henry Kissinger participated in those negotiations. On October 31, Kissinger told the Nixon campaign that there had been a breakthrough in the negotiations. A peace agreement seemed like a done deal. America would stop bombing Vietnam and final negotiations would start. But three days before the election, South Vietnamese President Thieu failed to attend negotiations. Nixon persuaded him not to.
We may not have achieved anything more in Vietnam by prolonging the war, but the Nixon administration did achieve other things. And it may have needed to prolong the Vietnam War to achieve those things. Besides ending the war, the Nixon administration achieved two other crucial objectives. It returned Okinawa to Japan and it began the process of normalizing relations with China.
America controlled the islands of Okinawa after World War II. Japan demanded that America return those islands. You cannot overstate the importance of this issue for Japan.
"The importance of the issue in this country was emphasized by Premier Eisaku Sato yesterday when he stated that the postwar period will not have ended and Japan will not have achieved complete independence until she regains control over Okinawa and the Soviet-held islands in the Kurile group that Japan claims," said the New York Times.
From the start, the Nixon administration told Japan that America would return Okinawa. But interestingly, Japan adopted a negotiating strategy that delayed an agreement.
On January 14, 1969, Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Sato discussed the reversion of Okinawa with Ambassador Takezo Shimoda, and Chief Cabinet Secretary Shigeru Hori. In that meeting, they talked about whether or not Japan should allow America to store its nuclear weapons in Okinawa after the reversion. Ambassador Shimoda argued that America would insist on maintaining a nuclear arsenal on Okinawa.
"A `homeland-level' reversion could well be achieved quickly, but if we argue for a `denuclearized reversion' as a condition for reversion, I believe that a rapid decision will be extremely difficult to obtain, given the current international situation," said Ambassador Shimoda.
America had its reasons for wanting to keep nuclear weapons on Okinawa. America had to maintain a nuclear deterrent that North Korea considered credible. Without a credible nuclear deterrent, North Korea might have invaded South Korea, starting another Korean War. America told Japan this much in a meeting between Takeo Miki and Alexis Johnson on May 27, 1968. During that meeting, Johnson said that North Korea monitored American capabilities and that America needed to store its nuclear weapons on Okinawa to maintain those capabilities.
Nevertheless, in the meeting held in January of 1969, Prime Minister Sato instructed Ambassador Shimoda to negotiate for a denuclearized revision of Okinawa. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hori thought Prime Minister Sato had made a bold decision.
"I realized that Sato had displayed true leadership, executing a once-in-a-lifetime decision," said Hori.
Japan probably took this position to prolong the negotiations. Keeping the Okinawa issue open gave Japan a certain amount of leverage over America. By not reclaiming Okinawa immediately, the Japanese public could maintain its anger at America for keeping what belonged to them. Japan could use that anger as a threat to end its relationship with America. Japan needed to maintain this threat because Japan wanted at least two other things, in addition to Okinawa.
"One of the most serious and long-standing strains in the Japanese-American relationship has resulted from the popular feeling in Japan that, because of geographic propinquity to China, long and close cultural association, and economic interests, Japanese have much more reason than Americans to seek fuller and friendlier ties with Communist China, but are prevented from doing so by their close association with a stubborn and shortsighted America," said Edwin Reischauer, the former American ambassador to Japan.
Japan also wanted changes in Indochina. France had colonized Indochina before World War II. At the end of World War II, Japan helped the Vietnamese Communist Party overthrow the Nguyen Dynasty.
On August 15, 1945, the day that Japan surrendered, the Communist Party of Vietnam concluded its second national congress and adopted a resolution proclaiming its intention to seize power in Vietnam. Over the next few weeks, the party led uprisings in Hanoi, Thua Thien-Hue, and Saigon. On August 30, 1945, Bao Dai abdicated his thrown and on September 2, the same day that Japan participated in the surrender ceremony on the Missouri, Ho Chi Minh read the Declaration of Independence of Vietnam. The next day, Japan ousted the French government in Vietnam. France tried to reestablish colonial rule over Vietnam after the war, but failed. It fought the Vietnamese for nearly eight years.
I am sure that Japan wanted a similar outcome in Cambodia. But in the immediate aftermath of World War II, France did not have the same problem in Cambodia that it had in Vietnam. Richard Nixon seemed willing to change that. In his October 1967 article in Foreign Affairs, Nixon argued that America needed to involve itself in the countries next to China.
"Only as the nations of non-communist Asia become so strong -- economically, politically and militarily -- that they no longer furnish tempting targets for Chinese aggression, will the leaders in Peking be persuaded to turn their energies inward rather than outward," said Richard Nixon. "And that will be the time when the dialogue with mainland China can begin."
During the Vietnam War, Cambodia allowed the North Vietnamese to establish military bases inside its territory, near the border. The Nixon administration started bombing those bases in 1969. We also helped overthrow the Cambodian government. On March 18, 1970, Lon Nol deposed Norodom Sihanouk in an American backed coup.
Japan probably wanted to wait for Nixon to overthrow the regime in Cambodia and to make his trip to China before resolving the Okinawa issue. It appears that America tried to short circuit this tactic.
On April 30, 1969, the NSC held its own meeting on the reversion of Okinawa. During that meeting, the American government made the decision to allow a denuclearized reversion to occur as a last resort.
"If we obtained a satisfactory understanding for the use of the bases for the defense of Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam, Nixon would return Okinawa to Japanese sovereignty and take into account Japanese sensitivities on the nuclear issue-in other words, he implied that he might not insist on the right to store nuclear weapons in Okinawa," said Henry Kissinger.
The New York Times leaked this decision, presumably to put pressure on Japan. But Japan called their bluff, according to Priscilla Clapp.
"No indication has been found, however, to suggest that the Japanese negotiating team either noticed or placed much faith in the New York Times report," said Priscilla Clapp.
"Whatever expectations may have existed on either side of the negotiating table, the circumstances behind this intricate process demonstrate a principal lesson of diplomacy-namely, the need to acquire as much information as possible about conditions in the country with which one is negotiating," said Wakaizumi Kei.
In a summit between Richard Nixon and Eisaku Sato held in November of 1969, America did agree to return Okinawa. This summit did occur before Nixon made his historic trip to China. But the two sides didn't agree on the exact date for the reversion until later, after they completed negotiations on another issue - textile export restrictions. America wanted Japan to restrict its textile exports. It wanted an agreement on textiles by the end of 1969. It didn't get it. Both sides fought over this issue very strenuously for a few years.
"For Kissinger, his involvement in the U.S.-Japan textiles negotiations was to become a source of `later regret,' and he and I were not the only participants who expressed (or rather were made to express) disappointment," said Wakaizumi Kei. "Most others felt the same way. For example, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, Armin Meyer, has commented that the textiles issue was a lengthy and sorry affair, causing him more trouble than any other issue during his three-year posting in Japan. In his view, it served to poison the bilateral atmosphere to a degree completely out of proportion to its actual importance."
On July 15, 1971, Nixon finally made his announcement that he would visit China. Next year, on January 3, Japan and America completed an agreement on textiles. Three days later, on January 6, America agreed to return Okinawa on May 15th. Nixon went to China on February 21. On September 29, Japan normalized its relations with China. On January 27, 1973, America and Vietnam signed the Paris Peace Accords, ending American involvement in the Vietnam War.
Despite the fact that America lost the Vietnam War, Communism did not spread uncontrollably throughout East Asia. Had America not returned Okinawa and had Nixon not gone to China, East Asia might have seen a very different outcome.
But Communism did spread to Cambodia. To understand what happened, you need to know who Pol Pot was. Pol Pot was the son of a wealthy landowner in central Cambodia. At the age of nine, he went to Phnom Penh to study. He attended a French Catholic school. At the age of 24, Pol Pot went to Paris to study. At that time, Communism was very popular in Paris. Pol Pot became a Communist in 1951. While in Paris, Pol Pot and his friends decided that they would try to overthrow the French colonial regime and impose Communism. In 1952, he wrote an article denouncing the Cambodian monarchy in a student magazine.
"The Cambodian people are kept as slaves, made to work night and day to feed the king and his entourage," said Pol Pot. "Monarchy is a malodorous running sore that just people must eliminate."
At that time, Norodom Sihanouk led the monarchy.
Pol Pot returned to Indochina in 1953 and joined forces with the Vietnamese Communists at the end of their war with France. The various parties signed a peace agreement in Geneva in 1954. According to the agreement, Cambodia would gain its independence from France, but the monarchy would remain. Pol Pot said he objected to the peace agreement because it maintained the Cambodian monarchy. Despite the fact that he fought along side the Vietnamese during their war with the French, he maintained an adversarial relation with them.
"Pol Pot came to fear the Vietnamese," said Ieng Sary. "We did not trust the Vietnamese Communists because we thought one day they would swallow us."
After the war, Pol Pot became a teacher at a high school in Phnom Penh. During this time, he secretly started to recruit other Cambodians to the cause of Communism. He became the leader of a secret society of Communists in 1962. Soon afterward, Pol Plot had to flee Phnom Penh due to a crack down led by Sihanouk. Pol Pot fled to the Vietnamese border. While there, he once again reconnected with the Vietnamese Communists, despite his distrust of them. Sihanouk allowed the Vietnamese Communists to station some of their military bases near the border.
After the Vietnam War ended, Pol Pot and those loyal to him continued to fight against the regime in Phnom Penh. Lon Nol had already deposed of Sihanouk by then. In his bid to gain support of the people, Pol Pot did the unthinkable. He allied himself with Sihanouk, the man he had railed against all his life. The group of Communists led by Pol Pot was called the Khmer Rouge. Their alliance with Sihanouk proved decisive.
"Now this small band of Khmer Rouge who had been headed towards oblivion is suddenly given a new lease on life," said Kenneth Quinn, the former U.S. ambassador to Cambodia.
The Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975. Immediately upon their arrival, they force evacuated the entire city. Pol Pot wanted to establish an agrarian society, similar to the one that existed in Cambodia in the 12th century, when Cambodia built Angkor Wat. The Khmer Rouge forced Cambodians to replace their modern technology with the technology used during that period.
"The Angkorian culture was held up by Pol Pot as the ideal," said Ambassador Quinn. "It was the period of pure, pristine Khmer culture to which Pol Pot wanted to return."
The Khmer Rouge killed anyone who had an education. In total, it killed 2 million people during its reign. In December of 1978, Vietnam invaded Cambodia and brought an end to the Khmer Rouge regime.
I believe that France controlled both Sihanouk and Pol Pot. Remember that Pol Pot got his education in Paris and became a Communist while living there.
I think the West often tries to control not only the governments of various countries, I think they also try to control the opposition in those countries as well. In fact, I think controlling the opposition is perhaps their primary method of controlling the regime in power. If the regime in power doesn't behave, the opposition can threaten to overthrow the government. I think the West does this in much of the Middle East, for example, in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. In the end, if need be, the West can always have the opposition team up with the existing powers in the country, just like Pol Pot did with Sihanouk after the Vietnam War ended. Note that if Pol Pot was really sincere in his opposition to Sihanouk, he would not have joined forces with him.
I believe that France had the Khmer Rouge killed two million of its citizens in retaliation for the American backed coup in 1970. I think France decided it needed to do something in protest of our actions. It couldn't kill Americans because that would lead to a war that France would surely lose. Instead, it killed a bunch of innocent people. America didn't like that, but that's not something that America would go to war over, especially if it couldn't prove for certain that France did it. By the way, I think France did something similar during the Rwandan genocide. I am not 100% sure that France is responsible for the Rwandan genocide, but I would note that France armed the Hutu before the genocide. Not even France disputes that fact. Furthermore, on February 25, Nicolas Sarkozy practically apologized for the genocide, saying that France made "serious errors of appreciation" that had "dramatic consequences."
I think I know something about how the West manages to radicalize people like Pol Pot. I think they use drugs and sleep deprivation. How do I know this? Because I think they are trying to do it to me.