For my write-up today on volume 2 of Richard Nixon's memoirs, I'll
talk about whether Watergate hindered President Nixon in terms of his
foreign policy.
Nixon says a couple of
times in this book that he was afraid that Watergate would undermine the
Chief Executive and thereby reduce his leverage in terms of negotiating
foreign policy. There were people in the press at the time who thought
the same sort of thing: that Nixon would not be able to arrive
at a good arms deal with Brezhnev of the Soviet Union because Nixon
would probably make too many concessions to the Soviets for the reason
that he needed a success in foreign policy to alleviate the domestic
difficulties he was experiencing, or because the Soviets would hold out
because they'd know that Nixon wouldn't be President for much longer and
thus they might get a better deal from his successor. In the
eyes of Nixon's detractors in the press, Watergate was taking away any
negotiating leverage Nixon might have to deal with the Soviets.
Nixon
himself was apprehensive that Watergate could undermine his foreign
policy. That, Nixon seems to imply, is one reason that he resigned the
Presidency rather than submit to six months of impeachment hearings. And yet, Nixon also appears to argue that, notwithstanding Watergate, his foreign policy was still going all right.
He said that Henry Kissinger was being attacked as a perjurer because
"even while the full-scale attempt to impeach me was under way, he had
the effrontery to show the nation and the world that the United States
under my leadership was still able to command respect in the world and
achieve significant results despite the drag of Watergate" (page 584).
Regarding
Brezhnev, Nixon narrates that Brezhnev respected Nixon for being a
fighter, that Brezhnev expected for Nixon to remain in office until
1976, and that Brezhnev thought it was important that he and Nixon do
what they could for the cause of peace. And, even though Nixon
and Brezhnev did not arrive at a SALT agreement at Summit III, they
still made some progress, particularly on arms control: "the threshold
test ban, further restrictions on ABMs, agreements to seek controls on
environmental warfare and for cooperation in energy, the opening of
additional consulates in both countries, and, most important, the oral
agreement I made with Brezhnev for a mini-summit before the end of 1974
for the purpose of reaching agreement on limitations of offensive
nuclear weapons" (pages 620-621). (Nixon on page 611 defines a
threshold test ban: "nuclear weapons could be tested as long as they did
not cross a certain threshold of size and force." According to Nixon,
"on-the-ground verification" was unnecessary to ensure compliance with
this ban, for seismic equipment could determine when there were
infractions.)
Nixon does not believe that Watergate hindered
Summit III, but rather that there were other factors: that Brezhnev may
have had difficulty defending detente to Soviet conservatives because
Nixon failed to get Most-Favored Nation trade status for the Soviet
Union (due to political problems that existed prior to Watergate), and
because people in the U.S. were making a big deal about the Jews who
were trying to leave the Soviet Union. Plus, the military
establishments in the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. did not particularly want
arms control. This discussion by Nixon was ironic, for, on page
607, Nixon quotes a diary entry in which he (Nixon) said that the
Secretary General of the Soviet Union could carry out a decision that he
makes, for he doesn't have to concern himself a great deal with public
opinion, whereas the President of the United States can't be certain
that his "decision will be carried out." Nixon may be admiring the
Soviet system, here! And yet, Nixon later in the book seems to indicate
that even Brezhnev on some level had to concern himself with public
opinion, particularly the views of Soviet conservatives and the military
establishment.