Nixon acknowledged “the problem in Vietnam is very difficult. We must recognize that neither side can win or suffer defeat.” Nixon went on to explain why the United States could not simply pull out of Vietnam. Too many troops were committed: more than 500,000. “To withdraw and let Hanoi take over would be a defeat.” He added, “Look at our position: We stopped the bombing, have offered to negotiate seriously, will withdraw more troops, have offered elections in which the VC [Viet Cong] have an equal chance. Yet Hanoi has given absolutely no indication that they are willing to talk substance.”52
After noting that an agreement between the United States and North Vietnam could improve relations between the US and China and maybe even the Soviet Union, Nixon firmly stated that “I want peace, but I will never accept defeat and will not have the U.S. humiliated by Hanoi. What may be necessary here is to open another channel of communications.”
Kissinger jumped in, adding, “We have no thought of humiliating Hanoi.… But at every meeting they treat us as if we are school boys taking examinations in their 10 points, and discuss nothing else.” The National Liberation Front (NLF, also known as the Viet Cong) had issued a “ten-point overall solution” in May. It included US troop withdrawal and the creation of a coalition government. Nixon countered with his own eight-point plan on television the following week, calling for mutual troop removal and accepting the prospect of a neutral South Vietnam.53
Ceauşescu asked if the United States was ready to accept “a coalition government of South Vietnam to resolve the problem of South Vietnam.”
As Nixon responded, “I want to emphasize why we cannot agree to a coalition (a hard word for us).…”
“Change the word,” Ceauşescu offered.
Nixon said the US would withdraw all troops “tomorrow” if North Vietnam did the same. He was unwilling to bend when asked if he would “dump Thieu and form a coalition government.” As Ceauşescu observed, “This is no solution.” They ended the conversation with plans for Kissinger and Ceauşescu to establish a direct channel of communication through the Romanian Embassy.54
Although journalists considered various theories for why Nixon visited Romania, they agreed that it signaled Nixon’s commitment to détente. The Times of India went as far as to comment that “Rumania, because of friendly relations with Peking and Hanoi, can prove of considerable assistance to him,” a prescient observation.55 London’s Sunday Telegraph suggested that Operation Moonglow tour “may well go down in history as the most momentous American Presidential voyage since Roosevelt’s journeys to the great wartime summits.” Not only that, the paper considered it the “end of America’s attempt to make her physical and political presence dominant throughout the noncommunist world.” It was an end to the Domino Theory, the paper suggested.56
Kissinger told Nixon that “the visit was seen as evidence of a fresh and positive initiative in American policy towards the Soviet Bloc.” Not surprisingly, “The Soviets and their close friends… could scarcely be expected to applaud,” but foreign reaction in general was “very positive and frequently perceptive.” There were even a number of attempts to draw connections between the visit and the United States’ China policy.57
On August 4, the day after Nixon’s private meeting with Ceauşescu, Kissinger had his first secret meeting with the North Vietnamese. In his memoir, Nixon calls the story “an extraordinary one, full of classic cloak-and-dagger episodes, with Kissinger riding slouched down in the back seats of speeding Citroens, eluding inquisitive reporters, and putting curious embassy officials off the scent.”58 The official pretext for the meeting hinged on Operation Moonglow: the claim that Kissinger must brief French president Georges Pompidou and prime minister Jacques Chaban-Delmas on Nixon’s Apollo-themed diplomatic tour.59
From Romania, Kissinger flew directly to France. Late in the day he told staff at the American Embassy that he wanted to see the Parisian sights. Instead, he headed straight to Rue de Rivoli, passing by the Musée de l’Orangerie with its remarkable collection of impressionist and postimpressionist art. Journalists were not covering his movements at this point, so he made his way undetected. Just half a mile from the embassy, and overlooking the Tuileries Gardens, Kissinger stopped at number 204. He opened a wooden door wedged between a souvenir shop and a jewelry store. After making his way along a tiled passageway, he passed a classical-style statue before ascending a red-carpeted staircase. A small elevator took him to the second floor.60
Jean Sainteny, the retired French diplomat who passed Nixon’s messages to the North Vietnamese in July, welcomed Kissinger to his apartment. Kissinger had arrived thirty minutes early because he was nervous. This would be his first time as the principal in a negotiation. Sainteny showed him to the living room, which was decorated in artifacts from Vietnam. A set of sofas faced each other. “I hope if you disagree you will not throw the crockery at each other,” Sainteny kidded.
Xuan Thuy arrived right on time. Described as a “slight, smiling man,” both articulate and the consummate diplomat, Thuy headed North Vietnam’s negotiating team. He and his interpreter sat facing the window overlooking the gardens while Kissinger and his interpreter took their place directly across from them.61
The meeting left Kissinger optimistic. He told Nixon it was “business-like and serious, but conducted in a fairly easy manner.” Over three and a half hours, Kissinger laid out a proposal for the mutual withdrawal of troops, free elections, and the opening of a secret communications channel to aid negotiations, all while emphasizing his appreciation for the honor of the North Vietnamese people. The US wanted to end the conflict by November 1, Kissinger explained. Although Kissinger’s proposal mirrored what Nixon had told other leaders on the Operation Moonglow tour, it was far more detailed and comprehensive. Thuy proposed the complete withdrawal of US troops as well as the removal of the president, vice president, and prime minister of South Vietnam from office, followed by the creation of a coalition government with the Communists. These were terms the United States could not accept, but Kissinger found Thuy’s connection of the withdrawal of North Vietnam’s forces with the withdrawal of US troops “clear and significant.”62
This meeting did not end the war. It did not even alter the course of the war. But it did initiate a channel of secret communication between the United States and North Vietnam. Many more secret meetings would follow, eventually settling on negotiations that led to the agreement ratified at the Paris Peace Accords in 1973 to establish peace in Vietnam.63
While Kissinger spoke in secret with the North Vietnamese, Nixon flew back to Washington on August 3. The pouring rain at Andrews Air Force Base did not dampen his spirits. To a crowd of three thousand he said that “America has millions of friends in this world.” Thrilled by his reception in Romania the day before, Nixon gave a short speech about how “people [in Bucharest] were out by the hundreds of thousands, not ordered by their Government, but cheering and shouting, not against anybody but simply showing their affection and friendship for the people of the United States.” The experience moved him, he said.64
Nixon felt strongly about sustaining the momentum of Apollo’s popularity and political impact for as long as possible. Once the Apollo 11 crew members left quarantine, they were cheered by millions at ticker-tape parades across the country. On August 13 Nixon threw an elaborate dinner in the crew’s honor at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. Members of Congress, foreign representatives, and Nixon’s Cabinet rubbed elbows with Hollywood stars, astronauts, and aerospace executives. Nixon, “in an exuberant mood,” hosted what was the “most publicized state dinner in history.” Military bands played moon-themed songs, such as “Fly Me to the Moon,” and for dessert guests were served “Claire de Lune, a concoction of marzipan, raisins, and meringue, with an American flag on top.” In front of his many guests and for the broader television audience watching the dinner live, Nixon said that on his recent Operation Moonglow tour, he learned “what the astronauts meant to the world.” The cro
wds in Bucharest, he recounted, held up pictures of Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins: “That is certainly the way to bring the world together.”65
11
GIANTSTEP: THE APOLLO 11
DIPLOMATIC TOUR, 1969
The visit of our astronauts abroad constitutes one of the effective policy vehicles available to us.
—HENRY KISSINGER, 1969
“The President is most anxious that the Apollo 11 astronauts commence their world-wide trip as soon as possible,” wrote Peter Flanigan to NASA Administrator Thomas Paine in mid-August, 1969.1 Flanigan was one of Nixon’s most trusted and influential aides. His dominant role in the Nixon administration led to nicknames like “mini-president” and the “most evil” man in Washington.2 With each subsequent memo that Flanigan wrote, the high priority the White House placed on the diplomatic tour, as well as Nixon’s growing frustration, became increasingly apparent. The stakes were high, and Flanigan soon let NASA and the State Department know that the White House was taking over Apollo 11 tour planning. “The President has given the White House staff the responsibility for reconstructing this schedule,” he explained to Julian Scheer, NASA assistant administrator for public affairs.3
Over the next few weeks, the president and his most trusted aides, including Kissinger, Flanigan, and Haldeman, took a hands-on role in selecting each stop on the Giantstep worldwide diplomatic tour. This cadre, made up of some of the most powerful men in the world in 1969, attests to how tour planning was geopolitical chess at the highest level. Despite other pressing issues, such as weekly anti–Vietnam War protests, the Vietnam War itself, the Manson family murders, and the Woodstock festival’s music electrifying upstate New York, the Giantstep tour captured Nixon’s attention in August 1969. The president’s irritated response to Hungary’s refusal to host the astronauts would indicate how seriously Nixon treated the Giantstep tour. Against advice from the NSC, Nixon demanded reassessing bilateral relations with the Soviet Bloc country. Nixon’s reaction, and the negative impact of the tour on US-Hungarian relations, suggests that space diplomacy not only reached the top levels of Washington but that it also altered the course of US foreign relations.
A few months earlier, requests and suggestions for tour stops from ambassadors, public affairs officers, senators and representatives, and even foreign leaders poured in to the White House, the State Department, and NASA. For example, Illinois representative Paul Findley wrote to Secretary of State William Rogers urging the State Department to start scheduling a post-mission diplomatic tour “as soon and extensively as possible.” Although Findley had originally voted against Project Apollo—as well as Social Security, rural electrification, the Peace Corps, Medicare, and any other federal programs he could vote against—not only did he come to recognize the foreign relations potential of the lunar landing, but he also became a vocal champion for space diplomacy.4 As he stressed, “Across the world, the enormity of the accomplishment [lunar landing] has created a reservoir of goodwill toward the American people.” Take advantage of this goodwill, Findley argued to Rogers, especially within the Western Hemisphere: “To the south, priority attention from our astronauts would heighten the prestige of the United States as could no amount of foreign-aid dollars and help erase the memory of the disappointments and disagreeable events of recent years.”5
A similar call came from politicians looking to foster goodwill toward the US in Africa. John E. Reinhardt, the USIA’s assistant director who had outlined the proper tone and approach to promoting the moon landing abroad for all USIA posts, sent a memo listing capitals in Africa that would have the “highest potential for favorable impact in support of U.S. policy goals” by the astronauts’ visit. Reinhardt would soon become one of Kissinger’s closest advisors on Africa policy. He saw the astronauts’ visit not only as a way to boost US prestige but also as an effective means for boosting the status of American-friendly regimes in Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tunisia, Ghana, and Morocco.6
At Under Secretary of State U. Alexis Johnson’s request, a Committee on Astronaut Travel, composed of State Department, NASA, and USIA officials, began planning an itinerary. Johnson, who would later shepherd the first strategic arms limitation treaty with the Soviet Union, had experience in space policy matters and participated in the White House’s post-Apollo planning. Over the course of August 1969 the committee debated the guidelines for the tour, selected the cities the astronauts would visit, and coordinated with foreign embassies. The tour selection involved a number of criteria, including foreign relations’ relevance to the United States, the potential enthusiasm of the public in various countries, the location of cooperative scientific programs or tracking stations, and a manageable itinerary. The first region of priority was Latin America, followed by Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. The committee recommended that the astronauts visit each city for roughly two days, which would allow for a brief rest between public events.7 NASA would supply a “chief of mission,” a “mission director,” and eleven additional supporting staff, accompanied by four people from the USIA and one from the State Department.8
Before plans were put in place, the State Department wrote to diplomats stationed in potential astronaut tour stops to see how the visit would be managed there, what the crowd reaction would be like, and when heads of state would be available to receive the crew. The American Embassy in Rawalpindi assured the State Department that the astronauts would receive a warm welcome in Pakistan and an especially “tumultuous welcome” in Dacca. The embassy in Tehran guaranteed the State Department that given the “almost emotional interest generated here by Apollo 11, we [feel] certain [that the] astronaut presence will be received with tremendous popular acclaim.” The shah of Iran had a number of upcoming trips scheduled, so it would be best if the Apollo 11 crew could visit before October 2, according to the embassy. The embassy in Mexico also eagerly encouraged an astronaut visit to Mexico City, explaining that the “intensity of Mexican admiration derives from special kinship engendered by saturation [of] television/press/radio simultaneous coverage of Apollo exploits by popular Mexican commentators” as well as the tracking station located in Guaymas.9
Enthusiastic requests arrived from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. “Coming at a time when the Arabs believe the US is turning its back on them,” a USIA official explained, a visit of the astronauts to Lebanon would have “a powerful and favorable effect on Arab public opinion from the UAR to Iraq, particularly in those nations with whom we do not have diplomatic relations but who nevertheless gave wide-spread, enthusiastic coverage of the Apollo 11 mission.” And in India, a visit “would represent convincing evidence of our recognition of that country’s important place in the world community of nations.”10
Astronaut John Glenn, who had just visited Japan, weighed in on a postflight tour as well. He told Nixon that it was crucial for the US to send astronauts to Japan, in particular, to counteract negative public opinion toward the United States. Nixon thanked Glenn for his “valuable and perceptive remarks about the usefulness of a trip of this nature” and assured him that the recommendation would “receive very careful consideration” by the State Department and NASA.11 The USIA supported the suggestion but recognized that it should “not expect that criticism from Japanese opposition groups relating to Viet-Nam, Okinawa and the US-Japan Security Treaty will diminish significantly as a result [of the visit].” Public opinion polls taken in Japan indicated harsh criticism of certain US policies but general admiration for the United States, suggesting that the astronaut tour would have little impact on the acceptance of these policies.12
By mid-August, Nixon was “dismayed” by the tour planning. He felt that many of the countries on the list were “unimportant.” Nixon asked Flanigan twice within a few days to make it clear to NASA and the State Department that the White House staff would be taking over the job. He had strong opinions about the cities the astronauts should visit and whom they should meet. As Nixon complained to Kissi
nger, “If you leave things in their hands like this, they come out with an utter disaster.”13 Kissinger solicited the help of Apollo 8 astronaut and White House liaison Frank Borman, a favorite of the president.
Borman was dismayed too. There was no “black Africa stop on the proposed tour,” he pointed out. Kissinger should “decide this issue,” he instructed.14 At first, plans were made to add Cairo to the list, but these were canceled because of a “deteriorating situation in [the] area as a result [of] Israel air attacks on Egypt.” The War of Attrition—with the attacks during the night of the moon landing—made Cairo too risky of a choice politically. But as the USIA stressed, “In Africa our problems are largely in the psychological area. It would be much enlarged if Africa turned out to be the only continent omitted from the greatest world-wide public relations gesture we have ever undertaken.” Not only could it be viewed as a “racist slight”; political adversaries could also use it as fodder to undercut America’s position in the region. Later, the Democratic Republic of Congo was put on the Giantstep itinerary.15
Some appeals for astronaut visits also came from foreign leaders eager to host the Apollo 11 crew in their country. Dutch prime minister Piet de Jong wrote to President Nixon on September 2, requesting that he intervene to ensure that the crew visited the Netherlands. The State Department recognized that de Jong was a “space buff.”16 NSC staff member Don Lesh wrote to Kissinger, confirming that a stop in the Netherlands was a wise decision because “the Dutch undoubtedly would have raised an even bigger stink over their omission from the astronaut tour than they did last February when the President visited Europe and did not find time for the Netherlands.” Kissinger conveyed Lesh’s suggestions to the president but softened the message, explaining that “the Dutch took their omission from your tour of Europe last February and March very much to heart, and I felt it would be best to try to accommodate the strong desire of the Dutch to play host to our astronauts.” Amsterdam was soon placed on the tour itinerary.17
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