by Larry Berman
94. Dec. 3, 1972, 000, box 86, folder 5, NHHC.
95. Nov. 23, 1972, 000, box 86, folder 5, NHHC.
96. Nov. 24, 1972, 000, box 86, folder 4, NHHC.
97. Undated, 000, box 86, folder 4, NHHC.
98. White House tapes, Kissinger, Nov. 13, 1972.
99. White House tapes, Kissinger, tape 827, conversation 10, Dec. 20, 1972.
100. Zumwalt, On Watch.
101. Nov. 13, 1972.
102. Sherwood, Black Sailor, White Navy, 172.
103. Ibid.
104. “Carl Vinson: A Legend in His Own Time,” http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/c-vinson.htm.
105. Thompson memoir, manuscript, 394.
106. On Nov. 21, 1972, Lew wrote that in Vietnam Bud had demonstrated “brilliant leadership and perseverance.” NHHC. Operations Giant Slingshot, SEALORDS, and Barrier Reef “required absolute discipline at every level from Task Group Commander to PBR Boat Captain.” The close combat on the inland rivers and canals of Vietnam required resourcefulness, innovation, courage, and total discipline. Progressive thinking was being misconstrued as permissiveness.
107. Telephone conversation, Nov. 15, 1972, ZPP.
108. Sherwood, Black Sailor, White Navy, 67.
109. ZTT 12, no. 3 of 3.
110. Ibid.
111. Author interview with Admiral Roberta Hazard.
112. Telephone conversation with Murphy, Nov. 15, 1972, ZPP.
113. Ibid.
114. Telephone conversation, Nov. 13, 1972, ZPP.
115. Zumwalt requested that Hare read the text of the speech that he delivered to the flag officers, as well as the related Z-grams, and “find it in his conscience to see his way clear to talk with Carl Vinson.”
116. Sherwood, Black Sailor, White Navy, 177.
117. ZTT 31, side A.
118. Nov. 27, 1972, ZPP.
119. Ibid. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1969.
120. Conference call, conversation among lawyers, Nov. 21, 1972, summary by Hicks. 09/Jag/ (judge advocate general). Robbie Robertson led the discussion. ZPP.
121. Sherwood, Black Sailor, White Navy, 186.
122. Telephone conversation, Nov. 24, 1972. John Stennis shared Pirnie’s view. “He is concerned with the trouble we are having with the blacks and the whole thing of discipline—you have a discipline problem that the blacks are a part of . . . you might want to be more selective on the ones we take in.”
123. Sherwood, Black Sailor, White Navy, 183.
124. Nov. 29, 1972, Executive Correspondence, NHHC.
125. He had not heard from Haig or the White House since the “stupid call about getting everyone thrown out.” Murphy asked “if he had patched it up with John Warner.” He also told Bud that Vinson was a good friend of Laird and that they have a “father-son relationship.”
126. Letter, Nov. 22, 1972, Executive Correspondence, NHHC.
127. Telephone conversation, Nov. 24, 1972, ZPP.
128. McNamara letter, ZFC.
129. Orr Kelly, “Riding Out a Navy Storm,” Dec. 11, 1972, NHHC.
130. Joining the president were: Dr. Henry A. Kissinger, assistant to the president for national security affairs; General Alexander M. Haig, Jr., deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs; Melvin R. Laird, secretary of defense; Kenneth Rush, deputy secretary of defense; Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr., chief of naval operations; General Creighton W. Abrams, army chief of staff; General Robert E. Cushman, Jr., commandant of the Marine Corps; General Horace M. Wade, vice chief of staff for the air force.
131. See Larry Berman, No Peace No Honor: Nixon, Kissinger and Betrayal in Vietnam (New York: Free Press, 2001), and Zumwalt, On Watch.
132. Dec. 16, 1972, ZPP.
133. Bud told this to Dan Murphy, ZPP.
134. 000, box 86, folder 7, NHHC.
135. 000, box 86, folder 5, NHHC.
136. 000, box 86, folder 7, NHHC.
137. Howard Kerr, letter, Dec. 15, 1972, Executive Correspondence, NHHC.
138. Dec. 17, 1972, from Subic Bay Naval Base, ZPP.
139. Dec. 7, 1972, ZPP.
140. Disciplinary Problems in the Navy, House Armed Services Committee. Headlines in the nation’s newspapers captured the uncertainty of the times: “Navy’s ‘Old Guard’ Out to sink Zumwalt,” Chicago Daily News, Jan. 2, 1973; “Navy’s Zumwalt Irks Racists,” Chicago Tribune, Jan. 5, 1973; “Rivalries Imperil Zumwalt’s Career,” Chicago Tribune, Jan. 3, 1974; and “Navy Boss Is a National Disaster,” which repeated Max Rafferty’s charge that the navy was “rotten with rebellion, palsied with permissiveness and disintegrating with disobedience.”
141. Disciplinary Problems in the Navy, House Armed Services Committee, vol. 5, 489, 1050. See Zumwalt Papers, “Hicks Committee and Critical Analysis of Hicks,” NHHC.
142. Feb. 12, 1973, NHHC.
143. Zumwalt, On Watch.
144. Aug. 7, 1973, ZPP.
CHAPTER 12: THE ZUMWALT INTELLIGENCE SERVICE
1. White House Tapes, Tape 308–13, National Archives.
2. Zumwalt, On Watch, xii.
3. Zumwalt to JCS historians, Historical Division, Joint Secretariat, The Joint Chiefs of Staff and National Security Policy, vol. 10: 1969–1972, 9. See Editorial Note, Document 159, Foreign Relations of the Unites States, 1969–1976, vol. 2, 328, cited in Peter W. Rodman, Presidential Command: Power, Leadership, and the Making of Foreign Policy from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush, 5th ed. (New York: Knopf, 2009), 67.
4. Kissinger, White House Years, 722.
5. Rodman, Presidential Command, 56; and White House Tapes, June 13, 1971, 3:09 p.m., cassette 825, conversations 5–590.
6. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, vol. 2, 336.
7. “Nixon Travels—China,” United States History, www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1877.html; and Richard Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Grossett and Dunlap, 1978), 533.
8. Rodman, Presidential Command, 53.
9. Ivo H. Daalder and I. M. Destler, In the Shadow of the Oval Office: Portraits of the National Security Advisers and the Presidents They Served—from JFK to George W. Bush (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009), 80.
10. Rodman, Presidential Command, 68.
11. Daalder and Destler, In the Shadow of the Oval Office, 80.
12. Zumwalt, On Watch, 397.
13. Ibid.
14. Bruce Lambert, “Seymour Weiss, Long an Adviser on Military Policy, Is Dead at 67,” New York Times, Sept. 25, 1992; and Zumwalt, On Watch, 398ff.
15. Zumwalt, On Watch, 348.
16. Ibid., 348.
17. Ibid., 348–49.
18. Zumwalt CNO Papers, July 24, 1972. “He was very mad about the DPRC [Defense Program Review Committee] agenda because he felt that they were really trying to usurp his authority. He was mad about the supply line on project ENHANCE.” NHHC.
19. ZTT 3, side A, 29–30.
20. Told to Secretary of Defense Schlesinger in conversation, June 24, 1974, ZPP.
21. Zumwalt, On Watch, 320.
22. Ibid., 321.
23. ZTT, “Henry Kissinger.”
24. Quoted in unpublished “Rice” interview for Zumwalt, ZPP .
25. Letter to Jack Connery, July, 13, 1996, ZPP.
26. Rodman, Presidential Command, 65.
27. Ibid., 66; and Van Atta, With Honor, 224–25. I draw extensively on Van Atta’s detailed study, especially because he had access to Laird’s papers that are still closed to scholars.
28. Rodman, Presidential Command, 66; and Van Atta, With Honor, 224–25.
29. Van Atta, With Honor, 217.
30. Rodman, Presidential Command, 66.
31. Ibid., 67.
32. Seymour Hersh, The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984), 68. I am indebted to Hersh for telling me that while he could not disclose sources because some were still alive, that I was on the
right trail and knew what he knew.
33. Walter Issacson, Kissinger: A Biography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005), 202.
34. Sept. 13, 1995. Bud was Halperin’s proposer for membership. ZFC. Kissinger added, “Although I understood and supported his desire to pursue a career in law after a couple of grueling years in the White House, he was hard to replace.” ZFC.
35. Jan. 6, 1988, ZFC.
36. Memorandum for the record, phone conversation between Admiral Zumwalt and H.K., ZPP.
37. Wharton alumni magazine, The Ties That Bind, http://beacon.wharton.upenn.edu/whartonmagazine/files/2012/03/am01fal.pdf
38. DC debriefing, June 19, 1972. All of the DC briefings are available in the Vietnam Archive. ZPP.
39. ZTT. Henry Kissinger and Al Haig.
40. Zumwalt on Haig, ZTT.
41. DC debriefing, Mar. 20, 1973, ZPP.
42. DC debriefing, June 4, 1973, ZPP.
43. Zumwalt, On Watch, 375–76.
44. “Meeting with Kissinger,” ZTT, undated side B, part 9.
45. On June 7, 1971, Bud wrote Kissinger, “You were most thoughtful to share your high regard for Rear Admiral Robinson, as expressed in your 22 May letter, with me. I have insured your letter is placed in his official record.” Kissinger name file, Executive Correspondence, NHHC.
46. Executive Correspondence, NHHC.
47. “The Radford Affair,” ZTT; and Mark Feldstein, Poisoning the Press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson, and the Rise of Washington’s Scandal Culture (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2010). I draw extensively from Feldstein’s pathbreaking research.
48. Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, Feb. 20–21, 1974; also see Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, vol. 2, Organization and Management of Foreign Policy, 1969–1972, Documents, 164–66.
49. Nov. 19, 1982. Stillwell, Reminiscences by Staff Officers, 136.
50. Hersh, Price of Power, 460. Readers will note that I draw extensively on Hersh’s research, who confirmed in an e-mail that, while he still could not identify his sources, my documentation was consistent with what he knew.
51. Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (Boston: Little, Brown, 1982; New Haven, CT: Phoenix Press, 2000), 806–7; Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, vol. 2, 334.
52. John Prados, Keeper of the Keys: A History of the National Security Council from Truman to Bush (New York: William Morrow/HarperCollins, 1991), 316.
53. “Sometime after returning from the trip with Dr. Henry Kissinger, Captain [Arthur] Knoizen walked through the office and said, ‘Radford, keep up the good work.’ I knew what he meant. Nothing else was said.”
54. “Again I returned with copies of several documents of interest to Admiral Welander. In each case copies were made, or mental notes made, and in each case these copies, or mental notes, were given to my admiral, Robinson or Welander. No documents were given to anyone else.”
55. Hersh, Price of Power, 467.
56. Ibid., 467, 470.
57. Asaf Siniver, Nixon, Kissinger, and U.S. Foreign Policy Making: The Machinery of Crisis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 149.
58. Robert Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power (New York: Harper, 2007), 340; Richard Reeves, President Nixon: Alone in the White House (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002), 391; and Feldstein, Poisoning the Press, 156.
59. Hersh, Price of Power, 457.
60. Minutes of senior staff meeting, India-Pakistan, Dec. 6, 1971, cited in Van Atta, With Honor, 302.
61. Zumwalt, On Watch, 367–68; see also Siniver, Nixon, Kissinger, 150.
62. Van Atta, With Honor, 302.
63. Years later Zumwalt gave a series of lectures at the Indian War College in New Delhi. At dinner, Admiral Sardari Mathradas Nanda, who had commanded the Indian Navy in 1971, said he needn’t have worried, because “my instructions to the Indian Navy were that if they encountered US Navy ships, invite their skippers aboard your ships for a drink.”
64. Siniver, Nixon, Kissinger, 178.
65. John Ehrlichman, Witness to Power: The Nixon Years (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982), 302; cited in Feldstein, Poisoning the Press, 154.
66. Radford testimony, Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, Feb. 20–21, 1974.
67. Haldeman, The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House, 386.
68. Feldstein, Poisoning the Press, 178; and memo, W. Donald Stewart to Martin Hoffman, Jan. 21, 1974.
69. The Defense Department investigation of the unauthorized disclosures to columnist Jack Anderson found that the wives of Radford and Anderson were close friends who had shopped together and shared an interest in genealogy. See Feldstein, Poisoning the Press.
70. Cited in Feldstein, Poisoning the Press, 179.
71. Ibid.
72. Anderson maintained to his death that Radford was not his source.
73. Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin, Silent Coup: The Removal of a President (New York: St. Martin’s, 1992). This is the seminal work on the spy ring. See http://www.silentcoup.com/. I started my research on this topic with Silent Coup and have drawn extensively from it.
74. Hersh, Price of Power, 472.
75. National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, White House Central Files, President’s Daily Diary.
76. Feldstein, Poisoning the Press, 181. Ehrlichman, Witness to Power.
77. Feldstein, Poisoning the Press, 181.
78. Nixon wanted Welander fired. “Can him. Can him. Can him. Get him the hell out of here.” White House Tapes, tape 189, Dec. 21, 1971, conversation no. 639–30.
79. Oval Office meeting, Dec. 21, 1971.
80. Zumwalt’s name comes up immediately on the Dec. 21, 1971, tape.
81. Feldstein, Poisoning the Press, 189.
82. Ibid., 188; and Ehrlichman, Witness to Power, 129.
83. Feldstein, Poisoning the Press, 182; White House Tapes, tapes 640–45, Dec. 22, 1971.
84. Feldstein, Poisoning the Press, 183.
85. Nixon agreed: “Let the poor bastards stew over Christmas, and then crack ’em.” “New Evidence Confirms Pentagon Stole and Leaked Top Secret Documents from Nixon White House,” NixonTapes.org, http://nixontapes.org/welander.html, Dec. 21, 1971, tape.
86. National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, White House Tapes, Recording of conversation among Nixon, Mitchell, Haldeman, and Ehrlichman, Oval Office, conversation no. 639–30.
87. Haldeman, Diaries, 385–86.
88. Nixon, RN, 532.
89. Feldstein, Poisoning the Press, 197.
90. National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, White House Tapes, Conversation between Nixon and Mitchell, Dec. 24, 1971, 5:33 p.m., White House Telephone, conversation no. 17–37.
91. This account is from ZTT, “The Radford Affair.”
92. Ibid.
93. Van Atta, With Honor, 303; J. Fred Buzhardt, “Interim Report of Investigation of Recent Unauthorized Disclosure of Classified material to Columnist Jack Anderson and the Use of Unauthorized Communications Channels between the National Security Council Staff and the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” memorandum to the secretary of defense, Jan. 10, 1972.
94. Van Atta, With Honor, 304.
95. Ibid.
96. Zumwalt, On Watch, 370.
97. White House Tapes, conversation no. 641-10, Dec. 23, 1971.
98. The CNO was never apprised of the allegations that Welander had improperly provided information from Kissinger/NSC to JCS until CJCS briefed the Joint Chiefs after the first news story on Radford/Welander.
99. ZTT 21, side A, part 6.
100. Moorer to JCS, Jan. 4, 1972, ZTT, “The Radford Story,” side B, part 3.
101. Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, Feb. 20–21, 1974; also see Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, vol. 2, Organization and Management of Foreign Policy, 1969–1972, Documents, 164–66.
102
. “Radford/Welander Matter,” Jan. 26, 1974, Sensitive—Eyes Only Memo for the record, telephone conversation between CNO and RADM Welander.
103. James F. McHugh, memo to CNO, “Moorer/Welander/Radford Matter,” Feb. 1, 1974.
104. ZTT, “The Radford Story.”
105. Ibid.
106. Author interview with Burt Shepherd, March 2012.
107. Paul Stillwell, interview with Rectanus, Oral History, Nov. 19, 1982, 136.
108. White House Tapes, conversation no. 308–13, Dec. 22, 1971; and Feldstein, Poisoning the Press, 197.
109. See ZTT 10, side B, part 9. “K urged me not to go to Haig because he did not trust Haig. Not to cut him out and deal directly with the President.”
CHAPTER 13: RUFFLES AND FLOURISHES
1. ZTT A, part 4.
2. Zumwalt, On Watch, 492.
3. Schlesinger had worked previously as the Rand Corporation’s director of strategic studies from 1967 to 1969. One of his major papers at Rand had dealt with the role of systems analysis in political decision making. At Rand he had been deeply involved in efforts to rethink the strategic nuclear doctrine. Schlesinger left Rand in 1969, joining the Nixon administration as assistant director of the bureau of the budget (BOB), specializing in military and international programs. He was also responsible for forming the administration’s energy policy relating to air and water pollution. He was soon given the title of acting deputy director of BOB, which he held until 1970. When BOB was reorganized as the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Schlesinger became assistant director. In OMB he took the lead on a detailed study for restructuring the nation’s intelligence community. He next served as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, where his dual interests in atomic energy and concern for the environment manifested themselves. Faced with trying to reconcile the opposing interests of conservationists and nuclear power advocates, he began by announcing that the AEC would no longer take the traditional position of championing the rights of nuclear energy above all others. He remained at the AEC until, in rapid succession, he was appointed director of the CIA (confirmed January 23, 1973) and then secretary of defense, confirmed June 28, 1973.
4. Cockell to Admiral Zumwalt, Sensitive—Eyes Only, July 3, 1973, ZPP.
5. Schlesinger, unlike Bud, was “very much a private man, not given to socializing . . . unpretentious, likes plain living and disdains creature comforts; wears off-the bargain-rack suits and drives a retirement car. A tweedy, pipe smoking perfectionist and ‘Harvard rustic,’ he is a careful planner who seldom leaves home without consulting a road map,” wrote Cockell, NHHC.
