In the Arena

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  CONTENTS

  ONE

  1 • Peaks and Valleys

  2 • Wilderness

  3 • Renewal

  TWO

  4 • Family

  5 • Religion

  6 • Teachers

  7 • Struggle

  8 • Wealth

  THREE

  9 • Purpose

  10 • Time

  11 • Temperance

  12 • Reading

  13 • Conversation

  14 • Memory

  15 • Thinking

  16 • Recreation

  17 • Illness

  18 • Tension

  FOUR

  19 • Risks

  20 • Politics

  21 • Power

  22 • Speaking

  23 • Television

  24 • Privacy

  25 • Pat

  26 • Friends

  27 • Enemies

  28 • Media

  29 • Campaigning

  30 • Staff

  31 • Governing

  32 • Pragmatism

  33 • Silence,

  FIVE

  34 • Philosophy

  35 • Causes

  36 • Geopolitics

  37 • Decisions

  38 • War

  39 • Peace

  SIX

  40 • Twilight

  PHOTOGRAPHS

  INDEX

  For My Family

  It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumphs of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

  —THEODORE ROOSEVELT

  ONE

  1

  PEAKS

  AND VALLEYS

  CHINA, FEBRUARY 21, 1972

  It was an eerie ride from the airport to the government guest house in Beijing. In my years as Vice President and President, I had made official visits to the Vatican, the Kremlin, the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, Versailles, and Westminster, but nothing could prepare me for this—the first visit of a President of the United States to the People’s Republic of China. President Ayub Khan of Pakistan had urged me to go to China when I saw him in Karachi in 1964. He had just returned from Beijing. I asked him what impressed him most. He replied, “People, millions of people in the street clapping, cheering, waving Pakistani and Chinese flags.” The curtains on the Chinese government limousine were drawn. But as I looked through the tiny openings, I could see that except for a lonely sentry stationed every few hundred yards, the streets were totally deserted.

  The airport ceremony had met all of the requisites of protocol—very proper and very cool. Chou En-lai, wearing a top coat but no hat in the freezing cold, started to clap as Mrs. Nixon and I came down the ramp. We clapped in return, since we knew from our visit to Moscow in 1959 that it was the custom in Communist countries. I reached out to shake his hand. I did not realize until later how much that meant to him. The honor guard was spectacular. I also found out later that Chou had picked the men personally. They were all tall, ramrod straight, and immaculately groomed. The Red Army Band played “The Star Spangled Banner.” In my visits to other countries I had learned that the tune, an old English drinking song, is difficult to play, and in fact it was hardly recognizable in some places. But the Chinese performed it superbly.

  I did not know what to expect from our host. Henry Kissinger, whose standards for excellence in leaders are extraordinarily high, ranked him with de Gaulle as the most impressive foreign statesman he had ever met. At the same time, he likened him to a cobra that sits quietly, ready to strike at the opportune moment. Eisenhower’s assistant secretary of state, Walter Robinson, had told me that Chou, charming as he was, had killed people with his own hands and then departed, calmly smoking a cigarette. A high-ranking foreign diplomat once said, “There was not a grain of truth in him . . . It’s all acting. He is the greatest actor I have ever seen. He’d laugh one moment and cry the next and make his audience laugh and cry with him. But it is all acting.”

  Skilled diplomat that he was, he put me at ease immediately. As we left the airport, he said, “Your handshake came over the vastest ocean in the world—twenty-five years of no communication.” I was surprised when he told me that he felt he knew me through my book Six Crises, which he had had translated into Chinese. He made an observation that he was to repeat several times during the visit—that my career had been marked by great defeats as well as great victories but that I had demonstrated the ability to come back. For example, on one of our plane flights in China, he observed that adversity is a great teacher and that men who travel on a smooth road all their lives do not develop strength. From one who had endured the Long March, I considered that to be an unusually high compliment.

  The visits to the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, and other points of interest gave us an idea of how much there was left to see in this nation of a billion people and four thousand years of history. To paraphrase Lord Curzon, China is a university from which the scholar never gets a degree.

  The state dinners in the Great Hall of the People, with the Red Army Band playing “America the Beautiful” and other favorites, left an indelible impression. Chou was the perfect host, serving us with his chopsticks and then joining me in toasting each of the over fifty people at the head tables with our one-ounce glasses of maotai, a fiery 106-proof Chinese brandy Chou assured me would “cure anything.”

  Most memorable were my meetings with Chou and Mao. We learned later that Mao had already suffered a mild stroke, although the Chinese people did not know it. He was still treated with enormous respect by his aides and attendants and was sharp in his repartee. I had gotten an idea of what to expect from André Malraux when I gave a dinner for him at the White House shortly before our trip. He warned me, “You will be meeting with a colossus, but a colossus facing death. Do you know what Mao will think when he sees you for the first time? He will think, He is so much younger than I. You will meet a man who has had a fantastic destiny and who believes that he is acting out the last act of his lifetime. You may think that he is talking to you, but he will in truth be addressing Death.” He turned to me and said fervently, “Mr. President, you operate within a rational framework but Mao does not. There is something of the sorcerer in him. He is a man inhabited by a vision, possessed by it.”

  Like Stalin, Mao was a voracious reader. His office was cluttered with books—not for show, but for reading. Like Chou En-lai, he said that he had read Six Crises and found that it was “not a bad book.” Also like Chou En-lai, he showed his political acumen when he said, “I voted for you during your last election.” When I responded, “When the Chairman says he voted for me, he voted for the lesser of two evils,” he came right back and said, “I like rightists . . . . I am comparatively happy when these people on the right come into power.” I responded, “I think the most important thing to
note is that in America, at least at this time, those on the right can do what those on the left can only talk about.”

  The only sour note during the visit was sounded by Mao’s wife, our hostess for a theatrical extravaganza called The Red Detachment of Women. I noted the perspiration on her forehead and thought at first that she might be ill. It was probably just tension. She obviously did not approve of the visit. She said to me sharply, “Why did you not come to China before now?”

  The most substantive and by far the most fascinating meetings were the long negotiating sessions with Chou himself. He followed my practice of speaking without notes and without calling on his aides to provide information. His understanding of not just Chinese-American issues but international affairs generally was all-encompassing. We discussed our profound differences at great length. We supported South Vietnam; they supported North Vietnam. We supported South Korea; they supported North Korea. We had a military security alliance with Japan; they opposed it. We supported non-Communist governments in the Third World; they opposed them. They demanded that we discontinue our sales of arms to Taiwan; we refused to do so.

  In view of such irreconcilable differences, what brought us together? One China expert in the United States predicted that the first question Mao would put to me would be: “What is the richest country in the world prepared to do to help the most populous country in the world?” He was wrong. Not once during many hours of discussion did economic issues come up. Our common economic interests are the primary factors that keep us together today. They played no part whatever in bringing us together in 1972.

  The real reason was our common strategic interest in opposing Soviet domination in Asia. Like the Soviet Union, China was a Communist country. The United States was a capitalist nation. But we did not threaten them, while the Soviet Union did. It was a classic case of a nation’s security interest overriding ideology.

  Kissinger and Chou worked out a brilliant formula for the Shanghai Communiqué, which was issued at the conclusion of the visit. Instead of trying to paper over differences with mushy, meaningless, diplomatic gobbledygook, each side expressed its position on the issues where we disagreed. On the neuralgic issue of Taiwan, we stated the obvious fact that the Chinese on the mainland and on Taiwan agreed that there was one China. We expressed our position that the differences between the two should be settled peacefully. And on the great issue which made this historic rapprochement possible, the communiqué stated that neither nation “should seek hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region and each is opposed to efforts by any other country or group of countries to establish such hegemony.” This document has stood the test of time. The principles it set forth are still adhered to by both sides.

  With the grueling work of hammering out the details of the communiqué completed, Chou spoke movingly of what we had achieved. He quoted from a poem by Mao, “The beauty lies at the top of the mountain,” and from another Chinese poem that read, “On perilous peaks dwells beauty in its infinite variety.” I remarked that we were at the top of the mountain now.

  He then referred to a third poem, “Ode to a Plum Blossom.” Chou said the poem meant that “by the time the blossoms are fullblown, that is the time they are about to disappear.” He went on, “You are the one who made the initiative. You may not be there to see its success, but of course we would welcome your return.”

  On February 27, in my toast at the concluding banquet, I said that our communiqué was “not nearly as important as what we will do in the years ahead to build a bridge across 16,000 miles and twenty-two years of hostility which have divided us in the past.” I raised my glass and said, “We have been here a week. This was the week that changed the world.”

  Some might say this was an overstatement. But Chou En-lai and I savored the moment because we both had been in the deepest valleys. We knew that we were now on the mountaintop. What we did not know was that in just four years, when I would return to China, I would have resigned from office and he would be dying of cancer. As de Gaulle once observed, victory had “folded its wings almost as soon as they were spread for flight.”

  THE WHITE HOUSE, AUGUST 9, 1974

  I did not sleep well my last night in the White House. This was not unusual; after a major speech or press conference I get so keyed up I always find it difficult to get to sleep. That evening, in a nationwide address, I had announced my decision to resign the Presidency. It was 2:00 a.m. before I dozed off.

  I woke up with a start. I looked at my watch; it was only 4:00 a.m. I went across the West Hall to the kitchen to get a glass of milk. I was startled to see Johnny Johnson, one of the stewards, making coffee.

  I said, “Johnny, what are you doing here so early?”

  He replied, “It isn’t early, Mr. President. It’s almost six o’clock.”

  My watch had stopped. After three years the battery had run down.

  I asked Johnny to make me some corned beef hash with a poached egg rather than my usual spartan breakfast of wheat germ, orange juice, and a glass of milk. I showered and shaved and walked down to the Lincoln Sitting Room. It is the smallest room in the White House and my favorite. It is next to the Lincoln Bedroom, which used to be Lincoln’s office. It once was shared by his two young secretaries, John Nicolay and John Hay. I sat down in my favorite chair and put my feet up on the ottoman. Pat had given the chair to me as a birthday present when we were living in California in 1962. We had taken it with us first to our apartment in New York and then to the White House. It is the chair in which I am sitting as I dictate this recollection.

  I tried to make some notes for what would be my last speech as President. I had spoken to tens of millions the night before on television. Now I had to think of something personal to say to a few dozen members of my White House staff—dedicated men and women who had served so loyally during the tumultuous days of the Vietnam War and the even more difficult days of Watergate.

  I couldn’t concentrate. I put my head back and closed my eyes. I thought of some of the great events that had occurred in this room.

  It was here on June 2, 1971, that I received what Henry Kissinger described as the most important communication to an American President since the end of World War II. I had been sitting in this same chair catching up on some of my reading material after a state dinner that evening. It was almost eleven o’clock. Henry burst into the room. He was breathless. He must have run all the way over to the residence from his West Wing office. He handed me a message. It was Chou En-lai’s invitation to visit China, which he had sent through President Yahya of Pakistan. As Chou put it later, it was a message from a head, through a head, to a head. Neither Henry nor I generally had a drink after dinner, but on this occasion we toasted this historic event with a very old brandy a friend had given Pat and me for Christmas.

  As I tried again to concentrate on preparing my farewell remarks, the thought that raced through my mind over and over was—how was it possible to have been so high and now to be so low?

  There was a discreet knock at the door. Al Haig came in, holding a single page in his hand. I thought I had completed all of the signing the day before, including the veto of an agricultural appropriations bill that had exceeded my budget. His face was drawn as he handed me the last document I was to sign as President. It was a one-sentence letter to Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State: “I hereby resign the Office of President of the United States.”

  The first time I saw President Eisenhower in the Oval Office in 1953, he was signing some letters and other documents. He looked up at me with a twinkle in his eye and said, “Dammit, Dick, I wish my name weren’t so long!” Mercifully, my name is short. I signed the letter.

  After Haig left, I had only an hour left to get my thoughts together for my farewell to the staff. The day before I had found it difficult to control my emotions in a meeting in the Cabinet Room with my closest friends and supporters in Congress. I concluded by blurting out what I knew was true: “I just hope that I haven’t let you down.”
Today, I had to find a way to lift up the loyal members of my staff. I knew I should not talk about Pat, Tricia, Julie, Ed Cox, and David Eisenhower, who would all be standing by my side on the platform. It would be too painful for them and for me. They had been magnificent in standing up against the merciless pounding in the media, which began after the 1972 election and, except for a brief period around my inauguration and the Vietnam peace agreement in January 1973, had gone on without any letup for over twenty months. Day after day it was the lead story in the newspapers. Night after night it led every television news show. The family had unanimously opposed my decision to resign. Tricia, whose quiet strength reminded me of my mother, fiercely insisted to the very last that I not even consider resigning. Two days before, I had worked on my resignation speech until 2:00 a.m. in the Lincoln Sitting Room. When I went to my bedroom to catch a couple hours’ sleep, I found a note from Julie on my pillow:

  Dear Daddy,

  I love you. Whatever you do I will support. I am very proud of you.

  Please wait a week or even ten days before you make this decision. Go through the fire just a little bit longer. You are so strong! I love you.

  Julie

  Millions support you.

  If anything could have changed my mind, Julie’s note would have done it. But I was too worn out to reconsider. It was not because I had given up the fight but because I knew that the decision I had made was best for the country. Two years of Watergate was enough. The nation could not stand the trauma of a President on trial before the Senate for months. The international situation required a full-time President.

  Once my family knew that the decision was final, they backed it. Pat took on the superhuman task of supervising the packing of all the belongings we had acquired during the past five and a half years in the White House. She had not slept for forty-eight hours. I don’t know how she did it. The way she stood on the platform by my side, erect and proud though her heart was breaking, demonstrated what I have always said—that she is the strongest member of my family, personal or official.