European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 24, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Tuesday May 24, 1994 Page 13 concerning the diaries of . Haldeman which Are supposed to inform us about the deep racial and ethnic prejudices of Richard Nixon a few observations 1. It is not Likely that Haldeman fabricated or even improvised the remarks he attributed to president Nixon. He was to begin with a meticulous Man i had one experience with him that is on Point. In 1977, a few weeks before he reported to the Penitentiary where he would remain for .18 months  the obstruction of Justice and other watergate related. Crimes of which he had been convicted we dined together. He wanted advice about literary Aid for the watergate Book he intended to write land did while in  told me that he had read every Book relating to water Gate already More than a William f. Buckley a i underlined in Blue every factual statement i knew to be True. In red every factual statement i knew to be false. In Green every factual statement i did no to know to be True or to be  a revisionists of that kind done to make up slurs uttered by presidents about jews or about Blacks. 2, specifically Haldeman quotes Nixon As having bemoaned the a total jewish domination of the  Haldeman wrote the Ariit was agreed that a this is something that would have to be dealt  moreover the Exchange in question took place in the presence of Henry Kissinger. What is the appropriate reaction it is Best probed in the judgment of this analyst by focusing on the statement that a the problem Quot would have to be a dealt with.�?�. A How. A. A. A / a a the ruling families of the Washington Post and of the new York times were jewish at the time Nixon spoke these words 1970as was the top management of a couple of the networks. So if Nixon banging his fist on the desk said to Haldeman that something had to be done to Deal with this problem what exactly did he have in mind exactly. He had nothing in mind and the severest reason for it is that there is nothing an american president can do or for that matter an american Congress executive and judiciary acting jointly to dispossess the owners of the new York times and the Washington Post \ a. A. A. So did Nixon intend to communicate to Haldeman that the next time lbs stations came up for renewal the Federal communications commission would be instructed to deny such renewals pending a change in the ethnic and religious affiliations of the applicants. To ask that question is to Revea the emptiness of the gesture. If slamming on the brakes to avoid hitting a Little boy you Are heard to mutter that All boys of that age should be confined to their schoolyards you Are not really menacing the Freedom of Little boys you Are letting off steam. If the anti Nixon brigades wish to choler up for the purpose of inti preying such remarks As betraying True lethal anti semitism they Are free to do so and others Are free not to take them seriously. If the prosecution will rest with the simple cultural Point that Many americans who were contemporaries of Nixon were capable of blaming a the jewish Media for every blot on the political landscape let us stipulate that this is so even As Blacks in parts of new York blame koreans or jews or hispanics and vice versa for All the problems in sight. People tend to look for generic hobgoblins As every Honky knows. 3. Concerning Blacks Haldeman recorded Nixon As saying that the Blacks Are unique in never having presided Over a free democratic society. Paraphrasing the president Haldeman wrote a says Africa is hopeless. The worst there is Liberia which we  what Nixon a sweeping statement of rhetorical despair will be subjected to is historical analysis and then relative analysis. Nobody can defend the record of Black Africa measured against criteria of Freedom and democracy and constitutional restraint. At about the time Nixon was letting off steam there were approximately four genuinely democratic republics in latin America after 150 years of trying. But since then the tide has dramatically changed though it is too Early for strategic optimism. What we do learn is that there Are perils in transcribing the purple thoughts of any Public figure. Come to think of it of anybody at All there Are moments when we blame the stars themselves that we Are underlings. How much Wiser to focus on such a comment As was made by John Taylor the director of the Nixon Library. He said that Nixon s statements about Blacks and jews a should be viewed strictly in a political context a i.e., who has got under the presidential skin that Day. And then a i had the privilege of serving him for 15 years and never heard him make an anti semitic statement a that does no to mean he never made one but it docs suggest that there is a difference Between the kind of racism we properly worry about and the kind we associate with a generation nurtured on its own hobgoblins. A a a c univ Oral Prosa a prompts re evaluation of Vietnam War in front of me sat a Row of grim and erect Marine officers in their Green suits and Skull shaped haircuts. By the other aisle was a Row of longer haired suit Clad men in wheelchairs we were at fort myer va., to say Farewell to Lewis Puller jr., the Vietnam War casualty and memoirist. A i considered that a funeral is riot a bad occasion to try to weigh the sometimes conflicting tugs of citizenship and memory a this at a moment when the new official american opening to Hanoi prompts All of us to think again about the War. A the obligations of citizenship had taken Lew Puller a Long Way toward reconciliation with the vietnamese winners of the War in which he suffered awful personal losses. Along with a lot of other private citizens he had come to put the War behind. This former Marine lieutenant without waiting for a government Lead was seeking his own Way to bring the people of the two countries together. The latest Issue vol. 4, no. 2 of Indochina interchange lists a formidable array of citizen Exchange projects. The attention Given to pullers death cannot fail to add Energy to this already advancing process of Healing. Anyone who still feels reluctant to join in could usefully contemplate the credentials of people like Lew Puller. They Stephen s. Rosenfeld fought in the War and then found it in themselves to treat their erstwhile. Antagonists As human Fellows. If Puller with his wounds could forgive who cannot the accounts of american journalists a Bob Kaiser Malcolm Browne a who covered the War and recently re turned to the scene Are to the Point. Many vietnamese Are similarly ready to take the Large View. Americans and vietnamese we Are dealing Here with an in historical accidental and Brief conflict not with a thousand year feud among the Southern slavs or Britain a tribes or even with a Hundred year israeli palestinian dispute. To forgive the vietnamese however is not to Bury the memory of what happened. To me the most sensitive part of the record goes not to the War in Vietnam but to our political argument at Home. The salient Case involves the charge that Richard Nixon a devious strategy failed of its purpose to sustain South Vietnam and Cost an extra and pointless 21,000 american combat deaths to Boot. Lew Puller happened to meet his undoing on Lyndon Johnson Swatch. Sitting at his funeral however i found it difficult to accept that any american had died in Vietnam pointlessly. To have lost to have lost by a strategic error that a bitter but comprehensible and hot necessarily ignoble. But to have died just for a politicians so face and convenience that would be unbearable. My own views have evolved. I now think that Nixon As he said did have a a a plan to Stop the War a War that he had inherited. No doubt the plan had personal purpose it also had Public geopolitical purpose. Nixon meant to gradually withdraw american troops meanwhile to bring North Vietnam to the bargaining table and then to negotiate the survival of South Vietnam under terms that would be guaranteed by american Aid and air Power. We who marched and voted against Nixon cannot deny that his full and timely delivery on the politically key pledge of american withdrawal won him landslide re election in 1972. A settlement was subsequently negotiated at Paris. But then when Hanoi violated the peace. Congress barred the expected Aid and air Power and in due course South Vietnam fell. Nixon was responsible to the extent that he selected a strategy whose implementation he could not carry off not simply because watergate was sapping his authority but because his strategy rested on Means so violent and convulsive they sapped the political support required to sustain the policy. But the tragedy was More Complex. Congress and we of the anti War Public were responsible to the extent that we made sure the Nixon strategy would fail. Too smoothly it is said that Nixon could have reached the same dismal outcome without the additional agony simply by announcing at his inauguration that the United states was pulling out at once rather than extending withdrawal Over four years. This statement skips by Nixon a Effort to keep Faith with a client state in Saigon that was deeply flawed but surely no More a fundamentally corrupt than the communist regime in Hanoi. I do not propose to relight the Vietnam War. But while we Are still mourning the likes of Lew Puller who was honest with himself to a degree rare among men we might pause for a bit of honesty with ourselves. C Washngton Post