Nixon and Vietnam

In seeking to rebut Roger Morris’ “diatribe” (“While Tittering at Nixon, Don’t Underestimate the Web He Wove,” Op-Ed Page, March 5), ex-President Nixon’s assistant John H. Taylor (letter, April 1) offers a fascinating insight into the Nixonian mentality: “Someday, we as a nation will have to come to terms with what happened in Indochina when American authority was withdrawn.”

What authority? The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that grew out of Lyndon Johnson’s hoax and that Congress later repudiated by passing the War Powers Act? In Southeast Asia we claimed to be helping free nations resist the worldwide communist conspiracy, but Nixon saw them only as our puppets.

Throughout the Cold War, our policy-makers consistently underestimated the force of nationalism. As President Eisenhower’s point man for Southeast Asia, Vice President Nixon muffed a unique opportunity to recommend that we not take over from the French after their shattering defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Why did he write off Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam’s nationalist leader, who had collaborated with us during World War II?

Later, as President, the secretive Nixon subverted the National Security Council by making it an action agency so as to bypass the Departments of State and Defense and evade congressional oversight. The apparent success of this arrangement, as in the 1973 overthrow of Chilean President Salvador Allende, almost certainly led to its extreme abuse in the Iran-Contra fiasco.

And with what exactly does Taylor want us to come to terms? Does Nixon now doubt that he gave us peace with honor?

MARSHALL PHILLIPS

Long Beach