Nixon on U.S. Power

Just when it appeared that a kinder, gentler Nixon had emerged as a serious foreign affairs analyst and media commentator, The Times offers us a chilling glimpse of the “old” Nixon in action. In his stern lecture exhorting America to “play hardball with Hanoi” (Jan. 10), the former President unwittingly confirms the character flaw that caused his downfall: a petty, seemingly obsessive preoccupation with punishing “enemies.”

Bitterly reviling Vietnam’s communist regime as “brutal” and “barbaric,” Nixon asserts that America has a moral duty to quarantine Hanoi diplomatically and commercially until its leaders renounce their evil ways. Brushing aside Hanoi’s oft-expressed desire to reform its economy and open the country to foreign investment, and shamelessly milking the emotion-laden MIA issue for all it’s worth, the “new” Nixon appears as vindictive and mean-spirited as the old one. One need only contrast his uncompromising attitude toward Vietnam with his far more tolerant and beneficent view of China’s current hard-line government to get a clear view of Nixon’s hidden agenda: revenge.

RICHARD BAUM, Professor of Political Science, UCLA