Important archive of correspondence from former President Richard Nixon to Congressman Lester L. Wolff, chairman of the House International Relations Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, confirming and defending his secret offer of aid to Hanoi during the 1972-1973 Vietnam peace conference and invoking executive privilege. Includes:
ALS signed "RN," one page, 7.25 x 10.5, personal letterhead, May 14, 1977. Rare handwritten letter to "Lester," introducing his typed letter and asking that it be made public. In full: "This just a personal note to advise you that since I have received a number of inquiries on this matter from other members of the Congress & the media I would appreciate your making my letter public when you receive it. Incidentally, I recall the long chat we had in the 60s, when I was out of office, and we were on the same plane on a flight across the pacific. I wish you & your colleagues well as you work in behalf of a bipartisan foreign policy which will serve the cause of peace & freedom in the years ahead."
TLS signed "Richard Nixon," four pages, 7.25 x 10.5, personal letterhead May 14, 1977. To "Congressman Wolff," in part: "As I am sure you are aware, your request of February 22nd presents some fundamental and serious Constitutional questions. In 1953 a Committee of the House of Representatives sought to subpoena former President Truman to inquire about matters of which he had personal knowledge while he served as President. President Truman's response states what I believe is the correct Constitutional guideline which a former President must follow. He said: '…In spite of my personal willingness to cooperate with your committee, I feel constrained by my duty to the people of the United States to decline to comply with the subpoena. In doing so, I am carrying out the provisions of the Constitution of the United States; and am following a long line of precedents, commencing with George Washington himself in 1796. Since his day, Presidents Jefferson, Monroe, Jackson, Tyler, Polk, Fillmore, Buchanan, Roosevelt, Coolidge, Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt have declined to respond to subpoenas or demands for information of various kinds by Congress…It must be obvious to you that if the doctrine of separation of powers and the independence of the Presidency is to have any value at all, it must be equally applicable to a President after his term of office has expired when he is sought to be examined with respect to any acts occurring while he is President. The doctrine would be shattered, and the President, contrary to our fundamental theory of our constitutional government, would become a mere arm of the Legislative Branch of the Government if he would feel during his term of office that his every act might be subject to official inquiry and possible distortion for political purposes.' I, too, shall adhere to this precedent. However, because the issue of aid to the Hanoi Government is currently under consideration in the Congress, and without waiving the separation of powers principle, I want to be as helpful as I can in providing voluntarily my recollection of events surrounding the aid negotiation." He goes on to quote from his 'Address to the Nation on Plan for Peace in Vietnam' of January 25, 1972, from the Peace Agreement of January 23, 1973, and from his message to Pham van dong of February 1, 1973. He continues: "The aid proposal was not at any time presented to them as a part of the 'price' to obtain the Peace Agreement. Dr. Kissinger and I consistently and repeatedly rejected the idea that aid was to be provided as 'reparations.' Throughout we indicated that, just as we helped our enemies in World War II-Germany and Japan-rebuild their economies, we would apply the same principle to Hanoi. The Hanoi Government has violated the agreement in areas too numerous to mention. They refused to withdraw their forces from Cambodia and Laos, as required by the Peace Agreement. By far their most blatant violation of the Agreement was their crossing the DMZ and massively invading South Vietnam in early 1975. There is no commitment of any kind, moral or legal, to provide aid to the Hanoi Government. On the contrary, I can think of no action which would be less justified or more immoral than to provide any aid whatever to the Hanoi Government, in view of their flagrant violations of the peace accords."
TLS signed "Richard Nixon," two pages, 7.25 x 10.5, personal letterhead, February 14, 1979. To "Mr. Chairman," the Hon. Lester L. Wolff, in part: "I must respectfully decline your invitation to testify before your subcommittee. I see no useful purpose to be served by my trying to second-guess President Carter's P.R.C. normalization decision. Any one of us might have handled the situation differently, but now that the decision has been made we should look to the future and not to the past. With regard to the questions you raised in your letter, Dr. Kissinger and I had extensive discussions with Chairman Mao and Premier Chou En-lai on the Taiwan issue in 1972. We could not reach an agreement and consequently stated our positions separately in the Shanghai Communique. In that document the U.S. 'reaffirmed' its support of a peaceful resolution of the Taiwan issue. I consider that to be an unequivocal moral commitment. In my view U.S. policies toward the P.R.C. and Taiwan in the future should be formulated in a way to honor that commitment. Normalization of U.S. relations with the P.R.C. is indispensable in furthering our goal of building a structure of peace in Asia and the world. But at a time when U.S. credibility as a dependable ally and friend is being questioned in a number of countries, it is also vitally important that the Taiwan issue be handled in a way which will reassure other nations-whether old friends, new friends, potential friends or wavering friends-that it is safe to rely on America's word and to be America's friend."
In overall fine condition. Accompanied by a TLS from Nixon's assistant, John V. Brennan, June 3, 1977, stating that "President Nixon covered all his recollections on the subject"; Wolff's three-page handwritten draft on the subject, beginning: "What's this all about - is whether or not Nixon misused 5 billion in aid to North Vietnam subject to Congressional approval or not"; the text of Wolff's request for information concerning the aid promise to North Vietnam on Congressional letterhead; and photocopies of a transcript of a phone call between Nixon, Wolff, and other congressmen on June 15, 1977, the text of Nixon's February 1, 1973 message to the North Vietnamese Prime Minister, and related newspaper articles.
On May 19, 1977, five days after Nixon's initial letters to Wolff, his secret 1973 message promising North Vietnam billions in economic aid was made public. According to the Washington Post: 'Nixon's letter was the first confirmation by a member of his administration of the 1973 aid promise. His message to Vietnamese Premier Pham Van Dong containing the promise of a 'range of $2.25 billion' of reconstruction aid and $1 billion to $1.5 billion of food and commodity aid was made public yesterday by the State Department, which obtained it from Nixon's papers. Wolff said that former Secretaries of State William P. Rogers and Henry A. Kissinger had misled Congress by not informing it of Nixon's aid pledge. He also said he will seek a copy of Pham Van Dong's response, which reportedly confirms the aid understanding. Presumably, that response, like Nixon's promise, was not kept in State Department files, but among Nixon's presidential papers.' In spite of the apparent deception by members of the Nixon administration, all were in agreement that the United States owed Hanoi nothing in view of their violations of the peace deal.
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