“It’s a bad rap for him”
Protective-Reaction, John D. Lavelle and the Nixon Tapes
On August 4, 2010, a wartime American President took steps to
correct a mistake another wartime President made 38 years
earlier. Craig Whitlock of the
Washington Post
reported that President Obama has asked the Senate to restore
the honor and rank of Air Force General John D. Lavelle, who was
demoted and forced to retire in disgrace for allegedly
unauthorized bombing raids over North Vietnam in 1972. Whitlock
wrote, “The decision officially sets the record straight about
who really lied during the controversial chapter in the Vietnam
War, who told the truth and who was left holding the bag.”[1]
The Nixon Tapes have provided the evidence to correct the
injustice against General Lavelle, who maintained that he had
acted under legitimate orders until his death in 1979.[2]
On a number of occasions, President Richard M. Nixon saw
“protective-reaction strikes” as both a justification for
bombing North Vietnam in retaliation for radar locks on U.S.
planes and as a plausible pretext to inflict damage beyond the
Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM) sites. For example, during the
American-backed South Vietnamese attack into Laos and Cambodia
in early 1971, Nixon instructed his National Security Advisor,
Henry Kissinger, to tell Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin that
American air power was only responding to missile launches by
North Vietnamese SAM sites:
Nixon:
No, I think you should say this: “Mr. [Ambassador]…the President
asked me to call you in…He said, ‘Now the one thing you must
understand as far as bombing of the North is concerned, there
have been these missiles that have been fired, and there will
have to be some strikes on those missiles.’” I’d tell him.
Kissinger:
Yeah.
Nixon:
Actually, I’d strike the shit out of a few other places…The
advantage of this one is…that we can call it
“protective-reaction” while blasting the bejeezus out of
them.[3]
Nixon also advocated the use of protective-reaction strikes
during the fall of 1971, when he perceived North Vietnamese
duplicity at peace negotiations in Paris and their preparations
for a major offensive against U.S.-ally South Vietnam.
Nixon:
If you can find the provocation, any kind of a provocation, just
for a little pop.
Kissinger:
I agree.
Nixon:
…I want to stir it up a little. Now, find something that they
can hit [3 second withdrawal] It’s protective-reaction. They
shot at our planes. Who the hell’s gonna complain? Who’s gonna
prove they didn’t? …All right, you tell [Joint Chiefs of Staff
Chairman, Admiral Thomas] Moorer to give me a couple of
targets…and knock the shit out of them…Now, incidentally, I’ll
say they were building up for an attack on our forces as we were
withdrawing, and I’m using the airpower.[4]
The loose definition of protective-reaction strikes later became
something of a controversy that cost Lavelle his career. As an
Air Force veteran, Aloysius Casey, and his son, Patrick Casey,
discovered in 2007, Lavelle was made the scapegoat for allegedly
unauthorized strikes.[5] With some additional digging, we have
discovered the moment of decision in a Cabinet Room conversation
on February 2, 1972, in which Nixon clearly ordered a change to
a more liberal interpretation of protective reaction-strikes in
the context of countering the predicted North Vietnamese spring
offensive:
Nixon:
Do I understand, that we in effect—that after the enemy launches
its massive attack, that he [6] then on a case-by-case basis
he’s got to get authority to take out a SAM site?
Moorer:
Yes, sir, that’s what we’re talked about. What we’ve asked—
Nixon:
Let’s change that.
[emphasis added]
The President pressed the issue about a difference of
interpretation and got into a mild argument with his Secretary
of Defense, Melvin Laird.
Nixon:
I know that there’s been some disagreements as to what to do and
so forth.
Laird:
I don’t think there’s any disagreement.
Nixon:
Well, what I meant is I just want to be sure that there’s a
clear understanding here as to the two different phases: what do
we do now; what do we do when it starts. Without, of course,
getting the commanders in the field the right to start a nuclear
war, once the major offensive has begun the situation totally
changes…We’re not going to go through this crap saying we have
to approve every goddamn thing. It’s not going to be done that
way and I want to—
Laird:
I don’t think there’s any question.
Nixon:
No, there is. That’s exactly what we’ve been talking about in
both places. If they start an offensive, we’re not going to go
through this nonsense of saying that
we’ll wait until a SAM shoots and then we’ll knock it out.[7]
The Caseys also rediscovered a tape in which President Nixon
hinted at his own culpability in and regret for the bombing
strikes for which Lavelle was blamed:
Nixon:
Well, let me ask you about Lavelle…I had it on my list this
morning. I just don’t want him to be made a goat,
Goddamnit…We all know what protective-reaction is—
Kissinger:
You see, what
happened—
Nixon:
Is this damn Laird playing games with us—?
Kissinger:
What happened with Lavelle was [that] he had every reason to
believe that we wanted him to aggressive steps—
Nixon did not want Lavelle to be made the scapegoat, but he
failed to prevent it from happening after it had become
public knowledge during an election year and the same month
as the Watergate break-in/bugging that would eventually lead
to the only presidential resignation in U.S. history.
Nixon:
Well, come back to Lavelle now…Can we do anything now
to stop this damn thing, or—?
Kissinger:
[No, now it’s with
congressional]—
[…]
Nixon:
Why the hell did this happen to him? A decision of
that magnitude without—?
Kissinger:
[They never told you]—
Nixon:
I should have known about it, Henry, because this…this
involves something we told—You remember, we told Laird to
keep pressure on there in March.
Kissinger:
By the time I knew about it, it had already been done. There
was no point in…involving you anymore. Because he ran it by
me after the guy had already been removed.
Nixon next asked how to handle the situation
“public-relations-wise.” Kissinger responded, “I think this
will go away…After all, we took corrective steps. We could
have easily hidden it. I think we might as well make a
virtue of necessity.” Nixon still felt uncomfortable as it
was a “bad rap” for Lavelle. Kissinger replied that it was
“the way the press plays things.” Kissinger having touched a
nerve, Nixon rhetorically asked if the press was “just eager
to get at us on Vietnam? Isn’t that it?”[8]
Nixon and Kissinger had a similar conversation twelve days
later:
Kissinger: But
it—But also sometimes when we did these three-day strikes we
called it “protective-reaction…just to make clear that we
weren’t resuming the bombing of the North.
Nixon: Um-hmm.
Kissinger: When
we were hitting Vinh, and so forth, last December [1971],
that was not “protective-reaction” in the strict sense. That
was a punishment for their acts, and that hasn’t been made
clear here.
Nixon: Well, the
thing is, you and I know and we told Laird. Maybe, I just
don’t want—Frankly, Henry, I don’t feel right about our
pushing him into this thing...and then...giving him a bad
rap.[9]
President Obama’s commitment to correct a mistake of an
earlier conflict is important today as a reminder to avoid
the mistakes of the past as U.S. and Allied troops are in
currently in harm’s way in Iraq and Afghanistan. It can take
a long time for justice, but the truth eventually comes out.
Conversations that reference Lavelle
Conversation
|
Date
|
Time
|
Participants*
|
Log
|
Audio
|
733-003a
|
6/14/72
|
10:04 - 11:07 am
|
P,
HAK, WPR, Unk, WHO, JLMcC
|
doc
(54k)
|
mp3
(22.1m)
|
733-003b |
|
|
|
|
mp3
(26.9m) |
733-006
|
6/14/72
|
11:15 - 11:55
am
|
P, HAK, Unk
(SBB?)
|
doc
(40k)
|
mp3
(30.4m)
|
735-007
|
6/15/72
|
12:49 - 1:26 pm
|
P,
HAK, Unk
|
doc
(41k)
|
mp3
(26.7m)
|
025-123
|
6/22/72
|
12:56 - 1:08 pm
|
P,
RLZ
|
doc
(26k)
|
mp3
(8.3m)
|
740-003
|
6/22/72
|
3:44 - 4:06 pm
|
P,
HRH, RLZ, SBB, APB
|
doc
(31k)
|
mp3
(12.5m)
|
742-006
|
6/26/72
|
8:57 - 9:40 am
|
P,
HAK, SBB
|
doc
(39k)
|
mp3
(31m)
|
742-008
|
6/26/72
|
9:50 - 10:45 am
|
P,
RMW, HRH
|
doc
(39k)
|
mp3
(36.2m)
|
742-013
|
6/26/72
|
11:31 am - 12:08 pm
|
P,
PMF, SBB, WHO, HAK, GPS, HRH
|
doc
(40k)
|
mp3
(25.6m)
|
743-006
|
6/27/72
|
unknown time between 11:57 am and 1:50 pm
|
P,
RMW, HRH, APB, Unk, HAK, RLZ, MS, WHO
|
doc
(56k)
|
mp3
(84.4m)
|
135-006
|
6/29/72
|
1:00 - 1:28 pm
|
P,
CWC
|
doc
(30k)
|
mp3
(15.2m)
|
345-010
|
6/29/72
|
2:40 - 3:50 pm
|
P,
HRH, APB, HAK, Unk
|
doc
(45k)
|
mp3
(47m)
|
745-002
|
6/30/72
|
4:30 - 6:15 pm
|
P,
CMacG, HRH, DCH, RLZ, RMW, SBB
|
doc
(50k)
|
n/a
|
761-007a
|
8/4/72
|
Unknown time after 10:37 am - 1:48 pm
|
P,
HRH, EFRC, TNC, KCR, GKG, KMS, AMHa, ALM, LDJ,
TMD, SBB, WHP, RLZ, Unk, JDE, WHO, RKC
|
doc
(78k)
|
mp3
(29.8m)
|
761-007b |
|
|
|
|
mp3
(38.8m) |
778-005
|
9/15/72
|
Unknown between 8:36 and 9:58 am
|
P,
HRH, JBC, AMH
|
doc
(37k)
|
mp3
(12.6m)
|
781-021
|
9/18/72
|
1:00 - 1:09 pm
|
P,
APB
|
doc
(23k)
|
mp3
(1.8m)
|
781-026
|
9/18/72
|
Unknown between 1:12 and 1:25 pm
|
P,
JDE
|
doc
(26k)
|
mp3
(3m)
|
371-019a
|
10/23/72
|
8:34 - 9:17 am
|
P,
AMH
|
doc
(43k)
|
mp3
(20.2m)
|
371-019b
|
|
|
|
|
mp3
(9.8m)
|
[3] Nixon Tapes, Oval Office
Conversation No. 742-006, June 26, 1972, 8:57 am -
9:40 am
[6] General Creighton Abrams,
Commander of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV)
until June 28, 1972; Chief of Staff, USA, after October
12, 1972. Until his removal, Lavelle was the commander
of the air campaign in Southeast Asia, coordinating
operations with General Abrams.
[7] Nixon Tapes, Cabinet Room Conv.
No. 89-1, February 2, 1972, 10:05 a.m. – 12:16 p.m. The
complete conversation was published in Document 13,
“National Security Council Meeting,”
Foreign Relations
of the United States, 1969-1976, Vietnam, volume
VIII (Washington DC: GPO, 2010) pp.44-70, and is one of
the longest transcripts ever published from the Nixon
Tapes.
[8] Nixon Tapes, Oval Office Conv.
No. 574-3, September 17, 1971, 9:08 – 10:03 a.m.
[9] Nixon Tapes,
Oval Office Conv. No. 462-5, March 5, 1971, 8:30 – 10:15
a.m.
|