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]