University of Virginia Library

Ex-Vice President Richard M.
Nixon, in his assault last Thursday
on Vice President Humphrey, may
have raised more questions about
our defense policy than he
answered. Like his own 1960 rival,
he said there is a "gravely serious
security gap."

He also said that the Eisenhower
administration's display of strength
explains why it did not have the
war in Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs,
the Cuban missile crisis and the
Berlin Wall. But neither the facts
nor his own earlier statements
appear to support his main points.

The record partially supports
him in the matter of the Berlin
Wall, but only insofar as the actual
laying of the bricks is concerned.
The Wall, built in August of 1961,
is merely the tragic symbol of a
crisis which had grown steadily over
the years and culminated in the
Eisenhower-Nixon year of 1960
when Russia abrogated the
four-power treaty for occupation
rights in Berlin and transferred to
East Germany control of all
movement between East and West
Berlin.

The genesis of the Bay of Pigs
fiasco can be laid at Mr. Nixon's
own door. He first proposed such a
venture in the Spring of 1959. It
was not until the election of 1960
that President Kennedy learned of
what he had been bequeathed by
Mr. Eisenhower and Mr. Nixon - a
force of Cuban exiles under
American training in Guatemala, a
committee of Cuban politicians
under American control in Florida,
a ready-to-go plan for both the
invasion itself and the installation
of a provisional government.

The Cuban missile crisis, of
course, was a direct outgrowth of
the Bay of Pigs, and the way it was
handled, far from being shameful, is
one of Washington's brightest
chapters. Moscow had to remove
the long-range missiles.

On the Vietnam war, Mr. Nixon
has moved slowly from his early
1968 campaign position that he had
worked out a solution which he
would not disclose until (and if) he
was elected President. His running
mate, Spiro T. Agnew, thereafter
stated there wasn't any such plan,
and Mr. Nixon, refusing to discuss
the subject further, would only say
that "the efforts that were made
were right, in my view."

The facts are that Mr. Nixon
himself was one of the first to
suggest that it might be necessary to send American ground troops
into Vietnam. He did this in a
speech to newspaper editors in
Washington on April 16, 1954 after
(1) then Secretary of State John
Foster Dulles, who said President
Eisenhower wanted it, had asked
and been refused a joint
congressional resolution permitting
the use of American air and naval
power, and (2) Mr. Dulles had
flabbergasted the French Foreign
Minister by inquiring as to whether
American might help matters by
dropping "two atomic bombs to
save Dien Bien Phu:"

Mr. Nixon should have been
asked to address himself to these
matters on Sunday night when, still
refusing to debate Mr. Humphrey,
he appeared for the first time in
two years in a nationally televised
news conference.

He might also be asked about a
seeming contradiction between
statements in his 1968 acceptance
speech where he pledged "an end to
the era of confrontation," and his
Thursday night speech. In the latter
he raised the specter of an alleged
"security gap" verging on a
"survival gap" and pledged that if
elected, he would institute what
can only result in a stepped-up
nuclear arms race with Russia -
even though both nations already
have sufficient nuclear power to
write finis to the human race.