'No Point In Being Bitter'

Well, if that's the way they felt, why in the hell didn't they go to the public? They never related that to us.*

* *When [Richard M.] Nixon came in, in '69, and took over as president, took over the war, did you ever have any conversations with him or [Henry] Kissinger about what to do, or how to -- or your old friend [Melvin] Laird, who was defense secretary? . . . Even Nixon was saying we were gonna get out. He always said, "Peace with honor. "

He was obsessed with that phraseology.

What did it mean ?

That we had saved Vietnam from becoming communist. That was his goal, superficially, and that's what he kept emphasizing. And we're preventing the domino theory from taking place in Asia. Well, the domino theory never really materialized. . . . Nixon really believed that, that it won't take place if we stayed firm. . . .

I hope we never live through another era like that in American history. The answers were very evasive. The results were very disillusioning.*

* *What's the big lesson from all of this? What's the big lesson from the broadest history ?

Well, I've often thought about that, Bob, based on my 30 years in government in very difficult times. We have to assume that we are the most powerful nation in the world militarily, and that we have some obligations on behalf of democracies worldwide. But I don't think we can force democracy on people or a nation that aren't prepared for it. But that doesn't mean we should go to war to change their mind. We believe in democracy and we think it's the right policy. We had a standoff with the Soviet Union, but we never went to war with the Soviet Union for other good and sufficient reasons, economic and so forth. That ill-fated system failed. . . .

I'm often asked . . . does the president today have a tougher job than you and [Ronald] Reagan had about our enemies? I said I think Reagan and I and [Jimmy] Carter, we had a relatively simple problem. That sounds kind of silly, but we had one enemy. We knew what their military capabilities were. They knew generally what our capabilities were. And we had a standoff for 40 years. The present situation where you have these renegade governments on a global basis in this part of the world and that part of the world, they're a different kind of enemy. And I don't envy the present president, whoever it might be, having to combat that circumstance.

What did [Donald H.] Rumsfeld think of Vietnam? Do you recall any input from him ?

Don was never vocal in his support or criticism. . . . Don never got off the track, as far as I remember. He was not a critic. He just followed good, what his boss thought was good policy.*

* *You could have been very bitter about [Vietnam], and you weren't at all.