American Foreign Policy

17 Pages 4175 Words

e.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, after wrestling wrenchingly with whether he
really had to, he had summoned his two closest aides, Bob
Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, to Camp David and told them
personally that they had to go.
Then on Monday afternoon, just a few hours before going on
the air, he asked me to come over to Aspen, the Presidential cabin.FOREIGN POLICY ASSOCIATION
there. I found him in his study, in his usual corner chair, his back to
the windows – emotionally ravaged, distraught, unraveled, his hands
unsteady, his mind drifting away and back again.
Finally he turned to me and asked, in a flat, distant voice:
“Maybe I should resign. Do you think so? If you do think so, you
don’t have to tell me. Just put it in the next draft, and I’ll do it.”
Now, that’s not the sort of question one takes lightly, when it
comes from an embattled president.
I paused, briefly, knowing my answer was important.
I told him he had a duty to remain in office. That there was a lot
of unfinished business of his presidency, both at home a...