Nixon's Roger Plan - In 1969

[seaboard18]

C|P To start this thread with facts. Dealing with Middle East Issues at that time, which would have made a difference today.

Dr. Gunnar Jarring, Sweden's Ambassador to the Soviet Union, was appointed by the United Nations to work with Israel and the Arab states to try to implement UN Security Council Resolution 242. This was a strange appointment because Jarring remained Ambassador to the Soviet Union, a country which had broken off its diplomatic relations with Israel, making it difficult or impossible for Jarring to do anything that might be viewed as favorable to Israel. Jarring met with parties in the Middle East in early 1968, but the Arab states refused direct or even indirect contact with Israel and Jarring was not the man to challenge them.

By 1969, the Nixon administration, with Henry Kissinger as National Security Adviser, was deeply committed to a detante with the Soviet Union and reaching some agreement on the Middle East was vital to their efforts. On March 13, 1969, Israel's Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin met with US Secretary of State William Rogers to discuss a set of US proposals for Arab-Israeli peace, the first time in US-Israel relations that the US had authored its own plan. The plan was completely unacceptable to Israel since it called for Israel's unilateral withdrawal to pre-1967 borders without any Arab peace and security commitments to Israel.

Israel rejected the plan, but the US presented it to the Soviet Union and Arab states nonetheless. The Arab and Soviet governments turned it down, refusing to discuss any bi-lateral agreement with Israel. They insisted on a UN-imposed withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines, to be guaranteed by the UN and buttressed by security arrangements. The secret plan, never announced publically, seemed to be dead.

Israel's Prime Minister Golda Meir visited the United States in late September 1969, and met with President Nixon in Washington on September 25 and 26.

By the end of 1969, there was heavy fighting along the Suez Canal, and Arab terrorists were engaged in sabotage actions against Israel from Jordan and Syria, assisted by the armed forces of those two countries.

On December 9, US Secretary of State Rogers, revived the plan by making the same proposals for a Middle East peace settlement, based on an interpretation of UN Security Council Resolution 242, in a public speech that became known as the Rogers Plan, although it was really Nixon's plan. Golda Meir described the Rogers Plan as a disaster for Israel, saying:

It would be irresponsible for any Israeli government to support such a plan.
The administration did not consult with Israel before the plan was announced, and the American secretary of state, who had met with foreign minister Abba Eban a few days before, concealed the imminent announcement from him.

The proposals were still unacceptable to Israel who recalled Yitzchak Rabin, their US ambassador, to return home for consultations. On December 22, 1969 Israel's Cabinet formally rejected the Rogers Plan. In a vote in the US Congress in 1970, 70 Senators and 280 Representatives rejected Secretary of State Rogers' peace plan as being too one-sided against Israel.

[alsouthster]

All right the Nixon thread!

All right so we have the facts, thank you Seaboard18, and now on to some tangential speculations, as previously discussed.

Specifically, "What if Nixon had not gone crazy?" and "What if Nixon were President today?"

A) WHAT IF NIXON HAD NOT GONE CRAZY?

If Nixon had not lost his mind in a demented attempt to stop the Communists, I mean Democrats, he would have finished his term and retired to great acclaim while hand-flashing cool V-for-Victory signs (RMN was hip hop before there was hip hop).
Riding the momentum, Ford would have defeated Carter, and the most important development of the Carter administration, Billy Beer, would never have existed.

However, the pendulum would have then swung back, as pendulums do, and our beloved RONALD REAGAN would have lost to Gary Hart or Warren Beatty or Jerry Brown or Linda Rondstadt.

Hot trashy women would have been the true brains behind the show, Medicare would have been enacted, along with free welfare-for-all, and eventually the US would have joined Canada.

B) WHAT IF NIXON WERE PRESIDENT TODAY?

If Nixon were President today, and I mean TODAY, he would not have needed to pander to the fringe religious conservative (lunatic) base that Karl Rove utilized to get W elected. Thus Nixon would not have used the frigging Presidential veto to try to squash stemcell research...which could save millions of lives. Did I mention that he did that today haha

Those are my speculations so far, and I ain't even brought Kissinger into it yet :)

[cojones]

Nixon Considered Nukes in Viet War
By Associated Press
Mon Jul 31, 7:51 PM

WASHINGTON - President Nixon, in his first year in office and eager to end an unpopular war that killed tens of thousands of U.S. troops, considered using nuclear weapons against the North Vietnamese, recently declassified documents show.

By mid-1969, Nixon and national security adviser Henry Kissinger had settled on a strategy using international diplomacy with threats of force against the communists ruling the north in an attempt to get them to buckle, according to an analysis of the papers by the National Security Archive. The private research group is headquartered at George Washington University.

Kissinger and his staff began developing contingency military plans under the code name of "Duck Hook." He also created a committee within the National Security Council to evaluate secret plans prepared by Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington and military planners in Saigon.

A pair of declassified documents raised the question of nuclear weapons use in connection with the military operation against the north, which was fighting to reunite with the democratic south, according to the archive.

The first is a Sept. 29, 1969, memo from two Kissinger aides _ Roger Morris and Anthony Lake _ to Capt. Rembrandt Robinson, who had a central role in preparing the Duck Hook plans. Robinson had prepared a paper for the NSC committee outlining the Joint Chiefs plans to attack North Vietnam.

But the archive says Morris and Lake, unhappy with the document, asked Robinson to rework it to present "clearly and fully all the implications of the (Duck Hook) action, should the president decide to do it."

They said the president needed to decide in advance "the fateful question of how far we will go. He cannot, for example, confront the issue of using tactical nuclear weapons in the midst of the exercise. He must be prepared to play out whatever string necessary in this case."

The second document is an Oct. 2, 1969, memo from Kissinger to Nixon, introducing an NSC staff report on the state of military planning for Duck Hook. The report said the basic objective of the operation would be to coerce Hanoi "to negotiate a compromise settlement through a series of military blows," which would walk the fine line between inflicting "unacceptable damage to their society" and causing the "total destruction of the country or the regime."

But Nixon abandoned Duck Hook shortly after Oct. 2. Both his secretaries of Defense and State, Melvin Laird and William Rogers, opposed the plan. Nixon apparently also began to doubt whether he could sustain public support for the three- to six-month period the plan might require. He also concluded that his military threats against the North Vietnamese had no effect.

U.S. troops remained in the country throughout Nixon's first term despite a gradual withdrawal of forces that he began in 1969. Nixon was re-elected in 1972 and secured a cease-fire agreement the following year, but it was never implemented.

Two years later, in 1975, North Vietnamese forces overran the South, reuniting the country under Communist rule.

___

On the Net:

National Security Archive: hxxp://www.nsarchive.org

[alsouthster]

Frigging Kissinger...guess that's not too surprising though. Sociopath +war criminal equals realpolitik par excellence!
Hope he's not anywhere near nukes now though...only person I trust testing nukes is Twostep haha
but speaking of our man RMN, and I should add that I am happy to see some action back in this important thread, I believe that if RMN was alive today and heard what W heard today...two no-bullshit generals tolling the bell for Iraq civil war...RMN would have asked for Rumsfeld's HEAD on a SPIKE
ouch;)

[Twostep]

only person I trust testing nukes is Twostep

I think testing sat cards is a lot tougher, AlSouthster....:D

The current Middle East situation should be a major-league wake up call to the whole world. I've been a Bush supporter in the past - but sorry, GW, if you and Rice think you can use a diplomatic solution to sweep this mess under the table, you're only fooling yourselves.

Nixon would have done a hell of a lot better job - but facts are facts. Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and millions of Islamic radicals have but one goal in mind - the total extermination of Israel and the implementation of their insanity throughout the entire Middle East.

They will either succeed, or the rest of the world will succeed in the total annihalation of radical Islam, something that appears to me to be absolutely impossible. There will be no permanent middle ground and no peace.

However folks prepare for the hell that's certain to follow depends on one's spiritual beliefs and many other things...but prepare, you will...or you might find yourself on an Al-Jazeera website with your head sitting on your chest.

I'd feel better with Tricky Dicky calling the shots, crook or not.

[seaboard18]

I think testing sat cards is a lot tougher, AlSouthster....:D

The current Middle East situation should be a major-league wake up call to the whole world. I've been a Bush supporter in the past - but sorry, GW, if you and Rice think you can use a diplomatic solution to sweep this mess under the table, you're only fooling yourselves.

Nixon would have done a hell of a lot better job - but facts are facts. Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and millions of Islamic radicals have but one goal in mind - the total extermination of Israel and the implementation of their insanity throughout the entire Middle East.

They will either succeed, or the rest of the world will succeed in the total annihalation of radical Islam, something that appears to me to be absolutely impossible. There will be no permanent middle ground and no peace.

However folks prepare for the hell that's certain to follow depends on one's spiritual beliefs and many other things...but prepare, you will...or you might find yourself on an Al-Jazeera website with your head sitting on your chest.

I'd feel better with Tricky Dicky calling the shots, crook or not.

I sent him an email to hell and included your post. Maybe he will respond soon... Stay tuned to CNN.

[alsouthster]

hahaha

I'll monitor BBC World Service via shortwave in case he responds there ;)

[Twostep]

I sent him an email to hell and included your post. Maybe he will respond soon... Stay tuned to CNN.

Makes sense - no telling what you'll see on CNN.:rolleyes:

In a war on terror, I'd rather have the Nixon Administration at the helm than the Bush Administration. Wouldn't you ?

Other than that, you can have Nixon, Carter, LBJ and a few others I could mention.