Nixon, Maupin & Collins on Vietnam War and Military veterans

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What was that?

That was a terrible call.

I'm going to start with that, and then I'll go to the other side of the room.

Okay.

I think it's going to be something that I'm going to have to do.

I might have to do that.

Very good.

Why don't we try to get an individual picture?

Why don't you stand on this side?

Oh, right.

Okay.

Now, all of you, how many of you from 4 to 1?

Okay, 6 to 1 in the second, and 3 in the second.

This is Louie, man.

Yeah, Louie.

He's so glad to meet you.

Hey, what's up, man?

This is Rick Rowland.

Why is that?

I don't know.

All right.

That's good.

All right.

Oh, but really, what's hard about it is the complexity.

Yes, yes.

I know.

I know what you're saying.

I don't know.

There's a lot of reasons.

.

Uh, Beth Lane was one of the men that was wounded over there in this room, and he was considered dead when his bottom off his boat, but I think he's not.

He's not really walking about.

He's a man named Larson, or Hogan.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, Hogan.

Hogan.

He's dead.

Were you married at the time?

I think about three-fourths of two weeks we were married.

We're all age-old.

Are you coming?

And then we're back in Hawaii.

Oh, you want to make an appearance with my name on my travel story?

Yeah.

Come on.

So let us see if we can get all the men and the wives and the children to have their labor for free.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

I wanted to show you this girl.

And I learned this truth just three days ago.

It's rather ironic that you're in here on a day that René Davis is supposed to be running.

Last night I have a Spanish fellow working for me.

He was born in Spain.

He just became an American citizen a couple of years ago and had a strong, strong patriotism, like so many people have acquired in American citizenship.

And so he left the office last night, you know, it was pouring rain, just pouring down.

He said, you know, sir, just great weather you're demonstrating.

Yeah, I had it out there somewhere behind the canvas.

I mean, I guess I don't want to push it.

But the fact that you have served there, and then when we go back and all the people there, of course, it really demonstrates so clearly about what it's all about.

We lose sight of it.

It's been a long experience.

And we read about it.

back in the year of creation, genocide, indeterminate bombing, and all that sort of thing developed.

It's everywhere all over the place.

Well, we all know that narrow is a great power.

It used power in such restraint as we have.

That's why it's taken so long.

That's why it's so difficult.

And now, at the present time, the important thing is it's working.

It's going to work.

Yes, we have problems there.

We would prefer the election.

And, you know, it's not quite out.

You realize that in the United Nations today, only one-fourth of the

their presidents and prime ministers were elected.

One more.

So what I mean is not that we don't like it, we don't occur that threat, but the democracy is not an easy system.

It takes many years to develop it, and to be in power, they at least have opposition assemblymen, they have opposition senators, they have some opposition press.

But the most important thing is that at least they have a chance now, a chance to talk, without having the consciousness in which there would be no elections.

The choice is really between some elections or none, and between a hold for elections and no hold for elections.

And here, as all of you, of course, from the background, we think of those people, and put it in that slower context, we all realize that

What happened in North Vietnam?

I was in Vietnam in 1953, and in Hanoi all over the country, because it was actually a foreign nation.

I was back in 1956, and I know that you know that the North Vietnamese, the communists who were in North Vietnam, had several attacks.

60,000 were executed.

The Catholic bishop of Diné estimates that 750,000 were starved at that Swayfinger camp.

And we know that admittedly, admittedly, we can't stop them.

And I recommend you to stop now.

Let us see what would happen if we were to get out and, you know, because of

It's not just a little bit of juice, a month's juice, three month's juice, four month's juice.

One of the things that would happen for sure is everything that you have served for some people have died for or would be lost.

Let's forget that.

What does it do to them?

You can be very sure in a matter of a few months that

That has occurred in North Vietnam, but Vietnam's not in comparison to what would happen in South Vietnam, because these people lie down.

For better or worse, they lie down, you know, on a gash that they're not concerned about getting off on.

So that's one side of it.

But beyond that, if anybody has visited that country, I've been there a few times.

I've served there.

I should have.

But, you know, these are good people.

They deserve a better fate and closure.

They sell drugs to our guys, and they steal, and they, uh, but, uh, so, I guess these are the plans we were trying to accomplish.

So, in Asia, it's kind of a whole way of life.

And, uh, the gold industry is a lot better, but, uh, on the other hand, uh, there's a great amount of reason to strengthen the character of these people in the world today.

I think the last time we were able to go, we met several people that really reinstilled this fad that we knew, but some of us in the services couldn't come in that close of contact with people.

The uniform does event, sure, versus finding out exactly what the thoughts of the people.

We became fast friends with many people and met those that, in fact, would be killed.

And they realize, they know, if their country loses to the communists.

How certain is the Americanism there?

You know, we read so much about it.

We hear so much on the television, through CBS about it.

Personally, I didn't see it that much.

You were Americans.

You came back.

You stood up against it.

I didn't.

I was the person who had to do this.

Not to the extent of what you say.

I'm talking to you.

Naturally.

You all understand.

You put military men around you, and there's going to be a reaction.

They're not married.

Are they married boys?

They're coming up formally.

If they're not married, you can't do more to the girls than you can to some of the others.

And so that has an impact on the local people.

But I feel that you feel that from what you read, at least most of the people realize there

So we actually relied on our friendship with the Vietnamese as our security.

The two Vietnamese women that cooked for us and washed our clothes.

We wouldn't know.

We'd tell us when we could pop and be in trouble or not.

Would you like that Vietnamese dress they were wearing?

The girl riding the bicycle, that is quite a sight.

They talked to me about it.

I was there in 1656, I think.

I was told that...

The Vietnamese mother tells her daughter that she is carrying herself on a swan.

And they have a marvelous posture.

Now, I don't say it just because of our character.

I'm not an expert at this thing.

The Vietnamese clothing, the Vietnamese women are actually not all that attractive.

But I have never seen clothing that does more for, shall we say, a figure that is a particular spectator than being a meme.

I mean, that's just really... You don't know.

You don't know.

I think the fact that you have so badly indicated it.

I understand her attitudes and all the rest of it.

The fact that you have gone back to there are about two and a half million Americans, Army, Navy, Air, Marines, Coast Guard, et cetera, that went out there.

We did tell them that most of them didn't like it much.

I mean, nobody likes the service too much, and it's pretty tough at times.

Some of them were killed.

But most of them, they did their jobs.

They did it well.

And they're not ashamed of what they did.

And it's our job here to see that what they did did not fail.

It doesn't want to fail.

And I can assure you that not only are we going to do it, we are adding the Americans involved.

We're going to end it the way that the South Vietnam has a chance to survive.

And we're going to get our deal done this time.

It's going to work.

And that's why we've got to keep this bargaining strength, you know.

That's why we just can't have these silly congressional resolutions saying, we'll get all the cars, we'll put you, we'll get our BMWs back, we'll get it back, and everything.

Everything that is lost, we will.

I wouldn't have accomplished it all.

Representative, there are people that are back home with the press or other entertaining their gossip.

I mean, we kind of saw this as much better with the press, I think, that we're made out to look like those that have appeared in magazine articles, the Raddicks and the Doberdacks and that sort of thing.

We're a bird, and we hope that we're kind of acting that way.

You are, you are.

As a matter of fact, there's just an inherent character thesis in your head.

who served this country in difficult times.

And never has the younger generation been tested more thoroughly.

In my view, never has the younger generation come through as well as they have.

Never has the war been fought or tolerated before.

Never have we had a situation where

that the public opinion at home was so badly divided and dissented that Congress were damning the American Biden man and so forth.

What he was doing, he was a sadist, he was a horrible person.

All that, by the way, is ever-changing.

I mean, I, for example, I used to go to the projects, as you know, the Marines, you know, everybody did have their projects.

You adopted the kids and the cities and the towns and built their home and all, whatever they wanted.

You helped them with their rights and all these things.

Contributed nations and powers to their projects, you know, you helped them out.

And, uh, you can't get that, that version of music.

One interesting thing that happened to us was, uh, well, if we, if we called ourselves the Cadillac commune while we were there, partially because we thought if we gave a sort of leftist-style name, we might attack them more.

Very good.

And, uh, we did it towards the end.

Um, the New York Times came out to see us on the last day, but most of us were back in Saigon.

Some of us went back to Katajan to Gloria Edmondson, the correspondent at the site of the commune.

We later came back outside and she talked to everybody, where she spent the whole day trying to get us to indicate that the reason we had come back was because we felt guilty about all the crimes that we committed or that we felt some sort of

Uh, may I call, uh, the Pacific Islander first?

And, uh, could she also?

Sure.

She is a total bitch.

for years in the hard times.

Well, and that can be totally inaccurate, totally distorted.

It has been for years.

She's been right this way for years.

You can tell me about those bills.

And, uh, she didn't, uh, get assigned to my story.

I mean, she, she's... Oh, of course not.

They wouldn't have anything on me.

She doesn't have a hospital.

I'm too old for her.

I mean, you can't have the wrong position.

You're out of the question.

I have a successful job at the institution.

I am without.

You can have all we need.

I have it all.

This is the market.

This room has a seal, which is there on the floor, see?

And, uh, when there was a blind boy in here, as a matter of fact, he used to be a very interesting sculptor, I, uh, I had to distract the Romeo, so I got, got him down, I got down on my knees with him and had him feel the seal.

Now these were the French-style compliments, which are, which have a seal in them, too.

We all get that.

There's only two girls here.

It's the same thing for the girls.

And I'd like to mention that Dan was extremely helpful to get him to where I was going with Tom Stevens, who all I had to do was bring it all.

And we put a lot of that in some more systems that we'll sit down and practice many times.

Tell me, what role services are you representing?

I'm representing the Air Force.

The Air Force?

The Air Force.

The Air Force?

The Air Force.

The Air Force?

The Air Force.

The Air Force?

.

And it's worth it.

It's going to work.

It's been difficult to do it without, not when he faded on the part of our American servicemen, but because of the Black support here in Chicago.

It's going to come out, and as a result, South Vietnam will be safe.

The American position in the world will not be impaired.

And in addition to that, we will accomplish the other objectives that we're all interested in.

We will get back our people that we've accomplished.

That's better.

I think we're all very concerned about that.

The way to do that is through the Institute.

And we must know that we have other options than just getting out.

Thank you.

Nixon, Maupin & Collins on Vietnam War and Military veterans

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on October 26, 1971

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Nixon, Maupin & Collins on Vietnam War and Military veterans

AI Summary

Audio

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on October 26, 1971

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Cite this conversation