Volume 22, Number 10 · June 12, 1975
Conned in Cambodia
By I.F. Stone
Is Richard Nixon really in San Clemente? Or back in the White House? The Mayagüez affair was handled with that unforgettable Nixon touch. The overwhelming concern behind it was not the safe recovery of the ship's crew but a fear that prolonged negotiations over it would be 'humiliating,' would show us to be—in Nixon's plaintive phrase—a 'pitiful helpless giant.' This fear of impotence was the dominant Nixon neurosis in foreign policy, and its marks are so clear in the White House response to the ship seizure as to make one wonder who's really in the Oval Office. Ford's public relations men are trying to sell him as a second Truman, but he's unmistakably vintage Nixon; the bottle may carry a new label but the content is from the same cru.
Feature, 3578 words
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