Library of Congress/Wikimedia *1 Nixon kept Kissinger off TV, too. On February 16, 1971—the day Nixon turned on his White House taping system—Haldeman jotted in his notebook: “Will never have K on TV re substance. Can brief here—but not public.”14 *2 The State Department experts believed that Kissinger had cut a bad deal. The Soviets had surpassed the Americans in their capacity to launch large missiles, but the Americans were ahead on missile technology that enabled several warheads to fly off a single rocket, or MIRVs (standing for “multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles”). The Strategic Arms Limitation deal worked out by Kissinger and Dobrynin did not ban MIRVs, allowing the Russians to catch up. When Gerald Smith, the head of the arms control agency, began to raise questions, the president scoffed, “That’s bullshit, Gerry, and you know it.” Smith, a proper old-school gentleman, complained to an aide, “Nobody’s ever talked to me that way.”35 *3 Nixon spotted Kerry as a would-be JFK right away.
What do You think about Being Nixon: A Man Divided?
