Cleaning House

In 1972, Richard Nixon was re-elected for a second term as President. Of course, the political exploits of that administration are well-known to those with even a basic knowledge of 20th century American history. The Watergate scandal stole headlines, and rightly so, but a different variety of political subterfuge was also underway in the final months of 1972.

In May of 1972, the U.S. and U.S.S.R. signed an interim agreement with respect to strategic arms limitations which was the culmination of SALT I (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks). In November of 1972, the-powers-that-be decided that a change was needed (warning: links to a small pdf file). A quick dramatis personae: Henry = Henry Kissinger (National Security Advisor), Scoop Jackson = Senator Henry Jackson D-WA, Al Haig = Alexander Haig (Kissinger's military assistant and Army Vice Chief of Staff), others mentioned are either those in line for the figurative guillotine or their replacements. It's worth mentioning that the attachment mentioned in the memorandum is indeed not present and thus bait for speculation.

The Administration went ahead with a full-scale purge of the ACDA (Arms Control and Disarmament Agency) and the SALT negotiating team. Naturally, this move was the cause of some concern (warning: another pdf file, a bit bigger this time) among those in the arms control community. Paul Doty was a friend of Kissinger's from Harvard and had politically left-wing views.

Ultimately, SALT II was an ill-fated arms control agreement. One can not help but think that a massive purge of the two government bodies primarily responsible for strategic arms control wasn't a helpful development. Even Kissinger would later express some regret over the realignment of the ACDA and SALT team*.

Raymond Garthoff, a member of the SALT negotiating team and victim of the purge, provided an interesting perspective in his memoir, A Journey Through the Cold War:

"Nixon may have had his own reasons for wanting a "new team" in SALT, as Kissinger too may have had. The impetus for the wholesale SALT purge, however, had come from Senator Scoop Jackson. In a private conversation with Jackson in the Rose Garden, Nixon had agreed to replace the SALT delegation with a new team, as he accepted a version of Jackson's amendment on equal strategic force levels in SALT II, in exchange for Jackson's support not only for the SALT agreements but also for the Trident submarine program, which Jackson had threatened to kill. In the final analysis, Jackson got even more: one of the two Trident submarine bases was moved from the Navy's preference for California to Jackson's state of Washington. But the purge of the SALT team and weakening of ACDA were also part of the deal."

Sadly, hunting for documents related to this intriguing Cold War tale is quite difficult. I've spent a number of days sifting through the Nixon Library documents in College Park, Maryland and my boss at the National Security Archive has no doubt performed similar searches and has a number of FOIA requests pending on this matter. Further complicating matters is the fact that the entire Nixon collection is being shipped out to the Nixon Library in California later in February. Demand for Nixon documents is very high right now and I plan to spend more time trying to dig up some new information.

Two of the other big players in this event have archives that are out of my reach. Sen. Henry Jackson has a library of his documents at Washington State University. One of Nixon's assistants, Fred Malek, was heavily involved with this whole affair and has a collection of documents in the Nixon Library, but all of his materials are already in California.

Perhaps the most sobering realization is that documents pertaining to this purge were likely destroyed...

*I would love to link the document, but I foolishly forgot to pick up a copy and I can't access the National Security Archive's digital database from home. This oversight will be corrected on Monday - stay tuned!