Madman

The Truth About The "Madman" Theory

It isn't just what I would call 

A Madman Theory 

I think that overstates it uh --

I remember Johnson telling me in

1959 -- or 69 I should say -- uh 

that Johnson told me, when he came to 

The White House that he felt that one of his mistakes

was to give The Soviet an impression uh

that, uh we wanted peace and we would pay

almost any price to get it uh -- he said, uh --

He said one of the advantages at Ike had -- 

-- he referred, he always called him "Ike", 

I never did but he said 

one of the advantages that Ike had was 

that The Russians were afraid of Ike 

afraid of him because he had been the great

commander in World War II, and because of

his military background and just because

of the kind of man he was, even though

Eisenhower was a very amiable, pleasant

grandfatherly type but they knew that

beneath that exterior was a very cold

tough fella

Do you think they were afraid of you? 

Oh yes  -- well they were afraid of me 

though not because of my appearances

and not because of my speeches but

because what I had done. 

There is nothing that added more to my credibility

certainly with The Russians and with

others as well, than that I took great

risks in order to bring The War in

Vietnam to a to a conclusion, to assure

the withdrawal of our forces uh --

The incursion into Cambodia uh the purpose

of that was to shorten the war to make

sure that our withdrawal program could

go forward on schedule uh -- and to save

American lives and it worked -- uh the fact

that be three weeks before the summit

meeting in Moscow which we wanted which

they wanted as well, that we bombed and

mined Hyphong uh -- after there was a great

North Vietnamese offensive supported by

Soviet tanks and guns which 

we could not tolerate --

I remember people said "Well, you can still go 

to Moscow even though Saigon is lost,

I said "No Way!" I said, "We -- I can't

be sitting across the table from Breznhev

when Soviet tanks are rumbling through

the streets of Saigon and that's why we

did what we did and despite all the

predictions by some of our Soviet experts 

to the effect that they would have no choice 

but to cancel the summit, it made them 

really I think more eager to have it and 

the other thing which I think may have had 

some impact on their thinking was that 

even after the elections of 1972 uh -- 

The December Bombing which was the

critical action was taken in order to

break the deadlock in Paris and 

have The Peace Negotiation uh --

that was a very difficult decision 

but it was necessary --

Now all of these actions you don't take them in

order to prove that You're a Madman or

that You're a tough guy or a macho, 

or all the rest,  it's simply you take them 

when it is in the interest 

of your foreign policy and also 

to make sure that you are 

a credible leader when you meet 

with others or when they  take actions 

that you want to oppose.