Beyond Peace (36 page)

Much has been given to us, and it is only right that much will continue to be expected from us. We have duties to others and duties to ourselves and we cannot escape from either. Our relations with other nations are important, but still more important
are our relations among ourselves. The conditions that allowed our material well-being and that have contributed to our can-do vigor, self-reliance, individual initiative, and uniqueness of spirit have also brought the problems inseparable from the accumulation of great prosperity and strength. The real test of America lies in our ability to eliminate the bad while advancing the good.

Our status as the world's only superpower is meaningless unless it is driven by a higher purpose. We should reach into the soul of this nation and recover the spirit and mission that first set us apart. We do not aspire to a perfect, problem-free society, but we will demand more from ourselves. We must improve ourselves at home so that our example shines more brightly abroad. Without the certainties of other eras, the era beyond peace poses great challenges and great opportunities. Freed from the demands of waging war and winning peace, we now have the high privilege of meeting the exciting new challenges beyond peace.

In the spring of 1993, during my second visit to post-Soviet Moscow, I met with Vice President Alexander Rutskoi, a flamboyant hero of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, in his office in the Kremlin. By then he had emerged as an outspoken opponent of Boris Yeltsin. During our meeting he complained bitterly, as generals who enter civilian government often do, about the frustrations of working with a bunch of lifelong politicians.

As I was leaving, I told him, “Mr. Vice President, as you know, our General Sherman said ‘War is hell.' You may find that politics is even worse.” I could not have imagined that Rutskoi would lead an armed rebellion against Yeltsin six months later, that he would be captured and jailed for it, or that he would be released in February after the Russian Parliament issued a blanket amnesty, over Yeltsin's vigorous and understandable objections, for those who had fomented rebellions against his regime, and also that of Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991. As I read accounts of the return of Rutskoi and his tired but relieved colleagues to their homes and their grateful families, it occurred to me that he had found out that politics really could be hell—but also that, for some, there can be life after hell.

In a sense, I can say the same thing.
Beyond Peace
is my tenth book, and my ninth since resigning the Presidency twenty years ago this year. After completing my first,
Six Crises,
in 1962, I vowed that I would never write another. Since then, I have learned to make less Sherman-like promises. This volume completes a six-volume series with an emphasis on East-West
relations that I began in 1979 with
The Real War,
which warned that the United States was risking losing the Cold War.
Real Peace
suggested that we were missing opportunities in the early 1980s to establish a rational framework for managing our differences with Moscow.
No More Vietnams
described the lessons to be learned from one of the Cold War's most decisive battles.
1999: Victory Without War
cautioned against euphoria about Gorbachev and his promises to reform the failed communist system rather than abandon it.
Seize the Moment,
completed as Soviet communism finally collapsed in 1991, called on the West to do everything it could, by supporting Yeltsin's reforms, to ensure that democracy and free-market policies would take communism's place.

The primary audience for the first five volumes in the series was those who were chiefly preoccupied with foreign policy.
Beyond Peace
is aimed at a broader readership. The longest section has to do not with foreign battles but with domestic ones—over health care, education, urban decay, and other issues. For forty-five years we fought the Cold War because we believed that our system deserved to prevail since it offered people more than communism. The defeat of communism requires us to keep the promises we have made to three generations in this century and to those who will live in the century to come. America must prove that it really is, as Abraham Lincoln described it, the last best hope of man on earth.

So whenever people ask me if all the travails of public life were worth it, my answer, very briefly, is this: Politics is never going to be heaven, and sometimes it's hell, but yes, it was worth the trip. When I came to Washington forty-seven years ago, the predominant issue was ensuring that the United States would step up to the communist threat, both abroad and at home. The ultimate satisfaction is to have lived long enough to see the West defeat communism and begin a new, equally arduous, equally noble campaign to ensure the victory of freedom, both abroad and at home.

To complete what is probably my last book, I had help from an extraordinary group of friends, colleagues, and experts. From the outset of the project, Harold Evans at Random House provided incisive counsel. Kathy O'Connor, my chief of staff, ably supervised the entire project, with help from Kim Taylor, who managed the manuscript, and Elizabeth Johnston. Robert Bostock and Joseph Marx, young aides on Capitol Hill with great political promise in their own right, checked the manuscript for accuracy. Key insights were provided by Ambassador Robert F. Ellsworth, Ambassador James Lilley, Dimitri K. Simes, and Marin Strmecki. And for their invaluable editorial assistance, my special thanks to Monica Crowley of my staff; Professor Robert Kaufman of the University of Vermont; Raymond K. Price, Jr., the head of my White House speechwriting office; and John H. Taylor, director of the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace.

—RN

Park Ridge, New Jersey

March 30, 1994

Also by Richard Nixon

Seize the Moment

In the Arena

1999: Victory Without War

No More Vietnams

Real Peace

Leaders

The Real War

RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon

Six Crises

abortion,
127

affirmative action,
187
–89

Afghanistan,
8
,
34
,
144
,
148

Africa,
87
,
93
,
157
,
159
–60

Algeria,
144

American Civil War,
228

Anderson, Martin,
217
–18

Andreas, Dwayne,
78

Andrews, Bert,
194

Angola,
34
,
93

Arab-Israeli conflict,
141
,
142
,
161

peace process,
113
,
143
,
146
,
151
–53

Arafat, Yasir,
143
,
152

Asia,
157

economic growth in,
89
,
102
,
105
,
106
,
158

Japan's role in,
105
,
106
,
107
,
109
–10,
111
,
112
,
125
,
139

U.S. military role in,
106
,
111

U.S. political relations in,
102
,
104
–5,
138
–40

U.S. trade with,
105
–6,
138

Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC),
119

Atlantic Monthly,
241

Babbitt, Irving,
174

balanced-budget amendment,
179

Bangkok, Thailand,
203

Ben-Gurion, David,
151

Berlin, Isaiah,
42

Billington, James H.,
67
,
77

Bismarck, Otto von,
206
–7

blacks,
187
,
221
,
224
,
225
–26

Borchgrave, Arnaud de,
100

Bork, Robert H.,
182

Bosnia-Herzegovina

ethnic warfare in,
141
,
153
–54,
167

U.N.-NATO peacekeeping operation,
31
,
32
,
90
,
154

U.S. policy and,
153
–55

Brandeis, Louis D.,
234
–35

Brazil,
164
,
165

Brezhnev, Leonid I.,
35
,
50
,
121

Brzezinski, Zbigniew,
98
,
191

budget deficits,
177
,
199
–200

Burke, Edmund,
236

Burma,
205
–6

Bush, George

and domestic politics,
190
,
198
,
213

in 1992 presidential election,
9
,
73
,
178

and Persian Gulf War,
31
,
36
,
186

and Somalia intervention,
36

Califano, Joseph A., Jr.,
229
–30

California,
188
,
216

Cambodia,
34
,
125
,
154

campaign finance reform,
182
–83

Camp David Accords (1979),
147
,
151

Canada,
160

capitalism,
16
–17,
22
,
163
–64,
196
,
205

Carrier Corporation,
105

Castro, Fidel,
136
,
137
,
138

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),
59

Chad,
142

Chamberlain, Neville,
185
–86

Chambers, Whittaker,
155

Chernomyrdin, Viktor S.,
51
,
70

children,
177
,
221
,
240

Chile,
124

China,
139

capitalist development in,
16
,
29
,
82
,
122
,
123
–24,
129
,
158
,
163

economic growth in,
77
,
121
–22,
127
,
166

and Hong Kong,
134
–35

internal politics,
128
–30

Japanese relations with,
109
,
110
,
111
,
125

military power of,
30
,
124
–25

NATO and,
100

political repression in,
25
,
124
,
125
–26,
130
,
131
–32

and Taiwan,
133
–34

U.S. relations with,
59
,
106
,
122
–23,
125
,
126
–27,
130
–33,
135
–36,
186

U.S. trade with,
105
,
122
,
124
,
125
–26,
127
–28,
130

and weapons proliferation,
128
,
144
,
161

Churchill, Sir Winston L. S.,
43
,
53
,
201
,
250

and appeasement policy,
185
–86

on democracy,
16

on Russia,
126

on world leadership,
13
,
31
–32,
168

Ciller, Tansu,
166

Clinton, Bill,
5
–6,
89
,
181
,
188

health insurance plan,
206
,
209
–13

in 1992 presidential election,
9
,
33
,
73
,
178
,
245

and Somalia intervention,
36

and U.S.-China relations,
132
–33

and U.S.-Russia relations,
74
,
77
,
79

Clinton, Hillary Rodham,
178

Cochrane, Bourke,
250

Cold War,
4
–5

China in,
131

communications revolution and,
24

defeat of communism,
4
,
7
–8,
14
,
55
,
82
,
249

effects from ending of,
5
,
6
,
7
,
8
–9,
35
,
58
,
105
,
167
,
169
,
243

Europe in,
83
,
85
,
86
,
88
,
95
,
100
,
101

ideological component of,
9
,
33
,
37
,
56
,
64

Japan in,
108

lessons of,
14
–15,
16
,
17
,
20

military competition in,
8
,
13
,
91
,
199

nuclear war threats in,
4
,
6
,
13
–14,
35
–36

Turkey in,
148

and U.S. foreign aid,
162

U.S. role in,
7
,
8
–9,
17
,
30
,
39
,
86
,
98
,
104
–5