- “In his announcement of the incursion into Cambodia, he compared himself to Kennedy who, in his finest hour, had sat in the identical room in the White House and made the great decision that removed the missiles from Cuba. Later Nixon used the Missile Crisis to justify his failure to consult Congress over Cambodia. “I trust we don’t have another Cuban Missile Crisis. I trust we don’t have another situation like Cambodia, but I do know that in the modern world, there are times when the Commander-in-Chief…will have to act quickly. I can assure the American people that this president is going to bend over backward to consult the Senate and consult the House whenever he feels it can be done without jeopardizing the lives of American men. But when it is a question of the lives of American men or the attitudes of people in the Senate, I am coming down hard on the side of defending the lives of American men.” (p. 189)
Lesson: Crises necessitate quick action that, at times, may mean acting quickly without input of other influential individuals.
“Richard Nixon’s Cambodia Incursion Address,” (radio and television presidential address, April 30, 1970), as cited in Arthur Schlesinger Jr., The Imperial Presidency (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973).
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