Nixonland: America's Second Civil War and the Divisive Legacy of Richard Nixon 1965-72

by Rick Perlstein

The same day, the State Department promised they would disprove Fonda’s assertions with photographic evidence. Assistants carted easels into the pressroom at Foggy Bottom. Then, suddenly, the briefing was canceled. “The administration realized,” the New York Times reported sardonically, “that Hanoi also could produce photographs.” Ron Ziegler spoke from the White House pressroom: “North Vietnam is having some success with their campaign to get the world to believe that American planes were bombing dikes.” State’s spokesman contradicted that the next day: yes, American planes were bombing dikes, but as “a result of legitimate attacks on military installations such as antiaircraft sites.” Then the State Department released an intelligence report on the dike system: it admitted damage to twelve locations, all accidental. Which unfortunately cut across the State Department’s other habitual assurance: that America’s laser-guided bombing systems were the most accurate in the history of warfare. The sci-fi sex kitten from Barbarella had the White House sweating bullets. Then the sex kitten was joined by the secretary-general of the United Nations: “I cannot tell you whether the bombing is accidental or not,” Kurt Waldheim said. The results were the same; the problem was the war. “The United Nations can no longer remain a mute spectator of the horror of the war and of the peril which it increasingly poses to international peace.”