The hoary media myth about Richard Nixon’s “secret plan” to end the war in Vietnam is circulating anew, and being presented as if genuine.

The tale was invoked yesterday in a Washington Post essay that argued societal rifts and recent civil disorders in contemporary America don’t match those of 1968. “America is polarized today — but not like in 1968,” the essay said. “Today’s polarization is tidy by comparison.”

Maybe. But it’s not a far-fetched assessment. The essay stumbles, though, in claiming without attribution or qualification that Nixon’s “secret plan” was a “tantalizing” pledge that figured significantly in his run for the White House 52 years ago.

The Post presented the claim in this convoluted manner:

Won without a ‘secret plan’

“Besides law and order, he touted a secret plan to end the war in Vietnam. Later, we learned that the plan was secret because it didn’t actually exist. But in 1968, Nixon’s secret was tantalizing indeed, and it helped him to his narrow victory, because Americans wanted the war to end and a secret plan was better than no plan at all.”

Right, “a secret plan was better than no plan at all.”

Tantalizing, that.

Except that Nixon never said he had a plan to end the war without disclosing what he had in mind. He never “touted” a “secret plan,” as Media Myth Alert has noted on several occasions.

Nonethless, Nixon’s “secret plan” has become a media myth that won’t die, its tenacity due in part because it seems so cynical, so utterly Nixonian. Like many media myths, it seems almost too good to be false.

Interestingly, the “secret plan” myth took hold despite Nixon’s assertions to the contrary.

“If I had any way to end the war,” Nixon was further quoted as saying, “I would pass it on to President [Lyndon] Johnson.” (Nixon’s remarks were made shortly before Johnson announced he would not seek reelection.)

Nixon may or may not have had some sort of “secret plan” in mind in 1968. But such a claim wasn’t a feature of his campaign. He didn’t run on a “secret plan” pledge.

That is clear in the search results of a full-text database of leading U.S. newspapers, including the Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun, Wall Street Journal, and Chicago Tribune.

No articles were found during the period January 1, 1967, to January 1, 1969, in which Nixon was quoted as touting or otherwise saying he had a “secret plan” for Vietnam. (The search period included the months of Nixon’s presidential campaign and its aftermath.)

Had Nixon had campaigned in 1968 on a “secret plan” for Vietnam, the country’s leading newspapers surely would have reported it.

The “secret plan” anecdote likely is derived from a speech Nixon made on March 5, 1968, in Hampton, New Hampshire, in which he declared “new leadership” in Washington would “end the war” in Vietnam.

The wire service United Press International, in reporting Nixon’s remarks, pointed out that the candidate “did not spell out how” he would “end the war.” The UPI account also said “Nixon’s promise recalled Dwight D. Eisenhower’s pledge in 1952, when Nixon was his running mate, to end the war in Korea.” Late in his winning campaign for president that year, Eisenhower dramatically announced he would “go to Korea” to begin searching for a peaceful settlement.

A New York Times account of Nixon’s speech, published March 6, 1968, quoted the candidate as saying he “could promise ‘no push-button technique’ to end the war. Nixon also said he was not suggesting ‘withdrawal’ from Vietnam.” A brief follow-on report published in the Times that day quoted Nixon as saying he envisioned applying military pressure as well as diplomatic efforts in seeking to end the war.

William Safire, a former Nixon speechwriter and later columnist for the Times, used to relish calling attention to published references to the mythical “secret plan,” which he characterized as a “non-quotation [that] never seems to go away.”

In a column published 20 years ago, for example, Safire recalled an occasion “when a New York Times columnist attributed that direct quote to Nixon, a White House speechwriter challenged him to find the quote in anything taken down by pencil or recorder at the time. The pundit searched high and low and had to admit the supposed remark was unsourceable. (Look, the Nixon speechwriter was me and the columnist was my current colleague, Tony Lewis; I didn’t have to research this.)”

Michael Cohen, author of American Maelstrom: The 1968 Election and the Politics of Division, briefly addressed the “secret plan” notion in his book and dismissed it, stating:

“Though it is often claimed that Nixon spoke of a ‘secret plan’ to end the war, he never uttered those words. Even suggesting that he had a plan would have been too much for Nixon.”

WJC

More from Media Myth Alert:

• The campaign pledge Nixon never made
• No, ‘Politico’ — Nixon never said he had a ‘secret plan’ for Vietnam
• WaPo, Helen Thomas, and Nixon’s ‘secret plan’
• Smug MSNBC guest invokes Nixon’s mythical ‘secret plan’ on Vietnam
• Correction or clarification needed in WaPo reference to Nixon’s ‘secret plan’ on Vietnam
• Arrogance: WaPo won’t correct dubious claim about Nixon ‘secret plan’ for Vietnam
• WaPo, Bezos, and owning up to errors ‘quickly and completely’
• Nixon’s secret plan invoked as putdown in Conn. gubernatorial race
• Recalling George Romney’s ‘brainwashing’ — and Gene McCarthy’s ‘light rinse’ retort
• Even in a pandemic, media myths play on
• Check out The 1995 Blog
• ‘Persuasive and entertaining’: WSJ reviews ‘Getting It Wrong’