Following on from the previous post. Suppose you were a historian or independent political commentator examining two documents, two accounts of the same incident in two reputable newspapers. Which account is the more reliable? How can one tell? Where does fact end and interpretation begin? These are pretty routine, necessary questions. I offer the following two accounts of the Nixon-Kissinger exchanges leading to the bombing of Cambodia, quoted here:
The telephone transcripts show how frustrated Nixon was becoming with the Vietnam War and his failing effort to withdraw American troops from Vietnam by expanding the war into Cambodia. He became especially angry on Dec. 9, 1970, with what he considered the lackluster bombing campaign by the United States Air Force against targets in Cambodia.
''They're not only not imaginative but they are just running these things -- bombing jungles,'' Nixon said. ''They have got to go in there and I mean really go in.'' Mr. Kissinger then cautioned: ''The Air Force is designed to fight an air battle against the Soviet Union. They are not designed for this war.'' But the president persisted, suggesting that the bombing campaign could be disguised as an airlift of supplies.
''I want them to hit everything,'' he said. ''I want them to use the big planes, the small planes, everything they can that will help out there, and let's start giving them a little shock.'' He ended by saying, ''Right now there is a chance to win this goddamn war, and that's probably what we are going to have to do because we are not going to do anything at the conference table.'' Mr. Kissinger immediately relayed the order: ''A massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. Anything that flies on anything that moves.''
Then this:
The transcripts shed light on the extraordinarily complex relationship between Nixon and Kissinger during a turbulent period in American foreign policy, from the bombing of Cambodia in 1970 to the Yom Kippur war of 1973 and diplomatic breakthroughs with China and the Soviet Union. Even as Kissinger attempted to convince Nixon of his loyalty, he adopted a sardonic tone in conversations with Haig and other aides.
In the March 20 transcript, neither Kissinger nor Haig seems alarmed by threats to bomb Congress or "to go after the Israelis" after "he is through with the Europeans."
"He is just unwinding," Haig told Kissinger. "Don't take him too seriously."
On other occasions, as in December 1970, when Nixon proposed an escalation in the bombing of Cambodia, Kissinger and Haig felt obliged to humor the president while laughing at him behind his back. During that episode, Kissinger was still serving as national security adviser, and Haig was one of his deputies. The Air Force is "not designed for any war we are likely to have to fight," Kissinger told Nixon after the president railed against U.S. pilots for "farting around doing nothing" over Cambodia and "running goddamn milk runs in order to get the air medal." Both men suspected North Vietnamese guerrillas of using Cambodia as a sanctuary and supply line to South Vietnam.
"It's a disgraceful performance," Nixon went on. "I want gunships in there. That means armed helicopters, DC-3s, anything else that will destroy personnel that can fly. I want it done!! Get them off their ass."
"We will get it done immediately, Mr. President," Kissinger replied.
After talking to Nixon, Kissinger got on the phone with Haig to pass on the president's orders for "a massive bombing campaign in Cambodia," using "anything that flies on anything that moves." The transcript then records an unintelligible comment that "sounded like Haig laughing."
The second account is certainly ‘fuller’, but in what does this fullness consist? Not, substantially, in reported speech. It offers us a ‘sardonic tone’ and an ‘unintelligible noise’, neither of which come across particularly well in print. Neither of which are simply matters of fact, nor, if taken as ‘fact’ automatically yield one interpretation. We would be unwise to invest too much in these acoustic extras. But say we did? What of Kissinger’s ‘sardonic tone’ with the aides? A way, perhaps, of strategically distancing himself from the President in order to win over the underlings, pretend he’s really ‘with them’ – an utterly familiar little trick, used by bosses up and down the country. Or do the sardonic noises serve simply to let Kissinger off the hook, as in ‘Look, I’m just obeying these crazy orders, they’re not mine.’ I’m just an instrument. Again, a familiar device and one that is fairly repugnant and cynical if you then go ahead and transmit the orders anyhow, as if a few giggles and a raised eyebrow were sufficient exoneration. And what, then, of Haig’s incomprehensible noise down the telephone. Well, that’s a fair cop. Utterly incontrovertible proof, as are all electronically mediated garbled noises.
And if someone stuck with the first account rather than lending full credence to the second and its little acoustic details, would you lambast them for talking nonsense and worse? Wouldn’t this be a tad unwise, given the nature of ‘tones’ and garbled noises and their amenability to different interpretations? Wouldn’t it be rather unwise, especially, if you weren’t in possession of the original transcript and couldn’t really assess how far the report deviated from it, couldn’t in any way measure its accuracy or inaccuracy? And wouldn’t you have a certain reticence in criticising someone who was, indeed, in possession of that original transcript? Of course you wouldn’t. You’d say that ‘idleness and incompetence’ was too generous a judgement and accuse them of deliberate deception.
And you'd be wrong, i'd be tempted to say. But that would be too generous.