By Colonel (Ret) Ann Wright

In the November 21, 2024, Association of Diplomatic Studies and Training's  (ADST) weekly newsletter, the editors included a 1995 oral history interview with William Watts, White House Staff Secretary for the National Security Council (NSC)) during Nixon's war on Vietnam. 

I had never read of his resignation over Nixon/Kissinger's decision to invade and massacre Cambodia during the war with Vietnam. 

I was particularly struck by the concise language of Watts' resignation, in contrast to my rather long, pedantic, but heartfelt three pages of my resignation letter twenty-one years ago in March 2003 in opposition to the pending US war on Iraq.  

Watts ends his oral interview with the story of his opposition to the US invasion of Cambodia and being told by General Al Haig and Henry Kissinger that despite his opposition, he would be the NSC staff coordinator for the operation. 

Upon hearing of the order to be the NSC staff coordinator, Watts colorfully resigned.

"Al Haig told me, 'You have had an order from your Commander-in-Chief, and you can't refuse.' I looked at him and said, 'F**k you, Al, I just have and I am resigning.'"

Watts' decision to resign was based on President Nixon and Henry Kissinger's decision, "We are going into Cambodia, the decision has been made, using fixed-wing aircraft."

[April 28, 1970 -  US President Richard Nixon Announces the Invasion of Cambodia]

Watts said he will always regret not saying, "Yes, but it is also ground troops." I wish I had. I know that Tony (Lake) knew it, but I don't know who else knew that. This thing was really handled tightly.

From Watts:

At one point, he asked what we thought, and I said, "Henry, one thing is that we are going to go into Parrots Beak and Fish Hook [Vietnamese sanctuaries on the Vietnam-Cambodian border], we are going to flush them out of there, and they are going to run all the way to Phnom Penh, and that is the end of Cambodia."

That was Friday night. He called me Saturday night before I left and said, "We are meeting tomorrow at 4:30 Sunday afternoon, and the President is going to name you as the staff coordinator for this operation."

I had written a memorandum earlier to Nixon, through Kissinger, about the so-called October Option, "Operation Duck Hook," which was going to be a massive bombing of Haiphong and Hanoi, opposing it.

In the memo, I said that if you go ahead with this, my prediction is that we will have massive riots around the country. That the National Guard was going to be called out and that some students were going to be killed somewhere. My last sentence in that memo was saying, "You will have to be prepared to deal as brutally with domestic dissent as you are with the Vietnamese communists."

Again, it was just read, with RN and HK [Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger] initialed on it when it came back. There was no comment.

So, I just sent it back saying, "Henry, this is it; I said it all right there."

The next thing I know, these guys say, is that I am the staff coordinator.

"I just came up out of my chair swinging, I was so damn mad."

So, I went home Saturday night and stayed up a good bit of the night. Then, that Sunday, I went to the office to get ready for this meeting. I don't think when I left the house, I was sure what I was going to do.

I went through the day preparing for the meeting and finally I said to myself that I won't do it.

"He said, 'You have had an order from your Commander-in-Chief, and you can't refuse.' I looked at him and said, 'F**k you, Al, I just have and I am resigning'"

At that point, Haig then looked at me and used a line that not long afterward he used with [Deputy Attorney General] Bill Ruckelshaus at the time of the "Saturday night massacre" [when Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox was dismissed by Nixon and Ruckelshaus and Attorney General Elliot Richardson resigned in protest in October 1973].

He said, "You have had an order from your Commander-in-Chief, and you can't refuse."

I looked at him and said, "F**k you, Al, I just have and I am resigning."

I left. I got home and walked up the walk to my house and my wife opened the door. She didn't know for sure what I was going to do when I left that morning and said, "You resigned, didn't you?"

I said, "How do you know?"

She said, "You are smiling for the first time that I can remember."

So, that was the end of my government career…."

Resignations and Relief from No Longer Representing Policies One Strongly Disagrees With

I suspect the 13 persons who have resigned from the Biden administration in the past 13 months in opposition to US complicity in the Israeli genocide of Gaza have felt a sigh of relief and a bit of a smile when each made their decision to resign over the policy they could not represent … and was now free to work on ending the US role in the genocide from outside the government.

Thanks to everyone who has resigned over the US war on Iraq, US complicity in the Israeli genocide of Gaza, and all other wars and disastrous policies of our government!!! 

And welcome to those who are in the midst of the decision-making process!

About the Author:  Ann Wright served 29 years in the US Army/Army Reserves and retired as a Colonel.  She also was a US diplomat for 16 years and served in US Embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia.  She resigned from the US government in March 2003 in opposition to the Bush was on Iraq.  She is the co-author of “Dissent: Voices of Conscience.”