Nixon ordered air force to bomb targets said to be off-limits

Seymour Hersh reports in this week's New Yorker Magazine that in 1972 President Richard Nixon told National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger he wanted the Air Force to begin the all-out bombing of Surface to Air Missile (SAM) sites in North Vietnam. The rules of engagement previously permitted bombing the sites in response to attack. Nixon can be heard on a newly-released White House tape saying he wanted the SAM sites bombed whether attacks were launched from them or not. When Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird approved the court martial of a general who had informally been told to go after the SAM sites and did so Nixon was livid.