Terror Watch: Nixon and Dixon

Woods also reported that Dixon was very focused on Alan King, the TV comedian who had recently cohosted a telethon to raise money for the Democratic National Committee. "Her thoughts are breaking toward [King]," Woods said. King could be one of the targets of the terror attacks, Dixon thought--"or he could be backers of this thing."

In the course of this meeting--the tape of which was reviewed this week by NEWSWEEK at the National Archives--Nixon initially says little about what he makes of Dixon's forecasts. But as Naftali writes in "Blind Spot: The Secret History of American Counterterrorism," his forthcoming book based on his research for the 9/11 Commission, Dixon's forecasts soon prompted Nixon to launch into a "diatribe" against a frequent target of his wrath: the Jews.

Referring to lobbying from Jewish groups for greater Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union, Nixon erupted: "Why the hell do we care about [Soviet exit permits for Jews]? Why should the Jews get out and not the Ukrainians? Why should the Jews get out and not the Poles?"

Still, Dixon's prophecies may well have spurred the president into action. Later that day, Naftali notes, Nixon called Alexander Haig, top deputy to national-security adviser Henry Kissinger, and instructed him to make sure the FBI had contingency plans for dealing with a terrorist incident in Washington or New York.

The subject of Dixon's prophecies returned to the Oval Office two days later when Nixon met with Kissinger for a discussion of the terrorism threat. Kissinger reported that he had just talked with Israeli Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin. Nixon referred to the "tremendous pressure" the Israelis were under because of Munich. He then instructed Kissinger to create a "governmentwide" counterterrorism committee--and seemed to offer an unusual explanation as to why.

"Rose talks to this soothsayer, Jeane Dixon, all the time," Nixon told Kissinger, according to a tape of the Sept. 21, 1972, meeting. "They are desperate that [the terrorists] will kidnap somebody. They may shoot somebody. We have got to have a plan. Suppose they do, for example, Henry, suppose they kidnap Rabin? And they ask us to release all blacks who are prisoners around the United States. And we didn't and they shoot him? Think of it! What the Christ do we do? We are not going to give into it. We have got to have contingency plans for hijacking, for kidnapping, for all sorts of things that can happen around here."