When Nixon was too drunk to talk to British PM during the Yom Kippur War

[Tanuki]

Link to tweet

[riversedge]

1. oh my!!

[LiberalFighter]

2. Drunk at 7:55 pm? I wonder why?

[EYESORE 9001]

3. Right about the time of the Saturday night massacre

which I only found out about later. Our vessel got underway within hours of the first strike in the Yom Kippur War. We got underway totally incommunicado and stayed that way for several days. First time US military went to DEFCON 3 since the end of WWII (that has happened already, right?)

We had lots of ‘interesting’ conversations. Speculation was at fever pitch. For all we knew, thermonuclear warfare had commenced. And here I was on a weapons platform ferrying Poseidon missiles. Our life expectancy wasn’t long in the event of, you know….

Additionally, I was tasked with searching for Soviet vessels who were certainly looking for us. To think that Nixon was drunk while I was bearing the weight of existential responsibility for perhaps the entire world…infuriating to say the least.

[Boomerproud]

4. Thanking you for your service sounds...meaningless in view of your circumstances.

I can't imagine what was going through your mind.

[rurallib]

5. Wow - thanks and we salute you

[Wonder Why]

6. Nixon was a complicated man. He was a workaholic and took a lot of sleeping pills.

He doesn't appear to have been a heavy drinker but got drunk a lot because he couldn't handle liquor. One site reported that one drink could make him appear drunk especially when he was taking the pills. Duh!
It would be interesting to know if he knew of the impending war. If not, he might have taken the pills and had some alcohol for his well known insomnia not expecting to be needed. On the other hand if he knew something important was pending, it would have been inexcusable. In my limited search of that issue, I found no answer. The document cited in this thread gives no clue.

[Celerity]

7. That Time the Middle East Exploded--and Nixon Was Drunk

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/06/richard-nixon-watergate-drunk-yom-kippur-war-119021/