Nixon, Haldeman & Kissinger on Economic Policy and Foreign Relations

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That's what I thought we might come up with for Saturday or Monday, you know.

Maybe our better deal is to go and they could give me some papers to read on the way down now.

Or if anybody could go down with me.

Let's see, I was thinking I could have Dick George maybe.

Boyd Origenstein, which would be that part of it.

And then have Tommy come.

I don't want him to work.

I don't want to work on the writing test.

If I go down, I don't want to.

I get down, but I wouldn't mind having somebody spend a couple hours in the morning giving me the background so that I can think about it.

And then what should we do when we try to come back and be here Monday for the meeting?

Well, let me talk to John and get a feel of what he sees.

We can't go to the city.

Now, we may have to change the end of it.

Does he have a pen?

He's so busy right now, I don't want you to bother him, you know, hurt him, and stuff.

He's bad for every man.

But he takes a break.

I am a fine little man.

I really think that the best thing is to not do this.

These fellows are old.

No, I think it has to be.

In fairness, I think it really has to be after the market is closed.

I think it should start at 3 o'clock or something.

Other than that, I don't know.

Oh, I said, well, it doesn't make that much difference through the market.

Well, if we do it Friday, Friday catches the weekend.

Yep.

And it gives you Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to be involved in the final, exact wrap-up.

It gets me, well, I cut out on it.

Do you agree with me that I should not go out and do national television?

I think very strongly based on what I see of it now.

Very strongly.

And certainly, I know I don't want to do a press conference on it.

Absolutely.

Jesus Christ, I mean, the questions would be so intricate that I got through, I'd be beaten to death.

I would go to the press room with copies.

I go to the press, give you

Guessing, presenting, saying we're going to do this, this is what this accomplishes.

One, two, three, four.

Now the secretary will ask you a question.

You see, you've got a very short, very short list to walk down to.

And I can't even get that to the evening.

You see, Henry, the thing that I'm arguing about is this economic thing.

It's so complicated that at this point, I don't vote.

I told all of them that, of course, we have one hell of a time, of course, because everybody on our staff is...

wants me to go on TV or to explain everything on the leadership support.

The difficulty is, if I get on that, I'm dead.

I've got to stay very, very much above battle on the extenso.

It's not a presidential campaign.

You have to like the capital city and want to go live.

This fellow Peterson, of course, has just been pushing like hell for me to make a speech to the International Monetary Fund on television.

Now, Henry, for Christ's sakes, they don't even know what they're doing, let alone me.

That would be a walking disaster.

Now, that is... Don't you agree?

I think you can make a few conciliatory remarks tonight at the reception.

I'll say something, so I agree.

I'll be nice.

I'll tell you what, I hate this.

What's your hell?

He's been pissing on us this whole time.

He's been pissing on us privately all along on the cocktail circuit around here.

I just told him that.

I was, I mean, Arthur sat in there, the poor, poor Arthur, of course, who plays that game.

I said, what we say privately is very different from what I say publicly.

we're going to be forced on them.

But I said privately, I said we've got to realize that there is a very growing virus of isolation in this country.

And I said they are, it's going on with the Korean War and two other wars and failures on our foreign aid programs and also because of this, I said now, under these circumstances,

Only if the United States is strong economically, we will be non-isolationist.

So now let's begin with some propositions.

I said, well, I know the political situation of some countries abroad.

I know that, for example, the British have to get into Europe, and therefore they've got to play one game.

I know the German problem.

I know the French problem, et cetera.

I know the Japanese problem, et cetera.

And I understand that.

I understand that.

that blaming the United States for their troubles is good politics at all.

I don't resent it a bit.

I said, on the other hand, I think we've well got to understand something very clearly now.

The party's over.

I said, as far as we're concerned, we're not going to go back to an old system patched in.

We're not going to go back to one that breaks up all the time.

It's great.

We are now, we believe that it's essential that there be something more than simply a temporary solution to this problem.

And we're going to bargain just as hard with our friends in Europe, our friends in Japan, as they bargained with us.

I said, no, I understand.

I understand.

I said, I know this, sir.

I said, you haven't been critical of the United States.

And I said, I understand that.

I said, you've got to do that in order to maintain your position with the Europeans and the other countries.

Then he went on the line.

He said, I haven't been critical.

He said, I've been accused of being pro-anglo-saxon.

Pro-awareness and all that.

You went through a slobbering business.

And I just sat there with that same look that I gave Rameka.

Just looked at it.

But I think that's what he needed to hear.

Oh, absolutely.

But our, I know, it's just not about his mind.

And I don't, and of course.

And you know what I mean.

And I said, now, Mr.

Professor, I said, now, let me tell you, I said, I don't know anything about the monetary thing, but I know a lot about the political thing.

I said, most of the people in our State Department disagree with my approach.

Most of them believe that in dealing with foreign countries, we just say all the nice things publicly and try to get along.

He said, I don't operate that way.

I said, I'm not aggressive.

I don't believe in being necessarily abrasive or bullish.

But I believe in talking quite correctly about their interests as well as ours.

I said, we're going to do that with the Russians.

We're going to do that with the Chinese.

And we're going to do it with our friends.

That's the way I operate.

And that's what we're going to do this afternoon.

He choked back again.

That's just what it did.

I just unloaded it on the side of the bench.

And I didn't do it with just a low voice, but I think he got the point.

Yeah, but that's what makes it more effective.

I'm not bothered by the fact that a lot of them are screaming because when a free ride ends, the people whose ride is ending, of course, are going to complain.

They won't do it voluntarily.

They'll try to shift it to a third.

Bob was coming earlier and told me that Conway heard and said, don't, be sure you don't tell this fellow anything.

And that he's been very difficult.

So I took the cue and I told him plenty, but not any he wanted to hear.

You see, the difficulty is, the difficulty is that all the South American Americans that we know, most of them, are just sent for a...

really stinging.

They're sucking up to people all the time.

They just want to be liked so much.

That's it.

They want to be liked.

That's Bill's problem.

Now, Bob, Bill's problem is that he just wants everybody to think that's a great guy.

But as a result, he's wound up without any identity.

Well, as a result, he's liked, but somebody else isn't liked.

Dallas never worried about whether he was liked or not.

He cared a hell of a lot whether Eisenhower was liked.

Yeah.

Now, God damn it, that's what we've got to have in this club.

I bet you can get around here a little bit more.

They shouldn't worry about what they're like.

They should get up there and stick their nut there and their jaws out.

I mean, you take the garage partner.

He's a great father.

Everybody loves garage partner.

He's giving away a fucking store.

It's awful.

It's Central Arizona Project.

He's giving the Indians stuff that we can't give them.

He's promised the loyal people things we can't give them.

He's the most positive person.

But they all want to be in the position where all the good things are due to them and all the bad things were ordered at the White House.

I knew Arthur was disturbed because he grabbed me as I was walking over to the proteo ceremony.

and uh said he had urgently to talk to me i want you to talk very toughly because he's going to talk about we've got to go back and change the price of gold he's hung up on that and that is not included he's trying to say president is being too hard on these people they're going to get enough on or there's going to be a recession in europe or there's going to be a recession in japan

I also want to say, I said, you're not going to hear this kind of talk.

I said, the New York bankers all want to go back to what they had previously.

I said that they don't represent this country.

I just, I got to write an article when I said it.

David Rockefeller called yesterday.

He's requesting an appointment with you.

He's got a letter, and I told him to write a letter that I had nothing to do with it.

Thanks a lot.

I did not get Rockefeller.

I can't talk to me about this situation.

It's just too out of touchy.

I mean, I can't talk to the bankers.

His bank might make money out of it.

Any decision we make here now, someone, let us suppose, let's just talk about not seeing any bankers.

Anybody, any decision we make here, I mean, let me point out what happened with the GM thing.

Remember when we put that thing on the investment packet?

Some congressman said that we had formed GM in advance

What we've done is try to get GM to go along with us.

GM go on, agree not to pass it along.

Pass it along.

But they've made a lot of money in their stock as a result.

You can see that.

I'm not going to talk to David.

No, but I'm not recommending it.

I'm just saying he called me yesterday.

And I told him to write a letter to somebody, to you.

He doesn't have any brains.

He isn't worth my time.

David doesn't know anything.

He has some influence with a New Yorker.

He's already talked to Conley.

He's unhappy about this.

We can't keep undercutting our people and say, well, they've been doing that too much around this country.

I couldn't agree more.

I gave no encouragement.

I told him the old system was over, that I wasn't competent to determine which the new system should be.

But let me say this, if Arden gets to, or A, go on a meeting, and A, and they had business, because I was deliberately tougher on Triton than I, or anything, because of the mess we got in the company.

Arden was so stand-up, he expected me to sit there and kiss the ass of somebody that's been taking the United States, and I have not done it.

And who's basically, oh, he's no friend of ours.

Now, McNamara has played the game.

McNamara we could go to and get help on.

Yeah, but even without it, he's been a patriot.

He has.

He's used his influence with the Whites.

But I've seen Whites around cocktail parties here and around dinner parties.

He has never had anything really good to say about it.

Tom told me he had a luncheon yesterday, the day before yesterday, I guess.

And Arthur was there.

Schweitzer cut loose with something that was just really shocking, apparently.

And even Arthur was astonished and fluttering around afterwards.

Schweitzer is no friend.

Grover is a friend.

You know, Grover...

Cromer in his private capacity does speak for us.

The way that I think what makes him personal is I put it to him.

He knows damn well what we're doing politically and I said we expect it.

We expect you, we expect other countries to play to their interests.

We're going to do exactly the same thing.

I said, we want a new system.

We want one that will be fair to everybody, and so forth.

On the other hand, I said, we don't want a temporary situation that will deal with a little, you know, a patch of emergency areas, a little non-tariff barriers.

We have to have a system that we can live with.

Anyway, we went on and on about anything.

But what really grew was when I flatly told him that I knew he'd been saying things against the United States.

I required to be slow this time.

What in the Christ does it matter?

Do any of our ambassadors ever tell these people what they need to hear?

Our ambassadors?

Do I have to do it?

Well... You know what I mean?

When you get a tougher Secretary of State, he can do it, but...

All of us, I must say, all of us, we'll do this.

But the State Department now is a sort of lobby for foreigners.

It doesn't represent American interests.

Any foreigner who comes crying over to the State Department, they treat us, they're fine.

You know, we have a lot to say.

I don't know.

Although it was just basically, it's about the life he's taking.

But I just, I was not, I didn't, wasn't interested in getting across any of the technical thing.

But I wanted to get across the fact that we confronted a very serious problem here.

The United States might turn isolationist, but I didn't want this to happen.

And we therefore had to say that for our interest, and we can't, well, I bet you we're not doing it.

I think they have to hear this.

I talked to that group in New York last week.

I think this idea that we conduct foreign policy altruistically, which is really so egocentric and so self-righteous,

That's right.

And nobody believes it.

Well, it makes us unreliable.

Altruism, you can always change.

If you do it on the basis of your interest, it may be tougher when you do it, but it's more reliable.

And we don't want any deal, basically, in which the other fellow does it because he loves us.

He's going to do it because his interests are going to be served.

I mean, the State Department releases always say, we don't do this for ourselves, we do it for other people.

Baloney.

What we don't do for ourselves isn't worth doing.

when we may do things for other people in our mutual interests.

But pure altruism is not foreign policy.

Under the same circumstances, I think the best thing about this is to plan to move forward with our series tonight.

have them just to get all the papers that I need.

Tuesday afternoon, a schedule of a very intensive meeting.

And if somebody would like to go down with me, either Schultz or Stein, or both, and so they pitch it so that Schultz doesn't have to,

If you talk to him for two hours, and I've got two hours here, then I can talk to somebody.

That also gives Conway a chance to get things under control.

He's a genius.

I think that's, he doesn't, you're really pushing him.

If you make him come in, I think he can just use a better time.

Also, I think a lot of talking to Conway is about a plan.

There is a plan.

Right away, these people have got to know there is not going to be a national television broadcast on this thing.

So they quit working towards that answer.

Yeah, the plan is for me to make a brief two-minute statement to say what it is and copy them to go on and answer questions.

I think it'd be a mistake for you to get into all the details.

You know, I must say one thing.

We really, we really got those, that field of every general and admiral who's came through the line, Moriah and Westmoreland and those Navy fellows involved,

And the rest, it was really important, really touching.

That's pure.

Scali, apparently, that Kennedy bill was not so well received by the U.S. No.

Mr. President.

Did you see that?

See, my experience with these people, as I told you this evening, my experience has been they would like to believe that all this suffering was for something.

to tell them that it was all for a bunch of criminal fools.

Well, to go describing in bloody terms what the people were crawling into the room.

Well, they would go crawling into the room, but they don't like to believe that the war was all, that they haven't given up seven years of their lives.

You told me that in 69.

Well, they don't like to be told they're rotting in their cells.

And they don't like to be told they're rotting in their cells.

And, on the whole, they would like an outcome that they don't have to be ashamed of, so that at least they could point to something.

No, I didn't.

No, what I saw on television was excellent.

Scali went back after you left and spent over an hour talking to various...

He said that you really...

really scored, and he confirmed this other report that they're going to try to move today to changing their resolutions.

Some of them had something that maybe they'd done yesterday or earlier, and they're going to try to change this.

Those wives are really great ladies.

They're being exploited by these goddamn bastards like Kennedy and like these Clark Cuthberts and those kind of people who are using the 411 as the most horrible, cynical way.

It's just like they're being exploited by them and being exploited by our Vietnamese.

It's a terrible, terrible thing.

And, uh, I'm, uh, tell you one thing.

The whole secret of, uh, Kennedy decided he was drunk and got a pound on the cigarette.

Surprise.

Don't have everything always on that list.

He agrees.

There's room yet.

He can sing that way.

Absolutely.

He has only one carrier that will press deviations and put it on a steady wire.

It wouldn't.

He'll probably plead and die for that and plead with you to try it and give them a chance, but he says they won't.

That's the one thing where we do lose product by not doing it.

How much do you lose?

We're not behind them there.

No, not really, because Ron hadn't gone, which I didn't tell him until last minute that he got over there.

If he hadn't been there, he wouldn't have had TV coverage because the TV people were down at the bar.

As soon as you walked in the door, they had seen him come in, so some of them had gone up.

If they hadn't known you were there, there wouldn't have been TV and you would have had some damn good coverage.

There's no question, there's no question in Ron's mind on the surprise value that he should not have posted it or said it, you know, a little earlier.

And Scott was making the same point.

The surprise value was the essence of the thing to me.

He said the way they squealed when he came in, dramatically occupied off their gestures, their dramatic power.

Also, it doesn't allow the enemy a chance to get organized, which they would have done.

If they'd known three hours ahead that you were coming, the quicker people would have organized it.

They would have had some people carrying placards.

They would have had two or four placards, and that would have been a hell of a chance.

They would have had to get out fast, because they had just gathered their wits, and were shouting downstairs, and I just beat them up.

It wouldn't take like that, except I said that he was my significant other.

I don't know about this.

I said, the hell with that.

It's off the store.

I said, let's go.

Maybe he's all right, but you know, some of these guys' galleries ain't quite as warm.

Why don't you move on a thing like that?

You'll be faster.

Get in, get out.

So I had experience of having a real toughness when I was in Lima in 1958 after the San Marcos incident.

And the main thing was surprise.

These were people, these were killers.

The thing that really saved our lives and really was a surprise was moving to Catholic University.

and leaving and then going on back and walking from there back to the hotel.

And by that time, they were giving up our picture across.

We did the same thing in practice.

Well, we had a secret service.

They said, oh, we're going to get, we only had to recreate it.

It wasn't a secret service.

I mean, it was the protocol.

We'd lose the escorts, the little sons of bitches.

They said they were all standing there with their aliens and rocks.

They said, we want that escort.

We did the same thing last fall at Ohio State.

You had the rally at Columbus downtown and all the demonstrators were there and without any announcement we zapped out to the campus and nobody could catch it.

And then we got off the campus but they heard you were there and started moving down the track.

By the time we got there you were gone.

They were gone.

So you have a friendly campus gathering.

And it's the only way you could have had it if there had been word out ten minutes earlier that you were going to that campus and the Secret Service had gone down in advance of what you said you wanted to do.

It would have been in the middle of the demonstration.

Well, so long.

You give up a little on the press.

That's my point.

Don't think that you've got to have it every time.

Do some things with surprise.

It's not bad sometimes to let them ride with it rather than three hours later to catch up with it.

Look, how many times have we stationed in this goddamn office and had them come in and take pictures and so forth and not have any interviews?

My whole point is you don't have to.

Sometimes you just don't have to have it all staged.

If your demand's important enough, it'll be covered one way or another.

Except it can't be covered on television unless there's a television camera there.

But we knew there was a television camera there.

There were television cameras there.

Well, we might not have wanted to say that.

That's the other thing I want to say.

It's a sure thing.

I'm glad it was.

It's a sure thing.

I was smiling.

I must really frost Kennedy's butt, though.

You know, he had this great big story running in all the PNL wires, and that was playing big, you know, Kennedy's talking about the few numbers.

Then he ends up in about the fifth paragraph.

I think he's true.

No, he's not true.

He says he was never, but nothing...

He's getting desperate, though, and he's falling right into the Bobby Kennedy syndrome of charging, you know, stirring up emotional hatred.

He did it, where was he, at one of those campus things the other day.

And he said, it's you people sitting on your tails that are responsible for Richard Nixon being in the White House.

I mean, he's never really said that.

I mean, also his India excursion fell flat.

Here he was with a hundred press running around him.

A hundred press people were with him.

Oh, man, he gets an enormous press.

But still, what did he get out of it?

Well, he didn't get a big press here.

He didn't get... No, but I mean, enormous press covered coral.

Yeah, but he didn't get much coverage.

No, I didn't think he got... Henry and I were getting over it.

I didn't see a god in it.

No, he got no coverage because he didn't... Well, he didn't do anything right, really, on it, and he...

He got all emotional.

A.

Nobody cares.

B.

He doesn't really know enough about the subject.

He doesn't convey an impression of competence.

Just as yesterday, I don't know whether you were aware of this, somebody asked him about MIAs.

He said, what's an MIA?

Really?

Yeah.

At the meeting?

At the meeting.

Missing in action?

Yeah.

Somebody asked him, well, where do you stand on the MIAs?

Well, something about MIA.

He said, what's an MIA?

Let me tell you, it's a bleeding arm.

I'm a son of a hero on our staff, and I think sometimes you are, you know, it's that Doc Hughes.

Terrific.

He's held it in for these women.

He has, let's say, an awful lot of them are Air Force employees.

Yes, but he's the guy that's kept telling me, always mentioned him.

Last time, I, and that's not, that's another, it's another of our bargaining chips.

It's got that Mansfield thing, you know, exchange prisoners for North Vietnam, you know.

I don't know if there's been chips in them, but I said, we're investing.

all missing in action throughout some of these stations.

Or they can drop the point like that.

Well, they do.

They know what you're talking about.

To them, that's a terrific thing.

Because they always say it.

They always say D-O-W-M-I-A.

They never go on just D-O-W.

But so Kennedy never knows what he's talking about.

The same in India.

When Kennedy came back from India, I asked him, what program do you want us to carry out?

Give us your maximum figures.

His maximum figures were about two-thirds of what we had already appropriated.

Now that's such lousy staff work.

This doesn't...

He doesn't have any staff work.

He does any staff work.

All he's doing is great sin.

They program the staff for the public effect.

They do none of the background to it.

And that's why...

A lot of, a lot of people feel if that Caesar goes, he ought to be building, because he's the one to run against.

Now, if he's the one to go and build it, it might be terrible, though.

His demagoguery would worry me.

Well, he's resorted to it now.

It's the same thing that Bobby did when he got lost in the California front.

He stirred up the animal instinct.

He may just get hold of something sooner or later, and because the Kennedys are totally ruthless,

I'm surprised he hasn't jumped on the prison regime.

Prison regime?

Prison, you know, the advocate business.

He made a great reply, a big, two votes for the blacks.

and said, I tell you, let's keep these factors coming on busing.

That betrayed decision by that stupid judge out there on the fact that busing is going to send an arc of very small.

He said it was de jure.

That's what I mean.

That means the fact that it becomes de jure is de jure.

Oh, boy.

I think I'm going to have to go to the Constitution on that thing.

I don't see any solutions.

Whether you get your court and you can get it determined.

The one other thing that I must find out, and the only other that I should see today, you've checked with Mitchell to see if he has anything.

He wants to have any further discussion with me on the judge at the Stormlight Club on the floor Thursday night.

Because I think those judges have got to go.

We've got to push them off.

It's not going to just get popped up in there now.

The president tells me that what Mitchell's theory is, we're going to have a problem with that.

Mitchell's theory is to, well, he wants to keep the name up and smoke out the opposition now, rather than after it gets to the Senate.

I understand.

And try to get to that.

Now, they've moved it to the ADA, so they've got that part of the deal.

Yeah.

And he wants to go to the Senate and get 51 committed votes so that he doesn't get up there again.

The report is that they've got 30 or 31 committed against.

I understand.

That's all.

And he's got 35 against, but that's still 65.

Well, you care about us 51.

That's all he cares about is 51.

And we're going to get it.

Well, I talked to Scott about it.

Scott says we can confirm it.

Scott's not a tower of strength, he sure isn't.

He certainly isn't.

He's not one for fighting, losing battle.

But it says, I will ritualize every woman.

I've got one I'm gonna check out that came up on the list.

I wasn't gonna raise her because I know her, but she came up elsewhere as a young, she was about my age.

I think she's still in California.

What does she do?

She's a judge.

What court?

Superior Court.

And she was, she did a very big, she was dean of the Essene Law School or something like that.

She had, she's

going through a remarkable process of .

That's what I've got to find out.

She's on that list of 12 that those women came up with.

Everyone was a left-wing radical.

Everyone.

She's on that list.

Why she?

I think so.

She's not a left-wing radical at all.

Are you sure?

I'm not at all sure how conservative she is.

I guess she isn't.

That would be very concerning.

If you're going to put a young woman on, for God's sake, let's put one on.

What I meant is she doesn't have to be, frankly, a racist.

That's what I'm saying.

Well, to all these...

Southerners want is a racist on that court.

I don't want any racists.

That's what I want.

I don't think that'll work.

No, no, no.

If I'm a racist, I need somebody to dismiss her.

I'm Frankie.

Burger, you see, is perfect.

Burger's good on civil rights, but strong on law and order.

That's what I want.

If you don't want to...

I like Mitchell's woman.

She sounds good to me.

She's been in the Justice Department for 12 years.

She's now a federal court judge.

I don't know, she's supposed to be pretty good at it.

Well, they're working on those.

And that, the woman, John, did you?

That's, yeah, that's like he's totally against her.

Yeah, that's pretty good.

And Burger's totally against her.

Because the court doesn't want to deal with the woman that's on the court.

I am against it, frankly.

But basically, politically, politically, it isn't going to lose us a vote.

A lot of people around us are quite a critical one.

And to a hell of a lot of women, it could make a difference on them.

That's just what it gets at.

See my point?

If you poll the country, 60% of the people at least would say no to a woman judge.

On the other hand,

As far as those of you who vote against Nixon because he invited women, it seems wrong.

But on the other hand, those of you who vote for Nixon, who are now against because he invited women, maybe 10% of them, there is a point.

It's embarrassing.

It's like diversity of government.

It's a hell of a thing.

Johnson's got more important because there's a hell of a lot more women than there are any guns in the track.

And there's a lot more reasons for women to be there.

There ought to be a lot of women's things that come out of it.

I'm not for women, frankly.

And there ain't any dogs.

I don't want any of them around.

Thank God we don't have any in the cabinet.

But I must say, the cabinet's so lousy, maybe we just have to have a woman, too.

Some of these women we're getting are better than some of the men we've got.

You're goddamn right.

Just, you know, this Barbara Franklin and her brother, just bang, get by the gal, you've wrecked your life.

Whatever you want to say about that woman on the Maritime Commission.

Well, you've got to say this, considering Elliot's job, Elliot Richardson, is a hell of a man.

That's the worst job the cat's done, and he handles all those left-wingers with great style.

And he puts it here where he's honest and decent.

That's right.

But beyond that, you just haven't got a cabinet officer in there that's worth a damn, you know, in terms of who they want to try.

Stans tries, Romney tries, Volpe tries.

Stans just doesn't have the ability.

Stans did a good job yesterday.

He made a nice speech.

But he's loyal.

Well, so is Romney and so is Volpe.

Stans is just sort of square, but he just doesn't have the... Well, Volpe is such an egomaniac that...

He's for us.

Well, he's good for us.

Oh, yeah.

There's a lot of mobiles in this country, a hell of a lot of mobiles, and there aren't any regents.

Let's face it.

And he had to be used to the elite anticipated types.

And to have it hidden.

And I've never not raised this up.

He said, is there anybody of those that were sold or any killer that had to go to the black screen or realize what a horrible thing that was?

Everybody thought it was just great that I went.

I said, I didn't think about it, but we just didn't get a goddamn thing in the press.

I was there.

He had it posted on TV.

I mean, it showed me going in.

And the paper said it.

It buried down in Australia.

It said President Nixon also attended.

That's right.

I didn't see it.

It was a disgusting place.

Nobody saw it.

Did anybody listen to that damn sermon?

Well, I have to talk to him.

Don't raise it up.

Well, he says it was wrong.

He said, I'm doing it very correctly.

The Lord came in right after I got back, and he said, I will never make another schedule recommendation again.

I said, don't be ridiculous.

But he said, everybody, why do you know?

Why do you think it was wrong?

Because I think more of what it stated.

He said, the one thing that never occurred to me to think about what the sermon would be.

I mean, he said, that might not be great.

But he let him make a schedule.

And he told us, because I want to be honest enough to come in here and say, what happened was great.

Did you tell him?

No.

Well, that was...

funeral for black men in LA, was totally against us, totally against everything we stand for.

He's a brilliant man, but because he'd been in the Klan here in total 11, the court, and that's basically, he was a bad judge for that reason, in terms, and that he, rather than, he didn't solve all of them already, especially that busy facility.

So, they had to carry a minister who gave eulogy.

God had a minister who made great eulogy, a tactic of strict constructionists,

Directly.

He said it was against the strict instructions.

The two that I don't want in the strict instructions.

I know that.

And I'm sitting there.

I thought that.

He was the Attorney General when he said it.

He knew what Amar said.

What Amar said.

He said, he said, it never occurred to me to think of, you know, what might be said there and that he'd get into a problem there.

The thought was, I just thought the President should be there to show his respect for the court.

The same line Mitchell had.

I said, I was wrong on it, and I'll never suggest anything again.

I said, but nothing's happened to everybody.

Nothing's happened.

Nobody's got to be a column or two picking up.

We don't give a damn.

But I'll tell you, my idea was this, you see, which is, I don't believe, as I told Bob, I was his evil, and I'll tell you, I'm deeply resistant to it.

I said, Bob, it's just like the Len Garment recommendation that I heard with the people of church the day after the election.

It's like the recommendation of calling in these teachers to see me here in the room, to have these college professors, to fire me from my university.

I said, it's totally, I said, I've written a personal note, I did everything right personally, I wrote a personal note to Mrs. Black and to the old man, and I've done this and that, I've done everything right from a personal standpoint.

I lowered the White House flag.

It's a hashtag.

It's never been done for a farmer justice before.

I've done that.

Taylor probably didn't understand it had never been done for a farmer justice, but that's all right.

You got out of it.

So we've done it.

And then my point is, Henry, and I think you agree, it's the same here as in the quarantine.

Never throw your curve before a sign.

God damn it.

What I do is terrible.

It looks like I'm a hypocritical, soft-boning son of a bitch.

What do you think?

I don't think it makes you look like a hypocritical.

It doesn't make you look hypocritical, but it doesn't get you a hell of a lot by giving them a slap for them.

That's right.

That's a bit of a thing.

It's a little bit hypocritical.

I just went and smothered over a man that they know I didn't like.

Well, you did it as president of all the people.

I don't think you lost anything, but you didn't gain anything.

They bring him in an unpainted pine coffin.

And that, to me, is just, I don't understand people who do that.

I disagree with all this crap of the overdone, you know, $5,000 coffins and all, but hell, a pint, not a nine-by-five, that they didn't even pay it, you know?

It was not paid.

Well, it was just a really little bandit.

It could have been a couple hundred bucks.

Well, I'm going to write a personal note.

Everybody's got Eisenhardt and all the rest of it.

They've got only kind of different folks.

What's going to happen?

Mike, there ain't going to be any flies that have masks.

There's not going to be any eulogies, and there's not going to be any burial sources.

It's a crude, barbaric, pagan custom.

And this awful stuff, getting on over somebody after you did.

You can't do anything about the plugs and half masks.

That would be a half mask.

But you can do something about the...

It was really very bad.

Let's go to the...

Go on, you check your metronome a little bit and see if he doesn't need your silence.

Not today.

Okay.

Try to work it in tomorrow.

That's right.

We'll have the meeting Tuesday afternoon if that's all right.

Fair enough.

And let's just say Tuesday afternoon for that purpose.

I'll take the papers down.

I want to try to keep them known.

Discuss the decision if I want to study it over the weekend.

And I'll go down Tuesday afternoon.

Fair enough.

Yeah.

Good.

And has somebody write it down if they want to explain it to me and I can talk to you about it?

But then he'd come back up.

He'd come back and say, I'm not going to see you the next day.

But I'll have two hours of work on the plane.

And that's not a bad thing to have said, too, because I will be studying God.

I think that's the best we can give John.

Schultz might want to do this.

He might want to take the standing down and they could use that house.

It might be down there in order.

And that would be, you know, then you're down with Schultz working on our final stage.

Real Schultz, I believe.

Understanding that he's not good.

I'll speak to him if he wants.

On the Doug Cornell thing.

tomorrow.

Ron's wondering if you don't want to invite a little group of some of his personal friends, UPI people, AP people.

I told you to have another party.

Fifteen people.

Okay.

Fifteen or thirty or whatever you want.

Good.

Now, one question.

Would you want to invite former press secretaries?

You know, I think it's a bad idea to help Salinger and Reedy and Boyd.

No, never.

Never.

It would mean hanging me, too.

Never.

Hanging me is fine.

Well, if you want.

No, just don't ask me if I didn't come here.

I'm just asking the present people here.

It's like a state night for history.

It's a state night, right?

A lot of that was over the moon.

That's not good advice, okay?

Anybody who wants to invite can have 150 if he wants.

No, I will kind of have a receiving line.

It would be about 50 to 70 people.

And, you know, they just get the working press room group.

They just come in at the last minute.

Right.

And then have Doug invite a little group of personal families.

Right.

We'll just have the informal cocktails, hors d'oeuvres.

Cocktails and hors d'oeuvres, yeah.

And that's it.

I see no objection.

We don't want to.

I don't think so at all.

I don't think it's addressed.

The copies are covered, but I don't want to have whites editing in there.

It's personal.

They can cover it.

They can write on the record and take pictures and so forth.

I don't think we have a receiving line.

I don't want to shake hands with some of these people.

You know, it was nice to do that role for us.

Oh, and again, I thought it was very significant when you spoke of his high personal regard.

He's one of the few that does.

He didn't have to do that.

No, I think the pros... You have no trouble among the world's leaders.

Stutthof.

I thought Stutthof was approved.

Yeah, Merrick.

To succeed Ellsworth?

Yes.

I don't know.

It's special.

You know it's special.

He's a foreign interpreter.

Never upon him.

Never.

I like it.

Something that concerns Paul.

I didn't prove anybody could succeed Ellsworth, did I?

Sergeant Henry says he thinks we approved Spessel.

I don't like Spessel.

I would never approve him.

All right.

Just be goddamn sure now.

I'm not going to appoint a foreign service officer to that job.

I want somebody that's my friend and somebody like your fellow out in California.

The hell with it.

I will not have any State Department man in that job.

None.

Is that clear?

Now, should I go to the meeting?

You haven't had a chance to read the numbers.

No, I haven't.

I just want to know what I should cover.

First, for the procedure, they'll come in here, pictures and so forth.

You have about 45 minutes to an hour with him in here.

Then you ask us all to leave and you'll talk to him privately.

Here, what he expects is that you'll say something like, Mr. Foreign Minister, it's been a year since we've met.

You want to give us your impression of where to, so to speak.

I thought Stucco was approved.

The American?

To succeed Ellsworth?

Yes.

I don't know.

It's Stucco.

You know it's Stucco.

He's a foreign interpreter, isn't he?

Never upon him.

Never.

I like it.

I didn't approve anybody to succeed elsewhere, did I?

Sergeant Henry says he thinks we approved Spessel.

I don't like Spessel.

I would never approve him.

All right.

Just be goddamn sure now.

I'm not going to appoint a Foreign Service officer to that job.

I want somebody that's my friend and somebody like your...

I will not have any safety department man in that job.

None.

Is that clear?

Now, should I go to the meeting?

You haven't had a chance to read the numbers.

No, I haven't.

I will.

I haven't.

First, for the procedures, they'll come in here, pictures and so forth.

You have about 45 minutes to an hour with him in here.

Then you ask us all to leave and you'll talk to him privately.

Here, what he expects is that you'll say, something like, Mr. Foreign Minister, it's been a year since we've met, you want to give us your impression of where two Soviet-American relations stand now.

That's the beginning.

That's the beginning of the formal meeting.

Then he'll give you a little speech, which will be very conciliatory, and then he'll turn to European matters.

On that, incidentally, let me first go through some European matters.

They...

he'll probably wind that up by saying, now where do you stand on European security conference?

How do we move it forward?

I think you ought to preserve as much of that for the private channel as possible so that we can play it into the summit and say that, well, the conditions are getting rough, that once the Berlin Agreement is ratified,

and the German treaties are ratified, then you think we can go ahead with some preparatory work on European Security Conference and... What's the... And that there should be some informal discussions in the meantime of what the agenda might be and so forth.

Beginning how?

Beginning once the treaties are... Oh, the informal discussions begin when?

I'd say after the German treaties are ratified.

But we could have some informal... You'd always be interested to hear from them what agenda...

Right.

And on the Middle East, he'll give you...

He'll do that...

The Middle East?

He'll do it in two parts.

He'll raise it at the public meeting in the familiar way.

And I've written down what our official position is.

And if you just stick with what's in the statement, I'm all ears on that.

Early in the discussion, Mr. President, you should raise salt.

And on salt, the issue briefly is this.

We had told them that, in the private discussions, we had told them

three of our ABM sites for their Moscow system, plus an offensive freeze.

They now say it's got to be one for one on the defensive side too, but that means their Moscow system covers 40% of the population, while one ABM site for us covers only 2% of the population up in North Dakota.

Now you could go into all this detail,

What you might say, though, is we have to move it forward at the next step.

Our proposal, in effect, is that both sides stay where they are in both categories.

We have two APM sites defensively, but they have more missiles offensively.

And, therefore, the freeze is, if we freeze now on both of them,

That is fair.

They can't ask us to cut down on our ADM sides, but keep an edge in offensive methods.

We reiterate that when they speak of equivalence, they can't say there's going to be the same number of things on the defensive side, but they can stay ahead in the offensive side.

So what you could say the essence of our proposal is that both sides stay where they are in both categories, defensive and offensive.

What if he says we're going to hurt him?

He won't hurt him.

I'll guarantee you'll be watching.

That's right.

I mean, that's our whole card.

But we need that.

Supposedly given a courtesy and frankly broken dress and saying, why don't we have a man on there?

You know, we would have, if it had a Kennedy or a Muskie or a Humphrey sitting in this chair, the United States today would have people looking right down our throat.

As close as it is.

This is where these, where

When these conservatives say, well, what difference did it make who was here?

Good God, we would have no ABM.

We would have no MIRV.

In Nash, we would have no P1.

We would have no Allen.

Henry, the conservatives, I frankly think, they let them sleep.

I'm almost inclined to think that the rule of their sleep is just part of the course.

They're going to do it.

Yeah, I think so.

We'll see about that.

Now, on Vietnam, I wouldn't let him.

Then on the Middle East, he will go through their formal position, which is that the Israelis are unreasonable and that we have gone ahead on the interim settlement without consulting them.

And I would just repeat the position that we have wanted interim settlement as a first step, and we think that this can help quiet the situation in the Middle East, our formal position on that.

Then he will mention trade, and he will suggest that you might send either Stans or Peterson to the Soviet Union.

I told the Breeden this morning we have granted, we've approved $200 million more of the Calmer River project.

We're now up to over $400 million on that.

And I'll just be sure he gets credit this time.

Yeah, I've called Scott on it because it's in his area.

Oh, good.

Well, that's a good news.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, it will be formally announced on Friday.

I'm beginning to think that we'd be better off having Sam go there rather than Peterson.

Peterson's a little grievous.

I think Peter's going to be too outgoing.

Well, he might be.

Can't be trivial too much.

There's no telling what it...

When I say outgoing, I mean he would tend to want to really be doing it.

Or in other ways, to have the two go together.

I'd like to be an idea.

You don't have to react at all.

You just have to say you're very sympathetic.

You might mention you've already approved over $400 million for the Carmar River project.

I can also say it as we finish the account.

You know, altogether, we've approved over $600 million of...

and I come back, what do you want me to say in the public session?

I'd just be very bad in the public session.

All right.

Just say that you're supporting... You're going to take up the Middle East in your private session, sir.

Right.

Well, now, that's what I wanted to ask.

We'll put you through the formal ones.

All right.

On South Asia, I would urge them, I would tell them whatever one views on East Bengal, that a war in that area would have

the greatest consequences of international involvement, and that you...

If he's going to raise Secretary of State?

Well, if he doesn't...

I don't want to raise all this.

Do you think I should?

No, no, he will raise...

I'll tell you what you can be sure he'll raise.

He'll raise Europe, Middle East, trade.

You might consider raising salt.

Salt.

And South Asia.

Maybe they'd only give you a little bit.

It's important to have progress.

This, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this,

We did from 3 to 1 in our proposals.

We've made a concession.

We've gone down to 2 to 1.

But you might as well say you cannot go any further on the defensive side.

And you just want them to understand that.

Because then I think we can break it.

But they have to hear it from you.

Those are the major topics he's going to raise with you at that session.

Then he will...

when you see him alone in this office, and I think you're absolutely right.

You shouldn't have a system that you always take him into a different... No, no.

But I have now spoken that you'll take us all to the map room, and I'll have the...

I'll have the cards there.

We'll all walk out together.

Right.

And that's not unusual.

We'll just walk out that way, so I'd like to take you to your car, and I'd like to show you...

The map room.

We'll stop in there.

I think it has historic significance, sort of.

There he has... Oh, no, I might forget one other thing.

He will mention to you Vietnam.

He will say that Botswana is going to Hanoi, that they will have very serious discussions about Southeast Asia.

Do you have any additional ideas that you want to say?

Now, I would...

There I'd be very tough, I would say.

We've been very disappointed.

The Soviet Union hasn't done a great deal.

All we ever hear from Hanoi is the concessions we have to make.

We've made one concession after another.

And it is time for Hanoi now to talk to us seriously.

That's all I'd say at the formal meeting.

Because it helps to have them be able to carry this, as having heard from you.

Now then, we go to the private meeting.

The private meeting, they'll discuss two subjects.

One is he will bring you a war message from Brezhnev.

He hasn't told me what it is.

Does he know that I will suggest a private meeting?

Yes.

He's asked for it, but he's all programmed.

He doesn't want me to say it.

We've asked him to say it.

I have suggested I'd like to have some words alone.

Right.

And you tell Rogers that he's asked for it.

Right.

You tell Rogers in advance that...

I tell Raj that as soon as I leave here, I'll call him and say that the VPR has just called their ambassador.

The VPR has a private message he wants to give the President.

See, I want to lay that out to him.

That the VPR has just called and that the President, what we'd like to do, is he'd like to have us go to the cabinet room while he receives it.

And then we'll walk out and he's going to escort him in the car.

And then afterwards, the President will...

Don't, because we don't know what it is.

But you don't, I won't say anything.

You can tell us after we've said goodbye to Gromyko.

You can just say, why don't you step into my office?

Okay.

Then you can fold it and put it in your pocket and it's natural that you have to fold it.

In the private meeting, he'll give you a private message.

Well, it won't be in writing.

It will be just a personal message.

Then he will raise the Middle East, and he will say something to the effect that last year, I had mentioned, he won't mention my name to them, that if any real progress is to be made in the Middle East, the Soviet Union and the United States have to agree on their basic presence.

Say, you remember, your press conference and my background and

And they're ready to talk in that framework to us now.

There's a comprehensive Middle East here.

If there's any progress in the Middle East, they have to agree to our presence there.

No, no.

They are willing, in effect, to limit their presence.

Oh.

And they're willing to have some general exchanges.

And I think he's going to say that this should be in the same sort of channel that handled Berlin.

My recommendation is, Mr. President, that you say this is a very complex subject, that you recommend that the Freedon and I have some preliminary conversations to find out just how it could be done, after which you'll make a decision.

This doesn't commit you to anything but keeps the carrot dangling.

You might also, at the private meeting, reaffirm again this channel.

It's just good for them to hear.

Now, then finally, you should say, if you agree, that you understand that I will be talking to him the next day, and I will talk to him more fully about Vietnam, and that you want to say that what you say has had the most, what I'll say has had the most urgent consideration here, and that you're fully behind it, and something like that.

I'll say to you when you talk to him.

Yeah, and on Vietnam.

And how are we going to sign the deal?

He won't make it.

They know that...

He doesn't have to say it.

They know that there are...

He isn't going to make it to the summit of the public meeting.

No.

Now, he must not do that because I don't want Roger to get involved in that.

No, no, no.

Fine, okay.

They are fully programmed, Mr. President.

They know, however, that before...

Gromyko is giving a lunch for Rogers tomorrow at 1.

He knows Rogers will come for the lunch.

That's right.

But it's not to be talked about here.

No.

Now, another thing he does not know about, that Rogers does not know about, is the exchange of letters between you and Brezhnev, to which they're attaching enormous importance.

What exchange is that?

You wrote a long letter.

I didn't know about that.

You didn't know about that?

No.

Because it mentions the summit, Mr. President.

Oh, I see.

Oh, frankly, there's no loss in San Clemente, sir.

But they won't mention it, you can be sure.

Okay.

Bill is crazy.

He can't object to this one.

He might say, well, what the hell?

Why are you going to control it?

That's the thing they suggested, and I said, no.

That's the thing.

And you just felt you wanted to get it done.

Oh, no, I must say, once this third thing is agreed, it's going to leak.

And I said, fine, we'll do it.

But you better pledge it to absolute secrecy.

Like Bill?

Yeah.

Oh, sure.

Don't worry.

I'm going to say that this has got to be absolutely secret.

This is the easiest way, Mr. President.

That way it makes a lot of sense.

Gromyko brought you, technically, the implication last year.

And now he made it definite.

And Bill would think that's what the whole land meeting was about.

Oh, yeah.

So that we don't have to do everything.

Bill had such a naive conception of foreign policy that he really will think this is how it happened.

Well, we'll do it that way.

And also, it keeps them absolutely from leaking that they rammed it down your throat.

And it keeps me out of it.

So then... Well, Bill knows that I took him over to talk about the summit and the Red Bull.

Well, actually, last year, Mr. President, he brought the summit up.

I know.

Bill said, why don't we announce it now?

And I said, well, he came back with the summit thing.

He said, the time has come.

I said, this is a good thing.

I said, fine, we'll go.

That's it.

You'll probably wonder how we agreed on a thing so quickly, but...

Well, you can, if he asks it, you can say that before he went back to Greenland, said, in principle, does the Chinese summit rule out a Russian summit?

And I said, no, but it has to be after the Russian summit.

Oh, my God.

Now look, if Archer gets ahold of you, Stan, I'm so glad that Archer is talking to me on this, because Archer, I don't know what his position would be, but if he starts to say, oh my, the president's not happy with me, I'm all swiped, I'm all forksy-heartedly, and it's a funny thing.

how a man as smart as he is, and as really subtle and sophisticated as he is then, how he, why is it that Americans, businessmen, economists, and the rest, they get in the foreign policy arena and they become like babes in the woods?

Why would Pierre Paul Schweitzer play an architect or a scientist?

You just say what the hell was an architect?

But what I meant is, I think the whole point is, that's the President's style.

He talks very, very candidly and higher private.

Publicly, he'll be very forthcoming.

Fair enough.

And you said in an argument, you're going to see some things with all of them in the next few weeks and prove it works.

I think that's right.

And these guys have to prove to D-Day Scandal that you wouldn't yield.

And they have to adjust.

Yeah.

It's a matter of time.

Nothing further is possible.

I'm trying to think.

Did Bill raise any more questions?

No, but I think Alderman should just call him and say this is what the president has decided to do.

Oh, well.

Unless Bill calls him.

Well, he thinks he can raise it with you.

Does he?

Well, another thing that's happened, Mr. President, I don't want to bother you with it.

We've got to be able to call on the bureau to help prepare the trip.

And Bill has given orders that these people can't produce any papers.

And it's just too much, too dangerous to prepare the agenda without getting any of their input.

What do you mean?

Under the pretext that he's afraid we'll leave, he's given orders and said that they can't write any papers on time.

What he really wants is to have no agenda when we get a BK, so that he can run to the rescue.

But he's playing against the same game as he did with the first annual report of pretending nothing is going on, not telling us anything.

And while they don't have any ideas, they just can't afford to play these games.

The Chinese raised my bill, and it's not that I'm just going to say it, but this is the

It's damn hard to set anything up if you don't have diplomatic relations.

This is the way, this is what they have offered.

And that we had turned down, what was it?

Our end of September.

End of September wouldn't work.

So now it's gonna be October 3rd.

That's right.

And this is the way to do it.

You cannot.

You know, who in the name of Christ would he send, may I say it?

A man of lower, not a stature to advance us.

Who in the name of Christ would he send?

He doesn't want any of that.

Huh?

No agenda?

Mr. President, you'd be sitting here with the clock running.

Jesus Christ.

And we haven't had...

It's the same with every initiative we've ever taken.

No agenda?

Well, I don't mind it.

Ridiculous.

I think Bob, if Bob just calls in tomorrow... Why would Bob have a reason to call in?

Because you told Bob that he... That I've told you about this.

You just decided to call him.

Well, you can call him.

I'm not going to call him.

Well, no, it's done.

The channel.

I'm going to tell him about the Russian.

Well, he can erase it after we get back in here.

He can erase it.

How does this fit in with the channel?

What would you say?

I mean, you can say the opposite.

Well, how does he...

He might say, after I told him about the Russian thing, he said, what about the China thing?

And I said, well... You can tell him we told the Chinese...

I told them it became clear that it might come up.

Yeah.

And also that I believe this knowledge is very important to go forward with the China thing, and it's set before the Russian thing.

Yes, sir.

I don't think you'll make a good choice.

Yes, it's difficult.

Bill will be all right.

He'll leave.

Provided we just get him front and center.

I think it's best to get him around.

Let him make some speeches.

But Bill has been the same on every issue.

Every time he's tried to do something, he falls like a maniac.

And then once it was decided, he'll do it.

But he's gone to the U.N. now and just forget him.

Nixon, Haldeman & Kissinger on Economic Policy and Foreign Relations

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

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Also recorded on September 29, 1971

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Nixon, Haldeman & Kissinger on Economic Policy and Foreign Relations

AI Summary

Audio

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on September 29, 1971

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Cite this conversation