Conversation 606-003

Transcript (AI-Generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.

I want to get you involved very heavily in this business about what we do in the Europeans.

Peterson had really had the worst hit in this field.

He's a nice callback.

He was saying, well, the French won't do this.

We have no bargaining power with them.

That's not the other thing.

Well, now, basically, Henry, you can determine who the hell we've got bargaining power with.

We may have some more than we think, or we may have less.

I don't know.

But I want you to analyze the situation in those terms.

I think what I'd like for you to do is, the one I want you to talk with is Phelps.

Phelps of all, Ewing Phelps, had a good talk about what the hell the art and power we've got with the French, with the Germans and the British, the Italians and the lesser art and magnitude.

Because art is grinding circles around your body by frankly trying to have us

make a deal with any of the European bloc.

We cannot do it.

It's not in our interest.

Now, this is something that you have to do today, tomorrow, I'm speaking of the first of next week.

I want to convince you as well, Senator, to have a good meeting.

And if you have all of this in your head, I think you should read the Peterson Memorandum and think into it.

Because he does, he has talked to a lot of people.

Yeah.

And also, maybe scissorized, or at least given an opinion on whether we're getting as much out of the Canadians as we can get, or whether there's any more we can get.

But take the French.

I have a feeling that maybe we can do, we might be able to do something with Pompidou.

Pompidou is eager to see you.

We've determined that.

He is.

He wants to do it in French to Yano, which is a hell of a place in the Netherlands.

Well, we can do it in two ways.

We can... That's what Russia was talking about at the end of January in Luxembourg.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

But we can do... Well, that was Raja's suggestion.

My suggestion would be... Now, he apparently is... really has his standard up against us, partly because of our economic measures, partly because he thinks our China initiative screwed him out of some big play he was going to make on recognition or upgrading his embassy from a charge...

to an embassy status.

So when we approached him, he turned back, turned... Well, it was a very cold response, so I don't think we ought to go back to him.

Pompidou is enthusiastic.

I know Prunk would be enthusiastic.

If we got those two, we could force Heath into a meeting.

If we wanted... Well, the target luckily can come, because...

because he's got a presidential election, but he would certainly be cut.

So we can go that route, or you can meet with Pompidou alone on the ground that you haven't seen him for a while, and then have a larger meeting develop out of that.

Those are the two strategies.

There's no question that Brandt would be eager to

To go to a, to a head of government meeting with you, there's no question that, that Pompidou is not aware.

But he was probably disturbed because of that.

Well, he was a stubborn, uh... Well, have we not?

Oh, a lot.

I mean, after all these years on the role of Rice Eagle and so forth.

So I don't know that they played a nasty role in, uh, in the U.N., because I would have to figure that Uganda, for example... Yeah.

Uh, that's, that's very, yeah, the criticism.

And Uganda, why they would vote with the Tanzanians when the Tanzanians are, uh, trying to undo them is clear.

I think that's clear.

That's what we can say all we want about the vote.

We will not forget, as I told you, I want, I want that whole list of Dover to reward and punish.

I expect to have that with you.

I told him, whatever, I'll never see one of those batteries loaded again, just again.

My point is that, that the, uh, the, uh...

There was no way of winning it next year.

Now, that is... My point is, it's better he had a goddamn thing over with.

I didn't.

We wouldn't have liked to have caught a war right before the election.

That's what you would have said.

God, we had had it a hell of a time.

There was no way of avoiding it.

There was a lot of goals to be made, to say the wrong things.

Now it's over with.

It's time it's going to be washed over by the trip and all, and so there's nothing to do.

I'm talking in person to the writer because I took over the U.N. meeting.

Was it?

Oh, it was.

Yeah, that actually played very well.

Now let's come to the other point.

I want to spend just a moment.

Bob, did you get a chance to get Henry to run down here and talk with Bill on the China thing?

Yes, sir.

Well, just take a quick run down there.

Well, we've got to communicate and so forth.

Bill's made the point to me the same thing.

I think that you've got to get together and it's terribly important that you know everything that's happening here.

Especially if you work on communicating, you've got to be involved because there's a lot of background that they have in the State Department that we don't know about.

He said there's been a long history of negotiation, and of course there's a lot of material that's just in our files here that they don't have over there, that we don't have, and that Henry doesn't have over there.

And he kind of backed off, and he said, well, I mean, the point really is, I don't think he was happy he had said that after he said it.

He was pushing hard for the thing.

If I've got to know what's going on, you know, be able to... Well, he's been fucking me.

...tied up, so he looks at all the strategy and the handlers.

Do you suggest how we do it?

We're in the damn thing.

I know his attempt is going to be to nitpick the bejesus out of it.

I would agree with that.

We have done a goddamn thing that he hasn't proved destroyed the republic when we were doing it.

When we did the Berlin thing, he nearly drove me out of my mind.

He made me doubt my sanity when he said it would drive all conservatives against you.

On the contrary, the National Review wrote a favorable editorial.

We never bothered you with it.

Well...

Basically, in that case, it was something, it happened so quickly and it deprived him of sort of the front and center position on it.

Listen, I have a nice suggested strategy.

I want, for one minute, let me say that you're going to talk to me about communicating and so forth.

It's still an open subject.

That's what we said at breakfast.

I can get it with this.

What I think might resist, I think we're running out on things that were discussed, and I say, now we might give the things to the State Department about what the community ought to be.

I can get a list of topics of...

that they said they want to refer to on their side and that they will let us refer to on our side.

Yeah.

Or do you have any other...

I'm only raising this as a way to defuse the goddamn thing so that it doesn't come up to me again.

See?

Yeah.

What would happen if you got that going on?

What I'm saying is... Well, I had a communique of theirs which I presented, which Cho rejected by saying it's a meaningless sense of battle, which is true.

Now, it's the sort of stuff that we're going to put out tomorrow with Tito, and at first it sounds all right, but it hides so much that everyone figures there had to be more to it than that.

So that I have come reluctantly to the conclusion that Joe's approach is really also more in our interest, where they say this is what we believe, as long as they don't say it too aggressively, and we say this is what we believe.

Then you can come home and say we weren't taken in at all.

Well, we...

I raised that with Rogers.

He didn't, uh... Of course he didn't, uh... Yeah, but he won't like anything I did, so it doesn't make any difference.

Oh, I understand that.

I understand that.

I'm just trying to think of a way to... What do you think, Bob, of the way that you use the damn thing?

Is there a way?

Understand, I am not some gentleman that you send to the G.S.A.

I don't have to then communicate.

But I've got to internally communicate.

What the hell?

He's not going to determine it.

Well, that's what they actually did tell me.

I can say these are the points they want to cover.

The risk we are running is either way they're going to piss on us.

And that we just have to make up our mind about.

It's such a tough subject, Mr. President.

You have no idea what I went through there.

I had two all-night sessions with these fellows.

These were the roughest sessions I've ever had.

It's easy to piss on it if you don't know what you're up against there.

Sure.

And if you compare it against some abstract thing, you're not against what they would do.

And it's just a hell of a situation when it's tough enough when your whole bureaucracy is with you.

It's the tough, the strength of the China thing, it's the possibilities it has.

It is not the communique.

It's the diplomatic...

and also diplomatically, Mr. President, you've revolutionized the whole structure of international relations by the mere fact of doing it

by going there, by bringing these people into an international dialogue.

That's the news.

I was babbling yesterday nothing but flatitudes.

It's from page everywhere.

I could give a two-hour backgrounder of the Soviet Union, for example.

The beauty of my background, there isn't anything in there that we haven't said a hundred times.

about not directing it against certain countries and so forth.

And it's, you know, the lead story in the New York Times, front page Washington Post, lead item on every television.

And I mention that not because it was such a good background, but because that is what China has done.

The Soviet Union doesn't have that sort of appeal.

I think we ought to...

Everybody, nobody is suggesting that I present.

No, I'll do whatever.

No, it isn't do whatever the hell that you want to do.

And I'm part of one factor is not letting them screw it up.

That's got to be a strategy for dealing with them.

But they don't screw it up.

I can't even think of a frankly elitist way to get out of the goddamn problem.

We've done this sort of thing before, you know.

But it's getting harder and harder.

Carrying off on their...

And these guys over there, they're Russians, I'm not worried about, but these guys, if they lose respect for us, and if they steal all these currents, and I don't know if Jason came back, he didn't believe me before I left, and how disciplined and how able.

Wow, that's fantastic.

I've been reading the transcript of the technical meetings.

And he said, guys, they go through the book, and they pass on every error in arithmetic.

They said, well, you have, you said there's seven people, but there are only six.

Well, it turned out, you know, that one person was a doctor, was listed in a different list, and they got through and caught the damn thing.

And, you know, they bore it.

And he said, you need a station.

I go, how many cubic feet of a station?

I go, well, our cars have more cubic feet than that.

Why don't you use the car instead of the station?

They had it all, and they only had the book overnight, apparently.

You'd give it to them the day before.

They'd have it overnight.

They knew the damn thing from top to bottom.

Bored in on every point.

Challenged it.

Fortunately, the book had been damn well put together.

The book was out of time.

Yeah, we got what you wanted.

Yeah.

Showed you the movie in preparation.

Well, I don't know.

I don't know.

Maybe you just don't want to hold that in.

No, I'll...

We have two choices.

But then you want to do it with the foreign minister.

Well, no, their foreign minister has no authority.

Thank you, sir.

Is there any way you can let the Chinese in on the game, that we've let them go off on their own?

Do you get my point?

Yes.

I'm trying to think of a way, if they're envious enough, just to say, look here, we've got to do that.

Well, I've already gotten them taking their arses away while you talk to Chou.

Where's he going?

Where are they going?

Oh, they're going out.

Meetings.

Counterpart meetings with them.

All right.

The foreign minister will take care of it.

He can't complain about that.

That's exactly how it's done here.

And...

When you're...

But we can give him what we've got.

Let's think about it.

And then about the money, let's have a meeting to decide what the hell we're going to do in the meantime.

I was thinking, I don't want to give him, what do you mean you won't give him?

I won't allow that.

Well, then the other choice is that I just give him in words.

the topics that are going to be covered.

Sure.

We could read these topics and then have him suggest what he thinks ought to be in it.

That might be able to see what I was thinking.

What I was thinking is he was giving those portable assholes over there and saying something to do.

And then, like when we're using Peterson on this, I mean, it's a different thing.

But Peterson thinks he's developing the monetary policy.

He doesn't even know the fact of that.

Well, he is a little, I mean, naturally.

But you see, he's doing something.

He's running around.

Can you do that?

That's what I was thinking, Henry, of a strategy for that, sir.

You do that.

We do that all the time, you know.

Give people an idea.

Let me think of, let me see how to do it.

I've got to see him tomorrow.

He's been bugging me the day I thought of me that I should come over.

He wants to go over every detail with me.

And, uh... Why don't you get a surgery?

I don't know.

No, sir, he's fine.

Well, you don't have to do it tomorrow.

You can tell him he'll do it a set of times.

He'll do it on a Monday or Tuesday or something, so you can buy him the time.

Oh, I couldn't stop.

No, I would.

I would see him tomorrow.

I was so surprised to think about this.

I was supposed to see him this afternoon and canceled it on the ground, and you just pulled me into his office, into your office.

I'm sorry to call you.

That's all right.

You know, I could get away with it this afternoon.

No, he's... You know, I have to tell you, honestly, I think that war didn't have to take place Monday.

I think that whole thing was at one big egomaniac operation.

But...

It's done now.

It's done.

We don't worry about it.

But on this...

The policy is the same as yours.

What is it not?

What do you think about that?

It's basically impossible.

So, what do you think we should do?

Figure out how to live with it.

And how do you do that?

How the hell can we go over there?

And we can't go over there just

I don't know what the hell you can tell them.

Tell them as much as you told me that, Mom, I don't want them anymore.

Now, you know what?

You don't like that the procedures are here.

I'll, about three weeks before I go, I'll start studying this and I'll know every word of it.

Well, I do want you to look over the, from a political point of view, which has to be a paramount consideration.

I would like, I think you ought to look over the communique as it now stands.

to see whether you'll be able to live with that in case, in the light of your opponent, and what can be done with it.

And that, I'm getting it all put together, and you'll have that tomorrow.

Is there any way we can put Rogers off on a different trail?

Well, that's what I, he won't settle for that.

I had the Chinese beautifully programmed to discuss trade, cultural affairs, exchanges with the other State Department guy that I had along with me.

Yeah.

And he was programmed beautifully.

He was delighted.

He was thrilled to be able to talk that stuff.

No, no, no, no.

I didn't mean the programming and all that.

I meant the programming.

All right.

Like, for example, he raises the subject about non-immigration.

All right.

What does he think it ought to be?

Except we're sort of stuck with what we've got if he comes up with something.

Listen to that.

That doesn't matter.

I'll reject it.

Okay, fine.

That's what I've been saying since three months of development.

Yeah.

To build or build.

In other words, to say no.

That's what happens with the period.

You see my point?

We've got this already done.

But what I meant was to say, all right, now, we'd like to see your thinking on this.

And Christine, if it was all queer to me, it must have been queer to him.

You said specifically that Mao refused, that Joe refused that.

He never did that until after we got there.

And let's hold to that line.

Don't give an inch on that line.

But that's actually what Joe...

Joe said it would take a day and a half to get Joe to agree to work on anything with us.

Yeah, right.

But as a matter of fact, do we have an agreement?

Well, we've agreed on everything except the one paragraph on Taiwan, plus an option of saying all of this had to go back to you, and that I, this was at referendum, so we can check it all.

We have actually had the same option, right?

It is less.

No.

But we had the option.

Well, then I think it's all right because we have agreed with it.

And in fact, I thought one thing we might consider doing, they are eager for me to come back again, which I don't think I should do.

It would just trigger a horrible discussion here.

But I thought what we might do, depending on where we stand then, is that while you are on the West Coast, I go to Peking and put the finishing touches on it and meet you in Guam and ride in with you.

But we can see, I just would like to communicate completely tough by the time you get there so that they can't hold you up.

But we don't have to settle that now.

If that creates a problem, we don't have to do it.

But they are the toughest bastards you've ever seen, I can assure you of that.

I can just cover the main items.

I can ask him to see what the non-aggression treaty would look like that he would have in mind.

That's what he was aiming at.

Why don't we just, why don't you just say, all right, what do you have?

Let's see what he suggests.

But I'll talk to him about it.

You see what I mean?

I do it about people always saying he's just giving something to do, and then they're not paying damn attention to it.

And I need to run your speech to him now.

As far as he can engage, he's saying that culture, that the state will not agree to advance, and then you submit it there and say, well, it wouldn't make sense.

And that's what he himself told me.

He told me we shouldn't agree on a communique.

Right, he did.

Yeah, before I left.

When I said I'm going over to settle a communique, he said that's a mistake.

It should be held until we get there.

Why don't we speak later?

I see.

But when he didn't want me to go, he said it's a great mistake to try to get a communique agreed to ahead of time.

Yes, sir.

Do it.

There's only six.

Do it.

That's the answer.

That's a typical state attitude, to walk into a damn place and get your head chopped off.

It'd be suicide if you had to go through.

Well, hell, it's suicide with the Russians.

We're going to work out in a pretty well-advanced mode everything.

We've got to do it.

Yeah, we can do it on cables.

That's so much easier.

Yeah.

No one has to know what's being done.

I'll fence with him tomorrow.

I'll have to do it sooner or later.

And the more I wait, the more he thinks there's something being done.

And I think you ought to be kept out of it altogether.

I mean, I don't see how you should get involved.

Let him think I'm a liar.

I mean, that's the worst he can think.

It doesn't help any to have it.

What was bad the other morning is to do it in front of you.

makes you party to the enterprise.

It's a hell of a lot better to have a brawl between him and me, which enables you to step away from it.

I mean, I'm thinking now of the...

I mean, we are all expendable, but next year you shouldn't have any unnecessary wounds inflicted on you.

And...

So I'll just tap around with it.

You see, Bob, the trouble is, in Roger's case, let's be fair and face it, on the two great issues, the China thing and the Russian thing, he knows damn well, and he's smart enough to know that the Russian thing wasn't a result of much of a call to the brain in that message, and he's gotten that well.

There must have been something going on, and there was.

We've been working on it for months.

He also knows that in terms of solving the rest of the issues,

He's got to know that Berlin just didn't happen there.

That must have dawned on him.

And my point is that I think Bill is concerned.

He thinks he's a great thing.

He's got to think of it because it's not part of it.

It's just damn difficult for him.

Isn't that a clear analysis?

Yeah.

And it may be ridiculous, but in a way that you had to hit it is you just caught up with it and you say, that's right.

There are four things and you're not a part of it.

The trouble is that the things he does do, like the Middle East and the UN, are so turned into publicity vehicles for himself, and so go out of all proportion.

At least, US style, the way we're doing it here is, we never say a goddamn thing until it's done.

We've never yet claimed that anything was happening until we had it practically linked.

And that way we have all the options open and the other guys can't hold us up because we're not committed to anything until we've got their signature.

I mean, that's been the strategy we've consistently pursued.

No one knew we were talking about salt.

No one knew Berlin was moving.

I would not break the point that you don't want to show him things because we don't want to have leaks.

He first nationally, the police, and it is true that on shot, as you remember, he did keep his...

He does not leak.

So that point... That's no problem.

That isn't the problem.

I was only saying that basically I'm communicating that I personally put up this and I think it's so political.

that uh so it depends on certain chances then and i personally i'm going to take a look and say you say you submitted that and that doesn't go with these are the subjects that we're going to be having and there's nothing that we love the matter of a communicable

Yeah, but that's what I thought.

As he recommended, we got some ideas and so forth, but the President has the final say here on our end.

And they have the final say that I think I fear, too, that the matter is negotiable.

I would throw it in that way.

But here are the subjects.

And what I would do, and I would say, no, no, you want to, you prepare what you think ought to be here on the non-direction thing.

I doubt it, but I think we can get trade as a fact, but I don't think we can get it into the communique.

I see.

That should go to you.

Huh?

That should go to you.

I know.

That's what you want to know.

I don't care.

That won't get much good.

No, no.

He'll fix it.

I don't understand.

He'll test this on that.

He'll say that's not good.

You know, so what?

Well, I'll tell it to him if you want to.

No, I don't think it's recent.

I just, well, I knew that he didn't mention it.

I thought it was probably recent.

Well, because I wanted to make sure that he himself doesn't leak, but it's conceivable that he'll drop something to Alex Johnson.

Yeah, I know.

And Patterson does leak.

I found out, incidentally, from Newsweek they did get that Brezhnev story from State, or at least that's what they told me.

I called him up and I said, God damn it.

I said, how can you write such trash?

It doesn't make any difference to us either way.

The president did it.

But why write such absolute baloney?

There was never a thought of Kosygin coming here.

We were never approached on it.

It is, but it's totally wrong if it can be.

And he said he had, he had...

No, he didn't.

He said he told Christopher, his foreign affairs editor, he had checked with Hague, and Hague had told him it was public art.

And Christopher had said he had it from such a reliable source that the White House was just... That says the way this came about was that the Russians proposed that Kosygin should come here from Canada, that you then wrote a letter to Brezhnev saying

they owed us an invitation and that you were prepared to go to Moscow.

Something like that.

And that's how you got to Moscow.

There was a letter written to President that didn't refer to the summit at all, which was written after we had the invitation, and was just general atmospherics.

There was never a suggestion.

That's right.

Then it made it sort of look like a little ploy rather than a long-range policy.

Yes.

Well, coming back to the property problem, I have a bench tomorrow, but I need it all alive.

I think you just ought to say that the communicate thing, as I honestly told you, is a matter that's got to be worked out as we go along.

Do you want to say that?

Sure.

Or what would you prefer?

No, that's the only thing I can say, that I've told them to communicate.

At first they seemed to think they'd accept it.

that the idea then they said this is impossible that way that each side should state their views plus a few agreements they can make and honestly say that further progress that is uttered in a new period all right fine and then say all right then let me piss on it and then and then say that on an operation back then say all right what do you come up with but but pretty just against and let's see what he wants to come up with very good

Unless it works.

Oh, yes.

But before we know it, somebody, it can't be I, it can't be you, but Bob or somebody ought to talk to them.

Because their attitude permeates what puts a cross.

Our cross?

To build.

In 72, there's only one objective to make you look good.

And it doesn't make a goddamn difference who did it.

No one will remember that in January 73.

But I will do that, Mr. President.

I'll tell him, and I'll cover the topics, and I'll make it sound good, and I'll let him do it.

I'll tell him, station traffic, and he'll cater that out.

All right.

Listen, don't...

I know it's disturbing.

No, no, no.

Don't worry about that.

No, I have to say... God held it to be a quite clear case in the Senate.

What?

In the name of God.

I have one other minor question.

Barbara Walters is trying to get me to go on and talk for 15 minutes.

Only color of China, not anything on substance.

I just said I'd check it with Haldeman since he's here.

I want you to do something.

I have something in mind.

But when you do something, by God, we're going to do it.

We're going to get a big audience.

I mean, on television, you see, the day show is a, it's a night show show.

Well, we don't have anything on cover on the channel now.

I think I'd rather have you later on take a...

I have no interest in it and I'll just turn her off tomorrow morning.

Just that you can't do it now?

I'll just tell her I don't think I should.

I haven't understood, but they all want you to work.

Barbara's just a little more knowledgeable than some of the others, and she'd be damn good if you could think, but it is, uh, her audience makes eight million.

Fifteen.

Five.

Five, maybe three million.

3, 3 to 5, see you in the morning.

We did the intellection.

But my God, you take the smallest network, not ABC or I'm not forgetting, 12 minutes, the smallest one.

So you see, that's what we've got to go for.

I believe I have no interest in that.

But as I was saying, don't be discouraged.

I don't know, the Rogers thing, frankly, was, frankly, was a damn discouraging to me.

I must say, I just didn't like the attitude.

You got some problems?

Yeah, I'm hurt with burns.

Do you want to see him tomorrow?

Yeah, I've been reading some life.

Yeah, exactly.

I'll bring him to the paramedics.

What?

Yeah.

Bye.

See you tonight.

Okay, bye.

You know, I don't know what we can do about this, but it's really quite, I don't know, it just may be that there aren't any documents in sight.

Because he's indeed just frankly...

You know, you're a kid.

You know, you're a man.

Right.

The rest of you are just, you're just quite so mighty.

He knows the problem here.

In fact, he does, and that's what's basically an excuse for himself.

And he's in and out.

He's around the enemy people.

You're welcome.

You know that well, I'm pretty sure you are.

But Bob Henry is absolutely right.

We should show Rogers in advance what a comedian is.

He does piss on anything.

He didn't do it himself.

He really does.

Because you know what I mean.

He's trying to say, well, you know what he's trying to do?

He's trying to get a position to say, well, look, if I had gone, if I would have done it, I wouldn't have made it.

If I would have done it, I wouldn't have made it.

Henry, we all got that.

He's gone.

He wouldn't have made it.

Well, I must say, though, I've just got to say this one for Henry.

He's difficult, I mean, and emotional, and this and that.

But his motives are kind of wrong in this case.

I've just got to say that.

The photos are better, and his competition is...

It's important to stick to all the blocks so that you'll have a reason to get the hell out of here by 12.30, so I can say I've got a little lunch.

Okay?

All these goddamn dinners for the next two weeks, I've got to make it up for all the ones we haven't had, I guess.

It is the same week.

Good night.

Well, he's had a hard time.

And let me tell you, you know, I've been on trips.

It is hard when you come back.

Then they have people who say, you're all cranky.

We were cranky down the minute.

He's got a good job.

I know you bought him a bike.

And Cranky Bill's attitude was pretty goddamn pissy.

It really was.

Not interested in a thing.

You know, we were very jolly.

But that's not a matter of, you know, just how he is.

He's already irritated himself.

He doesn't realize how painful it is.

I mean, it just was wrong.

It wasn't graceful.

It just wasn't graceful at all.

That's too bad.