Nixon, Haldeman & Connally on Azores Doctrine

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Let's see if I can get you to run to the chair and be back in a minute.

Cigar.

Boy, it really is.

I had a... Last night, I...

They didn't have that game, you know.

They'd be good.

Yeah, no.

So I just... Did you watch the whole time?

This is real.

What do you think?

Do you want to try to get out of here today?

Yeah, it is.

What are you doing?

I don't know.

Listen, take a nap.

Yes, sir.

I don't know.

It's hard for us to even know it now, and it's coming through.

You know, they're right.

If I go by wrong, the first story didn't get it.

The first story didn't get it.

Now, you're one of the great guys, I can agree with both of you.

That's coming, that's coming very clearly.

I'm not saying that because I've actually seen it in a dream and on the basis of it.

Obviously, both sides, well, Connie made that one.

Both sides had to get it in order to do a copy.

At the airport.

Great.

Did he?

And his little, you know, after you put him on there.

I put him on there.

But in the area, live.

I mean, not live, but, you know, on film, on camera.

And I like that.

Sure.

But that's starting to come out in Cobar Road this morning.

It starts on the enormous significance of this.

Yeah, and then the first play was to devalue the dogma.

It was the attack reaction.

Well, it devalued the dogma, which people hear first.

It's a goddamn thing.

It doesn't change anything except the cost of imported wine or something.

It's great.

I think it's very beautiful.

Oh.

Good.

If you could imagine, like Andrew, he decided, had it made by the Australian people, the student people, and had it sent.

That's not stupid, but anyway.

And of course, that has a, as you know, it has a press agency.

It's one of its kind.

Look at it from here.

There's a work of art.

The inside star.

It's something that should always be in the Bible.

In 9th and 15th you're going to see the seal of the covenant.

Something that shows how to live and live to live.

I was going to put it here.

Then I thought it was just too, uh... You know what I'm saying, Sheriff?

No, it has too much of a...

It's just too hard.

Well, then you don't get the beauty of it unless you look at it from... Well, it wasn't like...

It wasn't going to be over that until you put it on one of the shelves.

Well...

while we've been moving around.

But that seems to me to have been rather well.

We shouldn't have too much about it.

You might want to think of moving, putting some things like that on the shelves instead of the birds.

It's a change after the year.

Well, we'll see.

It's kind of impossible, isn't it?

A lot of it.

Some birds really don't have any space.

Actually, I think that hazel is the one from Miami that we're viewing here.

What?

It was in my 11th.

Yeah, how?

I always keep mine.

It's very beautiful.

Oh, on the Today show, on the CBS morning news, it must have had two-thirds of the hour, people explaining what does the evaluation mean.

The first clips were, you know, people didn't know because they were, what happened is the first speaking story was run by wired, reported type people who don't know what they're writing.

Or the local desk, I was surprised.

Then you go immediately into the other stuff, and now it's carrying.

Other than that first little clip, and that wasn't bad, it just wasn't perceptive.

But now it's beautiful.

Everyone is explaining it means no increase in prices.

Exactly.

It means an increase in jobs.

They're all coming to the point of this U.S. draft.

Exactly, and an increase in jobs, and that's the president.

Did you say that they did have a little bit of comedy in there?

Yes, they did.

Oh, yeah.

Good idea.

And CBS this morning had an interview with him.

Did they?

Yeah.

God damn, he's good to be on.

He is so good.

He knows it.

In a separate exclusive.

The thing is that he is the one to have the interview because...

It's the old story.

Anything I say about it could irritate Pompidou, the British, the Japanese, or the Germans.

But if he says it, they're going to blame me.

The British, incidentally, Mr. President, are happy as plants.

Really?

Roly Cromer.

I understand, David.

You must be wild.

I called him.

No, no.

They just want to get the damn thing settled.

And I called Cromer at 7.30 when he was going out for dinner.

to put some heat behind the Security Council resolution and he said he was delighted and I was so exhausted I went to bed at 9 30 and I remember he called me up and he said I just came back from dinner I want to tell you we are thrilled it's a statement I may tell him it's a statement like that of the President he said he's in New York he was in New York he couldn't tell him on the phone he said I don't care

exactly how you settled it, but it's a major on and on and on, and he said we've got to work together.

So I thought we'd pay a price with the British, but that isn't true.

He's strong enough to do this.

He cannot blame it on the fact that he's got to go along with the French and Americans.

He had to come out the same way.

If you had done it the other way, if you had done it with he, he couldn't have wielded it with the others.

He couldn't deliver the Germans and he couldn't deliver the Italians.

So he would have been out in left field as the American suits in Europe.

Because I talked to George Shultz this morning.

This is basically a great deal for us.

Shultz said if you didn't give convertibility

We did it.

I went over that column, the plan, the comment last, and I told Conley to talk to Schultz, Friedrichson, Peterson.

He's got to agree to Schultz, Peterson, Burns on this.

He cannot tell Burns the numbers yet, because that would not be right.

But he can tell Peterson the numbers.

But he can't tell Schultz.

Schultz, yes.

I agreed with, Conley called me yesterday and suggested that I show Schultz the agreement.

Did you do that?

He's in the office now looking at it.

Well, now, with the agreement, though, Schultz has got to know to fight a play of words.

He can also read the conversation.

He can see, well, Henry, you sat there with me, and you heard me say to him, look, I don't know anything about this, and you might tell him about where I said hard, and she thought, and she read it to me.

Schultz had no political sense, Mr. Perry.

Schultz said to me, he hadn't read it yet.

I gave him a play where he said, marvelous agreement, very good.

The numbers he thinks are good.

The numbers he thinks are superb.

He said, on convertibility, we should have put into the agreement.

We'll never discuss it.

Well, that shows he has no political sense.

We did.

We had to have that in the agreement.

That was what we needed.

Only you couldn't have survived such an agreement in France.

We had a hard time surviving this.

That's what that son of a shun was working on for an hour.

The president would get a French president.

to make a monetary deal which doesn't give him convertibility.

After all, he doesn't get it.

He doesn't even get the agreement to discuss it.

He said these things will be discussed in relation to everything else.

Hell, they have the right to put it on the agenda whether we agree to it or not.

So it's a totally meaningless thing.

Supposing you had said you don't want to discuss convertibility, they would have put it on the agenda of every G10 meeting.

The thing that Shultz has got to realize is that I, as long as I'm in this place, will never discuss comparability.

However, I cannot speak for whoever may be the next president.

Well, actually, Mr. President, if...

So that's it.

So Shultz has got his way.

He knows about comparability.

Mr. President, even that I wouldn't be so sure about if the economy works the way you think.

I understand, but I'm just saying in order to reassure Shultz just on the president, you just...

What you did, Mr. President, is refer the issue into a future where it isn't going to arise for two years.

It was the absolute minimum from which you could get out of this.

He couldn't get any less.

And that you'll see after I explain it to him.

On the numbers, he says, superb, excellent.

He says, very, very good agreement.

Yes, but we now have the French for the first time agree.

Well, not only, at first they vetoed the procedure.

That's right.

Now they've not only agreed to the procedure, but they committed themselves in a gentleman's agreement to be helpful in the actual conduct of the negotiations.

And I think we're going to get something.

Oh, another thing.

in our current American relations, would you send a message for me to come to just sort of say that the, as I'm sure you have, well, the pastor, well, not the pastor, the pastor, the pastor, the pastor, the pastor, the pastor, the pastor, the pastor, the pastor,

So that he doesn't get any impression.

You know, there were stories indicating a great French victory and so forth and so on, but we must, I don't think, that's just a joke.

Bill Kraft called, just to give a guesstimate to calling me, and he said,

He said, well, he was very interesting.

He called, he said, all the newspapers say that it was a great French victory, but to me it looks as if the President got almost everything he wanted.

Where am I wrong?

I said, you are not wrong, but what I prefer you to say is it was to everybody's benefit.

And

That's the way we have to play it.

The other interesting thing we have to think about when I catch the mythology is this is being built as being the Azores doctrine and the Guam doctrine.

Guam did it on political policy and Azores did it on economic policy and they're looking at it this way.

Did you see Dan Rather this morning?

No.

I didn't see him.

Because he made exactly this point.

He said the president does all his great, his revolutionary things on Ireland.

So then somebody asked him, what's the relationship of Nixon-Tarkin to the Azores effect?

He said, that's too deep for me, but it's very significant.

Well, some of the columnists are writing that for the editorials, making the point that this, the Azores Agreement has the same significance, same level of significance in economic policy that the Guam document has.

Oh yeah, that's what he said.

He said he didn't know why.

Yeah, they don't understand it yet.

That's the interesting thing.

These guys that are reporting don't know what the hell it's all about.

That's a...

But the people that do, you see how our relatives are?

You know, sad.

Is it?

But that's important.

Well, he understands it.

He may not be friendly, but he is.

The market didn't respond to it at all.

But as I had said last night, I think the market's already this kind of this.

Well, it didn't affect the market a hell of a lot of timing anyway.

You know, you had a couple on block.

Yeah.

Let's wait till today when people have a chance.

When it boosts.

It'll have a determined effect on the market.

It'll be more stabilizing in the long term.

In other words, it removes a negative energy.

That's really what it does.

And not a positive.

I'm so sure that...

It could go today, but that communicator, Mr. President, is almost incomprehensible.

Well, it was delivered.

And I suppose, probably, when I did say to my team member, we agreed that all I went out and said, we've made very productive talks.

We've had very productive talks with the internationals.

And in our conversation, I stated, well...

and he said the same thing, and that's what he wanted.

You notice he was very sensitive.

He didn't want it to be just that, you see.

Well, that, and he was afraid it would blow his exchange market sky high.

Today, which is, of course, Conway is happier to think about it.

And the dollar dropped again.

The dollar has dropped again in England and Italy, and it's gone way down in Japan, and so he's getting

It's beautiful that way.

If Pombidou had wanted to put it to us, if he had made it as a straight commercial transaction, he would have said, we'll settle it at the G10 meeting.

That way he would have had the maximum pressure on us.

By settling now, the float is already taking care of most of the devaluation.

And... And...

In addition, he's committed, of course, to helping us at the T-10 meeting.

But...

Excuse me, what's the time today?

I talked to him last... Last night.

When he knew about the marks.

One of the... Well, then you feel, both of you, that I've been talking and hearing, and then he makes all the point of getting rid of the ziggler and rander and scallop.

Remember what I told you last night?

So when you get them in position as to how I answer the questions in this field, we're going to come and answer most, but I don't want everybody to battle on this, and I don't want the wrong people to battle.

Did you want me to add on?

You mentioned that.

Yeah, we'll have everybody sit down.

I want you to comment on it first, see what he thinks is a good idea, and if he does, we'll bring you in then, because you'll know what the sensitivities are pumping into it.

That's why I think it might be helpful if I know what the sensitivities are.

But I think it worked.

Also, I have to say, it was such a pleasure to work with Connolly on this.

You know, he might have been sensitive.

Who am I to talk to Pope?

But we were up together until three.

He said that's finished.

He said it's the right thing to do.

I told him the night before I didn't think of that.

I said, I want you to know.

I've been around the President now for two years.

I've never seen anyone in whom he has as much confidence as you.

And the reason he's asking me to do this is because he knows I don't know anything about the financial side and that I should put it on the political framework to get it off a straight commercial transaction.

But you give me my brief, and so we work together till three.

He said, the President is absolutely right.

In fact, he recalled to me, he had recommended to you that somebody...

Yeah, that's right.

He did.

He wanted you to go today, the day before.

That's right.

I don't know if you're raising this, but my other thought is the question of whether he has a session with some congressional people, which...

could be desirable.

We've got a pretty congressional reaction.

We ought to keep it that way.

Sure.

Well, I've, uh, as a matter of fact, made the third grade just with Henry.

Well, that brings me to the meeting point that I have, uh, as to, uh, do you just think I'd better pass the trip?

No, I would, I don't think you should pass your Florida trip, but I think if you do the congressional thing, Mr. President,

While Connolly should do 90% of it, it would be sort of nice if you introduced it so that your leadership role is clear.

Yeah.

Introduce it.

Well, I wonder.

Connolly can build a president as he does, build a president's leadership role, and, you know.

Yeah, but still it's better to have this there.

Well, the point is that the party...

The briefing could be done... We don't do the congressional statements, but I'm not so sure of this.

If you don't do the congressional one, there's no reason to be here from the foreign policy point of view.

There certainly isn't.

This story is adequate to play.

And it'll go on.

The story's adequate.

Let it play.

You can't do anything.

How about India at the present time?

Look, what we got yesterday...

It didn't play the same as last night.

Yeah, except that I think we're moving towards an acceptance of the British resolution.

But actually now...

I haven't talked about it yet.

The Russians came in yesterday, giving us their own guarantee that there would be no attack on West Pakistan.

A letter to Brezhnev.

In addition, an explanation of the letter to Brezhnev saying, David, Soviet Union guarantees there will be no military action against West Pakistan.

So we are home.

Now it's done.

So it's a question of what legal way we choose.

Well, what the UN does is really irrelevant.

Well, it'd be the bastards, of course, had broken promises before it'd be better to have it on public record.

But we might be able to do it in an exchange of letters between Brezhnev and you that is made public, which you say you express your concern and he says he wants to assure you.

Well, what does that do now with the Chinese?

Oh, the Chinese would be sold if West Pakistan were guaranteed.

Do you feel you've got the concern about some of them cooled off?

I think, Mr. President, that it was unintentional that it blew into such a fantastic thing.

And if you read the full report, you'll see that they... Well, it isn't that big, actually.

It's still a secondary story.

I think it has its advantages, Mr. President.

First of all, since we now know there'll be a settlement, you will get a major credit for it.

Second, it shows that you're not a politician, that you were willing to put the summit on the line when the peace was at stake.

Third, it is a caution to the Russians.

Fourth, it helps with the

with the injunctions, with the Chinese.

Hell, that fellow Barroso came babbling in here.

He said, can't you give me some reassurance?

I know President is terribly concerned when he reads this.

We need some words of reassurance.

And I'm a great believer in selling something you've already done.

So I turned to Haig.

I said, tell Ziegler to calm it down a little bit.

But you people should understand.

By that time, Ziegler had already agreed to calm it down.

And I told him that the president has to understand you cannot play such a game with the president.

So I, and that's when he said, well, I've just had a cable to tell the president we give him, this letter means that the Soviet government gives him the guarantee that there will be no attack on West Pakistan, no annexation of West Pakistan.

He said no annexation of West Pakistan territory.

I said, no, don't play any legalistic games with me.

We consider...

the dividing line, the existing dividing line, and not disputed territory also can't be taken.

He said, yes, that's the guarantee.

So now it's just a question of how to formalize it.

It's a miracle.

It's an absolute miracle, Mr. President.

It's a miracle.

No, I think it's a good idea.

But we have

— 2 min 15 s with no transcribed speech —

Hello.

Well, how are you?

I just wanted you to know that I was flying back from the Azar just today and I came in this morning and you had a birthday.

Happy birthday, but more happy returns on the next day for you.

Are you Walter Reed?

Oh, I heard that when I called.

I hope everything's going all right.

Sounds good.

Very good.

Well, you certainly, let me say, you've been like a rock in America these last months.

It's been hard.

Have you sometimes wondered about how, on those, what our friends may decide you're up to on these things?

You know, that continuing resolution and some of that stuff, we've really had trouble with.

It's been very difficult, I know, for you and others who try to be responsible down there.

It's hard to know how that continuing resolution and everything.

It's really strange that they're playing that game, isn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah, that's right.

Everybody's hired.

Yeah.

Well, well, I appreciate what you've done.

You just take good care out there, and we'll look forward to seeing you after the first year.

Okay?

Okay.

Thank you.

I see.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mark.

He says you're doing a wonderful job.

If you had predicted, Mr. President, one of the aspects of your policy is that it always happens a matter of factly.

I mean, no one really saw the maneuvering in the ASOS.

They all think that...

Yes, you know the funny thing.

I came back and saw the papers.

I saw them in the New York Times.

Lee started the day before.

Pat Schultz, of course, had something to say.

I know that he's a picture of optimism and so forth, but hope for agreement fades.

They are based on nothing.

If you, in the middle of November, had said that by the middle of December you'd have the monetary crisis solved, essentially on our terms, which is really what it's come down to,

that the French gave up on convertibility, that they would hold still for, in effect, a 9% American devaluation.

And so on and so forth.

What we're getting is 14% of the Germans and 19% of the Japanese.

These are the things that bother the average person from town.

God damn, that's tremendous.

What does the Congress say is his average for around 12?

Almost.

He's almost there.

Mr. President, our own conventional wisdom when you stepped into this early in November was

I had bitter battles.

Everyone said, jump the French, work with the Germans.

Well, but once I have to say to Connolly's enormous credit, when you told me to start talking about this, I thought Connolly would be the trouble.

When I talked to him alone, explained the German domestic situation to him, and I said, I doubted that he could get an agreement, but if he did, it wouldn't stick.

From then on, he changed course completely and played your game.

And he's been terrific.

He's a political animal.

George Shultz said, George Shultz's proposal, and I don't criticize him because as an economist he was right, but George, just to give you the figures, George said, let's get the Germans to stick at 10%.

That's what George was willing to settle for.

If we could get the Germans to settle at 10%, then we don't have to change the price of gold.

The French can stay, we can say to hell with the French.

This way we got the French to where George wanted the Germans to be.

We got the Germans 5% higher, and the Japs nearly at 20%.

And last year, as late as September,

When the Japanese finance minister came over here, Peterson's operation did a paper saying if we can get an 8% revaluation out of the Japanese, that's doing well.

8%.

Whatever it is.

No, I'm just saying that on the figures, what you got is, you got great figures.

But the thing that had always concerned me was

to do it in such a way that the political structure of the West would be strengthened rather than weakened.

And what we've brought up is the amazing thing that we've strengthened the political thing and gotten nearly our maximum figure.

I think one thing we could have done, which I, you know, I'm a consistent elector, I could have sold the politics of the West.

written statement, to have written it in a way to say that the President of France, the President of the United States, have reached agreement on the international .

I didn't want to say that horribly.

Now, that would have gotten some more positive leads.

No, but, Mr. President, that would have cooked you and him with the others because we have...

I tried it out a little bit, but I think he was worried about... You see, what we talked about, remember when I said we couldn't have a frankly American condominium either more than we can have a Russian American condominium?

You see, Mr. President, there are some byproducts of this that won't be...

won't show up immediately.

For example, he has learned a lesson.

I'll guarantee you that he won't.

Oh, yes.

Because here, after all, he is sucking around, but when the chips were down,

Pombidou had no business making any deal with you on any figure.

If Pombidou had played the European game properly, he would have said, thank you very much, Mr. President, I'm now going back to Europe.

I'll discuss it with my allies, and at the G10 meeting we'll present you a united agreement.

Because abroad, no matter what they do to you here abroad, you are the leading statesman in the world, Andy.

And his being able to come back, standing on a platform with you saying, in effect, we've reached agreement, his being able to come back, he could make the deal with the Americans and nobody else could.

I think it's a complicated deal.

I think we have the beauty of a good personal relation because of my going to New York for that.

Second, I'm going to Paris for the All-Star.

Second, in other words, we have better French-American relations than we've had since Eisenhower.

And they know you helped us before you became president.

So you're not just sucking around in the sector?

The second thing is that I think Pompidou, frankly, wanted to be a big shot.

And now he's a big man and so forth.

Our setting, his meeting first, was very important.

I think, too, that it's interesting to think that, frankly, both Schumann and

But Pompidou, too, you know, we're talking about the next American elections.

And whatever they may think here, you know, they say that, you know, they are very confident that we're going to win.

Very confident.

I said, well, I said, but Mr. Pompidou's here.

He said, you don't have any political problems.

I've seen your Gallup poll.

It's a lot higher than mine.

And he laughed.

You know, he said, there's no reason to.

But they go, they go, they run up, but what he says is not true.

And in this drum fire of criticism you're getting from the press, where even your best stories are given, imagine if Kennedy had done half of what you did, what orgasms the...

I mean, they report such things as Azores quite accurately.

It's pretty close to orgasms on this.

Give it a couple days and they figure out what they got there.

Yeah, but they don't keep it up.

The trend on the whole is it goes that way.

Well, it's a spectacular thing.

And the beauty of this...

I think you should.

Yeah, basically.

As the president, there's nothing in my field that I... Well, you've got another two hot days ahead next week.

Good morning.

I was in New York, but I wish I could actually come in and call me for the purpose of this.

getting your evaluation as to how you and after you decide what we want.

I then thought that we would call Sigler and Scali so that you could tell them exactly what line you want to put out.

Now understand, my instructions to them up to this point have been

except what you told them to do on the airplane.

I said, now look here, all, and that's the same thing we put out diplomatically, all questions with regard to the monetary thing are referred to the secretary, so that you take it.

I said, no, same.

Now, on the other hand,

to the extent that you want to use them for purposes of feeding any line out or not having any line, you can do it.

That's what I wanted to say.

So what I'd like to say to get a feel now as to how the story has run, Bob didn't just run very well after the first of the few things

There was a first blip that was confused, because by and large, people didn't understand what they were talking about.

But as it starts to pick up now, it's being played, first of all, as a monumental accomplishment, and it's being put in the context of the gone doctrine of the political world's position.

Did you see that?

Yes, this morning he said this, and then somebody said, all right, what does it mean?

And so it's, he said, that's the deed for me, but I have to tell you, it's a monumental achievement.

But that, you're on, it's turning proactively, and all the economists, as they start writing the whole Barclays, people who understand what's been done are writing it as being, you know, enormously significant, and to our benefit.

The play now is clarifying completely.

There was a little blip of devaluing the dollar, you know, what's, my money's not worth the

That's shifted now.

That has no real domestic... Did you say that he covered that at the airport and it was covered?

That wasn't at the airport.

He covered it.

Covered it there and also... No, he gave it in the... No, he gave it live.

I'm not live, but on film, on the airport.

In fact, on the network.

He had a very...

Who did?

NBC with Levine.

The illuminating thing with Levine.

Well, I had an interview with Levine.

See, they set this up for a left.

I regretted it when I got back.

But it turned out beautifully.

Where did you do it?

In my office when I got in.

Sure.

And they are...

I said, where the hell did you do the interview?

That was it.

That's great.

They are, for example, that's the price for Toyota is going up.

They were trying to give the impression that this means a rise in prices.

We hope that what it means is to supply more American products, which aren't going to be affected by it.

The idea of more jobs...

The two baselines I think we ought to pursue, Mr. President.

First, we ought to encourage them to go back to being in position.

All they were willing to do was let us be very even 5% or 5.5%.

We haven't given the evidence.

But even the stories now are talking about 5 to 7.

Let them play it.

Let them play it as hard as they will without revealing what we actually got.

So when the facts do come out, that is a major achievement for you.

And as a result of your meeting yesterday, you're not going to the last option.

Well, I take it.

If I could add, one, we already have made progress on burger and cherry at the last meeting.

Second...

Second, we have now opened the way for major progress on trade with the European community.

And third, we have enormously improved the competitive position of American goods in the world markets, and that means more jobs in America.

And finally, it does not mean that your dollar at the end of Christmas season is going to buy a bit less now than it did before.

Now those things should be, can those things can be, are those true?

That's not true.

It's not true to want to say that.

That's true.

It's a lot harder to achieve this.

But of course, we want to identify this.

Did you point to 90% of what Americans buy?

Somebody did.

If they came in to think that 90% of what Americans buy are made and produced in America, well, you know, Jamal, I don't know.

The only thing that we should be a little careful about, both for tactical, short-term reasons,

is to crow too much about a victory i think because they have the best line to take is that a good system is one in which everybody gains just saying what i have to say is that it is i think that as far as it's concerned this is a deal that is very much in u.s interest and in that sense certainly

However, was it in the interest of our trading partners abroad?

Because that's an artist, because it would not be an artist

in an unstable situation that would lead to a recession abroad.

This has been a very big member of the recession talk.

We have stopped that, and it will create stability abroad, and by reason of that, it will mean better and more trade in the future, some of that sort of thing.

Incidentally, John, I don't know, you probably haven't had a chance to talk to him yet.

I was talking to Cromer last night,

about the Security Council thing, which I told you they're pushing a resolution that we want.

And he said, I said, I hope the reason we had to do this, and you understood why we had to do this, he said, understand how we are happy.

We wanted this thing settled.

And he said, we wanted it settled.

They're not mad.

They couldn't do it.

If they had done it with us, the French would have screamed bloody murder that they sold us.

It seems to me, John, that...

I usually assume the French are going to tell him, but I'm not sure John would.

I thought he would tell him.

I think you're an honorable man.

And I think you should tell him, though, that he's the only one who knows.

But would you mind doing that?

You can call him.

He won't be in until noon.

Whatever it is.

But if you could call him, and then you could say that you were talking to me this morning, and then people get it.

Say, now look here, you know we're going to have this meeting, and that we, the president, feels it.

that we do have a special relation, and here it is, and we've got to fight for this and that.

All right.

One thing that disturbed me a little bit, and I don't think it's all that important, but Sheila was quoted in the paper this morning.

They say that he did not think that we could probably work it out at the G-10 meeting this weekend, that it would probably take one more meeting, but that I had anticipated that in the wrong meeting by saying that it might be necessary.

This indicates that Trump is...

It only means that Trump will want to get...

The credit will be... See, Brunton, Brunton...

Sorry, he got a Nobel Prize.

But Brunton and Schiller have the same relationship.

Yeah, all right.

I'll be doing...

I'm going to call this...

The problem may be, Schiller is a doctrinaire professor, and he may have some chart that proves that he can only do three and a half percent of that.

When you meet Brunt, I'll guarantee you that Brunt is a jellyfish, and you'll get from Brunt whatever John tells you you've got to get.

Because Brown told me that he would take 6%, didn't he?

Well, I don't think the Germans would be involved.

There is a disposition on Royce's part and perhaps some others in the Congress can give you the authority to change the price.

In this section, now there is a move now to do it.

You've got to signal that on or off or stay out of it.

And that relates to one other thing, John, while you're commentating about that.

McGregor raised the point this morning.

He said some of the boys down there, probably from the Congress, he still snagged them out of here, that you're giving them a little briefing.

We ought to give them a briefing today.

But before you do that, you better decide whether you want to get this thing announced.

You've got the Royce Javits.

How the hell have they got it through?

Do they think they can't?

Well, maybe it'd be better to let it out before they get their breath.

I mean, it takes apart anything away from you.

Not really.

Well, it does, too, because everybody assumes that you've got this power, that you've already made the move.

It'll be interpreted worldwide that you've already made the move.

You've given the dollar.

And this has been a tremendous weapon we've held.

I agree that once the temperament is discretionary, well, that's what I'm talking about.

That it is discretionary.

What is discretionary?

It's the authority to devalue other people.

But what it takes away from you is the argument that John made, and which I believe you made, which is that Congress won't vote the authority unless you have a good deal.

Unless we have some trade matters.

And you've got to remember, we haven't got the trade matters yet.

I think we can get them if we'll hold firm, if we can get some good ones.

There is an area that you can get that written into it.

But you've got a problem.

Because you've got to build.

It's impossible to help.

It's built in variability.

This region might be a problem for us in the outskirts.

And also, Pompidou said, the Congress cannot be able to lead on that.

Here's the problem.

I see your point.

The Congress then...

I see what they want.

They want you to give them the money.

They would like to get in and indicate to us what we should negotiate.

And we must make the deal and go to them and say, now you approve.

Well, no, that's not the bill.

Because that's what would happen if you wanted any bargaining points worked into the bill.

If you wanted clean, you could probably make that.

You could probably get a simple resolution of authority to the president.

But that means you're 20%.

That means you will lose the possibility of hiding behind Congress.

You will be the fellow who either says yes or no.

As it is now, both you and John Hughes very effectively liaise with the argument.

If we don't get a trade deal, Congress will never vote it.

This way they'll have voted it, and you will have to say it.

Nobody thinks you'll have any problem with the next session.

Let me suggest this, John, to get the congressional thing out of the way.

Uh, it seems to me that we should do that immediately then, because they're barking around down there, uh, competing with life.

Sir, we got the, uh, the ranking members of banking and currency both.

Is this banking and currency?

Yes, sir.

The ranking members of banking and currency.

Yes, sir.

There's no other, you don't have to have four comparisons.

No, sir.

I would say we won't include, we probably won't include, uh, financial wage meetings.

Now, Paul Volcker is a great, uh,

great for them but they're better meant to but it would probably include the next ways and names ranking members uh does this involve appropriations the only reason you need to have them is they're a good man but don't have to have them sir but no i don't know later in here they're up without him right

Yeah, obviously.

And you like the big five, right?

The big five, the speaker center.

Now, if that's the means of your approval, John, we try to aim for that at 11 o'clock today.

Yes, sir.

It's been an hour and 15 minutes and we'd like to give him a briefing on it.

And do you want to, do you want to attend to that?

Yes.

Oh, I can.

Yes.

When I don't want to talk, what I will do, I'll open it up with a very, very brief statement, John.

And then I think I will, I'm going to let you decide.

I am not, I'm not going to.

Well, all right.

But let me, Mr. President, I may suggest, why don't you open it up right now?

We need to play it.

this thing as far as we know how to say.

before August the 15th, we had discussed all these possibilities.

When we were talking about convertibility and closing the goal and non-convertibility, we anticipated a great deal of what's happened since that time.

And I have asked y'all to go to these meetings, realizing that we were, in effect, pitting ourselves against all the other nations of the world because we were asking something that we had taken a very hard line, and frankly, fellows, I think it's paid off.

And now we have an agreement.

It's an agreement that is very much in our interest, and I'd like to be honest with you.

That's what I'm interested in.

Actually, then we can go into all the details.

But I think you ought to take credit because you're entitled to credit for all of the discussions, Mr. President.

If you recall, we had in June and July about this convertibility point with me.

We've been talking about these recessions and depressions and

and what it would do to world trade, and we discussed this in this office, we discussed it at Camp David, what convertibility meant.

You remember Arthur Burns was talking about the old guy that used to spend convertibility would have a depression that would be chaos in the international markets.

Different ones were predicting that there'd be a 300-point drop in the stock exchange in a matter of almost hours, if not days.

These were all the things that went into

your basic decision to suspend an infertility in the first place.

Second question, uh, the, uh, did I, yeah, I, let me see, I'll make some of that, but I wish you would make it.

See, you can, uh, it's a little bit pumping for me to, uh, to say, so you can go on and say that, I'll, I can see what I'm getting at.

I don't want to sit there and they'll say, well, the president's bragging about what he's accomplished.

But I'll lay the thing.

We had a terrible problem there.

We negotiated.

And I'll play it to you in terms of why you recommend it and how tough.

And I said, people have said you've been too tough and so forth.

But now I know that we have a good agreement.

Now, with regard to Irwin's staff here, would it not be well, and butter your egos a bit, to have Peterson present, because I should be here.

Would I not also have Schultz, McCracken, Einstein, both McCracken scientists on the street?

Well, I'd have all three of them.

And I'd have the other by all the other members.

Now, does that cover your statement?

We don't want too big, you know, because we've got San Henry, of course, you should be here.

Now, the other problem is, should we have the state people?

I don't think so.

The difficulty is, if we have the state people, then we've got to do the foreign affairs, and that's full-time.

That would bother me.

I think...

I don't think we better, and also the difficulty is they're likely to get into India-Pakistan or something, and I don't want to get this confused with India-Pakistan.

No, we better not have, say, completely run back.

I think we just ought to say that we're...

other issues at this point.

Incidentally, I have a thought.

How would it be to let Samuels come over and just listen?

And I think also that, from your standpoint, let Booker come.

Well, I think that's, yeah.

It's just, you know what I mean, these are guys that are working on that.

And you can tell Bob, the way you can tell Bob, how you can tell Bill, is to send Samuels to come to the State Department so he can be there, and so forth.

You see what I'm, I just, well, I think, you know, we open this up to state issues.

We're going to be, it'll go right down to Sam, he's come in and he can report the bill, and they're our representatives, and instead of on our side, too, the sacred scholars should be there to listen.

Now, if Bill Everett is here in town, and he probably is, he's probably going to be here, by all means, by all means.

Right.

And we ought to put out a directive this morning in a gentle way that all public statements

and how to be referred to John.

Because when these fellows start passing over at State, especially on trade, those guys... Bob, John, Bob, Simon, before you absolutely set the meeting call Mike.

and Carl and have them call my car and see if that's okay.

In other words, you can't come to them and invite them and they say, well, you should have consulted with us, see what I mean, and then down the line.

And we don't care whether they've all come or not.

What do you say, Mr. President?

I think it's essential, Mr. President.

I've seen now enough of these negotiations.

And there's got to be one central focus for quarterbacking.

But that means also statements.

They should just say, refer any questions to Treasury.

We will refer any questions to Treasury out of my office.

Because while we have a good agreement, there are a lot of nuances where it can fall apart.

We've got to drive a hard bargain on trade and other things.

And these guys' instinct...

is to be the spokesman for the other side.

And also, the very thing is to try to reassure the press on the press's prejudices, which will screw us.

I mean, I just don't want to have a question about that.

In fact, I don't want to state that.

That he said,

grain, he said, was tough for them, and tough for the Germans.

But I think we get the French.

The one thing we have to avoid is to get news stories out saying Pompidou was defeated.

Because we need his help.

If John hadn't been the heavy for three months,

you wouldn't have gotten a damn thing out of D.C. Well, the president's held firm in the face of a hell of a lot of pressure and a lot of criticism, and I think you ought to take credit for it this morning.

But we shouldn't let the steam out of the valve now.

That's right.

That's why you should do either... We're not through by a long shot.

Our tendency is to overact on the thing, and soon... John, one thing I was going to say is...

Well, I can't call him on the phone, but see, I'll have to talk to him in the morning.

John, John, all two of my phones are tapped.

You don't know if I hold them.

I can hear you.

So that if you don't have to have him today, if you can wait until happy mid-breakfast with him.

Anytime.

And we have another scandal to file.

James Gilpatrick, John, has a problem with child care that might in my new center people give me a quote of the day sometimes.

Would you like for us to send you to the new center?

That's a poor word.

No, no, no, I get it.

I like it.

It's not real.

You get it.

The point is, I'm saying, you'll see what I mean.

It's funny.

This sort of country, it may be more sane.

I know the time.

The...

I said, look, he says, if I get up in the morning and start in the day to read those spiritual truths, I could never get through the day.

So I said, I'll just read this.

I said, I've got to deal with the country.

I've got to read what they're writing in Dallas, Chicago, and the Washington Post, and I get a better balance picture.

James, go back to your question.

Imagine if you'd please a casserole composed of yesterday's spaghetti and Tuesday's young overhatch, to which a hundred hopeful cooks, bursting with good intentions, had added a smattering of spinach, pickled beets, eggplant, avocado, cream cheese, cacao maple syrup, maldon bell, hard cider sauerkraut, coleslaw, grape nuts, two cans of motor oil, and with many a topping, garnished with raw politics, redemption, and crocodile tears.

This was the soggy mess you bought from the president's desk.

There's an addiction to a strong stomach, but this was too much.

We've got to read a little of that.

Well, the thing is, we now have got to keep Henry John as the quarterback of this company.

Let's not have everybody around interpreting and all that sort of thing.

On the other hand, John can use, in other words, use what basically

to put out.

Singler and Scali, our good soldiers, will do exactly what you say.

So whenever you want anything put out, you give a call.

Say, look, bleep this out or that, because we want you to use them just like I would use them.

Well, I think, too, there's another thought that we've got some tough marketing ahead of us that we also need to be out there in some of these stores.

But the main thing we need to do, I think, is to translate this whole thing in terms of jobs.

And we've got to get a very simple way to describe it.

We've got to say, well, it's kind of like a store that's just been a part of its life.

The family's just been buying and buying and buying more than this.

And finally, they had to turn it around and they had to start selling.

Actually, some of the things you said this morning on that NBC thing that I saw this morning, put it in very simple terms.

The one thing we have to be careful about is, we were talking about it on the plane yesterday, John, is to get some of our theoretical economists from going around saying no convertibility ever.

It's

That's our option, but if the French read this, that's a humiliation to us.

No, sir.

Sir, we've got to have it.

They asked me, I've heard of Schultz.

If you understand Schultz, get out.

Schultz has got to say, look, you know what John Conway's and the President's view is on this subject, George.

But for God's sake, don't say it, because he...

And we, we must not, we must not be embarrassed.

Well, he was at me again this morning.

He said that if we should have put into the contract, we'll never discuss convertibility.

You can't put... We wouldn't have him.

Well, we would not have him.

He can't do that.

He asked me the question last night.

He said, well, does this mean that we'll never go back to convertibility?

I said, Ernie, never.

It's a long, long time.

But I'll tell you this, we're in good shape on this with Trump, even on that answer.

Because I said, Mr. President, I do not see in the future, in the foreseeable future, I do not see a time when we can even go back comparatively.

Do you remember when I said that to him?

So you made the distinction between hard and soft.

Hard and soft.

You're doing a great job.

All you agreed with him.

Supposing we said we won't agree to it, he can always put it on the agenda of meeting.

He can force us to discuss it, which is all we agreed to do.

That's all we agreed to do.

When you're sitting there with nine countries facing you, they all bring it up.

That's right.

Knowing these things here, as you know, we now, we're all in agreement, but as you know, except for the trade features that you're able to negotiate there, well, this, this revaluation exchange rate is by far the biggest part of the package.

It isn't going to help us for quite a while.

But now, therefore, we have got to broker this thing from a political standpoint.

I think to be brought to the standpoint of first, that we have initiated, it seems to me, a whole new system.

The leadership, the Office 15 initiative has succeeded on the anti-inflation front.

It's now succeeded on the international front.

That far beyond our hopes and dreams.

And also, we have paved the way for success in the job market.

So our three-legged stool was beginning to come into shape.

I think, too, that the fact that this

is enormously important in America's leadership position in the world.

It helps create world stability.

We're a good partner and all that sort of thing.

And it helps us at home.

But what I mean is, I want some good PR on this damn thing.

And the way it's gotta be, what I'm suggesting is,

I know your lips will be quite sealed because of this thing that's coming up, but don't let the other side dominate the dialogue.

I'd like you to talk as much as you can, because you understand it, and you come on very well.

See what I'm getting at?

But one thing we need to do, Bob, and they can do this through something as far as we really understand this, is the United States, since World War II, has been the dominant

to the European community as being the financial center of the world, whether it's London or Paris or whatever.

But in the August 15th move, the President is not only retaining, in effect, the military leadership of the world, but he's now asserting the United States leadership in the financial world, or monetary world, which is true.

One of the writers

put their finger on it fairly well by simply saying that, you know, we thought the world would kick us around.

And they critical of us.

And they now found that we said, OK.

We haven't had any exceptions.

We're now suspending the dollars.

And Europe woke up to the fact that, my God, what have we done?

They found that they couldn't get along with us.

We couldn't get along with them.

We couldn't get along without them.

That's the point.

And these stories are actually so difficult.

We've got to be very careful for the next two or three weeks.

Oh, absolutely.

To give them equal credit.

Oh, I will do that.

Because that's what they're going to do, that he's the real statement.

You're making the real statement.

Well, you're really talking about a line after it gets locked up that you want to move over the next year, over the next year, over the next year.

Right now, the line for jobs.

Right, that's right.

And the thing, we've got to assert what it means in terms of jobs, expansion at home, and more than that, we can't leave the impression that we're going to have an enormous immediate effect.

Of course, the truth of the matter is, it's real.

I will not begin to really show for 18 months to two years, which puts us far beyond the election.

And this is why I have been insistent on trade, trade, trade, because it's the only thing we're going to get out of it that has any political impact.

Burden sharing and trade.

Burden sharing, I'm just going to pull out of there.

You can't do it before 11?

No.

Oh, 12 o'clock.

Can they do it at 12?

They can't do it at 12.

Well, that's fine with us.

That's probably the best time.

Oh, wow.

That makes sense.

All right, let's go ahead.

Did you want to get the cigarette out, John?

I don't know.

Well, yes, but you better .

John, tell me again, the point you want me to get is to open this thing up.

Well, I think you just ought to, and not in the most of the matter, but you ought to take credit for some of this.

And just so you know, we want to, we're beginning to see the unraveling of this thing.

And we want you to know that we have seriously concerned ourselves with the very property we've been after from

The time before, August the 15th, when we were talking here in June and July, we saw what was happening in the movement of money.

We were talking about this whole problem, domestic as well as the international economic picture.

When we began to talk about suspending the convertibility of the dollar, we had to try to anticipate what was going to happen to the world market.

What effect would it have?

What could we come out with?

We didn't know for certain.

knew that we were going to be confronting every one of our major trading partners.

We inevitably had to.

We had to improve our trading, our competitive position in order to provide the jobs at home.

So inevitably, this put us in a primitive conflict with our trading partners.

And we have found this to be so.

Generally speaking, they all say, oh, yes, we'll help.

We'll cooperate.

We'll do this and do that.

But when you get right down to it, what we're talking about

And what we have been talking about is the economic vitality of every country at all, of jobs in Britain, jobs in France, jobs in Germany, jobs in the United States.

We've been talking about taking advantage of every American product that's sold in the world markets, and every other product that's sold in the United States markets.

So when you get right down to it, these countries forget all this stuff, they're bargaining for their economic product, and that's what we've been bargaining for.

And we don't necessarily have to be tough because we were aligned against the solid phalanx of these countries who had a common purpose, not to give us any more than they had to.

And we've taken a very hard line and a very tough line, and we're still taking it.

And this is not over.

We just met with France.

We've got eight other countries in this group to go.

We're going to try to get an agreement as soon as we can.

But even then it's not over because we're still talking trade with Japan, trade with Canada, and trade with the European community.

So we want you to understand what's involved, and we want you to know how we've approached it.

We need your help.

We don't want this to be a political football.

It just can't be a political football.

We're not going to get any political advantage out of it, and then we'll get a disadvantage.

Because I'll be the president that devalued the dollar.

Well, I have to take that in order to try to improve our competitive position.

But let John tell you about some of these.

I think you can take off the value of the dollar because it goes up.

But I think you, because you have been involved in it so deeply and intimately, I think you ought to at least without boasting at all, just say that you've been considering this since before August of 50.

Yes, we've been considering it.

Well, we can say everything.

We've been in that international crisis about every few months.

That's right.

Just so you all remember that.

The Germans floating, they're demarking May.

And the problem, the problem finally, the old system broke down.

And that was one of the reasons that we had to move until August 15th.

The reason that this happened was because our wage and tax controls and our tax things had more of an immediate impact on it.

But it has enormous implications for the future.

That this, that the

And as far as the dollar is concerned,

his relationship with other currencies was completely out of kilter and we're getting our brand beaten up because other currencies were richly controlled and so forth and the dollar was carrying a major person with a great disadvantage in America.

We had to pay seven of these banks and we came into this tough bargain.

Is that a wish?

And that's why the Secretary had to be very, very tough and he was all that.

He did that and he had my total support in it because we, you know, something like that.

I'm going to settle a little business, settle something up a little on that, you know, because we take a lot of heat for being tough so far.

I want to say, why do we have to be tough?

Well, you're talking to a friend of the audience, and I think you ought to say you've been tough, because these folks, they like that.

Right.

But we've had no privilege.

See, I can sell that about you, and then you say that you wouldn't.

With me, and he's coming around.

He sounds well.

Well, we'll, on this meeting with the leaders,

You've already, they've said pretty good things, I understand.

I thought that we would have a picture, Ron.

It's a good follow-up story.

And you could sit in one, Scully's sitting in two.

But the general, the thing I can't emphasize too strongly, and I want you to...

There could be only one quarterback on this

It's a very, very sensitive thing, the way it's being interpreted so far.

The Secretary may have ideas as to when he wants to use the White House for this.

He may want to use you as a statement.

He may want to use the scholars on the list.

He may want to leave something out to our advantage.

But the point is, let's be sure, without bothering him too much, unless you have previous approval of what you said, that nothing is said

which is attributed to the White House, which he doesn't know about.

We operate pretty much on the basis of that.

Well, you could do that.

We're going to have a meeting with the leaders at 12 o'clock and give them a rundown on this.

Of course, when we come to you.

It goes on and on in these negotiations.

But it is, it's vitally important at this point that this story, which is going to be a long, long-running story, that we get it out in the best possible context.

Our immediate problem over the next few days is to be sure that nothing is said which might jeopardize

The negotiations that you're going to have with the other countries, the Secretary's going to have to take a very high level of responsibility.

Therefore, I have said that nothing is safe here.

You have not previously not declared.

And on the other hand, the Secretary will use the two of you

and when he sees fit, to pump out a line in case we want to.

I'd like you to watch the situation and see if the wrong line is getting out in order to correct that line, and then let me know what you think.

I'm not bothering you too much.

I'm just going to be clear with him on that.

at the present time.

Take a minute, John, to say what you said to me as to what you would like to get out.

I think the point you're making here that you talked about is basically take notes and use any of this that you want.

Understand what he's saying now, you can use.

How about, John, your various channels?

First, this triumvirate is beginning to take shape now.

First, we had the wage price freeze to stop the inflation fund.

Secondly, the President had some major initiatives on the tax line.

All of that, which I'm going to repeat, that's been done with the wage price freeze.

We're now in phase two.

You know all that sort of thing.

Now, the third is on the international front.

It's beginning to gel.

It's beginning to take shape.

that the department's leadership in these three areas looks as if it's going to be a great success.

And it's one of the most sweeping moves that any American president ever had to attack as many different problems.

And this was basically conceived and designed at the time of his pronouncements in August of 1950.

That's what we've done.

To adapt all three problems.

There's been a tendency, if I can interrupt you, for many to interpret the economic policy as being solely an attempt to stop inflation.

Because that's where I'm at.

Now we've finally, finally, the broader picture reasserts itself again.

We have, this, the fight to stop inflation has succeeded, both days one and day two.

that God's creation, through the gods, through the past, has not been signed into law, it will succeed.

And we believe in that.

A third, and one that is at least understood,

In the long run, the most important of all, the whole international monetary thing, when arms and crew are in a position of fraud, that, finally, is now a time of divorce.

That's exactly how it is.

Go ahead.

Now, the next point we want to make is that devaluation has to be defined in terms of making American goods more competitive.

therefore creating more jobs in this country.

It ought to be interpreted in another way of saying, as a means of keeping jobs at home, or stopping exporting jobs.

That's what devaluation means to the average person.

We don't want to, we don't want to be caught in this particular line, that some writer wants to use it just as it's like being sold.

The currency is a commodity, and every country in the world likes to undervalue its currency, because it simply means they don't sell anybody else.

That's what it means.

It means like the grocery store or the block that has the cheapest prices, if he has the same market, he's going to get the business.

And on that sort of, I mean, interruption, ever since World War II, the United States has been locked in place with regard to its currency, whereas other countries have been free to move up and down, re-valuing all their currencies to help their situation.

Is that a correct statement?

That's correct.

Let's get the figures, but I think there's other currencies of major trading nations and key banks

Their currency is burnt to the very bottom of the fourth quarter.

That's what I'm talking about.

Sixty times, I believe, since World War II, that's the combined total devaluation because all these countries want to try to get their currencies down.

Now, you ought to go on to say that the dollar is not going to be deep.

It's not going to be undervalued.

We're trying to get it down to a point where it's somewhere near its value because, in fact, it's been overvalued in terms of other currencies.

The next point we want to make is that we really can't expect any great increase in trade for at least 18 months.

History has shown that the devaluation of currency around the world, it takes about 18 months to two years.

For the federal currency, really, if I get a record, I would say long term, long term.

This not only was an indispensable move, but it is probably the most important.

But short term, it does not have immediate effects.

I wouldn't let them think of it.

I'd let them get a little hold.

I mean, I would expect, for example, over the next few months, you're not going to see something like that.

Long term, it'll have dramatic effects.

That's right.

Now, there's another major point that I think needs to be made without boasting, and it ought not to come from the administration at all, but some writer who's knowledgeable in the field ought to write an in-depth piece saying that no one's ever questioned that the

political and military leadership in the free world was in the United States to a major extent.

This move in the international field now has resulted in the president exercising a high degree of statewide leadership

in the international field as well.

That we can put out now.

I mean, that's a good one.

Also, in that case, John, you ought to, through your sources, pick up this line and even some of these things.

And in a sense, though, there's similar principles that we help those around themselves.

And to prove this point, it's mutuality, basically.

It means that around the world, it means a more equal burden share, in case of...

He spelled this out that the president was advised by a great many people and who he has a high degree of confidence that it was in the national interest of the United States to convene a vote.

not go back to things like that.

And to take no responsibility.

And to take no responsibility, really, for other countries that they had, in fact, abused us, or they had used us, not abused us, but that they had used us economically, and that we really ought to become quite provincial, quite national in our approach.

As a matter of fact, the other satellite I know that I use, we have many colleagues, Dr. Burns,

the Europeans that this would lead not only to instability abroad, but possibly recession abroad.

That would not affect us now, but again, long term, it would be potentially very disastrous for the United States.

I wouldn't mention it.

You wouldn't mention it.

No.

That shows them up.

Yeah.

But the argument only took his point of view.

Well, go ahead.

I wouldn't do it.

Well, a lot of Europeans said that.

A lot of Europeans said, I just wouldn't give Dr. Burns specific credit because he tends to draw a curve on it.

Like I said, people want to say, well, do it by some other way.

You get too close to home.

And then I would simply say that the President made the decision on the basis of the responsibility of leadership which this nation has, that sure, we've expended more in providing the security shield than perhaps is our fair share of numerical basis.

Sure, we've expended more in terms of aid since World War II than our fair share on a dollar basis.

But what is freedom worth?

What is stability worth?

This world in which we live, it was to provide that basis for us to make this move in the monetary field.

So that you try to leave the state church in the international monetary field as we have in the political and military field.

So that's my call.

There's one potential area of difficulty, and I found this particularly among the foreign reporters last night.

That is, that there's a tendency on the part of Europeans to see this as a victory for Pompidou as well.

Now, let's talk about that for a moment, because the more you talk about it as a victory over Pompidou, the more it is less a victory by President Nixon.

So I think we have to come up with a very subtle line here which does not offend the French, but which at the same time ensures the role that you have played, Mr. President.

This is what he's doing.

This is a very specific point.

Well, I would say that in the Azores,

So far as the price of the United States, no one won, no one lost.

This was not a bilateral negotiation.

It can't be that this was a bilateral negotiation, but the problem is what?

The lateral on character.

We have yet to deal with the Germans and the Japanese and so forth.

And I would have quite bluntly cared if we considered the two presidents, Mr. and Mr. Johnson at the outset, that anything we agreed to had to be

in the interests of both countries, or it could not be agreed to.

It would not be viable for each.

And this is very much in the interest of the French, and it's very much in our interest for different reasons.

But it's some of the same.

But we consider this very much in our interest.

And in that sense, we consider it a victory for us.

And John, I would love that.

posture of us as being in competition with Russia.

And the answer to it is this.

The President started out doing three things.

One, to increase our allies' percentage of burden sharing and military fee.

We just got that from Russia.

They've contributed a billion dollars a year more than us.

That sounds like I got a lot of money in the air.

And the offset agreements

We've improved our prevention there at home.

The offset agreement is, well, we can't go into that much detail, but the fact is that it was higher than the high position we had risen into ours.

Secondly, we are far exceeding our expectations.

Secondly, we won't get a major real end.

That seems to be in the offing.

Thirdly, we wanted to get concessions from part of our trading partners around the world in trade matters.

And that is, we obviously are making tremendous progress.

I think the realignment of which was born, which was basically a reflection of the international realities, but was spared the American gospel.

That's the barrier to the American dollar.

So in terms of victory, now, in terms of victory, it's a hell of a victory, but in terms of propensity, it's a victory for your country.

So there's plenty of credit for all that.

Right.

I noticed at the start, last night, when I came back to church, there was a long story, which said it's a great victory for the French.

Well, it worried me a little bit, and I said, well, what the hell?

This morning, it doesn't seem to play quite that well.

And I don't think we want to get, let me put it this way, I don't think we want to, I think John's got a point, we must get down in the ring in the French.

We have a bigger game to play.

We've got Heat coming next week.

And also, I think he might make something out of the fact that we're too big, we're big enough that we're not talking about Chromebook.

We're not trying to make heavy points.

As I put it, the part where I was talking to John, and I said to him when we were talking about the numbers, I said, now we're going to reason it.

I said, no, I'm not going to.

But the boy on the couch that he was getting right now doesn't know how much it was worth of a point and a half.

But hell, I didn't know whether it would be $40 or $100.

So he had to be right where the hair was short.

So I said, now that I'm Mr. President, I'm not going to bargain with you like a Lebanese drug merchant.

That's what you said, but I don't think he ought to put that on.

Oh, put that on?

Oh, no, no, Lebanese, Lebanese, we're not supposed to be here.

It's a reality, I'm sure.

And, oh, no, wait a minute, wait a minute.

Our friend from U.P.O.

was going to say it was an Egyptian governor.

Let me also say that you agree with this.

That it's a victory for the French as far as the evacuation is concerned.

So the victory is in the eyes of the beholder.

To the French, gold is a major ideological hang-up.

To us, it's not.

To us, devaluation means that we make our American goods more competitive.

Doctor, I think your first statement is better.

Because I don't think we ought to keep a scorecard and say we want to, they want to.

It isn't a question of whether we do the history, it's whether the press does it.

And we have to be ready to count on it.

I think we ought to raise it one level above.

It's a victory for everybody.

The way, John, you had put it first was we set out against three objectives.

We got those three objectives.

We were in our interest, but in the long term, we want to talk to the friends from their side.

They got some things they set out to get, and they got those.

I put it that way.

And so what you say about victory, there ain't nothing separate.

It depends on what we do.

But the truth of the matter is...

It's in the interest of both.

Actually, let me tell you the truth.

We won.

It looks to me as if the French got doctrine and we got practice.

The French got theory.

Otherwise they got nothing that I can teach them.

That's a little wound they can put out.

You know, they can write articles, but the fact is we got what we wanted.

If John isn't true, you know what, I'll just keep it.

When you talk about raising the price of gold, he said that was going to cost us a lot of money.

And then I was trying to think, well, why don't we raise the price of gold?

And of course, he pointed out that the price of gold in the world market is higher now than it is even to the point that we're preparing to raise it.

And I said, well, look, Frenchmen own their own gold.

He said, well, yes, we can.

But then he came back to the point,

Tell me, why does he want to race it then?

Well, he wants to race it because the French have a hang-up on gold and because individuals have about $40 billion.

But my point is, in the event that the world market is higher than what we're prepared to race it to, how does our race, you know, oh, you mean it races the floor and therefore the ceiling will go up.

He was pulling my leg on that then, Henry.

No, he wasn't really.

To the French, it's an irrational thing.

The Frenchmen have been hoarding gold since the French Revolution.

That's right.

And they don't understand the difference between the world market and the governmental market.

All they know is what they've got in their mattresses.

One of the things is they never traded in.

One of the disadvantages the French government has is that they cannot get the gold out of their people, no matter what the price is, because they don't trust their currency.

They keep it in mattresses.

The peasants, right actually, the peasants since the French Revolution have been hoarding gold.

They won't put it in the bank.

What they've got is their goals they don't draw interest on.

It's one of the, it's a mad national psychology.

So as far as Pompidou is concerned, as far as his, as long as his peasants think the price of gold is rising, they don't know the goddamn thing.

So his election next year, it creates a good climate among the peasants.

Even though it doesn't mean a goddamn thing, it isn't good political action.

What did you mean last night, Mr. Secretary?

where you said the French are not going to revalue in the traditional sense, but they will revalue... Well, on a relative basis.

On a relative basis.

We're going to devalue by changing as far as those religious institutions devalue.

What does that mean?

We're going down, let's just say, 5%.

We go down 5%.

The French stay where they are.

So what you said last night there, which John and I were asked this question, and I don't know if we can say it now, that the French have agreed not to move.

Can we say that?

No.

Okay.

Yes, but don't say it.

It's a very high standard.

Well, that's what I, because I get that question based upon that background thing, and I should just say, it's a very technical problem as well.

And I have kind of a case to say, obviously when we deal with these, in the group of people, we should be able to talk to these, some will be evaluated, some will remain where they are today, others will re-evaluate, depending on what the relative talk is to them.

But we have to put the head of the Senate and the Supreme Court in a relevant position.

The initial reaction of the Congress is to show those things.

Then the other question is just one of those things.

That's right.

The ones that do understand your opinion.

Oh yeah, that's the point.

The ones that do.

Well, John, I've worked with those guys.

Yeah.

Volcker was really intentional.

You know, I'm with you in this meeting because of the making and touching that they have been helpful.

If we could add a couple of guys that have been really pushing on it, like Royce.

and Javits.

They were both favorable to me.

Well, that's my point.

I mean, like this matter.

No, I was going to say, you get a real problem.

You don't have a problem.

Well, unless you go in groups, and that's where they're ranked.

If they are second ranked, you should have the second first and second ranked.

See what I'm saying?

I want to raise a long-term political problem.

You know, most of the Democrats who understand this are in favor of it now.

Isn't that conceivable that as a political issue later on, the Democrats will seize on it as the President has to keep in the dollar, which has always been a sacrosanct as mother put an apple pie.

That's what they're charged.

Go back to your study.

Yes, the President goes back to the same position on the dollar.

If they want to, I don't know, put too much...

Well, we could say this is really something that affects us internationally as far as the prices.

It has a hell of a lot more, let me put it this way, this revaluation of the dollar in terms of how it affects jobs as compared to its price, it's 100%.

In other words, this is about jobs rather than about prices.

And for a mentor of the mayor,

It's about jobs, rather than about prices.

It's about jobs and American products and their competitiveness in the world, which relates to job tax.

You've got a very valid point, though, from a political thing that you, in that first story, sort of led to that devaluing the dollar.

It says to the ordinary citizen,

Well, in terms of the U.S. economy, your dollar is inflation.

You've got to get your dollar here.

It's not the price of gold.

Well, we're the press guys.

They know.

If you take the triple cross, it buys a little less, or if you buy a foreign product here in the United States, it buys.

But as far as the 95% of the American people who live at home and buy American, no change.

It's a pretty good common man demagoguery on this, which you can say, yes, it would be a little hardship for those who tour Europe and not fill up the space.

And it'll be a little tough on those who drink imported champagne every night, but it is a part of the good.

It is a part of the good.

It drinks California, J.

Bill Redd.

But also, J.

Bill Redd.

You really can't compare this to the past, because the past doesn't have to be a common market.

It has to be a commitment to be a weapon.

You didn't have the Japan where it is.

Of course.

Let me say this.

I think that, I mean, John, you can see the political effect devalued and gone.

I think you better, I think you just got to get it in front of me and say that this is, this involved, this reached our interest.

affects the jobs, but as far as the price, the value of the dollar, it has, that Americans, their dollar, basically, in the long run, is gonna be stronger, and less subject to attack from abroad, rather than put it that way.

The question is whether the dollar is strong or weak.

As far as price is concerned, relatively.

As far as the, as far as the, because it always shows sensibilities reflecting an ancient situation, it's the real value of knowledge.

As far as the dollar, its strength will have a stronger dollar in the future because it will not be so subject to attacks as it has been in the past.

That would be a great thing to do.

Wouldn't one line also get off the devaluation list?

If somebody made this devaluation list to say, let's get off these races.

What we wanted was a realignment of world capitalists.

We wanted the 300 world currencies to make ourselves more competitive and to keep other countries from taking a free ride of artificial exchange rates.

This realignment means that these are loaded words, so the real thing we did is to bring about a realignment of currencies that makes American goods more competitive and therefore provides more jobs for the American dollar.

I don't think we should get hung up on the American dollar.

We've got to get our semantics there.

Rather than devaluation, it's really realignment of world currencies.

It's realignment, rather than devaluation of the dollar, it's really spare treatments for the dollar and the world.

Or it's realignment, devaluation of the dollar.

Rather than devaluation, it's...

I think that's a good way to put it.

It's a major effort, and a successful effort, to get fair treatment for the dollar in American barline world trade.

In American goods, in world trade.

And that way, that immediately takes away the question, who won or lost?

That's going to be a recurrent scene, Henry, no matter how I know about it.

Yeah, I know.

All right.

We have to, and we just have to say, well, gentlemen, we don't care.

It's quite obvious this must be a good deal.

The Franks are satisfied.

They think they have a very good deal.

But believe me, we are satisfied.

The Secretary of the Treasury couldn't feel better about these things.

He's had a very, very, very successful agreement.

He's been fighting for it for four months.

This is an incident.

John, one way to get the one at Rothstein across is to get the personality.

Now, this is what I am suggesting.

I think that you could say that the president feels that this is a mean new indication.

The Secretary of the Treasury recommended in the August 17th Senate De-evaluation.

There were some strongly opposed to it.

I mean, on 11th August.

Second, the Secretary of the Treasury recommended, and with the President's support, took the very hard line in negotiating through the tent.

The people said, he's too tough, too tough on trade, too tough on negotiations and so forth and so on.

And then third, as a result of his very astute bargaining and position that he took, we now have

in an agreement that we have now in the beginning, in spite of, we think, a final agreement, which will be very much in our interest to normalize what we want.

Now, what about other countries?

Yes, we never wanted to screw somebody else.

We don't have, we don't have, in order to have a good agreement for ourselves, to have somebody else flush down the tube, that we can realize that a good agreement for us is one that will let others survive, too.

We could have put a problem a little harder, actually.

After all, you know, if you really want to understand the relative position of France and the United States and England and the United States, you could look at it this way.

John was playing something yesterday.

Every year, the American economy grows in France.

Every year, the American economy grows in England.

Every year, every two, every year and a half, we grow in Germany.

About every three years, we grow in Japan.

The President considers that this is a major indication of the cognitive policy.

Do you get my point?

I'll get my point.

This is tough.

Let me interject.

If you run into all the disillusionment of the press, sure, you just create more problems for me personally.

If you run into all the press and don't want to build me up, let's do it.

At the same time, he needs a little better.

I don't need anything.

No, I think you do.

I don't.

No, it is.

But the first is true, and also they love him.

So let us do a little of this.

I sure would have jeopardized it.

Also, also, John, the other thing is I want, I want, I want Chief Scala, I want Connolly to go into this meeting on Friday as the, he has the balls, what do they say, the ground is falling.

I want to get a signal from you.

I've been talking to Henry Case, of course, but I want to get a direct from you on the Soviet summit thing that broke out last night.

After talking to Al and Henry, I put out a comment that said that no U.S. official intended to suggest that we were canceling the U.S.-Soviet summit, but I thought we had to go hard to dent the thing the other way.

Well, it has a little bit.

I'll be fairly hard on the Soviets today in terms of the support of India, but how do you want me to handle a Soviet thing?

We don't want to...

I mean, I can pull that off the ground.

Frankly, it's just...

I didn't reach that point.

Right.

I tend to say... First... What are you going to say when you say hard on the Soviets today?

Well, but we're concerned.

We have been concerned.

Well, we just say that, look, at the present time, how about suggesting to Henry to be sure that we don't guess something.

But I think it is a moving law.

I see that the...

Their only interest will be, basically, the summit thing.

And I think it's going to be back in.

I want to be sure he understands the way to do it.

And let me put it this way.

He did not intend to .

and that it only is a highly theoretical thing.

If it went down the course, and if the Russians did not cooperate in trying to bring ceasefire, and to stop the cannibalization of one member of the United Nations by another, if that did not happen, then we'd stop one member of the United Nations from cannibalizing another.

That's right.

It actually causes major problems in other areas.

I mean, it causes major problems in other areas where we are trying to negotiate.

If negotiated, but it is done.

If negotiated, it breaks down in one area, it is actually done in another area.

However, at this point, we have not yet reached that point.

And we believe that there are maybe, say,

I can talk to him about this without him bothering you, sir.

Well, I want to get him nailed out.

We're waiting for him on a totally different matter.

The West Coast stock strike may probably resume on the 25th of December.

They would like to put out a statement.

We don't know what the power is.

They'd like to put out a statement today.

I've got a draft here that they wanted to put out on the first thing this morning.

That says, if a rendered stoppage does occur and if an emergency should once again develop while Congress is in recess, I would have no remaining statutory remedies available short of calling the Congress back into session to consider special legislation before I remind the Congress that under existing law that you've executed myself with no further means.

No, but that's...

But in reading that draft, if you issue that, you don't issue it cold, and about 18 questions come immediately, which I don't know which direction to go.

Will the president call them back in?

Number one, are we asking that the- Not on this, on the situation, but he wants it clearly understood now that the only recourse he has, or the only action he can take under law, are we asking the Congress to do anything?

Are we asking the Congress to pass this legislation before they leave?

See, that's just sort of an idle president.

No, all you're doing is putting the blame on him.

You say today is Congress prepares to go into recess.

Emergency strike legislation still languishes deep in committee files.

I find it imperative to call attention to Congress.

In fact, the law enforcement are working only because of the judgments

They're going to stop as early as Christmas Day if they could.

You see, we're not asking for action, but we're threatening... All we're doing there is somebody putting the blame on Congress, right?

That's right.

I don't know what...

It's making clear the point that I don't know what the difference is going to make when they go out.

If there's a need for the legislation, you've got to know it.

They can't do it now.

Charlton Coulson's argument is that this will focus attention in the Farm Bill on the fact that it's Congress's responsibility to keep the heat off the air.

I want to get him nailed out.

We were waiting for him.

On a totally different matter, the West Coast stock strike made probably reasonable on the 25th of December.

They would like to put out a statement.

We didn't know where the car was.

They'd like to put out a statement today.

I've got it wrapped here.

They want to put it out the first thing this morning.

I've got to put it out.

It says, if a renewed stoppage does occur,

statutory remedies available short of calling the Congress back into session to consider special legislation?

For I remind the Congress that under existing law, the U.S. Secretary of State himself knows what that means.

But in reading that draft, if you issue that, you don't issue it cold, and about 18 questions come immediately, which I don't know which direction to go.

Will the President call them back in?

Number one, are we asking that the- I don't want to comment on the situation, but he wants it clearly understood now that the only recourse he has for, the only action he can take under law is- Are we asking the Congress to do it again?

Are we asking the Congress to pass this legislation before they leave?

See, that's just sort of an idle praise.

No, all you're doing is putting the blame on him.

You say today as Congress prepares to go into recess, emergency strike legislation still languishes deep in committee files.

I find it imperative to call attention to Congress the fact that Officer Armin are working only because of the judgments

They're going to stop as early as Christmas Day if they could.

You see, we're not asking for action, but we're threatening... All we're doing there is somebody putting the blame on Congress, right?

That's right.

I don't know what...

It's making clear the point that I don't know what the difference is going to make when they go out.

You've dramatized the need for the legislation.

You've got to know it.

They can't live without it.

Shultz and Coulson's argument is that this will focus attention in the Farm Bill on the fact that it's Congress's responsibility to keep the heat off the air.

That's... because you're... Yeah.

Well...

If you can handle it, Rob, I will remind you of some of this.

But I can say, I would say that we, we, we, this is emphasized, the imperative necessity of the Congress, and the highest priority in the past, transportation legislation, emergency legislation, transportation, in the next session of the Senate, when the Congress resolves, one of the doctorate is actually going to have to call back.

If I can raise one more, just one, other questions will come.

If we say this now, and December the 25th comes, and there is a dock strike that I know of, I think it's expected there won't be, I'm not sure.

But let's say there is, our expectation is wrong.

get to the 28th or the 29th, and we don't feel, the President doesn't feel it's a broad enough national emergency to call it back, and he doesn't, then aren't the farmers who were trying to influence by this going to have a more negative effect at that time than they would... Why don't you leave out the threat of calling it back and simply say, I want to make sure there's nothing more... Leave out the threat of calling it back and strike that out.

The idea of calling it back is ridiculous anyway.

We don't think, well, we're not going to do it.

See, and if you put that threat out, you don't do it.

The necessity for that, I just simply make the bland statement that the effect of it, if it comes, that there's, I know of an open recourse, but the only recourse is for congressional action.

And therefore, I strongly again urge the Congress to send the highest priority.

That's all I can do.

That's better.

It's very interesting.

Henry, in order to get this India-Pakistan agreement,

zero in, and we don't want that story to get in play, or to in any way be confused with our present story.

But they've got to try to zero in on the danger of some of that.

You know, that is, are we doing this or that?

He's already cooled his tongue.

But I was suggesting that the way that you could cool it some more, it is without hurting our game plan.

The question, you get Preston, you issue with Preston.

I think it's in my budget.

Yeah, our budget may not, but if you don't run, if you don't talk much, if it comes up, it seems to me that what I just gave you in the last, I really can't see what you mentioned there, but about that the, the,

Oh, oh, that is, that is, that is, but what we, what, what, what gentleman said, that this is a, as far as the, as far as this in danger, it's not a, let me say that was, the remarks that were made were purely in a hypothetical situation.

We have not reached that point.

at this time, and we are very hopeful that point is answered.

But obviously gentlemen, what we are, that where negotiations break down in one field, they endanger the possibility of successive negotiations in other fields.

That's all we're trying to say.

Actually I can use what Henry said to the pool

in attacking the assumption they drew from what he said.

Because this is basically what he said.

Well, first of all, Mr. President, if our game plan works out, it's all going to be good.

I wouldn't like to have a whole range of stories, some of them down the tube and all that kind of stuff.

Well, that I don't see.

That we can easily avoid.

But what I would like to, for us, if our game plan works out on either of the two tracks on which it is now, then by Friday,

what was done yesterday will answer the question of what the hell did you do to get this settled?

Up to now, we've done it all through tractions.

And the British, we're going to... Well, now we're in the middle of it.

He's got a good point there, Ron, because so they know we're working on the Soviets.

So I think you can look very good on this if either of the two things we're now doing is working.

So we shouldn't pull away from it too much.

Secondly, and that goes... Why don't you just say that, as indicated in the background, negotiations fail in one area, it naturally jeopardizes the possibility of a successful negotiation in other areas.

But we are working to make these negotiations succeed, and we are hopeful of success.

That's fine.

And I would say that it's very unlikely to speculate about what's going to happen until we see what does happen.

Well, you don't want to stand on my quote from last night, though.

Stand on my quote, not on yours.

Well, we are on the record.

Right.

We're on the record at the White House saying after our discussions that we're not contemplating canceling the U.S.-Soviet summit.

Now, do I back off of that or stay with you?

I think what you should stick with, Ron, is what the President just gave you.

Uh, and say we are not now...

The issue of canceling the summit does not now...

Listen, General, that issue is not yet a live issue.

It's not yet a live issue.

What we are saying is that... Say what Dr. Kissinger said, referred to the future.

of a breakdown of negotiation and continued Soviet encouragement.

We are hopeful that this will not occur.

And we are working hard at this.

And we are very closely, I would say to them immediately, the President isn't very close, isn't very close.

No, we don't want to get Chinese.

We're working toward that end.

We're working through all channels toward that end.

Look, if you'd seen Vorontsov yesterday, he came in here and said, give me some reassurance, please give me some reassurance.

They're sweating it out a hell of a lot more than our press is.

This isn't a big problem.

I just wanted to make sure that I didn't .

This is good.

Incidentally, we do see that we want to keep a little space in the corner.

Okay?

You know, generally speaking, you know, coming back to the other thing, I was just thinking, Henry, what a hell of a pleasure it is to work with Hunk Huck.

You know, you compare him to some of our other Japanese people, they began trying to think how the hell they could get their life a life throughout that business of building him up.

Do you want to do it?

But we have to do it.

We have to do it.

He deserves it.

Yeah, but he's coming outside in this too, Mr. President.

Yeah, this is so much that he deserves it.

It is the way we've got some heat for his position.

I think we have two phases.

One is now.

The other is one after the agreement is lost.

The other leaders don't want to give the impression that Pompidou and you ran something down their throat.

If this G10 meeting works this weekend,

Then we could get out so that, gentlemen, we don't talk about victory.

All we can say is, this is what we asked for, and this is what we got.

You draw your own conclusions.

And because when John was outside, he's going to call you.

He's concerned that we grow too much now.

He doesn't want too much growing before Friday and Saturday, before he's locked in.

That's right.

Don't grow.

I'll just say that we have a lot of hard negotiating left to do, gentlemen, but we've made a very positive first step.

He's a very positive person.

There's a lot of negotiating to do.

He made a very positive version, but all in all, too, it's clear.

And I think that they, that after, you know, they, I noticed that some of it, Schultz, Schultz got out in Iceland and set the hope for agreement in his first story.

It faded, you know.

It was good.

Which was good.

But he ran into the trap.

He ran into the trap.

What I enjoyed a good deal was the fact that a number of guys had to burn up their stand-in.

Well, they had, you know, the President came out of his oars, and although he spent a good deal of time with President Pompidou, it appears that very little constructive has come out of him.

I forget the relationship of when...

We walked out, the cars that walked out, we pocketed you and laid this.

It was good.

Oh, yes, sir.

Well, see, not many of these people knew much about what it was about.

Oh, yes, they understood.

Well, they knew a little bit.

Fortunately, there were a couple of good Germans on there.

Good German reporters who were saying... No, Henry has often made the point that the European reporters are better than ours.

Oh, no, competitive.

But these German reporters were talking to these things that were coming up this morning.

She was the vice president of all these.

We'll skip Isaac and some of these guys and explain Mr. Nettinger.

So thank you.

I checked with you once.

I didn't have a chance to tell you in the age order.

I called Brooke and Kennedy that FECTO was going to be released a few hours before it happened.

Oh, that's a change.

That's the guy that you need from Massachusetts.

I said that the president asked me to do it.

Here's a letter from Ed Kennedy's mother's statement.

President, you can make that up to her.

On this?

On the FECTO release.

I called him only an hour before he was released.

I gave him nothing.

And that was the middle of the night, so he couldn't do a goddamn thing.

Nineteen years in prison in China.

But he gives you personal credit.

Resurrection is the highest praise I've ever been to security.

All in tribute to the administration's overall challenging hand-in-hand and hard-listened policy.

There's also this dramatic military concern.

You know one thing about Kennedy, he'll say that one thing and the next thing you'll think he may ask, but you're going to mention those both ways.

Sure, but at least it's very important.

You know that story about a very good little ride?

It's a very good human interest story.

It was a good television ride because they're fascinated with, you know, the story of a guy that's been in solitary confinement for most of 19 years.

It's sort of a fascination.

The girls, you know.

And that's a columnist.

Also, I am convinced that it has a very salutary effect on our POW lives.

The very fact that we've got these on.

The next time they come out, they come in and say, now, ladies, I never said a word to you about what the president did.

in this appeal of clemency until the men were actually, until these people were out.

I think also, Mr. President, that when you go there, you should tell Mao or Downing, whose sentence they've commuted, make another appeal to him, and I think your chances are at least 50-50 that you'll get him during the next year.

The military people, they can't release until the war in Vietnam is over there, too.

They can release anybody.

They said they can do anything for us on our portal.

And now, Mr. President, what I wanted to check with you, just to make sure you approve, I'm having Barranzos in at 11, sir.

And I propose to tell him the following.

Look, the Security Council then can go on for...

What you and we have in mind, what you and we can do is, the President was very impressed by these assurances he gave you yesterday.

And by his letter to the President.

Well, then I told him already, we weren't impressed, Mr. President.

I told him that was just words, but we needed something complete.

All right.

He was very impressed with these assurances.

We could make these formal, that the President writes you a letter and you respond.

Or they do write us a letter and read it, but it doesn't make much difference who takes the first step.

In which you say that you know there's no military action planned against West Pakistan.

Just put it in a letter.

And territorial integrity that we both published these letters and we have symbolized Soviet America's concern for peace.

And the beauty is...

I'm telling you, the beauty will only be beautiful if we do it fast.

We can then go to the Chinese and say, look, we've threatened them.

If we get out of this with the Chinese...

I just like the idea of a Soviet America, our relationship.

We've laid it out to set it up by threatening them.

Now, let's go right to where... One of two things is going to happen today, Mr. President.

Either they'll vote for the British resolution and the Security Council, which case they'll take credit for it.

or they will not vote for the British restitution and exchange these letters.

Yeah.

Well, will you tell them that if they do not vote, exchange of letters would be good even if they vote for him?

Exchange of letters is to tell them the President believes that it would be very salutary to our relations if we don't exchange.

Well, we have always devoted, but I don't know.

It's in the P.K.

Well, I know.

We tell them, you know what you tell them.

You tell the P.K., the president, he didn't care what the Security Council did.

He wanted to have it directed from the right, but he's forced it.

Well, if they're not disposed with us at the Security Council, we are fine.

Okay.

Because we are really, the Chinese thing is almost miraculous that we brought it to this point without, without them blowing on it.

Yeah.

Okay.

I think it'd be too much collusion if we add an exchange of letters after there's already been a blowout.

No, I was going to suggest this.

We have found one thing on the, that has been very helpful here, and you should know,

And I think that what I would like for you to do, I think you've got to use him.

more entertainment, all the other tricks.

Use him.

He'll do exactly what he said.

He'll argue with you.

He'll raise a PR point.

Now, like he raised a hell of a good public relations point.

We cannot allow the political issue that Nixon devalued the dollar.

You see, that must not be the issue.

He's right about that.

That is a PR point.

It's enormously important.

We have got to knock that down.

So I think that we have to use them in the historic field.

You've got to use scouting more.

What I'd like to use is bringing in whatever you can to meet with the antics.

Scouts are about not this little to feed us enough.

And you haven't known him to leave yet?

Oh, yeah.

He leaks like crazy, but... Well, if he leaves, would you tell him not to?

I don't think he has, and he's been told not to.

Well, I can bring him into meetings, but I'd like to be a picture.

I mean, Ziegler doesn't leak.

Ziegler is perfect.

Well, this county has more credibility to their head, you see, as an expert in some of these fields.

So I want to use more.

I'm just getting at it.

And also, if you don't break it, the problem is, then he's going to talk about things he doesn't know, and he'll screw it up.

The PNAR side is so important that I just use it.

I bring him into as many meetings as I can.

See what I mean?

We can do it.

I have him sit into these other meetings with other leaders and so forth, and he's good at pumping the news out.

He pumps it like hell.

You know, he knows the Stuart Hensley and some of these guys very well.

And there are times that you won't want to do something, but have him do it.

Oh, yeah.

I'll make sure that he gets into as many meetings.

But just, you know, you do call him and Ron and always put Ron with him.

Sometimes he won't.

He is dying to get into the special action group meetings.

That I do not like because that's very tactical, very fast-breaking, and unless he understands the game plan,

You'll put out their own...

But the game plan isn't explained to these people either.

They're just told what they're supposed to do.

Well, if you don't do that, you just get to sit down and figure out a way.

What did you and Bob talk about?

About how you can use him effectively to pump the PR on him.

He is...

You know, after all, he's passionately on our side.

He knows how the state is trying to screw us, and he wants to get our mind out of it, and that's the point.

And he can do it.

In other words, he'll pump it out, but he's got to, I always start with people who are loyal.

I mean, like I use Sapphire this way.

Sapphire's a great painter, but he's totally loyal.

So I call Ben and I'll have to give him something to puff out in order for him not to give out something that he does for loyal intentions, but which chooses.

See my point?

Always give a guy a little something to say.

That's what I think is the best.

Rather than to think he's just out there in the dark, so he can just crunch what the hell's going on.

See?

Don't tell them necessarily the most fundamental things.

Those have to be closely guarded.

I understand the difference, but you could use them effectively.

But I think, Mr. President, on this, this flap, I have to confess, was unintentional and probably a mistake.

I mean, on the canceling of the show.

I know about that.

But if you read the pool report, you'll see how they let me into it, because what I was saying is word for word what you were saying is...

These things, those things never really happen.

But actually, if this thing, if the game plan works out, I think it has the advantage of giving you credit on the previous game plan.

All that would have happened was that the British...

Everyone votes for it, and then they say the Americans were saved by the goddamn British.

Now we can make, now no one will doubt.

We're in the game, yeah.

I would say just by, we were just lucky.

We probably wouldn't have intended to have this kind of a play, but I think we may get a benefit from it.

Well, at least Jim Bennett's done that.

And I don't, and you know something?

But the ship was intact.

We mustn't get too upset about what we call flak or something like that.

Things are not perfect.

Sometimes those things that turn out to be accidents are a thing of good for us.

In any event, you can't change it.

Well, you can almost always turn an accident to be good.

That's right.

It also happens to be totally true.

It's exactly what I told the Russian.

Right now, it helps us with the Chinese.

puts a little more scare into the Indians.

It helps us with attacks.

And if we turn it now into a positive, it will help us with the Russians.

I'll take it.

It helps us with our U.S. conservatives, too.

It helps you with the U.S. conservatives.

And it helps you with the people who say you're taking this only for political reasons.

That's right.

Because you put a drive on your life.

No, no, no.

I didn't.

When I heard you last night, I thought the Indians... No, no, you were... Well, I didn't get bothered by such things.

None of us should have.

Now, what you can do here today, if you have any time until 11.30, would you have time, if you could recall, to dictate the Congress talking points so that I could have that?

Yeah, I could do it this minute.

Yeah, you dictate that so that I could have that by noon.

If you meet with Barras off at 11.30, do you?

Yeah, that was just dictated.

Well, then you'll be ready, available for the other meeting at 12.00.

You will now see that he really reflects.

He ought to treat other people just the way that he was treated.

He knows very well that he shouldn't have left that much of a scare to people.

Didn't you?

It's great to make the point.

I didn't know why I'm worried about him.

It's done.

It's a new world.

It's got nothing to do with his people.

Well, let's think about Florida again.

Far around down there.

Probably should.

If I went down, I'd get down about three or four a day.

Four.

And I'd have a big swim.

All day tomorrow, which is Thursday.

All day Friday.

Come back Saturday.

So I'm back now three times.

The only thing you have impinging is the time interview.

That could be moved to Sunday afternoon if you wanted to do that.

Could it?

Sure.

You can do it back here at the White House after you come back from New York.

I'd rather do it there.

They had to do it by the 20th and Sundays the 19th.

And they'll understand with all the stuff breaking and the meetings coming and everything.

Sunday morning I could do it Monday morning.

No, you leave Thursday Monday morning.

Right.

Well, ask them if they'd like to do it Sunday.

That would save you having to take time in Florida.

That way you'd have all of Saturday morning in Florida.

Leave there about then.

What is your view about the press thing at this point?

I don't think you want to...

I don't think there's anything to be gained.

Oh, Christ, with this thing, you've got another bombshell going.

We've got a latent bombshell going.

Now you've got to tax it.

I don't think...

Yes, I... Is that beginning to cut it?

Beautiful.

Is it real?

Oh, Christ, yes.

Come on.

I can't get a hold of it.

It's not reasonable.

Let it all get out of here at this point.

Bullshit.

I don't know.

I've never gone into a store and asked if I could cut the price.

Most of the handles and all that.

I don't know what's up.

Yeah, it's been rippling out, and it rippled into the magazines as a result of the outstop story and all that.

It's being used as another Nixon, a possible Nixon blockbuster, another big bomb.

It's what the property tax point holds.

And it's all positive so far.

There's only a little glimmer of an attempt to say that Nixon has now, it was a highly partisan thing from somebody, a political guy, saying that Nixon's now got all this tax relief for the rich, and the only way he can pay for it is to stock a new tax for the poor, so he's talking about another sales tax to...

I'm sure that's the courage to take it away.

But that has got very good leads to quarrels with just the parents for a change.

Yeah, but they're trying to make a point that it's totally regressive, you know, that they don't know the specifics.

I mean, there's some other non-regressive features built into it, too, so you know for sure.

That's a thing that's rumbling around.

Unless I'm not going to press a thing off, I'm just not going to worry about it.

I don't think you want to get into one this week.

Then why don't we do a press thing?

I'm not sure we have to do that.

During the course of these meetings, why don't you give a little to the press?

I haven't given the Q&A.

Maybe you will after one of these meetings, if you want to do a little talk, something impromptu Q&A, because it just goes on the meeting.

I'm just right with that.

And if we go with the one-on-one on the 3rd, or I plan to do that, and then maybe you do your Vietnam announcement, then maybe have a press conference that week, you know, the 14th of January or something, mid-January.

I don't think you need it now.

I really don't.

And I don't think we need to, I don't think they can make a hell of a big issue, but they have enough press conferences.

I mean, I don't think the country cares that much.

The country doesn't care, and they've made that issue, and it's gone.

You know, nobody, it's not something they should make effectively.

It's true, but I don't, I just don't do it because I don't care.

I've got too many major issues that are not best discussed in the press conference.

Right.

And that,

We don't have any problem with that.

That also loves me off the hook, which is a bad idea.

See, I have to concentrate quite a bit to get a press conference.

That's right.

And I don't really think I... Look, another big meeting will make good news.

I mean, it is going to be big news.

But the fact we meet is the British-American meeting is always good, right?

Sure.

And the Trump meeting, well, they're all going to be good.

These meetings have, especially now, the fact that you've bombed them out of this first one.

They're building.

They can't assume anything anymore.

And they shall build up.

And then of course you've got the Group of Ten, which is another argument for not having a Harris conference this weekend, is that you've got the G-10 meeting here.

And you shouldn't get into talking about things while Conley's in the middle of negotiating.

I have a thought on that.

I have a thought about Colin.

You know, there's such a burden for him that he might want to...

to arrive that evening and be there the next day.

You know what I'm getting at?

He's going to have a hell of a time.

You know, for me, I mean, he's going to have to finish his thing.

And if you can talk to him, I don't know how great he should feel, but there's a downgrading back on his part.

But having, being in the middle of the group, you can't, you know, give him, you know, help him, and you let him come down.

You know, later in the day, you know, figure, you see what I mean?

Rather than having to go down early in the morning and park around, see?

I can't believe that we probably, I probably just want to go to Florida.

I think you should.

The crappy weather here, Kent is worse.

You can't get outside.

I don't think it's 82 and more than anything else.

The fact of the matter is that people think I should stick around for that, even now.

Or do you?

No.

See, I'm supposed to, in certain hopes, I will stick around for that.

Not anymore.

At least that's not what he said.

He wanted you to be back here last night to make his maneuver credible.

As it turned out, he didn't.

He said on the plane he could go on to Florida now and stuff.

Yeah.

He always says that stuff.

Yeah.

But as far as the people in the country are concerned, it isn't going to make any difference.

I'm glad I came back, though, because coming back and meeting with the Congress is a tremendously important symbolism.

And that gives you the story for today.

We've done that.

And you're going to have a great time.

Are there any new kind of things that we could give the leaders today that we haven't made happen yet?

None of this stuff.

I can't give the notes because I've given notes on my job.

I don't know.

Excuse me.

No, no, but that's nothing.

I mean, I meant something more significant.

Something better to do.

I don't know.

They all have that thing.

Well, it's a 50 cent thing.

See, what I'm thinking about is what do we have?

See, they have just about everything right now.

Well, for example, we'll give them the money clip.

We'll give them the money clips.

How do we give them the money clips?

The money clip is about that.

It's a good symbolic gift for each other that they come to think about it.

Why don't you give it to them anyway?

Even if they have it, I'm just going to give them another one symbolizing God.

Yeah, of course.

I believe the big fight happened.

I don't know if he's the chairman.

We're just waiting for him to get off on 11.

And that I tell you, some of you haven't.

Why?

I don't know.

I'm going to have to.

Have one in each place at the table there so that we don't have to just have one in each place.

Why don't you give it to the other people too?

Everybody in the room.

The staff people too.

It's kind of a nice thing.

Give it to the staff people too.

Of course, it's about $4 or $5.

I wouldn't go second.

I thought it was it.

I think it's just the members of Congress this time that should get them.

And the members of Congress will not include them.

Thank you.

Why haven't you given them contacts already?

Almost all of them, yes.

Oh, I didn't know that.

All these large contracts haven't even been given them, so...

We're trying to think of something to do for next year.

We're working on this.

The money club is a nice point here, don't you get it?

Just put it around for each member of Congress, okay?

So, yeah, the only, well, the other thing that holds us back is, well, nothing holds you back.

Ehrlichman wants to see you for a couple minutes before you go on the antitrust section on the networks.

He's going to get a signal on that apparently.

But he's gone until 1215.

So you can catch it for a minute after the congressional meeting.

I can do that by phone.

There are three possible bill-signing things that you might want to ceremony on.

One is cancer, the other is economic stabilization, and the third is the Alaska claims.

Alaska claims, I think, is ridiculous.

I won't do that, do anything on it.

Economic stabilization might be worth doing, and cancer probably is worth doing.

All of them can wait until next week.

And with all the stuff we've got bouncing around, I think we should go now.

I think we should wait until next week.

And by waiting until next week, Congress is gone.

You can invite them without getting any of them there.

You might be somewhere to invite them now while they're here.

Those are the only things that, just, why don't we do it next week?

We'll need it next week.

And let's kind of do it by the 22nd or something.

Also, by doing it now, you make it look like Congress did something good.

I don't think you want to at the moment.

Yeah, we should do our whole deal and do it next week.

So I'm going to be here the 22nd or 23rd.

Let's do it those days.

It's not much.

Fair.

Okay.

Now that...

That's it.

I think otherwise I'm going to get here and get bogged down.

And also everybody feels that they'll have to meet in the Red Room and talk about it.

There were several, there were terrific suggestions by Peterson in that memorandum.

I want those passed around and they'll get that as quickly as possible.

But tell Peterson.

Well, Peterson, Bob, way to impress him is to show him the memorandum, which he will, that I had worked on it on the way back, and that you're going to implement it with him.

If I can place it, I can implement it as a commerce.

So if you're a regular guy, he can get the best out of it.

I mean, he's got ideas there about jobs that are so important.

Oh, the other thing, did you speak to her earlier about the fact that I wanted to include in the budget the money for the SSG in some way?

He's working on it.

He says it's a hell of a problem because he's got to get going on it.

He's taken a swing at that.

I talked to him about that yesterday.

Really?

I think we did something.

I think we could pass the SSG next year.

You agree?

I think probably so.

Rose has something.

It's just that in the closing of that day in the life of the president, they want to have music playing while you're in the Lincoln City room, and they don't have, they want to play the kind of music you would be listening to while in the room.

There was no music on at the time, so they're going to super it on the track.

And Julie, I thought you ought to select what it should be, and she says Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, or Liszt.

Well, it shouldn't be, uh... And Rose is suggesting it should be something that's not too heavy.

Well, I don't play, uh... No, but you can take a Tchaikovsky or, well, any one of those.

You can get a fairly not heavy... Well, I would say, uh...

Wait a minute, wait a minute, let me see.

Maybe it sounds better.

It did.

Swan Lake is still in existence.

Of course, if you need one of the same, Swan Lake, good, Swan Lake, Swan Lake is a beauty.

I mean, in the Army, in the Army, great missions, or, well, Argo, I don't know the same thing.

Either one.

Argo, we know.

That's the only issue.

Swan Lake is a beauty.

Also, that's a nice foundation for Russians, yeah.

Okay.

Now, we wanted to try and get out of one fire.

Well, I don't think you should go.

There's no argument with the other parties.

Could you get me a chili, please?

All right.

You're going to get a lot of this congressional hassling, bill-signing.

Well, it isn't all that, is it?

Also, even the staff is not going to take a picture of themselves.

That's like the problems that have to go around.

Do I do this?

I think maybe that we would.

On the timeline, maybe I would just sit and do it there.

I don't know.

Maybe they'd rather do it in the White House on Sunday afternoon.

I don't want to take Don but it's really easier for them to come down here.

I don't want to be on Sunday alone here.

You don't think so, don't you?

Sunday afternoon would be fine for me, so that I could finish the day and come back to you.

Let's make it, though, in the afternoon, so that, well, it has to be because you're going to church, and, yeah, come back.

I'll make it about four o'clock.

About four o'clock would be nice.

Why don't you make it five o'clock, if you can.

It's actually going to be great.

I wouldn't look for a reporter, but this is in publishing.

I didn't have the interview up in Linden City or something like that.

Sure, sure.

I think it's sort of a personal thing.

Maybe you want to do it here and then go over there for a printout or something.

That'd be, you know, see the Christmas in the White House stuff and all that.

I won't send it.

I can take them on a tour.

And there is a staff open house sometime on Sunday, but I think it's earlier.

I'm not sure.

I'll find out.

Well, if it is, you can avoid that.

I don't really have to do it.

No, it's, no, there's one Saturday and one Sunday.

It's just so they can see the decorations.

Sure.

They don't have to watch it.

Pat went down there to see Pat and Julie.

Pat and Julie, yeah.

Which is a hell of a thing for them to do.

It was nice.

But I said, no, no, no.

Well, you should.

And they don't need to.

I told them I didn't need to.

I just felt that in my case, my gut eye was tired.

And it would have been a nice thing, but what the hell.

If you're going to go, we'd better set it up because it takes them two hours to get the plane.

One o'clock.

So it was one here earlier?

No.

If you meet here at one o'clock, that's okay.

Or 115?

The problem is that I don't, I'm not sure of that.

You want them out of here before you go?

Yeah.

I'm not sure of the leaders.

I don't want that helicopter rolling in here.

Why don't we set it for 115?

But hold it.

The helicopter would be here at 115.

But hold the thing.

Delay that.

We want to get the finest signal from that.

Pull it until the leaders are out.

Don't bring it in until the leaders are out.

I would think it'd be gone by 1230.

This thing, this meeting, it'll take an hour.

Really?

I've never been to a meeting of the rest of you that didn't take an hour.

They'll send questions.

They'll probably have to answer them.

Well, no, maybe not.

Since it's 12 o'clock, they don't want to get out no more.

I don't think they will.

Can we say one?

Yeah, one o'clock, but we'll hold it.

We'll just get out of .

It doesn't come in during the meeting.

That's good.

The VP's not here after all, so it's all right.

Good.

Clark's asking on a special and personal appeal that Cook and Corallo must be permitted to sit around the wall at this meeting.

Mr. Quart, would you be very kind to share?

But they work like hell.

Okay, let me set this up.

He says, we could leave it on a ball.

Yeah, or, or, he says, you know, we're going to, let's just tell them, you know, to be ready in one, and you can solve them as long as you want.

Might as well get there in time.

Yeah, I really think that I ought to be, I hate to write this, but I think that I ought to.

I get constantly back to the fact

Nixon, Haldeman & Connally on Azores Doctrine

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

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Also recorded on December 15, 1971

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Nixon, Haldeman & Connally on Azores Doctrine

AI Summary

Audio

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on December 15, 1971

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Cite this conversation