On June 6, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, John Cardinal Krol, and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 9:58 am and 10:15 am. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 025-009 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
Hello.
It's President Cardinal Crowell for you.
Yes.
There you are.
Hello.
Hello.
Well, how are you this morning?
Fine.
More important, how are you?
Fine.
Well, I was in Florida over the weekend, and it was raining, so I decided to come back and get to work.
That's the same.
Oh, no.
No problem.
Long haul you had there.
Yes.
Well, I wanted to tell you a little about our bullish stop.
Good.
It was...
There was enormous crowds out.
The government had them fairly well under control, although they let them up on the streets, whereas in the Soviet Union they kept them back about a block off.
But after I laid the wreath, I got on my own car, and as you probably read, I stepped out.
And it was quite a moving thing, because
They're just an eruption.
And all the way along, incidentally, as we drove through the streets, even then, the crowds were all, well, extremely enthusiastic.
We just moved at a pretty fast pace.
That was all.
Generally speaking, though, the sentiment in the country is about as you described it.
I mean, I sense that there's just a great feeling of friendship for the U.S.,
As far as the leadership is concerned, I had a good talk with, well, with several of them, but particularly with Garrick, the new, Gamalka's successor.
He's a very interesting character.
He's, I don't know how he will turn out in the end.
Gamalka, as you know, was very tough and hard-lined and so forth, and as some have said, you may not think you described sort of hardening of the arteries in the head or something.
Yeah.
Garrick is a...
He's a fellow who's vigorous, rather a very attractive personality.
He told me that we got into, on his initiative, a very interesting discussion in religion.
And he said that he was a socialist, a communist.
No, he said communist, and he says his mother was a devout Catholic.
And he said, I want you to know that we in this country, that our relations with the Catholic Church are good, and so forth and so on.
Then he made the point.
We had already, we had discreetly checked as to whether I could call in the Cardinal.
Because of the shortness of the visit, and also because it happened we were there on a religious holiday.
Corpus Christi.
Corpus Christi.
I think the latter was the main thing.
I think they really felt the place would come apart if we did.
and they felt it would be somewhere people felt it might be an embarrassment and so forth but whatever the case might be uh he was aware that that request had been made yes and so was the government and so was the government too the government of the cardinals were able to now the point that he that that that the garrick made though and i don't know whether he was trying to give me a message or not he says i want you to know i talked to him about you and i said well you know my one of my closest friends is a
And you know that this is one of our leading people in the Catholic churches, of course, of Polish background, Cardinal Crow.
Hello?
Waiting.
Hello, I'm sorry, I got cut off.
Oh, Mr. President, I'm awfully sorry.
Yeah, hello?
Hello?
I think we got it cut off when I was saying I had pointed out that one of our leading people in the hierarchy was a Polish background and so forth.
Then we talked about the subject a little bit and he then said that the Polish people were very religious, something Gomułka would never have said.
He then went on to say that, he said, he says, I want you to know that we welcome, we welcome any of those from in the Catholic Church, you know, leaders who want to come here.
And that was the other significant thing was that he said, we would have no, we have no objection to
people from our from the catholic church in poland visiting other countries now i don't know whether that's anything that's new or anything of that sort or not but uh i don't know whether he was trying to give me a message with regard to the cardinal but uh in any event we went into the subject at considerable length but uh i of course was able to to get in my pitch then about
how strongly we felt that Poland, as distinguished from Russia, was following a much better course from the standpoint of American opinion and world opinion by allowing the Church to continue to, you know, so forth and so on.
Now,
Despite all that, of course, there are, as you know, they're very ruthless in some areas.
You gave me a couple of examples.
But I must say, on that day, that Corpus Christi day, boy, they were in the churches by the thousands.
Rogers went by, went by the cathedral that day, and they just lined up, you know, and so there was no fear.
Well, if there was fear, they weren't showing it.
and the young and the old and they were all there uh that was when i was in one of my meetings with the others but uh that's about the feel that i had of the thing as far as the people are concerned they're considerably better off economically although still far from where we were what they ought to be than they were in 1958 deep down they're very
I mean, not only anti-communist, but they're anti-Russian and anti-German both, you know.
That goes a long way.
They don't like either one because both of them have torn them apart.
And they're strongly, they took us out to one of their castles, you know, that they rebuilt.
As you know, they rebuilt the city and the churches where we stayed.
We stayed, actually, in one of the beautiful castles
so-called palace, I guess.
Everything there that's bigger than the house is a palace.
Yeah, and then they had, this was bigger than those palaces, as a matter of fact, but they were, but the way they have done it, I mean, and they're building in the middle of the city, they're rebuilding a very famous
building that was torn uh destroyed by the the by by the war the famous catholic they're actually launching the campaign here in the united states for it yeah trying to promote it for money yeah yeah yeah yeah it's a uh what are you an instrument to not only to get the money but also to
reviver interest in official Poland, so to speak.
Yeah.
Now, we invited, I invited Garrick, of course, to come to this country, having invited the Russians to do so next year sometime.
He'll come, and we'll have to see that he's come.
But basically, have you met him?
I have not met him, no.
Yeah.
Well, basically, and you can't tell about, I mean, I'm not, you can't judge about person.
There's no question about his communist credentials, but basically...
He has a very, shall we say, he hasn't become so encrusted, so totally single-minded and
and tough as some of the leaders have become.
He has a real streak of decency in him.
His wife, too, I found was that way.
As a matter of fact, I was somewhat impressed by the Polish leaders I met.
The prime minister was a good man.
By that I mean good man, totally dedicated communist, which they have to be.
But on the other hand, trying to make their own way, desperately eager to have
opportunities to have economic and other relations with the United States on a basis somewhat independent of that of the Soviet and the like.
This is important for them, yes.
And to give them a separate identity.
Now my feeling of course is that we've got to go forward with that because you just can't let 33 million people sit there and
you know, in purgatory, in my view.
I think we've got to give them some hope with our eyes wide open as to what we're doing.
That's, I mean...
It's got to be reciprocal.
Yeah, that's right.
It's got to be reciprocal.
That's right.
You cannot sell the United States and you cannot sell Poland, but somewhere between.
Somewhere between, that's right.
And we've talked on that basis and they seem to be, well, they laid out some fairly...
heavy requests on the other hand they said now we are they said we are proud we said we're proud that we always pay our debts etc etc etc they went on a great length i said well we'll look into it so we're going to have peterson stop by there in july when he goes to europe but all in all the my reaction is that the people themselves are just well our one of the interesting observations i was talking to the steward a filipino chief munson
And I said, what do you think of the countries?
He said, Poland is, compared to Russia, it's like night and day.
And of course, as you know, it is very, because the people are, it's even, for example, the people that he had to work with, the servants, the kitchen, we had to give a luncheon, and of course our people worked with the Poles.
And he said they were friendly, they're pro-American, they're not as ruthless and mean and so forth.
so for whatever that's worth now these are these are more average bulls not party types i don't mean and i noticed another interesting thing that when i got out of the car the police uh were not nearly as rough as the russian police the russian belief were police were rough and incidentally so i had found when i was in east germany many years ago out of office boy they're the roughest they are the german communist
I mean, he has the toughness of the German with the communist on top, and that makes a real rough person.
But the Poles had a more, well, they smiled, and the policemen, for example, as they were trying to hold the crowds back, you know, I'd put my hand out, they shook hands, you know, they were very...
It was smothered.
Yeah, but the thing is that I thought that the police acting that way was extremely interesting.
but all in all it was really worth doing i was really worth going because it gave us a real lift after our long our imprisonment in the kremlin you're aware that it was the evening before you arrived and my it was an interview question and answer form that was taped over for your radio yes well it was a night uh it was so scheduled in the brain that's right and i think that may have accounted for the the government didn't incidentally they gave out no flags
You know, they didn't have any attempt for the government to come out, but the Poles were out in just... Oh, they didn't even announce the time scheme?
The time or the route.
Yeah.
But they have a way of knowing, and they were there, and as I said, out at that war memorial, they were there by the tens of thousands, and they... Well, that's what they call a radish communication.
They read on the outside, read on the inside.
Yeah, yeah.
It's a kind of a compensatory, almost, using the conscience, sharing this information with the people.
Generally, the total impact was excellent, as you view it from a layman's view.
And I think the fact that he did, of course, Garrick is a practical man.
He's basically a communist, but he's had the advantage of living outside of Poland and France for a while.
And he has a better evaluation and appreciation of
life's practicalities than McGrath ever had.
And in this sense, it's only, of course, it's a question of how much he can control, too.
Yes, and whether they'll let him.
Yeah, this is a...
The Russians, yeah.
But it was good if he made...
Well, he brought the religious thing up.
It could have been a reaction to your broadcast and it came up and we talked forever.
And also when he sat by Mrs. Nixon at lunch, he went through the same routine with her.
He knew her, you know, something about her background and so forth.
Her father was a...
an Irish Catholic, of course.
So he played to that, too.
But he did say that the thing that was interesting to me, he said that the people would be most welcome to come to Poland and Klinger, and he said, and also to visit other countries.
So I just couldn't...
I don't know what he was trying to convey, but whatever.
This may have been relayed through the general counsel here that I said no matter what they talk about freedom, that until the day that Cardinal Vyshinski can set foot on this soil, all their arguments are going to be neutralized by that.
Well, what I'm going to do on that is to follow up in my own channels now and to see if we can have a way that he can come over, because he would get a...
heroes welcome over here undoubtedly i think it would be be well if he we would have to arrange it that he came perhaps after shortly after with the poll probably come early next year garrick right after that because otherwise there would be an invidious comparison there would be anyway but if he comes it would really be a
It would be an enormous thing.
And frankly, it would be good for Poland.
I mean, if they were just to see it, I mean, they can coexist with the church there.
I mean, they've done it so far, and they can continue.
And anyway, they've got no choice because the Polish people just aren't going to have it washed out of them.
That's what I figured out.
Well, they won't.
And as long as they try to agitate on this core, they're going to have problems.
They can get away with it progressively for some years, but eventually it backfires.
Yeah.
They lose influence.
Right.
I was interested, incidentally, in talking to the Brezhnev.
They really got it organized over there.
He takes a full month off in the summer to go to the Black Sea, and he takes two weeks off.
in the winter, just regularly.
Well, you see, that's the dictatorial power.
That's right.
He doesn't have to worry about being back and being out in front.
No, that's not the difference, but I think that he can have that.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I was just so moved by those people there.
They've got such great faces, and I was just, the only thing I regret is that there's not some way we could break them off, because, boy, they are ready.
They are ready.
I'd hate to be in Garrick's position, you know, sitting on top of that thing.
And I'd hate to be the Russians.
Because the Poles, what I mean is, the Poles, in my view, I mean, the Russians can't depend on those Polish divisions, not on your life.
Well, they can swing around.
Those Polish divisions, well, there's not going to be a war, we trust, but if they came along, I think they'd come over in two minutes.
Find out their switch hitters.
That's right.
All right.
Well, we'll follow up on the Brzezinski thing, and I'll keep you posted.
Very well.
Thank you.
Bye.