Nixon phone call with Rogers on Vietnam War and Foreign Aid

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He just wouldn't let go.

Hi, Mr. President.

Well, I wondered, sitting here talking to Ron, and we were sort of trying to trigger our memories on something.

You know, when you handled the Fiber Center case years ago, or is that too long to be blue?

Anyway, the point is, did you have Harry Vaughn?

Did he testify?

Yeah.

been very quiet about it yeah yeah but he was that did you did you try to get anybody else from the executive department uh right i think i got another i'm trying to remember i think there was one other fellow from the white house but one was the principal one and uh and i can't remember were there any who refused to come or did that issue arise no there were none as a matter of fact because he was you know close to truman of course the point was in the bonds case as and of course this is the point we make on adam's

He was charged with malfeasance.

I mean, it was a charge against him, a direct charge.

That's right.

And the same is true in the case of Vaughn.

That's what I mean, Vaughn's case.

Sure, sure, sure.

And the same is true of Sherm, of course.

It was a bad rap in both cases.

You remember who got Sherm to testify?

The president.

President Eisenhower.

call us and we went over and you talked to him, I think, and then I talked to him a little bit.

Well, I don't think getting in the test fire was bad, but I do think in retrospect that when we asked him to leave, well, that was wrong.

That was wrong.

I mean, that was a horrifying day.

You remember?

I think so.

I remember I had to do that.

I know that.

You know, what a rugged thing.

But anyway...

Because he was not a dishonest man.

No, he wasn't.

And he's handled himself pretty well since.

Yeah.

Say, have you got just one more minute?

Sure.

I think you'll be pleased to know that I've been making progress on aid to Vietnam.

And defense also.

Yes, I've got a speech now that I'm trying to get clear to the government, but it's very good on defense, I think.

Yeah.

You don't need to clear it anywhere but through the fence, the fence department.

I'll do that.

Let me tell you what I've done.

I talked to Hubert Humphrey on aid to North Vietnam.

He said he would help us.

He would take a leading role in supporting us.

I talked to Muskie, and he said that he had kept his options open.

He thought in the final analysis he'd probably support us.

I testified the other day.

And the governor wrote me a little note.

Oh, he did.

I know you told me about your testimony.

I didn't know he wrote you a note.

Let me read it to you.

It's very short.

First, he flutters me up a little bit by telling me I'm a great secretary of state.

Then he said, I would like to raise a proposition with you.

I can publicly support reconstruction of Indochina.

I can get a letter from you or the White House saying that the cost of such aid will be taken out of the military budget...

And not from domestic purposes or from increased overall budget expenditures.

Well, you pretty much got the point of the case.

As a matter of fact, Bill, you can, you're welcome to even say that you've talked to me specifically and raised it.

Because actually, I told, you know, I told Defense and National Security, and he wouldn't care about foreign aid, too.

I said it has to, I put it in terms, it must be swallowed by the national security budget.

Now, that means defense plus military assistance.

Well, what I thought I'd do, Mr. President, is call him and tell him that I don't want to have any discussion about aid to North Vietnam for a while.

Correct.

And that I'll be in touch with him later, and that I hope very much that we can work something out.

I'll try to get a letter that'll be satisfactory to him.

That's very good.

talk to a lot of others about it and i think we can work that out now keeping them loose in other words that's right i don't i think that see some of these stories from the pow is going to break after we get them all back that's right and that's going to be a tough time because some of them are going to be pretty bad i have talked uh i have talked myself to denton to uh

and also to Reisner.

And I am going to see Flynn.

Flynn is ill.

He's the only other one I'm going to see because they're the three senior men.

I'm going to see him next week.

And they're all just, Flynn's a great guy, too.

He's a powerhouse.

He wouldn't come out in the first group.

He wanted to wait to be the last one.

Anyway, Denton and Reisner both told me individually, so separately, I said, what about this?

And they said, if you say it is important for purposes of peace,

75 percent of us will support it we he says we've already talked about it he said they've been talking about it so it's interesting that that isn't so i uh i said well now what about the stories though about the atrocities and so forth and they said well they're gonna and then they're horrible i said well uh what about that and i said but on the other hand

you know, they remember there were some atrocities in World War II.

That's right.

Well, I think we also can get a lot of support in the House.

I've talked to some of the conservatives over there, and I think they're going to support us, that we can just keep the conversation down for another 60 days, and then when we get ready to send that, we'll...

I think we could do pretty well on the Republican side, because we can say the whole piece depends upon it.

I hit, I took the 43 new ones, and I hit them on both defense and aid to Vietnam, and I think

We can get maybe 38 of them.

That's not bad.

That's good.

That's a good start.

The thing I'm concerned about basically are some of the, and I'm so glad what you heard about Humphrey and Muskie, for example, is the more partisan people who really think this is a way to screw up the peace.

You know, that's what's at stake here.

That's what's at stake.

Well, I was impressed with McGovern because I didn't ask him.

I wouldn't ask him for anything.

He just volunteered.

He came over after.

He didn't ask any questions or anything.

executive session, and then he handed me this note on the way out.

It shows that he's going to, he doesn't have the guts to vote against us when it gets down to cases.

You don't think so?

No, sir.

Because of what he has said.

What he said.

And I'm having a check made of what everybody said after Johnson made his John Hopkins speech, and what they said after you made your speech.

May 8th, yeah.

I mean not, I mean May 26th.

That's right.

And you'll find that most of them were for it.

As a matter of fact, when I made it again, you know, in January of 1971, the January 25th speech.

That's right.

It was all about that.

That's right.

And we'll have all those ready when the flight comes.

The other thing I was going to ask you, just on a very technical matter, Steve was asking me about the OAS thing.

And as you know, I'm giving the...

You're giving a dinner, and I'm going to give a diplomatic reception at the first event in the fall, probably around the 1st of October.

Now, do you feel that doing an OAS reception would be very important?

I think I could work it out, but how do you feel about it?

I don't think it's that important, Mr. President.

What I mean is it's a gesture to Latin America.

The problem is that

You're going to go to Latin America, and I'm not, of course.

And I don't have any Latin on at this point, but we're going to probably get one on in the fall.

And so I got your note about the others, you know, like the Lebanese.

We're going to have to get him in sometime.

And we've got to get Talbert in.

You know, all these clowns are there.

We've got to come.

And what we're really doing, we're running about.

See, we've got Brant now, Bill, on there.

We've got Brant.

We've got the Italian.

We've got the Japanese.

And then Budo's going to be coming over, and I'm not going to give a dinner probably, but it'll be a visit.

You know, I'd, Mr. Burton, you ought to cut down on some of the, like, Tarleton notes.

If you just see him for half an hour, they'll be happy.

I can give them a dinner or something, and you don't have to bother with them.

It seems to me that you shouldn't put on a big show for all this.

It's too much of a thing.

Certainly no.

I would say this.

I think with some of them, if we can have them without having it be a state visit, they can just come for an appointment.

And the dinner at night is not all that much of a problem.

But if you have to have the welcoming ceremony and all that crap, that shoots a day.

On the OAS, the only thing that occurred to me is,

gesture to the latins means so much and if you think it would mean a hell of a lot i'm seeing santa maria well that's alliance for progress by cm and i don't know that he'll raise it but i just wanted if you think the gesture is important i can do it i can well let me just it's a handshaker as i understand but i would probably have to say some words and i don't i don't really have anything to say aren't you going to be in california i was hoping you'd stay out there for a while i'll be back by the no i thought that oas thing is april 14th i was only going to stay to stay in california

the week of uh we're there we're going out and monday and tuesday then i'm going to stay through the balance of the weeks because i i can't be here what shoes in washington i mean let me let me consider it i i don't understand consider it if it's uh it's it's it's not that much work and i don't mind it at all or maybe we should do it then yeah and uh provided that uh they understand it's a reception and

and give them damn little talking, because I have nothing to say.

Okay, okay.

Nixon phone call with Rogers on Vietnam War and Foreign Aid

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on March 21, 1973

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