Conversation 124-003

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I guess the rain isn't going to be the same.

I've done the best I can.

Well, gentlemen, we, John, this is a meeting of the bipartisan theory that we know is a big buy, but also needs.

Come on in, Jack.

Mr.

Chair, Mr.

Chair, but the board relations and our services and appropriations, it seems that it would be of interest to you

to have this meeting because we want the case to develop in two areas.

One, you know Bill Rodgers is an interest in Latin America.

One of the things, and it's pressing that at this time we don't really care about Latin America because

The crime, of course, is not the idea now.

And second, that as far as those couples concerned,

All it was was a big rush of riots and that sort of thing.

As a matter of fact, no one can go to Latin America, I can assure you, and I am an expert on it, and his coup has come on.

But the other point is that out of Bill's campaign, some very interesting observations, which I'd like to share with you.

Bill, if you could take some time on that sort of thing.

I think that many of you will know that we're still looking south as well as to the west, at least.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I thought I might say a few words and then maybe some questions because

It's a pretty big study to cover in a short period of time.

Some states, Mr. President, there were actually no riots at all.

As a matter of fact, I didn't see any sign of hostility in any of the eight countries I visited.

There was a Time magazine article written, I think, before I got there, saying we're going to have riots, but we didn't have any.

Not at all.

And I saw a lot of people sitting around the street in different areas, and they were all friendly.

There was just no sign of hostility.

Now, that doesn't mean there isn't anti-American cinema, because there is, but it was not apparent as far as my business was concerned.

I visited eight countries, met with all of the leaders, and I think it was a good trip.

I started out on this.

with the idea that the discussions would be business-like, I tried to minimize any social implications.

In some of the countries, it says social implications, but I kept them to a minimum.

Secondly, I tried to prevent any

occasions when we have any attempt to stimulate support in the United States.

In other words, I asked them not to try to take us through areas with a lot of people that need that.

What I was anxious to do was to have business discussions with each nation and to listen to them to find out what they thought our policy should be.

to explain to them what our policies were, and to develop a relationship with Latin American countries, the same kind of relationship that we have with Western European countries, if you will.

That we hadn't quit treating them as inherent, that colonialism was dead, that we were interested in talking to them as equals, and play out what they thought, and tell them what we thought.

And I think the trip was very successful.

Now, I would be glad if any of you have any interest in joining me in a conference in each one of these countries.

I'll be glad to show you the, if you're interested, the reports back from the discussions and the initials of the reports that were made to our embassies in each one of these countries.

The first country I visited was Mexico.

Our relations in Mexico are very good.

We only have one problem, really, and that's the solidity problem.

Um, we did submit to the Mexican government, at least for its land, for its community, but we did submit to the intercomers of Mexico that they were fighting their game.

They proposed a solution which, uh, was suggested by Erdogan.

Now, as the President pointed, it's a special representative to deal with this, with this subject.

The Mexicans have not reacted yet to that proposal.

We plan to have some active discussions in the next few weeks with them about it.

And at that point, if there is an agreement, of course, we'll have to submit the matter to Congress for approval.

And we're not sure yet how that's going to work out.

But we hope very much that we can work out this solution to this very difficult problem that's plagued us.

The fact of the matter is we're on the wrong side of this issue.

We have hesitated to take it to court because if we took it to court, we'd lose.

The fact that we have not complied with the treaty and a lot of the Mexico farmers have been injured by the content of the water that's thrown into their lands in Mexico.

So we'd like very much to solve this problem.

It's not something that we're saying we're on the wrong side of the issue.

It's very bold.

I disagree.

So go ahead.

Well, when I say wrong side of the issue, I mean in terms of whether we would win it or legally, you're right, I can assure you that we'd lose it if we went into that international trade trouble.

No way.

There's no way we could win it.

And what we want to try to do is to work it out with the Mexican government.

Except for that, our relations with Mexico are very good.

Echeverria, who has been leading in the direction of socialists a good deal in recent years and has talked that way, has had a change of attitude.

His view has changed as a result of his visits to the Soviet Union.

Very interesting.

He didn't get along with them well, or they didn't get along with him.

He doesn't think much of their system, and his attitude toward capitalism has been affected by it.

So for the first time in any discussions I've had with him, I've been impressed by the fact that I think our relationship is going to be better.

Now we have to remember in all of these countries that the leaders, and Echeverria is a good example, are vying for positions.

They're all trying to become the leaders of the hemisphere.

And they are playing to the left because the left is the loudest segment of the society.

And Echeverria is no exception.

But his rhetoric has changed.

His reception this time of us was excellent.

And I think that if we can solve this problem of solidity, that we should have a long period of good relations with Mexico.

One of the things that's interesting,

When he was in Russia, he realized that he can't sell to Russia very much.

Somebody asked him about it.

He said, well, one of the reasons that I realized the importance of my relationship with the United States as a result of my visit to Moscow, he said, how could I sell them $100 million worth of tomatoes a year?

He sells us $100 million worth of tomatoes.

And I think that we've got to make it clear that

And a country like Mexico has got to develop an attitude toward us the way Canada did.

And that attitude is we mutually benefit by trade.

And there's no place in the world that Mexico can have trade the way they can in the United States.

The second country I visited was Venezuela.

Venezuela is on the eve of an election.

They're going to have an election in December.

And both sides are playing the anti-American theme a little bit.

So the public reception was not quite as warm as it was in other countries, but the private reception was very warm.

Secondly, they are in the process of negotiating higher prices on oil.

So they're developing a negotiating position which says, in effect, that just because we're in the hemisphere don't take us for granted because we want to do what the Arab nations are doing.

We want to get higher prices for our oil.

And they are a little bit antagonistic because I think they're developing a negotiating position.

On the other hand,

Most of their trade is with the United States.

They like the United States, and that's why the people like us.

And I think that once the elections are over, we'll have a climate that's improved.

In Colombia, our relations are excellent.

They couldn't be any better.

Our aid program has been a great success there.

The Colombian government is very close to us.

They agree with us on the OAS.

They have problems, economic problems, because they don't have the resources that others like us will have, but they have very high-class people, and the chairman is an intelligent group of people.

and our relations with them are very good.

Of course, in the case of Venezuela, because of the oil, they are developing into a very successful nation.

They're gonna be the rich nation in Latin America for a very long time.

So that our relations with Mexico and Colombia are good, and Venezuela, we've got to be a little bit careful.

It seems to me we've got to, we're gonna change ambassadors there.

It's very important we get a man who understands the oil picture, who's a good businessman,

who can deal realistically with that government.

The fourth country I went to was Peru, and our relations, as you know, have been really pretty solid there because they have a military government.

They have been very nationalistic.

Their nationalism has been anti-American to some extent, but not too much so.

I was able to meet with their president, a man named Velasco, who just had his leg amputated.

And I was the first American, in fact, I was the first foreign official who met with him since that amputation.

I think we've made progress there in improving our relations.

The government is totally military.

All the candidates are military people, but they are very intelligent people.

A lot of them have been educated in the United States.

And there's no doubt about it that they believe in what they're doing.

They make a very good case in that they say, we have had political leaders in our country for years, and they've been most unsuccessful.

We're the poorest country in Latin America.

We've done the least for our people.

Our military people are the best educated, and we've finally decided that we will take over and secretly help the people.

And we're not communists, and we're not capitalists.

We're pragmatics.

And we're going to deal with these things in a practical way, and we think we can improve for the conditions of living in our country.

And they're an impressive group of men.

The last one probably won't survive.

He looks very mad.

He's had a very bad heart attack, which caused his leg to be amputated.

and he looked very weak.

The prime minister is a very fine man named Mercado.

He used to be foreign minister.

I think he is reasonably friendly with the United States.

They were very pleased that they had a chance to talk with us.

They're anxious to approve their relations with us.

And I think that the visit was quite successful and I was particularly pleased that the press is uniformly favorable as a result of the visit.

And it was completely changed from the time I started it.

There's a day before, two days before, the press was quite hostile.

And then there was a more friendly, a lot of us there.

When I left, it completely changed around, and then all the editors and so forth were favorable.

But then, coincidentally, I stopped in Nicaragua on the way down.

Of course, Managua is just, it's unbelievable.

I can't believe that devastation.

675 square blocks, completely devastated, right in the middle of the city.

Buildings, seven, eight stories high, just wiped out.

You can't imagine.

And it all happened in about 25 seconds.

The only building that's standing is the hotel.

And the top of that was destroyed.

The structure was nothing.

Everything else, all the buildings, just wiped out.

Of course, we've helped very much.

They're very appreciative of our efforts.

And we got a tremendous, you might expect, tremendous crowd reaction.

The president reported that there must have been 300,000 people out flying the streets, yelling, cheering, and so forth.

Going down to the most, really, the country that's most impressive in Latin America is Brazil.

Brazil is, you know,

It's really a common menace to see the President.

He's a very impressive man.

They have really had a miracle economic recovery.

And they're very friendly to the United States.

Our relations couldn't be better.

We don't have any problems.

The only problem we have is now appearing to be too friendly because they don't want to appear to be just aligned with the United States.

But it's an amazing country.

I don't know how many of you have been there, but if you have a chance to go, be sure to go.

The government is thoughtful, sensible, not political.

All of the discussions we had were very businesslike.

Brasilia started out to be, they thought they might have 500,000 people.

At the end of the century, it's already had 600,000 people.

It's a busting place.

It's really a great country to go to.

It's a military government, if you will.

It's a government that's well-run.

Medici's spinning over power to this next year to another government.

He feels he's spending far long enough.

And it's really quite a place.

Then I want to talk to Tina, to the inauguration.

And they, it seems to me, are playing it publicly very much toward the left.

Allende was there and the president of Cuba, and they made a big fuss about both of them publicly because a lot of the young people are leftists.

And they gave Allende an opportunity to make speeches

in the inauguration services.

So, and obviously, they're publicly paying that line.

They recognize Cuba today, established diplomatic relations with Cuba.

And, but in private discussions, I was quite encouraged because I met most of the new cabinet.

Interestingly enough, the Minister of Foreign Affairs,

who was educated in University of Pennsylvania and took law in NYU, his wife went to NYU.

A man who's about as close a camper as anybody in the cabinet is the minister of education who told me that his life was saved by doctors in New York 20 years ago.

He had a cancer operation and he said, I owe my life to the United States.

Two or three of the other ministers, young ministers, appeared to be very pro-United States

and said that they hope that we understand their position, that they're living with Peron and Eva.

That's how they take power.

But in private discussions, they integrate an interest in having a good relationship with us.

They promise us, and they assure us that way, that they will consult with us about anything.

expropriation, anything of that kind that they want to work together with.

And I had a good meeting with Cantor.

I think I was the only exception in the presence.

I think I was the only foreign minister that bet with him.

And he was very friendly and said his best at the prison.

So I think that the visit to Isatino was a success.

They had some trouble.

They had a mob scene of about 400,000 or 500,000 people at the inauguration.

They had quite a lot of shootings, killed a few people.

It was difficult.

We went to the inauguration itself, but we couldn't get, most everybody couldn't get to the next ceremony at all.

The cameraman had to go by helicopter.

He couldn't drive in.

The mob scene was so huge.

They turned cars over, and it reminded you a little bit of Italy before World War II.

But I think that Camper is going to be more of a man on his own than you think.

And I'm sure at the moment he's playing the Caron line.

He gave a long speech about Eva Caron and she's more popular than Caron according to the audience reaction.

But I have a feeling that because of the age of Caron, 78 or so, that Camper feels that he will ride this out this way.

He's not a boob the way that

and press pictures of these intelligent fellows.

He's got intelligent people around him.

And I think that they'll try to take him off by playing to the left, and in the meantime, they'll try to see if they can't do something about their inflation.

Their inflation is terrible.

On the black market, about four years ago, a dollar was worth maybe 10, what do you call them, escudos?

Now that was a thousand.

In other words, inflation has been 100 times the last one.

And inflation is, I think it's doubling every year or something, 100% inflation.

Anyway, I think they're quite aware of this, and I think they're going to try to be a business like government, below the surface, and they're going to be very,

very leftist, actually politically.

No, I think that in that part of this, of the continent, the controversy is going to be between Brazil and all the other Latin American countries that Joe's in, and Argentina and Chile and possibly Peru, so anti-Brazil.

You're quite conscious of that.

That really is the struggle there.

They talk about the United States a good deal, but the struggle really is going to be between Brazil and the other Latin American countries.

Brazil is going to be the very dominant position in the years to come.

I don't know how the trip could have been any more successful.

We saw everyone we planned to.

All of the discussions were, I think, productive.

We were able to either settle a lot of the minor irritations we had, or we had made provisions to settle a lot of the minor irritations we have in each country.

And we've established a new approach to the hemisphere.

And I think it's important for us to pay a lot more attention to the hemisphere.

I also stopped in Jamaica on the way back.

And I think Jamaica will play a leading role in the Caribbean.

And it's awfully important for us to be conscious of that because we have videos of investment in Jamaicans where there are, it's an area where there's probably no trouble because of the racial problems.

The government of Jamaica is quite a responsible government.

Both parties are capable people, have capable people.

And they appreciate it very much that we stopped in the Caribbean on the way back.

I think that's always been what I get me.

Well, I had a meeting with Allende for about 13 minutes.

Allende is, Allende needs help.

He's in terrible, he's in terrible shape.

But he is, he obviously is very much against the United States.

Now, he's a smooth fellow, very attractive fellow, personally.

But he is, the dedicated my assistant is,

100% against the United States, all they have to do is listen to his speeches.

He needs our help very much, and he'd like to have it both ways.

He'd like to have our support, he'd like to have some financial support from us, but he'd like to publicly be very hostile to the United States.

And he can't have it both ways, it seems to us.

And I told him that we were very happy to improve our relations with him, but it required

And that he was really interested in improving relations with us.

He'd have to respect the American investment.

He'd have to make some appropriate way of compensating our companies.

And that obviously he had a right to do what he wanted to internally, but we had a right to too.

And he said he'd like very much to improve his relations with us.

And he said, I need the United States.

But I think we ought to just conclude that he is very much against the United States.

I don't think he'll change.

The provocation that you have, we have to face it.

I know there are those in this country who with the best intentions say, well, there's the elected officials and so forth and so on.

Why don't we open up the coffers and loans and so forth to

just as in the situation of Madison West previously, you come down to a basic problem to face in the world, and it's this.

Where a government follows a deliberative policy of not only being against the United States in speeches and arrests, which is one thing, but also a deliberative policy of confiscation

uh without a proper compensation for it when that is done that this country which can do the most for other countries not through what government does for government but through private enterprise and so forth this country is in a spot and it doesn't make we just can't be in a position we can't be in a position where in effect we turn the other way when

Governments deliberately follow a policy that is anti-U.S. Now, we can, in terms of their expropriation and so forth, we have this problem not only in Latin America, we have it also in the committees where

What does he do?

His policy toward the United States is one that is even handed.

That's fine.

His policy is anti-American, anti-American not only in a fair way to government basis, but in relationship with his government's attitude toward American citizens who have investments in our country.

We have to respond accordingly.

Before that, Mr. President, he, at the inauguration, he was called upon to make a speech at the parliament.

The parliament had a meeting honoring the delegation's

And he made a speech, and it was a very anti-American speech in Argentina.

So he not only is domestically against us, he is against us in the whole hemisphere.

Thank you.

Well, we will go on if we can now until the end.

Henry, I think it would be useful if you gave the leaders a very brief recap on the Paris

and closely held due to the fact that we are still in the process of very intense negotiations to reinstate, well, I say reinstate, to reinforce the peace agreement.

Some constructive steps have been taken and more will be taken, we believe, but Henry will fill you in briefly on that and then I'd like for him to turn to the Pompidou meeting.

I would like to meet with the leaders after we return.

This is a meeting with the Bay 3 and the Bay 4.

This is the key.

to the Europeans, because while France, we'll put it this way, well, France may, under expressive attitudes, feel it can get along without Europe, it can't get along without France.

It really gets down to that.

And the Europeans know that.

When they talk to Brahm, when they talk to he, when they all, of course they go, we would like to do this or that or the other thing, but they all come back to what are the French gonna do?

Because there are economic reasons as well as political reasons and so forth.

France is, you know, it's really important.

That's why the Pompidou meeting, therefore, of all so-called many summits prior to the, that we hope will be a meeting sometime this fall, I believe, you know,

uh why the opportunity is so important i will give you a little blip the veil now but when i return i would like to report to the same group that's out in the mountain where you stand because they don't know where you're going to try to get something to

anything like troops through Europe and all that sort of thing.

We know the controversy on that issue.

It was involved here, political and economic and other considerations that Henry was touched upon.

Henry, if you will say what you can about the Paris talks.

You may need to give a good deal as to where it goes.

We don't need to be as pessimistic as some of you might be on this one.

Go ahead.

I have to be somewhat circumspect about what I say because C-Doc Coe and I agreed at the end of the meeting that neither of us would make any public comment because part of the negotiations involved other parties.

And it was recognized that both of us would have to talk to other parties at the end of the meeting.

a task which would get more complex if there were a video of public controversy.

The previous public discussion is obvious that both Saigon and the Viet Cong have...

uh, their own views on some of these matters, and the chiefs are the Laotian and Cambodian parties, which are also involved.

Let me say, we had very intense negotiations.

We met, uh, over 30 hours in plenary sessions, and then Ambassador Sullivan met for 10 more hours on technical matters with his opposite, National Vice Minister Tuck.

And what we did is we went through the agreement and we established on the first day the principle that each side should openly say its conflict.

Each side should say exactly what it objected to in the behavior of the other, which was planted on both sides.

We had our complaints about infiltration, violations of the ceasefire, non-observance of Pilau's and Cambodian clauses in the agreement, failure to comply with the MIA, which I stated to comply with the MIA, to comply with the DSC.

Their complaints were mostly concentrated in the political area and the performance of the political provisions of the agreement and also in the ceasefire area.

We went through these.

besides putting forward its views of remedial action.

And then we had tough, but I must say, constructive negotiations.

He agreed that at the end of the meeting, I would say, very significant progress was made, and he would confirm it, which is what he did.

We have made very major progress on Vietnam and Laos.

We've had extensive discussions on Cambodia, which we will continue next.

next week, and as we said, as I said on behalf of the North Vietnamese stewards, when I left and when we return on June 6th, we hope to conclude an agreement or a communique at the next session, which we don't know how long it will take, three or four days.

will be another attempt to spell out the obligations of each side and the actions of each side.

And of course, again, one cannot guarantee performance.

On the other hand, one would have to say that it at least gives each side an opportunity to make a fresh start that there's no need for them to make another agreement just to break it immediately again.

So maybe if it progresses as we hope,

We think that the prospect of the ceasefire in Vietnam, and as you may have noticed, the violations have already started dropping since these negotiations, since the negotiations started.

There has been a steady drop in the number of ceasefire violations in Vietnam.

So we are reasonably optimistic about the discussions next week.

And we will, of course, give you a full briefing as soon as the other side agrees that the facts, that the negotiations can be put out as soon as they are essentially concluded.

The North Vietnamese seem to be interested in improving their relations with us.

They recognize that they cannot do this and violate the agreement.

They recognize that any possibility there may exist for cooperation can only, must depend on their observance of the agreements with respect to Laos and Cambodia.

Now the question is whether we can work out a solution which is, which takes into account the necessities of each side.

We also recognize that the performance on our side has to be improved, not so much on the U.S. side, but on the side of some of our allies.

And we have had extensive discussions in Saigon on this subject, and I've talked to the chairman about it on Saturday.

But it is, essentially, we understand, Mr.

Ambassador, the Chancellor, what we will do, we'll be honest, we'll give you a reason.

Probably, I would say, not before the 10th of June, or my guess is that your meeting's going to last three, four days.

I think that I look at the days before the meeting, but I...

So I guess 11 is in London.

Yeah, but we'll have it then because I know there's a, when we talk about Latin America and even here in Europe, there's still a very overriding interest in Vietnam and so forth and the compliance with the agreement.

There is nothing wrong with this agreement.

It's like so many agreements.

The parties are here to it.

We are here to it.

The other parties, of course, now, if they were here to it, particularly the Vietnamese, we can have a year of uneasy, but, shall we say, real peace in that area.

We're not renegotiating.

We're talking about peace.

implementation of provisions which are not being disputed.

And this negotiation is not about getting new provisions.

It's about figuring out how one can have the existing provisions implemented better.

For example, how one can place the various teams in such a way that they get the best assurance of observance of the ceasefire and of the observance of the political.

For example, there is a provision in the Greenwich, you know,

which provides an against infiltration.

No infiltration, of course, personnel, whatever, and only as far as arms is concerned, only replacement.

Now that provision has been violated, not by us, but by the other side.

We're trying to find out

to develop new methods for policing and enforcing that particular provision.

There is a provision in the agreement, for example, for withdrawal of all horses from Laos and all horses from Cambodia are refunded.

That provision is not being complied with.

There is a provision provided for the Italian career my age and so forth.

That provision is not being complied with.

So what we're trying to do here, and what these rather tortuous negotiations, and they're almost done, have been aiming at, is

to take the agreement that we have and find ways to strengthen it so that these areas can be complied with.

Now, unless and until the agreement is complied with from the other side, there will be, of course, more consideration on our side than the need of reconstruction, and that's where the chips are, and you make that clear, and they understand that.

For example, at the present time, the economic

And it will not be until we make some progress in these other areas.

The same is true with regard to removal of the mines and so forth.

That will be continued as soon as the agreement is in place.

And we go ahead with the European side now.

President had announced several months ago

that with a little bit after the Soviet and Chinese began to live, he would turn next to the rebuilding or recapturing of the Atlantic relationships in the light of the realities that now exist.

The reason was that many of the structures that now exist, many of the policies that were formed in the late 40s and early 50s

and that the ideas of men on which they were based, some of which had to be adapted to the conditions of the present period.

As a result, the President Daniels reported the Congress on foreign policy in a speech which I gave on his behalf to the Associated Press.

The administration pointed out

the rebuilding or the recapturing of the Atlantic Ocean.

Now there has been a response in at least some of the publications in Europe which has been somewhat ambitious.

What we are trying to do is to adapt the defense economic, political,

in which we feel now exists, and in which we are trying to take account of the emerging incompatibilities between these various fields.

In the economic field, there is a tendency to conduct relationships on the basis of regional sovereignty, sometimes working on trade war.

In the defense field, we are conducting them on the basis of an integrated defense, treating exactly areas of unity.

In the political field, each nation conducts its foreign policy more or less autonomously and sometimes has a tendency to use allied unity as a veto of other people's action but not as a restraint on its own.

So what the President is attempting to do this year in Europe is to try to get a coherent approach into these relations to ask ourselves what are the requirements for defense in the next ten years

How should the burdens be allocated?

What should the economic relationship be between the two sides of the Atlantic?

How should foreign policy be conducted in an age of decline where each country has its own approaches to the Soviet Union and sometimes to Communist China, and yet where the actions of each country affect everybody else?

In other words, how much unity do we need and how much autonomy can we stand?

This is what the President has proposed.

We should express in some set of principles, some basic considerations that should guide our actions over the next few years.

And this is what we meant by the Great Atlantic Charter, though we hold no grief for any particular threat.

Now then, we have had a number of comments from you, though, semi-official mostly, along the following lines.

One, we're trying to lock this negotiation

and the Europeans object to that.

They want to conduct it as a separate negotiation.

Now we don't care how the negotiation is conducted, and probably it would be best if these negotiations were conducted technically separately.

But we do say that there is a relationship between economic relationships and defense relationships.

Not a relationship that we make as a condition of the negotiation, but a relationship which is a fact of life.

It is impossible for Europe and the United States

to be engaged in an extreme case of having a trade war while the United States maintains the principal defense commitment to Europe.

Now that is a fact of life which we are asking the Europeans to address.

And therefore we are not making a particular level of commitment conditional on a specific concession.

We are saying that the Europeans in approaching the economic negotiations which we are prepared to conduct

We should keep in mind the facts of life as they affect the United States situation and the defense team.

Secondly, they say we want to treat them as a regional area and we reserve the right to be global.

That's wrong too.

We would be delighted if the Europeans wanted to play a global role.

We have no particular interest in being the country that has global responsibilities alone in the Western world.

we've been told for 20 years that they didn't want to do it.

If they want to do it, there will be no opposition from us.

On the contrary, they'll get enthusiastic support.

So much of the nitpicking that is now going on is really a way for various bureaucracies to position themselves prior to extremely complex and technical negotiations

the economic field, which may be painful to some of them, and the defense field, which forces them to re-examine some traditional conceptions.

But what is it that we are really trying to achieve?

For 20 years now, or maybe not for that long, but for too long, the Atlantic relationship has been running on momentum.

It has been carrying out, it has been

carry out policies that were established quite a long time ago by means of institutions that have developed a bureaucratic momentum of its own according to certain liturgical formulas.

And we think it is extremely dangerous if there is not an infusion of new ideas and if there is not a new capital created which gives people on both sides of the

important in an era of detour, where in every country foreign policies and successes tend to be identified with relations with adversaries, and where the relations with friends become less of a public priority in people's minds.

And if this process continues, the danger is very real, that the adversaries will in time gain a veto over the actions of governments whose

whose whole public position depends on their relationship with them.

So what we would hope to achieve in the relationship with the Europeans is to leave behind some goals where we want to go, in the defense field, in the economic field, and in the political field.

So that by the time the President travels to Europe later this year, we can come up with a set of rather detailed principles, which can then be implemented in subsequent negotiations in greater detail.

so that we can answer to ourselves just exactly what it is we are defending and how.

How we want to organize our economic relationship and how the diplomacy of the two parts fits together where we act separately and where we have direct authority.

Now the role of France in this is extremely important because many of these matters

field, the French have pretty well dominated the common market bureaucracy.

In the defense field, the French have played a lone hand.

In the political field, no country in Europe really wants to go against the French.

So it is important, or we will try, or the President will try in his talks with President Pompidou to first get his agreement with his general approach

On this, I think we have a very good chance, based on my conversations with the president and the other presidents we have, when I was over there for the negotiations last week, and then to work out a set of procedures by which we can negotiate this process in a realistic way, without it being absorbed in all the existing institutions that talk to them, and

become a series of nitpicking sessions.

Whether we can operate with a smaller group and then put it before a larger forum so that when the President goes there, we will have a well-prepared meeting, knowing what the groundwork of the and the relations with the French are going to be quite important.

Now, the French undoubtedly

trade issues and they will want to make them a little cooperation conditional on our giving them some concessions in the monetary and commercial field.

We in turn can't, our approach is going to be to get the general agrees and fears from where they're trying to go before we start acting over individual, over individual items.

But the results

When we return, especially to most of you gentlemen, we can then put before you what the results are for this meeting.

We want to put before you the general approach that we are following, what we hope to achieve, and also to indicate that our talks at the highest levels with the French have been more, have been more constructive than what lower-level officials and French newspapers have been saying.

The last thing we add to that is that overriding all of this situation with regard to Europe is frankly what most people hate.

It was the success of our moves toward China and toward Russia.

Looking, for example, at the Soviet Union, the fact that the United States has had one summit with one another in the Soviet Union for about three weeks, with major

agreements being reached, the fact that we have also agreed now to go forward with the European Security Conference, the fact that there are going to be negotiations on the mutual reduction of forces, the BFR so-called, overriding of all, is the feeling in really thoughtful quarters that

The new U.S.-Soviet relationship could result in the total disintegration of the free community of Europe.

Without indicating what those Soviet may be and so forth and so on, we can certainly look at Europe and we can see that there are various public opinions there.

that would like to seize upon this new relationship between the U.S. and the Soviet Union as a very good reason to turn inward rather than play a low role, Henry, to play no role except a broker role.

In other words, it isn't just the relationship between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, but most of the European countries

And they wanted us, they said to do that, but now that we've done it, the point that they're making is that they say, well, the world has changed.

Now, what has not changed, and what they have to realize has not changed, that insofar as the Soviet military capability is concerned, as directed against Western Europe, not only has it not receded, it has increased.

And that is a fact of life they must face.

well for the mutual reduction of forces in Europe.

We are for that.

It does mean, however, that if you go forward with that and with the European Security Conference and the rest, that this is a time of very potential danger to an alliance.

Danger in the sense that some would like to take these events as an indication

that no problem exists, no need exists for the kind of alliance we personally have.

And what we have to realize is that how we got where we are is by being in a position of strength.

How we can get further in reducing tensions in the world, in our relations with the Soviet, in our relations with the rest of the bloc, is to continue to do it on a mutual basis.

I know the views of many members of the House and Senate and so forth with regard to reduction of forces in Europe, with regard to reduction of the defense budget and the rest.

I respect those views.

The only thing that I would say is this.

Let us do it on a mutual basis.

We will negotiate it.

We have indicated that we have.

We're going to negotiate with the Soviet Union, for example, with regard to nuclear arms and the electronic sun, this time offensive weapons.

But we have to realize, all of us must realize that it is only the mutual reduction of forces that increases the chances for peace in the world.

A reduction which changes the balance where we are weaker and they are stronger would greatly increase the nature of the world.

That's what it gets down to.

So our goal is the same.

We want to get the defense budget down.

We would like to get this huge burden of arms down.

We'd like to have better relations with everybody in the world.

But it takes two, together and working together.

And that's what we're working for.

Now coming back to Europe, let me really look at the present time.

The leaders of Europe recognize this, the Brons and the East and the Montagues and so forth.

The problem is that, on the other hand, is that they, like here, here in our own country, they would like to find that they have great pressures to move toward basically an isolationist policy.

Therefore,

This is the time, we believe, for reexamination of all of our, of the reasons for the alliance.

To the extent they are still valid, they shall be, we shall continue to implement them to the extent they need to be modified, they will be.

The other point I would make is with regard to what is called leakage.

Now that's a bad word.

The Soviet doesn't like to hear, you or me, we don't like to hear it.

Take the Europeans and the Japanese.

What they like to do normally is to negotiate monetary matters solely apart from what the United States does to assure the security of Japan.

Let's face it.

If you were in London or in Paris or in Bonn or Rome, you would know very well that without the seal of the United States, you'd be living in terror.

And in Japan,

they know that while they're tsunami giants, they're a military team, and that's what, so what we're really talking about here is that whether or not we go forward on a basis where we negotiate the trade matters, we negotiate the monetary matters, totally without relationship to basically the political and defense matters,

What I am saying is this, that we believe the time has come that the United States and its relationship with our major economic friends in the world, in the free world, with the Japanese and with the European community,

that we are in for a time where there's got to be some very hard-headed negotiation.

That's why we need a trade bill.

We've got to go up in order to be able to go down.

And in this business of having a one-way street where the U.S. goes down, but we can't go up, that's gone.

It's done.

It means, too, that in terms of monetary matters and the rest of whatever the case might be, that we...

We're going to be reasonable.

We're going to protect our own interests.

We don't say it's in a capitalistic sense, but we say it's because of our own need to defend our interests.

And finally, we cannot consider, we cannot really consider the U.S. role in the world vis-a-vis Europe solely

in a compartmentalized fashion.

We can't, well, as Henry has pointed out, of course, you negotiate a monetary agreement in one forum, you negotiate a trade agreement in another forum, and so on.

But on the other hand, there must be an underlying philosophy which we have and which we hope they will share.

And that philosophy must reflect what I have just basically said, that everything...

It is, as a fact of life, it is related that you cannot separate economic matters from political matters.

You cannot separate what the United States does in defending the free world and the great role that we play and the burden that we bear.

You cannot separate that from what we do in terms of trade.

That's basically what we're talking about here.

It's not an easy package to sell.

Because, actually, put yourself in the position, if you were the Prime Minister of Japan in the scene in July, or Britain, or so forth, they would much prefer to separate it out.

But what we are doing is to, in a very, not in a belligerent way, but we think in a very responsible way, we are trying to develop some new principles that will relate

We have always emphasized for our European friends that particularly in the economic field, the Japanese are going to be the best.

not to their benefit, but for ours, because the Japanese, the Japanese now are the second most productive economy in the free world, and will still be the second in the world until they pass the Russians.

And under the circumstances, they have them out there playing a,

a wild-tired joker role is simply untenable.

These are matters which most Europeans understand.

Would you agree?

That's good.

So we will give you a rundown when we return to Iceland, and that'll probably be next week or not, not crazy, I imagine.

If you are free that day, or just your Wednesday, depending upon which is the best way for you to do it in the morning so that

Everybody is back.

We had this meeting at 11 because most people weren't back from, I understand, vacations.

If it wasn't vacation, it wouldn't have been.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Hey.

Oh, yeah.

All right.

Take a look.

I'll mention it.

You know, I remember Stu came in in the first year, and you said that you regretted that you really never saw John so much in that period of time.

What was that?

Anytime you want to see me, I'm sure I will.

I think in this whole business defense and the rest of the degree here, it was a mighty good restraining space flight program you put on us.

I don't say space flight.

It's a trip.

How was your trip to Kittsburg?

It was amazing.