On September 24, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David from 11:37 am to 11:52 am. The Camp David Hard Wire taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 213-016 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Hi Henry, how are you?
No, that's right, bye.
Yeah.
British?
Of course.
Sure, we'll have him.
Screw State.
State's always on the side of the blacks.
The hell with them.
No, well, I just can't understand why we haven't had it before.
You know, like that thing on Burundi.
Now, I want State's ass reamed out on that for not, for not.
Henry, in the whole Burundi business, I've been watching it in the press.
Did you know State has not sent one memorandum over to us on it?
Or have they?
Or have you had something that I haven't seen?
God damn it.
You know, there are those that, you know, they talk about Vietnam, these people far away that we don't know.
And you remember that poor old Chamberlain talked about the Czechs, that they were far away and we don't know them very well.
Well now, God damn it, people are people in my opinion.
I don't mean our national interest gets involved, but every time, every time that anybody else gets involved, you know, every time it's one other individual arrest and you have a little pressure group, your state goes up the wall.
Henry, the whole point is, and also, well, it's a, it's the thing that Agnew stuck to, stuck to McGovern where Agnew pointed out, oh, no, they're talking about how many we have bombed in the north.
And I've told your staff to get the figures for me.
How many?
how many South Vietnamese or anti-communist North Vietnamese have been killed by the North Vietnamese government civilians?
How many?
It's unbelievable.
Nobody gives a damn.
And that's what they're called.
And I know what the Uganda thing is.
What it is, it's just like Burundi.
The state loses attitude.
The attitude of the state is to be for whatever black government is in power.
It might go right or wrong.
And that
the Nigerian government.
Why?
Because they said, well, all the other governments would come apart.
Well, frankly, I'm almost of the opinion myself.
This is far down the road.
We need to do African policy.
But first of all, we shouldn't have 42 ambassadors to these goddamn countries.
In the second place, I mean, you know, at the same level as anybody else, in the second place, my own view is that some federations down there are what are needed or something.
I don't know.
But we can talk about that later.
But at the present time, looking at Uganda, of course we've got to help those 7,000 people.
I asked Rogers about this when we met with Bush.
Were you there?
Well, you remember, I said, well, we've got a plan to evacuate the Americans.
Well, now, that's a fine how-to-do.
What the hell is the damn British going to do?
7,000 of them, they'll be murdered.
Isn't that really the problem or not?
Yeah.
That we can trust.
Yeah.
Good.
Good.
Let me, let me go.
Let me put it another way.
Why don't we have good pasture from his place?
I mean, just go over and put it at a, I don't care whether it's at a high level.
I mean, they start killing.
Is that it?
Okay.
Okay.
Why don't we tell Good Pasture to get all the assets for the purpose of evacuation that we can have?
Right?
In other words, NATO assets.
Let's let the NATO countries do it.
I just kind of feel that's a good idea.
A NATO visit.
Right.
And then tell him in confidence that I want him to discuss this matter of assets with me.
A good pastor will love having something to do.
How's that sound to you?
Yeah.
And then send the defense man, too.
What man do you have in mind?
Yeah.
How about somebody?
Well, why don't we, better still, why don't we just have somebody from your office go over who knows these people?
If you're afraid that we'll get that, I'll get in it then.
Yeah.
That's why you can't kind of desert.
You see, the problem is that if we could, I agree that if we get in it, they'll say we're trying to get in.
But on the other hand, we have got to, we've got to be prepared to help the British.
We can't have a British slaughter down there.
The British have got enough problems.
Have they asked, they have requested?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, let me, yeah, why don't you, why don't you on our private channel get a hold of him and say that the pastor will be paying a NATO visit, but that he has...
private instructions for me to discuss on a secret basis what the hell we can do.
And then you call Andy, and you say, no, Andy, you've got to deny this conversation ever took place, and by God, we're not going to let these people, we've destroyed these people.
Let's do that.
That'll reassure the British.
They just want to know privately what we're planning.
Very good.
Very good.
But you should let the British know that we've talked about it.
That's the good, best you can think of.
If you want to send a defense story, you can.
The only thing is that I'm... Yeah.
All right.
Overt, we'll say, for the purpose of evacuating Americans and British.
It isn't an awful overt.
This goddamn guy in the head of Uganda, Henry, is an ape.
That's probably no disadvantage.
I mean, that...
I mean, you figure that asshole that was the head of Ghana had a brilliant education in the United States.
I mean, so let's face it.
No, no, what I mean is he really is, he's a prehistoric monster.
But the same with Burundi.
But if I really, really got to shake up the African, well, all the departments, but the African Department of State, Henry, is a disgrace.
When I received those, you know, I received a dash.
All I receive is three out of four African men.
They're nice little guys and so forth and so on.
But they don't hit anything.
I mean, and the state just treats them...
I mean, what do you think they're up to?
What is our African policy?
Will you tell me?
Never.
Never?
Never.
On Burundi, state underestimated, and I know that your people were using it.
You used the figure 100,000.
I understand it's 200,000.
I want the Belgian ambassador.
Do you know him here in Washington?
He's a decent fellow.
Fine.
I want you, or I think you're the one to do it.
You call him in, and it'd be a very nice touch anyway, and just say on a private basis, we'd like to know your estimate of what the hell's happened in Burundi.
I already want to know.
I don't mean there's anything we're going to do about it.
Nothing that's going to come out.
But, you know, let's get it from the Belgians.
Don't you agree?
I mean, on this one, though, now that you mention Pedersen, he
And he said, yeah.
Right, right.
Well, you'll do this, then.
And don't you think that, who will you call?
You'll call Bert Trent or Cromer.
Oh, yeah, OK. Well, he'll keep it.
That's the better way to do it anyway.
Tell him to pass it to the, that I'm outraged for the whole damn thing, and actually we've got to handle it in a very discreet way, and then we're going to go two ways.
We're going to send Andy over on an official visit in the British for discussion of NATO problems, and then we're going to send a defense guy over overtly, right?
In the meantime, speaking to that, I was looking at the paper this morning, and
It's a long, long story.
It's a big division within the administration of the next round of SALT.
Yeah, well, what they said, I said, what the hell is this?
So I read it, and they say, well, there is one philosophy, the philosophy that, which is, of course, the McGovern philosophy, too, the philosophy that all of the United States needs to have is enough
in the event of a first strike on the other side that we will be able to get back, whereas there is the other philosophy that we must not limit ourselves to massive retaliation, basically.
Of course, the second is ours, you know.
It's what we believe.
But the first is arms control, right?
And the government, right?
But the point is that these sons of bitches, if we're putting that out now, that it gets me.
Now, that arms control agency, as you know, you know,
Their budget, I looked at it again, is $9,500,000.
There are $9,500,000 worth of intellectual assholes over there cutting us up day after day after day.
And the day after the election, I'm going to fire the whole goddamn bunch all out.
You know, really.
Do you know what I mean?
And they know what they're doing.
You know very well, Henry, that when we were over there in Moscow, when all this thing was being raised hell, they were raising hell.
They were stirring it up.
Oh, I know, for the hard line, but basically.
Exactly.
And they were out of them themselves to look good.
But I'll tell you, that's...
When has Smith gone on to resign, or has he?
Yeah.
Obvious reasons.
No.
No, the way, the basis for it is that not that we're not getting him in the group, we're not getting anybody in the group.
Everybody's going to leave.
We don't want Smith around again.
No more.
None of these
I'm talking about the bureaucracy over there.
We cannot have the bureaucrats cutting us up.
Yeah, that's right.
Well, this is in the Star, I think, so you'll enjoy us reading it like this after you've digested your breakfast.
But anyway, this is good.
I'm glad.
I think it's good to let the British know we're going to help.
You might give the Belgian ambassador a call and say, don't report this, but the president wants to know what the hell went on and for him to set it up for Wednesday or Thursday next week.
Would you do it?
I want to know what happened in Burundi.
And I want a real cold cock on that, just for future reference.
Because in these African governments and the rest of the idea that we're going to stand still on the ground
any African government that was overthrew a colonial power, thereby becomes lily white, headed by our standards, and thereby beyond criticism.
It's ridiculous.
This damn double standard is just unbelievable.
Anyway, fine.
Fine.
Good luck.