Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 253-032
Date: Wednesday, May 26, 1971 at 6:46 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Kissinger, Henry A.
Recording device: Old Executive Office Building
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/253-032

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:01] Yeah, you were going out to dinner, I thought.
[0:05] Yeah, yeah.
[0:05] Or was that just an excuse?
[0:09] You do have a date, though.
[0:13] I knew that.
[0:16] Oh, great, great.
[0:17] You would have lots of fun at Alice's tonight, apparently.
[0:19] Alice, apparently, and Joelle's.
[0:22] Boy, they were really subtle.
[0:23] They were a great crowd.
[0:27] You know, and incidentally, I want to tell you that I was just delighted with Bruce.
[0:31] God damn.
[0:32] When I heard him sit there and say, well, you know, usually a guy would suck along and say, I'd like to be a consultant.
[0:41] I remember like a lot he did and all the rest.
[0:43] He said, no.
[0:45] He said, you should resign.
[0:47] He said, I'll be leaving for a while.
[0:51] They went on to say, I'll support you, Mr. President.
[0:54] And I'm like, God damn, I thought, what a hell of a guy.
[0:57] And that's a deadline.
[0:58] If we get a chance, Henry, to send anybody to China, he goes.
[1:03] He goes.
[1:03] He's the best man.
[1:05] Now, look, Murphy could be terrible.
[1:07] Lodge would be worse.
[1:08] Lodge would be impossible.
[1:10] But who the hell else do we have in the Congress?
[1:12] And if he wants to go, I think the Chinese would take him.
[1:18] Would you please, how was your lunch with him?
[1:19] Was it, was he?
[1:23] I hope that we've done the right thing.
[1:25] He lived, you know, and I hope, hope.
[1:29] Yeah.
[1:29] All right.
[1:34] All right.
[1:34] I mean, he did, but I didn't see him.
[1:38] Nothing.
[1:39] I just brought him back to him to look up.
[1:45] What a guy he is compared to the clowns.
[1:46] You know, there aren't many we've got that are like this.
[1:49] Maybe Rush.
[1:50] Who else?
[1:53] Oh, no, no, no, no.
[1:53] What I meant is Rush got his character, but not his wisdom.
[1:56] Rush, 40 years, would be like Bruce, but he's got a lot of time to go.
[1:59] But I don't want him to stay over there and sit.
[2:03] My God, I really feel that you ought to go to his idea of having me at every meeting.
[2:08] I think you ought to skip the meeting now, don't you?
[2:14] Take care of yourself.
[2:16] Take care of yourself.
[2:20] Oh, on the Canadian thing, right?
[2:27] This is after our Soviet invasion.
[2:31] They're going to respond.
[2:31] They may not fight on Earth with Soviet men, but they might.
[2:40] It's Bruce.
[2:40] And I'd make a cold turkey with him.
[2:45] All right.
[2:46] So it's fine, because it's the best way.
[2:48] And then what I think, I think we might let Bruce go anyway.
[2:52] You know, what the hell.
[2:53] In between.
[2:55] It keeps things going and it doesn't leave, it doesn't leave the panorama.
[2:58] So when you talk to them, if you do talk to them, I would say, all right, Ambassador Bruce will come, he's resigning, we're going to send him at a certain time, because that keeps them going.
[3:10] And then he will come to make public arrangements for the presidency.
[3:21] And the, you think the meeting that...
[3:24] I suppose this guy's gone over to Muskie now, probably your friend, Lee.
[3:30] Oh.
[3:31] Yeah, I know him.
[3:32] Yeah.
[3:32] Oh, Harvard Law?
[3:36] I know him.
[3:36] Yeah, yeah, he's a very able fellow.
[3:42] I know him in the mind, he was a matter of fact.
[3:46] Yeah.
[3:47] Yeah.
[3:51] A few years ago, one of the law enforcement had me up there, and he was a young professor in Harvard Law.
[4:00] Very brilliant fellow.
[4:01] Henry, did you know we beat the Hughes Amendment today?
[4:04] Do you know what the Hughes Amendment is?
[4:06] Well, it's the one, you know, they beat the Nelson Amendment yesterday.
[4:13] Today, the Hughes Amendment provides a $2,700,000 pay increase, and it brings the draft.
[4:21] We all thought we were going to lose in the Senate voters now, 47 to 32.
[4:25] Now, according to Colson, I said, what's the reason for this, Chuck?
[4:28] He said, well, he said, first, you're strong on this issue on the NATO thing.
[4:33] And second, when you hit them with the Soviet thing, he said, this made it extremely difficult for these people.
[4:43] They're scared to death that you might do something else.
[4:45] I don't know what it is.
[4:53] You know, I'm giving my best.
[4:56] He's an old friend.
[4:58] He's never supported me, but I like him and respect him.
[5:01] But you tell him, you just tell him what I said that I remember.
[5:06] It was 20 years ago.
[5:08] Let me say it.
[5:09] He'll remember that Mrs. Myers' house, the, you know, Eugene Myers, and I'm proud of you.
[5:17] Their house was a young house.
[5:19] 47 years there.
[5:23] and I recall about it.
[5:25] Vietnam is spinning.
[5:28] You tell him that that was the theme, and I want you to read.
[5:31] I made a rather long rambling talk with my characters yesterday, but I covered all this thing, and I said, look, Vietnam is done.
[5:39] I said, that issue is in one way.
[5:41] You can argue about when, but it's over.
[5:42] The main thing is what's going to happen to Russia, what's going to happen to China, what's going to happen to the East, and what's going to happen to America.
[5:52] economy, what's going to happen to the spirit of this country.
[5:58] This is a very important line for us now to take.
[6:00] Let them yak around about Vietnam.
[6:06] Let us talk about the future.
[6:08] I agree.
[6:08] Besides us with Giles, we're thinking about the future and everyone's thinking about the present and the past.
[6:18] He saw that point, didn't he?
[6:19] Because we're sure.
[6:20] We're certain about this.
[6:20] We're not sure about the others.
[6:23] That's true.
[6:23] That guy, I wish you would see.
[6:27] See Bill White, because Johnson asked me if he would, and I said, of course you should.
[6:31] He does support us, you know, and the poor guy is, they kick him around, and he's with us all the time.
[6:41] Can't sometimes.
[6:44] The next couple of days, we meet tomorrow with Robert.
[6:53] Now I want to see a paper on that before we meet.
[6:56] I want to get through that.
[7:01] Okay.