Nixon & Kissinger on Foreign Policy and Public Relations

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I had a command.

Oh, I didn't ask you to take me just to see if I could get... No, no, no.

...get you something for yourself, right?

Uh, no, nothing.

I was at the Chilean embassy last night.

I decided not to stay for dinner because I wasn't seeming very depressed about it.

I didn't want to post on the internet.

So I...

But the Bremen was there.

And, uh...

It's really smothering to go to Bremen for three or four years without it.

Which is helpful.

Mansfield was there.

I'm sure he believes that.

Yeah, I think so.

I think so in the beginning.

The thing we have to guard against, Mr. President, next week, I think we should play this, just as matter-of-factly as we did the Chinese one.

Oh, hell yes.

We should play no great triumph.

No?

We should just put it out of it.

I'm going to put it out of it in my press thing.

I don't know how to just go deep in terms of, you know, I'm going to just give a very noncommittal answer.

We should urge the staff to do the same, because if we grow too much, we lose bargaining positions with the Russians.

He's learned now that there's more to go, clearly, than there is to go.

But you don't know.

But it's you here, the Chinese.

You're stating it's a matter of fact, sir.

Exactly.

You know, it speaks for itself.

No one, no one suspects it for me.

The way I had it in mind, I didn't want to say it.

I agree.

Why are you going here and there?

I know exactly quite what we have.

I'm not concerned.

We're not concerned.

But if you let me talk to the White House staff, I thought we might assemble them after you announce it.

Yeah, we're going to be careful to do that.

We'll say this is a very important announcement.

Well, let's put it all in the context .

Nobody can scream about that.

It's got to imply nothing for them.

Because this will be a .

The reason I'm working with all of them is because .

Then he called me aside and he said,

.

The Egyptian foreign minister denied it, I think, rather than investigate the appeal for his flexibility.

I don't know any of that.

I don't get a sense.

Oh, yeah.

We got Reagan.

Reagan and Rockefeller are our two biggest supporters.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, I don't know.

I don't know.

Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President, we stand by.

It's fascinating to me, Mr. President, that Nelson has asked to be

has cut the sort of treatment on a tiny scale, you know, that you would try to take off because you would be normal.

That wasn't even a high point.

And it's really shaken him to his core.

I've never seen anything like this.

He's very experienced, by the way.

Well, if he was just cut down, excuse me, by his voice, if he'd said, I'll do it.

She was...

Well, she's got it.

She's got that V&E psychiatrist who's driving an all-terrain vehicle.

He's a witness to an absolute, total, all-terrain vehicle.

I met him.

He would think that's crazy.

They physically say, how many more girls in all the world are there?

Wait, what, in a crisis, you say?

Who are you talking to?

See, he doesn't do what the mixed-mixers do out there in the school sector.

I understand.

He was really shaking.

He's coming back now.

But I'll keep it.

In fact, he's coming down now.

I actually think that it does help.

Of course.

for the same reasons you gave yesterday, which Negroes, the Negroes are switching to the Democrats anyway.

He says that he was on the Cabot show, the second thing on the Vice President nomination, which of course I'm very sorry I didn't get.

Now, for Christ's sake.

That's nothing.

I saw it this morning on television in the speech he gave last night.

He said the president supports the powerful against the powerless.

Ask any Cambodian mother whose children are being killed by American bombs.

Ask any Vietnamese president who is killed by American soldiers.

All support him.

In fact, he said the communists are always right and those who resist are always wrong.

Sit down for a while.

Sit down.

way to read the papers.

That's right.

And the television.

I don't spend more than ten minutes on it.

Any day.

I never read the paper.

I read the, I take the, I read the headline.

You know, you read the first page.

I'm very short.

Nothing inside for today.

I read this, but all the inside stuff is covered in country TV.

Never watch a TV show.

And I go, you know, that is the way for me.

Others have got to watch.

I don't know.

But you know, it's not worth it.

I read a few, now and then, a good column or something very, very important to me.

But most people sit and read papers like he did.

I'm going to read and read and read a whole bunch of times.

You know, the Groove Readers, I used to do all the time.

Nothing.

I mean, it really won't remember nothing.

Your brain just won't mention it.

The important thing is to concentrate whatever we're bringing to God.

I mean, I think that Reston has really hurt himself with his colleagues, with his interview with George Washington.

How much?

Everybody.

Stuart Alsop mentioned yesterday, Roland Levinson.

Why did he hurt himself?

Because of his snide remarks about you, that they don't like you, and because...

They didn't vote.

I don't think they like that.

Well, they will say it at a Georgetown party, but they don't like saying it's footprint in a communist country.

I see.

Like you pretend to be objective.

They'd go beside her.

Well, I thought the other heir had stolen it.

Come back and ask for me.

That was what cut me.

As I say, I will never go.

I'll never see you again, under any circumstances.

I don't care what the cost is.

I don't care what it does.

We are cutting them off now.

We don't even .

We don't see them.

They don't do any more damage to us.

No, just see other people who've got to deal with some other people.

Well, you were starting to say something.

We're, uh...

positions in Delaware.

I was reading a little report on that.

I saw that.

I think the others messed with my driveway.

This morning, they had McGovern, Muskie, and Lindsey on television, each a minute at some liberal function.

And I am convinced that it's in our interest to give these guys exposure.

I mean, they have no issue.

Muskie said the American people are looking for a leader.

They don't know what they're looking for, but I know they're looking for a leader.

I think this is, what are they going to do?

That's the current stuff in the colleges.

Give us leadership.

The sheep, looking at luck, are not bad at destroying things.

You can, my God, if anybody has done more, I've been speaking in the 50 states.

But more than that, you have the courage to stand alone, which is real leadership.

Anybody, any time.

I think it's Bob who's got that.

I think the standing alone of you, that's what you're getting to get first.

Oh, yes, yes.

And that's going to, I really think it's going to look better than the next year's development.

I mean, if we compare the next summer, the summer of 68 with the summer of 69, well, we're going to try to do something like that.

I guess the real problem I'm concerned about is the fact that I mentioned Sapphire and Berlin.

Even he didn't realize it.

Some way we've got to get to start getting out.

PR for success.

They didn't do it.

They are playing them up.

They're not there.

Everything from sea beds.

I mean, we can play that out, too.

That's right.

These things, you know, people that he mentions, chemical and biological warfare.

Chemical, biological warfare.

I mean, they'll get our way.

Good God, what are we talking about?

All the dumb ones.

You realize that?

We ought to consider some foreign policy television program.

Well, you, would we, would you, sir, put down the administration crimes, please?

for the possibility of, we'll start getting some columns on them.

And if I got one day on a television show, we'll simply say, you might do the show.

All right, here it is now.

And then give everybody credit, Steve, did this, all the other things.

Oh, damn cheeky, huh?

If I can check on that again, I'll get you a report by noon.

Come on.

Nixon & Kissinger on Foreign Policy and Public Relations

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on October 7, 1971

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