On October 29, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Charles W. Colson, Henry A. Kissinger, Rose Mary Woods, and Stephen B. Bull met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 2:42 pm to 2:50 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 302-013 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Hello.
Well, how's the, uh, battle today?
The one she sent out, you know.
The post carried it.
Oh, yeah.
The story that they know Walker had the Harris Bowl was not true, was it?
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
Come on in, Henry.
Sure.
All right.
Right.
Right.
I said, that was an awfully good vote you had there.
That's true.
That was good.
I called Scott.
You know, I just feel, I mean, Henry's walking.
I'm just so...
The damn Senate is so disgraceful here, because I said, you know what they're doing?
He said, well, they're just trying to get in and take credit for what they know you're already doing.
And in the process, they will screw up our negotiations if they get up.
Well, Scott, yeah, you did a very good job in the UN.
more secure.
He may, and he, of course, you know, Chuck, he's like a pole, honestly.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
He doesn't play under a chain.
They should.
It's the third week in a row less than 10.
Yeah.
Incidentally, would you do something?
You know that television that you went to get that shown so that you could see it?
You apparently showed it to some people.
They were telling them it was really good.
How long did it run?
Five minutes.
Twelve minutes.
Fine.
And you did put it on the White House woman's line.
Yeah.
Fine.
And it's quite a show, huh?
All right.
Come on.
Show them, huh?
Personal apologies.
That's good.
All right.
Well, well, it seems to me that the U.N. thing just about, or we've got, Bob, just me, you know it's a funny thing to say, I was at your market this morning.
If those fellows hadn't overreacted, we would then have had the issue of Taiwan being thrown out.
But by that overreaction, the issue has turned to them.
Would you agree, or...
Yeah, well, let's keep it on over there for a while.
We don't need to talk any more about it.
It's just there.
Yeah, well, I'll put everybody's here.
Right there, just under your collarbone.
Right.
Let me mention one other thing while I do that.
In talking to Harper yesterday, he said that all this business about quitting there is a bunch of crap, and I said, why don't you go to Tulsa, which is ideal.
So I'd like for you to talk to the planning and get a group of, it should be without the press, but a group of 40 or 50 of the top people that would definitely be interested
Uh, you know, you know, uh, what's our record there, uh, funny last year.
And, uh, I was like, fine, get a group of them like the kind that I came down here.
About 70 of them, an archer as well.
And he said, you, you really come up with these guys.
You're all crazy.
No, he told me what.
I told him I was going to tell you.
But I mean, you get Pete in the act.
Because I told you and Pete to work something out.
Because he said I don't know what you're going to get him for.
He did the Calvin Porter pull-up for our house.
That's fine.
That is representative enough.
Have a dinner.
Have it without any brush.
It must be without brush.
It must be off the record.
He's looking at retail sales.
He said they were adjusted up there.
Which, of course, he said changed the order to .
That's why he's turning up.
You see my point?
So we've got to go until you follow up, will you?
All right.
Talk to Pete.
Ah, well, I have to talk to Bill.
He's going off.
And I told him, well, he's tired.
Of course, we're all tired, always.
But he told me this morning that he was going off.
And I said, that's fine.
I told him I was ending some of the medals I'd done for him.
A lot of my watch, you know, like, I mean, they're true, but they don't give them anywhere else.
That makes you think they're not true.
It's like when I return this magazine I have in my room with everyone's cousin, the people who I've been dealing with since the 90s, you know, and I turn to that character that she's been so important to me, and I look back and say,
I want to read it all.
I'm going to read the whole thing.
I want to know everything you feel about it.
I've got to get the feeling of this whole campaign.
It's a very thoughtful, systematic campaign.
You expose us to the toughness, and you pick the other ground, so that you won't be as systematic as they see.
I mean, my jobs are very small, and they're very selective places.
You know, they do it in the short and deep, and some of them have it.
But
They wanted their cadres to see their leaders with us, so that the shock of seeing them with the president wouldn't be too unsettling.
I discussed it with him, and I told him and Idrich that we should sit down together on Monday and decide who was going to do what.
I followed his agenda, that I was going to prove it.
And I said, we have this list of items to cover.
And I said, I have a few sentences on Formosa that I'm going to send to them, because we won't settle for them anyway.
And I'll see what I suppose, what they, what they come up with.
That kind of, we don't consider each other, but what do you think?
And also the one on renunciation of force, whatever it is.
I let Hank see you just communicate it to him last night.
And he looked astonished.
He didn't think we could get anything else to show himself.
That's
Well, let's let him come to something not as good, because this really... And then, you understand, Henry, look, for Christ's sake, all this bullshit about Berlin being a mad settlement, he would never have said that had he made it.
But as you know, as you know, Berlin was a much better settlement than Berlin and then this, which is everything again.
Berlin was a better settlement than they proposed in February, and to negotiate a solution better than your own proposal was needed.
And after...
He told me of a conversation, and I kind of struck my own thought with regard to the conversation I had last night.
The decision to be in place and everything, but he had to report it.
Did he mention it to you then?
I know the governor.
Yeah.
A little, yeah.
Anyway, I don't know whether he is.
Is he one of those at the parents' leadership?
No, he's one of the brightest people they have.
He's tough and smart.
I can tell.
Actually, he's the guy that they brought in with them yesterday for leadership.
But he does not look like much to me.
I can't tell.
Anyway.
Deliberately after the dinner last night, sir, I wouldn't get bored with you.
I don't think I'd be afraid of somebody talking to me.
And he's got that follow-up.
So I had a intent to talk to him.
I thought that very distinguished one right here, I thought it was like the president of the church.
He's a very good person.
Now, Bill said that he saw the morning.
He said, if I want to tell you, he said,
And I want to tell you that regardless of what else he said, that the meeting with Gresham did not go well.
He said, and he repeated the meeting, and Bill said, I told him, Bill, and Bill said, well, I denied him.
I told him, you know, he says, if you don't want to, you don't.
He said, well, let me put it together, though, with something else.
After the dinner, I...
I thought the account that Tito gave you yesterday was pretty bad, but I think it's better you go to see Tito alone tomorrow.
It might be better if I let each other have something.
I'll be glad to be there.
Well, let's tell him I want to know.
But there's a lot, I think, if they're not in front of you, you've got to call.
I want to ask you, but anyway, let me tell you on the fourth minute, it was me.
He came to me and he says, you know, I have only a few minutes of course with you.
And I want to say, this is what the interpreter, the president, must trust this man.
But he said, you should know that we are entering a period of very great danger for Islam.
He said, Mr. President, he's old, he retires, his age, and so forth.
Then there are forces in the country, outside the country, that are very dangerous.
Then he went on to say that he said, which is the most important thing that I must respond to, is that there must be, with what we need, a policy of hands-off through this law, whatever happens.
And I said, let me tell you, let me see what happens in this court.
First, you can be sure as far as the United States is concerned, hands-off through this law.
And also, you can be sure that we will use our e-mails and see if others keep their hands off of his life.
And that's all I want you to get across.
But he says, and I repeat it, he says, we have problems.
But now, as I put those two conversations together, it's quite clear to me that he has a marvellous fear of the Russians.
and believes that they are ready to pounce on the poor bastards once Tito goes.
And also, it leads to a little stupid.
Despite everything that Tito said about Krishna's personality, which he elaborated at dinner, that Tito is sort of in his old age and he wants to go out and stay and do the right thing.
The compression effort is probably a hell of a lot tougher.
Yeah.
Oh, gross.
I want to tell you that I am not going to be able to do the floor, I think.
So because of, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Great.
The weather is very good anyway, so I'm not going to go.
Yeah.
There's a real danger that the Croatians and Slovenians will split up and that the Serbs and they will then get into a civil war with the Russian-backed Serbs.
And they always have.
I think that's their own game.
The Serbs are in Capernaum, Belgium, and the person in Croatia is in Zagreb.
Where they hold the Serbs.
Look beyond, north of there.
But nevertheless, I think this is very interesting to get this.
We had a foreign minister who was laying the right to us.
And I'm sure he would put him up to it.
So he would really say the same thing, but he didn't comment.
And you see that what he told Rogers in English
The talk with Gresham did not go well.
He must use that in a...
But you know, even when I asked him about Gresham, and he modified the document and so forth, it was quite fuzzy for him.
It was very banal.
On the one hand, he said, you know, things are good, but the evidence he had for that was negligible.
And his objective was true.
And that was the other thing.
But you couldn't quite tell what the situation was on that.
I don't know.
I don't think I'll go.
She's there, isn't she?
I think it's better.
She doesn't expect me, does she?
Nobody expects
Unless you spoke to the consulate about it.
No, I didn't speak to her.
She didn't speak to anybody over here, did she?
All right, come on.
We'll let it go.
I've got some other people over here today.
I know about that.
I'll let it go.
Let's come back to this other point.
These Russians are also comfortable.
And they're more brutal than the Chinese.
They're brutal.
Well, I mean, I see now their policy for Eastern Europe and Norway.
Oh, yeah.
And my view is that we're going to be just as clever there.
But the only thing that's making the Russian game go at all is China.
And, boy, the Kosovo and Jackson took us on also.
But what the hell are we talking about?
We were responsible for losing them.
You didn't make that case.
Never.
Never.
But not many of them are making that case.
That other two, yes.
We pledged that we weren't going to do it against Taiwan.
Now we've done that.
That's another case.
They all have a...
They all go all over the map.
I was at a meeting, but the public mood, I mean, you can't judge it, but I would have unreplaced Moynihan on the board of Woodrow Wilson.
Oh, yeah, sure.
You know, you appoint a member, so somehow I get put on there.
And Humphrey presided.
And there were about 20 senior people there.
And that was ultimately important.
But Humphrey said, I said, no matter what we say publicly, I want to say in front of all of you that President Xi and Energy Liberty is one of the great events in history.
And everyone applauded.
I was just going to listen to their presentation.
I was there to talk and I didn't talk.
So I think they can't get away with it.
We're right through it.
Okay, fine.
I'll see to Jack.
Sorry that we couldn't, that we, I hope that he doesn't keep you here.
No, go next time.
Don't worry about that.