Nixon, Haldeman & Sanchez on Vietnam War and SALT negotiations

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I like it here.

It doesn't make a damn.

All you gain is something that doesn't want to go all over you.

Thanks to other people.

But anybody who's here has a chance of being heard and seen and all.

Well, I think they tend to forget that.

They do, don't they?

You know, you can take the person.

So, he could have been better.

And the going is tough, too, you know.

So, the going is tough.

He could have stepped in and been pure drunk.

And we were bombing Hyde Park.

I mean, until we put it to him.

You know what I mean?

And he hadn't testified.

And he did damn well.

And he can do well.

That's the sad thing.

That can be very effective.

He can do well if he just automatically moves out of whatever...

I'd like to see what time this evening he would... No.

He'd pick up the paper and write.

He'd take it on his own.

On his own.

Nobody else.

I'm glad to take on some of the things that are okay.

And with this, it's been a great interest in public relations and also it was great to be with Laura.

And so, as you know, we've done both of them.

And if you have to do them,

I don't know where to tell you who he is.

He's very high.

I don't know.

Not much.

But when you ask him, who knows about foreign policy or anything, he has not become a towering figure because he's been in that zone over the centuries and all the rest of the Senate.

Exactly.

In Moscow, all the, you know, what, what things you do there are, you don't do any in Moscow, but, you know, other, you know, something that's open to the other cities.

I mean, you visit, you visit by yourself.

The rest of the party, including Rogers, go someplace else, sometimes.

That's it.

It's awkward for him because he's deaf.

I think it's much better when he says, go in, let her do her own trips on her own.

She gets great coverage on her own trips.

That kind of thing was the one exception where it was important.

on that, and Russia will be too, in the sense that you will be there a long time without any visibility.

In a way, you have even less visibility there because you stay in the Kremlin, the meetings are in the Kremlin.

I'm sure they'll impress them for photo conversations and stuff like that, but they're going to be very much more recovered.

Ah, I think I'll have a little coffee.

It's a terrible thing.

Well, it's a drain for me because by 10 o'clock I'm ready to go to bed.

Or something else.

It's rough.

We won't do any, certainly any press conference.

Well, I'll do it.

three-on-one or whatever, you know, that will be... Oh, we might do that.

No.

No, it's worth doing it the other time.

It's worth doing it, and it's part of the problem for you.

Oh, I could do it then, because it's just...

It's mathematical certainty.

It's just... You reach twice as many people.

Reaching this many people just has to be

but it has been you're not alone you're not alone voice on that you're carrying it

I established my ability to grab at that point.

People are beginning to get, well, it was on the bottom, so people understand.

This was their aggression.

Yes, sir.

Yeah.

But on the other hand, there have been times when they haven't done a good damn thing.

People are worried right now that the Hawks were going to be concerned that the evolution does not take as far as the Hawks seem to be in good shape.

In good shape, right?

Sure.

That's the key.

It does keep you suited to them.

You're not going to be suckered into a name where you use these and they buy them.

I don't know if that really cuts into it.

Anyway, I'm sure this decision made me do what I did.

So I should come out with any graduates who said that's fine, I'm not going to come.

We had a Smith on Monday, before the announcement, and they were cutting some of the notes.

Breakthrough on assault.

2003.

In fact, that bill was in a quite a recent clause, and I was like, let's go put down the patrolling people in town and tell them the bill doesn't know a hell of a lot about assault.

And then he had me put, you know, they sent to me, they said,

guy, but beyond that.

And there's no... What we built, it looked like he was a great partner, but simply by not trying to pretend that it didn't come out of here.

He should look like... Well, I think, too, that they wrote the other one, I think, but also the fact that it comes right after he enters the Moscow world.

They're all naturally right.

Bill will be in Vermont State for sure.

It was worked out by the State Department.

And we grew up the wall.

And it won't matter at all.

Don't you agree?

Yeah, I don't think there's any difference.

Except for a few assholes.

In the first place, they're not the same.

People don't understand that the State Department is different than you.

And they really think the State Department is ours.

And it is.

But I really believe that the timing of it is such that, yeah, the work on it, they will thank everybody who comes to the summit, because we're done.

We're fresh on the benchmark.

Now, there's a lot of fact that's called on Saturday, and Thursday, and Sunday, and Saturday, and Thursday, and Sunday.

I didn't say he's working so hard.

That's exactly what he'll do.

Henry's so funny.

The funniest thing of all is it's sort of a fascinating commentary on Henry Christensen.

We were in Ziegler's office, and Henry came in, and Ziegler said something about a story of the Russian delegation going to Panama.

Henry?

I said, Henry, you shouldn't have put that story out.

I was kidding.

And I said, where did it run?

And Ron said, the Chicago Tribune.

I said, oh, well, then there's no danger.

Obviously, he didn't put it out there, because you'd never tell the Chicago Tribune.

And Henry said, I didn't do that.

I had never talked to the Chicago Tribune.

And I said, that's for damn sure they're our friend.

Henry says, I don't even know anybody at the Chicago Tribune.

Probably.

And it's absolutely typical.

You know, it was nature, and he didn't realize how comical it was that there's the point of the Chicago Tribune and the

one solid American paper, it's his shirt, it's a nutty, not a nutty paper, not that, well, it is in its own way, but it's a little embarrassing sometimes.

But it's, that, that's right, that, the New York Daily News and the Copley Press, a few other odds and ends, but Henry turned up proudly most of the week for the Chicago Tribune, obviously I didn't, because I didn't talk to them.

It's funny in a way, it's not funny.

Because the Chicago 80 ought to be talking at this Chicago trip.

So then we walk out and there's Joe Crabb.

And there's a person out laughing.

So we're in a maze, trying to put some on a maze.

And it is the kind of thing that you could have gotten.

It's the kind of piece that you write on your own based on what you're seeing.

It doesn't have anything in the form that it could have given.

That would be fascinating to think about that.

And I mean, this is your story.

This little fellow living off of China and then off to sit in the Brezhnev or the top of the world.

Nobody out there made him out.

He ended up, Mao Tse Tung, John Lai, De Gaulle, Brezhnev.

He's met all the great men in the world.

And not just met them, he's dealt substantively with them.

It won't be a very good look.

No, because he'll get into the camera hole.

It'll be a very dull, very useful, very dull start.

It'll be a good start, but you will not have the, you won't know how to cut it.

It's got to be long night one, not a night 30.

And the other, it'll be much more useful in the end.

There's a whole lot of history been made in the last couple of years.

Come back up in the long night.

Mrs. Hayden told me she's got this Samantha Aker, who's a British actress, coming in.

She said she's never come to visit.

She's been up for quite some time.

She said that she was gonna come back.

Another party's coming up.

So yeah.

Thing is, this is

Henry Thompson, the game, I don't think he's playing at all.

This is all show.

He loves it.

Glamour people.

Loves it.

Glamour, too.

I see that insecure little, awkward, Jewish professor, ugly.

Not ugly, but not against him.

And, uh, he ignored it.

Okay.

Here it is.

Nixon, Haldeman & Sanchez on Vietnam War and SALT negotiations

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on April 26, 1972

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