On June 6, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and John Cardinal Krol met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 9:58 am to 10:15 am. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 340-015 of the White House Tapes.
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Yes.
Hello?
Well, how are you this morning?
I'm fine.
Well, I was in Florida over the weekend and it was raining, so I decided to come back and get to work.
Oh, no problem.
No problem.
Yes, well, I wanted to tell you a little about our bullish stock.
It was...
There was an enormous crowd out.
The government had the, the Paragon had well under control.
They let them up, they let them up, you know, on the streets where as an association they kept them back about a block off.
But after I laid a wreath, I got in my car and she probably read I stepped out in it.
It was quite a moving thing because the mayor's chest was just in eruption and all the way along to them as we drove through the trees.
Even then, the crowds were all, well, extremely enthusiastic.
They just, we just moved at a pretty fast pace.
That was all.
Generally speaking, they know that the
The sentiment in the country is about as you described it, and I sense that there's just a great feeling of friendship for the U.S. As far as the leadership is concerned, I had a good talk with several of them, particularly Gary, the new Golovkin successor.
He's a very interesting character.
I don't know how he will turn out in the end.
Golovkin, as you know, was very
Yeah.
Gary is a fellow who's a vigorous, rather a very attractive personality.
He told me that we got into, on his initiative, a very interesting discussion.
And he said that he was a socialist, a communist.
When he said communist, he said his mother was a devout Catholic.
And he said, I want you to know that we in this country, that our relations with the Catholic Church are good, and so on.
And he made the point, we had already, we had discreetly checked as to whether I could call him a cardinal.
because of the shortness of it, but then also because it happened that we were there on a religious holiday called Christmas.
I think the latter was the main thing.
I think they really felt the place would come on holiday if we did, and they felt it would be, how far people felt it might be, whatever the case might be.
He was aware of every question that was made.
And so did the governor.
And so did the governor.
The governor tried to put her in.
Now, one thing that the sheriff made, and I don't know whether he was trying to give me a message or not, because I want you to know, I talked to him about you.
And I said, well, you know, one of my close friends is one of our leading foreign people.
And the sheriff, of course, was talking about her.
So, you know, I'm sorry I got cut off.
And
Yeah, yeah, I think we got it cut off.
I remember saying, I pointed out one of my, one of my RLE people in the higher-up who was a Polish background told him, then, then I went on to, we talked about the subject a little bit and he then said, he then said that the Polish people were very religious.
something that would never be said.
He then went on to say, he says, I want you to know that we welcome, we welcome any of those from the Catholic Church, you know, leaders who want to come here.
And, that was the other thing, he said, we would have no objection to people from our Catholic Church and told them
I don't know whether that's anything that's new or any of that sort or not, but I don't know whether he was trying to give me a message with regard to Cardinal.
But in any event, we went into the substance here at a considerable length.
But I, of course, was able to get in my pitch then about how strongly we felt that the
Poland, distinguished from Russia, was following a much better course from the standpoint of American opinion and world opinion by allowing the church to continue, and so on.
Now, despite all that, of course, there are, as you know, they're very ruthless in some areas.
But I must say, on that day,
That, of course, was Christmas Day.
Boy, they were in that church of a thousand.
The robbers went by, went by the people that day, and they just lined up and all that.
So there was no, well, if there was fear, they weren't showing it.
And the young and the old, they were all there.
That was when I was in one of my meetings with the others.
But that's about the feel that I have of the thing.
As far as the people are concerned,
They're considerably better off economically, although still far from where we were in 1958.
Deep down, they're very anti-Russian.
Anti-Russian, both, you know.
They don't like either one because both of them have torn them apart.
But they're strong.
They took us out to one of their castles.
As you know, they rebuilt the city and they did churches.
We stayed, actually, in one of the beautiful so-called palaces, I guess.
Yeah.
Yeah, and then they had, this was bigger than what that was.
They were, the way they have done it, I mean, and they're building in the middle of the city.
They're rebuilding a very famous building destroyed by the war.
Yeah, for money.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What are you going to do?
Now, we invited him.
I invited Gary, of course, to come to this country.
I had him invited to Russia, so next year sometime, he'll come, and we'll have to see if he comes.
But basically, have you met him?
Yeah, well, basically, and you can't tell about, I mean, I'm not, I can't judge about it.
There's no question about it.
basically, he has a very, shall we say, he hasn't become so encrusted, so totally symbolized and tough as some of the others have become.
He has a real streak of decency, and why do you treat my father in that way?
As a matter of fact, I was somewhat impressed by the Polish reason that the prime minister was a good man.
I mean, by that I mean good men.
Totally dedicated to Congress, which they have to be.
But on the other hand, trying to make their own way, desperately eager to have opportunities to have economic and other relations with the United States on a long, long basis.
someone independent of that is so important to me.
That's a lot.
And give them a second chance.
Now, my feeling, of course, is that we've got to go forward with that because we just can't let very many people sit there and, you know, sit in purgatory.
In my view, I think we've got to give them some hope.
But with our eyes wide open as to what we're doing, that's, I mean, yeah, that's right.
That's right.
somewhere between that and we uh we come from that basis and they seem to be uh fairly fairly heavy requests on the other hand they said now we are they said we are proud we said we're proud that we always pay our debts et cetera et cetera et cetera they went on a great length so we're going to have peterson stop by there in july
But all in all, my reaction is that the people themselves, I guess, well, I recall one of the interesting observations I was taught through this story, you know, by Gene Munson, and I said, what do you make of it?
And I said, well, it's important.
compared to Russia at this point in time today.
And of course, if you know, it is the Israelis, because the people are, it's even, for example, the people that he had to work with, the servants, he had to give a luncheon, and our people worked with the Poles, and so they were friendly to the pro-Americans there.
They're not as ruthless as the Poles.
So, for whatever that's worth, these are more average foals, not cardiac type.
And I noticed another interesting thing when I got out of the car.
The police were not nearly as rough as the Russian police.
The Russian police were rough.
And incidentally, so I had found when I was in Germany, and here you go, I don't know, boy, they're rough.
The German cops.
He has the toughness of the Germans, but the Communists on top of that make a real rough person.
But the Poles, the Poles had a more, well, they smiled at the second policeman, for example, when they were trying to hold the crowd back.
They shook hands, you know.
They were very, they were, yeah.
But the thing is that I thought the police acting that way was extremely interesting.
It was really worth going on.
It was really worth going on because it gave us a real lift after our involvement in our imprisonment of criminals.
And I think that made an account for the state.
The government didn't, incidentally, they gave out no flags.
They didn't have any intent for the government to come out when the polls were out.
the time or the route, but they have a way of knowing.
And they were there, and they set out to the war memorial where they were there by the 10,000.
There you go.
Yeah.
Well, he brought the religious thing up.
It could have been a reaction to, you know, we were both different.
And we came up and we talked very much.
And also, when he sat right next to me at lunch, he went through the same routine with her.
He knew her, you know, her background and so forth.
Her father was an Irish Catholic, of course.
But he did say, the thing that was interesting to me, he said that people would be more welcome to come to Poland, and to visit, and also to visit other countries.
So I, I don't know what he was trying to convey, but whatever.
Well, what I'm going to do on that is to follow up with my own channels now, and to say that we can have a way to come up with, because he would get a year of luck over here.
I think it would be well if we would have to arrange it if he came.
perhaps after, shortly after, with the bowl probably coming over here in a year, right after.
Otherwise, it would be an invidious comparison.
It would be anyway.
But if it comes, it would really be an enormous thing.
And frankly, it would be good for Poland.
It would be good for them.
I mean, if they were just seeing it, I mean, they can co-exist with the church there.
I mean, they've done so far.
And anyway, they got no choice because the Polish people just aren't going to have it washed out on them.
That's what I figured out.
I was interested in sending a truck to the Gresham House.
They really got it organized over there.
He takes a full month off in the summer to go to the Black City, and he takes two weeks off.
He takes just regular time.
I'm trying.
He doesn't have to worry about being back and being out in front.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, I was just so moved by those people there.
The only thing I regret is that there's not some way we can break them off.
But they are ready.
They are ready.
I hate to be in Garrett's position, you know, sitting on top of that thing.
And I hate to be the Russians.
Because the Poles, what I mean is, the Poles, in my view, I mean, the Russians can't depend on those Polish civilians.
Not in their lives.
Those Polish divisions came along.
I think they come over in two minutes.
That's right.
All right.
Well, we'll follow up on this Brzezinski thing, and I'll keep you posted.
Oh, yes.
Yes.
There, you breathe out.
And my call is with Terry.
Hold on.