Nixon, Ziegler & Kissinger on Watergate and Vietnam peace settlement

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I'm sorry, sir.

Did you make it?

You decided to make it, you tell me.

No, I just did it in my office.

I wish it would have been so good.

But it was an extraordinary moment.

It was too good for me.

So I'm telling you this now.

I'm asking you to make it, you know, right?

You know, it was all good.

I'm good.

Why is it?

Three minutes again, it's so late, and that's why I didn't say it at all.

So, now, I have two options here.

One is to let them ask a few basic questions before you question them.

I don't have a camera, but let them ask me.

Let them ask me.

I don't know what the answer is.

Well, I know.

What I meant is that I just .

What are you getting at?

Well, basically, it's contained in the can of metal.

I think there's one additional contribution on the basis of .

There's a story that came out of .

It came out of .

It came out of saying that a White House source, that you had said that you would .

Well, I don't know what happened.

Don't mention it's made in the press conference.

The Ruffles House was at the Timmy's breakfast.

And in the course of that breakfast conversation, someone said, well, what do you think about 1976?

And apparently someone threw out a question to the president who was very fond of comedy.

And in Ruckelshaus said, well, I heard the president express great admiration for comedy, but as to what happens in 1976, it's difficult for me to predict or say at this time.

If you'll have to go, well, then out of that apparently,

some of the reporters rushed to it in this morning, and it has appeared, now it's 10-ish, we've been trying to verify the fact that the homeless house is clean by the way, so the poor guy was just, you know, when the poor guy goes to the house, we're going to see.

We've never discussed it, 76, well, not 76, I'll write a copy of it, I'll put it in the airlock, but it's different.

Well, it's been...

You know what's wrong with such a thing?

I won't even ask you this.

No, no, no.

Well, it's the best service it is, is all that matters to me.

Yeah, that's fine.

It's a good question.

Well, that's the only official question, right?

No, we're coming back to it.

We're coming back to it.

What about the question?

Well, I don't know if it's true, but it was a good question.

I was talking about the...

It's a trip related.

I want to say that

and then say that we're obviously going to have an opportunity to discuss all of our issues with the Commission.

We do have such an opportunity to do what we've done for this country.

And it's indicated in the agreement that I have the policy to participate in the political and economic construction efforts, which will be pursued without any contract, and according to the Constitution, that's everything.

You don't think we're going to be able to do that?

I think that's a good question.

Who would I attest to in the world?

I, Mr. President.

We should all agree on that.

I have a precise idea of what that means.

What do you mean when you say, you want normal relations?

You mean diplomatic relations?

That's what it means.

Would it mean that suddenly, after the end of the last government, they should put in all the possible means to avoid normal political relations?

The President sees this.

He sees this.

There's an interest in reaching out to the foreign visitors who will have to go to Michigan to consult with them and support them and provide them with a good client or brother.

No, we don't have time.

We haven't talked in time.

I don't want to put up with it.

If I didn't put up with it, it would have been a lot more difficult.

One of those talks was with me.

I had to go to the same time.

I think these are questions .

Those are questions I will give, and you won't get those if you take a minute.

I'm just asking you what the first is like.

I love all the sarcophagi.

He said, President, what's on the road?

And then periodically, the President has to move through the stage and he just pulls the road out.

He's about ready to pull the road out.

Yeah.

He said, during a period of intense negotiations, the president could not be silent.

He was speaking for the first time in a long time.

He could not hold a press conference.

He said, now I've heard a sense of agreement has been reached.

The president has had four bipartisan leadership meetings.

We'll be having additional press conferences and so on.

I don't know what is going on.

We haven't had much of a break.

So it was a very common topic.

The body, the work, the loneliness of the procedure, it was a great problem.

And I saw this really much as a problem.

What I was going to ask you about is,

I am one of them.

I am going to do the meeting on this thing.

I may get a question.

I think I should just say no to the Vice President.

And then ambassadors, all of us will go there after the meeting.

I don't think we should leave it that way.

The way it is here is quite prepared to rot.

This is all we have on Dr. Kiffin's schedule.

I don't need you to go to Saigon.

You don't want to go to Saigon.

I'll just say so and we'll go to Saigon.

Is that all right?

And I just sit and say, no, you'll go back to this icon.

How's that sound?

Does it get you totally off the hook on it?

Oh yeah, yes.

Oh, I would say, yes, that was great.

I think that was great.

That's the only question we ask.

Plenty of us hang on.

It's a story that we've gotten to a little next month.

And my response to questions on the subject is that there's some kind of a strain.

If you say some kind of a strain, I hope we have a meeting on some kind of a strain.

Some kind of a strain.

I don't know.

What is your feeling, Brock, about the other issue?

I just kind of wanted to ask a question.

You talk about, do you do it in the middle of the morning?

That's the question.

We don't need one.

Well, I'll give you more time.

Get a better story.

It is less heightened and less presidential.

There's going to be a big crowd in Samoa now.

There's a lot of questions about Samoa now.

It's less national.

Thank you.

Do you intend to start a press conference on ?

That's always .

Well, you had a .

I decided not to .

They asked me .

So, I don't want to say what's going on.

The reason why I'm not doing it is because I don't understand the story.

And I don't understand, and I don't believe it.

I don't believe it.

I don't care.

You see, I've said it myself.

The day after the election.

.

Of course, if you did a depression, it would be a different wave in the second half.

But that's not as important as I said it would be.

And I don't know if she's worried at all.

The questions were not necessarily answered.

But, of course, I was concerned.

Also, when we go back to the first term, we did hope that we could have done that same thing.

We tried cutting on wood.

But we didn't have a plan for it.

They were going to go and do some excerpts.

I don't know.

They're not missing from the trip.

I'll go to Watergate.

If it was missing from the trip, I'm sure.

I'd go along with them.

They're not.

And Watergate met me or something.

I don't know.

My question is, if they get into the wash

The question is, do we want to give in the situation you want?

But what can they pass it on?

What do you say about the tape?

There's a story, there's a question, I haven't covered that extensively, but one of them said, I don't know what to say about it.

Well, I don't know.

I don't know.

As far as I know, I think you're the best way to do that.

I like to say that.

That's the problem.

And you just say it's on the other hand, and you're not wrong.

And what do you say about the Stanton Metro?

Well, the trial was on a P.O.

And I knew that.

But with a case on a P.O., I shouldn't comment on it.

Oh, I do?

I don't think you should.

I don't understand.

I've made my decision.

Please stay if you want to stay.

I don't matter.

I don't matter now.

What did you say?

Well, let's leave that.

There's other points.

What about when you want to focus on having a public arena?

Understand that this may be going across the grid now.

I never again thought he would bless me.

I must have listened to him for a minute.

I saw a monster right in front of me.

I didn't know what it was.

It was a monster.

is that this must be cut by starting.

And I don't want to go one to one.

I hope that it's shut.

We've been involved in this for a long time.

We've had a tiny bit of cut.

We're going to get to it.

But if I say that I'm covered through the book, I'll need the book to be managed.

Yeah, all right.

Well, you said that the president has to sign the book, but I have the book in front of me.

You said that in the conference.

Well, I have the book in front of me.

.

That Moss quote, what was it?

Did he say that the President was not optimistic about the President's pessimism, which wasn't what he said?

I don't know if you have a chance to do that, but I may.

He said it up.

I hope we covered all the questions.

All of the questions.

He said it up.

All of the questions.

Or did he say the president was pessimistic?

He used the word optimist.

He said the president was not optimist.

In other words, go over and call the chairman.

Go over and call the chairman.

What I said was, and I will be very, very quickly.

What did Senator Moss say?

When he came out of the White House, I had to explain.

What I said was, and I will be very quickly.

That's the question.

I totally agree with Donald, and his talks are going forward.

I'm not going to care about it.

I'm not going to impact on it.

I'm not going to do that.

I'm just an optimist, or pessimist about the Congress.

We're not going to go through the same thing.

That's what I said.

Moss went up to Hammers and said, the President says he's not optimistic about the Congress.

It's a totally different view.

See my point?

I don't know what he said, but you know what he said.

You can get data on bipartisan leadership being carried heavily on the wire and all that.

Yes sir.

You're saying .

Yes, my God.

What did they say to him?

They said, I have some questions.

He said yes to that.

We have some very thorough investigations.

Not all of them.

I'm sorry.

What I mean is, if I didn't want to get cross-watched, I wouldn't have said it.

I understand that.

I mean, if I wanted to, but I also don't want to get in a position where I get out there and hang it off, and I heard it cut it off.

It seems to me, as you said, that the floor is a case of who did what.

It was the grand jury, and the judge, and the trial, and the judge, and the judge, and the judge, and the judge, and the judge, and the judge, and the judge,

And I think it was a great cycle decision to comment upon that.

I can't remember the time.

Nothing to add.

I expressed my confidence in Jim.

See, then you are committed by calling.

See, at the time of the chamber thing, they were more at fault than anyone else.

I told them, I called them.

You did?

Yeah.

Any discussion?

Using words that apply to dialogue.

Are you satisfied with what the court has done?

.

Thank you a lot.

You see, I can order a phone.

There's no way I can order a phone.

I can get a camera for any guy, because they'll think I'm doing the same thing.

Yeah.

Let me suggest a book.

It's a good book.

That's my law.

This is what I've always got to sign.

This is my practice, and I'm important to all of you.

Thank you.

I don't want to get into it, but we've got to get into it.

It's part of the problem.

We've got to do it constantly.

It's all we're going to have to do.

The best way we're going to do it is to go to the monitor and take a moment to be there.

Okay.

Thank you, sir.

I want to make a strong assertion.

I really don't know what to do about it.

That's the problem.

Well, we've got to be objective.

I think we've got to say what we're going to say.

We cooperate.

I think we've got to say what we're going to say.

I don't think, I don't think you can say it was urgent or wrong or something like that.

You can say it was unsatisfying.

I'm very proud to say it was unsatisfying.

Or you could say, man, you could say it was obsessive intent.

It was obsessive intent over here.

I don't believe the application will look like it.

It's a political showcase here.

We're not going to make any difference.

We're going to anticipate a back on the other end of the Senate.

Nixon, Ziegler & Kissinger on Watergate and Vietnam peace settlement

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on January 31, 1973

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