Nixon, Whitehouse & Haig on Vietnam War and Democratization

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How are you?

I realize that it's basically a solid position.

Or call it, you won't get it.

That was Spanish, but basically a solid position.

Now, it seems to me that you see it from your appraisal of things as they are at the present times, and you can't believe the problems that

Even the on-the-pass vacations, I had an immense confidence.

Yeah, that's right.

We changed things in the pre-corner.

The pre-corner just stopped out along the hand-welding corner.

It was really light from that day.

The difference between January 6th and 9th.

place, a prosperous place, and you have been, as I said, very kind and restored.

And so you can statistically report what might be, but I'm counting this from the years, one thing that I've done that I have, with the ground in which Stephen, you asked me to build, land on the foundation of a beautiful rose on the

So, frankly, the thing that worries me the most during the tour out there, as it does, is the question of the enlightened research.

What extent have you got a submarine?

I'm really still there.

My only question is that we have done the research that we know.

I think that it's a day for that.

I don't think it's important.

It's first to see what it is about us that have to

in the sandpans, in the dark, in the message under somebody's lettuce leaf in the pocket, right?

Those kind of people have to be campaigning, otherwise they just disappear.

And the temptations to disappear, I think, are very great because of the rural prosperity, which is part of the result of the inflation update, and now it's all worth more.

Sub-Hondas exist in North Vietnam, and the possibility rates exist now in that part of North Vietnam.

I think the pressure from any apparatus that has been participating in these things has been a testament of the population into the Army and the Territorial Forces, and just the way that

The kids out there have money.

It's somebody's child.

And when they hear that he's here, that information appears, it creates more information than the intelligence.

They change.

That's the part of the change that is so important to the soul.

It's all the amounts of a chance to survive.

That's up to them.

But did you know that when we came in in 69, we had started their control program.

They had gone on that trip in about two months, I should say.

That's right.

So they brought them along, and we were at a basic level.

Now it's an issue to see how they run.

I, as a matter of fact, I mean, despite

to deal with what would be a violent enemy reaction.

So they're taking their courage out of their mouths, and they can't believe that they rambled around there completely.

And that's something that's new, too.

But any kind of war or any kind of battles are going to happen.

I'll start you with the fact that they did this in the slave-ocean business.

Firefighters, there's not many of them.

It was only eight to five at the time.

Maybe lost three.

We've had a mispredicted time, considering the size of South Vietnam and its forces, and the square location of South Vietnam, and all the extended lines.

It's basically roughly somewhat like the North and the South.

And so the war, the Grand War, has lost twice as many men as we.

And they've lost a hell of a lot of battles.

The war was won.

We're not thinking of purses and some fashion.

We're talking about weddings.

But weddings, as we know, sometimes inspire us up on some basis.

I don't know.

Again, the domestic problem I worry about is the urban problem, that vast mass of dispossessed people, those people therefore are right fertile ground for

or revolution and all that sort of thing.

But basically, we'd feel a lot more comfortable living here if we just had, let's say, South Vietnam.

Isn't that really it?

The real question is whether or not in that place, in North Vietnam, I mean, of course there's those in North Vietnam, there's no problem of dissenters.

A hell of a lot of them would like to be dissenters, but there's no problem

South Vietnam is a problem for dissenters because we insist on South Vietnam as a democratic country, etc., etc., etc.

And so we invite into that, we force upon that a form of government which may break down.

That's the problem, isn't it?

And the real question is whether free governments can survive.

Now, we're betting on that, but it's a long, it's a hard one, isn't it?

It's a hard one.

Now, I suppose the other side of that, because you look at the state of the day, and after all these years,

And so in the long run, perhaps we're back on the stronger horse in the Starcraft.

It would be so much easier, wouldn't it, to run this war in a dictatorial, tough way, kill all the reporters, end the war.

You certainly follow that path.

Has it been discouraging for you to sit out there, you little fucker, and you read the American press about Westwood and you wonder if they're covering the same war?

I don't think you would think that.

Particularly if they weren't interested in what we call the soft side of the war, the part that I was involved in, battles around fire bases and all that stuff.

But this gentleman, Abrams, kept so vividly pointing out that this other part of recreating and building identities and creating their society and assuring the security of their people is really important.

And there, and there, there's men in arms parties, but there, there's still in arms problems.

Problems because, well, in any free country, so-called free country, we're in a hell of a time.

You don't even have to go below the

disaster area that is potentially all over in that southern part of the world.

It's very hard to find anyone, anyone that has a, let's say one country in the southern part of the, below the equator, one country below the equator that has

We have three democratic governments that meet our standards.

That is not a government.

Well, the Philippines.

What a can of worms that is.

That's ours.

None of the others.

And then India, of course.

That meets our standards.

But why help or problem?

Of course, nobody can run India.

I think we have to be fair about that.

Now, all the rest of Thailand is an oligarchy, a limited monarchy.

Of course, Taiwan is an oligarchy.

Indonesia is a dictatorship, a little oligarchy.

As far as the other countries are concerned, Malaysia, Singapore, maybe that one, that front works pretty good.

Malaysia, Mount Tungku is gone.

The Americans.

Good God, Africa.

After all the talk, I wasn't gone, I remember.

I remember the time when he attended the great ceremony where the trombone, which they became that all week.

They were there with the waves and all that.

And they had a good time.

call him finally you know he was a big heavy man very heavy and he was sweating a sweat running down me but i came here receiving my special

And there's one in which there's a free democratic government.

There is not where there should be.

There is one where it'll work.

You know, that's true.

Latin America, it's always a government of Mexico.

Hell, Mexico's a one-party government.

It works, so that's what they should have.

Colombia, Colombia is on a government that has trade every five years.

So, but it works for them.

Thank God they don't fool around with it.

Uruguay, that's a fine example.

They're the geniuses who ruled that place.

They did.

That's what democracy did for it.

Maybe Costa Rica, that would be kind of a nice view of the place.

And down there, what else have we got for the rest of Latin America?

So everybody up here is a fellow of Brazil, and I'm inviting him up here.

Why?

It's the biggest country, and he probably is providing Brazil the only kind of leadership that is viable at this moment.

I wish it could be like others, but anybody that's seen Brazil is an enormous problem and knows the sophistication.

the case of the dictatorship in South Vietnam.

But what I have to say is that we are trying something in South Vietnam that is revolutionary and possibly simply non-doable, and that is to take a country that has no tradition of democratic government.

The tradition that it has, the French tradition, was an utter failure of the democratic government.

That's why they had to have a De Gaulle constitution.

rather than the rest.

And we're saying to them, look here, pressing upon you, and we're insisting upon you, democratic government, black power, this and that.

Can I be working?

So, at the mid-level, he didn't.

In rural Vietnam, it works.

They just have the biggest, better lodges, you said, ridges.

Lodges, lodges, they love them too.

And the Vietnamese people love politics.

This is true.

Ask them to go back.

Then you're sure they just might pull it off.

They're suddenly saying, I don't know, they have a lot of help from Oscar.

I mean, you do talk to people about politics.

If you look at it, it would be pretty hard for South Korea not to make it up.

I don't know.

Perhaps maybe these people, they just might make it.

But it's the, but what I was simply suggesting is that those like yourself that have worked in the, out in the vineyards before at the province level and finally at the national level, if this comes off, it'll be the most brilliant attachment of American colonialization.

In reverse, it's a venture out of the wall.

One of the reasons they first don't trust us is to see where they can take it.

But beyond that, they just can't imagine that they have a terribly superior attitude toward these little people.

Well, I think they're pretty damn good people, you know.

And you compare them with the other people and their neighbors.

The Chinese, they got a hell of a lot more involved than any of the other people in that part of the world.

Yes, sir.

I think they're going to succeed.

One of the things that was very interesting in the two years is that they are going to succeed now.

And one of the ways you see it, I thought there was one of the streets there with candles that could be panicked around and kind of loose.

And they sort of were when I first got out of there.

They were preoccupied actually with defending Europe.

In the course of those few years, their attitudes became intensely political, and they were walking around shaking hands with people that are currently in the East.

That's great to understand that they have to be popular through their duty, and they came to stand around with a swagger stick.

That's a tremendous change, a tremendously helpful relationship between the people and their government.

Let me ask you, what was your assignment?

What did they want you to do next?

I was talking to Elias about today.

He said he'd be talking to some doctor.

I don't know if he mentioned it to you, so forget it.

He has an assignment on Collins Institution.

It had never been mentioned to me, and he's going to leave.

There's a moment I'm just sitting on the bench.

What part of the world, what parts of the world do you use your primary English for the rest of your life?

You're basically an Asian expert more, or are you more European?

You're both being a lot of French.

I'm at Europe and Africa.

I'm like, rather, like Mac Donnelly in Laos, where the same breed of French-speaking characters that don't reach Africa have communities far east of Europe.

I think immediately the greatest thing could stand, but people like him didn't deserve any place in the world where there was a job to be done.

What a job it is, what a job it is, it's like, as I say, if you know me,

that the important thing is what you do.

That's more important than anything else.

But Bill and I talked about this, that I would like for you to undertake an assignment here as an ambassador if the country is worth doing.

and we want to discuss that in the past.

We've got to see what the hierarchy is going to be.

Do you have any ideas, Al, as to where we need to spot right now?

Maybe we ought to ballot in Vietnam, and that would be the press secretary.

I think they'd be looking at prosperity, and if they were having a beach job, or Paris.

Yes, sir.

At the moment, it's up.

I want you to know that.

I don't want to put it in my interest, as you would want it.

I'm sure it's a title.

If you're an ambassador, shake your hand.

You all have nonsense and entertainment.

You're right.

But there are very few, quite candidly, in the foreign service that have the guts to handle a tough job.

It's the way they grow up.

It's the way they're educated.

And each one of them, for their own good,

How are you related to Joe Alsop and his wife?

He's a cousin.

That's what she said.

That's right.

She said we were talking the other day.

Are you a golfer?

Yes, sir.

You get a golf ball.

Thank you very much.

That's a gift.

Let's see what else the currency amounts are.

A golf ball has a little bit of steel, just about right.

But it's a lot of number.

It's a good one.

Next time, I can't remember a hard answer.

Good to see you.

Nixon, Whitehouse & Haig on Vietnam War and Democratization

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on February 22, 1971

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