Nixon & Rogers on Vietnam War and Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT)

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You don't have much part of that, do you?

Twenty-five.

and I think we understand that there's got to be something wrong with it.

I talked to Charlie York.

He's been talking to Utah.

Utah told us that yesterday the South Vietnamese

They call it a service.

He came in to see him, and he said that he was acting under instructions from himself.

He said the ambassador told him that.

The ambassador to himself did not say exactly.

And he said that,

that he'd been asked to come to talk to UConn, that they were concerned about the deteriorating situation in Laos.

And he refers to the loss of Hill 30 and the sentence of Hill 31.

And then he ended up, I say, that his government had asked him under the Secretary General to have his advice.

Uh, Utah said, well, he didn't know what advice he had in mind for the question given.

Uh, then he said that all I could do, that Utah said all I could do was ask for the ocean, and ask for the community to see me, and to talk to him about the situation.

So Yutan is going to be called here to ask for the ocean charge data.

Master's not here to visit New York to come see him on Tuesday.

This makes no sense at all.

In the first place, I don't have anybody from South Vietnam going to see Yutan.

Yutan has been locked in the town.

I'd like to stall it right here to take over.

Well, I thought, first, I didn't want anybody to know about it, except for me.

Secondly, I thought I'd call the Immaculate Trust and ask them what the hell is going on.

Then, since I got the story, then to tell them, probably tell them they ought to charge me and don't go.

And then we'll have Bush tell Utah the whole thing's a bad mistake.

It's the kind of thing that Utah loves to surface.

It loves to tell the press about it.

You can't trust that slimy son of a bitch, though.

You don't know what he's up to.

Except when we tell us, he tells us.

I'm not sure that we should ever do it, but I showed it to George Bush, and they said, if we decide to change our position on the China question, I'm not sure we should have gotten an NCP.

But you and I talked about this one time.

You remember, you had the Catholic United Nations, and I said I'd like to speak to the president, and I got a very slightly interested.

I'm telling you, we can do it after we, you know, it could be, I think it probably, in any event, if we should do it, it should wait until after the Korean elections.

Because it might cause some trouble in San Diego.

It includes a representation of the two Vietnams, which the Russians wouldn't like at all.

I don't know.

But sometimes, just put it in your green eyes, and I don't know how you look at it.

I know I'm not a radio public, but I've been doing a little thinking on the Salt Lake.

Before they go back to March of the 18th, maybe you could say something.

Let me put it this way.

Let me say on that, for your information, I, I want to talk, I don't think I want to talk for a while.

I just, you know, had to be before March 15th, and I said that I would like to do it.

in terms of where, if I do it or not, if I do it or not, it tells him that I'm absolutely, I don't have a confidence in him.

I think he does as well as he can concerning the people that are there.

But I feel that he looks at this thing rather

But as anybody who would be involved in long-term negotiations, in certain personal, sometimes initial terms, and also that,

It just takes too much intensity sometimes, so you want to find yourself a favor.

However, this is a big play.

You know, if you really come down to it, everybody would agree with the Russians, this might be a, you know, the end to something else.

But if we do it, I think we've got to get the credit here.

I don't think it's going to be the end, you know what I mean?

So I guess it's a thought for that, but I understand that we, I don't know what I would say, but I would particularly suggest that we, we ought to keep that very close to account, you know.

I was asked about holding the other day, what you, how you felt about it, basically.

My only feeling is that if we could get an agreement, which became effective at the end of this year, technically signed,

And as long as it didn't cause us to have any disadvantage, as long as we have the opportunity to develop policies, we would develop anyway.

And really stop the things that we probably should stop anyway.

I'm on the same track.

I've been thinking a lot about it.

I told her, hey, we can't do that.

We need to do stuff so that I can do stuff.

So I'm reading this stuff.

But I think something might come.

Because I think maybe they can do something, too.

I don't know.

Just let us say this.

Say what you do.

Well, I didn't think along the same lines.

I also think it would be an enormously good thing to have, if we could get something said or done, or at least some indications, partners, in this spring, which takes, you know, this president.

But I think, I don't think there's a perfect reason to be like that.

I think what we...

on 10 miles.

Well, they hear you when you're hearing them on television.

And it's that one.

They're absolutely right.

I don't look at it when I read it.

I know how horrible it is.

They'll know what the trouble is.

And you can't blame them.

You can't blame them.

The whole damn defense department is called PR crazy.

And I personally, I was in a lot more trouble on this thing.

Let them squeal.

You can look at the bloody days after a football game.

Vince Lombardi.

Whenever he lost a game, he would let it bite him for 30 minutes.

Ted Williams, of course.

You know, he never loves to press in after the baseball player loses a game for half an hour.

Oh, hell, this is war.

So the press squeals to Ted Williams.

And most of the people say he's right.

What do you think, bro?

I can't even, I just think we're just going crazy to get ourselves beat over the head, bloody.

I talked to all our experts, I've been doing that since I was a kid.

And he's going to do everything I can.

And he will.

Jesus, you're actually ready for the war.

You never let a guy talk to the press after you've been in the battle, would you?

What we used to do is afterwards, we took them.

When they were ready to say, I'd like to find us.

Yeah, but I was in... Yeah.

And what we used to do is, when we were ready, then we'd let them go and talk to the press.

And we didn't do it under orders, we just did it to make sense.

I mean, that was the choice we had to make.

And we just did not talk to the press until we were ready.

But on the assault, then, let us develop our own strategy.

Let us continue to work on the table support.

We must do that.

Because it has to be done.

Okay.

Well, I'll see you.

All right, President.

How was the weather today?

Uh, it hasn't been very good.

Did you go to Kansas City for the weekend?

No.

Uh, Pat's going out to do some New York jobs.

I'm going to stay here to work.

Oh, say, what's another thing you want to do?

I know this damn Paul Thompson job in New York.

Yeah, what do you do up there?

Oh, we have to go to New York.

Uh, do you ever think about the possibility of George Browning?

Well, you told me one time that there was a problem with civil rights.

Yeah, there was.

We were going to take Mexico.

We didn't want that.

And now we seem to be relatively happy.

Well, let's be good.

I think the other fellow who goes to Texas, like, so-and-so, would be dang good.

That would be Bob, terrific.

Terrific if he'd do it.

But, yeah, probably be great.

Well, it would be good to have a half a billion dollars to spend, you know.

Well, I don't want him to feel, you know, George is difficult and sorry to a whole lot of other people.

But he's pretty good.

You know what I mean?

He does the best he can.

It's hard for him to be able to relax over there and bring him all the time.

And you know the problem he's facing.

The whole problem with him.

This is the one you can't do.

Because it doesn't involve civil rights.

Open community.

Yes, I mean, anybody's got a right to go in.

Anybody has a sign, zones against black shoes.

Anybody else will break it down on them.

But you can't say to a neighborhood, here's a neighborhood of homeowners,

So you go put a great big ugly public housing project right in the middle of it.

God damn it, you can't do that.

It destroys the property values.

You know, people live like pigs.

It's just, even as a white man, an interesting thing.

He said, in the state of Washington, they have the same problem.

And they tried to put a public housing project out in a suburban area where a lot of people who lived in Boise and other places were in $20,000 to $25,000 houses.

There was a hell of a lot of work.

There was a need for points.

a white public housing project.

It's like, well, suppose where you live, for example, somebody said they're going to put a public housing project across the street.

You'd fight it, wouldn't you?

It would be valuable.

And that's what this is about.

It isn't black versus white.

It's economic.

Well, I'm going to have a little party.

He's at Camp David.

You might give him a call.

I give him a call.

Nixon & Rogers on Vietnam War and Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT)

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on February 26, 1971

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