Nixon & Kissinger on China-US relations and SALT negotiations

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I tried to call you last night, Mr. Griffin, when you had retired.

I had to really grab my dinner at the outhouse yesterday.

He had to stay up.

Go ahead, ignore me.

Don't pay any attention to me.

Go ahead.

And after dinner, Joe, I'll talk to her.

Yeah, that's right.

And she's very fond of you.

Oh, yes, personally, yeah.

But she really, but she admires you.

She likes Gus.

Because she talked to me afterwards.

She said she was so proud of you, and she said... She knows these other people better than Gus.

Her father had Gus.

Yeah.

So they went around the table and said who is going to win the election in 72.

Every single person said you.

Every last person, including Kay Graham and Ben Bradley.

They said you, and several said overwhelmingly, because next election or two would be the Democratic candidate.

All except two said Humphrey.

They all said Muskie was finished.

Why?

Because he's a lightweight, he's got, he's not untouched.

It's going like an army.

Ben Bradley said, what a waste of a beautiful face.

Like an army.

Just like an army.

Remember I told you.

As a matter of fact, I told Bill Rogers that, you know, he's on the Cornell, and that he went over to Seatbelt, and it didn't turn out.

He's usually pretty good on that.

And he moved my son, you know, by a flag every time and so forth.

You know, in fact, not the same as Chris's own.

I said, look at him in the sun.

I mean, look at him.

She's treated a test.

Took a test.

He's not heavy.

Have you heard?

Absolutely not.

I think he talks heavy.

Not even that.

You know what I mean.

He gets it.

On television, if somebody likes it, he does.

I sat at it in a table with him.

He could never do it personally.

There's no way he could do it personally.

That's so interesting to me.

And Missy Chandler was just ecstatic about you.

Missy?

Yeah.

And I've seen her on the West Coast before where she always...

No, no, no.

Your guts last week.

What do they say?

We can't get out of Vietnam.

We can't just leave all these dead there.

He was absolutely passionate.

I'm glad to hear that.

But the mood around that table was absolutely incredible, Mr. President.

Oh, Stuart.

Stuart?

I came... Oh, totally on your side.

He understood what he did.

He didn't return it a little.

They all thought you had turned it around last week.

They all thought... You know, we thought he hadn't turned it much around.

You've turned them.

Anyway, they all thought you were going to get on top of the situation.

Stuart, I told Stuart that really, when an outside writes an article like this, that's a national problem.

I said, if Joe Kraft writes such an article, it's like water up at that stack.

Who takes it seriously?

I said, I want you to know the president has had great care, and we're all very pained by it.

He doesn't understand it.

He's been saying we have to withdraw fast for six months.

It has nothing to do with Laos.

Laos and America have split separate.

Yes.

And he said he's going to write another article in which he says we can't bug out of Vietnam.

No, we're clear.

It is the most positive meeting that I've, as long as I've been in Washington, had no chance to be in Washington.

Well, I was stunned because I thought when Joe started going around the table, McNamara was there.

What did he say?

You would win.

And he said, not only will he win, he deserves to win.

I don't know that.

He's the one I call.

Oh, yeah.

On the world track.

Yeah.

This is ridiculous.

I don't know about that.

But he really admires you, right?

But then, but King Graham also, too.

King Graham, so-and-so.

Uh-huh.

And the mood, what I found so interesting was that the mood of respect for you, usually at these dinner parties, I'm the only one who speaks for you.

All the others make snide little comments.

But this time, it was really...

Absolutely extraordinary.

Totally unexpected.

I thought that they would say, you're sliding, you're losing the grip on the reasons that they give unsecure messages.

But what shook Missy was that she had been at a meeting of the Population Control Council where the black members

started talking revolution.

She didn't like that.

And that took her, but above all, she liked her speech.

She said, of course we can't get out of Vietnam.

And she said, yeah.

And I was really prepared for the other person, sir.

Well, of course, you know, I put him aside.

Joe, uh... Oh, yeah.

Uh...

Joe realizes, though, that if somebody, if he thinks about it, first of all, I don't call, he's no good.

We all do that.

But not even a man that we have such respect for is calling.

We sit there and say, well, let's partner right away.

Take this thing.

Well, we didn't do it.

We said, of course, we should, of course.

I didn't do things that anybody should do.

You should not be in love or winning trials.

They might find you some good.

Right?

Absolutely.

Now, Joe thinks we're producing a Middle East war, and I don't agree.

The States have a very stupid comment this week.

They said the State Department was asked about these Adnan shipments to the Middle East, and he said they, in effect, said the Israelis brought it on themselves.

All right.

That's a stupid thing to say because that encourages it, but I'll leave that aside because we can always rescue that when we have to.

Ben Bradley?

Ben Bradley, he's just taken a trip around the world, and he said he never thought he'd reach the point where he could say,

that President Nixon's conducting the right foreign policy, but that's his view.

He was in Vietnam.

He came back enthusiastic, apparently.

Isn't it funny, though, that they've done business a little against their neighbors?

Yeah.

Well, he claims that while he was there, he made Peter Jay write one very favorable article about the Laos operation.

There was one, but I don't know.

And I think that's probably the one.

Right.

Well, usually I'm in there like a punch-drunk fighter.

When they started going around the table, I felt, oh boy, here it's me again.

They've never said it for my benefit.

And I thought the dinner was in honor of Mrs. Chandler.

And she spoke last, but she didn't.

So... Missy's actually a very pretty person.

She used to be, as you said.

I had a couple of thoughts.

I noticed the news summary today.

Well, it's got that network.

Two of them still have the war as number one.

How the hell did they do it?

One miserable man.

You know, they're desperately trying to keep the border open.

And the news, the newspapers are much more responsible than the horrors of the news.

That's right.

But China will take it on today.

Chu and Lai came for an interview to that TikTok deal.

He's such a subtle guy.

Yeah.

But she said that this begins a new era of Chinese-American relations.

Really?

Yeah.

That's a big ball game.

You know, but they were being, they were being very kind and endearing to the Russians.

Two questions.

Are we unnecessarily irritating the Russians about this right now?

Well, I am slightly.

I'm thinking this, Mr. President.

Well, first of all, my call to the freedom was a good move.

Well, you think I may have been too eager?

Oh, no.

No, I wondered, in light of this, whether or not you...

No, I just called him to congratulate him on the Central Committee election.

Yeah, but I mean, you called him and then today he went out.

Well, I think what I might do is to get this fellow Vorontsov over here again and say, now look, our top priority is the relation with you.

Sure.

And this is something that has been in the works for six months.

And now let's not miss the opportunity.

Yeah.

I might do that because Dobrynin is coming back, but he's coming back with some instructions because first Vorontsov, the way this call came to pass was that I told Vorontsov it's too boring, the technical details, how Rath was going to talk to Abrasimov because we have to be able to get rid of interpreters for that.

And I just want to make sure that they didn't screw it up.

Then he said that he had noticed I had said some friendly things about the Brezhnev speech, and that pleased him very much, and he slobbered all over me.

And he said that the ambassador would come back with new instructions on Sunday.

He said we should pay attention to the Brezhnev speech.

Yes, and he said, now you notice that we were paying constructive attention, because I had said on Air Force One that it was a conciliatory speech coming back to California.

And he said we should have.

Right.

Then, I said as a joke, I said, you know, you and Madden gave me his phone number in Moscow, and I lost it, and it's too late in the day now anyway to call him.

There's an eight-hour difference.

Otherwise, I'd congratulate him for his election to the Central Committee.

Why don't you do it for me?

A half hour later, they called over, and they said the time difference is of no account.

Why don't you call him?

It would please him very much.

and gave me the Moscow phone number, which, as you know, they don't give out Moscow phone numbers.

I called him in Moscow and said, I just want to congratulate you.

And I said, I just want to tell you, I discussed some procedural things with you.

The man here, he said, was it about the exchange of letters?

Because I'll have something to say about that.

I said, oh, no, they're just purely technical things.

And he said, well, I'm coming back with new instructions on Sunday.

He was very hate-listened into it on it, and he said it was.

Of course, the instructions, well, he'd been through this beforehand.

The instructions to turn the other way.

I doubt it.

They could, but I doubt it.

I'm looking at it from Gretna's point of view now.

Gretna has two choices.

He can't continue the way he's going.

He's got to break out one way or the other, just as we do.

So he's going to go...

at the very top.

I think it's premature for him.

He's going to go the way we want him to go.

Not to help us, certainly not to help us out.

You see, I'm beginning to think we can get that ambassador into Peking before the year, before another calendar year has passed.

I'm awfully glad that you called.

I said you had asked me.

Oh, always say that.

I can hear anybody you call.

Always say that.

But he couldn't have been more delighted.

No, he's important.

Well, he had just returned to Washington.

I caught him just at the end of his apartment.

And he said, well, I cannot tell you the president is making a historic contribution.

And whatever our differences, I'm with him 100%.

We will use him sometime for that mission that we chose.

It would be perfect to go on a decent, responsible...

Of course, Mr. President, you do deserve the credit for this.

We have been building.

Well, and we also, I just get, that's why he stuck it in.

I gave it to Peterson before he went to time.

I know the state began to leave something out in the press here today.

They bet we would have something to say on their recommendation.

Well, on the recommendation, yeah, on the recommendation on trade and also on the U.N. representation.

God damn it.

I want the story leaked out.

It's coming out to somebody.

They imposed this.

Now they did.

Marshall Green imposed it.

First, they opposed it.

Secondly, when they didn't oppose it, every initiative was designed in this building.

Most of them by you.

The idea of...

Well, they don't even know about it.

We sent two messages through Yaya, three messages through Yaya.

We sent a message through St. Anthony.

We sent on the trade saying we took the initiative both times.

I mean, they gave us the specific measures, but we were the ones that said, give us the measures.

Timing was all done here.

I'm sure that this one, they've been screwing us so much on leaks, now we're going to screw them on this one.

I think this China thing is completely confusing our opponents also.

That's a tremendous break.

I really think it is.

Oh, yeah.

It just can't tell what else is going on.

And of course, there are...

I think, Mr. President, this is going to have a significant backwash on Hanoi.

That's the point, I think, that I hadn't thought of, but you're right.

They've got to worry about Argentina and China.

They have no confidence, just another confidence.

They, and no Vietnamese trusts any foreigners, so they must think that they could become an insignificant plaything.

And they must figure, as they correctly do, that unless the Chinese were very worried about the Russians.

See, I think if Brezhnev jumps anyone, it will be the Chinese, not us.

He's not going to jump us.

If he's not going to jump us, he's got to go the other way, Miller.

Anything else will look like stagnation.

And he needs some sort of big leadership ploy.

In my view, it's a coincidence of needs.

We need a leadership ploy, and he needs one.

Yeah, yeah.

I was thinking at that point down there, they may have just said, you're going to do it.

Never.

Well, Mr. President, I go to two dinners a week with that crowd, and they've been tearing me to pieces for two and a half years.

Why should they do... Well, turn them around, though.

They've got damn Senate centrists and everything else.

No, I think it's the combination of your speech, Mr. President... China.

Plus China.

But also your speech.

This speech had a different effect from the November 3rd speech.

The sheer, unadulterated guts

of stepping up there and sticking to your guns.

One of the things they kept saying, it actually isn't a conclusion so much.

No, I know that for them.

What they kept saying is, how could he say, you hold me accountable?

I said to them, look, he's going to be held accountable anyway, whether he says it or not.

That's right.

And he has absolute confidence in what he's doing.

But that was the one that they all mentioned.

They said the tremendous guts of stepping up there when people were arguing, end of draft, withdrawal rates, and holding your course.

Then Missy started telling stories.

She claims to know you very well.

How you had always been a very thoughtful man, a very sensitive man.

He had never done that for my benefit.

Ben Bradley is a tough, mean cynic.

I called him once, though, and thanked him for some argument.

Yeah, but...

He's a mean bastard.

But he is a tough, mean cynic.

I know.

And I've gone to these centers, Mr. President, for... Well, I think Matthew Murray's president's help, though, because he... Yeah, but they don't know that, but... Oh.

He didn't speak first.

Now, the first person who spoke was Alice Longwood.

That was easy.

Ben Bradley was the second.

Alice was a servant.

She just said she didn't think the others had it.

She just said the others weren't of presidential caliber and that she'd been an outstanding president, that she had always thought you had tremendous stature.

I stood her.

She had admired you as a wife, I said.

There's a couple of things.

What the hell is this draft talk about?

Would you like to view it?

The major thing we need from them is the, well, there are two problems.

One is the House increased the pay over $1.7 billion, and that's going to come out of the defense budget.

They should reduce it to the two-step increase.

And it's the ABM.

We have ABM.

Margaret Bush-Thompson sent in favor of four years since the draft of the U.S. public journal.

She's the president.

And this is on the competency of the U.S. and security of the U.S. and security of the U.S. and security of the U.S. and security of the U.S. and security of the U.S. and security of the U.S. and security of the U.S. and security of the U.S. and security of the U.S.

I don't think we can carry her, son.

Talk to you soon.

Hello.

Instead, Holland is gone, both of them replaced by weak men, both voted against SST.

We've lost two votes.

Are there concerns?

One, maybe, out of that bunch.

Whiter will be with us, Bell, probably Taft, maybe.

But we lost two, from California to Illinois, see.

We lost, see.

On 8th of December, in Monticelli,

We know probably what that means, that our discussions with this son of a bitch, when he comes back, if there is, you've got to remember, there isn't much to deal with.

To me, the worst of both worlds would be for us to get nothing, to be beaten in the heart and the center of the thing.

We could just forget anything, you know, that it's all that's dead.

I just so hope he's dead.

That means you should know that while you must play the game, that we're going to go forward with the APM and your talks with them.

That we assume, therefore, a need and a rebound.

Oh, I recognize that, Mr. President.

Like I said, we have to recognize it, not because it's right, but because we can't get it otherwise.

That's all there is to it.

We've got to figure it out.

Do they give us one more year out?

Henry, do you get any kind of letter or any kind of a half-assed statement?

We'll get a half-assed statement by June 1st.

How do you do that?

I don't know.

I don't know why I'm so confident, because if they figure we're going to lose it anyway, why should they make a deal?

Yeah, well, maybe they're not so sure.

We've surprised them before.

I think maybe that's part of it.

I think you should know that it's awful tough.

The ADM one is very tough because of the way the NAMs let us come.

If we were just figured, if we just figured what happened, in our states it would be fine.

But the two southern NAMs that we lost, God damn it.

And they may be better than us.

You may vote for the NAMs.

By the way, there was a very bad...

I think you'll vote for the NAMs.

I think that when he gets back, he probably will have something to say.

I don't want this damn Chinese action to infuriate them so that they figure they've got to keep us waiting a month.

They are tough customers, Mr. President.

They don't play it that way.

And I think our experience with them now has been that whenever we put it to them, when he comes back, I'm going to tell him that if we don't settle it in two weeks,

I'll send him back to the State Department.

That's what Cooper broke on it.

That I won't deal with him anymore.

If we can't settle a simple matter like it, it's all exchange of letters in this channel.

That's the thing we're still afraid of.

If it fails, it fails.

If that blood fails, but I don't think it will fail.

And really, I think these residents are so tough.

That if we, if they have any sense of insecurity on our part, they will be impressed by this Chinese thing.

If we give them a way out, they'll get them that message to say that our priority is Soviet relations and that it's really up to them.

Just so, because they're meeting tomorrow.

Thursday is the Politburo meeting there.

They didn't launch that raid yesterday, or they're going to today.

They haven't started the movement yet.

The Jewish part of it is inside South Vietnam, down the Asheville Valley.

Well, you're right about that.

We are not at this point, particularly at this point, to take any risks on our captains.

It just isn't worth it.

We've got too many other fish to fry.

No, no, we've got, you know, I've always been for a tough policy in Vietnam, but we've got to cool it a bit.

And we've given everything up.

I mean, they've followed it up.

We've just got to...

We have to do a little bit of a different game.

Yes, I thought that we can't have it.

We can't have many helicopter losses.

Because we are now, if we get this Chinese thing deflating matters.

With hammer break, we should get that salt thing wrapped up in two weeks.

You need to try it on us.

The salt thing will have one enormous wall.

That's two weeks more.

And then, if the salt thing works, we'll have the summit.

by the middle of May, and then we'd have the summer free.

and on the law, such as information.

Oh, it's good, and unsolved.

The state won't be able to lead a damn thing because they won't know it until you're ready to do it.

In the summit, they won't be able to lead a damn thing because they don't know it either.

I don't know.

Why, on the summit, as soon as it gets down to any kind of an understanding, we ought to get it out, you understand?

No, no, no.

We ought to hang around and get it back to state, too.

You know, you can't trust any of our people.

Yeah, but they don't talk to people.

Don't let it even get around any channel.

It's just got to be the summit.

The moment that it's spurred, we've got to get an agreement to announce it.

Any time already, don't try to taste the summit announcement.

The summit announcement should come just as quick as we can get it.

I'll have to wait.

Yes, I agree.

I mean, there was a time before we didn't want to have a go, but now, you see, and we don't, we're not building anymore in Vietnam, so therefore we don't have to keep it for that reason.

The only reason would be entirely your own, whether you want it sold and some have to close on it.

No, I'd like to have it one day after another.

I don't care.

That they probably won't want to do, but...

I don't.

I don't care.

That's my...

I showed you how little difference it makes.

The main thing, pacing is not important now.

That will set them talking.

The press corps here will be writing spec stories and so forth, fighting to get out over there and trying to, you know, determine who's going to get to go and who's going to cover nulls.

The American president is a Russian who comes.

Do you realize what that's going to be?

And the show you ever saw in the world.

I think maybe another thing I want to tell Guaranta, which I've held a briefing in, just so that we get it into the system,

Sir, that August is no longer possible for us, and we've got to have it in the first half of September.

After Labor Day.

We can read, and I have a very important schedule right through Labor Day, but I can leave the day after that.

You know, just for the time being.

Sure, and we don't waste any extra interest, though.

Okay.

All that, but that's a good point.

One reason why it's a pleasure to deal with you, Dr. Pinchot, is...

You know that you can't hurt their feelings.

And you can get them mad.

And that's why that's what would be useful.

That's why.

All our experts were again wrong.

All of them said it would hurt us, it would hurt the Chinese, the Soviets, and everybody else.

If anything had helped with the Chinese,

Well, let's look at the little speech to our congressional experts and some of our staff here.

But it wouldn't have made a goddamn bit of difference.

$16,000 wouldn't have made a big of a difference.

You started right down eating the saliva of some mouse.

That's right.

There would not be any difference in it.

Right, I'll go.

It doesn't make any difference what we say in Vietnam.

The Democrats will try to top us.

Sure.

They can't let us end the war.

They cannot afford it.

They don't want us to succeed now.

They are really terrified at the thought that a war they have, we have.

And you did not do what they...

in policy or a liberal republic, if I did, but what a blood brother would have done, what a Lindsay or even a Rockefeller would have done, was talking to them and weeping with them.

Sure.

Not all these problems.

No, sir.

It's that way you get to your cause.

That seems to have affected those people last night.

I have not since I've been here.

Maybe, you know, they're not...

Maybe they just like a little toughness, strangely enough.

Well, you see, I know that after November 3rd, their attitude was, well, the American people are such a bunch of fools, that it's all right that the president took advantage of them.

After Cambodia, they were first foaming at the mouth, and then they didn't know what to say or do.

But this time, and I was totally unprepared, and believe me, I think...

And if the dinner where I hear a good thing about you is rare, from anybody is rare, but a consensus is unbelievable, which never happens.

John Freeman and I, now that he's gone, practically I alone are the only people that stood up for the administration of these sections.

They always get vicious, but they always see snide comments.

But this time there was a tremendous aura of respect.

I was so...

I'm excited about it that I called you, by the way, but you had already retired.

Oh, yeah, I couldn't reach you.

But that will reflect itself to which Stuart also was terribly sheepish.

But I got it.

I found Lizzie very interesting.

That's very important.

And she, she, sometimes I think she's the stronger... Oh, yes, yes, smarter, too.

You're going to get the... Is the China thing going to be put on for cigarettes?

I didn't know that.

I think they've been out for two days, so...

They are something.

Last week on your speech, we didn't hear from them for four days.

They've been on the phone every ten minutes.

We'll take them, send them to... Can they...

Can they give it to Utah?

Can they do this and the other?

Oh, yes.

A very good set of reactions from the people to whom you sent your world report to.

Bradley mentioned to me on his trip that the respect for you as a statesman around the world, he was

That's enough.

That's all he is.

Uh, yeah.

Nixon & Kissinger on China-US relations and SALT negotiations

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Also recorded on April 14, 1971

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