Nixon, Haldeman & Ziegler on China policy and Media strategy

Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

Download transcript (.txt) · JSON data

It's very well.

Yes, sir.

I think you should.

We were talking about doing that, and I don't know whether, it may be sudden to have him come in, but did you just do that?

I'll have Mr. Scali here at 1130.

You know who he is?

He came up with the thing this morning on the

CBS Morning News' Mark McCallum was making a big thing about how there's a split between Rogers and Kissinger on who gets credit for the Chinese thing, that it was all, we should be recognizing that all the credit is due to the State Department.

It was Rogers and Rogers and Kissinger.

Yeah.

The county said, now this is the thing where they're trying to make a Rogers-Kissinger fight that doesn't exist, and it's an easy one to settle, and let me move in and try to work on this.

Let me work with Lomboski and Ziegler.

And he sent a note to me, suggesting that he do this, and he said, it's very easy.

This was the president's initiative.

Rogers and Kissinger aren't fighting about it.

They both totally support the president's initiative, and have been working with him to implement it.

You've got a damn good story there that you cannot expect somebody to speak from.

Of course they did.

And Scali said, I know that State's got to do this because when I was covering State, I got all the time the point that Bill, the thing that Secretary Rogers was most proud of was his policies, his China policy and his program to open the lines to China.

He said, I don't think the people at State and the lower levels even know what the real thing is, what the President's been doing with China and all that.

I'm not sure.

I would watch him now.

He may be internally.

But let Scali chop him off at the lower level internally.

And, you know, this is a good one.

This is a good kind of thing for Scali.

So I raised it with Henry.

I said, you know, Scali had raised this question at Triangle, and Henry said, perfect, Scali should do it.

Let me talk to him.

And he talked to Scali this morning about fasting, you know.

So, I think...

From Scali's viewpoint, he's frustrated because he's got a lot of ideas.

He's obsessed now with an idea where he wants you to have the two Harvard-China experts up to Camp David Saturday for consultation before they go on meeting press.

His idea is you could want Teddy Kennedy by, these guys would have to be on your side.

Well, they won't have to be on your side at all, but they're after a turkey mission.

First of all, that forum isn't that important to me.

I would need to consult with a member of my administration.

His idea was it would blend, you know, that you could say, oh, the kids are down here demonstrating on the Mall of Europe and they're not discussing this.

But symbolically and externally, it's a good idea.

I mean, it's a lot of good ideas.

You've got to realize that it's one-on-one.

And he understands that.

And I was just trying to talk about it this morning, too.

He tracks very well with Chuck.

Chuck says, you've got to recognize that Scully is an actor.

And I believe that every country is not a very, and he's been always, but now obviously one of the biggest, on this business of the, on this business of state, I'm not a big surprise.

That's Marshall Green and his bunch.

But the Christian Science Monitor had the same thing in the editorial.

They said it should be clearly recognized that the China

This Great China Initiative, it was the State Department, full credit to the State Department that this is one that Henry Kissinger's little State Department had nothing to do with.

See, it's again, you know damn well that's the State Department's plan.

The Christian Science and Editorial, they just mentioned it in an editorial, you know, that was the feature of the editorial.

I don't know why did they, they didn't go over, what about, that Henry's been briefing everybody on this, you know, they, uh,

Well, how are we going to knock it down, Bob?

I mean, let's go.

What are your general feelings about the credit for this?

Is 99.99% Richard Nixon?

Is it?

Oh, hell yes.

Everything that's running, all the editorials, all the new stuff, everything else is Nixon's initiative on China.

And in a sense, the act didn't make help to that, because if it did again, bang it, it's a mix of an issue that's going to make help to that.

The CBS News story on the state department.

Oh, yeah, well, the state should have been there.

Scali wants to talk to you about that.

Yeah, I'm going to get with Tom.

No, don't get into any arguments.

What's not an argument?

The point of the statement has nothing to do with it.

I think we've covered that one.

Just...

This is Dean Hoban.

He has sort of a weak stomach about the use of ping pong.

Apparently the American table tennis team has...

It follows what people do in their backyards, and it's just a strange sport.

We'll do a picture of Christine Copeland then.

You sit in on the meeting, and I've got to ask Scott to sit in, too.

But it's still in business, Justin.

It's not super secret.

All right.

Agreed.

And then see how it goes out, I guess, to the press.

If you want, why don't you see after the meeting?

So don't you go and set it up for him once a week or afterwards?

Or we don't promise him.

Well, he will talk to him.

I haven't promised him, but he says he will.

I think he's perfectly safe.

There hasn't been any problem.

Well, I think.

I just say that he's so handled in some way, some he's 59, some way he had, somewhere after the meeting he will go, he will see the press, he will say that he's so handled.

The integration, Mr. Rodman.

Mr. Rodman.

Well, all of the money, that's fine.

And I told Mitchell, here, it's fine.

Now, your pressures are apparently from...

and others who feel that we ought to take credit.

I want you to know that this is one of, if you ever use benign neglect, use it on this thing.

We don't want to do one goddamn thing.

I'm not saying any more.

We have nothing more to say.

I talked to John earlier.

He told me that in a long meeting about it.

We're trying to get the GWP to let on.

We're not going to go into these other matters and so forth.

We have nothing more to say.

I'll just break up what I said yesterday and not add to it.

Actually, there's no question about the fact that that was the right way to handle it.

Just to repeat.

Well, they asked me whether or not the President was pleased or displeased.

Well, I said I gave you our comment.

That's right.

There's nothing in it for us, Bob.

Dan, I hope you slapped it on the staff meeting hard.

Nobody did seriously anything in it for us.

They did yesterday.

Not the senior staff, who aren't all in it, but none of our people.

There's no one.

Okay, so we have it till that.

What else is of importance?

Well, that was the meeting table and assignment.

Of course, the four and a half, four and a half.

Let's listen to this one.

I don't know if Peter's engaged on it.

I think I will be asked about this post-tour this morning on, you know, the person being upset with the White House.

Now, the way I...

Well, if I'm asked about that, I think I'll just say, well, as I said yesterday, the President is totally aware that the Vice President supports his initiative on that.

This is the Vice President and everybody else in the administration supports security.

I'm not going to discuss any of that.

And incidentally, don't let us throw you into this business.

I mean, the State Department was frantically trying to put out some story, but in fact, they bought this all up.

Well, they've been making a real rummage out of it from the very beginning.

You don't think it's good?

No.

Marvin Cowell, that's what's got to be done.

That's what's got to be done.

The point is, this is one of the cases where it just doesn't happen.

Take a guy like Cal.

Henry didn't think of it.

I took it from my soul.

And that's exactly what Henry did.

He's taking a guy like Cal to trade off on a thing like that.

It's traditionally done this way.

He'll trade off the line from a lower guy in order to get another short leg.

So he'll remember.

I think he's getting a lot of that.

Thanks, Ron.

Ron Rogers.

Is he set to go Friday night?

Yes.

He's great.

He says he'd want to come in and report to me or something, didn't you say?

No.

He wants to come in early tonight.

He should head to me tomorrow.

He's a lawyer that Rogers just defined.

He's actually playing his own games in terms of credit and all that.

In this instance, I think Bill, I think Bill, I do think Bill, in this instance, I really think Bill realizes that I have got to get some credit on some of these things.

I have taken the heat.

Do you have that reason or not?

Yes.

And it doesn't show on these.

No, I didn't completely disagree with it.

I think Bill is constitutionally incapable of...

avoiding getting credit wherever he thinks he can, and I think he always will, but I don't give him enough.

I don't, and I don't have a feeling from my conversation with him that he has any, that he has made any effort or has any thought of trying to do this.

I think it's very likely that there's plenty of people at the State Department who just, it's too damn big a thing for them to sit there quietly and let Richard Nixon get credit for it.

That just kills them.

You don't remember battles to be fought constantly.

Teleskeletons are fighting every time.

We've got the facts.

I've done it.

I've written them.

For us, the thing, the record is so, you know, I saw it on my bridge and all that.

It was interesting that Captain Weinberger had a little dinner for Schultz and today.

and me and Teddy White.

There was some silly story with your backpack.

Yeah.

Captain Schultz.

There's nothing to that.

Absolutely not.

So we were at the couch for dinner last night, and it couldn't be more special.

I know their wives.

Their wives.

Even, you know, he couldn't put up with Weinberger's wife, but Schultz's wife is just a wonderful gal.

She's a bit over there.

I can't talk to her.

But, uh...

Teddy White was there, and that was all, just a small part of it.

Teddy White was expounding on the Nixon-China policy, and he had also written a quote.

See, you had talked about China with him during the campaign, and again during the transition, and again after you were president when you were in here.

White had apparently was intrigued with China, and you had made some points about it.

He wrote a book on it, you know.

Oh, is that it?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, he's a great expert.

I didn't realize that.

But he was talking, but I knew it was true.

He said, I know some things you people in the staff don't know about what the president's thinking was on China way back.

And he had picked this up apparently in some of the talks during the event.

Yes.

In time, yeah.

Okay.

Get it out in the establishment, because he loves to talk about it.

And he'll get it out, you know, in the... Great.

Yeah, I haven't talked to him.

I've talked to a whole lot of people about China.

That was one of the... That was not...

Hold on.

Michael White Roberts was talking about Russia.

He said all the State Department people worried about the Russian virus in China.

It was early in 68 when you talked to him.

That's when he decided that maybe, although he was a great entity worshipper...

It was when he decided that he probably would support you for president, in his own mind, vote for you for president, that it was because of your enlightened view on China.

Why he, you know, so clearly remembers it then and raised it in other conversations with you, because he was absolutely intrigued with it.

How was, uh, how about the comment he calls you, Mr. President?

I was, uh, keeping in touch with him.

I talked to him yesterday.

He's coming in tomorrow.

I'll see him tomorrow.

Yeah.

He was pleased that the guys were going down to Texas.

He didn't have any further view on what they should be doing until they got back.

He wants to talk with them when they get back.

and get a, I don't think it's being handled, I don't think, again, that was handled aggressively enough.

We remember, I wrote a memorandum, yeah, we got together.

I think what you have to do early in the day is to go to the archives and see what happens to happen or something.

Because you're going to have to be able to take a wash, bat, get some practice, you know, saying half-hearted measures and just that and the other thing.

Yeah.

You see, look who you've got.

Good old Lincoln.

I mean, who does a wonderful job.

Can't talk worth a damn.

And Arden, you know, who just started to rise from the top of the fence.

And all my recent great-grandfather.

He's a fine man, but he's no asset.

He says, now is the time.

He says, get him to be an ambassador.

Well, now, the price is here.

The price is here.

I want you to really go to work with Joe Obama on that bottom line.

I don't really see you need to pull it off in the Purdue thing, or is the Purdue thing out the window?

No, it's not out the window.

And Whitaker has this.

John Whitaker's quite close to Hart now, because he works with him all the time.

There's a strong feeling that that's what he would really like to do, and that if he had any feeling that he was relieved in a sense of his obligation here, then that's what he'd want to do.

He's very tempted by the offer, but feels he owes it to you to say.

So it's kind of a delicate thing on how to get the word to him that he doesn't, and I think the Bill Rodgers plug might be the way to do it.

Well, I don't want him.

I don't think the Secretary of Agriculture can last in the job more than two years.

That's why two and a half years is going to become an encumbrance.

I think it would be well for him to move on to somebody else, especially when he's got a prime opportunity for something he wants to do.

And he can leave with, you know, you don't have to give him an ambassador at large saying there's something.

No, he doesn't have one.

When they come back, they've got to go with the guy that can be the best.

It's horrible.

What would he do?

It's a lot bigger.

Well, there's no problem with this company.

Do you see my point?

Yeah, but I wonder if you... Oh, well, he never really sold to the farmers.

Price?

Oh, yeah.

With the sophisticates.

Oh, well, price is a... Harry thinks he could just be a wah-wah-wah-wah-wah.

All right.

I'll tell you why I think he would.

Because he's, uh, he knows all of us.

He knows all of us.

He's also a good speaker.

As far as getting out of the speaker, he got it out.

He did a good job.

And as a cabron, he would move on to that stage.

And, uh, he's a great guy.

I don't know what's wrong with me.

Nixon, Haldeman & Ziegler on China policy and Media strategy

AI Summary

Audio

Transcript (AI-generated)

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on April 21, 1971

Cite this conversation