Conversation 487-007

Transcript (AI-Generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.

Mr. President, we have one problem with an ambassador which you may have to step into.

He's just written you a long letter complaining bitterly about his mistreatment by essentially Rogers and us.

Second, well...

He says he's trying to carry out his orders faithfully and he's taking a beating as a result of it.

Buckley, who was down here to see him, has written us a letter.

I hold no grief for him except that he needs the money.

and that he has a hell of a lot of information of what we did down there.

Bill is furious with him for something he did, for recommending that, A, be moved out of the State Department.

But I hold no brief for him except that I think we ought to keep him employed until after the election.

He just knows too damn much.

I agree with you.

I think it's a problem.

What the hell are you doing?

Start writing his books.

I'd make him an ambassador somewhere.

How can you move him out of there?

Well, he is being moved out of there.

That's already decided out of Chile.

It's already been announced that can't be reversed.

I don't know what your name was, John.

Let me see that I can work something out.

Well, I was trying to say that it had to relate to your need for humanity.

You may come to the point where a person may have quite a lot of versus all of them.

The second point that you may have either with it or have to consider is the summit thing.

The point that we want to understand is that, well, we of course want salt.

We also should have a summit.

We can take it with us.

We can take the summit without it.

I've understood.

And we've got to not indicate that to him and me.

But the other point is that I think that in terms of the announcement,

We're not going to screw around.

I want the announcement made early.

I don't mean three weeks from now.

I don't mean two weeks from now.

Let's put him right to the store and find out what he wants to announce.

Mr. President, I was talking about this in another report.

I thought I'd move his night table up and get it sealed because you know things are going to happen between now and that demonstration, which might change their mind.

I will do that.

My judgment is that given the fact that they have these fan meetings every Thursday, that two weeks is the earliest they can do it.

But I will push for the earliest possible summit announcement and in less than, in a matter of a week or two.

Uh-huh.

And for all we know... And the SALT thing.

The SALT, they ought to be able to announce within a week.

There's just no excuse why we can't do that.

And then the summit, two or three days afterwards.

It would be, we could write 50 best if things came in sequence, but they shouldn't be held up for each other.

some advantages to us in having something positive in the near future.

We can't get it, we won't get it, I understand that.

But we know what kind of a game he plays, too.

Probably if they play with us in all those goals, if he wants to do something fun.

where he's really given us.

And because that's what they did before.

They've been doing that a long time.

This is Fisher Cup.

They stopped the day to decide when we're going to, if we're going to have an agreement on the salt when we release it.

And second, we're going to have a sign when we announce that.

And let's go on.

I believe we should go on now on the announcement.

for three weeks, two or three weeks, and try to take the time and so forth.

Do it whenever the time is good for us, because that will override a lot of other things that are going on.

For a while, it will override.

In fact, as you know, it doesn't last too long.

The China thing has lasted the last couple of days.

Now we'll...

I think this is going to be longer.

OpaDopa had a very good story today.

I know, but that's just in one article.

It's not in television.

It's gone.

The point is, you have to realize that that's what really matters in terms of public opinion.

And throughout the television in the present time, zero in on these people.

It'll zero in on the demonstration Saturday.

And then they'll try to play it for the next two weeks.

They're training it up.

And it's highly unconscionable reporting on the part of the television.

It's highly unconscionable.

They're just playing it out.

Well, they want to destroy you, and they want us to lose in Vietnam.

I really think it's more the latter.

They destroy me.

I think they know that they're both the same.

But me now, basically, want to realize that critics of the war are furious that when they thought they had it linked,

When they threw Johnson out of office, they thought, well, now we won our part in the war.

Now we've come in, and it looks like we're going to, they know what it is.

They, despite all the way we put the cosmetics on every day, they know goddamn well that what our policy is is to win the war.

And winning the war simply means that it's obvious not to survive.

That's all.

You can't win with a war.

That's it.

Now, with this in mind, we've got to realize that we're dealing, that there, this is, that's your TV people.

That's your newspaper people.

I mean, despite the losing, when the guy says that some of my colleagues want you to lose, but we don't, I don't, was it Severin killed you then?

Hufford.

Maybe he believes that.

He doesn't represent the majority.

Those guys out there in that press room, 90% of them lost.

No, now the maps are coming out.

They laugh, for example, I mean, whoever wrote the Washington Post editorial today, they now say, we have to give up our interest in the future of the South Vietnamese government.

That's the only way we can get out.

They wanted to lose.

I mean, that's now, they used to have ceasefire and 50 other things.

Yeah.

But now they say, when I said that one condition, which I've always said, is that Vietnamization basically, by definition, means a withdrawal.

Our policy is not a withdrawal.

Our policy is a withdrawal in a way that will let South Vietnam survive.

We've always said that.

And now, you see, I think it's going to be portioned out now.

So that they are finally saying that they want, they say we must give up on the right of the South Vietnamese.

Even the Christian Science Monitoring, which I'm editorial about as well, that nobody, there wouldn't be any recrimination in this country because nobody really cares what happens to South Vietnamese.

They're crazy as hell.

They're crazy as hell because afterwards... That's what the radicals understand.

They want to break the government.

They want to break confidence in the government.

They don't give a damn about Vietnam because as soon as Vietnam is finished, I will guarantee the radicals will be all over us or all over any government for any further thing.

These tactics of confrontation aren't going to end and our tremendous national malaise right now, the establishment, has the great excuse

Oh, Vietnam.

No matter what goes wrong, they play in Vietnam.

More like those college presidents at the time.

Do you remember?

They were really relieved, really, that if they said their campuses were politicized, remember, that part of it was in Christchurch because of Cambridge, but they were relieved because they couldn't keep up with that.

What they told you was you go on national television, don't talk about university problems, talk about international affairs.

When you asked what should I talk about, they said don't talk about university problems.

Talk about international democracy.

That's right.

And face the real issues.

I remember three years ago when Arthur first flew up, I told the liberals there that two years from now it will be infinitely worse with all the concessions you've made.

You'll need every one of these points.

It should be worse off.

Last year when the radicals smashed every

window in Harvard Square, one of those professors was honest enough to call me up and say, yes, now I see.

But now they have picked riots in Harvard.

They're not reporting them or picked to do anything.

Well, they have a tremendous campaign on against professors they consider right wing with the slogan, no free speech for war criminals.

In other words, the movement that started as a free speech movement in Berkeley

is now a no free speech movement for war criminals, and they're after some of my colleagues, Sam Huntington, who would be a liberal, but he's honest.

I know him.

I know who he is.

And they want to put him off the faculty.

Oh, he doesn't go?

No, but I...

The dean of the Kennedy School called me yesterday and said, we are holding a meeting and we are convincing our faculty to vote for him.

I said, why do you have to have a meeting to affirm that you're against the no free speech?

And why do you have to convince anybody that ought to be taken for good?

Who is they when they say no free speech?

That's the SDS trap.

That's the...

No, but it's the 10% of the activists and the others are cowards.

But I think it's the macrocosm of our society, Mr. President.

I think the big problem in this country, I feel that as a historian, it's going to happen after the war is over.

They know the war is over.

No.

No, but that's why the radicals, the radicals understand what they're doing.

You cannot win for two reasons.

One, because it's you.

You're so anathema.

And therefore, you don't panic.

You're not trance.

And secondly, because they think the war is a magnificent opportunity to break the self-confidence of this country and of the system.

So they use both of it.

But they'll be back next year with the war over and they'll find some other issues.

These conference, if the war is over next year or whatever it is, they'll be

or two years from now when it will surely be completely over.

And they'll find enough in Vietnam for a good long time because... And then we will be supporting the two key government with military...

They're already starting that.

Oh, I know.

And I know they will.

And just like they do in Cambodia.

In fact, I am wondering, Mr. President, it can't be done this minute.

Seriously, whether one shouldn't go on the offensive against them, whether one isn't.

On the wrong wicket, batting back the balls they throw whether one shouldn't accuse them of turning things over to the communists.

Just don't have the sense that this is a soft country.

You have been there.

You have done everything I have said in my speech and that meeting with the editors.

You couldn't do more.

You can't do no more.

Do you think or should I do more?

Not right now.

I don't think I can still maintain any.

You know, we've got to still maintain basically the makers at that time.

No.

That's our fault.

No.

Heather, you need some others.

The thing that's worrying our friends, Henry, is that the economy's looking a little better.

My old country used to, but when Sanderson said it was going to be good for the balance this year, but not as good as it ought to be, now what the hell are they talking about, huh?

That's a lousy argument.

I'll be dry.

The other thing, on the war, I agree.

I agree with you that...

I understand that there's a killer, and that's what his question is about, actually.

It's over.

It's going to be something else.

I've always said that, you know.

And these press people, people like Mary Curry and the rest, they say, well, that's not true.

We'll wait and see.

They'll eat them one day, too, you know.

They're going to eat the liberal press people one day, too.

Mr. President, you'll survive that.

You will not longer than the liberals.

The liberals are certainly going to be destroyed.

They can't survive.

They never should survive in a society.

No.

They will be the clear victims of a revolution here.

We should go on the offensive.

Maybe I should go on the offensive.

I'd wait a few weeks because we may have some successes.

I don't know.

I believe there aren't going to be a goddamn concessions.

I don't mean that.

I just mean that.

In terms, we just have to play our game.

As we're playing it out, we may have to hit them harder.

But one thing that I think is getting through to these guys now, to these people, is that there may be more to what you're doing.

Tom Brayton called me.

Well, Tom Brayton called me and he said he listened to these five Democrats.

And he said, you know,

He said what they're really saying is they don't care if the Communists march into Saigon.

It doesn't make any difference.

He said, I don't agree with them.

Oh, he doesn't?

Yeah.

Well, good, good.

Well, of course, by the time McEwitt gets through with him, he'll agree with them again.

But he doesn't agree with them.

That's what they are saying.

That is what they're saying.

The Communists march into Saigon.

And that's what the war is all about.

You can't forget why we went there.

Withdrawal is not a policy enemy.

I said to him, what I don't understand, I said to him, look, the president has put himself into a position where the war must end, either because our policy is wrong and we'll get defeated next year, or because it is right and we will have made it.

Why don't they, if our critics are so convinced, that would be the surest way to get rid of us.

But I said, I think they're afraid that we'll succeed.

And what's the question?

Of course, Brayden isn't so bright.

But he's a decent guy.

Brayden himself is decent.

Matthew is just a dangerous guy, isn't he?

Smart.

He's smart, and he hates you, and he's a Bobby Kennedy type.

I don't think that way.

Oh, this is politics the way it is, but...

I don't think Conway should have the hell on him.

I mean, that little piece in the Washington Post for Conway, I don't know what he expected that much.

He said, well, the war won't be an issue.

Good for him to say that.

Moral re-initiation.

He didn't say it's not a re-initiation.

He says he can't get another re-initiation.

That's the way to call it.

I remember, Mr. President, this is a little worse than last year, but by June 70, we were just holding on.

We had to keep putting on little things.

You mean after Cambodia?

After Cambodia.

And then by September... How much worse is this?

The last year we had Kent State and Jackson State and that horrible... No, the demonstrations are easier this year.

The demonstrations, but the attack from the press is worse.

The attack from the press is more ruthless this year.

More political.

And more political.

And the Democrats were a little...

But still, they were terribly vicious last year.

We had the McGovern-Hatfield thing.

The Chukuma church, I meant, was throughout June.

McGovern-Hatfield was along.

I remember they were bringing pressure on me to resign because they thought this would make McGovern-Hatfield.

You remember McGovern-Hatfield was by the end of last year.

That's right.

They're moving their year up each time.

They're dead by now.

They've got that many hours, aren't they?

Pretty close, sir.

Well, I'd be interested to see what the North Vietnamese are going to do.

I think if we, as long as you stay in your present posture, I think we may have a chance of breaking it this year.

Or getting them to turn it down, and if they do,

We can real surface that because then we don't need anything from them.

What I was going to tell you is that I think when you go to Paris that you've got to present it in a way.

Listen, I want it to be done in a way so that everybody, so that with the assumption that we will want to be able to tell Rogers and everybody else that you've gone.

I'm going openly.

That's what I mean.

Then you have your meeting.

And we will say nothing about it in the event that anything's going to come out of it.

If something does not come out of it, however, then let's say something about it and say, well, I was over there.

We knew it.

And have in mind the fact that we'll service those portions of it that will serve our interests.

And others make an offer.

Make an offer.

Mr. President, I was trying to think in terms of if you get to the point where you're talking to them and they're dancing around, make an offer that is so outlandish, you know, not outlandish in terms of that they really ought to accept it.

I already moved the date right up and said we've offered this.

See what I'm getting at?

And they won't.

They're either going to make a date,

they've determined to sit it out.

If they're not gonna make a deal, then the thing to do is to make an offer that makes them look absolutely entranced, see?

And then with the idea that the purpose is not to get them to accept the offer, we hope to Christ they don't, we know they won't, but that the purpose is to make an offer that is

but i thought it in the first meeting i wouldn't give them any days so that it can't fail on that i'd say we'll give you a day if you're willing to do a canvases fire and a repatriation of prisoners uh so then they can't say we gave them a lousy day if they accept that in principle

then we can go ahead.

If they don't accept it, in principle, if they say, you've got to overthrow QQ and QM2, then we can give them any day.

Then I would simply say, all right, here's our date.

We offer it, and I think a ball should do it.

But one thing we might consider, Mr. President, and it just occurred to me this week, as long as we're playing it this way, depending if they don't accept it or if they keep it in the bank,

If at the end of the meeting I don't tell Xuanzui to talk to me alone for five minutes, what does this interpret the President?

If I tell him, now look, this President is extremely tough.

You've been wrong every time.

If you think you're going to defeat him, if you don't accept this, he will stop at nothing and imply that you might do anything.

Oh, sure.

Sure.

Good.

Good luck.

She's right here.

Let me know what happens.

Oh, yeah.

All right.

I'll see you in a minute.