Nixon, Moorer & Packard on U.S. Southern Command and Military Reorganization

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Sit down here.

Nice day.

That's why we're taking all the troops out of the city, thank God.

It worked as well.

It was a beautiful job.

What did you do the next few times?

I wondered if you would go, if you could say it, express to them, if you could say we were talking that I asked you first to say that you've been having such situations.

I mean, it is really in some ways more difficult

They're great and skilled at restraining.

Yeah, firmness.

Restraining firmness.

Pretty great to do that.

Oh, absolutely.

Well, they did it right.

They were up all night.

And they were stationed.

And the police had been shot, too.

And the troops were, the way those Marines hopped, they were very, I don't know how you read about that.

We were, that was good.

We were a little concerned.

We did carry the flags down, thank God, this time.

Yes, sir.

That's always the way to do it.

In advance.

If you wait until the problem starts and then bring the forces in, you just don't know what to do.

Let me say the reason I wanted to talk to you is to...

I think I know the good ones as opposed to the bad ones.

It really comes down, I feel, to a long-term and a shorter-term problem of efficiency and everything else to expect the arguments to be on that long-term.

The arguments to be on the side of then to have the immediate problem of the

a problem.

I'm sure that, of course, that you can argue both ways and say, well, we can do the same, reduce it in other cities.

We can also handle it by, you know, increasing the distance, just to the context of when it's suppressed.

But I'll say it.

It's not a very encouraging question to see, is it?

In fact, most countries have got dictators and successful dictators.

They're all in a hell of a mess.

Chile, they've corrode cars.

The oxygen in the dogs.

Brazil is angry.

Thank God it's sinned to be under some stability.

Let me, let me just, why don't you go talk about it anyway.

Let me, uh, let me give you my views, because we addressed this problem initially as part of an economic move, but that was only the catalyst.

As we got into it, we decided we ought to look at the entire worldwide demand structure, which we addressed on a global basis.

And in looking at South America and Africa, south of the Sahara, it was pretty clear that we are not likely to be projecting our military power in an operating military sense in that part of the world.

And there was therefore no reason to have unifying command with responsibility to that part of the world.

That the problems were more likely to be what the inputs we would have in political diplomatic

That way

You could be in a position, if you wanted to use your military contacts and military associations, you could do it, but you could do it with a close company on your top level of policy making basis.

In terms of the negotiations, the Panama Treaty negotiations, we verified that with the negotiation team, and they think that they would be better off without South Carolina negotiations than with South Carolina.

There's some question about whether that would be a good approach to fall, but I think we can prove it now.

So there seems to be no basis in terms of the panel on Peter's situation.

In terms of the defense of the panel on Fidel, that would be assigned to Lanscombe, and Lanscombe is a different command.

So it really gets down to the question

I think both the short and long-term interests or contacts with South America can be handled better through a command in Panama than an organization that has a responsibility there in Washington.

And I come down very firm on the proposition that we'd be better off to have a high-level responsibility here in Washington, looking after that area, than a command in Panama that's set to be accomplished

What we're supposed to do is to reorganize the management of our goals in the National Security and Health Care Assistance Program.

We have not had, as well, a plan for those areas where it takes us out of close coordination with our forces, such as Korea.

And we have to pull this thing all together and strengthen it.

we can administer the detailed day-to-day administration of the health care systems, both sales and health and whatever is involved from here just as well as from downtown.

And so on.

That's all.

The only question I see is whether

Unified Command and Panama Canal can, in fact, be more effective in our political diplomatic deal in South America than an organization here in Washington.

And I think it's the latter that has a better chance of doing the job.

And that's really my recommendation.

That's it.

You were about to hit us, sir.

Yes, Mr. President.

The joint chiefs were unanimous from the outset in the feeling that SOUTHCOM has established an excellent rapport with all of Latin America in an area where, as you mentioned, we frequently find military people at the head of the government.

I think there are five or so now.

And, incidentally, about six graduates of the Inter-American Defense College have ended up presidents now.

Also, we see the changes taking place with the Indian chili and the increased Russian presence and the problem we're going to have with the law of the sea, the 200-mile limit and so on.

And we just felt by the nature of the area that perhaps this wasn't the time to perhaps indicate that we were reducing our interest in Latin America.

or that we were weakening our ties with, uh, Latin America.

You don't think that, you don't buy the argument that that would indicate that we were introducing our interests in our ties to Latin America, particularly the military.

Well, let me, let me say this.

I have a feeling that you saw, and I'm sure you agree, that in all the misery that we've been through, we've heard that, well, you've got a jackass like Velasco, and all that, and then you've got, uh,

You can filter it better than others.

You can get to it on others.

Well, first, let me say that I can't see that our relationship with the Latin American countries has an influence in the military sense and on the structure of our problems.

And the sales policy, we can't sell these problems anywhere.

And if you want to change the influence of Latin America, we've got to somehow bring another district of jail.

So that's a slight issue.

I think what we've done is if we set up this organization here, it can be very, it can be a high-ranking man who will be responsible for South Carolina.

Tips, visits, contacts can be handled just as easily here as we can on the Panama Canal, and I think if we present this properly, it can be presented in terms of getting the line of communication closer

The first time I worked in another facility, when I came to be presented in that way, they said, how is this going to work?

I don't know.

I don't know who you are.

I don't know how to approach it.

I don't know how to do it.

The treaty suggests that one of those agencies themselves, one of their staff, wants to take this on.

And the second, and this is the one that I'm going to talk about, is Osepe's Intervention Security Agency that would report to the ISA staff.

This report is sent directly to the secretary.

This would be headed by a four-star general who would report to the secretary.

And he would then be in a position to call on South American countries as the secretary's representative.

And that's the basis in which I think we can get this colony up to the level which we're in.

And we've talked about this.

I think the chief's position is understandable.

And there may be some reasons not to make a change now.

The latest feeling is that it will be.

Mr. President, I think I'd be less than frank if I didn't say that the Chief was concerned about the trend that's apparent now for moving the emissions and mags

under the embassies uh rather than under the test and uh that was also a factor and uh i thought that it would be better to maintain the relationship that we have now between the unified command and the missions and then so we could maintain this uh continuous report with the blacks it's really

We didn't view it as a problem of chemistry of defense so much.

I mean, it was rather than this long-range contact with the left, because I believe as time goes on and that we will see an increased Soviet and communist presence in this area, and we will have a military problem in the future, but I think it's very important that we maintain close contact with these people.

And furthermore, Dave's making this problem clear.

with respect to military sales.

For instance, we have forced them, in essence, to go to Europe and buy destroyers and buy, get aircraft and so on.

And this has far-reaching effects, too.

So we just thought that during this transition period, which has taken place in the 70s, that it might be better not to make any change that they may interpret incorrectly.

because we have interviews about what needs to be done.

She's pretty much trying to hire us to do reports of military contacts and meet you and utilize those in my view that you should be more effective with what you do.

We haven't really recognized that very much, but I'm not going to struggle with what we should.

I think many people have started to look on the Latin American countries as more or less, you know, banana republics.

But you get a big country like Brazil.

I was in command of the Dominican Republic operation, and I participated with them.

And, you know, they... Oh, yes, sir.

And they also provided division.

During World War II in Italy, you know.

And they were good, weren't they?

They were good, yes, sir.

And that's a big, strong country with great potential.

And there's one other... We've reached out to Costa Rica.

There's one other consideration I don't know how important it is, but the fact we have a unified command there, which has a responsibility for South America.

does to some degree tend to protect the enemies that were in a position at least to respond with military action in that part of the world, which is what I think we don't want to project this time.

I think that would be a very positive thing to get it to sit there and see why we, as far as I can see, have no desire or likely would need to do that in the foreseeable future.

The fact that you're positioned so that you could, I think, could generate the wrong impression in terms of trying to get a little profile of our overseas presence.

So, again, I really just think every argument is to stand outside of doing what we're proposing, assuming that we can work out a plan here to maintain good, strong contacts.

And I think we can do that.

But that really, I think, is the constitution.

Well, let me, uh, let me think about it, will you?

All right, sure.

Either way.

Yes, sir.

Let me, uh, get support.

All right.

And so with unlimited resources and the development of, you know, fractional orbital missiles and things of that kind, I think in the future they're going to have more and more impact on our overall security and our overall economy.

How do we handle that?

That's a different situation.

Yes, a little different situation.

Now, the only country in Africa that gets any assistance with the name is Ethiopia.

So we don't consider that Africa.

Yes, sir.

That's in connection with our communications station.

We reoriented the responsibility there with Mediterranean, which is much better as far as the management of the military.

And that left the sixth strike with the restructuring to provide readiness to deliver forces to the

on active commands wherever they might be.

And we were opposed to handling such a threat as Africa, which is mostly a threat to our security in the sense there's any, who isn't the same, all these ships that's driving.

But that's no problem.

Right.

No, this is always a very special thing.

On another subject, I think you ought to,

We should have taken stride this, uh, this, uh, magazine, expose the general helicopter and so forth and so on, instead of the, uh, the expressing.

Is that your policy?

Yes, sir.

I, uh, I see, uh, it's, uh,

We just can't get into the business of returning every damn thing that happens.

We're in a war without uniforms anyway.

It's pretty damn hard to tell who shot John.

Yes, sir?

Who John was.

Is that right?

Well, looking back on it, it certainly was an advantage, except it's on lower T. Yeah.

To the pan, we can go over there.

I think the real problem was that when we took my leg over here, and go back to the last year, in 1969, he was all concerned about my leg.

So we decided to do it here.

Well, under the heat of the time, there were demonstrations in the rest of the country, right?

And the best thing we've done is put the hell out there and let it be handled as a military thing.

There's that depressed squeal.

Squeal out nothing to do with this.

But on this one, just use all your strength and take your time.

Look into the thing.

Look at how long it's on.

Yeah, so when we found out that this was a possibility,

uh, this, uh, general that's involved was, uh, moved out of Washington because of that.

Yeah.

Good.

I didn't think it would be, uh... Good.

...desired to have him.

Yeah.

Good.

Yeah, although I haven't heard really a lot of questioning.

Badger and so forth and so on.

Well, we just have to support this.

Instead of the procedure of voluntary justice, that we have to do that.

Um, and also, they've got us, we've really got to support that, but we also have to support

Basically, that they're really sharp in their proposition.

Of course, war is brutal, which it is.

Which it is.

Therefore, ergo, all people who are in uniform are brutal, and subtle, and savage.

Now, we just can't let this happen.

We've got to stand up for these fallen, stand up for the good ones, and recognize that if we get one here,

Roll it into a general breastfeeding conversation.

So, I think a lot of the very important things.

I don't think that's the right person.

Well, anyway, we have a picture coming in.

I won't shut it.

I've got a computer.

I want to hear the arguments.

I do want to hear the arguments.

I want to hear the arguments.

And so it seems that the option really is, and I thought we might, we're just about ready to go.

We've got that two minutes of policy.

Well, I can't.

I can't.

I'll tell you.

Go ahead and let them guess.

That'd be about the last minute.

You'll get it.

Now you get the silver star.

The silver star.

Nixon, Moorer & Packard on U.S. Southern Command and Military Reorganization

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on May 4, 1971

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