On May 10, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, John D. Ehrlichman, Kathleen O'Melia, Ann Broomell, Tara O'Donahue, White House photographer, George P. Shultz, unknown person(s), Clark MacGregor, Stephen B. Bull, Ronald L. Ziegler, William P. Rogers, and Henry A. Kissinger met in the Oval Office of the White House from 3:08 pm to 4:53 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 496-013 of the White House Tapes.
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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Yeah, and you?
Yeah, Kathy's the same here.
We'll be back in a minute.
Right.
Well, let's see, do you want a picture?
Should we get, John, your suggestion?
I'm not going to run out of lines.
Yeah, for each one, we'll get a separate one.
Yeah, lovely day.
Oh, you look out that exit.
This is the girl that's been telling you outrageous lies on the telephone.
Did you do a good liar?
Yeah.
She even asked somebody to lie with us on the grave, and that's better.
I never shoot you.
Come on.
I'm a bit drastic, so let me cut out.
Okay.
And all those memos that I sign, hand them to us.
You are confused, that's yours.
What are you going to do with yours?
Don't tell me.
Just do it.
Have fun.
All right.
Now, we haven't got any fantasy for you.
You all get one of the books that you've been bailing out.
And the fantasy is signed up at the time.
Actually, I'm not.
Let's go again.
Can you get your ratings?
Well, at least for ratings, I can push you to have a wish on your religion.
And cockney over there.
Just wish you the best.
You're always welcome.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We appreciate all your hard work.
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Who is it?
He has some readings on John Woodward Ellis that he played a part in, but I didn't get his part because it was all brought up with him.
You have asked for a
We should know that today what we're going to do about
Mills, you should be ready to move on Mills tomorrow.
It's interesting, Vice President was in Tennessee.
The Nashville newspaper today advanced its speech.
The Tennessee, yeah, the banner, I'm quite sure it's the banner.
Well, the Tennessee, I didn't bring it with me.
I didn't think it would.
It's a very partisan Democrat state.
I didn't break the editorial agreement.
Well, it's probably Tennessee.
The gist of it is that Reverend McSherry penalizes Tennessee and they can hardly wait for her to say so on and so forth.
We have a Tennessee legislator who's going to call and send us a speech so we can get a rundown of what's in it.
The AP lead says the House will not even vote on President Nixon's proposal to direct $5 billion in federal revenue to the states with no strings tied.
So the lessons of that... Why didn't he come out with this proposal?
Because I would be in the lead.
Okay.
See, if he came out with a proposal, we would have him in the lead then or something.
Yeah.
He leaves, he does leave a strike.
I mean, he leaves the whole thing.
Well, we'll move on in tomorrow, if he can get into active position.
Four o'clock today.
And I would order him to, yes, how can you get away from this?
He said, well, that isn't until tomorrow, I'd say.
I'd call him on the floor a little while ago.
And, I don't know.
Clark has been working SSD.
Talked to Max.
Talked to Jackson, apparently.
I'm going to call him.
Jackson said he would work the house.
Max said he'd tell us.
And we've got some other particulars on how that works.
I don't have anything else, George, today, do you?
No, I don't.
Well, let's see if I can call Clark.
Okay.
Thank you.
I think are very, very good.
This is Andrew.
When I came in to Andrew, as Bob mentioned, on Russell, I'm working on Lowe's today.
Wheeled by and drove in with him.
Another thing Bob would say, if you're standing abroad,
Another speech?
No, sir.
I was just reviewing, uh, your guests on that presentation.
I asked if your, your suspicion about some federal report from General Reverend Shenandoah was general.
In fact, she could have come in to see.
What is your response at the moment?
I visited with John Burns on indefinite appropriation of 1.3% of the federal and individual contact rates.
And John said, well, I said, I was going to give the President an amazing response.
He said, I can probably live with this, but with great difficulty.
I said, John, you appreciate it.
In addition to the changes that have been discussed with you, I heard Schultz that we were also going to change this.
you might very well lose jurisdiction in your committee.
This is the thing that gives your committee jurisdiction.
He said, I appreciate that.
And he said, it's true, George, and I didn't talk about this, and this has given me difficulty from getting it.
He said, if there is the revision of the president's proposal, and this remains the same, quote, I could probably live with it, but with great difficulty, I quote, he said, I wouldn't shoot down.
Let me back to the fact that I told you what he told George.
And he, with some reluctance, he's on board.
He wanted to make it clear that he couldn't go out and say to Wilbur, to the press, I support this and I'm going to introduce it because he said, Mark, I just introduced today my own proposal.
He said this is an acceptable fallback position.
I don't care where he goes on.
Well, it's not anything we don't care about.
You know what I'm saying, either, but it is important that the bill is put in place.
Well, at least the bill is not turned against you.
Now, it would be good if we could have his authorization to say that he has other preferences besides that.
What he will say is that this new proposal offers a realistic avenue for which we've been before.
Well, this presents us with a new ballgame, of course.
Well, this ballgame has good, this is phrasing all he should mean.
He did, number one, add a refinement to perhaps what he had said in George.
He said that the addition of need as a factor must not wash out the tax equity factor that should not be offset.
He said need should be an element tied to or modified population.
Then he said, for example, the dollar formula should be population
need in one parentheses times tax effort on the city.
Mr. Fiddle quickly changed the federation.
He said, I'll call Chicago or I'll call late night and I'll get back to you in the morning.
Kendall and I also visited in some way with Senator Magnus.
I came out and sat with people in London, Senator, and so he was less enthusiastic or less responsive, directly responsive to the school boards, but he said he also was helping visit the duty of other answers.
And I'm getting a call upstairs from Bill Howell, and I saw a call from Senator Magnus, and I said, you know, I can sit here and talk to you.
What do you think you're going to do?
Well, I have no idea, but I assume that he's trying to find out whether White House is supporting this.
Well, he did.
No question about his support.
Oh, no, no, no.
I imagine he's doing this thing he did before, which is to try to get some sense of how strongly we're supporting this.
And I think what I can do with him is just tell him that he made these two contacts and that Jackson was very enthusiastic and that Magnuson was not.
What is the situation?
Yes.
I'll let them cook you in a while.
The magazine staff service, and for your help, John, said what we're afraid of is you folks will carry this in the house, and we'll lose it in the Senate, and we'll get blamed, and we'll make a person out of your life.
No, no, no, no, they get it at the conference.
I said, well, if we're going to possibly win the House, we'll win it in the Senate.
Sure.
You've got a conference anyway.
Sure.
Even if you don't win it in the Senate, Mark, you know between the two they've got to have something.
So you're going to get half of this loan in any event, right?
Uh-huh.
Right.
I know you can help us.
And we've got a lot of people here.
Jim Burson.
No, no, no, no.
Jim Burson, the S.S.D.
and Jim Burson, the L.A. Supreme Court.
That's one.
We've got our troops working.
The cop is going to go to the hospital.
He unfortunately has to be absent.
You are?
A year ago, I was trying to deal with one of your colleagues who said that because he changed the market a little bit, I knew that you were going to vote for him.
I consider it, I consider it enormously important for a lot of reasons.
I mean, I do have some streets, some mountains, and everything else.
Lockheed.
I don't think we'd get Lockheed without this.
You're just as cold as that.
And the media agrees.
Play a joke.
This is hard.
We have our own paper.
Let me ask you a couple of questions.
When the hell did we meet this old L.S.
Martin?
I was looking around.
Apparently I had a look.
You see Bill Calmer?
Yeah.
Apparently he was saying some great things.
But you'll have to know some of his senators.
Well, let's see.
Why don't you delay it?
I had a trust meeting.
I could knock off.
And they're postponing that?
They're postponing that meeting.
Yeah.
When is that meeting?
It's at 3.30.
So we can do it tomorrow at 3 o'clock.
All right.
But wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
We want bills down there for that vote.
What is the vote going to be, Clark?
A jury that was meeting two and four couldn't be more specific than that.
Let's plan to have no meetings with any House members between two and four o'clock.
All right.
It would Wednesday morning be too late to do this.
Not for me.
I don't think it would be too late for Wilbur.
You know, one other interesting thing.
How about at breakfast?
I could die.
Wednesday breakfast, I'm afraid.
That would be the best time.
Great.
Oh, sure.
That's working over good.
One thing that's important to...
I have a story.
That's it.
One thing that...
Before we leave the breakfast, though, can I suggest this?
We ought to have this in breakfast.
The ones that we're at, including coffee, are there this morning.
Plus order.
Order.
Order should be there, yes.
Order, order, order.
Balanced breakfast.
My mind is, uh... What do you mean?
There's no reason to have Alvarez's coffee.
We'll reveal it, Mr. Speaker.
It is a wrong decision.
One thing in my mind on probably this subject, and I'm perhaps somewhat presumptuous in saying this, President, I don't know precisely what will take the Secretary of Treasury out of this country in two weeks from today, the 24th, and two weeks from tomorrow, the 25th.
But from the standpoint of your relations with the Congress and I think with the general public, I think it would be wonderful if
If, uh, John Connolly could open before the President's Committee, uh, the hearings on revenue sharing two weeks from today, and before John... Let me say, let me say this, and cover some races, maybe.
If, if this turns around, then I think we could do it, but I'm not going to have you go up there otherwise.
I mean, uh, we can get a bill soon.
Good.
On, on that, Mr. President, I think you're going to be very honest.
I believe I should take one more reading of Wilbur Mills, and perhaps also invite him to breakfast at the same time, just to be sure that we're programmed right.
Right.
And that he isn't quite a
turn around, I'm pretty sure, he is pretty firm with me that he will buy the seal.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, when did you do that?
Well, as soon as we know that we want to go ahead, I guess we should.
Well, I would say that the day after you leave, you've got to be very strong.
And Jerry is the key to that, and you must be very strong.
And I think the business is this.
The way this is, is that
a voter that looks like he's going to offer it.
And there's no way to withhold our line of grants if he doesn't.
So therefore, we're trying to get, we're trying to be in the punch, you know, do things like that.
And that's probably true.
And the governor and mayors are probably such a fascinating insight.
I got another little bit of intelligence today.
A local being talked to the wrong part.
And they decided that if general revenue sharing was not making significant projects in the near future, that they would go to Middles and suggest federalization of welfare.
And they would support it.
Now, this is a demonstration of that.
Yeah, Harvard State, Harvard got this from Jim Katz from Rockefeller's staff.
Now, that may be an attempt on Rockefeller's part to stand leaders.
but it also hangs together with the general tendency that we know openly is going to take.
Well, see, that is only the big state operation service.
That sure doesn't do much for these little states.
Well, North Fork, North Fork, Green Bay, and Nassau is the president.
That's right.
The main thing I've been hearing is you're meeting with Mills.
I think you ought to set that up for him.
What should you do then?
You should be there.
There's a meeting with the Braggers at 4 o'clock yesterday.
We're on the nose on the top seven today.
How cool would that be back in those seasons?
Well, could you, could you, would you see nose as early as possible tomorrow night?
As soon as we, as soon as we know for sure.
No, you know.
Who will know?
I mean, absolutely.
The back of the egg, I mean, well, I don't know now, but I mean, unless there's an impossible little rock curling in my head.
body lock, I think we ought to explore this, this thing, bring it along to them.
Are you guys seeing them before they're being geometered?
No, I think we were all planning just to go in together and talk to them, and talk about our overview.
They're all, I've talked to a partner or something like this, and he had every bit of advice versus thinking that I could on it.
And it's really all pretty much set up in that number.
And he just sees this as a matter of principle, and then he rocks off on it.
is that those people that are out of life are not going to find the principle and all that.
Mills is smart.
He'll find a way to take that.
Or let's take federalization of reference.
Remember the fact that he's got the picture of the secretary.
He's the only photographer.
There's no reporters.
Now you see.
The work service must be the same one you have on the foundation.
It's very careful to put in that phrase.
It's not a very good task.
Well, George, maybe you could pop down and see Mills.
No.
Well, he has his executive sessions on H.R.
1 tomorrow morning starting at 10.
Could you see him before that?
I'd just give up.
You should see him at 9.
I'd say, would you come down and have breakfast with me?
Well, the next day or so, you can get a report.
We've got a whole lot of people in line on this thing.
All right.
Let's do it.
The breakfast went to you.
That's all right.
You just try this one.
All right, sir.
I'll tell you as soon as I've got through with Bill, and then you can take care of Barry.
Is that right?
And you will be added on that story.
I may add that.
You're there.
And you will have done specifically 1.3% for him.
All right.
Thank you.
Well, all right, but I think that it's bad.
I don't think that what we already have here is something that people are going to sign their name on.
It's a statement that we haven't instructed.
I just get through the Congress, and then we have no reporters.
I'll have to depart, and there's no reporters around.
Fair enough.
I won't have any reporters, so I'll just have all these people.
All right, good luck.
I've got John or George, either one of you, one of the two of you, let me know after you're meeting with Ed or any problem.
All right, I'll have you swing it around.
All right, yeah.
I'll get him, okay?
Okay.
We'll certainly do that.
Sir, just the two wires, no specials.
No, the two wires only.
The two wires only.
So I'm relying on the specials.
From now on, all these are the two wires, and nobody else.
Is that clear?
Nobody else.
I mean, the latest, you know, you have them up.
I got them yesterday.
Why don't you look them up?
This would be a key picture, you know, to tell somebody else.
I read the reports.
You did all you could.
You had to listen to everybody.
You got a hell of a reception.
And then you found that you were very impressive.
You're a good guy.
You're a good guy.
You're a good guy.
Well, I'm going to leave it at that.
You're going to be the first to get it.
How's Chris?
Fine, sir.
Is he still working?
Yes, he was at the airport when he came back.
Was he?
Yes, sir.
Very good, very good.
Has he been down here in the office since then?
He comes to the Capitol most of the time.
The what?
The Capitol.
He comes to the Senate.
I know.
He hasn't been down here since then.
No.
You still speak to him?
Yeah.
Thank you.
Well, I think it really was a wild trip.
It was an interesting trip.
You know, we were nine countries, attended two international conferences, and visited the global in less than two weeks.
Aren't you glad we didn't take any longer?
Pardon me?
I was pretty messed up.
I had to keep going.
I didn't take any time off.
No rest, no nothing.
And you don't, you stay in a country longer than two days.
I don't want to see you.
Well, I think it might be a few minutes.
I'd like to review.
I sent a couple of things that you didn't.
I didn't want to put it in.
Let me first start with CETO.
And that means London CETO meeting.
Oh, CETO meeting in London.
And the principal country in CECO, as far as the treaty is concerned, is Thailand.
That's the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, Thailand, Pakistan, and the United States.
And of course, the whole point of CECO is Thailand because Australia and New Zealand are really not involved in China.
The Philippines don't matter anymore.
The UK is not going to do anything.
Francis doesn't really take part in that anymore.
Francis pulled out.
So Seto really started out as a Thailand.
The meeting went better than any Seto meeting we've had so far.
Largely because everyone agreed with what you're doing here now.
Was Tanaka there?
Tanaka was there.
He was here at the end of the day.
Well, the end of the day, but he couldn't have been warmer.
He and I developed a very close personal friendship.
It's been very, you know, I've been reading a lot of reports from Thailand.
I didn't follow the seal very closely, but I was particularly interested in Tanaka.
He's the best man in the nation, actually, in the 424.
Why did he get mad there?
Why was he dedicated?
Well, I don't know.
It's partly personal.
We had a TCC meeting, as most countries do, and
We got along very well, and I called him the dean, and so forth.
I also supported him for the International Court of Justice.
He and I have been good friends now.
He's pleased the way we handled it.
Does he trust us?
Oh, absolutely.
Does he believe that we'll expand on it?
Absolutely.
Well, I don't know.
I can't talk.
I don't think he does.
He talks as far as his Indochina as a whole.
He thinks what we're doing on China is exactly right.
He told me the first time I was out there on China.
And I told him what our policy, what your policy was.
I told him that.
I think he's part Chinese.
I told him that as far as we were concerned, if he could make contact with the Chinese, as long as he kept us advised, he didn't move too fast, that we would favor it.
And he said he has tried to make contact with the Chinese, not successfully, but there are some signs now that he may have some success.
And he will keep in touch with us.
He thinks the way we're doing is perfect, Victor.
He congratulated us publicly and privately and so forth.
So anyway, I don't want to spend much time on it, but he was fine.
The CEO meeting was excellent.
The British went out of their way, my God.
They related them.
The Queen gets the dinner.
She did?
Oh, yeah.
It was a palace elaborate dinner with the royal family, Princess Anne and Prince Philip.
Then they opened hand to the court, which is quite a huge one.
And Alcume gave a dinner there.
He was just very, and they had a feast.
Oh, he's great.
I tell you, we've got a friend there.
So he wrote this.
Michael, he's great.
I think we're doing the right thing.
He's very good.
He's very good.
He made it.
Russ just got back from Europe.
And I thought you'd be interested to know that they said, you know, they're jealous that he wrote it.
He said, you know, that's stanky.
They were very surprised.
Isn't that interesting?
I don't understand it.
Is the secretary going to brief the cabinet tomorrow?
Right now, we're on desalination, which John earlier said
Yeah, so we had David who was going to read on desalinization, but had asked for one affairs overtones.
Well, it's only a 30-minute briefing.
Can I get you there?
All right.
Okay, I just want to know, okay.
Yes.
I may have a problem there about attending, and if that is the case, I would make it further.
I want the secretary to start, and I'd like for him to read for 30 minutes.
I think you should, right?
And then I'll have to meet somebody at breakfast.
Yes, SSTD.
All right, can you tell when you later on had a desensitization?
Follow-up?
Yes, sir.
I'm off-court.
Fair enough.
Yes, sir.
Can you hear me?
Well, that issue suggested I went on British television.
Yeah, it worked out quite well.
BBC.
Well, it was BBC.
It was the one you see in Academy of Independence.
I couldn't do it because he isn't in that business anymore.
He's the head of it.
He and his wife and family are separated now.
I just saw an article with that effect.
But anyway, that program seemed to be quite satisfactory, about 30 million listeners.
And I got a letter from Henberg, and I got news accounts, and so forth.
And there was a spy.
He talked to me through the phone.
He announced the policy.
That seems to be good.
Well, that meeting was fine.
And as I say to the full British government, I'm amazed that they spent as much time as they did.
The Queen spent
It's significant, though, the amount of tension that everybody faces.
I've got to be the senior foreign minister at most of these meetings, and so I've got to be the dean.
Now, I'm going to Turkey for the CENTO meeting.
CENTO is primarily Turkey and Iran.
That's it.
Those two.
We're not a member, we're an observer, but we play a very active role, and they turn to us for leadership as they do in all of these things.
So it's Turkey, Iran, and U.K. Pakistan and ourselves.
Pakistan talked a good deal about their problems with India, but it's really irrelevant to the purposes of the organization.
But this, again, was a particularly good meeting, the best federal meeting I've gone to,
He's one hell of a human himself, who was Matt Henderson.
And he wanted to, yeah, he was supporting us 100%.
Well, I mean, yeah, but principally on communism and how we were fighting communism.
And that we had to,
sure that we could let our guy down and so forth.
And he was great.
And the encouraging thing about it was the Turkish government, the new Turkish government, I think is going to be excellent.
Whereas the last fellow there was perfectly adequate in his philosophy, his political outlook, he didn't have any restraint.
This man is a strong man.
He could support our powers.
And
He has martial law in effect now.
He's looking to reform the country.
He has the military behind him.
He has 12 behind him.
And I believe he's going to be a godsend, because nothing we could have done would have made much difference to Turkey.
I mean, it was going down rapidly, and they couldn't control the students.
They had all kinds of street trouble and so forth.
And he's taking hold, and I think it's going to be a decided change.
As far as the drug problem is concerned, I took a very strong stand on that.
He was quite, he was quite,
willing to move.
And I told him that in addition to the problem that we had with drugs and how severe it is, that I thought it was a great opportunity for him to become a statesman throughout the world because it was a world problem and if he could solve it, that he'd get credit.
It was far beyond anything that he might expect because he would be the man that really stopped the export of opium throughout the world.
And he could do it very easily with just a little time.
And I told him what you'd ask me to tell him, that we were prepared to do anything financially to help because the cost of the oil is very small.
He said that he would.
He's going to work with our ambassador.
He's going to let us know exactly what he's going to do by June.
He told the press afterwards that I had made this case.
And he was impressed.
He was going to do it.
He was good.
He had an announcement on it.
So I think that we've done exactly the right thing.
I think it would have been a hell of a mistake to strengthen the money, I think.
100% gaps.
What do we do there?
I guess... Well, we'll have to keep pressing.
But I don't think we should do it publicly.
I think that would be a mistake.
and I think we have any pro-congressional committees, I can go up and greet them and keep them quiet, because he pointed out that what he needs is popular support, you know, because he's new.
Instead, he's a good friend of the United States, the new man, Roy, he's new, and he was a professor of constitutional law, a real tough fellow, I know he's American, but okay.
Well, from there we went through
Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia is an interesting country in terms of their government because they had a baseline of uniformity.
And all those people there, 80% of them were relatives of one kind or another.
He's in better health than he has been recently, although he still has a stomach problem.
Incidentally, everyone, of course, actually sends their very best regards to you.
I know what you're eating is going to play.
His country is still, you know, way behind any other country.
Although, Riyadh itself has improved a great deal in a lot of modern buildings.
His governmental buildings are quite impressive.
He is principally interested in Jerusalem.
He isn't much interested in the rest of it, but he's greatly interested in Jerusalem.
He has obsession, absolute obsession with Zionism.
He thinks Zionism is the cause of all the evil in the world.
In fact, he thinks that Zionism, because he thinks the father of communism, now is behind the Russian involvement in Egypt.
Because that, in effect, is helping Israel, and this is a clever plot,
that helped Israel by supplying .
That was the first time they had demonstrations.
It was pretty rough.
But it's an obsession.
It's an obsession with him.
He's already another thing.
But he's so intelligent that he believes this.
Well, it's not only a belief.
It's an obsession.
I mean, I can tell.
of belief and obsession.
Anything that suggests this subject, you just, you can't resist it.
If you, I hesitate to talk about Jerusalem and I can't say anything to talk about Jerusalem.
He immediately got into Zionism and that was the father of communism and all this.
And I say that the difference between a belief and an obsession is there and after a while.
And all those people know it too.
In fact, they said to him,
You know, after he gets through his business about Zionism, then he can talk sense talk.
And he says that all the evil in the world is because of Zionism.
I mean, all the wars were caused by Zionism.
Well, everything that's wrong with Zionism.
But other than that, he says he's 50% of them.
Now, the man who probably will succeed him, Prince Bob, is a highly intelligent fellow.
to go to the United States.
They just arrested about 300 conspirators who were there to go to the government.
And he has collected the information.
He's filed a trial.
And he gave us a rather detailed description of how he caught them, what evidence he had.
It's quite clear that he does have the evidence.
And it's had the effect of stabilizing the country, so they just don't have any trouble anymore in the United States.
These were the Air Force people who were trained in the United States.
Oh, he didn't say that.
I don't believe it.
I don't believe it.
There were some of them, I guess.
Maybe there were a few of them.
But anyway, he doesn't have any feelings of that kind.
He gives us total support.
He said no matter what we do, he's with us.
He's our friend under all circumstances.
Whatever we do, I'm with him.
Whether he likes it or doesn't like it, he will support us.
All those young ministers say the same thing.
Incidentally, they're quite an impressive young group.
Although they are related, they're strong-looking, vigorous fellows, and a lot of them are quite interested in social improvement.
And they're talking about a lot of that.
And the country, of course, is our country in the West.
It's obviously a difficult country to govern.
It's so big and so diverse.
But it's, without doubt, it's the most important country in the long run in terms of resources.
I'm sure they have more of them than probably any two countries.
They don't listen to no resources.
It's not the same way that I understand what they have.
I don't think right now, but I know the resources are very, very good.
But they certainly are socialized in the United States.
We don't have any problems with them.
There's nothing they'd want.
They're perfectly happy.
They're delighted with my business.
I got to have a good reception, sure.
George, then we went to Jordan.
And Jordan, I must say, is an interesting place now because the king created Slobevel.
Created, yeah.
And we...
Well, first we drove from the airport to the place we were staying, right through the Fettighine area, right in the middle of the Tampines.
And I was the first foreign visitor who was fed through there.
And we had three different ways that we could have gone, and they finally decided to take this route, so no one knew that we were coming.
And I got a hell of a reception all along the way, applause,
waves and yells, high and mighty, right in the middle of the valley.
There were no... Are they back in Jesus?
No, no, these are not, they're just Palestinians.
But these people, this is the city or just... Oh, no, this is not, these are just Palestinians, and they live ahead, and they were the ones who almost overtook them.
But they were...
Well, they were friendly to the United States, surprisingly, because I thought that this would be the one place where we might have a lot of difficulty.
I think the people there are quite satisfied that they have stability now in the country.
And we had dinner there, and that night he drove me under his car.
He showed me himself.
And his brother, Colonel Prince Joseph, because we had a two-man car,
No motorcycles, no sirens, and we'd go all over the namesake.
He showed me where every battle had been fought.
Then I had, you know, the Border Service officers always played safe, in case they had me protected to help them manage.
And I had to take a helicopter ride.
And the King worked it out, and we flew.
We went to the Dead Sea, up the Jordan River, across to the valley.
Well, it's a beautiful place, and the Dead Sea's interesting.
You fly low sea level.
And we flew right past the place where Kurtz was baptized, and it's an effective place now in Germany, on the West Bank.
And flew all the way up, and we built a gorge canal
in on the east side of Jordan, which was bombed out by some of these attacks.
But it's operative about halfway down, and the difference is really dramatic.
That's why it's operative.
The valleys are green, and people are going back to work.
The sound of that is apparent, and it's nothing.
So it shows what water can do, and if we can get that moving again, we can do it.
One of the reasons I put this organization on, I don't want you to borrow that.
I've got a date and I'm, you know, we're having this cancer push, and we're going to go for about a three or four million dollar reader reactor for the next ten years.
Now, it's a long, it's not an unsure shot, but one of the inevitable results of getting cheaper and more atomic power in your car, either through reader reactor intervention or fusion,
is that it will make, it makes desalination possibly a viable economic deal.
And if we find, and I'm not there anymore, David Preston, if there was a way, we could say dump $100 or $200 million, or a half a billion for that matter, into more research in this area than we're presently doing, we should do it.
Because you go to that part of the world and you can see
The guy who could just get water and could solve the enormous problems, correct?
I mean, look, that's the guy who just drives over there and shows like a great amount, which is an amnesty.
Well, when it came to that party figure, the report that came was felt that you could go ahead.
But first, he was supporting anything you were doing at the present time.
He said they could probably go ahead on some of these ones.
Well, she's nervous.
She's nervous about the idea of a separate agreement that doesn't include, you know, but he says he's prepared to go along with it.
But when we flew up to that, then we flew up the right opposite goal at night, so we didn't land in a place called Sinan, which is right next to the goal at night, so we had a good view.
I have a pretty good view of the whole area now, although we didn't go on the West Bank, you know, so you can see the West Bank all the way up.
Interestingly enough, the Jordan River
It's just a little brooch that's not there.
It's not there.
It's not there, except it's, you know, it's one of the most, yeah, that's right, but the whole area could be one of the most beautiful valleys in the world, because it's like a very, I guess, on the other side where the Israelis colonized it.
It's beautiful.
Then we flew over to the place where the tank battles were a majority.
I haven't noticed that.
old badge with the serpents and children sitting in tank beds, you know, they slice you.
Yeah, and cops doing that.
Yeah, some tanks did that.
Yeah.
The Israelis still have their tanks, the 46th Warrior.
Yeah.
The thing is to see the refugee camps, so there's some children that we flew over, and they just thought that was,
and nobody's done a damn thing about it.
50,000 people got into a little, you know, mile square with no jobs, nothing, no place to work, and no land, and no business.
It's really unfortunate.
It's just tragic.
Now, he also was very concerned about Jerusalem.
And Fetty,
He's concerned, as I understand it, about the fact that what the Israelis are doing here, de facto incorporating Jerusalem totally into their state.
He's concerned that once it's done, it's going to land.
The polar east side, you know, I mean, what the hell, you know, the Germans already won.
There's a Washington already won.
Is that the point?
I guess that's the point.
Yes, that's one point.
They also...
about what they call the pluralistic nature of Jerusalem.
They feel that the Israelis are deliberately changing population ratios so that it becomes a totally Jewish city.
And I'm not sure that the Israelis are really sensitive.
I mean, Jordan itself, as I say, seems to be quite stable now.
And he seems to have come through on her conscience.
He's quite sensible in our relationship with him.
Excellent.
that was why they were delighted that I was there, because they used to, it was too, it was too easy for anyone to listen.
Then we went to Lebanon, that's a sad, in Lebanon it's sad.
They all meet a psychiatrist, you know, it's a silly religious, it's a religious government, I mean, where everybody has to be a certain way, God doesn't.
The Lebanese are major, one of the most monocracting people in that part of the world.
on both sides, and they're always got their hands out, and they trade, and they mine, and everybody else in there, they kept in trouble.
They asked for help.
Well, they tried.
I have a little bit of a reaction to this president.
I don't know him.
He's a pretty nice fellow.
He's a tough fellow.
He's up there, man.
And actually, what he is, he's tough but fearful.
He only has, by force, about 12,000 people.
Goddamn.
studying all over the place.
The Syrians sent people in there.
He doesn't have any equipment.
They were so goddamn frightened about my visit that they had tanks with me.
Machine guns right here.
Oh, it looked like I had a whole damn army.
And I was the first fella who...
I know we had a little piece of shit.
I'll show you.
And the first, the first, the first street in Beirut, in a long time, they had a helicopter there at the airport in a car.
And they said, they'll let you go by helicopter, but they gave you a choice.
And I said, why?
And he said, there's security reasons.
I said, let's go by car.
Well, turns out they had a hell of a hit.
He first played it up, so I could see it.
Rides an airport in a car.
you actually stopped your gun.
Well, that was the next day, it made such a big hit that I, the next day he flew me, it was quite a distance, because he said, well, let me say about the present, he sent me, he gave me the signs and tools, and he said, Mr. Secretary, can you promise me, he said, this is all I want, can you promise me that Israel tries to conquer my nation, that you will assist,
And he said, Mr. President, Israel is going to try to conquer your nation.
We would, if any such threat was imminent, we would do our best to dissuade Israel.
If Israel conducted any such operation, they would lose our support and they'd know it.
If they actually attempted any such thing, we would use our utmost efforts to stop it.
And I said, I think it's an unreal fear.
I can see why you might be fearful
attacks, retaliatory attacks, but the fear that they might attempt to conquer your nation, I think, is totally without foundation.
And police said, I don't know if you say that, but the fact that you would, that your nation would attempt to do it this way, which is very reassuring.
So, but I'm sure you said that out, you know, he didn't ask for anything, you didn't want to just see the spiritual
And you've got camps all over, and I suppose the Fed is in some ways stronger than the Army.
So what they do is make an accommodation room.
And I said, why don't you really clean them up the way the king did?
They said, I'd like to, but I can't.
I don't know what to do with it.
I don't have the force to speak up.
He said, I don't have 12,000 people.
He said, some of them signed the Fed.
I'm not sure that if
We had no conflict.
I could hold the army together.
He said my population is divided, so I'm just not sure.
Now, his prime minister is probably more sympathetic than anybody he is.
He's an air presence Christian.
I had a long, rough talk with the prime minister, who's a nice, jolly fellow, but he
He's so pessimistic about everything.
And I said, geez, you know, those are all so depressed.
You know, he's so depressed about it.
They said, is there any possibility that you could give us more equipment, even surplus equipment, to deal with the internal security problem?
And I said, yes, I think it's quite possible.
How much?
Well, they don't really want very much, very minor requests.
I forgot what it is.
Yeah, I remember it was very small.
We were giving him 14 and he wanted up a little bit.
I said, well, will you do something with it?
He said, as soon as I'm strong enough, he said, I'll try to clean up some of these buckets.
Well, from there we went to, the next day I went down to the street, drove the car down, and told the security people I wanted to stop, and I was too shy to go down the street.
I tell you, I never saw such enthused as you, Mr. John.
Christ, they had me on the back and shook my hand and applauded people.
It all gathered in the apartment I was selling at when I was leaving this place.
And this is the place where it was a great extension.
So everywhere I went, people were like the Americans out there.
In particular, in particular, those guys.
Well, you should have seen them.
They're just people that work for peace.
They couldn't do good.
Oh, thank you.
Well, in Egypt, you didn't get out.
You didn't go down to Asselin.
No, I didn't go down to Egypt.
It's almost the only country in the area I want to go back to and see.
It's a historic complex.
Great place.
Well, there again, it was such a great office.
Very warm.
How much security did you have there?
Not very much.
They didn't have very much.
I mean, compared to Beirut, I had a lot of discipline in the rear zone for the battle.
In Beirut, I had a feeling it was the front line.
In Egypt, the security was about average.
And they don't have any security problems in Egypt.
I thought it was not at all.
The street cops were very friendly there, too.
I didn't get any even gestures of ill-in-law friendly.
It's better to live here.
Hell of a lot better.
I did some things in Egypt that
a little bit of design and trying to appeal to the air.
You know, and I said, and we told Esther we were going to do it.
Esther was always taking a position that the more friends we had there, well, the better it was for them.
And I said, we'll be with you.
So we did the things that I thought would help us.
One thing I did was, Adele and I called her Mrs. Nassar.
And she was there.
And her four children were there.
And she was very appreciative.
We got a hell of a play with paper.
My God.
And this thing had covers.
It'd be too awesome if I had covers.
I spent half an hour or 45 minutes in Haeckel.
And I missed the Villerand, which is one of the best-expected places in the world, most popular.
I've been quite a lot of the time with Riyad, his wife, his wife, his wife, Riyad's nice, he's a great person.
Fauci, Dr. Fauci, he's the prime minister.
You know, Allen, Allen Sandberg, who was the one that we worried about, was thrown out two days before he got here.
I noticed that all of a sudden he did it because you were coming.
Well, as the doctor suggested, no, actually it was the doctor who was not here because he was coming.
What he did say was that the timing of it was affected by my
I had to do it, but he didn't want to do it after I got there, because it wouldn't let us in if we would count.
It was some sort of a cause and effect.
So he said he had to do it at the time.
Well, let me give you my impressions of Starr.
First, he speaks beautiful English.
He is very articulate.
very forceful in his speech.
He professes to be a good friend of the West.
He is married to an English woman.
He's quite attractive.
And he started out by saying, I know what's uppermost in your mind and I want to talk about it at once.
And that's the Soviet Union.
He said, I know a life
the fact that we have to depend on the Soviet Union as much as we do.
I'm a nationalist.
I want to remain a nationalist.
I'm an Arab.
I have deep feelings.
I have all the weaknesses that we Arabs have.
I love my country.
I love the land that is ours.
I don't want to have to depend on anybody else.
And the only reason I...
have is because we were humiliated and I had no place to turn.
We had no place to turn.
But he said we're going to reach an out of line as a reason that I would hope that something can exult from the initiatives that you've been taking and the position I took with the Army.
He suggested I would like to become much closer with the West.
He said there's no reason why we here should be
closely aligned with the Soviet Union.
He said, my people like the West better, we appreciate the values that go in association with the West, business opportunities, I like American businessmen, et cetera, et cetera.
The only thing that stands between us is this problem of the Middle East.
I said, my decision to respond as I did to Yari
My decision to say that we would live with Israel in peace, that we'd sign a peace agreement, that we would not interfere with internal affairs, etc., was because I thought that would break the logjam.
I thought that's what the West wanted.
I thought that's what the United Nations wanted.
And he said, now we find that Israel won't respond.
He said, I have a feeling that you're the only nation to do anything about it.
Everybody else wants to, but doesn't have the ability.
He said, I always do it, but you can't change overnight.
He said, you've sort of built a monument in your relationship with Israel that can't be affected quickly.
But he said, it can't be changed over a period of time, I think.
And if you can do that, I'm prepared to change our relations with you.
He said, if we can work out something here and settle them, as soon as it's signed, I'll renew diplomatic relations with you.
Secondly, I think that others will, too.
For example, Sudan, I think there's a growing feeling that we should not be isolated from the United States.
On the other hand, there's a limit of how far you can go.
Everyone now acknowledges that I've gone further than everybody else.
It's all in their nation's word.
As a matter of fact, Gaddafi from Libya has called me a traitor.
My old military people were very critical at first.
He said, now they've come around, they've changed their position.
Well, we had a long time with the details.
He would spell out what he would like.
What he would like is to open the Suez.
He would like a withdrawal by Israel of some considerable distance.
He didn't mention it.
He previously had talked to some of us, some of his people had, and he's talking, as I say, of considerable distance.
I've forgotten the number of kilometers.
But I think he's willing to bargain on that.
He wants Egyptian troops to cross the canal.
He said, after all, that's part of sovereignty.
It's his land and he has the right to move his troops in.
There's no particular reason why they didn't have any troops.
It would be unacceptable to Israel to permit a large number of troops on an interim basis because it would look as if he was trying to take military advantage of the situation on an interim basis.
That's right.
It's very exciting to you, I guess.
But then how do you react to that?
Well, it was negative in the first instance, but it seemed to be open.
It was open.
And by the...
the observer force or the peacekeeping force or whatever, he was quite flexible about that.
He said, any kind of satisfactory to me, I don't care.
I said, the United States couldn't even promise the thought of having Russian persons across the canal.
And he said, we wouldn't want it either.
He said, that's not a requirement.
He said, we wouldn't expect that.
Did you, by any chance, you didn't see any Russians around?
Yeah, pretty honestly, yeah.
He said, I don't like this at all.
He said, I'll tell you, you may not believe this but this is the truth.
I have to pay for it.
All the hardware I get, I pay for it.
I can't afford it.
It's a drain on me.
We should be spending money for it.
I pay for it in high currency.
He said, I pay for the salaries and the expenses of the Russians who are here.
All of them.
He said, that's very costly.
I pushed him.
He said, I don't like that.
I need the money for other things.
And the city looks really rundown.
It's a sad-looking city.
Could be hurt.
Have you ever seen such poor people?
So goddamn poor.
Well, I said, you say you want to have a different medical license for this, and we'd like to have a different medical license for you.
You can't do it now.
take some steps that indicate that our place is improving.
He said, fine, what do you have in mind?
I told him, increase our intersection.
He said, okay, I agree.
Instantly started on.
He said, I want you to know that I am the president.
Nobody else.
He said, I run this country.
He said, there's some doubt about this.
I've seen in the streets.
There isn't any doubt about it.
As long as I'm the president, I run it.
I claim decisions.
I guess he's in his late 40s, early 50s, and he's a little bit, his ears get a little thin, he's got sparkly eyes, and he talks with a lot of people, and he is a little, he vacillates between being very practical and thoughtful and being an Arab nationalist.
Every once in a while he gets excited and he gives you a little,
the era of nationalism, and then he quickly recedes into practical discussion about things.
Every era has had a poet.
But you come away with impressions that he has made a commitment to peace, at least for the short run.
which is going to be difficult for him to back away from.
In other words, he spent a good deal of political capital on taking a step, and if something doesn't happen, then he's going to be in a political dilemma because he's not strong enough to start trouble with Israel.
He could carry out his threat, although I must say he didn't make a threat.
He never suggested anything in terms of time.
He never said, this has to be done or else we'll do this.
Never said anything of that kind.
And you have a feeling that he knows his limitations in terms of military strength, that he just isn't, he's not prepared to renew hostilities.
And on the other hand, he realizes the value of some success, an idea, an opinion to talk about
What a great station he'd be in in Suez, if it was open.
Pointing out that he would get the credit throughout the world for it.
Excuse me, I'm sorry I had to interrupt.
I wanted to breathe and I just wanted to chat to you about something.
I thought I'd say the same thing, so basically that the difference between the parties is there with someone.
Both parties were fighting for a piece
I didn't think you could say this.
The general impression that you get in all of these countries is that people want peace very much.
You can say that.
But I think I'll just say that it was a personal report to the president.
I have nothing to add.
We don't underestimate the great problems that remain unsolved.
And working toward making progress for our nation's future.
One phrase we haven't used today to say
there are several positive factors that exist in the area.
You can say that right after you express the cautionary word that many of us still .
There are several positive factors in us.
I used all the other stuff that would be helpful.
Making progress to an adventurous solution.
Well, I'm keeping going.
Making progress.
I'm keeping going.
I'm going to use that for discussions.
Okay.
Okay.
Thank you.
I don't know.
Maybe we're not going to be.
to be all over the world, in fact, although in themselves, of course, the symbolism would be that Israel was finally compared to the world.
It didn't make any difference whether it was, you know, X number of kilometers or Y number of kilometers.
The fact was that if you had this kind of a settlement, the story would be Israel would draw some Suez Canal, and this would be a tremendous achievement for him personally throughout the Arab world, because the feeling is that they never would draw
And obviously, it would suggest that the advantage to him personally as a political leader in the world stays with him.
And I think that he would like that.
I think he's playing for our leadership in a different way.
So I think he would like to get a settlement in the Suez.
He wants to be sure that it's phrased and described, explained in such a way that it doesn't look as if he's lost, that he's made a concession, that he's given up something.
He wants to make it clear that he still expects a complete withdrawal.
And I think that that can be done.
I don't think that's a difficult problem.
I don't think reconciliating the differences between him on one hand and Isabel on the other.
On that subject, it's particularly difficult.
I think the difficult part is going to be the distance of how you supervise the territory that's evacuated and what you do with the installations there.
Mrs. Mayer is very concerned about all the money she's
The impression, though, that you got from Sadat is that he's genuine, at least for the moment, in wanting to improve his relations with the United States.
And he is willing to go much farther than any other Arab that has ever gone and saying what he'll do with Israel, guaranteeing their security and saying,
He said, I don't care how you guarantee your security.
He said, if the United States wants to do it itself, that's fine with me.
He said, if you wanted to move troops in, you're guaranteed that's all right with me.
I have no interest in violating the security of anything that you want to do, the United Nations wants to do, or anybody else wants to do to guarantee it's all right with me.
All I want is my land back.
I don't want anything else.
I don't want to bother.
I made my decision.
I'll live with it.
I'll sign the agreement.
I'll do all the things they've always said they wanted.
Just walk with my impact."
And he says, he's an Arab.
I can't do less.
Then we had a long discussion.
He said, you know, that he'd be willing to sacrifice all his people for an inch of money.
And we had a long philosophical discussion about that.
And I said, it was amazing that any man would ever say that.
And I pointed out that we
way right after he gave up on Mexico and came back to Japan.
Why the hell would he say that?
I see why he wouldn't want to lose much of his country, but he could make a peaceful agreement and then have his concessions to Israel as a place of security.
Why would he care about his land?
Well, we were on that for a long time.
We got along fine.
As a matter of fact, he liked Osisko and he'd be on
four of us thought we didn't have all of the whole gang, and this is real.
Yes, but he, we had a small problem, and Sadat said he didn't, we didn't want him to go ahead with this, this suicide proposal.
We are talking the same thing that's been reported in the Egyptian press.
I think that's fair.
Then he said we were perfectly happy to increase our intersection without close consultations with him, any way you want to have it.
whatever you want to do, you can do it.
We have time to listen to you.
We'd like to have United States play the role.
We trust you.
If you want to get somebody else to do it, we can consider that, too.
In other words, Erkin, he says something.
England and Erkin.
He's a man of good taste.
He dresses well in this house where he contains women.
He never mentioned Nassau.
There's no, there's nothing in the invocation of Nassau at all.
I know pictures of him are out.
Nobody spoke a word about Nassau when I asked if we had a case.
I'm sorry to say, Mr. Nassau said yes to three committees.
No enthusiasm.
I stopped on the way to the airport to spend the way to the airport, and obviously I had to visit people.
Sheriff decides to book, and I said, do we have this?
I'm sorry, I should have stopped.
He said, well, it's up to you, sorry.
But I mean, no, nothing, no effort to build that, you know, I'm sorry, but he's pretty clear that he doesn't want that, he wants to be.
He can't rule in that situation.
He cannot, he cannot, but he has a memory behind it.
That's right.
Although some people write, you know, some people build up somebody.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
All right, and here's the real question.
What was different was this one.
We've seen them all together.
I saw the captain all together twice for a long period of time.
And I met with a commissar.
And it's not a co-commissar, but a committee on foreign affairs.
The defense is a combined committee.
You get the impression that the government has decided, as a government, to do nothing.
That is a stalemate.
What they want is a stalemate.
They just want total inactivity.
I just had a real rough discussion with the cabinet, the first lady, and I said, this is unacceptable in the United States.
Our national interests are adversely affected.
We're losing God in the Arab world.
You made some recovery in the last year because of the initiative the President took, but it won't last unless there's some further progress.
You have the support of any other nation in the world.
I said, we can't stand in this position.
First place, your position is contrary to the position the president's taken.
It's contrary to the position the United States has taken since 1967.
It's contrary to the position of the whole world on this issue.
I said, everybody supports your nation.
We support your sovereignty.
We support your courage.
We're prepared to continue to play the very close and active role.
We've said that we are, that no president has ever supported you.
more better than Nixon.
But we can't stand in that position unless you're more flexible.
And we don't understand it.
Why is a nation that has a, that you've got a valid case, and you've got the best people in terms of argumentation in the world, and you're better at public relations than most other people, how come you can't get any support from any other nation?
And why do you pick fights with everybody, including the Vatican?
You've been attacked in the
I said, we can't stay in this position.
It's impossible, we're not.
The friendships that we have made in the last year, well, are obviously very fragile.
And I said, unless we produce something, we're going to lose them all.
I said, it's going to have a reverse effect.
We improved our position, and first, because you wanted us to, and secondly, we had to in order to get a ceasefire.
But in the absence of some movement on your part, or at least some flexibility, I said, you seem totally flexible.
Every suggestion we make, you reject it.
And you argue about it, and you say, no good, that's no good, the United Nations is no good, Bhutan is no good, the Pope is wrong, the United States, we reject you.
I said, that's, what are you for?
What is your position?
Can you tell us what you stand for?
Well, anyway, it was a little bit of an obsession.
And she had, how many people?
Oh, the rest were very quiet.
The man said nothing at all.
I think he's pretty well lost his influence.
The only two that took part at all were Diane and Alon.
Sapir came in the next day, he's quite dumbish, he's quite, interestingly enough, the first thing I did was I saw Ben Curry.
Oh, I saw that, yeah.
He was in the hotel.
That was scary, that was quite impressive.
He was in the hotel, and of course he agrees with our position.
Real man, yeah.
And he said so, and now he doesn't care any way, he still has a lot of people that think well of him.
Then I noticed that there had been some statements in Israel that I wasn't true at all, because we told them ahead of time, I said to them, we don't want to do things to cause the Arabs to be sore at us, particularly little things.
I don't want to fly over occupied territory, get out in the sun and say, we've noticed that you're very occupied.
We don't want to use your flag when we go into the holy cities, because there's a hell of an emotional feeling all over the world that it shouldn't be your city.
And I said, I'm not doing it because I don't want to have any of the effects that came with special equipment.
I mean, I didn't want differences to make with you.
Now, so they said, all right.
But I noticed that there were a few little playbacks.
It's very impressive.
I don't know.
They had to make sure that we didn't sin.
It was done.
But, you know, I was very helpful in the air.
But they appreciated it very much.
And I had to.
We had to.
As far as I could see, I could see.
Incidentally, I don't know whether you've had a chance to look at the international press, but the international press is really good.
I'll get that next week.
I saw all the American press.
All over the world, Mr. President.
I mean, papers that normally were very cynical about it, French papers, the London Times had a very, you know, Scandinavian papers.
They all cared so much that you were taking the lead and that that meant the United States nearly showed.
Did you get the impression that Mrs. Meyer may not really be capable of leading this team?
I know she can.
In other words, she has got to really follow what they can and that the man who you think is... Well, that guy has a strong... Yeah, I want to cover that.
At his first meeting, she had... Can I say both of the same things on the other day?
of all the old speeches and arguments and reporters and everything that keep giving damage here.
And I started out, I said, you know, we've been working on this a lot, and I think I've heard most of the arguments.
And what we came to talk about was the present and the future, and we would like to get your views on what can be done.
We have some thoughts, and we'd like to get your thoughts, and then she goes into a long speech about all the old arguments and what she said to the United Nations in 47,
She gave me a copy of these old speeches and what Sadat has said at some other time.
After the first meeting was over, she did very poorly.
Her own people told us afterwards that she was a disaster to this city.
It was really awful.
It was so sad.
She did hurt me.
She's pretty old.
She has all these old memories that she stretches up on every subject, no matter what you say.
because she remembers what happened in 46, 72, 73.
She doesn't look well either.
The next, well, the next morning, Diane called Joe and said he wanted to talk.
And Joe and I were going to fly down.
We got a plane down to California.
Mr. Abbott didn't understand the question.
We flew down and they got back and put an American plane with General Barlow in the ravine and they showed us the whole area.
It was really very interesting.
It was a hell of a good thing to do.
Saw the chapel shake and the roadway and all that sort of good picture.
And Joe saw that we had Diane.
Diane was taught sensibly, had good exchanges.
He told us what he thought they might be willing to do and where they might be willing to crack.
He was talking about 35 kilometers, as square as it is.
We might be able to make a deal.
And they went out point by point.
And Diane was clearly anxious to try to work something out.
And he was business-minded.
And he said, I think we've got to take a chance.
He said, I don't.
I don't think we can talk about it in terms of, we'll pull out a little bit, and then if something goes wrong, we'll go back in and start fighting.
So I think we've got to take reasonable chances.
And he said, I think we have to assume that Sadat, at least for the moment, is prepared to make peace.
And I think we've got to appear that we're prepared.
I mean, pretending to talk that way is very, very reasonable.
So the, I came back onto the holy places and all that stuff.
They came back for the second meeting.
The second meeting was much better.
They must have gotten their hands together because it was an ordinary meeting.
We went over the points that they made.
Over each one of these points, we discussed the misunderstandings that existed.
Most of them were just language interpretations.
we got to the point where, for example, one of the things she wanted was to have, she wanted the Egyptians to say that they would make, in return for the interim agreement, that they would permanently extend the ceasefire.
Well, I said, you know, they're not gonna do that.
I mean, the only bargaining weapon is if the thing doesn't work out, they'll try to recapture the land, and that's not possible.
I mean, that just spews a giant on you, but on the other hand, I think there is a formula
provide an extended ceasefire without a definite period of time.
I think it's quite possible, in fact I said we got some language worked out that would tie it to the Yaring mission as long as negotiations were being conducted satisfactorily by Yaring.
I said I don't think the Egyptians want to start it, start it beforehand.
And if they had to put in a short period, the Egyptians would like to say a ceasefire for six months or nine months.
I said, that's a mistake for you to do that.
Because every time you do it, six months passes and you don't take any action, so it looks silly.
I said, the last time you had a big debate about the ceasefire, you said you wouldn't extend the ceasefire and nothing happened.
And I said, that made it look as if you were just saying that for the fact you didn't follow through.
I said, it's much better to have it indefinite without a deadline.
Well, the second meeting was much better.
And I think it is possible that we can work out an agreement.
And I think it's going to take a good deal of time.
Now, I think it's going to take a good deal of time.
What I would aim for would be to keep the pressure on them pretty vigorously.
formulating an agreement just before the General Assembly.
Because if we get the General Assembly, it carries to the Hill Assembly first.
Yeah, I don't know.
Do you get the impression from Daya that he thinks you would make an agreement?
Yeah.
Of course, what they're worried about, yes, I think so.
What are you worried about?
He doesn't, he doesn't, he, I think, a lot would like to, what the necessities of it may be,
I admitted that the meeting with Inessa was really a pleasant experience.
Jesus Christ.
I, I, they asked me to, to speak.
And I presented our case as forcefully as I could, and I think pretty effectively, as a matter of fact.
And then I said, I'd be glad to answer any questions.
I have a feeling that there may be some things that need to be clarified.
I said, we're the same boat.
We're your best friend in the world.
We're your only supporter.
We're your cause for less trouble.
We don't, we don't want to cause you trouble.
that we're losing strength all over the world, particularly Russia.
And I said, you mention the questions you want to ask me, why don't you ask me the first time?
You know, I'll answer any questions you want.
I don't have to ask to answer any questions.
And they started making speech, and three or four mid-20 minute speeches, and, you know, before we got anything, I said to the chairman, you know, first, I've got to be... You spoke all the language.
No, so I'm practicing.
Yeah, oh God.
Any good signs, next translation?
But, you know, real diatribes.
Now, there were some reasonable ones there, but they didn't speak.
There was one leader of the Religious Party, he ended up, he didn't care about Egypt, all he was worried about was the Jordan Valley, and he ended up, he said he thought we should make a whole thing of the Valiant Province.
And I thought, hey, I was totally correct.
But the reason I mention that is because there is a hard core of people, particularly the Knesset,
So we really don't want to do anything.
And they think that we, there's nothing we can do.
The election's coming up.
They asked for a hell of a lot more phantoms.
They made a presentation.
Oh, shit.
Well, that's what they think.
All right.
They've got the, they request another $500 million economic assistance.
They want a lot more airplanes.
They made a presentation to us.
We'll give it to you.
That's what they asked for.
And so I had everybody.
And so I just listened and I said, thank you.
But you can't have that issue always brought out.
They brought it up.
We had that before 70 times.
And obviously once they do what it's done now, we just can't have that.
Well, you can't.
It cannot be the basis for the decision.
I told her that.
She knows that.
We could do it either way.
Either way.
We could do it, Mr. President.
We had an interim agreement.
We could do it on the ground that we needed to provide certain stability.
But if you did it in the absence of an agreement, we're just gonna, it's gonna hit the fan.
Because what the air is proposing is, I'll tell you, everywhere in the world you go, Jesus, you should have written a book.
He made a speech about us for about eight minutes.
And he had an audience of my people.
made a speech.
He said, one of the great things that's happened since he's been there, we have interests that are exactly parallel to what you're doing.
What we're doing in the Middle East deserves to be supported all over the world by this speech.
As Schumann was, for the first time, enthusiastic, the Italian government was delighted.
The interest, I've never seen like it in a number of different people.
When I went to see, when I got through, I got through 700 photographers driving.
I'd never seen a living.
Well, I mean, it's all because they all were very interested in this.
Now, let me say, and I know you've got to go, but one of the things that occurs to me is that the Pope is very concerned.
He spoke to you about it when he talked to you last.
about Jerusalem.
We've got to take some initiative on Jerusalem and I think it would be a good thing.
Two reasons, politically it would be a good thing.
Secondly, it would be a good thing as far as Israel is concerned because they realize that although there aren't any Arab voters, there are a lot of Catholic voters and the kind of artists that are interested in the settlement is the Arabs.
Well, maybe not quite as interested, but they're interested.
the Pope went out of his way and said, I followed what you've done with greatest interest, particularly, I think every move was justified.
I think it's proceeding exactly the right way.
Tell the President, the police, and so forth.
I told the Pope that I talked to Mrs. Mayer and Jan about Jerusalem and said that we were concerned that His Holiness was too worried
And I didn't understand why they didn't get in touch with some of us to try to work it out.
Some of us appreciate it very much.
But what I want to end up with is, I think we should do something here.
And I will, in the next few days, make a proposal, and I think maybe you want to say something about it.
Maybe we can get the big Catholics to come down and see me.
And then I can bring them over here, and we have something to propose.
Propose there's another initiative anywhere.
Well, see, most of the Catholics in this country aren't quite familiar with it, but if we give a little visibility to it, we're trying to do something to...
I'm not sure that Israel is as much at fault in Jerusalem as people think they are.
Because I said to Israelis, well, if that's the case, why don't you do something about it?
I mean, if you've got a good case, why don't you...
I mean, all the Muslims, which sort of sell and serve in the Catholic Church, and...
So this is going to have a very serious spillover effect in the Muslim world and the Catholic world.
More and more of us is going to have something like that.
And I must say, if you look in the city, the city is getting outside.
The whole city is getting a little crushed.
And that's what bothers me.
You know, at least losing its character a little bit.
And I was really saying, if I'm right, that the business about pluralistic character in Jerusalem
It's not correct.
I think they've maybe done all they can to try to maintain that.
I think probably the area of community has increased since 1967.
Interesting figure, Henry.
Since the 67 war, there have been more Egyptians born than the whole population of Israel.
And this has been that story.
They just multiply.
That shows how huge of a problem it is unless something is done.
You know, the problem when you see it, it isn't as severe a problem as it seems to them.
I mean, there are lots of ways to skin the cat that makes us talk about it.
Even I think you can work on it.
It's really presence in Sharm el-Sheikh will be satisfactory.
I've got a lot of ideas.
For example, you can have Israeli presence on Sharm el-Sheikh combined with a UN force of, say, two nations like the Dutch and somebody else.
on his face would not be acceptable to Sadat.
But you could say to Sadat, we'll also have a U.N. force in the opening of the Suez Canal, and there we'll have an Arab or Egyptian presence in the U.N. force.
We'll have Dutch and so forth.
We'll have you, you'll have a presence in the area of utmost concern as far as your security is concerned.
Israel will have a presence in Sharm el-Sheikh, utmost importance to their security.
You will have it softened.
It will all be your land.
You can fly the flag.
We just have a U.N. presence.
We have a U.N. sign.
What's happened is we'll do exactly what it's doing now.
They've got a little airstrip down there.
They've got a small military installation.
They've got a roadway running down.
The reason that I'm sure that Ms. Mayer is worried about the roadway is they've spent quite a lot of money building it.
It's a beautiful setup.
It seems like it's going to engage her and go back to what it was like.
What is the, uh, the P.O.W.
thing that, uh, Pope, uh, said that he can't do anything now?
Well, I, uh, did what you suggested.
I read a long statement.
I didn't get anything.
Well, you know, I think we ought to think about some other things, though.
I, I don't know.
I'm thinking about something visible we're at and something useful we're at.
Getting some of these prisoners who are putting on a hospital ship and trying to land somewhere.
I mean, the, the,
It's an anomaly.
It's an anomaly that we can't release prisoners anyway.
We just don't want them incarcerated.
And the Geneva Convention, which was designed to help prisoners, is really stancing away.
What became of that post-war campaign to take 700,000 people around the country?
I just got back to it.
You did do that.
No, no, they've done it before.
Put it right off.
There's that thing.
Take the rest of the agency.
It's our final way.
Where's that?
I don't know.
We've got to get away with it.
Because we have done it.
Nobody knows it.
They say, well, this suggestion's been made.
We're willing to do this.
It's all being made.
We're going to go on and go.
That's where we take them up there.
That's where our employees are.
Well, just to conclude this, let me say, what I hope we can do, and the Lord knows what we're working on, is to get an interim agreement of some kind around September, October, something like that.
I don't know whether they all know, but they do ask for an absolute conclusion.
Incidentally, Sadat talked to me about the Federation of Syria,
He said that he's got, I said, well, you don't need to have a federation to let me in Syria control over your decisions.
And he said, oh, no, no, no, no.
I don't want to do that.
He said, all right, it's Gaddafi and I working together.
And he said, he's just a young fellow.
He's not very bright, but he's very emotional.
He said, he's got a lot of money, but he said he'll go along with me.
And I said, how can you tell if you put
you have a federation and you say there's going to be a majority vote, you would lie to them.
He said, I got along pretty well with Syria, too.
But he didn't talk to me.
He said he was serious about it.
Well, that's a good point.
The last time I saw Churchill, he had a stroke.
It was 58.
I remember that.
I remember Jack.
We were over two minutes in the hospital.
I went out and saw the old man.
They woke him up, you know.
And he was just like a toad sitting there.
He brought in some brandy or some damn thing.
He started drinking.
All of a sudden, he began to come a little bit more alive.
He started to wonder.
So we had a big conversation.
That day, they announced that Ghana, the French Federation, was getting
It's just the gods can't digest each other at all.
That's great.
Well, I think that you ought to try to work for agreement that it was possible to try something else because the important thing is
as long as the C-Splitter exists, nobody can be very critical, but everybody is as critical.
But try to get in an agreement.
Did you find that you didn't probably have much chance, you never, in Israel, in part, the government people, the individual people there, they were generally friendly?
Oh, I think I would just say two.
One, geez, I got,
It's very hard to see young people, particularly in Tel Aviv.
No, I saw them.
I was there.
It was like a very old city.
Well, I think it is true that the majority seemed to have a little of it.
I had...
I thought it was interesting to me.
I thought there might be some openness to Tel Aviv and Israel.
But I was, of course, both Jewish and Tel Aviv.
And I had shares and...
going in and out of hotels like political, like campaigns.
As you know, I normally would be able to do that for Secretary of State just because of the friendship between the United States, but a lot of them are American Jews, and they ride out, and they were yelling.
I came in at 1.30, and there were 300 people in the lobby waiting.
You know, the whole tragedy of the thing is that the Israelis are so goddamn, have such an advantage over all that.
They're smarter, they're richer, they've got everything there, you know.
the whole area, and they just have so much on the wall.
They've got so many great people there.
One of the things I raised them to, I said, you know, you're so great.
You do so well and so visible.
And you are humiliating the Arabs.
Why don't you do things that don't humiliate them?
I mean, get what you want of substance and give them what they want it for.
That's what it must be.
And I would like to particularly get it back in business on two issues.
One, Jerusalem.
that I mentioned with the Catholics, because I think it's gonna help a lot of people in the Catholic world.
The Pope is certainly immensely interested in that, very concerned.
And the other is the refugee problem that Pope is very interested in that, says he's prepared to help, so we get the RA working on it.
We can bring Jordan into the negotiations now for the refugee business, and bring the Jewish men under Jordan's pilot and try to, so we'll keep the RA in business while we're trying to get this other
God, I wonder what all the details say.
We made a little progress.
There were people all very impressed.
It all started out skeptical.
I didn't have anybody on the plane that wasn't skeptical.
And they all came back and said that they thought it was worthwhile and it was a good trip.
One advantage of this time, it was that it keeps the seas fine.
You're right, September is the deadline.
If you let the damn thing go to the U.S., they have another, you know what's going to happen.
They got some bad news for the United States.
It's done for the fight.
Well, I hope it's my, to put up the push, the idea of putting you on the road, you know, work on it.
Put him on the road?
Yes, I mean, that'd be Tokyo, but he's open.
The coast is a lot of money, but it's going to be tough to get the money for it, not to save it.
I demand to be worth the cost.
This is a hell of a business.
George Ball is a business.
Yeah, he's done a fine job.
He's just working his tail off.
He likes it.
He likes it.
He was in the Mother's Day services.
Well, we'll get some rest.
That's the harm.
It's a loop to agriculture.
It's a loop to American agriculture.
Well, there is a little bit of cow and pig out there, I think.
Somebody hit him.
I wasn't really there with the weed yet, so I just had to come back.
In other words, it doesn't look as good as it sure did.
In other words, it doesn't look as good as it sure did.