Conversation 499-024

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I have a theory that they may be ready to move and I'll explain it to you.

All right, I apologize.

I hope you didn't keep him alive or something.

What happened?

I couldn't get rid of him.

I just had an interesting question for you.

who was a great Quaker scholar.

He brought me a very interesting book.

It was a great book.

It was a Quaker book, The Lies of Durning.

You know, the language correspond to them.

I just heard a really fascinating, you know, all-handling.

It was one of them, 1864, which was the darkest month of the Civil War.

And, uh,

Some of us today, you probably remember, the verses of the Almighty are perfect and must prevail, but we, our partners, may fail to accurately perceive them in advance.

We hope for a happy termination of this terrible war long before this, but God knows best how to do it otherwise.

He shall yet acknowledge, we shall yet acknowledge his wisdom, and our own error therein.

Meanwhile, we must work honestly and confess why he gives us, trusting that so working still produces to the great end fewer gains.

Surely he intends some great good to follow this mighty convulsion, which no marvel could make, and no marvel could save.

You know, anybody who can write like that had to leave.

I want you to stay with me again.

That's enough.

We must walk in confidence here.

And I personally appreciate the fact that you're so understanding and all that.

I know you're in your own feelings about this.

We all feel the same.

It's just a question.

I have some tea, please.

I'll have your tea.

And it's so easy.

I said to you, I think about a year ago, about a year ago, I said, well, of course, we hope that this night won't even happen, that in the end, that three-week contract is what we look for.

And I mean, there were some things

working on.

Now, let me go over just two or three things.

I don't know what you said or anything about the China thing or what happened, but I do think you should know that it was no accident.

What I meant is it just didn't happen until the Chinese moved on this thing.

This was basically

Well, let me tell you why we do not want to try to explain the very important reasons not to.

It was not a good thing for to have said in London, there was some, and I appreciate you for that.

But we must not say that because it'll hurt us.

We want good relations with the Russians.

And we want good relations between China and Russia.

Because if they get involved, we can get involved.

Now that's what we have to say to them.

And that should be the mind.

But Henry, send them over to China.

And then we're going to go to Vietnam and then arms control.

Because you're so interested in arms control.

I was smiling because before he was a candidate, we talked about arms control.

When he was a candidate.

Just a moment.

On the basis that I started to think about this long before the election.

I sent a memorandum to him.

Six days after I was in office.

February 1st, 1969, the President sent a memo to me to explore on the quietest basis possible, perhaps through communist sources, East European communist sources, or others, the possibility of getting into a dialogue with a Chinese communist.

And from that day on, we had it as a national policy to open up

towards the Chinese within a week after it started, a study within the government of what measures we could take in addition to whatever conduct which could signal to the others.

And the objective was to do things which they could not reject and which did not force them to make a decision except to note them.

So we deliberately didn't do huge splashes.

We didn't do splashes.

So we also gradually escalated the public statements we made.

indicating that we were open.

The President talked to many world leaders who he knew were also talking to the Chinese, just musing about his view of the Chinese.

Then we put a very forthcoming few pages into the President's World Report in 1970.

We took a series of

another series of steps.

Then in the fall of 1970, for the first time, the President used the phrase, the People's Republic of China.

And he did it in a toast to Khrushchev when Khrushchev was here for a state dinner.

And even though these toasts are made available to the press, no one in the press picked it up.

And we didn't.

We didn't broker it because we knew Khrushchev had noticed it.

So we were going to then, having done it again, I'm not talking about methods you know about, like the trade restrictions.

Having done it again, we put it into the President's World Report again, and the President put it also in his radio speech, introducing the World Report

And on that occasion, even though it was in the middle of the Laotian operation, Chu and I made a public statement welcoming the fact that the president was now using the phrase People's Republic of China.

This was in March.

And so through many of the channels, at the same time, we were preparing another package of measures, which we were really going to do independent of what the Chinese did.

But we knew from some of Chu's statements...

The travel is now wide open.

Trading will be really in the position where China will be in exactly, mainly China, in exactly the position as the Soviet bloc, which of course is, or Eastern Europe, I should say.

So actually what happened during the Laotian operation, when there was a lot of press speculation whether the Chinese would come in,

The president was always convinced, on the basis of these people that had gone out, that it was a much greater chance that we'd be talking to the Chinese and that we'd be fighting them before the year was out.

We didn't know that... That's right.

We knew they were going to do something, but we didn't think they could fix the war.

But that was up to them.

But something would happen this year.

So we were quite confident about that.

So that's where we are with the Chinese now, and in a sense it was a culmination of 20 months of rather patient and indirect and rather subtle.

Maybe I could tell the way you got the Warsaw Talk started because that is really quite amusing.

There has to be something between us.

We had some other channels to them.

We knew they were ready.

But we had never made a formal approach, so our ambassador in Warsaw was in here to pay a call on the president.

And the president said, at the next, you go to social receptions with the Chinese.

And the ambassador said, yes.

He said, at the next reception, you go up to the Chinese ambassador telling him you want to see him and to start talking again.

Well, that's so unusual that the ambassador thought the president must have been joking.

So for months, nothing happened.

So I sent him a telegram reminding him of the presidential instruction, rather strict.

So he did go up to the Chinese ambassador at the next reception.

And he said, well, I have to get instruction.

And two weeks later, the Chinese said they had a message for us.

Could they come to the embassy?

It was the day of the blizzard in Warsaw.

front door was snowed in, so we made them come in the side door.

They said, why didn't you let us come in the front door?

And the message itself, just to show you how the Chinese are placed, was simply a radio announcement that they had released three American yachtsmen who had strayed into Chinese territory.

But that, having been in our embassy, they then said there had to be a return call on theirs.

And when we went to theirs the second time, they accepted the Warsaw talks

Mentioning it only for the circuitous way their minds work.

And how one has to do some unusual thing.

With regard to this, maybe, it may be faster than it appears.

We, however, are going to play it very cautiously and publicly.

Because first, we...

for us to play it any other way would get a bad reaction from the Chinese.

But second, it could also create problems in the other game we're playing, and that's what's so good.

So, but I would say on the Chinese front that that story between now and frankly the end of 1972

developments.

If anybody were to ask me that, if I were to ask you publicly, I would simply say, well, I'm not going to speculate.

I think from however few of you ought to know that this is an area of very significant attention, more than appears in the public press, because we know more about what's going on here.

But I want to be able to

in your press conference and how you handled that subject.

I had already prepared a speech, which I delivered, and I didn't want to change it.

I didn't want to get too far out of it, because I could see what you'd read between what you were saying.

I had probably said more on either floor about what you'd done in China than anybody else.

What I say may be the most significant thing, frankly, to come out of it all.

I won't have time on that.

It's difficult.

It is really hairy.

You see, that's why we are ducking.

And at this point, we've got to face up to eventually the problem, the legalistic problems of admission to the U.S. and to China and all that.

When you get into that, it's hairy with Taiwan.

As far as the trade and travel and so forth, there's no problem.

But on the Taiwan side, we are under their command.

You know, that calls us in.

I suggested that in this most recent speech which you've got put in the record, you know, that we give the, that we propose

and several alternatives, of course, to the most important question.

And I suggested that we could either move that or something down the street, if the thing was down to the mat.

All we could propose is giving these security seats to the People's Republic and assembly seats to the general.

But that is what we're going to do.

that has been run by the Taiwanese.

And that's what raised .

Well, that's fine.

But I must say that I don't know any answer .

What would be helpful for Ed to say on this kind of thing?

I think it's, let me say that you're on a sound ground in saying that you consider this a very significant

Because in my opinion, looking to what I call peace for the generation, it may be more important than the thing with the Russians.

You see, the Russians and we are now basically equal.

And therefore, when you have two equals, the possibility of either doing something is somewhat remote.

On the other hand,

with the Chinese, with their potential 15, 20 years from now, developments, if China continues to be isolated in the world community, and if their leaders grow up with a paranoid feeling of hatred for, and lack of knowledge, because after Joe and I die, he knows the West, nobody else among the leaders does, then what's going to happen?

You're going to have a terribly difficult situation.

And also the Pacific is where the action is going to be.

Europe is important.

We've got to hold mail and a few other things.

But in my view, when the record of this administration is ripped, Henry, I think, believes that, well, first of all, we're going to have the war.

Second, we're going to have better relations with the Russians.

Third, we're going to do a few other things in other parts of the world.

I mean, we trust we keep the ministries.

We hope we can do this.

It may prove to be the most significant thing, but breaking the ice of chance.

Is that your view?

Well, that would be, in historic terms, 800 million people with the longest continuing self-government with their talent, really excluded from international affairs completely for 30 years, and not actively participating for nearly 100 now, because they were in a colonial strait.

And the government has been in control for some 22 years.

Well, this is the reason I started to think long, long ahead.

And you know this.

The difficulty with all of our foreign policy people, and it was even true in the Eisenhower years, we were always thinking from crisis to crisis.

Now, we are really taking a long view here.

And it's a development.

Do you realize that none of our Democratic friends could have done what I did on China?

Because the writing would have torn it to pieces.

But you see, the writing trusts me.

Do you understand?

I said that to you.

what you could explain, what you could do in the world, because of the fact, you know, why you had to be about those people.

I suggested this in a book in 64, and everyone knows it.

Oh, yeah.

They wanted to run me out of the party because I said the same thing.

You can't ignore the existence of 800 million people on Earth.

And I talked to a real conservative Republican group that day, and I began ignoring your policies.

I give you credit for the salt, starting the salt talk.

which had never started before, which is very significant.

And I've said, look, surely we haven't got results, but the quality of the discussion, the lack of propaganda coming out of these talks is very significant.

At least we're talking.

The China policy, which took a lot of courage, and it didn't, because I know you were an impression on the right.

When I said it to them, I said, they took a lot of courage.

This may be the most significant thing, because here we'd be in England,

It's the most populous nation on Earth.

On its way to a trillion people.

You can imagine.

And I said, compare that with us, our 200.

And you know, people act like they've never heard this before.

He said, a trillion people.

A trillion people.

On its way as a trillion people as themselves, a third nuclear.

I said, unless you and your grandchildren and great-grandchildren want to live in fear of a nuclear power cut, there had to be a beginning, and he's the only one who stayed around here, had the courage to make that beginning.

Well, people, this is really single-minded, and they're bringing home to them what it means to live before a conservative plan.

And I said, oh, and also, they also told me that you'd been making some talks.

Yeah, they took it.

And I said, look, I said, you know, it's the ping pong thing.

I said, the ping pong, the cronies, they were too old.

I joke it up.

I say, I hope that by the time the team comes over here, our quality of ping pong will have proved something else.

But they've taken it.

Then I moved to Africa.

So I think your position in the Nigerian War was the correct position to take.

I think it's going to pay off in the end.

Not to become, not to go along with the people that wanted to get us involved with that, with the Igbo and all that.

I wrote several letters to him, as you will know.

I was very close to the Alba Nigerian Force.

I spent a lot of time...

He's coming over sometime.

I don't know what he's doing.

in the form, Mr. President.

I think it's the end of the... We offered him an earlier date.

We had him set for February, Mr. President.

You know him very well.

So this is very interesting.

And then, of course, the Middle East.

even though we haven't got people, but at least they're not firing and they're talking.

So you've got to, I don't think we have anything but self-doubt.

No, let's talk a minute about self-doubt.

And if I may, I want to talk about the European crisis that confronts you now.

I...

I guess the President's statement was likely stroking it.

I said, my God, we must be in the hotline.

His timing couldn't have been better, as far as that statement was concerned.

I mean, I think he's going to make it soon.

Well, he made a speech this morning, Mr. President, or yesterday, in which he formally proposed a

of the mutual reduction of forces.

That's what you've been saying for years.

I met with the American leader yesterday.

Ed, we knew he was going to say this.

We offered to have a private channel of these people.

Forget I said that.

We've been talking about it.

And the mutual reduction thing, and Roger said that, but the point is we don't give the game away in advance.

One thing could be a very helpful, if you could help us there.

See, look, for God's sakes, I don't want to get those forces down in Europe, but we've got to negotiate it.

And we can't, we can't throw it in, we can't knock down the Europeans.

And the rest, you know, and particularly the Germans.

If you leave the Germans out there, cut off, isolated in the center of Europe, they're the ablest people in Europe, they're the most dynamic people, and they're denuclearized.

If you leave them with no home in NATO, we're in.

You think the Russians are worried?

My God, the Europeans would be scared to death.

That's why, that's why...

It might interest as long...

background in arms control.

You know, whatever you think of it, every detail of our assault position, I think you agree we really make very detailed and thoughtful studies on the subject.

We've done that on the balance force reduction also.

We've put together four or five different approaches and packages.

which we are now discussing with the European allies.

We've got to discuss it with them first, Ed, before we go off and do it with Brezhnev.

So if you got me the Mansfield thing, frankly, it would simply remove all consenting for the Russians to negotiate a reduction on their side.

And there's... Hell, we're not going to start any war in Europe.

They lied.

That's the point.

That's no second.

It's the reduction of their enforcement.

But the other point is, if you reduce it, it would petrify the Europeans.

That's our problem.

But you're faced with this, and then, of course, with the dollar crisis, right?

The time, the timing.

Man's got to have time.

You know, that's just, that's the other thing.

The other thing is, though, if you lose it, it isn't going to affect that dollar crisis.

No, I know, but it causes a bunch of people here to lose it.

And then you get this attitude that, you know, I was at lunch yesterday,

just sitting around an open table.

And then, naturally, somebody came up to her, like high and far, right down the line, and said, well, I don't know.

He said, no, they didn't do something.

They're still not doing it.

They're not putting more troops there.

We're just putting in there.

We ought to get on with it.

That's his thing about it.

So you had a real mix there.

And I remember when I was over at the large farm,

I guess it was in 68 when I talked to him.

Pull him out now because we're going to freeze out.

Can you sell this freshman athlete interview?

That's the thing.

I think we can.

You can help us very, very much.

Now, it is not one thing if you make an Illinois.

That meeting has to be advanced so that both hungry and muscular support us.

That isn't enough.

They've got to work for it.

They've got to leave the movement.

You've got to get them moving.

They've got to leave.

Just prior to this, if we hadn't gotten something prior to this, if this statement of address hadn't come out this morning and I hadn't had time to assess it, but right away I said, my goodness, he must have the hospital.

That's got to be the accident at that time.

Prior to that time, if I had to assess it, I would say that if the Mansfield Amendment had come up first,

you have carried today.

I feel now, if there's any area of accommodation, I don't know what you can do, and perhaps you want to appear, you know, up and down on the landscape, if there's any shade, because what they want to do is just to have something to say, look, get ready, you know, we're not going to be over there forever.

Well, the point is that there really isn't any accommodation.

I'll tell you that.

There will be later.

There cannot be now.

Look, look at the point.

Previous administrations had this problem, but they have no plan to reduce forces.

Hell, we have been reducing forces, you know what I'm saying?

We've been reducing them in Europe, and we've been reducing them in Asia, not just Vietnam.

We've reduced them in Korea, we've reduced them in Thailand, we've reduced them in the Philippines, we've reduced them in Okinawa.

You know, that's the record of this administration.

So the whole point is that these guys that are up here, particularly our Democratic friends, why aren't they yapping before?

See, man, well, Mansfield did.

Mansfield is an honest pacifist, let's face it.

So am I, except I'm more of a solicitor.

I admire Mike, but I disagree with him completely.

I know this.

I use the president.

Oh, okay.

Listen, I can assure you that you will look good later on this one.

Well, listen, on the statement this morning, you know, you've been saying this really gave credibility to what you're saying, that I need to negotiate this on the journal.

We're willing to negotiate it, and we must do it on that basis.

Now, Vietnam, I have nothing to report to you at this moment.

uh and i know that it seems it seems like ages that we wonder is the negotiating track here's the key question that you've got to really wrestle with because all of a sudden they will look at the negotiating track is it's blocked what are we waiting for why don't we just put something you see all that i can say to you is that time is running out for me

As we go through the summer months, our forces go down, you know, 200,000 at last.

There's not much left to negotiate, you see.

But on the other hand, in my view,

just as you come to the point where the negotiating track may be running out, may be the time, may be, as I never have any hopes here, haven't done a little more than I have, but that just may be the time that your chance for negotiation is perhaps substantially greater.

Now, I can only say that, and I don't want to mislead you, and I don't want to

I don't want to indicate that something is going on more than it actually is, but I've always talked straight on this general as well.

I can only say that I have not given up on negotiation.

I've got to have, I say I have to, we have to have a reasonable chance

pretty much the same to see what goes.

Now, I think you might want to elaborate on that at all.

Let's remember now that Ed's kind of a special problem there.

I mean, in terms of his well-known beliefs, certainly, but... No, no, I think you, but he's, but he's, I think we should talk about it candidly.

Let me say it.

I wouldn't say what I'm saying unless we were doing something.

Something that you're not reading about.

I can't tell you what we're doing.

And also, I don't want to indicate that there's more going on than there is.

When we met before, there were various sort of public and private meetings, and I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about other things.

Well, Ed, I don't think I can speculate on what may or may not be going on, because we are talking about trends.

You can make this assessment.

Is Hanoi

Hanoi has this choice to make now.

Is it going to let this thing run its course with whatever push it can give it during that time?

Or is it going to bring it to a conclusion before that through negotiation?

You can make a case either way.

They look at our public opinion and our riots and so forth.

They might forget.

They say long enough something has got to give to it.

On the other hand, the military situation in South Vietnam is not good for them.

They have not brought off any major attack now.

Not good for them.

For them, for the North Vietnamese.

Not good for them, but for the South Vietnamese.

They have not succeeded in any major attack in two years.

You know, the casualties dropped to 32.

Casualties have dropped.

Less than that this week.

Probably.

It's always hard to say when it's so low, but military action is very low.

There was no offensive this year at all.

Did you know that casualties this whole year had not one week went above 66?

I forget.

No, I think once they were updated, but the average is certainly below 60.

The average is below 50 because the first three months you had, the first two months you had very low.

Remember we had one of 16.

But the infiltration level was the highest 16 since pre-tech.

But much of it was used up in the Laotian operation, which, from a purely military point of view, leaving outside the psychological impact, did achieve quite a bit.

So when they look at the situation, they may find that two years from now, or whenever, however our program operates, sure, by that time we'll be substantially out, but their situation won't be any better as a result of it.

so that they may decide that they do want to negotiate on our withdrawal.

Also, have in mind that the fact that the Russians are making temperate statements at the moment can only

have some effect on them.

You see, you've got to put yourself in their position.

Now, having pointed out those things, let's leave out what little Mickey Mouse things may be happening.

Talks and so forth and so on.

Things are going on, I can say.

Could they have been going on before?

But the great significant trends are perhaps pointing to a greater possibility now than I think any time since we've been here.

They've run out.

The trouble is, you know, you read the New York Times editorial

Yesterday.

And, in fact, I've got to see him.

Bob Kleiman is waiting for me.

I'm sorry.

I had to wait a minute because I've got to see you, too, before I leave the floor.

Oh, I see.

They give the impression that foreign policy, that negotiations with them, it's like a detective story in which they throw out vague clues and we have to get at an answer.

We've got a lot of experience, and I have it in two administrations now.

That's not how the North Vietnamese operate.

They don't make a vague end, which we then reject.

And then if they want something, like a deadline, or getting rid of a few, they hit us over the head three times a week with it.

So we are going to make a major effort to see what can be achieved through negotiations.

In complicated ways, because... A major negotiation offensive.

But not that you may necessarily see.

Now, incidentally, but I just want you to know that we will, that that's going to come.

You must not say that.

You must not say you anticipate that we are.

No, you can, it's, but I can just say that we have not given up on the negotiating track and we are going to make the major changes.

Actually, the analysis is, yeah, the analysis is that we might have, you know,

We don't know.

They might just not have a point.

They might just not be able to negotiate for domestic and other reasons.

Yeah.

So we can't be too optimistic, but everything we're doing now is really designed to help the negotiations.

And it's not just blindly going on with the war.

No.

For the war's sake.

And if our major negotiating initiative fails there.

then we are going on our other track of withdrawal and replacement.

And that track will succeed.

You're still under those circumstances, and that's at a time when you say.

Not now.

because i mean let me certainly say what you've done with china and the soviet union at the first time it seems to me that it would behoove them to question their grief for the tyranny of christmas war in these circumstances

The time will come when that's going to happen.

You know what I mean?

When you're down to a certain number, then you're going to say, well, they've won the rest of the game.

But the time is not right now.

We can't do it now because over the next three months is the critical, well, frankly, it's the critical and last negotiating chance.

And that would have to be bad.

Because basically that's part of it.

You see there, there could be an approach.

I don't, I don't know.

Well, we'll have to do, well, there may be a, there may be a, something might happen before you vote.

Suppose that's wrong.

How soon are you going to, how soon are they going to come out?

Oh, they're going to have to be finished.

Madfield, Madfield, there are a few more in the draft.

Well, then it comes up next.

All right.

Well, it's going to be a syllabus, of course.

It's going to be a lot of time.

We'll have a little time.

We've got some time.

But I guess I'd much rather you even if you set the time and set the due because there's flexibility there.

I mean, I don't think there's a way to do the 30 years of December or anything like that.

We discussed that at the meeting the other day.

I know, I know, I know.

I'm not trying to move anybody on this.

All I can say is this.

You've got time.

I've got to have some time.

I've got to have some time for negotiating purposes.

That's all there is to it.

And I wouldn't look from a political standpoint.

I know everybody wants to set a deadline.

What the hell?

We know that.

On the other hand, why did I not send it?

The reason is I think that we could have a chance to end it quicker this way.

We've got to run that chance out.

And that's a little easier.

Yeah, but if you were to say that, then we're down to nine.

I haven't even said what the president has me in this month.

You tell me what I can say, and you tell me what I can't say.

I respect that.

Well, I'd like to say that on this one, don't you, that we...

That I just feel that, I feel that you've got the people in the negotiating track.

I believe that the moment you set the time, then I'll call Bruce home and forget it.

The time, oh yes, you don't need the, what's all those weeks ago?

That's my point.

Now, in other words, anybody that sets the time just gives up the negotiating call and you take the time.

Now, one other point.

Let me ask you something.

Could I ask you one thing, sir, before we get off?

What happened in the area that happened this morning?

Is that the return of a significant surgeon or something?

I thought it was significant.

Yes.

Would that have happened before?

Yeah, but would that be anything to us?

We'll just have to wait and see.

We just...

Since when did you make the offer?

You see, let you on...

Their leader has just now traveled to Moscow and peaked, and we've just got to see what else goes on.

You see, we've got, if we can't adopt to the problems, that's the day.

Part of the problem is the son of a gun has been over there.

You see, he was supposed to be back in his party conference.

He's been over there a month.

And so everything waits at this point.

That's why they're so long in Paris at some point.

At least that's our opinion.

I don't mean now, but now that he's back, things are going to start moving.

But I do say, we've got to find out.

Now, let me ask, raise one on salt.

I appreciated your comments on that.

You may have noted that I said in my press conference that I am not discouraged by our assault talks.

Now, I simply want you to know that because of your interest in this, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh,

Right at this time, it's an interesting thing.

You've got the Chinese game, you've got the Russian game, and you've got the Sonora-Vietnamese game.

As far as the Russian game is concerned, I think most people would say that it's the least likely.

I mean, you read all the damn columns.

You say salt is dead, salt is not dead.

I just, just, today as well as Friday,

Remember what I said.

And then, if what I said today, I may prove to be wrong, if what I said today proves to be right on salt, then I think you can go to your colleagues and say, well, he must know something.

If it proves to be wrong, then you have a right to question.

Can I just leave it that way with you?

I'm talking in real reason today.

But this is, again, based on an assessment like, you know, the North Vietnamese.

It's not based on any facts.

No, we don't have any.

We don't mean to suggest at this point that you're going to expect an open assessment, etc.

What I am saying is that let's look at the Russian position.

They're concerned about the Chinese.

They're concerned about their own economy.

They now are ahead of us in their long-range missiles.

They'll equal us in submarines.

They're no longer in position of inferiority.

They see us building an ABM.

So, what should they do?

What's in for them?

See, put yourself, put ourselves in their positions.

Now the real question there is whether their military will control Russia.

The other point, the objective thing to keep in mind is that the Russians now have a leader.

Russia has the balls.

He's the leader.

He's the man.

He was not a total party congress.

It was a conglomerate.

So therefore, having said all these things, we now feel that this is the time.

We're going to find out.

We're either going to answer or we're not.

I think we're going to find it out in a reasonable time.

But what I can say to you, one, we couldn't be working harder for solar than we're being damn flexible.

Second, the Chinese thing has to be played very low key and scopely on our part.

What is said publicly on the part of others

Well, I would say it doesn't bother me.

That's great.

But you know my position from the beginning.

You can say you and I traveled in the campaign.

We talked about China.

I think that's a good thing for you to say.

So it doesn't look as if we just fell into the ping pong.

Because this has been my game.

It's been my view for years.

And also, I'm a man of the Pacific.

I mean, I live in the Pacific.

I know that the game is going to be in the Pacific.

You know it, too.

That's where the state of the world is going to be determined.

So there you go.

Now, on the main problem thing, all I can tell you today is that, and I can just assure you, we just have to take it.

The negotiating track is still open.

When it's closed, I'll tell you.

But as long as it's open, I've got to oppose.

What was that?

Oh, I see.

Oh, I didn't know.

I will find another time.

Oh, my God.

I appreciate your, you know, in a business case like this, a position in your state where you ought to run is, you know, like O.G.

and others, and you say you ought to use the insurance money in front of the animals, and I would like to try to get rid of that.

My instinct, just as my instinct after the 24th Congress was that the Russians would move towards an accommodation.

When the Russians said unanimity with Ladois, considering that they need us on Berlin and

They're still playing the detente game for a while, and now the neutral balance was reduction.

What could it mean?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, very important.

Oh, yeah, it was a matrix feed.

And what that means is that the...

that if they were planning a major offensive and they hadn't accepted this complete unanimity here, that would really be a challenge to us, which I don't believe they want this summer for their own reasons.

So I think it either means a continuation of the status quo or a peace move.

It may not be a peace move we can accept,

But if they were determined, for example, to stalemate, to stall me, they would have accepted the 9th or the 16th, because to stall me they didn't have to delay.

So I think there is a finite chance that something may break with them.

He doesn't have to travel to Peking and Moscow for such lengths if he isn't ready to do something.

It may not be anything we can possibly accept,

The only problem is that my seeing him on the 30th or 31st, and I'll make a recommendation to you by Monday, whether we shouldn't put off the queue meeting by two weeks.

It's set now...

No, but frankly, I'm not also, I'm not that sure that the Jew meeting will help you to mess with it.

Well, the Jew meeting won't help.

You know some people.

That's the problem.

The real problem we have to deal with is that, you see, troops will promise to not help.

They won't sign.

But the ending of the American combat knows that we want threats and threats.

So, you know, that's really the purpose of the Jew meeting.

But you also have to promise an economic aid.

That isn't going to be the purpose of the announcement.

We can handle it, Mr. President.

It's not an insuperable problem.

I don't think the beginning of Paris is that important.

It could be, but if it is, we can always change our minds at any time.

But I think we have to remember that everything is

Of course, that President thing, Mr. President, Russ Bissell's announcement,

I don't know what it does to the Senate, but a lot of these guys now will have to worry what you might be up to.

What else you might have up your sleeve.

As I find this game, I guess you have a hell of a background.

You know very well that it's all about something that comes out of it.

So on the, you'll have to tell them I'm not here if somebody's trying to get in there.

Somebody's trying to tell them to find out who it is.

The surgeon's fine.

Otherwise, we'll have to return it tomorrow.

You see on the two of these, we'll have to guess what it is.

We'll have to guess.

I know I was talking.

He called me.

He was calling me.

He asked.

Yeah, as a matter of fact, I can't hear the helicopter now.

It's going to go out.

It's pretty much safe to be watching.

Just like Dr. Jackson said.

Oh, yeah.

Well, hey, it's our obsession.

It's all in the media.

You just have to testify before you are licensed to me and say that you sympathize with all that you're buying, because we had all the old cool lawyers out in the White House last night.

They were pissed at me and concerned because you didn't actually use your ass on me.

You just tried to manage the faith with me and said, you don't have to be guilty.

This is easy for you to say.

Bill didn't like that, thank you very much.

The point is that Bill was associated with the match.

He's not fairly got that spot on that.

Whatever happened, he doesn't.

He was associated with something.

He was saying that's what he said.

I don't know.

I don't know how he did that.

Well, I think they're just...

But I have found, for example, when I talk to Scott and Griffin and David, they all start by whimpering.

And then when you say no, then they come around.

Are we involved in this?

He said, is there a compromise?

I said, no.

He said, no there isn't.

What about a deadline?

Why don't you set the deadline, rather than have us set the deadline?

I said, we set the deadline to kill negotiations.

He said, just talk, and that's it, too.

Oh, I thought you wanted to.

You've got to go.

You see that this is where the meeting becomes important.

You've got to react to it, because it's not easy.

No, I think... No, I think, no, they're going to settle it away anyway.

I think it's a good announcement.

Yeah, I think if you can say three years ago, and now you can ask, you and you can come out on the same veranda, what do you think?

Well, he will drive them up a wall, but that doesn't make it.

We never could lose by, uh, 300, 400, you know.

So he'll drive them up a wall, and they'll go to that wall all the way.

And, uh, we'll just go, we'll just go ahead.

But you hadn't agreed to the ATF, you used to have a mate to drive them on that day.

Uh, it's not in which they never did, you know.

Uh, this is the news.

He wanted a few days earlier or later.

But we, uh,

I've gone back and I've said eight is the only day you can make it.

Now it's a good job that we can.

We can still make it.

Eight, yeah, eight is frightening.

Because of two years of visit, you know, and also because...

The only purpose that you're here is to have some positive announcement at the announcement.

I don't know anything else you do, but you see, we can't, we actually can't say we didn't support you.

We can't say we didn't.

And you are the only strong man in the administration that's concentrated all year.

There's nobody.

I mean, there's nobody who liked actors yesterday.

You can see now what he did for Truman.

He just sat up there.

Made himself hated, but it took a lot of heat off Truman.

When you're talking to Greg, my office, it's not that Mike Martin, our own office, we're not taking Mike Martin, he's a nice fellow, and I don't think they call a lot of his questions.

But that, we've had a meeting just before I came in with you, and that we've had a meeting.

Yeah, McGregor, now that he's positioned, he's good in the center of it all, but now he's good.

Did they get out?

Did they decide to get out of that state?

Yes.

They got practice.

They got practice to everybody that the son of a bitch, Clifford, wouldn't sign it.

And... Clifford?

Yeah.

And Gates doesn't want to sign it.

So they're just dropping the Secretary of Defense because... Because... Because we wanted to move...

We can move Lovett into the Undersecretary of State category, and then we don't need the Defense Secretary.

McElroy doesn't amount to anything.

And McElroy can't find it anywhere in the world's time to take it.

This is not a partisan event, uh.

I don't think of those other guys in that building apart from Paulson.

Oh, no, but that's all Paulson is in there in the car, yes.

Of course.

Yeah, but you defect, and what the hell can you do to the leaders if none of them did anything?

No.

Right now, we, uh, we must not, uh,

It's not as bright as us on this evening.

We're off at the same time.

Correct me if I didn't like that.

He's, uh, um, I'm sorry.

He's pretty, pretty fortuitous.

Yep.

Agreed.

That's right.

And also something of his magnitude, without any bleak courtesy of the Transcontinental.

He wants to be told when we go, when we do anything ahead of time, but then he does that.

All right.

Well, I'm just telling you that, uh, I think I should show you, you know, that there's, uh, that there's, uh, you know, a message, a short message, and I said, I don't know if you should see it, but I'll get it, and I'll get it sorted out, and I said, here's what I have.

And I said, well, I don't know what I'm going to do.

I don't know what I'm going to do.

And I said, you know, Joe, and, uh, one of you is gone, and, uh, you've got to play some serious games.

But, he practically achieved what he had needed, and he did that with a strong drive.

And he could keep saving that after he pulled off the 9-12, and there I was, with a head cut.

But he didn't do that, and I know that he said, this is my own initiative, this is my own way, and that's my way.

Well, that's what I mean.

We have China coming up, salt coming up.

You've been saying no.

You said three weeks ago you're not impressed about salt back.

You hit this.

And for six weeks, Mr. President, nothing, a damn thing can happen.

You know, for six weeks, no one can fool Margaret.

Well, we should know.

I would say that that's it for us people here.

We're okay.

It's been more decent than most ever.

I don't know if the Pacific is going to sit here and see that.

Oh, hell, this is W's house.

I mean, I don't know.

Well, it might be, right?

But, uh, he's against us.

Okay.

I just, uh, what do you want?

Well, I think I ought to go off and break with you.