On May 20, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, William P. Rogers, Henry A. Kissinger, Ronald L. Ziegler, and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:49 am to 10:03 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 502-007 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
All right, I'm going to do this after I dictate the letter.
I won't probably get to it until tomorrow.
I'm going to make a copy of each of the notes that I made of it and give it to you.
Give me a copy of the notes.
I bet you didn't receive it.
Exactly.
I've had it.
I have had it.
Thank you.
What I'm going to do is I don't want you to show this to Cicero.
It's not going to be shown to anybody here.
I'm going to send it to you.
is going to be basically a virtually intolerable challenge for any of you who are going to do this.
And I don't want you to tell me what you're doing, in some instances.
I would rather not know, because if you tell me, you're going to tell others.
But I have a feeling, Bill, that we're now at the critical point.
If we do not settle this son of a bitch this summer, we're in election campaigns.
And even John Mitchell,
This idea of separating me from the peace initiative, I just gotta stop because
You see, they're trying to separate, you know, they're trying to separate me, in other words, I'm not referring to the fact, I don't want the Israelis to constantly broker the fact, well, rockets can come in, systems can come in at any time, but the president will save us.
They are all, I ain't gonna save them.
But more than that, they don't receive, when they say what case it was, you know, that's bullshit.
Now, the other thing is this, that the, uh,
And not only say that, but that I think you should know that I have, I see this is a, this is her impression of what I'm, what I'm about.
I am keeping this completely out of the NSC group.
I, I, we can't do it for obvious reasons, because Henry, the injury is constantly under their oppression.
The only guy that I've actually ever talked to about it is Hayden.
He's good.
Well, Hayden's good.
all the military crisis agreements, should they drop these treaties down the shelf.
The one thing that we have to have in mind is this, and I'm going to put this as a memorandum for historical purposes.
The only time that the United States government since World War II, Bill, ever adopted a policy decision that was not just signed after the Jews was when we,
in 1956 in the Suez Crisis.
And mind you, while I totally support or do not support the Jews, I think that decision is wrong.
Not because of what it did to the Jews, which is right, but what it did to the British and the French, which is wrong.
Now, the main thing is, I want you to have in mind, and you can just keep it in mind, and hear it then on this, if you look at what we do with the Jewish history, hear it then,
We've got to be sure that in not going with the Jews, we don't play the Soviet game.
But as far as I'm concerned, give it a choice.
Give it a choice.
of being equal is between Jew and Arab.
I'm for the Arabs.
So it's mainly because there are 100 million of them and two Jews, and also because, God damn it, the Jews are wrong.
They can't go in.
Now, this idea, that little Quaker, and you can show the Quaker about this system.
I will.
Not them have to say that they're going to go in there.
That woman sat here, and others have sat here, and said, oh, we're not trying to incorporate Jews.
We're not trying to take the West Bank.
We don't want any territory.
But you see what they're doing?
They're doing the same thing.
They're doing the same thing.
that the Russians, the Poles did, with regard to the orderly salons.
There ain't any Germans there now.
They backed them now.
It's a mood issue.
That's what the Jews are trying to do here.
Now, we have got to move on.
Well, I feel so strongly on this that I'd rather have you giving me a smirch.
Incidentally, I think, though, we've got to move on.
I want you to sit down with McGrady or somebody
And see what the votes are that are going to come out.
Because if they come in here for arms, if they come in here for whatever the deal is, it's going to be cold as ice.
Okay.
Okay.
Because the TV truck is now here at 7-1-1.
I would indicate that you would have a statement on foreign policy.
All right.
Yes, sir.
I think that's fair.
Yes, sir.
Then give it two hours.
You're just going to say it was on foreign policy, aren't you?
On foreign policy.
Nothing else.
The president would have a statement demanding 12 years on foreign policy.
All right.
Fine.
That's fair.
We have to say foreign policy.
We don't have to, but they see the leaders now coming in, and they see that.
That's the only reason I called the runners.
They know I don't call them.
By now, even if it leaks, it isn't.
Well, I don't know.
They don't leak out of that one.
We were just in.
But I got that.
Bill was all right.
Oh, he's in great shape.
But this was good to have.
This meeting is a trial run.
He just came in and told me, he says, I don't think we should tell the leaders this month.
I feel that absolutely right.
I think I'm just saying, and I think that one thing about the background, you ought to stay out of the treaty business and all the rest of it.
Well, Mr. President, actually, the thing is,
Oh, I'm sorry.
You should judge them.
No, no, no.
I'm just scared to death of that.
No, no, but... We'll have a treaty limiting us and no treaty limiting that.
Yeah, but if you read the statement carefully, it took six weeks to get them to use the word agree with relation to offensive weapon.
So we shouldn't make any distinction.
Let them make the distinction if they want to.
In the public statement, they have the same standing.
Okay.
But if they ask you, well, are you going to have a treaty on ABN?
Let's see how the other thing develops.
What I meant is, in my talking points, I noticed it said, well, we probably wouldn't be submitting that.
I think I will not tell them.
No, Mr. President, I would not give them the whole negotiating history either.
You can talk about your initiative.
I can certainly give them the initiative.
Today, as a result of this, aren't you going to give them?
I'm going to give the press.
You can give the January initiative, but I wouldn't go into Dobrynin coming back from the party congress, because that puts you at Dobrynin's mercy.
And for their own reason, they may want to show that they did a lot before the party congress.
And secondly, I'm not going to tell these people that.
No, they wouldn't understand it anyway.
And we control, the news will come out of us, not from them.
And then the other thing.
The Merv thing.
Now, the fact is, Mr. President, I think it will be racist.
Well, you can, the correct answer to that is, this is part of the August, this is a way of dealing within the August 4th proposal, which on both sides does not include Merv.
It's a way of making that easier.
But the second paragraph about further negotiations does cover MIRV.
But you cannot, if you, if these guys go out of here and say MIRVs will be included, you'll never get an agreement this year.
What do you want to say?
I would say that it is within the framework of the existing negotiation which does not include MIRVs in this case.
It isn't without that proposal.
You can say Mervs are now hung up, but it is covered in this paragraph in the further negotiations.
Let's cherish the U2.
If you leave open the possibility that Mervs can be taken up starting July 1st, you will not have any chance of an agreement this year.
None whatsoever.
You don't want to say that that's something to negotiate?
No, because...
No, I meant when I said some negotiation, I meant some negotiations from now on out.
Oh, you can say...
I was thinking the letter out of the desk, you see.
The letter says we will continue to pursue the... Oh, no, no, you can say that moves are part of the total negotiations.
Yeah.
But in order to make rapid progress, they are not part of the initial negotiations.
Or should I just say I don't want to get into that?
That you can also say, the details are going to be worked out.
Yeah, those are details that will be worked out in negotiation.
Or should I just call Jerry?
Call him Jerry.
Would that be good?
That's another way to handle it.
Put him up to it and say it.
All right.
Or you see the murder link, the road link, that's it.
Find a way to get that one handled.
I'm going to do that.
But I would really stay away because, you see, we haven't been talking about those for a year.
I know that.
I know that.
I know that.
I am frankly just trying to get, I am frankly trying to get Brooke and all these other assholes off of the Murphy, which I know that we're going to talk about in the future.
Oh, that you've been saying to me.
But not part of this deal.
I know.
I know what the difference is.
Of course, see, this deal is limited only, as I said, to numbers.
point of comprehensive because our August 4th proposal was comprehensive.
Yep, there it is.
There it is.
You see, in the talking parts we have here, this was
I remember, so it should be covered in the next stage.
That's fair enough.
Uh, I think it ought to be covered.
Well, we'll increase it, and I hope we increase it this year, but of course, I use it.
I think we'll increase it now.
I'd like to see that over the next month or two.
But of course, the Congress will be closed as well.
The Congress will be closed as developments occur.
Well George Bush thinks it is tremendous.
When he came into my office, he said, congratulations to the president.
He thinks it is tremendous.
As an old negotiator, I want to thank you.
He said, your strategy is magnificent, and the preparation was superb.
You know, it's interesting.
That rump spells with all people's heart.
That cheer, that clapping, you know.
Not a bad thing.
Not a bad thing.
Show a little bit of confidence here, and not
We're not euphoric.
We're not.
Oh, no, no, no.
Yes, it is.
Speaking of euphoria, maybe I should not say that the last sentence will be recorded as the beginning of an era which all nations increasingly devote their answers to the words of peace.
not through weapons of war.
The other sense that he might not leave and the success in these negotiations could open the door for progress in resolving differences between the governments in other areas.
That might be that.
That might be what charred the Europeans too much.
All right.
Compliment him.
You want me to take it out?
Maybe.
You can say that.
Yeah, I'll say it.
Yeah, you say that in the background.
The other thing is just a nice rhetorical florescence.
I thought it worked out well.
Oh, beautifully.
Beautifully, beautifully.
Mellon is usually sitting nicely on the fence, but the motor came through nicely.
Do you want to work with us, Professor?
Yeah.
Ten.
Why do I have so much to say to you?
Ten.
Be there in two or three minutes.