Nixon, Rogers & Colson on SALT and Foreign Policy

2:28:44Congressman Harris, please.
2:29:38Yeah.
2:29:39Yeah.
2:29:39Yeah.
2:29:40Yeah.
2:29:41Yeah.
2:29:41Yeah.
2:29:44Yeah.
2:30:28One, two, three, four.
2:31:26This is a rubber craft, and, uh, the secret ties on the memorandum, uh, the memorandum to the Secretary of State from, uh, what?
2:31:42This memorandum.
2:31:55I may be so.
2:31:56I may be so.
2:31:57I may be so.
2:32:23I was going to say that I... believe that... what we do today is a very vulnerable position.
2:32:49And I...
2:32:52You've given me more opportunities to have fun in that circumstance than any time in the last year and a half.
2:32:59You must realize that you've been a long way to go.
2:33:02You've started to talk to many bastards that go back and forth and fiddle around and screw around.
2:33:15From a level standpoint, Mr. President, you're in perfect position because you've shown the
2:33:21I hear a conciliation vote that Brett Chyna handles.
2:33:26If you have to get tough, that option is open.
2:33:31But you build a degree of public confidence in A, your willingness to do it, and B, your ability to do it.
2:33:38Which I think is a, I think that's the political stroke.
2:33:40I think regardless of what happens, we should do it.
2:33:45I thought Sparks had a pitch, which is very exciting.
2:33:46But you know, I'm having a good time.
2:33:52The doves are not about to criticize you, but they can't.
2:33:58They're locked out in the woods.
2:34:00Some of the stuff we're digging out today, I'm working on this right now because I think the political opportunities here are huge if it is done in a sophisticated way.
2:34:21February 1st, the President has long demanded that the United States commit itself to the building of weapons systems such as the safeguard idea and MIRV, which could serve as, quote, bargaining chips, end quote, the salt talks.
2:34:34Last year, a reluctant Senate agreed to support him in Phase 2 of the safeguard system.
2:34:39Today, however, any value it might have had as a bargaining chip has vanished.
2:34:45That's February 1st, this year.
2:34:46Thank you.
2:34:50We're assembled on the wall, and we've all taken the same path.
2:34:54I don't have Muskie's precise language, but I understand he did the same thing.
2:35:05But that's an awful hard position for a guy to retreat from.
2:35:09Hubert has never minded being inconsistent, but if you are able to make stick, even though we have gotten as far as we have gotten, this is enormous.
2:35:21And of course, if it goes all the way, then that's a damn hard position for a guy to get off.
2:35:29The idea of do you want a man who's in presidency who does not really appreciate the enormity of world prevalence to the degree that he would take this as a posture at the very time the United States and Soviet Union had the opportunity of the century to ease world tensions.
2:35:49That's a bad position.
2:35:53I'm sure that he is.
2:35:56Of course, just the APM position alone is a tough side.
2:36:01I don't know if we all get this right.
2:36:04I don't know unless you respond to it.
2:36:08It also makes the policy structure of the judge paper a lot better.
2:36:16The policy proposes a negative mindset.
2:36:20Your credibility in not using what you had today as an influence yesterday is just enormous.
2:36:27Yes, sir.
2:36:29This kind of goes for a lot of press people talking about the comment that Jacksonville gave you.
2:36:36I mean, I hope you're going to comment your phone when you have some.
2:36:42I think I will play it very straight, but that thought is getting around a little bit, too.
2:36:48The request today, the fact that you didn't use today, yesterday.
2:36:52The past year shows that you are sticking to your guns, that you know that you aren't concerned about getting a deal with the Soviet.
2:37:00You were with Lincoln.
2:37:02That's right.
2:37:02I was surprised that the Senate came off as well as I did with Rochester.
2:37:10It's very surprising the numbers of Husky and Pompadour.
2:37:12I can now try to get back more to the center of the foreign policy area.
2:37:16At least you'll see Husky here.
2:37:19I thought that the less that was said about what was happening subsequently as far as the negotiations were concerned, the better.
2:37:29And we've got to resist very hard the temptations when commentators and critics start going off.
2:37:39And rather than hit them, let them go.
2:37:42Let them go.
2:37:43The more mystique that is built around this, the better.
2:37:46You've established that we did something that they didn't think was going on.
2:37:52Now we just say, well, we're going forward in our course.
2:37:57But actually, the less the public is, as we say, the more the public is going to be convinced that great things are happening and they don't know about it.
2:38:09And there's a certain mystique that can be built in Europe.
2:38:13You're going to have to be very brief today.
2:38:15It was just marvelous.
2:38:17Instead of talking for 15 minutes about the history of this possibility.
2:38:22What a great thing I have done.
2:38:24It's just a little air of excitement about it.
2:38:28And the fact that you came out and said it and it's being announced simultaneously.
2:38:33It's significant to me.
2:38:34So that they understand that it's people who don't understand anything about assault.
2:38:41No, because I didn't have to.
2:38:45United States of America, and China.
2:38:48Big things are going on.
2:38:50Here's a man who has the capacity to handle these enormous things, and the world powers are dealing with them.
2:38:58It's exactly the way it has to be.
2:39:00The thing that has to be done for us, which we have to do very subtly through the process, is a way to deal with you, which are possible, and big things are being
2:39:12done by a very far-sighted president.
2:39:14And there is this commitment to very momentous things in the foreign policy field.
2:39:20That's a massively powerful leverage next year.
2:39:24Huge.
2:39:25We're impeached.
2:39:27And the other thing is for other people to start nailing, nailing, not letting them get back in.
2:39:32We'll let them get back.
2:39:34We're going to have to say, well, this is something we're going to bring the vanity back.
2:39:40Wait, the vote was a complete moratorium.
2:39:41You know that with the United States, huh?
2:39:43The first step would be to suspend the safeguard system.
2:39:46The next step would be to stop the bird deployment.
2:39:48And he said, then, now we will get an agreement with you.
2:39:50He did just the reverse, and stayed.
2:39:53Now, they all scrambled back, but I think they're going to have a hell of a job.
2:39:59They're going to have a hell of a job.
2:40:01They're going to have a hell of a job.
2:40:06I think they did it like they wrote it in the lower order issue, except that was easier to get back in this one.
2:40:10They just put a flag on it.
2:40:11Put a flag on it.
2:40:15This argument has reached the proportions that I think these guys will stop the way back in, but I don't think they can make it out of the order.
2:40:22In fact, I just made a concrete example.
2:40:35Part of it is that a lot of dubs abandoned the earlier amendments that might have passed because they didn't want to see them pass and lose enough of that vote to pass it.
2:40:53I don't think the dubs would have passed anyway.
2:40:58They're asking, you know, people to hold some of that over.
2:41:02It's simply because he doesn't care with the respect out there that
2:41:07The sooner the meeting ends, the better.
2:41:17I was sitting hoping somebody would say that we had the company to do it.
2:41:37Those two things, Mr. President, I'm careful to say I won't be able to have them.
2:41:43For a year, you've been working on them.
2:41:48They're very powerful.
2:41:50They give hope to people.
2:41:52They give confidence to people.
2:41:55People don't need anything more than confidence.
2:41:57You know that one of the greatest political speeches ever was Roosevelt's 1941 War Freedom speech.
2:42:06People
2:42:07the worst possible news.
2:42:08He told them that war production had gone to hell, that the war was coming, that we weren't prepared.
2:42:15But he ended up by giving them confidence.
2:42:17He said, here's what I stand for.
2:42:20Here's what I'm doing.
2:42:21And people just believed him.
2:42:24And that's the posture that these kinds of international developments can put you in.
2:42:30Because at the rest of this thing, people have to say, well, this guy's really
2:42:35This man's really in charge of what's happening.
2:42:39He's a mystery to them, but he's dealing in the upper levels, and at this time in Moscow, the chemical state was being wrecked.
2:42:47Anyway, it's nice and positive.
2:42:50This text was all written out.
2:42:54It's great.
2:42:55Of course, they must have closed the promise as well.
2:42:58They can't.
2:42:59They can't get this far and then back away.
2:43:01They want to.
2:43:02They want to.
2:43:02Yeah.
2:43:02One of the insiders is there.
2:43:03They also would like to still get a tree, but they'd be happy.
2:43:10That's just fantastic if it did.
2:43:14These kinds of developments build a solid house.
2:43:16It's a measure of confidence.
2:43:21It's a very hard-hitting measure, but it's just kind of the way people feel.
2:43:26They feel secure.
2:43:28They feel threatened.
2:43:30or if they feel secure, those are the basic things that really move people.
2:43:37So look at who would get the worst of us, you see.
2:43:44We're gonna get a white paper put together by tonight at boat, which, how are you gonna have it in an end?
2:43:58It's more of a sadness than a reason.
2:44:04They're just confused.
2:44:04What a tragic thing it is that in this era, the white country and Muskie County understood the basic realities of war.
2:44:10I would say if you could get some of that together so that they could get a call very soon, it would be good.
2:44:15Instead of that, we really didn't need that.
2:44:16Here's what we said when we heard it first.
2:44:21That's what happens.
2:44:25That's the deal.
2:44:29That's what it's all about.
2:44:32I called the town of McIntyre, New Hampshire.
2:44:46The reason I did is that I went up last year to town.
2:44:52He switched his vote and voted with us on ABM because of the Civil War campaign.
2:44:58And if you remember, he announced the day before that that was the reason he did it.
2:45:01So I called him today and said, you're not allowed to vote unless you attempt it.

Nixon, Rogers & Colson on SALT and Foreign Policy

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Also recorded on May 20, 1971

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