Conversation 506-008

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That guy's really outstanding.

Yeah, yeah.

And what he said about friends of the United States.

Good to have a guy like that in a firm foreign office.

And what you said about China is, you know, it was...

He'll pass it.

Exactly.

Which is what we want.

Exactly.

He'll have got it.

He'll raise it himself.

Just as well...

Oh, it was much better to do it this way, Henry, than that.

We played these games just right.

Well, I think, Mr. President, you are handling a foreign policy.

No, I've seen three presidents in action now.

It's a combination of knowledge and subtlety and patience.

And...

Never grabbing for the little things.

Hell, if you ever needed that salt thing, it was in March.

And the whole bloody bureaucracy would have considered it a triumph if you had accepted their then position.

But you never wavered on what you thought was your enjoyment.

With regard to...

What will happen, Henry, is that these two boats coming out by Gallup and Harris will start all those State Department people just panning to get out in front of the damn thing.

Also some of our own people.

Now we've just got to, what we've got to do is to carve out a position

which basically shows that we're thinking about the whole problem, but that it's a matter that we will consider.

I'm sure it's a damn delicate one to handle.

It's not delicate in what we're going to do, but we can struggle and hold a hell of a race over it.

Delegate in the sense that...

I don't know.

I don't want the first question right.

Oh, yeah, and Raja is going to be traveling around, and that will get out.

They're going to leak like crazy anyway that we were moving in that area.

And I think people are going to be very reluctant to talk to you in foreign policy.

It's no accident.

The talk of Vietnam has slowed down a bit, too.

And that's the place where they think

I think they have you at the greatest risk.

No, no, often.

The drug problems in Vietnam, it's always the intention.

But, uh, what is it, apparently...

But apparently it's happening in Germany, too.

It's more of a field plan if you're a cheaper place.

In Vietnam, yeah.

No doubt.

I'm sure the Vietnamese are less corrupt.

I'm sure the Viet Cong encourage that.

That's fine.

Is that very probably of the North Vietnamese, or just...

I suppose with so many of the lower level people there, many Negroes, I'd be interested to see a breakdown of the statistics of how many of those percent that take heroin, how many percent of those are Negroes.

I bet it would show an enormous

A large number.

That doesn't make it easier.

Good thing of you to go.

And the military, oh yes.

And the military have been your staunchest supporters in the government.

They have been loyal.

That would help a lot if he heard it from you.

I'll bring him in next week if you don't mind after some meeting.

He is out of the country now with Laird.

Well, then Laird will notice it, but he comes over all the time to these SRG meetings, and I'll trust if you've

can spare five minutes, I'll just bring him in.

I have to say, Mr. President, I am not sure Laird wants you re-elected.

I hate to say that.

And you know I get along better with him than with Rogers.

But Rogers' problems are a compulsive ego and publicity-seeking.

He wants to see you re-elected, though.

Rogers wants to see you re-elected.

He would like to be

known as a great man and so forth, but Laird may have calculated that he has a better chance at the nomination in 76 with you defeated in 72.

I don't think he's actively working to defeat you, but he certainly is working like an unguided bullet right now.

And I get along fine with him, and I always get him under control

And there's never any fight.

And anything I catch, as soon as I catch him, I let him stop, sir.

Man, man, all right.

I'm sure, sure of that.

As long as he has taken heed, then it's what's necessary.

He just doesn't agree.

He's just running around there in his own crafty way, trying to play all games.

He's really keeping his own options open.

That's what it is.

Laird has no political future.

Laird can be elected from the National League.

But he doesn't know that.

He really thinks Laird has absolutely no political future that I can see.

Absolutely.

He looks so untrustworthy.

He behaves so trickily.

His syntax is so bad.

There's no possible way, in my view, that he can do that.

And no combination of circumstances would make him a national figure.

But he would like to be the man who cut us out of Vietnam by hook or crook.

But he hasn't brought it off yet.

I mean, the press doesn't show it.

It's too late for him to get us out his way, because we are now, the time is still, look here, this is May.

This is the first of June.

Hell, what are you going to do?

So it's a question of what, it's a question of arguing about four to five to six months.

Is that what it's all about?

I think it is important for us not to have Saigon collapse before the election, because otherwise people are going to say,

For that, you didn't have to fight for years.

I read an article which Bob has, a fellow called Bell, I don't know whether you read that, which has a lot of good insights about some of your problems.

And they mentioned that as well.

Psycho-collapse.

That's the whole purpose of our policy.

Of course, but we can have...

I had nearly completed a series of studies on...

And if we keep helicopters there until the last increment and a few fixes, it's really going to be tough for the North Vietnamese to defeat the South Vietnamese alone without major American support.

We've got to keep bombing up through most of next year.

And we've got to give the South Vietnamese mobility.

And I confess I'm quite cynical about it.

If they're going to collapse, it would actually be better if it happened earlier in your next term.

I agree.

They're not going to collapse.

But if we can hold them through next year.

But I haven't given up yet on this overture at this time.

No, because it's not just what we are doing, Mr. President.

China, Russia, and they're scared to death of Japan.

Can they afford losing another 200,000 men?

Which is what another two years of war would cost them.

Japan?

Yes.

The danger of the trip is that they will be so weak that they can't resist anybody after we are through with them.

All the Asians are scared of Japan, and I'm going to get that into the conversation in an elliptical way.

Good.

They were scared.

That's what I've told them.

I have somebody from the Peace Corps who wanted to talk to me about Morocco.

That's what I want to do.

But this guy has a lot of press contacts and I want to keep him quiet.

I think it's this.

As soon as it's convened, we're going to get that thing dropped on the side.

The Peace Corps is a utter disaster.

No, no, no, no, I well understand what we have to do, but what I, and that there are good people in this piece of work.

No, no, no, no.