Nixon, Kissinger & Ehrlichman on Vietnam War and Foreign Policy

1:59It had to be between now and late 19 that men go up by two or three even to get the final figures.
2:08But if it is 19, it would fit as always into the Super 20s to be 1965.
2:13Didn't we get one of 16 if it wasn't so?
2:19No, it started at 16 but went up to 24 before they constructed it with that figure.
2:25Up by three this afternoon.
2:35piece of, which is bad good news, that is, they're going so fast on the goddamn Berlin Agreement that we're gonna lose it as a regular.
2:43I mean, you can't, uh... Well, Rush, now that he's so close, is going too fast.
2:48Yes, I'm going.
2:49Writing about the year of negotiation.
3:00Yeah.
3:01Tragedy is.
3:03What we've done on Berlin is really
3:07We really actually are getting them a good agreement now.
3:12The Russians are making major concessions on that new formula.
3:15You want it gone for less?
3:17Yes.
3:30Up for that, there's my hand up for that coin.
3:41Billions are going more and more in the direction of what we could have predicted at last year, the predictor.
3:48Let's hear it.
4:33Come on.
5:24No, sir.
5:24You're not.
5:40Well, on the Delta, I talked to our commander, David, who is one of our few good ones, General Goodman, when he was here about six weeks ago.
5:53And he said there's slightly more enemy activity, but actually that the situation is under good control.
6:02And him I tend to believe.
6:03I wouldn't believe a word Adrian says anymore.
6:04I know.
6:06And all... You're going to go directly to the local order, man.
6:11Except for Cushman, he's put second raiders on his corps commander.
6:16Okay.
6:19What about the second?
6:21You had a conversation last week with Bruce Bunker, in which he outlined his plans for after the election.
6:29And he said he could move some of the troops that had been active in the Delta into the more threatened areas because they had cleaned out the base areas.
6:38I don't think the Delta is our big problem.
6:44Our problems are I-core, and with that incompetent they put in to replace three, it may start acting up in three-core again.
6:55What about the other points?
7:00We talked about that yesterday.
7:02That's absolutely, we're going to do that.
7:06Absolutely, and I agree with you on the other point.
7:09One of those things.
7:12Sometimes it's not particularly present in terms of the war situation, but they're actually reflecting what the attitude of people are.
7:25Because at that time, when that attitude is going to budge us, but it will
7:35I talked to McGregor this morning about McGovern-Hatfield.
7:41He thinks we cannot, it would be a mistake to try to talk it to death because it would kill the draft.
7:46He thinks the vote now is 52 to 40 in our favor.
7:49On McGovern-Hatfield?
7:52On McGovern-Hatfield.
7:54And he thinks the McGovern-Hatfield one is easy.
7:56In the draft?
7:58The draft is all right.
8:00Our draft would be the same as the Matfield one that somebody comes in with a
8:04with a substitute resolution, but if one of those substitute resolutions, we shouldn't, we should hardline it, but it's, to say they took the, what is that, Cook-Stevens one nine months after they released the last prisoners, we wouldn't want that, but...
8:28So, we are...
8:33But he said he's actually quite confident, McGregor, and you know he's usually soft on this.
8:39I told him we can't have it now.
8:42He thinks it's possible if we absolutely must, if we line up Mansfield to get it delayed for a month, but then signals would go up all over the Senate.
8:53Well, I'll tell you what we'll do on this.
8:55I think you would have called Ruggs.
8:57He's perfect.
9:00I'll look at it.
9:01We are going to ask you to hold on for a week.
9:05Remember the last time we asked you to hold on, we came up with a stall.
9:11This time there's something going on.
9:13We can't guarantee it.
9:15But we want you to hold up.
9:16If we need it.
9:17If he's not ready.
9:18Huh?
9:19Brooke, you mean.
9:20Brooke, right.
9:21And let Brooke talk to others.
9:23He's influential with those guys.
9:24But actually, I had a good talk with McGregor, and he's amazingly optimistic on McGovern-Hatfield.
9:31It's pretty a crime, of course, the war.
9:32And the whole, it's a combination of two things.
9:35We tend too much to land all on Laos, but all that hurt badly because of the people.
9:41And this, what was played is the people.
9:47But also, it's just time, time, time.
9:50They were cranking this up anyway.
9:52But time also wears you down.
9:53See, right at the time of Laos, the polls dropped 10%, and it didn't ever recover.
9:58And that's just part of the deal.
10:03You know what I think is amusing?
10:04I know that some of our radio presenters are squealing about the fact that you're just going to answer political questions in press conferences and this kind of business.
10:17I don't know what President Cooper did.
10:18Well, they did put him off from the president.
10:20Hell, I haven't been doing it on television in a head.
10:23Do you have those passengers equal time?
10:25Mr. President, I don't think the country wants the president up there saying, well, what do you think of McCloskey?
10:30Well, I don't like the way he's acting, or I do like the way, or I think this or that.
10:34What do you think of Muskie and Hathaway, or Muskie and the governor and so forth?
10:37How do you rate them?
10:39And you say, well, I think this or that.
10:41Well, you know what I mean.
10:43I'm not even going to get into it.
10:45I'm not going to take the finding of them.
10:47I'm not a candidate.
10:47I agree.
10:48I think you should be above this partisan thing until you are a candidate or close to being a candidate.
10:56And, no, the collapse of our leadership right now is really awful.
11:05So, Mr. President, by any halfway rational standards, you ought to be given credit for having conducted a great foreign policy.
11:15To get out without a misstep from Vietnam, I mean, this guy...
11:19So far, we are getting, but at the precise moment that we are getting into the trickiest period, which we've always known would be the trickiest period, these bastards are making life hell.
11:32And they're making life hell for the cheapest of all reasons.
11:35If they thought you would be in there with 100,000 men next year, they'd keep quiet.
11:41They're making life hell because they know you're getting out.
11:43That is what's getting them.
11:44They know about that.
11:45Well, you're going to be down to 50,000 next year.
11:48All right.
11:50They can see that by reading the numbers.
11:52They know that we cannot reduce the number.
11:55They know that.
11:56That's right.
11:57And you know, much as we say we'll try to keep it open, we try to keep the trade open, you and I know that there's no way under the sun you can just say, all right, we're stopping withdrawals.
12:08What price did the country go up in flames?
12:10That's what's... No way.
12:11Because they know that, that's why they're taking a cheap ride on...
12:18No, they see another $100,000 coming out.
12:21But I think we've got the position that whenever we surface some of this stuff, they can be made to look like, yeah.
12:28Well, I have a position.
12:33They say we've got one, we need, we've got a three, we just need one more.
12:38Mr. President, this Berlin thing, the Berlin... No, no, but this guarantees the summit.
12:42You think so?
12:45Yes, because the Berlin said that
12:48They've got to make major fractures on Berlin to have the summit and they've got that now.
12:53It's a...
12:54I feel sort of sorry that Berlin is important only that the Cockney Sandy are going to have to shut up, you know, again.
13:03The crafts and the climates and that's not going to bring you up in the public opinion polls.
13:08But it's going to give all of these guys another choice and keep them... keep them quiet before we plug them.
13:16I am...
13:17I'm practically certain that there'll be a summit.
13:20I mean, if I were as certain of a summit as I am of anything else... We want something to happen.
13:25That, the major thing that worries me is... To not let this happen before the summit.
13:31It's that they don't get so much before the summit that they can afford to get tough again.
13:37Well, we at least got action at war.
13:39It went with us.
13:41We'll have made the progress on salt.
13:49Even if they are deadlocked in Helsinki, we can break the deadlock at the summit.
13:56Well, keep at this thing and keep at the...
14:00I'm getting information out.
14:03Don't... We are fighting the losing balance of our...
14:10and I thank you all again.
14:11I'll give you the story of Trinidad and Trujillo Bar is going well.
14:13These guys are getting a little afraid.
14:14I'll tell you the line I think you ought to take.
14:17I think you and Higg and the others ought to start taking up the line.
14:22But you call us in the press.
14:24You're very interested in the pressure, very interested in the, you ought to put this to Monday.
14:30And I'm not going to jackasses the assholes who talk and put dashes and say, look, the whole establishment is going to be destroyed unless
14:38start to get off to, this is working.
14:41It's going to work.
14:42I can't tell you why, but there are things going on.
14:44It's going to work.
14:46These guys had better start getting on board or they're going to be destroyed.
14:50Let me tell you, I don't care whether they get on or not.
14:54They're going to leave us alone, so it will work.
14:57Henry, we will destroy these bastards.
14:59I intend to destroy them all, and I'm not going to have any.
15:03I want to do one thing, which is very difficult for you, as you
15:08You may go to the floor, but now it's time.
15:13I'd like you to put a towel back on the floor.
15:17It's a board house.
15:19It's a five-year board.
15:2031-1.
15:20We decoyed before because of the lips of the law.
15:22But now that we're moving on arms control, I want you to say, we need a man in there who gives hard line.
15:28That's a pretty weak group, really.
15:29I mean, you know, you take that poor fellow who's like Walhart, and let him.
15:33I think it's not bad.
15:35Yeah, it's pretty good.
15:36Rockefeller, he doesn't pay any attention to it.
15:44Gardner is old.
15:45I mean, you go around the room.
15:47It really is.
15:47I'd like to tell her for other reasons.
15:50He was my friend.
15:51He was Rockefeller's friend.
15:53He's one of the few.
15:55I need a signal to the right.
15:57The right needs a signal.
15:59Can't we add somebody to that board?
16:01That's one thing.
16:03I'll get it done today.
16:05You call it.
16:06I want him to be off and then give the cannon call.
16:10We've got to do a couple of things for the right wing.
16:13They all trust Hunter.
16:14They think he's the one who wants to drop a bomb on our menagerie.
16:20He doesn't.
16:20He's a very reasonable man.
16:23Oh, I know him very well.
16:25Well, he's got an idea.
16:25He's got lots of ideas.
16:26He's an admirable guy.
16:28And...
16:29I've seen it on the church hall from the lips.
16:31Huh?
16:33Yeah.
16:33They are monsters, aren't they?
16:37But I know that any chance, first to your settlement thing goes out the window, that China and Russia might go out the window.
17:04And all that is bad enough that it's too high a price to pay.
17:07But the other thing, we have to realize that we allow, we allow this situation to build up too much.
17:22And we have destroyed, we just invite the, we invite the left to take over the country and just subvert the country.
17:32Right.
17:34You know, they're out there for us, you know, because of their, as I said, you read through weekends of the summer, you know, it's a piddly little stuff.
17:41Why doesn't the president talk about politics?
17:43Why doesn't the president?
17:44They did a great job with Kennedy and even with Johnson.
17:48Frankly, I might forget to add to Johnson about the fact that he stretched his ass all the time.
17:53He was a little bit crude, which didn't bother me.
17:55I thought it was the way Johnson was.
17:57He always did that.
17:59But my point is, they don't take me on on personal matters, but it's kind of,
18:03Crap.
18:05Ain't no better.
18:05They'll appraise me for saying the president was right in not allowing national televised press members to be used to take on his political enemies.
18:14If you had done that... No, you know why they wanted me to take them on?
18:17They knew it hurt me.
18:18Well, and if you had taken him on, then they would have said that the Democrats or the opponents ought to be given equal time that the presidential news media shouldn't be...
18:28It used this way last fall.
18:29They attacked you for becoming partisan, for not standing above the battle.
18:33Last fall, I was out on paid airlines on my own, so I had a right to be partisan.
18:39Apart from that, what are you going to do?
18:43Either way, you can't do it.
18:43No, they want to get at their questions.
18:45They're going to get the same answers.
18:48Well, gentlemen, I know you disagree.
18:49I respect you.
18:50What's the next question?
18:52It gets them, Mr. President, you are not emotionally part of them.
18:56They can come bleeding in here all the time.
19:00And your whole approach, I mean, salt on the one hand, the other.
19:03They worship the intellect, Henry.
19:06They worship where they stand in your class and so forth and so on and so on.
19:14They worship your ability to, you know, to handle yourself.
19:18And, you know, with, I may not have the best syntax, but mine is, right, if you read it next to the press conference in Paris, Kennedy press conference is infinitely better.
19:32You know what I mean?
19:34But they were not, they were, they didn't, they didn't, I didn't, nobody's gone through them as I have.
19:39Nobody really, nobody ever did the work.
19:40Oxfam couldn't go on the course.
19:44But Kennedy didn't do any work.
19:46Well, his press conference was weird.
19:49He had some skillful sellers, but that was about it.
19:52The reason they worried that I were behind them...
19:55He says, how can a guy, you know, live in this goddamn church?
20:01So God says, you shouldn't be part of these no-knows.
20:02He said, I promise.
20:03In order to call you to God, they have to all worship them.
20:10So fortunately, they've seen me.
20:13You see, they like to think that all their opponents are dumb, like McCartney, who was not dumb, but nevertheless not well-educated.
20:33who was not well educated, you know?
20:36And they don't like to think that any of their opponents are quick.
20:39Look, Henry, I can take, believe me, and it doesn't say it in a sense of right, I can take a whole room full of Harvard professors and decimate
20:47No question.
20:48And you know it.
20:49No question.
20:49And they know it.
20:50And they know it, which is even more important.
20:51And I can tell you that these people, this whole business, you know, they go back to the debates and again, it had nothing to do with it.
20:58That was purely a jury showmanship.
21:01Anybody who listened to it would have read it and realized it.
21:04Well, I've talked to people who said they heard them on radio and they thought that Kennedy was taken to the cleaners.
21:10You mean the 60th event?
21:12But an unfortunate set up in the first meeting.
21:15The first meeting was bad.
21:17But in terms of basic intellectual governing, they know that I can handle it.
21:25Then they go from there to say, see, that destroys their theorem.
21:29Their theory is that a man who is educated is a beach neck, a left winger, you know, a liberal.
21:39When a man is educated, it's not that he's a worshiper.
21:42That's one of the reasons they have such a terror about them.
21:47Not Jim, but Bill.
21:49Bill is so well educated and so smart and so great.
21:52And all of a sudden they say, Jesus Christ, what happened to him?
21:57Do you agree or not?
21:58Oh, yeah.
21:58That's why if you don't, I mean, why do they turn on me now?
22:02Because I don't betray you.
22:03You're in exactly the same position for the reason that you were one.
22:07You went to their school and all that sort of thing.
22:11They can't understand.
22:12How the hell can you be loyal?
22:15Because all of them would be disloyal.
22:19If I walked around these cocktail parties and started weeping about what an agony it is to work here, but I'm doing it
22:28That they would understand.
22:33But they have to be destroyed, Mr. President.
22:35They have no sense of patriotism.
22:38When I saw Vietnam go wrong and when you saw it go wrong, hell, I went to Vance.
22:42I said, what can I do to help you?
22:45Uh, and made all my videos as good as...
22:47I defended the content in England.
22:50I mean, some men were backing around Wilson's office.
22:54He was there that night.
22:55I defended this son of a bitch.
22:57This is in 1966.
22:58It was in 65.
22:58In 66, you know what I mean?
23:02Oh, when the Americans were behind it and the Europeans were not.
23:07And I said, well, of course we have to be there.
23:08And I explained the reasons.
23:09Isn't it great?
23:13Now, that bastard Vance is coming here with a group of lawyers.
23:16He was deputy secretary.
23:20Well, they're lobbying the McGovern-Hatfield, but that bastard who was part of the negotiating team, who knows, whom we wanted to send to Moscow at one point to negotiate a quick end of the war.
23:32It was an early scheme we had.
23:36Sure.
23:40Let me tell you about that, that he just parts, quivers apart.
23:46These, but they're all part of a second group, a second group.
23:51They're all, they're, Sunday was in on Friday, Sunday.
23:53Oh, he was one group.
23:54Yeah.
23:55And by the way, once again, let me say this, though, the only reason I mention the New Sun Treaty is that those, that's about what the Sun is.
24:05It's tough.
24:06We'll write it through.
24:09That's my favorite bit of the time.
24:11The way they glorify this fellow Kerry.
24:16They glorify McCluskey, the guy who got hit in the head in Korea.
24:21He's a little off his rocker, but he says, man, it's a believable guy.
24:26He lies all the time.
24:26He says, we've doubled our bombing in the house.
24:29For Christ's sake, the bombing is half what it was in the house.
24:32I wish to Christ we had doubled it.
24:35I really do.
24:38It's...
24:40It's an outrage, and the refugee figures, and of course the bureaucracy, part of the bureaucracy is in collusion with them.
24:48And that's another thing, after the election... Oh, it can be done.
25:00It stayed with the brutal man at the top of the election.
25:05There's only one man who would love to do it, and that's Conway.
25:10Richardson will never do it.
25:13Richardson would be a good man for an interim period now.
25:17He'd want to die, but a man in the state would rush him.
25:23Would rush?
25:24No.
25:25He wouldn't go either way.
25:27It's too much for an Asian institution.
25:29No, what you need is a goddamn son of a bitch that will go in there.
25:31And he's got to know where the bodies are buried, too, Mr. President.
25:33He's got to know where the bodies are buried.
25:35You can have the best intentions in the world and not know how to get to these countries.
25:38If we get a chance, we, of course, will work for that chance.
25:41Work for the chance because the country would not agree if we don't get it.
25:47We get the chance.
25:55They're going to rip the hell out of Spain and a hell of a lot of other places.
25:58Defense is going to be torn apart.
26:00Defense has to be torn apart.
26:01The military is sick, terribly sick.
26:03I'm not looking for the likes of that fellow Zumwalt either.
26:05That's the wrong military.
26:07That was a mistake.
26:08The thing to do is to turn to the hardline guys, the square guys.
26:11Particularly, we've got enough intellectuals in the country.
26:15We don't need a guy like an intellectual to achieve a naval operation.
26:19We're luckily mortared.
26:22They want to say something and I won't speak.
26:25I thought I'd bring them in after or before the meeting this afternoon.
26:31What do you mean?
26:32At three.
26:32But any time you want them, you can have them over this morning.
26:40All right.
26:49All right.
26:52Well, don't you get discouraged about the whole sentiment?
26:56I'm actually very optimistic.
26:58Except for those facts that's real big and you can't reach.
27:03There's a great collusion evolving there.
27:06Oh, it's a collusion.
27:08But it's actually relied on this month.
27:12It's brought in July, August, June, and September.
27:17All this stuff that Bill was saying in Europe, that's been approved in Spanish.
27:22None of us have ever heard it.
27:25Well, none of the planners have ever heard it.
27:28He's commonly worried about it.
27:30That's what I was worried about.
27:32He thought it had a national, international trade organization or some kind.
27:39I've got to check Connelly.
27:40Peterson had never heard of it, and I had never heard of it.
27:43We may want to move that way, but I don't know why the hell he's saying it without doing some checking.
27:50But the international trade thing, I wondered, because that involves a hell of a lot of people.
27:55No, to the best of my knowledge, it hasn't been checked with anybody.
27:58Okay, fine.
27:59So they said, what else?
28:01The stuff last week was what?
28:03Well, what he said last week was...
28:05He has this incurable disease of shooting for quick headlines.
28:11What he said last week was on the NBFR, but that's getting so mixed up that no one knows anymore.
28:16Oh, yeah, we all have been together.
28:18He says what?
28:19I know there are four messages who got in bed and sucked it.
28:25I think it would be best to vote the NBFR so that it can come out of the summit as one of the results, rather than we don't have to peddle it now.
28:34The main thing you've got to emphasize, and I challenge you to bring it in, is time is the essence right now.
28:39Not only on the announcement, which we want to do in our time, but more important, on these subjects, God damn it, we've got to have the subjects and we've got to take care of us to run the thing.
28:53Or else, it's all restored.
28:54Frankly, my worry is that...
28:55I'm not going to find an end to our problems, having announced that.
29:00You cannot meet the Chinese and not announce something with the Chinese soon after.
29:04Thank you, sir.
29:06My idea is, Mr. President, that the tentative schedule would be to announce the summit around July 15th and then to announce the Chinese thing around August 5th.
29:21Jesus Christ.
29:25Well, we can pick the day.
29:26I'd have to have the day before I met the Chinese so that we can synchronize it.
29:31Thank you.
29:35You know, you know what I said about the big play.
29:39The big play is that if we don't get the sun, if the Russians turn us off, then we go to Pekin this year.
29:45Now, that was tough to talk to any of us.
29:48It's rough.
29:49It's gamble.
29:50No, no.
29:50But you see, we've got to have a big play this year.
29:53I've accepted.
29:54Two out of three have that.
29:56Do it the goddamn please.
29:59So we've got an 80% chance of a Soviet summit in September.
30:01It's just got to be from their point of view.
30:03Sure, they must be.
30:04Unless the Middle East blows up this summer or something like that.
30:11All right, it's going to come.
30:11The Middle East is going to stop.
30:15Now, with Berlin hanging out there and a few other things, and China, we're here.
30:23Okay.
30:23It's not good enough for the Russia to slow down.
30:26It's a ridiculous thing.
30:27All right, all right.
30:28You will advise Keller to be a member of that board and give it to the right wing.
30:32I'll do it.
30:33I want the right wing to know that Keller should be a member.
30:39I don't see any of you knowing about it.
30:41I'm just putting it to him.
30:42I invite him to be good.
30:43We have one right, left, right.
30:47and all those, and all of that.
30:49That's great.
30:50You call that, and you also call Buckley and Collins.
30:52Now, look here.
30:53His associate, Collins, knows that Collins is the most prestigious influential board.
30:58It's the only one the president meets with every month.
31:02Let's get a little of that.
31:04That happens to be the only one.
31:05You stand here.
31:05Don't tell Buckley that.
31:08Buckley's on your other USIA.
31:09Well, that's right, but I see him individually.
31:14Okay.
31:14Okay.
31:19He asked if that's a damn good symbol to put him on there, and the whole board isn't paying me ass anything.
31:31No kind of ass to me.
31:32The main thing about Tucker is he sits in there and raises questions that ought to be raised.
31:37Somebody oughta do right some damn good questions in there.
32:07All right.
32:51If there's any matter, get Simon's ahead of me for two, please.
32:54Two.
32:56Yeah, I got both.
33:03Whatever, Andrew, I love things.
33:05Keep these schedules goddamn white.
33:11All of them, not all of them.
33:14There's no reason to have a heavy bottom.
33:16There isn't anything that we do that's worthwhile.
33:19to truly work our time in terms of how we produce our chance to get our time back on the ground up.
33:31Some of you said international news.
33:33American committee on protected migration.
33:35Now, what in the name of Christ is that?
33:37Isn't that the bipartisan leaders?
33:38I'm sure they're going to be off.
33:40Are they going to be on again?
33:42We're not ready for that.
33:45No, it's back, well,
33:46We're going back and forth on what tools they think they've got.
33:52They're working on a way to mine with a toning down.
34:00We have one to talk about in a second.
34:08Well, the thing they're concerned about is that he creates, he submits the problem, but he hasn't submitted an answer.
34:15Everybody gets up and finds his own answer to the problem, correct?
34:18But the thing Ehrlichman didn't know is that he'd already known the 55th accomplishment, Republican accomplishment, Preston Hill, and so forth.
34:25Well, I think sometimes we're talking about problems isn't a bad idea.
34:29As long as it looks as if we're, what he's got to say, he's got to come into the conclusion that we are letting you in on the beginning here because we're going to have a major program in this field.
34:37That's the way I have it, a major program.
34:38And it's by far as an initiative.
34:39We're going to be calling on members of the Congress, members of the people, leaders in the country, and we want to give the Congress a preview of the problem, and then we're going to come out with the other.
34:48That's the way we're going to do it.
34:49We're going to figure out something like that pretty soon.
35:00I think we've got to go ahead and do it.
35:15I don't know why he's on here.
35:25I'm just going to ask if you know the population.
35:29A picture of that ambassador is all right.
35:32He should come in.
35:34It's a picture given now after the crisis.
35:38I don't want to have to sit there and talk about it.
35:42Bob Schneider, some other guy.
35:59Only the, uh, all Senate meeting today, the secret session, will allow us, you know, to sign these things.
36:10They say that they're going to talk to us about it.
36:14There's a big grunt on our illegal activities and all this.
36:20I've just raised a point there, which they're researching, but it seems to me that our people should simply continue and openly refer to that as the Kennedy-Harriman policy.
36:34And every time they talk about they should say the Kennedy-Harriman program is on record such and such.
36:39Now they're quibbling about whether the main force of it was under Kennedy or under Johnson,
36:44started under Kennedy.
36:45And it's called Kennedy, so it is Kennedy.
36:48There's people trying to defend Kennedy, not ours, but some of the jackasses are trying to do it.
36:53That all of them, it's Kennedy.
36:57But that, it seems like it's in your notes.
37:00Yeah, but you raised the question of whether it was Johnson or Kennedy.
37:05Yeah, but he's checking it.
37:06Yeah.
37:07And we've got to be careful.
37:08Yeah.
37:08Yeah.
37:12Yeah.
37:14Yeah.
37:14Henry, I was just talking to Bob.
37:16My memory is absolutely infallible.
37:18The Laotian thing started under Kennedy.
37:21I remember it very well, so God damn it, let's not fool around about that.
37:25Yeah.
37:26I know the bigger build-up occurred there.
37:28It started under Kennedy.
37:30Just call up the Kennedy Air Force Program.
37:32Is that clear?
37:38Is that what you called me?
37:45Hello?
37:47Mr. President, I wanted to congratulate you.
37:50I followed the papers, and apparently everything went very well.
37:55I kind of feel I had a prelude because it seemed to me you thought you were going to win when you converted my office here.
38:00Thank you.
38:04All right.
38:05How do the people, how do the members feel?
38:06Pretty good spirits?
38:08Good.
38:09Good.
38:16Wonderful.
38:19Good.
38:22Well, you know, you're now a member of an exclusive club.
38:26You and a few of us got to form a union.
38:28What do you think?
38:30All right.
38:30This is a union where there's no dues, but a lot of obligations.
38:36All right.
38:39Well, congratulations.
38:41And to all the other, you tell the other members of your board, congratulations.
38:57Well, where is that?
39:02Oh, it's at the tent.
39:07Let me tell you, there's a major problem at the tent, which is I do it, and I do it for a minute, except for the fact that I will be traveling at that point.
39:21I can't tell you where or anything.
39:23You wouldn't want to know anyway.
39:27But if you were a week earlier or a week later, I could do it.
39:32But I know you can't change the convention.
39:36Let me ask you, of course, next year's election year, that would be good.
39:41But is there any other kind of meeting there?
39:43Would you be having a meeting of your executive board or anything that I could do?
39:48Well, I'll tell you what I'll do, because I know I can't do this.
39:53I've got this, I've got something I can't tell you about.
39:56You won't hear about it for two weeks, but then you'll know when I talk about it.
40:01And then you'll see the reason that I couldn't tell you.
40:04But let me say that I'd like to come to the next meeting of your executive board where, you know, it's a convening.
40:12How's that?
40:13Is that all right?
40:15And you can, and I will send a message to this, and it would be,
40:20worthwhile, and is there anybody else that you would like to have on our side that we could value?
40:33Any others?
40:34How about John Richards?
40:41He's a pretty good boss.
40:44He's a pretty good management, strong management.
40:51Yeah, yeah.
40:53I just love to do this.
40:55It's the only time that happens.
40:57The first, I tell you, from about the 4th of July until the 14th, I'm dead.
41:02And it's just one of those things.
41:06Right.
41:08Right.
41:08Well, we'll send a message in a second.
41:10I'll come to your next executive board meeting if it's a time we can both work it out.
41:15Fair enough?
41:20If you can do that, that'd be great.
41:22See, my problem is that between July, August, September, and so forth, it's a difficult time for me, but if it fits in the right periods, I can do it.
41:31I want to do the DFW convention in August, but I'm just living out there, and I have to take other trips.
41:39Okay?
41:40Fine.
41:42All right.
41:42Well, congratulations, and good luck.
41:48A number of people know he's here.
42:11I'll be glad to have this meeting with some of the people.
42:39Let me suggest this is a better time for me and not for you.
42:46Yeah.
42:46Yeah.
42:50Oh, yeah.
42:50No, they're covered.
42:52The plants can be.
42:52You can't just come in for five minutes.
42:59In other words, if you end up here, they'll have got that hoax, and it's a hoax.
43:04So I've got to see it a third of the time.
43:09We're at Ingram City.
43:12We've got the governor here with me.
43:14Don't you'd like to... Take him away?
43:17See, he's here visiting with me.
43:18I don't know if you'd like to hear some of this discussion.
43:23Why not?
43:23Why don't you tell him that?
43:24See him a few minutes before.
43:26Yeah, tell him.
43:26All right.
43:27Now I'm preparing for a meeting.
43:28I mean, a meeting at home, but a very short meeting at 11 o'clock.
43:30He can come in about 10 or so.
43:33We'll have a chat.
43:34We'll have a picture.
43:35The two of us together.
43:36Talking about things and then...
43:39I don't think we'll break up the schedule.
43:49Would you honor our other man here with him, sir, when he comes down?
44:01Sure.
44:02Thank you.
44:06Well, if that gets to be a rash of death, it gets people started.
44:12Whoever did it is conceited.
44:14Well, you're right about the ocean, man.
44:19It can be here.
44:27It's not.
44:36Apparently Russell will take all this under control.
44:39I'm a scientist, maybe this tennis can't do it.
44:45The suffering of the others is sure, I know how strong that is.
44:50Now I'm going to start the situation.
44:51You have no doubts about my feelings?
45:03You know, in our conversation yesterday, having said that, you know, I was very suggested adding a hell of a lot of important things, you know.
45:13That being said, I have never been that satisfied with the telephone call operation, mainly because the individuals who are go-go's, you get added to your calls, and they overload me.
45:25And calls that really ought to be made, like, I forget the examples, but the Macintyre one and home oil, those were important calls.
45:32And there are many others that are not here to support me, you know, that are interested in buying some money.
45:36I just didn't let them have their shirts on that day, and I called them.
45:40But I can say that I can really see Bob that you could make a call on once the view comes.
45:44I always call him on, a lot other than Jack Mouser, for example, for you.
45:50Like the other day, I called, I called, uh, Pastor Rick and I'll see him for an energy message.
45:57I just did it on my own, because I always wanted to see him on it, right?
46:01Big deal.
46:01They were both going to make speeches on the floor, but they haven't.
46:14Oh, the Brant's side of dinner got screwed up.
46:17They told Alex that he had not gotten the message.
46:20Apparently Henry hadn't gotten it.
46:23They had dinner with 28 people, of which 14 were State Department, 14 were Brant's people.
46:31I don't want any working banners.
46:33The banners should be as many of the big chairs as they got.
46:3762 or something.
46:3862.
46:38Okay.
46:39That is the banner from now on.
46:41And we go ahead and make it formal.
46:45And I have to talk to them.
46:47And that is that.
46:48Bob, isn't it a goddamn foolish thing to do the other day?
46:51Yeah.
46:52Working banners.
46:52Nothing is accomplished.
46:54Nobody says what he really thinks.
46:55It's a horror or a god for me.
46:57I'm not going to do it.
47:00And it's more of a compliment for the guy to be in that state county, you know, with those sort of things.
47:04So that's where we'll be.
47:08But now, they're getting a wonderful opportunity to get in a few not-yet-gathered brothers.
47:18Incidentally, do we have any problem at the Pledge, though?
47:22Tad was saying that he had not indicated whether or not he'd regretted the wedding, and she'd been wondering if he'd regretted it.
47:29I mean, she'd worked so closely with him.
47:35So, I mean, you know what I mean?
47:36Everybody's asked me to come.
47:37I just wanted to be sure we weren't kicking him in the tail about something.
47:42Let me find out.
47:43There's, I called about what he would have regarded as happening, so.
47:47I think it's, I'm delighted to hear that people can come because it does save us an enormous amount of time.
47:52You know, I mean, maybe he's going to be gone.
47:55So that's it.
47:55And nobody should take it.
47:57Nobody should come from Chicago anyway.
47:59There's not a lot of people out there.
48:01But my point is, there's been no, nothing that I've heard, let me check on it, just to be sure that we haven't screwed something up that, I don't mean we haven't, he's probably the opposite.
49:10No, because there isn't much.
49:14You know, like the end of the news story on Saturday, he went to Tyson and said, nobody has said he shouldn't have.
49:20That's my point.
49:21No, we're not getting any.
49:23We haven't gotten anything on any of that kind of stuff.
51:06have, you can prepare for me.
51:12On a very unusual basis, they just keep the 17th clear of what's gonna happen or anything.
51:27Relating with the local, with the regional press.
51:31You understand?
51:33Now, I'd like to have actually
51:38if you could sort of loosen up the 17th, and you could have it for me the evening of the 16th when it's, when it's clear, even clear.
51:46I don't want to work that long.
51:49I, I, well, he doesn't make it.
51:52At noon, the 16th, you have it ready.
51:54How's that?
51:55And keep the 17th as clear as you can.
51:59Gotcha.
52:08Well, you're busy at Cornell, I understand.
52:13Oh, I see, fine.
52:14Well, I had nothing on my mind except to call you.
52:17I was at Camp David yesterday and tell you we were all talking about your party, and everybody just thought it was great, and they particularly loved you.
52:24You did such a fine job at your own remarks.
52:26And I said, well, I got your smart.
52:29I said, you should be speaking all the time.
52:31Yeah, yeah.
52:38Well, they're...
52:43They've gone through a banter before, haven't they?
52:47They just made it good, good, good.
52:49Yeah, the reason that we didn't come, I didn't think it was right for us to be in line.
52:52We'd back in the hall and go through the handout, and it put them around the center, which is the right...
53:00Right?
53:04All right.
53:05Well, you, you were just a great dog.
53:07We didn't want you to know it.
53:11Okay.
53:11Go get brainwashed up there.
53:16Okay.
53:16Bye.
53:17She's a nice, you know, she's warm up.
53:22She has all the capability of being one hell of a gal.
53:27She's got the brains.
53:28She's got the brains.
53:28She is a very nice girl.
53:36She's got a tremendous character.
53:39She's just an awful nice person.
53:46She's a lady.
55:33You're pretty well decided on that, aren't you?
55:40Very easily, come in late at the end of the dinner.
55:49Do the dinner and then go on up to Chicago and spend the night in Chicago.
55:53Do the action, come into the dinner late.
55:55Yeah.
55:55At the very end of that, catch the program.
55:59at the end of the day, or say, I've got to take off to Chicago, sorry, right?
56:04You can do it as just a drop-by, just a gesture.
56:07And the fact that you're in Chicago makes it all right.
56:09The thing that bothered me was going up to Indiana just to be going and having to go to Chicago.
56:13In Chicago, what do you have the next day?
56:16You do the retired folks in the morning and then leave.
56:20For Florida.
56:25For Florida.
56:26For Florida.
56:27It's goddamn good.
56:28I'm gonna go down and walk the car.
56:29It's a little something just to make your own news and find some place where you can walk.
56:35Stay in a different hotel.
56:37That's good, yeah.
56:39Well, I think we ought to stay in a different hotel, don't you think so?
56:42Yeah.
56:42We're always in Blackstone.
56:44We have a good hotel.
56:45There's another good one, the Haller House, for a chance.
56:48It's a great little place, but I always used to like to stay there.
56:54There's a mansion.
56:55Stay there.
56:58Probably at the Hilton.
57:00Well, they don't like it.
57:01It's awful.
57:02It's awful, but I don't mind.
57:03Actually, that suite up there's not bad.
57:05I don't mind.
57:07Look, it's always best to be at the convention.
57:11Wait a minute.
57:12The convention will be there.
57:15No, it's not.
57:16It's not.
57:16If it's that kind of thing, it may not even be.
57:18It may be at the Park Place or something.
57:21I don't know.
57:26So we don't have to do a hell of a lot of talking
57:54God, let me pick my people and my people.
57:56I want Mark Mitchell, for example, right?
57:58And just get some... Actually, I don't... God, now there are a few of them.
58:05I'm going to put Mrs. Rogers by me for once.
58:09Rogers to Collins.
58:10Great.
58:10Mrs. Westfield, what'd you do to Mr. Torres?
58:11Oh, Rogers, now they are the random ones.
58:33and then have the others scattered around through the place.
58:37But that's, I want 100 people, I don't want a crowd, but maybe 102 people with round tables.
58:40And let's have a little entertainment afternoons or summits, you know what I mean?
58:45Maybe they don't sit in the chairs, I want a movie for a change.
58:49No, that's too long.
58:54That's one, because it's just the inside panel, and we could go to something a little different.
58:58That's what I was thinking.
59:00Okay.
59:02People will think in terms of the press thing, in terms of keeping open 24, having in mind the fact that that's the hubby dinner.
59:13See, there's your problem.
59:14If you're going to waltz into that, I don't have a point about the hubby dinner.
59:18It's just not the call.
59:20At the present time, we say that it appears unlikely.
59:24And then if we decide the first of the week, we can go drop by.
59:28Fair enough?
59:28Yeah?
59:29How's that?
59:30Don't you think that's a good way?
59:31If you just like to drop,
59:37I don't see there's any reason why we shouldn't have like a... See, if we do that, I want you to have the road in the pocket quietly checked.
1:00:02and see whether or not we could have one camera.
1:00:04There must not be more than one, is that clear?
1:00:06You know what I mean?
1:00:08What we would plan on an office camera, where they could shoot it for Q&A.
1:00:14It just isn't worth doing anything unless it's on television.
1:00:24Do you agree or not?
1:00:24I absolutely agree.
1:00:26It just isn't worth it.
1:00:32This is the main house, guest house, useless cottages, tennis court.
1:00:54Doc here, boat house.
1:00:56There's the house.
1:01:01There she's down at the beach, it's a rocky beach.
1:01:13She's walking.
1:01:13Oh yeah?
1:01:14There she is, on the porch.
1:01:15That is, it is rustic there, you can see the deck door.
1:01:19It sounds more like a car, which is that kind of thing.
1:01:22It sounds like those are both split-edged rooms here.
1:01:27That's the whole studio outside here.
1:01:29It's embarrassing for me.
1:01:38All right.
1:01:39All right.
1:01:41All right.
1:01:42All right.
1:01:43All right.
1:01:44All right.
1:01:57Oh, no, no, no.
1:01:59You're fine.
1:01:59Just what you did.
1:02:00Okay.
1:02:00Fine.
1:02:01I was hired.
1:02:05How do you like the room?
1:02:06I thought we were getting in the city.
1:02:07What's that?
1:02:08Yeah, the smartest one I've ever seen.
1:02:09He's the first governor of this whole one, isn't he?
1:02:10Yeah, right.
1:02:11And he's the one there.
1:02:11Yeah, the word gets passed.
1:02:12There's three more of them.
1:02:13No, I feel like if you would like to just put a box on the security here, I've got to meet the National Association of Homeowners.
1:02:30You can sort of see what they're up to.
1:02:32You've got a lot of home building in your state, haven't you?
1:02:35Yeah.
1:02:35This is the finance office.
1:02:37I'm sorry, but is that all it's going to be, a half an hour?
1:02:40Oh, yes.
1:02:41I mean...
1:02:41It's got to be because I got an appointment at 11.30.
1:02:44I have 12.30 months and I'm supposed to... Oh, wait a minute.
1:02:48Wait a minute.
1:02:48No, no.
1:02:49I can do that just right.
1:02:51You see, I can factory right now.
1:02:53No, no, no.
1:02:53When do you have to leave?
1:02:54You tell us.
1:02:56If I could go in here at 11 and leave at 11.20, I'm in good shape.
1:03:0111.15.
1:03:0111.15.
1:03:01Right.
1:03:01Right.
1:03:02That's good that you can say that you've been there to that to help.
1:09:33Well, let's face it, this is what I say at home.
1:09:38I don't talk to older people about that.
1:09:40This is one nation.
1:09:42You know, they want to feel that.
1:09:44That's why the guard is going to handle us on problems and quit giving us up in the nuts.
1:09:55Let the South have this problem.
1:09:58It's got to handle it.
1:10:01Well, here's the thing about me.
1:10:03I can't stand the living night.
1:10:04You know, most of the people that I know in New York that are constantly signing manifestos about the South are people that send their kids to lowly white schools.
1:10:16And you know, they're cheating.
1:10:18This is what I'm saying.
1:10:21They are cheating their youngsters by doing it.
1:10:23Your kids are going to the Black Lives Matter.
1:10:25Well, I don't know.
1:10:27Well...
1:10:29They're 4% white, and one of the schools where two of us are 8% white, and the other one is a pastor.
1:10:36And the great thing about him, Mr. President, he could go to the basketball games.
1:10:44He could go at it for minutes.
1:10:47These kids are three minutes.
1:10:48And when you talk about 10 years from now, now we've got 410 of them.
1:10:51Let me tell you something in 10 years from now.
1:10:55The, uh, we've got, we're worried about Biden and stuff like that, but, uh, we've got to get rid of him.
1:11:00I had a John Curran from Green.
1:11:01Did you know that in the last week, April, August, as far as the schools were concerned, integration has stood still?
1:11:11Twenty-eight percent of black kids in the class have been in the arts and go to majority white schools.
1:11:18As far as schools are concerned, in the South, there's been a very quiet
1:11:28in terms of 38% of the black kids in the South were majority white schools.
1:11:35And this took place from people, had to be white people, generally, who totally disagreed with the proposition, who feared it, but who put obedience to the law at their fingertips.
1:11:46And that takes one hell of a lot.
1:11:48Now, in the North, let me say, the North has lived with them all the time, the blacks.
1:11:53So the North finds their ways to get around the thing.
1:11:58And, of course, the blacks have been .
1:12:07But the Southerners, their handling of the situation has been quite remarkable.
1:12:12And there are still a lot of .
1:12:14Last year when I sent the kids to the schools, I went over there with one of them.
1:12:23In the newspapers, they had an editor of Houghton Walls.
1:12:27This year... Waffles.
1:12:28Yeah, that's a new verb.
1:12:30It means, I love it.
1:12:32This year, I said when the Attorney General said the client was approved by a report that went on the ground because it had a bad racial effect.
1:12:41I said, well, right now, I'm going to write another one and comply with it.
1:12:45This isn't a lot of money.
1:12:46Now I'm going to yell at them.
1:12:49Damn, we're going to do this.
1:12:52And I've kept it.
1:12:53Ten years from now, when those kids get married,
1:12:56You're not going to have any damage all by itself, or they're going to say, well, hell, those people are friends of mine, let's deal with it.
1:13:03And that's the way to handle it, not by any force.
1:13:05I don't like the way you handle it.
1:13:08And we must not force it, though.
1:13:10That's right.
1:13:10And one of the reasons that I don't get high marks with these terms,
1:13:18He said, I don't get up at every press conference, every time I make a speech and damn the South.
1:13:23I'm not going to tell you, the minute I start damning the South, the South, the South, the white, the proud white Southerners try to get up and say, well, I don't want that guy.
1:13:30That's right.
1:13:31If he doesn't do something, he'll do it.
1:13:32You know, at times, I'm very curious about the quiet revolution in the South.
1:13:37You know, I think there's a lot of credit for it.
1:13:41Well, it's worked out beautifully, and yet it did that because the Sprout White Southerner said, okay, we're longboarder types and we comply with the law.
1:13:49That's a good thing.
1:13:52Let me tell you a cute story real quick.
1:13:54James and I had been to Europe for two weeks.
1:13:58We got back a couple weeks ago.
1:14:01Walked in about five or six o'clock in the afternoon after that jet lag and played with the children until about 9.30 or 10 when the bed
1:14:11About 2.30 in the morning, out of a deep sleep, the Capitol Police was knocking on my bedroom door.
1:14:17I said, Governor, there's a major shift.
1:14:20You must evacuate the mansion.
1:14:22I had a bomb out.
1:14:24And he wants to conduct a search.
1:14:26I said, you tell him there will be no evacuation.
1:14:30He can conduct all the search he wants.
1:14:32If he wants me, I'll be up here asleep.
1:14:37In the next morning,
1:14:38We were down at breakfast before I got out, and Woody was my 11-year-old son.
1:14:42And he said, Dad, Mother told me what happened to my son.
1:14:47And I think that was a pretty nerve of you.
1:14:53But if it should happen again, how about waking me up and letting me make my own decision?
1:15:02And that's all you check out in 10 minutes.
1:15:03I just say, if that's all right with you, tell me if you want to do it.
1:15:06I'm sure you'll get a chance to talk to John about it.
1:15:08I'm sure you'll get a chance to talk to John about it.

Nixon, Kissinger & Ehrlichman on Vietnam War and Foreign Policy

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