On June 11, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Guido Zerilli-Marimo, Alexander P. Butterfield, Oliver F. ("Ollie") Atkins, and Manolo Sanchez met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:23 pm to 12:39 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 517-010 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Sit down here.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Well, I see, good.
Yes, I, you know, particularly, you're asking you to sing one moment, and I appreciate that you mentioned it to be there.
Good morning, sir.
Good morning, sir.
I'd like to say congratulations.
Sure, of course.
Anything you want.
Sure.
It's something that I, being inspired by my permanent friendship with America and my devotion to you, I must take out of my chest and tell you.
Since a long time, but especially this moment, Italy is crossing a delicate moment.
There is nothing tragic, but I would say that it should be an item of not of great worry, but of serious concern.
And if you allow me to tell you this, I hope you won't approach me.
We had a job in Italy.
We don't have
You had a wonderful presentation.
I'm sure he's a man of a high integrity and quite a good officer of the career, but it's not what you should be in Italianism.
He's a stronger man.
To be a stronger man, you need a man who has more energy, who has more ability to make sense, who is more compassionate, and who is...
is able to say things thoroughly and not without the fear of intruding.
This is the present version.
You know, on the other hand, unfortunately, President Solda has said that he is out of state of mind.
We have not been very lucky in the last few years of international membership.
You know the comment of a poor-assist designer who now has died.
There was all the mistakes about the central-sinister, central-left and so on, eh?
Then we have had my dear friend Garton Rackley, who is a wonderful man, but rather on the confessor side.
He's a very good better man on the economic side, if you like.
But with a poor enthusiasm, he had this special thing which was biologically innate in his character.
There was a man that the weapon was in the difficulty of the problem and he immediately saw the difficult side.
Now, you know better than I do that when you want to win, in fact, he put it in his life and so delivered.
But the gentleman, he was absolutely, how do you say, I mean, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
This man is an old man, but not old by age.
He is old by spirit.
He has lost two sons.
He is very sad of the times.
He is very intellectual.
He has no contacts.
They do not take the house because they have rights, they have works.
I take it to them that when you make the present world a world of their resources, not the possibility of any other.
in the reception of something.
They don't see anybody.
If you're sitting there, sitting there, who knows everybody around?
He sees, Mr. Martin, he sees the people from the Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
He sees.
What is he going to say to them?
He may be stupid, but he has no contact.
It's that friend of his that people tell him about himself, to investigate, to find out the people, you know, who he's been in contact with when Jimmy Dunn was there.
Jimmy Carano.
Jimmy Carano was my greatest friend there.
I worked with him.
Jimmy was my best friend there, because we organized the American-Italian Association.
And when I won the election in 48, you know, I was the organizer for the Army Communist Party.
For a couple of the parties, I stood in the Congress, just to keep the Congress down with the government.
And we had, and I was seeing, I was seeing the error.
And this one, it's quite a gentleman, but the other people, he doesn't see, he doesn't see the Germans, he doesn't see some of our
You know, just to discuss the official matters, just to meet them.
But yet, not what we call being ordained.
How do you say that?
Excuse my English.
What we call being ordained.
You see, that's it.
Quite nice people from an oral point of view.
But you see, especially in a country like Italy, which is so pluralistic.
He has no possibility to write me down to the actual situation.
You know how it is, Mr. President.
The other factor, not the other factor.
The truth is in the rules.
The truth is in the rules.
You know, Russia's life is an excluding rule.
The Orientals lie as a rule and truth sometimes.
In Europe, especially Latin countries,
Truth is a truth.
There were 30% who lied to the truth, and then we had the 30% that lied, that... And you can only ascertain now, here in India, only by contacting, by checking the one opinion with the other, by giving the information, then I told you the other one, and I said, always be in the, you understand what I'm saying, in the...
You know, yes, exclusives, I mean, like, you know, exclusives.
Yes, yes.
So the lie is the truth, but you may have the truth.
When you go to that in the churches, you have a niche.
And it's that you have a 40% like the Amor Factor, and you have a 20% more or less like the theoretical, and then you have a 40% of the average, you know.
So this means that you must meet as many people as you can.
And the change has many themes, has many opinions.
It must be in the life of a country like this.
And this is what is about.
You understand?
I hate to tell you this, but also to be considerate.
Because nobody in the world will ever understand that the people are sensitive to this.
But I think it was my duty, I owe this to you, as an Italian, as a man in Greece, in Italy, and who knows all the situations there.
It's very important.
So, I don't think that, suppose we should, I know you have some men, I don't know exactly, I don't know them enough, but at least I wasn't subjected to what was happening in Madrid.
Let's show him.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, you don't trust him, do you?
Yes, but he's an equal American.
You are saying... No, no, no.
You are saying, like, except that the one who is a diplomat, like General Meade, who is the government, the conference, he's a type of man, because... And then, literally, one must be very careful to present somebody who...
cannot be immediately accused by the justice system.
This is a reactionary, or this is, to be very clear, the police are supposed, the justice system is not, it's not technically the name of the justice system, but supposedly, a man like Cesar, who can question the law, you want the justice system to inform us that Europe is in problem number one, you see, or a man like Cesar needs to counsel in this arm, in this arm and so on and so forth.
You see, just let's have this,
Because it's a very good point, also, Mr. Judge.
I don't, of course, even dream to make a hit.
But that's a very good point.
Well, I think there's a problem.
It's a grave problem.
Because in Italy nothing is better than because you have a special situation, you have a government which does not prevent the nation.
Because the nation has their own idea and there are many people who vote for the communists, up to 30%, but they are not communists.
They don't want communists in Italy.
They don't want communists either by immigrants
or as a source of compensation, or because, or because they kick the nuts.
Because there are all these small, how do you say, industries, or little firms, or in India, or in Tosca,
You know what they do?
They have, for instance, a smaller firm with their 100 workers or something like that.
They don't pay for distribution.
They don't pay for labor.
They e-cock people without paying them in 10 minutes.
And so it is because they keep preventing because they are selfish.
So, they want the Congress to have some feeling in this because they know that the Congress is a party.
I'm afraid you are conscious by conviction.
No, I'm not.
Mr. President, I would bet your cycle of claims not more.
Not more.
And everybody loves America because everybody knows what America has done for Italy.
Everybody and people of the same class here in this country.
Johnny, you don't think that the Anglo-Americans have that idea?
Absolutely not.
Because it might be taken as...
I know.
I get your point.
Some people tell us to do that.
I get your point.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
The secret is that we're about to leave here.
Don't worry, we'll leave you the secret, and also I'll consider it, so I know there's time for the problems.
And we'll take off.
I mean, it's certainly important to the free world.
We'll take off, you know.
I mean, we'll have the arms of that man on her.
We'll take off.
We'll take off.
We'll take off.
We'll take off.
We'll take off.
We'll take off.
We'll take off.
We'll take off.
You know, because we've always said, you know, what's happening in England, that if Congress didn't go to the U.S. and started fighting like a beast on the East Coast, and it was a global threat, that any chance there is also an indignation right now.
Well, I think in France it's about the matters, you know what I mean, it's about this problem as well.
You know, this is what we do every morning when it goes to the U.S. You know, the first thing we did, the thing we asked for
How is the situation in Italy?
Because they know that the .
And this is the main concern of .
Just to show you that Italy, because we are .
Absolutely.
But you also have an enormous amount of respect for the Latin countries of Latin America.
Absolutely.
We're all a part of Latin America.
Now, what we need really in this world is to have a united Europe, a soft Europe, because otherwise we will be only between America and Russia.
We don't want to be a disability.
We need to have a plurality of people.
And we have Europe, we have...
and Japan too.
Japan must become tough again as a country.
No, we need to find great power.
Because the American people cannot.
You are making God into a gigantic force for which you apply so much, but of course you cannot pretend that they all over have the policeman, all the world.
And of course, we have people who want to have it, but unless we have this plurality of great powers, then one of these might be Europe.
Now this entrance of people is the best thing, and unfortunately, they won't delay this process.
You know, we must struggle for that.
And for that, we must have not the city, Italy, which is intercepted in Amos.
Well, I appreciate that.
We are so happy to be here today.
It's a good night.
We have a little appearance we'd like to give you.
That's the presidential seal.
Oh, here it is.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.