Conversation 520-008

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He just called me.

It was necessary.

And you certainly warned you.

You said all the things you could practically say.

He asked me to do that.

He said, like, if I saw Vietnam, I spoke to her about Vietnam.

And if I saw, like, it's very well.

I said, of course, if you will, it's better to judge me in progress than another.

I said, naturally, it's all not in the state of the issue.

Anyway, is that detrimental to the alliance?

That's a good question.

And we got across the balance of payments concerns, and not to rush too fast and then be about.

He's just a, you know, he's just a spongy guy.

Yeah.

Well, I'll tell you one thing.

We got to your friend, Barb, that's right.

He's next.

Did you know him?

Yeah, he's up there.

relations with China really improve, they'll get to be as good as they are with Bulgaria.

Oh, boy.

Anyway, he'll report that right back to the Russians.

Oh, no question.

And that's all right.

The Russians will not believe it.

And yet, we got that right where we want.

They know goddamn well what's going on here.

Well, and we've set to bring him out for 2.30 this afternoon.

It's just part of the game, Mr. President.

Sure, I'll see him here.

Yeah, for 10 minutes.

We can bring him right in here, don't you think?

We can bring him right in here.

Bring him in here?

Yeah, he has an autograph.

Oh, sure, we can bring him right in the main office.

And, uh...

Just 10 minutes, really.

It isn't.

But it shows him that you have high-level concerns.

We're building a record.

If they kick us in the teeth after all of this, we'll tell them, look, we did everything we could.

The only bad thing about their proposal, we can't stop their proposal, of a five-pound of their conference, is that after that stage, we'll want to play it into a foreign minister's meeting.

Yes?

I don't think the Chinese will play yet until they hear from us.

I guess they will.

A state that wants a foreign minister.

We can certainly put the brakes on this.

When I see him next week, I'm going to tell him we don't want it.

And when we...

And when I see the Chinese... And when I see he does the Chinese, I'm going to tell them to deal with its others.

The Chinese, one has to say, have played the game on the visitors.

Well, anyway, they've not only played the game to the visitors, they haven't really told the press anything that would be inimical to you.

And they could tell if they told Dutton or any of these guys who are in there how you hamper U.S.-Chinese relations.

They'd love to trend it.

We're playing a very cautious, shrewd game.

We're playing, above all, a big game.

They're not horsing around with little stuff.

Well, we'll get it pretty if Lee Duk To

is there on the 26th.

It's not 100% sure that he'll be there.

He may just be bringing instructions.

The probability is that he'll be there.

If he plays a somewhat softer game, then we know the Chinese have talked to them a little bit.

Well, the dice cast either does or doesn't.

He doesn't.

Now, the thing that I think is important, though, is that our people have been talking about the conqueror, about this life-sex thing.

The more I think about that, I don't think that's in our interest.

I know it's a bullet, and it doesn't really do us any good.

No announcement you could make there is going to be any better than an announcement you can make on your own.

Or as good as an announcement you can make on your own.

It gets the whole TU issue out in the open.

It will infuriate Hanoi.

It just doesn't... And then not going sets up a perfect cover for me to go out there.

If I'm not at Midway and Rogers is there, no one, no matter what we say, it's not that I want to be there, but it just...

It will work, but it...

The cover of my being sent out there on a fact-finding mission while we tell you we're doing it as a substitute.

Would you mind raising this with Munker?

I'll raise it before he sees you.

Yeah, just raise it and say, look, we just feel that it will be interpreted as well.

First of all, what are you talking about?

Hello.

You mean, did you talk to him about coalition government?

Did you talk to him about what you're going to get out?

Did you talk to him about, it's just going to be one goddamn mess.

And it's going to take corruption of the South to get his government better than anything else.

And it isn't going to help him, frankly, in terms of...

I think we can get away with it.

I'd have to get Bunker's judgment, but if Bunker gives us any hope at all, I don't think we ought to do it.

And it would set up a perfect cover with the bureaucracy for going.

Yeah.

Not just for the public, because then Rogers would understand why you're sending me, and he won't want to go, I can assure you.

No, I don't think so.

Well, let's find out how our foreign ministers think, Jesus Christ.

Well, we can slow it down.

I'll tell he, I'll tell Dupree, I've already, I'll tell Dupree that you don't want the foreign ministers meeting.

We can screw it up in the preparations.

This will be months.

You might tell him that you'll study it, but you think it requires a lot of preparation.

Then that already puts it in there.

Yeah, a lot of preparation might be a board of ministers meeting, you see.

I don't want them to think that we want the board of ministers to get together and prepare meetings.

It's ridiculous to continue this goddamn facade, which in fact the foreign ministers and even the Soviet can do anything.

You can't do a goddamn thing.

In fact, in many ways, it's the worst level.

It's high enough to be very visible, and yet Gromyko doesn't have the authority.

And as it happens now in no modern government, as the foreign minister in France, whom did you really conduct foreign policy in Britain, good as you may see it conducted.

And in Germany, Steele doesn't even know most of the things that are going on.

It's a characteristic for him.

He's become an administrator of a large bureaucracy.

I've just read the files on the negotiations, because that's going to be surfaced.

What you've done.

Yeah.

That makes me look good, so I have no personal, and it will even help this administration a little because it shows that I was committed to negotiations before.

But we just don't have records like this in the bureaucracy.

That's why the bureaucracy is furious.

But they can't leak on us like this.

They want the records.

They want you to give them everything.

They want you to be brief and all that sort of thing.

Just as well, we play it close to the vestibule.

It's about like, after this thing, nobody's going to come in to me and say, you just can't shoot.

Why don't we talk more to people?

Why should I talk to people?

And really, why should I ever say anything to the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense after this sort of incident?

I'll be goddamned if I'm going to.

I'm not going to do it.

I don't trust them.

I do not trust the bureaucracies and the secretaries.

I'm going to pass it on.

I'm going to keep everything I want secret.

It's going to be kept right here in your home.

Now, you're in much better shape.

It makes it very important after you leave office for you to put out, to compile your records in such a way that the future historians can work with them.

But that's something we don't have to worry about for a long stretch.

Yeah, we just do the best we can.

Thank God, it certainly has something on that.

When you think of the kind of a damn world we've got strong people today and so forth, I must say that the American people have some tradition of this.

First of all, our goddamn leader class is weak as a... Our leader class is a hundred.

Well, that's right.

You're here at 1 o'clock.

Good to see you.

All right.

Thank you.

2.30, we'll see you.

Good.