On June 27, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Henry A. Kissinger, Alexander P. Butterfield, and Mark Andrews met in the Oval Office of the White House from 8:18 pm to 9:14 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 529-014 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Long journey.
Yes.
It, uh, it was a very curious meeting.
The first woman I came in, they played, you know, an almost childish little game, that's what it is.
I think I told them to back off because I ended the last meeting by saying it's the special advice, I'm going to come to the next one.
And Swan Tweed was greeted me and shouted out like a little boy, you should cook each other that time, you should cook each other.
And then from behind the door, we got to a camp over there.
He said, see, here's the first result of our... And we got to a camp after many hours.
That means that I just want to give you the moon and grab all my hands.
And they told me what they had done to me.
Previously, we had always had a lot of chairs.
This time, they took us to a room where they had a green table set up.
And I said, oh, this is a good room.
And they said...
Well, then it began that they asked me a lot of questions about our proposal.
And I was very tough.
And whenever I got tough, they spurred it off.
Then Peter told me a long speech recounting the history of our negotiations.
And he said, the fact of the matter is, I mention this to you because it gave me a beautiful opening for giving the message you had told me.
He said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said,
but we will not assume responsibility for them.
You must know that.
So it came about very naturally.
I didn't have to do any boasting or attracting them.
That's good.
Well, then they went through.
Then there was a break.
And they started asking a few more questions.
And I said, now, gentlemen,
I didn't come all this distance to be asked questions about something I've already explained to you last time.
I had nothing further to say, and I will not say anything further.
And if you had nothing further to say, we've had a meeting.
And there was a minute silence, and they pulled out a piece of paper, and they started reading, and they said the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam has the honor to reply
and to make the following counter-proposals.
Now, the significance of the proposal, the significance of that is strong.
Never in the three years of negotiations have they ever made a counter-proposal.
Never have they ever made a negotiating proposal.
What they have always said is, they have, every month in a while, they have published a program.
They've always done it publicly.
They've always said, you must, you must, you must, you must.
This time, every proposition is, you should, you should, you should.
They're tough propositions, incidentally.
But when I started challenging them, they always said, these are bargaining positions.
We have to start bargaining now.
These are bargaining proposals now.
The propositions are, some are acceptable and some are not.
Proposition one.
Proposition two is that they will release all prisoners faced together with the withdrawal of our troops, and they will be all released by December 23rd.
And that's a big breakthrough.
They've never said that before.
Proposition, uh, to tell you, of course, you'd have to fear here, but you see that public first.
I'll come to that in a minute.
I told them we'd break the contract.
They promised not to.
Proposition three is that we should start supporting Tukey in Kiev.
And then talks can start where they're interested, some freedomist parties.
The interesting thing here is that they've dropped the coalition government.
I hadn't really said we should all throw to you, Keith.
And Keith had said we should stop supporting him.
Now, before we have to pay reparations, I told him, it's absolutely out of the question.
And I said, if you may attend this, I can leave now because we're not going to sign a war bill before.
They said it's about a year from now.
So you'll get an easy way out of that.
We'll all leave it on the game.
We already have said that already.
That's easy.
What I'll propose is to take it out of the treaty and give them a letter from you saying you all leave it on the game as soon as peace is restored.
That's the easiest point to some stuff.
Five, the Geneva Agreement to 54.
Six, the Indo-Chinese problem should be settled by the Indo-Chinese people on the basis of independence, sovereignty, death, joy, and pleasure.
That's the problem.
Seat seven, the agreed to a ceasefire.
Any thought?
All the parties should achieve a ceasefire after the signing of the agreement on the abominations problem.
That's the solution.
8.
There should be international supervision of all departments, which is the first thing that we agreed to do.
9.
There should be international guarantees of additional international supervision of the ceasefire.
10.
There should be international guarantees for the Fundamental National House of the Inter-Chinese People, the Nationality of South Vietnam, the Nouns in Cambodia, and the Nouns in Peter in the Street.
Now, for this program,
I think it's a tremendous breakthrough.
It may still happen, Professor, I hope.
It's legal.
Because if there is ever a point that they decide that we have to overthrow the U.K. in Kiev, I don't see how they can do that.
Or could we quit the U.K.?
Oh, they'd be quick if they could make it.
So this may be accepted.
On the other hand, if they want to take other streets, I also don't think they still have to go through this process.
So what I would propose, Mr. President, is that I prepare for the next meeting a list of what we accept in this, with our version of it, who amalgamate our seven and their nine, and then to interpret point three, which is the one we can't accept, in a certain way of what we will say support no government as a government,
But we are committed to do the following.
We come with whoever is the governor and see what that does.
Well, then I asked him a lot of questions about this.
And they said a number of things.
For example, they said some things which you can interpret to mean that they want us to overthrow Kim Ki and Kim.
They said other things which the reason they can't accept our seven points immediately is because there are no guarantees that they're against reprisals for their fathers.
And they have to have that.
Now that would suggest that at least the inquisition outcome, they don't put a communist government in charge.
They wouldn't worry about reprisals.
It's the first time that they dropped the word coalition government.
It's the first time they've accepted international supervision fully.
And
That would be the, that would be the second one.
At the end of the meeting, I said, that would be the last time he met.
You've published, you've proposed.
I said, I want to understand one thing.
If you don't publish these, because if you do, we'll publish our record.
And we'll break this chapter, and we'll just put everything back on the chest.
They said, well...
They said, no, this is confidential, and we've never leaked anything out of these confidential areas.
If they tell them it was dangerous, then it'd be the first time that they had a proposal that they didn't make public.
And usually, their usual procedure is to give it to Pete's group.
Yeah.
Well, particularly the one about you withdrawing, we'll give you the first person.
I mean, that's the one that's the bigger problem.
He said, take care of this for us.
We can just publish the record then that we all fell on May 32, that this was their response.
I don't think they'll have to do it.
Then I said, now let's just get one other bit straight.
Now, whatever we agree to here applies to Madame Bin also.
So they balked at that for a minute and then they said, I don't think they'll make it, but we've got this right.
Did you talk to Bruce?
Yeah.
I talked to Bruce.
He had read the record of Disaster Meeting.
He saw that it was by far the best meeting there's ever been.
Not this one.
I talked to Bruce before this.
He said he saw there was a good chance.
There was a chance.
A good chance.
I was asking him about the chance.
I waited.
Did you talk to him?
He showed me the record of this.
Okay.
But I'm pretty sure I know about the agreement.
He at least knows over there.
Oh, you know, I sent all this to Richard.
Oh, I see.
And I'll send him the transcript on Monday as soon as we get it made up.
But Bruce said that the last time was the first real negotiation, and I know that he permitted that more so.
It is the first time that they've actually put it
or we were really operating with understanding.
Now, it may fail, but assuming they have made the decision to cage, which I don't believe, like they're too tough to do it that simply, but even in the extreme case that they've decided to cage, they have to go through this process, one, to shoulder their own loss, that they can't catch the maximum program, and two, to shoulder themselves being the least that they've tried.
The next move is that on the way back from Nashville, I'll stop in Paris.
On June 12th.
Openly.
Go to see Bruce.
I was waiting for you on the way to the airport.
On the way out, I stopped in...
It was your property.
Still private.
I think the thing we have to bear in mind is that we're in a position now where after that meeting we publish.
And we've got to be in a position to tell them what's been going on over here.
So you've got Bruce Kerr.
Bruce is coming in.
Bruce is enthusiastic.
Bruce, in fact, covers Rogers and the State Department.
Bruce is enthusiastic.
part of these private negotiations.
I think after the next meeting, we should probably determine.
Sure.
I mean, we can still defend this on the ground, but the first time I just mentioned it, one interesting thing, which is... Well, the way you said it, Mr. Secretary, this was a long time ago, and you just told us that you didn't, but none of us got a chance to run through it.
Bruce knew a lot about it.
He told me how to do the setting.
That's what I put up with.
Well, Bruce, incidentally, he knows destiny.
He knows, he knows destiny.
Is that Bruce or Matthew?
Or I see.
Or Patsy.
I see.
Bruce, uh, then I told Bruce a little about the giant thing because, you see how you can see through all that?
Yeah.
He said it's the greatest
experience as a diplomat.
He said, I don't have...
He knows where we are.
He requires us.
He knows what Roger doesn't know.
Yeah, well, well, it was very interesting.
I didn't tell him that there are archers in the room.
I had an assistant along, yeah, but it's no longer long, so you can see.
Asking himself, he said, I hope to God he didn't tell the archers who were staying behind.
He said, this is too high.
A lawyer said, you cannot leave.
You cannot do it with anyone except a presidential emissary.
He said,
you must, under no circumstances, love this.
I was amazed.
He said, absolutely.
You called him in yourself.
Oh, I believe you.
I'm glad he said that.
I'm glad he knows it.
He built back to 1,000%.
He knows this is a big thing.
He said it's the biggest thing.
I had to see him, Victor, find out the fact that all these names are possible, open in a second.
And he said, of course, as long as he can get six weeks off to cure his lack.
And actually, he's the only one.
Of course, we may not be able to help him.
He thinks, actually, I didn't talk to him about it.
We did two steps.
But he thinks that he was just ruminating, he said.
I think so, too, but we may have other considerations.
But we may not need your steps, if I'm right.
Yeah, but if I'm right, isn't it good that we know if the Russians don't come to the summit?
That's right.
We just can't screw around, can we?
I think you sent Bruce over, and I thought...
It should be late this year.
Over the end of December.
It's based on that, but I don't know that.
That's not too restrictive, actually.
But one interesting thing, Mr. President, you remember on January 9th, I outlined the basic elements of our proposal of the deadline to the brief.
But at the same time, I mentioned Saul.
On February 22nd, he came back and said this.
and he made an offer to us.
So I told the British, we answered you.
And said we were ready to talk and never let you back on his house.
I said, just a minute.
I said, you might get a three week's after the house started.
He said, oh no, we answered you in the middle of January.
So I said to them,
Well, I guess we should talk to each other directly, not through intermediaries.
He said we'd never have to use the Russians as an intermediary.
But Pete Baptist said to us what they did to the Japanese.
They had no reply.
They have the Russians there.
Hmm.
Well, Laos is still right there.
It was there, I think, either way.
Jesus Christ, if we had not lost, there'd be 150 Americans being killed there every week in South Vietnam.
The first of those 100 men would be in there.
Sure.
On the Bajisar.
I think the Bajisars are the first.
The 20,000 men we killed would be in South Vietnam now.
And then in Chicago.
Oh, that is probably a big event.
Kudos.
Good, good.
Well, it's a curious thing right now.
In the way that we're working hard on trying to keep the house from going away in the sun.
One word about our domestic situation, which I had told them the last time I walked out with the information.
That one word about that field, that they mentioned the Pentagon papers only in a very odd way.
They said, uh... You still get on?
No, no.
They said the Pentagon papers don't give their whole story.
Whatever that means.
They got me.
They got me.
What do you think was his sanction?
This is why I mentioned it, that I wasn't so glad.
That's all right.
What do you really come down to?
I'll plan to go to the next college at that time.
My plan is to arrive at San Clemente the evening of the 12th.
Oh, really?
Yes.
It's a long, hard trip, don't you think?
Thirteen.
Well, the time is, yes, over the boat.
I'd like you there.
Did you sleep on the plane?
I sleep on the plane when I arrive.
He's in Russia.
I'll rest then, but you'll know then.
And we'll all know where we stand.
And we'll know what you'll guess to say.
But we have a lot of interesting things.
For example, we have a report from North Pan, from an East German, from one of the East German delegations, who reports that the North Vietnamese are beginning to offer ceasefire to the Cambodians, saying that they're being pressed by the Chinese to make peace, so that they tempted the Chinese to start dealing with us.
I don't know if that's true, but you wouldn't expect any German to know anything.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Well, it's, uh...
It's sweet.
Yeah.
I doubt it would.
It may be the day after, I think, because on Friday they are supposed to have their final hearing.
He said, we're here for sure by July 4th.
Yeah.
So, I told him to go away, but he has to answer to me by July.
They don't want to announce it before the end of July, early August, which is why, and we can't.
They have all said it's the next day.
I'm beginning to think we ought to announce
Whatever we're going to announce about China before the summit announcement with the Russians is just different from what I used to think, and I'll tell you why.
I'm afraid that if we announce the summit and then on something about the Chinese, they may cancel the summit and admit, obviously, that they're taking the entity.
If we do it matter-of-factly, and we've agreed on the summit, but before it's announced, even if they cancel it, it's less embarrassing
your head looks less sinister if it doesn't look as if he tripped.
So I think we can announce whatever we can announce about China the week of the 19th, that is a week after our trip.
So from the middle of July on, you ought to be able to make an announcement.
And I think we will know it as well as the visitors can drag them in.
Well, I guess it's all wrapped up, isn't it?
their assistance on whether we have a G.E.T.
thing, whether we withdraw our support of G.E.T.
We just can't say what we're going to withdraw, can we?
No, but what I think, I can, frankly, what I will try to work out, subject to the approval, is something that gives them a hell of a lot, short of being totally dishonorable.
Sure.
Limitations on advisors, limitations on future equipments,
And, well, we have to remember that, I guess Johnson's reaction is typical.
Hell, he would have caved if he'd been here.
But now, here he's saying now that he thinks that I have to withdraw faster.
Well, now, you know, that's the key.
The guy doesn't have any guts, I think.
He doesn't know how to get out as fast as he can.
He got us into that hole, and now he's... Yeah, that's right.
Now he's... And everything, everything.
Now, the British are horrified by what's going on.
Yeah.
Well, I must say, I... You might put them off the record.
Well, I met with the editor of the... Oh, yeah, but that is obviously...
Well, at first they had the same view as the Americans, but at the end Roy went around the table and asked them all to speak.
And almost to a mad they said, they now sell the poet.
All of them said it would be nothing if they didn't.
I was at another dinner where there were a lot of black women and freemen.
And they were acting away at you and freemen.
And I was really made a passionate speech.
And he sent his corporate company.
He gave a lunch for me.
Did he?
It was really something.
How's he feeling?
Is he, how's his morale?
They're having a hell of a time right there.
Well, you know, he's like you.
He's great.
He stands like a rock.
He stands like a rock.
Did they mention these pictures?
Oh, yeah, they did.
Because they had some precious domestic food, too.
But the officials ate it, sir.
Oh, they put things out there?
Yeah, they put things out there.
Well, they know that there's no diplomacy that's affecting this secret.
That's right.
Oh, they're very concerned about that.
I think you're right.
It's pretty hard for them to have to do it.
I think after the court turns it down, it'll be bad.
I think it's going, at this time, to destroy the Democratic Party.
Oh, also what it's doing, you see, is that, look, it's killing all three of them.
All three of them, Johnson, are mad at each other.
Well, he's mad at Muskie, and, of course, Kennedy's screwing around with it.
A whole bunch of this, they're having a hell of a time at this, I mean, they're going through hell.
And the word will come out, the word will have our profits about the repression.
But, look, final analysis, the word is getting through.
It will get through eventually, but this was the Johnson administration.
I stressed the point of the British, and I said, well, the President could have just said that back then, sure.
But he is the President of all the people.
In the past, he had to maintain integrity of government, integrity of foreign policy, and also some simple justice to people who can't verify that there is an advisor in Kentucky.
One thing, as Friedman said, this other thing, he got up, he said, most people don't realize this, that this is one of the most moral matters.
He said, wait a minute, he's terribly sad that he doesn't show it.
And he said, he was going to tell people about Kat, he said, well, what about Kat?
He, he lanced at all of it.
And he was really very good at considering it, but he was very slow on it.
You know, that Cali, we had the last of them.
It's gone now.
We've killed them for a while.
Well, we were really in a really wanted position over here.
The only thing I think we have to bear in mind with regard to these clowns, and this is what you have to have in mind, too, is that we may have no trust in the government.
We are now in a position where the Congress is ready to top the appropriations thing and all the rest.
And so the main thing to do is what we have to do.
I mean, I think he'd probably survive anyway.
I think he could survive.
My point is, I don't know.
Oh, sonny, I don't know.
When I say I don't know, I mean, when it comes down to some of the silly things at the Pentagon
and the rest of the program was 73 and 74 Americans were in this room.
And this is all ridiculous.
It's all done.
Mr. President, I have reached the conclusion that this doesn't work.
We ought to get out and draw the bond in less than six or nine months.
I don't think we should let the
I can't do it.
The only thing that this has for us is diversity.
Of course, Bruce says it's international, which relates to the woods and it's possible that... 55,000 men or 45,000 men should be lost because of 400.
I agree.
We're not going to let that go.
I'm just saying, from a political standpoint, we're not going to do it.
Well, that's such a basic, we can get some kind of agreement for, but what this really is, is it's a ceasefire.
It's a, it's a two-word, it's not about three points.
We've got the prisoners, we've got the ceasefire.
I'm going to suggest, if you agree, that the withdrawal deadlines should lie to us and settle for April 1st.
There's a compromise between this and that.
All right, all right.
So that I'm not worried about.
I'd like to get it at April 1st.
I think that's the right date.
December 31st is disaster.
We can't do it that soon.
But they don't expect that.
Well, this is our first offer.
That's right.
So we'll offer it July 1st.
Or August 1st.
Well, that may offer.
But the best way to offer is to say 12 months after settlement.
That puts me down to the settlement.
And if I know six months, I'm going to say nine months after.
and then you get the two key thing.
The two key thing, the only way to handle it, I can think of now, is to dodge it.
I have no use in it.
This thing is negotiated itself.
There's a good chance that you will lose the election.
And this is why I think, and that I think we can live with.
This is what I believe, that they have a fire under them.
That there is a great effort to them to, uh, to settle it, to settle it.
If they are as assured as they should be, which is the election because of that.
You mean because it looks as if we're getting out so soon?
Yes.
That's what he's running for, the fact that we're going to be there.
I was glad about what we can decently tell of and what we decently can do.
And I'm going to have to see whether that's accepted.
Recognizing that we may be forced to cut off anyway, so we're not offering a hell of a lot.
I know, but I think we... Oh, I know you thought, but... Oh, we thought, but I meant...
I meant that you... We are in a place here where the fire is reaching to our tail.
That's why, if they don't go, then we've got to... We've got to carry first ourselves.
But the medical is...
We got this close to a settlement with this goddamned country beyond us.
I mean, not the country.
I mean, that's unreal.
In Viet, I had used Captain right back.
He was over there.
Did you?
Yes.
From London.
Nice.
Oh, you came back from London.
I went from London to Paris.
Paris back to London.
And then from Paris back to London.
Showed up in London in the evenings.
People didn't expect it.
So he talked to you.
How's he?
Well, he's with us, but, you know, he's not one of the most golden men.
Who the hell is?
Who is?
Florida.
Florida's tennis.
Tennis.
Tennis in a way, but he's got the other years.
He's a southerner.
But of course, Mr. President, once we service, whatever we service about China, the reason...
Me, should we say, should I not eat first the Chinese food or the second?
It's better than the Russians.
Third, it would look to eat on the holiday if they don't know about it yet.
Well, of course, there would be talk to kill the libel.
Sure, but that won't show up by the time I'm in Paris on the 12th.
Because I'd have just seen Joe and I the day before.
All right, let us, we'll talk about this tomorrow.
Thursday night, we'll have a chance to talk, maybe.
Let me say, before you go, we must, yes, because I must be sure that I stay within your
I need him here to cover the thing, Mr. President.
There's just too many things that can go up here.
I don't see what he can add to me.
I just thought that he was just a good man wishing to be a bomb and run around.
Ideally, yes, he could have had to be with us.
But I need somebody to cover that here.
And he should always have said it.
Nobody has ever said it.
And it was even more on him than this old man has ever been able to.
He is a man of law, and also he used to use us as security leaks.
I ain't taking a chance.
I just hope you're going to take a lawyer with you.
Yeah, but he's true.
He's all right.
He's all right.
I've tested him now.
We won't have security anyway after we make an announcement of what has been done.
It doesn't make any sense.
Watch out.
We won't have a leak until it's done.
And after the 12th, whatever you announce will override whatever may be.
You mean to leave out Paris on the 12th?
No.
Oh.
If we stick to the suggestion I made that you announce something on the 19th as a result of my mental contacts with the Chinese,
if you don't hear from the russians i think what we announcing the chinese is not to send bruce over to toronto or anybody else i think the thing you analysis that i can google i just said i don't think that the two-step thing goes i just did it like that
I'm going to go to China on that hunt.
There you go.
And let the Russians do what they can.
That's right.
But they may not react that way with the Russians either.
But that will be such a spectacular mountain, Mr. President, that whether anything leaves about what I did or not, it's going to be trivial at that point.
It's your view that when you come to San Clemente, that you will then, that will be the first time that the Calarocas will actually be in a shot line.
Well, you might tell him if I'm going.
Well, I've been on the way to our building.
Well, I would say that you have a message to me, Chinese.
But not to my men.
Well, we've all just prepared a way for that already anyway.
We should know somebody about something.
I'm not sure.
Well, it's going to happen.
It's going to happen.
It's going to happen.
It's going to happen.
It's going to happen.
I mean, he didn't get it at all.
Anyway, I will say, Rogers is the surest man you could tell, for Christ's sakes.
You can't be sure, even though...
Here you go, and bring it to the secretary.
And he tried to figure out how he could use it for some personal publicity.
Well, I thought of bringing it ten times.
Fifteen times, and so on, and nothing had leaked.
He saw it once, and I gave up.
And there were stories for four days in the newspapers about it.
That whole operation,
I couldn't leave.
It was at your house.
No, I don't care about it.
No, that's not what I'm talking about.
That's right.
He's looking for publicity, I agree.
That's why we can't apologize.
And really, Bruce... Bruce said that himself.
Bruce said another problem you had with Rogers, and even I didn't ask him.
I never say anything to anybody against Rogers, except when Steve was with you.
Uh, but Bruce said another problem is that Rogers, before the National Committee, is simply a witness who tends to blow too much.
I have noticed this, frankly.
Tends to what?
Blow too much?
To give away too much, sir.
To give away too much.
Before coming?
Yeah.
Before coming.
You got it out of that.
You would also get up there, and he'd stare down, and Russ, bless his soul, was a trooper.
I think in Mayfair, Mr. President, it's our biggest card.
So it's going to work.
After, if that works in any way at all, after that, your opponents are going to be counted in.
However, if you'll see that it's just, well, the minimum is that you'll announce that certainly the Senate principle, the two announcements that are going to tell the truth,
As a result of my local contacts, the Chinese have invited you in principle.
And when you accept your principle, you prepare the right rules and stuff like that.
That's if... And we won't do that, though.
That's if there's a Soviet summit.
That's right.
If there is a Soviet...
If there is a Soviet summit, we do something like that.
If there's a Chinese... And then you have that announcement to be followed, to be cited by a Soviet announcement.
If there...
Except they won't.
You don't?
Yeah.
I understand.
I understand.
I think this...
But if not, then we should announce the summit.
All right, but... You ought to get a double summit announcement.
One in Princeton and the other with Danny.
With a two-week period.
And that will shut up the domestic critics for a while.
Or you'll announce the teaching summit.
Yeah, more.
You may be approaching more because you may have to get more.
That's my point.
Let's face it.
It may be that we're at that position.
to support you, but Henry, we can't allow our old position of leadership, what you've got to think of, and we've just talked about this before, you've got to imagine Hubert Hunter sitting in that chair, or Teddy Kennedy, how about that, if you can't let that happen, that's all we're doing, it's only one of the three, you know,
unless we do something just as cold as that.
And so what are you gonna do?
We can't, we just can't let it happen.
The trouble with them, and this is the natural deal, we screw around, and our Vietnamese that come tromping into Saigon in August or September of next year, they'll be sitting there anyway.
But on the other hand, the other side of the coin is that if we don't do something, then we're sitting there.
So on one hand, you have the certainty that we're sitting there.
On the other hand, you have the chance
You've got to balance the risk, the risk of what we do with regard to Assault on the McCarthy Enemies toppling the South Vietnam.
And the certainty that South Vietnam will be forcing us without our getting enough, without any aid from us.
Let me put it this way.
If South Vietnam goes down as a result, after we have made the best deal we can have with the McCarthy Enemies to get the prisoners, that's one thing.
We can reach an end to the war and such and such.
On the other hand, some of Vietnam goes down as a result of congressional pressures in our home or other states, cut us off, and then we end up on the bastards, and we open the churches for us.
That's bad, too, isn't it?
Is that your point?
We don't have any good choices, and it's a tough son of a bitch, but... Well, I think if we try to do enough toughness in this round-robin, we may avoid the choice.
No, I...
I couldn't agree...
I agree.
I think we've got to hang up through September.
You're shaking these guys through September.
Yes.
I think we can break it by the end of September, possibly.
If we have the Chinese in Austin, they will know.
I agree.
As I've said, I'm sure they'll have pressure.
They have never yet put a counter-proposal on the table when we had 500,000 troops in there bombing the allies, but they haven't put any other counter-proposal.
He wasn't.
They didn't see it.
They didn't understand it.
Some of these were in England.
They dropped the word on traditional.
They had eight boys or whatever it was.
It was the Chinese, not the Russians.
The Russians.
We got that out.
The Russians didn't pass that on.
They threw that again on the government.
They
No, there's suspiciousness.
They surface something at the third level, which Russia agreed to, but of course they told nobody.
So our third level guy rejected it, but you tried.
So there the third level guy said, but Russia's already agreed to it.
So it's the second time, but I don't get to read this tomorrow.
I'm going to raise an unsure result with that.
They'll let him read Russia's tables so that he knows they're not making it out.
They'll tell us to get these guys out of there.
If we can't get these guys out of the patrol, we'll tell them to get us out of there.
I think, I think we have to, we won't keep going long enough to get them handled and solved.
We have no evidence yet that anything is really in effect.
We may get sold, we may get, we may, we may get this to some extent.
But we're going to get the Chinese.
And we're going to get the, we didn't, we didn't.
We know we're going to get the Chinese.
Right.
But how the hell can they do this house thing?
They're going to have to do that over there with that arrangement.
Well, why don't you tell us their price?
Well, we may not get it.
Their price might be, and we'll do this for about a year, I'll probably work on it too, but we can't agree to that.
Now, let me ask you this.
Let's talk about the Chinese in one second.
We're taking a look.
Let's suppose that we do go on the China thing.
We do.
I would say around December 1st.
Put it out there just before Christmas.
That's the end of time.
It's a long time.
It has to be before the time.
See, I got to go.
I don't know what that does to tend to this.
Okay, well, it'll be enough.
Just a backward look, and then they'll come out.
Okay.
They'll come out.
Word.
But, you see, the problem is that... What the hell comes out of Chinese songs?
What comes out of it?
Oh, man.
Forgive my aggression, but you have something.
Something that just sounds good.
Something.
Actually, Ray, there's even a couple of great... You're going to work the shit out.
The trouble with it, the beauty of the Chinese relationship is that except for Taiwan, we really don't have any clashing interests.
And if it weren't for the communists in China, one would have to say that over a 15-year period, they're less likely to be our enemies than the Japanese.
The Japanese, by the nature of their country, have to expand.
The Chinese, by the nature of their ideology, may want to expand, but they don't want to need any new territory.
Yeah, there's something that we have to remember is that the Chinese are desperately feared in the balance of Asia.
They're feared in Thailand.
They're feared in Burma.
They're feared in Indonesia.
They're feared in the Philippines.
They're feared in the Philippines, but my point is, we've got to realize what our detente with the Chinese does with the balance of creation.
That's why, on the whole, we'd be better off doing Russia first.
I don't believe the Chinese agree to that.
Yeah.
Sure.
I would...
I would resent the... That's what your view is, is that the Russians agree to Assad.
I see your point.
If the Russians, I think...
Suppose the Russians...
Suppose the Russians come in and say, well, we'll just have some in September.
Then what do you want to say to the Chinese?
Do you want to have one?
Do you want to come there in the spring?
Yeah.
And then do the double play there?
Yeah.
Do you do the double play there?
Why do the double play at all?
Well, Jay has to have somebody go there.
Yeah.
And Bruce can play just with low key.
Bruce is one of the few great musicians.
Oh, yes.
I think he screwed up the Middle East.
He said that he's impetuous publicity.
I mean, he has no sense of reality.
It's just not his field.
And this is our last chance to do that right.
You think only of himself.
No, Bruce would go there if it were okay.
Rogers would have been sent to keep him if it were okay.
He wouldn't have had a lot of publicity.
And then you come in there, you're the one that opens it up.
I don't see that it makes any sense to send a fighter.
Do you think that we should have two?
Do you think we would have Bruce?
What I mean is, if you get the Russian summit, do you think that you...
If you don't get the Russian summit, I am convinced that we should have just one shot.
I think it would be good to have two, Mr. President.
So if you'll know what to say when we come up.
I mean, I mean, I mean, our own bureaucracy, Jesus Christ, we're rocking the whole thing.
I say, there's nobody that wants to stand up.
You'll go down the side, I have no idea.
and foreign policy as a very big issue.
I mean, there is a thing our opponents have proposed that we haven't done.
But I think things are even beyond this election.
I had a letter from a half a dozen waiting
I hope that you can deliver this back.
You know, he's always had it up against the day he died.
And he, of course, would have gotten his underpants.
I know they don't want to do that to him as soon as he grows up.
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
And don't ever walk away.
Yes, sir.
You must be tired.
Very tired.
You know, I didn't do it before.