Nixon, Haldeman & Kissinger on Pentagon Papers and China diplomacy

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Some of you know there's not going to be any more of this crap.

And you put it with the bar bucking.

You've got to do that.

It's almost worth doing exactly the same thing in the cavity.

Come on.

in both the foreign policy and the domestic policy points.

These folks don't realize anything.

I don't know how this works.

shot.

I would.

That's the way I play.

I thought that was spectacular.

That was, that was, we can do the same thing in the foreign policy field.

We've got it.

That discipline is what we need.

It won't work.

Oh, yes.

That way it will work.

It will work, son.

Give us a chance to have a police a little bit.

That way it will work.

The police have got a foreign policy paper.

I said, you know, basically what I do.

They cut the wood.

Conley, incidentally in the argument, just feels very strongly, you really gotta take the bark out from him and you oughta talk to John a minute before the argument, just to be sure.

He wants to know how, because you're really putting him on the docket.

He wants to know how far you really intend to go and whether you know how you want him to approach it.

Mark, are you going to continue to squeal around and talk?

Unfortunately, I'm saying that to a lot of people who didn't need to hear it.

I'm going to give one or two or three others who didn't need to hear it, and that will make them all a little bit shy.

Now, listen, also, Tom, get in the way of this crap that you're going to talk to a newspaper man and say something off the record.

Mr. President, it's good for morale to get cracked every once in a while.

Absolutely.

Because when you see permissive, then everyone is worried that his colleague is going to screw him, and then they escalate by each other's suspicions.

Because I think... Oh, you think so?

Oh, yeah.

I saw that the way you walked out.

No discussion.

That's it.

Yeah, I was scared to death you were going to let Connie say something that you won't, you know... And then slide other comments.

I thought it was... Oh, it was one of the great moments.

You know, I said it at the meeting this morning.

with law and a few others, they don't understand it.

They say, how can people do this to the president if they said no British politician, no matter how radical, would ever do what is going on now while negotiations are in progress?

You see, the problem, the thing

You're going to have to move them up to the front.

I'm just going to go on and announce it.

What they're going to do, oppose it?

Yeah, that's right.

Bob, you've got to back us up on this.

I mean, you're right.

You've got to do it.

I'm not going to tell them anymore.

Even that salt thing coming in there.

I mean, like doing that, I don't think we know about that thing.

We are just going to do our best.

We have enough to stomach.

I announce it.

And then let them squeal.

I mean, they say, well, they're whining around, so what do they do for us?

None of them do anything.

Our own people don't get

You get up and announce it, then I'll watch the TV.

7 and 8.

You'll say 11 o'clock Washington time so that they can have a lower count.

11 o'clock Washington time.

That'll be good.

Oh, yeah.

That's good audience time for the summer.

We get a bigger audience in the summertime at 11 than we do at 10 or 9.

Well, it's, uh, that's noon thinking time.

In fact, we ought to get out ahead of time.

You're addressing the nation on a major foreign policy announcement.

So, you know, make some, you've got to build the audience on it in the early newscasts and make sure that you see a lot of major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major, major,

It is.

Well, really?

Yeah.

Well, I didn't say one thing to see the court.

No, but you know, mercy, no.

No, but he's under the recommendation.

The thing is unconstitutional.

Yeah.

Well, we've got to stick to what?

Legally.

And if the court doesn't find that this did any damage, we've got no legal minutes for getting elsewhere.

This is going to go like notice.

Dan Spiegel says you have to damage the United States.

That can find damage.

That's right.

But they do have to find damage.

Yeah.

Damage they have to find.

Well, that's nice of you.

I guess you had no problem showing damage because it was my secret.

I mean...

Or it's Kansas City.

But you know, we've got two leaf sisters there, Harlan and Potter Shaw Stewart.

And they both are second off.

I mean, Stewart's got young kids in there, you know, all whining around.

And Stewart likes the social sense.

He loves the social sense.

He loves to move amongst us.

He loves to be a hero.

And I don't understand.

That's all right.

I wonder if his memorandum stands up and how do you keep the Democrats

They've been let in.

The Senate's going to have trouble avoiding them.

We can start the drumbeat for demanding hearings.

We can get that going.

But the Democrats don't listen to her.

That's why they all want to kill these hearings.

And we start on them.

Why are the Democrats killing the hearings?

Why are they sitting on top of the papers?

And why are they sitting on top of the papers?

Well, I already told you, Bob, that we've got to get out some of the dope ourselves now.

Is that going forward?

I'm going to get out now.

We've got to get out and stop the birds.

We've got to get out of our own social systems.

But, well, hey, Ted.

It's true, you know, I had a banner headline yesterday that Korean War, World War II, was going to be, because they went out.

Hey, Ted, dinner with Califano the other day, and he says that Califano is his son.

Good.

So do you think you have troubles?

We haven't got any conceivable candidates.

That's all that he says.

Yeah, Jackson.

He slipped the left.

He said they want to hold the convention so early that people will forget the riots that will occur there.

In 1968, he was not my supporter.

The majority of the members of the Fed board because of his age.

You see, he's 60.

He isn't your mom.

He's 63, isn't he?

Well, whatever it is, he'll be, he's a 50-year-old.

He's going to be a few old hard times.

He'll stay too long, and you don't want that.

But it's not that he owes the loyalty.

The loyalty, of course, is not to go out and piss us off policies.

And he wasn't among professional economists.

Sir, we raise it right to the top, Lee.

But there's some crackage saying over abroad, to Israel, to Korea.

Where are you going to go?

Japan.

He has to report to the place.

Everybody's got to report it.

Well, at least it'll rotate around a little in the departments.

Oh, I thought it was a tremendous thing.

I really was elated with it.

Oh, you see, the morality of people, Henry, is so gone.

Everybody's really ready for history.

Everybody's ready.

It's just probably either he goes or he finds a guy below him and goes.

And that guy either goes or finds a guy below him and goes.

And eventually you get down to the guy who did.

And that way the system works for you because limited protective society breaks down.

Sure.

Because in three or four months we're going to, in the foreign policy field, we are going to make these people.

Everywhere felt like a cheap asset that while they were knifing you in the back, you were lugging away.

And I said, Mike, everything's in the office.

Now, they are considering it.

I don't know whether they're going to take it or not.

But if they turn it down, I've got to pay the public service on it.

I'm going to have to do it.

And I was going to put the responsibility right on this thing here.

He said, well, you've got to do it.

That's what I'm going to do.

they know there's something going on here.

Well, and after July 15th, they'll know damn well, because if we can pull that one off, and I think now that's 90% done, I just can't believe that they will go through that whole exercise.

But the way they talked to Edward and others, well, no sense.

We'll know in two weeks, two weeks from today, we'll know.

That's right.

We've really got to determine what the hell we do.

And I don't know whether it's good to tell it when you're over there or not.

I'm talking up to you.

I just don't know.

Just in case it blows.

Well, I think those are telling us what you're on.

was to say, you've already implied that he's going to cease

is when Henry gets there, that Henry, to pick up the thing, calls you before he goes across the board and says something in code.

And you said, go ahead.

And he said, go ahead, and then you tell Bill

Don't worry.

I'm not worried.

You just tell him.

You build the story one more step.

Pick up the message.

They wanted him to fly over and meet somebody somewhere.

I don't know where he's going.

He does know where he's going.

But he's going off in an airplane and he would...

I think that's the way to do it.

That I called you and...

I wouldn't even say that.

I know him.

I can say he's there.

He's flying already at the current report message, and he's flying to a destination for it.

But Bill, as you know, I've been talking to for years, a couple of years now about this, and I thought the chances that it's not happening.

Well, but basically, Mr. President, if these things work, it will be enough credit for everyone in the administration.

It doesn't do him any good to horse around with all this publicity stuff if the things don't work.

I know he doesn't look at it that way.

That'll work as the logical next step.

But then when Henry comes back and says, guess who I saw last night?

Yes, it was.

He can't go back in his own mind and say that we were misleading him.

He's been told what is the logical sequence.

And also, he's got to know.

He's got to know.

He's spied his own caravans.

He was careful.

Yeah, but did he learn a great risk himself?

You know, he was afraid.

He will never leave anything that's tossed.

There'll never be another word like that.

We're not going to let anybody have a chance to read about it.

That's the thing I'm telling you.

That's the way it is.

But at that point, if Bill decides that it's too hard for him to stay around, he just won't leave.

I don't know.

Not when there's so much stress.

But it was interesting to me that David Bruce, to whom I said not one word, said, for God's sake, I hope you don't let Rogers go.

He said, don't let Rogers go.

He said, Rogers doesn't know how to handle such a negotiation.

He doesn't know how to protect it before Congress.

And he, and I have never, as partners, never said a critical word about Rogers to anybody.

But Bruce, the thing that excited me was here is an old veteran, 50 years and nearly in diplomacy.

He jumped up and down like a schoolboy.

He knows.

He's a great man.

Oh, yes.

He should go.

He is.

For example, another thing Bruce said to me, you know, he thinks that the negotiation is going to break based on the last conversation.

He said all his instinct tells him.

He'll think it's going to break for sure.

Yeah, but he is very worried that we're going to send some softie in there to do the actual negotiating.

Oh, where he is.

Because, and he really has been great.

He hasn't put the slightest seed on you.

He's never played the game.

He says his staff is driving him crazy for new initiatives.

He said he never passes them on to you.

He thinks he's there to... New initiatives, new initiatives, new initiatives.

That's trouble with the Congress, Bob.

I see that slightly better in person than in person.

And the whole thing is, he's whining because he wants to sit at the high, this level, and tell you how the hell to run the government.

But he does want to give you one.

I owe the best lawyer leader support.

That's right.

I'm going to listen to your answer.

He's badgering around.

It is not true about the condition on this meeting this morning.

You've got something going, and it's the time, it seems to me it's the time to make it go.

I think you ought to do the same thing at the cabinet meeting.

I'm going to take my notes from this meeting and do the same thing at the Senate meeting.

And just say we're putting the same order in here and that this is precisely what we're going to do in the White House.

You see, all of it comes well off the secret papers thing.

And off the fact that you make the economic decision and you're moving on that.

And it gets it away from foreign policy solely.

It doesn't depend on any one individual, but it makes it goddamn clear to all of us.

I think that's a good idea.

I think it should be done without staff.

To the cabin.

Maybe just Bob there.

But that July 16th thing, if it works, I believe that door is going to go right up the wall.

It was very interesting to me.

I mentioned it to Bob.

I asked him whether he listened.

They were amusing.

You know, three years from now, if it were true, they were significant otherwise.

They mean nothing.

But there's always a total half hour where they go upstairs and the Americans stay together.

This time, Lee Ducktoe stayed with us, plus an interpreter.

And Walter sat on the other side of the table with Lee Ducktoe, and I said, Here you come, Mr. Special Advisor.

Now you are splitting our delegation.

which, well, A, they've never had a social hour with us, and B, they've never crossed the table.

So then I said to him, do you go to Peking often?

And he's actually, he said, oh, no, no, I don't go much to Peking.

He said, I stopped there on the way west, but you know that anyway, but usually I have nothing to do with Peking.

In every previous meeting, he said, we are like the lips and the teeth

We're close together.

Peking is behind us.

That second part, I think, is more significant.

But closing the table was somewhat interesting.

Well, if this works, Mr. President, this September 15 thing is academic.

The big incentive these guys have to settle this is the Vietnamese election.

If this negotiation breaks, we'll

And if we get that too by September, sir,

Nixon, Haldeman & Kissinger on Pentagon Papers and China diplomacy

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on June 28, 1971

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