On July 28, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and Henry A. Kissinger met in the Oval Office of the White House from 10:20 am to 11:16 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 549-007 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Do you agree or not?
Yeah, I just need to do anything and not hit it.
Okay.
If the reels were, if there were a way that the reels would be there without being set up so that if we tried, they could have gotten that little bit going on, it would probably be good.
You know, you tried it.
I don't use it now, you know that.
I know.
By God, you tried that, but you couldn't have done better than you did with that, with that same reels.
None of the reels really caught that.
Well, yeah, they did.
Not really, not really like, well, they didn't get as much as, you know, of,
They all use that baton.
Of course, you don't have any that good.
That's my question.
It doesn't make a difference.
We've got another event today.
I think the idea of the one event is, yeah, but that, I mean, I don't think we're going to do as much of an event.
Maybe that doesn't mean much either, but we haven't had much with the Congress lady.
You know, I mean that up there, it could be a good group and so forth.
And hell, let's just go up there and play it.
And that's another thing to be said, too, is that it occurs to me, I don't want those people to be overdoing the plan to be in.
That's exactly right.
And I was saying both of them, either you or the other, that we're doing an awful lot of that, you know, like I said, and I'll do it for you.
I think there's just something to be said for a little bit more of a piece of it to come true.
Do you agree?
Yeah, but I wouldn't... Oh, I wouldn't be getting a lot of that.
I wouldn't let down a piece because they're people that are so solidly religious.
Oh, Christ, Joseph.
This does not matter.
This does not matter.
The whole Legion will know about this.
And it will claim the Legion magazine and all that stuff.
It's just like me with an associate group of association executives or something like that.
You're playing a special interest group.
The Legion is a pretty broad interest group.
Did you check to see about the posts that both of them have?
You have a chance to talk to them.
I have not been to listen to their answers.
And he's back today.
I had to talk with Finch yesterday.
He can't make up his mind.
He can't make up his mind.
He's torn, and I think legitimately.
as to whether it's clear to him that it will do him more good to take the OEP job.
He likes the National Security Council.
He wonders if he makes the point, he said, if I do that, just remember the void that it's creating here.
And the hand-holding that I do do
and that my staff does, the service functions that we provide for a hell of a lot of people who want to come to America, on a political level and all that sort of thing.
And also, my ability to run around.
I said, the problem is you don't run around, you just go to California and you get into the political
mechanism business instead of the public stuff.
If you'd stand on the public stuff, you'd be great.
And he said, that's right.
I want to get out of the mechanism, and I will.
They'll just put someone in charge.
And that's probably why there's a void in California, is his argument.
Because Mitchell won't.
Because he made fire shown or whatever.
And so he's worried about it.
The money and all this.
And he said, you should just stop worrying about it.
And he said, well, maybe I should, but I can't.
And he just
Well, why doesn't he take OEP and still run around?
That's what I do.
He doesn't have to sit over there in that office.
And it gets him a much bigger staff and resources to where he lives.
And he just puts, I put him in OEP, but then put the best, and don't let him take somebody like, you know, I don't know.
He's likely to take somebody like, well, who are the kind of people he usually has as his assistants?
Well, he's got George Grasmuth, who's good.
Grasmuth ran it down.
Actually, Bob's done some pretty good people as assistants.
Yeah.
Alec was working with him.
Totally.
And getting the good assistants.
But I mean, one of them could really make the decisions.
And Bob was... Oh, they got that around the place.
Darrell Kent, that we moved over there, who is the deputy now, is a hell of a young guy.
He's very able, and he's running it now.
We just leave the deputy there.
And Bob likes it.
Bob was my accountant.
I had no problem with him.
He's our guy.
Politically solid.
Former White House staff guy and all that, so.
What can he just say here?
Lou says, I mean, I really do.
Well, he thinks he can and has thoughts around handling youth and volunteers and all that stuff.
And that's a bugger.
You're not handling them now.
He said, I know, but I figuratively am.
He said, who's going to handle all that?
Who's going to figuratively take care of all that?
Well, my answer is that you've got to garner people like that also still here who can figuratively handle it.
Now, he argues, he said his rumso is going to ask me if rumso is going to take the nickel if that rumso is going to come and push me by.
I said, I don't know.
He said, boy, let me argue as strongly as I can that doing that would be just as bad as my taking Mexico.
All you're doing is taking what political properties you have and getting them out of the political arena, which is the last thing you want to do.
I agree.
I agree with all of that.
He said, Rummy wants it.
He'd like to go to NATO.
But he's not sure he's going to be able to go to NATO.
I think we just better talk about it.
So if you're talking about stuff along his lines, we don't want to.
We don't need him in that.
You don't see it.
There are others that can do that job, and there aren't others that can do the job he does.
I saw several of the people last night at that association, and they said that you spoke about Rundfeld really well.
He's a very good star piece.
Thanks.
Well, that's another little thing.
We're going to bounce around and talk about the economy.
He's better than Bob, because he's more upbeat than Bob.
Yeah.
And he's more of a demagogue.
He plays, as you know.
He puts his emotional stuff into what he does.
Now, Bob is pretty low key.
Bob is good.
And very good.
And very clever.
That's right.
But Rummy, I don't know.
He's got to drive magnetism.
Well, he's younger.
And he looks younger.
And he's sort of sexier and all that.
And he's got more sheen than Bob does now.
when he exercised.
I mean, it was just reasonable for the office officer to call.
I said, no.
My thought is still to consider moving Romney into being at the head of the campaign in some way, which I think gives him more of a natural kind of thing.
And Finch, I don't think he will ever try to get him to take the OED.
Yeah, I agree.
It makes more sense.
And do the same thing.
He doesn't have to give up a goddamn thing in the hand.
He's got more strength.
Sure.
But he can be still a youth man.
He can be all the rest, you know what I mean?
He's concerned about another move looking like he's
being pushed around or something that gives the press a chance to play that.
But I think you can counter that.
I'm saying you wanted him on the National Security Council.
You wanted him sitting in this thing.
And because of his knowledge of state government and the OED relations with the states.
Also, it's kind of the way Bob gets around in his background, is he can say, this is a very important in terms of my foreign policy experience.
I'm going to have some experience in foreign policy areas if you could get down on it.
Yeah.
I wonder whether you ever saw the address in the article from Pete King, which he describes as appendicitis.
Oh, yes.
But also, he said, I arrived in South China.
Henry Kissinger of the White House arrived in China on July 9th.
My wife and I arrived in South China the day before just in time.
But when we reached Canton, we were told by our guide that there had been a change in our plans.
We were to remain in the Canton area for two days and proceed by rail to Peking on the evening of the 10th, arriving in the capital in the morning of the 12th.
We demurred and asked to fly to Peking at once, but we were told it was out of the question.
Three days later, precisely 10.30, while I was describing to several foreign ministry officials,
the advantages of interviewing premium jew and every other prominent official the head of the ministry's information service interrupted to say that he had a little news item mr kissinger had been in peaking from july 9th to july 11th he said and it was now being announced and then he goes on like that saying that that's how he got his appendix at that precise moment the first stab of pain
In my delirium, I could see Mr. Kissinger floating across my bedroom ceiling, grinning at me out of the corner of a wooded rickshaw.
Well, that's a very good one.
I was wondering if you were right about that.
He kind of fixed his question.
I think it was very good.
It was funny to get his relief.
Actually, the NBC News reporter last night did tell me
Kennedy and Fulbright and their group have decided not to visit Peking on their trip.
Because of the President's trip, they've decided not to request their visit.
Then in D.C., in their usual dirty practice, as a matter of actual fact, they have had no response from the Chinese on their request.
Except that they've announced now that they aren't going to try to go.
Really good.
I think that scorcher I sent in Las Vegas.
Send it back to the drawing board.
I accept that Prime Minister must understand the extreme importance of separating this from America.
I think it's great that they don't go.
I really, of course, I understand your problem.
But we can't.
I think we can't.
The point is, you see, Bob, what you have to realize, what everybody's got to realize, and I can't say it.
This is a tough, titty, cold business.
They're doing it for their reasons to screw us.
We're doing it for our reasons to screw them.
That's all there is to it.
And that's the thing, that only, frankly, there's only two or three people that really look at it that way.
I mean, I also understand that it's too much, but nevertheless, my point is that if you put yourself in their position, if they conclude that it would be to their interest to beat the hell out of me in the next election, they're going to screw it up.
They might even cancel the visit.
I don't think they'll do that.
But you see what I mean?
It's certainly playing both ways, wouldn't you?
Which is under which you ought to have a little on both horses, rather than just on the nose of one.
Well, if they don't have anyone, then you know damn well that their analysis is that you're going to win.
But I think they're going to, I still think they're going to cover their bets, but they're going to do it after the visit.
I think they may do it before, but not in any way.
But the point is, we're not going to hit it.
Let me just say, and get us through about it, let's just expect it.
Because I know, I frankly think it's a long shot.
Even I thought we should urge it, you know, we should try it.
And it's a long shot to expect that not to play both ways.
We are dealing here with communists, God damn it.
And they know that I am not their friend.
They know that I am not with them, but I know who they are.
They know who I am.
It's a cold, dirty proposition.
They're not having us speak for any other reason.
But if they know they've got a deal, we'll give them four more years.
That's it.
I told you what they said to Atwood.
They said to Atwood.
Well, Atwood was in yesterday, and he had dinner with True and Lie, and somebody made some snotty remark about the president, and he said they're going to settle with Nixon.
Mr. President, I don't know what I told you, but they're building air shelters in Peking, and when I drove through the streets with Marshall, Chen Yi,
He said, you know, we're building these air-raid shelters.
And I said, I hope you're not raising your money against us.
And he said, we're building them against our enemy.
I don't know what he, you know, he didn't say against Russia.
But they are building air-raid shelters all over the Soviet Union.
All over China.
All over China.
And that's the thing we've got going.
You, your, isn't it your, this is your feeling, Henry?
On our part, it started, in my part, I gave all the small armies about $800 million in China and getting them out of the United Nations.
Sure, I like that idea, too.
But my fundamental reason for doing this has to do
with the fact that we have enemy number one, the Soviet Union, and we need to play both enemies.
Goddamn, that's all there is to it.
It's what they all said.
It's what Adenauer says.
It's what I say.
It's what Churchill said.
I mean, it's just having an American president for a change who isn't a goddamn fool.
I just have too many people that have...
You used it as a move against the Soviets.
You never did it for any sentimental reason.
And all the way around the world, that first trip, that gave you well.
I didn't tell the Indian board, let's do another little jackass.
Said, look, we're trying to get along with Bo, because I thought it would please him to think that we were opening up to the Chinese and playing Peace, War, Hope, and all that.
I just got an M.O.
and said, I did it because I knew that he would get it back to the Soviet.
We are playing, we are going to play something we will, we are going to say.
I had a, I had a letter from you signing this one out of it.
Shows again how the editors are.
I don't know whether you read his article, which was actually very laudatory, but there was one sentence in there which said, I was the architect of the policy.
He said what he had written was, I hadn't asked him about it, he said, Nixon conceived and designed the policy, and Kissinger carried it out.
He said his editors changed this one sentence, and he just wanted me to know that
that this was an editorial change that was made in New York.
I think the whole tone of the article is really, you don't know.
No, I see why they did that.
They wanted to create, to throw in a slide point.
Well, you can't read that article and get that impression.
No, you can't.
They just must have killed him to put that thing in the net.
But they just wanted to get a little tiny zinger in, if they could.
I think the whole article couldn't be better, I believe, because...
But I didn't.
I figured that... No, but he called...
He told me.
Let me get to another one.
I mean, you want me to answer?
Sure.
You know, when I did see the article, I knew that I had to pay attention to it, I just thought it was exciting.
But I had known Henry told me immediately afterwards how scrupulously he had gone into this with signing.
I knew that he told him the other things.
Henry's been awfully good about this, you know.
Henry had a hell of a lot to do with it.
I did, excuse me, if that's right, because Henry even had me go to that one.
He said, no, we're going to go to Johnson now.
But nevertheless, after that, he was the architect who got it.
But you see, what timeline Bob was up to was simply to put it in and, well, somebody else thought it up.
And as good as they would have said, Rogers thought it up.
They tried that down on us.
And then, uh, the Honest Kitchener thought it up.
It's the kind of thing that wouldn't be bad to leak down.
Well, could you put a point to the frame?
Could we say that the editorial, the light editorial people were responding?
So don't put it in the back of this letter.
But remember what Stiney said, that his editors were climbing the walls, that a reporter, you know, it was, I don't know, it was a white, white editors were climbing the walls.
Do you think that's good?
Yeah.
My enthusiasm for your mission might seem to have gotten out of hand in describing you as the architect.
My original was very specific in having your name where Nixon's was and Nixon's where yours was, thus making the president, the architect, a midnight editing process brought about the switch.
I'm telling my colleagues that Nixon is the man who put the deal together and ordered the building, and Kissinger is, in technical terms, the man who carried it out.
But in case somebody raises the point with you that it was just a case of mechanical editing.
You think it was mechanical?
No.
I don't eat it, that means I don't eat it.
He wouldn't write me a letter.
He's actually writing me anything at all.
And the art is fine.
I think it is as well as it is used.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
The people who will notice it, Bob will notice it, Roger will yell at himself.
That's right.
Yeah.
Right.
But the average person will not know the whole thing.
And the impression of the article is exactly what you wanted it to be.
I think the impression is that we were...
I just told Bob, you know, I said, I knew that you couldn't do a better job than put in this whole man thing.
As a matter of fact, the hell, the historical men would have threatened us.
going to be pretty good, as far as you're concerned.
But my point is, my point is that you understand the game that so many of our other people do not understand, that none of this stuff is affecting the flesh of the present.
And that's what you've done throughout, to your great credit.
But the point is, the time when this bears out, Henry, what Seide told you in the first instance is where he said his editors were angry about it, right?
Well, they should really give you credit for even more than whatever sessions we had
What they don't give you credit for is the enormous courage in doing it with just one man.
There is no other president that I have ever known.
But they have made that.
They are giving you credit.
They said where other presidents would have called in 100 advisers.
But the only point is, you have to be smart enough to say, geez, that was the greatest thing.
Well, we've got it.
The New York Post, which is not one of your most admiring newspapers, had a whole page on Saturday
along the same line, society, with how you worked with me.
Oh, really did it?
Yeah, you asked Kippekart to send it in to you, and a whole page, in fact, it went further, that how you went over everything and wrote it, and so, and I think that helps to build the image in a way that it's much harder.
Fulbright called me this morning,
And he said to Judge Boyd, we don't understand, he had to go through the motions yesterday.
Could I come to his house for drinks on Monday with a few members of his committee?
So he's backing way down.
They're going through the, they're going through this waltz now, no, about each chapter here in China yesterday on the basis that
They're going through their hearings about the president has become king and got a car.
I've got to do it.
I've offered it to him so often now that if we don't do it now, you know what I'm saying?
He said the president's trying to think through once more that everything's gotten out of hand.
The presidents are running off with their secret advisors.
And then he's shaking all over Henry on the, you know, that he has no objection to Henry Kissinger.
He's probably a very brilliant man and all that.
But the senator...
Because it's terrible that he's got a staff of 54 professionals and 144 total, and they all operate without being answerable to the Congress.
I think that's terrible timing.
Yeah, but he, I, as long as he pisses on me with China, that's, he do it himself.
I think that's right.
So I don't, somebody must have given him aloe.
He wouldn't have called this morning.
No, he probably figured it out himself.
He's not done.
But he's got, he's still going to, they're launching an attack on the president.
They've got a war of ours beyond China.
That's the one.
Atchison is launching, is giving testimony today.
And he's really zinging into it.
Yeah, I'd love to see the transcript of that.
He showed me his statement.
He says every liberal in the country of Joe McCarthy had said half of what they're now saying at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Every liberal in the country would be up in arms, and he doesn't understand.
Oh, it's wild.
It's right.
And he said, what did he say?
The Democratic Party now is as united as the King of Monaco's first big party.
That's a pretty good line.
I don't know if you'll understand it.
I don't know, but on this war power thing, isn't this a time to get some of our people in there, some of the Republicans now, Bob?
Should they make a hell of a fight on it?
Well, they should.
I don't know if you're going to get anybody.
Well, they're not going to report it out before September, I think.
Because they're the congressman first.
The fewer waves we can make right now with these guys.
I guess it didn't work.
For Christ's sakes though, why were Republican senators sitting in there?
I said, well, he's giving an attack on the president of the Chinese nation.
Now, please do this.
Tell Colson I want somebody to attack Fulbright for attacking the president.
That's the way to do that.
They gave Fulbright a place for his person, didn't they?
Not much.
No, they didn't attack him.
It was.
I didn't see it as it was exposed at all.
No.
In the New York Times, it's on page 14.
Did you see that column by John Roach today, Bob?
John Roach?
He has a... Yeah.
He describes a book which a researcher at Brandeis said who analyzed the tapes of every news broadcast since 1967 or so.
And he said it comes to some shocking conclusions about the unfairness of it.
Oh, yeah.
Well, he's got...
That book, I know about it.
And we've had it from Brandeis.
Yeah, but it's a scholarly analysis of how they planned the news on the brush.
In the 68 campaign.
Oh.
But from 68 on.
Well, they got things by Ross.
No, they got it against, well, they covered it up against various things.
It was against you.
It was against Wallace.
And I haven't seen the book.
I don't think it's out yet.
No, it's out in September.
Yeah.
But if we could get it in time.
That is the, it's worth getting out.
It's a good idea.
I think it's a, I think it's very, very, very interesting.
So I do write this note to you.
I must say, I'm an honest reporter.
It must be damned.
Henry Hubbard was in, I mean, I wasn't in, I ran into him in the hallway while he was trying to see Ziegler.
He said he just wanted me to say, no, he's ashamed of what Newsweek wrote about China policy.
It wasn't so bad.
They just pointed out some of the problems that were ahead.
It was less than enthusiastic, but
It wasn't so bad in cooling things a bit.
Actually that helps us a bit because it cools down.
You don't want to make this look like it's easy.
And you don't want an over anticipation of results before you go.
If they wanted you
Because, incidentally, our analysts now are, these incidents that several share in it now, that, for instance, the Kennedy thing, you know, the reason that Kennedy praised you so strongly is that their plan now is going to be to move steadily to build up the China trip and shift in the period shortly before to building up monumental expectations so that they can then
try to sink you on the basis that you didn't get anything done.
In other words, they'll start putting out the line that the president will normalize relations and will recognize China and have an ambassador and everything, war will be over and peace will be under...
So some of the sit-pro stuff, though, is not... Well, let me go to this.
That's one of them.
I don't think it was something, but don't disabuse them on this.
They don't know what the hell is going on.
I don't know what they think this was talking about for $17.
Under the name of God, we wouldn't have agreed to go unless we were going to have some things come up.
As far as news on this, there's no problem there.
We're just going to have this communicated or assaulted.
It's still the same old political show game.
You don't want it to stay ahead of time.
You're going to have a crowd of 100,000, because then when you only have 90,000, I'd say the crowd fell short of expectations.
You'll either have a million or none.
You know, they'll either turn out a...
I'm not talking about the crowd.
I'm talking about...
But the Chinese, I'm convinced, would not have you there in order to have you leave with a failure.
As their man said the other day when he was briefing his own country, Mr. Nixon will not arrive with empty hands and he will not leave with empty hands.
Look, the Bain, the Biden, the Biden, the Hartnell, what they say publicly, that's all crap.
What is involved, and this is private, we have made this deal on a code-top basis.
We get something, they get something.
Now that's what there is, but there is not going to be any problem about expectations.
It's going to be, I mean, they can build the expectations all they want, but there's going to be something out of this.
And of course, as far as the war is concerned, that isn't going to come out for an obvious reason, because we're going to have done that beforehand.
If we go in March, it's easy, because then
We'll be well on the announcement.
We're going to make the announcement right after the election.
The only thing left could be possibly the Marines.
In any event, we have to take the long road.
Right.
Right.
So we'll know on the 16th of August.
We'll know exactly then, because we'll know whether there's an negotiation or not.
But on the other hand, Bob, our people should not, should not, you see, the trouble is, the difficulty with virtually all of our people is that we have two problems.
One, we've got to knock down the speculation.
On the other hand,
As somebody once said, whenever we do anything well, they say, the republicans spend more and enjoy it less.
We do something very well and then all the republicans, all of our people, or so many of them, begin to say, Jesus Christ, this and that, we better not say too much, we better be very cautious, we better not praise the president on the same line, this and so forth and so on.
And there you lose both ways, I can assure you.
You just lose both ways.
The thing to take it when you can.
That's why we're enthusiastic.
That's why these jackasses in the leadership are so disciplined.
You should be enthusiastic about things.
Because really, you're going to get a couple of bounces out of this ball.
And most of it is...
is in this area, I'm not concerned about this thing being filled up too much.
Because I don't, because as far as the concrete thing, it's either going to go, we're either not going to take it, which I don't think is ever going to happen, I don't think it's going to happen, or it's going to be a substantial matter.
We're not going there to talk about how nice the wall of Beijing is.
Mr. President, after my visit, the only trouble is some of the things we'll talk about we can't put in a communique still.
After my trip in October, you and I will know what the communique will say, and no one else will.
And therefore, we can steer the press exactly where we want it.
And we can predict exactly what's going to come out.
Because you're not going to set foot there without having the whole agenda worked out.
and the outlines of the communiqués.
But that's what I mean.
Since the President and I don't know what the communiqués will say, we can... ...and show a little spark.
Well, this is going to be the one summit we've had that we knew ahead of time was going to come out.
Some are, and some aren't.
Most aren't.
But they do it much more externally than they do.
They do it live.
Mark again this morning on this whole thing.
What about it this morning?
I don't know.
Some days.
We were talking about it again.
I forgot what the...
He said that, you know...
All we ever hear is how the White House can get along better with the Congress.
When is the goddamn Congress going to worry about how we can get along better with the White House?
It's regardless of anything, you're absolutely right.
The people in this country, whether they think the Congress is better or president, they'll tell you they're president.
Nobody will tell you that Congress is.
Hardly.
It's never been a period when Congress is president.
And for good reason.
It's never been a period when it hasn't deserved it.
It's doing a damn thing.
It hasn't been bipartisan.
And it's full-blown resolution.
I mean, Ransfield's
Do you think?
I don't know.
I don't know what the...
But anyway, what happened?
But he said, well, the thing you've got to realize is that they do, the leaders, that they have a responsibility to come in here and tell us all about it, tell us what the problems are.
And he said they don't do that externally.
They're damn good at it.
When they are out talking to constituents, they're in the public, taking all their...
Hedling the positive line and all that.
That's partly true.
It can't be completely true, because the bastards basically think negatively.
The Republican Party has a special problem here.
They've been out of power so long, and they've never had a really Republican president.
They're not used to it.
We're still out of power in Congress.
We're out of our Congress.
When we were in power, I remember when we had the Congress.
in the Eisenhardt first two years.
Jesus was miserable.
And he was a terrible man.
And he was a terrible man.
And he was a terrible man.
And he was a terrible man.
One thing, incidentally, that the Peking trip did for you is to shape up your cabinet.
I think your office has to be more cooperative than any previous period.
I had breakfast with Laird.
I moaned last, but still it's good while it's lasting.
I had breakfast with Laird this morning, and he, you know, he's crooked, but he said something, which on this I do take it seriously.
He said he considers your reelection now, certainly, which he's never said to me before.
He said you
about your cabinet for 72.
He said that's the one slight weakness.
What he would like to do is to talk to you about where he can place defense contracts to help you in 72.
And he said that Schultz keeps telling him there's no way to handle defense, he says, the hell with Schultz.
And that isn't true.
Now, there's some of it isn't.
We're supposed to find just the other one.
But we don't know.
We aren't sure.
I could still say this.
I could still say this.
We are not sure about why a murderer has had his orders.
But God damn it, George is...
When after our meeting the other day, when I told him with torpedo that family assistance in the wheel, George was trying to find reasons to...
I mean, he's basically liberal, and I understand that.
He said, but he thinks it would be a bluster that he'll put $300,000 out of work, and I checked with him, and he said he doesn't think that's true.
No, well, you know what I mean?
There are other agencies in Asia that screw it up.
My point is that you could, we, let's face it, Henry and I are in a very different position.
We're both hardliners.
And he, and here's where our, our experience is different.
He has been a hardliner, however, who's been intelligent enough, and because of his background, has associated with all of the others, and is considered respectable among them.
You've never had that choice?
No, hell no.
I didn't have anything to do with it.
But you've never had the choice.
You started with his, and then cooked yours.
I had no communication with that group.
Now, the point of that, as you know, is that
The whole China puts them off.
And I say, well, they say, well, now with these soldiers, they're making this breakthrough with peace and all that, and that proves that they, the two with the soft-headed, mushy-headed liberals, are right.
That's the line I'm in.
And sort of the line, well, Nixon is, he's honestly going to rationalize his former attacks on the communists, on communism with this.
And the point is, I haven't changed one goddamn bit.
Neither do you.
I mean, if they think this trip is going to change the attitude of the communist leaders toward us, that's why none of them are fit to be in this chair.
Jesus Christ.
That's the only reason that we're going along with anybody.
They're just food themselves.
In fact, I think we should slightly, just a tiny shade, toughen towards Pete.
And that they can't dictate our policy.
Well, I, for example, don't think I should send any messages through their channel now for two or three weeks.
Let them make the next move.
You know, we haven't got anything to say to them anyway.
until we are ready to make some decisions.
Make a little move towards Japan where we can.
Goddamn David Kennedy, you know, I'm beginning to wonder about him.
He got into a terrible fight with Sandoz yesterday on textiles.
And he got so carried away, he said, well, if that's your attitude, we'll cancel the September meeting.
Which he wasn't authorized to say.
So I called the Japanese ambassador and I said, listen, Texas, turn us all into tigers.
Well, the Japanese ambassador goes out to dinner for Christmas.
Well, yeah, but I wanted to make sure that they didn't construe that as canceling the dinner.
We don't want to undercut the Japanese ability to go eat or something.
The goddamn Japanese have got to come around here.
They've got to come around.
We've got this balance of payments problem.
They don't know how to get the rest of it.
It's going to put it to us.
If we leave out there, we're going to have to do tough things in the world.
You have no doubt it's going to leave.
But we don't want the chaps stampeding George Peking before we've been there.
And I think we need the chaps.
If we can keep the chaps on our side and sort of have threatening the Chinese, they're going to tremble.
I mean, that's the game.
That's where we can scare the Chinese.
And I quite cold-bloodedly look at the Japs as an asset on our side, as long as we need them.
In this respect, the last speech was actually quite an asset to us.
I think we ought to renew that invitation to them.
It's going the other way now.
They've turned it down.
No, they made a huge fuss out of it, saying they want us to invite him.
I'd invite him.
Saddam's put out or something.
The emperor?
Yeah, somebody's put out to invite him.
Who's ever gone to the table and asked the public press and said that they want the president to invite the emperor to visit?
And we're going to have to answer that.
We ought to answer it quickly.
Well, we did invite him at the end of his European.
We said after his trip to Europe, he should come here.
He turned that down.
So what we'd have to do is renew the invitation.
I think it'd be a good thing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
By all means.
Well, then Ron ought to say right away, yes, we...
I told him that yesterday.
Well, he said we'd welcome a visit, but that there'd been no official thing or something, you know, which is... Well, how many do you want?
What do you want to do?
Do you want to get us a visit?
I think we should...
I should call Alex Johnson and tell him to tell Lucia about it.
Yeah.
If the emperor wants to come at the end of his European visit, we'd be honored to have him.
Right.
The other thing that we're getting in on is the Gigi question.
But what's the situation there?
Do you mean he's not coming or is?
I hope it's okay.
He is coming, but we haven't announced that we're meeting.
Of course I should meet.
Yes, he's available.
Just announce it.
He's free.
Okay.
That's the sort of thing, yes.
Absolutely, that's true.
That's the sort of thing.
Everybody's got it all balanced.
That's right.
Hell yes, of course, they'll put it out.
Don't fart around with these people around here, you know.
This is one thing about where you're, the people that are, I'm worried about the Japanese domestic, their competition, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
We're fighting for higher stakes.
Crack it, we're going to go to Beijing, we're going to say, see the point?
Yeah, so I know that.
And it's helpful in, if we're ever going to turn the champs loose, they ought to pay us a bigger price.
then be nice to me for two days in inviting the president.
I mean, for that, they really have to be a huge threat.
And until then, we ought to keep the Japs as a threat against them.
Yeah, so, of course, I'm going to say they should put that out.
And the next way I want to see it, we will, if I said, make this.
Yeah.
You just tell Alex, you know, I think he should come.
Actually, he had me at dinner.
I was there around 5.53.
Yeah.
And, uh... No, I think, uh, I think we can have that trip take months in advance, and we can get way ahead of whatever.
You know, if they go too far, they'll be the softheads.
Again, and we can guide the press exactly so that a little more comes out than we predicted.
Let me tell you, if you come over, if you come over, it's just very little that can come out of one of these damn things.
The very fact of doing it, the fact of it,
I think we can get a renunciation of force declaration out of them.
The relationship we now come into is a renunciation of force.
We can get probably an accidental war agreement out of it and some other crap about cultural exchange.
Release the four Americans.
Release the four Americans.
Well, that would be a great agreement we can get before we die.
I think that may happen.
Yeah, of course it can.
Bob, I am convinced of this, but don't, like I said, don't let our people sound down at the mouth and depress you on this trip, on this.
You know what I've got to come here to do?
I'm sure he's having his problems with Mrs. Titty Point.
Have you seen her?
No.
Go ahead, I'll finish and see.
And he also is doing one of the, he's in one of the sections, his usual, you know, main for the president and so forth.
I think that he is one that you, if he calls, you ought to see, main for the book and so forth.
You know him?
Oh, yeah, I know him quite well.
Sir?
Of course, the one big hold we have over the press now is that they all want to go, and they all think we can keep them from going, and they're damn right.
You're goddamn right.
Shall I get more letters from press guys saying, just keep me in mind when you're going?
I think when I go in October I shouldn't take any press.
I don't want to take any press.
I think that's a great idea.
You'll get a hell of a lot more press out of it by now.
I don't want any.
No, we'll get more out of it.
Just let us keep the mystery man.
Actually, I'm convinced, too, that this is Alderman's thesis.
Once we announced, whatever we did to Vietnam, all these secret visits to Paris, it was going to be a hell of a thing.
The other thing is, and on that, the only problem we've got, believe me, the only problem we've got, Henry and his whole content thing, is...
Mr. President, I have thought about it a lot on the withdrawal if you have to go unilateral.
I know everybody tells you you've got to have them all out by May 1st.
I happen to think that's wrong.
I think if you go down to 40,000 by May 1st and then reduce the rest of them so that by election they're all or practically all out,
Who the hell is going to run on a campaign when there are no casualties, when you've gone down from 550,000 to 10?
Well, the point is, provided, unless we can get the prisoners.
Yeah, but you then have the 40,000 to trade against the prisoners.
No, but my point is, that's exactly it.
My point is, if after the election we can make a straight deal for a prisoner, then I will make it.
Oh, yes, but that's my recommendation to you.
Exactly.
But I don't make the deal, and I don't think you can say we'll make a deal with prisoners if we're going to get off at the end of 72.
I would rather not do that and have those guys sit over there and have those gunmen staying at homes not every year.
Oh, no.
I'd make the deal and say, all right, we'll get out of it.
True, true.
Oh, yeah.
But I'm believing that the prisoners...
But for that, the more of a threat we have, that we'll keep some in there unless they release the prisoners.
I'm making a study of what the absolute minimum is we have to have there to keep the thing from collapsing.
Totally in 72, and that's just a few thousand.
And I think we can... Of course, that's the risk that we take in turn.
If they pick us up on this side of things,
Because if we, if we're all out of there within nine months after we have an agreement, that means May or June.
Yeah, but I told them we'd keep a few thousand.
I told them we'll keep 10,000 there for logistics.
I just did it so that I'd have something to give away next time.
I have found one thing with them, that is, you're right.
You're right.
Every, I've sold them something two or three times already.
and always make some exorbitant demand.
That's how they operate.
Sure.
The state would say it's non-negotiable, sure.
Sure.
It also enables Lee Docktoe to report back that he made me yield on something.
Sure.
So then if I go down to a thousand or two in June and have them get out over the next year, that's not a key point.
I'll let them bargain down on that and take it from the political one.
Actually, what we've offered them, the funny thing is, we've offered them something which gives men a chance to win in many ways.
It wouldn't be a bad outcome for us.
As long as we...
But at any rate, if they're worried about you, this gives men a chance.
You may not make it.
On the other hand, it may disintegrate their categories completely.
So a settlement has a hell of an impact for both sides.
They may take it on August 16th.
I think it's really 50-50.
They are absolutely dying.
And if Abrams hadn't screwed up laws, we would have been settled now.
This is what kills me.
Because if they weren't hurting...
they wouldn't have gone as far as they did.
The whole tone of these meetings, you wouldn't believe, given our domestic, if you think about domestic situations, if you read the verbatim, which is boring because it keeps repeating the same thing, I'm on the offensive, and these guys are, they just aren't as cocky as they used to be.
The one thing about the China thing, Henry, it's certain, it's certain you've jerked the rug out on them all domestically.
But it's taken one of the biggest cuts away from them.
I don't care how much speaking or you're suing them.
The fact is that they haven't been able to get a good attack started on us.
Over here in this country.
No, but who gives a damn about Madame Bitt's seven points?
By the time they start in on that again, it'll be all snooze.
And now we're getting close to a position where it might have been closer, seven points.
We'll say, but Li-Tak-Chou told Kissinger the nine points are the important ones.
To forget about the seven points.
So why should we reply to something that the North Vietnamese told us isn't important?
I think we've got them in the public relations battle.
But if one looks ahead, by October, we'll announce another trip to China.
That'll keep the news going for three weeks before and after.
Do you see what all of this point was raised?
And let me say, it's really a compulsion from the standpoint, frankly, of Henry of Art,
Our supporters.
I mean, we didn't crisis.
We didn't do it.
We could end the Godhead war, and they'd still say Jesus isn't a terrible, but it wasn't ended in a different way.
I knew it, but you see there, of course this thing isn't the millennium.
But my own view is that our people shouldn't piss on it.
But you agree with the president.
I mean, they are, they say that, you know, like, that, like, the, and his, I mean, he kind of was reflecting the views of others, not just himself.
This is my story.
You go down the line.
Sure.
It was, it was, there's a, there's a problem that we're getting sucked in.
You know, as you said, this is a massive problem.
They're there, they can pull the rug out from under the fetus and all that sort of thing.
Sure.
Sure.
But on the other hand, for a period of time, we buy some time on some other problems.
We buy time and they can never again start at full scale an attack because they don't know what else we're doing.
But my point is, I don't want us to appear defensive.
And I don't think we have to, I don't think we should be euphoric in saying all these things should come out of this meeting.
We don't do that.
But I don't think, frankly, many people are saying that.
Do you see that?
I don't see that sort of thing.
I think the news, and well, I mean, Bob's point is that the, which are Republicans, or as a large staff people apparently do,
that, well, we're getting set up by our opposition that Kennedy and others are making big claims about how great it is so that they can knock us down if it fails.
God damn it, that is just not in the cards.
First of all, Mr. President, no one knows what exactly Kennedy is predicting.
Secondly, it's not going to fail.
So what are they going to do, compare what you achieved, which was beyond what they imagined,
as against what Kennedy said you should have achieved.
If he goes too far, it helps us with the right.
So I know, and you know, the true in line knows that there can't be a recognition coming out of that meeting.
The only way we can get recognition is if we sell out Taiwan.
If you sell out Taiwan, you're going to pay a fantastic price.
But you could have talks to him at different levels.
Oh, yes.
That's what you have come out, sort of an implied... What you should have come out is something like the Vatican arrangements.
I don't relate with, I normalize your point of that, that it proves as what ever...
It's very less important.
Oh, we can do so many things with that.
And that's made you lose recognition.
He wanted special envoy to work on the problems and so forth and so on.
And to pay periodic visits.
By that time, Vietnam will be either settled or so close to settlement that they can accept groups.
That's it.
I'm turning it over to the employee.
OK.