Nixon, Kissinger & Shultz on People's Republic of China and Taiwan

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Oh, I mean, I... Oh, you want to look at the announcement?

No, not necessarily.

I could get it right away if you wanted.

You know, it's basically not a winner, because Peking is going to complain, but we've got Formosa, we've taken every suggestion that Taipei made.

So they ought to be feeling pretty good.

They don't like the basic decision, but they made two or three suggestions, all of which we took.

Bill, I must say to his credit, Martha Green had written one of those sons of bitches again.

that made it sound as if they did two separate things.

One, they made it sound like a moral good for the Communist China to get into the UN.

It almost sounded as if we wanted it.

And then he had drafted a letter for you to Chiang Kai-shek, which would have let you carry the whole brunt.

You know, saying how much you lost for Moses, or we would have lost both ways if Taipei had published it, Peking would have streamed.

So what we did is we went...

But he's basically totally out of tune with us, Mr. President.

That's his problem.

Well, I mean, he's both, but all sides.

He was against the China initiative a year, two years ago.

Because these guys are all clients of...

of their countries.

But at any rate, we dropped your letter to Chiang Kai-shek that could only do Trump make trouble, and we substituted for it an aid memoir by Rogers.

On the other hand, we toned down this statement, which is a hell of a lot more useful to Taipei.

It's no good to them to get a private letter from you that's reassuring and a public statement that cuts them up.

What we've got now is a public statement which they don't like the policy, but they've pretty well accepted it.

We've taken out all the invidious comments.

We've put it entirely on the basis our vote count shows that if we don't do anything, Communist China will get in and Taiwan will be expelled.

This is the best position to keep Taiwan in the U.N.

And therefore, we are going along, and on the Security Council, instead of saying we want them in the Security Council, which is what Marshall Green wanted, what we are saying is we will have our vote there determined by the majority.

We will not... We can't veto it, which is really...

simply stating the facts.

And Formosa and Taipei, they don't want to say that they agree to it.

But they have told us that if we put it, we first said we will abide by it.

They didn't like that, so we just dropped it.

And we're in pretty good shape with them.

How about Peking?

Peking has a screen.

And I told them what we were going to do.

Joe and Lai said, we won't accept it.

I hope there's a minimum of rhetoric.

And he said, yes.

But I'm getting a little worried in general.

These guys may think they've got us by the balls.

They're stepping up there.

Well, it's hard to tell whether they're stepping up their propaganda or whether our president is now reporting every scrap of comment that they have always made.

Well, when you talk about this, you don't mean it differently.

Are you suggesting that we shouldn't, that we should even, we should lean more in that direction in this announcement?

No, I think, in fact, we ought to show our teeth to them a little bit.

I think it's all right to let them scream at us.

Oh, no, I think it's good.

I think it's good.

They won't call off the trip.

They're not doing it to do us a favor.

And luckily the Democrats aren't playing them right.

You know, the idea that the trip was a favorite of us, that it's all unilateral, of course, is something that is being, that is widely thought out here.

But hell, what a lot of, apparently, people don't, of people do not know, which is, you know, they were the ones that initiated the idea of coming, you know.

Of course, I said I'd like to come, but I didn't mean.

You said it in April, Mr. President.

Together with Trisha's honeymoon and all that sort of thing.

But it was all that week, and then they moved on this themselves.

They, in Warsaw, a year and a half ago, suggested sending a special envoy.

They resurrected the idea last December.

Then in April, they sent you the message, and only after that,

Did you start picking it up?

After they had said that?

After they had said that.

Yeah, so they sent the message before?

Yeah.

The other thing I was going to say is that I noticed, did you see Reston's piece in the news something this morning?

Maybe you didn't see, maybe it was yesterday or...

Reston says the leaders of the People's Liberation Army in China will settle for nothing less than a cross-control formation, including Korea and Thailand.

Well, settle for nothing less than complete nothing.

This is their program.

No, as a matter of fact, he just talked to the usual Chinese people over there that are always saying the same thing.

Zhou Enlai said to me, this is what we want.

I said, we don't accept any condition.

And you realize that this can't happen.

He said, this is our program.

We realize it doesn't happen.

He said what?

He said he realized this won't happen.

There are no conditions.

That's the point.

You ought to hit this in your press conference this week if you are still thinking of giving it to the president.

I would recommend that you say there were no deals made and no conditions accepted by either side.

But I think that's a very important thing to get across.

But I think when I go over there in October, I ought to play a pretty tough game and get to communicate that we don't want you there having them hold you up.

And I think we can get that done.

I'm pretty confident.

Lee Duck Toad stopped off in Peking on Saturday on the way back to Hanoi.

And he's now back in Hanoi.

Well, two weeks from today I'll meet him.

Let me say, let me get it back in just a minute.

If he comes back, then they'll have a counterproposal.

If he doesn't come back, then they're going to break it up.

Well, they did break it all down, didn't they?

get busy and do a little, I don't want to get our plans, but I think we've got to let more come up with some of that.

We've got to whack a few times a day.

Hit those passes.

And north of the DMZ.

Just let them handle it.

We can get away with that.

I can do it all at once.

I just keep nibbling away.

Just let the

and hit it one after another, you know.

Just get a good plan.

I don't think that they're going to get off.

I was going to come back to this on what you were talking about there.

Of course, the press, as you have to understand, they have got to do everything that they can to knock this down.

They can see the enormous implications of it.

And the press is also basically pro-Soviet.

That was against the Chinese.

They're also anti-Nixon.

They would rather see Nixon fail than even peace succeed.

Now, you get a fellow that is in a different position, who is not involved in our politics, is a fellow like Henry Brandon.

Brandon honestly wants to see us succeed in the world.

He doesn't care that much about American politics, but as distinguished from him, a resident would want to see us fail rather than succeed.

Would you not agree with that?

Absolutely.

This thought, it kills the liberals, Mr. President.

whom they've hated for 20 years, is doing the things they wouldn't have had the guts to think of.

That's true of Vietnam.

That's true of this.

And my...

It's true of Salt River.

My instinct is, I've read, for example, Li Duc Tho's conversations with Shuman just before he left.

There's two interesting things.

First, they don't tell the French that they're meeting with me.

Which, if they wanted to make propaganda,

would be helpful to them.

Second, they're very defensive.

They sort of say, yes, if we have to, we'll continue fighting, but we want to end this summer.

And they say to the French, too, that there's only one issue left, and that's two.

Now that, of course, is, as you've often said, it's the biggest issue, but they no longer say coalition, government, national concord, anything like that.

Well, we'll have to see.

We'll know.

But getting back to the Chinese side.

and then they will snap back.

I suppose that they'll simply say, this is not satisfactory here.

Or they will trip.

And they'll play games hard.

Some of our people here don't think of these games as impressing or anything like that, because they take it on as jeopardizing the trip.

But I think that's just as well.

I don't bother.

It doesn't bother me.

The only question is what happened.

It's not all speculation.

Now, we have a record, Mr. President.

I told them in precise detail what we were going to do.

Sure, I said it is going to be more embarrassing for you than for us.

That may be true.

But I said this is not going to be our position, he said.

Well, you're not so bad.

We are not badly off, he said, speaking of himself, because we don't have to talk to the press for six months if we don't want to.

But how are you going to explain it to the press?

And I said, well, he said, well, we'll oppose it.

I said, with low rhetoric, he said.

Yes.

Because I don't know what he considers low rhetoric.

Won't jeopardize the press.

You get a call from Graham today, Billy Graham, and his father-in-law.

and very close to Howard Pugh.

Howard Pugh is the subsidized most conservative.

He interested me enough.

His father-in-law supports this trip.

We invite many of the old China missionaries and so forth.

I told Grant if he could get together a list.

He said he would get it together.

He called 15 or 20 top conservatives.

the Jew would give them a briefing.

Now, this will be balls like that.

A grand insult should come.

And these will be the strong, they won't be only religious matters, they'll be conservative.

And that'll be a good idea.

I would add to whatever list he gets, I would put Hobart Lewis in it, because he's always more

He's a conservative writer.

Although he's written, like, pretty well at that.

That's right.

But I mean, it's always well to have a conservative shelter, whatever we want.

I wondered if Bill White was included in your meeting the other day with a conservative columnist.

I think so.

Did he come?

I don't remember, no.

I want him to get some special attention.

He's been, you know, he basically broke Johnson, but he's been all out for us on all the tough issues.

And if he would find it possible sometime this week to talk to him individually, we could.

Here's the line.

His line, I know, is going to come up in a couple of days.

is the one that the conservatives pick up generally, and it's Bill Buckley's line, too.

You think you'll see Buckley this week, maybe?

No.

We'll be back this week.

Yeah, but it's a great... Well, anyway... Next week, end of next week.

Anyway, the line that they pick up is, of course, a rather silly line in a sense.

It's the line that... And it will be stepped up in a sense.

The line that they pick up is in regard to the...

In regard to the situation...

It is that we are going in and getting nothing.

They are getting everything.

You know what I mean?

You see, that, well, of course,

And, of course, the moment this comes out, they'll say, ah, this is a payoff.

You know, that's the moment the Taiwan thing comes out.

They'll say this is a payoff.

Yeah, but when taking screens, they'll recognize that it came.

And taking those screens... Well, anyway... You see, taking their line would get China in, would get...

If we take the hard line,

The only reason I was leaning towards the hard line at one point was cynical, because that would get the issue over with once and for all.

That's right.

It would get Taiwan expelled.

It would get Communist China in.

But if you want to do what's attainable, what we're doing now is the hardest line possible.

Yeah.

Well, anyway, I think that in your conversations with these people, without telling them anything,

The idea, first, there were no conditions, but second, I think the conservatives can be told, and I think it's a way to go, look, you people are essential to the future of this country and its foreign policy, but don't destroy the man who's fought this battle alone.

But I know it's not good.

and who's fighting now for, for example, Buckley says the president would just come out for a stronger national defense, that he could support us.

What the hell does he think we have done?

I mean, we're fighting Buckley, we're fighting Mansfield, we're fighting ABM, we're fighting the appropriations cuts every day, and look at the crisis that he's in.

I told James Buckley, and I will tell Bill Buckley, I told Bill on the phone that they are hardly to blame that if they had organized themselves and attacked the liberals when we needed them,

If they hadn't had you out there fighting the battles all alone, that we absolutely had to get maneuvering room.

What was happening was that the Russians were putting the screws on us.

The Congress was putting the screws on us.

The defense budget is higher by three or four billion every year than Laird recommended, much less than what Congress would do.

And I think it's really an outrage.

And if they...

are going to bring a liberal in who will think that they can toy with that idea.

I'm dead thinking in there, screw your way to get a rich or some goddamn thing without, you know, Reagan, who's worse than Bill White?

And Reagan wouldn't be tough once he got in here.

You've been tough.

You've been the one who stood alone again.

Reagan never needed to laugh at this stuff.

But anyway, if you would see Bill White this week, he was quite a voice for those people.

Just call him in and say, now, Bill, we know that there are no deals here.

You don't underestimate this man.

Everybody underestimates him.

I put that.

After all, you say, after all, you're just a member of the track record.

Track record.

You get back to Cambodia, to Laos, to Taiwan, and all the rest.

I mean, not Taiwan, but to Cambodia, Laos, and ADM. Those are the great issues.

And I think we've really got to get those across.

Well, Henry Brandt, as you know, is doing a book on euphoric policy.

He's wanted to talk to me about Jordan, and I've said I've got to check with you before.

Well, and I think the thing you could say, look, you fellows are going to look goddamn foolish.

That's the whole point that I would say.

You're going to look very foolish because...

We're not going to get taken in.

And on China, we're not going to get taken in.

But the idea, I think the thing we have to remember on China, really, is they say we can't come back with empty hands.

They can't.

Neither can they.

There has to be something in for both.

Actually, what we have to do is get work out at the proper time for that time.

They have war things, so that, of course, means we don't have empty hands.

Because however the war thing goes,

Everybody's going to think that this says something exactly.

Just like everybody thinks that Korea is going to relax in our presence.

And it has something to do, Mr. President, for two reasons.

One is, well, it's taking the seven points out of the front pages, which is a victory.

Secondly, Peking must have done something to Hanoi to make them scream so much.

They must have said something to them.

that infuriated them and gave them the feeling that they were given a secondary input.

And given their paranoia, they just can't be sure what deals may or may not have been made.

But absolutely, we can get a statement of principles this summer.

Everyone will think it's the key thing.

But what I hope we can get out of the meeting, and what I hope to get out of it, are two things.

One is the renunciation of forces in our relations.

Second, to appoint somebody as a special emissary.

George Shultz, please.

Nothing, you know, nothing.

Well, somebody like Rude, who has the same relation to P.K., has not had the advantage.

And then we can throw in some cultural stuff.

Weed.

My opinion is we've got to weed it.

I know you said we've got to weed it.

Well,

Yeah?

You wanted us to talk to you before the convocation.

Yeah.

Well, we've got to get rid of the men, and I'm going to ask, I'm going to ask the SEALs, please.

Yeah.

Yeah, we can't denounce the seal.

It's pretty hard.

It's a hard rollover, but the story at least did indicate that it was the same account, the candle and the thing.

Nobody could have expected it to be anything else.

Well, after I started reading what Tom had, that means it might be well if I get you down to it.

So he...

including on the tube.

He won't make a mistake.

Okay, fine, fine.

Well, that would say it.

All the jockeying around here.

It's always amusing to actually jockey about China.

Berlin and so forth.

We just plod along and get things done.

Berlin is practically done, as you can tell now.

We'll really next year have a record.

Every problem we came in with will have been solved, except the Middle East, and that will have been improved.

Tell me about Pakistan now.

I read the, I know, I see now the Beatles are out raising money for it.

You know, it's a funny thing, the way we are in Scotland, the country, is we get involved in all these screwball causes.

We have $100 million.

It depends for whom are the Beatles raising money for their refugees in India.

But in India or in Pakistan?

Well, the Indian side of it is economically in good shape.

We've given them $70 million.

More is coming in.

And we haven't, no one knows how they're using the goddamn money because...

So you're getting into the government.

Well, that would be terrible to say.

Well, they don't let anyone in there.

They permit no foreigners into the refugee area.

No foreigners at all.

Their record is outrageous.

Well, then, what about Pakistan?

Well, on the Pakistan side, we have moved in $100 million worth of food, which is in the port.

Uh...

We've had a task force working on it, which is either in the ports or on the way to the ports.

The big problem now is to get it distributed.

The UN has sent in 38 experts.

They're prepared to send in 150 more.

As we discussed on Sunday, we're going to get Maury Williams out there.

He's our first expert on it.

The major problem is to get the distribution system organized.

This, in turn, is being handicapped again by the goddamn Indians because most of the roads run parallel to the frontier and very close to the frontier, and they're blowing them up every night.

So if we can, it's really almost exclusively a distribution problem.

Well, I told Rogers when I talked to him about this, I told him that you hadn't reached him yet.

That's right.

I told him that you...

But what we've got to avoid also, Mr. President, I think we ought to toughen a little bit on P.K.

But if we screw Pakistan too outrageously,

That really, and if a war starts there, that could blow up everything.

So I think we should get a refugee program started, a relief program, and get this goddamn lecturing on political structure stopped as much as we can.

Eventually there's going to be autonomy in East Bengal within the next two years.

But not in the next six months.

And the Indians are just playing a revolting, rough game.

The reason we have to prevent a famine in East Pakistan is if a famine develops, another flood of refugees will go out.

And that gives the Indians, if we can defuse the refugee and famine problem, we are depriving the Indians of an excuse to start the war.

Well, you've got the Indians.

No, they're going to stop.

They get their aid stopped when the war starts.

Yeah.

They aren't going to get any aid.

Well, we've got to get Cisco under control.

Unfortunately, every crisis in Cisco's... Yeah, this is too...

This part, that's going to be reorganized anyway.

This shouldn't be in the sense of maybe... No.

And Cisco is a maniac.

He's... What side is he on on this one?

Pakistan.

Oh.

Well, he's such a whore.

His department is on the side of Pakistan.

India.

Of India.

Yeah.

The trouble with Cisco is that he's all tactics and no strategy.

He's got a hot idea every three days.

But I'll talk to Phil.

I think Phil is on the same wavelength.

He's on the same wavelength.

This is just talking.

I'm taking you to the 45th.

It's a terrible blow-up.

Blow-up.

Right.

With regard to the wrestling and so forth, let me tell you, I don't need on the India-Pakistan, but on China in particular, I want to say very, very little.

I'm just going to be in the office.

I don't give a damn.

I'm just going to cut them off, curse them and everything.

The other India-Pakistan divided me up so that you said something about the... Oh, yes, yes.

You can figure out... That's all I need.

Nixon, Kissinger & Shultz on People's Republic of China and Taiwan

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on August 2, 1971

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