Conversation 588-018

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Yeah.

Well, I'm gonna shake you up a little.

Yeah.

Well, you gotta get old, uh, Henry, this thing, and I'm just gonna give a lot of credit, really.

I'll tell you one thing, though.

These people on the other side of the campus congressional group, they don't know what the hell to say.

and for a while the verse seems to fall between that, but that's how he had to do it.

It's good maybe he came along and he made his own conditions, but we don't care.

We haven't had it.

Yeah.

I said that very well.

I called him, Henry, I called him and thanked him.

What the hell?

Because he said he, it's not like we, Henry called him and bargained about this announcement he's coming to.

Just to keep him off balance.

Sure.

I'm sorry.

Some of the business people, we've got to just keep them on the box.

You're just cutting them in the game.

That's what's important.

Yeah.

No.

Well, I'm not convinced as well.

But this means that David's going to be waiting on a three and a half week as well.

This will be good space for your meeting with Harrison.

He's coming tomorrow.

Good.

Good deal.

I will wait and see.

No, no, it's just, you never know when people, at least people who serve us, Karen, and all of us, the world, it's the world.

And I expect any jackass to see that and go, Matthew, it's a bird.

Okay, all right.

I just called to see what he's going to call me.

I got some calls, but I've been able to get the people to and without some calls.

But he went out, he went out to... Well, you know, he always likes it.

Now, you've got to save it a little bit.

Good, good.

You know, I got in, and he worked a whole long time for this.

And we suffered a hell of a lot, Dan.

Went through a hell of a lot, didn't you?

I was glad I didn't get in that singer about the events of George Mayon's program.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, but I can see these guys now.

It's a pitiful brat couldn't be there.

I would have liked to be here.

There's another answer.

These bastards who said you were ruining their relations with Iran, first they said you were screwing up salt.

We made more progress in salt than any previous administration in any arms control negotiation.

Then they said you screwed up relations with Iran.

Then they had you as a warmonger.

Well, they won't dare.

I just can't see them mounting a thick attack on any aspect of your foreign policy.

and see how they possibly can.

And you, nevertheless, in August, September 1970, one looks at what you did in 1970 in May, you went into Cambodia.

In August, September, you'd had the risk of war over Jordan.

And then many of your achievements, from many points of view, three and four acres,

was as bad as the mental crisis, but we handled it so unobtrusively that no one ever gave a... Another thing I think was good to do in this press conference was to remind these people about what we had achieved with the soldiers.

It's not, it's no small achievement.

I mean, biological war is a...

I just take all the biological warfare, the sea beds, the accidental war in Berlin.

Oh, my God.

Absolutely.

That is bigger than anything that Kennedy did.

Yeah, yeah.

That's Berlin.

Berlin, of course, is bigger than anything.

Well, they all hang together

and uh now if we can pull off the middle east that's going to be a little tough now in the light of what happened last week and our and salt we're going to have a spectacular year but it may be two of the greatest horrible forces that helped us actually the russians we have reached my brother ain't anything

And as long as we've got the Chinese hanging over them as a threat, this is...

I can't imagine, but you and I know that's the main reason.

One thing that I...

Isn't it you, not?

But Bill shouldn't get the idea that he can do with European security what he did with the Middle East, because if the Russians...

I only drew that out because I want to give him something to do, which will keep him away.

I've gotten that from European security.

But we have to... You don't agree.

But we also ought to keep it in the NSC process.

I don't care what he negotiates, but he has a tendency, I don't say this, he really is incompetent in foreign policy, Mr. President.

I don't do this to harass him.

But he never understands the subject, he never studies it.

And if we can just use the NSC procedure...

Well, he can do the negotiating with the Europeans.

I don't want to get involved in that.

I don't want to help the European Security Department.

I told him right there that I don't want a European Security Conference.

But it won't be...

He's got a strange department.

It won't be acute for a while, but I would like to do some NSC studies.

His man is on this group, and he can use the results just as long as he doesn't sabotage the negotiations.

That's fine with me.

Except with the Russians.

Because if I lose...

Forget the Russians.

You lose the Russians.

It's tough to keep control over it until you're in Moscow.

I don't agree with what you say and make a note of it.

I don't agree with what you say among the Russians.

I'm saying this in public purposes.

because of the Europeans and the rest of it.

I don't want to get into it.

But basically, the European Security Conference is something that we've got to decide at the highest level.

And I think the place to decide it basically is the summit.

And if you are to work hard, and I visit you, and you work on it, you can talk to Rogers and actually, but no matter what, you're going to make the decision.

Fair enough.

That's what we're going to do.

That's my bill, sir.

The reason why he's been talking all the time, talking

I actually haven't been talking to him at all much.

He's been talking about the Middle East.

Well, you see what I mean.

I understand.

I know what it is.

But my concern is that Raj is, for example, on the Middle East.

We don't see the cables.

There's no staff work.

And he goes rushing off, sending cables all over the world.

It's a murderously dangerous process anyway.

No Secretary of State has ever sent cables that affect the President without discussing them with the President, not even dollars.

And he's creating a situation in which only you, when there is a deadlock, you will then have to brutalize the Israelis, or have the thing fail.

And all of that is essentially now unnecessary because we got the Russian support.

I leave the Middle East because I understand your reasoning for that.

But it would be a pity to get to European security.

My experience with the Russians has been my strategy with them is to keep blocking all their approaches until they've got to go in the direction in which you want them to go and then they come.

It takes a lot of painstaking, detailed work.

Well, you understand that you're about to hear it.

We've got a special channel for a whole damn something kind of a thing you want to do, of course, there.

Set up the same kind of parallel kind of crap that you've got in China.

Rogers and Russia.

That's about cultural exchange.

Well, it didn't lead to a scrimmage, though.

That's crazy.

Oh, I thought it was crazy.

You understand it.

We're not, we got, we got all these things.

But, but I think if we set up a thing that they can talk about so that we've got care, you know, like this business about who's going to meet with whom.

Well, I haven't tried particularly on that because I didn't want to throw Brezhnev and Krasygin against each other, but I thought it was... Oh, yeah, but no, but the way you put it, actually Brezhnev's title is general secretary, not chairman.

It's not important.

He's right.

Yeah.

But, uh,

I think Bregman is clearly number one.

Mao is chairman.

We used to call Khrushchev chairman.

That's right, but they've not changed the title to General Secretary.

I know because I made the mistake of calling him chairman, too, in a conversation.

Well, I'm doing a recommendation to the Khrushchev office.

Yes, they changed it after Khrushchev.

They changed it to General Secretary.

But did...

But your point was absolutely correct.

They probably will have all three of them there some of the time, but I'm convinced that there will be many long conversations between you and Breschner.

Of course.

But that's quite remarkable, you know, having this great life.

I remember Tony, what a great ball of pressure that was.

I've known him all my life.

He said, he is a man that's very, you know, very straight, very sincere, and so forth.

He's really in charge.

He's a man that's in charge.

I can tell you that.

And he's very anxious to talk to you about how he didn't do that because he was trying to go out of the city.

Oh, no.

And he didn't do it lightly either.

Now, I'm very interested in that Victor Lowy article which says the Soviets have not discovered a common interest in peace in Vietnam without... You know, that would have actually rather be an amusement than that, Paul.

That's right.

Even if it isn't, it's inconceivable that he writes an unauthorized article, assuming it is unauthorized.

How the hell are the Vietnamese going to know that?

And, uh... God, if we can crack that one, too.

I do not believe, Mr. President, we've given them a number of body blows.

One is that the two elections didn't turn into the Shambles thing, huh?

The second, the stronger you look domestically, the more they have to settle, because they're not stupid.

If you get re-elected without that war being settled, there's absolutely no telling what you will do.

That would scare them to death.

And they're already in a tough box next year.

Is P. King and Musk are going to let them launch a big offensive against you next year?

I would doubt it.

It's one thing for them not to force them, not to force them to settle against their will, that I understand, but to let these pipsqueaks screw up two summers, I don't believe it.

You know, I really delighted I would have to walk here to answer that kind of question.

Well, and what was great was that in this context, you again stated your two conditions for ending the war in Vietnam.

And actually, we are not weaker now than we were in August.

We're stronger because the Jews' opponents have not been able to create domestic chaos.

We didn't tip him over.

And the North Vietnamese haven't scored any military victories.

This week, our casualties are seven or eight.

I don't know yet what they are.

Well, that's unbelievable.

Are they below 10, by the way?

Below 10.

My God, that's good.

And you know, that's statistically almost impossible.

Let's see if somebody can make some comments as well.

We never seem to get any credit for the location.

Now, seriously, we're going to announce the details of the trip

And, uh...

It'll be quite a week.

Then next week, they'll have plenty to speculate about about my being in Peking.

Then we come back.

What do you think you should do about how any background is so important?

No, absolutely not.

Absolutely not, Mr. President.

No, no, no.

Ziegler has... No, no, I don't want to be in the position where I become the China guy, but I don't want to give a background... No, no, I should not give a background to this afternoon.

The only reason I mention it to you was to indicate that Ziegler and Scali, who thought it was essential before your press conference, I did it to indicate how well you had done at the press conference, not to indicate that there was a need.

I think it would be a mistake.

Any question they could ask me, they've already asked you.

And then start nitpicking.

I don't think I should touch it.

I don't think anybody should give a background.

I think states should shut up.

No one should talk.

What you said is the line.

In fact, I've called him and said no one should do any talking.

Well, I didn't answer a lot of questions.

Well, you gave responsive answers to everything.

I really can't think of a question that shouldn't have been asked that wasn't asked.

And I think you set the line, and we should just leave it at that.

Well, that's particularly important, not to change that.

I think the idea that we're seeing the relation of both, not at the expense of either one, both were informed.

That's pretty good, good line.

It's excellent.

It's almost true.

Well.

Go ahead.

My only horror is if they ever put together the things I say to each of them that I have a vested interest in keeping them apart.

I've told the Russians the only ones who want the war to continue are the Chinese.

I've told the Chinese the opposite.

Maybe it might be better, you know, you are Chinese, you're the Chinese.

Yes.

It might be better to run this like 400, rather than the higher, than the mile, and then they'd be better.

I'm just in the day, and I think you might understand, you know.

The ability that you have, any individual has, at my age now, to concentrate,

and so forth, recedes as time goes on, because you can't require it as long.

You can't require it as much.

And I see an old man like you on there, and some old man is fixed, if you try what you do.

I wonder, frankly, if maybe what we ought to sort of think of about maritime, if I agree with you, and consider these current negotiations as early,

Do it as well as we can to finish the war.

Negotiate with the Soviet Union.

Negotiate with the Russians.

And then I'll rather than do it.

You see what I mean?

You could get a hell of a place that way.

You could just run like hell for a year and a half or so.

Except that I really think, Mr. President, it might be, I really, I raise this because I am quiet.

I am concerned about the, basically, the bigger factors.

We're ready any time.

We're waiting for ADC's camera, but if you want to go out.

Before that, if someone wants to turn their camera on.

But any time, ask Shelton.

He would be a lot more comfortable if I sat in the country way.

He just made the food.

And then introduce him.

You know what I mean?

He's not like that kind of...

I think he probably would.

Feel better if I sat in the country way.

And then I'll sit in the country way.

I'll tell him to do that.

I'm not telling them how to look that way, because I don't think it's quite the character of the case.

And I'll say they don't need it, because it was directed towards them.

Like, oh, they have experience in other countries.

Is it without labor's cooperation such a good one?

I'm not going to try to...

I see what you mean, but there are two arguments against it, at least two arguments against it.

One is the tactical one.

The tactical one is that the way all these things are set up is that all of these others have a vested interest in your election.

I mean, the communists have a vested interest in your election.

But secondly, there's the substantive one.

I think, I don't know anybody who could do this job.

But he can't get elected next year.

But I'm not even sure Connolly could do it, Mr. President.

Connolly has the guts, and in another four years he may be able to do it.

Connolly doesn't have your finesse and your subtlety nor your knowledge of international affairs.

He's got all of that.

In domestic politics.

Oh yeah, he's good at that, but the strategic finesse in positioning foreign policy.

Mr. President, I don't know whether he's got that.

And I don't see that Connolly can do it in 72.

But he'd be ready to do that.

I also don't see how one could get him the nomination.

But, uh, Agnew can do it.

Rockefeller might be able to do it, but I don't think he'd have your strength in a crisis.

I mean, he wouldn't have lasted.

I don't know him well enough.

I frankly don't see how you cannot do it.

See, this is a very worrying business.

I mean, it isn't worrying, I mean, in terms of number of hours and so forth and such.

Well, it's emotionally very, very, very difficult experience in trying to balance all these people against each other.

Oh, it's... Jesus Christ is in all the land.

Oh, God, no, but who... We're on tightrope all the time.

And you are, and everyone who comes in here wants something.

Oh, I understand.

That's true, isn't it, President?

That's part of the job.

I mean, this foreign policy really requires a man to be his best all the time.

That's not true.

It could be not.

But there's no national leader that I have.

And now you are the world leader.

And...

Isn't that moral, almost comical, the way he talks and talks and talks?

He did the same thing last night with the editor.

He's been on a whole way.

He comes by every time and goes, God damn it, Eric, I can't believe it.

On and on and on.

I can understand.

I'm going to tell you exactly what he was saying.

Everything he said was fine.

But totally, there's a mean comment.

What do you mean?

Oh, I thought it was acceptable.

I thought you did exceptionally well with them.

You did exceptionally well.

You made your case on the U.N. with Great Advocacy and it did fast at least, which it probably will.

It wasn't too offensive to the Chinese.

So, but they are a comical lot.

I just think they're the old ones.

Too bad it's German.

Well, it's exactly a thing of his or him and his allies.

Well, you know, Churchill's remark before the war, he was at a dinner party with Ribbentrop, and Ribbentrop said, remember, next time we have the Italians on our side.

Churchill said, it's only fair we have them last, and...

Have they already had to get out of their state?

Yes, sir.

We gave up the station a few minutes ago.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Well, they had to leave the station.

It was moving about an hour and a half.

Mm-hmm.

We also gave up the station a few minutes ago.