Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 593 › Conversation 593-008

Nixon, Kissinger & Ushiba on Japanese-American relations and Textile Agreement

Friday, October 15, 1971 · 9:53 AM–9:58 AM ET · Oval Office

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Kissinger, Henry A.; Ushiba, NobuhikoConversation593-008 on Tape 593 (tape position 00:57:40–01:02:44)StartFriday, October 15, 1971 at 9:53 AMEndFriday, October 15, 1971 at 9:58 AMRecording deviceOval OfficeSourceNixon Library record for 593-008 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and Japanese Ambassador Nobuhiko Ushiba met to discuss the status of delicate Japanese-American relations, specifically focusing on the progress of textile trade negotiations involving Peter G. Peterson. The participants addressed the necessity of managing political expectations in Congress and maintaining a collaborative approach to foreign policy issues. The meeting concluded with a brief exchange regarding planned diplomatic efforts and the presentation of a formal gift.

Audio

part A, 57:40

Download MP3 (part 1) · 89.9 MB ·Download MP3 (part 2) · 90.0 MB ·Download MP3 (part 3) · 141.8 MB ·Download MP3 (part 4) · 89.3 MB ·Download MP3 (part 5) · 55.2 MB

This conversation has not yet been cut into its own clip, so the players above hold the full tape, shared with neighbouring conversations. By the archivists' log it runs from 00:57:40 to 01:02:44 into the tape; their log often drifts a minute or two from the audio, so listen for the subjects in the finding aid.

NARA Description

On October 15, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Henry A. Kissinger, and Nobuhiko Ushiba met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:53 am to 9:58 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 593-008 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 593-8

Date: October 15, 1971
Time: 9:53 am - 9:58 am
Location: Oval Office

The President met with Henry A. Kissinger and Nobuhiko Ushiba.

     Salutations

     [Unintelligible]

     Japanese-American relations
          -Ushiba’s instructions
               -Kissinger

                -Textile Agreement
                     -Peter G. Peterson
                     -The President’s appreciation
                     -Eisaku Sato
                     -Congress
           -John B. Connally
                -Purpose of rip
                     -Negotiations
                     -Japan
                     -Taiwan
                     -Vietnam
                     -Europeans
                     -Japan
                -Travel experience
                     -Japan
                     -India

     Gift presentation

Kissinger and Ushiba left at 9:58 am.

Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

Download transcript (.txt) · JSON data

Timestamps are positions within the full tape; click one to play the tape from there.

played a Russian visit against the Chinese without very... We've got to tell them that the President has been invited to visit another city in Russia and probably will.
And Mrs. Nixon will be going because she went... Oh, they have prepared for the other city.
I raised that already.
And they will probably... And they'll probably raise...
When I was there, he told me that if you see Mao, or when you see Mao, they wanted to be outside of Peking in his country place.
We have no way of refusing that.
We've got to see him wherever they say it is.
And so that they may raise again.
Now on the crowd, my strong instinct is
that they will turn out one tremendous crowd.
Their pride won't permit anything else.
It will be, I, it's, when I arrived, No, but when I arrived, Well, when I arrived, the guy said to me, that marshal who greeted me at the airport, he said, I want to apologize, we don't have any crowds for you, but it's a secret visit.
So,
So to them, that goes with the visit.
I have absolutely no worry about that.
I think it'll be the biggest crowd I think you've ever had when you arrived there.
This is the biggest that I'm still thinking of.
It's really an opportunity on some occasion to have some contact with the crowd.
Driving through a crowd is not what is important, but we'll find out in those days.
Going to the country might be the thing to do.
Going to see my friends.
But all of this is all negotiable, and the other names have got to come ahead of it.
We're not trying to exploit it, but I think you've just got to hold on to the fact that, after all, this visit will be compared with the Russian visit, and they must know this.
Well, up to some point, in terms of technical efficiency and so forth, that will impress them.
In terms of other things, it may serve their purpose
to be cooler so and then there are so many factions there that it's a but I think I think it will be a good crowd now what crowd situations you can get in the street whether you can dive into a crowd there I would doubt I don't think that's conceivable their leaders never do it I think it's probably possible to visit some cooperative farm and
And that sort of factory will get people that way, but they are very ceremonial.
It's not a very spontaneous people in that way.
That's great.
Now I didn't have that in mind.
I'm just having...
There are very subtle ways to get this across.
I think I understand what you have in mind, but... Oh, Bob has written it down.
Okay.
How about doing the concert?
Nothing at all.
I think that's all, sir.
You have to accept it.
Well, I'd rather stop a bit, Jim.
Huh?
Well, that's all right.
No, you know, they need my call.
Oh, yeah.
No, Edie, like I said, we won't do it for you again what we did on tech stuff.
I said we don't want anything.
We want to set us an act of friendship.
You know what, we've got the textiles, the thread of the trefoil right out there.
Oh, when I said in that press conference the other day, the Russian newsletter on the 15th, we will have to take other action.
If we had to brutalize them, we'd be dead.
I've got to go to the President of the Republic and brutalize them, too.
Well, I'll tell Henry about the announcement of Connolly.
You've got to set this up a full deal.
How do you want that handled?
That should be done by the end of June, sir.
Now, leave it to us.
We had to sort of cover for Peterson there.
We'd already sent the message, sir.
Oh, yeah, but you have to do that.
You said you'd take care of Mr. Rose's work, sir.
Well, now we all have been on the Connolly thing.
You won't even think that ought to be announced next.
No, later than June, sir.
And what about the Spanish control?
That's all set.
No problem.
Yeah.

Also recorded on October 15, 1971

  • 011-096 8:43 AM · 7 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 8:43 am and 9:09 am.
  • 011-097 9:09 AM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Donald McI. Kendall talked on the telephone from 9:09 am to 9:10 am.
  • 593-005 9:09 AM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Donald McI. Kendall met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:09 am to 9:10 am.
  • 593-006 9:10 AM · 29 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Stephen B. Bull, Henry A. Kissinger, and Peter G. Peterson met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:10 am to 9:36 am.
  • 593-007 9:37 AM · 14 min — President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, Manolo Sanchez, and Henry A. Kissinger met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:37 am to 9:52 am.
  • 593-009 9:58 AM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 9:58 am and 10:08 am.
  • 593-010 10:08 AM · 37 min — President Richard M. Nixon, John B. Connally, Henry A. Kissinger, Robert S. McNamara, White House photographer, and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the Oval Office of the White House from 10:08 am to 10:37 am.
  • 593-011 10:38 AM · 53 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Henry A. Kissinger, Stephen B. Bull, John N. Mitchell, John D. Ehrlichman, and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House from 10:38 am to 11:32 am.

All 21 conversations from October 15, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 593-008, October 15, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/593-008 (accessed November 2, 2026).