Nixon, McCloy & Kissinger on NATO and Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction

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I always call it a job.

I don't know how many people call me that.

I'm very excited to sit down.

You don't want to hold it.

I don't want to.

Yeah, I thought it over pretty heavy last night.

I didn't get very much sleep.

Can you do it?

Let me say this.

First of all, I think you should know, the idea was totally mine.

I saw you briefly at the dinner, you know, which is something that I have a lot going on in Chicago.

I've been worried about this thing.

Let me leave the car for a second.

That's fine.

But Tex doesn't know the people of Europe.

You know Tex.

He's an excellent man, but he doesn't know Europe.

And they don't know him.

And he goes business with them.

And then there's, well, they're all obsessed with him.

He's a good man.

First of all, I hope I'm not talking to any riddles here, but we need to know also that they know something about economics.

See, we've got all this search on your business and so forth, and we're going to work on a deal, but you're going to be extremely helpful there.

Now, here's what I'd like to do with you.

If you could have me take it.

Uh, the, uh, uh, we did, uh,

We'll do all the backing we possibly can.

We'd like you to sit in there.

We'd like you to sit in the NFC meetings, any of them that involve this or any of ours, as hairy as it can be.

And as a matter of fact, the Europeans now are behind us at the National State Department.

Do mark the expression, not build it.

Some of the people are picking play out here on this thing.

And the Europeans are holding back.

They're not.

We've got a table today that's drunk with the Lord of the Blood.

And even wrong.

You know that's not the Lord of the Blood.

There cannot be.

The thing that I think you should know is that I did get a question.

There will never be a bilateral discussion between Russia and the United States on the European portions.

Secondly, there cannot be a unilateral decision from part of the United States to reduce our own portions of what we talk about in the National Cabinet.

Third,

The, all the left of them, the MESR, must be, must be one that will not re-injectorize our overall defense posture in Europe.

At this time, we have a lot of problems, and not even, even very simple to handle one thing.

This difficult offset thing.

Now, you can do it.

I know what you've got to have on that.

We've got a good ambassador there.

I've been there before.

We think our treasury policy may be a little too tough.

Well, I don't know.

I'll tell you this.

There is a time, if you were to go, that it would have, it seems to me, an enormously good effect on the Europeans.

It would have, frankly, given me a lot of confidence.

We just need somebody to talk to who knows the damn subject.

Ellsworth was a good man.

But Ellsworth had to learn it.

You know all about it.

They do forgotten more than most of the most of the men.

He wasn't, but I'll tell you, I'll tell you the most of the most of the most of the men who grabbed him and gave him to forget.

He said, you've got to send somebody here who is your man, basically, that everybody knows is a big man, so that they don't think we're downgrading them.

So that's what I had recorded.

Very funny.

I have thought about it a good bit, and I've got some thoughts about it that I'd like to be able to express.

I think it's a little difficult to, just before you go into this series, be able to sit down with you or with Henry and tell you what I've thought about it, because I've thought rather seriously about it.

I have no question whatsoever about the importance of the thing in this stage of history, the necessity of reinvigorating our relationships here.

I do question the method, and I'll tell you why I think so, if you'll give me some time to do it.

But as I said, I don't want to interfere with this meeting that's going on now.

It's a question whether you should do it this way.

Let me just put it down a nutshell.

i think that i think the objective is very very important i rather doubt that i could do the job through the nato organization if this were a special mission uh which i and maybe this doesn't fit the pattern at all uh i have a feeling that the company could do it better from here better from some other capital than brussels because i know something about the brussels setup it is a pattern and complex of uh of uh

Meetings, staff meetings, papers, rhetoric, frustration, nobody on a very high level.

How, Henry, if we reorganize everything else, I wonder if we could reorganize this in some way.

Reorganize it in a way that we could take the NATO plan.

A top deputy.

But what I meant is, he should be, you remember the mind-mind ball of the cabinet?

What I was actually thinking, because I got caught up pretty far, what I was thinking was they had to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to,

I thought that he would do the same with you, so that you would, not because you wanted prestige, and not that you had to attend meetings, but because it would put you in the same, what, the same thing as Bush, that you would have to come.

I think it's very important to the Negro people in Lincoln.

We think they're a little bit different from the Latin Americans.

Perhaps, if they track you down, because you work out that... Let me sit down and tell you what my thoughts are.

Maybe it's better.

Maybe it's better to do it the other way.

What I'm thinking of is we could take the Negro thing, get you to take the Negro thing, and then...

But then take the responsibility for NPFR and that sort of thing.

You see, that's where you're really needed, frankly.

We need an NPFR, but we also need to reassure the Europeans on some of these economic matters.

And it's just the right time, and he's the right man.

Would you drop me a hand?

Okay, fine, fine, that's fine.

I'll say as long as it's safe.

Nixon, McCloy & Kissinger on NATO and Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on November 12, 1971

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