Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 618-026
Date: Monday, November 15, 1971 at 12:57 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Kissinger, Henry A.; [Unknown person(s)]
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/618-026
National Archives Catalog: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/417179729 (NAID 417179729)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:02] Connolly.
[0:09] I think I shook him quite a bit.
[0:14] Because he's a big man.
[0:15] So, you know, it's nothing.
[0:16] He's kind of a man.
[0:17] You know, it's interesting.
[0:18] You go to a small man around here, and he may not have been totally prepared.
[0:27] And he, you know, you're on the side where Connolly will listen.
[0:30] It's all right.
[0:31] I mean, you really, really compare the Mar-a-Lago cabins people with the exception of Mitchell.
[0:43] It's very confusing.
[0:45] Well, exactly.
[0:46] I said to him, I said, John, I couldn't care less whether you, whether they revalue by 12%, 20%, 2%.
[0:51] If you ever hear me express an opinion on that subject, you know I'm out of my depth.
[0:55] I want to put the foreign policy implications before you.
[0:59] And the strategic problem now is not the rate of exchange, but whether we're going to have a positive program or whether we're going to wait and let the situation drift along.
[1:12] Well, I think he basically agrees.
[1:15] But he says, and he's right, that the disloyalty of the administration is such that everyone is cutting him out.
[1:24] Oh, no, no, no.
[1:27] He, you know, I told him, I'm not... No, no, he meant others are cutting him up outside, to the press, and to the foreigners.
[1:37] Sure.
[1:38] And therefore his game plan, which might work, just can't be carried to the absolute extreme.
[1:45] I think he's ready to go and make a positive proposal.
[1:49] Did you mention the Kromer?
[1:50] I mentioned the Kromer thing, he found that interesting.
[1:53] And he's mulling over two approaches now, either the Kromer approach...
[1:59] over the approach that he makes of speech and that she puts out the proposal.
[2:05] I told him it might be a little better to let it generate from the others, because if he makes a proposal, they'll bargain it down, while if they make one, he can bargain it out.
[2:16] And it puts us into a better position.
[2:19] I think the biggest problem over there is that he is fine.
[2:23] But when he gets together with Volker and Walker,
[2:28] They'll go back to the old Treasury lines.
[2:32] And I suggest that he said he wanted to get together with me again this week.
[2:37] No, we had, I stayed nearly two hours with him.
[2:41] We had a very warm talk.
[2:43] It's a level, wasn't it?
[2:45] Did he have good feelings on this?
[2:50] Good feelings.
[2:52] On the trip, his intuitions, I mean.
[2:53] I noticed he's thought so much of the Indonesians, and Saharo, and Saharo is how he wants to make the aid, so he can aid Cambodia, which is a too bad idea.
[2:59] No, he's a proud man, and he,
[3:04] He isn't, in all respects, easy to deal with, but he's a big man.
[3:09] Sure.
[3:09] And you don't have this little petty crap.
[3:12] Sure.
[3:13] I told him a little bit of what you went through last year.
[3:16] Did you?
[3:16] Yeah.
[3:17] Good.
[3:17] But what did he say?
[3:18] Well, what did he think?
[3:19] Well, he thinks, what I think, he thinks the only vulnerability you have next year is your extreme class.
[3:28] That's what he told you.
[3:29] And that permeates everything here.
[3:33] They just don't think you're dangerous enough to tackle.
[3:38] And, uh, E. Fields is unbelievable.
[3:42] He's never seen anything like that.
[3:44] And that was his view.
[3:45] You ask him, I just tell him, here it is.
[3:49] He says, he says, until somebody gets carried out feet first from your office someday, uh,
[3:58] They just want to save us, and that in turn makes us vulnerable.
[4:03] He feels, for example, I mean, I just told you that on foreign aid, we shouldn't have crafted our foreign aid.
[4:08] We should have just attacked our foreign policy, our world roles.
[4:12] I know what they would do.
[4:18] No, no.
[4:22] I think it was our first reaction.
[4:27] That's what you approved that first night.
[4:34] He had tremendous admiration for you and he was really very candid.
[4:42] in general, so I would have thought he would have been candid to me, too, on this, too.
[4:47] And he said it's just that softness in the administration that makes everyone cover his own rear end.
[4:55] No one is out.
[4:56] He said these guys ought to be out defending you, talking you up.
[5:04] I'm just repeating what he said, and I did not put him up to it.
[5:09] In fact, I didn't put him up to it, because the conversation, as far as I was concerned, was geared to the international situation.
[5:19] And that, of course, he doesn't do.
[5:28] He... Bill is very upset that we've been through a lot and so forth and so on.
[5:35] I heard about the pitch.
[5:52] I didn't hear about this affair.
[5:58] That's the point.
[5:59] Who's going to hit somebody?
[5:59] Who's going to defend him?
[6:00] Who's going to stand up to this thing?
[6:03] And that's really the case.
[6:06] We've got people that like to be liked.
[6:08] They like to stay positive.
[6:12] Now, Comrie steps up.
[6:13] He's not an ex-Democrat, but he steps up better than anybody else.
[6:17] Of course, you've got to realize that in the domestic field, of course, that you know that he's so expected to that doesn't come down.
[6:26] Now, if Mitchell doesn't harass you,
[6:29] I mean, mystery doesn't come weeping over him.
[6:31] That story performed last week.
[6:35] Well, he said it was unbelievable.
[6:38] It was an unconscionable list of her heels.
[6:42] to go through it.
[6:43] Well, to put you through it when you have to get ready for television.
[6:47] Yeah, hell, I was getting ready for a lot of other things too, not just that subject.
[6:52] And they were worried about that, but then I had to answer questions on page two.
[6:57] They didn't answer it fast enough, but I had to be prepared for it.
[7:00] And everyone knows, Mr. President, that what we're doing is precarious.
[7:04] So you're going to be great.
[7:06] There's no good choice.
[7:10] There is a question of which is the least bad.
[7:12] We took the least bad.
[7:14] And it makes things good.
[7:16] Congressman Maynard called me.
[7:18] They're voting on the Boland Amendment tomorrow.
[7:22] It's the house version of the Manfield Amendment.
[7:27] And he's worried that we may lose it.
[7:32] Why the hell would we lose it?
[7:35] I just can't understand why.
[7:36] Well, I'm writing and getting a speech written for him.
[7:37] I'm getting it over with.
[7:38] Mr. Maynard.
[7:38] I think, Mr. President, if they really screw us, if then there's going to be a deadlock this Friday, this Saturday,
[8:08] You might consider going on television earlier and saying, this is what these guys did to us.
[8:16] This is what these guys did to us the week before the last one.
[8:23] The week before this one.
[8:26] Discuss the Poland Amendment.
[8:29] That's if it fails.
[8:30] If it looks good, we...
[8:41] But I think we'll get Connolly, I think Connolly will move in the right direction.
[8:50] If Volker can be, I also suggested to him that we should let Schulte and I should start having our breakfast meetings again.
[8:59] And I think he agreed to that, yeah.
[9:04] I think it's very important.
[9:11] See, he doesn't know a hell of a lot about the foreign policy side of this.
[9:15] And he said he found our talking points, which I sent him to try to ask.
[9:19] And he handled them very skillfully.
[9:22] You know, he told me that he went in there in every case like a country boy.
[9:27] And said the president asked Dr. Kissinger to prepare these talking points especially for you.
[9:33] And then he just read them.
[9:36] Which was very clever.
[9:39] Much better than if he sounded as if he had said this himself.
[9:49] Right.
[9:50] Exactly.
[9:50] And this, which also shows a certain kind of unselfishness.
[9:56] And I'm really impressed.
[9:59] It's very perceptive in his, in his comments.
[10:06] How do you like it?
[10:07] Okay.
[10:07] It was so amazing to me how a man can think of himself in that category.
[10:36] Unbelievable.
[10:36] Well...
[10:37] I think that's George Allen.
[10:38] I saw him in the library.
[10:40] Yeah, he was a great boss.
[10:43] I took hands with him.
[10:45] He's a good friend of Freeman's.
[10:51] I think we're doing very well, Mr. President.
[10:53] Well, that was outstanding.
[10:57] That was really great.
[11:01] And I've heard news.
[11:02] We haven't seen time yet, and they've treated us very respectfully.
[11:07] You know, they're sort of petty nitpicking around.
[11:11] But, uh... Let me see.
[11:17] Oh, got a big play, and it's all they hold.
[11:19] They're writing it the way we want it written.
[11:21] They say there's some unanswered questions.
[11:24] What if I'm not able to go get help?
[11:26] We know ourselves.
[11:31] Now, the major thrust that comes across from the way we handled this last one and the way you handled the press conference is you're up to something, you have a strategy, you know what you're doing.
[11:43] Then, of course, they can pick away at the fringes of it.
[11:47] But if you had given the final announcement, they'd be roaring now.
[11:53] They'd be introducing resolutions, and two a month would really be handsome enough.
[11:58] It's, uh, there looks like no force is too big.
[12:01] What are you going to do about the prisoners?
[12:03] They know.
[12:05] And we couldn't be more right.
[12:23] And I think we're in basically good shape.
[12:25] Connolly thinks you're unbeatable, except for the weakness of our own internal race.
[12:32] Well, what do you think we should do?
[12:37] Fire you?
[12:37] Do you fire me?
[12:38] I think you want to stay here.
[12:41] I must say, in retrospect, I think we should...
[12:43] I was against it, but I think we should have made a change in state last summer.
[12:49] At that time, I thought we had it under control, and I...
[12:53] It isn't just, well, either then or this year.
[13:01] Oh.
[13:02] This spring.
[13:02] This summer.
[13:04] Yeah, this summer.
[13:07] It isn't so much that what Bill does, it's that everyone in his bloody department thinks they can take us on and lead, and they just don't build any of your loyalty.
[13:18] On the other hand, one has to weigh the danger.
[13:21] I don't know.
[13:22] of having him out, and the fact that a new man couldn't really reorganize the department now.
[13:32] Connolly thinks that this is a big weak spot.
[13:38] He told me this practically.
[13:41] He also thinks defense needs a strong man.
[13:44] Those, he thinks, are the two.
[13:45] He thinks those are the two big
[13:47] to pick weak points, he says, no one, neither of these departments is up there fighting for you or out among the press fighting for you.
[13:57] They're all out.
[13:58] And one has to say, last week, particularly the defense, this really was their whole strategy of how they can get credit for themselves.
[14:08] I don't know whether, I'm not sure that we ought to fire the cabinet member now.
[14:14] It's too late.
[14:15] It's too late.
[14:16] It's too late.
[14:23] But what they could be told is, you do this now.
[14:32] You know, I told Rafin of the possibility, without saying it was a Russian offer, I packaged it as if it were a possible idea, and he ran back to Israel right away.
[14:51] And he's now...
[14:53] We've got a message that he's on his way back, and he has an order to see me straight off the airplane.
[15:00] See now?
[15:01] We don't know how much they're gonna pay.
[15:04] Good.
[15:07] Well, we'll grasp that one tonight.
[15:10] Well, you haven't got all the facts yet.
[15:13] We'll have to see what happens.
[15:15] What's the next step on Connolly's list?
[15:27] The next step on Connolly's list, I'm going to see him again this week.
[15:28] What about those letters?
[15:29] Ziggy, you heard he hasn't got the impression that they're trying to cut him from here.
[15:31] Absolutely not.
[15:49] That's what I said.
[15:50] No, no, Mr. President.
[15:50] He went over basically because, you know, he's a very perceptive fellow.
[15:52] I told him that I frankly haven't gone with you into the detail I was going to attend.
[15:54] I said, I'm not coming as the President's emissary.
[15:56] I'm coming as your friend.
[15:56] I said, I'm not going to give you any trouble.
[15:57] I'm not going to work against you.
[15:58] I'm not going to have a confrontation with you in front of the President or anything like this.
[16:00] I'm telling you as a friend, you've now smashed the existing system.
[16:04] No one would have had the guts to do it except you.
[16:07] All these guys who are crying now would have settled last September for the cheapest term.
[16:13] Now, I tell you, it is my judgment if you want to emerge as a statesman out of this, you have to move into the constructive phase.
[16:20] It's always a question of timing.
[16:22] And he said he agreed.
[16:24] I said, I'm not in there to tell you.
[16:26] He agreed, for example, that...
[16:29] that there might be a 5% change in the price of gold.
[16:32] Did it?
[16:33] Yes.
[16:34] As long as there's no convertibility.
[16:39] I...
[16:39] But that's one way it's going to go by.
[16:40] How hard is it for you to argue this version?
[16:44] Goddamn conceit is on the bridge that we can get into.
[16:46] You do this with whom we do, Mr. President.
[16:47] You can have a series of smashing meetings.
[16:51] If we can get this sorted out before...
[16:53] I hear you've got a great problem with Schultz, Schultz and Pierce.
[16:58] Oh, you'll go along with it, huh?
[17:07] Fighters.
[17:09] Yeah.
[17:10] I'll talk to him.
[17:11] All right.
[17:11] I'll play that live.
[17:12] You see, Mr. President... You see, let me tell you about the price of gold.
[17:15] I don't give a goddamn.
[17:16] It's gold, chrome, and toilet paper.
[17:19] As long as they can't concern it.
[17:21] Well, it helps.
[17:22] I'm using this.
[17:22] Oh, of course, I'm straight.
[17:23] My point is, I'm going to get into Pompidou, get something into him, and if we can do that, Jesus, that's great.
[17:26] You see, the Germans...
[17:27] are willing to do a 10% overall, but they cannot, they can do 10% against us, but they cannot do 10% against the French.
[17:38] If we devalue 5% and they revalue 5%, then they're going only 5% against the French, but 10% against us, which is good.
[17:49] While if they do a revaluation against everybody of 10%, that's too much for them.
[17:59] And Connolly agrees with that.
[18:02] I'm not worried about it.
[18:03] 5% doesn't worry about it.
[18:06] No.
[18:06] I said 3 or 4.
[18:07] He said, no, Al, we can go up to 5 if we do it.
[18:11] No, we didn't do that.
[18:14] I got busted wide open that way.
[18:16] Well, that's what I think you should do, Mr. Preston.
[18:18] I think you should be the guy who puts the new international system together.
[18:23] It'll be a floating system.
[18:25] No, no, no.
[18:26] It wouldn't be necessarily floating.
[18:28] It would be
[18:30] Well, how can it not be floating?
[18:48] It's not convertible, it has to float.
[18:50] Well, you could do it with SDRs.
[18:51] That's convertible.
[18:51] Well, that means it's a good thing to go in the present so that we can keep it open.
[18:53] One of the things that you will take here is, you know,
[18:57] For a future study, cutting the multinationally and transferring it to bilateral, I don't know what the hell's going to happen.
[19:11] I think we're going to get the hell out of some of this multinationality.
[19:12] I think it is, uh, it is, we are spending, I don't know, each of us should do as well as we've got.
[19:14] And, uh...