Nixon, Kissinger & Ziegler on India-Pakistan War and Foreign Policy

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Well, Harris made a fool out of himself today up there.

On that powerboat.

That's right, Harris, I'll come over there.

You know, the only time I go to them, they get up.

They love it when they don't have a model.

This is Henry Townsend.

I told him.

We don't need this.

Well, I...

I...

There might be a time we want to get this over with, but we might just have to wait and see.

Now, what else do you have to say to protect the war?

Well, I think we're putting a posture on the end of the pack or something.

Yes, sir.

And then, of course, we postured it up in Florida, which is quite fairly well in terms of our concerns about India's actions.

What do you want to say about India's actions?

You know, Hed is going to brief at 7 tonight and Trudeau is heading to Prescott tomorrow.

We've talked about it economically, ladies.

We've lived in a country, let's say, for a very, very thorough society for many, many years.

And not just Monterey, but Monterey trade and investment areas.

I don't know what he expected me to say.

He wanted to keep you as a servant.

I didn't know, but I thought maybe that was something I was missing.

So I asked him, was I giving the right answer?

Even if he wanted to keep you as a servant, I wouldn't say so.

And then also we talked about the Pakistan problem.

Thank you.

On the economic thing, I will be asked about, you know, did he ask for lifting the surcharge and did the... Well, we didn't get into the specifics of that, but those are matters that will be, that are being worked on at the working level, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Defense, and so forth and so on.

We just discussed general principles.

We did not discuss the specifics of that.

Thank you.

I don't know.

I thought maybe I was nuts, but I don't know.

I can't put it out of hand.

I was a specific empathist.

I don't know if you were mine, but when you went through that first monologue, I thought, Christ, is he talking about.

Huh?

It was.

Faculty, faculty, look, it's a kind of, so basically if you hear people coming in and talking about the relationship, well, you have no practical conclusion.

As you said, supposing we wanted to keep Canada and say it would be phenomenal, you wouldn't say so.

No, as a matter of fact, I agree, I hope, where I say, look,

Let's face it, both of us have got to be insolvent.

If you're going to be insolvent, we're going to be insolvent.

Second, if we're going to do this to the country, if I were talking to the President of Bolivia, if we were talking to the President of Canada, I must have covered about 18 miles.

It was an interesting exercise.

I thought, actually, I was kidding.

The truth is, it was.

He was all with us on our trips.

I think Mr. President, I haven't talked to Ron about it yet.

It's Phil's that I noticed time, for example, since we were leaving towards Pakistan.

I might consider backgrounding a few of the people that just put out the record of what we said to Mrs. Canty, what political office behind it, so that it's all put together.

Right.

Because we have an overwhelming case.

And we shouldn't let the opposition get ahead of FEMA.

Well, I think you ought to have a background, because I think we've got such a good case, too.

But if you keep pointing out that when I was here, when Mrs. Gandhi was here, she was told this, she was told that, she was told that.

And also that I had also chosen to be an ambassador to work out a complete timetable of these negotiations.

Well, when you write your biographies at these meetings, I'm always putting a repeating transcript into your own file.

Now, to conduct them without an ode with this fancy, who's something all over the place, it really takes a hell of a lot of concentration.

Oh, I know.

You're very attractive.

I had a thought, too, on your facts.

to report to me.

I had thought that we'd have you report to the captain.

I don't think it's a good idea.

I'll tell you what I have in mind.

I think you should report it to you, and I'll tell you why.

We ought to cool the Russians.

I couldn't, Mr. President.

They're saying that it's trying to find out what the killer wants to have a press conference.

I'll do it first.

I'll get a hold of it.

No, I'll do it.

Maury's going to be hard to handle, but he's a great team player.

And he sees now that we deliver.

This is the sort of signal we let him understand.

You'll be better off, Mr. President, six months from now.

If they lose respect for us now, they'll put it to us the way it's never been put to us.

I must say Han Haig sat in on this NSC meeting and afterwards he said the only manly man there, it wasn't quite there, Connolly was the president and the only man who had any strategic conception.

Connolly will be all right at this, that's why it's important.

And because he's basically a tough guy, his... Well, I must admit that I understand the strategy of the game.

And frankly, the difference that you find out between the 65 war and the rest is very important.

But I want to get into something that's important, because we've been around this drag once before.

And Henry, let me tell you one thing we can't do.

We cannot allow, you and I know, what a serious thing this is in terms of forecast.

We cannot allow these bastards in the press to blame us for this goddamn war when they didn't blame Johnson for the other one.

You get my point?

We have less blame this time

than Johnson has that time.

Am I correct?

That's why I want to do some background.

That's right.

I've got to get ourselves and how we, how the president, they didn't like the teachers' rule at that time.

You know, they screwed around.

I'd like to do background, particularly the weeklies, so that next Monday and Tuesday.

I'll do the weeklies, but I have to do the New York Times.

I get the whole... Or maybe 10 or 15 of them.

10 or 15 of them, well...

Yes, I think you're right.

If you go...

If I go before they hold back?

Yeah, yeah.

I was going to suggest to you, when that damn car came in, whether we should have had any of that made over in the...

I think that's it.

Oh, well, it's March.

small meaning, not the whole.

Was he enough something today?

Oh, yes, yes, he was another thing.

Yeah, whenever you'd like to finish up these last two events.

Well, I may not be able to do them because I'm tied up now on these things, so whatever our last two events, sign in some more documents and see if all of them fit.

Here we go.

All the holidays, that's where he comes back.

He's finished, isn't he?

Yeah, he's finished.

We still want citizens to come in and report on the, uh, Powell voting.

Come in and report the Powell's termination on Newark.

Yeah.

And, uh, we might ask him for a Senate request.

Yeah, Peter Flanagan, the one who's asking about that.

You have to have that, the five minutes.

Bob Walton recommended that.

That would be given on a hell of a big plate today.

They didn't give it until September.

Well, I think they didn't give it enough.

So I'll let you know by that time.

That would be about a half hour, or I'll be ready.

I'll let you know.

I'm going to hear about it.

Maybe you'll find that as I get through, but I've got to finish this first, and I'll let you know.

What I was going to say, Henry,

What I'm concerned about, I'm really worried about, is whether or not I was too easy in the goddamn moment when she was here.

Well, maybe I was.

Maybe I was.

I don't know.

Maybe it wouldn't help.

I didn't want to stop on a course to do this.

Well, I have told you.

Well, Mr. Benjamin, I wonder now in retrospect

Now that you've put the question.

Well, you followed the recommendations we all made to you.

So if anyone has to play...

If anything, if anything, I was a little tougher on her than the talking paper.

I was not soft on her.

No, but I, now, our advice to you was not to give her a pretext.

That's right.

And you even said to me, I remember when you went out...

But on the other hand, well, the public thing has to be good.

But we're not off track on it now.

Should we have recommended to you to brutalize her privately, to say, I want you to know...

I should.

I should do this.

And you will wreck your relationship with us for five years, and we will look for every opportunity to damage you.

I just want you to know that.

That's probably what we should have done.

And I have a meeting to see.

I was teaming up with the ambassador.

Oh, he's a... Because we don't...

Stop, son of a bitch.

But she was playing us.

She was playing us, and you know, the cold way she was the next day, she didn't really think of anything else.

And this woman, this sucker, let me tell you what she's going to pay.

She's just going to pay.

I mean, on the stage side, I am not... And let's fight it in the campaign.

The Democrats, they're not going to make an issue.

They'll probably say, we're losing India forever.

All right?

Who's going to care about losing India forever?

I think, Mr. President, if we go to the American public and say what we've done, what they did, by that time there will have been a massacre in East Pakistan.

So under their inches, we've got to keep the heat on them now.

They have to know they've paid a price.

Hell, if we could reestablish the trade with Communist China, we can always get the Indians back whenever we want to later, a year or two from now.

Would you check to see whether they held that letter, if it's the harder one it was that Mr. Kastner brought in?

Uh, I want them sure to follow all that it's the harder one at the time that they used to be in because we're, you know, we're following up.

And it's precisely with people like him that we have to show that we're going to pick tough?

That's right.

So that he doesn't get, swallow up and get ideas?

No, I want, we'll, we'll just sleep and I don't think it's my proposition in this regard.

I haven't said anything about it.

But I feel strongly that we should do it.

I think we've got to tell them that some movement on that part, we think, toward the Indian border, could be very significant.

And as far as we're concerned, that we have sent a very tough note to the Russians, and that we are cooling our relations.

There is, for any reason, I don't know how to put it, that the President is indestructible.

You know what I mean?

The way we could put it, Mr. President, is to say we shouldn't urge them to do it because they'll get too suspicious.

If you consider it necessary to take certain actions, we want you to know that you should not be

deterred by the fear of standing alone against certain powers that may intervene.

Right.

That's right.

And then say, we have done this, and then set out a lead-on version, and then say, it apparently appears, frankly, now, that the only reason at all, from the briefing, the complimentary briefing that we had had, appears that the only reason the Indians fear is the possibility that's mentioned in the accident.

You know?

I don't know if you mind if that's specific or not.

I don't know.

convinced that if the Chinese start beginning to be petrified, they will be petrified.

I don't give a damn if the next Mormon says that they can get through that pass.

But I'll look into it.

I'm pretty sure he's a fool on that point.

You know what I mean?

The Chinese, you know, when they came across Seattle, they thought we were a bunch of goddamn fools.

It's not hard to win, but they didn't.

They didn't.

I'm not so sure.

We owe it to the Paks to do it.

But what's going to happen is after this is over, the Paks, they're going to get a friendly government also into West Pakistan.

This has been a great operation for the Indians.

Because this is, it's going to lead to the overthrow of Yahya for sure, and to a

It's so sad, so sad.

Tomorrow we've got to have a meeting on Vietnam also.

I want a meeting on Vietnam, too, at least.

I have to finish there, but our policy of mine has got to be even more relevant than you thought.

I don't mean to say I agree to treat each other like that, but we have got to do enough

So that there is something that we have to give up in order to get something from them.

In other words, the bombing must be done.

I don't see any other way to get those prisoners back.

So I want that scheme prepared.

And for that we have to go public on our peace initiative.

So I think we're going to have to anyway in January.

I think so.

January.

Now let's wait.

They may still come.

I don't know.

I think if they don't come by January, we have to go public, Mr. President, because by March, it will be last week's notes.

Oh, I don't...

I want to go public in January.

We should go on public in January.

We're going to settle in January, one of the two.

I determined that long ago, you know.

We can't wait.

Coming back to this, I mean, this is Indian-Pakistan.

What a mistake we made.

Wasn't it your mistake that it took us two weeks to get the bureaucracy?

If we could have got the bureaucracy on the first day of the Indian attack on East Pakistan to do the things they finally did today, that might have given them enough of a shock to blow them up.

that might have given the Russians enough of a shot.

You notice this is Nadi, when she's in her parlor and they're dumping the desks with their fists, and she's not setting up those defendants.

Yeah, but she would have not done this if she had, by that time she had crossed the Rubicon, the time to catapult the desks when she attacks us, and so forth and so on.

Yeah.

But she seemed pretty cautious about attacking us, and she's done it only once.

She'd never mention it, my man.

That's one of the reasons why I shouldn't get out on press conference, because I'm going to have to take her and I'm not going to do it.

I don't want to be in a position of attacking the topics.

I've got to stay out of that.

I think so.

No, I think you ought to stay out of it.

You definitely ought to stay out of it.

You don't want to get into a...

into an argument with her particularly, as for the pre-period, it will look as if she's winning.

You know, absolutely.

Excuse me, the main thing is, we must not lose by being blind to this concept.

And I, uh, I will get blind.

No, no, we can, uh...

I went to Joe Althoff's house the other night, and Teddy Kennedy was there.

Of course, he said it's true.

He started mumbling, we didn't do enough, and I just jumped all over him.

Well, there, I said, I just said, we did this and this and this.

What would you have done, Terry?

What more would you have done?

He said, I would have shown more sympathy.

I said, we gave them $250 million.

Do you really think sympathy?

Well, he pulled way off.

He said he'd like to meet me and talk about it a little more.

Well, we couldn't press message in Warsaw.

We only sent a message last night, and today we sent a letter.

Well, we wrote him a pretty tough one.

What do we say?

Well, we said this threatens the whole climate of confidence.

It's just so hard to establish.

I told them yesterday that it's not exactly the opposite of what they should want.

They're driving us into aligning ourselves with countries that we have no particular parallel interest in on the subcontinent.

I said, how can you ask?

Talk to us about Security Council guarantees if you thwarted the Security Council.

And if I threatened them that we wouldn't carry out the Mideast negotiations.

And they've seen, I haven't talked to you about this, that we can't do it.

But they have been bugging me to come to Moscow.

I don't want to do it.

I'll just try to use it because of the Russia problem.

But they've sent me a formal invitation now.

I don't want to do it, but he raised it again yesterday, and I said under these conditions there'd be no sense at all talking about it.

It's better to put it on the basis that they had turned it off.

We can just cancel this visit which I never had any intention of doing in the first place.

That's cool.

Thanks.

We'll meet tomorrow.

I've only got five minutes.

No.

Five minutes.

One minute.

I want you to send a message to Keith.

He is to be totally cold

I'll get the message out.

Nixon, Kissinger & Ziegler on India-Pakistan War and Foreign Policy

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on December 6, 1971

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