On December 7, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Maurice H. Stans, Alexander M. Haig, Jr., Peter G. Peterson, White House photographer, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, Ronald L. Ziegler, unknown person(s), and Henry A. Kissinger met in the Oval Office of the White House from 3:12 pm to 4:29 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 631-004 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
Yes, sir.
We had a long trip.
A very pleasant one.
It's gone 17 days.
Two days in Sweden, 11 in the Soviet Union, and two in Poland.
How many in Poland?
Two.
Not much of anything happened in Sweden.
I was critically called to rest on the trip route.
Poland was very interesting and very constructive.
And I think there's some things we could do with the Polish.
They might take some bank credits.
They gave me a $350 million shopping list of things they'd like to buy right away with credits.
And when I pressed them on settling their debt to American bondholders, they said they would settle it.
So they might do something there.
I took the trip to the Soviet Union, and I got a report.
Oh, I left it that we would consider the Ex-Im credits.
But I'm going to recommend to you in my report that we give Grant a full Ex-Im credit somewhere so long as it's 30 or more days after Romania.
We gave Romania that the other day, last week.
Sometime in January, give the vote.
Just last Tuesday, I think.
On the Soviet Union, I'd like to understand that you have 30 minutes.
I'd like to take 15 minutes to outline my report to you.
I spent six days in Moscow, and then five days elsewhere, using the weekends.
I was in Leningrad, a day and a half.
A day in Baku, the Azerbaijan Republic, and two days in Tbilisi, in the Georgian Republic.
Mixing business and a degree of pleasure.
The minute I got off the plane in Moscow, I went to Kosygin's office.
Not knowing how long or what we would talk about specifically, but we were there three and a half hours and covered the whole field.
I sent a long message reporting on it, but it was a very
serious cordial business-like discussion of how to improve the relations between the two countries.
We talked about all the aspects of trade.
He suggested various things that could be done, outlined what he thought needed to be done in order to achieve a real substantial relationship.
He thought this was one way of normalizing understandings between the two countries.
And I think the most significant thing that came out of the discussion was that at one point he said, Mr. Secretary, your mission can go one of two ways.
He said you can either have a very pleasant time and go back home and nothing will happen, or he said we could make some progress.
Now, I'd like to suggest we try to make some progress and we try to make some progress.
I suppose that we named three or four working groups of people from your country and my country to take some topics and try to work some things out so that we could reach some agreements and understandings before the president gets here or announce them when he gets here.
And I said, well, Mr. Chairman, I hope you won't mind, but I think one of the things that's very important are the political circumstances in which we do all of this.
the importance of reaching agreement between our two countries on other things as well.
He said, you have my assurance that the political situation will be improved by the time President Nixon gets here in May.
I didn't press him for any further answers, but I assumed he was talking about salt and these other matters.
But he made it quite clear that he is looking for political understanding as well as commercial.
Now, in between, I also saw him for the last five minutes, for five minutes just before I left Moscow.
And at that time, he gave me a personal letter addressed to you, in which he, and I'll give it to you, in which he thanks you for your message, he acknowledges my visit, says we regard positively the talk held with Mr. Sands, and
and as well as the agreement for each to continue exchanges of views.
Might like to see how they handle their mail.
Fancy envelopes and all.
Very friendly.
In between, I had three meetings with the Minister of Foreign Trade.
I saw the Minister of Petroleum, the Minister of Gas, the Minister of Auto Deals, the Minister of Shipping, the Minister of Standards.
I saw the Chairman of the State Committee on Science and Technology, the Chamber of Commerce, the Foreign Trade Bank.
And I met with the Chairman of the Council of Ministers in the Azerbaijan Republic and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers in the Georgian Republic.
And it pretty generally covered
the relations between the two countries in every one of these visits.
I think the high spot of the trip, for whatever significance it has, was that in the course of my discussion with Kosygin, he talked about his five-year plan, and he said, I'm going to present it to the Supreme Soviet Wednesday morning.
And he said, I invite you to be there.
I said, Mr. Chairman, I accept.
So on Wednesday...
My assistant secretary and your man Sonnenfeld and I sat on the floor of the Supreme Soviet.
We were right behind the Kazakh delegation in a separate section that was reserved for us.
Four chairs reserved specifically for distinguished American visitors.
And we heard him deliver his five-year plan.
I think it's a distinction that they don't give to very many people.
We were treated as though we were heads of state everywhere we went.
In the Georgian Republic, for example, in a theater that seated 3,000 people, they put on a special showing of the Georgian state dance group exclusively for our group, for 20 people.
There were 10 of us and 10 of the people entertaining us.
And everywhere, we got everything we had.
We were in the Blair House equivalent over there.
They had a plane at our disposal.
They escorted us everywhere.
The entertainment was tremendous, and all expenses were paid.
There was great press interest in what we were doing.
We ran a story every day, mostly on who we were seeing and where we were going, rather than on our news reports, because they don't report news in the same way we do.
But we made it clear from the beginning that we were there to explore, not to reach any agreements or understandings of any kind, just to explore how we could develop our relationships on the commercial side.
And there wasn't any question from Kosygin down that they want a greater exchange of trade with the United States.
And they looked on it as a way of improving relations between the two countries generally.
believe that we are discriminating against them in not giving them most favored nation treatment, in not allowing them to have export-import bank credits, and in having our special list of restricted items of goods that we won't sell to them.
They are willing to negotiate other considerations for them.
One that I pressed on is the fact that they haven't settled the lead lease debt.
That negotiation stopped 10 years ago, at which they offered us $300 million, and we had indicated we'd take $800 million.
And I said that I thought there was no basis on which we could establish Export-Import Bank credits unless there were an undertaking on their part to deal with that over a period of time.
There was no agreement that they would do it, but they understand our position very clearly on that point.
In answer to Kosygin's suggestion that we appoint some working groups, I told him that we would consider that, and I would let his minister know before I left the Soviet Union.
I considered it very carefully, and it seemed to me that that was going beyond the charter that I had to explore the situation.
So I worked it out with the Minister of Foreign Trade that what we would do is that he and I,
representing his ministry and my department, would continue the discussions through a fact-finding group of four of his people and four people from the Department of Commerce who would meet alternatively in Washington and Moscow as long as there were actual data that could be developed on what goods would fit the United States market that they make, what goods we make would fit their market that they would like to have, how we could enter into the so-called joint venture that he wants to talk about,
and the kinds of arrangements that American business people need in order to be able to move around in the Soviet Union, have offices, have facilities, have housing for their people, and all that.
These would all be discussed in the fact-finding groups.
He accepted that, and Chairman Kosygin accepted that as a satisfactory resolution of his suggestion for four working groups.
Now,
I would say my overall conclusions are something like this, and I'd like to mention a few of them in more detail.
The trade possibilities are very substantial.
There's no question about it.
The minister talked to me about the numbers.
You know, there's been some question about how much trade is really available.
Your numbers were a little lower, I think.
Well, the study numbers that we did was about a billion.
The government studies showed a billion, but at that time, I wrote you a letter saying I thought there were more.
I don't name a figure in here, except this, that I... We've continued to follow up on this, too.
I mean, I think the number is going to be... Well, understand, we all know the number is a guess.
And we know that there's 16 billion in Western Europe or something like that.
We all know, too, that... Well, there isn't that much.
There's 5 billion in Western countries.
Whatever it is, we all know that it's good to know that it would be good to have a certain... something within a ballpark.
Well, my goal, and I say that we can multiply present levels many-fold,
I would say $2 billion by 1975.
That much?
Yep.
Just with Russia?
Just with Russia.
And another $300 million or so with Poland by 1975.
And I say to achieve that, we'll require... Let's look at it further.
What would the number be if we were to talk about all of Eastern Europe?
What is our total trade with Eastern Europe and Russia at the present time, Mario?
I think it's less than half a million dollars.
It's less than half a billion.
It's less than that.
It's 450.
It's very small.
I would say you could see... All right, now let's talk about all of Eastern Europe and Russia, assuming you can see your past Vietnam.
Assuming then that you can break into these things like you laid out.
Three billion dollars at least by 75.
You think so?
Yeah.
you're going to be a thing in terms of a free grain dollar number.
That would include Russia.
Some of these things are extremely interesting.
For example, Krusegan volunteered.
We talked about possibilities for trade.
I said, what about grain?
Having in mind the recent shipment.
He said, we would be willing, as far as an arrangement with the United States, to negotiate a five-year purchase of two to three million tons a year.
provided you give us credit.
And I said, well, assuming that we are able to work out credit through the Export-Import Bank, I think that obviously would fit.
But credit on grain would be a much shorter time than credit on industrial equipment.
He said, how long?
And I said, oh, six months.
He said, oh, that's not credit.
He said, we're thinking of something much longer than that.
Well, we give three years to Poland.
Export-import bank guarantees are on the usual export-import terms.
We do now with Yugoslavia and Romania only.
But Poland would like to have it, and I think would qualify.
Bulgaria would like to have it, I think.
What grain are you talking now about, or what?
General, for equipment, machine tools.
All right, now looking at grain alone, what about Russia?
I would say that... You think that then the cards should talk about a five-year deal for so many tons a year?
With the three-year credits or two-year, starting out with two-year credits to the three.
I think it would be.
I think we could.
No, not drag port import, but it would qualify for CCC credits.
Yeah.
I think Mr. President would have real political value.
I'm just trying to get the numbers in mind.
That would be a $750-$800 million deal over five years.
That's a lot of grain.
They all raise grain.
Kosygin said very frankly, we can't raise corn.
I think it's negotiable.
I haven't checked it out since I got back.
And normally they do it on two years payable so much every six months.
Oh yes, we'd have to continue that.
Now, I'd just like to review a few more things.
I saw, I visited four plants, or rather three plants, and then I visited the offshore oil operations at Baku.
I saw a steel mill, I saw a generator factory, I went through the store with the manager and had a long discussion with him about their operations.
I saw a lot of other people, and everywhere I went, I was given total freedom.
In fact, Kosygin said in my meeting, now, Mr. Secretary, you can have, there are no restrictions on your travel.
You can go anywhere you want.
So in the factories, I talked to the workers.
When I had the opportunity, I talked to shopkeepers, had discussions with our own interpreter.
And there isn't any question that you're going to get a warm reception when you go over there.
There's going to be a
a great feeling, a great desire for understanding with the United States.
And this comes from the little guy, the in-tourist guy, the shopkeeper, the dancers, and all the rest.
They want to be friendly with the United States.
The feeling is all over the country.
So I think you're going to get a warm reception.
I think the question is going to be, what, if anything, and how much do we want to work out with these people before you get there?
There was great pressing.
The press from all the countries followed everywhere.
And the Soviet press were there a great deal.
Now, going beyond that, as I said, there were no negotiations, no commitments, no agreements, except when I left, I wrote a letter to the Minister of Foreign Trade in which I said I wanted to spell out our understanding of their position
and wanted to state our position with respect to future developments and said that all of these matters would have to be dealt with in our joint fact-finding group.
And we set the date for a meeting, January 6th in Washington.
Four of them are coming over here to meet with us to talk about more particulars.
In doing that, I had this in mind.
Depending upon your attitude toward the situation, that group could move fast or it could move very slowly.
If we want to work something out, if we want to begin negotiations on a five-year grain agreement, then we can have that group move faster.
If we want to work on export-import bank credit, we could have that group take up the question of balancing that against the settlement of the Lend-Lease debt, and so forth.
I feel I have made no commitment except to pursue the discussions in an orderly way.
Now, I did, of necessity, invite my counterpart to visit the United States as our guest.
And this, we decided, would be either before or after your visit to Moscow, as our governments would agree.
And my guess is that we ought to postpone that until after your visit to Moscow, depending, of course, again, on how fast we want to move.
There's no question but what, going back again, they do want to work something out.
Kosygin said, we'd like to set up a bank in New York.
And I said, would you permit an American bank in Moscow?
And he said, well, of course, we would do everything on a reciprocal basis.
We would expect.
I have some impressions of the Soviet Union.
There are no shortages in the stores now.
The stores are full.
The quality isn't very good.
They admit great shortages of housing in every city I was in.
And I was in four of the five largest cities.
And, of course, there are very few automobiles.
But the impression that you get is that it's an improving country.
It's a confident country.
They're concentrating more on living standards.
The new five-year plan shifts more to consumer goods.
They are adjusting to some capitalist concepts.
They're increasing initiatives and the rewards.
for people, and they use the profit motive now at the level of the enterprise in order to judge performance.
My conclusion from what I... Yep.
And they have suggestion plans on the walls of the factories with pictures of the people who make suggestions and the rewards.
Performance charted.
Oh, yeah, sure.
Uh...
My overall conclusion on the plants I visited and what I saw and so forth is that they're about a generation behind the United States, but they're moving strongly and moving fast.
I would say they're about equivalent, although the statistics don't show that for what I saw, but I didn't get out into the country in Poland.
Now, I didn't see any plants.
I didn't see any small towns or anything like that.
But I say here in my report, I have an impression of a country of growing strength.
It's conscious of that strength.
No longer has an inferiority complex.
They don't debate.
There was no ideological rhetoric anywhere.
Nobody said communism is better than capitalism.
Because see them down.
We're gaining now.
I was impressed by quiet confidence, a minimum of boastfulness, the absence of ideological rhetoric in all discussions.
Now, getting back to the business side of it, this is no game for small American businesses.
They are so big, and the centralization of their purchasing and all that means that this is a game for the big companies, big American companies.
Their natural resources are impressive.
When they show you their gas fields on a map,
show you the copper deposits and the fact that they now produce more than half of the world's diamonds and all the other things they have there, natural resources, you've got to come to the conclusion that they're going to be a strong rival to the United States 20, 30 years from now.
Everywhere you go, there's the Avis attitude.
We're number two.
We're going to grow.
We're going to be strong.
that's everywhere for the general public and so forth.
Now, the issues.
First issue of importance to them is the restoration of most favored nation treatment for their exports.
They had it.
We withdrew it in 1951 when we abrogated the trade agreement that was in effect at that time.
Kosygin says, we don't attach very much practical significance to this, but psychologically,
It's very discriminatory.
And we think the United States ought to take it off.
And I said, well, this is something, of course, that requires legislation.
It's not something the president or I can do.
We certainly will keep it in mind.
Now, at subsequent...
Yes.
Poland has it.
Why don't we do it with the main?
We do it.
Romania doesn't have it, yet.
We have to get legislation on that.
We have to get legislation, yes.
And there's some bills in the Congress to give it to Romania.
There's some bills there.
Now, although Kosygin said it was mostly psychological, this was argued by some of the other Soviet officials who said, we are not looking to the United States market because we know we can't get in because of your high tariffs.
three or four times as much as against other countries, but we could do some trade in the United States and be able to buy more if you took the most favorite nation barrier down.
The second point that they raise is the availability of credit, and I've discussed that.
And it ties into what is obviously their overall national conclusion, that they've got to switch more into consumer goods, that this is going to take more capital,
And they can't generate capital fast enough to fulfill the expectations of the people.
So they want credit facilities and they want joint ventures.
Now, I'll come to those in a minute because I don't want to confuse the issues here.
The third one they want is to get rid of our export controls.
But they play this in low key because they know we've reduced them more than 50% in the last year.
Reductions are still going on.
And unless they get into something really strategic, it isn't affecting them.
But again, they look at it as psychological consequences.
If there's some things you don't want to sell us, okay, but don't publish a list.
Don't say to the rest of the world that you're going to discriminate against the Soviet Union.
We know there's some things you shouldn't sell us.
There's some things we don't sell to other countries.
But the practical fact is we can buy anything we need.
We can buy anything we want elsewhere.
Why should the United States not want to sell things to us for our factories and for our homes?
They want increased scientific cooperation.
He suggested a working group of our two countries to talk about the whole range of scientific and technological cooperation in space flight and pollution control, scientific medical developments and all the rest that we do it in an organized overall way.
set up a group to explore the areas in which they would like very much to do that.
They would like to have a trade agreement.
We had a trade agreement with them from 1936 to 1951, and then we abrogated it.
They have 100 trade agreements with other countries.
It's their practice of crystallizing the formulas for doing business.
I said I thought we had to work out an awful lot of things before we came to that point.
and that the United States, because of the private nature of our business, didn't have trade agreements.
It's never before I forget.
Did they say that the business of the Lend-Lease was negotiable?
I thought that was forgotten long ago.
They didn't say it was negotiable.
What he said was, well, he said, you've interjected some new issues.
And he said, we can deal with them, the words to that effect.
The State Committee for Science and Technology would like to have an agreement on scientific and technical cooperation, such as they have with Canada and France, but I think that if we set up a working group, that would take the place of it.
Now, the issues that we raise of importance to us are these.
First, effective access for United States business.
No businesses have offices in Moscow, except Pan Am, and they've had trouble getting housing for their employees.
They've been foreclosed from everything.
American Express has tried for 11 years to get telex facilities in their office over there.
But to show you the reaction of these people to our visit, I raised that within tourists.
And the next day I got a message that American Express would have their telex facilities within three days.
So they were trying to make suggestions.
We want them to take off their most favorite nation's discriminations against us.
We want better information and earlier information on their market requirements than we now get it.
And we want greater freedom for American concerns to go to the factories that use the equipment instead of going to the ministries that buy it, so they can see that the equipment is used properly and serviced properly and so forth.
We want
bilateral procedure for settling commercial disputes, so that if there are arguments, we all have automatic ways, and there's no argument on that, they'll give us that.
We want more business in agricultural exports, and they'll negotiate that.
We want a settlement of the land lease, they recognize our position, I'm sure they will negotiate it and settle it.
We get down to joint ventures.
And what they're talking about there is not a joint venture in the sense that you and I would describe it.
They're talking about American companies providing equipment and technology to develop their natural resources on a major scale.
Mining of copper, mining of nickel, mining of chrome, gas fields, oil, and so forth.
In return for which the American interest would be paid back out of product.
including interest on the investment, and would get a long-term supply contract at a favorable price in relation to world markets.
On the map, they would like to build gas pipelines from their fields over to the Baltic, put a liquefaction plant there, and ship the liquefied gas to the United States in ships, like we do with Algeria now.
Of course, this raises national security questions immediately, but if it were...
related to 5% or 10% of our consumption, I would assume that it would be a perfectly safe thing to do.
Now, I have several more sections here I want to run through quickly.
One is on conclusions.
No question, the USSR wants more trade with the United States.
And they told us that they're going to give some contracts within a week to some American companies for the Kama River truck plant with some of the licenses that we granted.
They gave us a shopping list from the Minister of Petroleum, several hundred million dollars of equipment and technology they'd like to buy.
My second conclusion is that increased trade with the Soviet Union would benefit the United States.
And it benefited primarily for this reason, that to the extent they bought anything from us, they'd be buying labor-intensive products.
To the extent we bought from them,
At least in the early years we'd be buying resources, which we need anyway, which to a considerable degree we're short of.
We could advance our position against the other countries in Europe in dealing with them, and I'm attaching to my report a long list of joint ventures and trade deals they've made with the European countries.
We have fallen way behind in the procession, deliberately, but we're way behind in the procession as against the other countries.
And they have agreements now with Western countries for timber development, building ports, coal mining, nickel mining, pipelines, glass manufacture, iron mining, nickel refining, gas pipe, diesel engine manufacture, automobile manufacture, natural gas development, chemical plant construction, synthetic fiber research, household appliances, and so forth.
They've been working the kind of deals with other countries they're talking about doing with us.
So they are able to get technology.
They're getting technology all the time from the other countries.
The third conclusion I have is that the growth of U.S. trade will be very slow unless we do agree to give the most favored nation treatment and export credit facility.
Our exporters are very anxious to do business, but they can't.
They can't handle the financing.
It's just that simple.
And I think we're going to get more and more business pressure as their contacts increase to give export facilities.
They're creating organizations that are not disposed to buy from the United States so they can get it somewhere else because they are getting credit elsewhere in the world.
The fourth conclusion is that the U.S. S.R.
economy is growing steadily, and this is increasing the potential for trade within the two countries.
They're planning on substantial increases in production and in productivity.
Speaking of the growth of the economy, do you have the same impression of others that they're pretty flat?
No, I think they're growing.
I think they're growing.
I think they're...
Of course, I have the disadvantage of never having been there before, but talking to people... My pictures have shown that at a pretty high level for some time.
No, they're talking about growing at the rate of between 7.5% and 10% over the next five years.
But what has their actual growth been?
As a share of G&T, they've picked up a point each of the last decade.
But I've had the impression that they're looking at Japan, for example, and wondering why Japan's role is so much faster than they are.
I think that's true, yeah.
I think that's true.
They probably level off after they've gotten up to industrialize.
In Krusegan's speech, he says that we will, with the end of the five-year plan, we will be the equivalent of the United States today in production.
Now, in steel and some other things, they'll be ahead of us.
They're still putting a lot into it.
into major industries, but they're shifting more to consumer.
He told us that they're going to build another truck plant after the Calmer River plant.
And in fact, they have sent people to the United States to talk to Ford.
They were there for 10 days to see whether Ford would be interested in helping them build that plant.
So there's no question in my mind that there's a lot of business there.
I think collaboration on raw material extraction and processing is feasible.
It will take a lot of capital.
But he mentioned titanium, copper, platinum, zinc, forest products, timber.
They'd be very happy to have American companies come over and develop their timber.
They described in great detail the construction of a natural gas arrangement with the United States.
It's in my report.
I won't go through that.
Now, the significance of it, as I see it based on all of my evaluations, is they are unquestionably ready to step up economic relations with the United States, and this is part of a program of trying to develop greater understanding with the United States.
They're grateful that we, in essence, made the first move, and they would like to make moves to follow up with it.
Secondly, they need to catch up on their technology.
There's no question about it.
I'm not sure how much of a risk we take because there is no doubt also that their government is very cumbersome.
The structure of government with 48 ministries with science and technology over here and the purchasing agencies over here is very cumbersome and it seems to me that we could give them a great deal of goods and technology and still not improve the strength of the Soviet system.
Third, the practical value of most favorite nation is limited in the sense that I don't think that it's much more than a psychological barrier, but that fact means that we can't trade very much for it either.
We're not gonna get very much in trade except an equivalent elimination of their discrimination against American goods.
Now, I reach this conclusion also.
We have to keep in the forefront that they're acting in
proposing this, they're acting in their narrow self-interest.
They're going to be tough bargainers.
They have, to some extent, begun to believe their propaganda that our economy is weak and we need their markets in order to extricate ourselves from our present difficulties.
Next, they're not going to change their ideology in any sense because they do business with us.
They're going to remain anti-capitalist.
They make that quite clear.
They will not, however, be anti-American.
I think they'll change that tune.
I had a talk with the Minister of Trade in my last meeting.
I said, I want to see you alone.
I want to talk with you about some of these things, because I'd like to see these relations work out, and I know you would.
But number one, how are you going to stop the press criticism of the United States?
How are you going to stop the agitation?
I said, on the way in from the airport is a billboard, anti-American billboard.
Is that billboard going to be up there when President Nixon comes in May?
And he said, oh, I didn't know there was such a thing.
He said, we'll get in on that right away.
He said, our press is being more friendly with the United States since these false talks and things are moving.
And he said, we'll do everything we can to reduce that.
I said, well, secondly, there's another thing we both have to work on.
And that is, we have to be sure that we separate commerce from political activities.
He said, what do you mean by that?
Well, I said, we have reports that in Angela, a lot of your people who are ostensibly on trade were engaged in other activities.
He said, well, I'll guarantee you that's not taking place today, and I'll guarantee you that it won't take place in the future.
And I agree with you that we should keep our commercial activities separate from any political activities.
actions of any kind I don't believe that more trade and economic context will necessarily make them easier to deal with on political issues but I there's reason to believe that it will contribute to a better overall relationship and better understanding that in time can help the distribution of political issues and I think as time goes on that possibility could strengthen
Now I come to a set of recommendations.
First, I request presidential approval of the arrangement to continue the fact-finding group.
And I think we ought, despite the fact that it's strictly commerce against his ministry, that we ought to invite in representatives of some of the other government agencies, Pete's office, for example, and state.
Then, as the first step toward normalizing relations,
and as a follow-on to Romania, I would make export-import bank credit guarantees available promptly, but as an advanced condition, get agreement from the Soviet government to negotiate a prompt settlement of the lending debt.
I'd authorize the immediate negotiating of a five-year agreement on grains, because I think that has great value to us.
I would continue to reduce the export control lists
until we get them down close to the COCOM level, plus only those commodities that are related to the design, production, and utilization of military hardware.
I would authorize the found establishment of an official U.S. USSR high-level working group to explore and make recommendations for cooperation in scientific and technological matters.
I would try to negotiate with them a mutual reduction in travel restrictions
and a program of promoting tourism, because I think this is a way in which, without loss to the United States, if our tourists traveled in the Soviet Union instead of elsewhere, they could earn more money with which, in turn, to buy more goods.
And again, to increase the interface of people.
I would include in the next legislative program a proposal to give the most favored nation treatment, but I wouldn't give it to them until they had
definitely concluded the settlement of the Lend-Lease debt before that.
I would ask Congress to repeal the Johnson Act, which has limits on private financing.
It would impede, probably, the ability of American companies to get into these long-term joint ventures.
And I would then, with all of that out of the way, I would authorize the negotiation of a trade agreement, principally to establish effective control over their concessions to us.
and to get some other things that are less important, but nevertheless valuable to us, like Soviet protection on copyrights and things like that.
My report is very detailed.
I have a memorandum of every conversation, the statistics on trade with Western countries, the trade agreements, major trade agreements they have with other countries, and a list of the...
joint venture, joint working arrangements they have with the European countries, including UK, West Germany, Italy, France, and so forth, which shows how much they have been working with the other countries along these lines.
And a copy of my letter to the Minister of Trade, spelling out our understanding of their position and our position as I had developed it in the course of our discussions.
There's nothing binding in it, it's merely a letter of understanding at the point at which we left.
There are a great many other things I could tell you about, a great many incidental things, but I'd like to give you my impression of Kosygin.
I asked him if he'd ever met you and he said no, he's looking forward to it.
So then I told him about you, that you were a very thoughtful, highly intelligent person,
approached problems with great analysis, but was decisive, that he would find that he could work very well with you, that you were direct, and so forth.
Then I got off into the political situation.
I made it quite clear to him that I thought you'd be around for another five years, and it was very important that he understand that.
The opposition was in disarray, and that this was an opportunity for a long term
Real cool at one point Yeah, I want to see Ron before they go into that thing.
What are they scheduled for?
I'll take a minute for it.
He loves banters.
And he breaks into serious conversation from time to time with something relaxing and unrelated.
For example, after he stated his opening position for 15, 20 minutes, and I had answered 15, 20 minutes, he suddenly said, are you tired?
And I said, no, why do you ask?
I said, we got up at 4 o'clock in the morning.
I said, we got up at 4 o'clock this morning in Stockholm to get here for this meeting, but I'm not tired and prepared.
He said, well, I find that it takes several days to get over that trip across the ocean.
And he said he was 67.
No, he shows it in his face, but not in his talking.
He's very alert.
He's a very intelligent, smart guy.
And he is direct.
but he's also relaxed in his directness.
At one point, they brought in cups of tea in glasses, and he took his and started gulping it down, and I grabbed the whole of the glass.
It was so hot, I couldn't even hold it.
I waited a little while, and then I tried to sip it, and I couldn't.
It was so hot.
And he laughed out loud.
He said, we drink our tea hot here.
He said, we make it in a samovar.
Have you ever had tea made in a samovar?
And I said, no.
So he turned to the minister of foreign trade and he said, I want you to go out and buy a samovar and give it to the secretary.
He said, that's the only way to make tea.
Well, this was a relaxed conversation.
At one point, he said, we were talking about trade.
He said, I understand Americans like to buy old bridges.
He said, we've got a lot of them here.
We'll be happy to sell you.
And I said, well, I wouldn't be surprised at what some crazy American would be willing to come home and buy some of your old bridges.
And he laughed, and he said, well, I don't care how crazy they are as long as they've got money.
So there was a lot of that in the course of the conversation.
And you will enjoy the experience of meeting with him.
I enjoyed it.
How were you impressed by the rest of the other crimes?
Very evil.
Very intelligent.
No, most of them were in the 60s or the upper 50s.
The trade ministers in the upper 50s.
Only one, the Minister of Shipping, was relatively young.
There are young people below.
The chances are worse, but by God, they've got to be animal before they get accustomed.
Very few young men.
These are all quite old people.
When I need guidance on dealing with the press, they're at me on all sides.
face the nation, meet the press, press conference, and I'm going to have to meet with them.
My proposal would be to go out and talk to them in low key, tell them I didn't negotiate anything, I was merely exploring, that there are opportunities that the Soviets want.
What I'd like to do, Cousin John.
I'm trying to get the little guy in his paper for tomorrow.
I don't know.
There's something I thought we forgot, but I don't see that at all today in response to this.
Now, before that, before saying that, let me give you some general impressions.
My guess is that of all what I've mentioned to be done for the government, this probably can prove to be the most important.
I think so.
My guess is that
It will, however, be a question of the times to when it's implemented.
I also think it's very important that you just told me your various recommendations be kept in-house.
I don't mind reading some of them, but I'm not sure that I want you to circulate them or state them.
I don't want these all leaving out of college, because if it is, it will be given away.
Not that they asked for it to be given away, but the fact that you recommended that we be given away so we didn't have to negotiate, you see?
You see what I mean, Mac?
I'll take him out of the report.
Well, I don't know how you're going to make the report, but I think I'm going to recommend it.
I want you to write your recommendations in such a way that
Do not give away our, that you keep our farming position open.
Now understand, mind, if we're talking about time, it could well be that within a year, mind, within a year, we might be able to do all the things that you recommended.
But as we talk about, sit down, sit down.
But as we talk about right now,
It would be very unfortunate if it were mitigated.
You're talking about a recommendation.
But if we talk about the recommendations now, it might be very... Well, there's no need for it... What I'm trying to get at is this.
If at the right time, at the...
I want to prepare some guidance for the press and so forth that we can get tomorrow, depending upon what we have tomorrow, Frank Gresham and so on.
In terms of everything, I want you to be able to say something.
You've got to say something to the press.
You've got to be, you've got to be, but there's ways that you can be, you can say things that are important and interesting and so forth and so on without, without
Then over a period of time, I would see, always see them.
Now, there's another thing, another thing that occurs to me is that in addition to the pressure and the enormous number of Edwards, you probably already have some American businessmen.
Yes.
Mr. Halligan, is that correct?
Yes.
This idea of offices abroad and so forth is extremely interesting to me.
Having made the deal that you have on Amdorp, I mean, if you do, you understand, we do exactly the opposite with ours.
Forget it, you heard that.
We're not that, we in the office are very reassured all the time.
rule out having some people with a letter of promise.
We're free to kind of shop for that.
We need a free shop.
That's all matters.
The commercial businesses, we can tell them to do that.
Most of them are quite aware of it, including American Express.
It certainly isn't a treaty construction possibility.
You were there just 16 days.
There's 11 days in the Soviet Union.
When do you think you ought to see the press, Mark?
I think you ought to see them right away.
There's several things that...
In addition, I got back Friday night.
They understand that I wouldn't see them until after I saw you.
Today's Tuesday now.
In addition to that, I got word from the
that the White House had cleared an interview with U.S. News and World Report to be printed next Monday, so I've given them the interview.
It'll be printed next Monday.
It's in low key, and your people have it to look at.
I think there's...
I think I can handle the press in very low key.
I would say that trade opportunities...
The problem is that you won't handle them in the way that you'll take the guidance...
Yeah, but at a later time, it may very well be we want to do far more.
It justifies that this is a very rough week.
Yes.
And it's a...
But so that we keep it all in perspective, I can't tell you how
Because it's very, you heard, and I think this, I think we might, we might, we might well have to evaluate our figures upwards as to what is possible here.
In the light of the various devices that could be used, if we use credit, if we use X and Y, if we use grain credit, if we use bank credits, if we use, if they get to the joint venture business, if they get to the joint venture business, if they get to the joint venture business, if they get to the joint venture business,
for a couple of hours.
This long-term financing issue has already started.
Once you've whet the appetite for licenses.
John Venture was on the phone twice today, a couple of years ago.
He's a very good friend.
He's one who got a machine tool or something, wondered how we can get with licenses and non-financing since we know it's essential.
So we've got to get his answer at least.
Yeah, but we've gone through that before.
We went through that before the salt period and all of it.
And they threatened horrible reprisals.
I'd appreciate it very much if I could get copies of this report to you fellows in the next three or four days.
You'll get copies?
Well, I'll get them tomorrow.
But I'd like to sit down with them three or four days after you read it and react.
I'd like you to react to me, and I'd like to answer questions.
Well, what you said before I left was that this could be a watershed in our relations.
And Kosygin opened up the meeting saying, Mr. Secretary, we have high hopes for your admissions.
And so the thinking was parallel all the way through.
How did you survive this?
The entertainment was incredible.
They just beat the hell out of you.
They beat the hell out of you.
It was so heavy.
Well, I said word ahead.
I didn't take alcohol.
Very good.
And I wanted light food.
We saw five ballets, one opera, the Georgian dance.
One, the last night we were there.
It was a great show.
No, we didn't see Sleeping Beauty.
We saw a couple of new ones.
The, uh,
They really, they really treated us in a way that made it evident that they wanted, they really wanted to get along, you know.
I have an idea.
I have an idea.
Why don't you indicate, get over to Al, because we're trying to, get over to Al, or you, you might, you and Pete maybe might talk about this.
You could have him come by his own, too.
But get over to Al, just a brief resume of what you think.
you might cover with the press without indicating what your recommendations are you get one without indicating you have recommended this or that or the other how would that be out and then we'll have something we'll not work with because uh if you said each of the things that you think it would be appropriate for you to cover with the press would you do that and just get us a talking paper and then we'll say fine and run on it fair enough
That way, well, then I can know, I can get a feeling of what you think might come up and what you think you have, you know, what you have to cover.
You're not going to be able to, but have in mind that in terms of tone, you've got to be at this, this week, kind of very guarded, guarded in terms of what we, well, it isn't really guarded in what you say.
It's got to be guarded in what we do.
That's what's going to count more.
So, as a matter of fact, you can probably save, as you think, Albrity Mountain.
You can save quite a lot, except for recommendations, because that's an action.
If you're talking to the Secretary of Commerce in the back and says, I'm going to recommend the most favored nation, or the Secretary of Commerce is a directed nation, you're crazy for this and that.
I think I would indicate that there are real potentials, but I would also stress the difficulty of the American businessman having to learn the methods and the system, the Soviets having to learn the American markets,
Is there a request for...
I think you can indicate, uh, they indicated, uh, the Premier proceed and indicated, and the Soviet officials indicated their interest in the following.
You indicated that your interest in these things.
Uh, would we, uh, uh, if you want, maybe you want to give it a whole lead, uh, and, and, and say, you pointed out that, of course, decisions could not be made yet, and they would be made at the latest point.
on these matters, but that's what's premature with these decisions.
But that, what did you say, inquirer?
It's got to be geared to political discussions.
And the progress on the...
the progress of what we've promised or maybe well we'll we've got to work that language down uh
That's one thing you'll certainly do, but let's just think about it.
They said this, they say it's not.
There are problems that we have, but there is a great potential here.
And there is a great interest on their part.
There is an interest on our part by reflecting on these things presently.
And these matters will be and are being considered by our government and by all governments.
I would not give any figures or estimates.
I guess, I don't know, I'm afraid not.
One of his other problems is going to be with the European allies, or how very goosey about why we have these restrictions on, if they're not...
Why, we have restrictions on them.
They say, hey, we have the COCOM restrictions.
And then I say, why the hell are we thinking about giving them up and not for them?
Well, we're not talking about giving up COCOM.
We've got a list that's this long besides COCOM.
That's what we're getting up to.
The problem is the president getting too enthusiastic in his projections.
It builds too many fires.
You've done it for financing, and then you've created your own.
The other thing you have to have, I think it's an intriguing idea of offices in each country is that we have to
Well, we've proposed to them that they allow the Department of Commerce, working under the Ambassador, to have a trade documentation center where American businessmen can leave their catalog to come and meet Soviet people and that sort of thing.
And the Poles agreed to let us set one up there.
You'll have a hell of a lot easier chance negotiating that with the Soviet government than you will with the State Department.
I know what you mean.
Remember what I said on that piece?
Okay.
Well, that's a fine trip, all right?
Really, really, really.
And I told you, the publicity here is excellent.
Excellent.
They even have pictures of me dancing around in Georgia.
All right, great.
And it will be interesting, probably,
Thank you for your time.
Oh, I see.
No, no, you don't, don't.
Huh?
No, no, no, you don't.
Oh, you don't?
I was wondering, uh, anyway, what, uh, what's the problem?
Let me tell you a very good thing.
What I thought I would do is take a very good picture.
No, I didn't mean that.
Well, what I thought I would do is to first
say a lot of nice things about the Indians, as, you know, of our concern for the Indians, how we consider them one of the key countries in the world, and that what we have been forced to say the last few days has been done with enormous reluctance.
I think we ought to pass it this way, then, to say, given that you might even say this,
to be a little bit stronger.
First of all, I visited in 1953, and I understood her education, but in a very terrible way in 1967.
And of course, she had a great lead as president.
I had a great interest, and I said that when she was here, especially her views,
the largest donation of the world's free nations to succeed, because it's very important to succeed.
And why one of the strongest supporters in terms of war aid.
I don't think that's a bad idea.
It is a problem.
I think that it is a problem.
I don't know how or when they made this last article.
Oh, my God, when I was in India in 1957, I was there three days, and I saw Mrs. Gandhi, President, the Vice President, Harry Goddard, and Indy, all there, but they basically killed me without telling me.
I don't really think...
I don't think...
I don't really...
But then I thought I would simply summarize everything we had done on both sides.
And I can make, in a very low-key way, an enormously damning case against the Indians.
Well, what is our purpose?
Our purpose is to say, let me just get from, as I understand, Teddy has attacked on what ground that we should have expressed concern about Pakistan, Iraq, or East Pakistan.
Indeed, we should have expressed concern.
What I will say to that is that our actions spoke for us, that we cut the economic assistance, we cut all military supplies except some licenses, and not even all of them, and even some of those.
And that we used our influence to the greatest extent possible.
That when I was in India, at your request, I told the Indians that we thought we should maintain some equity with the Pakistanis.
And they said they understood this.
So they weren't asking us to make any condemnation.
And the question was to condemn and have no influence, or to continue relations with the Sun.
I had to find out how much military had we cut off.
Well, how do we have a business?
Well, other than just getting published, we didn't necessarily ask for any.
And we, we, we not only did, but we maintained in order to,
I think the overriding advantage of Henry, the way he knows how to do these things, will be without even...
referring directly to Kennedy, which I think we want to do from here.
He will put it in perspective that will put Kiske's rhetoric out here and not really relating to the realities of the situation.
And I think the documentation that he did
At the time of the Easter, this Pakistan blow-up, and how it all evolves to the point where we were saying India has led to military competition is what we need at this time.
It's in our perspective.
I've already done it.
I've already done it.
Do you want us to look at the, if he wants to see my schedule?
No, I'll call him.
I'll say yes to the numbers.
And I also talked to him about the fact, I said, do you have any questions at all, Marvin?
I said, do you have any questions at all about the humanitarian concerns that we have expressed over the last months about East Afghanistan?
Number one, you know damn well I haven't shut my name in there.
So number two, I can refer you to the transcript of that transcript where you can refer to the president's testimony.
When you talk to the head of the trial, yes, the head of the trial.
I couldn't agree with that.
I saw every top Indian official that was in the place, including Mrs. Gunning, the president, and the vice president.
But my recall, the fact he's on it shows that the Russians are... Oh, yeah, the Russians have been outrageous.
We have an intelligence report today that they told the Indians we were still delivering arms to Pakistan.
And... Yeah.
Well, we don't want to hold this long.
What else do you have in mind?
Well, I have to wait now anyway for these figures.
You're going to try to make the point that if we had maintained our influence with Pakistan as a result of it, they would have accepted that all they were is to be laid down and were prepared to accept others, right?
And if we had not maintained those influence, they would have done nothing.
But UN servers, the military, civilian government,
And I can show a real pattern of his deceit.
For example, on November 19th, I saw the Indian ambassador.
On November 15th, I saw the Pakistan foreign secretary.
And I told him we needed a maximum program because it would be very difficult to prevent hostilities from breaking out.
He said he would let me know after he came back on the 22nd.
And on the 19th, I told this to the Indian ambassador.
He said, well, let me know as soon as you know.
When will that be?
I said around the 28th.
On the 22nd, they attacked.
What do you want to have come out of it?
Well, what I want to have come out of it, for your sake, Mr. President, is to show good support.
that in action we showed enormous concern.
For the refugees?
For the refugees.
That in practice we've made major efforts to bring about a political settlement.
In fact, the only political movement that has occurred has been at our urging.
Thirdly, that we were in the process of negotiating with the Pakistanis to move them even further.
That we told this to the Indians.
What did we cut off here at the end of March?
When we cut off the new licenses?
No, no, no, this is what happened.
The end of March, I remember one of my priests who was trying to get dollars.
No, no, when that's what it was, that priest who died with the Jewish Jews, how many, what was he in his program at that point?
Just thinking about it.
But this is one of the examples of the problem we have with the bureaucracy.
They will not give me figures which will prove another.
I mean, I ask for a figure.
They give me the same figure all the time.
This is not what I'm asking for.
Now, so the purpose is to show that basically we've done the best we can.
And as I would also, I think you also get across, we have no, we have no responsibility.
It's not our job.
The Russians have an interest in India.
The Chinese have a hell of an interest in Pakistan.
We only have an interest in peace.
We're not anti-India.
We're not anti-Pakistan.
We are anti-aggression.
It has a means of solving an internal, a very difficult internal problem.
Now, are you going to come down?
I think I'm wondering about, do you think they're going to play to their hands by coming down too much and decide that the White House takes on India?
No, this will be much softer.
It will be tougher in substance, but much softer in form and system.
I will give them all the palaver if I trust you, please.
And what a burden it is.
And I will, uh... We're not moving on.
Come in.
No, I think it's very important.
I just want to get that.
Don't worry.
Get in here.
But I saw, you know, something creeping that way where they're trying to draw you in.
Yes, it's not this one.
It's this one.
And I'd like to show, for example, I'm going to reveal that we had contacts with the Bangladesh people this summer.
that the Indians aborted it, and... Also, I think you should reveal, after this is done, that there are all forces, and I think maybe when I finish I'm going to cover that.
Oh, yeah.
So I want to say, there's no animosity.
There's one big difference of opinion.
We wanted a little time for peaceful evolution.
They didn't want to give us the time, and in this sense, we have to do it.
I was talking to Bush, and then I was called in here.
They haven't voted yet.
Oh, no, that's no problem.
Well, he went out and did it before him.
Remember what you said before?
You said it was our purpose.
It may be that they're shameful.
Well, it can't be shameful leaving the Indians on.
You know what I mean?
Even others that went out there and said, Christ, let's lose everything for India.
I think they let them on.
All I know is they've been, the more I look at this and respect you, I'm not so sure of anything we would have done.
We think now, we've been tougher two weeks earlier than our team.
We could have just did us and talked to them.
but we could have driven the Russians off.
I'm sure, though, that the Indians wouldn't have been driven off by the Russians or anybody else at this point.
The Indians are out to do the impacts.
Yeah, but if we could have split off the Russians.
It's hard to know now.
Driven the Russians off.
Yeah, I think they blinked a little yesterday.
I've never replied to them because I haven't got anything to say.
But...
Because it's not acceptable anyway.
Okay.
Well, I'd like to go around them this time.
Yeah.
Five minutes is what I need to remember.