Nixon & Haldeman on India-Pakistan War and Foreign Aid

7:25resolution things.
7:25They were all up on 4 and 8.
7:28And they've got Carpets, sure they know that that worked out.
7:32They're going to have one.
7:34Well, Mansfield, Ellington, and Scott are in favor of a 60-day continuing resolution.
7:38They're going down to meet with the House leadership this morning and tell them we've got to have a 60-day continuing resolution.
7:46The House leadership will say that's not satisfactory because that only carries us to the Lincoln reset.
7:51Therefore, we've got to have a 90-day.
7:54and out of that we'll get somewhere between a 60 and a 90 day resolution.
7:59We will not have the resolution today, but we'll have an agreement that there will be one, and we can then go ahead and run it through, and there's a possibility that it won't work.
8:15They're moving on counter-attacking Kennedy on India-Pakistan, but it's...
8:21He's getting signed a lot, but not very much.
8:22And I was hearing a new sign.
8:25I think it's a new sign.
8:26Well, Henry's story carried much more trouble than Kennedy's, and said, well, I'm asking you, I'm asking you, I don't want you to hear this.
8:42And Henry said, it's not the story of the Washington Post, but it's the story of the extremists.
8:47Well, they tried to make it appear that the White House was, in effect, chastising the State Department for their strong condemnation of India.
8:59Well, Henry was trying to be very clever.
9:15Yo, yo, Joe.
9:18We'll probably get the bill today if they're trying to work out the strategy on the veto.
9:25On that and how we need for dramatizing our positions of the opposition.
9:31Line across.
9:34That's one that could set either way.
9:41It's not going to be done on the position on whether or not you have struck out a fatal blow in the hearts of all the mothers in America or whether you've done the right thing.
9:52All the children in America have just got to come out the right way.
9:56Well, it depends on how you look at it.
10:04You're going to start a fatal blow to mothers who want to get rid of their kids.
10:18I mean, there's a whole lot of people watching us.
10:22We've got Dennis, Charlie here.
10:24That's what it is.
10:26What do you got for me?
10:27I mean, it's a blast.
10:29What's that matter?
10:30I've been spending a lot of time in personalization.
10:33You're the one that takes care of the children.
10:36I'm not sure, but I think you're good.
10:41Yeah.
10:42I don't want to talk to you.
10:43I heard you look better today.
10:44No, worse.
10:44What's the problem today?
10:47The same one.
10:48There's something deep in it, though.
10:51I think he's fatigued.
10:52Well, Flynn felt that over the weekend, because of various voices out and so forth and so on.
11:00He is.
11:01He went into quite a tirade at the staff meeting, and I don't...
11:11He's on this skit.
11:12He called me last night.
11:13Oh, okay.
11:18I mean, when he retired, he was, the question was being raised as to, you know, what the position is.
11:28He says, well, we're, he keeps going back to, well, we're safe through the election.
11:32We've got no problems now.
11:34But we, he talks about Chamberlain and this is our right line and all this kind of stuff that we're, we,
11:43have no problem now, but the consequences will be, in the next two to three years, are going to be dramatic.
11:49And we'll start seeing a little of it, but nothing that will matter before the elections.
11:55And he does it in these sort of strange tones of what he quite understands.
12:05Essentially what he comes down to is that Thailand, Iran and so on are going to start drawing the obvious conclusions that we stood by and watched our friend murdered without any help from us.
12:15So he doesn't suggest what we do.
12:18And he says we're on the right side of the immediate issue.
12:24And all that.
12:25And then everybody said, you know, everybody asked the obvious questions.
12:28Well, you know, what should we do?
12:29Well, we should do just what we're doing.
12:31Well, but then, you know, why are you saying what I'm saying?
12:34Well, three months ago, we should have started moving on this.
12:38We should have started screaming about India's intervention.
12:40We should have taken the steps three weeks ago that we're taking today.
12:45They said, do you mean by going to the United Nations?
12:46And he said, no, that's ridiculous because everybody knows that won't accomplish anything.
12:51And, uh,
12:53He got very emotional about how the Pakistani Air Force, he can't criticize them because we won't give them the pins to start their airplanes with, so obviously they can't use them.
13:03And there's an emotional time, this is almost like his Israeli time, that he said, you know, we were...
13:18We're all not to stifle this to begin with.
13:20It was obvious it was coming.
13:22I built meeting after meeting, and I was sabotaged by the bureaucracy over the last three months.
13:26We could have been tough with the Soviets, or we could have done it at the end.
13:31He's second-guessing on the Soviet side.
13:34Do you have a doubt on that?
13:36No.
13:36Is he encouraged?
13:38We've done everything.
13:39Being tough with the Soviets, we could have done this.
13:43And we sent messages to the police that we told him to stay out of this.
13:48So then he says, any country within reach of the Soviet power will now adjust to the facts of life.
13:54He says, it may help as far as dealing with the Chinese.
13:56Going the other way.
14:02But only if it was a concern, maybe, partly, maybe.
14:11Steve Dahn recognizes his own failure.
14:14Now that's what my guess is.
14:16When I came out of the meeting as far as the conclusion I had, I asked a couple of questions.
14:21And it clearly comes through to me that he recognizes that he should have done other things or more things or something.
14:30Not in your work.
14:32No, but he thinks maybe it would have or something.
14:35And that's the problem.
14:36I think there's a self-healing.
14:41But I think it's wrong to try and do it the wrong way, especially for Egypt, because he sees that any time you try to help him out, it's worse than that.
14:54Where he comes to on his position now is he cites his old diplomatic adage, you know, that when you have the margin of maneuver, you don't have the evidence to support the maneuver.
15:04By the time you get the evidence, you no longer have the margin.
15:07And he said, that's why I can't believe this.
15:13I made a point to it.
15:25He said the bureaucracy had sabotaged it earlier, but he didn't say that they were now.
15:32He can't see, because the state's public line is
15:40Absolutely solid.
15:40If you don't get any nice on that, there's nobody else that says it.
15:52There's some fine decisions.
15:56Of course, that comes out of the... That's hard to count.
16:01I don't know.
16:12And the other position, of course, is that there are public relations standpoints, and it gives a democracy that looks like with 60 million people, like the way Pakistan is a dictatorship, 60 million people, like the way Pakistan is a dictatorship, like the way Pakistan is a dictatorship, like the way Pakistan is a dictatorship, like the way Pakistan is a dictatorship, like the way Pakistan is a dictatorship, like the way Pakistan is a dictatorship, like the way Pakistan is a dictatorship, like the way Pakistan is a dictatorship, like the way Pakistan is a dictatorship, like the way Pakistan is a dictatorship, like the way Pakistan is a dictatorship, like the way Pakistan is a dictatorship,
16:43Got into this Chamberlain thing again.
16:45I think this is what, it's that...
16:51He doesn't seem that bad when you ask him.
16:53He says, we should have done.
16:54He never says what we should do.
16:56That's that sort of rusty remorse.
16:59But he doesn't come in, Bob, also, because he knows.
17:02I know.
17:02He doesn't come in and say, we should have done.
17:05I really don't know.
17:05I don't see it.
17:08So you said you sent a message.
17:10So we did.
17:10Right?
17:11Yeah.
17:13We should have told the Indians not to do it.
17:15Well, we could have cut off the Indians.
17:18We've been cutting off the Indians for a long time.
17:20That's right.
17:22He goes through the dire predictions now with the Indians.
17:26They're crushed.
17:27They're not just trying to establish an equidash.
17:29They're going to do that and get control there.
17:33Yeah, that's right.
17:43So I think the point that, you know, we're, okay, so we're in a good posture currently on a public basis.
17:49Yes, he says we are.
17:50But then he gets mad that we're concerned about that.
17:55He says we shouldn't be worried about a public posture, we should be worried about the substance.
18:05But
18:06We've got a problem because you have to have India, who has the capability to do it, determine the quadrant I understand.
18:12And in the mind of many people, despite all of their yanking about morality and everything,
18:27Six hundred million people are looking.
18:28Sixty people sitting on the winning side of that lead.
18:30That's the kind of morality we have these days.
18:31And if it's a democracy, anything they do is right.
18:33If it's a dictatorship, anything they do is wrong, you know.
18:36That's what they're saying.
18:44What do you think about the public position?
18:46And there's nothing to do with Henry.
18:47Henry spent, Henry was there over the weekend, you know, he could, I could tell, I'd come to all the conferences with him and I'd get, that's what he was going to do by cutting this off, you know, and he was pressing all the time.
18:56But I think, I think he's got an emotional, he sounds a lot more fatigued to me when I talk to him in performance than he is sounding fatigued.
19:10Well, look,
19:14Ron said, you know, he goes through these temper tantrums all the time.
19:17Ron sees him.
19:19Sometimes I see him all the time.
19:21But Ron's what it was, and I think he's right.
19:24This time, he's irrational.
19:27Where before, he's been mad, rationally mad, but emotionally too.
19:32You know, he's got a specific point of grievance, and he's mad about it.
19:35On this one, he doesn't make sense.
19:40He may do it.
19:42There's no problem with that.
19:55We're expecting what that is.
20:00I know you just can't blame yourself about this, but it was terrible nights.
20:05I know, I know.
20:06You're rushing it all the time.
20:09I know, I know.
20:10We didn't think it was too bad.
20:16Germany taking the Rhineland or something like that, but I mean there's
20:29There's a little difference there.
20:30India doesn't have a plan for a world conquest.
20:33Of course, I guess India does not have a plan.
20:35There are other areas.
20:36Why the hell are we still fighting in Vietnam?
20:40We're going to walk to the next world.
20:42It's not true.
20:43We don't have it.
21:04I think you've just got to ride through it and basically go have things on a normal key and not react and not try to come and say I'm crying.
21:14I don't know.
21:16I don't know.
21:16I don't know.
21:17I don't know.
21:23I don't know.
21:31I don't know.
21:34He really has the inability to see that he himself, to admit, he knows it, to admit that he himself is ever wrong.
21:44I mean, that was set up, and that set up a whole cast, et cetera.
21:46And it was a bunch of fellows that did this and that, in a sense, as well.
21:51It's the bureaucracy that did it.
21:53Now, the bureaucracy's bad, I agree, but the bureaucracy had moved to the, we didn't ask them to do a goddamn thing.
22:01Now, if they'd done it three weeks ago, it would have made a difference.
22:07He makes it more attractive to India.
22:09He cut off aid three weeks ago, and India wouldn't have moved.
22:16I don't think it's getting that.
22:21More attractive.
22:21It's over.
22:22It's over getting that.
22:23That's my view.
22:23I certainly don't know.
22:23We track like cattle.
22:25We get an awful lot.
22:30Very well.
22:33Don't ever let me get away with the fact that I was out front trying to stop Triton and tell him all the facts about what we can't do with this.
22:37I agree.
22:37Yep.
22:37I think Henry should solve the election.
22:41Let me in.
22:41Tina, this is the bottom of the queue.
22:45It's your turn.
22:51Okay.
22:51Yep.
23:01It was good right back to Henry, which is the only thing that he used to not do, but I think he should.
23:10Well, maybe not.
23:14Maybe not quite as examinable.
23:17Because, I suppose, what we'll have to do is try to find out what the core is.
23:22There may be some way to...
23:23I think the core is that he thinks those are the other things.
23:26It's just bad, you know, his idea that we don't want to have wars.
23:32Our great foreign policy, we have great successes, and now here's one where we stood for it and succeeded, you know.
23:40Yeah, but we have so much on that table, and this is not...
23:43I don't think so.
23:48Do you want to remember anything?
23:49Or... You are, sir.
23:52His own recession is rolling.
23:54One of my scenes at Doomsday...
23:57you know, business that everybody else topped on because we didn't come to save Pakistan apparently.
24:07The thing that concerns me about this is that he, when we finish something and he talks about it,
24:23And he talks to everybody outside, but he reflects.
24:25Well, he's got his attitude, that's all right.
24:28And he can get into the, well, you know, he's canceled his Galbraith dinner.
24:31I don't know whether that's, I guess under his present condition, it's good.
24:34But he told me last night he canceled it because, probably not true, he should have just said so.
24:39He's not...
24:39He's an individual, not a senior.
24:55I don't know what it is.
24:57I think it's current report.
24:59What it is, is Galbraith is against him on the fact that he doesn't want to give him the paper.
25:04Calling him to ailing for launching the China-Soviet initiatives.
25:08And it was clear to him he wasn't going to be ailing anymore.
25:11He was going to be raked over the coals for, not for what we're talking about.
25:16He wouldn't be raked over the coals for what he thinks is wrong in this case.
25:20Which was not being done.
25:21He'd be raked over the coals for having
25:24Then what do I know they did not bring on the side of the deal?
25:30Say, the poor.
25:34These back-refugees.
25:36In this case, it is a cracking bureaucracy.
25:40There is some things in the bureaucracy, but it's way overstated, Bob.
25:45It's way overstated.
25:46Well, there always is.
25:47I mean, we always have a problem with the bureaucracy.
25:49A few things that they aren't going to get into as fast as we want and so forth, but it isn't all that self-contained in the bureaucracy.
26:08Just from my own personal viewpoint, when he has a problem, he usually comes running and he motives about it.
26:20And over the last month, he has not come in saying, they're sabotaging us on India and Pakistan, or we're doing the wrong thing, or we're failing to move.
26:32He always has before.
26:33If there's anything happening, he runs in and worries about it.
26:36I don't think he thought we were doing the wrong thing.
26:41He may have thought that we were resigning.
26:43He may have realized, but there was nothing we could do about it.
26:46That's the point.
26:48We trapped the soldier.
27:01Maybe he did not realize the fact that he realizes it all.
27:08It talks to him.
27:14It's over-stimulated, you know.
27:15He gets over-excited about it all these times.
27:17And I'm sure over-depressed about his failures.
27:19Everybody does.
27:21And sees all of these more than he could be living.
27:29You know, he was going through that great line of triumphs we were going to set up this Chinese, all our dreams of Vietnam settlement, then the China summit, then the Russian summit.
27:38He said, if we could get any one of the three, we might have a congressman who had two of the three.
27:44And the other one probably was never given.
27:51All right.
27:56He's never liked that.
27:56He doesn't like the word you're spearing me out of.
28:02I don't either.
28:02I'm not sure.
28:03Yeah, I'm sure.
28:03He's been in front of the prisoners, trying to open the nightgown from the left.
28:06That's not good.
28:08Also, he likes to... How do you feel about his background?
28:16I don't think everybody...
28:17I don't think he didn't mind about it.
28:18Everybody told him, you know, that's what we're talking about in there.
28:21Mm-hmm.
28:23and the need for some backlog of support now, and asking for a solid talking paper out of the background.
28:33I don't know if you, you know, they prepared it.
28:36They have a lot that they're going to refine.
28:38I'm wondering if somebody's going to...
28:53Well, that's that's what they're getting more cracks.
28:55Cracks saying five move up with him.
28:58So it's true.
29:05That move on Cooper Island is already.
29:08A good statement that can make a.
29:13Make a more detailed one.
29:15Cooper.
29:16That's the expertise in the area.
29:21I know Henry's big kick.
29:24It's a big kick on the State Department and on our whole thing.
29:27He was saying to the State Party, he said, it's no noble thing for us to be declaring neutrality in this.
29:34For us to say, take a hands-off policy and say how it's not, is nothing for us to be proud of.
29:40And the goddamn State Department's running around saying that.
29:44That's how we've been hearing the President say that to the leaders.
29:48You can't just hang the State Department.
29:49We said we were not.
29:51We were pursuing a policy of non-involvement.
29:53That's correct.
29:57And I didn't use the word non-involvement.
30:00It's not non-involvement.
30:02I'm going to get into it, but I went on to say we would cut off any.
30:08We worked that out ourselves at this time.
30:10I would hurt anyone that would hurt a faction.
30:13We'd already cut off any of them.
30:15See, what are you going to do?
30:16You're never going to have this question on their side.
30:18No, we didn't.
30:21It wasn't a question of neutrality.
30:23It was a question of non-involvement.
30:27Did somebody raise the question, are you arguing that we should be sending troops and bombers in or something?
30:31And he didn't respond to that.
30:41No, no.
30:42It's irrational.
30:44It is.
30:51He's got this thing of being too big for himself.
30:54He's very sensitive.
30:55He says, I'm going to have control.
30:58I'm going to have service.
31:02Maybe he can stay channel and all that sort of thing.
31:04I guess that's the only way he can do it so far.
31:11Well, he does very well.
31:16It may be, it just may be, he can't survive it.
31:30I don't know.
31:31I think he'll get it.
31:31We can do something about it.
31:33We're trying everything.
31:35He knows God can help while we're trying everything.
31:39We're not saying anything about it.
31:44We're not adopting
31:58You shouldn't be tired, huh?
32:01You shouldn't be tired.
32:02I don't think so.
32:02Over the weekend, he was.
32:04I asked him about his voice.
32:06He said, no, I guess it's because I talk on the phone so much.
32:10I noticed it again last night.
32:12The voice was bad.
32:13And I thought he had a cold.
32:18I didn't ask him.
32:18I think what it is, it's tension.
32:19Tension makes his voice.
32:22And actually, I was just passing through that room.
32:26And that's, that's it.
32:27We're not going to let you sleep on the chest.
32:28There's something wrong with that.
32:29I agree with all of you.
32:29Thank you.
32:29Uh, Mr. Rogers, yeah.
32:30It's a terrible story that they did, you know.
32:31And respect.
32:31So on the other, yeah, I asked the, you know,
32:57We ought to be happy to the client.
33:01I didn't get it last night.
33:14What's the party about, sir?
33:17Alcohol.
33:18You have a good day, if you want to.
33:25I have not gotten to him at all, so he doesn't have who I'm talking about.
33:35No.
33:36We're clear.
33:37We're clear.
33:37Yeah.
33:41Well, we'll leave Sunday morning.
33:47Or Sunday midday.
33:48Okay.
34:01You have nothing on South Friday.
34:02You have nothing today.
34:04You have nothing Saturday.
34:13Do you want something?
34:18And you're cleared.
34:20Tuesday evening.
34:21And you're cleared to go to Florida then.
34:23Stay cleared.
34:25Well, we have a time magazine thing.
34:27I've got to get it.
34:27I've got to get it.
34:43I didn't understand the possibility of pushing hard.
34:49And the big problem is whether Biden wants to stay with this request.
34:56He asked whether he's planning on it.
34:59They've got a cloture motion, but it takes a day long to get that into effect.
35:18But they're in a frenzy state now.
35:22They're just looking everything through and getting it done fast.
35:25So they may get it pretty fast.
35:53And I'm speaking, leaving out the merits of the Indian past.
36:00I'm sure you've thought that.
36:01But here's the thing.
36:02If we had done it, it would have affected this.
36:04Let me put it in a better perspective.
36:07It's like Henry's constant, constant going over and over again the fact that, well, we've got to...
36:16We let them come in.
36:17They're glitching, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
36:21And then the Congress did this.
36:25Rogers said this.
36:26And this hasn't happened.
36:27They haven't done this and that.
36:30You know, it's all a victim of the imagination, I'm sure.
36:34Those things that this is not true.
36:35Now, this instance, this instance, this is a terrible, I think, terrible thing.
36:39I think these are terrible bastards.
36:42I think you're right if you get whipped.
36:46There isn't a goddamn thing that if we had done it a different way, it would have changed it.
36:52You know, three weeks ago, we were very tough on him.
36:58He was determined to go ahead.
36:59But Henry feels that the world, you know, he's sort of like God.
37:03He feels that it's like God.
37:03It ought to be, you know, that things should come out perfectly, and they don't.
37:08And so you lose one family, you fight another one.
37:13I don't know, but in this instance, I do not, in my view, we cannot pay the price of
37:41He's been pretty bad before.
37:44Yeah.
38:11Maybe not.
38:12It's been clearer to me what he's disturbed about before, so I don't know.
38:15Maybe that's part of the problem now, taking the records.
38:19He doesn't know himself.
38:19That could be, you know, and it's quite clear to him that that's bothering him.
38:24The Harvard thing, there's something there.
38:28He just canceled for that reason.
38:36This paper caught me about it.
38:39The problem he was going to have after the operating dinner was that said, you know, the funny thing that happened is they were going to have this great homecoming thing, you know.
38:52We should have heard some of that.
38:54And it's a great peacemaker stuff and all that crap.
39:00And then a funny thing happened when the Indian backers said war broke out.
39:07that they'd be disturbing more than anything else.
39:10It could have been, but if you look at it, you realize that he's like Mount Moynihan.
39:17Because it probably meant an awful lot to him that he was going back on his triumphal.
39:21When did this happen?
39:22I didn't know about it until last night.
39:25The column ran probably on Monday.
39:28This has been irking him about something that may be more backless than you think it could be.
39:33He says he had told God that he
39:37as if it were brand new.
39:40Somebody wrote a story.
39:42I forget whether it was a byline columnist.
39:44I think it was.
39:44I think it was like Tom Brady or somebody.
39:46But it may have been just a wire story or something.
39:49I'm not sure.
39:51But it listed the men who were coming and that they were, you know, it's just going to be a big thing.
39:56But now it changed it.
39:59Gallagher even said, you know, I'm very happy about it.
40:08That may be.
40:10That may be.
40:10He may have thought he had finally bought himself back into his own society, and then all of a sudden, zap, this threw him out of it again, and that may be what's getting to him more than anything else.
40:20Let's look at the real topics.
40:26The real problem, and it's not, in turn, solely a problem.
40:33I would like to never let her out again, but I'd have to do it myself, she said, because I had to, because I was in front of her on her call, and she said to me, you know, you'd have to do it myself, and it'd be hard, tough to do.
40:46I would have to use hate.
40:48I mean, you know, sort of as a, there as an outtaker, sort of watch, you see, that I'd be over, you know,
41:00It's the real, you understand, I've never been to Russia, because it's much too superficial.
41:05He wouldn't know, boy, boy, he could do it with chain shots, you know what I mean, do this, do that, the other thing, you know what I'm saying.
41:14The problem with the Chinese is that Henry's had such detailed discussions with them.
41:24Is that all recorded?
41:29Yes.
41:30You can read every word of it.
41:32It takes a lot of work and studying it.
41:38And reading doesn't give you the feel that you have at the academy.
41:41But the difficulty with the Chinese thing is that, with both the Chinese and the Soviet thing, there is a great deal of, well, it is an enormous advantage
42:00Have someone, you know, you have colleagues who can bother and make the deal before you go in and talk to me to the chair.
42:11You know, that's what we will allow.
42:14See, we can't cross-border.
42:17I hate to do it.
42:18Oh, I hate to do it.
42:38Well, to be perfectly frank, I don't think it's terribly dangerous, because I don't think Henry would get himself out of that China thing, no matter what it costs him to stay in.
42:51Well, let me put it another way.
42:52I'm thinking Henry himself, I'm thinking about him.
42:56I mean, we really are in a position that he cannot...
43:00constantly go through this sort of thing.
43:01You're just kind of fishing out.
43:01That's what I've often said.
43:02What you didn't give is extra.
43:03What you don't give me.
43:03God, my shots of the fire and the empty shells.
43:04Jesus, keep your eyes shut.
43:32Yeah, although a lot of that stuff, he couldn't.
43:55Yeah, pretty much.
43:57He does not bother them now.
43:58He knows who on the staff is doing the backup and stuff.
44:02Yeah, that's true.
44:04And reuses a lot of people there and takes them out of the event.
44:15He almost got to go the other way just as he started to have a garage engine.
44:19He can't...
44:23You can't back down with Henry on these problems, but you also really can't afford to put him down.
44:29You've kind of got to deal with the problem.
44:32The trouble is, he proceeds on that assumption, too.
44:48On a problem, in the state of mind, he shouldn't talk to him.
44:52You should let him know how he feels about this sort of thing.
44:58That's the problem, Henry.
45:00Remember I've told you quite often that his son gets reflected, his things are out there, his shit's around.
45:08Remember, it's all over the, all over this town, Henry.
45:11You know that?
45:12Yep.
45:13And he's that person.
45:14And he's that person.
45:14That's right.
45:17And he's...
45:20Well, maybe getting kind of running through it with the staff this morning gets it off his chest and that maybe that was good.
45:26Well, I don't think he should do it equally with that group of people because they're common knowledge.
45:39He says he's trying to justify it through his liberal friends.
45:43The fact that he and we are on the right side and being on the Pakistan side is against India.
45:49And then for a week over, he reads these things and says, well, India is a moral country and it's in Congress.
45:54And there's 600 million of them.
45:57Why are we picking the wrong side?
45:58So he overcompensates and then thereby saying, well, there, those bastards are wrong.
46:05And because we believe that what this is is such a terrible pattern for the future.
46:13So we were right all the time.
46:15The critics are wrong.
46:18Some of that's motivating and true.
46:21See, that's exactly the algorithm then.
46:22If you were to survey Harvard opinion, it would be 9% for India.
46:28For the wrong reason, because basically Harvard opinion is not moral.
46:34Harvard opinion is power or envy.
46:40See?
46:40It's fashionable that they're angry because India is big, and it's supposed to be a democracy.
46:46And everybody's supposed to be for India.
46:48India's supposed to be for peace.
46:50So when India engages in aggression, you turn your back.
46:56And he argues against that line very strongly.
47:02That we could turn our back?
47:04No.
47:04Well, it gets the line that India is for peace, and that because of 500 million of them, we should be on their side.
47:11I totally agree.
47:12That's my point.
47:12I totally agree.
47:13But I think the general is over.
47:15He's out.
47:15Because everybody else is on that side.
47:18All of his friends are on that side.
47:21He's trying to prove, by God, they're all wrong.
47:26And he's right.
47:26He's right.
47:27He's right.
47:32I'm completely aware of that.
47:35Well, I'm not sure, you know, looking at it in cold, dirty terms, the proposition of public relations in that way.
47:43I'm not sure that India is all that popular in the United States.
47:48Well, that was the people who were over the spiking.
47:51Well, you just said, you know, don't ever get the thought that you've got a strength in this country on the side of India.
47:57You used a historic example.
47:59You said anybody who fought...
48:01And the war that was in India would be actually horrified if he thought you were going to the defense of India to say, eat the people.
48:16Well, the closer you can get, the better.
48:19Middle American, copy.
48:20America's having the back of the mind in India.
48:27It's been...
48:28Most of them are grateful for its aid, and most of them have the highest sanctimonious about criticizing the United States and supporting the interests of every German in the United States.
48:44And any reader of the Drury books, you know, Drury just slices the Indians to ribbons on them.
48:47Because he, in his novels, his stuff on the U.N., you know, he's the Indian ambassador.
48:51It's always, it's Abraham's total caricature, you know, that.
48:58Sliding, principle lifts, maneuvering.
49:11Oh, it's bad about a diplomat.
49:35Maybe condemning India, but I like to use the word condemning India.
49:47The U.N. vote, in fact, should have condemned India.
49:49India and Russia, they're satellites, they're on one side.
49:50We do not have any agents.
49:51You know, Henry was so rapid with the thing he did.
49:53Even though I didn't think he could go there, I just didn't think he could suspend it.
50:00He worked it.
50:08I'm not sure it's about politics, but I think it is.
50:23He said he wanted to talk, he wanted to get together with me this week.
50:32Why don't you get together with him before I do?
50:34Maybe, could you, could you do it today?
50:36I'd like to see if I can.
50:37So that I can be in, because I want to be in a position to talk to him too.
50:44You call him, I'll see what I can do.
50:58I can see him sometimes.
51:21Before we start the long series of critics, it's making fun of me.
51:23I don't know what else to say.
51:23Speaking of the relations with him, I appreciate this part of the story.
51:25I don't know.
51:46I don't have any indication of that.
51:53I talked to him about that at dinner dinner and he was in great spirits then.
52:07He's got a problem.
52:09He says so.
52:14Burns and Peterson, all that group, they're all, they just never know what they're up to.
52:19I mean, I don't have a good reason, but you know what I mean, they've some... Well, Shultz has been moving on a lot of ideas he's got, but directly to the company.
52:27He's not up to anything.
52:29Directly to the company, he's been trying to push for the... his concern, and he's got his theory now that this week proves it, that...
52:39What a bad idea it would be to go back to convertibility.
52:44In that the German mark has gone up, and they said it would have to go down to deal with the French.
52:54It shows that we're—and they're buying dollars now, as the dollar goes down.
53:02They've got $50 billion or whatever it is.
53:04They're starting to look around for converting.
53:07He said, that's exactly what we don't want to convert.
53:10And he said, they'll keep buying dollars as long as they think that's to their advantage.
53:15At some point, they'll quit buying dollars and start doing something else.
53:20And the best thing we can do, from our viewpoint, is to stick them with the dollars, not to convert.
53:27So he argues.
53:31What he wants is a thing.
53:34He has some theory, some idea that you ought to be given the discretion to deal with the convertibility.
53:41And McConnell doesn't agree with him on that.
53:45Then he had the other thing.
53:45He had the idea that if we move this week on bilateral lifting of the surcharge with Canada, Mexico, Brazil,
53:57Based on you having Canadians and Brazilians in here to talk, it would be a hell of a coup.
54:01It would be a damn good leverage move and all that, which is his understanding of how it was in favor of building.
54:08And we're going to propose that.
54:11He got kind of like that idea.
54:13But I asked him this morning about it.
54:15He said, apparently, it's too late.
54:18I didn't want to do that.
54:34We've got a strong opposition from both George and apparently Stein, although I haven't talked directly to Stein, on moving more to the CDA because you're putting a part of it as well, because it's a bad move.
54:50The guy isn't a good man.
54:51He isn't a good economist.
54:54Very narrow.
54:54So we'll leave you working with the narrow blinders.
54:58But mainly that he's 100% Arthur's students.
55:03He's also concerned about her getting into a confirmation battle and putting a new man into the BLS.
55:17No, his view is that by getting Goldstein out and reshaping the rest, that we can avoid him putting the screws on him.
55:25The board is a weak character and a terrible spokesman.
55:29Very bad, incredibly ill speaker.
55:33And the board played the Darwin and the unemployment as well as he could.
55:39And so I worked that out.
55:42But there is a lot of concern on the coastals.
55:47But Charlie is just adamant.
55:48But there's a pretty good argument for the fact that you're creating a big problem in order to solve a lesser problem.
55:55And that may not be the right thing to do.
55:56Maybe even live with the lesser problem.
56:01Yeah.
56:02Well, I can see the bigger problem that might be created.
56:10You just decided.
56:11I just thought that everybody would vote.
56:14Well, I don't think it makes a difference who's on the CDA.
56:20Of course, that's where George doesn't agree.
56:24Well, except the guy has a potent platform.
56:26Of course, you can tell him to keep quiet.
56:29Yeah.
56:29All right.
56:30I understand.
56:31You worked it out with Smith.
56:34I mean, Snide showed up.
56:36So see what...
56:37I'm not sure.
56:37That's what I've told myself.
56:38It may not be.
56:39I understand.
56:40I understand.
56:42I use Mark every time.
56:44Yeah.
56:44I don't really look...
56:46I don't care that much about it.
56:47I know there is a problem regarding the...
56:51Okay.
56:52Anything else?
57:24I suggest if you have a little time today, he and Chilts ought to chat with the others.
57:28Let them wrap up some team resolution strategy and the other will be ready.
57:31It's very interesting.
57:32I'm working out.
57:32I'm going to sit down first with the colleagues, all right?
57:34We're going to schedule it, all right?
57:35Not yet.
57:58He'd rather wait for tomorrow.
57:59Tomorrow's just as good a day as for me, and today is for me.
58:00You know what I mean?
58:01The day of tomorrow, I'd like to send some kind of message.
58:03He and I can talk a little about it.
58:04If I can get the position before he comes back.
58:05We're going to get to time.
58:06We're going to get to time.

Nixon & Haldeman on India-Pakistan War and Foreign Aid

AI Summary

Audio

Transcript (AI-generated)

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on December 8, 1971

Cite this conversation