Nixon & Kissinger on India-Pakistan War and Soviet-American Relations

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They're giving us a full reply.

Later, the interim reply is that they have an assurance from Mr. Shandy that she will not attack West Pakistan.

They are working with her now to work out if she's fired.

We got them and we made it, and we didn't deserve it.

Maybe we made it, except that as I was over talking to this crew, you realize the danger of this.

We must not be in a position where the Russians and witty fellows on the bridge can leave the Chinese out.

Exactly.

This is why we had to go on the other route, too.

I'll set Kovarov back until it's too late.

As I told you last night, we're going back to the Security Council.

So far, we have no form of assurance of anything, if there won't be a president.

That's right.

The indolent reply is, Mr. President, I was just talking to you.

Your perception of this is, well, we'll write a birthday story about this.

What you did this morning, Mr. President, was a heroic act.

Yes, but I know no other man in the country, no other man who would have done this, what you did.

You did it not knowing any.

You know, we put it out to the state.

I can just say what would have happened.

I don't mean Bill.

I mean the whole government.

Including Bill.

No, I don't mean what I meant.

It's the whole attitude of the whole government.

The whole American establishment would say...

Well, don't borrow trouble when it's all gonna work out.

Nothing ever works out unless you do something about it.

That's the trouble with the world.

Imagine what caused World War I.

We know that that was just a humzy bunch of bastards.

But World War II, Henry, was a direct result.

A direct result.

And we thought all we wanted to about it were doing it in the Jews and all that.

But it was a direct result of the outlawish acting that used the land once we'd waited.

Right?

No question.

That's why the biggest mistake we made, as I was thinking about it, was the EC-121.

uh, the, uh, the biggest, uh, and the biggest error, frankly, is that it's an all-in error on Korea.

For us, it wouldn't go across to Canada, but the right is gone.

The right is gone.

And now we're getting to this point.

I don't know what to do at all.

I don't know what to say.

I don't know what to do.

My, my, now that we've played it this far, this is, I mean, we've broken the back of it.

Well, I'm pretty sure.

Why did you do that?

Because we have rather great...

They don't know guns.

Oh, yes.

Why did you do that?

Well, because, Mr. Besson, when we showed them, when I showed her also the Kennedy treaty, they knew, they were looking down the gun barrel.

Did he react?

He didn't make no choice.

He did.

Oh, yeah.

You still told him at that time that that's what the president was talking about when he talked to the editor.

But now the problem is, Mr. President, we have to go through a big problem.

First of all, we have to turn this through another half turn.

Because if we let out the pressure too much and show any relief, we've had it.

Therefore, my strong recommendation is

We trigger this UN thing as quickly as we possibly can because it's the only way we can go on record now of condemning India.

Second, the White House statement still goes.

That's what I meant.

The White House statement triggers it.

It's essential now that it's a White House statement because we've now got a place as a White House statement.

You don't have to prepare yet.

I've got it here.

Okay.

Okay, now this has to go late by 11.30.

Why not now?

Well, because no one in the bureaucracy knows it yet.

You have four people to get to.

Yeah, but I don't want them to read it on the ticket.

Yeah, all right.

Now, there's no way to tell them the president's ticket is there.

But I would like to do it the way that you say now.

These are the orders.

We can't forward that out now, but let me just say this.

The president has been in the office today about this morning.

He did it in this country, he said.

Right.

What do you want to say?

I want to say... You said the President dictated this thing.

Is that it, gentlemen?

We cannot afford to... We cannot.

We cannot.

And this is the way it is.

And it's all that I...

I can work all my work out.

Every word, every comment is mine.

And there's frankly no appeal to this.

Now, I'm not going to have a call.

I'm just going to tell them that this is going to be released at 11.30.

Right.

Okay.

Point two.

Hotline.

Point two, yes.

Hotline.

Thank you for the interim message.

It arrived after the decisions had been made and they were irreversible.

We are still prepared to proceed with you on the basis of my letter of so-and-so and so-and-so.

Right.

And we will stay in close communication.

Right.

That doesn't kick them in the teeth.

No, no, no.

Now, so the Russians have said

Now, this is true, but they have said that they are preparing to what?

To go?

That this has got to be an insurance issue?

Well, this has got to be an insurance issue.

I haven't got the exact answer to this, because it might be an issue if it took it down.

It froze when she heard it all.

But they're setting it over that Prime Minister Ghandi has assured Minister Kusnetsov who would send as a result of the President's appeal to the British that she's planning no military action against West Pakistan.

In addition, within the spirit of the President's strength, we are trying to work out a comprehensive proposal including ceasefire,

complete guarantees for the integrity of West Pakistan and the expatriation of Pakistan.

That's it.

Yes.

And Jalisco is coming back.

Oh, we've got them.

I've got the picture of them now, Mr. President.

Not to hit me.

It's to, if we play this well, we'll come out ahead with both the Chinese and the... Now, we are doing this, Mr. President, with no cost whatsoever.

We had one car that wanted something from us, and we just didn't.

We didn't.

You know, it's not good.

It's not the part of it.

But even my fellow good old Morby, who was panting to go out and give the goddamn trade away, or he can't give the trade away, was an important thing to do.

Mr. President, your behavior in the last two weeks has been heroic in this.

No, you were shooting.

You...

Your whole goddamn political future for next year, you will do it against your bureaucracy, against the Congress, against public opinion, all along, like everything else, without looking, and I must say, I may yell and scream, but this hour this morning is worth four years here.

It wasn't easy, but the other reason that I didn't use you an hour like this morning is that I had a date with Tim and David tonight.

I had a chance to reflect a little bit on where the order was going and where it was just going down and down and getting angry.

Mr. President, I had a date with you on the phone last night.

I don't know whether the United States has a viable foreign policy.

No, I'm serious.

The United States is not a viable foreign policy.

It luckily has a viable president.

If you were here, Mr. Nelson, much as I love him, would never have been able to do this.

And he's the only one who could even have perceived it.

What happened to him?

I don't know who Mr. President would have done it so stupidly.

Connolly.

There's one.

Connolly is the only man, but he... Oh, he might have told us that.

He liked you subtly.

Connolly, did you watch Connolly?

I sent the other day to hold him, and after all, Connolly was an undistinguished servant.

Why is he a great secretary of the treasurer?

Because of you.

He... Nobody ever thought of Connolly as an outstanding man until you... No, he was a good governor.

I beg your pardon?

He was a good governor, but not a great one.

No, he was a great... Well, but...

I've watched Kamli at these meetings, and I don't say this is interrogation of him because he is the one I like best.

He waits and sees.

His first instinct is often wrong, like when he said, cut off aid to both Pakistan and India.

Then when I, and even more you, quarreled with him, then he went the other way.

I'm going to get this done.

I think we've got it now.

The thing is to play it in such a way that the Chinese, and we may have, now what may happen, Mr. President, is that the complication of the Chinese may come anyway.

And we'll have to face it at the sound anyway.

The Russians will continue to get this guy.

The Russians want to settle with us.

If this means anything, if this means something.

Now, there's one great problem.

I may be wrong, but communists can't really use negotiations for the purpose of screwing

Not for the purpose of settling.

Now, it may be that the Russians, there's no, maybe for the purpose of just like what they screwed us on Vietnam.

They're too scared.

Scared of what?

The president, Rogers can say what he wants.

No one believes him.

When I showed him the Kennedy letter,

He knew human visions.

And they don't, in 73, 74, they may have, they're not yet ready.

Now the big problem is, maybe we have to tell the Chinese what the message is.

We must inform them.

that the Russians are, that as a result of the President's all the makeup, I put it that way, the Russians have now...

I've shown them the message to tell you the truth.

This message?

Yes.

Or at least read the summary of it.

Okay.

And we're going forward.

And let's ask, see what they want, if they ask to show that they are threatened.

We will consider it.

The Chinese know what my letter, what my conversation, or what that letter of aggression was.

I let them decide.

They did.

And they didn't go along.

They said, look, let's hang on that position.

Well, not to me.

They said it to Budo.

But we've got to get this machinery triggered.

Let me say this to Budo, too.

You've been telling him about this.

Yeah.

I don't think he's a believer, son of a bitch.

You'd rather tell the Chinese that you think it's all necessary, right?

Yeah.

And now,

You still did the hot wire about the restaurant.

Yeah.

But Tom will be more, don't know more.

We're just changing it a little thing since your message arrived too late.

We were already in the machinery.

The president had already directed it.

Secondary general.

I mean, Ambassador Bush has paid this to the Security Council and already directed.

However, the offer is still open because that was in the statement.

We are welcome, but time is the essence of the speaker.

But I think we have to fix this now.

Anyway, come back by 5.11 and give us the final report.

I've got to leave and I'm out of pocket for an hour.

Nixon & Kissinger on India-Pakistan War and Soviet-American Relations

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on December 10, 1971

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