Nixon, Haldeman & Ziegler on Anderson papers and Vietnamization

51:33Regardless.
51:42Yeah.
51:57He was invited to the meeting.
51:58Originally he said he'd go ahead with the meeting.
52:02Tom said he talked to you last night about it.
52:06He said he couldn't come over.
52:10He said he didn't swear.
52:14No problem on it.
52:15He doesn't have any suspicions about not being in the meeting.
52:20Not at all.
52:20Not at all.
52:24See, he knows what the purpose of it is, which is pure prayer.
52:28You know, it's just to get the thing going and be able to say, you've done okay.
52:32And so then I checked back with John, and he goes, you're Bob, that John does not accept any of these things, right?
52:41There's a great sensitivity there, which is created by the creator to be with John on his own.
52:48John has said he has none with regard to you.
52:50He has some with regard to John.
52:54There's only one problem with his approach to California.
52:57Don't tell John at all.
53:00There's none there at all.
53:01But John will spend over backwards.
53:04He'll be sure to deny his path.
53:06Not that his people know of it.
53:11Pharaoh does anything that even touches upon history or economics.
53:16John understands that.
53:17Keep working on it.
53:19Have you ever seen a problem there?
53:21Elizabeth, is that the one I really worry more about, not General, not as much as Chelsea.
53:27But Chelsea, they told you to go show some comedy, both.
53:30That the traitor people are fighting for all the time, and they have created some doubts in comedy's mind, so do they help her on the show.
53:37And he told us that he could come up with an idea to buy it online.
53:43Tell us more about it.
53:44Yes, he told me that he came up with something.
53:49Good.
53:49I've heard a study on after phase two.
53:53Yeah.
53:54Yeah.
53:54Oh, oh, John.
53:56John.
53:57Yeah.
54:02Well, Sheltz moved right in and spoke that one, and Connie called Sheltz after me and said, are you sure, like, that George had just spoken up?
54:09But he said, Connie didn't feel easy.
54:11This is an interesting point.
54:12Connie said, I didn't feel I should say anything to me because I didn't think it was my place to take on the vice-chairman.
54:17All right.
54:20And so he did face it.
54:22He was very pleased, or at least Pope George was.
54:25He was very pleased George was.
54:29So these guys are looking for this, you know, to try and maintain this the way it works.
54:37The Vice President said that how you get to the places where labor is hollow and all that sort of thing.
54:43And that's fine.
54:43But why the Christ would you do something that you're not going to even think about and raise how old people prior to the election?
54:48Now that's, well that's a terrible thing.
54:50You can't do it.
54:51It is a trouble, you know.
54:52It's not so hard to learn.
54:53It's not as long as making a study of time if you don't tell anybody.
54:56Because it isn't long.
54:57If you make a study of people with no time, there is no such thing as good.
55:02Well, the one fault over here is that Tom's got photocopies.
55:13Some of the others is a problem.
55:17It's a main problem.
55:18It's not their fault, I understand.
55:21He's told, he's been told, he's the chief economic man.
55:26He's got to be.
55:27He's got to be called.
55:28He said, is the vice president trying to move in to become the economic spokesman?
55:35Is that what this was all about?
55:37And Schultz said, no, of course not.
55:40explains from the history of the White House.
55:42But I'm surprised.
55:43I had a good talk with the Vice President yesterday.
55:49We can establish a basis now where he will talk to me so he doesn't feel what he's being had by the White House people and all that.
56:06I think that's probably pretty good.
56:08To save my time, but I actually wanted to see anything about it.
56:16I think he's got an idea that we ought to have cooperation with the Congress with regard to get the Congress to pass legislation declassifying the differences in declassification, but with a presidential classification that the Secretary of State
56:32He asked you, I had an objection to his talking to me, the Senators, and others on his own.
56:37It's his own idea.
56:39And that they'd be allowed to say that he didn't like my recommendation.
56:42And I said, well, I told you about the Redcliffe study.
56:45I told you to go talk to Redcliffe on the private pages.
56:49And then to talk to her and then Dean about it, who I said were working on an entire shot.
56:54He mentioned that he had no problem getting to it.
57:10They should be handled like that, but they're not treated like that.
57:31He came up with an interesting, he may be totally wrong bit of intelligence, but we'll get to the, uh, what we do about it.
57:37He subscribed to it, which is that Walter Moser from, you know, he knows all the staff people, uh, reported to Clark that Muskie's AA had been talking with him and that Muskie is about to launch a major charge against the president.
57:56the next report in four or five days regarding the Anderson papers.
58:01He knows who the culprit is, he says.
58:04Stole the papers.
58:05He's going to accuse the president of covering it up.
58:09say that there's a double standard of morality, that the administration moved to prosecute Ellsberg, who did something in the past that wasn't vital and is not.
58:17And it's protecting Anderson from something that is vital and is current.
58:24And then he's going to identify the culprit, who is the Secretary of Defense.
58:31And he said, if it isn't the Secretary of Defense, it's the Secretary of State.
58:34He's going to say, it is a cabinet officer, a member of the cabinet.
58:41That's a good one for us.
58:42He's on the right track, but on the wrong looking track.
58:46And that way, we could kill him with this.
58:52We could really, really, really kill him with it.
58:58Well, that's my inclination, is that sucking him out on it would be fine.
59:04The other thing is that he may be muddying the water to a fat and may know more than you think.
59:11There's so many people know who that guy is that I'm kind of concerned that Thomas and Edward Wilkes are going to come out.
59:19Mitchell and Earl get together a second minute.
59:23Well, there's just a story.
59:24I mean, yeah, but what excuse do we have for that?
59:28I know that.
59:29I don't say that.
59:30That's what I'm just saying.
59:31Why don't we say that we did it for that purpose?
59:33Yeah, I don't know.
59:35I'm not at all sure.
59:36See, we've gone on the assumption you can't nail a guy because it would hurt the Joint Chiefs.
59:40I think we've got to reopen that assumption and consider whether we can nail a guy and under what circumstances.
59:45And maybe we should.
59:48If you've got both the right and the left navigating this, why don't we find a guy and nail him?
59:55The thing that I think about, this is maybe the joint use that they deserve to be invented.
1:00:01So he'll go out and say he did it to the joint use and put it away, saying, well, they exceeded his orders.
1:00:07Sure, he'll deny it.
1:00:10I don't know you can prove it on the spot.
1:00:13You really haven't got anything to prove except holograms.
1:00:18That's right.
1:00:18We don't think we have a case on him doing it.
1:00:21We have a case that convinces us, but we don't have a case that's actually in the court.
1:00:26That's another problem.
1:00:27And that's the answer we have, that we have ideas, but we have no, I think, no standard in the court to give no witnesses.
1:00:35It's very easy for a politician to go out in the sun and make cheap charges that he doesn't have to defend.
1:00:40Secretary of State.
1:00:42I hope he hits it on that.
1:00:44The other danger there, though, is that Laird, who is out to get some of the chiefs anyway, if he attacks Laird, he'll probably go out and defend himself, but not publicly, certainly.
1:00:58Right.
1:00:58Right.
1:01:03Another interesting development in a different direction.
1:02:42I don't know that much of these people, I don't know if in Christ they go for defense or state.
1:02:48If he says it that way, it will sound like straight McCarthyism.
1:02:52On the other hand, we find that the prosecution is false.
1:02:58If, if, if we could get any proof.
1:03:02One thing is we don't have any proof about it.
1:03:08You don't have a confession from him.
1:03:10You haven't been able to scare a confession out of him.
1:03:12I should know a little bit of the Anderson Papers.
1:03:14I don't know why.
1:03:15I just think it's one of those things.
1:03:19Parts are out of college.
1:03:21The Anderson Papers business has come off
1:03:26I think it's one, mostly the other way, that to what extent it's still alive, it's on the basis that it was a bad thing to do, even, you know.
1:03:37Well, I don't know.
1:03:40Could be.
1:03:45You know, what's going wrong now is, I don't know, when he gets back, is the trend now that what's gotten him very disturbed.
1:03:54And he's still, he's playing down the question.
1:03:57I don't know.
1:04:01How he's planning to get Henry Hart when he gets back tonight.
1:04:06And try to shake him up.
1:04:07And then Mitch and I are going to meet with him first thing tomorrow morning.
1:04:11What's his press conference about?
1:04:12About the idea that the rest of the column, the rest of them are pushing the thesis now that the China opening is the key to Nixon's bid for re-election as a man of peace.
1:04:27He was determined not to oppose Pakistan and risked the possibility that China would call off the trip.
1:04:31There was a conflict between Nixon's world military strategy and his domestic campaign strategy.
1:04:38Considerations of the presidential politics prevailed.
1:04:42The short-range political advantages of protecting China and reaching a limited condensation with China were decisive.
1:04:50The argument is that reaching even the beginnings of an understanding... What if Henry is wrong, though?
1:04:54He thinks that we would say, no, he thinks it's wrong.
1:04:58Well, that's definitely wrong.
1:05:00I know, but he feels that it has to be answered.
1:05:04My idea is that if it answers the answer, it ought to be answered by Satan, then Rogers will answer.
1:05:10But what they're pushing very hard is that, you know, he says the fears are groundless, that you're not going to be king to sell out and all that, you're going to create an atmosphere of conciliation and with it the basis for your own re-election.
1:05:28So he says that the Chinese trip will look good on satellite television from the Forbidden City, even if it settles nothing at all.
1:05:34Bob, it's your turn to speak.
1:05:35I'm going to say everything that I can.
1:05:37I can't really say this.
1:05:39If there's something else, they didn't say this.
1:05:43Go ahead.
1:05:43Well, the Times editorial takes a different tack.
1:05:46They say that the Nixon-Kissinger approach, failing Pakistan over India, brought about precisely what their objective was to foresaw, which was a Soviet victory and a major increase in Soviet influence in the Indian Ocean.
1:05:58That was Kissinger's overriding concern.
1:06:01All right, fine, fine, fine.
1:06:03That's there to do.
1:06:04Everybody's going to do it.
1:06:06All right, but the problem we've got is Henry reads all these.
1:06:10I've been trying to stay one step ahead of him.
1:06:14He just spooks all this out of me.
1:06:18And he's told Ron that he wants a press conference set up very long and that he's going to set the record straight or clear up the skeletons or something like that.
1:06:27And all of us agree that he should not do it.
1:06:30He's not in the right shape to do it, even if it were desirable to do it.
1:06:36But we'll see.
1:06:37We'll talk to him.
1:06:46Well, the point that I'm concerned about how, in these circumstances, can we go with the Tuesday thing and reviewing the only one free bond?
1:06:55I think by Tuesday, there's, again, all the real cards being read on Tuesday.
1:07:07Sub-surface merits and demerits.
1:07:09The demerit of the problem over at State is a problem.
1:07:14The problem that merit over here seems to me to be one that's there too.
1:07:19It gets Henry back on a different subject.
1:07:26But publicly it puts Henry back in a...
1:07:29away from the posture of the South Asian failure era, to the extent that anybody is concerned about that, and back into the, uh, the kind of doing all these intricate negotiations, you know, that sort of stuff.
1:07:45Which is more hell along the way, I think.
1:07:47Well, Larry's right.
1:07:48He's a wall-monger.
1:07:49Does he love him?
1:07:51I, uh, I, uh, had a long talk with him.
1:07:54I just give him a lot.
1:07:56He did very well.
1:07:57He's so good at what I do.
1:07:59He made the point.
1:07:59This was, you know, the raid.
1:08:01They asked about the raid.
1:08:02He said, well, the initial raid was 10, and this is 23, and the president's proceeding exactly the way he said he would proceed without any question.
1:08:10He handled the matter, the North Vietnamese buildup and the reports on the attacks very well.
1:08:17He said a long time ago, when he returned from Vietnam...
1:08:20was pointed out that they expected that, but at that time he said the Arvin were capable.
1:08:25The President feels the administration is going well.
1:08:27He said the Arvin aren't going to win all of the battles.
1:08:30We expect some spectaculars, as is the case this time of the year, but we feel the Arvin overall are ready to defend themselves.
1:08:38So he did a good job on that.
1:08:40The POW, the only thing he said is, as the President said, there will be a remaining force in South Vietnam until the POWs are released.
1:08:49He also made the point that the
1:08:51He's not going to predict what will come after May.
1:08:53He's made a habit of not predicting.
1:08:55So it was pretty straight along that line.
1:08:57Cambodia, he sort of talked around that a little bit by saying that the Cambodian army was the fastest growing army in the history of the world from 10,000 or whatever it is to 200,000, and that people have been saying Cambodia is going to fall for a long time.
1:09:09The North Vietnamese have made more advances than in the past, but he feels they could hold.
1:09:15So it was, you know...
1:09:17Straightforward and a good assessment, but I think in a positive way.
1:09:22They were, of course, anxious to get out.
1:09:24They only told them to take 15 minutes.
1:09:26This is 70,000, which is the right number.
1:09:28Sure.
1:09:29It's a little more than the rest.
1:09:32Oh, no, no, no, no.
1:09:33He just made the point, see?
1:09:34Hello, they weren't screaming.
1:09:37Yes, he made that point in connection with the possibility of the Tet Offensive and the traditional increased activity.
1:09:53that the Arvin are well-trained, well-equipped, and are capable of conducting the defense there.
1:09:59No, it's the defensive side of that.
1:10:00That Van House outcome does a superb job of setting up the Tet offensive.
1:10:08What was that?
1:10:09Well, I take the point that if the North, East, and East were out for military, they'd go into the 1st or 2nd Corps.
1:10:15Yeah.
1:10:17And Secretary Larrick remarks, they checkmated the critics because we have said now,
1:10:38that we expect spectacularly.
1:10:41He made that point.
1:10:43He said when you came into office, he mentioned the figures.
1:10:59that were in Vietnam when you came in.
1:11:01And he also said there are 11 divisions when you came in.
1:11:04He said now there's no active combat force in Vietnam.
1:11:10He does a good job.
1:11:11He does.
1:11:11He's just very grueling and straightforward and deceitful.
1:11:16I will take your time now that I talked to Mrs. Nixon this morning about the interview.
1:11:21My judgment of it was the way it came over the air was a real plus.
1:11:26They led in
1:11:27into it with the talking about the success of the trip and they showed some of Ali's slides and talked in the first part about the African trip.
1:11:36This was Nixon's venture on the Ivory Coast I thought was very sensational because it showed not only did she go there and shake hands and
1:11:44It was well received, but she knew what she was talking about.
1:11:47She told me more than I knew about the argument.
1:11:49It was so good, and the way the question was asked set it up so well that it really looked like a loaded thing, because, boy, Barbara Walters said, we don't know anything about it.
1:11:58We know about Liberia, and we know something about it.
1:12:01But we don't know much about Liberia.
1:12:02We've never heard anything about Liberia.
1:12:04Do you know anything about it?
1:12:05This has next been shot.
1:12:06She talked about when it was settled in the apartment.
1:12:09The other thing in the current situation, and I look at it very critically, and I've had other people do it, and I think that she came off very poised, very relaxed, and smiling.
1:12:19This, by a wide margin, is the best...
1:12:25I talked to her already.
1:12:27Yes, I told her all this.
1:12:43And I thought she handled herself with great confidence on the woman's question on women.
1:12:48And the remarks about you, the China thing, they asked her what she felt was the most significant statistic, and she knocked that out of the park with a breakthrough in China that she'd been working three years on it.
1:13:00She had good remarks about what the meaning of the China initiative was and the Soviet Union, and it was good.
1:13:07I want you to get a massive press coverage.
1:13:12we're working on that right of the uh he said he got some damn good figures will anybody use this yes i think so the other time and with today we're going to have full camera coverage of the 230
1:13:41large meeting, and then we'll have a separate photo of the five leaders of the... All right.
1:13:51No, sir.
1:13:52Incidentally, I talked to Connie, and Connie apparently talked to Barbara Walters last night, who was very cooperative in handling the statements of the interview that Mrs. Nixon would be comfortable with.
1:14:05So I think that is important.
1:14:06And Barbara said, Barbara Walters said apparently to Connie that
1:14:10She wanted to cooperate on that.
1:14:12She understood that there were some questions that were not agreed to.
1:14:17And I think the interview showed that she didn't... All right, fine.
1:14:20I'm good.
1:14:26Okay, thanks for asking.
1:14:28I'm glad Larry did well.
1:14:29He did.
1:14:30Tell him that you talked to me and that I thought he did well and that you showed him the transcript.
1:14:33Okay, you call him now.
1:14:35I'm calling.
1:14:35Okay.
1:14:36I'll tell you what I had to do with him, you know.
1:14:40He can't have a press conference, but now he can get Frank to laugh.
1:14:43In other words, my answer to him is the same.
1:14:46Me too.
1:14:47That's what you always do.
1:14:49Yeah, two or three?
1:14:50Yeah.
1:14:50You have Frank Lennison, now Frank will have the rest of their competitors and all the rest.
1:14:56But for Henry to go out and have a press conference, you know another thing, he thinks this is a lot bigger than the Public Consciousness Center to be a response about.
1:15:04I don't think it's that goddamn big view.
1:15:05I mean, what Henry Kissinger's role in this and what it's just had to do with China and all that bullshit.
1:15:11It's a huge commitment.
1:15:12No, it's not.
1:15:13He's dropped out of TV for it's, you know, TV is, it's done to him.
1:15:23Well, I think that's right.
1:15:27Absolutely.
1:15:27And that's now, with regard to your only talk to Mitchell earlier about what?
1:15:34About the Miss Muskie.
1:15:36I think you really get down to the key thing.
1:15:40No use to talk about prosecution if you don't have a case.
1:15:46And I think that's the problem here.
1:15:48I think we've got a total, a perfect circumstantial case, and a totally inadequate, illegal case.
1:15:55So what are you going to do?
1:15:56Bring the guy in and have him lie?
1:16:00See?
1:16:03There's no point bringing him in and having him perjure himself and then trying to prove that he just sent 60 miles in.
1:16:10Now, you've got that high tide case against him, or you've got to forget about him.
1:16:13You've got to find something.
1:16:14He's got to admit something.
1:16:15And we're going to move on him afterwards anyway, hopefully.
1:16:17But, well, the thing is, the only way to move on him is to move on Anderson.
1:16:22You move on him together, then you get Anderson in.
1:16:25And then Anderson's either got to plead assault or criminalization, which would kill him.
1:16:30or prison, which will also kill him.
1:16:35So you have to hand it down to the guy who knows.
1:16:36Here, John, there are only two who know.
1:16:38It's here.
1:16:40Okay.
1:16:43Boy, it must be rough before we let go of God and man.
1:16:45Hey.
1:16:48Henry says here not to let go.
1:16:50You know, like Mark said, there's only one thing he needs to show you is our problem, and it's not that problem.
1:16:57of course if you can't, it's over, it's sensationalizing, and it's a cover-up, and then we're going to have a real problem with regard to the reappointment of McNamara, and oh, this is the wife of the White House bussing.
1:17:08Then I read this or something, and I saw what it said, that Henry Kissinger got the president to endorse McNamara.
1:17:18Now that's only come from Henry Kissinger.
1:17:21Also,
1:17:23I also look at my left and tell you, John Collins, John Collins really, I know, I know that Henry started it, but Henry just put it out.
1:17:31I've gotten at him, he just, this is, this is, Henry for publicity is really,
1:17:36It's worse than we realize, Bob.
1:17:38It really is.
1:17:39He put that out.
1:17:40I gave him instructions.
1:17:42I said, Henry, I'll be forward.
1:17:45Because we can't defeat you.
1:17:47So you can let me know privately.
1:17:49But I said, we can't go to public because there's a race out on the right.
1:17:52I'll never forget it, I said.
1:17:54And I told him this.
1:17:55I told Connick.
1:17:56Connick kept his goddamn lip up.
1:17:59So Henry had to go strut around in the press.
1:18:02He had told the president.
1:18:05But you know Dan Roe and Bobby does some of this stuff, doesn't he?
1:18:08Yes.
1:18:09Yes, he does.
1:18:10He does.
1:18:15Probably not as much as we think he does, but he does.
1:18:18No question.
1:18:20This Nooch-Topper thing now is his first set of trying to do the thing you want, which is to go to the big story or big two or three stories of the day that deserve attention.
1:18:32Remember, you said you had it.
1:18:34Instead of just doing the jury, you wanted a judgment call.
1:18:38Yeah.
1:18:39And that's what he's trying to do.
1:18:40He says, first, the Vietnam death situation.
1:18:43The other big story is the Richmond decision, which has far-reaching implications.
1:18:49Very good.
1:18:50So he's also got, of course, the refinance of the draft, like the space tension over the restoration.
1:18:56So he's confused.
1:18:58There's no lack of attention to a description.
1:19:08Well, except he had a couple years to put in.
1:19:12I told Johnson, which is sort of surprising, I said, it wasn't one of our judges.
1:19:18He said, you told him that.
1:19:20I said, it wasn't.
1:19:21I said, has anybody gotten it out?
1:19:23Of course nobody's gotten it out.
1:19:25God damn, it's a Democratic judge.
1:19:27It wasn't for Johnson.
1:19:28And that's the thing, don't you agree, that kind of interest, if you get out here, right?
1:19:36Let me ask you four things again.
1:19:38Now, it's easy to get out because the Libs all think it's a great landmark decision, so they'll think they're giving the Democrats credit by giving them the appointment.
1:19:45Can I ask you this?
1:19:48What are your feelings about getting back to the Henry King?
1:19:52It was the best of what he could say, and I love it.
1:19:55answer the same thing and get in Frankl, who will be enormously rich, rather than going out and make a press thing and then have that be the big story.
1:20:04If you don't mind his doing that, I think that's the ideal.
1:20:06I'm all for a compromise, and I fall for it.
1:20:09It's true to true.
1:20:11I argue that we ought to do a white paper type thing.
1:20:16Kate thought that was a good idea.
1:20:18The white paper should be in the state of the word.
1:20:21Well, I tried that, and then Kate tried it on Henry, and Henry said, no, that's the wrong place for it.
1:20:27It doesn't give it the proper, it doesn't fit that format or something.
1:20:32So I told Henry that before he was all for it, and that was the last one.
1:20:37He probably saw that as being a way to lose his press conference.
1:20:40He wants to have his press conference.
1:20:41But I think the Franklin thing will do it.
1:20:42Because I would give him, if he does more than that, he's going to spread it to a hell of a lot of people that are no longer running for government.
1:20:49And that's not a contention.
1:20:51But the rest of the line...
1:20:53that we'll do anything in order to save China.
1:20:56This is not the first time it's been read.
1:20:58And it's been read about the Russian trip, too.
1:21:00And they're all going to keep reading about it.
1:21:01It's a logical dynamic.
1:21:03And everybody says the China trip is pure George Meany.
1:21:07It's pure politics.
1:21:08What the hell are they talking about?
1:21:13I'm just gonna do the best you can.
1:21:16I want to be fair to you.
1:21:17You got anything you want to add on that?
1:21:21You really don't?
1:21:22I don't.
1:21:22But you really didn't share any of it, right?
1:21:24You really don't know either, because there's actually one of those.
1:21:28The what?
1:21:29The one I'm not sure you were referring to.
1:21:32Oh, okay, because we didn't just infer it.
1:21:41Yeah, it's cold, right?
1:21:43And it's brittle and it's a different color.

Nixon, Haldeman & Ziegler on Anderson papers and Vietnamization

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on January 13, 1972

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