Nixon, Kissinger & Butterfield on Vietnam War and peace negotiations

4:53:08Oh, uh, no, not necessary.
4:53:11I've, uh, I've got another way to do it.
4:53:24Uh, George Schultz is a testifier, and I'm trying to call him.
4:53:27We've had it before.
4:53:28If you would inform him that I brought him in, he doesn't mean anything very wise.
4:53:36And I also told him, he said, you know what, I feel just like John, I know John's earnest, because John's earnestness.
4:53:55As far as we go.
4:53:57And he said, he said, I saw this in a question.
4:54:00He said, this is a question.
4:54:01He said, he said, they showed him a secret.
4:54:06He said, why?
4:54:07He said, I told some of our colleagues around here in collective bargaining.
4:54:10And so he assembled them.
4:54:11He said,
4:54:13Ok, bye.
4:54:14Bye.
4:55:49Let's do something about how the trips were taken.
4:55:59We were always waiting for me right off the train.
4:56:05I would come to you.
4:56:07You would then give me instructions.
4:56:08I would always have to report.
4:56:10You would then give instructions.
4:56:13on how to prepare the next meeting.
4:56:17The point I'm making to them is your detailed interest.
4:56:21Your detailed, not interest, but detailed guidance of every step of the way.
4:56:25Sure.
4:56:28So, you know, they're just trying to be, they would like, not because they believe it, but they would like to create the impression, so on.
4:57:12A certain amount of just worry that sets in after, you know, both the state of the union and the same thing.
4:57:23And then you just, I mean, it's just not going to get out there.
4:57:29When you are over it, you don't really have enough interest in doing the other thing, doing well.
4:57:35So I think that's it.
4:57:37Well, Mr. President, the amount of movies I did...
4:57:39I didn't spend much time, but I just... You spent a hell of a lot of time.
4:57:48I spent a hell of a lot of time.
4:57:53But my experience is, when one writes or creates, that even if one doesn't actually spend time on writing, it's with one all the time.
4:58:03Just as at midnight on Monday your mind was working on it.
4:58:10And that's what creates the exhaust.
4:58:13Must be something.
4:58:15Well, do you mind if I answer the question?
4:58:19Yeah, but they're fascinated by the whole part.
4:58:21That's what I'm fascinated by.
4:58:23But also, I think the point that hits across most is that you, this whole time, while everyone was bashing on you, you were exploring every avenue for peace.
4:58:35One moment, I had an actual talk with me in the phone.
4:58:40Oh, good.
4:58:40And I told him that you'd be glad if you could hold a free response in on some of the background.
4:58:44This would be good.
4:58:45Well, the one thing I said to him, somebody else was standing there, and I said, you've got to realize...
4:58:52that our history has not revealed all the things that happened, because we're trying to keep this open for future negotiations, and it's always revealed what we haven't revealed.
4:59:02But it's a fascinating story.
4:59:03I called Mike and told him the same thing.
4:59:06Oh, you called him?
4:59:06I called Mike and told him the same thing.
4:59:09Is he still as positive as he used to be?
4:59:11Well, he's not as positive as he used to be.
4:59:14He's not as positive as he used to be.
4:59:18He's not as positive as he used to be.
4:59:25that we would take the matter under control, in the event that it would still persist in Russia, and we would, but actually, in my case, that's the reason we can't say that, because the moment we did it, we chose, and they had to deny it.
4:59:39He said, I understand completely, God bless you, Mr. President.
4:59:43I think we have to get the other opponents now and charge them with surrender.
4:59:50Absolutely.
4:59:58I got in the hall and I called them and I said, they want the United States to surrender.
5:00:08I said, they also want to turn the country over to the communists.
5:00:12That's the argument.
5:00:13I don't want to say that.
5:00:15But Cohen can put it out.
5:00:16I'm going to get a few people out there charging them with the surrender of recent drugs and so forth and so on.
5:00:24But me, that isn't me.
5:00:40This whole thing has come out to have been nothing better than what the Kennedy briefs have expected so far.
5:00:51Oh, I agree.
5:00:52You think so?
5:00:52I agree.
5:00:53Yeah.
5:00:54Well, they did come out.
5:00:55I talked to him on the phone today, that he said, as distinguished from Congress, he says the media has been so much better than he ever expected.
5:01:06Yes.
5:01:06And that is due to the briefings.
5:01:09He said we could get up there right at this time.
5:01:13Don't you agree?
5:01:14Yes, and apart from the fact that it was a superlative speech.
5:01:17Well, some of them carried on.
5:01:19It was really, I think, the speech of the division.
5:01:23I don't know what you're doing differently, but you're more relaxed now in your delivery than you were in some of your earlier speeches.
5:01:30And that gives us the impression of much greater strength.
5:01:36Well, at least it has an impact on the country.
5:01:39I think the briefings fell on fertile ground.
5:01:43But it's the speech of the captain, I hadn't given any briefings.
5:01:46The briefing I gave Tuesday night was just the absolute minimum so that they wouldn't go completely crazy.
5:01:53But that fell on fertile ground because of your speech.
5:02:05Yeah, that's right.
5:02:06It won't go.
5:02:07If you don't have a good case, there's no breathing in the world.
5:02:10If you could be just as cool as there was no breathing, it could have saved it.
5:02:14Yeah.
5:02:16I mean, all I would suggest is that you just come and see her.
5:02:20And, you know, this is all back part-time, you know.
5:02:23You can be delighted to come over any time you want, and you should go over yourself to the old man.
5:02:30Of course I will.
5:02:31He could not be for us, but he won't be as much attention as a good expert, see?
5:04:00For the time we had through the year,
5:04:04I mean, at the time we brought China into Russia, we should have, I mean, we should come out of that with an enormous prestige in the world.
5:04:15There's no leader in this country that ever had that.
5:04:17I mean, good God.
5:04:19And, you know, if you, if we didn't start a little bit of a trip to Prague, if you haven't had a trip, if you haven't had a trip, if you haven't had a trip, if you haven't had a trip, if you haven't had a trip, if you haven't had a trip,
5:04:34Take what comes out of it.
5:04:35Oh, yes.
5:04:36God, we will take that.
5:04:37Take the grand deal that we make.
5:04:39Jesus Christ, we can make one hell of a lot of that.
5:04:43It's going to be no question.
5:04:46But I think this, what we're going to have to do now is to stay very steady in the budget, and fight back the critics.
5:04:57I'm going to preach the words every day that people are on here to go off their butts and fight.
5:05:01And I don't think you fight back.
5:05:03They've got to get something you can't have ever found.
5:05:07I couldn't agree.
5:05:08Mr. President, we'd be too safe to attack.
5:05:12That would be one of our great reasons.
5:05:14And they've got to snap back at them and take a little criticism for a while, where these people have been irresponsible and vicious and so forth, and now they're safe right there.
5:05:24So that's what I'm going to do then.
5:05:26I think you should.
5:05:27What I mean is I'm going to have our people do it, and I'm going to say a lot of things.
5:05:32I think we ought to get them in a position where they have to defend themselves constantly on the attack.
5:05:39I think we ought to get them... After all, you really start to think of the other side of the coin, what you just said about the president sitting here for 30 months taking all this goddamn abuse about not seeking peace.
5:05:54and say, well, there are other channels, and then have them smear, and say, well, it really isn't, you know, that's not what it's about, and people like that.
5:06:02After that, the other side of that coin is the people who gave you the abuse now deserve to have a contract with God.
5:06:10I think it is natural.
5:06:12And I think it is essential.
5:06:14I think it is essential that we put some of these on the defensive.
5:06:18It is a disgrace that our own people, our own senators, attack a peace plan
5:06:37Pretending that there's nothing new, pretending that you're trying to trick the American people.
5:06:42In that demonstration of disunity, we must encourage the other side.
5:06:49Well, not you men can have this one.
5:06:51No, not you men.
5:06:52No, but Kennedy, I mean, God, the brother of the man who got us this man, the brother of the man who was assassinated, who has the evidence against him.
5:07:02that he won't even let us get out, when we are following a plan he himself put forward in 68.
5:07:09In August 68 he made a speech in Worcester in which he said he's picking up the banner of his fallen brother, and in effect proposed re-immigration.
5:07:20Now he suddenly says we should overthrow the government.
5:07:24Oh, I like that.
5:07:24I think it's terrific.
5:07:26And I'm glad that, you know, remember I changed that speech to reach overdrive.
5:07:31And I think it was good we did it, because you don't, you don't, you remember when the leaders meeting us about your ritualism, right?
5:07:40Actually, listen, there's nothing I would like better than to have an R.B.
5:07:44and then each retreat from that relationship.
5:07:47They haven't retreated.
5:07:48They haven't said a word.
5:07:49But that's the artistic thing, Mr. President, and you know this.
5:07:53They're practically looking at us for something to tackle us on.
5:07:57First they said we'd overthrow.
5:07:59That's not the truth, so I said, yes, very well.
5:08:01Don't make us prove it.
5:08:03It's that no one has been yakking about overthrowing us.
5:08:09They said yesterday, they said today, they started yacking about ceasefire.
5:08:13I had seen them get out of it and say, I'm not sure if they said it, but they always said it.
5:08:19They said it was a purely academic question.
5:08:22Our point 6 on ceasefire happens to be their point 7.
5:08:24We are following their program.
5:08:28We didn't put it in the program.
5:08:29They put it in the program.
5:08:30So, you know, somebody wanted to follow family's business.
5:08:33That's right.
5:08:34So, I think the way to treat it is with contempt rather than as a debate.
5:08:37Well, I was going to say the other thing, you know.
5:08:44We also got to eat in our office, so we got to eat in our office.
5:09:03The first I came to terms with what I said the other night, was that I would come out here, of course, to support many things, to survive.
5:09:57Overall, all the others that I've stated, I mean, the church certainly, and the great war, and the horrors that have done us to that, that will have passed.
5:10:07But we're doing it.
5:10:08We agree that we've made the damn world get real sense.
5:10:12And leadership in a great war is really easy.
5:10:15It must have been great fun to be president in the Second World War, which was morally overwhelmingly clear.
5:10:23You knew, you couldn't really lose.
5:10:25You know, the thing about it is that we were all so happy.
5:10:30I remember when I was in the Pacific for the first time.
5:10:37How long would Britain have lasted if the London Times had reported events like the Washington Post in 1940-41
5:11:03The other thing, though, is that here we are, though, in terms of Russia and China.
5:11:13Really, that isn't what we've done now.
5:11:17But we've started a process and we're starting to change the damn world.
5:11:21That's the whole point.
5:11:22If we play it the way we play it, that's the only way you would be playing it.
5:11:27The whole key to the whole thing is the counterparty.
5:11:32Because the Russians wouldn't be talking if they weren't afraid of China.
5:11:36And they're afraid of American Chinese people.
5:11:39And they should, because we'll adopt them, and we'll have one.
5:11:43We have to keep that one hanging.
5:11:45Always must.
5:11:46I want to thank you, sir.
5:11:48At least consider telling Joe is that I'd go back there within a month or so because they're going to be flying wars when all these agreements are done.
5:11:59Because we can do that at the end of June and we'll sort of over...
5:12:05It's disgusting and disgraceful that I had to make the speech.
5:12:14But that's where it comes in.
5:12:24Why did those 900 men set you off, can't you see?
5:12:28You know what I mean?
5:12:29If we had that for unity, it wouldn't really be so realist.
5:12:32We just haven't got it in yet.
5:12:35The other thing is...
5:12:37But...
5:12:40I think we ought to go all out through this week after the election.
5:13:35Oh, you know, I'm looking at the schedule.
5:13:39I didn't see the RFC.
5:13:43Oh, can we wait till Monday?
5:13:45Fine.
5:13:45We'll have to remember.
5:13:48Fine.
5:13:48I think we're going to need more.
5:13:54I told him to put it on, but it should have been on.
5:14:02Well, I have a salt meeting tomorrow, and Lear has already given orders on the only things that can be done right now.
5:14:10But the main thing is the money we ought to sit down and get a good career and obviously stand.
5:14:13The thing about more than fighting, you would usually have a problem with earning money.
5:14:15I don't know about this, but the restrictions and all of those things are going to be far harder.
5:14:17I've got to have a way down.
5:14:30I will.
5:14:31No, I'll do it tomorrow.
5:14:44No, let me do it.
5:14:45But maybe, I'll... Mitchell will be at the verification panel the 8th of March.
5:14:50What did he say now?
5:14:52Huh?
5:14:52He's called for it.
5:14:54As far as I've got papers, papers and papers, nobody was blessed while holding the president because of God's hand.
5:15:02And we're not going to allow this to be resisted in ways that tend to compromise the duties.
5:15:07We've got to do that, at least.
5:15:09But I've got less to do.
5:15:11And he's just got to do what he's got to do.
5:15:15And frankly, the interest is only going to fall against the results of his efforts to try to find out about that goddamn story on the Pentagon about what we were supposed to do.
5:15:28White House...
5:15:29He got led to agree.
5:15:31If everything was a total lie, that they had recommended the targets, they had recommended the five days, that he was going to give them the report, but I don't know what happened.
5:15:44There's some, probably, and some are actually there in Europe, and you deliberately put him out to sue us, right?
5:15:53There's no truth to it.
5:15:55That's the point.
5:15:55It's not a lead.
5:15:56It's just an attack.
5:15:58That's right.
5:15:59Not a singular truth.
5:16:03It might be a busy day, though.
5:16:03Do you know what time it is?
5:16:04Oh, I recall it's at 8 p.m. in the afternoon.
5:16:05It's at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, and 8 p.m. on Tuesday, I guess.
5:16:27The real problem that got me into this, and I don't know if I don't know if you've got anything to do with this, the real problem with God is that we've had that attractiveness to attack her along the line.
5:16:46I think the people up there are intellectuals and leaders.
5:16:54The trouble is, the horror of sectors, I said it to Saidi the other day, the horror of it is, Mr. President, if it weren't for
5:17:15You who is really a sport in the presidency.
5:17:17I mean, you've got no business being president in terms of the social structure of this country.
5:17:26And Mick Timmons was there this morning.
5:17:29He said, you know, it's not the brightest man, but he's on our side.
5:17:35He said, you know, here it is.
5:17:36I didn't even know whether that's true, but he said...
5:17:42Forty years ago, the president was delivering or selling vegetables.
5:17:51You were a little boy in Germany, and the two of you are pulling this country together.
5:17:57And where are the others?
5:18:01Which is actually, I mean, my role isn't so, the crucial one is that here you are,
5:18:11The whole bloody establishment.
5:18:12I told this yesterday.
5:18:14Somebody was there.
5:18:16Well, I said it decided.
5:18:17And I also said it to somebody yesterday.
5:18:20I said it to somebody yesterday.
5:18:23I think about the intellectuals.
5:18:24They look at Bobby Kennedy, something he did 10 years ago.
5:18:31But they're persecuting the president for what they think he did 30 years ago.
5:18:37at 25 years ago, that the reason they do it is because, not because, it's because he's an independent man
5:18:44It's not because he's against them, but because he is emotionally dependent on them.
5:18:53And they're after him.
5:18:55They know this whole white social set, all these other people, are not going to take their time.
5:19:00And they know it.
5:19:02They're not going to march to take you.
5:19:06We need a conversation.
5:19:10They're all out of tune.
5:19:35And you represent the authentic voice of America.
5:19:38I have said to some people, the Democrats ought to get on their knees and say that they don't win the election.
5:19:45I said it to Hank the other day, I said, if the Democrats win the election, their president is going to be a one-year president, and the right-wing is going to take over in 76 years.
5:19:58Because they're going to look so off.
5:20:02I think they conduct foreign policy there.
5:20:06I'm equipped now, I don't know what they do domestically, but in foreign policy I know this bunch is carefully doing the thing, and not one has yet understood what we did in India, Pakistan, and how it saved the China option, which we need for the bloody rest.
5:20:25Why would we give a damn about Bangladesh?
5:20:50Modern, liberal, blind.
5:20:50The nation on the left.
5:20:52No, listen, the only nation on the right.
5:20:56The elite.
5:20:56And the nation on the left.
5:20:58Now that's true.
5:20:59You go to the Harvard campus.
5:21:01You go to the University of California campus.
5:21:04You go to the Whittier campus.
5:21:09You talk to those assholes, and the greatest man in all the rest, but the thing is, there's always on the right, they never see from the left.
5:21:16Now I understand, I see it both ways.
5:21:19I mean, I, George Wallace, yes,
5:21:23Just repels me.
5:21:24Now, all those accidents.
5:21:27But these sons of bitches, if it's India, well, that's the land.
5:21:31If it's North Vietnam, that's the land.
5:21:33Even the communists, right?
5:21:34They don't see the danger in the land.
5:21:36I believe that's the problem here, and they don't see it.
5:21:41One proof of it is, the very people who are accusing us of being too deeply involved in Southeast Asia are accusing us of not having got enough involved in South Asia.
5:21:51The one is against the communists, the other would have been against Iago.
5:22:02Oh, yeah, but no, it's the mentality.
5:22:06I'm not telling you.
5:22:07No, but I have to, you know, when I'm talking to you about it, basically, I like the way they stand on the bed.
5:22:18I said, you're the problem, and I said, you're the problem.
5:22:22I'm sorry, I'm trying to understand what you're saying.
5:22:23Do you realize the standards and all that you're doing?
5:22:25Right, oh yeah, I know it.
5:22:26I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
5:22:27Do you realize that, that, that, do you realize that there must be an election?
5:22:29There must be an election.
5:22:30There must be an election.
5:22:41I said, at the present time, the United States is coming to us as a solution.
5:22:43I tried to set a case in that way, but I said, what in the world is that?
5:22:44I said, if you realize that there are those who want us to turn away from responsibility, there are those who want us to...
5:23:01They are the people who cannot bring themselves to deal with the messiness of being out there.
5:23:04They are the people who draw on all the rest.
5:23:06The rest of these people are gone.
5:23:07They are the people who want the United States and they want every other state as a part of it.
5:23:09They are the people who make it easy, make it easy.
5:23:10They are the people who want that the United States are a peaceful society.
5:23:12They will compromise for the rest.
5:23:13They are the people who do the same processes.
5:23:28They have left all the European nations, except them, to become little islands.
5:23:30The British have said, maybe, maybe we need to turn it back, I hope.
5:23:32But I said, except the Germans.
5:23:33Now, what about the Germans?
5:23:34Well, the Germans have a problem.
5:23:35They are vigorous and strong people.

Nixon, Kissinger & Butterfield on Vietnam War and peace negotiations

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Also recorded on January 27, 1972

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