Nixon, Ehrlichman & Bailey on India-Pakistan relations and Foreign policy

1:10:25On the contrary, we're afraid we just want them for their own good to stay the hell out of war and put me in the Chinese men.
1:10:31Let me tell you what I've said to them a dozen times.
1:10:36Look, President Nixon came to the Congress the same year I did, and he and I were one of the damn few people in favor of aid to Indians.
1:10:46I know.
1:10:46And I've said that to them again and again.
1:12:01Call?
1:12:02Call is the Foreign Secretary.
1:12:06Call, yeah.
1:12:07No, he's our guest.
1:12:08Well, Call, I think he's a little better.
1:12:15It's pretty dangerous to defend him because I always look astray at anything he says.
1:12:22When he called me in to make overtures for better relations,
1:12:27He told my press what we want to talk about his site on.
1:12:32And he will call and say, give a subject that he wants to talk to me about, and I'll get in there, and it'll be an entirely different subject.
1:12:43And I personally, you talk to me, personally,
1:12:49Socially and personally, we kid each other.
1:12:52And I have to admit, I like him as a person.
1:12:56And I do.
1:12:58He's a little less pro-Russian than he used to be.
1:13:02I'll tell you, there's a worse one there now.
1:13:06This dark.
1:13:07He's a terrible businessman.
1:13:08You're thinking of Coke, Mr. President.
1:13:10I remember he grabbed me after the dinner.
1:13:15He said it's always a good job with Blair House.
1:13:17He said it's a nice place, but he says, you know, it's one thing.
1:13:21I've proven to the Americans, maybe with the British, he said, you have showers rather than bathtubs.
1:13:26And Blair House, you've got a bath.
1:13:28It's nice to do a change in with showers.
1:13:31Well, that's nice to touch on.
1:13:33It's the first and last thing that I wanted to ask you because I discussed it with Ken yesterday.
1:13:39Because call is quite close to the direction,
1:13:43because Cole is the man that Ken sees most frequently.
1:13:49I have, as your instructions, had several conversations with Charles, the Indian ambassador here, who has a connection, I believe, to Scandia.
1:14:01Now, I told Ken so that he wouldn't fly blind again.
1:14:05I would let him know about this through back channel or through that.
1:14:09Let Ken know.
1:14:12Do I feel that you could confirm that you, when returning to time, would use the back channel, in other words?
1:14:22too important to catch the forecast, or do we don't get to have that spread?
1:14:29Well, that's right.
1:14:30That's fine, and I welcome it, and I feel so much better now that I've heard some of the reasons which, sitting out there, seem to mean the maximum for some of the moves that were made.
1:14:42I, of course, am a little concerned
1:14:47uh i must keep these and they must all be eyes alone and i must keep them separate a little concerned about my relations with the state department but if if any questions there's no uh there's no problem there we do this with russia and berlin we're going to do the same thing with uh
1:15:17on one occasion, only one.
1:15:19Done with that very quickly.
1:15:22But, you know, basically, we can always trust them.
1:15:25But it's perfect.
1:15:26And it's had a effect very often.
1:15:27No, not very often.
1:15:29No, we don't feel it.
1:15:29We don't feel it.
1:15:30It's basically just not easy to know.
1:15:32All right.
1:15:33I will say nothing.
1:15:34That's right.
1:15:35Let us have a look at it.
1:15:36Let us.
1:15:36We don't feel it.
1:15:37And this isn't any cost for our team.
1:15:39We're doing one thing, and they're doing something else.
1:15:41But it's a question, really, that sometimes it can be.
1:15:46We talked about the leaders and whoever.
1:15:49Close, there is the State Department of Geocracy.
1:15:52All of them.
1:15:52They leave their tables.
1:15:53They leave everything over here.
1:15:55I mean, they're close to the, I mean, they're a little ahead of the French now.
1:15:58The French crew, they're great, but Henry's trips all over to Paris are a lot easier.
1:16:04Let me say, what I want to get across is, first, the bigger picture, so you can talk with confidence to your Indian friends.
1:16:13They have a friend in this White House.
1:16:15India has a friend.
1:16:16As a matter of fact, I'm a friend of a whole bunch.
1:16:18I'm a friend of a band, too.
1:16:20We're going to China for uses of our own, you know, and their own.
1:16:26We hope to have the best relations we can under the circumstances.
1:16:30Now, as far as India is concerned,
1:16:34We took the action on eight, not as many as we can have, solely because our law requires it, and our Congress, of course, would have done it if we hadn't done it, too.
1:16:44Now, at this point, we believe that the survival of India as a strong, independent, free nation is in the interest of world peace and in the interest of the United States.
1:16:56That's what we believe.
1:16:58And we would like to cooperate with them in that respect.
1:17:01We have in the past 20 years, and we will in the next 20 years.
1:17:04Is that fair to say?
1:17:06Yes.
1:17:06But we have to drop them, because I explained to Ken yesterday to the President that we have to move it unless it pays.
1:17:11Well, don't go to the past.
1:17:13Don't get away.
1:17:14Keep the dialogue going is how we've got to do it.
1:17:18Also, you could well point out, you won't see it in the Foreign Relations Committee.
1:17:23But, for example, Senator Irving,
1:17:26I mean, Jordan, North Carolina, and others have said, and this has doubled in space among the Republicans, say that holiday there.
1:17:38I mean, they were getting in anyway, and they are about to get back in.
1:17:44So you can say there are some problems here.
1:17:47We want to talk about it.
1:17:48In other words, I wouldn't appear, I think it's not as important not to appear to look
1:17:54I don't want to say, look, the United States is sorry for the fact that we backed the U.N. resolutions, which were 10 to 1 against us now.
1:18:0310 to 1.
1:18:04Secretary General pointed that out to me here the other day.
1:18:08We're not sorry at all.
1:18:09We think we did the right thing.
1:18:10We don't want to say, now, look, we want to crawl back, and will you please take our hate again?
1:18:15Well, it's not on that basis of
1:18:17The basis and the future will be an arm's-length basis.
1:18:21It's one of great respect.
1:18:23We want them succeeding, right?
1:18:25Yeah.
1:18:25We're willing to adjust what kind of a basis it can be.
1:18:29It's one of those lines.
1:18:31On the refugee side, which will do our share through the United Nations?
1:18:35Thirty-five percent.
1:18:36That doesn't concern them.
1:18:38Well, but they're interested.
1:18:42I think they have a right.
1:18:44But that hasn't been announced yet, Ken.
1:18:47This is for your information.
1:18:48Yeah.
1:18:49And the way we will probably handle it is to make the announcement after we come back from China.
1:18:55Oh, I see.
1:18:57Well, I can't just ask about the situation.
1:19:00I'd love to understand this.
1:19:02That's not a good way to end it.
1:19:03But here for a court case, you can say without a question, actually, that we are, we have held, and Teddy Hagee said yesterday that we haven't given any A's and A's.
1:19:14Good God, we've done more than all the rest of the world combined for refugees and for an East Bank Center, which are continuing to.
1:19:22We will continue to.
1:19:23Period.
1:19:24What kept to the voice before the Foreign Relations Committee is to give me the impression, if I can be honest, that he's the good guy and we are the villains, and he's extorted all of this out of the White House that was kicking and screaming.
1:19:37I think we ought to have the impression that we are together on this.
1:19:43Well, I intend to say that since I have gotten here, I have learned a number of matters of which I had no knowledge before.
1:19:51That's, you know, we've agreed them.
1:19:53And, uh...
1:19:55And then, at the end, there's the storm.
1:19:59I didn't get anything out of my house.
1:20:01How can I stay safe?
1:20:02Well, the other thing, the other thing.
1:20:03That's what they would like.
1:20:04Yeah, I know.
1:20:05They'd like that.
1:20:06The second great conviction, of course, is that the soul is the presence of God, which is to stop the first world, prevent the war if possible, and to stop it after it's started.
1:20:19And that was all.
1:20:21I think that, and not only that, and the war.
1:20:25And we did everything we could to prevent it, and we did also everything we could to stop it.
1:20:31And now we're trying to do everything we can, as I said in the statement, to heal the wounds.
1:20:37That's about what we're doing.
1:20:42That's right, and I will let Ken see the chapter on India-Pakistan.
1:20:49either before this afternoon or before you go back.
1:20:51I've got it ready now, if you want to read it.
1:20:53I'll stop now, if I may.
1:20:54Yeah, it'll help me.
1:20:56You see, before I go to the Senate, before I go to the Senate, I've got it ready.
1:20:59I don't know if that's a person's experience.
1:21:01In fact, that's also a lot of people listening.
1:21:07Well, what they're, I'm satisfied, one of the state departments put this up, I said, I'll go or not, just as you say, I'm not anxious to go.
1:21:16But you decide whether I'm to go, and they finally decided that they claim I was being gagged, if I didn't go, then I better go.
1:21:26So, I know, I've had Kennedy out there, I've had Simonton out there, I've had others, and
1:21:34they're going to try to make a political issue out of this thing.
1:21:39I don't think they can succeed, but they're going to try to do that, and that's what they're going to try to direct their questions at me for, and I'm conscious of that.
1:21:50And if it weren't for Mr. Anderson, I'd be in pretty good shape, and obviously I can't deny the damn cables that he's spread on the public record.
1:22:01And I, but I shall, what do you say to them?
1:22:06The President encourages these pastors to write their best views, give their best judgment.
1:22:11You gave your best judgment.
1:22:13I, you were getting your judgment from that spot that the President had to make his decisions based on all the vehicles he received.
1:22:20I was assured of that when I was here in May because I thought perhaps I didn't talk to you, but I did with Henry and I did with
1:22:31The State Department, I thought perhaps you'd prefer to have someone there who would be sending you through what you wanted to hear.
1:22:39And it was all right with me, and that I'm not the kind that writes books afterwards and all that.
1:22:45And I wouldn't do a thing in the world to hurt you.
1:22:48And so I was told, no, you get to know how it looks from the country where the investor's credited.
1:22:58And I told you that it's a lie.
1:23:00You did.
1:23:00You did.
1:23:01Yes, you did.
1:23:02That's what we want.
1:23:03And that you did.
1:23:04And that this is a, yeah, probably has a horror relation to India and so forth.
1:23:12You just have to know the truth of this.
1:23:15Well, the point is that, let me say, it's their move, and not just ours now.
1:23:20The idea, the idea, after all, they started it.
1:23:24They went to war.
1:23:25We didn't.
1:23:26Well, we all saw the war.
1:23:28I mean, we can't, we're not going to get any, I don't want to be any defensive zone.
1:23:34I realize that.
1:23:35But they have turned to me.
1:23:39and called me in and said, how can we better our relations?
1:23:43And I have said to him, well, I appreciate this overture and I'm sure that my country does.
1:23:50We would like to have improved relations.
1:23:52I'm sure I speak for my country in that.
1:23:55And the overture, I used that word twice, thinking he'd back away, you know, the sensitive Indian.
1:24:00He didn't at all.
1:24:02It was the most conciliatory
1:24:04speech I've ever heard.
1:24:05This is called?
1:24:06No, this is called.
1:24:08And he's very close to Mrs. Bennett.
1:24:10Oh, I know.
1:24:11And I am 95% sure that she told him to get me in.
1:24:16Because he said yesterday, and I've said it many times, she does not want to get completely Soviet gripped.
1:24:25There's another thing that you can have in mind.
1:24:28What do you call it in the Soviet Union?
1:24:35India has to have good relations with, it has to work with its relations with three great nations.
1:24:43One is the Soviet Union, the one is China, another is China, the third is the United States.
1:24:49Now, whatever the Indians may think of their great neighbors,
1:24:56Everybody will admit the United States has no bad designs on India, right?
1:25:01We do.
1:25:02Then we want to keep it.
1:25:04On the other hand, they cannot be sure about either their northern neighbors or the Soviet, because the Soviet may have treaty of friendship, but there are a hell of a lot of Indian communists that are trying to knock the hell out of them.
1:25:17So my point is, the point is, if she wants to go right into the arms of the Soviet,
1:25:24That's her business.
1:25:25On the other hand, if she wants to file a foreign policy, she would realize that of the three superpowers with whom India deals, the United States is the only one that has no designs on it.
1:25:37It's the only one that really wants India to succeed and that for 20 years has given money, billions of dollars without a goddamn strength.
1:25:45And it's taken a hell of a beating from most of the world for it.
1:25:48Well, this is something that we don't need to get into.
1:25:51No, but you're dead right about that.
1:25:54You're dead right.
1:25:56I have here, and I'm limited in my time with you, I have here the things that I proposed to go back to Carlin in the formulation.
1:26:07Instead of taking it up here, shall I take it up with you?
1:26:09Do you have just a few minutes?
1:26:11Yes, sure.
1:26:12I can, it's along the lines of,
1:26:15Whatever you work out, but it's technically you work out a lot.
1:26:19Would you do that?
1:26:20Yeah.
1:26:21I'll do it.
1:26:22I'm going to do it the second you discuss it with me, okay?
1:26:27Yeah, sure.
1:26:28Oh, yeah.
1:26:29I'll do it.
1:26:31Uh, John, I want to talk about what you just said in the discussion, where you got the general feeling, uh, how you work out the words of that review.
1:26:41Okay, but finally, and this is just on the way out, I'm going to be plus no butter, because I've got to call him in, but I've got to call him out on this one.
1:26:50He was out in India, and he said, what's the difficulty with you and the administration, sir?

Nixon, Ehrlichman & Bailey on India-Pakistan relations and Foreign policy

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