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You've got to have lunch with somebody.

Oh, not today.

I bet you haven't.

Well, I was going to say that I hated to be superhuman.

I had to be, you know, like America used to say, the good one in a society.

But he would have even underestimated the Russians.

Oh, he would have said it.

He's basically, on the one hand, making a hard line.

On the other hand, he's taking an unrealistic line.

The communists are evil to be reckoned with.

And at first, Bill doesn't realize this country does need more backbone.

What can they not?

Mr. President, I can't say solemnly enough.

If we blow the China thing now, we are, A, going to look like fools on all the effort you've made.

Secondly, blowing China means blowing Russia.

And if the two things are integrally linked, there can't be any two more unsentimental people than you and me.

Who can tell them not to use that comparison with Taiwan?

But it isn't just that, Mr. President.

It isn't just that.

It is his whole attitude, his whole tone.

He's making them sound like a bunch of jerks when he describes his meetings.

I mean, when he came back from some crappy sixth-rate African country, he's making Mobutu look better than they do.

The other, I made it look good.

You were excellent.

And in your second meeting particularly, you were good in the first meeting too, but you said, everything you said was right.

The point is, the point is that he is not...

I don't know whether he understands it.

He must, but the point is that he...

He doesn't defend the communique, essentially.

He did defend the communique, basically, but the point is, in the second one, he did say a little something about the President.

Why the hell did he send him to the Leader's Command, but never beyond that?

That's not so important.

The most important thing is that he's not only wrong on the estimate of the

He doesn't, I mean, and I'm wrong in pointing out their weaknesses in their society and all that sort of thing.

God damn it, that makes a, that's like a two-bit soapbox order running for congressman in the 12th district in California.

That's a different kind of deal.

That can't be here.

He, he, he also, you know,

He's putting up this, you notice how I shot it down, that doesn't trade thing, where I said, hell, I have the data.

Pete Peterson said, why do they want, Pete's probably sucking around.

The idea that they want to see us because of trade, they want to trade because of their interests.

That's all there is.

Mr. President.

Now the other thing, a way that there's something else, something so obvious.

Oh, where he was talking about how he, of course, could be tougher with the four of them.

He's been denied.

Now, for Christ's sake, he doesn't know.

I mean, he shouldn't say that.

He doesn't know.

I was more effective with Joe ten times over than he was with the four of them.

But did you get that point where he said what he told the four of them?

Ten what?

that is such an understatement, it's ridiculous, they despise him.

We programmed everything the Foreign Minister said to him.

Everything that was at play, that was written out, I worked it out with the Vice Minister, who was much more influential than the Foreign Minister, and withdrew directly.

He had no impact at all.

You know, he said, when I met with Joe on two occasions, he talked about this.

I mean, it's a horrible goddamn ego.

I mean, on the plane.

You didn't say a word about your, you didn't say a word about the fact that you were sitting in on everything.

You didn't, that, you know what I mean?

You could have said it all.

I, in fact, didn't mean it.

Just a double check, I'm sure.

I'm not Scott Mansfield, but I hear you every time, huh?

No, I would say that the Scott and Mansfield are arrangements that the fellow French chose.

The French just asked, we don't let that be there.

You can say we propose that the exchanges involve some political people.

Prime Minister Cho suggested that the two leaders...

Yes, Prime Minister Cho, in his last meeting with the President, indicated that he thought that the two leaders of the Senate might be...

if they, since they both had indicated an interest in visiting China, uh, would, uh, could come, and I inform them, and I inform them that they're not going to come.

But he would invite them?

He would invite them to leave the Senate, and that the arrangements will be made out at a time that is mutually convenient for both sides.

And if they say, where will the arrangements be made, say, when we have the contact?

Yeah, when we eventually have a contact.

We'll say that.

Which we eventually will have.

I wish we could soon have.

We have an audience of kids tonight.

I don't know if we want to.

Which we will have.

Which we will have in the near future.

In the near future.

So we have, as the Prime Minister showed us last week, we need to get it to, in furtherance of our, just don't say it, but in furtherance of our program of, you know, exchange of, what do you want to say?

I just stated what I used to.

That's good, Ron.

But, as I said, shoot down the Zubelinger in a car.

But beyond that, Mr. President, somebody has to tell you, Ron, too.

No, I don't know.

I guess it's deemed.

I mean, it's all up in the Internet.

You deserve it now.

You don't know.

No, no, no.

I tell you, I had more shock because I saw him on the plane last night and thought he was going to be flying today.

But in the name of Christ, it doesn't matter where the man is.

Has he been reading the news?

No, no.

I did everything he asked.

I said that he was... And we have to remember, Mr. President...

I think he demonstrated that he doesn't know the government in store.

That the China policy is the key to our Soviet policy.

Of course.

It's the key to everything.

We've got to nurse that along at least through the election.

Nurse it along for the good of this country.

For the good of this country.

I mean, nothing that we are going through on Netflix is going to compare.

Assuming that Radio Peking suddenly pulls out all starts again...

Assuming they all say you're an untrustworthy, tricky imperialist, we are going to be dead.

We are going to be dead in Russia, we are going to be dead in this country, we are going to be dead in our general foreign policy.

Oh, I must say that Kevin is enthusiastic.

Oh, yeah.

And the country is enthusiastic.

I told the president that I picked up my phone last night and the operator said, I just want you to know how proud we are.

We first thing in the morning at 7 o'clock we turned on the television.

But once it went, it was one of the signal operators.

A little wife, you know, I have this other barber, a guy that's from the hill, works in the barbershop part of the time, and he's a very religious guy.

Squared, pure, well, his old soul is a bit, I know, but a pure Nixon type guy and all that.

But he, you know, there's a combination of them.

But anyway, he, this morning, was saying that

He asked what the overriding impression of the trip was.

We were talking about it.

He said, well, would you like to know what my impression was?

I said, yeah.

He said, I've never been so proud to be an American as seeing President Nixon, the way he conducted himself, hour after hour after hour on television.

And this guy is a simple, you know, sort of Ozark, Southern Baptist evangelist, believing in the light of God.

But the only way this is significant is if the Chinese are a serious people.

If we run down the Chinese, we're running down ourselves.

Were you in the meeting?

I was in the cabinet meeting.

What did you see?

The eyes, the middle was stretching on there.

But in the other one, it was worse.

In this one, at least he praised the president.

In the other one, he...

No, no, but first of all, but it isn't insignificant.

Another word was said at the other meeting that we didn't program.

That wasn't a damn thing.

His performance in there was incredible, first of all.

Just the contrast, I was just sitting there thinking, you know, you don't need to make any case about Rogers.

lack of ability.

You listen to what he's babbling about and then Henry comes in and covers his three levels of awareness business and the background and the point which I heard you make before that's a fantastically interesting point which is that you're dealing with first generation, or maybe you made that, the first generation communist as contrasted to the Russian

bureaucrats who are not first-generation.

Incidentally, one thing, Henry, if you want to use a graphic illustration sometimes, you say, for example, well, generally there, all you see is only the picture of Mao.

But in the Great Exhibition Hall, it was interesting to note that they had the pictures of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and so on.

In the square.

Well, you didn't see, you probably couldn't see in the square, but in the great square.

How did you know?

You know, what I, what Andrew said, what I said sounded far more significant.

But he didn't see, which is the most revolting part.

He must have picked that up from some newsman.

When did he see some snowflakes?

I'm sure he did.

That afternoon.

He went out shopping one afternoon.

All I know is...

But his impression of...

home to me, the difference went out.

That leaves you out.

Henry and Rogers, Henry given an absolutely fascinating explanation of what we were doing and why and how it all fits.

And Rogers talking in complete, inane banalities.

I mean, he just didn't say a goddamn thing.

Well, as a matter of fact, the whole concept of what it was all about in the plenary session seemed to be talking banalities, you remember?

Well, the frightening thing to me, Mr. President, is

What he is doing in the leaders' meeting, he described the Chinese, he said it was like being in the Bronx Zoo.

Well, they're so regimented.

They're well fed, but they have no spell, no spirit.

Like animals.

For Christ's sake, can you remember the terrible thing that they used to say?

No Chinese or dogs allowed.

Oh, God, I go around.

This is a betrayal.

He's shooting down.

His president is so disreputing that.

He said it's like the drug deal can be unfavorable from there.

And then he just said, why, Taiwan is so alive and everything, and this is so dead, and the people who are authority and so forth and working through the mine, I'm not concerned about their dedication and the rest.

That's why I took the line I did, and there you notice.

Because I heard some of those assholes say that, look, Robertson sees anti-communist press, but he's just goddamn naive.

I know what they are, but what the hell?

I mean, who's been anti-communist in action?

The problem we have, and it's really serious, if the Department of State puts out this...

If they run down the Chinese, they're running you down.

They're running down the significance of the trip, because if the Chinese are not a formidable people, what the hell will you spend... One thing I did too, is I knew that this would come from straight to Sarajevo.

And I did the prior research, and he sort of said, how Russia, remember he said how Russia and Romania...

I said, now those people who say that Russia's more free than China, I said, that's a bunch of crap.

I said, I've been there.

It isn't any more free.

Moscow is just as tough as China.

And Romania is the most Stalinist country in Eastern Europe.

That's right.

I mean, they happen to have a foreign policy became liberal.

That's right.

But, you know, and it's a Western country, but I can't get over it.

I don't know what he's up to.

I mean, is he just all about something still?

Is that it?

I don't know.

He came into my office after the meeting.

Oh, he did great.

Was he cheerful and all that?

But the danger, Mr. President...

I don't think he understands.

Well, all I want to say is that this teacher, they are going to get a violent reaction out of DK.

And they are going to degrade what we did domestically.

Because if they are going to create the impression that these are a bunch of ten-threats,

slave society type people, then the question is, what the hell will we put in so much of an investment?

Well, the end of the party was what we had created.

First, they're wrong.

This society, the slave society that it is, I saw them, the people all walking

I saw the old young people.

I saw them in that goddamn hall.

And I thought of what they can be.

That's what Bill was to see.

It's like that thing in the hall.

As you said, it was like Nuremberg.

Wasn't it you?

That's right.

I said it.

And it was.

But that doesn't downgrade it, that upgrades it.

The discipline and the dedication is at the sun.

We shouldn't say they're a free society.

We should say they're a formidable society.

That's it.

For him to say, well, this is all going to go away in a few years.

I have no doubts, yeah.

He's very brave.

And then, of course, I shout out something else.

I'm in the leaders' meeting.

He said that, well, the reason that they wanted this trip is that they are so backward.

They want to trade with us and the rest.

So you know what I mean?

You said that?

Yep.

and they've walked out of technology.

So I just deliberately tried right now, I said, go to Pete Peterson, that's what Senator Levine was doing right after saying, why do they want this?

But I didn't shoot him down, I did it very subtly.

I said, Melrose opinion, they want it.

I said, that's not true.

They want it because they're interested.

Look, they're developing, that exhibition hall shows you, they're developing their own technology.

Yeah, Bill shot that.

They have a problem on productive capacity.

But he'll wrap that up.

He said that he's much better in Taiwan.

Yeah, but if this keeps up... Well, it may very well be, but so what?

Well, I must say, Mr. President, the only way... Well, I was shocked by it.

If you've been in the leaders' meeting, and I think Ron called, for his great credit, Ron is mostly better in foreign laws.

But in the leaders meeting, Bobby, it was terrible.

Well, a lot of things were wrong in the leaders meeting.

First of all, he sounded, he made it sound as if he'd done it all, an hour and a half with Joe on the airplane.

Now, you know, I was sitting there most of the time, and Joe treated him like a baby.

Then 40 minutes alone, it took me three days to set that up.

And I had to make a personal appeal from you to Joe to get Joe to call on that.

And Joe wouldn't do it until the communique was agreed to.

And he wouldn't set it up.

He just dropped by the room.

And he just dropped by the room.

So that was, and then he described in detail his conversations with the foreign minister.

But that's just petty.

What he said.

But that's petty.

What I didn't do, you notice I didn't describe any conversations I had with him.

That's right.

You notice that I was very important.

That's why I could go about sitting around him by describing the men.

I think they're more stupid than men than they are.

But goddamn, I'm scared to death of this job.

I'm scared of it because, I'm scared of it.

I don't think I'm jealous after this job.

Or, to the same extent, he doesn't know.

Why doesn't he study?

He doesn't study.

We've talked about that before.

He says he's really interested in his homework.

He reads a little, but he doesn't.

It doesn't get him to try to analyze the thing and figuring it all out.

It's so very irritating when Henry's going after these three points.

I thought it was great.

Well, it makes the cabinet feel they did something important.

Well, and you understand why.

You understand... Sure.

You know, you get some...

I didn't do it perfectly.

Perfectly.

They did it in the morning.

Of course, I didn't get to talk with Schmerz and Bill talking a half hour about this crap.

Oh, you're kidding.

I don't want to throw the 45 minutes myself.

And at that time, they had to leave.

And Bill, in neither meeting, really defended the communique.

Or the president.

Then with Ellender sitting there, he goes through the list of comments.

He says, quite, he never said we got excellent comments.

No, here at the cabinet meeting, he said it was good.

But then he says it was pretty good before.

He didn't go out on it at all.

He just pissed on the whole thing.

At the cabinet, at the leaders' meeting, he said, quite favorable.

He said, now don't let it fool you about Russia.

The New York Times today said that Russia is relaxed.

We know better.

They're deeply worried.

Now, with Allender sitting there... Now, David, accept the fact the Russians are relaxed.

Why couldn't he say, as the New York Times itself pointed out, the Russians are relaxed?

Then Allender would feel good.

But I'll tell you what, it was an incredible performance.

Yeah, but we've got to get to him before he starts testifying.

A week from tomorrow.

Well, there's time.

He thought it was going up tomorrow, but it's a week from tomorrow.

There's time, there's time.

But we've got to make sure that he doesn't set this sort of a line in his bloody department.

I talked to Mitchell this morning before the cabinet meeting and told him, you know, you'd asked me to... Yeah.

Tell him.

Yeah, probably.

Roger, so...

He said, do you want me to do anything?

I said, no, no.

Did you give him a little indication?

Not that serious it was.

Yes, I did.

How did you describe him?

I covered the non-cooperation thing and the serious problem with the fact that he had put the personal, almost gross, gross saying that last week.

During the point where I told him, I'm sure it was about the top of the presidency.

except, of course, for the day I had made the Cambodian thing, and it was too bad.

You were going to do it.

Well, I brought two in here, and I told them, you are here.

I told them.

Well, I was in the building.

You asked me not to be in the room when you did it.

I told them.

It was very pertinent of you.

Well, it was.

I think he's got to live in on some of the background, and his ultimatum to see where, you know, if he got them, well, better do this.

And the thing to Henry about all seven points are to be included, or I will appeal to the president in that.

And the funny thing is that not one of his points on Taiwan has been raised by anybody.

No, he suggested that it really mattered.

What did he, uh, what did he answer?

Oh, he was just interested in, you know, he said, I said, I didn't know that you wanted him to take, try and do anything at this point about it, but you wanted him to be aware of the course of events here because he'd been involved in a,

But his department, what worries me is that his department could really sell it.

If he tells his department the same thing, then in this heavy way of their leak out that, well, of course, it's a slave society.

We don't think it will last.

It will evolve the same way as others.

Of course, he'll come back and say, we're trying to be soft on them and this and that, and we've got to stand up and fight for our position because they're fighting for theirs.

He's so totally wrong.

Everybody knows we're for our position on this.

We don't have to.

The Buchanan-Buckley line.

But you don't fight for your position by running them down.

You can say these are formidable people.

What do you say?

They firmly believe in their system.

We firmly believe in ours.

That's what we do.

The major point is that what impresses the American people is that you made a bridge to a most formidable antagonist.

If it's a goddamn country like Indonesia, who gives a damn?

That's right.

He just made it simple when he talks about Taiwan being better and everything, but how many nuclear bombs has Taiwan tested?

And what does the State Department really think about Taiwan?

They want to flush it.

That's what it's so sickening.

It is, uh...

Bob, the man has got some, I'll tell you something, something's cracked.

I don't know, something has happened.

It may be just gone beyond the pale here, you know.

I mean, I told you it busted in May, and maybe Bill just went out to, I don't know, maybe not.

I don't think he's much different.

I think you're seeing him in a light that some of the rest of us have seen him in for a longer time.

I don't think he's changed any.

Do you?

Well, I never knew him before.

No, I'm talking about in the last two years or so.

I think he's a national disaster.

Not because he's a bureaucratic.

Bureaucratically, he's no prophet because he's always wrong.

I mean, I don't remember when he's been right.

I mean, this performance today, we are at the last six months of this first term.

Everything depends on making ourselves look good.

Everything depends on making ourselves look serious.

Everything in Moscow depends on how valid our option to peaking is.

That's the game we are playing.

No one could be more cold-blooded than you.

The idea that you would, that you, who studied communism for 20 years, would be taken in by these communists is an absurdity.

But if he says that system is going to collapse anyway...

He was really very petty.

He was able to talk more about the foreign issue than I was.

Goddamn, he wasn't in a meeting.

He just...

Henry, what do you think of our meetings?

Mr. President, I was cold-stealed by it all the way.

I had a staff member at all of his meetings, John Howe, who worked in the basement, who doesn't know my views about Rogers, and who is really a sort of... Well, no, not indeed.

I've never talked to him.

He's not... Vincent Lloyd would know them, but John, he knows that we don't get along, but he doesn't know.

He came back...

my guide after every meeting.

He said he'd never seen such idiocy.

He'd never seen a man behave so badly.

Well, he didn't understand any problem.

He said he was badly breathed.

He kept pushing on things that he shouldn't have.

And now the question of course is, you began your opening session.

You were right at the edge of what I thought was even tolerable.

With an hour and a half exposition,

of why it was a superb statement, it was extremely tough, and I

But frankly, I hadn't recommended it.

I had recommended it.

Oh, you said do it on top.

But I said do it on top.

I wanted to do it first so that he wouldn't do it second.

Well.

So he wouldn't do it first.

Well, but that was, you know, you were right.

At the end of the day, I was doing this for the first several of those catapults.

I said, you know, I have a very interesting style of the children's thing.

Well, I noticed that.

And I said, I...

But you gave him respect.

It was he who backed off, not you.

He didn't ever really challenge you again on these issues.

So talking about Cold Steel, it was just an absurdity.

Ben Rogers, according to my man,

Rogers was all over the map.

He was fighting about things that could serve the State Department, like diplomatic compacts.

He wanted a physical representative in Peking.

On that, he was pretty tough.

We don't want that, do we?

No, it'd be much harder for us to control.

They don't want it.

And they don't want it.

Well, Henry, I must say, I've reached a conclusion for life.

He can't make it.

I don't know whether we can...

I don't know why we may have to fight this bull sooner.

You know what I mean?

I just think we may have to take the heat on it, because... You know something?

What do you do?

It's incredible.

It is incredible.

Well, I don't know, for example, who's going to tell me what to do about it?

I guess I know who I'm going to have to tell me about.

Who's going to testify about it?

I just don't know.

Well, you can't do it because he'll say that's exactly what he's planning to do.

What's wrong with that?

Maybe they're sorry.

I don't know if you should tell them, but I think you should get arrested first if you didn't testify before Wednesday.

Why did I?

No, no, you were bound to be exhausted.

I think he gave the captain a big thrill.

I think the leader spent a good time too.

The leader did?

He did do as well as he did the captain.

Basically because we had Rodgers stuck.

Rodgers went on.

Rodgers told the horse.

He was much worse before the leader.

It was the same thing, but in much greater length.

I wasn't able to...

He makes himself like a bunch of Africans, and he makes himself...

as if he had destroyed that foreign minister, tackled Sean Lai, made Sean Lai come to his room.

In his leaders' meeting, the president didn't figure it all.

It was all in, won't defend the communique.

In either meeting, has he defended the communique?

In fact, in the leaders' meeting, he very gently said, has he defended the communique?

Which, you know, if he gets McFerrin... You specifically told him he was to get into the Taiwan point?

A little bit, but in a very odd way.

Just a little bit.

You lost him?

No.

Well, there he did it, yeah.

But I'm...

He did go to Taiwan.

Yeah.

He did.

But you didn't probably describe it as well as he might have.

Well, no, he described it.

I don't want him to get to Taiwan too hard anyway.

Well, that's my worry.

The one section he hit there, his behavior is provocative towards the PRC.

That's the real problem.

He's mad because he doesn't like the movement.

That's right.

Now, you say you aren't going to tolerate this from the Russians.

I have to say that I think Henry's concern on that is, if anything, understated.

And I think it is the matter of on the trip, so much as it is in the next few months, that I don't know how the hell to deal with that, but I've got to figure it out.

If he tells the President what he told us about teaching, I'd just shudder to think what will happen.

Well, but there's a limit.

Mr. President, it's an impossible situation where we have constantly to disavow the Secretary.

Because the Chinese, as it happens, played our game.

Because they play a big game.

They don't play us off against each other.

The Russians play a petty game.

And you may find yourselves in Moscow being told Gromyko and Grabsh has agreed on something, and what are you going to do then?

I mean, he went twice to the Chinese foreign minister asking him to work something out with him, and the Chinese foreign minister refused on our instructions.

But supposing he had agreed, where would we have been?

No, I think I'd have to get Gromyko.

I mean, let me talk to Gromyko, Henry.

I mean, to Green at some point.

I want nothing to do with Gromyko and Roberts.

I'm going to do it.

Let me do it.

No, you should do it.

But you're going to have fun hell of a time.

What do you think he can do?

Do you think he can get rid of Roberts?

Well, I don't think he's any danger out.

I used to, but what can I say?

No one takes him seriously.

He doesn't understand enough about foreign policy.

Let's add it up.

I'm not sure that's right, Henry.

The Secretary of State, who was on the trip, let's look at the connection that works.

Let's say that he decides to take us on in a record to defend himself, and says that we're selling out Taiwan, that he had to leave because we sold out Taiwan, and that we are soft on the NRC.

No, the ideal would be we could stack it up.

Let's put it that way, that the President...

He regretfully, his old friend, Richard Nixon, has been taken in by this evil son of a bitch over at the White House, who is actually a communist promoter in disguise.

You know what could happen here?

If Berger died, I could put it in my engine of justice.

Put it in Berger's head.

Well, you might have to save it.

I just did it.

I'm just thinking of any possibility, that's all there is to it.

He'd go to Chief Justice.

I think the other side of this, that likely that I'm meaning is the worst.

I don't think that's what would happen.

I think that what would happen is that Bill would go out and keep quiet.

Cuz I think overall, he would still recognize that he can't do anything about your reelection.

I don't think he would.

No, I don't think... See, what he's doing now, I think he thinks he's doing not only for his own ego, but I think he has convinced himself.

He thinks somewhere he's helping.

I think he thinks he thought he was helping on the Communique when he was demanding all this.

I don't... No, no, no, I agree with that.

Yes, I think he did.

Well, look, if that's like the Berlin thing, we've never concluded something without him...

He wasn't helping us the way he did.

I know he's wrong.

I know he isn't helping.

I'm saying what I think he thinks in his mind.

But the way he did it, he knew he was making it difficult.

I don't think he knows it.

I don't think so.

I think that's just his work way of approaching it.

I don't think he's making it difficult.

I don't think he realizes consciously that he's making it difficult.

He's the most self-centered man that I've ever seen.

I don't think he gives a damn about anybody except himself.

And so he looks at everything from the impact on himself.

I'm not saying he's ever out deliberately to hurt you, but he's out to build himself up.

And he had to force his way into the communicator.

I think that's what he had in mind.

He was the one that saved me.

Well, before we leave anything else, have you got any good news today?

We have to, we have to, there's all this around this thing about writers and all of these, Jeff Henry, Jeff Henry and us, a little lip, we need a lip.

We're the ones that did this goddamn trip.

Have you seen the news?

The news is superb.

The news is all good.

And that thing, last night I watched the reboot because I didn't see it on television.

I watched it on television.

I was talking to Julie instead, who also had watched it on television.

Julie did, bless her soul.

You know, the rerun this morning.

And John Chancellor was so caught up in the occasion.

Trisha said, you know, Julie was talking about Trisha, and said that she watched him too.

And I wasn't, but I'll tell you that I've been.

Chancellor lost control of himself and became enthusiastic for us.

He made a complete slip away.

John Chancellor said it was all worth it.

It was a tremendous success.

He was all just bubbling at this reception last night.

And Father Walter sent me a little note saying what a great experience it was.

I think you got all that in good shape.

Are you going to meet with the Republicans?

I appreciate it.

I told them I would do it.

I appreciate it.

No, no, I appreciate it.

When I'm not there, then you can go into a little bit about the classic battle...

I don't think we're in bad shape there.

Buckley and Tower both handled the thing carefully.

And apparently Devani, you talked to Devani last night.

He was in pretty good shape last night.

He was very enthusiastic.

That's Aaron.

He's in good shape.

But we have a duty now.

Where have we been taken in by the Communists?

I mean, if you ask yourself, who has to do anything?

We don't do anything on Taiwan right away.

They are the guys who are doing things.

That's a big thing for them.

Perhaps they will want to go.

But Fulbright is very happy.

Fulbright was fine.

I smiled for the first time at one of these meetings.

He said to me... What did he say?

Well, he said to me what he really wants to discuss is what you and I talked about, not what Bill talked about.

He said he wants to talk about the overall thrust

That he isn't interested in the tactics.

Well, what he's building there is he wants to get you on it.

What Henry did, what you think it was, I mean, without trying to make a self-serving statement, although it is kind of that way.

But I thought it was good that I talked, that I put both Mao and Zhou, and I did this, didn't need to build, but in both meetings I put it in the trust.

I said in long, long conversations that we did talk about the specific issues, but before we did so, Zhou only talked about the whole picture, because you cannot understand the smaller picture unless you talk about the whole picture.

And that was really exactly what happened.

And that's what I do.

Oh.

And that's what Bill does not do.

Because he doesn't understand it.

Bill...

I think that was the fact that Jim sort of... You think back to any report Bill has ever given you of anything.

It's always anecdotal.

It's always who told him what and how they treated him.

it's never how it fits into a big picture.

For example, a number of the leaders told me afterwards that they had never looked at it in terms of communicating how it reached to the Chinese masses when they suddenly see their side being stated in a mild form and seeing the American side for the first time.

Goldwater told me that.

That was good for you to do.

See, you're the one that can do that.

See, I shouldn't.

No, no, you couldn't.

I can't.

But Bill could do it.

Bill could, very effectively.

He's got a lousy department.

Yeah, but...

I haven't thought of mine.

How odd am I getting his goddamn top people in the department over in my region?

I could do it.

I frankly... Mr. President, I don't think you ought to do anything until you've had a few days rest.

That is my view.

Why a few days rest?

Why not now?

Because I think there is the enormous answer that they'll take anything you say out of context and then peddle it with presidential approval.

I think it is unworthy.

It's not necessary.

It shouldn't be necessary.

Well, for the most part, I gave the cab a leader's trip, you know, a little personal stuff.

It hasn't hurt anything.

But when Roger said that, Rob Zubin, I wrote it down.

Let me show you.

That is unbelievable.

I showed it to Henry.

I saw it in his notes in his meetings.

I just wanted to tell the image they looked like a bunch of stuff that you'd be able to come and do here.

And then he said, and here was Bill at the leaders meeting, he said, you know, he could have done it in an offhand way that showed himself being so stupid that answering the question, he was trying to answer the question that Pete Peterson was asking me, why do they want to come meet with us?

He said, well, the mayor was saying, he said, I think the reason I'm leaving is that there was no question he was, he asked me, he asked me, he asked me.

He said, well, I hear, I think they're a little worried, a little worried about Russia and maybe Japan.

But the principal reason is to get along with us.

They need trade.

Now listen, I said at the same time, he said,

The trade?

Then you said the trade isn't very important to us.

Yeah.

Which is again stupid, because if he gave the impression that we are, we opened up something entirely new.

Why the hell was the trade important to them?

That's totally wrong, but I think we ought to give the impression that whatever we achieve is a good, is a big thing.

Sure.

Rather than piss on our own achievement.

It's just unbelievable, that is.

I think it's because of his total obsession with salt that he's now made enormous errors of judgment, Henry.

Well, he's basically a foreign politician.

He's built up the whole thing.

He has no strategic comfort.

He doesn't know that.

He doesn't know how things relate to each other.

You know what would have happened, Sonoma?

What in the name of God would have happened if he had conducted the case of the Chilamon?

It is as if we would have been run out of China.

The Peking Daily would now be writing vicious articles about this foolish American populist.

When something succeeds,

It looks easy.

The good football, John, it's making no difference.

It wasn't an incident that they got.

Don't you think it was good not to do Mr. Bill's benefit and also to Pete Peterson and all the materials in the room?

I made this point.

I said, they aren't impressed by our work.

And they aren't impressed by our product.

Most of all, they're going to listen to our purpose.

Are we a strong, purposeful people?

And I think that's true in every country.

Another thing that worries me is if he sits around, that is the key issue, if he sits around with the press and starts feeding this stuff into them, I mean, they've already written that it's a slave society.

We shouldn't argue whether it is or not.

I'm not saying we have to.

Your background can help on this, Henry.

Well, leave that aside, I'll turn around.

You've pulled off a historic spectacular.

You've made history.

It's very rare that you can actually isolate a week and say that you've made history.

You can sometimes, in retrospect, see it.

And I think that my morale is extremely high.

Our words and misawal ourselves, we haven't got anything to worry about.

If we can keep the Chinese in the play, if we can meticulously carry out what we've agreed to, that will bring so much pressure on the Russians that they will try to trump the deacons and then you can play the foes.

It's as cold-blooded as that.

If the Chinese turn on us, we'll lean towards them.

This is an absolutely cold-blooded game that brings the Indians a little bit in.

The Indians, for example, have picked up the subtlety.

What the Chinese are only to communicate about them was tougher than what we know, even though what we know is still critical of them.

But none is tough.

And therefore, we are going to be getting some praise in the Indian press.

So we've got to play this game brutally and without emotion.

But we cannot do it by making the ways we need look insignificant.

Bill wants to make the trip look insignificant.

He wants to make...

He does.

Do you agree, Bob, or not?

I think probably you're right.

He wants to make the trip look...

I mean, he made that Chinese foreign minister look like an idiot at his sweetest meeting, and himself, as if he had done it all.

Imagine a hundred budding men.

Yeah, I agree, budding men.

And then I'm allowed to have a meeting with Cho, and Cho can't have my room for 40 minutes.

But above the roost is when we don't see them.

Because that's running down the trip, and above all... Well, it doesn't do any good!

I don't run the Russian side.

We need to have control of the... Well, this is the cold war, but the thing of God is that the State Department's the one that's supposed to want to knock on the cold war.

Oh, my God, I just...

I can't just understand this.

Look, the Chinese know you well, Tom.

That's why they're delinquency.

Yeah.

What the hell did they get out of you?

Promises for future things, most of which you were going to do anyway.

And they're taking everything on your election on the basis of you performing.

You can't even say that.

Now it's just a pleasure.

You and I know it.

Okay.

Well, anyway, you've got to search.

I'm not at all in trouble, because I think it was a good method.

I was thinking, you know, if you have a staff,

Why don't you come the hell out of here tomorrow and I'll do anything for you.

Why?

Because I probably won't go to Thursday.

The way it looks on me when I'm trying to date a camp date at this time.

This is what works out for me.

That's good.

You ought to, you ought to go, you ought to get out of here tomorrow because of that.

Yes, I'll get out of here.

Republican thing, you should wait until just before I arrive, so I should go.

Remember, I went Thursday and Thursday, and I have Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Friday, Monday, Wednesday.

Sure.

And Monday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, three, probably two years into Sunday.

We can do it too then.

You can stay through Monday night and come back Monday night if you've got to.

What I was going to say is that I want you to, I want you to try to go with me.

I think it's good to get on the staff plane.

I don't want anybody coming down with me.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Just so we can let everything back on.

Yeah.

None of the staff.

What you do want with you is Henry and John if you go.

Henry can start here and go with me.

That's correct.

Although I'm not sure.

No, I want him to go, but I think even if Henry and John could go a day earlier, it would be good.

Henry particularly needs some time off.

John doesn't need any time off.

John's only going for appearances.

Well, John probably, but Henry ought to go down to the staff and start getting some rest.

No, he can't.

He's got to do some breathing.

I think it's better to have him stay here now.

He's got to breathe tomorrow morning.

Well, this is the 29th of February, and I finally, of course I, in a personal sense, the Rogers thing finally broke off.

I mean, as I told you that night, I'm sure, you know.

But now this morning, I see that, you know, I've always told you that, and I do agree at times, that Henry was wrong and said Rogers was smart.

Rogers is smart.

But I have now reached the conclusion that maybe he just has no depth.

There's something there that you just, I don't know, what's your feeling?

I mean, if you thought it was bad, then it was about, it was two times bad at least.

But you didn't think it was very good in the canon, that it was awful.

Huh?

I thought it was awful.

I wasn't bothered while he was talking.

But then when Henry got going, you look at the contrast.

I was just thinking, you know, those guys sit there and they must think, what the hell have we got for a Secretary of State?

And you look at that guy and then look at Henry.

And if anybody wanted an explanation of whose foot, of why foreign policy is formulated at the White House, that sure did it.

I mean, that you and Henry so obviously had a complete grasp of what you were doing and why you were doing it.

Bill had no grasp of either one.

And all that self-serving stuff.

It really was astonishing.

Sort of to it.

And all that self-serving stuff.

And all that was so and so.

Ridiculous.

He, uh, you know, I mentioned it to the leaders of the executive, but he asked me to please explain to the leaders why he wasn't at the Mal meeting with the Foreign Minister who was fit for all this, and if he'd been there, it would have required him to be there, and two others, and so that would make the meeting too large, and that's why he, that's why he's sticking to that.

I don't know why he's saying anything, but he just doesn't have any goddamn, uh, I mean, he ought to realize he doesn't, he doesn't have abilities.

See, Bob, we've got to use Henry now.

We've got to use him.

I mean, even on TV, if you could get him braided in advance, we've got to get it crossed so he stays away from that.

It would be a tremendous approach.

It would be enormously effective.

And maybe he will in this step work with Scali.

Because John has just heard him doing that.

And the thing is, we've got to get it for options.

And Scali now has got Rockingham on her.

He sure seems to.

Everybody in the State Department is actually waiting for you to listen.

He did that.

Well, I'm sure more so, because here he was under your eye and Henry's eye, so he's under the communication.

You think if he goes that far with you listening, what he'll do without either of you there?

Obviously, it will expand beyond that.

You know, you're certainly right in terms of the country.

This has to have had a massive impact on it.

Nothing has ever had anything like it.

That's why the county said what he did.

And that, of course, misses the bill up to this.

It probably does.

Uh, I don't see how you can make a change.

I think you're right.

Well, maybe.

We should have given him the probable seat on the car.

He would have got on the car.

It was an associate justice.

You won't know this, does he?

Well, unless that, I don't think it would be a very good thing for you to do to make him Chief Justice.

Oh, hell no.

Everybody would think he was too soft.

One thing about it, if you get this, this and this off, get Rose on the other plane.

I don't want her on ours.

Don't tell her.

I mean, I don't want any information out or all of that going.

You see what I mean?

If I go, I just go.

I don't want to... Let's say you're not going.

Huh?

Let's say you're not going.

Yeah, because I just really can't do it.

I have too much to do here, and I can't get away.

I mean, we're sending a plane down to Florida, and we'd like for most of all the staff to go.

I thought you were saying he'd be in jail, but that was a long time ago.

Isn't that Tom?

I'm sure he is.

God damn, that's one of those things that he'll pass.

I was about to make a big trip to LA.

I'm sure she's fatigued and sick, or he does.

Yeah.

I agree with you that it began in Providence, Nevada, and then it came to Somerville.

I want to talk to Henry because I think, I don't know how, but I think people could get on the floor.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.