Nixon, Kissinger & Sanchez on People's Republic of China

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Well, Henry, all right.

That's good.

Nelson was really raving about the trip yesterday.

I've just got to go.

I got it.

All right.

I was thinking about Genesis.

Here I go.

I saw that and that's just not true.

This is Saturday.

And it's fake.

Yes, I'm sorry.

They, uh, any of that, uh, the, uh, two lines that, uh, devolved, uh, slightly is, I expected, did not take their line.

He's, he's whining around about secret deals.

I haven't seen him alone.

I just saw him at that big meeting.

But I think that second one, I don't know how much we want to reveal, but the fact of the matter is that when you were there, every concession was made by them.

The communique, every improvement in the communique was done while you were there, not while I was there.

I saw that line that most of it has been done by me.

on Taiwan, on trade and exchanges, on diplomatic contacts, on all the key points of the communique, that is absolutely not true.

I don't think that the point is who did it, but the point is the general impression of fellows like Mr. Carter, who were obviously negative, and excited, I'm trying to make excited lines, that we had secret deals, and Mr. Carter's line is that we've got to take an angel home.

So those are the things that we have

But it makes some difference who did it, Mr. President, because if I did it, there was no need for you to go there.

And that's the line.

That's why it's important that people understand that you did it.

Which, A, is true.

Well, of course, even...

You did something tremendous in any event in the whole ocean.

I'm just trying to prepare ourselves for the kind of things you can suddenly, without answering me directly, knock down.

Of course, we've got to figure this out.

It's the old story, you know.

This is where it's kind of like, oh, this is really awful.

I already had to go and all that.

Why can't you?

This is where I had to be negative to begin with.

Maybe when everything came up.

So let it go.

Nobody can do anything with it.

I would like to see what he really says.

And I'm going to get the chance to go worry about it.

Because when he called on Friday, he was...

He called me.

I didn't call him.

I want to see what he wrote.

I don't know.

His line is generally, I mean, it's only the line that he's probably, he's not a very smart fellow to throw in something like that, you know, as a means of keeping up his financial son.

Now, I do not believe myself.

Basically, we have to realize that the new son, right, we haven't got him anymore.

I mean, on almost anything we do, we can't get rid of him at all.

Basically, the negative is appropriate.

Well, especially on this issue, because Buchanan on this issue isn't quite rational.

One thing I think we ought to just do, and I think it's a strong line, I know it's very, very surprising that in the New York Times, you know, that Hugh was talking, and he was critical, and Hugh is maybe getting too big for his affections.

Hugh was critical?

Yeah.

I agree.

My top statement on Vietnam is a... Well, I've heard his Chinese statement was unbelievably weak, and ours is just like it always has been.

That's right.

And Hanoi is going, eh, over it?

Over it.

Maybe it doesn't make any sense.

Well, actually, Mr. President, I think it helps us if they do have some of the driving... Yeah, yeah.

...oppositions.

Yeah.

Nelson felt that, too.

that he mentioned before he talked to you.

One group that I would like you to see in the following weeks is, do you remember that, Billy Graham?

They have, not this week, because we're all going to be busy, but the following week, I told Graham to take a week and I told him all about it and set it up.

So all he'll do is an hour.

He'll host an hour group, but he's skeptical that the evangelicals and all of that.

Well, if that was a good group, I enjoyed it.

Well, the point is that

They all mean well.

And frankly, they don't understand Taiwan.

They don't understand the realities of the situation.

What the hell?

And the question is, nothing's going to happen to Taiwan at this point, as far as the future's concerned.

Well, Raoul would agree well when he said, he said, look, China isn't going to fight about Taiwan.

And here's the United States.

So what the hell are we going to do?

Does anybody in his right mind believe, does anybody in his right mind believe that if Taiwan were attacked by the Chinese president, that the American president would order it?

Well, and does anyone believe that the people who are sort of nagging at the fringes of the communique, they would support you if you tried it?

Yeah, like Hubert Humphrey, the running president.

That's why he said, we sold out Taiwan.

Albert Einstein.

Humphrey's always been against Taiwan.

I think it's important to not let them think that we didn't put on a good show over there.

You know what I mean?

That it was good, tough marketing, but we didn't get paid enough.

To sell out on time on the spur of the moment, I think that can be not done.

But I think that it's also important to

Well, there's one sophisticated, the most sophisticated attack that is starting now.

We just got a glimmer of it in the Washington Post yesterday.

There was a long article by Philip O'Dravenal, who was in the...

Defense Department under Markham are interested in our decision.

Really?

His name is Raphael.

Oh, he's mad?

Yeah, but the interesting thing is he's attacking you for being too tough in the communication.

He says the section on Taiwan doesn't mean anything.

It was a tough restatement of our position, and therefore you did not get more out of China than you would have received diplomatic resistance.

And that's a much more sophisticated lie.

That's the one you sold out, not one.

And I'm glad you're sure of it.

Well, no, I've just read his article.

He's obviously written it.

The headline, should it be, should it stay in bed?

And now the question, it's a question, should it stay in bed?

And he says if it helps.

In other matters, it was well worthwhile.

But now it's balanced.

Oh, he's a skydark and he, he shows off.

He doesn't have the big picture that his brother does.

You don't need to preach to me about this.

No, I'll have to spread, I'll have to... Well, he influences a lot of children.

Yeah.

But the point is we know what the big picture is.

We know, the Russians know, I haven't.

Here I have an intelligence report of what the Chinese communists are putting out to their own people.

This is not what they're putting out publicly.

And they state the important things to their own people in this order.

The most important aspect of the communique is the joint agreement between China and America not to allow any one country to dominate Asia.

That is the plan of the Soviet revisionists to dominate the region.

I think it's worth it.

Yes, it was further asserted that if the U.S. and China would fight hand-in-hand against Germany by the Soviet revolutionists, then there would be a possibility that world peace could be obtained.

However, the countries were cautioned to remember that what was covered in the communique could only be taken as a first step.

In regard to the practice of mutual trade, it was China's intention to expand the trade branches.

Two, with respect to Taiwan, China would not resort to arms to liberate Taiwan, but would follow a policy of peaceful coexistence.

Now that's what they tell their own people.

So, well, what we have to, as I told you, what we have to realize, Henry, is that

In terms of the trip, in the substance of the trip, our political enemies are absolutely flabbergasted.

Flabbergasted not because of the communication in the substance and so forth and so on, but flabbergasted because we are suspected in terms of presidential presence, etc.

End of transport, thank you very much.

U.S.S.

no longer...

the same truth and vulnerably the same way, if you will.

Well, that's true.

I think the second point is, though, the second point that is important, is to remember that with that in mind, they are utterly, utterly, almost irrational.

They will be attacking this kind of nitpick communication, kind of nitpick.

Well, was it worth it?

I mean, didn't you realize how much money they should have spent?

I don't know.

Now is the question.

And on the whole, I just skipped it.

It's positive.

It was totally negative before I talked to him on Friday.

Yes, because I invited him for lunch.

I invited him for lunch.

But when I invited him for lunch, he said,

He told my secretary that he was writing an article I wouldn't like, so I called him up and said, Sue, if I need a big black man like this, you can come for lunch and write whatever you want.

And my wife said, incidentally, what did you write?

So he said, well, we're going to an audience.

I said, now look.

Do you think if we did have an understanding on Hanoi, it would be in the communique?

I don't see how you can be so unsophisticated.

Of course, of course.

Did you see that?

I said that almost all the time.

And then I told him, have you seen what Hanoi said?

And have you compared what China usually says with what it said in the communique?

He wasn't bothered by Tom Martin.

No, well, he's smart.

Well, he's always been in trouble.

Joe, on the other hand, he made, he made a fool of himself.

Yeah, I'm saying Joe in a little bit.

It's because he's got a lot of influence.

He's basically muscled.

Oh, totally muscled.

I have been thinking, Mr. President, about your history of going to the Congress.

It's easy to do.

I'm wondering whether it's wise to go.

There's no way you can drive without covering tires.

If you give too unambiguous a commitment, it's a direct challenge to people.

If you don't give an unambiguous commitment, I think you're in good shape.

I analyzed the weekend first.

I read it.

Most of the articles, in fact, all of the articles are positive.

Now, I, I didn't see that Adramsky show, but it doesn't have much following.

That's all they're covering.

They always cover it.

I know, but in the news I heard it was false.

But were they negative, too?

They, the news I read, I don't think it's the negative stuff.

They, uh, I've got to read that because

Well, it may be, I just don't find it among my intellectual friends, among anybody else.

Well, I'll get it written and show it to you.

The point is that...

If there isn't a hell of a lot of action, why do we do it?

But my thing is, I'm just thinking about it from a very outside standpoint.

Well, I made a statement earlier, and the Secretary of State is satisfied that we have had our sisters in a very sensitive background.

That is the position, and I have nothing to add to it.

That's all the purpose of my intervention.

You could mention my background then, but...

No.

But you could have a press conference in Shanghai.

Well, I say I'm interested in a press conference.

Well, your background is not as broken as mine is.

Yeah, but I don't want to publish the text.

Oh, you're mistaken.

I say we won't do that.

All right, we'll take it.

There's a press conference in Shanghai.

You can take my statement by return.

It's a complete report from us.

That's it.

That's my instinct, Mr. President.

You see, it isn't work.

Just you fiddling people.

I was just thinking that we may find it strange to report to the nation on it.

You don't go water-aided.

It demands you to do it.

But I'm inclined to think that maybe we won't.

Maybe we won't get the pressure.

But I'll get it done.

And so if you explain it, I'll get it done.

Well, that's what we have.

That's my unease.

I am uneasy.

That's because I think on down, George's domestic problem is a hell of a lot worse than yours.

And our problem has to be picked up as the only solution.

That's right.

And the Radio Moscow and so forth are kind of present.

And our problems now are minor.

But if teaching suddenly turned on us, then we would have madness, right?

Because then the argument would be, he did all those things and he didn't even get them.

I think they like a bunch of jackals laughing at you, not Marcos.

We're clear there will be more jackals.

We have that always, but the thing about the jackals this time, they're tackling the bigger animals.

It's going to be very, very hard for them.

I think your point is well-chained, that the whole effect of this trip has gone far beyond communication, far beyond the substance it had to do with the presidential presence.

But with your dignity, Mr. President, all over the country, the public media have described you as a sort of a tricky, untrustworthy opportunist.

there for a week, for hours at a time, with no faking possible.

You behaved in a way that Americans were proud of.

There was just no way you could fake that.

So they have to attack you now on a much higher level.

In the past, it was automatic to say you were lying.

And they could sort of, I can't say they could make it stick, but it was at least a tenable argument, a pocket-like argument.

We're not going to be talking about sensibility.

Let's just decide not to have the report.

Don't put the people through the agony of preparing the thing.

I think they should prepare the Rogers structure once or...

I've got some instructions drafted for you to consider.

Would you not think that's good?

Yes, I would.

I've drafted them as instructions to me, Rogers, Blair, so that it isn't... Yeah, yeah.

So that it isn't invidious.

Why don't we say it also to the White House?

now one thing i've got covered over the weekend

These damned people in Marshal Green's Trump, and this Trump, I don't think Bill has anything to do with it, has been encouraged in a private negotiation between Cambodia and North Vietnam, in which Cambodia takes itself out of divorce, returns for opening up Shia LaBeouf and the Northeast for supplies.

I don't get much of the damage.

But if there's one thing we suffer and agonize for, and they lied to us.

They did it all by airgram.

They didn't do it by telegram.

I think we have to focus on God.

He has been consistently soft.

Well, we can't get there.

No, and we can't get there anyway.

A few weeks ago he nearly brutalized Long Knoll because he thought Long Knoll was making a coup.

It's none of our bloody business how they run their internal affairs.

And we ought to get a strong man in there.

Because we've got this thing now at a point.

At a point?

I was impressed with him the same time.

He seemed like a flabby nothing.

You understand that, so let me say, regarding this mid-week concept, no one is more relaxed about it than I am.

I expect this kind of thing.

I am because it's our political opposition.

Listen to our society, for example.

are desperate because they're basically are as democratic as liberals.

I think so.

I think what happened to this program I've ever seen of John Key is totally against you all.

Lizard Hill is totally against you.

Right.

So, Seide is a weak guy.

So those two guys beat at him.

And he may even have found some program that's really not worth being in or something.

It's listening all year.

It's a zilch, you know.

That's right.

It's only for a year.

That's right.

And I read this new summary this morning, frankly, and I thought, I've always had my doubts about the way you can see through certain things.

Well, we all do it with the best intentions in the world, but...

Yes, absolutely.

This thing reads as if there were a groundswell against it.

And I'm really happy.

The first thing, I was walking along the beach in Keeper's Gain every day.

I don't, people, it was, I had to stop because people came up, surrounded me, tell the president how proud we are.

I walk along the street in New York, people come up and shake, shake my hand.

It is the biggest excitement that has hit America.

Nelson said this absolutely right.

He says, for the first time in a long time, Americans feel proud again.

They have done something, and it's all due to you.

Now, that's what kills the Humphreys.

They haven't got an issue.

What are these miserable, what can these Democrats run off on?

You've got all the issues.

And in this frustration, Littletoe is a total father to Democrats.

It killed him.

Remember when Kennedy was traveling through Europe, which was on our side, where he was making nothing but mistakes?

How the American press played it in 1962?

on that trip when he went to Berlin and said Ich bin ein Berliner, which was a piece of cake.

There was nothing to it.

The Europeans had a vested interest in making him look good.

It was an easy setup, and they played it as the height of statesmanship.

He was gone for over two weeks.

You didn't read any articles that said what was he doing there.

Here you go into enemy countries, totally unknown citizens, dealing with the toughest negotiators, getting their obvious respect.

Now, it's definitely the basis for future cooperation.

Do a communique which will, in retrospect, be an historic point, and these people mingle around at the fringes of it.

It shows them.

If you're on television, I mean, in retrospect, you were about a thousand percent right.

If you had relied on the writing press, it would have made it look like a fiat service.

They would have killed you.

And no one would have known.

This is what kills them.

It doesn't make any difference.

Americans all over the country.

I don't know how many people I met who said that you killed their sleeping habits.

Everybody was up at 6.30 in the morning to see the Today show or to see the early morning show.

People are sophisticated.

Henry Branson.

And his wife got up at 6 o'clock every morning to see it.

Brandt, who was down there to cover the Florida primary, I don't know whether I told you that, he said his wife was a partisan Democrat, in fact an electorate Democrat, was at a dinner here with 12 Democrats, and she said 11 of them said they were going to vote for you.

And only one of them

How about this change?

You know, it's the same thing.

Our Democratic friends, I noticed this morning in the paper, they had their debate, so-called debate, and they mingled around about, not that you know, about who disclosed his campaign.

That's what killed them.

What are they going to say?

You've got Vietnam.

You've killed it.

Now, who would have thought that these could go through four years?

Now, one of two things are going to happen at the end of March.

If they manage to get Vietnam to go secretly into Paris, we don't get the immediate public impact, but we know then they're really serious.

and we still have to cross the play they wouldn't get anything if we want so if we need to have time

Right now, everything's for politics.

Well, I think, still, if there is a chance of that being taken seriously, we ought to exploit it really quickly.

I agree.

I agree with you quite a bit.

Because the biggest coup possible would be a settlement.

Yes, it would be.

And also, the biggest, the biggest danger is to have a war going on.

Still going on.

Because if they, if they come here, I mean, if they come to Paris secretly, that means they're giving up.

talking to the Harrimans for the New York Times, and the New York Harriman said, well, you know, they're very quiet.

I'm not scared of saying anything.

I don't know what happened.

He's probably deploring what we're doing to ourselves.

He's probably here.

It will never be forgotten.

That's one of them.

They were all wrong.

It's not going to be forgotten anymore.

It's a unique experience.

We have to keep the Chinese from kicking over the trade.

That's the main danger.

And that's why we won't have a real report yet.

And I think we're better off having, taking a little punishment

from the right than to take a major punishment from anything.

Oh, we cannot.

We can take the punishment from the right.

I'm not a bit concerned about it.

No.

When I speak of it, if you notice, in the defense of both, that I did raise the problems of a lot of secret deals.

That must be docked out.

There were no secret deals.

The second point is that we got taken.

Taken on board.

That's silly.

But what did we get taken on and let people say it was a moderate success?

What do they mean?

What could we have gotten that we didn't get?

Let them name one thing that we could have gotten that we didn't get.

That pissed off that we got to communicate.

That pissed off that we got to exchange and trade in diplomatic contact.

We got all the things we wanted.

We, frankly, didn't particularly want a curtain in teaching.

That would have really created problems in dialogue.

And we don't have the curtain to put that.

Rational belief, I think.

Love it, love it.

That helps, too.

You good?

All right.

All right, we go.

Isn't that three days down here good for you?

Oh, uh, I'm so glad that you made me do this, because... Well, I told y'all.

Can we all go on?

the department members of the NSC.

Let's give them a comment and let them help.

I have a little tendency to think that since Mitchell is gone, I'm not going to have anything to do with it.

I think that's a good idea.

I think that's a good MRN guidance or guidance in terms of the so forth that we can have that perhaps this morning.

Well, we can have it this morning.

Nixon, Kissinger & Sanchez on People's Republic of China

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Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on March 6, 1972

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Nixon, Kissinger & Sanchez on People's Republic of China

AI Summary

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NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on March 6, 1972

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