Conversation 691-005

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One thing you might tell a croaker is that you're a self-shaver, and that's a big thing.

You've got that perception that you see in the person.

You understand?

If I got that dinner, I had to prepare something for him.

If you can get that word in your head, you can sort it out.

You can't just talk about it all the time.

in the arms control committee.

Well, they had a pretty good committee, I think.

At least they worked all right.

Oh, gosh.

Surely they heard everything, everybody.

Uh, let me, uh... Let me begin by saying that, uh...

Speaking hard of a girl, I know that.

It's a real tough decision.

When I say decision, it's the thing I have to put something down.

And the thing that I think I think you, we've all got to realize, and I told them this, and I think they're going to say the same thing, is that we get agreement.

The great danger that that agreement will pose to us is not going to be on the side of those in one-arm's control, because they are very angry.

They prefer one that goes further and so forth.

But there will be a potentially very significant danger from those who say who got to it.

Needless to say, if you recall after our China trip,

We had very little to do with the substance, but the whole, but the many second one who lost, it dripped away because it was going to be over both sides.

But in this instance, this is a highly substantive matter, as you know, and everybody is going to be watching it every day.

The one who lost is the United States, and I fear your position, the Soviet Union.

Do we get, you know, started here at least?

What we have to do, therefore, is to be in a position where we've heard everybody.

That's why I gave the Defense Department plenty of time to present their case on the last meeting.

And I have to consider, not only the hearing, but we've got to be in a position that if we make an agreement, it's false.

that we will not be open particularly in this political year to a resounding attack and it's and a political leader never underestimates from which side it will come you may find some of the most uh what you thought were all out pieces of any price around

if they think they could take us on for making an agreement, which we got taken by the Russians.

They were doing it.

And now an example of that, if you think I'm overestimating it, is the very amusing thing that some of those who at first blush when they didn't understand it,

So what we have to do

which is some, in other words, which we can thoroughly defend from the National Security Service.

The attack, in other words, is going to be from the right.

It will not be from the left.

And if it is from the left, the hell with it.

We just have to defend it all because it's better than anybody else is going to be able to do.

The attack on the right could be by the right, I'm comparing it to, not the not right, they'll attack anyway, even on advance national view, and the rest will knock the hell out of us.

Why do you even meet with the Russians?

Why do you have to toast with them and all that?

Do we understand that?

But what we want to remember is the responsible right.

When I answer to that, you know, after all, it's also like...

and Andrew Jackson and others responsible for how you start raising that whole sentence.

We've got to be, if they do, we've got to be in a position to say, well, now, we consider all these views and we reject them for these reasons.

or we accept these positions and then be able to defend it.

So if you were to go back in terms of the delegation, if you get down to the hard, hard ground, I don't know, five yards from the goal, which we hope that's where it is, it's just scoring a touchdown, but it's one that's going to get, maybe we'll be able to move to win the game of the American field.

There's also another very substantial danger that is tied to that, in my view.

If there is a great hue and cry and outcry in this country, a lot of the politically inspired come as it does just three weeks before the Democratic convention.

If we don't get the agreement for Moscow, for example, or two or a month before they get it in May, something of that sort, I think that's just sitting there right now in July.

But there's a great hue and outcry on this issue.

Join in by some Republicans as well.

I don't mean all of them.

I think I was putting them down in the middle, but some of them will.

We'll see if it's a political opportunity.

Not because they're really against it, but because they want to say that we are just too stupid.

This could create great doubts in the world among our friends, because they'll say, my God, if the Americans are fighting on this, maybe the Americans did make a deal, which was not an American interest, which wasn't so good.

So what I'm saying here is that let's try to get an agreement, of course, about everything else that we live with that is sound.

But we also have to remember that about half of this battle, maybe a little more than half, it's got to appear that way.

It's got to appear that way even though I know it's got to appear that way because if it doesn't appear that way, it could bring a lot of hell, particularly in the next few years.

Unfortunately, it's coming this year.

It would be better if it came last year or next year, but it does come this year.

subject.

And based on what I've heard, I think we're going to get a package that we can defend.

But are those considerations that we have to have in mind at this point?

And are there other considerations that should be more obvious?

Well, this is a good deal.

You don't need to be concerned about

Because it is the case where normally, it would be normal for everybody to breathe, breathe a sigh of relief and say, thank God, this is a good thing.

It's a good step.

It's a step toward implementation.

That would be the normal reaction.

But we can't tell right now.

It's got to be solid, strong enough so that we can debate and stand up for it and kick hell out of the graves for criticizing it wrongly.

So that's the, that's a little of the thing that I felt was a good readout.

And there's a little bit of your talk all the time, so if you should come in there, I'll have a, you know, you'll be able to talk to the power of that bunch.

is and i don't detect except in tower bradspur and school any distance

said, and this is all on the basis that, I mean, we're trying to get S.L.Z.

acquitted.

He said, look, I'm for it.

He wants S.L.Z.

But he wasn't buying it.

You see, he was going at it very hard.

But I think from him off a little.

Because I said, look, we've really come down to the point of saying that we shouldn't have agreement.

We can't get S.L.Z.

acquitted.

He said, well, that's part of my perception.

He said, well, suppose the price is too high.

I understand.

I think we've got to try.

Defense wants it in.

Defense agrees.

Defense wants it in.

The state wants it in.

Everybody else.

I don't know.

But to take you back off from that position, I'm sure I want him in at the present time, but I want to be perfectly clear now that he's a person that I think it would be a good deal without him.

First class.

Well, that's your opinion.

It would be a good deal as a military man.

Yes, sir.

That's my question.

The Defense Department can't figure out a mess over here.

I've got to bring this to that, this meeting and also the other meeting.

Looking at it from the standpoint of what the United States really can do in terms of more defense in the event that the other side goes for more.

We have a much better chance to go for submarines than land-based ones.

There's no way we're getting more land-based ones.

No way.

Right.

Hell, we've been down in there from the ADM. A defensive weapon system was close.

But for this country for years, well, everything from the turn of the century has gone for need, right?

And that's one thing.

On the other hand, we get ourselves in.

You could make it look a lot better.

Let's have a mind to the fact that...

Unless it's a good deal, that sells.

I don't know.

I've got to write it down.

What do you think, your view on this?

Well, I think that we are trying, and there's some chance that we can get ESLs, including on this card, yes.

Bill Rogers passed a new law next year that he's going to send you an amendment suggesting you write proceeding, stressing the importance of ESLs.

Now, I feel... Well, I wrote it, but I hope I can see you in it right away.

But the second point is...

I don't think at this point that I should write about that.

It's just my reaction.

You agree that I don't think I should be writing using that chip.

Would that fall at this point?

Do you agree?

Do you want it done?

Well, I think that there is a real chance that the Soviets are interpreting May 23 as not requiring them to go into SLVM's.

And as long as they have that interpretation, our text is out.

They are.

Whether this is the right time to either weigh in or later, I don't know.

I don't like to weigh in during something that we're going to get up and turn down on.

I agree.

I think that when I weigh in, you've got to have a pretty good idea that...

that we're gonna get the deal, you know what I mean?

And then we'll go in with everything and say, now listen, of course, these guys are tough, as you know, and of course, the other level that we talk to,

Well, anyway, I got the message, and I'll consider it.

My intuition is not good.

We're trying to stop it.

Why don't you talk?

Well, I've told him many times.

Well, you can talk.

You and I have talked.

You're working on it.

Well, we'll put it in the... We've got to have the instructions in there, right?

Yes, sir.

We'll have the instructions in there.

When we started being last November, Mr. President, I communicated a personal message for you to Sonoma on this build-up.

And I think the least we should do is something like that.

Is there something I can do?

Is there any way?

is involved with that position, say that that would be the next stage or something, that's another way to get evidence.

Oh, they do.

They've already agreed to that.

They say he immediately should sit down after this and negotiate with everybody.

Also, I suppose, other names are involved.

But you have all sorts of arguments that I haven't heard surface.

I didn't want to get into the county book.

No, I haven't.

But I heard them all, so that nobody can say that it wasn't...

For instance, one of the things we don't often hear is that the French and the British are going to have nine boats, which is over 20% of ours.

And the Soviets flatly say to me, those boats are not going to be on our side.

They're going to be on your side.

And this is a little bit of an insurance policy.

We've got that.

We're trying to stop three Soviet programs to just one of ours.

IC, SL, and APM.

Now, if you only stop two of the Soviets to one of ours, it still seems to be a pretty good deal, because our programs are not going to be stopped at all.

They're expensive, and they're big.

They're much bigger than we'd like to make out.

Poseidon and the Minuteman are tremendous.

Poseidon and the Minuteman III, which is a murder that came planned next to this.

That won't be stopped.

Now, there's a tactical point that I hesitate to raise now.

You mentioned Scoop Jackson.

Scoop is the oldest friend I have.

Great guy.

I have worked with him for 25 years, I think.

Last year, on the 29th of March,

He made a proposal for interim freedoms, and it did not include SLBMs.

It's in the congressional record.

He wanted also to stop the American Minimum Trade Program, and the Soviets were just going to stop their ICBMs.

In addition to that, he proposed this hard-site defense thing, but the inclusion or exclusion of S.L.s.

logically has nothing to do with the kind of defense you're looking for.

so that if Scoot starts to get hacked, you know, it might be a little slower.

Well, on the other hand, let me say, and I'd like to take him on for other reasons, because he's such an indecent response to God, you know what I mean?

I don't think that he's the one that's being attacked.

The ones that are unsurprisable.

To me, the Taiwan thing was a hell of a mile there.

Good God, I read about some of these clowns that I know, the Pack Eisenhardt, the Kimo Imetsu, were always shaking Foster Dulles' ass because of the...

the China lobby and the rest of it.

They're all privateers over in Taiwan.

I said, what the hell is it?

And I realized it's all politics.

I think there was no problem, you know?

So that's what I think you've got to watch.

In other words, just be sure the record is one.

We've got to be sure the record is a darn good one.

If we go out and sell this deal and sell it strongly as one that is in the interest of the United States and our interests, then this is going to make a second best.

You know, it's pretty vernacular.

That's what I'm trying to get at.

I'm completely persuaded of this.

If I were a Soviet planner, and I told this to a lot of people, I would be concerned about the way the balance is doing.

Because... You would?

That, I think, is the important thing, the number of warheads you can deliver, not the fact that they got some more soldiers.

That's the thing.

Now, each one of these is three times the size of a hurricane explosion.

And the Minuteman birds are, I don't know, 10 times the size of the brooch.

Now, if we want more to do the job, if you make a deal without the boats, we can sell the boats.

I don't think you need more, but your hands aren't tied at all.

We should have covered it.

I'll give you the bus.

I have no problem with conscience here about certifying that we're much better off if we can make it be legal.

No, I'm excited.

I know their position.

Of course, it's a position that I should hold on to.

You have to be impressed by the vigor and the defense guys where the argument is from.

They're a little...

But you, you basically take the same position as the arms control.

And if you cancel, they just, they, we stand there, I would say, they have 30 minutes on that.

Yes, sir.

You think they've covered about as much as you, let me just ask you, do you endorse their position?

Yes.

I think it would lose a great deal of support for the fellows in Congress who we've been briefing.

This is the entirely new thought that builds up from Senator Luce.

Our allies haven't got a fifth of this.

It's the entirely new ballgame we've been asking them to put in.

Basically, I'm against it because it won't work.

They're talking about maybe 1,000 interceptors, 2,000 interceptors.

I don't know if the Senate is going to give us a blank check for the executive branch.

I said, how many interceptors can you tell us to tell them?

They said, we don't know.

I have no question they're going to get consent about it.

It's very important that we decide on it, though.

Keep the...

Keep a line out there.

Let's not have a big debate about it.

Do you see my point?

No, I think that... You see, if the...

There is a strong line before it, you see.

So I want to keep a deep guess.

That's all I consider.

Do you see my point?

One tactic that you can do is the one that we worked out with this future system involving lasers.

We've got the Soviets to agree that it's very good to develop.

We'll both look at it.

And before any side declares, we'll remain intriguing.

Now, this hard side is still a dream if it's developed.

And either side wants it.

We can amend the treaty.

And we wouldn't stop deploying these components in one of the sites, or two of the sites, whatever you decide.

You could take these short-range rigars and sprint them as close as you can.

Operate them.

What I don't think you should do is set up something that will leave the whole APM framework uncertain for three or four years in the future, and give us a right to then deploy a limited number of inter-centers.

Don't worry about it.

You're sure to do the hard side thing that might lead them to be able to develop a good defense?

It will certainly give them a bigger base than they have now to do just that.

And the CIA people tell us it will increase your verification problems.

It's a started thing the Soviet military might very well regret.

But my guess is the Soviet political people would say, this is just entirely... Do you think they have some differences?

I'm sure of it.

You're rather sure?

They say they do, but I wonder how much treatment you get for that.

I mean, after two and a half years, I'm sure that... Do you see it now?

They're the fellows that want to put the money into civilian resources, and they're the fellows that say, whatever the Americans say, we've got to be ready for an attack by then.

We're going to pay whatever it costs.

Do you think they didn't underestimate our political problem here?

Well, that's why we have an umbrella.

Well, the political problem, basically, with the new isolation, the new, you know, put the money to the arrows and all that sort of thing.

I think they're military fellows.

I think they believe their own path.

They believe their own path.

I'm just thinking about her, rather than a credit platform.

It's going to be a finish for Wright if she's scooping 11 or his wife on this issue.

But they're likely to call for a $30 million cut on $34 million.

That would serve me.

to weaken our bargaining power, so it seems to me we're going to make a deal.

We've got to make it before that.

Right.

That was a very perceptive comment that you made.

It's going to be a eruption.

Yeah.

Well, that's a good place.

Yeah.

Well, do you think they want to deal?

Yes.

Do you think they want to deal?

Camille, of course, in terms of buckling up this next session by the first of May so that he can have three weeks to clean up and get his leadership sufficiently acquainted, as he mentioned.

He'd like to have nothing left over.

Now, this sounds to me like the man who wants a deal and expects that we're going to work out something.

It also points out how short a time we've got.

We've got six weeks.

So if we're going in with some positions that we know we're going to have to recede from, I hope that Al and his friends will be able to give us some quick decisions from you about turning over, because we don't have a real luxury to use that when we talk for a few months, four months.

In other words, you feel that they are

But they feel they have to have a deal.

And it balances the problem that some feel on our side that we have to have one.

I mean, that's the reason.

It would be a very bad position for us if we went in there saying, oh, God, we've got to have a deal.

And they didn't feel that way.

You don't think they look at it that way, do you?

Or how do you see that one?

I think they've got to calculate it with their system.

Yeah.

The Americans need to deal more than they do because of great expectations.

Right.

Great expectations.

And it's not just going to be an election.

Right.

Now, on their side, though, how do we talk to Lincoln?

Well, Lincoln had his mouth for two and a half years.

I'm sure they've got questions at home.

I think they're concerned that things like this hard side talk, the salt collapses.

Let them worry about that.

Let them hang out there.

That's why I rejected it too quickly.

Well, I thought, for instance, I would throw out a few fish, but we don't have to finish in May.

Maybe we can go back at the end after the summit and see if we've got some more problems.

Let him think a little bit.

You go to the end of the hour.

I'm going to help Ziggy this time, but I would just start talking a little bit about the end of the hour.

So he's after this.

Let him think a little bit.

What a constant thing before you die is you need to think like him.

Yes.

And I believe that he could live and see it if he got it right.

And I believe that to tell you that you can't get the gas cells, you can still get them.

The great prize is to get the aliens under some control.

Because otherwise, we can, and they can, spend the prisoners on us.

It's like a tic-tac-toe game.

Every guy's going to get next to you on how to play.

The other fellow puts an O down.

Well, the Martians have quite a great price.

They're a life basis.

I think it's cool, too.

I mean, you're on that season.

Well, I would have thought that when we started this three years ago, we'd said to you, look, when you get 100 to 250 interceptors, something like that, ATMs, we have to think about penetrating them.

Stop the ICPN program.

Like 300 of these signals, it would have looked like .

I don't see any trouble at all on the right, on the left, on the side.

Oh, no.

Unless they say you didn't go far enough.

Oh, I agree with that.

And that is...

I'm not worried about that.

We can manage that.

Say, well, what the hell?

We've come a long way, for a reason, you know.

Because it's not immigration that's going to do it for the nation.

But this will help on the Liberation.

We can show the other countries we can put movements on ourselves.

Sure, sure.

It will help.

Sure, but what I've had is when we talk about the Testaments and not the Liberation, it has nothing to do with the power of the Soviet Union and the States.

Makes it a little more difficult.

That's right.

So this gets to the heart of the problem.

That's why not reparation is hard to negotiate.

So that's that.

But this is about a hundred times as hard because it goes to the heart of each nation's security.

I'm sure that comes with it.

That's what we've got to do.

I have another technical question.

I think it would be bad, even if we could get it, to reach an agreement before you were ready to sign it.

Because if one made the agreement at our level, early in May, there's a leak, it would be shot at from all sides.

So if we're to take common pieces, in what case are you going to take your hard side?

My sense is... You'd have all hell breaking loose and the pressures would come on and demand to Congress that you come down.

You know what I mean?

So I would suggest that if it's a tactic, one think about deliberately not reaching.

I don't think it's probably going to be necessary.

I see your point, though.

I think you're absolutely right.

Because if we come to the...

Well, then also there should be some problems that we may have to solve, and there may look like there probably will be, so that we can come to there and whack it, and then sell it with the highest, it'll be, I'll put it this way, it's going to be much easier for us to sell it at the highest level than it would be to use some insurance.

Isn't that pretty what this sounds like?

And it was much easier to sell a FedEx complete than to come back with a good deal and to have people taking away at it in advance of something.

In fact, you may have to play a few games there, so you can say, well, there's a problem here and a problem there, and I don't know what's going to happen here.

I'm going to discuss it again in Moscow.

A thing like duration would be a good idea to do that.

What's that?

This question of how long the agreement should last, that might be a good one.

Right.

That's something that you would...

I don't know, we don't have to fix this problem now, but my general feeling is that I would, I don't know, I would support it.

If we don't reach agreement, which I don't think will happen, the reasons that you mentioned probably shouldn't.

So we're ready to wrap it up.

I haven't thought about this and I don't want you to say anything about it to anybody.

If you could just pass the word down, I really want to thank you.

If we don't, I'm not inclined to think that we ought to have the whole delegation in Moscow.

I think you should have put your view on that.

I put you out on the week that I'm thinking about this.

Or maybe, well, they've all worked on it, I suppose, on that side.

See my part with the problem.

Maybe you have to.

Well, think about it.

Think about that.

Or do you have a response?

I have a feeling about it now that you want to express.

Maybe they have... Well, I have a feeling that these fellows are all professionals and they would understand it if... Yeah.

...they were told it would open on the circuit.

On the other hand, if it could possibly...

If there's something left to be done, well, I see your point.

I'm quite sure you really know what you're having to do.

I think, I think it might be troublesome if they really just give it a good hard look.

They might.

It might be troublesome.

It's weird if you keep, that's it for us.

Yeah.

We are fresh out.

That is, that is very, very interesting.

Yeah.

Well, that's no problem.

But also, there will be work to be done.

And we'll want their advice.

Stay up to it.

I hope the damn Russians don't stay up to play with the Chinese.

The thing about them, they sleep on the market and work all night.

Well, they're changing their habits a little bit.

I mean, the Chinese, yeah.

I don't know about the Russians.

The Russians, they're working more reasonable work than drinking less.

So they're drinking less and they're drinking more and more all day.

They used to drink like...

I think they found that was pretty counterproductive.

They were loosing people under the table.

Well, now they're more... That's our experience.

They don't force you to drink bottoms up.

They don't force me to drink bottoms up.

I can't stand that stuff.

I did it up at Mt.

Taiwan.

Just a little sip of each.

Well, let me say this.

We'll get out of it.

It's a distraction.

We'll be, you know, give a good bargain position for you.

We will also be in a position to be in very close consciousness to him.

We will not give you an impossible assignment, especially if you want me not to guide you.

I must say, though, that SLV happens in a very good quality.

It depends, but I even go to the point where I don't make a deal unless you get it.

I don't think you could put that in a new group.

Huh?

Because we didn't say that at the beginning.

We didn't say that last May.

You got to be right about that, aren't you?

That wasn't in May, I understand.

It wasn't in May, I understand.

It was May, I understand.

It was called ADMS, land-based offensive missiles, as I recall.

That's what we understood, huh?

They would interpret it that way, I think.

And when Zianna talked to me in Vienna just about that same time, he was just talking about ICBM.

And I asked him, how about the air-fuel dams even then?

He said, oh, no.

I didn't say anything.

I was just asking questions.

But I think they're entitled to interpret May 20.

They do not require them to approve votes.

And I think your order, Mr. President, the great gripe they have on the submarine thing is we can have forward bases and they can't.

They can't use two guys, we can use three.

And that's a tremendous advantage.

And this is, to a good extent, behind their drive.

I'll have more books to make up for that.

Now it's a transient thing, because we might get thrown out of the state.

We'll get Scotland.

Now we need to plan in perpetuity.

Presently, it's a great asset, which makes the numbers business a lot more manageable, you see.

And on the question of where Tom Wehrer comes out, for instance, I was surprised to hear him in the verification panel and in the NSC say, well, if the votes are not going to be included, then we want to have a short-term interim agreement.

Well, I never thought I'd heard the chairman of the chiefs even speculating about a deal that did not include the votes.

So he's thinking about if you can't get the votes, then let's have a short-term freeze agreement.

I took that name and he's, he's crossed that river now.

Well, anyway, I appreciate the chance to talk to you.

I tell you, I've had the heart's control, but it's the only time I've heard from everybody.

But, uh, you know, the, uh, the, uh, you've got to realize that the, uh, that you know, let's be sure to give the day in court to, to people who haven't had the day yet, you know.

Alright, don't worry about my arms, they're there if you've got them, I'm going to be there anyway.

I'll be number five.

Play the ones we have to have, okay?

Alright, good.