Conversation 727-005

Transcript (AI-Generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.

It'd be good to see John for a few minutes.

But he doesn't.

I was talking to him earlier.

I want to see him because I've got to get a feeling of these fan things.

He's, as I told you though, he's put most of the stuff in writing and there's no rest.

I'll see him at 11.30 if we get the leaders to help me.

Well, you still feel we did the right thing in Quebec?

Yeah, I did.

Based on the reaction to it, we got, there was all kinds of things that, in that, that are a little subtle.

I'm forgetting about the speech.

You had to give the speech in order to do the other things.

The speech did some good.

It did more good than you believe it did, I'm convinced.

It was a better speech than you think it was.

It's been played on the radio.

It was played on the radio all night last night.

I got up this morning and it's just, you know, they've been playing big chunks of it.

And there's some very good things in it.

And they're playing the good things, which is kind of interesting.

They're playing the American must be strong, you know, we'll never do the other thing.

They're playing the Vietnam honor.

Yeah.

And the world of honor and the tremendous applause.

They're making the point that was the biggest...

reaction of the evening and they're making the thing about america is a great country this is a great you know that we believe in america we believe in america yeah it's not bad and the reaction it's damn good and it's there was a i think it's good that pat had a nice reception and that's the whole point

Well, you've gotten a lot of good woman reaction that's from there.

I know we've been checking some of our women executives and people apparently have lines out, but apparently a part of Nicole's review thought it was a great message.

She had all kinds of comments.

Well, here's, this is the scandal.

This is the vice president of U.S. Steel in New York, president of the Zabit Club, which is a big... She said, I thought there was great drama and theatrics with the helicopter landing and going into the Capitol.

I thought it was a serious, well-written speech and one of the greatest campaign speeches I've ever heard.

And, you know, puts it in that kind of spirit.

But then she said, I thought the president was very believable and convinced.

It had lots to say about Mrs. Nixon.

Very impressed that Mrs. Nixon came out of the helicopter first.

With warm applause.

I think she's emerged in a working partner role, and her presence out of her shell is very appealing.

Subconsciously, she makes the president more present.

That's true.

Well, you can do it.

I'll do it this way.

Well, that's beginning to match up with me, I think, by this evening, you know.

Well, stay up for another hour and a half, will you?

Oh, no, I'll be all right.

You know, you must feel it, too.

Yeah.

I'm just beginning to... Well, after all the thing is, we've been through hell and hell.

You know, I know everybody's tired.

The one over there has got nothing to ask for.

You and I are tired for different reasons.

Well, the new essential of being a... Well, then, the whole thing Wednesday night afterward was probably the single most emotional meeting that I've attended since I've been in the White House.

Oh, yeah.

You've got these three...

tough guys working the president over.

It was a rogue.

But it was good news.

Well, I think it was the turning point of the discussion.

I think probably what I tried to do today, Henry, is to say, look, the substance is all going to be presented.

I'm not going to go into that, but I want to give you a larger framework.

I want to tell you about the men.

I want to tell you about... And I'm going to bring both China and Russia into it.

China only in terms of why the Chinese...

want a relationship with them because of their crime.

Why did the Soviet Union want that relationship with them?

We just have to be sure they don't go out and blab.

I'm not going to say the Soviet wanted it because they're against China.

Not for that reason.

But the Soviet wanted it for other reasons.

Right.

What do you want to cover?

That's entirely up to you.

I don't feel like there's a lot to cover.

Well, I could cover the sort of thing about the meetings that you can't.

I mean, you can't very well cover how the meetings were conducted the way I can.

I think you should, too.

This one has one.

No, I think you should.

You should lay out the context.

the big picture that you're talking about, but then Henry should start with a, let me give you a little background on how these meetings were conducted, how your president represented you, without going too long into the crime.

But this is built, and they understand it, and the process of building it is a monumental, personal thing, which is the very interesting thing that comes out of all this.

It's, they're not, and they're talking more about

the importance of the personal accomplishment, what you did, the way you worked and how you did, than they are about the substance of the... You see, the way I could do this is to say, why the summit?

I mean, why could certain things work at the summit that couldn't work anywhere else?

And that way... Well, I would say in two ways.

First of all, the imminence of the summit.

enabled the President to take a personal hand on a number of issues.

And I'll give them that Incidents at Sea example, which is a very trivial example of an agreement.

And yet if you could go on and say how we broke the impasse on...

And secondly, how you broke the impact.

That's exactly what I was going to say.

How you broke the impact of so- And then you might say, for example, in the field where we did not reach our goals.

And then I think this may not be bad on the least.

I said we, the president, narrowed the difference.

We got it down.

But we wouldn't give on the matter of the industry.

We're going to have to negotiate.

I think they'd love to hear that.

So that was point one.

Then point two was that a number of issues were left.

that literally were irresolvable, except at the highest level.

And then thirdly, the whole statement of principles problem, for example.

You wouldn't even have known how to start, except at the highest level.

You couldn't say, well, let's let our ambassadors work out an humane team sitting down.

Inconceivable.

Well, the point which I've made to the press, which all of them, or all of them, Mike Franklin, I know you should remember, but I said, look,

Under the best of circumstances, you have to consider one diplomatic notice, 20 minutes of the presidential talk.

You add up 43 hours that the president spent with these people, and that means... 43 hours, yeah.

I mean, altogether, that's what the draft figured out.

But whatever it is, it would be 60 to 100 diplomatic notes, each of which take two to three weeks to get a reply to, and this is without the personal impact...

But she'd never get the reading from the notes.

That's right.

She didn't get them face-to-face.

So that's what I said what you have to consider.

It's a four-year proposition.

And then so many other things happen at the interval that you never get it done.

He said, on the other hand, I drew a distinction between Sunday meetings that are not well-prepared, where then the principals get together, create a deadlock and make the situation worse, compared to some

which had been narrowed to a point where the principles could act with maximum effectiveness.

And that's sort of the theme.

And then I thought I could get a view of the high points of the agreement.

But the Russians are on an all-out propaganda campaign at home saying what a terrific achievement this was.

It was Brezhnev and Grebsko in which Brezhnev complains that

to Kretschner, saying, God damn it, these Americans, you remember that afternoon, President and President, and Kitschner hit me about exactly the things we are worried about, you know.

The arms.

No, with the missiles, I am.

Yeah, yeah.

And Kretschner makes all the arguments against what Jackson is making to us, saying, how do we know the Americans won't put modern missiles on diesel submarines and President, saying, you idiots.

If they, why would they scream about outputting missiles on diesel submarines?

If they wanted to do it, Gretchen would say, well, you know, Gretchen, that they're going to scrap the diesel submarines, which is true.

What do you want me to get across to them then?

What do you want?

About SALT?

About SALT, I'm just going to say it.

I'm going to say, look, when I got brought up, there was a 10-to-1 advantage for the United States, and we came in, and the advantage had been wiped out.

And we hadn't done something.

We had to go, we had two choices, to go for a crash program and build it.

which I think the American people would have had great concern about, or have a limitation?

I wouldn't even get to that.

I would say there was no trash program or building we could have done.

We had the joint piece of staff.

We said, can you do a trash program on submarines?

I had three meetings with them, Mr. President.

And they said, no, we cannot do it.

But I can do that better than you, if you want to.

I mean, you can just say, when we came in, this is the situation.

It works every year.

I've started a number of programs.

ABM, Ounce, B1.

each of which had enormous congressional opposition.

All of you gentlemen know it takes 10 years from the time you start a program until it is operational.

And then I'd say we had two choices.

We had only one choice.

What we have done is broken the momentum of their agreement.

You don't have a problem with the Doves?

No.

You won't have any problems with the hogs after two weeks, I guarantee you.

I'll work them over.

Except Scoop.

He's kind of himself on the line.

Yeah, but Scoop, I think, is being partisan on this.

Sure.

I mean, the things Scoop is saying, why the hell didn't he say them two years ago or one year ago?

They were equally true.

They had nothing to do with the agreement.

Well, the whole cigarette deal stuff, of course, that's an old...

Well, the secret deal, Mr. President, the way to hit that is this.

You can say there are a number of interpretative agreements, statements, which I will be glad to explain to them, all of which will be submitted by agreement with the Soviet Union.

You, and just for your information, you have written a letter to President in which you are saying, I want you to know we had no plans to build those three extra submarines to which we are entitled during the period of the briefs.

This is nothing but the literal truth.

We have no such plans.

That's not an agreement.

You can change your plans anyway, but the fact of the matter is you have no such plans.

The Navy doesn't want them.

And nothing in the agreement forces you to exercise your option.

That's only an option.

That's not something that you're supposed to do.

But I must say, incidentally,

I talked to some people who heard your speech.

Apparently on television it came over extremely well.

Yes.

I thought you were speaking a little too fast, quite honestly, sitting in the chamber.

But on television people told me it sounded very effective.

If you get a little echo in the chamber, it's harder to keep up with the speech.

It's harder to hear it than it is on TV.

Especially up where we're sitting.

It's up in the balcony.

You get that bounce.

But what I found fascinating is the point you made to me yesterday, Mr. Gretzmann.

I think the biggest signal of loss you got was on that hawk-like statement of Vietnam.

Vietnam, that's right.

And it's being played that way, personally, it's being played that way.

It seems prescient, but it's... Now, the North is different.

Gromyko gave a first interview yesterday.

He's so soft on Vietnam, it's not to be believed.

I don't know what the Dan-North Vietnamese do now.

I think the North Vietnamese, I'll tell you what I think they'll have to do.

They'll start one.

Both of them will be defensive on the way.

And if they don't, they don't have a reward.

They've pulled back from Khantung.

What is the situation?

Is the meeting ready yet?

Well, I don't want to get back.

Just find out.

I'm going to ask him over there so that I won't be late.

Okay.

Do you hear what the New York Times defenders did?

I don't know.

Some people ran a two-page, a vicious two-page ad calling for the impeachment of Nixon.

In the New York Times?

Oh, it was placed in the New York Times.

It was placed in some other places, too.

And it's signed by a lot of fellow travelers and some communists.

And we're going to try and sign with the government supporters and all that stuff.

It's the usual, you know, cordial salon type bunch of people.

Oh, yeah.

But, uh...

The Printing Union refused to print the ad because they said it was stabbing our boys in Vietnam and they wanted no part of it.

They delayed the printing of the paper by 15 minutes by refusing to delay the edition of the paper.

It made a symbolic walkout type thing, which is very kind of fascinating.

Haydn thinks that we can win the war in less than two months.

Win it, not that we should have to go here.

That's a little exaggerated.

All right.

I'd like to do it.

I think these guys are exaggerating themselves.

I don't know.

He's got a holiday.

He's in a barber shop.

He's involved.

He's involved in a barber shop.

He's working.

He just came in one.