Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 765-025
Date: Tuesday, August 8, 1972 at 5:19 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Kissinger, Henry A.; Petrovsky, Boris V.; Dobrynin, Anatoliy F.; Richardson, Elliot L.; Egeberg, Roger O.; White House photographer
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/765-025

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:00] I don't want to go to the embassy.
[0:36] That's what it will be.
[0:39] That's correct.
[0:39] Mr. Simmons, Dr. Kofsky, President.
[0:42] Yes, how do you do?
[0:43] Well, and right after this event, I'm about to start the event.
[0:45] Mr. President, how are you?
[0:46] Nice to see you.
[0:48] Mr.
[0:49] Ambassador, how are you?
[0:57] Nice to see you.
[0:58] Great.
[0:58] Well, let's sit down.
[0:59] I know, I know.
[1:01] Let's sit over here.
[1:04] Well, I'm just from the ship to the wall.
[1:07] What?
[1:08] I'm straight from the ship to the wall.
[1:11] Yes.
[1:11] Yes, come in.
[1:12] Sit over here.
[1:38] I saw everything from participation in an open-heart operation with Dr. DeBakey to visiting Disneyland.
[1:46] Oh!
[1:47] The Center for Disease Control.
[1:51] You say more than I have.
[1:54] Dr. DeBakey.
[2:08] Yes.
[2:09] Yes.
[2:09] Yes.
[2:47] By the way, we changed the formation by the medical instruments also.
[2:59] But we consider, Mr. Minister, the initiatives in the field of health, which we negotiated in Moscow, to be very important.
[3:11] It's an area that's totally non-controversial.
[3:17] You will have a complete cooperation, you and your colleagues, secretary, doctor, all of our people.
[3:45] people of Soviet Union, obviously American people, to be able to help us.
[3:59] We can all do that.
[4:05] Well, all these are close to the mission of the humanity.
[4:10] Right.
[4:10] That's all?
[4:11] Yes, that's all.
[4:13] We're very good.
[4:21] It won't go away.
[4:23] It won't go away.
[4:24] It won't go away.
[4:26] It won't go away.
[4:27] It won't go away.
[4:28] It won't go away.
[4:50] times that he, you know, was the toasting master of Georgia.
[4:54] The toasting master.
[4:56] I mean, I would drink more.
[5:00] I mean, I would drink more.
[5:03] I mean, I would drink more.
[5:04] I mean, I would drink more.
[5:22] We saw a lot of medical centers here.
[5:26] And our estimation of all the progress in the medical science which we witnessed in these centers is magnificent.
[5:57] you know, that the health centers which we saw in New York, Martin Luther King, and Kaiser Foundation near San Francisco, and I would be sorry, you know, sadly, you know, in Mexico, but it's a very, very interesting assessment, you know, here to the population.
[6:38] One thing I've been very impressed with on my visit to the Soviet Union
[7:35] What do you want to do?
[8:02] Distributed care, they have certainly a more uniform distribution of access.
[8:12] Arranged them.
[8:30] How long have you been there?
[8:33] Seven years.
[9:00] Well, from the start of August, I was the president.
[9:06] This is also the head of the August... Well, I would like to mention one thing.
[9:13] In fact, seven years ago, in August of 2016,
[9:29] I was here in the United States as a professor, you know.
[9:33] And on this very day, on the top of August, I got a paper from Moscow that I was appointed Minister of Health of the U.S.S.A.
[9:45] In New York.
[9:56] and American papers published a small event, you know, they published a portrait of mine, which was 10 years old, they thought it was handsome and young, you know.
[10:14] Seven years.
[10:15] One thing I wanted to say in a personal sense, I wish you a very good...
[10:32] I think it was a good innovation to build a school in East Long Island.
[10:37] I think it was probably seen as the best thing that I was able to do.
[10:41] You talk about the progression that we're seeing, and our other friends that we met that we wanted to take good care of themselves.
[10:49] They were leaders of a great nation, and they held those leaders enormously important for themselves.
[10:57] The nation has been, you know,
[11:02] They like that, too.
[11:03] Yeah, that's true.
[11:38] As the Minister of Health, I'm very grateful for such wish.
[11:43] As the Minister of Health, I have a role to take the role of our leaders.
[11:48] This is very important responsibility of my ministry and I can proudly say
[12:06] that they are very healthy now, and I'm sure they will be healthy for many, many years.
[12:11] They're healthy, they have great stamina.
[12:14] They work, you know, tremendously, very hard.
[12:17] But my approach is each man has to have his own leap of life.
[12:35] One thing that you do in your government, which we don't do adequately, is to be sure that the leaders take some vacations.
[12:42] I mean, like Mr. President told me about that.
[12:46] I mean, it's a very, very good rule.
[13:04] Well, Moscow is a wonderful place.
[13:08] It's very healthy.
[13:10] It's a beautiful country.
[13:13] It's a beautiful country.
[13:17] It's a beautiful country.
[13:38] No, we are now right in the city of Rome.
[14:07] That tells both.
[14:11] That tells the man.
[14:17] Now, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh,
[14:41] We're...
[15:12] Do you feel that, in a way, that the initiatives that we've done on the health side should have paid the way for the initiatives that we have now undertaken in these political areas?
[15:33] I think that the initiative and the first decisions that were made on the issue of the United States greatly contributed to our standards, to our success in the political sphere.
[15:49] Mr. President, you said that the Russian people are in control.
[16:02] And I would like to say also that in your country, in our country, the community of medical doctors is also very mentioned.
[16:14] Oh, yes.
[16:16] I understand.
[16:20] Thank you.
[16:23] Tomorrow I hope to meet your secretary and to have a final round of discussion.
[16:30] Thank you.
[16:40] Well, I consider and we all consider that in the field of cancer and cardiovascular diseases, our approach and our successes are really considerable.
[16:54] In the field of violence, I don't think that we make such big decisions.
[17:28] Because a limited set of first-line, you know, huge number of the problems related to their life.
[17:36] But I speak in this case about medical side of the market, right?
[17:41] I have all my specifications, I think, because it is domestic.
[17:48] And if you have some new problems,
[17:54] discussing on a final date that is our own efforts in finding a plan which is very right.
[18:04] But if you are dealing with some other infectious diseases, you are .
[18:11] I hope to discuss this progress with the Secretary and then on the working level in our joint commissions to finalize it.
[18:19] But I have one question which does not seem important.
[18:49] Right?
[18:50] That's about it.
[18:50] You know what we are.
[18:51] Again, you can try to get along with me.
[18:52] This is a very serious problem.
[18:54] No, but I'm telling you, it's a very serious problem.
[19:02] Of course, you know, this problem is positive.
[19:07] I mean, everything matches.
[19:11] I mean, a lot of others, right?
[19:12] Yeah.
[19:12] I do, do, do.
[19:12] It's really an allergy.
[19:13] It's an allergy.
[19:16] Yes, watching your hands, very close to each other.
[19:24] I mean, I described my daughter for the tremendous amount of drugs which they prescribed in this case.
[19:36] I think we could find each other, at least.
[19:46] As far as cancer is concerned, Senator Taft had cancer, and John Washington also had cancer.
[19:50] But in our greatest, it's interesting to note, Alan Dulles suffered terribly.
[19:56] I'm not sure if you remember this, but I'm sure you've seen this.
[20:02] He was very young at the time, and very certain.
[20:07] Long story short, he was very sick, and terrible heart disease.
[20:41] Could we explore the possibility of a cause?
[20:59] I wanted to
[21:27] You have a little memento, it's a small thing, but the CEO of the President of the United States, the President was there, and also in July, he was there, and I know he had some areas that accompanied, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.
[21:57] All right.
[22:01] All right.
[22:26] All right.
[22:58] Yeah.
[22:58] Yeah.
[22:58] Yeah.
[22:58] Yeah.
[22:59] Yeah.
[22:59] Yeah.
[23:00] Yeah.
[23:00] Yeah.
[23:01] Yeah.
[23:01] Yeah.
[23:02] Yeah.
[23:29] Well, that's very good.
[23:38] We'll put it in our journal.
[23:44] Yeah.
[23:45] I want to say this.
[23:47] I want to say this.
[23:48] I want to say this.
[23:49] I want to say this.
[24:06] I want to be sure that...
[24:40] Well, I mean, it's just very sad to see it.
[24:48] I mean, it's such a long process.
[24:53] I mean, it's such a long process.
[24:57] I mean, it's such a long process.
[25:01] I mean, it's such a long process.
[25:10] Goodbye.
[25:11] Goodbye.
[25:12] Thank you very much.
[25:16] Goodbye.
[25:17] Thank you.
[25:36] All right, time to get a ride out.
[25:37] You can't take it with you.
[25:39] Come back and stop and go.