Nixon, Kissinger & Bull on 1972 Election and US-Soviet Relations

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Oh, that was tremendous.

But again, I thought, you know, that's what I thought.

The government couldn't get close.

Roman Devin told me this morning that I just want you to know that the president is a great patriot, and that McGovern was a skunk.

He said what McGovern is doing with the Israelis is one of the most outrageous, cheap tricks he's ever seen.

I was going to ask you about it.

I read it in the news, and I thought it was right.

Are we that far off on this?

We haven't dealt with it.

We haven't exploited it.

But there's something to the effect that there's, well, I don't know.

I think he's done the right thing.

I don't think so, too.

Lebanon is the one moderate country in that region.

It is the one border that Israel has which is not under very significant attack.

It is a total outrageous irresponsibility for the government to say this.

It is pure demagoguery.

No potential president of the United States has the right to behave that way.

I think, Mr. President, these guys are just finished out.

We didn't tell anybody.

It was one thing we were secret about.

The one trouble, unfortunately, is that the Undersecretary of Agriculture, Pompey, who negotiated part of it, resigned about a week before it went into effect and joined immediately the biggest grain trading company.

And that, of course, is a very proof of taste.

But that is the administration.

They should have done it.

That's why they're doing it in the middle.

But on the other hand, we're so scrupulous on this.

What like on the Russian trade, we're not going to solve.

In fact, on the train deal, we kept it secret in order to keep the price from being bid out.

So that the Russians could place, I mean, it's even factually a lie.

What happened was the Russians placed their orders before the deal was announced.

But what happened was the Russians lied to us about the extent of their purchases.

They're buying a hell of a lot more than they'd be announced.

And therefore, after the deal was announced, their next order fit up the price.

But we didn't know about the next order.

Don't worry about it.

This is just a local story.

But they're trying to say that...

You know, they're desperate for me.

They're really desperate for what this all was of.

And also, I don't know how you felt about it, but I didn't ask you.

I had an hour on the phone last night, but I didn't want to raise it with him because he's such a decent man.

But if I were Jewish, I would resent a presidential candidate going before rabbis.

I would never do that.

I just wouldn't do that.

No, because it would be embarrassing.

Don't talk to me about it if I didn't say it.

This president is not doing it with his heart.

He's doing it only on the basis of Cold War power politics.

Well, you're not in this job.

You're not in this job to do things with your, with emotion.

You're in this job to do it on the basis of rational considerations for the country.

Our policy got the Soviet troops out of there.

It was our firmness, our frustrating the Egyptians,

Now, in this connection, Mr. President, I'm not sure you focused on it.

I've told you about it, but it was always...

I beg your pardon?

I mean, not the secret contacts we've been having with the Egyptians.

With the Iraq we've been having.

No, no, I know about that.

No, I know about what the State Department wanted to do, and we turned that off.

Well, Sadat made an approach to us in two channels.

One, he went to the State Department.

and one he went to intelligence channels.

Now, we were very eager to turn the State Department on, so we responded in intelligence channels and said, look, the thing to do is to talk quietly first so that we know what we're talking about rather than engage in a big negotiation which will only raise the temperature.

Well, this has led to a series of exchanges now, which I conducted primarily in a delivery class

Because we don't want a negotiation before the election.

But he now wants to send his own assistant to New York as part of the UN delegation.

I've kept the Israelis centrally informed because these guys are so penetrated.

And in October, and I'd have a secret meeting with them.

If you don't disapprove, but this is the

But actually, this gives us a chance to keep the Egyptians quiet throughout the day.

Well, the politics is what I'm interested in at the moment.

I don't know how the public will react.

I don't know what else we could have done.

The President, I think, you came across as cool-headed, compassionate, practical.

The reason he called me was the Chinese gave us this answer.

They said, do you really want single political figures to come to China?

We had told him that.

And he said, what's the reason that you're playing this bipartisan?

So I'm wondering whether if Matt feels whether we shouldn't suggest he take another Republican.

Well, what does he say?

No, but on the Foreign Relations Committee, but then he might wind up with Percy.

Do we want Percy to go with that?

We'd be building him up for...

I think we could put Mansfield in a different category.

We have the contact, our own contact on the Republican side.

That's it.

Mansfield.

Or we could end him so that it isn't.

We could say if you were sending him on a back-firing...

I did.

We all ascended that he's coming as our representative.

That's what I would be back-firing to report to me.

Let's put it on that basis rather than his going as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.

That's true.

And then he would have to delay it a week or two.

And we just announced it right after the election would be seen in the very conciliatory sense.

I like the announcement that they made before the election.

It can't be done.

No, if you've got coming up now.

Because they made an approach to us and they want debt relief of $3 million.

And I'm going to put it on to the ambassador for one month.

And I'm going to come and we'll give you the 3 million for one month.

But we want you to leak out some of the stories that relations are improving.

You're so good at leaking.

That's right.

I stay older.

I think we should do co-turkey.

Now, another thing that us had done, between you and me, we have to say that we had— There was an incident that I went down and saw the, uh, I took a beautiful out of the thing, and I saw, well, I saw that marvelous rug, you know, and I saw the

how beautifully it was appointed, and the wood, the carvings and so forth, and the table.

I prepared a letter from you to President, which I might get him thanking him for the hydrofoil, and some pictures of it, as Ali takes some pictures.

And there's a few arguments he wants, which I won't bother you with, but we are going to make.

on really significant progress.

Again, they're going to hand me a letter to you on the MBFR so you can settle that when I get back.

So we then have something to say there?

In October.

Rogers and so forth.

That's right.

Now, the only thing is that I've worked it out with Lannigan and Peterson.

He looked over the draft communications.

We have communicated with him.

With you again?

Yeah.

And I've had to discuss this, this, and this, and there'll be further negotiations.

They would like to say agreement in principle was reached on the trade agreement.

But the final details and final decisions will be made in Washington when we send a delegation there.

So now Peterson and Flanagan can handle that.

And...

Well, I would say the greatest principle on some of the major items.

I don't know how they all use the word some.

So it looks like we did some in October.

If you could say everything you've done, I'd say, well, you just put it off for the election.

Okay.

Is that all right?

Yes.

It's on some of these major items.

All right.

But it's really amazing how your saddle operates on things for which you can't even take credit.

Take the Leningrad.

We have a consulate to open in Leningrad.

It was completely stonewalled.

They said it would take two and a half years to build.

I said to Duprine, and really in passing, I said, you know, I'm going to go to Leningrad and spread it in the centuries.

could you raise his expression and just forgive us the reason of the deadline?

He came back, and we now have a commitment that they will complete building it by June 1st next year, which is really very rapid, if you consider that some of it is winter.

And so we can open that in October.

We can have an opening ceremony of this.

And it's a traditional concert, so we'll have a concert.

Great.

a series of little movements.

Over, knocked over?

Yeah, because the orbit building is what we're talking about.

They already have a building in which they are operating temporarily.

And another little blip that's going to help us is

Li Dazhou is going to come through Moscow either the day before or the day after I speak there.

So either way, without our doing anything, the news stories are going to break the... Now, on what I'm going to discuss, I've really mentioned...

Tomorrow morning.

I'm going up at four this afternoon to see the Chinese to get them a brief...

But on trade, we have a package that I've already given to them, that I've already agreed to in principle, which Lanning and Peters, and everybody is happy with, which is five.

It will amount to a minimum of $750 million, a maximum of $800 million, which is, in either case, they started with $300 million.

It's about halfway between our positions.

And it's on Lend-Lease, Ex-Deaf Bank,

and we give them exempt credit to settle the land lease.

And they will send a delegation over here that we will conclude a comprehensive trade agreement.

I've tried to make some propositions to them on gas.

I've worked with David Rockefeller on organizing private credit.

So we can show them that as a sign of good faith.

And on European Security Conference and mutual force reductions, I will print back a piece of paper that you can then make a decision on as it's released to an announcement of both of these conferences.

In October?

In October.

I will have nothing to do with that.

I mean, that will not be directly.

We'll just list.

That was a subject that was discussed, but not that we made any significant progress.

Sold.

They have agreed to November 15th as the opening day, but you will announce that in October.

That will not appear in the communique.

I talked to Mansfield when I spoke to him this morning about getting sold to next year.

Yeah, yeah.

Absolutely.

Because Gromyko is coming here at the end of the month, and he'd like to see you.

Of course, I should see him.

Always do.

And I thought, Mr. President, if you wanted to, we could get the Senate to ratify the thing.

We could have a signing ceremony here.

Right.

With Gromyko and you, or Gromyko and Rogers, whichever way you want to play it.

But we could impart this eradication.

We could make a big ceremony.

I might.

I'll look at the schedule carefully, but I might in this instance.

I think, since I'm getting a small dinner for him, I might get a small one for me.

I think that I would do it.

It's a big country.

It's overwhelming.

He'll love it.

It's tremendous.

It's a sailor.

So I'll have that in mind.

I'm going to check the dates.

We're going to have to fill all of those evenings.

Well, then let's do it.

They have to get the two days, October 27th and 28th, September 27th and 28th, or October 2nd.

I think October 2nd is a little better for us for the reason that I have nothing to be out in California to make a net.

Is that what you're saying?

Oh, is it?

No, I don't know what you're saying.

Last year.

Well, she had an accident with her hair on the 29th.

Okay.

Do you think it would be better to have him after?

Well, if you have him on the 29th, that's the second.

That's the second.

That's the second time.

Monday night.

But can you also come in for a meeting with you?

Yes, you can have a meeting.

I'm down for a meeting, and I'm just on my way to have a small private dinner with the president.

And you can say that he's not a good guy.

He's kind of quiet.

I'm also having a lot of fun with you, but I'm going to kiss for all his friends.

I'll put it that way.

They'll love that.

Thank you.

So if it's a small static working center, so we didn't have rockers, it would probably be a good idea.

Oh, that'd be marvelous.

And, uh, to bring in... Yeah, I think it's a great idea.

My reason could be to borrow some of that material.

Sure.

We'll go ahead and do it online.

If we had anybody on our side that could borrow some, I don't think we'd have a lot to do with it.

However, we might have somebody that we don't want to see.

Well, I...

I have the same number.

We could have the same number of Russians, but I don't know if they want it.

They probably don't want it, but I'll ask the other people.

It'll be an interest rate on the terms of 14, 12, 14 people.

And then we could have the trade agreement announced by the end of that week.

We could have perhaps a ratification deposit that morning.

And the MPFR, the European Security Conference, you can suit yourself.

I think with SALT, we'd be better off if we announced it before the election, but...

Yes.

So, anytime you want.

It's over 20 years.

Yeah.

Yeah, we'd like the trade agreement announced, and then SALT announced, and then VFR.

We'll have the maritime agreement.

That doesn't mean much.

I know.

Well, we'd need a trade agreement.

But I wonder what the negatives will be trade.

Yes.

SALT is very significant, and VFR is significant.

Those are the ones.

Those 3-2 have casualties for October.

I'll ask you that.

That's what you think.

But you're right.

Exactly.

About four or five days into the party, whack, whack, whack.

Good.

I think the guys have screwed themselves so it doesn't really make any difference what they do.

Nixon, Kissinger & Bull on 1972 Election and US-Soviet Relations

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on September 8, 1972

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