Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 780-015
Date: Saturday, September 16, 1972 at 10:55 AM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob"); Bull, Stephen B.; Sanchez, Manolo; Cox, Tricia Nixon; Kissinger, Henry A.; Ziegler, Ronald L.
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/780-015

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:32] Good.
[1:35] I'll take it.
[2:28] This is the prosecution point of arrest.
[2:58] There's no emotion.
[3:01] It's one that they can't do it.
[3:03] It's absolutely not worth your spending time turning that into a speech, John.
[3:11] Well, I don't want to read through it and talk about what they think, believe it is.
[3:15] Yeah.
[3:17] That's it.
[3:17] See, let them think through it.
[3:19] What is it?
[3:20] What do you think?
[3:21] It's not bad.
[3:26] For me to sit there and read for 18 minutes, these 2,100 words, 18 minutes, Bob, to a bunch of 700 assholes in the State Department, I've talked about it before, I don't want any crashes in that for me.
[3:38] I would agree or not, absolutely.
[3:41] I should not read for 10 minutes is the absolute optimum, that's right.
[3:44] I mean, that's why I'm not sure that I want to get given this.
[3:47] I think we ought to make 1,000 words, not 1,200.
[3:50] We ought to, well, it just, there isn't that.
[3:58] They're going through a whole day of reading all year
[4:36] I said, I don't know what the hell it was.
[4:41] I had a great resignation.
[4:42] It wasn't done.
[5:07] No, because we keep doing stuff as examples.
[5:09] We keep sending them examples.
[5:10] This is one word.
[5:12] Let's just spend the weekend.
[5:13] Let's get the goddamn thing.
[5:14] Let's spend the day and get it right.
[5:19] Follow their words.
[5:21] Or you say, I think we should just say a thousand.
[5:23] One of these thousands is about right action.
[5:27] I do too.
[5:27] A thousand words.
[5:29] A thousand words which I will read as a message.
[5:43] isn't.
[5:46] I don't need the example in this case, you know.
[5:48] I mean, you know, I've always started talking about anecdotes, but I don't need it.
[5:52] You agree?
[5:52] You see, the other kind of thing is an international group.
[5:55] The anecdote thing is, I don't have to move.
[6:02] I'm glad he's thinking of it.
[6:06] If I were speaking to a
[6:15] opening thing well what you need is the heads of roll or number one or pull out well he's got total water in there I think we've used that before but I don't I'm not sure that
[6:52] for them.
[6:55] All out offensive for Christ.
[7:10] ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
[7:34] I don't know.
[7:36] What the hell is believe?
[7:38] What do I say?
[7:40] And they can do that in a thousand words.
[7:41] Believe.
[7:43] And repeat it three times.
[7:45] So it has to be believe.
[7:49] But they've got to read it.
[8:45] Well, I hope you did something.
[8:53] Yeah.
[9:19] You've got to have an editor who says, I don't know what the hell's going to be here.
[9:26] You agree with me?
[9:28] Not just the editor.
[9:29] Ray is very good on the fields of whether this substance is bad or something like that.
[9:35] That's what we're talking about.
[9:37] Judgment.
[9:37] You've got to have the editor who says, I don't know what the hell's going to be here.
[10:07] Only if you can use it.
[10:11] You only do it if it's the way you do it.
[10:55] I do know that for that sort of a thing, I think 10 minutes is about all right.
[11:01] That's about what it ought to be.
[11:02] I think if you gas along too long,
[11:43] You don't have to sell that line.
[11:44] No.
[11:45] No, that's my point.
[11:46] Why don't they pick up the line?
[12:00] Why don't they just pick up the line?
[12:11] Not just in the distance.
[12:16] Water.
[12:18] Water, girl.
[12:27] Well, use the antidote.
[12:31] Just use the antidote.
[12:36] See, one approach
[12:41] hear them all over the world, and say, no, they've done it this way.
[12:47] For me to get up and go through the goddamn period of recitation of the record, and I know that early on in the program, all they do that, they're going to print it off, and people are going to know it.
[12:55] But they don't do it.
[12:57] Have you ever seen them pick up the goddamn record?
[12:59] Have you ever seen them go through that long recitation?
[13:02] Ever.
[13:03] And I don't.
[13:03] I won't do it.
[13:05] So why do I get up there and read it?
[13:09] Well, anyway, you could say it.
[13:21] We have launched them all out of Betsy.
[13:24] We have reached the, we have reached the point where we can, we see we can win this battle, but we need extra effort or something like that.
[13:41] Well, I've been trying to get in a sort of a feeling like that as to where we were, what we have done.
[13:51] I had more time to think about it.
[14:01] Let them try.
[14:02] Let them try on that kind of a basis.
[14:06] Just not bad.
[15:29] He cares about it, but he doesn't really know a hell of a lot about it.
[15:36] He cares more about it.
[16:51] But in fact, it's all true.
[18:03] What it'll do is
[18:40] where people saw that as an opening, they could drive a car through.
[18:44] These were guidelines that failed.
[18:46] But they threw out all the 66.
[18:48] First of all, the whole thing is the plan that failed.
[18:51] Secondly, it totally overlooked food prices, which is the thing he's been banking on, right?
[18:58] So he's refunding his sign.
[19:00] It's a phony.
[19:01] They all, Rumsfeld's sign already had that.
[19:03] They looked yesterday.
[19:04] They looked at the grade.
[19:05] They looked at the sign on the grade.
[19:07] All the way through.
[19:35] He said it doesn't cover food prices, but we think it will trickle down.
[19:39] The trickle-down theory was the thing they were pissing all over us for.
[19:43] They say if we control these other things, food prices will work their way down.
[19:49] We're controlling the other things a hell of a lot.
[20:39] West Coast.
[20:39] And I told him that didn't bother me a bit, but he already said, I just don't have that.
[20:47] When I said 28, he said, I'm not particularly anxious to build up that West Coast here, by the way.
[20:53] But I asked him, sorry, there's no harm in having that.
[21:12] Thank you.
[22:00] The lion pretty well said no.
[22:01] I actually think the lion gave us what everybody says, because he stole them all.
[22:09] Well, you were telling us where everything ended up.
[22:12] It was cute.
[22:13] I saw that.
[22:14] I thought, I don't know.
[22:16] But it really was.
[22:17] And then, you know, he was leaving.
[22:19] He was a simple-minded, totally sincere human type of person.
[22:26] And they said, you can't not believe
[22:31] they were so tough that John Chancellor
[23:03] which they are.
[23:11] Well, just a question on whether you want to have Julie Goose in Philadelphia flying up to Camp David rather than coming all the way back here and going up, which she can't do.
[23:19] Is it closer?
[23:20] It would save her about 45 minutes extra flights, I'm sure.
[23:49] They say they're all on the outside.
[23:51] And so why don't you just have, you've got the communication, you've got secret service.
[23:57] Yes, sir.
[23:58] All right.
[23:58] I need to go up around to the locker.
[24:01] They can all go right up to, go up there from here.
[24:05] I mean, it's there.
[24:06] From there, they can just go right to your center.
[24:08] Right.
[24:08] Either way, whatever they want.
[24:10] Okay.
[24:10] Yes, sir.
[24:12] I'll be up.
[24:13] We have a meeting.
[24:17] Yeah.
[24:21] But the people who saw it, it had to be pretty telling because it was one guy after another,
[24:56] It's a good lie.
[25:00] It's a good lie.
[25:02] I can hurt these bastards if they get a little of that out.
[25:05] Well, it sure as hell got out on TV last night.
[25:08] But that was NBC or any other network?
[25:10] NBC and ABC.
[25:10] CBS had a little of it, but not enough.
[25:14] They didn't have this devastating series of interviews.
[25:19] They had Parker.
[25:23] But they sound very believable.
[25:27] I think they really believe him.
[25:34] That was their motivation.
[25:39] They're afraid of McGovern.
[25:40] They're afraid he'll sell out to the communists, which he will.
[26:11] Seer.
[26:12] Emotional.
[26:41] Well, Mr. Haldeman said it in the TV last night that the Cubans that were indicted, all of them said they did this because they were afraid of a government.
[26:54] I think over by the time...
[26:57] The Cubans that were out of grade in Milwaukee.
[27:04] Oh!
[27:05] They interviewed
[27:21] I will pass through.
[27:22] I will show you something.
[27:24] I'll show the mystery.
[28:01] All the rest.
[28:11] Five and six.
[28:13] I have one.
[28:14] He might not be president of this country.
[28:18] He might not be a Democrat anymore.
[28:20] He could be a communist.
[29:20] Did they put out a land cycle yesterday?
[29:32] They did, but I lost them.
[29:34] I think they're going to put it out today.
[29:36] I'll put it out next week.
[29:38] We're not going to have to destroy it.
[29:43] We're going to have to override it today.
[29:47] Sure.
[29:47] All right.
[30:08] I mean, she's off to heaven.
[30:10] She's so good.
[30:11] That's me.
[30:36] That's good.
[30:37] We get that.
[31:14] And I won't have to worry so much about getting the man to speak out on the right.
[31:29] Oh, I can make a right on it.
[31:30] It doesn't have a couple of leads.
[31:33] Get that off.
[31:58] Great.
[32:41] It doesn't need much of a kick to hit about 50 points.
[32:54] It's pretty easy.
[32:55] 50 points.
[33:18] I knew it was this.
[33:57] Basically, it goes down because of fear of discipline over no progress in terms of peace talks or fear over what's going to happen.
[34:13] Everything that's in general is just bullshit.
[34:15] You know there's a lot of assets we're talking about out there.
[34:18] You know it, right?
[34:20] That's what makes that average guy.
[34:22] He's going to go to his broker and buy 1,000 shares of IBM.
[34:33] Would you agree or not?
[34:34] Yeah.
[34:34] I'm trying to do a job.
[34:36] Anyway, at the present time, the market will go up.
[34:42] It's going to go up for other reasons.
[34:43] It's going to go up for other reasons.
[34:49] Once this thing is over, we're going to be more conservative government.
[34:53] It's going to be more conservative government.
[34:56] Right.
[34:56] Mr. Chairman.
[35:07] real property.
[35:08] Because he got to be relevant to credit.
[35:09] He discovered it.
[35:12] I did.
[35:13] Oh, yes.
[35:14] I'll take credit for it.
[35:15] We all knew that he was a good man, but didn't want to look at him like that.
[35:19] Okay.
[35:21] But we ever did.
[35:22] The point that I make about Pete is that he's part of that group.
[35:26] When I started out, we got Malik in, Dee in, and we picked up some other guys that we had
[35:54] tough as hell.
[35:56] You'll love it.
[36:26] We got a man taking the mic.
[36:58] Right now, when you get into that sort of thing, you, uh...
[37:57] The Lakes of Australia is a very effective analysis of what happens to parties of reform.
[38:07] The Lake compared Gladstone to an exhausted volcano.
[38:13] Gladstone had this enormous reform and his administration went on
[38:48] The point that we have to remember is that ours is to begin and to us to follow.
[38:53] Except that we're thinking in a totally different way.
[38:55] If we go the same way, like for example,
[0:14] But the main point is, reform is not necessarily a good word.
[0:23] If reform means change, more than people want.
[0:27] In other words, the heresy that people feel that the government wants to change things too much too fast.
[0:35] They don't want to change things too much too fast.
[0:36] We have been through that in the 60s.
[1:13] I'm like, I hate the web.
[1:15] Sure.
[1:15] We go on and we see more excitement by saying, we've had enough, and then we've had too much.
[1:22] And now's the time to put this back out of themselves.
[1:50] is so city-oriented that he may, from an ideological standpoint, be willing to look at the things that I really want to look at.
[1:59] You know what I'm against?
[2:01] I'm against AGW, and I'm against HUD, and I'm against OEO.
[2:06] That's the kind of crap that I want to throw out.
[2:09] All you have to do is say it about that tone and about that
[2:52] Worrying about them.
[2:54] Terrible.
[2:56] Terrible at all.
[2:57] It's war.
[2:59] They just, you know, go too crazy.
[3:01] I just, I never really understand that attitude of people.
[3:05] I understand that, sure.
[3:08] They like to worry.
[3:09] People like to worry.
[3:14] My point is, I worry about something.
[4:30] Gordon Johnson, that he talks to.
[4:31] And I told Gordon, there's questions in some of the stuff he covered with it.
[4:35] And I told Gordon, calling back on those questions, and to very, just on a straightforward basis, but very firmly say, incidentally, it took me a month to get my phone call answered from you last time.
[4:48] It's taken me whatever long it takes on this next call to get an answer.
[5:11] So we're pointing out some strong realities to them.
[5:16] We've never leaked one of their goals.
[5:20] That's the only reason they can argue they couldn't give to us is that we abused the knowledge.
[5:25] We have never abused the knowledge.
[5:26] We've never leaked it.
[5:28] We've never told anybody we had it.
[5:31] And they know it.
[5:32] Jack Anderson.
[5:50] Or he wants the money.
[5:54] And the tithe of power.
[5:56] Gallup wants to be holier than thou.
[5:58] He wants to be, you know, Jack Anderson.
[6:02] Okay.
[6:03] Or Anderson got that.
[6:06] Made it up.
[6:07] Made it up.
[6:07] May have known.
[6:10] May know that we.
[6:13] It's definitely I.
[6:14] Almost.
[6:28] Yeah.
[6:28] I think we ought to do all of those things that we have doubts about unless we can, you know, there's got to be a hell of an overriding reason not to do any of them.
[6:51] I don't see what it can be.
[7:37] for the whole watch.
[7:40] Cut their news off.
[8:18] I think it did.
[8:19] I haven't talked to Chuck since he's married.
[8:23] You know, the beauty of it.
[8:25] It didn't have any effect on the news last night.
[8:28] I was watching it to see whether he ought to call him again.
[8:33] Asked him to play last night, look again at it.
[8:51] to rerun.
[8:53] That's the thing Ziegler got hit on yesterday.
[8:55] I told you Ron said he came in and was worried because he got mad.
[8:59] This Barry Serif in the black network got hit on.
[9:05] I said, is the White House concerned about the possibility of intimidation of the network?
[9:42] The reruns relate to the entertainment operation.
[9:44] Now what precisely do you mean by intimidation?
[10:22] I think so.
[10:22] Goddamn.
[10:23] We were on the side of the act.
[11:06] once she gets back.
[11:49] I don't think so.
[12:41] Economically, nothing.
[12:42] Economically, nothing.
[12:42] That's too, it moves too slowly.
[12:44] The diet is too hard.
[12:46] The world situation, the wars.
[12:49] Anything that happens there is to your advantage.
[12:51] We like your disadvantage.
[12:53] Including a major North Vietnamese attack.
[12:59] That'll show the intransigence.
[13:27] put the brush a little bit at a time.
[13:28] Or something blows up there.
[14:04] I don't see how anything can go wrong.
[14:17] Hi, Henry.
[14:18] I just got a call to see how you got along.
[14:21] Who won?
[14:22] I think I got a good reply.
[14:23] I'll get you a little coffee.
[14:25] Order what you want.
[14:26] Consummate.
[14:27] Consummate would be fine.
[14:46] The only half the questions I got was from the Jews, from the Jewish people.
[14:57] Well, did I raise the issue?
[15:02] I said yes.
[15:05] Did I?
[15:05] Am I hopeful?
[15:06] I said it's not out of control.
[15:08] I raised the issue.
[15:10] What do I feel about the ethics of amendsment?
[15:13] With respect to Soviet trade deal, Klaus said we'd negotiate what we think is in the best interests of the United States, and could we take senior senators very seriously?
[15:22] We'll submit it to the Senate when they've expressed their views.
[15:24] So I don't think the Javits is going to worry about it.
[15:27] Yeah.
[15:30] But the Jews aren't going to take me on.
[15:33] Well, how long do they need you?
[15:36] How about 45 seconds?
[15:37] No, we thought we shouldn't make it that pretentious.
[15:39] Right.
[15:39] That was the other side of the truth.
[15:42] Oh, it was packed with the hanging from the ramparts.
[15:45] I mean, it was really good.
[15:46] That's good.
[15:47] That's good.
[15:48] Actually, one thing that got a hell of a lot of questions, almost as much as the Soviet part, was the European part.
[15:55] I said, I brought a personal message from the president to each of these leaders saying that the European relationships had to be given a new vitality commensurate to the area, that no matter how much progress we make in our dealings with Moscow and Beijing,
[16:11] that Europe is the cornerstone of our foreign policy.
[16:14] As the President has said in three reports, they said, is he going over there?
[16:18] I said, I'm not sure what his specific plans are, but you can be sure that he will be in intimate contact with these leaders.
[16:28] They said, well, what do you have in mind?
[16:29] I said, well, we have a long philosophy.
[16:43] to the economic thing.
[16:44] I got the economic thing in.
[16:46] I said there have to be two pages for economic relationship.
[16:49] And it had a lot of interest.
[16:53] You know, I just, I mentioned it in passing.
[16:56] It isn't something that affects people in particular, but all the sophisticates will know that it's done that way.
[17:12] And it also will shut up my government, so far as it still makes any difference, in saying you're neglecting Europe, if you say.
[17:18] Sure, that is true.
[17:20] We're neglecting Europe.
[17:20] What the hell?
[17:21] My government's going to pull all the troops out of Europe.
[17:24] How do you neglect it worse than that?
[17:26] On the Soviet thing, let me first give you a history.
[17:29] This was when my bishop was raised.
[17:31] Did you get a start on that statement?
[17:33] No, I made a statement first.
[17:36] Let me give you the context of this.
[17:40] On the last day, the Secretary General and the President discussed the fact that most of the... You can call him Secretary General, sir.
[17:47] Well, you can call him both.
[17:49] It's easier for us to say it's the Secretary General.
[17:51] It's easier for us.
[17:52] I guess what... Decided that all the results of the summit, I thought I'd get it in again, had really been achieved through their direct channel.
[18:04] And therefore, there should be a continuous possibility that when...
[18:09] negotiations on a number of subjects had reached a point where their direct intervention was needed to give them a picket line, that then they should supplement the exchanges that are already going on all the time by letter, by some means of personal contact between the president and the central secretary.
[18:33] That point was reached in August when a number of things
[18:45] No, we did great.
[18:46] The presidential advisory institute today reported some good progress and are ready to issue with the Soviets what they had made in a separate climate negotiation with Vietnam.
[18:56] Oh, that's exactly right.
[18:58] He didn't send them away after, which is a success.
[19:02] And he didn't send Boyd Carter, which is right.
[19:05] Boyd was a good planter.
[19:10] Right, right.
[19:10] But then I said, they had reached a point where the president
[19:15] Before I went there, I sent a number of mental communications to the President to, for example, the economic field, how to relate all these issues to each other on European security.
[19:33] I explained what the problem was, that there'd been a sort of a stalemate in the discussions, and the President suggested a way it might be solved.
[19:43] I gave them a lot of general talk.
[19:46] So therefore, when I got there, we could go right down to the cages.
[19:50] And so that was the economic negotiations, which took the longest.
[19:55] It was a constant touch for the president.
[20:00] And then some major progress had to be made, but I didn't give them any dates.
[20:07] I just gave them categories in which progress had to be made.
[20:34] Then on Vietnam, what I did on Vietnam was I didn't want to blame any crackers because these guys would go on the war.
[20:41] I said, I'll let results speak for themselves.
[20:46] And they said, well, what do you want?
[20:48] And I said, about five times, we want to end the war rapidly.
[20:53] I want you to know.
[20:54] The rapid end of the war is our primary aim.
[20:56] I'm going to take these out now.
[20:58] The transcripts will be done so.
[21:01] Because now they're public.
[21:03] Because one thing, if you really want to end the war, if you want to end it rapidly, I'll make my preparations at the same time.
[21:13] They're sweating.
[21:14] They are really sweating.
[21:19] We have one problem, Mr. President.
[21:21] They can't end Israel.
[21:22] They have
[21:27] And I think I ought to call their and tell him, now this has to stop.
[21:35] Because you're going to get a blow-up from the Egyptians.
[21:37] You're going to get another demage.
[21:40] I think we have to tell them that we've done everything for them.
[21:43] I mean, for them to do this a day before I go to Russia and a day after I leave looks like absolute
[22:20] climbing walls.
[22:21] Of course.
[22:50] resolution.
[22:51] Yeah.
[22:52] But we've had the Egyptians by the time we had secret talks set up with them.
[22:55] Not that we want them, apparently, but still it gave us an out.
[23:00] We've had a scorching out from them now on their last Israeli trade.
[23:05] On the Egyptians?
[23:06] Yeah.
[23:08] We cannot let the Israelis I mean, what happened in Munich was an outrage, but I don't think the Egyptians had anything to do with it.
[23:15] Of course they did.
[23:17] Nor did the Syrians.
[23:20] No, I can see one retaliation.
[23:25] Well, they did one.
[23:26] They knocked the bomb down.
[23:28] I don't know.
[23:29] I don't know whether today was a retaliation or whether they had some provocation.
[23:33] I don't know.
[23:47] Well, tell me.
[23:56] Well, I'll tell you if it's great.
[24:01] Times were really good.
[24:08] But I think what we inherited when we came here is where we are today.
[24:13] There's no leader.
[24:14] And there's no American president ever who has had to command it.
[24:24] in international affairs that you now possess.
[24:28] No, you've got to say that because Eisenhardt didn't have it.
[24:32] No.
[24:32] Roosevelt did it only because the world seemed that he had equals.
[24:38] And he had no conception.
[24:40] Roosevelt had a
[25:04] It's a question of power.
[25:10] There are no commanding figures left.
[25:15] There's no Adonar.
[25:20] There's no de Gaulle.
[25:22] There's no church for that.
[25:26] There's even no will.
[25:29] You could go down a line.
[25:33] And, of course, the disparity of power is such now between us and the Europeans that they couldn't do it if they wanted to.
[25:42] And you have the concept and the power.
[25:47] That's probably what they understand, too.
[25:51] The curious thing is that if McGovern, through some miracle, became president, it would turn the Chinese into vicious anti-Americans because
[26:02] Only thing that attracts the Chinese to us is the possibility that we'll protect them against the Russians.
[26:07] You know, I'm interested in taking that score.
[26:10] I know this is where...
[27:01] That's the...
[27:03] I'd like to call that a Brayley.
[27:04] I'm sure I can't tell him now.
[27:07] Yeah.
[27:07] I want to warn him.
[27:09] Why don't you... You just want to tell him that we're late?
[27:16] Yeah.
[27:16] We have to deny him because we'll have Brayley concerned.
[27:22] What?
[27:22] It's so stupid.
[27:23] What the hell is this?
[27:24] Without you, they would have been dead.
[27:26] You remember how many times Rogers and Laird were in here to cut our way.
[27:30] how in February 1971 they wanted you to take them out publicly on the yachting missions.
[27:39] Yeah.
[27:39] But also, we want to remember how we had to fight with those kind of airplanes all the time.
[27:43] That's right.
[27:45] All the time, we were trying to push those planes.
[27:50] But we haven't been there, Fred.
[27:52] Let's face it.
[27:53] If they don't know that, nothing will happen.
[27:55] Well, I'll make them.
[27:56] Hold on.
[27:57] Well, you deserve some rest.
[28:00] I wanted to work a bit with my colleagues on the Vietnamese position.
[28:08] Don't go.
[28:09] It'll be out there for next week.