Conversation 788-001

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I don't know.

I think it's harder than they think it is.

I think what it is is that somebody, and we know going all the way back, the Post has a whole stack of stuff that somebody sat down and gave them all of the stuff that they could.

And instead of running it all, Boston Post has this plan where they drop it one tiny little drop at a time and make another story.

But whether, I'm curious about it.

I just wanted to know who was doing it.

It's not a continuing thing.

It's not new sort of stuff.

At least nobody thinks it is.

What it is, is they're saying, you know, they're just dribbling out.

The best thing on the list was John Roach's Cosmos Days.

And Goldwater's Species of Advancement.

the FBI had buried us, and I don't think... Well, the meeting with Henry and Hayes were very, very wild.

Well, there's an interesting twist to it that, you know, Henry's point that

thinking about that an awful lot because it's right after the election, right?

Henry basically is not as brutal as he can be.

He's not as brutal as I am.

Right after the election, we're going to take off.

We take off the city unnecessarily.

But that has enormous international repercussions.

It's repercussions.

Plus, you have the name.

What?

You have the name.

Question of even whether that will.

You just kind of wonder.

Those people may be just nuts and nuts and nothing.

The other question, whether the Chinese and the Russians could let it go that far.

That's the big question.

I don't mean it should be, but it would really poison the relations there.

Well, the other side of the coin, of course, is that whether or not we can sell to you the proposition.

You're just saying the other side of the coin is whether or not we can sell to you this proposition.

Because it seems to me that your case was very persuasive.

And I'd like to talk to Al a little more today so that he can get the real feel of how tough it would be with him.

See, my worry, Mr. President, isn't the election.

My worry is... Oh, I know.

I know.

That's what I just want to say.

Well, we could surrender to Vietnam in the election, because who the hell is going to take advantage of it?

The government says surrender.

Right.

Yeah.

But it doesn't affect the election.

It affects what we do today.

It affects our world position.

Correct.

And so that's why they tried to do all hell yesterday.

Let me make a few things.

I don't think it is technically possible, even though these silly North Vietnamese think it is,

to get all the documents signed by the election.

The best we can do by the election is a statement of principles that can absolutely do you no damage and must help you because it has prisoner release and a ceasefire with all controls and no coalition government and continuation of the GBN and no withdrawal, no resignation of Pew.

Commission of National Fund Board or Commission of National Reconciliation.

and any knowing person.

I mean, this will go like salt, believe me.

I agree with you on that.

The question, though, there is what we do require to do.

If we do, if he does, does it unravel the South Vietnam memory?

That's the point.

That is.

God damn it, you know you can't.

That, Mr. President, we cannot do.

Where is he?

Me too.

And it's because if we had wanted to do that... Well, if we wanted to do it...

it depends how this thing this is why he cannot his resignation can't be written into the agreement he has to resign after he is restored saying he's done everything but if this thing is played intelligently he may never resign I don't believe this agreement what I believe this agreement will do

The practical consequence of what we are now working on is, and there are so many, I may have misled you a little bit yesterday, there are so many technical issues in there that it may never even get signed.

I'm assuming it got signed.

I believe the practical result will be a ceasefire, an American denigration, a return of prisoners, and everything else.

And they'll go at each other with you in office.

That's what I think.

I'll have you talk and answer those.

I will give him nothing that he can't, that he can't.

Truman is a totally slippery.

Yeah, well, I didn't think I'd say it that much.

I'll say it while you're just back.

I don't really have anything to talk at all about.

I will talk a bit about

Right.

Well, it's a very awful talk.

I think, let's say, if we can just keep in mind, forget the election.

I really think we've got to destroy it.

Destroy it.

I think it wasn't great the way it appealed everywhere.

That's a pretty good symbol.

Something good happened there.

It's going to lie us.

Well, as I said, we're always welcome here.

Sorry to keep you waiting.

I think that California had to sign a few bills.

You sit here.

You sit there.

You sit here.

They always take pictures.

I don't understand it.

really good for tolerating.

But who knows what will happen.

We hope for the best, but in any event, it's extremely helpful.

It's a positive, progressive thing that's been offered to us.

Again, there are differences about the war and so forth, but the main point is to find a way to do it.

And I'm sure it's very helpful.

The second thing is that I'm extremely pleased at the direction

We want that to work.

We survive the election.

We do.

We want this.

We want this to work.

I'd like to do the opportunity to expand on that.

I don't know when we can do it.

I mean, I have a lot of work to do immediately.

I'd like to do it after the election.

But I would hope sometime early for next year to have a chance to meet with President Obama again.

I don't think I'll see the lights.

or time, at least on our part, to the European community.

And when I said European community, I mean the European and Latin community in terms of seeing how they can strengthen it in every way.

I've been somewhat concerned about the fact that, not at the highest levels, but at some of the lower secondary levels, there's been some talk of the fact

the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

Our talks have been at the cost of and to the detriment of the American relationship with our European and pre-European partners.

That must never happen.

I always know that the bedrock of everything is the European-American alliance.

You've got to go talk to the Russians and to the Chinese.

I have to, but we've got to remember

I didn't find it us, or you, or us, worth talking to if we were weak.

That's why we talked to each other.

It's between the man and the self, don't you know?

Don't go for it.

Think of the Russian way of thinking.

Your self is necessary.

You have felt that, haven't you?

All the way.

Of course, we know what...

I'm sure you understand what I'm referring to.

And I don't know whether you reported to the President at the end, but this was his speech, which I thought was very interesting, when he referred to me in Pierre and gave me his explanation of Pierre's death.

His last sentence was, and remember this, he was against better relations with the West.

He was against normalization of foreign relations with the United States, which means

They talk to you right now?

When did you talk to them?

I would say first, of course, actually the week before.

It's helpful for us to be, to find words appropriate and in a discreet way as to their attitudes as to what can be done at this point.

I don't know.

Henry, what do you want to say now?

You haven't talked to the Department since you returned this last year.

Why don't we give a little feel?

The Soviets had already given the Foreign Minister a rather accurate account of where it was, of where the matter stood.

And what we really did is proceeded along that line into a more detailed examination of each of the points that the Soviets gave you.

for example, want to keep their armed forces in large Cambodia and South Vietnam, they've not developed a theory that their forces in South Vietnam are part of the South Vietnamese forces, and therefore not subject to withdrawal or adjustment over that much negotiation.

But that is...

I think they can be narrowed and probably essentially limited.

And what we've spent most of our time on, and this really has to be very secret, is that we've spent a lot of time on those provisions.

And it's the first time in 18 weeks that we've gone through specific provisions

On the political side, it's, of course, a very tough problem for them to have fought for 20 years and then emerge without a guarantee of a victory.

And that's when all the phrases are said, that it isn't you that's the issue as such.

The issue is whether, say, the degree to a structure emerging out of there that does not

lead to a predominance of the communist government, or a guaranteed predominance of the communist government.

They are now talking in vague terms of seeing, of developing guarantees.

What we are doing here, and we've never been out this morning, we're sending my deputy, Chancellor Higgins, to St. John's today, and he will talk to Ambassador Buckingham and President Hume

to see what adjustments in the position that was reported to you, correct me if I'm wrong, that we can table at the next meetings.

And I will pass that meeting.

That is really the subject that we reserve for the next time we meet.

It's already hard to keep a secret from the trash.

It's hard to keep a secret from us.

And that would be a very good meeting.

Now, you asked what you could tell them.

If this is your conviction, if you could tell them from what you know of the president and me, that you have the impression that we are making the maximum effort that is possible for us, and a very serious effort, because they are very suspicious people.

But that is also necessary for them to make some political decisions.

Without going into details, if you could convey that thought, I think it might...

There's always the feeling in the back of the mind that one side is, or your opponents are just putting something up, but that that's the position from which you can negotiate them down.

Now, obviously, that's been going on for a while.

It's better when Henry goes there on the 7th, 8th, and 9th, that would be the last.

But just can't, he just hasn't got any place that he can go from there.

As a matter of fact, he's moved.

He's moved as far as he can move now.

Or at least, we thought, oh, almost.

My point is that what we are doing, you see, I think they probably are under the illusion that if they just wait and wait and wait, they're finally going to get us to agree to come all the way to their position.

That will not happen.

Now, by the same token, we are not suggesting they go all the way to our position.

But you see, we tend, let's put it as rational people, if we were negotiating this between the French and the Americans, the damn name would have been settlement.

And we find to get down to this, and this, and this, and this.

And we say, well, we'll settle it here.

But these people are not that way.

They're not sophisticated.

They lock themselves into a position like we're here.

And then they say, well, now what do we got to offer?

What do we got to offer?

You know what I mean?

And they might think that that's what's going to be the true analogy.

They may also, however, emphasize that we have not

We had not gone to that game.

We'd been pretty strong in our negotiating position.

But we had come quite a way.

And the important thing is Jews come a long, long way, too.

Now what they have to realize that on October 7th, 8th, and 9th, we will have, frankly, gotten to the bottom of the barrel.

Because we work these things out.

And it will be the best job we can make.

totally unsophisticated view of U.S. politics.

One thing they have to realize is that in terms of our election time, it's not on their side because we don't give a damn.

It is going to help us a bit.

Now we're, the war, for an ironic turn of affairs, now is not an issue and to the extent that it is here, it's positive rather than negative for us.

So we don't, we are not going, we don't have the election burning on our back

So, in terms of time, it's to their interest to settle down, not to wait till later.

Now, after the election, we'll have no interest in the election.

We are not talking in terms of threats, but put yourself in our

State of the Union, a new budget, and all that sort of thing.

And this thing's got to be put aside.

That's the point.

The election is not an accident.

It's waiting until after.

From there, you'll be left with... That's the date.

It's to their end.

Then it's up to them to say they are behaving as I told you in my practice.

I don't know how many times I can tell them anymore.

They're behaving like traffic lawyers without any sense of the greater purposes of the law.

They're looking at every little clause, whether we go back into Vietnam or not does not depend on the legal provisions of the agreement.

We went in the first time not because

to get involved for a variety of reasons.

It wasn't because of literature or words.

It was because of strategic consideration.

But if we can coexist with teaching, we certainly can coexist with knowledge.

That's a very good point.

This is the heart of the matter.

So what they have to do is get us out of there before they're through with it.

And then rely on history to... And let them work out the problem.

That's up to them.

Every little detail written down.

Now, we will try to make that easier.

But that is... And they must not get themselves so obsessed with the few men that they allow that to obstruct the negotiation.

I mean, they...

But in any event, it's...

very tough going.

All we know is that, believe me, we wouldn't have gone over there 18 times in private meetings, and we wouldn't have had the little women's record developed.

We wouldn't be doing it again in our election campaign.

I could use Henry here.

I mean, he's a wide-ranging speaker, more than anybody else in the administration, and I won't let him do it, of course, except on a non-political basis.

But he'd go over there and talk to tackle us.

But we're trying.

It is a question of protest and protestations and good faith and all that.

We know that as well.

Some of these things.

The point is, our interests will allow us to go any so far.

And their interests will allow them to go any so far.

We believe that our interests and theirs now coincide.

And what they really need is somebody sitting in there as an advisor who sees

Right, that's a great thing.

And ever since I saw you, Henry, I sort of had a belief, and twice yesterday, when we were in the conversation, pointed out that there had been some progress, some improvements in that community, which helped me.

That's certainly nice to hear from people like you, Henry.

Yes, sir.

May I be of one specific point, Mr. President?

Sure.

In the extreme extreme.

Last time I saw the North Indian people, I had two impressions.

The first was that they were trying to find a way out of it.

They didn't know how to do that.

They were afraid of themselves from their previous circumstances and their applications.

And the second impression was that, excuse me for saying so, for being quite frank, they were afraid of giving the impression that the outside world was

I'm very sorry to be... No, don't be.

I know, of course, don't let me restate it, but I think without it.

Sure, sure.

At this point, I think such a move would not be, we were talking about it in another period, it would be what you put your finger on the problem.

If we had immediate principle on certain items, then why the details of the government?

Certain restraints, that's right.

I was going to say that.

That's all I was going to say to me.

That's a little bit.

Because you see, the question is, if progress is made, if progress and agreement is made, obviously our actions could very well be different than they are.

But if we see no progress, we can't change our actions as we respond to it.

But you get the point.

So we're not going to stand.

But that's why the meeting of the 7th, 8th, and 9th is very critical.

We're not coming here for the purpose of being a traffic lawyer this time.

We're coming here for the purpose of settling the estate once and for all.

I have a message.

I had to study for three weeks before I go.

He always had a disadvantage.

He settled with him.

we worked this out and moved our positions on, you know, to a more, you know, which actually was, well, it is now all fours with yours, but at least it moved in the direction of...

convertibility on the other side just let everything float and somewhere in between there's a position and we move somewhat in that direction but we're prepared to talk about these matters and others too in the meantime Schultz Schultz incidentally is a is a is a great economist

He understands these things, the technical matters.

And I had hoped Henry that once we get past the election and so forth, that Shultz could have a chance for a priority when he moved into the first floor, that he won't sink and get started standing.

He was also afraid.

He wasn't.

Yeah, he was here.

He was sitting here.

But Shultz ought to.

That is the situation.

And, uh, he'll deal with it.

Well, last year, uh, Mr. McGillis was, you were, you received a lot of advice, in certain monetary matters, to try to create a bloc that was truly a federal republic in Britain.

Anyone else?

I don't know.

I'm not sure there would be.

It's very important that Schultz have some very hard political meetings with the French.

What would you say to that?

And I think he told every Frenchman to come over and sit down.

feel himself.

You can talk to a minister and sometimes you kind of hear it from the top guy.

I think your intervention in the climate is much better.

And you know, the vision is a talent.

You have the tomb and the murder mate.

Right.

It's also a common response.

Of course.

But we don't have media on every part of that.

Sure.

You felt that when you were there, of course.

He spoke yesterday.

Maybe later.

Let me say one other thing.

Henry, at the conclusion of this next meeting, it might be well for you to keep...

I don't know if it can be worked out.

It's usually at the end of the meeting, but I would talk to the ambassador.

That's what I was thinking.

If you get back, if you bill an ambassador, because that's right, this is on our seat, if you get back, you ought to bill an ambassador.

And any time, too, we'll, between now and then, we will keep you posted.

Because you know these people, you know, and who can influence who knows.

But we would welcome any help that we could get from the French, Chinese.

You know, it's .

psychological warfare connected with fighting.

When it comes to negotiations, there's some practicality.

I mean, sometimes you have to settle on some basic text.

You can't constantly keep changing your text because it becomes practically very hard then to settle.

And so they constantly come with a new text, even if it's a modification.

They'll recognize it as a lack of confidence, more of a distrust.

Yeah, yeah.

And this is not an issue .

No.

On a very critical point.

Actually, the critical issue is this.

The critical issue is they'll never have a better time to settle than now.

Their position will never be stronger than now.

Now, it is going to be better.

You see, the parties, they have to realize that after the election,

You know, there'll be no editorials in the paper every morning.

There'll be none on it because there are no elections.

You see?

You know what the elections are.

So for the next campaign, where are their allies?

The thing for them to do is to settle it now.

It would be a mixed bag.

So that's that.

On the other hand, we would like to start the new administration.

We'd like to get the attention of the American public, of the American bureaucracy, get the people that are working on this issue away from that so that we can concentrate on the real problems.

Here's this little country down there.

And of course, it's important.

It's important to Indochina.

It may be important to Indonesia.

It may be important to Thailand and the rest.

But for the United States government for eight years to have its eyes focused there, that's a problem.

Now, we did not allow obsession with Vietnam to keep us

happen to Vietnam to keep us from trying to improve our relations with Europe, right?

But you see, if we can get the war out of the way, get it, it'll then put everything else in perspective.

Then, for example, we can move as we want to.

We want to get, frankly, I want to get Europe in the front burner again, in the American mind.

They've got to realize that.

that's why we want to settle, not the election.

But on the other hand, if we can't get it settled, then we can easily live with it.

or in the foot, we'd like to get rid of it.

We could walk a little faster, but we can walk a little bit faster.

Anyway, it's a little bit of a gloomy tree.

But this is exactly what it is.

We have some new residential couplings.

Very good.