Conversation 788-015

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Henry, why don't you sit in?

I suggested that you come in

The two of us had a talk the other day.

I mean, I was out here last year.

I'm not going to talk to you about politics and other things.

Tonight, it's going to be very, very easy.

Everybody will be active.

Yes, sir.

And we will command you.

And they, they're about 16, and we just sit like that, as we did once before.

They like to sort of hear you, and as we get to it, you know, you don't make any speech, no talking or anything like that.

We'll just chat around the table.

I think it's the kind of thing where, you know, I don't like, I never liked it, but we'll talk about it in a minute.

Well, they'll want, they've got a guest.

It's an awesome interview.

Thank you.

I can do without that.

I like to get in the water and the water's too cold.

It's fine.

We'll see you an hour before we go.

Well, first I wanted to say this at the top with regard to just on the general situation.

Once we get past this, I want you to trust me and see what the surroundings are like and have a try of some coffee and tea.

There's a cup of tea behind that.

Hot tea.

Just for both.

I think it's very important that having, now that everybody is discovering, you know,

I think it's very important to establish a very strong communication within the alliance.

While this is something that it's hard to get across to

the American people and the American Congress these days, because to them, the new world is always what's exciting, going to China, Russia and all that stuff.

We know, you know, that any moves toward either Russia or China on your part or our part are an impossible position of relative strength in the United States.

Otherwise, we aren't really talking to you.

In my view, I think, and for that reason,

that we need the closest, not in consultation in the sense of informing, but perhaps even to the extent where we can, a cooperative action, so that when we run into such things,

MBMR, or what have you, that we don't have a situation where they divide and conquer.

They are having these things of MIU for no good purpose.

On their part, though.

On their part.

On our side, we've got to go along with it, because there's no feelings for such a thing.

the people of the Central African government are very, very strong.

And so you've got to get people who are interested.

But the possibility of the forehead developing, certainly in the United States, is very great.

It would be in Europe.

It would be in ours.

Well, this is the problem.

I think this is a good idea.

I'm glad you opened up on this one, because if they went upon this as a propaganda exercise, and I'm sure they didn't start with it, and they had an idea that they could break open the expanded market and properly start it and all that, well, it doesn't matter.

But they want to weaken the weak members of NATO, and they are somehow sure that they can't.

I think this is going to be a propaganda exercise.

To my mind, if we keep close to you,

and the other Europeans who are sensible, we can win the propaganda argument hands down, because what we do for our people is so far in advance of what the Communists can do for them, that all the magnetism ought to be our way, if we handle the conference in the right way.

And if it's a construction...

And if it isn't the propagandists, then we can identify certain things off of it.

Parts of it could be useful to us.

spirit now, then, without running the risk of being a problem.

But I think that the essential thing is for all of us to understand, again, the importance of the alliance.

From every standpoint, military, non-soldier.

Now, once we get past the election,

I would like to devote some attention to that.

exchange some views and maybe have a sense of the gathering can come to be something very constructive.

I will not be able to go to the real thought for at least a month.

I mean, I'll have to take a month after the election.

We have to reshuffle the cabinet.

We have great numbers of appointments to make.

We're going to be doing a lot of things there.

We have a bit of a budget program here and there.

Once that is done, then the first of all, that will be the, that I'm gonna make certain,

When you're ready, I mean, we'll give this to Dean Thornton, I mean, I will give this to Dean, we'll give this to Dean Thornton, we're ready for you whenever you want to, you know, and I know Ted will be very happy about this.

I mean, there are very big questions about NATO, for example, his Western defence can make sense without France, and I mean, that's to get the French in.

And I mean, we want to talk to you about that, I think, before we talk to anybody else.

Yes, you're welcome to.

The French, they really ought to be in it.

They're French, it's unbelievable.

They've all been Spanish for a while.

But God knows what the French are doing.

I don't know.

I sometimes think, oh, let's see who we get rid of to brag.

You know, if Papadu wins.

Papadu's going to lose, in my mind, a hell of a lot of seats in this election.

I really do.

Why doesn't he come on?

I don't know whether he was beaten or not.

What does he do?

But Moritz Schumann said to me the other day, you know, we can just afford to lose 100 seats.

Now, this is the sort of indication, you know, and he didn't mean to imply this, but his implication, obviously, is they might lose something like that.

Now, they can afford to do it, of course.

Yeah.

Not to the communists, to the various parties.

Yeah, for just a bunch of the whole game of points.

You know, it might end up with no government.

It might end up with something like a full wall, which is sort of like this.

Mind you, Poppett is a pretty good man.

The way he makes up his mind to assert himself, he's a pretty effective operator.

Yeah.

I think so.

He's not a weak man.

No.

And it may be that he's a good person.

But there is all this, and then, of course, we should also actually sometimes look with you, completely frankly, at this, you know, how we should organise all this new kind of stuff.

That's right.

I think that the whole nuclear business is... First, I think my own views are more advanced than military people's.

They're actually more advanced than the rest.

Because I think all of them, and certainly more than our Congress, the whole secrecy business and all that sort of thing is...

I mean, there isn't much secrecy about this anymore.

You've got an industrial patient, right?

Now what we have to do is find out how we...

your force, and so forth, you've got to look, for example, at such things as tactical and nuclear weapons, and realistically, I don't know.

And yet, you also have to look at another situation.

One of the real problems in terms of this, in terms of the whole defense of Europe, is whether he

We don't have to be in any circumstances of having other options.

That's simply a massive look here at the exchange.

One of the reasons why the defense think we are making a very, we welcome the issue of where we can be very strong on the other side here.

When they talk about a $30 million defense cut, it would mean that the United States

only to respond to the launching of your attack.

The whole thing, because your Navy would be second best, and the Air Force would be second best, and ours would.

Our Air Force are leaving, and of course our Army already listened to us.

We're not going to empower them.

And we need, of course, we have enough missiles and so forth, so there would be a hell of a good double bloodline.

But that's what's going on.

I mean, what do you do?

Particularly where

where smaller countries are concerned, that do not affect the vital security of the country.

The nuclear deterrent is not credible.

So we think that how this all starts out at NATO is that there is

a need for a significant NATO capability for some time to come.

Now, the main thing is, can it be sold?

Can it be, will it be supported?

Will the peoples of the various countries support it?

Or will they sort of fall back and decide, well, now that we're moving toward arms control and the rest, that is the gift as well of the two superpowers that they're looking at each other with very different powers.

very much afraid of them.

If I wake up in the night, which I did, and I guess you did, I would very much worry myself.

The fact that the nuclear is becoming less and less credible, except, as you say, possibly one part of the world where it really matters.

And the Russian conventional arms are not only increasing in quantity but in quality all the time.

all the time, and what are we going to do to be able to match this?

Otherwise, they will have a certain increasing disadvantage, the Soviet Union, I think.

And although the Chinese are a certain make-weight, and I dare say the Russians are afraid of them, I wouldn't have thought this would operate seriously in front of the Russians in the short term, although they tell me the Russians are alarmed at the Chinese intentions in the short term.

Nevertheless...

It's hard to believe, I think, but that seems to be true.

Well, it's hard to believe, sure.

But I would be with you, I'm just wondering how we can induce our modern democratic electors to sustain the conventional force, which looks very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very,

We cut our naval forces, our carriers, from 16 to 6.

What would we have done then if we hadn't had a Jordan crisis?

Now, there wasn't much we could have done at this time.

The fact that we had a 6-3 there, at least it had some salutary effect, a cooling effect.

If you had sat here and said, well, now look, the president's sitting there with a button, and he's going to push that button, and the Syrians will win, the Russians back, and all the rest of

Remember the last time we talked, both of you, how we raised it, was the Russian presence in the Indian Ocean.

And it's no damn accident these people are, the Russians are building this up because they know that these conventional forces have an enormous impact on the people's concern there.

It's how we used to use them.

I feel.

Exactly.

The way that I feel.

I feel it's used to be the present country.

I'll let you go.

I feel very strongly about U.S. mainstream for that reason.

And frankly, the whole alliance there.

But it gets down to another thing, which is China, of course.

But the Chinese, of course, in their views, they are petrified to thought.

I don't know whether they tell you this, but they are petrified to thought.

that we would cut back our military.

The traditional communist reaction is that the US should disengage and get out of Japan.

They don't want us out of Japan.

They may say that to you, but they don't want us there.

But I talked to Joe a while ago.

He didn't fool around about it.

He gave me the usual pattern, whatever they place, is you know how to sophisticate.

I said, let's just look at the situation.

I said, we're not going to be on Japan.

I said, it's not very interesting.

He said, what do you want Japan to do?

I said, here's Japan's economic giant and military dignity.

If the United States cuts off its military alliance with Japan, what's Japan going to do?

I said, Japan has got to make a choice.

And its choice would be to have to find somebody else

seem to be to them, the Chinese, to have us in Japan.

And of course, they're thinking that they're being our neighbor, too.

To have us in Japan is much better than having the Russians there.

Or much better than having the Japanese militarists there.

Don't you think that's a far larger ?

And the thing is that we, in these, I'm not suggesting that we can,

get everybody lined up in the House and Senate and so forth and so on to support this earth.

Except that one salutary thing about this election is that the governor has so drawn the issue the other way that it might be why we must cut back our defenses.

We must withdraw from our commitments here and there.

Everybody's got to get out of Europe and all the rest.

He's so drawn the issue.

that we can interpret the result, we will, whether it's true or not, it's irrelevant.

What we're not interpreting is a mandate not to do those things, and a mandate to maintain our strength.

So we will be in a much stronger position politically here than we've been over the last four years, yes.

We do have to take something out of the others.

No, sir, I have no intention of taking another thing out of your, in my view, I've said this a lot,

Because I frankly think if we do, I think that the Europeans will unravel.

That's my concern.

Well, yes, I was going to say to you this, that if by chance you had to take something out, I'd far rather see if you take something out or the Russians take something out than all the rest of the Allies.

All the rest of the Allies.

Of course, you would do it in consultation with his aunt.

I mean, it's the rest of the...

It's the Dutch, the Belgian, the Danish, as well.

They get on the bandwagon.

And I...

So I think that if you have to do this, you know, in consultation with Maito, I personally very strongly support what you've said.

Do you, Casey?

No.

But you know, I'm a bit of a...

And then the Germans are going to do, I think they are almost schizophrenic.

Where are they going to end up?

They've always been rather tempted to end up in the well.

Well, you know, too, you've got the situation in Brompton.

Yes, it's the Russians.

I didn't relate it to the Olympic Games, but when an East German one, the head of the West German blood, stood up and cheered to the echo, when the East German one was there, he said, Oh, check all the Germans.

I mean, the blood is very thick.

All the Germans.

I didn't know.

All of a sudden, you journey each one to the exit.

I don't think that unity is anywhere near, but I mean, there's this...

They want to be together.

Rushed by life.

But I don't know what you think.

I'd like to hear what you think, but this is the sort of nightmare that worries me, really, that, as I say, as they approach nuclear parity, nuclear thing becomes less credible.

then the Russians go on with their military program, and we in the West, by and large, are very reluctant to keep ourselves in any kind of reasonable distance in conventional weapons.

That, I think, could be very dangerous in the longer term.

Yeah.

So I think we in Europe have got to make an effort to do more.

We'll do something, but not enough.

I think there's an effort to do more.

Of course, in so far as you're able to,

I think it makes it easier for you to say to us and for us to respond.

It is incomprehensible.

I think we've got to... We are...

It's a pretty...

In a way, it's...

somewhat hopeful time for many people.

And it's almost too much.

It's a cliche to say it's also a very dangerous time because we all know what our views are.

I mean, we seek to, all of us, we seek to.

We don't want to dominate anybody.

We don't want to take over anybody.

We just want to be left alone.

We don't want to go to other stuff.

We know very well that their views are somewhat different.

I mean, they may say, well, we're only interested in the defensive.

We're only concerned about this and that and the other thing.

But just as the Germans and the East Germans cheer for each other, there's no question the communists, whether they're Russian or Chinese communists, they may, for reasons that are very good at the moment, not be an expansionary kick.

They haven't given up.

I mean, that's the nature of these.

They're going to continue to do it.

They will push and push and they'll stop when they're interested.

They will not be served by expanding at the moment.

That's why you have to watch everything they do.

You've got to watch them on the nuclear side.

You've got to watch them on the conventional side.

You've got to watch them.

And every move they make, like on the propaganda side, so we meet in the conference of European security and everybody dips glasses and all that sort of thing.

And of course, the intriguing plus factor at the moment, one that we did not exist as of a half dozen years ago, is the sign-off Soviet problem, because each has an unreasonable

I don't know.

Maybe the Chinese have more reason to do it than the Russians.

And of course, the Russians have got a lot of divisions lined up there against them.

And I guess the Russians are capable of creating this and taking a crack at it.

But over the long haul, I would think that the Russians would feel very comfortable.

I agree with the Shud term.

They shouldn't be worried.

But over the long haul,

They wouldn't be very comfortable about having 800 million Chinese, what you'd have them with, with M&D, because the Chinese can amount to something.

I mean, you see that great mass of people, even with that policy system, and Chinese are capable people.

They are capable people.

If you want to be able to describe any people as capable, they are.

And I think they're a long way off, but they're moving.

They're moving.

And I suppose that's what worries the Russians.

sees the Chinese, sees them growing stronger and growing stronger.

Do the Chinese think of every Russian rule in terms of Russia containing China?

Yes.

Yes, yes, I think so.

Well, the Chinese are far less guarded in talking about the Russians than the Russians are talking about the Chinese.

feel that it's a sign of weakness, I meant, for them to show that they are concerned about a thing.

They don't go talking about the Chinese much, but the Chinese, I'm sure you'll find the same thing in the media.

Back to the, I should pause a bit, during the formal partners, the Czechs will talk quite candidly of the Russians, and they remember every single instance as to what happened.

I mean, I can't recall them now, but there's a whole,

that you have, what happened in 1959, what happened in 1961, what happened in 1965, what happened of this border?

And there's just, there is an unbelievable distrust about the Russians.

They're concerned about where they are now.

They think that the whole business of the Indian Ocean is a plot for the Russians to continue in China.

They are, in fact,

They watch us closely and argue with the Russians constantly.

That's why we inform them as much as we can.

And inform the Russians and the Chinese.

But they don't like me wanting to raise the question of India.

I don't like to do any more than I guess that you do.

I don't know what people to do with it.

Because I, myself, think that the Indians were the dominators of the Russians.

Because I think we found that the Russians were the dominators.

It would probably be incredibly useful to say that.

Their attitude, the way I look at the Chinese the rest of the time is based on conversations and stuff like this.

They, well, while Zhou Enlai has traveled a great deal and does come over,

Their view of the world around them is still quite broken, quite broken, and it even is.

And so he looks around, and the way he sees the world is that he, and that's why the opening to us occurred.

And so they have no illusions about my attitudes.

The Russians on one side with border missions lined up against them in Western Europe.

They see the Indians on the south.

The Indians, the Russians, they fear and hate.

They just both fear and hate them.

The Indians, they have contempt for them.

They do not fear, but they have contempt.

They fought them in some sort of a little border business down there.

And they claim they just can't do anything.

Yeah, the Indians ran.

But they see the Russians, when their friends, the Pakistanis, were having their problems, they see the Russians punishing the Indians with arms and giving them moral support.

And they see, for example,

Well, they had contempt of the Indians.

They had the Indians backed by the Russians and controlled by the Russians to be part of the encirclement.

It's this passion about the encirclement that worries them.

Well, it could.

I mean, you know, it could be.

I just don't know about the Indians.

The Indians may be just too clever.

I think that's right.

The Indians are basically...

I look at Japan, with the Japan, the Japanese, they have a rather strange sort of a love-hate attitude, or a certain respect.

They respect the Japanese.

They respect them.

They do not presently fear them, but they fear them in the future, because of what they've done in the past.

They look at Japan, and Joe and I knows the

I can tell you how many steel holes they built, and where they are here, and all that kind of interesting.

And so he constantly is asking questions about what are Japan's intentions.

Of course, he's got them to knock by the time you get there.

But then they look around, and then the balance of the Pacific is the US.

They see that a whole pocket, well, look at this, they fear and believe the Russians have unfriendly intentions toward an expansion.

They think that the term that the Indians would if they could, and they believe that the Japanese might under certain circumstances.

They do not think, as much as they dislike what we believe in, that the U.S. would.

So that's why they turned to us, just to spin us cold for the proposition.

Now at the present time, I think it's well for them to be aware that they have

that they can rely on, I mean friends, not in a sentimental sense, but friends, interests.

They, for example, are very disturbed about any possibility of a reduction in NATO strength, because they think if NATO comes in and goes down, or even if there'd be a bargain or something, they think that would freeze the Russian man to turn against them.

So they're there for a strong NATO, they're there for a strong Western Europe, they're there for a strong United States on the other side.

And they want Japan legally protected by things.

But looking again at the Russian side, if the Russians didn't have that Chinese ball and chain, I think they would be a very difficult outfit to deal with.

They don't have this public opinion problem that you've got.

Sure, people say that, look, the Russian people want more consumer goods than the rest.

Of course they do.

But they have told us not to go to them.

That's what they do.

Well, they were that dangerous.

They were.

They were great.

They didn't think about Egypt.

They were going to put them back in Syria.

They read the would-be men.

And there, the Russians are tricky, and alive, and all that.

And the only reason that we've been able to

negotiating these agreements or whatever it is.

They're anxious to serve, that's all.

They migrate because they need to.

They make a soldier, I don't know why.

But, well, they just saw that it was a race of what it was gonna win.

But on the other hand, I can assure you, the negotiations, every missile that's negotiated, its size, the size of the hole, et cetera,

These people are, I don't have to give you the Syrian right, but they get down talking about all this stuff.

So they're not there for the purpose of making a pleasant agreement.

They're there for the purpose of doing it if they can, if they can.

And that's what the Chinese feel about them, too.

The Chinese feel that the Russians, when they sit down, are always trying to take

Is SALT II going to present problems for us?

I mean, do you think the forward bases and the exchange of information and this kind of thing about the future, I mean, SALT II?

Well, I think, yeah.

I would suppose that we would expect the worker-based business to be, because that has to be raised,

One, for us, I think actually it's going to require, for that reason, not the closest consultation, but some hard decisions about where we go.

You needless to say, you need have no concern about

What do we do?

These are raised.

And what can we do in ways that obey, that will be to maybe our advantage, the advantage of everybody concerned, rather than to theirs?

As I look upon this, they learn on this very, these negotiations on salt and so forth.

And as they...

not really an occurrence that most of our editorial writers do, is that the two world leaders sit down and want to reduce the rate to four and all that sort of thing.

But they look upon it as sitting down, negotiating, and trying to get in the better of the deal.

And that's the way we're looking at it, too.

That's the good side of ours, that we are just as tough as they are in negotiations.

And we will be, and that's another thing that's important, we will be getting undistracted by the elections in that respect.

Our elections, again, it's an issue that we're not going to go in there with any idea that we will even allow it, not build a B1 or go forward with our offensive research and so forth.

All this stuff is...

And that will mean that we will not, we won't have a situated view yet, but we have to realize that we've got an assault on our, it was really touch and go

Senate are winning the ABF vote by one vote.

Now if we hadn't had the ABF, there wouldn't have been an agreement.

Because we had to have something, with these fellows, unless you've got something to give, you're not going to get anything.

But by having that, they had something they wanted to get us down on.

So we did.

And we got them to make the limit agreement on offense.

at least slow down their role in the submarines and missiles and atmosphere.

And on SALT II, we'll be looking at each other from a very even standpoint.

Defensive, pros, and offensive, where to go from there.

Looking at the nuclear picture in Europe, just to remember it again, what would make sense, I would think, not perhaps in the next generation, the next 15 years, but after that, I mean, what would make sense to be a sort of triangular arrangement, with you and the French

How do you think we, how do you think with the French this could be achieved?

I would be certainly open, very open to the suggestion, the possibility.

That's one of the things I'd like for you to give some thought to, what we should do in this respect.

I would certainly have no objection to this.

In fact, I welcome it.

It just seems to me silly at the present time, the way it's working in the French United Forces.

those efforts before Evan said to come on, but right now is the time to do it.

Yes, the British, I mean, the French take this sort of view of, well, there must be a help to anybody.

There are things trying to be arranged.

We want the help of anybody.

We just have to share certain things.

There's a common, common goal that all people deal with and all their issues.

They're a great nation.

They must not depend on some other nation for its defense.

Well, that's a good point.

But it's really, in the present time, it's irrelevant.

I mean, it's just France.

France cannot defend itself.

You can tell them to come and get the penetration necessary to strike inside Russia.

That's yours.

And who can we?

I mean, he's right.

But on the other hand, we have to realize that you have a... We talk about the sizes of these forces.

And they're all very, very important.

I mean, it's just a question of how open are the Americans and the Russians to such an enormous amount of .

It's just, well, it's unthinkable.

It's not going to happen, in my view.

But I think that's why our ability to talk to the Russians, when we do talk from what is

our own minds a united front.

We may not talk unitedly because it might be unwise, but we've got to know what we want to come out with, and then we'll do rather well at it.

And also in our, that's as far as the conference is concerned, as far as our defense is concerned, we have to be very, it's a new look at it to see what is

and the Russians have the Chinese problem, which they didn't have before, and we're moving in arms control of the rest.

Now, what should be the future?

I don't think the dream path should grow at all.

And we also have to have in mind that public opinion in various countries, particularly in South European countries, is very important.

it would be increasingly difficult to mobilise for what needs to be done.

Can I switch you on to the Middle East?

I remember you saying to me...

It's stuck in my mind.

Ever since our first meeting after this last election, it's stuck in my mind.

You said to me, practically, that you thought this was an insoluble question.

Yes.

Well, I do still do.

Do you?

I think so.

Well, I've always been something of an insoluble...

I am.

Well, let's put it this way.

The attitude of the...

It may not be insoluble if a change in government occurs in Israel.

I think of the President's Honor, the lady and the hawks who are there, and they simply refuse to take the long view.

Now, I, the Israeli Prime Minister, I damn well settle with these things.

Now, the reason I would is that in the end, they are going

sitting there, surrounded by a hundred million of the, whatever they are, Arabs and so forth and so on, supported by the Russians, with the United States a long way off into European countries.

And they can say, sure, they can let the whole kit and caboodle of them, may not take them, may take them twelve days next time, or even six days, they know that, they're pretty tough.

But in the end, they're going to win.

Also, the burden is very great for them.

You know, they, that's a Spartan

They sit there, and they make this enormous contribution to the Jewish community from all over the world, and they're able to do it.

Right at the present time, they could make the right kind of a deal.

And they ought to.

They ought to do it.

Now, the point that they always say is that we will not.

We will be a long-winded cold, all right?

If you don't impose one, they're then saying what they have to do is to sit down with their neighbors and negotiate.

That's where all that ends.

The problem there is that when they do sit down, then their neighbors are sitting there and arguing about every little stick of sand in that miserable part of the world where it isn't worth fighting for, except for oil and things.

So I put it this way.

At the present time, when I say it isn't science,

present time.

The attitudes of both, in my view, are impossible.

There is a bunch of them.

The interesting thing is, however, the Russians don't feel uneasy.

The Russians feel uneasy about the things.

I think they'd like to get off their backs.

I don't know why that is.

I can't figure them out if they're just

It seemed to me it's pretty much in their interest to have the Arab countries all angry at the U.S. and so forth, and other friends of theirs are particularly us.

But it may be that the Russians feel that there is always the potential for confrontation.

But from the talks we had with the Russians, I must say, you would get that they very much, and are very hungry, they want to get something sent to the Mideast.

Now, apparently, one of the reasons may be that their Mideaster clients, particularly the UAR, are constantly pushing the Russians and saying, look here, you have got to do something about getting back our territory.

I suppose then that when you look at the possibility of settlement, and this is something we can't even prelude on for the present president, but you really look at the possibility of settlement, the Russians have to squeeze their side, and pragmatically we would have to squeeze his reins.

And I'll look at them.

The point is that as far as the Arabs are concerned, the Egyptians,

They have to take it from the Russians.

The Russians can make the Swedes as far as these ratings are concerned.

That's where it comes down to the Russian government.

They just may not be Swedes by anybody.

They just may not be because of their utter, you know, confidence in their ability to beat anybody and also almost a suicidal attitude that, well, we're not going

defend ourselves and keep these territories which we consider necessary for our defense.

And if you won't help us, what are we going to do?

Now, if you come down to it, they do need our fatals and the skylarks and all the rest that we provide.

They have always felt that here in this country that there was enough support for their cause that they could get from Hell or High Water, whether they were reasonable or not.

attitude at this point, election coming up and so forth, has to be one that tries to keep the issue in the background and reassures them.

And that's all we do.

It's always been a characteristic of American elections.

But on the other hand, as far as I'm concerned, my argument when I'm talking to any sophisticated, intelligent Jewish either in this country or in

You've got to be reasonable and make your deal now when your bargaining position is better than it's going to be.

That's what I say.

Now I can settle that.

You look at the problem of the borders.

You look at the problem of Jerusalem.

I don't know.

What do you think?

Yeah, I think it's a little bit of the same.

But I agree with you on the analysis.

And I said to myself the other day,

I said to her, I don't care, really, I think you really ought to take advantage of this situation, because I very genuinely believe the Egyptians are fed up.

And she said, well, I cannot give my way my last card if I withdraw from the territory before the negotiation is given.

I can't do it.

I won't have a card left.

And this is what the Egyptians are asking.

They're saying, you withdraw.

And this is where we stick.

Because I just did want to say, Mr. President,

They just came to us the other day, and they said they're kicking the Russians out.

And they said, could we help them to some extent with arms?

And so I said, well, I'm absolutely keen with you.

We will not give you offensive penetrating arms.

Better to do that slap out and we can't do it.

This could escalate the war.

But if you want some defensive system, well, we'll think about it.

And there is a thing called Strikemaster, which is a training aircraft of short range.

And this week

I think, by and large, if we keep this under strict control, this is probably a sensible thing to do.

Sure.

Then you have some leverage.

Hm?

Then you have some leverage, sir.

A little bit, yes.

But I'm not sure about it.

Well, nothing that induces us to celebrate offensive times, because I think that this would just make trouble.

Oh, I think it's a very good idea.

It's a lot better to have you there than the Russians, then.

Sure.

To me, of course, to speak quite candidly, it's a tragedy to have your policy and our policy in that whole Mediterranean area poisoned by these various situations.

It should never have happened in the beginning.

I think that was a mistake, but that's far, far gone.

But here we sit.

They're already 100 million after all the Egyptians, Syrians, and all the rest.

And sure, they may be poor, and maybe they can't fight very well with the rest of their people.

And they're also looking at a very, very bad situation.

They don't have a hell of a lot of resources.

And they're the gateway to the Mediterranean, the gateway to Africa.

And frankly, instead of just sitting there, sitting here, and constantly

controlled by the Israeli transitions is just not, doesn't make any sense.

I think we may, I put it this way, I think that the time to fight that bullet, however it is, from our standpoint, is after the election, not before, of course.

But we're doing good now anyway.

But I do think, I just don't think we should temporize with it at that point.

Because there is a chance that you'll have a confrontation.

You know, these people, the way they relate, these terrorists are just crazy.

So they knock off the Israeli Olympic team.

And the Israelis overreacted.

Bombs and poor, helpless Arabs.

And then, so that goes on.

But one of these days, it would go just a little bit further.

And then it would flare up again.

And we could have a real problem on our hands.

A very real problem.

Right?

So that's why we, at the other point, we said, apart from the fact that we want to get rid of it, we want to avoid a problem where

We've got to get this thing settled.

We have a hope to get some sort of settlement so that we can develop our constructive policy in the Middle East.

All the countries there.

I feel strongly about it.

Your position is not really much more encouraging than what we maintain.

At least you've been more in a broker's position than we have not been.

and I will have to amend those because of these domestic pressures, which are inordinate.

But they are not going to be that strong later, inevitably.

Mostly, I think, now, in the last few months, we've been doing a lot for the show.

We've been doing a lot for the show, but that bit is a fantastic character, and all about being rigidized and all that, just turning up the edges.

He will go on harping on this question of the islands.

In the last few weeks, I've done a lot of work on it.

I think the situation in Iran looks better.

You'll have to know.

I'll just say one thing.

At the finance meeting just now, the question was swiped.

Oh, yeah.

Yes.

And, uh, more or less, uh, took a different view about Schweitzer.

And, uh, unfortunately, he didn't, I think, quite realize that he was doing this in front of a lot of other people.

It looked rather like a conflict with you.

And he's right.

And tonight, you know, I said personally about myself, and I'll tell you, because tonight he might say something about it, and I hope that it's not very, you know, it has not happened to her.

I think he's gone.

I didn't want you to think this was intentional.

It wasn't.

It was something quite... No, I think this is a matter of fact.

John Connolly has always thought that he was doing the best for him.

Let me ask you this, if I can, one point.

Tony, let me start with something.

I feel very, very strongly that your government, its staying in power is very important.

And what can be done discreetly or in other ways

As time goes on, there's a way of cooperation.

You have only to ask.

Now, the point is that I know that you've had somebody who's telling me that they're making a photo show, that he popularly was lured out of that band and this and that.

These things, they all go, they don't mean a damn thing.

In my opinion, until, look how high Wilson was before the last simulation, and then he lost.

And so I think, but how do you look at

I think a terrible lot depends on whether we're able to solve this inflationary problem.

And the unpopularity of Ted is really because he said that we would lower prices.

So this is really the essential.

But if we could settle with the trade unions,

a reasonable sort of wage level, a reasonable increase, as opposed to the kind of 10, 15% rises we've been having.

If we can do this, then we can have a harmonious society.

If we had to confront trade unions and really almost go into a general election on some particular wage claim, because it's intolerable in terms of inflation, that might be a bad way, then we're making tremendous

He's had something to see to.

He's talking individually.

Yes, he is.

He's got them together, and the CBI.

And they're talking all the time now.

And he's put forward that proposition, which they're considering.

Now, I pray that we get a settlement of this, because a real confrontation with Australia is a sort of general election atmosphere.

You know, it's sort of... Unbelievable.

Yeah, too bad.

The worst, in your case, is ours, because most of our labor force is not organized.

We only have around 20 million on the base camp in Oregon.

Of course, they're powerful, but they have a tail of a wagon dog.

And we have a very, very proud of them here because of their enormous disenchantment with the government on national defense.

Our unions are leaders like me, tremendously.

They're sort of patriotic and all that sort of thing.

And also, they are very different about what they call the social issues.

So here we are in a very unusual situation.

At the present time, I have about the same amount of labor support.

That's never happened before, not since 1922.

But in your case,

problems in terms of the labor unions, basically.

I'm not speaking for the members, but the labor unions and the labor party are about one and the same, right?

Or how does it work?

How do you... Yeah, the labor unions encourage for the labor party, for the party to fund and say, I can say it, I can say it, very near each other.

And this is very good, because what's happened is I

I'm on the very left wing.

I'm very strongly communist influenced.

Now these folks have been making the racket.

And it's only just lately that the responsible leadership of the union have realised how much they've traded with the hands of their own extremists.

And they're trying to recover the position.

Which is good, but it hasn't got quite far enough.

I can't tell you over this minute sitting here whether we're going to be successful.

That's when you have to, when the agreements have to be made and so forth.

I don't think so.

I mean, I don't think, because if we can get the agreement further, that rather likely there's a let-out on the level of wages of the lower paid.

Now, there are a lot of people who, in fact, below 25 a week,

But there's a sort of psychological effect of saying everybody were brought up to 25.

Even though it takes only about half a million people.

You know, in the trade union movement, this was quite good.

Ted's working on this.

And then how you can get the people who really ought to have the differential differences to hold hard for a year or two, or at a lower level than they'd otherwise try.

And the CDI, the Federation of British Industries, has been helpful in that they say that they will have prices at a 5% increase, annual increase, whatever.

So there'll be ingredients here.

But this is really, when you're talking in terms of our government survival, this is only a problem, I would say.

Otherwise, we should be right here.

Sure, sure.

They were probably going to have a frightful round about Europe next week.

They really are.

They're going to fight about it.

How will they fight?

Well, I don't know.

This young boy called Ben, who is a sort of a large boy scout.

What's his name?

Ben.

He's a 40-year-old.

He was a president here at Wilson.

But now he's going flat-out against the government.

He's in principle.

You see?

And he's going to carry it also out to the left, particularly out to Norway.

Wilson is not a very good fellow to combat this army.

In a way.

Because he's very twisted.

He was very convincing.

And so you can see what happens.

And I wouldn't write a lot, because they have a tremendous split.

So this makes it all more important.

In a way, if we can get rid of this financial trouble with the unions, then I would think we'd be in very good shape.

That's the thing that the Labor Party has had.

It's interesting, in our situation here,

And his whole, basically me, the building trades, et cetera, is distinguished from Woodcock, who is the head of the auto union.

He's an all-out anti-communist.

That's his strong, strong suit.

And he's fought for the AFL and so forth and so on.

And that's the reason why he's taken a neutral position, but actually he's helping us, because he's cutting the gun all up to that end.

They later, we were confronted with this a year ago, and we kind of woke up to understand, but the unions, so, God, they just destroyed the country with this thing.

Johnston, it's unbelievable.

They just priced themselves, priced their goods out of the market, out of the world market, and their inflation eats up their wage increases.

It's like a dog chasing its tail.

Strong enough, in all these years of education, a man doesn't seem to be able to relate his own fortune to the fortune of his industry.

He doesn't seem to relate his own performance.

I think it's all just happening in one place.

You'd rather wonder, as a matter of fact, whether education makes it worse or better.

How times and how the education issue also is usually related.

road to education to solve all the problems in the world, and it made a lot of course.

Particularly, you see some of the people in the media and the rest of it.

I think it's an unbelievable, the attitudes some of them take.

It's these highly educated people, and God, they come off of these kooky ideas.

And here's, I've mentioned many years, but here's a fellow with no education.

He comes to the heart of the problem,

Isn't it very satisfactory that your young do sleep behind the government much more than they have?

I mean, you know, the sort of the government, the base of the bank.

Well, they expected, you know, when I say they'd be competent, they'd pick up eight million of the young voters.

And at least we didn't bear it out.

among college voters, those in college and young voters at that time, he has an edge perhaps of 64%.

Among those, and this is about 65% to 70% that are not in college, we have an edge.

And so it's sort of, I would say that by election time, it'll be about even among young voters.

But it's a wash.

The reason, I think, is that

that his ideas are just a little too far out for, the other thing is that, I think it's that the, well, the war has become much less of an issue.

You thought that was gonna be, and the war was a winner for us and a loser for him.

After a certain amount of time, people sort of began to be a little bit patriotic about it, actually, you know.

Sorry.

We were, and,

Well, for example, no draftees are going to Vietnam.

Our catchphrase is, none last week, one this week.

The withdrawals are continuing.

And sure, so you try to make something out of the bombing and that.

The pew and duck is, of course, still a difficult issue.

Just wrapping it up is a hard thing to do.

But the point is, it's an issue that, from his standpoint, just gets the way out of these things, the lefties.

From our standpoint, we get basically the blue collar, the hard head, the red, white, and blue, the farmers, the south, and a great number of you who just are turned off by a radicalism, a radicals, et cetera.

So that's rather hard to do in another sense.

But it was thought of here for some time that the wave of the future

the drug culture, the violence, the aggressiveness, etc.

And now, RU has permeated a great deal of culture.

A lot of it is currently, for example, the music of the 50s.

It was a start of more romanticism, more using

So even patriotism, it's a very interesting development.

And so this is very encouraging because they're the ones that are going to be running the place for a generation.

They're going to be all right.

Youth, as we all know, always, always, they tend to be more impatient, more ragged.

idealistic, it's all black and white or something and so forth and so on.

And all right, but the youth, the new youth, the youth, the new generation is coming along, particularly the high schools.

They're really doing extremely well, especially the colleges, particularly the high schools.

They are turning against us.

Now, the real problem here that we have in the American scene, you may see some of it, is basically

on what I would call the establishment.

By the establishment, I mean, and without taking it too overtly, it's the media in terms of the television

Some of the newspapers, like the establishment of the New York Times, the Washington Post, the news magazines, these are the eastern side.

The college professors, associate professors, instructors, and so forth, are overwhelmingly on the left.

And in the church, churches

particularly even in the Catholic Church, there's been considerable development, particularly in the Protestant churches.

Nor you've got this total pacifist run-down in the country, permissive attitudes, so forth and so on.

So here you find those groups that should be giving backbone and character, et cetera, to a society, just becoming a part of the people we have to depend on.

to stand with us when we had to make the tough decisions on defense and the tough decisions on Vietnam and the rest.

Curiously enough, the people we have to depend upon are the people that traditionally would not be our friends.

That's why we've had great portions of organized labor, but we naturally didn't have much of agriculture.

But what I'm really getting at is, I'm really not kidding too much about education.

our educational system, and particularly those of the great so-called fashionable Eastern Universities and great ones like the University of California, and is at the professorial instructor level, is so far that it poisons a lot of those that come there.

Now what has happened

where we eventually turned the professors around for me to proceed.

That's their question.

But the mother, I mean, I would like to think he had to be a contrast.

It would be a man.

Oh, yeah.

Remember that?

Marching around outside.

I couldn't, don't do any of them.

Remember you said you'd been around on the trip.

Well, anyway.

Well, we'll, you drop over about 7, 30, 35.

I'll pick you up.

Yes, sir.