Nixon, Moynihan & White House photographer on US-India relations

Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

Download transcript (.txt) · JSON data

All right.

Well, I guess that's it, then.

I have a...

I have a... strange hearing of the bull by this ear, then.

Well, it wasn't strange, then.

It's a long view.

Sit down here.

Stand here with two pictures for you.

Thank you.

Now sit down.

Take one.

Take one sitting.

And he said, well, my sir, that's what he thought.

And he said, I hear you right then and there.

You had important jobs.

You've done serious things.

Why would you want to go to a place like Indy?

Indy?

Suddenly you realize that, no, they have problems all over this country.

And that wasn't good, you know, but here was the administration saying that way.

Sure.

You know, Pope, basically, is racist.

He's had a lot of problems.

He cares nothing about Asia.

He cares nothing about Africa.

He always has been this way.

But the hell with him.

Tell me about it.

I was talking to a doctor at breakfast this morning about this.

rather absurd speech of hers.

You know, she's been acting rather dating rather well for a couple months.

And actually, there's a speech, you know, about us being a bunch of gang racers and that sort of thing.

And, uh, I think we'll have to wait a little while before rushing right out there to, uh, but we'll see.

We'll see who's even talking.

But, uh, what's your feeling about it?

Uh, you can say whatever you want.

I know the answers off the back of my hand.

And believe me, you must not, they must never get the impression that we're setting up for them.

And on the other hand, they must, they've got, you're not a human to go, you're a Jew to go in and say, I'm a liberal, I'm a Democrat, I'm always for you, and all that.

And your party has always been growing and progressing, and they've just got to know they're wrong.

In terms of the big world games, you realize we've got to watch playing India too much at the expense of what it's done to Pakistan because of our China.

Also because of the Chinese games in terms of more important than the Indian games.

And that's also one way to keep the Indians a little bit loose.

I remember I was stuck with her when she was here.

I said, what are the chances?

I know that you, of course, have always thought that the United States should change the tariff policy.

She called and she said no.

But I think what you've got to do is play

go ahead and love the people and all that sort of thing, which you can do, the very action that you feel in your stance with them.

In other ways, it's got to be a pretty icy-cold, tranquil relationship.

I think they'll appreciate you, us more, they'll appreciate you more.

It could well be, too, that after you get there,

I've been thinking about this for about two or three months as I was saying about these problems until I got a chance to be earned a job.

Maybe travel around a little bit and say, look, I just want to find out what's wrong with me.

You've never been in a situation like that, have you?

No, I haven't.

I'm telling you, I want to go again, Bill.

But again, I just want to see what's happening.

Please tell me.

Take the coach to her and all that sort of thing.

In other words, I do not strike too fast with her.

Right.

I think you'd be well, sir.

Have you talked to the ambassador you're supposed to be at the party for?

Oh, yeah.

He's an awesome guy.

Pretty good guy.

Yeah.

John.

And, uh... What does he have?

Easily.

What does he think about this man speaking?

Absolutely bad.

Why is that?

Well, I would think...

In the ages.

Yeah, I mean, she was just in the cheap thrill of talking to a bunch of Asian newspaper people, and it's that crisp-ass mind.

There is no indication that it represents policy, because she made a nice speech in Kathmandu yesterday noon.

She's up in Nepal right now.

Is that right?

Yeah.

I mean, it's just how do you resist it?

She also has sort of a bitchy way, like many, like most women, basically.

At just times, she's bitchy.

Well, this was all deep down.

Her mother and her father never went deep down.

They were basically aristocrats.

They don't like the British or the Dan.

They don't much care for the Americans because they were too close to the British.

And they like to hate the non-white world and all that sort of thing.

They don't like our China initiative because it puts China in a way that you cannot make with it either.

And that worries the hell out of them.

They hate and fear the Chinese and won't make them fear them.

And with the recent Chinese meeting, hell out of them.

They were given the spite.

So with all this in mind, we're sort of in the middle of it.

But it could be a time when our policies, our relations,

could become more healthy by being more frank and self-centered.

I mean, that's why we need them.

They need us.

I just put it this way.

And I put it this way to John.

John is a very high quality guy.

And not very close to him.

And he's got me.

He's got me.

Call him.

Call him?

Yeah.

Oh, right.

He's got him in your comments.

Yeah.

Oh, really?

We know his back?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

We do listen up there.

But it's literally...

He is bad.

He calls from here.

Oh, Jesus, well, he's not going to get to see me.

I won't let him.

In a way, I don't blame him one bit.

And so, in a way, I may have to have more traffic on that end with me talking to them instead of us people talking to this guy.

Yeah.

You talked to him.

Of course, he's been visiting him since.

But I think what we had better do...

I think we had better set up a party with you, and you could speak with her.

We had already done it in private.

a secure channel to us.

We've done that.

We have that in Germany.

We've only done it for about two years.

I want you to do that, and then what we will do is exact that instead of working through the call.

In other words, when you've got a problem that you don't want to discuss with the bureaucracy,

You know, true, I don't mean that they're all, they all lead and they're all bad.

Some lead and some are bad.

But the main part is when you think there's something that we ought to do directly or something you let us know here.

But also, you'll get the directives directly from us and you just have to deny that you have them.

And that does, when did you, what communication do you use in nature?

And I think they're good instructions.

There's a lot of .

I also, one of the talks with Billy Graham, he was just there, and you know, that's a very serious man.

He did a men's health and health care out there.

He's a great man.

He's a serious man.

He did a book on collagen.

I must say, well, that's not very good because I'm an art doctor.

We bring up those Baptist kids in Tennessee, you know, and just put everything around them and tell them how awful they are.

And that's a thing they call a serious mind series.

And whether they need a fellow to pray or not, I don't think we can still be Baptist.

Remind them that they're still going to have solid virtues.

There's one thing that I agree with, and we've got to...

The Indians want to buy a radar system, a factor communication system, a radar system, which they also have already had one.

We owe that factor 300.

This is the one-time exception.

And this is the problem.

And it comes down to what is in fact militarily not important, 300.

on personnel carriers, but as Bill Rogers puts it, it's not going to change the balance of military power at all, but it's going to look like the beginning of an attitude for a simple and purely mathematical reason.

The Indians have 398 families in the sea.

The Pax and I have 110.

They would suddenly have four.

I have 105.

They would suddenly have 400.

They suddenly have more than the Indians.

It would look like a revisionist position.

Henry was, nonetheless, prepared to go ahead with that against the general view that we should break it up and do something different.

And when I told him these numbers, he first said, gee, that's impossible.

And he thought, well, that would make a difference, these numbers.

And so he said he would reconsider that.

He would take them.

I said to him, I can tell you why I can't see you.

I don't even have to talk.

But that's just to be reconsidering.

And I know it would be very strong in Bill's view, and I think mine, that it's symbolically, it's not worth it.

We ought to give something else to the PAC.

Because we don't want, I mean, one of the things I'm going to include is the answer to something else.

Oh, yeah.

We've got to do that in order to make good on our track.

And also, it's not to the interest of the area to have Pakistan still in arms.

And I've got to start telling the Indians, look, they have an interest in the stability of Pakistan.

And they've got to start acting like that.

They want to be a big country.

They want to be the one big country out there where they are now.

And they've got to act like a big country, which is to be responsible about it.

Or I'll just start bringing in other people outside and all that business.

Could you reconsider and think of some way you could break it up so that you wouldn't get this numerical superiority that they could go and get it?

The only thing that bothers me is that if Indy goes nuclear, I think a lot of things are going to happen.

You know, next thing, Japan, Brazil, you know.

And they are basically like the first two seasons, you know.

And they didn't have this problem then, but I'm trying to figure it out, so I'm trying to discuss it with the kids, you know.

And there's some truth to it.

You know, there's some truth to it.

It's something we're going to be able to keep talking about.

But I think the less arms in the South and Asia, the better.

Look, there's the fact that I stand up by artillery after Christ's name.

I mean, there's almost 11% of the GST.

And there's still nothing.

I mean, there's 10,000 people in the country.

Whatever else it is, it's a self-sufficient nation of the arms.

They make their own things.

They make their own time.

And it's kind of hard.

I've got to stop.

But I...

Henry says we want to resume that day that was frozen in time.

I'll get the word from here.

I can just go in there and say it's okay.

There are two other things, which is...

There is something, too.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

And get back to... Two years later, we'll...

I've got...

but they want to get rid of all foreign aid by the end of the year in 1979.

Well, I myself can say, go ahead and say, okay, fine.

What do you say we work out phasing down our aid operations so that it doesn't come and it doesn't flourish?

You know, let them in the aftermath come to us and say, well, as a matter of fact, we can't.

So they can't.

I mean, they're heading for starvation again.

By the way, if the raids don't come this month, we'll let them see the obedience.

They spent a sixth of their foreign exchange in Chicago in December.

Five leaders, twice the price of the Russian guy.

And I'll say a word to us.

They may have to spend another third of their foreign exchange before June.

And some of them broke.

And there's only one second left in the world for the next week, next year.

And we haven't got a checklist that we can get rid of because we have not quite a slot in the market.

And if we give them a dollar a week, it's always coming to sell to you.

So we will, at least if you want some early returns from us, and if it looks like they're going to make a lot of money next year, they can work out a general degree of relations, not to take so much that there's nothing left.

The price structure goes to hell here, and there's nothing left for India to pay very much more than any money in the United States.

If we have to come to health with them, well, then I'm going to have to make that decision.

But there's no more third-plus weeks.

It's done.

The other thing is in these instructions, which kind of follows the statement of your message last year and so on, we have a billion dollars worth of rupees over there.

from this block, the 040 out forward.

And you sent, I forget the line you sent, Raymond Saulnier out there in 69.

They wanted out of this.

And he came back and made a very sensible decision.

He said, you know, this is a billion dollars at maturation in the year 2010.

It's five billion dollars.

And the rate is going by the year 2040.

We're going home Indian.

We're going to stay home Indian.

But in a funny way, it's something in between us and them.

We own a third of that currency.

And we have people who are always scurrying out there, thinking of plans to build a dam here, or save the tiger, or do some first and foremost.

I think it's so necessary that what we should do is to work out an agreement that over the next 5, 15 years,

They will continue to pay full expenses of American activities, which they now do.

About $50 million a year.

And at the end of this agreed-on period, cancel the whole thing.

Create a small foundation that will do certain things in memory of American aid, but not make a lot of money.

This is what the Germans have set up this Marshall Fund on this year.

But then get out of the way and say, we're never going to

I think the idea of getting rid of it is pretty important.

Does that make a special sense to you?

You know what I mean?

It just never crossed my mind.

I don't know.

It seems to.

Why don't we get it?

Why don't we try to get a decision on it?

I mean, why don't you...

I'll tell this, Joe.

It's in these papers.

Henry has got it.

Henry passed on it.

And I'll tell you...

He thinks that you feel that way.

I mean, it wouldn't have any effect... Well, that would be my feeling on this.

Basically, it's like the forgiveness of the World War I.

Thanks.

Would it help us if we never got it?

We should have gotten it earlier.

As it was, it was a hell of a problem.

It may have contributed to what happened.

In this one, I think it does make sense.

I think it does.

Let me ask you this.

Talking to Bill this morning.

Well, my wife packed up and took the place to Rome to meet me there.

And I was going to go off Saturday night and spend a couple days in Rome and arrive at the end of the next week.

I could spend a week in Rome.

That's what I would do.

Just get down there.

If you will, I think that we should go out there.

It's well paid to spend a week at home anyway.

It would be nice to have a little break, a little vacation.

Two weeks later, I just made her a damn speech.

Go ahead.

I thought I had one thing that you had to present here.

I thought that since your wife already on her way to the others, you spread it to them.

You basically would be not sleeping.

You won't be right there for two weeks.

It won't take you long to get there.

Well, about ten days.

I won't be there next Monday morning, which I could be.

Don't do that.

That's too soon.

Yes.

I'm just delayed a week, and I would just be dangly sure about it.

Okay, and I'm going to be very cool with yourself.

I would be terribly cool.

I wouldn't say a lot.

I wouldn't.

trying to come in with a splash and be impressive.

Because they were very active and very intelligent.

And also, though, they do spend a lot of time with the bureaucrats.

And they're good bureaucrats.

And they're all around each other.

But nevertheless,

There are, there are people, I would, I would, I think you're going to start a little, I mean, just give it, without getting us kind of suspicious enough to, for you to know everybody.

I think it's the Great Sun.

Great Sun.

You were going, it was, there wasn't any, there was a question that was sent, sent in a letter.

We had a letter, yeah.

Shall I have a letter to her?

Yeah.

Can I ask General Snowthorpe what happened to the decision about the other day?

Well, I didn't know how it was all set except for her speech.

Yeah.

Now I don't have to be regretful.

One, you should get one.

You tell Snowthorpe that I won.

And I want a personal letter to go over to you, too, sir, that it should be not cold, but they can point

relationship.

It's interesting to note, from a political standpoint, you are a Democrat.

That, therefore, this is an indication of our bipartisan approach to the problems in our relationships.

We hope that you're coming here as well.

There won't be much of it.

Listen, I have one other play there.

All right.

I'll turn you off.

All right.

I don't want you to sleep with other people, don't sleep with her.

Nixon, Moynihan & White House photographer on US-India relations

AI Summary

Audio

Transcript (AI-generated)

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on February 8, 1973

Cite this conversation