Nixon, Kissinger & Downey on Gridiron dinner and Nguyen Van Thieu

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He just told us that we're not going to do the gridiron.

I think that's a problem, Mr. President.

One thing that's very hopeless has to do with the schedule that I'm in.

I would like to ask you to do that, and I think that Budo could come the 10th.

If Budo isn't coming, Mr. President, that's a misunderstanding.

It's a delegation of his that's coming.

What is it, a delegation?

I don't understand that.

what aren't you doing yeah all right is there any of that in foreign no you should spend time with them and be very important very helpful with the chinese

Um, yeah.

But why not, uh, why not?

But if you gave us that, then that would be a very direct slap at the Indians.

And that would go very well.

Huh?

He's the only Secretary General of the Foreign Office.

I see, I see.

Which is great to know you.

Well, there's probably nothing in it.

in that period, there's somebody to be coming here.

Well, let me, you might be here in the country.

All I want, I don't want anything, but I want to be with you, just to stay.

You know, we have done, you know, so we could go forward and ask you for an important one.

Of course, you haven't been in large music at all, have you?

Oh, well, I've been.

I did the first two and then the next two.

The first two and then the next two.

Oh, no, that's no problem.

I mean, I don't need an event necessarily, but I'm just assuming it's a little easier to have one.

Yes.

If an event will take a few other people, right?

No, I wouldn't invite any conference.

I don't want to hear you, but we're banging there again.

And it doesn't.

Maybe I'll work out something for you.

But I think it's literally right up that face for them to let them govern.

Well, basically, first, they lean that way, let's face it.

And second, the other reason is that I think that they have, in times past, they have invited me, most of the time, to be the candidate.

Stevenson was invited.

Julian was invited.

I was invited.

I did not go.

in any normal campaign.

And when he fought really what must be the lowest campaign, when he made it an issue of morality, when he accused you of moral unfitness, when he accused you

could be trading a hoax of the American people.

Well, I think that the point that Nate made was the most, uh, horrible thing that's happened to me.

I heard the other day, you know, Mr. Travis Beard, the old crap about good sports, and I saw that doesn't really help.

The point is, and he keeps yours, that, your point, really, you give him a chance to rehabilitate himself.

Exactly.

Why should you do that?

Because he can go there and fall flat on his ass, Aaron.

If he falls flat on his ass, he's doing no more than he's always done.

If he does anything at all, he is getting lovelier.

He has everything.

Nothing.

And a little collusion.

A little collusion.

And if he were very smart with you there, he'd give a very conciliatory and generous speech.

And then he'd be a statesman again, and the son of a bitch doesn't deserve it.

No, he can't get off now.

Look at the way he's handling himself and everything.

God damn it, man.

It's just unbelievable.

But you know, I was going to say that a reflection on our talk last night, and I think I said, you know, that I came together about three years ago, and there was a question on the ground, and I had some ideas.

Can we make it at 3.30 because I have a reporter coming in?

Good.

Well, I'll have him come in in a little bit.

No problem, no problem.

3.30 is fine.

It's just a purpose to get us out.

I've now worked out the White House correspondence.

They should do it from the 7th to the 4th.

So now we've got 10 days in California.

That's what we do.

I think you should go forward with the two of us.

I'd like to get that announcement out very fast.

I'll get working with you.

Who are we still sending?

Great America?

Definitely.

Yeah, we should.

I noticed that there was some speculation that Sullivan was going to be done.

But he's for the Philippines.

He's for the Philippines and he's a little bit too much of an intruder.

to be in Saigon.

I think Martin is rather detached.

He's a communist.

And he's also from Southeast Asia.

Not as well as Solomon.

But he spent years in Bangkok.

And he's a totally armed man.

That's it.

And so we've got to... That's another thing that's important to me.

Yeah.

No, it is best we have it listed out there.

First, we've announced it.

You know, the other point is, we've announced it there, and I put it in Washington.

That's a hell of a big story.

Looks like we're elevating it.

See?

I think this is like the gridiron dinner, Mr. President.

You have very little to gain to have it here, and you might have something to lose.

But you see, there's not going to be any in front at all of him to have it there, because I said that he wanted to come there.

You said that?

That he comes on to Washington.

That's his vision for it.

And the Vice President can give a big affair for it.

Let me ask you one other thing on the China intersection.

I like the two men you suggested.

But here is something, if you well realize, where if we had Bruce, I wonder if we couldn't offer you Bruce.

I'd have to check it with the Chinese whether we want someone quite that visible.

I, you know, our mind has been really working very similar.

Oh, I didn't know you had a concussion.

I have all the, all the, all the, I mean all of those that supported us on Vietnam, over to the receptions.

You know, I had them once before because I had to listen, listen to the hawks.

Oh, just on land.

Excellent.

If I decide to do something, you should come if you can.

Good.

Yes.

We're inviting, we're inviting all the Joint Chiefs.

I'd like to come.

And, uh, it'll be, it'll be brief.

If I could, I could shake a hand and all that.

uh i know mr president our minds have been working on exactly the same wavelength i was thinking after i left china why not david bruce and uh i think he would he would know if he's had such judgment

And of course they love old men.

We could have the two others.

If we had Bruce Jenkins and Holdren, we would have one powerhouse teacher.

I'd like to get rid of him.

There's no reflection on him.

He'd be good there, but I need a somewhat more intellectual .

You see, we want to keep it.

Bruce will play our game.

He'll keep it on the same channels.

Everybody, of course, would want to.

But we must not let this go to a career gap.

You must not.

Oh, Mr. President, if you send it to real men, then you might as well.

You're better off not having them.

Well, they will understand.

No, they'll understand the game.

But the here...

It's like the statement we made on the ambassador to Cambodia.

You remember?

I told you that.

You were... We didn't feel good about him.

I did, but I was wrong.

I didn't feel good, but I didn't see his weakness.

Well, I just... Well, you have... You can sense it.

You can sense it.

When I look back, Mr. President,

I don't know.

Well, Cy Vance, for example.

I thought he was a great statesman.

What the hell does he think of the artist?

He's a cheap, tawdry little guy.

You know, it's interesting.

We haven't heard a word from Vance.

We haven't heard a word from Clifford.

Clifford knocked him.

Well, when I met him, I told him that he had knocked him.

He knocked him on the ground.

We had gotten it earlier.

No, he, he analyzed all the frequencies, but, uh...

I don't know about his face, he didn't realize what he was doing.

He's Derek Kelsey, Kelsey Stuntz.

Right, but I know this, though, Mr. President, is among even the liberals, I think among the public, you are probably in the best position you've been in your public life.

Well, we have... Not in the sense that I'd be...

And then it has to be over having to have a wife in Congress now.

Now, sometimes it's the other thing.

Now, you have been proved consistently right.

That helps.

I talked to... That is the television.

Yeah, I have your story, so that's all.

Do you have any, because Henry's been gone, do you have any other foreign visitors that, I don't know, should be a foreign visitor and take too many people away?

Who else has been wanting to come in around that period?

Do you know what I mean?

Yes, sir.

Mr. Haldeman has that listed on a form of visit.

A form of visit?

That won't do.

That's what we're talking about.

I know it would, but I'd like to check.

Yeah, well, it won't work.

That's the point.

You don't want to work for it.

It's a physical work.

You have to pull people away from the area.

That I don't want to do.

That's okay.

I understand.

As a matter of fact, I think probably the, I mean, it wouldn't appear on the grid record.

I think this would be very challenging.

Because I don't know why you just can't leave town and do something somewhere else in the country.

Except I have to be here Sunday.

Well, all right, come back.

I, I just think,

Of course, the other point is I just don't leave town because I know I just can't come.

I would not appear on the same program as McCubbin after the things he said.

Oh, I'm good.

It isn't because of that, but it's because after the election he hasn't had the grace to show any indication of support.

He didn't come to your inauguration.

He was vicious.

He wasn't generous after the settlement.

And you can value Turek's things, say.

If he were really smart, he'd do there what he hasn't done at all, offer conciliation and so forth, and everyone would say, yes, the part is mixed.

And if you pick it up, then you have followed his initiative.

So you love all his things?

If I'm not there, what he says will not be long-running.

If I'm there, it kills it out, too.

That's right.

That's an olive branch to you.

It's, uh, you don't need his support.

Those sons of bitches.

All right, well, we're never gonna have him.

Let's face it, if you don't stick, your role, your role, I mean, you say that the only time, the only time the left is supportive is Henry.

It's when we move toward them, never when we have moved away from them.

That is right.

And even when you move towards them, it was just a way to get you on treacherous ground.

You could have done the Kennedy program.

But I think, I thought, so did Luxembourg for example, who actually is a good man.

That's all I thought.

They didn't attack you, did they?

He said, you have no sense what pride Europeans now feel that President Nixon is leading the West.

I said, well, I want you to know that a lot of war has gone on in our attitudes here.

I said, the main reason the President did it was for Europe.

He had nothing to gain from Vietnam.

Nothing would have been easier for him.

I said, if he used excessive force,

Or extreme force it was to bring home to potential occurrences that when the United States is challenged, there's no limit.

Who is the beneficiary of that?

Not Indochina, but Europe.

Indochina.

That's all of them.

Because they're endless states in the Middle East.

But I think the Japanese are going to be the worst winners to us than the Chinese before the next second.

They're going to be safe by that time.

The Chinese will be.

I think that our Indian program of working with the Chinese can have great possibilities.

But that really has to be done by you and me.

Hello.

This is too dangerous.

You know, I was thinking that, uh...

But it's amazing.

I thought exactly the same thing about David Bruce's shooting.

I think it would be a very nice thing.

Oh, is it here to give you those two calls to make those?

Yeah, three.

Tomorrow morning.

I want to call the brother.

You can call his brother this afternoon.

He's absolutely fine.

The trust rate can't be discouraged.

Let me get his...

When you get his brothers, I want to get his brother's phone number.

In case he says he's here, if you had his number, write the brother the number, and hand that to me, the number of the brother, give it to the White House office, and put it all through the Oval Office.

Then I'd call the two of you, right?

Yeah.

You can talk to Donnie before yourself.

He's all right.

He's good.

After this, I can give him a funding tag.

That works.

If you want to, but you do it.

I'll tell it to him.

I thought that you were just the opposite.

You have some good news that you were going to leave on tomorrow.

You have to be held.

You know that bandwagon?

That's fantastic.

I'll bet you that old man is walking on air.

You know, that's pretty rewarding for me.

It's always

And it's a beautiful little touch.

I mean, just as they played those two numbers, just as in the score of Table, Tennessee, all the songs they played in two languages are played home in America, the beautiful...

Every single one of them is in there.

I'm going to get a print of that film because it is the best propaganda film for America that I have seen.

Done in a delicate Chinese way.

And the best thing about you, I mean, you come bouncing out with your hands out, you look young, you look vigorous.

When you greet the table tennis team, I thought they could have shown you in ten other poses giving this speech.

But they show you coming out of here, and coming out with your hand outstretched to the Chinese sea, and you look young and vigorous, and... And you know, you know how these TV people can kill you.

I was really terribly touched.

Well, it's...

We were, regardless of where we do go from here in terms of the European issues, I think it's good to talk about it.

I have been doing a lot of thinking, and I have, when I was over at the Chiefs, I gave a lot of them.

I said, no, I haven't really had any problem with the NATO thing.

I do think you will be fine.

I don't know who you can talk to about that.

I can talk to Abe about that.

You see, they all may think that I have to do something right.

I don't know if they've become that thing.

We've done it for four years.

That's fine, man, but we need a hundred more meters down there.

He's too connected.

He is almost totally conventional.

He thinks in terms of what I started.

Everything in the world has changed.

I've got a fine mind, but it's a little...

But why the hell else could he do it?

If he didn't, he isn't.

He doesn't retire at any age.

But shouldn't he retire in space?

He should retire, shouldn't he?

Basically, of course, we should never have made any of the treatments, sir.

That was one of Laird's deals.

Returned for April.

He is no good.

I mean, I can find him.

He's no good.

I can tell him that.

He's no good, sir.

He's a good guy, sir.

Oh, right.

So we don't know that.

It's a four-year term.

You can get rid of them after two, but I think it would be dangerous to move them.

How about the situation in Paris about it?

The other thing is we've got to have some talk about this in the Middle East.

We've got to be sure that we take the initiative and don't just start doing this in Paris.

I just had a conversation with Dr. Kissinger.

We have some good news for you.

Dr. Kissinger will be reading the press tomorrow.

So this conversation must be held until then.

But I thought you would like to know that in his talk with the Chinese...

On my visit in February, I raised this issue very strongly.

And they have said that, not immediately, but at the end of this year, that they will, they have a procedure whereby they can review a sentence of an individual and then could invite their behavior to take action.

And they've indicated on the register that positive action will be taken and that your brother will be released.

Toward the, I don't know as to the exact date, but toward the end of this year.

I mean, they may come a little sooner than that.

My guess is that we don't, but the main point is not to press it, because we have it all on the track.

And so that's, yeah, I'd like to have Dr. Schlichter.

Well, that's the whole point.

The city's going to make a public announcement, which I think that should be, that's the reassuring thing.

They would never allow a public announcement unless they were going to go, so we feel very good about it.

And we wanted you to tell your mother, I understand she's not well, and I called her, but she wasn't well, but I wanted her to get to two people here from the college.

Well, we could have done it sooner, but as you know, we've worked hard and we've been impressed with that.

In this case, the diplomacy might be made off.

Here's our gesture.

We may give you a mark.

Good luck to you.

Not at all.

It's been a privilege.

What they've said is that they will do the sentence on the second time of this year.

And they have a provision for time off and good behavior, and if your brother's behavior has been excellent, then he's in excellent health and excellent spirits.

Secondly, I have pointed out that your mother is ill. And they said that if the president pointed out to them that the mother was ill in the second half of this year, they would move into an earlier period in the second half of the year.

And I'm certain the president will do that.

So I would think that by early fall, the delay should be out.

But our intention, frankly, is that the President would write a letter to Joe in July, which would make it the second half of the year.

And that at some reasonable time afterwards, we're sure that he'll do it.

And what they will permit us to say tomorrow, but they don't want anything said until then, you know, how many things they can say now, is that they have assured us that they have provisions in their legal code for review of sentences in case of good behavior that different misbehavior has been good and that sentence will be reviewed in the second half of this year.

They will tell us, they will not let us say more than that, but that in itself is a practical guarantee.

I think you're right.

And, and, but so it has told me when I said that we have this interest because of your mother's illness.

They said that it depressed him and pointed that out to him in the second half of this year, which we will interpret as July, from shortly after July 1st.

That would weigh very heavily to them.

And I can assure you our experience with the Chinese has been that when they say something like that and get the presence, they are personally involved and there's no chance of it going wrong.

Right, and you'll teach that as you get everything out, see?

I mean, of course you'll tell your mother.

But you can mention it tomorrow after, after what you can mention, because...

Right, but you've been, I want you to know that in very difficult circumstances, the President really appreciates that you've behaved like a gentleman.

I told him, for example, that you had raised it.

Well, that God damn Kennedy has made such a

It's another one of these things where you've done what the Kennedys have talked about.

I've now read the Bailey book from cover to cover.

What do you think?

I mean, even now, it has nothing to do with the advice of the Kennedys, but it does deal with the process of public relations and the brilliance of their policy.

I mean, they made every failure a life success.

Well, but also his point that this day was the policy of expectation.

By you, he doesn't say that it's really the policy of performance.

From the 11th chapter on, it's really fascinating, as far as all the analysis is concerned.

But here is a man who really didn't succeed at nothing, who said himself, nominally, a goal.

You have produced a major evolution.

I believe also that you have a major impact now on the American consciousness.

You feel so?

Yes, because you have done everything you can.

You're driving me.

It's one of those things.

Had we gotten in these before meeting the act of the election, it wouldn't have had such an effect.

Ironically, if we hadn't had to go through the hell of bombing, and if we hadn't had to see the signs of the inauguration, the murderer, the bombing on Plum Thirsty, it would have all been a universal reaction to the world.

we would not have had knowledge of the reaction we were having because now, if ever there was any doubt about the strength and so forth, you just had to be erased from that.

And so therefore, much as we hated to do it, it was right.

And it's nothing.

You wouldn't have had these people who are basically your own bonkers.

You wouldn't have had them come off that plane from their head side.

He's talking this way.

If we had sort of had a half of a settlement, what they agreed is the way we got it.

They had, you know, Mark said to me, he said, as I told you, he said, these folks, we won the war, he said, or he said, if they lose that war, we won the war.

You know,

If they had suffered for eight years, just so that you could get fucked out of Vietnam, it'd be a shame.

Then they'd really do it again, sir.

Only thing that makes their suffering worthwhile is a decent outcome.

And if their suffering were capped by a disaster, it would be impossible.

I think you have no idea, Mr. President, that the devastation and actually both Sullivan and I, every member of my team, we were just like...

You look at that airport, that military airport, which was out of commission for three weeks, and it looks like a moon landscape.

Sure, they fixed it, I'm going to say that.

But those buildings are level.

I looked at some revetments.

They are flat.

There's no airplane to be seen on that field.

That thing is gone.

It's just a strip now.

The civilian airport is gone.

And, uh, it's... but also the strength and the loneliness.

Well, they talk about a political reasons.

Well, that damn Johnson took him out.

They want to come take him.

Nothing.

The football, until the end of 67, until almost 68, he was still there.

And then the party went out, started streaming around, and Johnson resigned.

You haven't surrendered.

No, and if they had had a tentative offensive against you, you would have poured it in.

You wouldn't have resigned under pressure.

You wouldn't have said... Sheriff, Keno is here.

You want to sit in while I talk to Keno?

On the U.S., I mean, yeah.

Why don't you sit in?

Excuse me.

Oh, oh.

Oh, he's USIA?

Yeah.

Right.

I'll just check in my office for a minute.

No, no, no, no.

I'll just check in my office for a minute.

Nixon, Kissinger & Downey on Gridiron dinner and Nguyen Van Thieu

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Also recorded on February 21, 1973

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