Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 866-016
Date: Thursday, March 1, 1973 at 12:41 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Ziegler, Ronald L.; Kissinger, Henry A.
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/866-016

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:04] The question is, I'm pretty well covered on everything except how I would handle the question of moving toward, in other words, the Ofsted Center.
[0:26] In other words, now that you've met with Hussein, Ishmael.
[0:31] Well, I have to say this, that I
[0:36] We've had very frank talks.
[0:43] We've been constructing.
[0:47] This is however, we didn't realize the
[1:07] We're still very far apart.
[1:10] We don't want to raise great mature hopes, but at the present time, we think these talks are very instructive.
[1:38] Thank you.
[1:54] We don't want to get the ideas because we're rushing around and you're talking to Ishmael and the team in charge.
[2:02] There's a great big diplomatic initiative and they'll ask every week, well, how are you doing?
[2:07] We don't expect results soon.
[2:09] It's been a very long competition there and it takes time and negotiations are going to be easy.
[2:57] Well, Monday's okay, but I do think that they're annoyed at the development of the city.
[3:04] Tomorrow.
[3:04] The off-dead center question.
[3:07] Yeah.
[3:17] In other words, the President said when Dishnail was here, the objective was to move on.
[3:24] Try to get this discussion on.
[3:26] Senator, she said that too.
[3:28] We can certainly discuss the prospects of negotiations with the ladies.
[3:35] I'll say what Brent said.
[3:38] I'll say what Brent said.
[3:40] Well, you might have to give what I had to give to Brent.
[3:43] I'm here to serve so that we don't raise
[3:52] What do you mean by saying this?
[3:56] Very frank talks that have been constructive.
[4:01] Various parties have stated their position.
[4:04] We don't want to raise premature hopes.
[4:09] I think talks have been very destructive and paving the way for negotiating some of these differences.
[4:16] Some of the...
[4:20] Yes, they may expect that we don't want to raise hopes, and then go to the last thing I said, that this has been a long...
[4:27] It's been a long confrontation.
[4:28] Negotiations on matters such as this are not easy or instant, and there's no...
[4:35] They should not expect an immediate result.
[4:38] That's fair.
[4:39] I see.
[4:39] Immediate result.
[4:41] But on the other hand, we...
[4:46] We always follow the policy of not raising hopes in difficult areas, but we're working on the problem.
[4:56] Why do we say that?
[4:58] We are talking to various parties.
[5:01] And the ultimate line is that the settlement must be
[5:12] ultimately reached by the nations involved.
[5:14] I wouldn't get into it.
[5:15] Stay away from that.
[5:16] I have to say that when they ask me.
[5:18] You have to say it.
[5:19] But you should say it.
[5:20] I always have to say that we won't.
[5:22] You say that, the Egyptians did.
[5:24] The Israelis will love it if you say that.
[5:28] The Israelis will adore it.
[5:31] You see, the Egyptians...
[5:32] I don't need to say that.
[5:34] I didn't just leave it here.
[5:36] We remain ready to work with the parties toward a peace.
[5:39] Well, that goes already too far again, what you have here this time.
[5:45] We are talking to the parties.
[5:47] We are talking to the parties.
[5:49] We don't want to raise your hopes.
[5:52] This is a long confrontation, and we should not expect an immediate solution.
[5:59] However, we are talking to the parties, and we will continue to talk to the parties.
[6:09] We have had these discussions, and these discussions, with all the parties concerned, will continue.
[6:18] How's that?
[6:19] Now, that's just good.
[6:20] Okay.
[6:22] It will continue.
[6:23] That drives the chips right back into the public channel.
[6:26] Oh.
[6:28] Well, I can leave that all.
[6:30] We've talked to all the parties.
[6:32] We've talked to all the parties.
[6:33] And we'll respect your name.
[6:45] They do try to be mediated.
[6:48] I mean, if they really try to, I think you could say, at some stage, there has to be direct talks between the parties.
[6:55] I mean, that we've always said, that the Egyptians have agreed to.
[6:59] But you don't want to make that decision.
[7:00] Don't volunteer.
[7:01] At some stage, there can't be a settlement in this area.
[7:05] Without direct talks.
[7:06] Without direct talks.
[7:16] That's right.
[7:17] That's good.
[7:19] All right.
[7:19] Good.
[7:19] Fine.
[7:19] Perfect.
[7:21] You're going to breathe now.
[7:22] Very well.
[7:23] Now, the reporters from Israel are going to sit here.
[7:30] Right.
[7:32] Okay.
[7:35] I'm done.
[7:37] That wasn't tough.
[7:39] Wait.
[7:41] The blood of John.
[7:45] position that he talked to the Egyptians and Russians, they would have been hanging from the ceiling.
[7:52] That's been a fixed position.
[7:54] I mean, you sort of, and all of them.
[7:58] So, of course, they have had a lot more confidence in you.
[8:02] Well, they figured we're not going to screw them.
[8:05] Now, did they, is the position that they had suggested really something that they had?
[8:09] They had a position in my ability at all.
[8:12] Well,
[8:13] Their position, now I think their position has liability, and I think the position itself, the Egyptians will almost certainly accept where the hang-up will occur.
[8:25] The only hang-up in their position is going to be, they cannot keep the withdrawal, I don't know whether you, but she said after the pass, that's quite as much as they've ever talked about it.
[8:44] I don't think you plan to sit down and go through that.
[8:48] Well, that's my point.
[8:50] I feel that the lack of liability and the trouble with their position is they will only let police forces cross the canal.
[9:00] The Egyptians will want to put some military forces across.
[9:03] That's going to be a hang-up.
[9:06] All the others, I think, are acceptable.
[9:07] A big hang-up is going to occur, and I don't know how to look the other way.
[9:22] one general president, we'd be all free.
[9:27] But what we can get Cisco to do in about two weeks, it shouldn't happen all that eagerly, is to propose a procedure for talks on an interim settlement.
[9:40] That will get us into a lot of procedural crap for four weeks.
[9:43] By that time, I will have had another talk with the Egyptians.
[9:48] If the Egyptians give us
[9:51] give us vague general principles, then we can really move full speed into the substance of the other position and do it in our channel.
[10:03] Yeah, as far as we're concerned, your main problem is getting the principles vague enough to be a very legal substance.
[10:09] That's right.
[10:10] If we can get vague general principles, then we're in business.
[10:16] You don't think you can probably get that?
[10:18] I can't tell you.
[10:20] This last session, we've achieved one thing.
[10:23] The Egyptians are planning to get us involved, and they will have to pay some crunch.
[10:29] It would be unthinkable that they'd come to us now.
[10:33] And I've sent you our word.
[10:34] It's coming to you.
[10:35] You've judged for yourself the memo of the conversation.
[10:39] They'd be more specific in detail now.
[10:42] I wouldn't expect that, as you told Ishmael, why would they give away their position?
[10:48] the first session.
[10:51] So they said they'd go back and study it and come back to us.
[10:55] If they give us a, if they have a movement, then at some point they may have to squeeze the Israelis into something.
[11:02] We've got to tell them we're not squeezing them.
[11:07] So that's the biggest thing.
[11:11] The position itself for an interim agreement is still going to be tough, but that, I think, is manageable.
[11:18] Good.
[11:18] You know, as a matter of fact, I was thinking of this conversation.
[11:23] We do that with our three parents.
[11:28] Now, this is James.
[11:30] And the way that it can be ordered, that matter, Johnson, you know, Johnson is.
[11:41] For God's sake, say it.
[11:42] The problem is, the problem is really what somebody that's in college says.
[11:46] There's got to be something.
[11:48] You've got to go around.
[11:48] You've got to hang out with something good at the beginning, then come back with something else, and then come back.
[11:53] And you knew exactly where you were going.
[11:55] I mean, basically, you cut their requests on production by two-thirds.
[12:01] They'd ask for 300.
[12:02] They're down to 100.
[12:03] You didn't give them any specific commitments on their part, but you made them like it.
[12:10] That...
[12:11] And also that you prepare your meetings very carefully.
[12:14] And then we also say we weren't linking anything, knowing that we will.
[12:18] I mean, last night, I mean yesterday, she was like a tiger, but by your careful preparation, then suddenly with which you're conducting conversations, never a note in front of you, you take that for granted.
[12:34] You take care of it.
[12:37] He needed, he's supposed to be an expert in foreign policy, but only he understood that.
[12:41] And of course, Johnson, in addition, didn't care.
[12:44] Johnson was bored by it.
[12:46] Was he?
[12:46] Oh, yeah.
[12:47] Yeah, I guess so.
[12:50] I mean, I've had people, I've had them myself, but Johnson, one of Johnson's assistants told me that once he was talking to an Arabian who was talking in Arabic.
[13:03] And he pressed a button, and one of his assistants came and said, bring me some papers I can read while this man was talking Arabic before the translation started.
[13:12] And I didn't run away.
[13:15] The guy probably understood English.
[13:18] That's what he said to a friend of his today.
[13:20] A gentleman's attitude to sit there reading your own papers.
[13:27] He could read terribly.
[13:29] Crude.
[13:32] Now, you never that if you don't have to be.
[13:36] But it's important to get across to them, Henry, and I hope you talk to Javits and the rest of them and even Jackson.
[13:43] By God, if the Jewish economy in this country makes Israel exit permits, the condition for the Russian initiative, let's beg them to hurt it.
[13:54] That will not work.
[13:55] Let's beg them.
[13:56] The immigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy.
[14:02] And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern.
[14:08] It may be a humanitarian concern.
[14:10] Well, we can't go out in the world because of that.
[14:14] It'd be an outrage, but we cannot make out of a gas chamber that would go far from that.
[14:21] There is no unrestricted right of immigration.
[14:23] If the Indians don't let parties down, it would never occur to us to...
[14:30] to have a, to attach a rider to a foreign policy decision.
[14:34] And I think that the Jewish community in this country on that issue is behaving unconsciously.
[14:39] It's behaving treacherously.
[14:41] I find... Why can't we get Jackson to get off the damn thing?
[14:46] He feels it now.
[14:47] He isn't supposed to be Jewish.
[14:49] He's supposed to be Israelis.
[14:52] Well, of course he's taking a hell of a lot of money now.
[14:56] And he, exactly, he's thinking of financing his campaign in 76.
[14:59] But Chavez, I'm going to have a talk with Chavez.
[15:03] I'm going to tell him that it is uncomfortable for the Jewish community to do that.
[15:08] You see, what they will do is to work that way with the radical, the nuthead, basically the anti-Semitic, I may say, anti-communist in the Senate and the House, a lot of our anti-Semitic, who want to steer the Russians for other reasons.
[15:25] You know, we've got to get most favored nation.
[15:27] Don't address it in that space.
[15:29] We have screwed Russia.
[15:31] I mean, you have outmaneuvered Russia in a way that is almost pathetic.
[15:36] And if you said, what did he get?
[15:39] He held still while you settled the Vietnam War, essentially on our terms.
[15:46] He's gotten kicked out of the Middle East.
[15:49] We've had Europe more or less pacified.
[15:53] We've got a brilliant settlement.
[15:55] which removed that pressure point.
[15:58] What has he got?
[15:58] Promise of MSM, which he hasn't got.
[16:01] Promise of gas fields, which he hasn't got.
[16:05] So it really, he had some forcing out with the nuclear treaty, which he also won't get.
[16:11] The only problem we're in is our emphasis.
[16:17] Build, build, build, build, build.
[16:19] Boy, we better watch out.
[16:22] that he is not a soldier.
[16:24] I want you to order the defense intelligence bunch to be sure to see what the government thing shows.
[16:33] I mean, I should settle with those facts, not just severe.
[16:37] It would be very helpful, Mr. President, if we will have a briefing on the strategic balance at the beginning of the solved discussion.
[16:44] Good.
[16:45] If you would indicate some disquiet.
[16:47] That's right.
[16:47] And if you would say, for two reasons, one, you don't want to be
[16:52] Just what they're doing.
[16:54] And second, that your experience has been in the last strategic programs.
[17:00] We don't have bargaining chips.
[17:04] Clemens and Mora can then pick up.
[17:06] I will.
[17:06] To put the heat on Richardson.
[17:08] And Richardson is smart enough and ambitious enough.
[17:11] Once he knows what you're saying.
[17:13] Plan it for at least a couple of hours.
[17:15] Be sure that's a two-hour meeting so that we can have a very good discussion.
[17:19] Because on the issues, frankly, unsolved, I'll pretend, but they're getting so intrusive.
[17:26] You have to handle that.
[17:27] I don't really think you want to get yourself too much involved.
[17:30] No, because any time we do, I... Well, well, it's just, I just don't feel... Because we don't have this bastard Smith in there this time, which is a big help.
[17:39] We've got this time.
[17:40] Well, how next chance was it that it'd be pretty good?
[17:42] It'd be damn good.
[17:44] Yeah, he's a gentleman.
[17:46] Smith, you know, why?
[17:48] I don't know.
[17:49] Senator...
[17:51] The general is the military.
[17:52] They make totally idiotic proposals, which are excessively hardline.
[17:57] And also too expensive.
[18:00] Well, what they want us to get is the dismantlement of SS9, reduction of the SS11, and for that they're willing to pay nothing.
[18:12] Now, that is impossible.
[18:23] I'll go to you.
[18:24] What about the idea that... And what is your feeling about what we really got to do, and I don't want to do this in the NFC, although I wouldn't mind sometimes letting these people gavel around again.
[18:51] What I'm thinking of here is, you know, we talk about some of our real scholars.
[18:57] There must be two or three that know something about foreign policy, are there, in this country?
[19:07] Well, my point is, don't we really have to look at what the hell the Russians are up to?
[19:12] That's what I'm more concerned about than why we're niggling around about salt.
[19:20] Now, you want to remember, in 1972, it was important to have a meeting with the Russians on some sort of agreement.
[19:27] In 1973, it was no less important.
[19:29] And we're not going to pay one hell of a price.
[19:32] I'm not even sure it's all that tough to deduce.
[19:36] I don't know.
[19:37] We can't deduce.
[19:39] But basically, for us, it would be just as well.
[19:42] There's nothing in it for us, I can say, particularly.
[19:45] It was a nice diversionary action, people will think.
[19:47] But my point is...
[19:54] I just feel that we've got to, we wouldn't want to be here, Henry.
[19:58] We don't want to be here for four years.
[20:01] We can't.
[20:02] And then, if we let this country leave, that's a goddamn hell.
[20:10] That's just a year's time.
[20:12] I mean, you've done what it's done.
[20:15] So you see, let's think a little about that as we go on.
[20:18] But if you want, what are the directions up to?
[20:21] Most scholars are on the soft side.
[20:23] Let me see what I can do.
[20:24] Give me about three, which I would like to do.
[20:28] We could go to Camp David, say, on some time on Saturday afternoon.
[20:34] Just have a good bowl session.
[20:36] I think we need to get, you know, extend our minds a little.
[20:40] I think we're going to need to get to the tactics.
[20:43] We could get aside, because I think this fellow presents a good point.
[20:46] Tell us.
[20:47] I think this fellow presents a good point.
[20:48] I'm not sure when it's too soon.
[20:53] I may not know who these men are.
[20:56] Yeah.
[20:56] If it could get to be useful, I think it would be very good, right?
[21:01] You know, when you start to think, finally, this is what we're going to do, and people are going to get things.
[21:06] You know, how everybody is.
[21:09] I say everybody in the press is gambling around.
[21:15] You know, but just by holding firm,
[21:20] You know, it was the only thing to do.
[21:21] But if we had ever gone forward with that confidence, as long as they were screwing around, you know, it would have been a disaster.
[21:29] Those prisoners would still be in there next week.
[21:31] We'd be negotiating.
[21:32] We'd look pathetic.
[21:33] And we would have allowed them to reach the agreement before signing one.
[21:39] That's right.
[21:39] And that we're not going to do.
[21:41] Oh, and of course, that was, and that defines, we think we used all our precious, the things we did.
[21:48] that worked in addition to the signing, I mean, to this conference, we didn't announce, which is always more effective.
[21:56] That's what Kennedy never understood.
[21:57] He always wanted to make a big blowout.
[22:00] His words were always louder than his actions.
[22:03] Our actions are louder than our words.
[22:05] God tells men that they're all in the present, General.
[22:14] I'll bet you that we've turned the field of yours.
[22:18] Watched all of us in the rest.
[22:21] And read papers.
[22:23] Probably saying, thank God, they're interested in sticking to them again.
[22:27] But you see, it's always been, and you see it in the press, how very hard it was.
[22:31] Because it was the outcome, I think, what these bastards are.
[22:36] And now, of course, they've built up this return for us.
[22:40] Instead of making it a little silly, a little story again.
[22:43] I want this thing here.
[22:45] I think it's good that you're getting
[22:50] I told you.
[22:51] I don't think I wrote it.
[22:53] Get the states something to do.
[22:54] Always give them something to do.
[22:57] And, you know, I think it may be a little bit underneath.
[23:00] See?
[23:01] But I don't think we should.
[23:02] So he just lets us go in two weeks.
[23:05] We don't worry.
[23:06] We don't want to have a confrontation too soon.
[23:10] I know.
[23:10] Exactly.
[23:11] Absolutely.
[23:12] What I mean is, though, give us something to do.
[23:14] Matter of fact, sometime we ought to get Cisco over here.
[23:20] And you and I can have a talk with him.
[23:22] How about that?
[23:23] That would be very good.
[23:24] Should we do that?
[23:25] How about having him maybe tomorrow afternoon at some time?
[23:31] And, uh, Steve?
[23:32] Well, we can do it maybe tomorrow.
[23:35] The reason that I think that is that we've got to get Cisco to know what the hell, where he's coming at, and he's got to be working on this.
[23:43] Let's be sure he knows where the... And he doesn't know yet.
[23:46] That's the other thing.
[23:48] That's the other thing I would say.
[23:51] I have plans to do that, yes.
[24:03] We've got to get, Cisco knows what the hell, where he's coming at, where, and he's got to be working on this.
[24:09] Let's be sure he knows where the, where the, and he doesn't know yet, that yellow, that I think, that's new approach, and I would take it easy.