Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 887-006
Date: Thursday, March 22, 1973 at 11:04 AM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Santamaria, Carlos Sanz de; Jorden, William J.; [Unknown person(s)]
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/887-006

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:01] Thank you.
[0:03] Thank you.
[0:06] Thank you.
[0:35] But he was.
[1:04] No.
[1:05] Thank you, gentlemen.
[1:10] Thank you.
[2:49] I understand that, of course, my first thing to do is to thank you for all the information I've had to give you that keeps people safe in algebraic work.
[3:17] I presented many documents showing the country.
[3:20] I think it gave a very satisfactory result.
[3:26] And that's what I'm going to say again.
[3:29] What's safe also, as I've told you before, that the evidence that I've heard was a good one, and it means time.
[3:36] And you are positioned in the United States and the world and following your speeches in which you say we are not alone in this world or healthy.
[3:46] So some others might not.
[3:48] That led me two years ago to start a campaign of trying to search for points of convergence, saying and asking many good things.
[4:03] I'm convinced that the nature of development is a great political issue.
[4:10] It's more political than it is economic.
[4:18] And the reason is demonstrated in, for instance, the case of the
[4:28] I've never been there because this is established by the United States of America.
[4:34] And it is the OAS who should have been the first to debate this.
[4:40] But in my opinion, the OAS is not acting as it should, not because the institutions remain working.
[4:53] I was reading a few minutes ago, I was reading background, and in terms of what that book is, it's a lobby of God.
[5:22] Nobody spoke in terms of security.
[5:30] So this has changed so totally that in the last 25 years, the interest has changed from security, which we all know that cannot be held by our people in our country,
[5:55] So my claim is that we have to do something different.
[6:02] I don't know where my ideas might be to...
[6:08] out in the picture, but is there really any use now of having two ambassadors, one from the United States and one from the U.S., from every country, where they have nothing to do?
[6:19] Because I was telling people that one of my ambassadors, Mr. Ricardo, just resigned, simply because, Mr. Ricardo, I have nothing to do, because my host is with the White House.
[6:31] And everything that I should be speaking in the United States, I think,
[6:38] I have to speak in the audience, man who has to deal with it.
[6:42] So my opinion is my secret.
[6:45] It's not that anything is wrong or anything.
[6:48] The only thing which is wrong is that it was organized for president.
[6:53] And this has been converted into a kind of forum against the United States.
[6:57] But it was polarized in one side, in one side of America and the other United States.
[7:02] I told it.
[7:03] Honestly and sincerely, in all my papers, I came here to make a great movement to bridge with the United States, not to be a polarization of points.
[7:13] I know that these are two parts.
[7:16] One is who helps, and the other is who receives.
[7:19] But we have to do that correctly.
[7:22] Let me ask you one question.
[7:25] Bill Rogers and I were talking the other day, and just as you know...
[7:37] He also pointed out that the old guest was going to be meeting here, and so I was asked whether I would give a reception for that person.
[7:51] Probably will, you know, if we work out the date.
[7:53] I think it's April.
[7:54] April.
[7:54] From the fall of 2015 to the late fall of the last day.
[7:59] The point that I make is this.
[8:07] I'm sorry, I haven't been able to go.
[8:09] It hasn't been just time.
[8:10] It wasn't the right time.
[8:12] You know, we wouldn't want to go and have a lot of, you know, demonstrations and that sort of thing, which seems to be the way of the world today.
[8:25] But it would be better today than it was previously, you know, before it's over.
[8:30] But my point is, here you take a Latin American country,
[9:06] Is it your opinion that maybe that maybe that's, what would you, what, Johnny, what kind of structure would that be?
[9:11] Can you give me your advice?
[9:12] In the same way that I, I, you tell me, this is not for conversation.
[9:19] Sure, sure.
[9:20] I can tell you, I cannot say, I cannot say that either publicly because this is not my, my, I'm a member of that group.
[9:27] Of my own opinion, simply, simply the fact that they are, that this was founded and this organization was created
[9:35] meant for security, not for development.
[9:39] The peoples are not interested now in security because they know that they cannot afford it.
[9:44] It's a different world.
[9:45] It's a different world.
[9:47] Rockets that fly along the...
[9:51] So, this group of men sitting down here on legal things and on international things which cannot be solved, as mentioned in the present...
[10:02] My proposal has been quite simple.
[10:04] I don't know where the United States would like it, but my proposal that I've presented fully in these three years is to transform at least a part of the OAS into a real developmental agency and to include, to invite, to join in this exclusively liberated Canada as a member of the Mexican Spirit Movement because that will create a better equilibrium, in my opinion, in the continent.
[10:32] big, big countries like Brazil and Argentina in the south, Mexico in the northern part, yourself and Canada, that will create the same difference.
[10:43] I don't know where Canada is interested or not.
[10:46] But I know that they are not interested in going to the US because of the possibility of all these questions on the political side.
[10:53] So my idea is to try to push away, and that's why I suggested
[10:58] the formation of something similar to the OECD in Europe, which was a regional organization, but it was developed in such a way that you, the United States, and Canada, extra-continental countries, and Japan, could go in to this, completely separated from the political issues of Europe.
[11:18] That, to me, is my most suggestive.
[11:21] And that's what I want to present now.
[11:24] If this is done, Mr. President,
[11:26] I suppose that you have an embarrassing moment in the world in which you need to go rest in Latin America.
[11:31] You always can call the foreign ministers to meet you two days or one day, including flying down here.
[11:38] But I don't feel that it is convenient.
[11:41] That's my own intimate, as I say, it is not for publication, but for mention.
[11:46] But my opinion is that it is what, and the example I hear from each other here, I suppose that the OAS has to be
[12:03] low matters for the political discussions that have been happening, like 200 miles, or the occupation and those things, are all completely isolated from the others, because otherwise, that's been my idea, and that's what I proposed publicly.
[12:19] Now, with you, I want to talk to you, first, thank you for your very nice, generous way in which you understood
[12:34] because I came here for a great movement of friends, and suddenly I find myself, like you say, like a sandwich between the United States and the United States, and the United States and the United States, all together.
[12:44] And that was not my point of view.
[12:46] I think this is crazy.
[12:47] I believe that we have to get Latin Americans, publicly, publicly, that I respect profoundly the opinion of all my members of the United States, because I grew up in the U.S.,
[13:08] to Argentina.
[13:09] So, I have said, we have to identify, we have to be in the same geographical space with the largest and most important superpower of the world.
[13:22] We have to use the enormous coverage that the United States can give us in capital in an extremely important
[13:48] the name of the habits of an African society that we cannot afford.
[13:55] That's exactly my point of view.
[13:57] It is published.
[13:59] It has created a certain good environment.
[14:02] So, if all of that, they ask me, of course, I may
[14:29] I accept not to resign.
[14:31] We ask you, we accept your resignation because you insisted that what they need for that.
[14:36] So am I resigning or resigning now?
[14:39] But they told me, please continue your post until September, when we are going to call for a new meeting.
[14:46] And for that moment, please study some ideas about all of that.
[15:00] I always say, in terms of that, it is something new in the political side.
[15:06] I foresee the President, if I might say so, I won't say that publicly either, but it is my opinion, so I'm glad that Nixon talked about that before next year's.
[15:18] Why not?
[15:18] You can do it politically.
[15:23] So my suggestion to you today would be simply this.
[15:27] Please, if you think it's convenient,
[15:31] a very small group of people who can be in touch with you and if you have to come to the government or outside, as you may wish, I don't have anything, but someone who can be in contact with you.
[15:46] We ourselves, we have a small group.
[15:48] Of course, I can talk to you about that, but the workers, my work is very much helping me and
[15:58] who was the Secretary, a very good man, an intelligent man, an excellent man, a very small group, but we need a consultation.
[16:13] So my idea is that we are prepared to discuss with this small group, one man or two men, specific points for the future from here,
[16:34] months, a week or so, a certain number of points, plus those that you, the United States, can present to us, in order to facilitate my work of presenting to all the countries in September an idea of what could be a new approach to the organization of September the 6th.
[17:01] That's my deadline.
[17:02] That's my deadline because I asked them to call for a meeting in September.
[17:07] They didn't accept it the day in September.
[17:10] They say around September.
[17:14] I saw them.
[17:31] First, we feel here in the United States, and I feel it personally, very fortunate that you've been in this position.
[17:42] You've been a demigod, you know, taking the U.S.
[17:45] They're very popular in much of Latin America, getting the United States around, but you didn't.
[17:51] You were faithful, and I appreciate it.
[17:58] I don't know.
[18:25] see something like the Panamanian thing build up the way it is.
[18:31] That makes it difficult in this country.
[18:34] And we understand.
[18:36] If I were the president of Panama, I'd probably be kicking the ink.
[18:40] And when we look back at what happened in PR, the first man that was ever in this office, in this Oval Office, Teddy Ray Roosevelt, we all know that what he did to Colombia and Panama was not one of our better hours.
[18:53] But it's happening.
[18:54] It's there.
[19:01] where this anti-Americanism could be harmful to both.
[19:04] It could be harmful to the countries there, you know, a lot of the South American rest in the sense that, you know, the American capital would be harmful to go there, and so forth.
[19:17] The private capital would be fighting the waves.
[19:32] If you have the whole of Latin America either, shall we say, neutral or neutrally the other way, very close to the situation.
[19:41] Very difficult for us.
[19:43] We have that.
[19:44] You know that.
[19:45] That's why the security thing, while obsolete in terms of conventional law, is still important in terms of the psychological.
[19:52] Now, I didn't tell my staff here, let's get something to do.
[19:58] I told Meyer to find that one.
[20:07] I said, can we, I said, look, people in Canada have meetings with the OAS, and they have meetings with the alliance, and they have meetings, and they all said, let's have a meeting with all the American presidents.
[20:20] Fine, we can do that.
[20:21] I can go to Panama, or maybe Bogota, or maybe Brasilia, or someplace, you know, and we all get together.
[20:40] I never believe in going to the summit unless I know what's on the other side.
[20:44] That's why the China summit succeeded and the Russian summit.
[20:48] It would not be healthy, in my opinion, just to have all the presidents and leaders of the Latin American countries in this hemisphere sit down and talk.
[20:57] Unless we have a pretty good idea of what we want to do.
[21:05] Or at least so that if it hasn't been settled, we've got options so that we know that the highest level, we can say, all right, we've all recommended this, and we go.
[21:13] Now, having said all that, what it seems to me, or indeed it now, is some hard thinking and hard work about what the future should be.
[21:23] I'm glad to hear you on that.
[21:25] All I can say, without committing to the ideas, is to go away with the OAS.
[21:31] or transform the OAS from a security body to an economic body and bring the Canadians in.
[21:38] I am not prepared to give an answer, except I will say this.
[21:42] I think that the present institutions are obsolete.
[21:47] Obsolete.
[21:48] I think that if I were particularly the leader of a smaller and poorer Latin American country, I'd say, why do I have to have three nations?
[21:58] Why don't we?
[22:06] for us in the Western Hemisphere to think in terms of the world as it presently is, rather than as it was 75 years ago, or even 10 years ago when the Alliance was established.
[22:17] Even the Alliance has an approach that is now perhaps obsolete.
[23:07] Our friends, it's the greatness of our, as I always say, my friends in the South.
[23:14] They're basically idealists.
[23:16] They're philosophers.
[23:18] And many of us are.
[23:19] The Americans are idealists.
[23:21] That's the reason why we go to their conferences.
[23:39] Now, I would like to have our people, I haven't said what you work, you give us some thoughts on this.
[23:53] I talked to him a great deal about that.
[24:19] I think it's time that rather than just muddling along the same old institutions, the same old programs, let's take a look at all of them and see what we can come up with as new.
[24:37] Now, of course, if you think of what is new, it is.
[24:49] and all the rest, it's quite a problem at the moment.
[24:53] Looking down the road, it may become less of a problem.
[24:57] Looking down the road, too, in terms of what the United States private investment can do, it can be perhaps greatly demanding.
[25:06] And that's very important, too, provided the private investment is consistent with the laws of the countries involved.
[25:11] And here you've got the children.
[25:13] Right.
[25:14] So the way that it does it, it's right, it's right, it's right.
[25:24] That's right.
[25:55] a confidential basis.
[25:58] But you can set free what you think we ought to do, and we can say what we think, and I'll make a determination.
[26:04] But I will pledge to you that I think reexamination of our, of all the institutions, none of them break the goals.
[26:13] Well, the goals do have to be reexamined in terms of whether we, in terms of priority.
[26:19] Is security the primary goal?
[26:21] Or is it now economic development?
[26:22] Maybe it's the latter.
[26:27] OAS was first set up, it was security.
[26:29] Now it's economic development.
[26:31] Now they're political.
[26:33] There are lots of things in there.
[26:35] But I think what we need to do is to, rather than just sitting on top of this whole, shall we say, jerry-built structure with our bilateral relationships with the OAS, the United Nations, that's their team, where we have a block.
[26:58] And all the other things, the Inter-American Bank, and et cetera.
[27:05] But they're trying to get through.
[27:06] It's a terrible thing.
[27:07] Everybody comes in.
[27:08] Everybody makes beautiful speeches.
[27:13] And nothing happens.
[27:13] And frankly, people want something to happen.
[27:16] So let's get it down to a few people.
[27:19] There's clear objectives.
[27:20] Change the organization.
[27:21] That's what we can do.
[27:23] So I'll be glad to have our people work on it.
[27:25] Let me clarify one thing, Mr. President.
[27:27] My suggestion has not been to modify the system to abolish it.
[27:33] My proposal is to modify the system.
[27:54] to separate the struggles which become political.
[27:58] Let me ask you, how could you modify it in a way that what you really ought to do, it seems to me, is in terms of personalization.
[28:07] One person to both.
[28:09] I mean, you don't need to have three or four.
[28:12] I don't know.
[28:13] I don't know.
[28:13] You don't need to have one, two or three or four, no.
[28:16] You have to have one person to be the head of the whole thing.
[28:19] One person to be the head of the whole thing.
[28:21] That's right.
[28:21] That's right.
[28:22] That's right.
[28:23] political issues that might be what I try to search because it's quite easy Mr. President and I've mentioned to me ten points in my speeches, public speeches that I see points of convergence between the real interest of the United States and the interest of Latin America for instance, to mention one or two it's the international country system it is the urban development, it is the environment, it is the country development production and agriculture, no need to
[29:01] So this is my purpose up to now.
[29:04] I wish more profound changes had to be made.
[29:07] My proposal is we make a precedent in the American system
[29:31] Thank you very much.
[29:52] Now I'm going to see in Quito, today or tomorrow, Martin, who is the head of the committee, and he knows what my idea is.
[30:03] I am not sure what his reactions are, but we can do something similar, call any Europeans that have been able to isolate these specific political points in other forums that they want to develop.
[30:18] That's my idea.
[30:18] I want to clarify that.
[30:30] I told you your bill.
[30:31] I want to open you, Mr. President, I'm convinced of you, what you feel about Latin America, and I will give the possibility, I try to open the door for you to start, if you think it's convenient, a new doctrine or a new policy to Latin America.
[30:48] And this permits you, because when I go out, then the Latin progress will disappear, because we are the only ones who are called the Inter-American Committee for the Latin progress.
[30:57] I would also propose to change the name of CIEP now, not because it is simply because it is a very good idea for the National Council in this position as compared to the OAS assembly, simply to say if we are thinking in terms of inviting other countries to join in this development, therefore...
[33:10] Yeah.
[33:44] It's a way to stay in.
[33:47] It's a way to help others help themselves.
[33:51] The idea that we would take the prime minister's office.
[34:34] the housing is so lousy in this country.
[34:37] I don't know whether we should impose it on you.
[34:41] I don't think we should impose it on you, but I mean it.
[34:44] You take the educational system.
[34:46] Our educational system has many, many problems at the present time.
[34:50] We went too far, went quite, you know, higher education area, not enough in the area of, let's say, OK.
[35:07] I don't know what it's used for.
[35:12] Health.
[35:14] There, there's perhaps the places where if a person is sick, you're going to vaccinate them.
[35:20] So that's the place where you probably get the most of that.
[35:25] But there are many places where in another country, another country needs a different health system.
[35:33] It needs a different system.
[35:49] You can't say, for example, that we as sisters are the minimum caloric environment in the U.S. We could be the minimum caloric environment in some ways, some ways.
[36:01] Isn't that it?
[36:02] It's not there?
[36:02] I have to deal with you.
[36:03] We've got to do some thinking about that line where each goes his own way.
[36:07] Each develops his own way.
[36:10] There are many ways, you know, to the kind of society you want.
[36:14] There's no society that's ever going to be perfect, as we know.
[36:17] But what I think is that any idea that the U.S., this particular U.S. president, has started to take an attitude of arrogance, or shall we say non-denial arrogance, this idea that we are superiority, et cetera, et cetera, is nonsense.
[36:38] As I travel the world, the more I travel the world,
[36:51] the United States, that all of our states are somewhat different.
[36:57] And I think that it's this respect for the individual nations and people who like to develop and so forth.
[37:13] Now, where we have our internal, that's their
[37:37] the United States will stay up there and lecture this or that or the other.
[37:42] They can lecture us.
[37:45] For us, they lecture them.
[37:47] No, I have to.
[37:47] I can't present.
[37:48] I don't do that.
[37:50] What I'm searching for, I think it's not impossible, it's not easy at this moment, is that the application of these doctrines in the world could be select in certain modalities, especially on Latin America.
[38:05] Why?
[38:05] Because we're in the same
[38:11] of convergence.
[38:13] So this is what I think that we have to be developing in the next, let's say, four years.
[38:18] But in this very moment, which I think is essential, Mr. President, with this conversation, I'm going to tell you, Mr. President, I'm going to be outside, I'm sure, that I told you of the mandate that I have from all the consulates.
[38:37] Thank you.
[39:07] And then finally, Mr. President, thanks very much for your courtesy.
[39:43] I had this contact, this private contact with those in our group in order to be able to advance the idea.
[39:50] What's the date you want to have?
[39:51] Whenever you wish.
[39:54] Whenever you wish.
[39:55] Well, I'd be ready as soon as I go back from Kiv to the Kiv in about ten days.
[40:01] And in that moment, Walter will be here, Carlo will be here, and I think we will, because it's
[40:19] Thank you very much.
[40:54] We'll have a good talk in September or August.
[40:59] All right.