On March 27, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon, Henry A. Kissinger, and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House from 8:54 am to 9:44 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 888-002 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
Ok.
Takk for ating!
Peresia sent it.
Peresia sent it.
Well, did you see him?
He's a white man.
He showed up in a river.
In a river, he is American.
You know, he's a little other man.
She's very, very attractive.
Very likely, as I recall, 20 years ago.
She's very, very attractive.
And then there was... Peresia is a hell of a friend of ours.
Oh, yeah.
He owns the dairy and everything else.
And he said you'd stay at his house, and he's down there, really.
They say, the foreign minister told me, they really like a man who goes his own way.
Really?
And then Onassis, I was at a dinner party with Onassis and Jackie.
Where?
There's an English family called the Guinnesses, Lowell Guinnesses.
I don't know if they were there.
I had a great time.
And Donatis was there.
He was just raving about you.
You really might consider having him for dinner here sometime.
He said you were the other one.
And Jackie.
I talked privately to Jackie.
She said it's so odd.
See, I had heard it years ago.
She said, the other thing is doing everything that Jack was trying to do and never could do.
And she said, tell me honestly, what did you think of Jack?
And I said, frankly, when he died, I thought he'd either be a great man or a disaster in his second term, because he hadn't done anything yet.
I saw that.
And she said, you know, he was just a scared little boy, she said.
She said he was scared.
He thought it was a good moment for him.
And he was a scared little boy.
And he was so worried about everything.
She said it was really all about good things.
She used to cuddle him because he was so scared.
I thought that was bad.
Was she aware of what we had done?
Oh, she is, Maya said.
She said you're doing everything that he only talked about.
Although Onassis was excited.
She just said it to me.
She said it to me alone, but Onassis said it.
There were lots of people there at that dinner, mostly Mexicans.
But Onassis was going on saying, well, you know, his view is that the West is going down the tube and is being raped by the East, he said, but the only one who understands it and who delays it as long as possible is you and the
Maybe, maybe, I was joyous thinking about that, and I suppose these are true in a way.
I guess maybe the last straw for this country could be, I mean, you read the things, you read what the Europeans say and do, and so forth and so on.
We know the Russians, and so forth.
The only thing is, the only thing that may save us is that they may have promised to us.
And that's the only thing that may save us.
They had imagined that.
But anyway, what I wanted to say this morning was that, it was video of you, it was good of your way, but isn't it interesting that at long last, they, after all, you know, the masters, it wasn't as much as the, but the masters set themselves up again for it by saying, well, it's all screwed up, it's all screwed up.
You know, I put out the little statement, I told Chris Stoker, I said, I know this,
I knew either they would come or we had to stay.
But as they were told, it looks like they came.
That's right.
And they did come.
And it is true, it is true that we would never, I thought we would keep horses there until it rose over as long as they had one man.
And we have another piece of good news this morning in this category which we can't use unfortunately.
The day I left, as I told you at the time, I called it the freedom and repeated the warning you had given to him.
And I said,
You remember you said to me that you told me to say that with Soviet equipment, that's another offensive that will ruin our relationships.
You even called me up and repeated it.
Well, I said that I didn't frankly say only why he's here.
I said there's no excuse for delivering Soviet equipment now.
This is not a war.
So we got a message from Gresham, which I can hardly believe, saying they stopped all military shipments.
to Vietnam, and that's the only equipment.
They claim, I don't know if that's true, but they claim that the Chinese held up a lot of equipment and didn't let it through.
They said, so the only Russian equipment that could now be going in is from China.
Well, at least one thing can be said for whatever it is, since we put that little shot across the problem, and of course, I know that you can make an analysis of the effect that it's, and I've watched this carefully, that it's the weather across the problem.
At March 2nd, there has been a gradual de-escalation in, I'm not referring to the infiltration, but in the number of incidents.
The incidents are now going down.
Also in the infiltration, it's down about 30%.
But that, I understand, can be due to the weather.
That can be due to a lot of things, yes.
There are three possibilities with this infiltration thing.
But at least let me put it this way.
I think the warning helped.
It was very good.
Because if we had not said something, the fact that we're going like hell, I think it gets up now even when the weather is bad.
We've known that before.
Our major trust is to admit that the weather is bad, yet the weather will not start turning bad until May.
So the weather is not the reason.
Whatever the reason is, it isn't weather.
April is a good weather month for infiltration.
Remember this.
And I remember when I came in and said to you if they knew who should say it loud, and you said, oh, no, it's our loss.
And that's when we, every time, we did the same thing.
So anyway, let me say that we,
Because I'm going to use a different technique.
I'm going to figure it out.
I'm very good at this.
I've sat here.
I'm going to figure out ten lines behind that desk.
Reporting on Vietnam.
This time I'll say.
I'll walk in.
I have a boom mic.
The only thing I would avoid is that we didn't decline at all.
I know we won't be able to come back in,
But we have to play the game as if we could.
But you can do this.
You give me, rather than writing a speech, just some ideas that you think should get across to you.
What I would say, no more than five minutes of informal remarks.
And I'm going to see, go through that, and say, now we must turn to some, I want to talk to some of the challenges at home.
One, prices.
And I say, I agree with prices.
But the greatest danger, as far as inflation is concerned,
I'm glad you're doing this.
I said at the staff meeting today that what we need is somebody to explain why you are so adamant about the budget savings.
I don't think that is getting across to the average person.
And I think just three sentences each, a paragraph along that line.
But it has to be said in a way...
The people here, rather than just reading something, we've said it over and over again, identified it in the military, but from the very heart, and say, look, we've had a great year in terms of progress in our ability to structure the peace nation with China.
They sold their meetings with the Soviet Union.
I have the conclusion of that.
Now, this is a beginning.
And people, there are those who say, now that we've had this progress, let's cut the money.
Let us realize we couldn't have done this without our strength.
If this man wake up, it will destroy the chances for a mutual reduction of arms.
It will destroy the chances for a mutual reduction of forces.
It will destroy the chances of building a structure of peace in the world.
It will increase the nature of war in the United States.
It's weaker.
I don't want to go into the business of, except to say, I think I will, see I'd like to express appreciation
For those who served, for those who died, for those who, of course, who went through the ordeal of being POWs.
And I'm also going to say, I also said that without the support of the American people, we would not have done this.
I have a good time.
I can remember thousands marching around the bus.
I understood there were people that were marching around the bus.
At the time I made the decision to destroy the enemy sanctuaries, at the time I made the decision to bomb my night bomb in order to stop the communist offensive there, at the time I made the decision in December, in order to get the negotiations, get our view of this back, I said, there you go.
Here in Washington, there were times that I thought that the only voices were those that could be heard, and were so out there, and those that were opposed to policy.
But it was because, only because, the American people used to affirm that we were able to reach this day.
I think that's not the same.
Do you agree?
Absolutely.
You understand that?
That's the thing.
If the lynch have proved anything, it's that they will not stop until they...
Try to destroy you.
I'm simply going to say that.
I'm going to say it in a nice way.
President, you separate yourself from the people and the liberals will come after you anyway.
In fact, the only time they're not after you is when you're scaring them with the people.
And that has been proved since your election.
I mean, it's incredible.
With your help, we'll come here.
Now I ask your help to win the battle over the plague, and I ask your help to keep America strong.
I don't know a damn thing about the Watergate case.
I don't want to know anything, but where are the civil libertarians?
Where are the civil libertarians?
Here a judge gets somebody a 55-year sentence in order to make him talk.
Where is the protection of the Fifth Amendment?
Where is the prevention of a gun?
I mean, it was a simple case of burglary.
Two years.
Which didn't work.
Which didn't work.
I mean, at two years, that's the first offender.
People who would never do it again, so there's no reason.
I mean, one knows they're never going to do it again.
Well, the other point is, apparently, but also, for a council for the Senate committee to go out and make the charges publicly, and then say it's a burglary.
Well, anyway, well, you don't hear my point.
No, I don't worry about it.
I'm just saying it shows.
Let me say, it is a word.
If you did this to a liberal, if Dourif and McCarthy did it, if a liberal had been sentenced to 40 years in prison on a trivial offense in order to make him testify before a committee, you'd have every bloody good labor.
But I'll go back to my benefits in this case and the rest, which are, of course, your heart would break the worst, but we'll figure that out soon.
God, I'm gonna fail.
I'm gonna eat these words one day.
It's the Washington Post.
All who then said, the committee, this is no place to investigate these matters.
These are serious charges.
The place for that to be heard is in the courts.
And the only reason I can't go ahead with this case is that Truman wouldn't bring it to the court.
But that's all right.
Once he got to the court, I stopped the investigation.
But that money here,
These assholes are saying, oh no, the grand jury isn't enough.
The court appointing seven people guilty to give them 50 years isn't enough.
It's got to be now tried before they anger the court before they are, uh-uh.
There's a double standard over there.
The only thing to do is to fight them.
But getting back to more constructive things, let me say, Henry, we can feel, you can feel, a great deal of pride at the moment.
We all know the war over there will never be over.
We can talk about anything.
The Cold War is never going to be over.
The Middle East is never going to be set.
People are going to be eating each other in Uganda and other places a thousand years from now, because they like to eat each other.
Do you agree?
Absolutely.
All right, but now, but the point is, and all we can do, all we can do is just make a little table.
But when I think what we have done, and this is not certainly sensible, bragging or anything, when the two of us have done goddamn against impossible odds, well, we don't, we'll never get any credit for that.
The hell with that.
The main point is that we need to stop.
We have, we turned this thing around.
We were ready to go down the tube.
Let us, let us, let us, let us, let us, let us, let us, let us, let us, let us, let us, let us, let us, let us, let us, let us, let us, let us, let us, let us, let us, let us, let us, let us, let us, let us, let us, let us, let us, let us, let us, let us, let us,
No, no, no.
You get the story for credit, but they don't pay.
They pay to see the maintenance.
They open it to China.
Credit.
They'll get it.
They get it to us for the wrong reason.
They'll say, we opened it to China.
It's true that we brought China to the U.S.
They don't recognize it.
They opened it to China.
Well, that was the public reason for both China and America.
The private reason.
We didn't open here.
We didn't open here.
I'm sure I've been blocked.
I repeat it.
That has to do with power politics are the highest maintenance.
That's why it's going to be so tough.
Incidentally, they're going to announce, and that fits in very nicely on Friday, they're going to announce the ambassador, and they're doing it at a time so that we can come and do our press briefing.
They'll do it at 9 a.m. here, so people can go out.
But you know, getting back to that, do you think...
But what we've not tried is that, I've forgotten, this is already almost, this is almost two years at a time, when we faced that and accomplished the best thing on that Monday, a news week at the rest of the Spectrum, a year from the Spectrum defeat.
What happened?
All tournaments are out.
All POWs are out.
And Q is in.
For better or for worse, he's in.
Imagine if these prisoners were coming home now, and everything were down the tube.
If we can hold South Vietnam together through the better part of 74, which I think we can if we act ferociously enough, and if we plus the Russians and Chinese in us.
Let me say, I know that you're concerned, and I had the same one, you know, and I'm not hitting it this week, but last week in the trail, we had a problem on that 23rd day.
I mean, I had them all ready to go, and then they came in on the 23rd, and they were going to have their goddamn meeting, you know.
We said, well, you can't do it on the 23rd.
That split the days.
It was a...
They had to delay it, and then I said, go on the 24th, and then you came back and said, well, we have a Monday, and I guess you're right.
But...
I thought, Mr. President, there was only one reason for doing it.
There was no good military.
The one reason was for you to have done one more thing that they could scream was irrational.
And that would then be, since I felt they were very eager to get us out of there, it would have looked as if it had worked again because they would still have released the prison.
On the other hand, if then there had been any delay in the Laotian settlement, they would have blamed you for it.
If you had done it on the 24th, it was too late, because the prisoner release was scheduled for that night.
I think it was a very closely balanced decision.
What is the situation now, let me say, when Ziegler gets the question, as to our, what is our legal right?
I think I know the answer, but what are you going to tell him, Ziegler?
Our legal right for bombing at Kenwood today?
He's asking me that last night.
Gulf of Tonkin is gone.
We've had a peace settlement and so forth and so on.
And we say it's a violation of the treaty.
Well, it can be a seat though, which is not a very healthy area.
You can see what I mean.
I can see hanging over the possibility of a congressional structure on that point tonight.
I think you give some thought to it.
I don't have to tackle it for a while.
He won't have to tackle it, I think.
That's the great point that we have now.
You see, our whole business about bombing and Laos, there we'll have clarity, because it will be a violation of the agreement, will it not?
Laos and the AT guys.
Oh, well, this is what goes.
I mean, we can say it's a violation of the... We can say it's a violation of the ceasefire agreement.
No president has had, I thought, when I was gone, any vision.
Here we've got a good agreement.
Good?
And if you could ferociously enforce it, if you could whack them once every six weeks, flawlessly, that thing would last forever.
But here, no sooner do you have an agreement that our own people work at undermining our own achievements.
Not only undermining, but say that now there's no way you can ever go back in.
That's right.
But they know that you're threatened.
We got a fleeting complaint from the North Vietnamese.
And they have just thought that it was possible.
Oh, that, there's no doubt about that.
You'd have a hell of a lot of credit to use up before they believe you won't do what you say, no matter what country it's at.
The Russians have also pretty well accepted our scheme for that nuclear treaty.
The one that I discussed with you has now come back with a counter-draft.
I don't want to bore you with details because we've now got it in a position where I can practically guarantee we'll have it ready for the... Could I ask you to do one thing?
Make your staff prepare a letter to the Secretary of State?
I'm very much impressed by the way, I mean, I don't know who it goes to with the Defense Department, but the way they handle the logistics and the announcements.
They haven't released our prisoners of war to recharge.
The operation will come, yes, and I would say the Department of Defense also worked on it.
Yeah, Siemens.
Yeah, you could say it without...
If they mention Severs and others, and then Schendt or somebody else, or the fellow that writes it, P.O.W.
5, you can say, I don't want to mention them all in the letter, but I do think it's nice, and I said I put back, I wish you could convey a well done to all those who participated in this, and I would say another one would be to...
I will send it to Roger, so that they send a well-done to everybody concerned.
We don't even have to write letters to everybody.
But I think we should do that.
I think you ought to do a letter to Laird, because he really... Good.
I took Laird as a government candidate.
No.
All right, fine.
That's the final.
That's the last.
Because you could praise him for Vietnamization.
I know that this would not have been possible without the success of our Vietnamization program.
The South Vietnamese now have not only the right to choose their government, but the strength to defend that right.
And your leadership and your strength through these past four years deserves enormous credit.
I appreciate it.
I know he wants that medal to get him on some time, but not right yet.
I think he's getting into politics in Wisconsin.
He was in Akafoko also, and there was a convention of insurance executives that are being run by an insurance company in Stevens Point that have been financing him.
And...
And he was very active then.
You know, if Frank Paul Laird, as we know, has weaknesses, and vice presidents never add with him, they can't subtract, but if you wanted a hell of a strong man for vice president Laird to be a hell of a candidate, wouldn't you like to have him here as an agent?
Agnus, really.
Agnus.
The more I see of them, the easier they can.
And I think that the bell age goes again.
Don't you think, General, that the chief should have it too?
It's also a separate letter, or should it just go to the Secretary of Defense?
No, I think it's good for you to have a separate channel for it.
I don't believe the letters go to the three of us, so forth and so on, and how much we appreciate it there.
Absolutely.
You see, we did send letters to everybody that worked on this thing, and they all appreciated it.
Oh, I think it's very important.
I know.
It's their best.
That's about all.
But you know, we just felt that they
And we would have lost this thing.
It would have been lost on the very third.
It would have been lost in Cambodia.
And frankly, with all the pissing around and the terrible problem we have with Laos, it could have been lost there.
Laos only.
Well, in any event, Mr. President, if you hadn't done Laos, that would have given them the margin to win the next year.
The equipment that was lost in 1971, first of all, they could have used
The military forces in 71 to gain much better jumping out positions for 72.
Right.
The thing you see when you come down to the tender acts, and then finally the last one, but the thing too is with all the, you just can't realize how, you know, the press wants to forget it.
The things that they had said, and their criticism, they would want to act as if they had said, they think it's unfair, or anybody would remind them, they think that's divisive.
What the hell were they thinking?
It was unbelievably bad.
As late as last October, they were telling us that our insistence on you was promoting the war we were fighting for a corrupt dictator.
As late as January they were calling you alive.
There never was an agreement.
That was the line they had in January.
Now the behavior of the
When this story is written, what one ought to do is to put what was said every year side by side with what was done.
Because the worst of it is they were always against us, and yet their proposals, they never even stuck to their own proposals.
Everything that was in reason that they proposed, we did.
You remember all of 71, how they were harassing us about setting a deadline when we had already said it?
As soon as you announced that you had set a deadline, they moved on to something else.
They never gave you credit for eating, except then.
Well, they used to start with saying, now don't you agree to withdraw some horses?
We did, yeah.
It didn't make any difference.
Why don't you withdraw more?
We did.
It didn't make any difference.
Why don't you set a deadline?
We did.
It didn't make any difference.
All of them, all of them.
Yeah, but it was a great achievement, Mr. President.
And also, after that space, it
They had no credit for the China initiative.
They had no credit for the Russian initiative.
The Russian initiative went down, too, if we hadn't played this thing tough.
Look, if we hadn't done many things, the Russian summit would never have succeeded.
I think I would have gone.
But if you had gone to the Russian summit under those conditions, every agreement would have looked like an act of weakness.
It would have been, too.
Then it would have been a decision.
We know why.
I don't think even
Even Conley can play the subtle game.
He can play the color game.
Yeah, the subtlety is...
It's a moving back and forth.
I saw Echevarria, evidently, yesterday, and he's got a lot of schemes for Latin America.
I told him, frankly, we couldn't talk to him until he's back from his trip.
And we want to see what speeches he gives on his trip if he continues to make anti-American speeches.
But I think we could work out a Latin American charter this year.
He practically swore that he'd support us.
Well, I had a good vision that the OAS saw, you know, would not be enough.
Yeah, I know.
He's our friend.
Santa Maria.
Santa Maria says there should be an extra document for Latin America.
That is what I think.
And your man here seems to be very bright.
Jordan.
Bill Jordan.
Just tell Jordan to work out something.
He wants to meet with the two of us.
This is Latin America's primary work.
Mr. President, I think if we prepare it well, incidentally, I talked to the Mexican foreign minister.
I told him, Rogers, this might come down.
He said, no one pays as much attention to Roger.
He said, there will be two people they take seriously.
They are you and me, because we go alone.
I think
If we prepare carefully, what we should do, what we could do is, by fall, is prepare a charter, get all the Latin American heads of government together somewhere, and proclaim this charter, if we can line up the Brazilians and Mexicans ahead of time, if we can be sure there's a good outcome.
What happens to the children?
They'll be there, but the Mexicans swear the Cubans won't be there.
The Mexican president swears he's going to deliver to a charter, not to a... One thing I was disturbed about, and I remarked it, is that it happened while you were gone, when we were busy.
The State Department...
Let those poor damn two Cuban fishermen go back.
I had given orders on that, and I was shocked by it.
Even the liberal editorial writers said that.
We are having a problem.
They just don't believe things with us anymore.
We are back in the old...
But I want them, I want them, I want them to really knock on it.
God damn it.
I was very disturbed.
I really was.
They are looking for them spectacular now.
What, with you?
Never, never, never.
I'll write something out there.
I think this might be helpful.
I could send it out at some point.
I'll take care of it.
I don't want anything.
No, Mr President, and I think the Latin Americans are getting tired of Castro.
The Mexicans told me that the behavior of the Cuban foreign minister at the Panamanian thing turned even the Latin Americans off.
Yeah, they took advantage.
I thought this little, oh, I asked him.
He's a wonderful guy.
He's a good fellow.
But I think...
But he makes his point in a nutshell.
He says, the OAS charter was developed 60 years ago, and time is overrun.
He says, the alliance was developed 10 years ago, and time is overrun.
He said, events, events are overrun.
He said, we need something.
He says, the Latin American charter, the OAS charter, speaks of the military and political defense.
He says, we've got to speak economically.
He's right about that.
Of course, we still want some military, too.
But my point is, he is totally right about the OAS.
He says, for example, he says,
It doesn't make a lot of sense for some of these smaller countries down there, even the large ones, to have three ambassadors here in the United States.
One in the U.S., one in the United States, one in the U.N.
He said it's got to be all in one place.
That makes sense.
What I think, Mr. President, as I look over the next three years, what your strategy could be.
Two months.
Everything's got to be done in two months.
I think, as some preliminary work with the French and the British,
We can have an Atlantic Charter this year, Nixon's doctrine.
We started talks this spring, but we ought to keep it in here, because otherwise that's planted all over the place.
Then you might have a summit meeting with the key Europeans in the fall, and proclaim an Atlantic Charter.
Same with Latin America.
You're going to have a summit meeting with Brezhnev in June.
I think there's a 50-50 chance that we can get show over here in October.
Then next year, and we ought to have the emperor over here this fall.
Then next year you could go to Japan, Russia and China, having brought out Latin America and the Atlantic area this year.
Then Japan next year.
Except before Japan, Russia and China.
Then you have pulled the alliances together and we can get in an African trip, but you can't really make it.
The only thing that worries me about the African trip this May is that the priority is wrong.
No, but let me ask you this.
As I said, why not do the African trip and do comedy on the way back?
Now, if you explain it to Heath, if you explain it to the others, every audience coming here, we will have seen Heath, we will have seen Braun.
I just say that it's only a matter that we will have been there, we'll stop there, and we're planning something in the fall.
I think seeing Pompidou would be one hell of a stroke.
No, I think you might see Pompidou.
But why couldn't you do it there?
Because it gives the French, and the other Europeans, but really, they would do it there.
You make a special trip, and my concern about going to Africa is, basically it's just an eyewash trip, because we can't do a hell of a lot for them, and shouldn't.
And to make it your very first trip, when you have this great prestige, because all this crap here doesn't mean a thing abroad.
You are now the leading statesman in the West.
Great thing about you all.
Well, no.
Even though they check the West.
They don't.
Here.
It doesn't make that much difference, you know.
People say... No, there's no question, Mr. President.
But Pompidou is eager to see you.
In fact, the French...
I haven't talked... Will he come here?
No, but we could meet in Martinet at some point like that.
At least we could.
I'd love to, but that's a frank decision.
Is it decent enough?
Oh, yeah.
All right, set that up.
Let's set that up for our May trip.
That you can do.
Let's do that so that we get in before the running sun.
But if you could get... We work that on rather than in terms of an African trip.
Let's forget the African trip.
If we could go to Pompidou, Pompidou, Pompidou.
Oh yeah, that's definitely.
You've got run to May 1st.
May 1st.
Then any time in May, we get Pompidou.
The Shah is dying to come over, but he can't come in May.
We've got to have him in July, because he's now off in July.
July, sure, fine.
Of course, we've got to have him in July.
August 2nd.
We can do it with one apart, I don't mind.
Then you'll really have a very active,
What about Latin America?
Why don't we do that?
I would do that also.
Where would you go?
I would go to Brazil and to Mexico, and maybe to Venezuela.
How would you go to Mexico?
You can go.
That president, if we can get him postured right, is dying to host a meeting of other Latin American presidents.
You see, you can't let Mexico say that.
That makes it blow up.
Well, they say no, but let's assume we don't want to run that race.
If it's a meeting of presidents, it could be in Consumel, that's an island of Yucatan.
It's a resort island.
So you have a good reason not to be in Mexico City.
They would want to give you a tremendous reception, they said, somewhere.
You could go to a smaller town like Guadalajara, or...
But...
If you like Mexico City, it's so obvious.
Mexico City would not be actually...
They said horrible things were said about Johnson, and he got the greatest reception.
And that was in the middle of the Vietnam War.
And they said they would guarantee a great reception in Mexico City.
Assuming you wouldn't want to go there.
But if you did Brazil...
Venezuela we have to look into, or Colombia.
The good thing that what I like about Venezuela is that it would wind up in the Caracas, but one would have to have a hundred, there one couldn't afford any of this.
But Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, whatever, they wind up with a meeting of the Latin American presidents in Consumel, let's say, proclaiming a Nixon charter for Latin America.
A Nixon charter, that isn't good, it has to be theirs.
Well, a charter which a new OAS... As far as the Atlantic Charter, Roosevelt had no name.
But a new OAS, so that what the structure that emerges that will be associated.
That's right.
Well, Africa, I will take a trip to... At some point.
At some point.
You can judge the politics better than I.
It might be more helpful to you in an election year.
And then next year we would do Japan, Soviet Union, probably China.
Next year is the time to do that.
I'd like to do some very heavy traveling next year, but all the more versus, you know...
Well, in the spring, basically, is when I'd like to do it.
Well, I think, my thinking, though, is if you went to China, you ought to do it the first week of October, or sometime in September.
Right.
If we can't get it, you can't go to China unless we can get Zhou here.
But I would like to start working on getting Zhou here.
Well, that means, you've got to tell him he must come, but everybody wants to see him.
Oh, yeah.
That impassive they're sending is an absolute riot.
I'll bring him in here sometime.
We can't announce it too much, but...
I don't care.
It's a danger place.
But by that time, then you'd have finished, you'd have an Atlantic charter, you'd have a Latin American program, you'd have something with Japan.
How do you do this with respect for your defense?
You can't have a second chance.
That's your problem.
See, that's our problem.
Mr. President, that's one thing you should.
That's why I'm kicking everybody in the ass.
Everything you have achieved in foreign policies, you've achieved because of your toughness.
If you, and respected, you are seen to be weak
Then it would be time.
Then it would be emergency.
But I, for the first time, now having talked to a lot of senior Latins down there, I think we can do something at least cosmetic.
It won't cost us a hell of a lot.
I can't give you a way.
I've sent you away.
Let's face it, they will limit one all the rest.
Maybe we do.
Frankly, what they've got to tackle, Henry, is the problem of expropriation.
They've got to tackle the problem.
That's where an American movie development.
You can have a situation in Peru, and you can have a situation, for example, in Chile, where they say, look, come in with all your dollars, ITT, and the rest, and then wham, they take them over.
Like, for example, the Senate investigation of ITT, the most ridiculous thing.
If I got a stock over in ITT, I'd fire the whole goddamn executive board if they hadn't tried to beat IMP.
Of course.
They were doing it in their own interest.
When they said they came in to see Dr. Kissinger and the rest, I said, well, they sure as hell have been.
And the office said we didn't have anything to do with it.
The reason I didn't take the $1 million is because I didn't want a bunch of executives running around
You know what we're trying to do.
The people who should be before congressional committees are the State Department guys who sabotaged it.
It only took
80,000 votes to shift it.
It was a great victory only because his opponents didn't get enough of a majority to impeach him.
If they had had two-thirds, they would have defeated him.
But the liberals, Mr. President, they say the New York Times has an editorial today which is a great line.
how we have bruised Japan, how we have neglected Europe.
Sure, we did a few good things with China and Russia.
What, in God's name, could we have done with Europe that we didn't do?
If they can't make two things... Well, for Christ's sake, can't we?
Johnson abused and neglected Europe.
We spent four years trying to...
I went there, and I've seen them all in many summons for Christ's sake.
You took your first trip to Europe.
That could be twice in Europe.
That's right.
You've never seen a major communist without having first a complication.
They're just fizzing around because they want something to be against.
They just have nothing to do with it.
Nothing to do with it.
Nothing to do with that editorial page of the Times.
You can't do anything with it.
No.
Well, they're better than the Post.
Well, what do we get?
I don't pay attention to it.
Look, I'd pay attention to it if it had been where we are.
That's why they're dying.
That's just, you know, weird.
Above everything else, they want to be paid attention to.
They want me to do as they are.
They want me to keep strong.
And I'm going to do it.
I've got to do what we're doing because I do what is right.
If they like it, fine.
If they don't, well, that's the way it's going to be.
It's the way it has been.
It's the way it's going to be now.
No change.
Absolutely.
I don't know what I think, Mr. Pearson.
The neighbors, you know, like today, they had any grace.
They would say, well, we were wrong again.
The president was right, insisting that we not, you know, they were saying, why should we hold up for nine ocean prisoners when we could have gotten those guys back on Sunday?
You notice that the League of American Families all supported us on that, though.
They sent wires and hairs to Canberra.
Did you notice that?
No, I didn't know that they did it.
But we said it.
Now, we will not make a deal to make $145,000 unless we get denied.
Absolutely.
But did you hear the press back in office?
They're a goddamn position.
Unbelievable.
I'm reprimanding, Mr. President.
The extent of their hatred is really incredible.
But I repeat, it will...
I don't want to separate you.
Abroad, Mr. President, it's a pity you can't travel as a private citizen.
When I compare the mood in Mexico, I mean, it's not that it's decisive, but the Mexicans have a feel for what goes on in the world.
I like that.
That's right.
The difference this year and last year, they treated me very nicely last year, but this year, and in Mexico, it's personalized on you.
They don't have to appreciate the crumbling stuff.
Is that what they call the crumbling stuff?
That's the word he used.
The forehead.
The forehead, yeah.
No, uh, Aleman, as well as the foreign minister.
They said, when I said, Raj, it might not make any difference.
The man we want is the president.
He's got the, he's thrown, he's got coronavirus.
That's what they're like.
Said they may riot, they may come, do this or that, but that doesn't, they don't, they don't let that fool, he's safe and very safe.
If you get, let's get these little guns off and people who are registered people who are fired.
Oh, no, fancy letter.
I don't need to see it.
No, I'll get it.
Let's send it.
I have a message.
What you can send over to President Warren.
Well done, Senator.
Everybody's participating.
How's that?
And I'll send it to Maura.
Yeah, and then I'll send it to my cousins for the superb job of an operating home contractor.
Well done.
Also, whoever it is that's on that commission or should make a statement, very good.
What's his name?
Shield?
No.
Shield is what he is in the Defense Department.
No, the man up there in Saigon who's... Woodford.
Woodford.
Who is he, the State Department man?
No, Major General Woodford.
He's a fellow colleague.
Yeah, he's a fellow colleague.
I want him particularly noticed.
Okay.
Fair enough.
Good.