Nixon & Kissinger on Watergate and Foreign Policy

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I think we ought to go on the offensive on this.

We ought to sit here like criminal defendants waiting for the next blow to fall.

I think we ought to get out a statement today.

saying that these votes just before the president, before negotiations start.

You're leaving at 10 o'clock.

Yeah.

I can put it on pass.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I didn't mean that.

I meant you should go, go right when you can.

Why is it?

What the hell are you going to talk about when you're there?

Well, Mr. President, we had the thing well set up when we started this.

We were going to give them a blast, as you remember, at the end of April.

And when this whole

Insanity.

Well, what is the...

But I think we still have the economic aid.

We still... Abroad, Mr. President, all this bullshit here, they know you are the man who went through the last five years.

And I'm just going to act as if nothing will happen here.

I'm going to say, Mr. President, every threat he's made is coming out, and I'm telling you now.

You've seen a lot of votes.

They never meant anything.

I'm telling you now, these don't mean anything.

I mean, if we've got a case... We can't put in a blow now.

You can't do it.

They'll fire.

They'll all hell and break loose then.

Oh, that would just give them the excuse to crystallize on the substantive issue.

True.

But I think we need a little time now.

Well, all I've got is money.

And you know I'm seeing history.

I think we ought to waste time so that there's no blow-up until the summit.

We have the massive pressure from the Soviets to have some Middle East result at the summit.

I think they're giving them enough already of that nuclear treaty.

But I've been talking to the Israelis.

I think they're moving a little, but not enough.

But after I come back from talking to Ismail, Mr. President, we might review that situation so that you know where it stands.

Yeah, we don't want to have a Middle East war on our hands or our consciences this summer.

There is a chance that it can happen, not because simply because of the irrationality of the artist.

That's always the reason.

It's always the reason.

My brother was going to leave on the 67th.

I remember I talked to him.

He was dumb.

Everybody was talking to him.

They were absolutely convinced.

I was convinced then, as soon as they closed the straits of Tehran, that they'd be a war.

But I think there might be a different military move, but I don't think they can do this.

But I've thought out a procedure by which we could get talks started.

The Russians have agreed in principle, but we haven't given it substance yet.

If we could come up, perhaps even in the summit, with a set of principles that are very vague, that don't mean anything, but are different from the Security Council resolution, then perhaps the Egyptians could say they got something.

The Israelis could actually act, and they could use that as a basis to start negotiating the interim settlement.

And the Egyptians will probably want that the overall settlement is negotiated simultaneously.

I've talked with these people about it.

They don't want to accept that.

But I think we could get them to accept that.

We have to.

But all that would depend here, Mr. President, is whether we can get propositions that are general enough so that both sides can accept them.

If that would work, we could buy ourselves a year anyway.

That'd be great.

I know you've talked about that before.

I'll concentrate on it.

I'm trying to get my mind on what he's saying.

There doesn't have to be a great word as a concept.

Now, between there, a great word is a concept.

And then finding words that are really general enough.

President has written you a purpling letter about my visit.

Good.

And I thought we might send him a friendly letter.

Well, Henry, look, we're having tough times.

Joe Althoff had a very good comment this morning, which he said, in any other country, when the presidential emissary would be deceived by the Soviet leaders at a place where no Westerner has ever been,

The leader of the Soviet Union spent four days, it would be mentioned in the newspaper.

And he said it was not a tribute to Kirchner, it was a tribute to the president.

He said they did it because they think that the president's authority is unimpaired in foreign policy.

It was very helpful.

Let me say this.

You've got to go away with great confidence and reassurance, always.

And you know we've...

We've got a healthy battle because of these things, but these things run a course, and this will run its course.

I'm beginning to think the public must be getting sick of that.

Yeah, there's been a crisis up in there every day.

The CIA is going to do this shit.

A mandate.

Hague and I went on the offensive yesterday on these.

Which you were sure?

National security-wise.

Those are totally legal.

We said they were legal.

We had a duty to do it.

What is wrong with the national security?

Well, I think the next thing you can say, had we had...

I mean, that the lease, as it was, seriously impaired some of our negotiations, and that the amount of contingent, the grade of entities might not have come up.

That's what I am saying.

Condamnation.

I said it too now.

You know, for example, our position on salt was to get out and everything else was awful.

And listen, don't worry about it.

We didn't, we didn't, we never, the idea that it was ever used, some, some, Jack, I guess, that, that, that, perhaps, what he was saying, she was politely saying,

Those men, those men never saw the light.

I never saw them, you know.

I didn't know what the Christ was in those damn things.

The only one I ever saw was the first one on Brandon.

It was such a bunch of nothing, you know what I mean?

Hell, they didn't have anything on Brandon.

But Brandon wasn't ours anyway.

It was J.F.

Hoover's.

I know, I know.

Well, nevertheless, he did a lot of things.

He taught us in British television.

What difference does it make?

But anyway, they're legal.

Henry, it's a rough time.

I know it's a rough time for all of us around here.

Hard to go through some of these things.

Mr. President, Watergate, you know, they say Pipatome.

I think that's not true.

I suppose it is.

But your presidency will be remembered for its great achievements.

And I noticed that it occurred flying when he was over at the, over at the Cubs, the editors, they said that they all asked him, when they're not in the president, when he should resign.

You know, you know, we talked, I remember you and I talked about, about all of them resigning, but you, when you said, to me, I mean, I wouldn't give an N if they were to prove rich.

That I was there in the orderly, you know, wearing a red beard, collecting the evidence, until I was even considered the President of the United States.

You cannot resign.

That's ridiculous.

Well, the horror of this thing, it is the disparity between the minor league crap that these guys did and the consequences.

amateurish stupidity i mean nothing big was ever done that's the worst of it it was little information no big breaks nothing there was a total failure

They're giving John and Bob a bad draft of the Mueller's testimony.

As a matter of fact, it was Dean that went over and tried to push it all out of their crap.

They've done it in the first instance, you know.

The CIA, you know, people thought the CIA was a goddamn thing.

It was such a crazy thing.

The stupidity, Mr. President, is the worst of it.

But I think the best course for all of us, though, is just we've got to put our hands up, hold our heads high, and talk about the importance of inflation in this world and this country and do the best we can.

No question.

And don't let the faint hearts knock us down.

You know what I mean is, when I had to make the very main decision, Bob and John, it was a different matter.

Any member of the staff is expendable.

And so forth.

But unfortunately, a president is not.

He can be killed, or he can be reduced to a resident.

He cannot with the things we have ahead of us.

So you leave the office.

That's the point.

I don't want all that crap.

How would you like your baggage to be here this morning?

Right now.

It's inconceivable of substance, and it's inconceivable of what it would do to the country.

80% of which go on in every administration except that every administration doesn't have a dean.

And so many are guys running loose.

That's what killed us.

If J.F.

DeHuber had been alive, he would have handled Watergate for you in a way that it would never have surfaced.

Yeah, he would pick these funds up, have them nailed for misdemeanors, give them a few, maybe a few weeks, and they would scale them out.

And started blackmailing a few newsmen, and this thing would have... Yeah, he'd blackmail them.

It would have worked out, but...

But I want you to know that it's difficult as it is, and I'm trying my best to keep everybody's spirits up around here.

But you shouldn't worry about me, Mr. President.

I believe that Joe Kraft has attacked me before.

What you've done will be, if they don't dismantle it all now.

I don't know.

Well, it may be in Vietnam.

But I think the best...

I know in Vietnam, you know, we may be in a way that we may just throw up our hands and say, all right, well...

That's what we will.

We are going to get out.

And I'd love to let Beth be there.

Oh, we've got to try our best.

I think now we're going to lose Indochina with all this attitude here, but I think we ought to sell it.

We may.

No, let me put it this way.

Let's not be quite that pessimistic.

I think that the South Vietnamese are going to put up quite a battle before they vote.

I don't think they're going to lose it this year.

Oh, no, not this year.

I don't think they are.

I mean, let's face it.

But also, we've got the Russian game to play.

We've got the Chinese game.

And that affects Central China, too.

And we've got the European, Mr. President.

If we can now—we'll have a very successful summit.

I reviewed this at the briefing yesterday where we stand.

We're going to have five agreements.

We're going to have salt principles.

We're going to have that nuclear treaty that no one even suspects right now, which is going to be a sensation.

That's good.

We've come about the right time.

We're going to have a lot of hearings.

It will be at the end of June.

Then you have a lot of other activities in July, foreign leaders.

Then, if we can get enough discipline into our bureaucracy, which is essential, then we can have a very successful European summit

October, early November, and we'll have to see how those negotiations go.

What is important is that during June, we have everyone singing the same tune when these things happen.

So I think we can, the country will be so sick of all this crap, and that we can get back to the business of governing.

Well, let's face it, this crap is because it's going on for a month now.

Well, it was crap for more than that, two months.

but for a month of great intensity, about six weeks, uh, naturally hurts the, hurts the, you know, the present people where you can live children.

Well, maybe he really knew her, all that sort of thing.

But, but anyway, uh, the point is that

And the way that the world moves today, after this crap passes, I mean, which it will, in the night, when people are on trial, I don't know what to say.

Yes, Mr. President, I don't think it's going to make any difference, because it will be old news.

It's like the Pentagon paper trial, which was on page 30.

Everyone told us that the trial would kill us.

The trial made no difference at all until the end, when they got some new stuff.

No, the trial of these people, particularly, I don't know.

We'll be older because the trial is deadly.

It goes on and on and on and on.

But what I'm going to say, I'm going to get ahead apart from that.

Suppose so be it.

So be it.

Let the press be wallowing in this horrible crap and not paying attention to the great events that are happening.

We just have to plow through and make our record in the end.

People will look back and say, well, by God, they had guts.

But I'm trying to get Joe in law over here in October.

Great.

In the meantime, I'm sure it was not easy.

Mr. President, you have behaved with unbelievable strength in this.

Well, then.

and to lose all your closest associates.

I know how much they have meant to you, and to go through this unjustly, after all you've done for the country, is...

The problem is, I don't think we might have talked to you anymore.

I know.

I'm an exception now.

You, of course, will pick on me.

Some of the young folks... Well, Mr. President... And you know another thing that's rather disturbing is the discouraging of the Senate.

It's the pusillanimous attitude of the Congressman, Senator, those people, God damn them, we've done so much for them.

So much for these parties, but they won't step up.

But you remember, Mr. President, when the Pentagon's latest twist came out, we thought it would never end.

After the hours, we thought it would never end.

And then six months later, during Camponia, when they had Cedar, you sat all alone in here.

And in October, your critics were defending themselves.

We should go on and begin to go on the counter-attack as soon as we have a sense that everything's... A little bit more.

Let's crack a little bit more on this.

I agree.

A little bit more.

But I think, Mr. President, you...

It's a good thing it happened early.

I think it had to happen, but it happened a bit early.

But...

Earlier, it's a bad thing to have happen.

It's an awful thing.

running a sloppy shop now when the press gets so concerned about this why should they do such a law on themselves why should a press man have a license to steal why should a less oppressed man have a license to be an espionage uh carrier uh why should he be above the law

you know good god this press has been the most irresponsible thing i've ever heard these congressmen senators kept getting around they had their way those people i mean we wouldn't be having that name and be built every day i mean i know

I'll be back Monday.

Nixon & Kissinger on Watergate and Foreign Policy

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on May 16, 1973

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