Foreign Relations, 1969-1976, Volume E-7, Documents on
Released by the Office of the
Historian
Conversation between President Nixon and his Assistant for
National Security Affairs (Kissinger),
Kissinger: I got the answer from the Russians. They are giving us a full reply later. The interim reply is that they have an
assurance from Mrs. Gandhi that she will not attack
Nixon: Sure it’s from Mrs. Gandhi?
Kissinger: And that they will work out—they are working
with her now to work out a ceasefire.
And goddamn it, we made it and we didn’t deserve it. And—
Nixon: Maybe we made it except, except that
[unclear] overturned by this crew. You
realize the danger, we must not be in a position where the Russians and we
settle the son-of-a-bitch and leave the Chinese out.
Kissinger: Exactly.
This is why we had to go on the other route too. I’ll just call Vorontsov
back and say it’s too late. As I told
you last night we’re going back to the Security Council. So far we have no formal assurance of
anything, if they want to—
Nixon: Did you get that message?
Kissinger: That’s right.
Nixon: Tell me again, now, as to what the Russians,
this interim reply—
Kissinger: The interim reply you are—Mr. President, I
was just talking to Haig, you know, on these your
perception of this is, well, you’re right [unclear].
Nixon: It’s not that I [unclear].
Kissinger: No.
What you did this morning, Mr. President, was a heroic act.
Nixon: I had to do it.
Kissinger: Yes.
But I know no other man in the country, no other man who would have done
what you did. You did it not knowing
any—
Nixon: You know, if we put
it up to State I can just see what would have happened. I don’t mean Bill. I mean the whole—
Kissinger: Including Bill.
Nixon: What?
Kissinger: Including Bill.
Nixon: No.
What I meant is I’m not, it’s the whole attitude, the whole government,
the whole American establishment would say, well, don’t start any trouble. It’s all going to work out. Nothing ever works out unless you do
something about it. That’s the trouble
with the world. That is what caused
World War I, we know that was just a clumsy bunch of
bastards. But World War II, Henry, was a
direct result, a direct result—I mean we can talk all we want to about Hitler
doing in the Jews and all that. Sure, it
caused all that. But it was a direct
result of the Allies backing the pusillanimous [unclear—leading wave]. Right?
Kissinger: No question.
Nixon: That’s what—
Kissinger: Mr. President—
Nixon: That’s why the biggest mistake we made was
our decision last—
Kissinger: EC–121.
Nixon: The EC–121.
The biggest, and the biggest error frankly that has—it was a hell of an
error on
Kissinger: Now, Mr. President, the next question is
[unclear]. My—now that we’ve played it
this far this is—I mean, we’ve broken the back of it.
Nixon: Well, don’t be too sure. Why have we broken the back of it?
Kissinger: Because we have—
Nixon: Does Haig agree?
Kissinger: State doesn’t know—
Nixon: Does Haig agree?
Kissinger: Oh, yeah.
Nixon: Why does he think we have broken the back of
this? [unclear]
Kissinger: Because, Mr. President, when we showed, when
I showed Vorontsov the Kennedy treaty, they knew they
were looking down the gun barrel.
Nixon: Did he react?
Kissinger: Oh, yeah.
Nixon: He did make—
Kissinger: Oh, man.
Nixon: He did?
Kissinger: Oh, yeah.
Now that—
Nixon: You told him that at that time that that’s
what the President was talking about when he talked to the editor.
Kissinger: Yes.
But now the problem is, Mr. President, we have to go through. The big problem is as you,
first of all, we have to turn the screw another half turn because if we let off
the pressure too much and show any relief we’ve had it.
Nixon: I know.
Kissinger: Therefore, my strong recommendation is we
trigger this UN thing as quickly as we possibly can because it’s the only way
we can go on record now of condemning
Nixon: That’s right.
Kissinger: Second—
Nixon: Second the White House statement still goes.
Kissinger: That’s what I meant. The White House statement triggers it.
Nixon: Right.
Kissinger: It’s essential now that it’s a White House
statement.
Nixon: I know.
Kissinger: Because we now have to play it to the—
Nixon: Do the Russians—you don’t have it prepared
yet?
Kissinger: I’ve got it here.
Nixon: I need to see it. [unclear]
Kissinger: Yeah.
Nixon: Ha.
Now you got it. Now we’ve got
it. It’s better than what I had.
Kissinger: Okay.
Nixon: It isn’t, the rhetoric isn’t as strong. But it’s better.
Kissinger: Okay, now this has to go by 11:30.
Nixon: Why not now?
Kissinger: Well, because no one in the bureaucracy knows
of it.
Nixon: You mention foreign people? Yes you do.
Kissinger: Yeah.
I don’t want them to read it on the ticker.
Nixon: Yeah.
All right, go on. Now, there’s
no—tell them the President dictated this.
Kissinger: What I would like to do in the message is to
say, now these are the orders, we can’t horse around now.
Nixon: You can say this. The President has been in the office since
8:00 this morning. Why don’t you just
say this?
Kissinger: Right.
Nixon: Or do you want to say this?
Kissinger: I want to say—
Nixon: You say, "The President dictated this
thing. This is it gentlemen."
Kissinger: "We cannot afford to blink."
Nixon: We cannot, we cannot, and this is the way it
is. And tell them that I will not—that I
have worked, tell them I have worked out every word, every comma is mine, and that
there’s frankly no appeal to this.
Kissinger: That’s right.
Nixon: Now I’m not going to have a call. I don’t want any. Nobody is going to call me.
Kissinger: No, I’m just going to tell them this is going
to be released at 11:30.
Nixon: Right.
Right.
Okay. Point two. Hotline?
Kissinger: Point two, yes. Hotline. "Thank you for the interim message. It arrived after the decisions had been made
and they were irreversible. We are still
prepared to proceed with you on the basis of my letter of so and so and so and
so."
Nixon: Right.
Kissinger: "And we will stay in close
communications."
Nixon: Right.
Kissinger: That definitely kicks them in the teeth.
Nixon: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, the Russians have said—now let’s be sure that they are prepared to what? To go, that Mrs. Gandhi—they have assurances
that she will what?
Kissinger: Mrs. Gandhi has assured—I haven’t got the
exact text here because my idiot girl who took it down froze when she heard it.
Nixon: [unclear]
Kissinger: But they’re sending it over there. Prime Minister Gandhi has assured Minister Kuznetsov, who will send [was sent?] as a result of the
President’s appeal—
Nixon: Minister Kuznetsov?
Kissinger: Yeah.
Nixon: Yeah.
Kissinger: That ceasefire—no military action against—
Nixon:
Kissinger: Against
Nixon: That’s in there?
Kissinger: Yeah.
Nixon: Good.
Well add—
Kissinger: Gromyko is coming
back—oh, we got them. But the big
problem now is, Mr. President, not to give the, is to—if we play this well,
we’ll come out ahead with both the Chinese and the Russians. Hell, we are doing
this, Mr. President, with no cards whatsoever.
Nixon: Well, we have one card.
Kissinger: Well, you—
Nixon: The Russians want something from us and we
didn’t, we didn’t lecture. You know, not
to talk about it, but even my friend good old Morefield
was panting to go out and give the goddamn trade away. Morey, you can’t give the trade away. Wasn’t he? Important thing
to do?
Kissinger: Mr. President, your behavior in the last 2 weeks
has been heroic in this.
Nixon: Well.
Kissinger: No.
You were shooting—your whole goddamn political future for next year, you
were doing—
Nixon: Whole summer.
Kissinger: Against your bureaucracy. Against your,
against the Congress, against public opinion.
All alone, like everything else.
Without flinching, and I must say, I may yell
and scream but this hour this morning is worth 4 years here.
Nixon: It wasn’t easy [unclear]. Well, the reason for that, and the reason the
hour this morning was that I had a chance to reflect a little and to see where
it was going. The world is just going
down the goddamn drain. It may do it; it
may do it.
Kissinger: Mr. President–
Nixon: As I told you on the phone last night, I don’t
know whether the
Kissinger: No.
Nixon: I seriously doubt it.
Kissinger: The
Nixon: Well, Agnew would have done it.
Kissinger: Agnew, Mr. President, would have done it so
stupidly.
Nixon: Connally would have
done it. There’s one.
Kissinger: Yeah. Connally is the only man.
Nixon: Although he might have been a little
[unclear].
Kissinger: He lacks your subtlety. Connally, if you
watch Connally—I said the other day to Haldeman—after all, Connally was
an undistinguished Governor, why is he a great Secretary of the Treasury? Because of you. Nobody ever thought of Connally
as an outstanding man until you—
Nixon: No, they thought he was a good Governor.
Kissinger: I beg your pardon?
Nixon: They thought he was a good Governor.
Kissinger: A good Governor. But not a great one.
Nixon: No governors are great.
Kissinger: Well.
But I’ve watched Connally at these meetings,
and I don’t fear the interrogation of him because he is the one I like by far.
Nixon: [unclear]
Kissinger: He waits, his first instinct is often wrong,
like when he said to cut off aid to both
Nixon: Yeah.
You’re really encouraged by the Russians?
Kissinger: I think we’ve got it now. The thing is to play it in such a way—
Nixon: [unclear]
Kissinger: —that the
Chinese, and we may have—now we may have them, Mr. President. This is the complication. The Chinese may come anyway, and we’ll have
to face the Russians down anyway.
Nixon: Yeah, but if the Russians and the Chinese
come now they will, they will come [unclear].
The Russians want to settle it with us.
If this means anything; if this means something. Now there’s one great problem. I may be wrong but Communists generally use
negotiations for the purpose of screwing, not for the purpose of settling. Now it may, with the Russians there’s no,
maybe for the purpose of—just like they screwed us on
Kissinger: Yeah.
Nixon: For 3 years.
Kissinger: They’re too scared.
Nixon: [unclear] Do you agree?
Kissinger: They’re too scared.
Nixon: Huh?
Kissinger: They’re too scared.
Nixon: Scared of what? That we will not—
Kissinger: Mr. President,
Nixon: Yeah. All right. All right.
Kissinger: We have to tell the Chinese what the message
is. We mustn’t fool them.
Nixon: The Russian message?
Kissinger: Yeah.
Nixon: That the Russians are—that as a result of the
President’s ultimatum—
Kissinger: Yeah.
Nixon: I’d put it that way. The Russians have now—
Kissinger: I showed them the message, to tell you the
truth.
Nixon: Yeah.
Yeah. This
message?
Kissinger: Yeah.
Nixon: Yeah.
Kissinger: Or at least read a summary of it.
Nixon: That’s right.
That’s right. Okay.
Nixon: And that we’re going forward, Henry.
Kissinger: And we’re going forward. And that, let’s ask, see what they want. If they are threatened we will consider it—
Nixon: The Chinese know what my letter, what my
conversations or letter, and letter to Brezhnev was.
Kissinger: I let them—
Nixon: They didn’t go along with it. But they said they would abstain on that
position.
Kissinger: Not to me.
They said it to Bhutto. But we’ve
got to get this machinery figured—
Nixon: If they say this to Bhutto too, are you going
to tell him about this?
Kissinger: No.
Nixon: He’s an elitist son-of-a-bitch. Tell the Chinese that. Tell them that this afternoon.
Kissinger: Yep.
Nixon: And now you’ll send the hotline off to
Brezhnev.
Kissinger: Yep.
Nixon: But the tone will be more—don’t, no more
conciliatory.
Kissinger: No.
Nixon: Say—
Kissinger: We’re just changing it a little, saying,
"since your message arrived too late we were
already in the machinery"—
Nixon: "The President had already directed the
Secretary General, I mean the Ambassador Bush to take this to the Security
Council. We had already directed.
However, the offer is still open."
Is that what you’re going to say?
Kissinger: Exactly.
Nixon: But time is of the essence.
Kissinger: But I think we’re in business now.
Source:
Doc 178, vol E7,