Foreign
Relations, 1969-1976, Volume E-7, Documents on
Released by the Office of the
Historian
189. Conversation among President Nixon, the President’s
Assistant (Haldeman), and the President’s Assistant
for National Security Affairs (Kissinger),
Nixon: How about
Kissinger: Look, what we got
yesterday—
Nixon: [unclear] about
the same as last night?
Kissinger: Yeah. Except that I think we are moving towards an
acceptance of the British resolution.
But actually now—I haven’t told Bob yet—the Russians came in yesterday
giving us their own guarantee that there would be no attack on West Pakistan.
Nixon: A letter from
Brezhnev.
Kissinger: An addition—an
explanation of the letter to—of Brezhnev saying, "They," the Soviet
Union, "guarantees there will be no military action against West
Pakistan." So we are home, now it’s
done. It’s just a question what legal
way we choose.
Nixon: Well, what the UN
does is really irrelevant.
Kissinger: Well, it’d be—the
bastards, of course, have broken promises before. It’d be better to have it on public
record. We might be able to do it in an
exchange of letters between Brezhnev and you.
That is made public, in which you say you express your concern, and he
says he wants to assure you.
Nixon: Well, what does
that do now to the Chinese?
Kissinger: Oh, the Chinese
would be thrilled if
Nixon: [unclear] Did you get the—you
got that, the concern about the summit thing cooled off? That—you get that?
Kissinger: I think, Mr. President, that it was unintentional that it blew in to such
a fantastic thing. And if you read the
full report, you’ll see that they—
Nixon: Well, it isn’t
that big, actually. It’s a still, still
a secondary story.
Kissinger: But I think—
Haldeman: Only CBS carried
it as a big story. They termed it—nobody
else really—
Kissinger: I think it has
this advantage, Mr. President. First of
all, since we now know there will be a settlement, you will get a major credit
for it. Second, it shows that you are
not a politician; that you were willing to put the summit on the line when the
peace was at stake. Third,
it [unclear] to the Russians.
Fourth, it helps with the, with the—
Nixon: Indians.
Kissinger: With the Indians.
Nixon: With the Chinese.
Kissinger: With the
Chinese. Hell, that fellow Vorontsov came babbling in here, said "Can’t you give me some
reassurance. I know Brezhnev is terribly concerned when he reads that we need
some words of reassurance." And I’m
a great believer in selling something you’ve already done. So I turned to Haig,
I said, "Tell Ziegler to calm it down a little bit." But you people should understand, by that
time Ziegler had already agreed to calm down.
And I told him, "Brezhnev has to understand, you cannot play such a
game with the President." So I—and
that’s when he said "well, I just had a cable to tell the President we
give him, that this letter means that the Soviet Government gives him the
guarantee that there will be no attack on West Pakistan. No annexation of
Nixon: Vorontsov talking now?
Kissinger: Yeah. He said no annexation of
Nixon: How do you do it?
Kissinger: It’s a miracle—
Nixon: How do you get the
formalization of letters between Brezhnev and me [unclear].
Kissinger: It’s an absolute
miracle, Mr. President.
Nixon: Did you try to
work that out? That we—I’d like to do it
in a certain way that pisses on the Indians without, you know what I mean? I mean, we can’t [unclear] we have an
understanding, an understanding with
Kissinger: No, I think it’s a
good idea. But we have—I have this whole
file of intelligence reports, which makes it unmistakably clear that the Indian
strategy was—
Nixon: To knock—oh, sure.
Kissinger: —to knock over
Nixon: Over the line of control here. Most people were ready to stand by and let
her do it, bombing
Kissinger: They really are bastards.
Nixon: The son-of-a-bitch [unclear]—
Kissinger: Now, after this is over we ought to do
something about that goddamned Indian Ambassador here going on television every
day—
Nixon: He’s really something.
Kissinger: —attacking American policy. And—
Nixon: Why haven’t we done something already?
Kissinger: And I—I’d like to call State to call him
in. He says he has unmistakable proof
that we are planning a landing on the
Nixon: Yeah, that scares them.
Kissinger: That carrier move is good. That—
Nixon: Why, hell yes. That never bothers me. I mean it’s a, the point about the carrier
move, we just say fine, we had a majority.
And we’ve got to be there for the purpose of their moving there. Look, these people are savages.
Kissinger: Mr. President, an aggregate—
Nixon: I want a word, put a word to give to Scali to use that we—that the—we cannot, the United Nations
cannot survive and we cannot have a stable world if we allow one member of the
United Nations to cannibalize another.
Cannibalize, that’s the word. I
should have thought of it earlier. You
see, that really puts it to the Indians.
It has, the connotation is savages.
To cannibalize—
Kissinger: Mr. President—
Nixon: —and that’s what the sons-of-bitches are up
to—
Kissinger: One, one other thing we have done, if I may
say, rather well. We’ve put the Chinese
in the position where they’re more eager to yield than we are. We can’t be accused.
[Omitted here is conversation largely unrelated to
Kissinger: And now, Mr. President, what I wanted to
check with you just to make sure you approved, I’m having Vorontsov
in at
Nixon: That’s right.
Kissinger: What you and we had in mind, what you and we
can do is, the President was very impressed by
[unclear].
Nixon: And by the letter of Brezhnev.
Kissinger: Well, that I told him already we weren’t
impressed with, Mr. President. I told
him that was just words. What we need is
something complete.
Nixon: Yeah, fine.
All right.
Kissinger: He was very impressed with these
assurances. That we
could make peace formal. That the President writes you a letter and you respond. Or that you write us a letter and we
respond. It doesn’t make much difference
who takes the first step, in which you’d say that you know that no military
action [is] planned against
Nixon: All right.
Just put it in the letter.
Kissinger: And the territorial integrity, that we both
publish these letters then we can symbolize—
Nixon: Soviet-American—
Kissinger: Soviet-American concern for peace.
Nixon: Good, good, good.
Kissinger: And the beauty is—
Nixon: But tell him the beauty, it would only be
beautiful if we do it fast.
Kissinger: Yeah.
We can then go to the Chinese and say, look—
Nixon: Gotcha.
Kissinger: I mean, we got out of this with the Chinese—
Nixon: I dislike the idea of Soviet-America, our
[unclear]—we’ve laid it up too, set it up by threatening them. Now let’s go right to—
Kissinger: Now one of two things is going to happen
today, Mr. President: either they will
both vote for the British resolution in the Security Council, in which case
they will take credit for it, or they will not vote for the British resolution
and exchange these letters.
Nixon: Yeah.
But we do tell them that the exchange of letters can be good, even if
they vote for it. Exchange of letters–—tell
them that the President believes that it would be [?] very salutary to our
relations if we have an exchange of letters.
Kissinger: Yeah.
Well, we have always the worry about [unclear] in
Nixon: Well, I know, but we tell them, you know what
you tell them. You tell the
Kissinger: Well, what if the Russians vote with us at
the Security Council? We are fine.
Nixon: Well, ok.
Kissinger: Because, really, the Chinese thing is almost
marvelous, that we brought it to this point without them blowing up.
Nixon: Yeah, ok.
Kissinger: I think it would be too much collusion if we
add an exchange of letters after there has already been a vote.
[Omitted here is discussion of attempts to manage the
news.]
Kissinger: But actually, if the game plan works out, it
has the advantage of giving you credit.
Where on the previous game plan all that would have happened was that
the British put forward a resolution, everybody votes for it, and then they
say—
Nixon: Stupid Americans.
Kissinger: The Americans were saved by the goddamn
British. Now we can make, now no one
will doubt—
Nixon: We’re in the game. Yeah.
I would say this, we were just lucky.
We probably wouldn’t have intended to have this kind of a play. But I think we may get it done. And I don’t—you know something?
Kissinger: But the trip was intentional.
Nixon: Henry, we mustn’t get too upset by what we
call flak, or something like that.
Things are not perfect. Sometimes
those things that turned out to be accidents are damned good for us. In any event, you can’t change it. [unclear] That’s exactly what I told the Russian. That also happens to be totally true.
Kissinger: Right now it helps us with the Chinese; it
puts a little more scare into the Indians; it helps us with the Paks; and if we turn it into a positive, it will help with
the Russians.
Nixon: I’ll tell you, it helps us with our
Kissinger: It helps you—
[unclear exchange]
Kissinger: And it helps with the people who say you are
taking it only for political reasons.
Nixon: That’s right.
Kissinger: Because you put it right on the line.
[Omitted here is conversation unrelated to
Source: Doc 189, vol E7,