THE NIXON/GANNON INTERVIEWS

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Transcript: Richard Nixon/Frank Gannon Interview, May 13, 1983 [Day 5 of 9]

interviewer: Frank Gannon
interviewee: Richard Nixon
producer: Ailes Communications, INC.
date: May 13, 1983
minutes: approximately 209
extent: ca. 287kb
summary: This interview, comprising four video tapes, or approximately 3 hours 29 minutes, is the fifth in a series of taped interviews with former president Nixon. The conversation continues day four's emphasis on the Soviet Union, then turns to China and the Chinese leaders with whom Nixon dealt. Also discussed are the Pentagon Papers and Nixon's relationship with the Media.
repository: Walter J. Brown Media Archives, University of Georgia Libraries (Main Library)
collection: Richard Nixon Interviews
permissions: Contact Media Archives.

Day Five, Tape one of four, LINE FEED #1, 5-13-83, ETI Reel #34
May 13, 1983

Day 5, Tape 1
00:01:10
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

Day 5, Tape 1
00:01:11
[Offscreen voice]

Roll tape.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:01:39
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

Day 5, Tape 1
00:01:43
[Action note: Picture appears.]

Day 5, Tape 1
00:01:49
[Frank Gannon]

You'd visited many parts of the Soviet Union already, but on--in this summit, you went to Kiev for the first time. What were your impressions of Kiev?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:01:59
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I have very pleasant memories of Kiev and the Ukrainian people, but I think my most vivid memory is getting there, not being there. We went down on a Soviet plane, and I recall that there was quite a delay before the plane took off from the airport in Moscow. And finally back into our cabin came President Podgorny and Kosygin, along with a Soviet general. He had all kinds of ribbons, but he was white, absolutely white, pale. And so Kosygin said, "Well, Mr. President, we're sorry for this delay, but there's been some mechanical difficulties, and I'm afraid we're going to have to change the plane." And he said, "What do you want us to do with the general?" And I paused a minute, and I said, "Promote him." They said, "What? Promote him?" And I said, "Yes," I said, "promote him--promote him for finding the trouble on the ground rather than waiting until we got into the air." And they all laughed and took it in good style, and then we changed to another plane and off we were to Kiev. I learned later, incidentally, that in the United States this was being televised live and that the television just didn't come through. They didn't show the change of planes. And I found out the reason that happened was the Soviet technician, obviously a good Communist, just pulled the plug on the television so that it didn't show. It showed us taking off and flying off and getting on, but not the shift in planes. Incidentally, the--the Soviets, in this case--to show they had developed a bit of a sense of humor and more confidence--were very different from Khrushchev was in a similar incident. We were going down the Moscow River in 1959. That's prior to the time we had all the rallies of the captive peoples and so sorth [sic] and so on. And the boat that we were on hit a sandbar, and it got stuck. I thought Khrushchev was going to kill the boatman. He glared at him and--tough--and the fellow was just scared to death, shaking like a leaf. And I reassured Khrushchev and told him about a good friend of mine--happened to be Bebe Rebozo--that just about a month before we came to the Soviet Union, he had gotten stuck on a sandbar, and he had been running boats for at least twenty years, ever since he was just a kid. And I said that we just laughed about it, but I can assure you Khrushchev didn't laugh. He was very, very embarrassed. So we shifted boats in the middle of the river and went on to our rallies.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:04:26
[Frank Gannon]

The--the interior of Air Force One is like a cross between Star Wars and the presidential suite at the Connaught Hotel. What is the interior of Soviet One like?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:04:39
[Richard Nixon]

It's very good, and--and quite similar--if anything, I would say, as, certainly, impressive and in some ways more impressive even than ours.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:04:50
[Frank Gannon]

How so?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:04:51
[Richard Nixon]

Well, in terms of the decorations and so forth. After all, it's the--we have to understand that in the Soviet Union, when everybody's supposed to be equal and all that sort of thing, that the new class--the new czars, I would like to call them for the moment--live even better than the old czars. The gulf is much bigger between the new leadership than it is previously, and, believe me, they live well. Their dachas are magnificent. The huge swimming pools that they have, for example, down in [Orianda] and Yalta--we could put four or five of ours in it, and--and they'd be lost. And so it was with their planes. They're luxuriously appointed.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:05:34
[Frank Gannon]

How--how do they, then, relate to the people, if there is this tremendous gulf?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:05:40
[Richard Nixon]

They don't.

[Frank Gannon]

They don't?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:05:41
[Richard Nixon]

No. They just act as if those who serve them and so forth are non-persons. I know, for example, that, as always is my custom, and I'm sure it's the custom of any American politician--after a dinner, you usually shake hands with the waiter and so forth, and in many cases, where security will allow it, you go into the kitchen and so forth. As--and I used to do that in the Soviet Union, but as far as Brezhnev was concerned--and the same was true of Khrushchev before, although Khrushchev was more a man of the people than Brezhnev--but as far as Brezhnev was concerned, he didn't resent my doing it, but, on the other hand, he just didn't have any contact of that sort whatever. There's just a great gulf.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:06:25
[Frank Gannon]

How does the Soviet man on the street feel about this? Are--are they aware of the--the rich lifestyle?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:06:32
[Richard Nixon]

I don't think they have any particular feeling about it, because that's what they were used to before. They--that's their history. The czars didn't have much to do with the common people and so forth. Incidentally, this is not true just in the Soviet Union. It is true also in other Communist countries, too. I well remember a visit to Warsaw in 1959, and on that visit I visited a great steel plant, a modern, new steel plant that had been built, and my Soviet guide, the manager of the plant, showed me all through the plant and constantly was telling me about the machinery and what it was like. I couldn't have cared less. I don't unders--know what m--steel machinery is all about, and I would try to meet some of the workmen and shake hands with them, and he would just ignore them. And after we got back into the car to go back to the guest house, I--I vividly recall my translator, who was, of course, a s--a Polish foreign office man, and who probably was not a Communist, just a career fellow--he said, rather sadly, he said, "One of the problems with our factory managers in a Communist state is that they know all about machines and nothing about people." And that, incidentally, to me, is one of the fatal weaknesses in the Communist-Marxist systems. They know all about machines, but as far as people are concerned, people are just another machine.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:07:55
[Frank Gannon]

Given the--this p--very luxurious lifestyle of the Communist leaders, are they impressed or are they unimpressed with what they find when they come here--the--the creature comforts that--to the average Easter--East European or Soviet, the streets here are paved with gold. Is that true of the leaders?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:08:14
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I think they are impressed, although certainly Camp David is nothing compared to the dacha, nothing. It's very nice. It's very comfortable and very safe, and Khrushchev loved being there, because he likes the country, and--

Day 5, Tape 1
00:08:27
[Frank Gannon]

Brezhnev.

[Richard Nixon]

I'm sorry--Brezhnev liked it, but, on the other hand, there's no--there's nothing to compare with what they have. They--our apartment, for example, in the Kremlin is so magnificent that you--you wouldn't dream of trying to compare the [Queen's Room], for example, at the White House with it. There's just no way.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:08:49
[Frank Gannon]

Why--

[Richard Nixon]

Or--or, for example, Blair House. Blair House is a beautiful old American house, but it is nothing compared to the Kremlin. There is one difference--our plumbing is better. Americans are very good at plumbing.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:09:04
[Frank Gannon]

Did you have troubles with Soviet plumbing?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:09:05
[Richard Nixon]

Not particularly. They--they have learned, but in Europe generally--you will usually find that in European countries plumbing is not one of their strong suits, but they're very good in other areas that are probably more important than whether the bathroom thing works properly or not.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:09:21
[Frank Gannon]

In--I think in China there wasn't a problem with the plumbing, but there was a--there was a--

Day 5, Tape 1
00:09:25
[Richard Nixon]

Well, we had--

[Frank Gannon]

--a related problem.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:09:26
[Richard Nixon]

--had a little problem there.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:09:27
[Frank Gannon]

Isn't that the "baboon syndrome"?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:09:28
[Richard Nixon]

I didn't--well, they called it that--the members of the press--but I didn't want to have our Chinese hosts be concerned about it. I remember very well that, our first night there, I, after a long banquet and all that sort of thing, went up to my room. I couldn't sleep. You know, that--your changing of time and so forth is--makes it very difficult to go to sleep and to get adjusted to it. So I took a hot bath, which I never do. Usually I just take showers. And after taking the bath, I found some Great Wall cigars there in the guest room, and I sat there in my bathrobe smoking a Great Wall cigar at the end of my first day in China. That's the way that it ended.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:10:10
[Frank Gannon]

What is a Great Wall cigar like?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:10:11
[Richard Nixon]

It was--

Day 5, Tape 1
00:10:12
[Frank Gannon]

Is it a great cigar?

[Richard Nixon]

It was really quite adequate. Let me put it this way--ever since we have broken relations with Castro in Cuba, we don't have very many good cigars. Perhaps the Cuban-leaf ones made in other countries, and maybe those from the Canary Islands are almost as good, but there's nothing like a good Cuban cigar. Unfortunately, that's one--a very good reason at some time to renew relations. The Great Wall cigar is adequate. I'm not that much of a connoisseur.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:10:43
[Frank Gannon]

I distracted you--

[Richard Nixon]

And I would say that, in terms, though, of my bathroom, I had no problems, and I was surprised when some of the members of the staff and the press were complaining about developing some sort of rash after using the bathrooms and so forth. And apparently what had happened was that our hosts traditionally--this happens in the U.S., too. I remember so well that Mrs. Nixon and I always had such a terrible time going into little towns, and even big towns, and find that they'd repainted their best suites and the rest, and the smell of the--the paint just practically knocks you down. And Jack Kennedy told me he had the same problem in 1960 when he was campaigning. But in this case, our Chinese hosts--they had--they had painted, and lacquered, as a matter of fact, the toilet seats, and so, as a result, people got on the toilet seats, and they developed a rash. Ours--that did not happen. I had no rash. And, incidentally, I am subject to allergies, so I am delighted that our hosts hadn't done it to that one.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:11:39
[Frank Gannon]

Moving on to Summit III--you approached Summit III at a considerably more disadvantageous position than any of the others. Watergate was about to overwhelm you. A--a convergence of domestic political opposition had occurred, and, just as you were flying to the Soviet Union, word about the phlebitis in your leg that had struck during your Mideast trip a couple of weeks earlier hit the American press. What was the nature of the--the--the American political opposition to the summit?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:12:16
[Richard Nixon]

Well, Henry Kissinger described it as one of those rare occurrences in history. He said it was something like an eclipse of the sun--and "an unholy alliance," I think was another way that he described it. What happened there was that w--we had a convergence of forces in opposition to détente and to meeting with the Soviet and making agreements with the Soviet. On the one hand, we had the pro-détente liberals who were anti-Nixon politically, and they didn't want the summit to succeed or détente to go forward at that particular time because they felt that that might be a victory which would avoid the possibility of resignation or impeachment. On the other hand, you had the anti-détente conservatives who were pro-Nixon politically, but they were against détente, period. And so you had the liberals, who were usually against--usually for détente, against me for political reasons, and those who were conservative, who were for me politically but were against détente. It came together. And the Soviet had to be aware of that, and--and being aware of it, they had begun to be somewhat de--disillusioned with détente. And that was the third force. What happened was that they had expected, in 1972, progress on the economic front. That was destroyed by the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which tied any economic cooperation to Jewish emigration, which, incidentally, hurt the cause of Jewish emigration in addition to destroying the chance to get m--most-favored-nation, M.F.N., for the Soviet Union and progress on that front. And the Soviet were certainly disappointed on that score.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:13:57
[Frank Gannon]

Did you try to talk to Senator Jackson or Congressman Vanik to talk them out of that on these grounds?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:14:01
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, I talked to the senators, our senators, Senator Jackson and the rest, but to no avail.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:14:06
[Frank Gannon]

Why not? Why didn't they see the--

Day 5, Tape 1
00:14:08
[Richard Nixon]

Now I don't--

[Frank Gannon]

--that it was hurting what they wanted to accomplish?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:14:10
[Richard Nixon]

I cannot speak for all of them, but Senator Jackson is a patriot. There's no question about that. But, one, he was one who did not trust the Russians--neither did I, but I felt we had to deal with them, and I thought we could do it a--competently. And, second, he was one that was very close to and very influenced by the American Jewish community. He was their champion, and they contributed enormously to his unsuccessful campaign for the nomination. He was--they were his major financial backers. I do not suggest--

Day 5, Tape 1
00:14:40
[Frank Gannon]

The nomination for president?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:14:42
[Richard Nixon]

That's right. I do not suggest that, and would not suggest, because he is a patriot, and he stood with us on A.B.M. and other critical issues when many of the liberals would not, but, on the other hand, I do not suggest therefore that he--he did this because he was bought. He was not, but he deeply believed in the cause of Jewish emigration and therefore supported the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, of which he was one of the co-authors. And--and it paid off very well for him politically.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:15:15
[Frank Gannon]

Why were they--

[Offscreen voice]

Excuse me. I have to interrupt just one second. Keep the tape rolling, everybody. This is only going to take a second. I want [unintelligible] to adjust the mike cable, please. All right.

[Action note: Various people offscreen talk simultaneously and unintelligibly through 00:16:01.]

Day 5, Tape 1
00:15:29
[Offscreen voice]

Sir, I'll just blot you down. Perspiration on the upper lip.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:15:33
[Offscreen voice]

[Unintelligible.] Stand by. [Unintelligible] the leg--

Day 5, Tape 1
00:15:35
[Offscreen voice]

Okay.

[Offscreen voice]

[Unintelligible] coming off the chair.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:15:42
[Richard Nixon]

Got it?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:15:43
[Offscreen voice]

That's that one.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:15:52
[Offscreen voice]

[Unintelligible] the silver one or the black one?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:15:54
[Offscreen voice]

Yeah, it's the one that's coming down the leg of the chair.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:15:57
[Offscreen voice]

As long as the tape--yeah, it looks good there.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:16:01
[Offscreen voice]

You need it to go this way more?

[Action note: Break or edit in film.]

Day 5, Tape 1
00:16:02
[Frank Gannon]

--with the president.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:16:04
[Offscreen voice]

Okay, fine. Leo, can you more around to that side and just give the cue on your own?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:16:10
[Offscreen voice]

Okay.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:16:11
[Offscreen voice]

Or I can do it. Want to come back to this?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:16:16
[Frank Gannon]

Tom'll give you--

Day 5, Tape 1
00:16:20
[Offscreen voice]

[Unintelligible.] Is this better?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:16:21
[Richard Nixon]

I see it.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:16:25
[Offscreen voice]

Okay, five.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:16:32
[Richard Nixon]

Well, naturally, the Soviet leaders were aware of the fact that I didn't have the support at home that I'd had--had, for example, in 1972 and even in 1973. And I would not have been surprised if that had not influenced them to an extent on two scores. One, that with my lack of support at home--that I would be willing to make a deal that I otherwise wouldn't make, which was not about to be the case. I wasn't there to go to s--to give away the store and didn't do so, despite their attempts to make me give ground on the key issues that we were discussing.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:17:05
[Frank Gannon]

Did they try to take advantage of your weakness?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:17:07
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I th--I think it's possible. It is possible that they were motivated by that, but it's also possible that they were motivated by another factor that I think was even more important. And that is that they felt they had not gotten enough out of détente in terms of the economic progress and the other things that had been expected and which, of course, had been torpedoed by reason of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment and other--and other factors which we perhaps had in mind. I think that the Soviet leaders, therefore, came to the summit disillusioned to an extent. Not Brezhnev--Brezhnev still wanted to have something big happen, but I think his hands were somewhat tied because his military leaders and so forth, probably, were--felt that they didn't have to make a deal at this point.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:18:00
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think that they thought you were going to survive through the end of your presidency?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:18:05
[Richard Nixon]

I don't know what they thought, but I know what they said. And they couldn't have been more forthcoming on that, all in varying conversations and apart from each other, which would lead me to say that they really believed it. When I first met Brezhnev, for example, in our private meeting prior to the other meetings, the first thing he said was that he was glad to hear from his ambassador that the political situation in the United States was better--that he was confident that I was going to survive. He said that also at the end of our meetings. He said he was confident that I would survive and--through--and would see me, of course, at the mini-summit which we planned then, which would be six months later, and at the next summit, which might take place in the United States. Gromyko, who is perhaps a better observer since he had served as ambassador to the United States, told me the same thing when we were in [Orienda] on a boat. He said that he felt the political situation was improving. Now, whether they believed that or not is another question, because they may have said that, having in mind the fact that i--if I did survive, it would help them in the future. And if I didn't, it wasn't going to hurt them a bit to say the nice things at this point. But I think they did feel at this time that there was a chance that I would survive, at least.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:19:24
[Frank Gannon]

You don't think, then, they were trying to psyche you out when they took you into the Kremlin through a particular gate?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:19:30
[Richard Nixon]

Well, that was very interesting. I recall, as--for example, the arrival being so different from what it had been previously. I had been to Moscow now officially three times, and in this particular instance was the first time that the chief man was there to greet me, because in 1959 it was [Kasloff], a deputy prime minister, who came to the airport to meet an American vice president. In 1972, it was Podgorny, who was obviously my opposite number. He was president. Brezhnev was general secretary. But this time Brezhnev himself, the real power, was there. And I remember him bounding across the tarmac and throwing his arms out in a--in a very expansive welcome. And as we were driving into the Kremlin gates, he said, "These--this is exactly the same gate from which Napoleon left Moscow after his defeat." Well, I suppose that the psychohistorians would say he was trying to give me a message, but then he immediately followed that up, once we sat down in the Kremlin, after he had shown us through our apartment, exactly the same one we'd stayed in in 1972--he followed it up by indicating that he was pleased to hear that we were going to survive and he hoped this would be a very good summit.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:20:53
[Frank Gannon]

As--as you entered that Napoleon Gate, did you think that you were going to fill out your presidency through 1976?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:21:00
[Richard Nixon]

I was pretty fatalistic about it. I knew that there were great forces arrayed against me. I felt, however, that I wanted to continue to act as effectively as president as I possibly could till the very last. I was neither pessimistic or optimistic. I said, "What will be will be."

Day 5, Tape 1
00:21:20
[Frank Gannon]

What was the condition of your leg?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:21:24
[Richard Nixon]

Well, that condition had developed on the first trip, the trip that had been taken--taken place just a month or so before to the Mideast. We first saw it in Salzburg, and I remember when Dr. Lukash saw it, he was amazed at how swollen it was. It was the left leg, and what happens with phlebitis, the kind I had--it isn't that painful, at least in the first instance, on the outside. It's because it's a--it's the big vein that runs down here, and it makes your leg and ankles swell up a great deal.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:21:58
[Frank Gannon]

Is it painful?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:22:00
[Richard Nixon]

When you walk around, it's quite painful, due to the fact that the the--the skin in the ankle's so tight, it comes down over the shoes. You can hardly keep your shoe on. First of all, it's hard to put a shoe on, and then once you walk it's--it is extremely painful. So walking became very, very painful.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:22:16
[Frank Gannon]

Is it dangerous?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:22:17
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, it's very dangerous. There are two types, a--as I understand it as an--one who di--is not medically trained. The kind of phlebitis that is painful, in other words, where the veins are exposed and--and y--and you see them there--that's very painful but not particularly dangerous. I mean, you can operate and that sort of thing. But in this case, this is the deep vein, and it makes the leg and so forth swell, and if a clot--phlebitis basically is--causes blood clots--if a clot breaks off and hits the lungs, it kills you. And so they were concerned that it might break off. I never gave it any thought. It was like the resignation thing or what-have-you or impeachment. To me, I had the job to do--oh, not that I'm that brave or anything of that sort, but I was certainly--when I was in the Mideast, I made it clear I didn't want the doctors to say anything about it, even though it was painful, and I didn't want anything to come out here on this trip as well. But I had--I had made it clear that at a time that I was potentially crippled politically, I couldn't indicate that I was crippled physically, because, then again, the media and so forth and my opponents would jump on that--said, "Aha! He's crippled mentally as well!" And we have to remember, leaders have to--have to survive physical ordeals. I remember what Eisenhower went through at the time of his stroke. It was terribly painful, painful for him in a mental way, because he couldn't get the words out. He'd try to say "window," and he'd say "mirror" instead. He'd try to say "ceiling," and he'd say "floor." And, nevertheless, he went to a big summit meeting with Latin American leaders and really endangered his life and had hours and hours of conversation. He went on television. It was a terribly brutal thing, and I'll never forget how angry I was when Newsweek magazine at that time counted the number of flubs that he allegedly had in one of his speeches at a press conference and put it in the magazine. I threw that magazine clear across the floor. Well, in any event, what I am suggesting here is that if Eisenhower could do that and if Franklin Roosevelt, for example, for years could be an effective political leader despite the fact that he was crippled by polio, what's a little phlebitis?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:24:46
[Frank Gannon]

The--those differences--those conditions, though, are different, because the--F.D.R.'s condition was an ongoing one--

Day 5, Tape 1
00:24:52
[Richard Nixon]

Stable.

[Frank Gannon]

--that--that he had coped with, that was stable. Eisenhower's condition--was he--do you think he was in--sufficiently impaired that he should have considered resigning?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:25:03
[Richard Nixon]

No.

[Frank Gannon]

If, for example, he had meant to say, "Don't bomb." and had--had said "bomb," that would have--

Day 5, Tape 1
00:25:07
[Richard Nixon]

No. No. It wasn't that way. Eisenhower--Eisenhower would have resigned. In fact, he considered it when he first learned about the stroke, and he says, "If I can't do this job, Mamie and I are going to be farmers again." I remember that very well. I mean, Sherman Adams reported that to me the day that I learned about the stroke. No, Eisenhower--there was nothing wrong with his mind. And that's the important thing. Eisenhower's actions after he had the stroke, in his last two years, were decisive. He was just as strong a leader as he was before. He just couldn't--he just couldn't speak as well as he could. I used to say to him, and try to get him to laugh about it a bit, that his problem was that his mind ran faster than his mouth and usually with politicians it's the other way around.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:25:53
[Frank Gannon]

Some writers claim that your exposing yourself to the d--the danger and the tension and the pressure and the physical exertion of the Mideast trip and the European trip and the Soviet summit after you discovered you had this phlebitis, which was potentially life-threatening, indicated almost a--a death wish--that the fatalism in terms of the political problems you had amounted almost to a death wish.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:26:19
[Richard Nixon]

No, that's ridiculous. I'm not that kind of a--a suicidal type of person, but I--I think I'm--I've always been--one of the reasons that I think most of our media "friends"--quote-unquote--rather miss me is that they just can't resist psychoanalyzing because they think I'm a very complex and therefore interesting person.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:26:51
[Frank Gannon]

Aren't you?

[Richard Nixon]

And--and in this case, I'm not going to disillusion them.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:26:57
[Frank Gannon]

Did you--do you think the media misses you?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:27:03
[Richard Nixon]

The media? Oh, they would never admit it, but media generally, the media people--there's no question that most of them don't particularly care for me, because I'm a conservative, and they're liberals. And I think, unfortunately, they feel I'm a fairly intelligent conservative, and that they can't bear, because they think only liberals are intelligent. Conservatives are supposed to be know-nothings. I think what it really gets down to is, though, that they got to have a story, and sometimes they like to have somebody around who is controversial, who says something, who does something that is controversial. It makes a big story. For example, I think, I think, in--in fairness to the media, I think they--they enjoyed and appreciated my trip to Russia in 1959. Scotty Reston and others who generally have not been known to be supporters spoke rather glowingly of that trip, because it was a great adventure, and I would say about the only time they were really enthusiastic about my presidency was on the China trip, because it was a great adventure for them, even though they wished somebody else had done it.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:28:12
[Frank Gannon]

Why did they wish someone else had done it?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:28:14
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, because they didn't want me to have the success.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:28:18
[Frank Gannon]

Was it given to you only begrudgingly? Do you feel you got the su--do you feel you got the credit from the China trip that you deserved?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:28:25
[Richard Nixon]

The credit is irrelevant. What was done was done for major historical and geopolitical reasons. And as far as credit is concerned, you just don't ask for any of that.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:28:38
[Frank Gannon]

There was another argument that in your--not just your diminished physical capacity, but also in your diminished political capacity you shouldn't have gone to the third Soviet summit, and the fact that it didn't produce anything, or much of major importance, was taken as proof of this.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:28:55
[Richard Nixon]

Well, when you say it didn't produce anything of any major importance--when you compare, for example, the much-praised test ban that was negotiated during the Kennedy administration, which only covered atmospheric tests, with the threshold test ban, which covered the kind of tests that are taken--are made, these days, the one--the below-ground test, and covered all kinds of tests that could not be h--hidden by--the threshold test ban, which covered all tests above a hundred and fifty kilotons. The reason that we couldn't make it comprehensive was that below a hundred and fifty kilotons you would have to have some sort of verification which the Soviet would never agree to. But that was a major achievement. That was worth going to Moscow for. No, I think that--I think certainly m--my critics, understandably, would have preferred that I not have gone to the Mideast, yet it was a very worthwhile trip. It set the stage for some developments in that area that are positive for a new relationship--putting a seal on a new relationship with Arab countries as well as some reassurance to Israel. And the same is true of this. It--it--it continued the pattern of summits, which I think were important, and it set--it also laid the groundwork for the summit which President Ford had, the so-called mini-summit that we had agreed to in Moscow, when he had the arms control agreement at Vladivostok for offensive arms. So what I am suggesting here is that I thought it was important to go. I thought not going--not going would have created enormous problems because it had been agreed to long before, and it would have--not going would have meant, "Well, you ought to just resign if you can't do the job." I think we'd better get on to some of the other things. We're g--getting too far.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:30:52
[Frank Gannon]

During--during the summit, you went--Brezhnev took you down to his villa in the Crimea. How was your leg there?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:31:03
[Richard Nixon]

It was--it wasn't too bad except when we went walking, and, uh--

Day 5, Tape 1
00:31:07
[Frank Gannon]

Didn’t it involve--

Day 5, Tape 1
00:31:08
[Richard Nixon]

And--

[Frank Gannon]

--a lot of walking and climbing?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:31:09
[Richard Nixon]

It involved a lot of walking, because he wanted to show me the beauty of the place. It was another one of these residences of a former czarist noble and so forth, and that was the first time that he asked me about it. He said, "How is your leg?" He'd read about it, of course, because there had been a story after I went to the Mideast. Dr. Lukash had indicated that I had risked my life, and--and he--I think he believed that. And later on, of course, after I left office, I had a very serious operation. It wasn't the phlebitis that almost killed me--it was the operation! But, in any event, we recovered.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:31:42
[Frank Gannon]

During your time in--in the Crimea, you had a long private conversation with him in his cabana by--by his pool there in which you discussed China. Had he changed his position?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:31:53
[Richard Nixon]

Attitudes had very much changed. Very interesting to analyze the Soviet on China. 1972, right after we had been to China, he was very careful not to raise it particularly, just in passing. He didn't want to show any concern about it, although I knew that he was deeply concerned about it. I think one of the reasons they were so anxious to have a summit is that we had one with China. And the second point is that, in 1973, China was a major subject of concern. That was when he told me out in San Clemente that he felt the Chinese would be a serious nuc--nuclear threat in ten years, which I did not believe and still do not believe, and, of course, ten years have passed, and it hasn't happened.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:32:37
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think he really believed it, or was he just trying to dramatize the problem?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:32:41
[Richard Nixon]

I don't know. I th--I think he was concerned, however. I think he was--I'm not sure that he believed that. As a matter of fact, he's too intelligent to look at the Chinese economy and think that it could produce that much that soon. But I think what happened was that he was trying to develop a closer relationship with us vis-à-vis the Chinese and, making the point, he was overstating. But in 1974 it was interesting to note that he spoke very disparing-jingly [sic]--disparagingly about the Chinese. He said that th--they were a very backward people, that seventy-five percent of them were illiterate, that eighty-five percent of them lived in agriculture am--and were not in industrial production. and that it would be at least fifteen years or so before they developed a significant nuclear capability. And then he made a very interesting point, though, in following that up. He said, "Really, the only two nations in the world that really matter are the Soviet Union and the United States." He said, "Look at Europe. I mean, Europe is divided and it doesn't have the power. But we matter. We can change the world." And that is when he made a proposal which we could not accept--that we would set up a joint U.S.-Soviet agreement, an agreement--a condominium sort of effect, where either one would come to the defense of the other in the event it was attacked. Well, of course, that would have driven the Chinese up the wall. It would have driven the Europeans up the wall. It simply couldn't be agreed to on--on that kind of a basis. But I th--I think that in--when he made that point, he also expressed his views about nuclear war generally. And I thought it was very interesting when he said, "Look. If there is a nuclear war, it will destroy the white races. All that will be left will be the blacks and the yellows." And I think that was his a--his conviction. And, incidentally, he is quite right. I don't mean by that that there won't be some white people left, maybe in Latin America. But in the event of war, assuming that it is nuclear, the nuclear power is in the Soviet Union, it's in the United States, it's in Western Europe, and a lot would be left the other way. So I think he was simply making that point quite vividly.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:35:10
[Frank Gannon]

Did you raise again the question of Jewish emigration?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:35:14
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yes, and he went into great detail, pointing out that they were trying to make progress on the area, but he--and he gave me facts and figures which I passed on to Henry Kissinger for further negotiation. But his--his attitude there was, again, one that I've already described. He simply felt that they were doing a--everything they could.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:35:47
[Frank Gannon]

In this summit, you also visited Minsk, and there was a very moving moment when you were taken through the village of Khatyn, which had been obliterated by the--by the Nazis, and after walking through this memorial, they--they sat you down in--in almost a surreal scene, a--a--a single desk, to sign the guest book--a single desk at the end of a paved area with just a flo--low green fields on either side. And you sat there for several minutes and wrote a very moving inscription about building a monument to peace for children of--of the future. Were you as--and it was much noted that you sat there for several minutes. Were you as moved by that experience as you seemed to be?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:36:32
[Richard Nixon]

Well, you know, I noted the media made a great deal out of the fact that I must have been terribly moved and that sort of thing, and it'd make a lot better story to say yes. But of course it isn't true. It's--it's like famous last words before people die and all that sort of thing. Most of it's made up. But here, in this case, what happened was that it was almost a mile to walk through the m--memorial. It was the village streets and so forth and so on--cobblestone--and I--by the time I got there I was totally lame, and--and I had to sit down, and my ankle is all swollen over my shoe, and I just simply couldn't move. So, consequently, I was trying to let it heal a bit before I had to stand up again and walk back to the car. And then, obviously, I was thinking about what I was going to say, and what I wrote I thought was a--at least partially eloquent.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:37:26
[Frank Gannon]

You were able to avoid the press during a lot of the summit because, of course, you were in meetings, and so you were isolated from them, and Ron Ziegler took care of the press conferences. But Mrs. Nixon, who had an independent schedule, was surrounded by them all the time, and it must have been very difficult for her, knowing about your leg and knowing that, whatever else she did, all they wanted to do was ask her about Watergate. Did she express her concerns about that or her frustration?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:37:55
[Richard Nixon]

No. Her comment usually was an airy, "Well, it's just for the birds." She wasn't about to be--

Day 5, Tape 1
00:38:00
[Frank Gannon]

About Watergate?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:38:01
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah. And--yeah, when they'd ask about that, and--and she'd say, "Well, I'll be glad to talk about the trip." I said, "I think we're more concerned about what's going to happen to our children and grandchildren than about what a--a break-in that occurred in Watergate." And that would shame them just a little bit to--you know, to concentrating on these great issues that we were discussing that involved the future rather than something that happened in the past. But she handles them in a very cool, detached way, which used to drive them right up the wall. That’s why they called her a "Plastic Pat." It wasn't because they didn't think she was intelligent. She's far more intelligent than most of them, with--much better educated--much better record in school than most of the press ladies.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:38:46
[Frank Gannon]

Was it--

[Richard Nixon]

Not that they aren't bright, some of them--one or two.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:38:49
[Frank Gannon]

Was she concerned about your continuing on with your leg in the condition it was?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:38:55
[Richard Nixon]

Yes, to an extent, but she tended to be somewhat fatalistic, too. She never suggested, for example, that--"Well, you shouldn't take these risks," and so forth and so on. And I think one of the reasons was she knew that I probably wouldn't pay any attention. She knew I was inter--determined to go through, and once the decision is made, why, she supports it, and supports it very effectively.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:39:19
[Frank Gannon]

Did you get a chance--any--d--on trips like this, do you get any chance to be alone together?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:39:26
[Richard Nixon]

Not very much, although I must say Brezhnev was quite considerate down there. We were--after a long, long day of--of conversations in which we were negotiating about the threshold test ban that we agreed to and a--about a limitation on M.I.R.V.s, which was the major purpose of these negotiations in which the Soviet Union, as had been in the case in 1970 when we first opened that issue with them, and again in 1972 and '73, which they refused to negotiate on because they were behind, and--and they didn't want to negotiate until they had caught up--but after that long day, Brezhnev said, "Let's have dinner alone tonight." I mean, he over at--at his dacha, which was a magnificent one, next to ours, and we together. And so we had dinner alone, which we welcomed, and we sat out on a balcony afterwards and looked out over the Black Sea. And it was really a--a beautiful sight, a beautiful evening--clear, clear night, and there was a half-moon. And I remember she looked at it, and she said that when--ever since she was a little girl, she always--whenever she saw the moon, she always saw the American flag in the moon. And she says, "I never saw a man in the moon or a little old lady in the moon. It's always the American flag." And I looked at the moon, and, sure enough, the American flag was there. Obviously, of course, it could have been there because our astronauts had been there. But it was interesting to note that. Of course, I reflected afterwards, "I guess we all see in the moon whatever we want to see."

Day 5, Tape 1
00:41:17
[Frank Gannon]

All things considered, the tremendous political pressure, the tremendous personal physical pressure you were under--was the third summit worth it? Did it produce anything of--

Day 5, Tape 1
00:41:30
[Richard Nixon]

Yes.

[Frank Gannon]

--sufficient significance?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:41:31
[Richard Nixon]

I think it's produced--it produced, as I have already indicated-- but I think the third summit produced, first, the threshold test ban. Second, it produced, unfortunately, an agreement for cooperation in economics and technical areas, a long-term agreement which was not implemented. And that is something which I think must be a top-level subject in another summit, when it occurs, between President Reagan and Mr. Andropov, because the Soviet need it, and, under the proper circumstances, properly linked, we should provide it. The threshold test ban--whether or not that is going to be finally approved by the p--the administration and so forth remains to be seen, because they've raised the problem of verification on that and whether the Soviet may or may not be violating it. So I--I think it was worth doing in that respect. I should point out, incidentally, that there were other interesting things that happened on that summit in a personal way. I always watch my opposite numbers to see how they doodle. I draw squares and diamonds and that sort of thing. I'm a very--I--I don't--

Day 5, Tape 1
00:42:47
[Frank Gannon]

You're a Republican doodler.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:42:48
[Richard Nixon]

Probably a square doodler, but I noticed that, for example, in 1972, when we were having our first discussion with Brezhnev about missiles. We--the argument was as to whether or not a big missile could be put in a smaller hole. Now, obviously, it can happen, or technically. But, in any event, he said no, and what he would do, he drew there, while we were talking about it, he would draw holes and then missiles as--to see whether or not they could go in the holes and so forth and so on. And down here, when we were meeting in a cabaña looking out over the s--Black Sea, he doodled--in this case, he drew a heart with an arrow through it. I--I don't know what s--that signified, but that was when we were failing to reach agreement on a proposal to limit M.I.R.V.s, which we had proposed and which they had rejected--rejected, at least, on any meaningful basis. We had another interesting conversation, too. We were driving back from [Orianda], down on the Black Sea, to the area where--the airport where we were to take off to go into Minks [he may mean "Minsk"], and as we were driving along, Brezhnev, who, after all, was two years older now and not quite as well as he was previously--he smoked more, drank less--and he'd begun to talk about age, and he spoke of Brennan--Jack Brennan, who was my military aide at that time, who was a young fellow, and very good-looking. He said, "You know, he's very young and very handsome." I said, "Yeah, the girls notice that, too." And then he said, "But, on the other hand, while he is young and he's handsome," he said, "we older people can probably do things for future generations that some of these younger people are unable to do." And then he--he always changes pace fast. He said, "You know, that reminds me, too, of--of older people, and one of my favorite stories." He said, "There was a sixty-year-old man, and the sixty-year-old man went to his doctor, and he was concerned because he felt that his sex drive had diminished. And the doctor examined him and said, 'No, it's no problem.' He said, 'Just a question of age.' I said, 'This happens as you get older.' And the fellow said, 'Yeah, but my neighbor is sixty years of age, and he says his sex drive hasn’t diminished at all.' The doctor says, 'That's no problem.' And the fellow said, 'What should I do?' He said, 'Just go out and talk the same way your neighbor does.'"

Day 5, Tape 1
00:45:26
[Frank Gannon]

What would--what would an Andropov-Reagan summit be like? When you th--when you think of the succession of leaders that the Soviets have seen, where Khrushchev dealt with Kennedy and Kosygin dealt with Johnson and Brezhnev with you and Brezhnev with Ford and Carter, they've certainly seen a spectrum of personalities and perceptions of the Soviet Union. Andropov is a tough, hard former KGB chief, vigorous, ruthless, b--as you describe him. Reagan is a--an intelligent man but certainly doesn't have that kind of background. How--how would that mix work?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:46:07
[Richard Nixon]

Well, everyone has to do it his own way. I mean, in the case of President Reagan, he would tend to have meetings with larger groups, which is altogether appropriate because they like to have meetings with larger groups, too, sometimes. And so Reagan would have his advisors there. The second thing is people should not underestimate Reagan in terms of negotiations and give-and-take. He's--he--first, he's had a lot of good practice negotiating with senators and congressmen.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:46:37
[Frank Gannon]

Are they--

[Richard Nixon]

And that's--

[Frank Gannon]

--as tough as Andropov?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:46:38
[Richard Nixon]

And that's a big league. Well, certainly as intelligent, many of them are. Some of them are not that intelligent, but many of them are as intelligent. And when they're arguing for their constituencies, they can be just as tough. I--I would say, however, that they are not going to be as ruthless. It's going to be a--it's a bigger league. This is the big leagues when you're negotiating with an Andropov. But, by the same token, the way it's done is that prior to the time they meet, that is when the work is done. And that's why a summit should take place not on a quickie basis, just to get acquainted and shake hands and so forth, because Andropov will take that and bank it and gain the credibility and so forth that he wants from that sort of a meeting and there'll be no progress. What has to happen here is a very well-prepared summit where at another level the negot--all the major issues are negotiated, and you meet at the summit level for the leaders to work out any final details and, above everything else, to know each other. As far as summits are concerned, it's very important to notice that--to make note of the fact that a summit really gives credit--no. A summit is essential if a hotline is going to be effective, because when you have a conversation, as you do in a general sense on a hotline, it's very important to know who you're talking to.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:48:13
[Frank Gannon]

A hotline isn't a phone, is it?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:48:14
[Richard Nixon]

No, of course not.

[Frank Gannon]

You don't actually talk?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:48:16
[Richard Nixon]

But it's a conversation whereby messages are sent back and forth. But a message means a lot more when each individual knows the other person, knows how far he can be pushed. He will not underestimate him, or overestimate him, as the case might be. So it's very important for people see that Reagan, whom they’ve seen on television being so gracious and--to his critics and unflappable and Mr. Nice Guy--to see that beneath that velvet glove is an iron fist--very important for them to see that, to see that he's reasonable, to see, on the other hand, that some of the rhetoric that they may have heard does not indicate that he wants to destroy them and that he can be dealt with. All of these things can get across in a summit. They can be important, but that isn't enough. That's atmospherics. That's spirit. That is important. What is essential prior to the summit is that on major issues like arms control, trade agreements and so forth--they all be tied into a packaged [sic].

Day 5, Tape 1
00:49:13
[Frank Gannon]

Wasn't Lyndon Johnson very bitter about summit spirits in--when he talked to you in 1969?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:49:18
[Richard Nixon]

Yes. He said they were totally useless. He pointed out that--that Kosygin had made promises to him about Vietnam at a time he had met him in Glassboro--1967--didn't keep any of the promises whatever.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:49:33
[Frank Gannon]

Did he give you advice for dealing with them?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:49:35
[Richard Nixon]

He said just be tough with them. He says that--be sure they don't have any illusions on that score.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:49:40
[Frank Gannon]

The--what was the farewell at Summit III like? You were certainly going back to a very difficult and maybe even uncertain political future. Could you tell that in the way Brezhnev said goodbye?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:49:56
[Richard Nixon]

Well, first of all, they had a--as they had in 1972, a--a brilliant reception in the great [St. George's Hall] for the media, for all the delegates, and so forth and so on and so on that were there, and all the caviar was piled up as it was previously, and a fine orchestra was playing. And I was very impressed, incidentally, at their thoughtfulness. In 1972, they played "April in Portugal," a song that's not very well-known here, but which was--everybody had known, who knew us well, that it was Mrs. Nixon and my favorite song. And this time they were playing all the songs from Tricia's wedding, which, of course, had been televised in the Soviet Union, which took place in the White House in 1971, and we were impressed by that. As a matter of fact, it might have been that Mrs. Brezhnev--I mean, despite the fact that--that he's a--Brezhnev has a reputation of being quite a ladies' man, he is very devoted to her, and she told me that she recalled so vividly when Tricia had come with her husband, Eddie Cox, to Moscow in Christmastime of 1972 and, she said when she came off the flai--plane, she said she was so beautiful, she said she reminded her of a white winter snowflower. She apparently was wearing something white. But, in any event, all this was, of course, impressive. They were trying to do it in the right way. But, in any event, as we were leaving, I knew that Brezhnev was disappointed. He had said, for example, when I told him that it was essential down in [Orianda] that we try to negotiate reductions of nuclear arms. He said, "We should"--he said, "We should destroy the evil that we have created." And I think he meant that. So that shows that, as far as that's concerned, he was thinking in those terms. And--and then he also said we must--it is important that we do something of vast historical importance. He wanted to have an impact on history. He was disappointed that we hadn't been able to accomplish more than we had, and he was looking forward, therefore, to the mini-summit that we had set for six months later and which was finally, of course, attended to by President Ford.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:52:19
[Frank Gannon]

That was going to be the--what, you called it the "halfway house"?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:52:22
[Richard Nixon]

We called it the halfway house, yes, and we kidded a little. I said, "Well, we could have it in Switzerland, or we could have it in Austria." And I said--and he said, "Well, not in Israel." And so, in any event, we--it was agreed to be a halfway house. But then, finally, we--we finished the great reception, and we left Moscow. We--we all rode in a c--in--in--in one car. We all piled into the same car--I mean, Podgorny and--and in this case, Podgorny and Kosygin and Brezhnev. Brezhnev sat in the jumpseat--didn't say anything much on the way out. He was obviously in sort of a downbeat mood, and so, when we got to the airport, he w--went with me to the plane. And as we got into the plane--as--just before we got to the plane, I was saying to him, "Well, I wish you were coming with me." And he said, "You know, I was thinking exactly the same thing as we were riding out here today." I think he would have liked to have come, and I think he had a feeling that--of disappointment that we hadn't accomplished more, but of anticipation that maybe we could accomplish more in the future, because he did want to leave his mark on history. I don't mean by that that he was simply sappily interested in peace at any price. I mean he wanted to have his Communist idea prevail in the world, but, on the other hand, he wanted to have s--do something, as he put it, "of vast historical significance," and that had not yet been accomplished.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:53:57
[Frank Gannon]

Did you like Brezhnev?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:53:59
[Richard Nixon]

Uh--as a Russian, yes. I would put with him the same way--I would describe Brezhnev the same way I would--would describe Mao and Chou En-lai. I liked Mao as a Chinese. I liked Chou as a Chinese. I liked Brezhnev as a Russian. I didn't like him as a Communist, and I didn't like Chou or Bra--Mao as a Communist.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:54:17
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think--

[Richard Nixon]

And that's what we always have to do. We must separate these individuals. They are--they are people who have two personalities. They're either Russian or they're Communist. And at--and in--in a particular evening, they can be one at one time and one at another time.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:54:34
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think he liked you as--as an American rather than a capitalist?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:54:38
[Richard Nixon]

I don't know. I think in his case it was irrelevant, a--and I think that's another point that should be made. They--they do think materially. I--I think we should--I think what we all have to have in mind is that whether he liked me or not wasn't going to make any difference as to whether he was going to gree [sic] something or not--agree to something. That isn't what brings people together.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:55:01
[Frank Gannon]

Doesn't that undermine, though, the point you made about the importance of building up personal relationships?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:55:07
[Richard Nixon]

No, the personal relationship that I described is a very hard-headed one. That's to avoid the possibility of miscalculation. The personal relationship is not something that is going to assure agreement. Agreement is only assured by interest, a convergence of interest, not a convergence of affection. It isn't based on affection whatever.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:55:28
[Frank Gannon]

In the films of your departure, you shake hands with him, say goodbye, walk up the ramp, and at the top you wave goodbye to the crowd, and then you sort of lean over and--and--and give a special--looks like a s--a salute to him. Did it cross your mind then, even though you'd ag--agreed to meet at the halfway house in six months--did it cross your mind that that might be the last time you'd see him?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:55:49
[Richard Nixon]

No.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:55:50
[Frank Gannon]

That's a decisive answer.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:55:52
[Richard Nixon]

That's right.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:55:54
[Frank Gannon]

When you got on the plane--many Americans, after they've visited the Soviet Union, and they're--they're out of the--the rather oppressive and repressive atmosphere there, feel--feel relieved. Knowing what you were going home to and that Brezhnev wasn't going to be coming along with you, were--were--were you relieved or were you sort of depressed about what was coming when you got home?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:56:20
[Richard Nixon]

Not particularly depressed or relieved at all. My--when I get onto planes, and this is something I've been doing ever since 1953 when Mrs. Nixon and I took a seventy-day trip to Asia, and we stayed in some godforsaken places, and before air--the days of air conditioning, and the heat of what was then the summer of those places in Southeast Asia and the like, and after--

Day 5, Tape 1
00:56:43
[Frank Gannon]

Was there no air conditioning there at all?

Day 5, Tape 1
00:56:45
[Richard Nixon]

Only in the--in the only one place [sic] that there was air conditioning on that trip in 1953 was the ambassador's bedroom in Saigon, Ambassador Heath's bedroom. Everyplace else, they didn't have it. But we survived it. But you'd have strange food and strange bread and sleeping under mosquito nettings to avoid the mosquitoes and centipedes or whatever the--else might be around, and then you'd finally get on that airplane. Now, airplane food, and particularly airplane food cooked by the Air Force, is pretty terrible. Well, let's say it's--it's always safe, but it's almost unpalatable. And I must say that we'd get on there, we'd sit down, and we'd start to eat some of that ham or whatever they had on there, and I'd say, "Well, we're home again," which meant that every time we got on the plane we were home again. It was a little bit of America. And so we went home to what we went home to.

Day 5, Tape 1
00:57:40
[Frank Gannon]

Did you find on the--

Day 5, Tape 1
00:57:42
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

The following text appears in the original transcript but does not appear on a tape. It has not been edited.

[Frank Gannon]

--your first trip to Europe, in 1969, the following White House precedent--they were actually bringing the president's bed with you so that everyplace you slept, you slept in the bed from the White House?

[Richard Nixon]

Yeah. What happened were--is that I was astonished when I arrived, in all places, at Claridge's Hotel, which was our first stop on the European trip, and I had stayed in Claridge's many times before, every time I had gone to England. It was my favorite hotel there. And I walked in and saw a couple of Filipino aides tearing down the bed and putting it up. And I said, "What is going on here?" They said, "Well, we've been instructed that we always take the president's bed with him." "You take the president's bed with him?" They'd been doing that. They apparently did it for Johnson and for Kennedy and so forth. Just said, "You can work better if you sleep in your own bed." I said, "Well--

Day Five, Tape two of four, LINE FEED #2, 5-13-83, ETI Reel #35
May 13, 1983

Day 5, Tape 2
00:01:04
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

Day 5, Tape 2
00:01:05
[Richard Nixon]

"--that’s one thing we're going to change." And I really--I really ripped up Haldeman pretty good on that. He took it well. I said, "No more." I said, "I have slept in those Claridge beds before. They're not the same, but I have slept in beds everyplace, and I am not going to have you carry the bed around in a separate plane so I can have the same bed to sleep in." We're all a little different.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:01:25
[Frank Gannon]

At Summit III, did Brezhnev address the question of whether he had encouraged the Arabs in the 1973--

Day 5, Tape 2
00:01:35
[Richard Nixon]

Yes--

[Frank Gannon]

--Yom Kippur War?

[Richard Nixon]

He was very defensive about it and said that, as a matter of fact, he not only had not encouraged them, but he tried to deter them. But, in my view, I just ignored it. I said, "Well, let us not let the major powers be drawn into conflict about what happens in the Mideast," and I compared the Mideast with the B--with the Balkans. I said we mustn't let that happen. And--so I just let him--I let him, of course, deny that it happened. I didn't try to argue with him about it, but--

Day 5, Tape 2
00:02:06
[Frank Gannon]

Was there any question but that it had happened, that they had encouraged the Arabs?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:02:10
[Richard Nixon]

I don't--I don't think it was a question of their encouraging them, but I think there was a question of them n--of them not, perhaps, discouraging them.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:02:20
[Frank Gannon]

Good.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:02:21
[Richard Nixon]

Now, incidentally--you through?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:02:23
[Frank Gannon]

If you want to go on--

[Offscreen voice]

We have to change tapes here. [Unintelligible.] We'll just change the tapes. You want to take five? Okay. [Unintelligible.]

Day 5, Tape 2
00:02:33
[Action note: Sound cuts off.]

Day 5, Tape 2
00:02:43
[Action note: Color bars appear on screen.]

Day 5, Tape 2
00:02:47
[Frank Gannon]

[Unintelligible] leaders.

[Richard Nixon]

Yeah, see, that's my point.

[Frank Gannon]

Yeah, yeah.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:02:48
[Richard Nixon]

The '73 war--

[Frank Gannon]

There's not that much in and of itself.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:02:50
[Richard Nixon]

The '73 war, the substantive part, in other words, why the--the--the--the questions you remember, about the Mideast, the Jewish lobby. That's what I would suggest. And then the others can go in the leaders section.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:03:12
[Offscreen voice]

Uh, Frank, uh--we want a shot of you for the question.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:03:16
[Frank Gannon]

Yep.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:03:17
[Offscreen voice]

Okay. [Unintelligible.] Keep the--

Day 5, Tape 2
00:03:25
[Richard Nixon]

The way I want to get at this question is that do you--

[Action note: Stops speaking as hairstylist begins to work on him.]

Day 5, Tape 2
00:03:39
[Offscreen voice]

Do we have it now, Roger?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:03:40
[Offscreen voice]

[Unintelligible.]

Day 5, Tape 2
00:03:41
[Richard Nixon]

Do you really--

Day 5, Tape 2
00:03:42
[Offscreen voice]

[Unintelligible.]

Day 5, Tape 2
00:03:43
[Richard Nixon]

Do you really think the Soviet leaders--

Day 5, Tape 2
00:03:47
[Offscreen voice]

That's it.

[Richard Nixon]

--were for peace, and that gets the--

Day 5, Tape 2
00:03:48
[Offscreen voice]

[Unintelligible.]

[Richard Nixon]

--other thing in. I think that's it, though--see what I mean?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:03:50
[Frank Gannon]

Mm-hmm.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:03:51
[Richard Nixon]

And that gets it--we'll see if--I think it may fit in.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:03:55
[Offscreen voice]

[Unintelligible.]

Day 5, Tape 2
00:04:08
[Offscreen voice]

S--stand by.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:04:13
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

[Offscreen voice]

Four. Three. Two. One.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:04:15
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

Day 5, Tape 2
00:04:17
[Frank Gannon]

The Soviet leaders talk a lot about peace. Your conservative critics, the anti-détentists who'd say that somewhere in the bowels of the Kremlin there is a safe wherein is a piece of paper with a number--with the number more of Soviets or Communists that would have to survive after nuclear war than the Americans, and as soon as they--or than Westerners--and as soon as they reach that number they'll push the button. Do you think that the--the Soviets, for all their talk about it, really do care about peace?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:04:46
[Richard Nixon]

Well, we, to our credit, are for peace as an end in itself. They are for peace as a means to an end. They're for victory. However, that does not mean they want war. They realize that if war comes, it would be so destructive that victory would be meaningless. So what they want to do is to develop the strength so that they can win without war, and that means develop strength that will be credible--that if war comes that they would come out ahead, whatever that may mean. But if you ask about their attitude toward war, they have deep feelings about that, because they went through World War II--I mean the present leadership. The new leadership, when--further on--maybe they will not have it. But I remember the conversations that we had on our last summit un--trip--a conversation in an airplane, and on one occasion they were talking about the terrible situation during World War II. And Brezhnev spoke of war in wintertime, how terrible it was because the corpses'd be frozen in such grotesque shapes. And I said, "Just like a tragic ballet." And then Gromyko said, "Well, in summer, when it's hot, and the bodies rot, it's just as bad." And so they'd been through a lot. They don't want to have that happen again. So they--I think they have mixed emotions, but there's no question that they want to avoid war if they can. They want to win without it.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:06:30
[Frank Gannon]

There's going to be a lot of--increasing pressure for a summit, especially as the '84 presidential election gets nearer. Is there anything to be gained by a Reagan-Andropov summit at this point?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:06:43
[Richard Nixon]

Well, the first thing to be gained is to reduce the possibility of either miscalculating with regard to the other. That's why it's important that they know each other, so that, one, they don't get the impression that either the one or the other is going to be belligerent and engage in a rash act and therefore is totally unreasonable, or, on the other hand, which is even worse, in my view--to get the impression that the other, in the c--in this case President Reagan, might be susceptible to being pushed around. Therefore, to have that kind of hard-headed talking, which is the kind of talking we had with Brezhnev in 1973 in San Clemente with regard to the Mideast, which meant that when I called the alert and then sent him a hotline message, he thought that it might be credible.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:07:37
[Frank Gannon]

This was the nuclear alert in 1973?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:07:39
[Richard Nixon]

Nuclear alert in 1973. An alert works--a hotline message works best when your opposite number knows you and believes that--that you are not a rash person, but that you are not one that will take action u--unless you are prepared to follow through. I think it's very important to get that across. So that's one purpose, but beyond that purpose there must be agreements. I think there probably will be an arms control agreement of some sort. I think it's very important, however, not to make that the centerpiece of the summit, even though many will try to do so, because what we have to understand is that arms control should never be an end in itself. The purpose of arms control is to reduce the danger of war. If you were to cut nuclear arms in half, as President Reagan is trying to do, and if they were to agree to that, you'd still have one hell of a war if you had disagreements on political issues that lead to war. Historically, we will find that it is not the existence of arms that leads to war, but failure to resolve political differences that lead to their use. That's why there should be no arms control agreement unless that is linked to political issues and political conduct. Otherwise, it does not serve the purpose of reducing the danger of war. The second point we should have in mind is that a summit provides an opportunity to move forward in the areas that we were beginning to move in in 1972, '73, and '74 in the economic area. Now, there are many that suggest that that's a great mistake. The Russians are in deep economic trouble--which they are--they have other problems--and that we shouldn't bail them out. I'm not for bailing them out, but, on the other hand, we have to realize that the greatest advantage of the West--I speak of the United States, Western Jeurope [sic]--Europe, and Japan--Europe and Japan--have over the Soviet bloc is economic, about a four-to-one advantage. We should use that advantage as a carrot and a stick, and, incidentally, before that summit, it w--it's very important that President Reagan, to the extent possible, get cooperation and agreement among our European allies and the Japanese--that they will support a united front on the economic area. What I am suggesting here i--is that we ought to try to accomplish at the summit level two general principles. One is we should take the profit out of war, and by taking the profit ah [he may mean "out of"]--war what we have to do is to have arms control agreements based on equality of strength, so that any a--potential aggressor will know that he will lose more than he may gain from war. That is why the U.S. defense buildup is essential, essential in order to get an arms control agreement and essential in order to take the profit out of war. But you must combine that with what I call another pillar for peace, and that is you must increase the rewards for peace. And by the rewards for peace, I mean to give the Soviet Union an economic stake in avoiding war. That doesn't mean technological trade that will build up their military, but it does mean in other areas to provide economic cooperation in ways that will give them a stake in maintaining the peace.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:11:20
[Frank Gannon]

You've talked about the--what has been called the ["Madman Theory,"] involving Nixon--that, with your background of strong anti-Communism, Henry Kissinger was able to talk to the Russians and to the North Vietnamese and say that, if--unless you negotiate in a serious way, Nixon is just erratic enough that he might do something dangerous. Is there a Madman Theory that applies with someone as--as amiable and someone with no foreign policy background like President Reagan? Are they going to f--fear him?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:11:49
[Richard Nixon]

Well, it isn't just what I would call a Madman Theory. I think that overstates it. I remember Johnson telling me in nineteen s--'59--or '69, I should say--that Johnson told me when he came to the White House that he felt that one of his mistakes was to give the Soviet an impression that we wanted peace and we would pay almost any price to get it. He said--he said, "One of th--the advantages that Ike had"--he referred--he always called him "Ike"--I never did. But he said, "One of the advantages that Ike had--Ike had was that the Russians were afraid of Ike, afraid of him because he had been the great commander in World War II, and because of his military background, and just because of the kind of man he was," even though Eisenhower was a very amiable, pleasant, grandfatherly type, but they knew that beneath that exterior was a very cold, tough fellow.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:12:47
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think they were afraid of you?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:12:48
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yes. Well, they were afraid of me, though, not because of my appearances and not because of my speeches, but because of what I had done. There is nothing that added more to my credibility, certainly with the Russians, and with others as well, than that I took great risks in order to bring the war to Vietnam to a--to a conclusion, to assure the withdrawal of our forces. The incursion into Cambodia--the purpose of that was to shorten the war, to make sure that our withdrawal program could go forward on schedule, and to save American lives, and it worked. The fact that w--we--three weeks before the summit meeting in Moscow, which we wanted,--which they wanted as well--that we bombed and mined Haiphong after there was a great North Vietnamese offensive supported by Soviet tanks and guns, which we could not tolerate--I remember people said, "Well, you can still go to Moscow even though Saigon is lost." I said, "No way." I said, "We--I can't be sitting across the table from Brezhnev when Soviet tanks are rumbling through the streets of Saigon." And that's why we did what we did, and despite all the predictions by some of our Soviet experts to the effect that they would then have no choice but to cancel the summit, it made them, really, I think, more eager to have it. A--and the other thing which I think may have had some impact on their thinking was that even after the elections of 1972, the December bombing, which was the critical action that was taken in order to bring--break the b--deadlock in Paris and have the peace negotiation. That was a very difficult decision, but it was necessary. Now, all of these actions--you don't take them in order to prove that you're a madman or that you're a tough guy or macho and the rest. It's simply--you take them when it is in the interest of your foreign policy, and also to make sure that you are a credible leader, a credible leader when you meet with others or when they take actions that you want to oppose.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:14:53
[Frank Gannon]

Have any of the presidents since you taken any similarly tough actions vis-à-vis the Soviets? It seems that with Afghanistan, with Poland, with the extension--use of surrogate troops into other parts of the world, that we've just acquiesced.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:15:09
[Richard Nixon]

[Unintelligible.]

[Frank Gannon]

Does Reagan have the kind of credibility going in that you had?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:15:12
[Richard Nixon]

Well, let me say, fortunately, President Reagan, and President Carter before him, didn’t have a war, which would have given them the opportunity to take action in defense of our own forces, which I had and which I used. On the other hand, I think what President Reagan has done in terms of rearming the United States--that that gives a message. I don't think that the rhetoric is nearly as important as that, and his fighting a bloody battle with the Congress in order to get the MX through and in order to get his military budget approved--it's that kind of action that has effect on the Soviet, not a lot of flamboyant words. You see, they're masters at propaganda, and they see through it.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:16:01
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think President Reagan can be pushed around?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:16:05
[Richard Nixon]

No, I don't think so, not in the international area. In the domestic area, all presidents have to do some compromising from time to time--in other words, take a half a loaf or get nothing. And in this area, people should not misinterpret his having to give ground on his economic programs because he simply didn’t have the votes, didn't control the House of Representatives--they should not feel that because he gave ground there that in dealing in foreign policy, where he does have more of a free hand, he's going to be a compromiser--a compromiser where our interests would not be served by it.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:16:44
[Frank Gannon]

Moving on to China--what--what was it that set Richard Nixon, the inveterate anti-Communist and supporter of Taiwan and friend of Chiang Kai-shek over many years, down the long road to Peking?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:17:03
[Richard Nixon]

Well, what brought us together--what brought the Chinese and the Americans together was not a con--convergence of ideas but a convergence of interests. I begin with that proposition, and then to determine how that came about, we have to understand that my history in that part of the world goes back a long way. I was first in the Far East in 1953--traveled to Japan, all the countries outside, on the perimeter of China. And I saw then what the Chinese were doing, in terms of exporting revolution to Indonesia, to the Philippines, to Thailand, to--to Vietnam, and so forth and so on. And then I also had an opportunity to continue to follow what was happening in Asia during that period, to talk to Asian leaders, to talk to people like [Romolo] of the Philippines, who was still living and still a foreign minister, a strong anti-Communist but one that felt that some dialogue between the United States and China should take place under the proper circumstances. And then, in 1963, when I took a trip abroad, I saw, independently, de Gaulle and Adenauer, and each independently raised the question with me that the United States should probably reconsider its relationship with the People's Republic of China. Here are two strong anti-Communists--had no illusions about the Chinese--but they felt that we should do so. In 1967, I took another trip to the Far East, and after that I wrote an article for Foreign Affairs indicating that, looking to the future after Vietnam, it was important to reevaluate the US-Chinese relationship. I remember one of the first memorandums I sent to Henry Kissinger in 1969 after being inaugurated--it was a week after being inaugurated--was to initiate on a private basis a study of our relationship with Peking and with Taiwan and so forth. And so events began to follow events. Those who were surprised in 1971--in fact, the announcement was made on July the fifteenth of 1971 that I would be going to China--simply hadn't been following. They hadn't read the article in Foreign Affairs in 1967. They hadn't paid any attention to the fact that we had relaxed travel ext--restrictions. We had allowed trade where we hadn't allowed it previously. They didn't pay that much attention when the ping-pong team came here--or ours went there, I should say. And they--and interestingly enough, their surprise, I think, is--is rather surprising, because when d--Henry Kissinger was in China, or on his way to China, in July of 1971, I made a speech in Kansas City. It was a rather long speech, about our relationships in the world generally and particularly with the People's Republic of China, and hinted very strongly there that we should make moves toward normalization and so forth. And yet when we asked for the television time to make that three-minute announcement with regard to the trip to China on July 15, 1971, none of the television commentators, with all their brilliant investigative sup--reporters, saw--were able to make any predictions. One suggested it was probably about another withdrawal from Vietnam, and another suggested it might have been with regard to some problems we were having with Europe. The point was I had tried to give them the message, but very carefully, of course, not breaking the secrecy pattern which we had. But now, having said all that, what brought us together was not, I emphasize, the fact that I had changed my view with regard to Chinese Communism. I had not. What brought us together were our interests and not because of agreement on ideas or any change in ideas.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:21:20
[Frank Gannon]

How does one go about--there must have been a lot of secret, behind-the-scenes diplomacy. You were sending signals, but there had to be a lot going on that--that even the most astute commentator who didn't know couldn't have seen.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:21:36
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I think first we have to understand why it was necessary to have it secret. And I will make the blunt statement--without secrecy, we would never have had the China initiative. It was not possible. They had to have it far more than we. They had to have it, because there was great opposition within the Chinese hierarchy itself to any new relationships with the United States. And, as a matter of fact, Lin Piao, who had opposed it, took off, as Chou with a little smile told me when we first met, on a trip which was to take him to Moscow, and his plane disappeared, which tells us one thing or may tell us something else.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:22:20
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think they liquidated him because of his opposition?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:22:23
[Richard Nixon]

I would not be surprised. That was the implication, at least, that I got from the conversation.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:22:28
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think--

Day 5, Tape 2
00:22:29
[Richard Nixon]

But be that as it may, what happened there was that Mao Tse-tung and--this is--in this case, Chou En-lai, had made a command decision that, despite the fact that ideologically the United States was their major enemy--we're a capitalist country, they're a Communist country--that as far as their strategic interests were concerned, that a new association with the United States was absolutely essential, because while we disagreed totally on ideology, we had one common concern, and that was the growing Soviet threat--threat to China--and its expansionism in other areas. And the Chinese knew that there was no country in the world except the United States which would be able to contain that threat in the event it were aimed at China. And that is what brought us together, in one sense. But I should go further than that. If anybody would read my article in Foreign Affairs and other statements I've made prior to and since that initiative was undertaken, they would note that I always come through with this theme: even if there were no Soviet Union, it was essential that the United States move now and--move when it did, I should say--in rapprochement with China. And the reason for that is fundamentally that one-fourth of all the people in the world live in the People's Republic of China. It has enormous natural resources, and the Chinese people, as Chinese, are among the most capable people in the world. Look what they've done in Taiwan. Look what they--in non-Communist areas, in Taiwan and Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, San Francisco--you name it. And once that power is mobilized, it is going to be an enormous force in the world, for good or for bad. I think de Gaulle hit it, i--in his usual way, in 1969, most effectively when he said, cryptically, "Better for you to recognize China now when they need you than to wait until later when their power is such that you will need them." And so, in order to build the kind of a world that we want our grandchildren to live in in the twenty-first century, it was essential that the United States, the most powerful and prosperous in the three wor--free world, have a new relationship with the People's Republic of China. And finally, I would say, for some of those who object to that initiative, if it had not been undertaken, and if China, due to the fact that they did not--not have any guarantee of their security from the United States vis-à-vis the Soviet, had been forced back under the Soviet umbrella, the geopolitical relationship and balance in the world would be almost hopelessly against us at this time. It was necessary to do for that reason, but, apart from that, it was essential to do for the next century.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:25:31
[Frank Gannon]

Did you--did you use intermediary governments in your initial relations with Peking?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:25:37
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yes. As a matter of fact, the Rumanians played a very significant part--Ceausescu. I had discussed it with him in 1967, and he was very helpful, and his ambassadors were, and they carried messages back and forth. Curio--curiously enough, a--another one who carried a message--this isn't so well-known--was Haile Selassie, the emperor of Ethiopia. I had discussed China with him, and Chou En-lai was telling me about Haile Selassie coming there and telling--talking to him and Mao, and Mao asked Chou En-lai--Mao always liked to say outrageous things--he said, "Do you think that the--that the devil of capitalism should sit down with the devil of Communism?" And then he said Haile Selassie went on and indicated he thought it would serve a useful purpose, or words to that effect. Incidentally, when Chou En-lai told me that, I said, "You know, I think many of the people in the media think the only reason that I didn’t wear a hat when I came to China is that I couldn't get 'em over--get one over my hand--i--is--I think that--and then, when Chou En-lai told me that, I just responded by saying, "You know, I think many people in the media thought that the reason that I didn't wear a hat when I came to China--that I couldn't find one that would fit over my horns." And he, who always appreciated a little joke, laughed uproariously at that. But, in any event, Haile Selassie, Ceausescu, but above everybody else, the Pakistani, Yahya Pakistan, played a very important role, and, of course, as we all know, it was the Pakistani who helped provide the cover for Henry Kissinger. That's where he had a so-called "bellyache" a--and had to be--go to the hospital, and all the press, of course, took off and enjoyed the Pakistani scenery while he flew into China secretly, and then our bombshell announcement came out.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:27:42
[Frank Gannon]

Whose idea was the bellyache?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:27:45
[Richard Nixon]

I think it was--it was--I think we agreed to it together, after very, very intensive negotiation.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:27:52
[Frank Gannon]

What was your reaction when you finally heard that the invitation to come to Peking was being extended from Chou En-lai?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:28:02
[Richard Nixon]

Well, we had had several messages, feelers, on it up to that time, and--and each one of them we had to reject. Chou En-lai had sent messages indicating that he had heard from the Pakistanis. Ceausescu sent us a message indicating that he'd heard from the Chinese, but in each case the Chinese were conditioning any meeting or any change in relationship on our, frankly, dumping Taiwan, and they were also conditioning any meeting that might occur between me and Chou En-lai on our agreeing to have Taiwan as the major subject of discussion. And I could not agree to that, so we kept saying no, it would have to be without conditions, in effect. And finally the message came through that Chou En-lai would welcome us.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:28:51
[Frank Gannon]

Who brought you the news?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:28:52
[Richard Nixon]

And the news was brought by Henry Kissinger. It was after a state dinner, and I was up in the Lincoln sitting room going over my notes for the next day's meetings, and Henry came in huffing and puffing. He--he must have run all the way from the Situation Room, which is about two hundred yards away from the sitting room in the president's--and he said, "This is the most important message between heads of government since World War II." And then he read the message as I read it, he beamed, and the message, in effect, said, "We will welcome the president of the United States to meet with Chou En-lai, a--and then we will also welcome Dr. Kissinger to come to prepare for the meeting." And he said, "This message"--he had a--w--with their great sense of humor and their subtlety, it ended with an interesting clause. He says, "This message is somewhat different from the usual diplop-matic [he may mean "diplomatic"] message because it's from a head to a head through a head." "From a head"--head of state Chou En-lai--"through a head," of course, was Yahya Pakistan--"to a head." The message, of course, since we had no relations with China, didn't come from the Chinese. The Pakistani ambassador had delivered it to Henry Kissinger, and then Kissinger to me. So it was "from a head, through a head, to a head."

Day 5, Tape 2
00:30:16
[Frank Gannon]

Did you celebrate?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:30:17
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yes. That was one of those occasions that I thought it was important to. I usually have nothing to drink, particularly in those years when we had such intensive schedules after dinner. But somebody had given me, that year, a--a bottle of Courvoisier brandy. It was supposed to be, oh, several--twenty, thirty years old. And so I went down to the hall, opened the brandy, and put a little in a snifter for Henry and for me, and we both tipped our glasses to what we thought was a rather historic meeting.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:30:51
[Frank Gannon]

How much was the opening to China, the initiative to China, Henry Kissinger's policy, and how much was Richard Nixon's policy?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:31:00
[Richard Nixon]

It was both. We came ac--we came to the conclusion independently, however. After all, I had never discussed the China initiative with Henry Kissinger. He was not my advisor. He was Nelson Rockefeller's in 1960s--in the 1960s and in 1967. And when I--but he went along with it and f--and agreed with me, with the conclusion that I had reached, that there was no question that he independently had arrived at the same conclusion. But i--if--if--if he had not had a president who wanted to move in that direction, there was no way it could have been accomplished, and he, of course, has been the first to acknowledge that.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:31:42
[Frank Gannon]

If you had not had a Henry Kissinger, could it have been accomplished?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:31:44
[Richard Nixon]

Yes. Not as, I--I don’t think as e--effectively, as well. Henry was a master at intrigue. He went to Paris twelve times without being discovered, and--and he was able to get into China there and be there three days without having it get out. But I must say that--and he--and he handled the negotiations with Chou En-lai brilliantly. On the other hand, I had made the determination before I ap--appointed Henry Kissinger as my chief advisor in the foreign policy field--I had made the determination to move in that direction, and I would have implemented it another way.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:32:27
[Frank Gannon]

With the presidential election coming up at the end of 1972, were you unaware of the fact that this announcement of the opening to China was going to be an enormous political coup for you?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:32:39
[Richard Nixon]

Well, many thought it would be, but it really wasn't. That's--that's, again, people in the media writing with their hearts rather than their heads, because it--it gained us some and lost us some, but perhaps overall it was a wash. As a matter of fact, I remember so well that H--Henry and I disagreed on this, not just as a matter of appraisal. But he said, "You know, you're going to go way up in the polls when the China announcement is made." Bob Haldeman thought so, too. I said, "I'm not so sure of that." I said, "It's going to cost us some, too." And it did. The polls didn't move up at all after the Jula--July fifteenth announcement, and, curiously enough, even after the dramatic visit to Peking in 1972, the polls did not go up. And the reason was that those who favored the initiatives for the most part were liberals, who were against me politically a--and would, frankly, have been just as happy if somebody else had done it. Those who opposed the initiative were conservatives. They were disillusioned. Those--and b--those who favored it and those who opposed it both did so for mistaken reasons. I mean by that, those who favored the initiative felt that--"Well, finally this old red-baiter Nixon has learned that the Chinese are not all that bad." In other words, in effect, "He's got a little soft on Chinese Communism." Those who opposed the initiative, those that were pro-Taiwan and so forth, felt that I had deserted them, also because they thought, well, I had getten--gotten soft on the Chinese Communists and so forth. And they were both wrong on that score. It had nothing to do with my attitude toward Communism. I was still against it, as I had always been. It had to do with my analysis of the long-term interests of the United States and of our current problems in terms o--of our competition with--in other ways with the Soviet Union.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:34:44
[Frank Gannon]

In--before you went to China, André Malraux came to the White House and talked to you about what you would find. What do you remember from his visit?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:34:54
[Richard Nixon]

I had met Malraux for the first time when I went to Paris in 1969, and he was one of de Gaulle's great supporters, more liberal than de Gaulle, but admired de Gaulle as a great man, as I did. And I noted then that he had had a--a stroke. Well, it was a stroke which had left him paralyzed on one side. It was very difficult for him to talk, but I had read some of his books. He's a brilliant writer. And I gave a dinner for him and saw him before dinner at s--at some length. And even with his--it was just painful to watch him talk, you know, with his m--mouth drooping down like that, but--but the words came out in a torrent as he described China. I asked him, "What are they like?", because he knew Mao and he knew Chou En-lai and the rest. And he says, "Mao has a vision. He is possessed by a vision. The man is a sorcerer," and he went on and on as to what Mao was like. And then, finally, after he had described him, he said, "It's worth the trip."

Day 5, Tape 2
00:36:10
[Frank Gannon]

Did he talk about the--the problem of the aging of the Chinese leadership?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:36:16
[Richard Nixon]

Well, that was his conclusion with regard to Mao. He said, "Mao is a colossus, but he's a colossus facing death. And as he looks at you, he will think, 'How young you are.'" And I thought that was interesting, because at that time I was fifty-nine.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:36:39
[Frank Gannon]

Did--in your--

Day 5, Tape 2
00:36:40
[Richard Nixon]

In other words, what was interesting to me is that you would expect Malraux to say, well, as he looked at me, "Here is the representative of the great United States. Here is the anti-Communist. Here is the capitalist," et cetera. But no. He said, "As he looks at you, wh--what--what he will think about--how young you are, because he is a colossus, but he is a colossus facing death."

Day 5, Tape 2
00:37:04
[Frank Gannon]

Did--I--did you feel that, unlike a lot of people, he had a sense of the adventure of what you were doing?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:37:15
[Richard Nixon]

Yes. Let us understand that the decision to go to China was a difficult one for us--difficult for me because I knew Taiwan. I had great respect for Chiang Kai-shek, for Madame Chiang Kai-shek. I knew of the Taiwan miracle. It's a miracle like Japan, what they have done there. Taiwan today, for example, with seventeen million people, exports more than the People's Republic of China, with a billion people. That's an indication of how--what an economic success it was.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:37:46
[Frank Gannon]

How did you break the news to Chiang Kai-shek?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:37:48
[Richard Nixon]

It was broken through diplomatic channels.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:37:51
[Frank Gannon]

Should you not have done that personally, given your--

Day 5, Tape 2
00:37:54
[Richard Nixon]

No--

[Frank Gannon]

--ties with him, and--

Day 5, Tape 2
00:37:55
[Richard Nixon]

It--it wasn't--it would not have been the appropriate thing to do. We had to do--we had to treat them all the same, and so in--

Day 5, Tape 2
00:38:03
[Frank Gannon]

Surely that was a special relationship, though.

[Richard Nixon]

In each--in each--but in each case--in each case, we felt that it was important not to treat one different from the others. We had to think of them, we had to think of the Japanese, we had the British, and so forth and so on. So we decided to do it through routine challenge--channels in all cases.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:38:23
[Frank Gannon]

You--in your account of the meeting with Malraux, you des--you describe a d--a dream that Lincoln had and related it to your going to China.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:38:34
[Richard Nixon]

Yes. This--this dream of Lincoln's is one that most biographers have carried, and I think therefore it is probably on the mark, although much of the stories about any great man like Lincoln are apocryphal. In this case, it was supposed to be a dream that he had that he recounted to his cabinet the day before he was shot, and Lincoln often had dreams before great events. And he said this was a dream that he had had before Gettysburg--he'd had it before another great victory and so forth, and he said that--and it was repeated that night. And it went something like this, that he was on a singular indescribable vessel moving with great rapidity toward a distant, indistinguishable shore. And I repeated that to Malraux, and Malraux said, "Well, that is--is very interesting." And he said, "As far as Mao is concerned, his shore is death." He said, "And as far as you are concerned, you must avoid the shoals on either side." So that was the--s--some of the conversation.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:39:57
[Frank Gannon]

Did you regret that de Gaulle, who would have been able to understand the enormity of the--o--of--of what you were doing, wasn't alive to see the opening to China?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:40:06
[Richard Nixon]

Yes. Yeah, and, may I say, and Adenauer as well, because Adenauer and de Gaulle independently, anti-Communist though both were, were sophisticated enough and geopoliticians enough to understand why it was necessary, something which it's very difficult for some of n--some of our good hard-line super-hawks who see the whole world in black and white and think that the only way that you're going to deal with Communism is to isolate it and collapse it. Well, I wish that were the case, but it is not going to happen that way. Peaceful change is the only thing we can hope for, and that's what we must always work for. We must never accept the division of the world as it is. They don't, and we shouldn't either.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:40:55
[Frank Gannon]

How did Malraux take his leave that night?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:40:59
[Richard Nixon]

Well, he--it was a rathy--rather moving scene. I escorted him to the north porti--portico, and his car came up, and he said--as he said goodbye, he said, "I am not de Gaulle." He said, "Nobody is de Gaulle, but if de Gaulle were here he would wish you well on your mission. He would salute you for what you are doing."

Day 5, Tape 2
00:41:30
[Frank Gannon]

What were your thoughts as the--as Air Force One first--f--came over the Chinese mainland and you--for better or for worse, you were there--you had done it?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:41:44
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I am not one of those that is given to try to develop profound historic thoughts because of some new adventure.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:41:52
[Frank Gannon]

Did you see it as an adventure?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:41:54
[Richard Nixon]

No. I saw it in a different way, not as an adventure, which trivializes a very important event. I knew it was a very important event historically. I knew it was a very important event from the standpoint of the interests of the United States, the interests of building a more peaceful world, for our children and grandchildren primarily, rather than just for ourselves. Also, however, I've--knew it was an adventure, just as many other Americans did, because China was an unknown land. I'd read about it all my life. It was a land of mystery, and the fact that we hadn't had communication with them for twenty-five years built up that mystery. And I remember Mrs. Nixon and I, as we were sitting in the plane looking down on this huge expanse of tiny farms and so forth and so on--it--we had a--a feeling about it that we had never had before. We had been already to seventy countries together, and I was to go to many more--as I'm now over ninety in the number of countries--and there was nothing like going into other countries that we experienced here going into China, because it was new, because it was exciting, and because it was very, very important. For example, we had been to Moscow in 1959. That was a very important visit, and coming to Moscow on that trip was a time of excitement, but nothing compared to what we felt as we went into China. We knew that we were at a watershed event in hum--human history.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:43:29
[Frank Gannon]

We have some film of your arrival at Peking in your first meeting with Chou En-lai. In fact, all we've got now is this still. Do you want to--can you describe what was going on there?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:43:46
[Richard Nixon]

Yes. I think that event was one that symbolized the trip more dramatically than anything else. As you'll note, I am shaking hands with him, and that's not unusual, because you always shake hands when you step off the plane with whoever is receiving you. I recall, incidentally, as I came down the steps before I shook hands, however, that he was clapping as I came down the steps, and I, of course, returned the clapping, and because I had learned that long before visiting other Communist countries. They always re--respond. Whenever you clap, they clap at the same time. And so, as we shook hands, it had particular symbolism, because I knew from the briefing papers that Chou En-lai was very sensitive about the fact that in 1954 at the Geneva Conference--that Foster Dulles had not--had refused to shake hands with him. He told an amusing anecdote about that--told me about the fact that Bedell Smith, who was--

Day 5, Tape 2
00:44:50
[Frank Gannon]

Chou En-lai told you?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:44:51
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah, Chou En-lai did. He tol--told me an amusing anecdote about that. He said that Bedell Smith, who was there with Dulles that--he said he wouldn't shake hands either, but what he did was that he held a coffee cup in his right hand and then gave him his sleeve on--on his left hand and he had to shake hands that way. He was rather amused by it at that time. So he--he considered that to be a very important handshake. And I remember as we drove in to the guest house through Peking. He said that handshake was over the vastest distance in the world, twenty-five years of no communication, which was a dramatic way of putting it. Now, incidentally, let me say, however, that if some of those--and they are legion--who believe that Foster Dulles was much too tough at that time, just so that they don't get the wrong idea, I well understand why Dulles didn't shake hands. It was a different time. We have to remember, in 1954, that was only shortly after Chinese troops had killed over fifty thousand Americans in Korea. It was at a time when Communist China was in expansionist policy. They were intervening through their--s--supporting guerrilla activities in the--in the Philippines, in Malaysia, in Thailand, Singapore. And so, under the circumstances, there was plenty of reason for Dulles not to be buddy-buddy with somebody who was a proclaimed enemy, not by what he said, but by what they were doing against our interest. But the situation had changed on them. China at the time we made this trip was no longer in an expansionary phase. They were supporting the Vietnamese, but not nearly as much as the Russians, who had taken over there as the main supplier of arms to the Vietnamese. They were primarily, at this time--at the time we went there, concerned about their own security, their strategic security, conc--and of course the possibilities for progress within the country. So, under the circumstances, I thought it was proper that we should begin with a handshake.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:47:08
[Frank Gannon]

We have film also of your reviewing the honor guard at the airport in Peking with Chou En-lai. This is another case where it's just a still, if you can comment on it. There, you see--

Day 5, Tape 2
00:47:25
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah.

[Frank Gannon]

Mao was a member of the honor guard. There we are. And that, in fact, is film.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:47:34
[Richard Nixon]

The interesting thing to note about that guard is the size of the men. Chou En-lai, who had a great attention to detail despite the fact that he is one of the busiest men in the world, a head of government of the most populous country in the world, personally picked people for a honor guard of that sort, as I later learned. As you will note, Chinese are supposed to be not as tall as we are, but most of those people were over--all of them, I think, were over six feet tall, and they were magnificently trained. I remember that, as you'll note, the reviewing officer looks each one in the eye, and, in their case, instead of looking straight forward, as most do in other countries, their eyes followed me as we went around. And so there was a feeling of motion that was almost hypnotic as we went down the line.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:48:30
[Frank Gannon]

Did--did he choose tall people and--and have this hypnotic sense to impress you with the strength of the Chinese armed forces?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:48:40
[Richard Nixon]

No. He didn't do that. I don't think the guard was one that was just for me. I think that was their regular honor guard. But honor guards generally are, except in this country where we have honor guards with multicolored uniforms and so forth--Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, all mixed in, which is ridiculous, incidentally--

Day 5, Tape 2
00:48:59
[Frank Gannon]

Why?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:49:00
[Richard Nixon]

Well, because it's not nearly as impressive as having one uniform. I much prefer it, and you should have an honor guard uniform.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:49:08
[Frank Gannon]

Does an honor guard make an impression that--that makes any difference to a visiting head of state?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:49:13
[Richard Nixon]

I think it does. There's probably--I think it particularly makes an impression on heads of state from smaller countries. After all, they--they expect to be treated with great respect, and an honor guard is part of the--the drill. It's more important than the quarters you stay in, the proper honor guard, the guns that go off, the national anthems, and so forth. I must say, to me, as impressive any--as anything there was not so much the honor guard but to hear the Chinese band play "The Star-Spangled Banner," and to play it well. "The Star-Spangled Banner" is a difficult song to play, and, boy, we have heard it mangled in some countries beyond belief. You could hardly recognize it. But the Chinese, curiously enough, musically, are fairly close to us. They seem to understand it, and they played it beautifully, just as they played "M--America the Beautiful," the same army band at the state dinner that they gave in the Great Hall of the People. They played it perfectly.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:50:16
[Frank Gannon]

What goes through your mind as you're standing there at an airport arrival ceremony and the anthem is played? Are you thinking about what you're going to do next or say next, or does it—does it actually have a--an emotional impact or a--a--a psychological impact to hear your anthem played in a foreign country?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:50:36
[Richard Nixon]

Well, you know, I suppose this sounds a little corny, but I don't--I can hardly recall a time, either in a foreign country or on the great ceremonies on the South Lawn of the White House, when standing there at attention, hearing the anthem played, the flags furled, and so forth, when a little chill doesn't go up your back. It always has that effect on me.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:51:02
[Frank Gannon]

We have a--some film from Peking Television of your first meeting with Chairman Mao. How did you get word that—that you were going to be summoned to his presence?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:51:14
[Richard Nixon]

Well, we didn't know that we would see him at all. In fact, when they made out the schedule, there was no indication that we were to have an appointment with him. We had heard that he had not been well, and all inquiries that were made, that Henry had made previously, were to the effect that no decision had been made as to whether or not we would see him. And so we arrived in the guest house and--wondering whether we were going to see him, and because some people thought--some of those who were covering the trip, the press, has already begun to speculate that Mao might snub us by not receiving us, which would have been quite a snub, because he had received Haile Selassie and people of that sort. But that wasn't the way it happened. I was actually--had taken off my clothes and sitting in my shorts prior to going in and taking a shower when Henry came in, again rather breathless, and said, "Mao wants to see you right away." So we rushed down and got into the cars and went over to his c--residence in Peking. I remember the usual Chinese entrance, a gateway. A sort of--red was the color I recall, which, of course, was quite appropriate.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:52:31
[Frank Gannon]

What--what were your first impressions on meeting him?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:52:36
[Richard Nixon]

Well, he said he didn't talk very well and some said—the Chinese indicated that was because he'd had laryngitis, because--it was obvious, however, that he'd had some sort of a stroke. But he talked well enough. He could be understood well enough.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:52:51
[Frank Gannon]

In his pictures he looks fairly—

Day 5, Tape 2
00:52:52
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah.

[Frank Gannon]

--voluble—

Day 5, Tape 2
00:52:53
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah.

[Frank Gannon]

--and vigorous.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:52:54
[Richard Nixon]

W--well understood. Sometimes the words didn't tumble out as well as they might. I would like to have known him when he was much better. But compared to what he was in 1976, when he had had another stroke and when--he talked so poorly then that he just couldn't get the words out. And I remember how painful it was even to watch him when he couldn't get words out. He'd get one of the girl secretaries standing in back of him taking down every word that he said, and he'd grab the notepad, and then he'd write out what he was trying to say and hand it back to her, and then she'd translate it. He'd hear the translation, it'd be wrong, and he'd say, "No!" and grab it again and write it out. But this time, no problem like that. He--we had a very easygoing conversation. One thing that impressed me about his room was that it was very similar to that of Ben-Gurion. Ben-Gurion, the founder of the Israeli state, had a room just cluttered with all sorts of books, books open here and there and on the desk and so forth and so on. You know, you hear these days that the mark of a great executive or a good executive is a clean desk. That's not true. That--if you have a clean desk, you usually have an empty head. And in this case, the--Mao's room was a clutter of books. He obviously was a f--man who did a great deal of reading. As he indicated, too--he'd read my book Six Crises, which Chou En-lai had had translated into Chinese before even it was agreed I’d make the visit. Some way or other, I think what appealed to them in that book is it was about struggle, and struggle, of course, is the theme that Mao and the Chinese Communists constantly emphasized at that period.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:54:39
[Frank Gannon]

Could you tell anything about the--from the relationship between the two—from--between Mao and Chou En-lai--about the division of labor between them in terms of running China?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:54:51
[Richard Nixon]

Well, there was no question that Chou En-lai ran China. There was no question, however, that Mao was still chairman of the board, but he was st—he was not the chief executive officer in terms of carrying out things. But Chou En-lai was very deferential to Mao, deferential because every word that Mao uttered was gospel, and I noted, for example, that after that first meeting with Mao that Chou En-lai would often quote Mao as to what he'd said in that first meeting. But Mao made the point very clearly when he said, "Look. I'm not here to discuss the details. That's for the prime minister to discuss." He said, "I am here to talk about philosophy, general philosophy," and then he proceeded to do that.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:55:37
[Frank Gannon]

Were they friends, do you—do you think?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:55:40
[Richard Nixon]

Yes. I do not think close friends. I don't think there was a great deal of affection there. There was respect on both parts. Each needed the other. I think that's the way that it worked.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:55:50
[Frank Gannon]

How well-prepped on you were they?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:55:53
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, quite well. They, for example, had read what I had written. Example is that I had made th--a speech, for example, in Kansas City, which should have told the American press what to expect, and it got, I think, just minimal coverage in the American press. I don't think television covered it at all to speak of, but when Henry Kissinger saw Chou En-lai, Chou En-lai had that speech, which had been covered in the Chinese press, in front of him there and asked Henry whether he had seen it. Henry had not seen it, because it was not one that was--been prepared by the State Department or by the N.S.C. It was one that I had prepared by myself. And so he gave him a copy of it. Chou En-lai gave Henry Kissinger a copy of the speech I had made in Kansas City that the American press had paid no attention to, but which indicated very clearly that we were going forward on some sort of a Chinese initiative. So it does show you they paid attention to what we were saying and doing.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:56:55
[Frank Gannon]

Weren't they even aware of your taste in films?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:56:58
[Richard Nixon]

Yes. They'd done their homework, because they--first, they had a movie theatre and--where they said we could see anything we wanted to see--that is, of films, and--of their films. But Henry told me that Chou En-lai had h--read or heard that I had enjoyed the movie Patton, and so he had it s--produced and shown for him. Of course, he understood English, so it was--understood a lot of English, a lot more than he ever let on. He never spoke in English, however.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:57:29
[Frank Gannon]

What do you think Chou En-lai learned about you from having watched Patton?

Day 5, Tape 2
00:57:36
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, nothing particularly. The Patton—the Patton movie was interesting to me not because of the war, but because of what it told us about the people. It was a fascinating study of Eisenhower, who never appears in person, of Bradley, of Montgomery, of Patton, and the rest. Just like Tolstoy's War of Peace--War and Peace, which is a great book, but I read it when I was in college, and my interest in it was not what it told about war and peace, but what it was--told about the characters, that Tolstoy was a master at describing. I mean, the people seemed to walk on the pages.

Day 5, Tape 2
00:58:16
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think that anybody who wants to understand you has to read S—

Day 5, Tape 2
00:58:20
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

The following text appears in the original transcript but does not appear on a tape. It has not been edited.

[Frank Gannon]

[Interrupted in the middle of the word "six."] --ix Crises?

[Richard Nixon]

No. They--they don't have to really read anything. They could observe what I have done and judge for themselves. I do not believe that any individual--what he writes should be the conclusive factor that determines how people are going to praise him. After all, whatever anybody writes is through his own eyes and so forth. And what a person writes, I think, reveals very little.

[Frank Gannon]

Didn't Mao's writings, though, reveal a lot and have a great, great impact?

[Richard Nixon]

Not much about him. It revealed a lot about the Chinese Communist revolution. I remember speaking to Mao about his writings, and I said, "The chairman's writings"--I spoke--

Day Five, Tape three of four, LINE FEED #3, 5-13-83, ETI Reel #36
May 13, 1983

Day 5, Tape 3
00:00:05
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

Day 5, Tape 3
00:00:07
[Richard Nixon]

--the way it came about was that--perhaps in reference to my own writings, I said, "Well, the chairman's writings are very important." And he said, in his self-deprecating way--he was always speaking in self-deprecating ways. Anybody who is--does not have a superi—fer—infer--anybody who does not have an inferiority complex usually can speak in a self-deprecating way. And he said, "Well, I never wrote anything that was worth much." I went on to say, "But what the chairman wrote changed China and changed the world." He said, "I haven't"--and then, with a smile, he said, "Well, I haven't been able to change anything except a few places around Peking."

Day 5, Tape 3
00:00:54
[Frank Gannon]

In your book Leaders, you write of Mao that--and your impressions of him, that his will power somehow seemed a physical characteristic. How did--how did you form that impression?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:01:08
[Richard Nixon]

Mao is one who has great animal magnetism. That's something you would not ascribe, incidentally, to Chou En-lai. Chou En-lai was subtle, sophisticated, suave, smooth, cerebral. Mao was emotional, physical, something very difficult to describe, but it's there. You can sense it. Khrushchev was the same way, incidentally. He also was a very physical presence. I'd say the same thing for Lyndon Johnson. I wouldn't say that about Kennedy, for example. That's the differences between various people.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:01:44
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think Mao Tse-tung had problems justifying to his own people dealing with a—a right-wing anti-Communist from the United States of America?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:01:54
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, certainly, but he was not a bit defensive about it. I remember when we were talking, with his usual twinkle in his eye, he said, "I voted for you in your last election." I assumed that he meant by that that he favored me over Senator Humphrey, or Vice President Humphrey. But then he went on to say--he said, "You know, I like rightists, right-wingers." He said, "I am always comfortable when the right comes to power." And he was referring to the Germans, to Heath in England, and so forth. And he--

Day 5, Tape 3
00:02:33
[Frank Gannon]

Did he mean this, or was he being humorous?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:02:34
[Richard Nixon]

No, I think he meant it. I think he found that the right was more dependable. Let me--let us understand how Mao's mind worked and how Chou En-lai's mind worked. Let me start again. Let's understand how Mao and Chou En-lai looked at China in 1972, at the time this new relationship with the United States took place. Why is it that Mao was to say that he liked right-wing governments, because right-wing governments were the very antithesis of what he stood for? And the answer is that as far as the Chinese are concerned, their primary interest is China, always China. That's number one. Their secondary interest is philosophy. It doesn't mean that Mao Tse-tung was not a very d--dedicated Marxist, Communist--call him what you want. And the same is true of Chou En-lai. But where there is conflict between the ideology and their security, their security comes first. And so, as far as they were concerned, in Iran, they liked the shah of Iran even though he was anti-Communist, and they did not support the [Tuda Party], which was the Communist party--party in Iran. And as far as we were concerned, we were their ideological enemy, but, on the other hand, as far as the security of China was concerned, we were absolutely indispensable to that security. And so, as far as the Soviet Union was concerned, the Soviet Union was Marxist, Communist--call it what you will. So was China, but the Soviet Union threatened China's security. And so every time you look at the Chinese, you've got to think of them in those terms. They're going to be thinking of China, what is going to be good for China. And if a right-wing regime is going to be more in their interest than a left-wing regime, they'll just put the r--left-wing regime right down the shaft.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:04:40
[Frank Gannon]

On that point, we are going to break for a Chinese meal.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:04:56
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

Day 5, Tape 3
00:05:00
[Richard Nixon]

All right?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:05:01
[Offscreen voice]

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Day 5, Tape 3
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00:05:06
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Thirty-five minu—

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00:05:07
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00:05:10
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00:06:14
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00:06:18
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00:06:22
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00:06:27
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00:06:33
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00:06:38
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Day 5, Tape 3
00:06:39
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Day 5, Tape 3
00:06:43
[Richard Nixon]

When he was talking about liking rightists, Mao, in that self-deprecating way of his, said, "You know," he said, "sometimes I think that people like me sound like big empty cannons. We talk about overthrowing everybody--'We will overthrow the imperialists, and we'll overthrow the revisionists, and we'll o--overthrow the capitalists.'" He said, "After all, if we overthrow everybody, we're not going to have any friends left. So sometimes we have to get along with the rightists," and that--of course he meant us.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:07:13
[Frank Gannon]

You've described in your memoirs and in Leaders the differences between Mao and Chou En-lai. What were the main differences that you noticed between the two men?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:07:26
[Richard Nixon]

Well, Mao, I would say, first, was fundamentally f--well, let's start again. That's—I—I don't want to give the answer to the question. Well, Mao basically was a physical creature. I—I say that in not a condescending way or a condemnatory way, but in terms of simply appraising him for what he was. He was more emotion, whereas Chou En-Lai was more intellectual, more brain. That doesn't mean that Mao was not a fairly learned man. After all, he wrote great pro—great poetry, at least great poetry from the standpoint of the Chinese and the revolutionary forces, and also read a great deal. But he primarily was one who approached problems in an emotional way. He appealed to the heart. Chou En-lai, however, appealed to the head. I think that was the fundamental difference between their approaches. The second thing is that Chou En-lai was a highly sophisticated, highly civilized person. Mao, on the other hand, was just what he was--a former peasant, very earthy, very down-to-earth. Chou En-lai was, however--we must have in mind, not, because he was simply a civilized person, a weak person. I remember [Walter Robertson], the former assistant secretary of state during the Eisenhower years, telling me once about a story that he'd heard about Chou En-lai--that Chou En-lai was absolutely ruthless, that one time he came out of a room in which he had just killed one of his rivals calmly smoking a cigarette. And there's no question that Chou En-lai, along with Mao, were responsible for the killing or starving to death of millions of Chinese. So, under the circumstances, therefore, we're not dealing here with a great humanist, even though he had humanist and humanitarian appearance. Having said all that, though, I would now come to a general appraisal of Chou En-lai. Many times, I guess more often than not, people ask me, "Who was the greatest man you ever met? Who's--?" And here, in answering the question, if the question is who was the best person, that's one thing. Who was the best president, the best king, the best leader, that's something else. Who was the indispensable man? Churchill was indispensable, for example, for Britain at the time of World War II. De Gaulle was indispensable for France during the period that he served. And Adenauer was indispensable for Germany. [Yoshida] was indis--dispensable in creating modern Japan. In terms of comparison with these others, we would not say that Chou En-lai was indispensable to the Chinese Revolution. Maybe Mao could have done it with somebody else, although Chou was very effective. But I would say in terms of rating and comparing Chou En-lai with the other world leaders that I have met, there was one area that he was, without question, number one. He was the greatest diplomat I've ever met. He was suave, poised. He had enormous stamina. He was always prepared. He was very tough when necessary, appeared to be conciliatory when necessary. Always appeared to be reasonable, but never gave in on anything he possibly could where he thought that giving in would not serve his interests. I think perhaps the phrase that best describes him is one that Churchill used in describing Parnell, the great Irish patriot of the nineteenth century. He said that he was "a volcano under an ice cap." And I think that this probably describes Chou En-lai. Beneath there was a volcano, but on top there was an ice cap, and that made him the effective diplomat that he was.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:11:24
[Frank Gannon]

How—how can you talk with such admiring objectivity about a man who had the blood of several millions of people on his hands?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:11:36
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, I'm—I'm admiring him for his capabilities as a diplomat, for his capabilities as a leader at the time that I dealt with him. I'm not admiring him in terms of his past record. That is something else again, just as I am sure he didn't admire, for example, the United States for what he considered to be our "capitalist exploitation of the masses." I totally disagree with his appraisal of our system and what we have done, a--and I--certainly he disagrees with my appraisal.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:12:11
[Frank Gannon]

Should the United States deal with regimes or leaders whose policies include internal murder? Should h--say if Hitler had tried—had wanted to reach some kind of a sensible understanding in terms of U.S. interests with Franklin Roosevelt. Should he have treated with Hitler—

Day 5, Tape 3
00:12:32
[Richard Nixon]

Uh—

[Frank Gannon]

--regardless of the internal arrangements?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:12:34
[Richard Nixon]

Well, there didn't seem to be any possibility that that h--would happen at that time, but I think Churchill is--turning the subject around--put it fairly well in contest when he was criticized in the House of Commons for making "common cause with Communist Russia" after Hitler invaded Russia. And I think Churchill said something to the effect that--let's see, what was it?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:13:03
[Frank Gannon]

That h--he would make a pact with the devil if--

Day 5, Tape 3
00:13:05
[Richard Nixon]

No. No, let's see. (Pauses.) No, I think I'm going to miss that one there. But I--but I—w--where Churchill—where Churchill defended his making common cause with Stalin, even though he had previous [he may mean "previously"] been—been intensely critical of him, putting Stalin and Hitler in exactly the same boat, and after the war, incidentally, he continued to criticize him--but at that particular time, when Hitler was the major enemy, he made common cause with him.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:13:39
[Frank Gannon]

How did you--or how do you answer your critics at the time, particularly your conservative critics, who said that by going to China you legitimized this brutal, anti-American regime and that, in fact, their policies hadn't changed—th—the--the masses of murders that had—had occurred in the f--forties and fifties were—and the Cultural Revolution were perhaps past, but that they still have a brutal, murderous, oppressive regime there?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:14:04
[Richard Nixon]

Well, the—the Russians haven't changed. The Chinese haven't changed. Eastern Europeans haven't changed, except moderately, i--in terms of their treatment of their own people. A--and over a period of time, however, change possibly may take place. What I am s--simply suggesting here--that clearly, apart from whether they have changed or not, looking at the fundamental responsibility of a president of the United States responsible for the security of this country, failing to have a rapprochement with the People's Republic of China at that time would have been inexcusable and unacceptable, because, frankly, we needed them just as much as they needed us. And if we didn't have that rapprochement today, I repeat, we would be in an impossible position vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. You take the Soviet Union, you add the billion people that are in China with its enormous resources, and the whole balance of power in the world tips irreparably against us. And that is what we are helping to prevent.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:15:15
[Frank Gannon]

What does it feel like to sit across the table from a man who had killed someone with his bare hands and walked out of the room smoking a cigarette? Does it occur to you that he could do it to you under similar circumstances?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:15:27
[Richard Nixon]

I don't think of that, and I doubt if he thought of me in terms of the way he had heard me described, as the "capitalist devil." We were both pragmatic. We both had other things to think about that were, we thought, of higher priority than what had happened in the past. And that's the way we approached it.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:15:48
[Frank Gannon]

Is this attitude toward these leaders and regimes an exception to your conservatism?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:15:55
[Richard Nixon]

No. No, I would say that in the whole foreign policy area, that I believe what--it is most important is that it be an effective foreign policy and one that will always ha--put emphasis on our primary responsibility, and that is to have our system survive. It must survive, because the United States, whatever our faults may be, is the hope of the world. We are the main force that deters the only major nation that threatens war or defeating other nations without war, and we are the nation that will certainly defend freedom wherever we possibly can when it's within our capabilities.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:16:43
[Frank Gannon]

But if we compromise our principles, doesn't that make our survival not worthwhile, or the same nation isn't surviving? Can't-- don't—

Day 5, Tape 3
00:16:51
[Richard Nixon]

That's—

[Frank Gannon]

--you have to stand up at a certain point and be—be w--willing to die for what you believe in?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:16:55
[Richard Nixon]

As a matter of fact, war compromises principles. War is evil. All war is wrong. All killing is wrong. The question is, for example, when Eisenhower ordered the bombing of Dresden, which was a civilian target, and forty million Germans burned to death in one night, that certainly was immoral, but it would have been more immoral to allow Hitler to rule Europe. That's what it gets down to.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:17:21
[Frank Gannon]

What--what was Chou En-lai's health like in your observations of him?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:17:27
[Richard Nixon]

I had heard that—

[Offscreen voice]

Excuse me, just one second. On that last one, you said forty million [unintelligible] died in one night. Do we want to say…forty thousand.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:17:35
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah, we'll repeat that.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:17:36
[Offscreen voice]

Okay, let's do a pickup on that. (Various people speak simultaneously offscreen.) We don't need the question [unintelligible] again. [Unintelligible.]

Day 5, Tape 3
00:17:42
[Richard Nixon]

No, I'll—I'll just [unintelligible].

Day 5, Tape 3
00:17:43
[Frank Gannon]

That's a long question.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:17:44
[Richard Nixon]

No, no, no, no, no. I'll—I'd—I'll cover it.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:17:46
[Frank Gannon]

Pick up Eisenhower's decision.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:17:47
[Richard Nixon]

Mm-hmm.

[Offscreen voice]

Okay?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:17:48
[Richard Nixon]

Ready?

[Offscreen voice]

[Unintelligible] any time.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:17:53
[Richard Nixon]

Well, you take Eisenhower's decision for the bombing of Dresden in World War II. It was a civilian target, and the firebombing of Dresden cost forty thousand German lives in one night. Now, that was immoral, but it would have been more immoral to allow Hitler to rule Europe. And those are decisions that leaders have to make, and sometimes they are terribly difficult. That was a difficult one for Eisenhower, as he often told me thereafter.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:18:23
[Frank Gannon]

What was Chou En-lai's health like in your observation of him on this trip?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:18:29
[Richard Nixon]

Well, his stamina was unbelievable. We'd have these long, long meetings. You see, every meeting is twice as long as it would normally be, because while he understood English, and quite a bit of it, he'd never spoken it, so you had to have the translation. And we'd go on for two or three hours in the morning and three or four hours in an afternoon, and then he would spend half the night working with Kissinger on the details of memoranda and so forth, and agreements that we had discussed earlier in the day.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:18:57
[Frank Gannon]

When did he sleep?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:18:59
[Richard Nixon]

He slept, apparently, after midnight. I talked to [Miss Tang], who was one of the translators, Brooklyn-born, brilliant, and she said that he got along on four or five hours--

Day 5, Tape 3
00:19:09
[Frank Gannon]

Isn't that redundant?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:19:11
[Richard Nixon]

--forty-f--four or five hours a day. I noticed on occasion he took a little white pill during the day. I don't know what it was. And, of course, as we know, later on he died with what was diagnosed as either cancer or a form of cancer, leukemia. But his stamina, as I said, was unbelievable. Oh, a couple of things indicated to me that he was not in as good health as he was. He--at the big state dinner when we were toasting each other in mao-tai, which was the fiery Chinese brew, which he--and he proved how fiery it was by pouring a bit into a saucer and lighting a match to it, and it practically exploded. He told me one amusing story, too--that it was so strong it's been known--that when one fellow had drunk too much mao-tai--he lit a cigarette--he blew up. And so, as he was talking about mao-tai, he said that during the Long March he had on occasion had as many as twenty-four cups--that's a small cup--about twenty-four ounces in one day. He said, "Now," he said, "I limit myself to two or three ounces."

Day 5, Tape 3
00:20:17
[Frank Gannon]

What does it taste like?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:20:19
[Richard Nixon]

It's just like wood alcohol. It is a--it's a fiery brew.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:20:25
[Frank Gannon]

Did you--how did you handle it during the—

Day 5, Tape 3
00:20:27
[Richard Nixon]

I just sipped it.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:20:28
[Frank Gannon]

--toasts going on?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:20:29
[Richard Nixon]

As a matter of fact, you can practically get drunk smelling it, and what happened was—is--the custom is, Chinese-style, that after you propose a toast you go around the entire table of twenty or thirty of the honored guests and tip with each one. You hold up your glass, s--look them in the eye--next one. And I went around, and so did he, and I noted when each of us had finished our round of twenty-four drinks, we still had half a glass left. That's how we stayed sober for the talks that were to take place later that night.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:20:59
[Frank Gannon]

André Malraux had told you that the Chinese would be struck by the age of your party. Was that—

Day 5, Tape 3
00:21:07
[Richard Nixon]

Age—

[Frank Gannon]

Did that turn out to be the case?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:21:08
[Richard Nixon]

Age constantly came into it. I know that Chou En-lai one time, to my surprise, said how impressed he was by our advance team, and they were an excellent team. They did a marvelous job of advancing. Dwight Chapin was one of them, and he was only t--thirty-three at the time. I thought that was young. But Chou En-lai also mentioned Marshall Green, who was the assistant secretary of state for Asia, and Marshall Green was fifty-one, but he thought he was young, too. You see, Chou En-lai was seventy-three at that time and still had the vigor of somebody of twenty-three. He--he--he was a man of enormous physical vigor and mental discipline. Another thing that Chou En-lai impressed me with was his attention to detail. Now, usually we say leaders shouldn't pay much attention to detail, and sometimes many of us get too immersed in detail, but I recall, for example, that he checked over every item on the menu at the state dinner to be sure that it had been prepared exactly the right way. And I understand the reason that he did that was that he was a very good chef himself. I pointed out to him that Eisenhower had also been very proud of his cooking ability, which pleased him a great deal. Another incident that proved that--Bill Rogers was telling me that on one occasion when he was having a meeting with Chou En-lai, they brought in The Daily World, or whatever it was called--the--the--the Chinese Communist daily newspaper--which was to come out the next day. And he personally edited it while he was talking to Rogers about some of the other matters that we had to discuss at that time. A--and I recall particularly when--the day when we went to the Great Wall--it had been snowing, and we were attending an event in the gymnasium, a big gymnastic event, and I noticed that about halfway through the event that Chou En-lai got up and left, and I just assumed, "Well, he's seventy-three years old. He probably had to go to the men's room." That wasn't it at all. As a matter of fact, he came back, and what he had done--he went out personally to check to see whether the people he had ordered to go out to sweep all of the roads clear of snow had done so, so that the roads'd be clear when we went to the Great Wall. And they were pristine clear. How he did all those things and yet saw the forest and not just the trees in our conversations was a very remarkable achievement. I can understand why one of the major Taiwan leaders--the government there--said rather wistfully after they had lost China--he said, "If we had had Chou En-lai on our side, we would have won."

Day 5, Tape 3
00:23:50
[Frank Gannon]

We have a picture from that gymnastic exhibition, which I think you in your diary of the China trip--you commented what a tremendous impact and impression this sight made on you.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:24:20
[Richard Nixon]

Yes. I recall the event very well, and I also recall as I look at that picture what I heard when I was in Pakistan in 1965 from Ayub Khan. He was a strong anti-Communist. He had just come home from Peking be--because he had become disillusioned by the administration--the Johnson administration's treatment of mem [sic] by them leaning too much to India and the rest and was turning toward China himself. And I said, "What was your impression of it?" He said, "Primarily people, millions and millions of people--the enormous potential strength of it." And there in that picture, as we were there that night, I saw these people, but what impressed me more than the fact that they were young and vigorous, which they were, was that they were so totally disciplined, and I could see what an enormous force that would be under the control of any leader who was opposed to us and why it was therefore important to attempt to influence that force in a way that would not be against our interest. Nothing brought home to me more vividly than that night, seeing that demonstration of not only vigor but also of discipline, the vital necessity of not only beginning the China initiative but nurturing it from there on out.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:25:43
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think American youth has vigor and discipline today?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:25:49
[Richard Nixon]

A lot of it has. Let me say, let's not be unimpressed, even though I know that in—that most of our elitists in the educational community would not approve of what I'm just going to say--let us not be unimpressed with some of the bands and other things that we see at football games and the rest. No. Our—our—our young people are capable of discipline, and we wouldn't want them to be like the Chinese people. We wouldn't want them to be like Hitler's youth. We want them to have individuality, but it is also important for them to bear in mind that, in order to keep the freedom which allows the diversity and individuality, it's necessary sometimes to be totally disciplined and to give up some freedom in order to keep all freedom for the future.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:26:39
[Frank Gannon]

During your time in Peking, you got to sit next to one of the great charmers in the history of the world, Mao's wife. What—what were your impressions of her?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:26:54
[Richard Nixon]

Well, frankly, of course, she was not in her prime when I saw her, but I rather wondered why he had married her. But it—it was his fourth wife, and I understand, according to some probably unfriendly critics of Mao, that she seduced him, s--from his third wife. Whatever the case might be, she was very, very intense. What I remember most about her that night was that she was sweating. The sweat was pouring down from her head and so forth. And I—I sort of wondered what was the matter and she apologetically said that she had been having some influenza. But I think it was tension, and, as distinguished from the grace of Chou En-lai and the warm hospitality of Mao, despite the fact that I knew that ideologically we were total enemies, she was one that made no bones about the fact that she didn't like us. I remember she turned to me in the middle of one of the performances and said, "Why did you wait so long to come to China? Why didn't you come before?" And I just ignored it and just kept looking at the performance. She was also interested--it showed, at least, that she'd--had followed what had happened in America--she was interested in what happened to Jack London. Some way that had appealed to her. She said, "D--what did he die of ?" And I sai--not being a London expert, I guessed pretty good. I said, "I think it was alcoholism." She asked about Walter Lippman, whose--incidentally, she had read some of his columns in The Christian Science Monitor, which shows that some of the papers are distributed there. And I made a point which I hoped got back to Mao. I assume that it did, assuming she was still on speaking terms with him, which I can't be sure of. But I said, "Well he's over eighty, but I talked to him on the phone recently," and I had, on his eightieth birthday, and that--"he's still very sharp." And so much for that.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:28:49
[Frank Gannon]

Was she the only leading powerful woman you met in China?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:28:55
[Richard Nixon]

On that trip, yes, although I would say this. I—I did meet Chou's wife, Chou En-lai's wife, and she was a gracious, charming, sophisticated woman, although--in her own right, as I learned when I saw her in '76 and paid a courtesy call on her--Chou En-lai had died just before I got there in '76--in her own right, she was a Communist Party leader. But she was more Chinese in meeting her d—her—her guests, as the case might be. But, generally speaking, I remember many, many years ago, during the time of the Hiss case, when we were questioning Alger Hiss and then his wife, Priscilla Hiss, that Chambers made an interesting observation. He said, "When you meet a Communist cub--couple, generally you will find that the woman is the red-hot of the two." And I have generally found that that's true, not just of Communism, but of politics generally. Women are less compromising. They're more idealics--idealists, more ideological, and they're more intense. They're less forgiving, and certainly she fit that right to a "T". I compared her in my mind's eye, too, with the other great Chinese woman, who was the wife, I say--I t--I compare her with another woman, who was the wife of a great Chinese leader, Madame Chiang Kai-shek. And she's a Wellesley graduate, highly sophisticated, gracious, charming, and very tough, and very intelligent in standing up for the views that she believed in and in representing her husband around the world. They were two very different people, but one, Mao's wife, was, frankly, one that s--simply turned me off--turned me off because of her attitude, not just what she stood for. She just didn't have any grace. Chou En-lai had grace, and Mao, in his own way, had some charm, but this woman--nothing.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:31:09
[Frank Gannon]

Do you count it as one of the--among the worst offenses of the Chinese Revolution that it suppressed the beauty of some of the world's most beautiful women?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:31:20
[Richard Nixon]

I think it was a great mistake, and I think they're going to have to rectify it, and already are. In some of the books that I read before I went there, old China hands--those that presume to be experts, and I don't think anybody's an expert--the more you know about China, the less you know about China. It will always be that way. But, in any event, they wrote to the effect that the Chinese Communists were trying, of course, to make a w--a new man in China, but they were also trying to put the women into that same category. And it was very difficult, because women traditionally in China have played a--a very interesting role. Oh, it's subordinate in a way, but also independent in a way. You know, you see Chinese women in--in the great cities like Hong Kong and Manila, et cetera, and they have--they have the grace, the charm, the beauty. Some of the great beauties of the world are Chinese. They love color. And in--and what--and when you go to China, and particularly in 1972, I didn't see any color at all. The women translerter--lators were dressed in these Mao suits, big baggy pants and so forth. They looked just like the men--the short-cut hair, no style, no makeup. And then it subtly began to change. By 1976, just a tiny bit of color would show out under the Mao coat or--or jacket on the dress beneath. And, curiously enough--not that this is terribly important, but it does show you they had to compromise some--when I went there in 1982, they still had women translators, but they were dressed, believe it or not, in very, very beautifully tailored slack suits, beautifully colored, and in the evening they wore nice dresses. I asked one of them where they got it, and she blushed a little. She says, "I got it when I was in Hong Kong." Although the Chinese themselves are very good at fabrics, as we are learning with having to compete with them.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:33:25
[Frank Gannon]

How significant is something like that? Can the--can a--can the length of a hemline or a--a piece of blouse beneath a cuff indicate major social change?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:33:38
[Richard Nixon]

Only if you put it in its total context and its proper context. What it does indicate--that the Chinese Communists found that it was impossible to force their system, impersonalizing everybody, equalizing everybody, on the mass of the Chinese people. It just isn't working. So subtle changes are taking place. How significant they are remains to be seen. It's--it's the same thing with regard to--such as the fact that now, compared with 1972--in 1972, as you went along the streets of Peking and the other cities, everybody was walking. Hundreds of thousands walking, sh--or, I should say, shuffling. By 1982, most of them were on bicycles, and a few cars and so forth. In 1972, no TV--1982, several million sets of TV and importing s--some--and exporting, I should say, some sets in Southeast Asia, which they proudly told me then. What does this mean? Part of it is material progress, and that can happen in a Communist country as well as any other. But in terms of allowing more diversity, more freedom, even in such things as clothes--that must tell us something as well.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:35:03
[Frank Gannon]

On the--the principle that it's hard to keep people down on the collective farm after they've seen Paree, does this kind of liberalization--will it present a problem to the Communist leadership? Can you--can you give an inch and not have people take a mile when you're giving them this kind of freedom and diversity?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:35:21
[Richard Nixon]

That's the problem they have. It's the great dilemma. It's a great dilemma in a broader sense. Let's put it in its economic context. In 1972, I remember some of the fatuous suggestions to the effect that--I saw it in one column in--particularly, that I won't quote for the moment as far as to who wrote it, but I remember it so vividly. He said, "When President Nixon goes to China, the first question that Mao Tse-tung is probably going to ask him is 'Will the world's richest nation help the world's most populous nations [sic], and how can it help it?' Well, that, of course, misinterpreted why they came to a rapprochement with us and why we went there. It did--it not--did not have, at that time, anything to do with economics, and the Chinese didn't raise economic questions whatever with us. We had to raise it with them in terms of economic cooperation. That was 1972. But now it's changed a great deal. China is still concerned about its survival, and that requires that the United States be strong enough and have the will to deter Soviet aggression and Soviet threats against them or anybody else. That's on the survival side. But China also is concerned about progress. It's a terribly poor country. In order to have progress, they need more diversity. They need more freedom. They need more private enterprise. For example, you mentioned collective farms. The only agriculture that is productive in China today are on small plots that are being given to the peasants to run on their own where they can make a profit. In some of the cities, you will find privately-owned and privately-operated groups, and so forth and so on. The problem the Chinese have with this, however, is that if they are going to have more progress, they've got to have more freedom. In order to keep power, they have to have less, because the moment you set up private plots, privately-owned concerns, more freedom and diversity for people, and so forth, the more you set up the potential power centers that will not continue to accept the domination of a one-party state.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:37:44
[Frank Gannon]

Did you ever meet Marshall Yeh, the military leader, on this trip?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:37:51
[Richard Nixon]

No. On my last trip in 1982, I asked to meet him, but he was not well. And shortly thereafter he resigned his top position, but I have vivid memories of him in 1972, because he was the one who accompanied me on the trip to the Great Wall. He was a perfectly delightful man--knew some English, was one of Mao's associates in the Long March and was particularly interested, I recall vividly, in what we were doing about cancer. I didn't know why he was asking that question, and it was r--seemed to me rather ironic it was cancer that killed Mao later.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:38:28
[Frank Gannon]

Chou En-lai.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:38:29
[Richard Nixon]

I--no. It was cancer that killed Chou En-lai later. And I would say that one of the benefits of our relationship, or I would say that--I think one of the most useful things we've--have in--we did set up--out of that summit we did set up a joint cancer research activity between the two countries, because who knows? You know, we think we're so smart in this country. We've got, certainly, the best medical care in the world and, we think, the best doctors, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, but if there is an answer to cancer, it may not be in the United States. Maybe it's somebody in China, might be somebody in Africa, might be somebody in Latin America. And my view is, let's share all that wisdom and some way find that one individual who will find that answer.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:39:16
[Frank Gannon]

Did Mao and Chou talk about Chiang Kai-shek, and how did they refer to him?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:39:21
[Richard Nixon]

It was sort of a mixed reaction. I think as Chinese, they respected him. As Communists, they hated him, because he was their enemy. But they spoke to him with a considerable amount of respect. I remember Mao, in a rather interesting sideline--he said, "You know, I noticed that our old friend Chiang Kai-shek does not like your coming here. He always calls us bandits." And I said, "Well, what does the chairman call Chiang Kai-shek?" He says, "Oh, we call him 'bandits' [sic], too, sometimes. We abuse each other." But then he went on to say, "But I should remind you that our friendship with him goes back much further than yours."

Day 5, Tape 3
00:40:07
[Frank Gannon]

What do you think will happen in U.S.-Taiwan relations?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:40:13
[Richard Nixon]

The United States will and should continue to provide defensive weapons for Taiwan. But the level of assistance should be directly related to the offensive threat. That is what the Shanghai II Communiqué, which settled, at least temporarily, this burning issue a few months ago, provides. On the Chinese side, looking at Peking, it is important, then, if they want the level of arms to Taiwan reduced, they must reduce the threat. And the United States should continue to insist, as we did in--in the Shanghai Communiqué in 1972--and this is--also is the line in all other statements between the two countries--that the issue between Peking and Taipei be settled peacefully. I also should point this out, however. I have no concern about any danger that Peking is going to launch an amphibious war against Taiwan. They have the Russians to worry about. They--they'd be out of their minds to do that. The second point I should make is this, and this is something that our friends in Taiwan and some of the friends of Taiwan in the United States have overlooked. The greatest and the most indispensable--I'm sorry. A second point, and--there is another point that should be made, and that is this is something that our friends in Taiwan and the friends of Taiwan in the United States have often overlooked--that the most inf--dispensable factor in guaranteeing the security of Taiwan is a good relationship between the United States and Peking. If we have that relationship, that may restrain them. If Peking has a relationship like that with the Soviet Union, then Taiwan is in mortal danger. I do not see any solution working out in the near future. Perhaps some sort of a commonwealth status in which Taiwan retains its economic and social f--character, as Hong Kong, of course, must as well. Maybe that will happen. I'm not prepared to say. But at the present time we should keep the issue where it is. Taiwan is in no danger. It will continue to have its own economic system and continue to prosper, and I think that as long as we do not provoke Peking by either our statements or at--our actions in providing more than is needed for defense to Taiwan, Peking--they'll huff and puff, but they will do nothing.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:42:55
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think there's a danger that a Democratic or a--a liberal Republican president would withdraw our support from Taiwan, and what would the impact of that be?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:43:05
[Richard Nixon]

Well, there is the danger, but it would be a very great mistake, a great mistake, because if we, in effect, say to Peking, "Look here. We're withdrawing all our support. We're breaking our economic relations"--which is what we really have at the present time, primarily--"and whatever military support that we're giving," it would simply encourage Peking to move on Taiwan, to move on it recognizing that they would have no problem as far as we're concerned. No, that's not the thing to do. I don't think it's going to happen for that reason, even though some might be tempted to do it.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:43:41
[Frank Gannon]

How do you evaluate the China relationship in the years since you left office?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:43:50
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I think we have to look at it in the long view, and then in the short view, too. In the long view, it has not accomplished as much as I would have hoped, but more than many expected. For example, ten years ago there was no trade between China and the United States. Last year it was five and a half billion. Ten years ago, there were no Chinese students studying in the United States. Last year, there were twelve thousand. Ten years ago, there were no American tourists in China. Last year there were over a hundred thousand. Now, that is some progress in those particular areas. I--in terms of the--of the geopolitical relationship, the strategic relationship between the two, it's had its ups and downs. After all, Mao died. Chou En-lai died. We've had new presidents in the United States. You've had Cord--Ford and Carter and now Reagan, and--and consequently you don't have the--the smooth road that you would normally expect under those circumstances. But I would say that, as far as that relationship is concerned today--that, well, what brought us together, the Soviet threat, is really because of the fact that the Soviet Union now has at least parity with the United States overall in nuclear strength. While that threat is greater than it was ten years ago, in terms of the Chinese mind it could be slightly less, although that is something that is--I don't think anybody can judge at this point. So, under the circumstances, I think it's important for us to recognize that, in order to keep the Chinese-American rapprochement healthy, it is necessary to add to it another factor. It's a factor that's already there, but that is in a very, very minimal state of growth, and that is the economic factor. I don't think it makes any sense, for example, for the United States to have more liberal trading policies, insofar as technology is concerned, with India, which is more under Soviet control or--than Peking, to put it mildly, than we have with--with Peking. I think it's very important for us to expand dramatically--for us, the Japanese, and the Europeans--our economic ties with the People's Republic of China, having in mind that the Chinese leadership will continue to look west if, one, they c--believe that the United States has the will and the power to help guarantee their survival, and, two, from the positive standpoint, they will continue to look west if they feel that, in order to have progress it is better to turn west, and everything that we can offer, than to turn east toward the Russians. And so I think if we play it that way, the key is in our own hand as to whether the rapprochement will grow or whether it will wither and die and they will turn toward the Russians.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:46:55
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think that their fears of the Russians are justified? Do you think that the Russians would jump them if they had the chance and thought they could beat them?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:47:04
[Richard Nixon]

The question is whether or not the Soviet leaders, looking, as they usually do, down the long haul rather than short-term--whether they feel that they must neutralize China now when China is weaker, and particularly weaker in terms of nuclear capability, because right now the Soviet Union could have a successful first strike, preemptive strike, against China, or whether they wait until China becomes a formidable force. My view is that the likelihood of their doing it is--is v--is relatively small. I don't--I--but I think at times they might be tempted. But that brings us to another point. It's very important not to give them provocation. Now, I know that some of our China watchers and Soviet watchers say, "Gee, wouldn't it be great if these two fought each other, and then we'd have the two great Communist powers destroying each other." And the answer is it wouldn't be great at all. The answer is that if those two powers do fight, it will escalate into a world war. Also, putting it another war, if you allow tensions between Peking and Moscow to grow and develop and be exacerbated to the point that Moscow feels it has been provoked and has a right to attack China, then the question is--what do we do? W--we going to stand with them? Can we allow the whole geopolitical balance in the world to be changed by having the Soviet Union take over China?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:48:42
[Frank Gannon]

Is that why a Sino-Soviet war would become a world war?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:48:34
[Richard Nixon]

No. A Sino-Soviet war could become a world war for that reason potentially, assuming that the United States would react, and I am not suggesting they would or wouldn't. But it would for another reason. In the event that there's a Sino-Soviet war, it is bound to escalate into nuclear war. And I am convinced that nuclear war is not going to be contained whenever it happens.

Day 5, Tape 3
00:49:06
[Frank Gannon]

In what way?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:49:08
[Richard Nixon]

Well--

[Frank Gannon]

I mean, who--what other nuclear--

[Richard Nixon]

--when the nuclear--when the nuclear--

[Frank Gannon]

--power would become involved?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:49:11
[Richard Nixon]

When the nuclear genie gets out of the bottle and those things start flying around, and with all these alarm systems going off and the rest, I just have no confidence at all it ever be contained [sic].

Day 5, Tape 3
00:49:28
[Frank Gannon]

Do the--is the--are there any contacts now between the--the Soviets and the Chinese? Do you see the possibility of a--

Day 5, Tape 3
00:49:36
[Richard Nixon]

Yes.

[Frank Gannon]

--rapprochement developing?

Day 5, Tape 3
00:49:37
[Richard Nixon]

Yes. There's no question about the fact that there are contacts, and the Chinese always make it very clear to us that there are. They, at the same time, say they have no illusions about the difficulty of reaching a rapprochement. But we should not object to those contacts. If they can reduce the possibility of border incidents that might escalate into war or give the Soviet a provocation, we should welcome that. But when you look at the conditions the Chinese have laid down, the possibility that the Soviet will be able to satisfy them are remote, because the Chinese have said the Soviet have got to quit supporting Vietnam--and Vietnam is an enemy of China at the present time on its southern border--that they've got to get out of Afghanistan. Well, the Soviet Union ca--can't get out of Afghanistan because that basically is a counter-revolution. They can't allow a counter-revolution to succeed. The Chinese are concerned about the Soviet ties to India, because India on the south is more--there's certainly considerable Soviet influence, at least Soviet support for the Indian armed forces, and under the circumstances they're concerned about--

Day 5, Tape 3
00:50:44
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Day 5, Tape 3
00:53:03
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Day 5, Tape 3
00:53:43
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Day 5, Tape 3
00:53:47
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The following text appears in the original transcript but does not appear on a tape. It has not been edited.

[Richard Nixon]

--that. And then they're concerned about forty or fifty Soviet divisions on the northern border. Now, I do not see the Soviet Union taking action that will alleviate their concerns in these areas, and only if they take that kind of action are you going to have a total rapprochement. But let's have one other thing in mind. If the Chinese should give up on us, if they think we lack either the power to deter Soviet aggression or the will to do so in the event that it occurs, then they, because of their primary concern about China and its survival, will have no choice but to make a rapprochement with the Soviets. So the key is in our hand--in our hands, not only in that respect, but, as I've pointed out earlier, in terms of giving them a positive incentive not to turn toward the Russians, a positive incentive by saying, in effect, by more trade and contact between China and Japan, Western Europe, and the United States, that is the way they can have the--

Day Five, Tape four of four, LINE FEED #4, 5-13-83, ETI Reel #37
May 13, 1983

Day 5, Tape 4
00:01:02
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

Day 5, Tape 4
00:01:03
[Richard Nixon]

--economic progress which they desperately need in order to become a major economic power and a major military power.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:01:09
[Frank Gannon]

Could we survive if the Soviets and the Chinese got back together again?

Day 5, Tape 4
00:01:13
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yes. I am never one that says the United States can't survive even apart from the rest of the world, but it would be a much more dangerous world, a very dangerous world. And the other point of the matter--if the Chinese and the Russians got back together again, in what position does that put Japan? See, China's very close to Japan. Russia's very close to Japan. Japan is today and will be for the next f--f--twenty-five to fifty years the real big prize in Asia, much bigger than China, because Chin--uh, Japan has a G.N.P. equal to that of the Soviet Union today and by the end of the century may have equaled that of the United States.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:01:53
[Frank Gannon]

Does the American foreign policy establishment understand that?

Day 5, Tape 4
00:01:57
[Richard Nixon]

I think so. I--I think that the American foreign policy establishment does not downgrade what Japan means, but let me say it's very important for us always to have in mind that with all of our interest in China, that Japan is the big prize, and we've constantly got to make it clear that we will work with the Japanese to provide the nuclear umbrella that they themselves, because of what they went through in World War II, will never provide on their own, and shouldn't.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:02:26
[Frank Gannon]

Is there a--a hotline between the Kremlin and the Forbidden City like there is between the Kremlin and the White House?

Day 5, Tape 4
00:02:33
[Richard Nixon]

I don't know whether there is today. I must say that I was amused, now that you mention that, however, that, in speaking of hotlines, that Chou En-lai told me of an amusing incident that occurred during the period in 1959 when relations between Peking and Moscow were getting very cool. And Kosygin tried to call Chou En-lai on the hotline phone.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:03:01
[Frank Gannon]

Uh--s--s--'67.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:03:05
[Richard Nixon]

Is it '67?

Day 5, Tape 4
00:03:07
[Frank Gannon]

'Cause '59 would have been still Khrushchev.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:03:12
[Richard Nixon]

You're right, you're right, you're right. That's right. '67. Okay. I recall an inc--I'll start again. Speaking of hotline, I recall an incident, a very amusing one, that Chou En-lai told me about the hotline, supposedly, that existed between Peking and Moscow. And, as we do, he referred to the hotline as a telephone line, which it isn't. It's really a telegraphic line, but, nevertheless, he said that what happened was that Kosygin was trying to call Chou En-lai in 1967 on the phone, and the telephone operator said, "I cannot connect you." And he--Kosygin said, "Why not?" "You're a revisionist, and I will not let h--him talk to a revisionist." And she hung up on him.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:03:56
[Frank Gannon]

W--why were the Chinese so concerned about secrecy? Why was it so vital to their approach?

Day 5, Tape 4
00:04:03
[Richard Nixon]

They were concerned for two reasons. One, they were concerned about the internal objections to any rapprochement with a great capitalist country like the United States. After all, they had been taught since infancy about the fact that the United States was evil. Many of them had fought against the United States in Korea. Mao's son, one of his sons, was killed in Korea, and Mao, incidentally, after that happened, was very phlegmatic about it. He said, "Well, the personal things don't enter--enter in." This was part of the struggle and so forth, but nevertheless it's a fact. Now, here is this government making a--a rapprochement with the United States. That was one factor. The other, however, and I think this was the more overriding factor--they knew that if before it was signed, sealed, and delivered, that the Russians would mount a massive worldwide propaganda campaign against them. They wouldn't mind about that campaign being launched in the free world, but they would mind for it being launched in the Communist world, because they are competing with the Russians in Africa and Latin America and other places as the leader, c--of the international Communist movement. And under the circumstances they just didn't want to take that risk. Above everything else, they didn't want the Russians to know.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:05:22
[Frank Gannon]

Were they aware of or concerned about your problems with the Pentagon Papers?

Day 5, Tape 4
00:05:27
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, very much so, far more concerned than most of our American media people were, and most of our congressmen and senators, for that matter. M--in my earliest conversations with Chou En-lai, he mentioned the Pentagon Papers. I think he mentioned it primarily because he wanted to be sure that what we were discussing then on such a matter as our relations with the Japanese--he wanted to be sure that what he said didn't get out. Let me use that as an example as to why he wanted our talks confidential. In our talk about Japan, he took the traditional Communist line that all treaties with capitalist powers were immoral and should be renounced and that the Japanese-American treaty of mutual defense, which of course provides a nuc--nuclear umbrella for Japan, should be renounced by Japan, that being the position of the Japanese Communist Party. However, in our conversations, we had a good tough talk about that. And I said, "Look. We can renounce that treaty, but suppose we get out of the Pacific. We can get away from those Japanese waters, but someone else will be there. And, under the circumstances, do you want to run that risk?" He didn't say anything about it, but it's quite obvious that he was going to go along with our continuing to have that kind of treaty. Well, that's an example of the kind of thing he didn't want out. But the point--the point was that, insofar as the Pentagon Papers were concerned, he mentioned that, and he also mentioned that he had read about a leak that occurred, the so-called Anderson papers. Now what that involved was a leak of a National Security Council discussion in which I had told people in our government that they were to tilt our policy toward Pakistan, at a time that India was about to jump Pakis--West Pakistan--stan, after having already gobbled up East Pakistan. And under the circumstances, the--the leak, of course, had occurred. It appeared in Jack Anderson's column, and it really raised the devil among our supporters. You see, India is much more popular in the Congress and in the country generally than is Pakistan, and we got editorials condemning us and all that sort of thing. Nevertheless, what we did there saved West Pakistan. Pakistan wouldn't being--existence today unless we'd moved a carrier fleet in there, unless we had tilted toward Pakistan and unless, which we did do, we had made it very clear to the Soviets--this was in December of 1971, before we were to meet them in '72--that if they didn't join us in attempting to control--to control the Indians and to bring about a cease-fire in the area, that the possibilities of our summit would be seriously reduced. We had to make it very clear, in other words, that--that we would not allow a client of ours, i.e. Pakistan, to be taken over by a client of the Soviet Union, i.e. India. Not that we didn't have some good relations, or some relations, at least, with India as well, but I must say that one of the reasons that Chou En-lai was so interested in the Pakistan issue--that Pakistan was very close to China, and of course it was Pakistan--that government, Yahya--that had been the primary intermediary in working out the relationship between the U.S. and Ch--the new Chinese-American relationship. So we had a number of things going there. Just coming to the point, though--he was concerned about the Pentagon Papers. He was concerned about the Anderson papers, and I assured him that we would do everything we possibly could to see that anything that we said between each other would not become public.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:09:29
[Frank Gannon]

Did Jack Anderson's publication of those papers do harm to the national security or vital interests of the United States?

Day 5, Tape 4
00:09:36
[Richard Nixon]

It could have, but I didn't allow it to happen. It could have, because there were some in our government who felt that we should back off, that supporting Pakistan as against India didn't make sense because Pakistan had only seventy million people and India had seven hundred million. Well, that's like saying that supporting Israel against its--hundred million Arabs doesn't make any sense. Israel only has two-and-a-half million, but you support whoever happens to be right, and that's what we did.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:10:05
[Frank Gannon]

Did you find out how Anderson got the papers?

Day 5, Tape 4
00:10:08
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yes. An investigation took place, and it was a most amazing discovery, hard to believe that it happened, but it was a yeoman, a--a Navy yeoman, and he got the papers because he worked for the N.S.C. And he had traveled with Kissinger on some of his secret trips. He went through wastebaskets. He went through briefcases. He stole the papers--however, not for Anderson, but for the Pentagon. Y--and I must say, when I learned about it, I said to Kissinger, "You know, I don't mind the Pentagon spying on us. I just assume that every government--every government agency tries to find out what the White House is doing. And--but," I said, "I do certainly mind a yeoman taking such papers that he got for the Pentagon and then making it available to the press in a way that's going to hurt our foreign policy." Let me put it this way. For the Pentagon to learn what we were doing didn't concern me because I felt that they would probably keep it quiet. They were going to think of the national interest. But for it to go to Jack Anderson--I knew, obviously, he's going to print whatever he can. He couldn't care less about the national interest. No media person really can, or does.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:11:25
[Frank Gannon]

D--what other agencies do you assume are spying on the White House?

Day 5, Tape 4
00:11:30
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, I think they all try. By spying on the White House--let me say that that is probably a crude term. What we're talking about is getting information. The State Department wants to know what's happening at the White House. The N.S.C. staff tries to find out what the State Department staff is doing. They try to find out what the C.I.A. is doing, and so forth. Where it happens is at--usual--at lower levels, and they go to their parties, and their mouths--ba-ba-ba-ba-ba, all the time, and it's really a sickening damn discussion, but it's--does happen.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:12:05
[Frank Gannon]

Did you plug this particular yeoman leak?

Day 5, Tape 4
00:12:09
[Richard Nixon]

We couldn't do anything about it. Of course, we transferred him. It's an interesting thing. People said, "Well, why didn't you"--why didn't we do--well, of course this was a violation of the law. He could have been sent to prison for it. We didn't prosecute him because we didn't want to embarrass the Pentagon. And--just as simple as that. So we just transferred him to Oregon, I think it was, and he couldn't do any harm out there among the--

Day 5, Tape 4
00:12:31
[Frank Gannon]

That's punishment enough, huh?

Day 5, Tape 4
00:12:32
[Richard Nixon]

--pine trees.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:12:34
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I wouldn't say that. Oregon is still a very important state.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:12:38
[Frank Gannon]

What--did you confront the people--whoever in the Pentagon that he was working for with what they were doing?

Day 5, Tape 4
00:12:44
[Richard Nixon]

I didn't, but it was done, and they were very embarrassed, and they--each of them, of course, was trying to protect his own tail, and they were going to fire this one and that one and the other thing. It was a--at least let me say it was not a very admirable performance on the part of anybody concerned. It happened, and it was just one of those thing where, basically, quote, "we covered it up." And we covered it up because it would not have been in the national interest to have the Pentagon embarrassed.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:13:12
[Frank Gannon]

Are there--

[Richard Nixon]

And also to have the nation embarrassed, to have the whole world know that the Pentagon's spying on a White House.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:13:19
[Frank Gannon]

Are there any reporters who--or many reporters who do care about the national interest and take it into account in what they write?

Day 5, Tape 4
00:13:27
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, I am sure there are. There were many, I remember, during World War II. It was without question. When it was a war that everybody believed in, the reporters certainly were trusted by Franklin Roosevelt, and by Eisenhower and the rest, and they kept that confidence because they didn't want to risk American soldiers and so forth. But times changed. During the Eisenhower years, I felt things were pretty well--there were many reporters--oh, people like Dick Wilson of--and Lyle Wilson of U.P.I., people of that sort, that I knew were totally trustworthy, and things of that sort. But as time has gone on, in the television age and the highly competitive age of the investigative reporting and the rest, this whole attitude of honor among reporters--it's just nonsense for anybody in government to believe it. You've got to believe that a reporter--his first responsibility is to the story, a--and he'll do anything to get it, and anything also to get it published. That doesn't mean they're disloyal. It doesn't mean they're bad Americans. It means that that is what they're taught, and that's what goin--and that's the only way they're going to get ahead. I understand. It's self-interest. It's not so much they're against the country or against us. I must say, in the war period--that is when it unfortunately reached a very high level--there were just a number of reporters that felt during the Vietnam War that the war was, quote, "unjust," and wrong and immoral. And that therefore, that--from their position of higher morality, they had an obligation to do what they did. So, consequently, instead of condemning Ellsberg, who's--took out the Pentagon Papers, they made him a national hero. And the same was true of those who disclosed other confidential information. In other words, disclosing information if it's for a good purpose is moral. If it's for a bad purpose, that's something else again.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:15:29
[Frank Gannon]

Your--can you describe your--your last meeting at the China trip with Chou En-lai?

Day 5, Tape 4
00:15:41
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I don't remember it vividly today. I can only recall it from having checked my memoirs on it, which I wrote at least a few years closer to the time it occurred. But I remember it was a very personal meeting. Mao, as I pointed out, was a poet, but Chou En-lai was also. His widow sent me a collection of his poetry after he died, and I have a beautiful boun--bound volume. And if I ever get the time to learn some Chinese, I'm going to try to read it. But he t--he--he started the conversation by saying that he noted I had a poetic turn of mind, and I don't know what he referring to [sic]. And then he noted that the toast I had made at one of our dinners--I referred to the fact--this was at the conclusion of our week in China--that we'd made great, great progress. But then I went on to say that i--it is impossible, of course, in one week to build a bridge across a gulf covering fifteen thousand miles and twenty-five years of no communication. And then he started talking about Chinese poetry and how it related to my trip, how it dealt with some of these problems.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:17:00
[Frank Gannon]

In your memoirs, you quote a couple of the poems that he mentioned to you. Could--

Day 5, Tape 4
00:17:07
[Richard Nixon]

[Unintelligible.]

[Frank Gannon]

--you read those?

Day 5, Tape 4
00:17:10
[Richard Nixon]

I should have memorized them, but I think I can get it better if I read them. Well, he referred to the fact that in our dining room in that beautiful state guest house they had a poem of--from Mao on the wall. It was a--you know, they--they put the poem--the calligraphy, it looks like modern art, except it has a lot more form to it than most modern art I've seen. And he said, "This was about the Lushan mountains," and the last sentence of it read, "The beauty lies at the top of the mountain." And then he went on to say, "You've risked something to come to China." He said, "There's another Chinese poem which reads, 'On perilous peaks dwells beauty in its infinite variety.'" And I said, "Well, we're at the top of the mountain now." And then he went on to say, "Well, that's one poem. Another one which I would like to put up, but I couldn't find an appropriate place, is in praise of the winter plum blossom. In that poem, the chairman meant, 'that one who makes an initiative may not always be one who stretches out his or her hand. By the time the blossoms are full-blown, that is the time they are about to disappear.'" He took a book from his pocket. He read the poem. He made delicate gestures with his hands as he read. "Spring disappears with rain and wind and comes with flying snow. Ice hangs on a thousand feet of cliff, yet at the tip of the topmost branch the plum blooms. The plum is not a delic--delicious girl showing off, yet she heralds spring. When mountain flowers are in wild bloom, she giggles in all the color." And then he said, finally, that I might not be around at the time that this initiative reached its ultimate conclusion, that I had taken great risks to come in the first instance, but that under any circumstances that at least we had opened this initiative.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:19:22
[Frank Gannon]

And that was your--that was your parting from Chou En-lai?

Day 5, Tape 4
00:19:25
[Richard Nixon]

Another page here--I can't find it.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:19:28
[Frank Gannon]

Oh, s--

Day 5, Tape 4
00:19:29
[Richard Nixon]

[Unintelligible.]

Day 5, Tape 4
00:19:34
[Frank Gannon]

When you--when you went back for your second trip, did you meet Chairman--the ill-fated Chairman Hua?

Day 5, Tape 4
00:19:43
[Richard Nixon]

Yes.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:19:44
[Frank Gannon]

What--for those who remember him, what--what was he like?

Day 5, Tape 4
00:19:48
[Richard Nixon]

Stolid, tough--they [sic] all tough--strong, unimaginative. I thought he was a good party operator, but I did not think he had any kind of charisma that would have him last too long.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:20:03
[Frank Gannon]

Did he have any personality?

Day 5, Tape 4
00:20:04
[Richard Nixon]

Very little, very little. He was--obviously had turned out to be a ha--a caretaker.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:20:12
[Frank Gannon]

What about--on the--on the next trip, you met Deng Xiao-ping, and also met him when he came to this country.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:20:19
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah. As a matter of fact, I met him three times. I met him when he came to this country, then met him again a couple of years later, and then met him again in 1982.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:20:28
[Frank Gannon]

What’s he like?

Day 5, Tape 4
00:20:29
[Richard Nixon]

He's a man of considerable ability. A little man physically. He's getting older now, and he recognizes, however--and this is very unusual for older people to recognize--that younger men must take his place. He told me that, and consequently he's preparing his successors, which most leaders--Churchill couldn't do that, Adenauer couldn't bring himself to do that, de Gaulle couldn’t bring himself to do that, but he did. It seems to be an Asian characteri--characteristic. [Yoshida] did the same thing in Japan. He prepared his successors. But in this instance, Deng still runs the show. He's still the top man. When you go there, they all defer to him. He's tough, intelligent, abrasive--tends to be at times. He wasn't with me, but I've heard that he'll blow up at times. And I would say that he's taking, and realizes he's taking, considerable risks in moving China away from--even though it isn't a very big step--away from traditionalist Marxist dogma. But he feels it's essential for China to move forward economically. And he knows that they can't move forward economically if they keep China in a Communist-Marxist state--straitjacket. That's what he recognizes. But he faces the dilemma that I've already described--more freedom for the Chinese risks his power. In order to con--keep power, you've got to have less freedom. I think, however, they will opt for more freedom, due to the fact that China will otherwise continue to be a backward, poor, weak country.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:22:13
[Frank Gannon]

Have you met the new leaders? Do any of them--

Day 5, Tape 4
00:22:16
[Richard Nixon]

Both the--

[Frank Gannon]

--stand out?

Day 5, Tape 4
00:22:17
[Richard Nixon]

They're both impressive people. I--the prime minister--sophisticated, handles himself with poise, intelligent. He's got great self-confidence. I saw him in the morning, and usually, you know, they serve you tea, and I have drunk more tea in China. Fortunately, it's very, very light and very, very nice, as a matter of fact, very soothing, much more so than the coffee that we serve. But in this case, and he's the only Chinese I've ever saw [sic] do it--this was at ten o'clock in the morning--he drank a full bottle of that Chinese beer. That's very strong beer, very good beer. And it didn't affect, however, his ability to talk [unintelligible] at all. It showed that he had total confidence that he's willing to drink beer with what was continued--what was at least supposed to be a distinguished state guest. The party chairman was particularly impressive--Hu. He is even shorter than Deng--I think he must be only five-one. More charismatic than the prime minister. Also, I was interested to note, a great reader of books. He had read not only Six Crises, but he had read portions of The Real War, which I didn't realize had ever gotten that far. And he had read portions of my memoirs. I was very impressed by that, of course. No way to--there's no way you can more effectively impress a [sic] amateur author than to tell him you've read his books, let alone pay attention to them.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:23:44
[Frank Gannon]

Did you have the--the best Chinese meals you've ever had when you were in China?

Day 5, Tape 4
00:23:50
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I like all Chinese food. This was not--doesn't have quite the variety, I would say, that you would find in a great Chinese restaurant in New York or San Francisco, or, for that matter, Hong Kong. On the other hand, I would have to say that the Chinese dinner that Chou En-lai had prepared for me, a private dinner that he gave for us in 1972, was the best Chinese food I really ever had. It was a [Peking duck] dinner, and he served the plates himself--you know, the Chinese style where he served it. And I really think he may have done some of the cooking himself. It was absolutely superb.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:24:30
[Frank Gannon]

Critics would say that--that more than being charmed by the Chinese, you were seduced by them, and that your--your--your clear warmth and enthusiasm for them indicates that they sort of took you in a little bit. How would you answer that?

Day 5, Tape 4
00:24:46
[Richard Nixon]

No, anyone who knows me well knows that that's a pretty difficult task, to seduce me by manners and all that sort of thing. After all, I've been--I mean, attempts for seductions on me have been made by experts, and none of them have succeeded. And in this instance, I--I simply reciprocated the warm hospitality that Chinese give to everybody. They're very good at it, but I think they had no illusions that because they were furnishing a beautiful state guest house, and beautiful banquets and dinners and entertainments and so forth--that as a result of that I was going to be seduced. And the whole point is, when people say I was seduced by them, what did I do for them? What did I do for them that I did not do in the interests of our own country? And the answer is [unintelligible].

Day 5, Tape 4
00:25:37
[Frank Gannon]

Gave them tremendous legitimacy.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:25:38
[Richard Nixon]

We gave legitimacy, which, of course, they had to a certain extent already without us. We--they ga--we gave the legitimacy which could only be given by the fact that the United States was there. I would say, however, that they might have looked at it a different way. I remember my--my late friend Harold Lee, in Hong Kong--this was in the late sixties, at a time long before I had concluded that we should make the move toward China. I said--again, there was some talk in American papers that we should recognize China. And he said, "You know, those stupid people in the State Department that are talking about recognizing China--they don't understand the Chinese mind, how it works. He said, "If they say they will recognize China, the Chinese will respond, 'You recognize us? The question is will we recognize you.'" And when you get down to it, we have to realize it was a two-way street here. It was a two-way street. Putting it very bluntly, and--I would summarize it all with this simple way. What brought us together was not the fact that we had common ideas or ideals, but that we had common interests. Our interests brought us together. Our ideas would keep us apart. And as long as those interests draw us together, then we have to learn to live with the differences in our ideas. And that's the s--also true of the Russians.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:27:14
[Frank Gannon]

Sometimes when you talk about China, there's almost a--a mystical undercurrent to--to what you say. Do you feel that in any way--that you were sent here, put on earth, to open the way to China?

Day 5, Tape 4
00:27:31
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I think that would be a slight overstatement. The--if I did feel it, I'd never admit it. I would say, however, that my reading of history tells me that leaders are usually put in places where they have power when they can serve certain purposes. Some leaders can serve some purpose--purpose, other leaders can serve others. I think perhaps of the Americans on the scene at that time, I was the w--appropriate and logical person. I happened to be the right man in the right place at the right time. I was the right man because I happened to be president. I was in the right place due to the fact that I had the power of that office. It was the right time because of the convergence of interests of the two. And also in terms of being the right man, I could do it where my friend and former competitor Hubert Humphrey could not have done it. The very fact that I had a reputation which nobody should question and could question of being anti-Communist, which I was then, am now, and rem--intend to continue to be, made it possible for me to make a move that a liberal like Hubert Humphrey, who did not have that opportunity, could never have made. So, in those--in that sense, it was one of those cases where history made the man and the man was able to make history as a result.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:29:11
[Frank Gannon]

Thank you very much.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:29:15
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

Day 5, Tape 4
00:29:18
[Offscreen voice]

[Unintelligible.]

Day 5, Tape 4
00:29:20
[Frank Gannon]

Four choruses of "Happy Birthday."

Day 5, Tape 4
00:29:22
[Action note: Nixon laughs.]

Day 5, Tape 4
00:29:25
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

Day 5, Tape 4
00:29:28
[Richard Nixon]

All right.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:29:35
[Offscreen voice]

We need the microphone and stuff on.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:29:37
[Richard Nixon]

On--oh, I thought you said take them off.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:29:39
[Offscreen voice]

That's all right.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:29:40
[Richard Nixon]

Well, this--

Day 5, Tape 4
00:29:41
[Offscreen voice]

[Unintelligible.]

[Richard Nixon]

It doesn't have to be as fancy this time.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:29:43
[Offscreen voice]

Oh, that's all right. [Unintelligible.]

Day 5, Tape 4
00:29:45
[Offscreen voice]

[Unintelligible.] Can you turn off the back lights?

Day 5, Tape 4
00:29:48
[Offscreen voice]

(Amid others talking.) Yes.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:29:51
[Action note: Tone begins.]

Day 5, Tape 4
00:29:55
[Action note: Tone ends.]

Day 5, Tape 4
00:29:58
[Richard Nixon]

You know, I think the China thing, though, des--it's going to deserve a--

Day 5, Tape 4
00:30:02
[Frank Gannon]

I think [unintelligible].

[Richard Nixon]

--a separate program. Huh?

Day 5, Tape 4
00:30:03
[Frank Gannon]

At least an hour, yeah. There's no point--again, I made a command decision. There's no point in rushing it in order to get into that Middle East stuff. We will do that.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:30:13
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, sure.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:30:14
[Frank Gannon]

And, uh--it's just too important.

Day 5, Tape 4
00:30:15
[Richard Nixon]

Another thing about the Middle East, too, is--

Day 5, Tape 4
00:30:18
[Action note: Tone begins.]

Day 5, Tape 4
00:30:24
[Action note: Color bars appear on screen.]

Day 5, Tape 4
00:37:22
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

 

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