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
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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
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Day 5, Tape 2
00:02:43
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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
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[Offscreen voice]
Four. Three. Two. One.
Day 5, Tape 2
00:04:15
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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'