Richard Nixon/Frank Gannon Interviews,
May 27, 1983 [Day 6 of 9]

interviewer: Frank Gannon
interviewee: Richard Nixon
producer: Ailes Communications, INC.
date: May 27, 1983
minutes: approximately 180
extent: ca. 280kb
summary: This interview, comprising four video tapes, or 3 hours, is the sixth in a series of taped interviews with former president Nixon. The conversation initially continues Day 5's focus on China and the Soviet Union, then moves on to the Mideast. Nixon discusses his dealings with and/or impressions of Nasser, Sadat, Dayan, Begin, Ben-Gurion, Meir, the shah of Iran, King Faisal, King Hassan of Morocco, and Arafat. Also discussed are the differences between men and women, both generally and as leaders, whether the United States will ever have a woman president, the Arab oil embargo, President Carter's handling of the Iranian hostage situation, and the political attitudes of American jews.
repository: Walter J. Brown Media Archives, University of Georgia Libraries (Main Library)
collection: Richard Nixon Interviews
permissions: Contact Media Archives.

Day Six, Tape one of four, LINE FEED #1, 5-27-83, ETI Reel #41
May 27, 1983

Day 6, Tape 1
00:01:02
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

Day 6, Tape 1
00:01:04
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Day 6, Tape 1
00:01:08
[Offscreen voice]

Stand by.

[Richard Nixon]

We can do the double ones, but I think--gives you more time to prepare, gives me more time to prepare. And then you don't have that much to think about.

Day 6, Tape 1
01:01:15
[Frank Gannon]

Yeah.

[Richard Nixon]

See what I mean?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:01:16
[Frank Gannon]

Well, and you can--you can--

[Offscreen voice]

Ten seconds. [Unintelligible.]

Day 6, Tape 1
00:01:17
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

[Frank Gannon]

You can build up for it, and--

Day 6, Tape 1
00:01:19
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah.

[Frank Gannon]

--and you're not--

Day 6, Tape 1
00:01:20
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

[Frank Gannon]

--bifurcating your--

[Action note: Screen goes black.]

Day 6, Tape 1
00:01:21
[Richard Nixon]

That's right. [Unintelligible.]

[Frank Gannon]

Your psych--

Day 6, Tape 1
00:01:22
[Richard Nixon]

When you do one--

[Frank Gannon]

[Unintelligible.]

Day 6, Tape 1
00:01:23
[Offscreen voice]

Three, two--

[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

[Offscreen voice]

--one. Frank?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:01:28
[Frank Gannon]

Did--did you find that the Chinese treated your party differently from the Russians?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:01:35
[Richard Nixon]

Yes, I did. I can't say whether or not it was an act or not, but I noted, for example, that when I was in China, when they had the big state dinner, the one that was on television here with Chou En-lai and I clicking glasses, the famous mao-tai--that not only were the top people in our party there, but everybody who had come over with us was there. The stenographers, the aircraft mechanics were all present, being treated exactly the same as the others. I would say that, as far as the Chinese are concerned, they tend certainly to practice what they preach--equality. I'm not sure it wasn't just an act for us, but certainly all the time we were there there was equal treatment for everybody who came, as well as for the V.I.P.s.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:02:26
[Frank Gannon]

The Soviets don't practice that?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:02:28
[Richard Nixon]

When I was in the Soviet Union, I never recall an occasion when lower-level people were included. It was always high-level, and I didn't have any opportunity to meet any of their lower-level people--in the government, that is. I would say, however, as far as China--the Chinese were concerned, I did have an opportunity to meet some of them, because they not only had our lower-level people, but they had many of theirs. They had people that were described as workmen and artisans and so forth. Again, I must emphasize that the Chinese are very skillful at propaganda, and it could not have been on the level. But I'm inclined to think that there is more of a tendency there to have equality in practice as well as preaching it. I think perhaps we can get a good idea of how the Chinese feel about it by a conversation I had with the chairman of the Chinese congress in 1976, when I went back for the first time after our visit in 1972. We were in a long plane ride, and he was railing about the Soviets--how they were revisionists. And he said, "They are no longer Marxists." He said, "What they are doing is making millionaires out of actors and of artists and athletes, and that is not, certainly, in the Marxist tradition."

Day 6, Tape 1
00:03:50
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think the time will come when the Chinese will make millionaires out of actors and athletes?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:03:57
[Richard Nixon]

The problem that the Chinese have in that respect is that as they begin, certainly very gradually, to liberalize to an extent and to allow people, for example, to have their private plots in agriculture, their own private businesses and so forth, inevitably classes, economic classes, will result. The Chinese will not want it to happen, but it will result, and under the circumstances we will probably see--probably not going as far as it did in the Soviet Union, but I think it's going to come.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:04:30
[Frank Gannon]

What do you think Chou En-lai learned about you from reading Six Crises?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:04:37
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I was frankly quite surprised when in our conversation with Mao Tse-tung he mentioned that he had read Six Crises, and then, in a rather deprecating way, but self-deprecating as well, he says, "It's not a bad book," which was a very high compliment coming from him. Chou En-lai had had Six Crises--and I learned it only when I got there--he had had it translated into Chinese. And I wondered why, and then as I talked to him I discovered why. It wasn't because of the political issues I discussed, because he disagreed with my political views certainly totally. It was because the book was about struggle and also that it was about defeats as well as victories. He used to come back time and again to the theme that adversity is the best teacher and the greatest teacher. He would refer to the Long March and how they were all strengthened by that march. And then he--he very generously referred to my own career. He said, "It is really quite remarkable that after two defeats, the defeat for president in 1960 and then governor in 1962, you came back." He said, "That is very rare, not only in America, but in a--but in any other country." And I responded to that by saying, well--that I had learned more from my defeats than I had from my victories, but then I went on to say that, "I hope when my life is over, I'll have one more victory than defeat." And he kind of summed it all up by saying that those who travel on a smooth road all their lives don't gain strength.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:06:15
[Frank Gannon]

When you were in--

Day 6, Tape 1
00:06:16
[Richard Nixon]

Let me repeat that. And he summed it all up by saying that those who travel on a smooth road all their lives do not become strong.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:06:26
[Frank Gannon]

When you were in China, Mao's wife was still in pow--powerful, if not in power. Did you find that she was deferred to or feared or--or jeered by the people you met?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:06:41
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I was there twice, of course, when she was still in the public arena. She is no longer there. She, of course, is in so-called "house arrest," I would say. In 1972 and 1976, she was obviously feared. I did not sense that she was respected. I didn't find that any of the Chinese I talked to referred to her with respect, if they referred to her at all. But they feared her because of who she was--not only because she was Mao's widow, or wife, or widow, as it later turned out--no, strike that. They feared her not only because she was Mao's wife, but because in her own right she had a powerful position within the party, and she was a very tough cookie.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:07:32
[Frank Gannon]

Did--you've told a story about your visit to the Forbidden City and an incident that happened there.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:07:41
[Richard Nixon]

Well, when we talk about the influence of Mao's wife, it of course leads us to reflect on the position of women generally in China, and, for that matter, in the Soviet Union and other Communist countries. They talk a great deal, of course, about the fact that there is no discrimination whatever, not only in races and religions, et cetera, but also between men and women. But as a matter of fact, I found that in the Soviet Union and in China, that on all the visits I have made to both places, I have never met a woman in a high position. There's not a woman on the Soviet Politburo, and, as far as I know, there were none, certainly, that I had the opportunity to meet in my various visits to China. That doesn't mean that women do not have power, and I think the Chinese were illustrating that and--with their rather delightful sense of humor when they took Mrs. Nixon and me to a famous palace there. A boy emperor had used that palace, and they took me into the throne room. There was the throne where the boy emperor sat. Behind his throne was a screen, and sitting behind the screen was his mother. And they pointed out that when petitioners came to the throne room and petitioned the emperor for something, the mother would respond from behind the screen. And then they turned and delightedly laughed, and they said, "You know, that was the beginning of the back-seat driver." I would say at the present time, I didn't see any front-seat drivers in either Moscow or Peking. But I would not say that women were not influential. As back-seat drivers, they can have great influence--not only there, but anyplace else in the world.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:09:26
[Frank Gannon]

Chou En-lai seemed to have some kind of sense of humor, at least about the Sino-Soviet split. You've mentioned a story he told you about a hotline exchange.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:09:39
[Richard Nixon]

One of the things I found particularly delightful about the Chinese is their very subtle sense of humor. They're very easy--they laugh easily. They like to tell stories on themselves, and I remember so well when Chou En-lai was talking about the hotline that he said they had--that China had with Moscow. He said, "Of course, it became cold after 1959," when Moscow withdrew aid from China. But in 1969, there was a very serious border dispute in which lives were lost on both sides. And with great delight, Chou En-lai told me this story. He said Kosygin called Peking on the hotline, and the operator answered. He said, "I want to talk to Chairman Mao. It is urgent." And the operator said, "I will not connect you. You are a revisionist," and hung up on him. Then the--the--he called again on the hotline--Kos--and he said--and then Kosygin called again on the hotline, and he said, "Since I can't talk to Chairman Mao, I'd like to talk to Premier Chou En-lai." She said, "You are a revisionist. I will not connect you," and hung up on him again. Well, the message that got through to me on that was that the discipline that the Chinese Communists are famous for was shown operating right there. They had without question brainwashed the operator and everybody else. They all were putting out the same line.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:11:11
[Frank Gannon]

You made a--a diary note about Mao Tse-tung's hands. What did you notice about his hands?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:11:18
[Richard Nixon]

Well, when you think of Mao, you think of him in many different ways. He was an ideological leader. He was one who changed a nation and affected the world. There were people who worshipped Mao, not only in China, but in revolutionary areas across the world. He--he was also one who was responsible for the deaths, in one way or another, of millions of his own people. But when you went in to see him, what impressed me and others in our party was that he had hands--the--rather than being the hands of a peasant, and he came from peasant stock--were the hands of a literary man. They were very delicate, very fine and very expressive. His gestures were very expressive.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:12:09
[Frank Gannon]

Do you--

Day 6, Tape 1
00:12:10
[Richard Nixon]

Incidentally, not that either would appreciate it, but his hands reminded me of the hands of the first pope I met, Pope Pius Pacelli, the twelfth [Pius XII], who had very delicate, almost saintly hands. I would describe Mao's the same way.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:12:25
[Frank Gannon]

Mao's--at least his hands were saintly.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:12:27
[Richard Nixon]

That's right.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:12:28
[Frank Gannon]

D--y--one of the interesting things about you, it seems to me, from seeing your diary entries and your writings, is that you're sensitive to this kind of nuance of personality. Do you consider yourself a--a sensitive person to that kind of thing, or do you think all leaders observe that kind of thing? Do you think Mao sat at night talking about your hands, or that Brezhnev noticed your doodles on a pad while you were negotiating?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:13:00
[Richard Nixon]

Very hard to know what they would have thought or what they did. I think Chou En-lai would. He was a very observing kind of person. I'm not sure Mao would've. I--I would say if a leader is consumed with himself, he isn't likely to notice too much about whoever he is negotiating with. I think, as far as I was concerned, I've always found that--that you learn a lot by observing people, not just by listening to what they say, but how they say it--their manners and so forth. Not that that is decisive, but it tells you something about them. Also, I think I like to do that because it's very interesting to do so. It's very dull just to sit and talk in front of translators and notetakers and the rest. You might as well write it down. You've got to get the feel of the room, the feel of the person.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:13:56
[Frank Gannon]

Do you consider yourself a sensitive person?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:13:59
[Richard Nixon]

No one can judge himself. Some think I'm not, and some think I am.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:14:05
[Frank Gannon]

Do you recall your last meeting with Chou En-lai?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:14:12
[Richard Nixon]

Yes, I recall it quite vividly. We were meeting in the marvelous guesthouse where we stayed when I went to China in 1972 and again in 1976. And he was in a rather contemplative, philosophical state of mind at that point. He was reflecting on the trip and what it meant, and what it could mean in the future. And Mao, who, incidentally, as I should say--incidentally, while most people are aware that Mao was a poet, many are not aware of the fact that Chou En-lai was as well. His widow gave me a book of his poems when I saw her after his death in 1976. A--and so he was quoting some of Mao's poetry to me as we were meeting there, and one poem that he thought was particularly beautiful--and I did as well--I have here with me. Let me read it to you as to what it was. He pointed out before quoting this poem that it was in my dining room, in the upstairs dining room of the suite in which I was staying, i--in Mao's calligraphy. And it read as follows: "The beauty lies at the top of the mountain." And then he went on to say, "You know, you have risked something to come to China, but there is another Chinese poem that spells that out, and it reads as follows: 'On perilous peaks dwells beauty in its infinite variety.' And then he said, "There is another poem that I would also have liked to have put up in your suite. It is, again, one of Mao's." And he pulled out the little red book, Mao's [red book]--it was in that--a--and read what he called "The Ode to a Plum Blossom." It's actually a very beautiful poem, and the meaning which he gave to it is quite interesting. "Spring disappears with rain and winds 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 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, "What this poem really means is that he who takes the initiative is not one who will then reach out and stretch out his hand, because by the time the flowers are in full bloom, they are ready to wither and die." And then he said, "You have undertaken this initiative. You have undertaken it at considerable risk. You may not be there to witness its--its success, but we will welcome your return." Incidentally, he proved to be quite perceptive. I returned to China in 1976, and at that time I was out of office and Chou En-lai was dead.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:17:41
[Frank Gannon]

In your last toast--do you want me to--? (Offers sheet of paper.)

[Richard Nixon]

No, that's all right. [Unintelligible.] I'll put it right here.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:17:48
[Frank Gannon]

In your last toast in China, in Shanghai, you said, "This was a week that changed the world." Was that hyperbole, or how much hyperbole was it?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:18:00
[Richard Nixon]

Well, first, I believed it to be true. I believed it to be true because I knew that the world balance of power had shifted as a result of the initiative that we had undertaken along with the Chinese. And an indication of the fact that it did change the world i--is just to imagine what would be the situation in the world today if we had not gone and if the Chinese, not because they wanted to but because they had no other choice, were back in the arms of the Russians? The world balance of power would be against the West, and I think almost in--in over-- in a way that would not be overcome.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:18:44
[Frank Gannon]

Before you went to China in 1971, the French writer André Malraux came to the White House and spent some time with you, and also, I think, had dinner there. Do you remember that day, his visit?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:19:00
[Richard Nixon]

Vividly. I remember, too, meeting him for the first time. President Ga--de--(Clears throat.) Vividly. I remember, for example, meeting him for the first time, when President de Gaulle visited the American Embassy residence in 1969. He introduced me to Malraux, and I noticed then that Malraux--whose books I had read--not all of them, but some of them, before--had suffered a debilitating stroke, and when he came to the White House it was just painful to watch him talk, because his whole left side of his face was drooping, and the words could hardly come out. But when he talked about China, and when he talked about Mao, a torrent of words came out, even though I knew it was painful for him to get the words out.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:19:50
[Frank Gannon]

What did--whose idea was it to invite him?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:19:53
[Richard Nixon]

It was mine. It was mine, because he had written several of the books about China that I had been exposed to, and I wanted to meet him, to get his views.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:20:06
[Frank Gannon]

What did you--you had the State Department and C.I.A. and other briefings, and your own years of experience. What did you think you could learn from Malraux?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:20:15
[Richard Nixon]

I could learn from Malraux something that I couldn't get from the State Department people. After all, he had been to China. He knew Mao. He knew Chou En-lai, a--and also I knew, from the fact that he was very close to de Gaulle, that he was a thinker in global terms and not just in parochial terms. It's very hard to find thinkers of that type who have that kind of experience. I wanted to see what this man, with all of his experience, had to advise with regard to the visit to China.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:20:46
[Frank Gannon]

What did he have to say?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:20:49
[Richard Nixon]

Well, he said--he started right out by saying this trip was inevitable. And I said, "Even in spite of Vietnam?" He said, "Even so." He said, "The Chinese have never helped anybody. Not Pakistan, not Vietnam. Chinese foreign policy is a brilliant lie. The Chinese don't believe it. They believe only in China, only in China." And then after that introduction, he went on to talk about the trip, as to what it meant, and particularly about Mao.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:21:27
[Frank Gannon]

Did--how did he prepare you for Mao? And did he turn out to be right?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:21:34
[Richard Nixon]

Hard to know whether he turned out to be right, because he was giving basically an introspective evaluation of the man, rather than the things that you could learn from reading what Mao had said and what he had done over his lifetime. For example, he said that, "When you meet Mao, you will be facing a colossus, but a colossus facing death. He is a man--when you are talking to him, you will think he is addressing you, but he will be addressing death. It's worth the trip." And then he went on to say that--he said, "You, Mr. President, operate in a rational framework. Mao does not. There is something of a sorcerer in the man. He is inhabited by a vision. He is possessed by it."

Day 6, Tape 1
00:22:35
[Frank Gannon]

What was the vision?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:22:38
[Richard Nixon]

Wait a minute--the, uh--hold just a second. I think--there's--it's got to be another entrée here. (Coughs.) We don't get into that, but it--I'll--I'll pick it up the way--well, when he--and when he said that, I said, "Well, it's interesting to note that many great leaders have been known to be somewhat visionary." And then I told him Carl Sandburg's description of Lincoln's last cabinet meeting, the day before he was assassinated. And Lincoln said that he'd had a dream the night before, a dream that he had always had during the war years before a great victory. And the dream was that he was on a singular indescribable vessel moving with great rapidity toward a distant, uncertain, invisible shore. And I said that--(pauses)--wait a minute--we missed something here. You see what I'm getting at is that we had the--the--the--the--it wasn't the vision, it was--this is what happened later. You see what I mean?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:23:56
[Frank Gannon]

Mm-hmm. This was at the end of the conversation.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:23:58
[Richard Nixon]

No, but--that--this--this is the end.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:24:00
[Frank Gannon]

Yeah.

[Richard Nixon]

You see, there wasn't--or did you have something else you wanted in there?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:24:02
[Frank Gannon]

Didn't he--he talked about Mao as being the last of the emperors. I thought that was interesting.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:24:05
[Richard Nixon]

All right, fine. (Coughs.) Let's pick up there again. (Pause.) Let's see. How far back do you want to go? You want to go to the beginning of it again?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:24:24
[Frank Gannon]

Let's--

Day 6, Tape 1
00:24:26
[Richard Nixon]

Eh, we can. All right, fine. Let's--let's try to--to pick up. Y--is it--the first question was with regard to what--I remember--I remember he started right out by saying that this trip was inevitable. And I said, "Even with Vietnam?" And he said, "Even so." He said, "The Chinese have never helped anybody--not Pakistan, not Vietnam. Chinese foreign policy is a brilliant lie. The Chinese don't believe it. They believe only in China, only in China." And then he came to Mao, and his description of Mao was, I thought, fascinating. He said, "You will be meeting a colossus, but a colossus facing death." And then he went on to say that--"You will think that he is talking to you, but he will be addressing death." He pointed out that Mao considered himself to be the heir of sixteenth-century Chinese emperors. When someone asked him whether or not he was the heir of sixteenth-century Chinese emperors, he says, "Of course I am." He said, "The man has a fantastic destiny, and"--oh, [scheis]--"the man has had a fantastic destiny"--now if we can pick up from there.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:25:52
[Frank Gannon]

That he was a sorcerer.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:25:54
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah. (Pauses.) No, we've left something out here. Let me--let me come back--just give one more shot at it, and then we won't have to do it again. "Y--you"--"you will think you'll"--"you will think that he is talking to you, but he will be addressing death. It's worth the trip." He said someone asked Mao whether or not he considered himself to be the heir of the sixteenth-century Chinese emperors, and he said, "Of course I am their heir." "The man has had a fantastic destiny, and he is acting out the last act of a lifetime." And then he made a very interesting observation about what kind of a person Mao was. He said, "You operate from a rational point of view. Mao does not. The man has something of a sorcerer in him."

Day 6, Tape 1
00:26:55
[Frank Gannon]

What--did he reach some kind of conclusion about Mao's vision or--or what the purpose of--

Day 6, Tape 1
00:27:02
[Richard Nixon]

W--wait a minute.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:27:03
[Frank Gannon]

--receiving you was?

[Richard Nixon]

"The--the man has"--let me--I--I get your point. "The--the man has something of the sorcerer in him. He is inhabited by a vision. He is possessed by it."

Day 6, Tape 1
00:27:15
[Frank Gannon]

Did he explain what that--what he thought that vision was, or did you get a sense of what he thought it was?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:27:22
[Richard Nixon]

No, I th--that was not the point that--let me see here, we c--we're off again. We have to get off of this. "He is possessed by it." And when he said that, I said, "Well"--I replied to Malraux that often I--that--when he--when he said that the man was possessed--goddamn it, we got this thing wrong. 'Cause we've gotten confused.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:27:47
[Frank Gannon]

Just up to the--to the--

Day 6, Tape 1
00:27:48
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah.

[Frank Gannon]

--to Lincoln.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:27:49
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah, yeah. Well, you've got that already, don't you think, or you want to use it again. All right, fine.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:27:51
[Frank Gannon]

[Unintelligible.] We stopped it.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:27:53
[Richard Nixon]

Okay. All right, fine. He said, "You operate"--he said, "You operate from a rational fram--you op--now I got it. "You operate within a rational framework, Mr. President. Mao does not. There is something of a sorcerer in the man. He is inhabited by a vision. He is possessed by it." And then I said, well, it had been my observation that many times great men are somewhat visionary, and I pointed out that Carl Sandburg, in his biography of Lincoln, wrote about Lincoln's last meeting with his cabinet. And Lincoln told his cabinet that he'd had a dream the night before, a dream that he had had several times before, before great victories during the Civil War. And the dream was that he was on a singular indescribable vessel moving with great rapidity toward a distant, uncertain shore. And I said that the point that we have to bear in mind is that I do not know where or what the shore is, but I do know that what we must try to do is to avoid the shoals. And then Malraux responded, "Yes. Both you and Mao must avoid the shoals. Neither of you know what or where the shore is, but he knows that his harbor is death." And after that, the dinner broke up, and I escorted him to his car. And before he got into the car, he turned to me, and, speaking very warmly, he said, "I am not de Gaulle. No one is de Gaulle, but if de Gaulle were here, I know what he would say. 'Everyone who understands what you are embarking upon salutes you.'"

Day 6, Tape 1
00:29:54
[Frank Gannon]

When you were in Leningrad during the first Soviet summit, what were your impressions of that town?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:30:06
[Richard Nixon]

Well, Leningrad is very different from Moscow. Moscow is very grey. Leningrad is more of a European city--beautiful buildings, more color than in Moscow. And the people are more forthcoming than they were in Moscow. But I think the most vivid impression I had of Leningrad was a visit to the cemetery there. It's a huge cemetery, over a hundred thousand buried in a mass grave, many of them killed during the siege in World War II, but most of them buried there apparently had been starved to death. We were running late that day when the guide took us through the cemetery, pointing out the various points of interest and so forth. And my aides kept pushing me and saying we would have to cut off the last event scheduled on the cemetery visit, which was to go to a small museum which they had there. But when they told the girl guide who was with us, she practically broke into tears, because she wanted me to visit the museum, and so I overruled the aides, as I often did. We went into the museum. And what she wanted to show me was a diary. It was the diary of a twelve-year-old girl by the name of Tanya, and she read for me--she read for me pages from the diary. And the entries were certainly ones which moved me very greatly. She reported day after day as members of her family died. First, her grandmother died, and then her uncle, and then one of her aunts, and then her father, and then her mother, her brother, and her younger sister, and the last entry read, "All are dead. Only Tanya is left." And the girl turned to me, and there were tears in her eyes. And, I must say, in mine, too. And when I spoke on Russian television to the Russian people, in closing my remarks I quoted from that diary. And I went on to say that what we were trying to do was to build a new world, a new world in which the children and grandchildren would grow up and not have to go through what Tanya had gone through. I know later that it seemed to have had some impact on the Russian people. I can't tell, because I didn't get to s--talk to him, but Brezhnev said that he had tears in his eyes when he heard it. Now, let me make it clear--it could have been a setup in order to get across a point that they wanted to get across. But, on the other hand, a setup has no credibility unless it has a grain of truth in it. And in Leningrad, we have to bear in mind that more people lost their lives there in World War II than the United States lost in all the wars fought in our whole history, including the Civil War. So they have been through a lot, and they don't want war again. And I think--I think perhaps--excuse me, that's enough.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:33:09
[Frank Gannon]

I--is--is somebody as--as tough and as experienced as you really moved by--by something like that, by an experience like that? A lot of people would take that as an example of the kind of hokey sentiment that they feel you--you use but don't feel that you really believe or are moved by, touched by.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:33:31
[Richard Nixon]

No, I seldom--as I think e--even my critics would recognize, I--I seldom resort to anecdotes or sentimental thing just for the purpose of making a point. I only recount this because it tells us something about the Russian people, how they felt--maybe something about Brezhnev. It may also tell something about me. No. There's no question that it would move me, or I couldn't possibly have--have recounted it as I did in my television speech.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:34:06
[Frank Gannon]

We move on to the Middle East.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:34:09
[Richard Nixon]

No, you--I think you had a--one--didn't you [unintelligible]?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:34:11
[Frank Gannon]

The--the top of the world.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:34:13
[Richard Nixon]

Mm-hmm.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:34:14
[Frank Gannon]

De--

Day 6, Tape 1
00:34:15
[Richard Nixon]

[Unintelligible]--the attitudes.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:34:16
[Frank Gannon]

A--apro--apropos Tanya. That's right. Do you think that the--the the--

Day 6, Tape 1
00:34:21
[Richard Nixon]

The Russian people.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:34:22
[Frank Gannon]

--the Russian--

[Richard Nixon]

Want peace.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:34:23
[Frank Gannon]

Yeah.

[Richard Nixon]

[Unintelligible]--Americans, and so forth.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:34:25
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think that the----that the Russian people really have the same desire for peace that you feel the American people have? Do they operate in the same kind of context of information that enables them to have that kind of desire for peace?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:34:40
[Richard Nixon]

Let me again make it clear that I did not have the opportunity to talk to Russian people hour f--after hour, as I did to their leaders. But from the opportunity to observe them in my travels, particularly outside of Moscow, there is no question in my mind b--that not only they do not want war, that they want peace, but also they want, if possible, friendly relations with America. I base this on several examples that I could give, but two, perhaps, will suffice. 1959--I recall so well traveling through the Ural Mountains, and we got to a point at the top of the mountain, which was described as the top of the world--at the top of the world, because the rain on one side of the mountain went into Asia, the rain on the other side of the mountain fell into Europe--a very historic and important point. And when we arrived there, children came out and threw wildflowers into our car, and they shouted, "Friendship! Friendship!" Now the Russian word for "friendship" is druzhba. In fact, over and over I would hear the Russians who had already been trained and so forth for our arrival shouting, "Mir [e] druzhba," which mean "peace and friendship." But these children were saying, "Friendship!" Our escort on that occasion was [Troyanofsky,] who now is the Russian ambassador to the United Nations here in New York. And Troyanofsky, as we went on, said, "The first word in the English language that Russian children learn is 'friendship.'" Now, again, this may be a setup, but I think it had some meaning. I recall another vivid example. This was when I was out of office. The year was 1967. I was in Samarkand, which is next to Persia--a very interesting city. And I visited a market there. There had been no publicity whatever that I was coming, because I was out of office. I was just another tourist. But a one-legged Russian veteran--he turned out to be a veteran when I talked to him--recognized me, and he rushed up to me and threw his arms around me, and I--he said, "We love the Americans." He said, "I shook hands with Americans at the Elbe. We do not want war with America." It was not a setup. I am sure of that. You ask a--when someone asks me whether or not the Russian people want peace as much as we do, my guess is they want it more, because they know what war is far more than we do. War, fortunately, has never been visited upon the American homeland. Russia has been invaded, in World War I and World War II, and not just thousands and hundreds of thousands, but millions have died. They've been wounded. They've starved to death. And so there's no question but that they want peace. Now the question, however, is whether or not their leaders in a Communist country--leaders who are not affected by polls, leaders who do not come up for election by the people--whether they have to reflect the views of people. And I would say in this respect they don't have to, but in the long run, to a certain extent, they will reflect those views, or otherwise, even they may not survive. I think that explains why the Soviet leaders constantly prepare for war, but they always talk about peace. And, unfortunately, too often in the United States, we talk about war and prepare for peace. And the Soviet can't understand that.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:38:45
[Frank Gannon]

Isn't some commissar in the bowels of the education department in Moscow letting his side down if the first English language word that Russian students learn is "friendship"?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:38:58
[Richard Nixon]

It's possible, although I would certainly say that the--I would certainly say in this instance I sensed no negative reaction from [Troyanofsky] or any other Russians on that point. Naturally, it was--it served our purposes.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:39:18
[Frank Gannon]

Do you remember your first meeting with Ben-Gurion?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:39:25
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yes, I remember Ben-Gurion well. He had been described to me previously by President Eisenhower, and President Eisenhower said, "When you meet him, you will conclude, as I did, he looks just like an Old Testament prophet." He is not a very big man, or was not a very big man--only five-three, as I recall, but he had a huge head, with his hair flowing and so forth, and his eyes were sparkling and almost fierce, certainly hypnotic, I thought. I could see how he had been a very effective leader. He came out to our home, and he was very, very kind, I remember, to Tricia, who was studying the Hebrew / Christian religion in her c--course at the Friends School. And he proceeded to describe the differences between the Old Testament and the New Testament and so forth for a half-hour, which made me realize that he was a very thoughtful person. Incidentally, Ben-Gurion was a very remarkable person in many ways. He knew nine different languages, and he learned Greek after he was fifty years of age, because he wanted to read Plato in the original. He also was a very wise man--wise, in my opinion, because he used to say, when he opposed those who wanted Israel to expand into other territories, that that would be a great mistake. He used to say, "Israel is a unik--unique state." He--strike that. He used to say, "What makes Israel unique is that it is Jewish and democratic. If it expands and takes over other territory, it will no longer be Jewish, and it can no longer be democratic. It can no longer be Jewish because the non-Jews were--will outnumber the Jews. It can no longer be democratic because it will not be possible to keep the non-Jews under the government without resorting to means that would not be democratic."

Day 6, Tape 1
00:41:31
[Frank Gannon]

What do you think, then, that he would think of today's Israel?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:41:37
[Richard Nixon]

Ben-Gurion today would take the line that Israel should, in order to have security--should give up demands on territory. He would be concerned about Begin's policy of annexing the West Bank, Galilea--Galilee, and Judea, because--he would be concerned because already there are three hundred thousand non-Jews within Israel itself. They are increasing in population at a far greater rate than is the Jewish population, and if Israel expands to include occupied territories, it, in the long term, he would think, would become neither Jewish nor could remain democratic in order to keep control of the people.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:42:26
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think that that vision of Israel is the right vision? Do you share that view?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:42:34
[Richard Nixon]

In terms of Israel's short-range security, no. Short-range, if I were an Israeli leader, I would say that, "We've got to have buffers around us, and if we don't have friendly buffer states that we control, we will have friendly populations that we will dominate." But in the long term that's a disastrous policy, because in order to mainkain--maintain control over the occupied territories, it is necessary, inevitably, to have two classes of citizens. It is necessary to resort to repression, and in the long term--it's been the history of nations and the conflicts between nations from the beginning of time--occupied territory always plants the seeds for more war. And a policy of continued war is good in the short term, but in the long term, it's disastrous.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:43:35
[Frank Gannon]

If you were the prime minister of Israel, how would you get from the short term to the long term?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:43:42
[Richard Nixon]

I would negotiate very, very hard, but in the--I would, however, not be afraid to negotiate about the territory. I would see to it, for example, in the negotiations, that certain guidelines were laid down. One, Israel cannot tolerate the setting up of an armed Palestinian state right in its gut. But, two, on the other hand, I think it is possible to have the Palestinians in the occupied territory have self-government, preferably in association with g--with Jordan, as President Reagan has recommended, but possibly even in another way. Israel deserves a neutral state and one that is not unfriendly to it on its border. And that would be better than having Israel dominating those occa--occupied territories with all of the cost that it will take to keep those people under control.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:44:36
[Frank Gannon]

Did you know Moshe Dayan?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:44:38
[Richard Nixon]

I met him and, of course, was very impressed by--by him, when I visited Israel right after the June war in 1967. Of course, everybody remembers the patch over his eye. He was on the cover of Time Magazine. And--and when you see him with the patch over his eye, you think of him as a--a warrior type, but the interesting thing to me was that he was not that at all in conversation. He was not that way. He was a very sensitive man, very philosophic in his approach, and so forth. I think he would have taken more Ben-Gurion's view, rather than Begin's view, with regard to Israel's future today.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:45:16
[Frank Gannon]

Did you consider that you had a special relationship with Golda Meir?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:45:21
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah, quite special, quite special, because i--it--we both came into office at about the same time, and we both left office b--th--at about the same time. We also shared something else--we both had phlebitis. I didn't know that she had it at the time that I visited her, and I don't think she knew that I had it.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:45:41
[Frank Gannon]

Do you recall your first meeting with her and your first impressions of her?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:45:45
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, I recall it very vividly. She came to the Oval Office--I believe it was in 1969. A--and what impressed me about Golda Meir was the contrast between her and Indira Gandhi. The contrast was really quite vivid. Indira Gandhi was a very intelligent woman, a very strong leader, but she wanted in her leadership--b--g--wait a minute. Indira Ganadhi [sic]--Indira Gandhi was a very intelligent woman and a very strong leader, but she was one who acted like a man, with the ruthlessness of a man, but wanted always to be treated like a woman. That wasn't the way Golda Meir was. Golda Meir acted like a man and wanted to be treated like a man. I remember so well when we sat down in the chairs in the Oval Office, and the photographers came in, and they were running their tape and so forth, and we were shaking hands, and she was smiling, and making the right friendly comments--"How are you? How's the family?" and the rest. Photographers left the room. She crossed her leg, lit a cigarette, and said, "Now, Mr. President, what are you going to do about those planes that we want and we need very much?" And from that time on, we had a very good relationship. It wasn't that she was not one who was very feminine, because she could be. She used to wear her hair in a bun. She told my daughter Julie the reason she did it was that her husband liked it that way, even though that wasn't the fashion, at least in--in certain places. She--she was very feminine in another way. She never forgave. She never forgave those that had opposed her, she thought--where they thought--she thought it was unjustified. She never forgave Ben-Gurion because he had opposed her when she was on her way up. She never forgave Pompidou, because Pompidou had said some disrespectful things about Israel and her--she thought so--a couple of years previously. But there is no question that she was a very strong, intelligent l--leader in her own right.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:47:55
[Frank Gannon]

Would you ordinarily treat a woman leader different from a man?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:48:02
[Richard Nixon]

You just do. It's--it's very difficult not to. And I--I have-- I have--I--I--for example, with Indira Gandhi, it was--when she was in to see me, as she was on occasion, and when I saw her in India, I treated her not only as a woman but as a lady. I thought that was the proper thing to do. Now, we had some good talks, but, on the other hand, it wasn't the same as with Golda Meir. A much more healthy situation when a--a--a woman asks no quarter and gives no quarter because she's a woman Incidentally, that is exactly the impression I got when I met Margaret Thatcher. She's--she is not like Indira Gandhi. She's exactly like Golda Meir in that respect.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:48:54
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think women bear grudges longer and harder, and more intensely than men?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:48:59
[Richard Nixon]

Yes, they do. I--i--it isn't that they bear grudges. I'd put it another way around. They're highly idealistic. They are--they're more loyal. They do not forgive disloyalty. They're very, very hard losers. Men tend to be more pragmatic. Men tend to flit from flower to flower. The woman tends to be very loyal, a--and she does not forgive whenever she feels that somebody has done her in.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:49:27
[Frank Gannon]

Is there a risk involved, then, in having a woman leader in a country in terms of this kind of personality?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:49:37
[Richard Nixon]

I don't think so. I--I think what happens is that, once a woman gets into a position of leadership--that she develops--that--that she w--that--that she grows into that position, and she develops the abilities to handle the situation. I know that Margaret Thatcher is charged often with being too abrasive and too single-minded, too unpragmatic, but, on the other hand, she's a very effective leader.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:50:09
[Frank Gannon]

Are you a sexist?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:50:11
[Richard Nixon]

I don't know what that means.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:50:14
[Frank Gannon]

Maybe that answers the question.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:50:15
[Richard Nixon]

No. I would say, too, with regard to Golda Meir, she had a very good sense of humor, which most people were not aware. I remember that, after I appointed Henry Kissinger secretary of state, that somebody had said to her, "Well, now both Israel and the United States have Jewish foreign ministers. She says, "Yes, but mine speaks English." And she's--[unintelligible].

Day 6, Tape 1
00:50:40
[Frank Gannon]

Golda Meir became the prime minister of Israel at the age of seventy. What do you think drove her? What motivated her towards power and towards leadership?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:50:54
[Richard Nixon]

It's hard to--to judge anybody in terms of how they are motivated unless you are much closer to an individual in a personal way than I was even to her, although I knew her much better than I did most leaders, because of our many contacts. I think what drove her, first, was a--a deep dedication to her country, a--a deep dedication to the need and the right of the Jews, particularly those--the victims of the Holocaust and so forth, to have a homeland. After all, you--we have to remember, she was born in Russia. She remembered vividly, for example, and told me about it--the times when, on Saturday nights, drunken Russian policemen would come by their house and beat up her father because he happened to be a Jew. And then she went to the United States. And then she came from the United States to Israel. And she came there because she wanted to do something for the Jewish people around the world, and she wanted to build a strong country in Israel. I think that's what motivated her. I don't think--I don't think in her case it was a question of her wanting to be prime minister just to be prime minister. She wanted to be prime minister so--so she could do something, a--and I know, for example, when my daughter Julie interviewed her, she asked her, "How does it feel to be the first woman prime minister?" And she says, "I don't know. I've never been a man prime minister."

Day 6, Tape 1
00:52:30
[Frank Gannon]

One of--to my mind, the most uncharacteristic thing that you have ever written is something you wrote about Golda Meir in Leaders. You were talking about your toast to her at the Knesset in 1974, and you wrote, "It was an emotional moment for her, and it also was for me. That toast was truly from the heart. I could have said, "To Golda, with love," and I think she would have known I meant it." Did you love her?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:52:57
[Richard Nixon]

Yes, in the--in the sense that we had shared so much together. I admired her. I knew her as a person and not just as a leader. I knew her human qualities, her very fine human qualities--her warmth, her generosity, and so forth. And when you speak about love, not in the very personal sense that we think of love in marriage, but when you think about love between individuals, men and women at high levels and so forth, it has to do with far more than agreeing on policy. It has to do with those personal qualities, the whole man or the whole woman. And in that s--respect, certainly I loved her.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:53:44
[Frank Gannon]

Do you recall your last visit to her when--in 1974, when both you and she were out of power, and it turned out to be the last time you saw each other?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:53:54
[Richard Nixon]

Yes, I recall it very well. I recall visiting her at her home, and--

Day 6, Tape 1
00:54:00
[Frank Gannon]

What was her home like?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:54:01
[Richard Nixon]

Very simple. It kind of reminded me, curiously enough--and neither would appreciate this particular reference, e--although both are dead. Neither would appreciate it if they heard it. It reminded me of Nasser's home, very humble. It was nice, comfortable, but--and she made the coffee herself, which was another way she demonstrated that--her rather womanly qualities. But I think the high point of that visit was when I addressed the Knesset, and in addressing the Knesset, I paid a tribute to her. I said that in twenty-seven years, meeting over eighty heads of state in government, I have never met one who is more dedicated, more determined, and more intelligent than Golda Meir. She was deeply moved, and responded in kind. Now, the reason that meant a lot to her was that she had been thrown out of office just two weeks before. A--and the Israelis, they're pretty cold about people. Whether they're up or down makes a great deal of difference. But that Israeli audience, I think, was moved by that toast.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:55:08
[Frank Gannon]

In this last meeting, with her just out of power and you, within a matter of months, to be out of power because of Watergate, did she refer to your domestic political troubles?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:55:21
[Richard Nixon]

No, not really. She--she, as a matter of fact, I think, rather stuck her neck out, because she said that, in effect--that she had appreciated what I had done, and she used--she wrote it thereafter, and she told many people who interviewed her that without the decisions I had made in the June war--I'm sorry--without the decisions I had made in the 1973 war--that Is--Israel could not have survived. But in her return reply toast, she said, "I want to raise my glass to a good friend and a great president." And to refer to me as a great president in the context of Watergate was sticking her neck out pretty far.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:56:06
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think history will assess Golda Meir as a major figure?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:56:11
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, without question. And not just because she was the first woman prime minister of--of Israel and one of the first great woman leaders of the modern period. Because you ha--we have to understand that she went back quite a ways. She had been foreign minister. She had been very active, of course, in the U.N., representing Israel there, as well, on occasion when she spoke there. And as prime minister, she presided over a very difficult time, the war of 1973. But I think history will record--although she was thrown out of office after the war was over--history will record that--the fact that she had developed a good relationship with me helped to save Israel at that time. Otherwise, h--had we not had that relationship, the possibility of my going as far as I did in ordering the airlift and the alert, the alert which kept the Russians out--that might not have happened. The personal relationship had a great deal to do with it.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:57:12
[Frank Gannon]

I think we've reached the end of our first hour.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:57:15
[Offscreen voice]

Okay, guys, let's, uh, hold there. Everybody stay in position. Frank, if you and the president will just continue to talk to each other for a second [unintelligible].

Day 6, Tape 1
00:57:25
[Richard Nixon]

Sorry we got that--that Mao thing mixed up, but I had a--I was trying to think of something else to put in there, but I--cut it down. I think it's all right, though.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:57:34
[Frank Gannon]

Yeah. There's one thing I--I meant--I meant to ask you about her. I wanted to get you to talk about--to tell the Tito and Churchill--

Day 6, Tape 1
00:57:45
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

[Frank Gannon]

--anecdote, about--I was going to ask you--

Day 6, Tape 1
00:57:47
[Offscreen voice]

Turn the lights down--

Day 6, Tape 1
00:57:48
[Frank Gannon]

--if--

[Offscreen voice]

--for ten minutes.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:57:49
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, the--Tito?

Day 6, Tape 1
00:57:50
[Frank Gannon]

Yeah, I was going to ask you if she seemed to have changed out of power, and that you had told the story about what Tito told you [unintelligible].

Day 6, Tape 1
00:57:56
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Day 6, Tape 1
00:57:57
[Frank Gannon]

I think that's--

[Action note: Sound fades.]

Day Six, Tape two of four, LINE FEED #1, 5-27-83, ETI Reel #42
May 27, 1983

Day 6, Tape 2
00:01:07
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

[Frank Gannon]

--except they wouldn't offer it.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:01:08
[Richard Nixon]

No, I don’t think--I don't think he could. I don't think even Henry--

Day 6, Tape 2
00:01:12
[Frank Gannon]

There's too much…policy there.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:01:14
[Richard Nixon]

That's right. Well, he knows he's--

Day 6, Tape 2
00:01:17
[Offscreen voice]

Uh, c--cue them on one, Roger?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:01:21
[Frank Gannon]

I'll lead in to the Churchill-Tito.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:01:23
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

[Richard Nixon]

Fine.

[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

[Richard Nixon]

Do you want to get the tennis star thing in while you're doing it?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:01:26
[Frank Gannon]

Yeah, we'll s--why not start with that?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:01:28
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah. Churchill-Tito I hadn't thought of.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:01:32
[Frank Gannon]

That's a good story.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:01:33
[Richard Nixon]

We already got the "plus ten percent," didn't we?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:01:35
[Frank Gannon]

Yes.

[Offscreen voice]

Stand by, uh, Frank.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:01:36
[Richard Nixon]

That's a--you should work into this, too.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:01:37
[Offscreen voice]

[Unintelligible.]

[Offscreen voice]

Ten seconds to studio. Stand by.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:01:39
[Richard Nixon]

And the Golda Meir.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:01:40
[Frank Gannon]

Mm-hmm. The golden rule.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:01:42
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah.

[Frank Gannon]

The golden rule.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:01:43
[Richard Nixon]

How about--and then--

Day 6, Tape 2
00:01:44
[Offscreen voice]

Four.

[Richard Nixon]

--w--did we--

Day 6, Tape 2
00:01:45
[Offscreen voice]

Three.

[Richard Nixon]

--get in the--did we get in the Pompidou description of her as a--

Day 6, Tape 2
00:01:49
[Frank Gannon]

No.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:01:50
[Richard Nixon]

--a woman?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:01:51
[Frank Gannon]

No.

[Richard Nixon]

I mean--are you sure?

[Offscreen voice]

[Unintelligible.]

Day 6, Tape 2
00:01:54
[Richard Nixon]

Would you like that?

[Offscreen voice]

[Unintelligible.] Do it again.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:01:57
[Richard Nixon]

You know what I'm referring to?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:01:58
[Frank Gannon]

Yes.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:01:59
[Richard Nixon]

That was a famous story, you know. Her--"W--w--we have trouble in two parts of the world." I think it's worth getting in.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:02:05
[Frank Gannon]

[Unintelligible.]

[Richard Nixon]

Because it's about Indira Gandhi, too. (Clears throat.) Pompidou--

Day 6, Tape 2
00:02:08
[Offscreen voice]

[Unintelligible] light change. [Unintelligible.] We're going to cue you, okay?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:02:12
[Offscreen voice]

Keep your eyes on me.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:02:14
[Frank Gannon]

Yes.

[Offscreen voice]

After the light change [unintelligible].

Day 6, Tape 2
00:02:15
[Offscreen voice]

Ten seconds out. Roll tape.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:02:17
[Richard Nixon]

It's a good, funny story. And you're right--

[Action note: Screen goes black.]

[Richard Nixon]

--the more I think of this stuff from a commercial standpoint--

[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

[Richard Nixon]

--not that--

Day 6, Tape 2
00:02:22
[Frank Gannon]

This is the--

Day 6, Tape 2
00:02:23
[Richard Nixon]

All they want's froth. Shit, they don't care about--

Day 6, Tape 2
00:02:25
[Frank Gannon]

It's not f--but as you said, you can learn a lot from--

Day 6, Tape 2
00:02:28
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I have to say that. I don't believe it. [Unintelligible] I say it.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:02:31
[Frank Gannon]

Is it--is it ironic that the Sino-American relationship, which began with a table tennis match, should have reached some rocky shoals with the granting asylum to a tennis--Chinese tennis star? Should we have done that?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:02:50
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I have often thought how ironic it is that the--let me start again.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:02:58
[Frank Gannon]

Le--let me start again.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:02:59
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah, yeah, because I wanted to--

Day 6, Tape 2
00:03:00
[Frank Gannon]

Sh--

[Richard Nixon]

--tell that story.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:03:01
[Frank Gannon]

Should we have--the--the Sino--the Sino-America--the Sino-American relationship was strained recently when we granted asylum to a Chinese tennis star. Should we have done that? Did that strain the relationship in an unhealthy way?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:03:16
[Richard Nixon]

Well, it seems rather ironic to me that what, as far as the public was concerned, indicated that there was going to be a new relationship, was when the Chinese received an American table tennis team in Peking, and then, ten years later, in 1982, that relationship is strained when the United States allows a Chinese tennis star who is visiting the United States to stay here. Now, the difficulty with the handling of the matter, from the Chinese point of view, is not that a tennis star or anybody else comes to the United States and stays here. A--as a Chinese friend recently told me, from Peking--he says, "After all, we've got too many people! We don't mind your taking a lot of them." I--I think what really turned them off was that the tennis star was portrayed as being giving--being given political asylum, and that, of course, was a loss of face for them. To think that one who was a tennis star, and therefore, perhaps, receiving better treatment than many others--wanted to leave China and come to the United States was a loss of face. I would say that in the future it's very important to handle such matters with great discretion. There are going to be times in the future, I'm sure, where visiting Chinese may want to stay, but we should work it out so that it doesn't embarrass the Chinese government for another reason. I think it's vitally important that we continue to have this people-to-people contact. Ten years ago, no Americans were visiting China. Last year, a hundred thousand went there. Ten years ago, there were no Chinese students in the United States. Last year, there were twelve thousand. I want there to be--to increase in that way, because, while that isn't going to change our relationship immediately, over the long haul that people-to-people contact brings us closer together.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:05:11
[Frank Gannon]

Didn't President Pompidou raise a--a question about Golda Meir's feminine qualities?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:05:20
[Richard Nixon]

Well, when we speak of Golda Meir and the fact that she is very tough and strong and acts like a man, it's always reminded me of a conversation that we had with President Pompidou in the Azores. This was in 1971, and at that time we were having problems in South Asia between India and Pakistan, and also in the Mideast, and Bill Rogers, who was sitting by Pompidou, was trying to lighten up the conversation at dinner, and he reflected on the fact that th--things were going pretty well in the world except in stu--in two areas. And, he said, in both areas women are in power. He said, for example, "In South Asia, between India and Pakistan, we have Indira Gandhi in power. And then in the Mideast, in Israel, we have Golda Meir, another woman." Pompidou sort of raised his eyebrow and said, "Are you sure?"

Day 6, Tape 2
00:06:22
[Frank Gannon]

Did--didn't Pompidou, though, in fact, have a very strong respect for her qualities?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:06:28
[Richard Nixon]

I should not leave the impression that President Pompidou said that in a--a downgrading way, or in an im--as a matter of fact, disrespectful way. He respected her. He described her to me as "un femme formidable," and he's--he felt that she was a strong person, a very formidable person, and he respected that. And this fact--he was simply saying that he appreciated the fact that she did not try to use her w--feminine wiles in order to get her things across. Pompidou did not like Mrs. Gandhi. I know that. I think he respected and maybe even liked Golda Meir.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:07:09
[Frank Gannon]

Did you like Mrs. Gandhi?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:07:11
[Richard Nixon]

I didn't think of her in terms of liking or disliking. I thought of her in terms of representing a country, India, with six hundred million people, that was a very important country in that part of the world and with which the United States wanted to have as good relations as possible. And under the circumstances, therefore, I respected her, but that I n--I never knew her on a personal level. Let me put it this way. I didn't know her personally in a way that I would like her or dislike her.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:07:46
[Frank Gannon]

Are there leaders that are susceptible to feminine wiles and other leaders--could there be an advantage to a country of having a female leader when it came to a summit conference or a face-to-face meeting?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:07:59
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I think there is a tendency on the part of many men not to want to push a woman too far in a meeting. Let's face it. There are different rules. Oh, I know in these days, in--anybody who says that, he's supposed to be a sexist, or whatever they call it, and this and that and the other thing. But I do know that most of the leaders I have met have great respect for women, and they're going to treat them differently from w--the way they treat men. The way I'd put it is this way. I--I've played a little poker in my time, and, believe me, don't ever let me in a poker game where I've got to be easy on somebody else. Unless you can be ruthless in a poker game, you're going to lose. And in negotiations, it's, I think, s--to some advantage to have a woman on your side, because you need every inch that you can get in the negotiations, and if she can win you an inch by the fact that her opponent or your opponent is going to treat her a little differently, a little more respectfully, not as toughly as he would a man, that's something to be said for it.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:09:05
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think we'll have a woman president in this century?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:09:09
[Richard Nixon]

Possibly. A woman vice president, certainly. I would expect a woman vice-presidential candidate to make a pretty good run at it in eigh--'84--the possibility of there being one. I think in '88, there probably will be a woman vice president--more likely, incidentally, Republican than Democrat.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:09:27
[Frank Gannon]

Why is that?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:09:28
[Richard Nixon]

Because the Republicans have been running very poorly among women in recent years, and that's a way to reach out. I'm not sure that it would help, but many people think that it would, because you've got to remember there are many women that don't want a woman vice president, just as many men don't. But be that as it may, there are many women that do. I think what really is going to count is whether a woman comes along who is strong enough that people would th--feel comfortable that she would make a leader--one like a Margaret Thatcher, for example. I would say by the end of the century, the likelihood of a woman president is considerable. But before that happens, a woman must be vice president or secretary of state or secretary of defense. Those are the three top jobs that are stepping stones to the presidency. Until that happens, no woman is going to go, ec--unless they come from those stepping stones, directly to the presidency. But it will happen, inevitably.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:10:25
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think the fact Golda Meir had lived in the United States before she went to Israel affected her conduct at all as Israeli prime minister?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:10:35
[Richard Nixon]

I--it affected her conduct only in the sense that she understood the United States better than some other Israelis might have understood it. She knew America. She knew the political forces that operated here. She knew how to talk to Americans, and that certainly im--improved her chances to get along.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:10:56
[Frank Gannon]

Did it ever--do you think it ever created a situation where she had divided loyalties or divided instincts?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:11:03
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, no, not at all. Never. Golda Meir was for Israel first, last, and always. There was no question about that. Now, she happened to believe that the United States having a policy that favored Israel was in the U.S. interest as well, but, believe me, if the choie had to be between the U.S. and Israel, if she ever had to make that choice, it would have been Israel. No question whatever.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:11:25
[Frank Gannon]

Did--d--despite your special relationship with her, d--did you--do you feel that she mobilized or appealed to American Jews or to the Jewish lobby, the political lobby in America, to affect your decision-making?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:11:40
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, I am sure she did, and--

Day 6, Tape 2
00:11:42
[Frank Gannon]

Were you--did you feel that?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:11:44
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I--I don't--it isn't a question of whether I felt it. The fact is that American Jews support Israel, and I understood that. And the fact is that every Jewish prime minister that I have known has enlisted American Jews to bring as much pressure as possible in the political process on American presidents. That's understandable. I don't object to it. Now, a president must not go along with it on occasion, because some--l--let me--let me explain something about what is called "the Jewish lobby" in this country. In the first place, Jews, understandably, in the United States, because of what happened in World War II, because of the Holocaust, are going to pe--put first priority on the survival of Israel. Now, as good Americans, as they are, they believe that America's survival and security is directly related to Israel's. In other words, their belief is that being for Israel first means that does not mean you're putting America second, because they think it goes together. An American president, however, has to approach it in a different way, in my opinion. He's got always to think first of what is best for America, and that's true whether it has to do with the Israelis or whether it has to do with the Irish or the Germans or what-have-you, or the Poles, et cetera. Usually what is best for America is also best for Israel, and vice versa. But a--on occasions--for example, an American president must make a decision that does not, in effect, give the Israelis a blank check. And one example of that is a decision that I made. I decided early on in our administration that we were going to seek good relations with Egypt and other--others of Israel's neighbors. Many of my Israeli friends didn't like that, because they wanted a special relationship with Israel and Israel only. But I have always said that Israel's interests are better served to have the United States a friend of Israel's neighbors and potential enemies than to leave a vacuum which the Soviet Union would fill. I still believe that, and I think that should be American policy today.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:14:04
[Frank Gannon]

I've heard you tell a story about when--when you talked to President Tito about his observation of Churchill out of office.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:14:16
[Richard Nixon]

Well, when you--when you see Golda Meir--you look back on her, and the last time I saw her, she was in her early seventies, you wonder how she must have felt when she was out of power. I recall one of my favorite stories, as a matter of fact, was told to me by Tito's wife when she was on a state visit with Tito to the White House in the early seventies. And she remarked about the last time that Tito had met with Churchill, and Churchill looked at Tito and observed the fact that Tito was drinking his Scotch and smoking the big cigars, and Churchill at that time was not in the best of health and couldn't drink as he used to, and he also noticed his black hair, Tito's black hair, incidentally, which obviously had been colored, but nevertheless it was black. And he said, "What keeps you so young? What keeps you so young?" And then, without waiting for an answer, "I know what it is--power. Power is what keeps a man young." And Churchill--after he left office, I know he tended to shrivel, because I saw him after he left office. The power was gone. But not Golda. Golda was still as strong and as vital when I saw her after she had been thrown out of office as she was in office. She didn't need the power to be in office--to exude power.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:15:48
[Frank Gannon]

Why was the Suez such a turning point in world history?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:15:55
[Richard Nixon]

Well, it was a turning point primarily not for what it did to Israel and Egypt and the relations between those two, but for what it did to Europe and particularly to the French and the British. It came at the wrong time. As a matter of fact, there isn't any question in my mind, in retrospect, and there's no question, in my view, that Eisenhower felt the same way in his later years, that the Israelis, the British, and the French were justified in attacking the Egyptians when they tried to take over the Suez Canal. But, on the other hand, it came just a few days before an American election, and it came right after the Russians had moved tanks into Budapest and were shooting down the workers who were rebelling against the Communist government there. And we couldn't be in a position, or at least we felt we couldn't, of condemning the Soviet Union for using force to resolve a situation in Budapest and then approving our allies, the British, the French, and the Israelis, who were not allies but at least were supporting our point of view, using force to resolve what was a political problem with Egypt. So, under the circumstances, President Eisenhower took the position that we would oppose it, and we forced their withdrawal. Now, what happened is it didn't help us with Nasser. He had been anti-U.S. before. He banked that and then kept on being anti-U.S., because that served his purposes in the radical Arab world. It hurt us with Israel, but not permanently because we continued to help them. But it had a devastating effect on France and Britain. From that time on, France and Britain could no longer play a decisive role on the world stage, and that was not a good thing. I hope the time returns when they might be able to play a more decisive role that they do today.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:17:49
[Frank Gannon]

What do you remember about your meeting with Nasser?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:17:54
[Richard Nixon]

Nasser, I had heard before I had met him, from friends who had visited him, was very different from the public impression of him. The first time I really met Nasser I didn't see him at all. I heard his voice. I heard it on the radio. Now, this is on a trip in 1957 I took as vice president, and as I visited the coffee shops and the bazaars and so forth, there were pictures of Nasser--I wasn't in Egypt, but they were in Tunis, and they were in Morocco, and they were in the Sudan, and they were in Libya. This was before Qaddafi, of course. And his voice hypnotized people. So I knew his voice before I ever got there, and I felt I knew him. But when I met the man, he was not the flame-throwing kind of revolutionary radical that I had expected. He was very soft-spoken--very handsome man, incidentally--very reasonable--reasonable except when he spoke about Israel, and then, of course, he could be very aba--runees [sic]--unreasonable. Spoke very warmly of Eisenhower. This, now, is in 1963 that we're talking about. I am convinced that if Nasser had concentrated his enormous abilities and energies on building a better Egypt, rather than in foreign adventures in Yemen and other parts, that he would have contributed enormously to Egypt's future. As it was, he--rather than concentrating on what was good for Egypt within, he believed in exporting his brand of revolution abroad.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:19:30
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think America played him wrong--that if--that if our policy had been accommodating and more sensible, he wouldn't have turned to the Soviets as he did?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:19:40
[Richard Nixon]

In my view, I think the decision with regard to the Aswan Dam was wrong. We did it because he was tilting toward the Soviet and was making unkind remarks about us, but I have a different view than many of my friends in the foreign policy establishment with regard to the use of America's ec--economic power. It's the area where we have the greatest advantage. It's the area where we should take some risks. It [sic] the area where we should not insist that we will give aid only to those that are one d--hundred percent for the U.S. Let's use that power to get a foothold. We won't win 'em all, but we'll win more than by saying no and then letting the Russians come in and build that dam. That was a tragedy for Egypt, as it turned out, and it certainly was not helpful to us in that part of the world.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:20:32
[Frank Gannon]

You've written that Nasser was defensive about the amount of Russian involvement in building the dam.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:20:39
[Richard Nixon]

Well--quite defensive. As a matter of fact, he said, "W--we're building the dam." And he sent his plane, with his own pilot--it was a DC-3--down to the Aswan Dam to look it over. We got there--incidentally, we were there in the summer, and it was about a hundred and thirty degrees in the shade, so we visited it at midnight, when it was only a hundred degrees--and I remember the huge, huge searchlights on the bulldozers down in the bowels of the earth. This is while the dam was under construction. I did not notice--and fortunately Mrs. Nixon did, because she's very observant--who was riding those bulldozers. They weren't Egyptians. They were Russians, but the Egyptians were very sensitive about Russian involvement.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:21:23
[Frank Gannon]

Was President Sadat more like President Nasser than not?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:21:28
[Richard Nixon]

No, very, very different from him. I remember when Nasser died, I was in the Mediterranean on one of our carriers, and I asked one of the people with us there what kind of a fellow this new man Sadat was. And they said, "Well, he's sort of a colorless clod compared to Nasser. He'll never be able to fill his shoes." Well, he did not fill Nasser's shoes, but he left his own footprints, of course, on history a very different way. Nasser was a man of the people and from the people--charismatic--he touched the heart. Sadat, on the other hand--highly intelligent--was one somewhat apart from people. He was above them to an extent, and I think people sensed that. He was a man of high intelligence, of great boldness, and great courage, and he was very different from Nasser in a fundamental respect. Instead of engaging in foreign enterprises as Nasser had, he concentrated on what was best for Egypt, and that is why he made the famous trip from Cairo to Jerusalem. Incidentally, one who influenced him enormously in that direction was King Faisal. Faisal leaned on Sadat to break off from the Russians, telling him he couldn't trust the Russians. Faisal, of course, was strongly anti-Communist.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:23:00
[Frank Gannon]

Do you--why do you--why do you think that Sadat is revered in the West but is very highly criticized in the Mideast?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:23:14
[Richard Nixon]

There are several reasons. The first reason is that Sadat broke ranks with other Arabs in going to Jerusalem. He broke ran--ranks with other Arabs in making a deal at Camp David. They resent that.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:23:28
[Frank Gannon]

Didn't he call them "monkeys" and "hissing vipers"?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:23:31
[Richard Nixon]

As a matter of fact, they not only resented his doing that, but it was what he did after that. I talked, for example, to Hassan, the king of Morocco, and to other leaders in that part of the world, and they all, to a man, said that he had not leveled with them about it, and that his rhetoric, they thought, went m--far overboard when they criticized his going to Camp David. And, incidentally, I've never used--heard him use this kind of language, but they said that he referred to them as "monkeys" and "hissing vipers." Well, they're a very emotional people--the Arabs are--and very sensitive people, and they never forgave him for that. I think another reason he may not have been revered is that they had the feeling--the Egyptian people--that he was not really one of them, that maybe he'd grown away from them. As a matter of fact, I don't believe that was the case, but the appearance was there, because he lived very well. His wife, who is a--is a lovely lady, was beautifully groomed, a beautiful woman, as a matter of fact, but she did not relate as much to the people, although she was very active in supporting hospitals and charitable causes and so forth, as some others might have. At least that is what I have heard. But in any event, there's no question that when Nasser died, there was an enormous outpouring of affection and grief, and when Sadat was assassinated, the streets were quite still in comparison.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:25:08
[Frank Gannon]

You went to that funeral, didn’t you?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:25:11
[Richard Nixon]

Yes. I would say that--when s--people would ask me to appraise Sadat--that I can report that this was one man that three former presidents talked about among each other and all agreed upon, to a man. We had a long plane flight from Washington to Cairo, over ten hours. It was all night long. We didn't have any bunks in the plane, so we talked all night, except for getting a few snatches of sleep from time to time.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:25:45
[Frank Gannon]

Was it the first time the three presidents--Ford, Carter, and Nixon had been together?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:25:52
[Richard Nixon]

I--it was the first time--not really the first time, no. It was the first time that Ford, Carter, Nixon, and Reagan had been together, but the first time we were together was at Humphrey's funeral. We were there--although we never had any talks then. This was the first time we'd ever had a talk. So all night long we talked about Sadat and the Mideast and what he meant. We agreed that he was one of the most intelligent men we'd ever met. We had agreed that he was one of the boldest and most courageous men, and we agreed, too, that he had shown great vision, vision in looking over the problems of the moment and looking to the future in making his trip to Jerusalem and agreeing to what he did to--at Camp David. But I knew him in another respect that the other two did not know him. And I told them this on the plane, and I thought they were quite moved by it. That was not the first time I had gone to a funeral in Cairo. It was only about a year before that I had gone to the shah's funeral, which was in Cairo. And when I was there, I--I was the only dignitary of any rank who came to the shah's funeral, because here the shah, who--before everybody was bowing and scraping before him, the heads of state in government and so forth, because he was rich and powerful and so forth, and now they all avoided him because he was out of power. And I never forgot that, as I was standing there in the big tent where all the V.I.P.s--usually ambassadorial level, not head of state level--were standing, Sadat came walking in , resplendent in his uniform--general's unif--uniform. He saw me, his eyes lit up, and he walked over, held both hands out, and said, "How good of you to come. How good of you to come." And I said, "Mr. President, it was very courageous of you to receive the shah after virtually every other country did not grant him sanctuary." And he said, "Courageous, sir? It isn't courageous to stand up for a friend." And that loyalty went further than that, even. I remember I had a long talk with him after the funeral up at Alexandria--that is, the summer palace--and we were talking far into the night. And when we were talking about what had happened at Camp David and so forth, he referred to his friend Jimmy Carter. Now, let's understand when this was. This was at a time before the elections in 1980, when Carter's stock was very, very slow, when it appeared that Reagan was going to win, and when he knew I was for Reagan, because I had told him so, and told him that I thought Reagan would be very reasonable toward him, despite the fact that he was a little concerned that Reagan seemed to be totally pro-Israel, as he had in some of his statements. But he refused the opportunity to do what most politicians do--do--to say what he thought I might want to hear, that Carter was not all that good. He said, "My friend, Jimmy Carter." Now that's Sadat. That's quite a man.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:28:58
[Frank Gannon]

How did Jimmy Carter react to you or treat you on this plane ride, the first time you'd had a chance to talk to him personally as a f--as an ex-president?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:29:10
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, very well. He's a--he was a--a gentleman, and--and--and Mrs. Carter, who was on the plane, was a lady. We hit it off very well, I thought.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:29:20
[Frank Gannon]

Did you consider bringing Mrs. Nixon?

Day 6, Tape 2
00:29:22
[Richard Nixon]

No. She can't take these long flights. She could, but--you understand, it was even hard on me--ten hours on an airplane without a bunk and so forth. She can't do that any more.

Day 6, Tape 2
00:29:35
[Frank Gannon]

How--

[Richard Nixon]

And Mrs. Ford did not come either.