TELCORN

Amb. Cromer/Mr. Kissinger

8:28 a.m., May 15, 1973

K: Hello.

C: Henry, good morning to you.

K: How are you?

C: I'm all right. How are you?

K: Okay.

C: Look I think you're in quite trouble with the dollar. The Watergate thing has overfloated to that field. In terms of the pounds, the dollar has gone to 256, which is about a 5% drop.

K: Yeah.

C: Good as you probably heard, is a 107 dollars this morning.

K: Yes.

C: And I thought just as a family friend I ought to tell you about this because if this goes over into the stock market, the lack of confidence, then we may have one hell of a problem.

K: Right. What can we do.

C: Well I don't know. I'd be delighted to come and talk to you, but I don't know what we can do. I'ts not only a question of confidence in the management of affairs, this is bound to sort of go back on the old place.

K: Well, not easy to handle in the present atmosphere.

C: Would it dissolve the problem. I was gonna have a word with Arthur Byrnes, again for the moment, oh boy, facing--I've not talked to the Ambassador.

K: Well, why don't you talk to Arthur Byrnes and if there's anything you think I can get done from here, will you call me, as an old friend.

C: Sure, but I hate being a harbinger of bad news but I though you ought to know.

R: Right.

Tel Con
Theodore White/Mr. Kissinger

9:23 a.m., May 15, 1973

K: Hello.

W: Hello Henry.

K: Teddy, how are you.

W: How are you. I hate to bother you with this at this time.

K: That's all right, Teddy, I got your letter and I was very touched
by it. I mean, this country is in a suicidal mood.

W: I don't think you know how bad it is.

K: Oh.

W: It is suicidal, Henry, you've got this God damned thing in New York where I know the pressure you are under. But people who telepathically know me, important people, who say get him, get him, get him. As if they were gladiators that wanted to kill.

K: And as if it weren't their President.

W: It's unbelievable, I've never lived through anything like this.
Bloodlust, that's what it is.

K: Yeah.

W: However. We didn't call up to talk about that, and I know how you feel.

K: Well you know four or five years of amassing capital in nickels and dimes is being squandered in thousand dollar bills.

W: Is the ______ that badly overseas.

K: No, but they will if things keep going like this.

W: It has to.

K: Not yet, but you know it's already starting in the monetary field.

W: It's a kind of a thing that I've never seen before. The only thing that could possible go well is that they finally get bored with it. I don't think there could be much more to write about.

K: That's what I think everyday and then some other horror emerges.

DEC 15 1973

Writings by J. O. 8.25 x 11

Dated: May 15, 1973 9:23

2

W: Look, people have told me to withdraw the book from publication. I can't publish anything these days. You know, this man Nixon is not a villain, period. I think he's got a great foreign policy, what the hell.

K: And even these transgressions are gonna be seen in a, you know, they are not going to be excused but it takes a much more complex analogy of what really happened. You know, there's a Walter Middy quality, because if you really analyze, I'm speaking as a friend.

W: Of course.

K: I mean who would burglar a psychiatrist's office. A psychiatric record is what the defense uses, not the prosecution. I mean supposing you find that Ellsberg is crazier than loon. What the hell can you do with it. And when makes this transgression explicable. From the point of view of the government it was better to have him sane.

W: You see, other media, I've got a question of Howard Hunt's books here. They are crazy. This is a nondisciplinarian. This is a CIA employee who from his books himself seems unbalanced.

K: So you know, if you compare the risks that were run--

W: Would it embarrass you if I tell you how I'm treating Watergate. ______ in the whole chapter. And they are right, I can't write about it.

K: No, no, you've got to do that. It's part of the campaign.

W: I'm starting it off actually with a preoccupation, almost an obsession with foreign affairs. Will the systematic leaking, assault, the protest of the Australian government that the leak, the Pentagon papers, I'm gonna call it "Obsessed" whether I get sued for libel or not. To say that a government has to protect itself in some way but the authority to protect the government, you just can't give it to two lunatics in the basement.

K: Yes.

W: And go on from there.

K: I think that's right, that is the problem.

W: What.

DELEGATED
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3

K: That is the problem, people forget what it was like here.

W: I have SALT, I have the Pentagon and the Bangladesh papers. Is there any way we could embarras you, Henry. Can you talk over the phone. If not, let's cut this conversation off.

K: No, no, I can talk on the phone. Well there were constant, there were leaks of NSC discussion, who said what--throughout the administration.

W: It seems to me--to keep the government from doing its job properly, It seems to me business. You see, I want to make clear distinction between these things. The leakage, between the fund raising which was really mad, Henry, someday I'll tell you about that. And then the accords. These are absolutely different things.

K: Totally.

W: But the red stuff now on the public mind is something--incredible.

K: And the legal efforts, now you probably see it in the paper today, now their are going after what the FBI did to protect leaks. Which is totally different. It was always done in a legal framework.

W: Rot. The word is inadequate. I saw FBI chaps at the beginning of the administration, was the king in those days.

K: Of course.

W: The matter is, let me if you have time to chat, let me first got through this prologue thing with you.

K: Well let me go through, I've read it.

W: Did you get my apology to you.

K: Oh, it isn't even necessary because it doesn't look strange to me.

W: The architecture of my book was, there are three great issues in this country, foreign policy, economics, and race, and to each there is a chapter. The chapter on foreign policy is the prologue. That's the grand architecture of the campaign speech. I have to cut that down now because just to 8 or 10 pages. But I'd hoped to be able to use 30, and I feel I'm taking a lot of your time but this is __________.

K: Oh, Teddy, you had no choice, so don't worry about it. Now I

DECEMBER
1983

Antiquary Q/12858
N.A.B. Code 6/20

4

really have only one place where I want to cut.

W: Page 40, 10.

K: These pages don't seem to be numbered.

W: They are very faintly, you tell me where.

K: You know, where is says where you quote my comments about Thieu and McGovern.

W: Yes, yes, yes--

K: I want that cut.

W: All right.

K: I mean you can say he was impatient with the government Of Thieu, I don't object to--

W: Impatient with him Thieu and with the government.

K: I don't mind your saying that if you take out both quotes.

W: All right, it's at the top of page 10.

K: That's it yes, I found it. Top of page 10.

W: All right.

K: Then in the next paragraph, this is not something that you need to do but simply for correctness sake. You say when Nixon first came into office and he, Kissinger, had joined the administration, the policy planning staff of the State Dept had prepared a set of study papers for them. That isn't true. Various elements of the government, you know, each agency was asked to do a paper.

W: Various agencies, huh. Because I have in my notes which say, I soon as I got back--I jotted it down in my memory.

K: Well, if I said it I spoke loosely.

W: Well, let's get it correct. When Nixon first came into office, various agencies had prepared study papers for him.

K: Right

W: All right. On the Mao-Chou conversation, I don't think I blew anything.

K: No, where are they, can you give me--

DECLASSIFIED
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Dated NARA Dkt 6/2/04
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W: Pages 6 and 7. That basically is, Nixon himself copy and then

K: You got that from the President didn't you.

W: Right. All those quotes are direct quotes from the President. I don't think he gave anything away, I think it reads well both there and here.
And then on page 8

K: That doesn't bother me.

W: That doesn't bother you.

K: There was only one point in there about Russia--no, no, that's all right.
You can carry it.

W: ________ said that to me twice.

K: Yeah, but that doesn't make it politic to say.

W: ________ he talked to Vietnam ________ of Russia.

K: No, no, that's okay.

W: Anything else that you want to add to that, I'd love.

K: No.

W: Well, is this set okay with you Henry.

K: Yeah.

W: Can I hold you on the phone for a few more minutes.

K: Sure.

W: What's the situation there at the White House. ________ is madly.

K: Well, you have a group of people who believed in administrative loyalty
but not in substantive loyalty. You know, they are not devoted to a cause
but to a structure, and that structure has now disintegrated. So they are
unguided bullets.

W: Haig at least has integrity as far as I know.

K: Oh, Haig is magnificent.

W: He'll be okay.

K: Haig will be all right. I'm talking about the old group. Haig will manage
to pull it together.

DECLASSIFIED
Authority E012958
Dated MAR 13 1994

W: Did you ever know Dean Bickford yourself?

K: He was a figure I saw sneaking around, you know walking around the halls. And so I knew him, but I didn't know his name, and you know I never put his name with his face. I'd occasionally get a legal paper from Dean, signed Dean, but I never associated the young kid I saw running around with that name. I never was at a meeting with him. And I never heard him recite, I mean I'm not talking about Watergate I never heard him recite on any subject. So I have no feel whatever for his cast of mind.

W: I sort of--let me go on and you know how to guide yourself. I have tremendously troubled mind. I liked John Ehrlichman.

K: I do too.

W: I want to say a good word for him. You know, you used the word "compassion".

K: I agree, I still maintain it.

W: I think that of all the guys involved, he is the guy that most deserves compassion.

K: I agree.

W: I mean, sex in a human sense, do you--would you agree with that.

K: Totally.

W: It exposes me enormously, but what the hell.

K: I totally agree with you.

it followed

W: I think what he did is inexcusable. Because/those plumbers, as soon as they raided Ellsberg psychiatrists office.

K: No question.

W: But I think he did a lot of good on the way somewhere.

K: You see, the weird thing is, I know Krogh, I happen to know him because he was in the Bahamas once when I was there. Now what is so amazing is he is a God fearing, decent, middle American. This is not a nut. And he's dull, boring, and if you had told me 6 months ago that he would burglar an office, I would have told you that you had lost your mind.

W: Were you aware of a plumbers operation going on.

K: No.

DECLASSIFIED
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Dated NARADY 6/2/04

7

W: You were unaware of it.

K: I was unaware of the operation. A member of my staff left me, when I was on my secret trip to China, and joined Ehrlichman's staff. Physically moved in there. And I thought for the first three months he was working on classifications. And he did, there was a study of classifications generated by the Ellsberg papers. After that, I didn't know what the hell he did. But I had never heard the word "plumber", the content of their operation, and the first thing I heard about it was in April.

W: This April?

K: Yes. You know, when it came out in the newspapers. Nor did Haig ever hear of it.

W: It conceivably could be Haldeman certainly knew.

K: I just cannot judge.

W: You can't.

K: You know, I cannot imagine--the unprofessional--forget the morality of it, now why anyone would think they could get away with forging a cable from Kennedy to the field when the former Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Cabot Lodge, and others are still alive. It just boggles your mind. Apart from the total immorality of doing it. But I mean supposing they were going to give that cable to some newsman, how long do you think it would have lasted.

W: You probably know more about this than I do, but

K: I don't know a God damned thing about it.

W: Well, I'll tell you, you see when Joseph Kennedy died, Bobby asked me to go through his papers with a view to public publication. And I've gone through all the papers. They all advised Bobby and Jackie, but for Christ sakes if you publish these papers, you are going to blow Kruschev papers, DeGaulle correspondence, no foreign chief of state is going to talk to an American President again because that blows everything wide open.

K: That's right.

W: So at best, it would 20 years to publish the papers, and some of that stuff is marvelous reading. In there, I saw some of the cables to which they refer.

K: Look, there is no doubt that we triggered the coup. That doesn't mean we ordered the assassin --

DECLASSIFIED

Authority: EO 12958
Date: 6/27/87

Dated: MAR 13 1987

8

W: The key cable is one from Henry Cabot Lodge.

K: Oh no, those cables--I've seen the actual cables.

W: Yeah. You see, we don't know what the hell is going to happen if this coup goes ahead, it's unpredictable.

K: Well noone has denied that we triggered the coup.

W: But there's nothing that ______ did, nothing whatsoever, of that kind.

K: Look, there is no motive, there is no possibility that Kennedy would order the assassination of ______. Apart from the morality of it, it is no doubt that we triggered the coup.

W: The thing is to me keep totally unbelievable. I still think my approach to the Watergate theft has to be that this comes out of an obsession with national security and the foreign policy on Nixon's part. He finds himself operating in a goldfish bowl. The Bangladesh of course blew sky high. It would have blown me sky high. I mean he then has to do something, and then being uninterested in administration, he himself was, Nixon,

K: Right.

W: He turns this thing over down the line to Ehrlichman, Ehrlichman to Krogh, Krogh to these two nuts.

K: Right.

W: That's--later on the thing becomes a cancer.

K: That's right.

W: As for the cover up, I'm not going to talk about it at all, I can't understand what happened yet.

K: Nor can I. Okay, Teddy. Teddy I think actually if you write a--I think a lot of people are going to feel very sheepish a year from now.

W: Well, I'm going to do my best. You simply have got to understand the pressure on me and my publisher, and my staff.

K: Look I have no question. There are two newsmen here in town who are doing a book on me, and their publisher trying to keep my good will asked them to delete any reference linking me to Nixon.

W: Oh, for Christ sake.

DECLASSIFIED
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D#

9

K: (Laughter) You know that's sweet, it's touching.

W: Yeah.

K: And also to list, to compress the chapter, they had a chapter of
80 pages on Vietnam, and they were asked to compress to 15 because
that publisher didn't want to have me linked to Vietnam. You know,
I am flattered, he did it to protect me. So I understand what New York
must be like.

W: Crazy. Listen I take it you are going off to Paris this week.

K: Tomorrow.

W: If on your way back you come to the house and have a drink, I'd love
it you know.

K: Okay Teddy.

W: Please try.

K: Good, bye.

W: Bye.

CLASSIFIED
DEPT.
DEPT.
DE

Authority E012858
D# NARA Dkt. 6/2/04

TELCONE

Joe Kraft/Kissinger

10:00 a.m. - 5/15/73

K: Hello.

JK: Good morning, Henry.

K: Joe, I want you to know that I consider this article today the most skunky thing that I have seen anybody do. But there's no point in debating it. But has it ever occurred to you that in the case of Halperin, that I might have - I mean I don't want this written - but has it occurred to you that I was the one who kept him in the government. Why would I put a wiretap on somebody who had a security file, who was not approved for clearance and whom I, personally in my own name, put on the staff? Whom, if I wanted to do anything to, I just had to withdraw my clearance from him.

JK: Why didn't you?

K: Why didn't I?

JK: Um-hmm.

K: Because I had no reason to and that's why I said what I said on Sunday.

JK: Henry, what I wrote was not easy. You might think it was skunky.

K: Some things that may have been difficult may not necessarily make it right.

JK: Well, Henry there's a long, long history behind this as you say. It's not right to debate on the telephone. Are you now saying that you did not participate in the decision to bug?

K: I am saying that I received the summaries; that the decision to bugging - to do the bugging was not mine. That is correct.

JK: You did not participate?

K: I did not participate in the decision but I was aware of it.

JK: Well, I must say - perhaps I don't understand it yet but I think I want to stand on that story.

K: Well, that's your privilege. It was - in any event someday, I'm certain before the complexity of these things will be apparent but I will stand on the fact that I - well never mind I don't need to testify myself to you.

DECLASSIFIED
Authority E012858
D# A14A D15 6/20/73

TELCONE

Gov. Rockefeller/Kissinger

10:05 a.m. - 5/15/73

K: Hello.

R: Henry.

K: Nelson, how are you?

R: Listen, thanks so much for calling back. I had a wonderful breakfast with Pete Peterson and he just said he was going to see you later in the day. All I wanted to do was to get you to put in a good word for his joining this Commission. I've asked him to come on as a member of the Commission and spend as much or as little time depending on what he does. But I think his participation is terribly important.

K: Yeh, I will do that.

R: And I told him that - we don't know just when - you were joining the Commission too.

K: Right. OK, you can count on it.

R: Great Henry and I'll look forward to seeing you over the Memorial Day weekend.

K: Right.

R: Terrific. Thanks loads.

DECI ASSIGNED
Authority E012858
D# A11A D1a 6/20/73

TELCONE

Sec. Clements/Kissinger

10:4 a.m. - 5/15/73

K: Hello.

C: Good morning, Henry.

K: Bill, how are you?

C: I'm fine thank you and I just want a quick word because I know that you don't like surprises, Henry. And I had Jim Schlesinger in that spirit. I talked to Jim and he agreed that he would call Brent and ask that the Libyan thing specifically be put on the agenda today as we consider the Lebanese or the Lebanon and other related matters of the Middle East. The reason being that I have good authority that the Libyans will likely this week starting today, perhaps tomorrow for sure supposedly, start nationalizing the American interest in Libya.

K: So what?

C: And I thought that this should be something that we talk about in there and look at from two or three aspects. There's an enormous pressure that's building up as an interface with that problem in Saudi Arabia. The two are related.

K: Well, that may all be true. Well, we can discuss it at the meeting this afternoon.

C: Well, I think that it oughta at least be put in there for some kind of direction because I don't think anyone is now addressing that problem or thinking in terms of how will we respond.

K: To the nationalization.

C: Right. And the people are there and some of the other things that may happen.

K: I agree. You're not talking about the flights, you're talking about.

C: Oh hell, no, I'm talking about the takeover of about 3 billion or more, 3 billion plus of our assets

K: No, that should be considered. I agree with you completely. I've got to run. I got the Chinese comin.

C: That's all, Henry. K: I think you're right. We'll address it.

C: That's fine.

CLASSIFIED
Authorized E012958
Dated NARADY 6/2/73

TELCONE

Max Frankel/Kissinger

11:17 a.m. - 5/15/73

K: Hello.

F: Hello, Henry, How are you?

K: OK.

F: I just had the misery of having to decline an invitation to a party of
yours so let me say "Happy Birthday" in advance.

K: Thank you.

F: I'm calling you with a typical editor's problem. We are doing, I hope,
some rather nice pieces in the Sunday Times Magazine on Mr. Brezhnev.

K: Good.

F: And I would love by way of changing the subject so to speak around here,
to run a color cover of our magazine of General Brezhnev at the wheel
of a car and, while I have seen home movies, I don't know whether
they were yours, or Peterson's or Sonnenfeldt's or somebody's - I've
seen lots of pictures actually, they don't seem to be in the public domain
and I wonder whether you could possibly ask somebody to snoop around
and see whether somebody doesn't have a good picture of the man
informally - possibly at the wheel of a car so that we could have a nice
cover on Mr. Brezhnev.

K: Well, I have a lot of pictures of informal black and white pictures of
Brezhnev taken at his Zavidovo where I was with him.

F: Nothing in color?

K: No. And I'd be glad because Dobrynin told me yesterday I could release
some of those. So I could let you have some of those if you want.

F: Well, we certainly would love some of those. You don't know anybody
who took home movies.

K: No, nobody took home movies on that occasion. Now it maybe that
somewhere around the White House we have some and let me do some
other snooping.

DELEGATED
Authority E012958
Dated NARA Dkt 6/20/73

2

F: That would be great. I'd appreciate it very much and in any case I'll have Nona Brown in our Washington office contact your secretary about these other.

K: You mean you're not . . . . . Watergate with me for God's sake.

F: How do you like that?

K: I don't want to discuss it. I just want you to know that alone earns you about 10 points.

F: (Laugs) Well, as a man whose Pulitzer prize was totally forgotten in the rush of events - I just read *Time* and *Newsweek* last week they couldn't even get around to recording it, I know how you feel.

K: They couldn't record it; they couldn't record the fact of the summit. It's not even mentioned. Congratulations, Max, those were by far the best pieces of any I've read.

F: Thank you very much really. And if you can give us any help on this I'd be grateful.

K: Good.

F: Thank you. Bye. Bye.

DECLASSIFIED
Authority EO 1289
DATE NARA Dkt 6/26/64

TelCon
Lloyd Shearer/Mr. Kissinger

12:00 Noon, May 15, 1973

K: Hello.

S: Hello Henry. How are you.

K: Okay.

S: You are ready to take off I guess.

K: I'm leaving tomorrow.

S: Right. Henry, we are doing a story on Sihanouk and he told Schecter and myself that he had to enter into negotiations with you four times. Through Chou En-lai, Pham Van Dong and you turned him down each time.

K: Nonsense.

S: Schecter has already written that in the current issue of TIME. He file from Peking. I said I thought we should call you and check. Any truth to that.

K: I could not talk to him while I was in Peking, that is correct.

S: Why was that.

K: But I proposed a procedure by which we would talk to him.

S: You did.

K: That's right. Talk to his people.

S: Yeah. Why wouldn't you talk to him. His words, he told us that Chou En-lai said no, they won't talk to you. And that he made four attempts, you know, Chou and Pham Van Dong, and each time they said Kissinger said no.

K: Becasue we didn't want to overthrow the Phnom Phen thing by talking at such a high level.

S: I see.

K: But we were certainly prepared to talk to his people with lower level people than myself.

S: Right, right. Okay dear friend.

K: Okay, Lloyd.

DECLASSIFIED
Authority E012958
Dated 6/2/94
P: Att
N: A

2

LS: Listen, when are you coming back. We've got to sit through that thing.

K: Oh, I'll be back the middle of next week.

S: Henry, you didn't order those wire taps on Halperin, did you.

K: Look, Lloyd, as an old friend, I put Halperin on my staff.

S: That's right.

K: Halperin was kept on my staff against the opposition of the FBI, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, why the hell would I want to persecute him.

S: Yeah, that doesn't make any sense. But that's the key word that was going around Washington I hear.

K: I know, but you ask yourself that question, why I put him on my staff against everybody's opposition, why I would want to persecute him.

S: Well I don't think you'd want to persecute him.

K: Well why would I want to pet (?) him.

S: As I said I don't believe it, and I believe in checking, but obviously those wiretaps were made available to you.

K: That is true.

S: So you know in fact who they were wiretapping.

K: Well, I knew some, not all.

S: Right (Laughter) God damn it Henry you should have listened to us and left when leaving was good.

K: That is true.

S: All right, I'll see you when I get back, and thank you very much.

K: Right, bye.

DECLASSIFIED
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Dated NARA Dkt 6/2/09

Tel Con
Scotty Reston/Mr. Kissinger

4:55 pm, May 15, 1973

K: Hello.

R:q Hello, Henry

K: Scotty, sorry to bother you.

R: Not at all.

K: I called you because Pete Peterson called me and said that you had indicated a willingness to talk to me.

R: Sure, I'd love to Henry.

K: Which I would love to do but I have thought about it Scotty, you mean a lot to me, I mean that seriously, but I don't feel that in this situation whatever your investigation will show it will show. For me to have to explain it to you will involve you in such complexities, and in such intangibles, and in this town where everybody has been protesting for so long, I have come to this conclusion that if this stuff reaches the point where my moral authority is impaired I'll just have to leave because I can't negotiate with Chou En-lai and Brezhnev while I'm defending myself against other things.

R: Yes, I understand. Also I understand about your feeling it's not an appropriate time. I surely understand that. I hope you will not get too gloomy about.

K: I want to tell you as somebody who has really been a friend, that what was done in '69, that the method was not chosen by me, that it was done in the context only of discovering the mishandling of sensitive information, and that my part of it which did not extend over the whole period of this activity, I believe will be shown to have been to the benefit of innocent people. By this I do not

R: No, no, I understand. I tell you, I would just suggest the following. As a thought of consolation that was written by a friend of mine, life involves suffering and transitoriness, no person can see this age of the condition of this time. The past may rob the present of much joy and must mystery. The giration of book involved in the Siberian labor camps cannot talk with the same optimism as his father's. The bliss of Dante has been lost.

K: That's very beautiful.

DECLASSIFIED
Authority E012858
Dated NAME Dated 6/2/67
P.O. Box

R: Remember that.

K: Yes.

R: Well, I think that this can be explained. It does look a little bad now. I think it's terribly important to make clear where the original order came from. I think that's the main thing, and that's a hard factual point that I was trying to get from Pete. But I don't press you on that, I just hope that you know all this can be--

K: It did not come from me.

R: Right. I hope this - this and the Congress doesn't make it impossible for you to negotiate, but you have an awful weak hand now.

K: It's awfully tough now.

R: Yep. Well good luck Henry, and I'll see you when get back.

K: I'll see Monet while I'm there.

R: Give him my very best.

K: Right.

R: All the best. Goodbye.

K: Bye.

DECLASSIFIED

Authority E012858

D.HT NARA DRE 6/2/04

TELCOM

Seymour Hersh (NY Times)/Mr. Kissinger

5:45 pm, May 15, 1973

H: Hi, Dr. Kissinger. I know we're driving you half crazy. All of your friends are telling us if we don't stop, you're going to leave and you're a national asset and I think we all agree. I know Scotty certainly does and we do here but none of us --

K: I know. No, no; you do your job. It's a little disconcerting for me to have to spend all my time --

H: Of course.

K: Answering phone calls.

H: Well, let me tell you the more bad news I have. And that is, that the circumstance... beyond the bureaucracy's control right now. Everybody is leaking everything as you know.

K: Right.

H: And I know most of the people who were tapped but three of them I'm absolutely positive about I am mentioning and without any question of justification. I'm just telling you this advance warning -- It's going to be painful. It's Tony Lake and Dan Davidson, who won't ____ that much and of course, Winston Lord also was tapped. And the other thing I now know beyond a shadow of a doubt are these two factors, which I think -- I'm just telling you this as a matter -- very clearly this was a decision made above you, which I have now satisfied myself that you are absolutely right. This is a decision made specifically of course, by the Attorney General and the Director of the FBI and also by Mr. Nixon himself, who in May of 1971 met with Mr. Hoover and Mr. Haldeman at which time it was agreed, as the FBI people put it, the mail which were the results of these taps would no longer go to you and Mr. Haig -- Mr. H was your Deputy for this and, of course, was handling it for you -- but would go to Mr. Haldeman's shop instead.

K: It must have been earlier than May '71.

H: Well, that's just somebody's recollection.

K: Because the whole thing ended in February '71 so it must have been May

H: May '70. I'll go back and make sure -- you know, dates are very hazy. In other words, within -- It all started by the way because of the Beecher story about the bombing of Cambodia.

DECEMBER

Authority E.O. 12958

DALLA NARAD, DRE 6/2/73

Seymour Hersh/Mr. Kissinger

5:45 pm, May 15, 1973

2

k: Yeah, that sounds right.

H: Yeah. Well, anyway, in effect, what I'm writing tonight -- I just wanted you to know and I know that there's a tremendous amount of loyalty here but I am writing and for the life of me -- You know, I must say, I don't understand why those people who handle press for the White House don't get up and say there are a lot of reasons and lots have been told that you've discovered some very damaging things about three or four people; you also had some taps on in the Pentagon. I'm not suggesting where the information came but there was information that these did prove to be somewhat valuable in terms of who was talking about what.

K: Because we don't want to hurt people

H: That's right. But nonetheless, if you don't say that, it seems to me you're all going to get trampled here. Particularly, the President. The President for God's sake, authorized these.

K: That is correct.

H: Of course, that's correct.

K: But, Mr. Hersh, if you look at it from the point of view of results, and I'm assuming this is not for quotation.

H: We're not quoting you. I just thought you --

K: If you look at it from the point of view of results, if I had wanted to get Mort Halperin, I didn't need to have a wire tap on him.

H: You could just -- I know.

K: Because you know how many people in this town were gunning for him.

H: That's right.

K: Particularly in this Administration.

H: And particularly since he made a stupid thing on his security clearance I'm told by my FBI people.

K: Exactly.

H: He forgot to mention a trip to Russia.

DECLASSIFIED
Authority E012958
Dated NARA ID 6/2/04

Seymour Hersh/Mr. Kissinger

5:45 pm, May 15, 1973

K: Exactly. So the minute -- If I wanted to get him, all I had to do was let them follow normal procedures. I kept him in the government and I kept him on as a consultant after he left to make him eligible for future employment. And now you know, how devoted I was to Tony Lake and Ann.

H: Of course. I know that from them, of course.

K: And Dan Davidson is a friend of mine. And I'm sorry you have to mention their names.

H: Well, that's just a -- Let me just say this, that I will say that most of these taps proved to justify clear people who were suspected of things but you had a terrific problem, you were moving into a very hostile bureaucracy. I mean, the funny thing is this all could have been -- It's just like the Watergate, it all could have been handled with such great ease. I don't have to tell you that. Your instinct about press relations is much better than 98% of them. It's one, tell the truth and if you have to take a lump, take a lump. And if it comes out that there was a tap because of something, you stand up and say the President -- Well, let me read you a quote from a friend of yours. He said: Damn right, we would have been irresponsible in 1969. It would have been the highest order of irresponsibility if we hadn't gone and put these taps on. But instead of saying that, we get the weaseling. Well, I'm writing this tomorrow and that's at least going to do one thing, it's going to get it in focus that we had between you and any decision, we had the President and we had Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Hoover. And I have no idea whether you were swept along reluctantly or eagerly but the fact is that I think this will put the record correct.

K: But the question is what were the motives here? And was any innocent person hurt?

H: No, the answer is no.

K: I think the motives were honorable and had to be conducted in the interests of the country. It turned out to be a protection for innocent people the way it was handled, at least as long as I knew anything about it. You're quite right, I have not used that after -- I didn't know what the date was but after May -- It must have been '70 because it was less than a year.

H: Then it was '70, I was wrong about the date. And it went to Mr. Haldeman.

K: It no longer came through my office. And after that I did not know exactly what was being done.

Seymour Hersh/Mr. Kissinger

4

H: Look, get that goddamn Russian in here and get this off page one, that's all I can say.

K: Well, let me say to you, I think you are -- that I appreciate the spirit with which you are handling this.

H: Well, it's not going to be a nice story. I mean, it's going to be an honorable story and it's going to say very clearly that responsible people are convinced they had a serious problem and in the long run they discovered enough information to make them feel that it was justified, which are very serious things to say. But, look, the other thing -- the only spirit is truth, as you know, Dr. Kissinger, and I assume that's the one we all work on.

K: Loo, at this point, the only thing that needs to concern us all, whatever our different views may be, is to preserve some integrity and dignity for this country.

H: I hat's right.

K: And to get us back to some things that we can be proud of. That is in everybody's interests at the moment.

H: Agreed.

K: And that's what, you know, in my own way, that's what I'm trying to do here.

H: Well, look, I'm alarmed about one thing. As somebody who has been a neutralist -- a neutral critic, I hate to see you do anything rash. I'll call up Matt Messelson (?) and tell him to give you a pep talk. Don't do anything rash, please don't.

K: No, no; I won't do anything.

H: You know, on the basis of conversation, somebody is going to float a story saying Kissinger is distressed and personally upset and ready to leave.

K: No, that I don't believe.

H: Well, all right. I mean, nobody here is going to write that but you know people are talking. Your friends are talking that you're very upset and I want you to know that in this office anyway, as you know from your dealings with Bernie, Scotty and everybody --

DECEMBER 30, 1985
Authority E012858
D# 147 NARA Doc 67047

Seymour Hersh/Mr. Kissinger

5

K: Look, you've been more than fair to me.

H: Well, you know that.

K: I know. Look, I've always said, and I told Scotty a little while ago, whatever is done -- You know, he offered me a chance to put it in perspective from my point of view and I told him I didn't want to do this because either your investigation would bring out the essential facts or it would simply be another official running for cover. And I think you've come, more or less, you know, there are many complexities here which you can't do justice to in a story but I think what you have told me is not unfair.

H: Well, as I understand it from someone who was close to the President, his motives were simply of a great concern of insuring, you know, what he considered to be incredibly dangerous leaks were stopped, period.

K: That is correct.

H: And nothing else.

K: That is correct. And since your mentioning that original thing, if you remember at that time, we were bombing in Cambodia and Sihanouk was not protesting.

H: Right.

K: And that was one of the most sensitive things we were doing.

H: That's right. And it was a quiet operation, hopefully -- and Bill Beecher's story, yes. By the way, it wasn't Mort Halperin, I'm sure you know that by now, who leaked it. But that's some time --

K: I don't know who it was but I never thought Halperin was a leaker.

H: No. Even to this day and neither is Tony, much to our disgust. You know we try like hell.

K: Tony is a fine person and I have never said one word against any of these people.

H: He knows that. Okay, Dr. Kissinger.

K: Right, thank you.

wgh

DECE ASSIGNED
Amity E012858
NARA Dkt 6/2/78
Hl

TELCON

Ben Franklin, New York Times/Mr. Kissinger

7:52 pm, May 15, 1973

K: Hello.

F: Ben Franklin, New York Times. Do you remember in connection with that crazy story about Hoffa going to Hanoi --

K: Yeah.

F: Whether there was a meeting at San Clemente between you and Harold Gibbons and that little Mr. William Taub?

K: Oh, yeah.

F: There was?

K: Yes.

F: In July? He says July 5th.

K: That sounds reasonable.

F: Yeah. Did the question of a pardon for Hoffa come up?

K: Absolutely not -- Oh, yes, wait a minute. No, no; not a pardon. What he wanted was the right to go there.

F: The right to go.

K: Yeah.

F: Did he get it?

K: No, because I then talked to the -- Well, you know, this turned into an insane situation. They showed me cables which they construed as invitation from the North Vietnamese.

F: Yeah.

K: I then stalled them. I met Le Duc Tho two weeks later. They told me it was not an invitation and after that I dropped my contacts.

F: Well, how was he able to revive it in September?

K: Because he went to the State Department and pretended that he had had an arrangement with me.

DECLASSIFIED

Authority: EOU/2958

DATE: NARAD: 6/2/94

Ben Franklin/Mr. Kissinger

7:52 pm, May 15, 1973

2

F: And pretended? Well, he says he went to Justice.

K: Oh, he went to Justice. I, frankly, you know, I've been on the phone all day long -- One person after another is trying to reconstruct activities. Sometimes I wonder where the hell we are in this country.

F: (laughter)

K: I have been trying to conduct the foreign policy of the United States under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. Do you think I remember every last nuance of what happened?

F: No, of course not.

K: As far as I was concerned, it was finished at the end of July. How Taub then convinced people at Justice that he should go is totally beyond my knowledge. It was beyond my knowledge then. He went to Justice -- As I recall it, he got himself some sort of a waiver and then got himself some sort of a passport.

F: Um-hum.

K: I had no interest in the matter. My only interest in the matter was that I knew Harold Gibbons, who had been in Hanoi 6 months previously. I did not want to be in the position where somebody could say a chance to release prisoners was presented to me and I turned it down. I, therefore, talked to Taub and Gibbons.

F: Um-hum.

K: I stalled them long enough so that I could determine what the facts were.

F: And that was when you broke off contact and that was the end of it.

K: That was the end of it at the end of July.

F: Yeah. Were you astonished when it appeared in the papers that he had almost gotten underway again?

K: I was totally astonished.

F: Okay, good luck.

K: But then he used -- You know, he used his contacts with me at Justice. This was not a matter to which I paid any particular attention. Once I had

DECLASSIFIED
Authority E012858
Dated NARA Dkt 6/2/74

Ben Franklin/Mr. Kissinger

7:52 pm, May 15, 1973

K: (cont'd) settled it, I thought it was over. And to my amazement, it had flared up again at the end of August.

F: Um-hum. But didn't they check with you to see if his alleged contacts were any good?

K: No. Because if they had, I would have told them. And I made the mistake of not sending a report to the State Department because the matters didn't seem consequential to me, nor did I ever think it would reach them.

F: Yeah.

K: So it fell between the cracks.

F: Yep. Do you recall -- This is getting into the area of your total recall when you are indeed running the foreign policy of the United States and I sympathize that but do you recall any further attempts by him to contact you during the Republican Convention? When you were in Key Biscayne?

K: From then on, I gave the strictest orders never to put him through to me.

F: Yeah.

K: So it's quite conceivable that he may have tried but I recall no further contact with him.

F: All right. Thank you very much.

K: Right.

F: Bye.

wgh

DECLASSIFIED
Authority E012858
Dated NARA Dkt 6/2/73

TELCON

Mr. Kissinger/Secretary Clements

9:43 p. m.

5/15/73

BC: Hi, Henry.

HK: Bill. I am going off first thing in the morning, that's why I am bothering you tonight.

BC: Fine, Henry, I knew you were leaving right away.

HK: Actually it is a rather critical remark, I took rather strong exception to your comment that Saudi Arabian policy shouldn't be determined from the point of view of Israel. We don't conduct foreign policy from the point of view of Israel in this office.

BC: I don't even remember saying it, Henry.

HK: Because, you know there can be legitimate differences of opinion. I don't even have an opinion -- in fact we are almost certain to approve it--I just wanted a discussion of it.

BC: Well now, if I said that Henry, I don't remember it. It doesn't sound like me, but if you said I said it--

BC: If you say I said it--

HK: Said it shouldn't be considered only from the point of view of Israel which is certainly not our charter. Well let's not worry about it, but the thing I am trying to get done on the Middle East is to get a comprehensive policy developed.

BC: I agree with that 100%.

HK: And we haven't had that since we came here. Which isn't your fault.

BC: That is exactly right and I think you understand Henry that my objective in this regard is probably exactly the same as yours.

HK: You know, we might differ as to tactics--but look I am going to see you when I get back--I'm going to have a merry time over there--I'm going there holding a lot of cards. If I come back with anything it will be charm, I'll tell you that.

BC: Henry, I'll be thinking of you. And you can always remember that whatever I said in there it is not in any sense a personal issue between you and me. It never will be.

HK: No besides, on this one, we don't even disagree.

CLASSIFIED

Authority E012958

Dated: 6/2/04

P.O. Box

Telecon
Mr. Kissinger
Ernst Van Der Beugel
5/16/73; 8:40 a.m.

V: Hello.

K: Hello, Ernst. How are you?

V: Henry, Siegmund cannot make it Wednesday luncheon but he could make it Thursday dinner. Is that possible for you?

K: No. Because that's a big celebration here for POW returnees.

V: He can make it any other time but the point is that I'm only there for two days and leaving on Thursday evening. Have you already any impression of the possibility of our original appointment or is that very risky?

K: Well not until I meet you . . .

V: Your opposite number.

K: My opposite number who I don't think will be in the most conciliatory mood that I've encountered him. What do you think?

V: No I don't think so. But at a certain moment you must go back, of course.

K: All I can tell you is that if I achieve anything on this trip it will be due to charm.

V: (Laughter)

K: I don't know what else I've got.

V: Henry, listen, I am completely free on Wednesday for lunch so we could see each other anyhow.

K: Yeah. Well we might be able to do it some . . . I might be able to do it Tuesday. Why don't I call you from Paris?

V: As a matter of fact I will be in Paris tomorrow.

K: Oh, you will?

V: You can call me -- let's do it like this: I will be in the Pierre at about 6:00 on Tuesday and I'll wait in the Pierre until 5 minutes to eight and then I am going to have dinner with Siegmund in the Drake Hotel.

K: Okay.

DECLASSIFIED
Authority E.O. 1258
D. #1 NARA Doc 6/204

Telecon
Mr. Kissinger
French Ambassador Kosciusko-Morizet
5/16/73; 9:35 a.m.

K: Hello.

KM: Hello. How are you?

K: Okay. How are you?

KM: To answer -- it is okay for the first one -- the Egyptian one. It is okay also for your meeting Friday morning.

K: Oh, good. Will they give me a time?

KM: Your Ambassador in Paris will tell you exactly the time.

K: Okay. Fine. So that I can tell the North Vietnamese when I see them. I don't have to know it before tomorrow.

KM: But it is all right for Friday in the morning.

K: Good. Well then I will just meet with the Vietnamese in the afternoon.

KM: Yes.

K: That's the easiest way of doing it.

KM: Have a good trip and my best regards to Paris.

K: I look forward to it very much. If I prolong my stay it may only because Paris in the spring is so lovely.

KM: I know. I know.

K: Okay.

KM: I will see you when you come back.

K: Right. I look forward to it and thank you for everything.

DECLASSIFIED

Authority E012958

Dated NARA ID 6/2/04

Telecon
Mr. Kissinger
Senator Pastore
5/16/73; 9:39 a. lm.

P: Hello.

K: Senator.

P: Yes. I hate to keep bothering you.

K: Not at all. I have talked to Schlesinger. And what he wanted me to say was this: He feels he cannot commit himself to any one base but he did promise me that he would review all programs, including this.

P: The only trouble is that these people are beginning to move fast. You see somebody ought to take the bull right by the horn and let this thing stand still for a while. After all we have lived with this, Doctor, for a long, long time. That's my problem.

K: Well let me . . .

P: You see that is the point I really want to make. Now I really think this. Of course Jim would have to have some say from the President, I think, before he could change something that the President has already approved. You see that was the thing that was bothering me.

K: Mr. Chairman, I will get that word to Jim and see what his reaction is. I want you to know that I really . . .

P: I know that and I can't thank you enough and I know it is a little bit out of your shop. I realize all this but you are my point of contact.

K: Not really and you've been such a patriot that you deserve every consideration.

P: There is an article in the paper today that this is going to affect 19,000 civilian jobs in my state.

K: Yeah.

P: I mean that is hell. In Rhode Island that's hell.

K: I will get a call to Schlesinger before I leave.

P: All right and I will talk to him, too.

K: You talk to him. He's a great admirer of yours.

P: You didn't get a chance to talk to the Chief, did you?

DELEGATED
Authority E012958
PARK BLDG. R/W

6/24/73

TELCON

Amb. Dobrynin, Mr. Kissinger

5/16/73 9:47 a.m.

HK: Anatol.

AD: Oh, you are here

HK: No, I am leaving. I just called to get my final instructions.

AD: Oh I see. I take it you had a nice day yesterday with the Emporer.

HK: He is one of the great--very interesting men of this time.

AD: I remember that you mentioned to the Secretary-General.

HK: I certainly did. Anatol on this treaty, it is the President's judgment and mine that we should not do the legal checking until I am back from Paris. Because I just hate the thought of what these guys will do if they can't call men.

AD: I think it's good enough.

HK: And really now you just tell Gromyko--he's an experienced man.

AD: No, no, no, it is no problem.

HK: It is really the only kinds of changes that can possibly be made--it would belike the sort of thing you gave me yesterday--

AD: I understand.

HK: I do have a desire to sign it--I want to put my name in the middle between the President and the General-Secretary as the intermediary--

AD: I understand (laughing) No it is quite all right.

HK: But that won't cause any trouble. My father would like it.

AD: (laughing) All right. Well, else will happen on this here--on this letter of the President will--

HK: And you don't mind if we sign a similar treaty with some other country two weeks before just to show--tell Gromyko that's the only worry he needs to have.

DECLASSIFIED

Page 2

AD: (laughing) Two weeks before.

HK: Two weeks before.

AD: Henry, he is leaving just for West Germany and I don't want to have him have a nervous breakdown.

HK: No really, tell them, I have talked to the President--there is no danger, we will do the legal checking next week and that within a week after that we can make it absolutely final. And

AD: Okay.

HK: And we will send over a friendly letter of the President--we'll send a longer one next week.

AD: When will you be back?

HK: When I'll be back--which will be the 22nd or 23rd.

AD: Okay. There is a party which you mentioned--a first-advance party--today--

HK: Oh--well General Scowcroft can be contacted here and if any stupidities are committed before you get mad, check with us, will you.

AD: Yeh, yeh. I will. Henry, please ask him--Scowcroft to tell me who--was one of your boys who was in Moscow-to give me your English text of the communique--your text, just for myself, and if possible, to give English text of the documents you were given in Moscow--I mean about these SALT talks--

HK: The principle--

AD: The principals--(?) because I have everything in Russia while I was there,

HK: Now you want the English text of what you gave us--

AD: Yes, all the English texts we gave you for there could be some discrepancies

HK: All right. English texts of the principals and what was the first thing you wanted?

AD: And your text of communique.

HK: All right. It'll be over this morning.

AD: I think that is all--do you have anything encouraging you could tell me?

DECLASSIFIED
Authority: E012055
By: WW. Knauf, 5/24/74

Page 3

HK: No, we will not invade any countries while I am gone, if you won't.

AD: Tomorrow, I will be prepared to give you this assurance if you would like

HK: Okay. Tell the General-Secretary that we wish him a successful trip to the Federal Republic--which shows you how far our relations have come.

AD: I will--

HK: I am serious--I don't mean that cynically.

AD: What was the reaction of the President to the letter he received yesterday?

HK: Very positive. He was just talking about it. It was a very warm letter and you are to be congratulated for your draftmanship.

AD: (laughing) come on I didn't say anything.

HK: No, it was a good letter. Very positive and the President was very pleased.

AD: I think it was a good one. I am looking for you back the 22 or 23.

HK: Right, probably the 22nd. If I am in a straightjacket when I am back here don't let it worry you. Can you imagine seeing the Assistant in the morning and Le Duc Tho in the afternoon.

AD: I guess it will be simultaneous play--it will be one by one, but simultaneous play. You mean you meet in the morning and then in the afternoon--

HK: Yeh. I am seeing Ismail on Saturday morning and Le Duc Tho on Saturday afternoon.

AD: Henry, I do not envy you, *thunk* at all. I am going to write to Gromyko that you need at least one week in Alcapulca after this.

HK: That's right. But really wish them both a good trip to the Federal Republic.

AD: From both you and the President, right?

HK: That's right from the President and me.

AD: Okay, I will definitely. Okay, Henry, I will see you *until* you get back. No changes here in the State Department by the way, *after* you get back.

HK: After I am back, probably.

AD: 'But no *talking*/ before you arrive back?

DECLASSIFIED
Authority
Date 10/25/82
By: W.J. Mains

TELCONE

Amb. Dobrynin/Mr. Kissinger

5/16/73 9:47 a.m.

HK: Anatol.

AD: Oh, you are here

AD: I think it's good enough.

AD: I understand.

DECT ASSIGNED

Authority E012858
Dated NARA No. 6/204

AD: (laughing) I weeks before.

HK: Two weeks before.

MD: Okay.

AD: When will you be back?

AD: Yeh, yeh. I will. Henry, please ask him--Scowcroft to tell me who--was one of your boys who was in Moscow-Oto give me your English text of the communique--your text, just for myself, and if possible, to give English text of the documents you were given in Moscow--I mean about these SALT talks--

HK: The principle--

AD: The principals--(?) because I have everything in Russia while I was there.

AD: Yes, all the English texts we gave you for there could be some discrepancy

DECLASSIFIED
Authority E012858
Dated NARA Ref. 6/2/89

Page 3

AD: I will--

AD: Henry, I do not envy you, thank at all. I am going to write to Gromyko that you need at least one week in Alcapulca after this i.

AD: Okay, I will definitely. Okay, Henry, I will see you when you get back. No changes here in the State Department by the way, until you get back.

AD: But no talking before you arrive back?

DELEGATED
Authority EO 12958
D# NARA Dkt 6/2/79

TELCONE

5/16/73 9:55 a. m.

Mr. Kissinger/Peter Worthington

PW Oh Dr. Kissinger?

HK: Yes.

PW: Oh good, thank you very much for calling back. My name is Peter Worthington.

HK: Yes, I know.

PW: Yeah. This is a question that is sort of off the beaten track in a sense, but in British House of Commons, the British liberal party leader raised the question about the communications with Washington regarding a letter by Lord Harding regarding the possible rescue of the Czar. I don't know if you are aware of--

HK: Oh I have heard that and I think it is total nonsense.

PW: Good. So there is no--

HK: We've looked into that once before but you have to address this to the State Department anyway.

PW: Well, the connection, of course, was supposed to be the White House declassifying certain....

HK: I know that question has come in here three times before and we never found it. I have no reason to believe that this has the lightest truth to it.

PW: That the document even exists.

HK: That's right. But I have to run off.

PW: Thank you very much for calling.

D.ECLASSIFIED
Authority E012858
D. Att NARA Doc 61274

Telcon
Mr. Kissinger
Len Garment
5/20/73; 3:00 p.m.

K: Hello.

G: Henry, two things. First, there is very little progress on the -- getting support from the Jewish group.

K: Very little?

G: Very real!

K: Very real!

G: I've heard from a couple of key people.

K: Marvelous.

G: Now the key thing is -- and this is supported by Dinitz -- is for us not to abstain as apparently we are planning to do tomorrow morning on the vote on the condemnation of Israel.

K: Well, we will abstain only if they change their resolution drastically.

G: Well, I don't know -- they have to change the resolution drastically you say?

K: Yeah.

G: Well, whatever it is. I mean there has to be -- that could be a key thing. If we abstain under circumstances that are perceived as a back down to this community here, we will lose these few key people who have switched over.

K: Yeah.

G: Maybe I ought to find out a little more about what they are talking about.

K: Yeah.

G: It's rather vague. What things are we asking for?

DELEGATES

Authority EO 12958
Date 5/20/73
Dated NARA File 6/2/73

5/20/73; 3:00 p.m.

K: We are asking them to condemn acts of violence -- I mean acts of terrorism.

G: Right.

K: Not just deplore them. We are asking them to take out the threat of further action and we are asking them to say all parties should stop military attacks and acts of violence.

G: This is in addition to the condemnation of the Israelis for whatever they did.

K: One it condemns acts of violence; paragraph two condemns the Israeli military attacks. It's a little unbalanced in the sense that it doesn't single out who commits the acts of violence.

G: As it does Israel.

K: Yeah.

G: Military attacks.

K: But it has come a long, long way from the original draft.

G: It's still a problem. It's a question of which is more important. You are the judge of that. This could be just the kind of thing that could be used by Jackson and some other ______ to push the Jewish leaders back into line again because they don't know what's going on.

K: I'll take a reading on it this afternoon.

G: All right. Thank you.

CLASSIFIED

Authority: EO 12958

D. Att. NARR. DATE: 6/2/04

Telcon
Mr. Kissinger
Ron Ziegler (Key Biscayne)

5/20/73 - PM

Z: Yes, Henry.

K: Ron. Since everything seems to run in circles in our machine and I
am not saying it's from you but probably from your leader and since I want
to make absolutely sure my position is clearly understood, my position is
what is inevitable should happen fast but I can't judge its inevitably. So
I am not passing judgment since I don't know the facts on the inevitability
of what may have to happen and that is the view I have maintained to the
President and that is the view I have personally given to the parties
concerned.

Z: Okay, Henry. Let me just tell you I have never mentioned any of
our conversations.

K: Good. Well I hope you maintain . . .

Z: I simply have not.

K: Well I think it would be best if you maintain this.

Z: And I will not because there is no need for me to repeat a position which
he already knows.

K: Right.

Z: Have you talked to the two parties?

K: Yeah.

Z: What was their reaction?

K: Well they don't think it is inevitable.

Z: You talked to them today?

K: Yeah. I can't judge that. In the absence of facts I can't judge that.

Z: Okay, Henry, I have not mentioned that and I will not.

K: Okay, good, Ron. Have a good weekend.

Z: Thanks for calling.

CLASSIFIED

E012958

Dated: 6/2/73

*

TelCon

Pierre Salinger/Mr. Kissinger

9:37 am, May 24, 1973

K: Hello

S: Welcome Home

K: Hello, Pierre, how are you.

S: That's my home town.

K: Yeah, I'm spending more time in yours. I'm spending more time in Paris these days.

S: That's true. Well, I'm going home tonight. But, do you see any eventuality in the next couple of weeks that we can do that interview.

K: Look, I think things might develop that over the next month I might want to do it, but seriously.

S: Yeah, I think it's coming up to a good time to do it.

K: Yeah. I frankly think so too. I'd like to get a few things sorted out here.

S: Right.

K: So that

S: What about, I'll be in Paris

K: I think it would be better if we can look into the future rather than

S: Right

K: Don't you think.

S: I agree. I think it should be that kind of an interview. I asked for that, I'm not interested in all that other stuff.

K: Oh, I know you're not, I'm talking of your readers.

S: Right, and our readers are interested in the future.

K: I know. So what I thought is that we should do it when the various musical chairs are somewhat completed here. And that should be within the next four weeks.

DELEGATED
Authority E012058
DATE NARAYAN 6/2/73

Telcon
Mr. Kissinger
Bernard Gwertzman
5/24/73; 9:45 a.m.

K: Hello.

G: How are you? Welcome back to Washington.

K: Okay.

G: A couple of things. Is there anything I can amplify on what you said at the airport yesterday? Do you expect anything to happen in Cambodia?

K: No. I have a firm understanding with the North Vietnamese that neither of us would say something and you know we have a delicate negotiation going on. We have made significant progress. It was carefully said. He made a point of stepping before television things with me after our meeting. It wasn't carried here because there are domestic preoccupations.

had

G: I fully understand. I have hardly had a story in the newspapers in about two weeks I think. There is nothing in particular -- I am just wondering whether we should watch for anything significant on the battlefield out there? I assume the bombing was going on.

K: I think for the next two weeks you will see essentially see the status quo, maybe slightly lower in Vietnam, but I wouldn't even speculate on that. I say that only because today I saw a report where there no transgressions at all.

G: Boy! In South Vietnam?

K: Yeah. I saw it but you better confirm it.

G: I see. Okay. The other thing is -- I don't know if you've had a chance to note it -- but John Newhouse has written his book on the SALT talks.

K: Yeah. I haven't seen it.

G: Well, Murray in the Post say -- I was working on this yesterday also -- he just quotes from the book. I've been trying to get some confirmation on this one point which is sort of embarrassing I suppose to the Russians where he says in July of 1970 Semenov (?) proposed a sort of Joint Agreement on acts against another nuclear power that might have provocative actions which he says the US immediately . . .

K: Well, Bernie, let me tell you this. What happened -- off the record just so that you can evaluate it -- when the Russians have important business they do it with me. But there are a lot of boy scouts running around that delegation who think there are things of huge significance occurring.

DELEGATED
Authority E.O. 2958
Dated N.A.A. 6/24/73

-2-

G: Uh-huh.

K: Now in July 1970 I must say my channel wasn't all the firmly established. So it isn't impossible that they made some such reference but it never got kicked up to our level.

G: Oh, in other words, you are saying it wasn't a formal proposal. He is saying in his book that it was a formal proposal.

K: I am saying in my judgment -- I read it as sort of the self-important crap that these guys push back and forth at each other. You know if I then called in Dobrynin and said listen Semenov said this what you willing to do. It might or might not mean something.

G: I see. I see. In other words you have the view that Semenov was trying to make some points on his own out there.

K: That is my impression of this.

G: So it is really more of a feeler than -- you are not even sure it was authorized.

K: Well -- you know he must have. You know Semenov is a bit of a bullshitter.

G: Laughter -- yes.

K: And I don't doubt that he would have liked to come home and say that Jerry Smith said that we are willing to do something jointly against China.

G: Uh-huh.

K: That wouldn't have hurt him any in Moscow.

G: Yeah. I see. I see. But it was raised there and not with ... to the President or you. I know this is off-the-record.

K: Bernie -- off-the-record -- if it had been raised through the President or me it would never have seen the light of day.

G: Laughter. He's got an awful lot of material in that book. I don't know how much of it is ...

DEPT ASSIGNED

Authority: EO 12988
Date: 5/24/73
Page: 1/2

Dated: N/A

5/24/73; 9:45 a.m.

-3-

K: Well, I haven't read the book. I must say what I saw in the New Yorker which was only the first two installments was good and Newhouse is good.

G: Oh, yeah. No, you will enjoy it. I would like to talk to you sometime when you get a chance to read the -- the current issue of the New Yorker which will be on the newsstand today -- I just read that.

K: And my office didn't cooperate all that much with him so it may be a little skewered towards the delegation.

G: No., no. It's well -- it puts a lot of emphasis on your backchannel with Dobrynin and I suppose it has a certain -- no, I think it probably ______ sort of activist, which is true.

K: That is true, yes.

G: For the experts there is a . . .

K: Now look, John Newhouse is excellent. I am not attacking him.

G: I understand.

K: But you know, there is one thing about these negotiations, Bernie, you get these guys out and Helsinki and Vienna.

G: Yeah.

K: When you get off the immediate subject and they sometimes read a tremendous significance in the book to something that isn't all that important.

G: Yeah. yeah.

K: Now I don't doubt it's never far from the Soviets' mind and I don't doubt that Semenov said something like it. But it was not a reflection of what went on at our level.

G: Right. He then says that the hot-line agreement was a sort of gesture on our part to answer some of the Soviet problems about these provocative attacks that was raised in the Chinese context and . . .

K: No, no, no, no. Now, Bernie, let me tell you how it happened. In January 1971 the Soviets and we deliberately decided that we were going to start moving Up to that we had been more or less fencing. We then -- Dobrynin and I

DECE. AGREEED

Authority E.O. 12958

Dated NARA Dkt 6/2/73

-4-

deliberately -- we went through all the outstanding issues to see which
could be settled quickly. And this was one of them.

G: I see.

K: Now that doesn't mean -- so it wasn't really so much geared towards
answering specific concerns but rather to go through the agenda items --
of course the hot-line one -- the hot-line in our mind here was really
more geared towards if something odd happens in bilateral relations such
as a plane going wild or something like that.

G: Right.

K: How we can communicate more effectively.

G: Right.

K: Or any foreseeable Chinese problem -- it won't happen so fast that we
will need a hot-line.

G: Uh-huh. Yeah. So that's what I thought at the time, also.

K: Now I can just tell you what was in my mind and the hot-line thing was
really done between Dobrynin and me on behalf of our principals.

G: Yeah. Yeah. I wish I could talk to you about this other stuff -- you
know.

K: Vietnam?

G: No. No. I meant the stuff the columnists have been badgering me with.
I am so sorry. I must have saw about four different on the TIMES last week.

K: I have decided that the atmosphere is such that you make yourself a
defendant and there is no end to it. I think any reading of what the President
put out on Tuesday incidentally without my knowledge and without my
whetting it make it perfectly clear that my office or I had nothing to do with
any of the security things that were being done except the first batch. And
if anyone should think that anyone could believe that something ordered by
the President authorized by the Attorney General and carried out by the

DELEGATED
Authority E012858
DATE NARATIVE 6/20/73

-6-

K: I mean somebody has to continue the business of Government and that's
what I am going to try to do.

G: Uh-huh. Yes. I must say our editorials about Brezhnev I thought have
been well ______.

K: The editorial on Brezhnev is unbelievable. We've been negotiating
with the Russians for over a year. In fact for over a year. Anyone who
has watched our policy must know that we must have the summit essentially
set. Anyone who has seen us work -- I don't think there's any reason why we
and you'll have the agreements which we may or may not make anyway to
analyze. We will see whether we made any additional concessions.

G: Uh-huh. As I say I couldn't believe it and when the repeated it
the second time I know I just couldn't . . .

K: But if we cancel it -- a confession of lack of continuity in American is
unbelievable.

G: Yeah. Yeah. I agree and I am sure the Russians feel much the same
way.

K: Listen, how you handled the Zavidivo visit. When has Brezhnev ...
No westerner has ever been in Zavidivo. Nobody has had four full days
with Brezhnev ever.

G: Yeah.

K: I mean that was after all the major political facts.

G: I didn't realize you -- he was there for the whole four days.

K: He was there. He lived in one house and I lived in a house across the
street and we spent every waking practically together.

G: He usually doesn't have much to talk about.

K: Well, he took me boar hunting. He took me boat riding.

G: Yeah.

DECE ASSIGNED

Authority: EO 12958
Dated: 6/2/73

NARRATED BY

-7-

K: I am not even saying that there is that much to talk about. I am saying it's an investment.

G: Well, sure. And he obviously was sending a signal as well. I mean the fact that he could have easily just met you and had somebody else dealing with you if he wanted to.

K: He could have met in Moscow. He could have met with me two hours a day.

G: Sure. It was clear that he wanted to let the world know that he . . .

K: I am not at his level.

G: Yeah. Sure.

K: You know I am just talking protocol.

G: Yeah.

K: Technically Gromyko is above my level.

G: Yeah.

K: If you don't print it, I told Gromyko that now that he is a member of the Politboro he was raised to my level.

G: Laughter. Well I guess you know who is in the politboro here and who is in ______ but I can't . . .

K: But I said it before everything here blew up.

G: The Europeans have also been sniping away but I can't tell if it's just the reporters looking for a controversy.

K: Well, it's partly the reporters. I think at the highest level they understand and that's going to work itself out over the next month or so.

G: Yeah. I've been urging my papers not to bury the speech yet. There is a tendency to over react too quickly.

DELEGATED
Authority E012858

Dated NARA Doc. 6/2/04

K: No, no, I think we are going to have that on track in another two or three weeks.

G: After your Pompidou meeting?

K: Pompidou and then by the end of June I hope we have it well on track.

G: Okay. I am sorry to bother you.

K: But look the Watergate stuff was a personal . . .

G: I understood. I won't even tell anybody. On that Russian . . .

K: It was made but it was not a reflection of what went on at the highest level.

G: It was made but it wasn't regarded as a very significant proposal by the government.

K: It was not treated as a very significant proposal.

G: But it was rejected quickly, anyway?

K: It was ignored.

G: It was ignored. ______ says it was immediately rejected and informed the NATO countries of it so that there would be no ______ that the US was ganging up on NATO.

K: Oh, from the NATO point of view, yes that is right.

G: I see. I see. But you never made a formal response?

K: Within the NATO context -- I thought you meant it within the China context.

R: To the Soviets. Did we make a formal response to the Soviets?

K: I'd have to check. I think we probably rejected it.

G: Yeah, well that's right. I was just curious --in '70 they were already negotiating with the Chinese and I thought they would have -- this kind of phobia just carries right over.

K: No. No question. Okay, Bernie, I better go.

TelCon
Senator Javits/Mr. Kissinger

10:07 am, May 24, 1973

K: Hello.

J: Hello, Henry.

K: Jack, how nice to hear from you.

J: I gather that from what I heard, Henry, that you wanted that project dropped.

K: Well no, as I understood it you couldn't proceed because of your brother's death.

J: Well that was true. But also I ran into a problem with getting one or two Democrats.

K: Well, it's entirely up to you.

J: I've got to--

K: My understanding was that it might be turned into a general expression of support rather than referring to a specific event.

J: Exactly right.

K: And if that were done I would welcome it greatly.

J: Well, I've got that very much on order. Now is it likely that you would be coming up here for what you told me the possibility of talking with the Foreign Relations Committee.

K: Any time you want me to.

J: Well I'd like to, ah, why don't you give Bill a ring.

K: Why don't we do it next week.

J: Yeah, give Bill a ring and tell him you're back and that you'd be glad to come up any time that he would like to establish it. That would give me the framework to come back to the members of the Committee because essentially that's where I expect to get the necessary support.

K: Right. I think given, you know, all the negotiations in which I'm involved, it would be a tremendously supportive thing it you would get it in a general way.

2

K

J: Yeah, well I think I can.

K: It would mean a great deal to me.

J: I think I can, but I think the frame of reference would be a meeting by you with the Committee.

K: I'll call Bill immediately.

J: Now, the other think I wanted to mention to you is this. I took occasion to go over there yesterday for some little thing the President had, he's giving some award, and we had a word about Europe.

K: Right.

J: And he said--I said to him that I thought that I ought to tell him what I know about it, and he said he thought that was a fine idea. He said he'd leave it to me as to whether to have it before or after he saw Pompidou, though he preferred to do it after unless I felt that--

K: I think Jack it'd be better after.

J: That's what I think too, the only thing I did not want to do is just let it go by default without asking you. Now here's what he said. He said that if I was going to talk to him about Europe, on the political side, it should be with you. Was that all right with me. And I said it was great, it couldn't be better. He said if we were going to do economics it ought to be with Flanigan. I told Flanigan after we left the President's office that I would talk with him separately about economics. I would prefer to have a meeting with you and the President.

K: I think it's better and we can -- may change that arrangement anyway.

J: Yeah. All right. I will handle the economic thing with him, and we'll wait until after the Pompidou meeting before applying for--

K: Jack, let me ask you as long as I've got you on the phone about this. On an off the record basis. I know the Committee is holding up Graham Martin's confirmation.

J: Right.

K: For a variety of reasons. Partly he's also in tandem with Sullivan and Godley. Now if these negotiations with the North Vietnamese will succeed, and I think they will, it will be terribly

CLASSIFIED
Authority ED 1258
Dated MAR 16 1976
DAN

important that we get our Ambassador out there immediately
so that he can help us put the arm on Thieu to carry out some
of these things.

J: Well, I think Sullivan can be cleared.

K: No, it's Martin that we

J: Oh, it's Martin that you want.

K: We also want Sullivan, but Martin is the time urgent one.

J: Martin is the one that goes to the State Department.

K: No, Martin is the one that goes to Saigon.

J: Oh, I see. Well let me get this straight. It's Godley that's
going to State.

K: That's right.

J: Godley to State, Martin to Saigon and Sullivan to Manilla.
I will see you Saturday night. Be sure we talk about it.

K: Good, Jack.

J: Okay.

K: Marvelous, Jack

J: Take care.

K: Bye.

DECLASSIFIED
Authority ED 12958
Dated NARA Ref 6/2/04

TELCONE

Amb. Peterson/Kissinger

11:20 a.m. - 5/24/73

K: I hope you'll keep your mouth shut down there tomorrow.

P: I thought I'd assume the offensive. Why should I keep my mouth shut? What have I got to lose?

K: That's right.

P: I've been accused of maligning him in life which is fewer risks than I pay out and it isn't to take full advantage of it.

K: Listen Pete, Haig called you yesterday at my request but he got everything a little bit screwed up. You know I talked to him before I left and said we want to move on that when I get back but I also told him to say it thinking I'd be back. Let me tell you what I have in mind. The more I thought of our conversation the more it seemed to me that it just wouldn't work on a few months basis, even if you wanted to only stay a few months. You see what I mean.

P: Um-hmmm.

K: But your clients had to have the sense that you were a more permanent feature than the people you'd have to deal with and that's why I had thought of Under Secretary of State. Then I thought more and thought no, we had to get you something else as your base. Now I think - what I have in mind, Pete, and I've been reinforced in that by my trip to Europe. As you to work closely with me as being a man who more or less the Year or Europe. And on top of that you get a restructuring CIAP which will be in closer relationship to the NSC because it just doesn't work as a totally separate thing-- at least the way it is now. Either Presidential appointment and which I think would now work and I really think that you and I together could then run American foreign policy.

P: Yeh. Well okay, I'll think about it. I think the risks are very high, Henry.

HK: Pete, at this time, as I told you once--it is like being asked to take over Titantic after it hit the iceberg. The risks are enormous but the changes are as equally enormous for the country. And there is a few of us who have a little credibility left, don't start moving now and do what is right, I really think the risks are enormous. On the other hand, the opportunitie

DELEGATED

Authority E.O. 12958

Date 6/2/73
From NARA File

Page 2

are fantastic because we have got the shits out of here now

P: Hmhuh. Right. Well let me think about it a little bit--I am rather reluctant at the moment. Could that other assignment to do the negotiating that you and I discussed--

K: No--that will--I'll also that anyway--

P: Because that could be an open-ended thing in which we didn't specify you know--

K: That you have to do in any event because, Pete, I've become totally convinced that it takes somebody with great stature and imagination and who except for his personal dislike for me thinks the say way--

P: (Laughing) Well, I agree with all that--Listen you are still on for tomorrow, I hope with Shultz?

K: Is it tomorrow?

P: Yeh.

K: What time.

P: 2:30

K: Okay.

P: And I do want--And I hate--You know my bathtub mentality, I do want to get involved in the substance of what the hell we are talking about here. And that may help usthink *x* through some of the other problems.

K: Well, if in the 5th year of an Administration that is so substance oriented, you have difficulty discussing substance I don't know why it would be.

P: Could you give me a capsule on what their attitudes are over there toward our domestic problems and any kind of--

K: At this point, their attitude towards our domestic problems is that they think we are insane. That we are tearing ourselves to pieces over what they consider trivialities--I'm serious. I mean when it was just Watergate they were . When you could throw in wire taps which all of them *x* are doing, they now think we are capriciously tearing ourselves apart, and they are dying for some assertion of the fact that American is still a functioning country, because they are a little--you know, they may harp when they think we are too assertive. But when we seem to be falling

Page 3

apart, they get scared. So strangely enough if we now came out of this
moving, we'd have a hell of lot of receptivity.

P: Is that right?

K: Yeh.

P: Well what about all the negative playback on Shieder (sp?) and how you accused him of geographic and that kind of business?

K: Don't worry about that. I talked to Heath, I talked to Pompidou. That is a minor problem, if any. Which I've handled in all the conversations -- the tough thing is not going to be on that sort of issue. The tough thing is going to be--you know you are dealing with very big men.

P: Yeh.

K: And when I explained what we were really after to Jobert, he said Jesus why didn't you put it that way.

P: And how did you explain it?

K: I explained it in these terms. I said, look let's forget about --first I said it has to be regional and global. We were being descriptive, now prescriptive -- we said that that's what you have been telling us for a decade. You want to play a global role, we are more than willing to have you participate -- we are eager.

P: Hm huh.

K: On linking these things together that is not a negotiating ploy, that is a reality--there is no possible way we can keep our troops here in the middle of a trade war, because Congress won't let us. So it isn't any question that the negotiation has to be conducted together, the question that we all understand where we are going. Thirdly, I said most importantly, what is the real problem. The Atlantic area for 20 years hasn't had a new infusion of ideas. In every country, foreign policy success is equated with relations with the enemy. With adversaries. Under those conditions, the only fate that is meaningful is how rapidly the cohesion will erode. What we want is something that gives us a sense of direction in which we have yardsticks in which to move. Finally, I said the negotiations will certainly produce a confrontation, not at their link with other issues, but if they are not linked.

P: Precisely.

DECE ASSIGNED
Authority E012958
Dated N/A 6/20/8

Page 4

K: Because the economic experts will certainly produce a confrontation have no yardsticks for settlement--Pompidou and Jobert siad, well on that basis we are dealing in a different ball park. But what we don't have now is somebody--I say this if you would come in and next week spend four days with him and say here is our program, I think by the end of this year we can come up with something we will be proud of, but if I now go back to the State Department and get Walter Stoessel to draft a cable that 10 guys clear and then 4 idiots present, we will never get there.

PP: Precisely. All right. Where are you on the summits at the moment?

K: ---left to emerge out of it.

P: Yeh, but this commitment for doing it this fall in September is a little open?

K: Yes, it is a little open but let's aim for it. October, November is more realistic--September it can't be done.

P: Yeh. Okay. Well then you are not discouraged, because you know as you and I have talked about it it is very comprehensive--

K: I am encouraged

P: What I'll present you tomorrow.

K: Pete, I think it can be done, but you and I have to do it.

P: Yeh.

K: And if you are properly directed, you are usually quite able.

P: I am glad to hear that I'm a good tactician and that I carry out your orders properly.

K: Oh shut up Peter.

P: Son of a bitch--See I have always fancied myself as a conceptualist, not a leg man for others.

K: Oh shut up--you know damn well that you are going to do it the way you did the Russian one--

P: Yeh. You may remember that we had a few meetings early in the day when the most decision-making decisions were the strategic ones on (a) linking them to politics and (b) taking the tough comprehensive stand. And that is where we are now.

DELEGATED
Authority: E012858
Date: 6/2/87
Dated: NARA Dkt 6/2/87

TELCONE

George Aldrich (State Dept.)/Mr. Kissinger

3:40 pm, May 24, 1973

K: Hello.

A: Hello, how are you, Henry.

K: Okay. Are you recovering from jet lag?

A: (laughter) Having stayed up on the plane to work, I slept like a log last
night and I'm in pretty good shape, thank you. How are you?

K: I'm fine. Do you want to come over and look at that other document?

A: Sure.

K: And if I'm tied up, Sonnenfeldt can explain it to you.

A: Okay. I'll be over very soon.

K: Good. I want to repeat, the way it stands now, it's agreed between the
Soviets and us, subject to legal and technical changes.

A: Well, I'll look at it just in that light.

K: Good.

A: Okay.

K: Thank you.

wgh

DECLASSIFIED
Authority E01298
DATE NARADAR 6/2/84

TELCORN

Amb. Kosciusko-Morizet (France)/Mr. Kissinger

5:03 pm, May 24, 1973

K: Hello.

M: Hello, how are you.

K: How are you?

M: Welcome back. Are you pleased with this paper?

K: Yes, I think it was a useful trip.

M: Well, I'm sending --

K: And I appreciate the reception that I received from both your President
and Foreign Minister.

M: All right. I'm sending to you the list of our party.

K: Good.

M: .................... will come. You know already probably.

K: Yes, and we are bringing Shultz.

M: Yes. Well, so I'm sending my driver with the list. And of course, we
should appreciate to receive as soon as possible the list of the names
of your party.

K: We will get it to you tomorrow.

M: Yes. Thank you.

K: Good, Mr. Ambassador.

M: So goodbye.

K: Bye.

wgh

CLASSIFIED

Authority: EO 12958

DATE: MAY 24 1973

["TELCOM", "Prof. Ernst van der Beugel/Mr. Kissinger", "6:30 pm, May 24, 1973", "B: Henry!", "K: Ernst, how are you?", "B: I'm fine. And you? So, so?", "K: Yeah, I'm doing all right.", "B: All right. Listen, in any circumstances I would have stayed tomorrow but I have promised Mitze (sp?) now for 6 months to go with her on holiday.", "K: No, no, I understand. Don't worry.", "B: And this is the only thing under the present circumstances I cannot break.", "K: No, no, I understand it. On the other hand, I don't want to discuss it on the telephone.", "B: No, no; of course not. But, listen, this is not a question of a few days I suppose.", "K: Ah-- no.", "B: Because I'll tell you what I could do. I have a weekend conference in <u>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&

TELCON

Prof. van der Beugel/Mr. Kissinger

6:30 pm, May 24, 1973

K: Well, then I won't interrupt it.

B: Well, I can easily come to Paris. No problem.

K: No, why don't we let it go.

B: No. I mean, if you want to talk to me, I'm available, that's the point.
But the only thing I could not do is to change the plans for tomorrow.

K: Right. Well, I have to make some really fundamental decisions.

B: Yeah.

K: Now in this situation.

B: Yeah.

K: You know, on the one hand it's harder to leave.

B: Very hard. Very hard. I think the matter of timing is of extreme
importance.

K: Right.

B: Well, this is a thing which we --

K: No, timing and also I wanted to discuss the alternatives.

B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Certainly. What I will do, Henry, is that
I will tomorrow immediately send a cable to your secretary what my
schedule --

K: Well, if we can't meet until the 12th, we probably should let it go until
after the Brezhnev visit.

B: And that's when?

K: Oh, end of June - July.

B: And if I would come to -- Is Brezhnev in Washington on the 16th of June?

K: Yes.

B: Oh, he is then in Washington.

DELEGATED
Authority E012958
DATE NARA Doc 67204

*

TELCON

6:30 pm, May 24, 1973

K: Well, that's the day he'll probably be arriving.

B: On the Saturday?

K: Yeah.

B: Because I could easily come -- then I skip that weekend in England and I simply go to Washington.

K: Well, let's see about it, Ernst. We can be in touch with each other.

B: All right. I will let you know exactly where I am. And either that weekend or afterwards, I can easily fly to Washington.

K: Good.

B: And if we can do something in Paris -- Well, I'll let you know my schedule and you let me know.

K: Well, let me know where you will be.

B: Yes. I can easily go from Venice and pass one quiet evening with you in Paris. But the only thing I could not do is to postpone this trip because I had to arrange it very carefully. We had to be met and so forth and so on because it is the first time I take her with me and that I could not postpone

K: That I fully understand.

B: All right. I will let you know where I am and don't hesitate to let me know because when you go back to Paris, we could easily meet either in Paris or somewhere. In Milan or --

K: No, I couldn't leave Paris.

B: Well, then I can come to Paris from Venice. From Venice to Paris is not a terrible problem.

K: Okay. Well, let's keep that in mind.

B: I cable immediately tomorrow my exact movements for the rest of the two weeks.

K: Good.

B: All right. Good luck to you.

K: Bye.

wgh

DELEGATED
Authority E012958
D-14 MAR 03 6/2/04

TELCON

Amb. Dobrynin/Mr. Kissinger

6:40 pm, May 24, 1973

D: Hello.

K: Anatol!

D: Oh, I miss you, Henry.

K: You do?

D: Yes, definitely I do. But I understand you are -- Well, after the difference of time and nice time you spend in Paris and today you have with him I guess. I understand.

K: Yeah, yeah.

D: So it's quite an excitement so I decided not to bother you.

K: So how are things?

D: Well, how everything going on?

K: Well, we have one problem left, which I want to discuss with you.

D: Okay.

K: On which it would be helpful if you could talk some sense into your friends.

D: Okay.

K: But as for the rest, despite the help of our press, we did rather well.

D: (laughter) Yes, your press very helpful I should say.

K: Yeah.

D: And I am wondering because I know your press for a long time but sometimes they lost all -- are losing all sense of proportion and national dignity.

K: Well, it is an outrage what they're -- Now he's really going to --

D: Really it's unbelievable that they do not think a little bit about their own country. It's rather ungrateful. Well, Henry, what do you propose? Tomorrow we are going to meet?

Amb. Dobrynin/Mr. Kissinger

6:40 pm, May 24, 1973

2

K: Let's get together tomorrow. I have to meet with the Cabinet at some point.

D: Yeah. Well, you just pick up the phone.

K: Can I call you in the morning?

D: Of course.

K: But let me tell you one thing that has happened today, which I thought you should know. An unsigned letter -- An unsigned note was slipped under the door of the Italian press office here.

D: Italian?

K: Yes. Saying that the United States and the Soviet Union were concluding a nuclear non-aggression treaty to take the mind off Watergate.

D: Non-nuclear treaty?

K: A nuclear non-aggression treaty.

D: Unsigned and so on?

K: An unsigned piece of paper.

D: Yes. Under the door of the Italian Embassy?

K: Not the Embassy, the press office in the Press Club.

D: In the Press Club but Italian.

K: Yeah, Italian.

D: Yes.

K: And they took it to the State Department and they of course denied it.

D: Yes.

K: But there's obviously somebody doing mischief.

D: Italian -- probably -- Couldn't you check it? I mean, your services?

K: Well, we're trying to check it.

DECLASSIFIED

Authority: E012058
By: WW. Jan 24, 1973

Amb. Dobrynin/Mr. Kissinger

6:40 pm, May 24, 1973

3

D: Because very few people know it. In my Embassy only two knows,
m myself and Vorontsov. Nobody else on this. And all advance party
knows nothing about it.

K: Yeah. Well, I was wondering whether maybe the British or, you know,
I'm really --

D: I understand, yes. Because now with all this crazy business going on --
The British, by the way, their press behaving really lousy.

K: Lousy?

D: Yes, the British printing all this Watergate business.

K: Oh, yeah.

D: I rather wonder can they ... 9 (too.much static) ... but they
are doing really rather undermining the President, by the way, my
impression. I don't know whether you noticed or not.

K: Yeah, I've noticed.

D: Yes, but this is really what -- By the way, I mentioned to you when you
were here but then when you left, this is my impression it became even
worse. Other press wasn't --

K: Yeah, but I think the tide here is now going to turn soon.

D: I hope so. Because it's really -- it's true really. All this nonsense
about your own case. The President make it very clear and I think it
was a good statement.

K: Yeah. (laughter) My own case, it's ridiculous.

D: (laughter) I understand. Was there any chance to meet with Ismail?

K: Yes.

D: Is it encouraging without any difficulties now. But we talk later on.

K: No.

D: No?

K: Very confused.

DECLASSIFIED
Authority E01205
By W.N.ага.дэг.

Amb. Dobrynin/Mr. Kissinger

6:40 pm, May 24, 1973

4

D: Very confused?

K: I mean, it wasn't discouraging -- I just didn't have -- I think they are waiting for a miracle not for a political act.

D: Well, after all, in ancient times it was in the Middle East that miracles happened so why shouldn't it have a miracle now ........

K: Anatol, the work we have to do is what -- the principles on SALT.

D: Yeah, we have first . you have to look into this non-aggression and look about that --

K: That is being worked on now. I found a lawyer; I found a way of doing it.

D: Just to give them. Now the second, on this principles --

K: Right.

D: Third, about communique. Whatever communique really ....... because you mentioned to Brezhnev. He remember that you said that in general it's all right but at some point you said that it's quite all right.

K: Yeah.

D: Accepting in principle I should say the _other_ you feel is better. So please identify to me them tomorrow.

K: Yeah, we better work through that.

D: Yes, just to see what you feel that I could work with because up till now I couldn't do anything because I do not know exactly what was.

K: Right.

D: But for the other things, we are going over .................... I mean, today they have a discussion on this one so --

K: We are prepared to proceed and I think it's going to work.

D: Yes, my impression too. Because they have today transmitted it was rather well.

DECLASSIFIED
Authority F-01205
By: NN
Date: 00/04/04

Amb. Dobrynin/Mr. Kissinger

6:40 pm, May 24, 1973

K: Because we gave strict instructions to accelerate it.
Because
D: Yeah, I think -- At first, it didn't ______ but now our impression....
K: No, no; they have instructions now. I sent them from Paris.
D: Yeah. And then I have it that you -- just our visit advance look --
I would like to discuss before they are going on Sunday home. Just
certain kinds of arrangements about Brezhnev. They have some
objections but nobody but you could only give any decision. Or at least --
K: Okay. Just tell them that if it is humanly possible, it will be done.
D: Yeah, I will. So when we are going tomorrow talk, the second part of
the day?
K: Probably.
D: Yeah. You will tell me in the morning?
K: Right. I will call you in the morning.
D: Okay, Henry. It is good that you are back.
K: Well, I look forward to seeing you.
D: Okay.
K: Bye.
D: Bye, bye.

wgh

DECLASSIFIED
by
the
U.S. Air Force
Date: 05/20/73
To: Kissinger
From: Kissinger

TELCONE

Amb. Dobrynin/Mr. Kissinger

6:40 pm, May 24, 1973

D: Hello.

K: Anatol!

D: Oh, I miss you, Henry.

K: You do?

K: Yeah, yeah.

K: So how are things?

D: Okay.

D: Okay.

K: Yeah.

D: And I am wondering because I know your press for a long time but sometimes they lost all sense of proportion and national dignity.

DECLASSIFIED
Authority E012958
Date 6/24/94
D: HHT NARA Dkt.

Amb. Dobrynin/Mr. Kissinger

6:40 pm, May 24, 1973

2

D: Of course.

D: Italian?

D: Non-nuclear treaty?

D: Unsigned and so on?

K: Yeah, Italian.

D: Yes.

D: Yes.

DELEGATED
Authority E.O.1288
Dated NARA Doc. 64204

Amb. Dobrynin/Mr. Kissinger

6:40 pm, May 24, 1973

3

K: Lousy?

K: Oh, yeah.

K: Yeah, I've noticed.

K: Yes.

K: No.

D: No?

K: Very confused.