RN

by Richard Nixon

  The major achievement of Summit I was the agreement covering the limitation of strategic arms. The ABM treaty stopped what inevitably would have become a defensive arms race, with untold billions of dollars being spent on each side for more and more ABM coverage. The other major effect of the ABM treaty was to make permanent the concept of deterrence through “mutual terror”: by giving up missile defenses, each side was leaving its population and territory hostage to a strategic missile attack. Each side therefore had an ultimate interest in preventing a war that could only be mutually destructive.

  Together with the ABM treaty, the Interim Agreement on strategic missiles marked the first step toward arms control in the thermonuclear age. The Interim Agreement froze the levels of strategic missiles to those then actually existing or under construction. Under this agreement, the United States gave up nothing, because we had no programs that were affected by the freeze. The Soviets, however, had a substantial missile deployment program under way. It is not possible to state how extensive that deployment might have been in the absence of the agreement. But had it continued, it would have put us increasingly at a disadvantage in numbers of missiles and would almost certainly have forced us into a costly building program just to maintain the then-current ratios. By maintaining those ratios the agreement would allow the two sides to begin negotiations for a permanent agreement on offensive weapons free from the pressures of an arms race.

  In addition to these major achievements in the area of arms control, there were a number of other agreements signed at Summit I, including the establishment of a joint commercial commission to encourage more trade, and agreements on pollution control and on medicine and public health, especially research on cancer and heart disease. In addition to the establishment of a joint commission to expand cooperation in several areas of science and technology, there was an agreement on a joint orbital mission in space, which came to fruition in 1975 with the Apollo-Soyuz space docking.

  Finally, we signed a document containing twelve “basic principles of mutual relations between the United States and the U.S.S.R.,” which set forth a code of behavior both sides agreed to follow. This code dealt not only with bilateral relations and measures to reduce the risk of nuclear war but also with the reduction of tension and conflict, especially the kind that could involve the major powers, in their relations with other areas of the world.

  These summit agreements began the establishment of a pattern of interrelationships and cooperation in a number of different areas. This was the first stage of détente: to involve Soviet interests in ways that would increase their stake in international stability and the status quo. There was no thought that such commercial, technical, and scientific relationships could by themselves prevent confrontations or wars, but at least they would have to be counted in a balance sheet of gains and losses whenever the Soviets were tempted to indulge in international adventurism.

  Because of the pervasive bugging I did not dictate any diary entries while we were in the Soviet Union. The Soviets were curiously unsubtle in this regard. A member of my staff reported having casually told his secretary that he would like an apple, and ten minutes later a maid came in and put a bowl of apples on the table.

  I did, however, keep extensive notes during the trip, and I made several long dictations from them the weekend after we returned.

  Diary

  I emphasized to Henry my evaluation of the Soviet leaders in which I said that Robert Conquest’s comment to the effect that they were intellectually third-rate was simply off the mark. I said that we constantly misjudge the Russians because we judge them by their manners, etc., and we do not look beyond to see what kind of character and strength they really have.

  Anybody who gets to the top in the Communist hierarchy and stays at the top has to have a great deal of political ability and a great deal of toughness. All three of the Soviet leaders have this in spades, and Brezhnev in particular. His Russian may not be as elegant, and his manners not as fine, as that of some of his sophisticated European and Asian colleagues, but like an American labor leader, he has what it takes, and we can make no greater mistake than to rate him either as a fool or simply an unintelligent brute. Chou En-lai had the combination of elegance and toughness, a very unusual one in the world today.

  There is no question that the Russian leaders do not have as much of an inferiority complex as was the case in Khrushchev’s period. They do not have to brag about everything in Russia being better than anything anywhere else in the world. But they still crave to be respected as equals, and on this point I think we made a good impression.

  It was interesting to note that all the Soviet leaders like good clothes. Brezhnev was even somewhat of a fashion plate in his own way. He had an obviously very expensive gold cigarette holder and lighter.

  I noted that all three of the Soviet leaders wore cuff links. I recalled how subtle the change had been from the days of Khrushchev, when he insisted on dressing more plainly than the rest of us.

  Kosygin is really all business, a very cool customer with very little outward warmth. He is by Communist terms an aristocrat; while Podgorny is more like a Midwestern senator; and Brezhnev like a big Irish labor boss, or perhaps an analogy to Mayor Daley would be more in order with no affront intended to either.

  They seemed to get along well and to have a good personal relationship with each other. I pointed out to Kissinger in a note when Kosygin, Brezhnev, and Podgorny were having one of their colloquies, that it sounded like the scrambler we had in our room which we turned on whenever we wanted to knock out the listening device.

  Brezhnev was very warm and friendly. As we were riding in the car out to the dacha, he put his hand on my knee and said he hoped we had developed a good personal relationship.

  [Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky had] analyzed Brezhnev as being a “bear-hug” type of man who was likely to have physical contact with whoever came to see him. I couldn’t help thinking that Brezhnev and Johnson would have been quite a pair if they had met at Glassboro, instead of Kosygin.

  At one point, he said to me, “God be with you.” At another point he referred to me as “the present President and the future President.”

  He told me how an older party man, when he had just begun party work, emphasized the importance of personal relationships in politics and government and party work. I rather wondered who it might have been because this sounded somewhat like Stalin.

  There is no question about Brezhnev’s overall strength. First, he is five years younger than the other two. Second, he has a strong, deep voice—a great deal of animal magnetism and drive which comes through whenever you meet him. Third, while he sometimes talks too much and is not too precise, he always comes through forcefully, and he has a very great shrewdness. He also has the ability to move off of a point in the event that he is not winning it.

  His gestures were extremely expressive. He stands up and walks around, a device he often used during the course of our meetings. Henry recalled one instance in which Brezhnev said, ‘Every time I stand up I make another concession.’ He must, of course, have been affected by the fact that my own conduct was, by comparison, totally controlled. Some would say this was a mistake but, on the other hand, I am inclined to think it may have impressed him more than if I had been more outwardly emotional in responding to his various charges.

  Brezhnev at one point said to me, “I am an emotional man, particularly about death in war.” I told him that while my reputation was for being unemotional, I was just as emotional as he was about this issue.

  He asked about Mao. I responded that despite poor health, he was sharp from an intellectual standpoint. Brezhnev responded that Mao is a philosopher, not practical, a God-like figure. He said the Chinese were terribly difficult to understand, and then went on to say, “We Europeans are totally different from them.”

  He said it was really shocking that in the Cultural Revolution they cut off people’s heads in the public square. Of course, it’s
only been twenty years or so since the Communist leaders liquidated their opponents rather than letting them become non-persons, as had been the case with Khrushchev.

  He made a great point of the fact that “some people” do not want this meeting to succeed—obviously referring to the Chinese.

  An interesting sidelight: unlike the Chinese, who were totally obsessed with the smaller countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the Soviet leaders hardly talked at all about any of the smaller countries except for North Vietnam and a brief mention of North Korea. It was also interesting to note that the Soviet leaders did not raise the subject of Cuba at all, and they were very mild on North Korea.

  I noted the great changes since 1959. There were far more cars in the streets, and the people were better dressed.

  In a totalitarian state they have to put on a fetish of having some contact with people, but they really don’t do much better than the Chinese in setting these things up in a way that appears to be spontaneous. I am constantly amazed by the total gulf that exists between the Communist ruling classes and the people. I always spoke to the waiters or nodded to them as we left the various dinners, but the Communist leaders acted as if they were non-persons. They treated them as a totally different class.

  I pointed out on one of the occasions that our meeting was not a fortuitous affair. The situation in the world required that the meeting be held. The world expected much from the meeting, and we justified the world’s hopes. The meeting was well prepared, and now we must go forward to do away with the hotbeds of war that exist in the world. What we must not do is to repeat history. Yalta led to an improvement of relations, but then to a sharp deterioration thereafter. Reading about Yalta gives one great pause because it was not what was agreed to at Yalta, but the failure of the Soviets to keep the agreement, which led to all the troubles after that time.

  We are now faced with the major task of giving implementation to the documents we have signed.

  JUNE 1972

  The morning after our return from the Soviet Summit, I had a heavy schedule of meetings and a congressional briefing on the SALT treaty in an effort to line up support behind it. That afternoon I went with my family to Florida. I carried with me a briefcase full of the domestic reports and decision memoranda that had piled up while we were away.

  John Connally came down on Monday. He was leaving the administration and was preparing for his return to Texas.

  “Well, I saw Tommy Corcoran a couple of days ago,” he said as he settled into a chair in my study, “and he told me Teddy Kennedy now says he wants the nomination. But I think it’s too late. McGovern and his people have the bit in their mouths, and they’re running with it.”

  I said that we should not underestimate Kennedy’s residual appeal. Even McGovern’s supporters, no matter how emotionally committed to their man, would rally around Kennedy. “I understand Hubert isn’t going to make it,” I said, and Connally nodded.

  “Whatever you do,” Connally said, “keep the door open for Democrats and independents. If McGovern is nominated, you will see an unprecedented defection.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I learned something in 1960. The door will not only be open—I’ve been weaving a welcome mat.”

  On June 6 George McGovern won the California primary. The early polls had projected a 20-point landslide, but Hubert Humphrey narrowed the difference to only 5.4 percent; with one more week of campaigning, Humphrey might have won. But California settled it: McGovern would win the nomination.

  The Democrats were about to nominate a man who had called for immediate unilateral withdrawal from South Vietnam without any assurances concerning the return of our POWs; who favored unconditional amnesty for draft dodgers; who proposed a reduction in the defense budget that would cut the Air Force in half, reduce the number of Navy warships, and slash the personnel assigned to NATO posts without requiring any reciprocal reductions from the Soviets; and who pledged to cut off aid to our NATO ally Greece while increasing overall foreign aid totals by some 400 percent, with most of the money earmarked for African countries.

  McGovern’s approach to welfare was for the federal government to give $1,000 to every man, woman, and child in America, funded largely by the tax-strapped middle-income group. HEW calculated that this program alone would cost some $50 billion a year.

  His tax reform proposals, ostensibly aimed at closing loopholes and redistributing the tax burden more fairly, were too much even for the New York Times, which described them as “drastic” with “often woolly estimates of potential gains and losses.” Hubert Humphrey, during the California primary, had called them “confiscatory,” and “a lot of bunk.” By the end of the campaign, we estimated the domestic proposals put forth by McGovern would add $126 billion to the federal deficit.

  McGovern told the Washington Post that busing was “essential” for integration. He called J. Edgar Hoover “a menace to justice.” He said that when he was elected President, the demonstrators who had threatened chaos and spat obscenities at the police would be “having dinner at the White House.”

  All these extreme stands and statements were on the record, but as late as July only one panelist in ten on a Time magazine citizens’ panel considered George McGovern a radical, while the rest were equally divided over whether he was really a liberal or a moderate conservative! This confusion existed largely because early in the campaign the media had played down the radical or inconsistent elements of McGovern’s programs. Many reporters sympathized with McGovern’s positions; many just liked his enthusiastic and engaging collection of amateur staff members and volunteer workers.

  Fortunately, not all reporters abdicated their critical faculties or their obligation to be objective. “Reader beware,” wrote Godfrey Sperling, columnist for the Christian Science Monitor, on June 8. “A love affair between a number of newsmen and George McGovern is bursting into full bloom and even though we are talking—by and large—about tough-minded, professional observers, this congenial relationship is bound to affect their copy.” He continued:

  In fact, in this reporter’s judgment, it already has. For months now Senator McGovern has been talking about a program that would pretty much revolutionize our society . . . Yet, at least until the last week or so Senator McGovern has pretty much been given a “free ride” from the press. . . . As of now, I would say that many of those newsmen who accompany McGovern along the campaign trail have already let their bias show through—not so much by what they have written about McGovern but by what they have not written about him and his programs. Their omissions tell a great deal.

  The biggest political danger McGovern could pose, as I saw it, would be if he decided to change his positions in order to pick up the support of moderate Democrats. I noted in a memo to Mitchell dictated on June 6, the day of the California primary:

  The McGovern strategy is becoming very clear now that he believes that he has the nomination wrapped up. His going to the Governors Conference for the purpose of “clarifying” his stand on amnesty, marijuana, abortion, and welfare is a case in point. I know there are those who will say that he can’t get away with it any more than Goldwater was able to get away with it. . . . There are two very significant differences. McGovern is more clever and less principled than Goldwater and will say anything in order to win. And second, McGovern will have about 100 percent support from the media in his effort to clean himself up so that he can beat us in the final. This points up the necessity at this time to get Democrats and independents, not Republicans, to nail McGovern on the left side of the road which his record so clearly identifies him with.

  By summer, when my campaign organization began moving into high gear, I almost immediately began hearing about problems connected with it. There were rumors about slack field organizations, about unnecessary discourtesies to local people, and, repeatedly, about the dislike local campaign workers were developing toward the size and slickness of the CRP’s Washington headquarters. When I asked what was wro
ng, I was usually told, “Mitchell’s too tired to focus on it,” or “ITT nearly wore Mitchell out,” or, more simply, “It’s Martha.”

  Haldeman and I decided to send Fred Malek, then a member of the White House staff, over to the CRP to bring things under control. Malek was a tough young businessman whose specialty was organization and management. We decided to hold off for a few more weeks, however, primarily out of concern that Mitchell would view the move as an implicit criticism of his performance rather than as a recognition that he did not have the help he needed.

  On June 12 we celebrated Tricia and Ed’s first wedding anniversary with a trip on the Sequoia. Pat arranged for us to have the same hors d’oeuvres we had liked so much at the wedding reception. After the sail we watched a videotape of the wedding and reminisced about that day and about the year that had gone by so quickly.

  President Luis Echeverría of Mexico arrived in Washington for a state visit on June 15. We had a long talk about water salinity problems and ended up with a lively but friendly discussion about the treatment of American private enterprise in Latin America. At the end, he said that he thought my re-election was vitally important to the world.

  Later in the day the Saudi Arabian Defense Minister, Sultan ibn ‘Abd al-Aziz, came in to bring me greetings from his brother, King Faisal.

  In the afternoon I met with Ehrlichman about what appeared at first glance to be a panicky position taken by Bill Ruckelshaus of the Environmental Protection Agency on banning the pesticide DDT. The long day ended with a state dinner in honor of President Echeverría.