159. Transcript of a Telephone Conversation Between the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) and the Director of the United States Information Agency (Shakespeare)1
K: I hope I didn’t wake you up.
S: No, I’m fine.
K: I think I did. Frank, Bob Haldeman told me yesterday you were thinking of leaving. I wanted to have an opportunity to talk with you before you did this.
S: I’m leaving this weekend for Romania and the Soviet Union.
K: Could you leave open your final decision until we have a chance to talk? I have certainly been one of the causes of your unhappiness unintentionally—partly because I have so many sons of bitches to take care of. People you can trust seem to slide to the bottom of the list. Your leaving at this stage when you have been one of the few loyalists here and one of the few who did what the President promised in 1968 would be symbolically and substantively a disaster. I can understand your dissatisfaction about being excluded from some of the meetings. This call is my idea—nobody asked me to do this.
S: It’s a complicated situation. I very much appreciate your talking to me. Why don’t we hold it until I return.
K: That is all I am asking. I want you to know—though I haven’t shown it in my actions—the presence of one decent, loyal person has meant a lot. Above all, we need you for the country. Whatever I can do to make you more effective will be done.
S: As I said, it is a complicated situation. But I appreciate your call.
K: Don’t do anything until you come back and you and I talk.
S: All right.
K: But that doesn’t commit you not to go through with your plans. I understand that you will not make a final decision until you talk to me but that you are not going to reverse it. Is that a fair statement?
S: Yes. Henry, at the tag-end of this trip, we will be having the annual German/American talks. Is there anything that occurred in the Brandt Meetings at Key Biscayne2 that is particularly relevant?
[Page 413]K: I was flat on my back.
S: I knew you had the flu.
K: The reports I got—I never read the minutes—don’t indicate anything. The radios did not come up to the best of my knowledge.
S: Nothing on the radios or VOA?
K: Let me talk to Haig who was there, and I will get a message to you.
S: I don’t know what else would necessarily relate to those meetings. The agenda was drawn up by the Germans, and they have included the Conference on European Security, SALT, the Berlin talks, ratification of the two treaties3—mostly as to attitudinal considerations.
K: Don’t give the European Security Conference4 any steam. The Germans want to but we don’t.
S: Keep it as far in the distance as possible?
K: Right.
S: On the question of SALT, Gerry5 gave me a good briefing. I saw him in Vienna 10 days ago, but there’s nothing on SALT at this particular point.
K: You might get across to the Soviets that their press campaign against the U.S. doesn’t make it any easier to proceed here along the lines of detente.
S: Press campaign in what sense?
K: Their consistent attack on Sino/U.S. cooperation and their behavior on Vietnam.
S: Okay, Henry, thanks very much.
- Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Chronological File, Box 12, January 15–24, 1972. No classification marking.↩
- Reference is to the President’s meetings with Brandt at the President’s residence in Key Biscayne, Florida, December 28–29. For the memoranda of conversation, see Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, vol. XL, Germany and Berlin, 1969–1972, Documents 335 and 336.↩
- Presumable reference to the Berlin Agreement and the Soviet/Polish Treaty.↩
- The President and Brandt discussed the proposed European Security Conference during their meeting on December 29; see Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, vol. XL, Germany and Berlin, 1969–1972, Document 336 and Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, vol. XXXIX, European Security, Document 85.↩
- Smith.↩