Office of the Historian

9. Memorandum From President Nixon to Secretary of State Rogers and the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger)1

Washington, February 22, 1969.

I have noted in reading the papers prepared by the State Department and by the Security Council Review Board on the Mideast,2 references from time to time to “domestic political considerations.”

The purpose of this memorandum is two fold:

(1) Under no circumstances will domestic political considerations have any bearing on the decisions I make with regard to the Mideast.

(2) The only consideration which will affect my decision on this policy will be the security interests of the United States.

In the future, I want no reference to domestic political considerations to be included in any papers and I do not want the subject of domestic political considerations to be brought up in discussions of this subject.

Will you please circulate this memorandum among all those who are working on this problem.

RN
  1. Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Files 1967–69, POL IS–US/NIXON. Confidential; Exdis. A notation written in an unknown hand in the upper right-hand corner indicates that Rogers saw the memorandum.↩
  2. See, for example, Document 8.↩