Frank Gannon's interview with Richard Nixon, May 27, 1983, part 2.

GANNON: --except they wouldn't offer it.

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

GANNON: There's too much…policy there.

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

OFF SCREEN VOICE: Uh, c--cue them on one, Roger?

NIXON: [Clears throat.]

GANNON: I'll lead in to the Churchill-Tito.

NIXON: Fine.

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

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

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

GANNON: That's a good story.

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

GANNON: Yes.

OFF SCREEN VOICE: Stand by, uh, Frank.

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

OFF SCREEN VOICE: [unintelligible]

OFF SCREEN VOICE: Ten seconds to studio. Stand by.

NIXON: And the Golda Meir.

GANNON: Mm-hmm. The Golden Rule.

NIXON: Yeah.

GANNON: The Golden Rule.

NIXON: How about--and then--

OFF SCREEN VOICE: Four.

NIXON: --w--did we--

OFF SCREEN VOICE: Three.

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

GANNON: No.

NIXON: --a woman?

GANNON: No.

NIXON: I mean--are you sure?

OFF SCREEN VOICE: [unintelligible]

NIXON: Would you like that?

OFF SCREEN VOICE: [unintelligible] Do it again.

NIXON: You know what I'm referring to?

GANNON: Yes.

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

GANNON: [unintelligible]

NIXON: Because it's about Indira Gandhi, too. [Clears throat.] Pompidou--

OFF SCREEN VOICE: [Unintelligible] light change. [unintelligible] We're going to cue you, okay?

OFF SCREEN VOICE: Keep your eyes on me.

GANNON: Yes.

OFF SCREEN VOICE: After the light change [unintelligible].

OFF SCREEN VOICE: Ten seconds out. Roll tape.

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

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

NIXON: --not that--

GANNON: This is the--

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

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

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

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

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

GANNON: Le--let me start again.

NIXON: Yeah, yeah, because I wanted to--

GANNON: Sh--

NIXON: --tell that story.

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

NIXON: Well, it seems rather ironic to me that what, as far as the public was concerned, indicated that there was going to be a new relationship, was when the Chinese received an American table tennis team in Peking, and then, ten years later, in 1982, that relationship is strained when the United States allows a Chinese tennis star who is visiting the United States to stay here. Now, the difficulty with the handling of the matter, from the Chinese point of view, is not that a tennis star or anybody else comes to the United States and stays here. A--as a Chinese friend recently told me, from Peking--he says, "After all, we've got too many people! We don't mind your taking a lot of them." I--I think 00:03:00what really turned them off was that the tennis star was portrayed as being giving--being given political asylum, and that, of course, was a loss of face for them. To think that one who was a tennis star, and therefore, perhaps, receiving better treatment than many others--wanted to leave China and come to the United States was a loss of face. I would say that in the future it's very important to handle such matters with great discretion. There are going to be times in the future, I'm sure, where visiting Chinese may want to stay, but we should work it out so that it doesn't embarrass the Chinese government for another reason. I think it's vitally important that we continue to have this people-to-people contact. Ten years ago, no Americans were visiting China. Last year, a hundred thousand went there. Ten years ago, there were no Chinese students in the United States. Last year, there were twelve thousand. I want there to be--to increase in that way, because, while that isn't going to change our relationship immediately, over the long haul that people-to-people contact 00:04:00brings us closer together.

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

NIXON: Well, when we speak of Golda Meir and the fact that she is very tough and strong and acts like a man, it's always reminded me of a conversation that we had with President Pompidou in the Azores. This was in 1971, and at that time we were having problems in South Asia between India and Pakistan, and also in the Mideast, and Bill Rogers, who was sitting by Pompidou, was trying to lighten up the conversation at dinner, and he reflected on the fact that th--things were going pretty well in the world except in stu--in two areas. And, he said, in both areas women are in power. He said, for example, "In South Asia, between 00:05:00India and Pakistan, we have Indira Gandhi in power. And then in the Mideast, in Israel, we have Golda Meir, another woman." Pompidou sort of raised his eyebrow and said, "Are you sure?"

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

NIXON: I should not leave the impression that President Pompidou said that in a--a downgrading way, or in an im--as a matter of fact, disrespectful way. He respected her. He described her to me as "un femme formidable," and he's--he felt that she was a strong person, a very formidable person, and he respected that. And this fact--he was simply saying that he appreciated the fact that she did not try to use her w--feminine wiles in order to get her things across. Pompidou did not like Mrs. Gandhi. I know that. I think he respected and maybe 00:06:00even liked Golda Meir.

GANNON: Did you like Mrs. Gandhi?

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

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

NIXON: Well, I think there is a tendency on the part of many men not to want to 00:07:00push a woman too far in a meeting. Let's face it. There are different rules. Oh, I know in these days, in--anybody who says that, he's supposed to be a sexist, or whatever they call it, and this and that and the other thing. But I do know that most of the leaders I have met have great respect for women, and they're going to treat them differently from w--the way they treat men. The way I'd put it is this way. I--I've played a little poker in my time, and, believe me, don't ever let me in a poker game where I've got to be easy on somebody else. Unless you can be ruthless in a poker game, you're going to lose. And in negotiations, it's, I think, s--to some advantage to have a woman on your side, because you need every inch that you can get in the negotiations, and if she can win you an inch by the fact that her opponent or your opponent is going to treat her a little differently, a little more respectfully, not as toughly as he would a man, that's something to be said for it.

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

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

GANNON: Why is that?

NIXON: Because the Republicans have been running very poorly among women in recent years, and that's a way to reach out. I'm not sure that it would help, but many people think that it would, because you've got to remember there are many women that don't want a woman vice-president, just as many men don't. But be that as it may, there are many women that do. I think what really is going to count is whether a woman comes along who is strong enough that people would th--feel comfortable that she would make a leader--one like a Margaret Thatcher, for example. I would say by the end of the century, the likelihood of a woman president is considerable. But before that happens, a woman must be vice 00:09:00president or Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense. Those are the three top jobs that are stepping stones to the presidency. Until that happens, no woman is going to go, ec--unless they come from those stepping stones, directly to the presidency. But it will happen, inevitably.

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

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

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

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

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

NIXON: Oh, I am sure she did, and--

GANNON: Were you--did you feel that?

NIXON: Well, I--I don't--it isn't a question of whether I felt it. The fact is that American Jews support Israel, and I understood that. And the fact is that every Jewish prime minister that I have known has enlisted American Jews to bring as much pressure as possible in the political process on American presidents. That's understandable. I don't object to it. Now, a president must 00:11:00not go along with it on occasion, because some--l--let me--let me explain something about what is called "the Jewish lobby" in this country. In the first place, Jews, understandably, in the United States, because of what happened in World War II, because of the Holocaust, are going to pe--put first priority on the survival of Israel. Now, as good Americans, as they are, they believe that America's survival and security is directly related to Israel's. In other words, their belief is that being for Israel first means that does not mean you're putting America second, because they think it goes together. An American president, however, has to approach it in a different way, in my opinion. He's 00:12:00got always to think first of what is best for America, and that's true whether it has to do with the Israelis or whether it has to do with the Irish or the Germans or what-have-you, or the Poles, et cetera. Usually what is best for America is also best for Israel, and vice versa. But a--on occasions--for example, an American president must make a decision that does not, in effect, give the Israelis a blank check. And one example of that is a decision that I made. I decided early on in our administration that we were going to seek good relations with Egypt and other--others of Israel's neighbors. Many of my Israeli friends didn't like that, because they wanted a special relationship with Israel and Israel only. But I have always said that Israel's interests are better served to have the United States a friend of Israel's neighbors and potential enemies than to leave a vacuum which the Soviet Union would fill. I still believe that, and I think that should be American policy today.

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

NIXON: Well, when you--when you see Golda Meir--you look back on her, and the last time I saw her, she was in her early seventies, you wonder how she must have felt when she was out of power. I recall one of my favorite stories, as a matter of fact, was told to me by Tito's wife when she was on a state visit with Tito to the White House in the early seventies. And she remarked about the last time that Tito had met with Churchill, and Churchill looked at Tito and observed the fact that Tito was drinking his Scotch and smoking the big cigars, and Churchill at that time was not in the best of health and couldn't drink as he 00:14:00used to, and he also noticed his black hair, Tito's black hair, incidentally, which obviously had been colored, but nevertheless it was black. And he said, "What keeps you so young? What keeps you so young?" And then, without waiting for an answer, "I know what it is--power. Power is what keeps a man young." And Churchill--after he left office, I know he tended to shrivel, because I saw him after he left office. The power was gone. But not Golda. Golda was still as strong and as vital when I saw her after she had been thrown out of office as she was in office. She didn't need the power to be in office--to exude power.

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

NIXON: Well, it was a turning point primarily not for what it did to Israel and Egypt and the relations between those two, but for what it did to Europe and 00:15:00particularly to the French and the British. It came at the wrong time. As a matter of fact, there isn't any question in my mind, in retrospect, and there's no question, in my view, that Eisenhower felt the same way in his later years, that the Israelis, the British, and the French were justified in attacking the Egyptians when they tried to take over the Suez Canal. But, on the other hand, it came just a few days before an American election, and it came right after the Russians had moved tanks into Budapest and were shooting down the workers who were rebelling against the Communist government there. And we couldn't be in a position, or at least we felt we couldn't, of condemning the Soviet Union for using force to resolve a situation in Budapest and then approving our allies, the British, the French, and the Israelis, who were not allies but at least were supporting our point of view, using force to resolve what was a political 00:16:00problem with Egypt. So, under the circumstances, President Eisenhower took the position that we would oppose it, and we forced their withdrawal. Now, what happened is it didn't help us with Nasser. He had been anti-U.S. before. He banked that and then kept on being anti-U.S., because that served his purposes in the radical Arab world. It hurt us with Israel, but not permanently because we continued to help them. But it had a devastating effect on France and Britain. From that time on, France and Britain could no longer play a decisive role on the world stage, and that was not a good thing. I hope the time returns when they might be able to play a more decisive role that they do today.

GANNON: What do you remember about your meeting with Nasser?

NIXON: Nasser, I had heard before I had met him, from friends who had visited him, was very different from the public impression of him. The first time I 00:17:00really met Nasser I didn't see him at all. I heard his voice. I heard it on the radio. Now, this is on a trip in 1957 I took as vice-president, and as I visited the coffee shops and the bazaars and so forth, there were pictures of Nasser--I wasn't in Egypt, but they were in Tunis, and they were in Morocco, and they were in the Sudan, and they were in Libya. This was before Qaddafi, of course. And his voice hypnotized people. So I knew his voice before I ever got there, and I felt I knew him. But when I met the man, he was not the flame-throwing kind of revolutionary radical that I had expected. He was very soft-spoken--very handsome man, incidentally--very reasonable--reasonable except when he spoke about Israel, and then, of course, he could be very aba--runees--unreasonable. Spoke very warmly of Eisenhower. This, now, is in 1963 that we're talking about. I am convinced that if Nasser had concentrated his enormous abilities and 00:18:00energies on building a better Egypt, rather than in foreign adventures in Yemen and other parts, that he would have contributed enormously to Egypt's future. As it was, he--rather than concentrating on what was good for Egypt within, he believed in exporting his brand of revolution abroad.

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

NIXON: In my view, I think the decision with regard to the Aswan Dam was wrong. We did it because he was tilting toward the Soviet and was making unkind remarks about us, but I have a different view than many of my friends in the foreign policy establishment with regard to the use of America's ec--economic power. It's the area where we have the greatest advantage. It's the area where we 00:19:00should take some risks. It the area where we should not insist that we will give aid only to those that are one d--hundred percent for the U.S. Let's use that power to get a foothold. We won't win 'em all, but we'll win more than by saying no and then letting the Russians come in and build that dam. That was a tragedy for Egypt, as it turned out, and it certainly was not helpful to us in that part of the world.

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

NIXON: Well--quite defensive. As a matter of fact, he said, "W--we're building the dam." And he sent his plane, with his own pilot--it was a DC-3--down to the Aswan Dam to look it over. We got there--incidentally, we were there in the summer, and it was about a hundred and thirty degrees in the shade, so we visited it at midnight, when it was only a hundred degrees--and I remember the huge, huge searchlights on the bulldozers down in the bowels of the earth. This 00:20:00is while the dam was under construction. I did not notice--and fortunately Mrs. Nixon did, because she's very observant--who was riding those bulldozers. They weren't Egyptians. They were Russians, but the Egyptians were very sensitive about Russian involvement.

GANNON: Was President Sadat more like President Nasser than not?

NIXON: No, very, very different from him. I remember when Nasser died, I was in the Mediterranean on one of our carriers, and I asked one of the people with us there what kind of a fellow this new man Sadat was. And they said, "Well, he's sort of a colorless clod compared to Nasser. He'll never be able to fill his shoes." Well, he did not fill Nasser's shoes, but he left his own footprints, of course, on history a very different way. Nasser was a man of the people and from the people--charismatic--he touched the heart. Sadat, on the other hand--highly 00:21:00intelligent--was one somewhat apart from people. He was above them to an extent, and I think people sensed that. He was a man of high intelligence, of great boldness, and great courage, and he was very different from Nasser in a fundamental respect. Instead of engaging in foreign enterprises as Nasser had, he concentrated on what was best for Egypt, and that is why he made the famous trip from Cairo to Jerusalem. Incidentally, one who influenced him enormously in that direction was King Faisal. Faisal leaned on Sadat to break off from the Russians, telling him he couldn't trust the Russians. Faisal, of course, was strongly anti-Communist.

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

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

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

NIXON: As a matter of fact, they not only resented his doing that, but it was what he did after that. I talked, for example, to Hassan, the king of Morocco, and to other leaders in that part of the world, and they all, to a man, said that he had not leveled with them about it, and that his rhetoric, they thought, went m--far overboard when they criticized his going to Camp David. And, incidentally, I've never used--heard him use this kind of language, but they 00:23:00said that he referred to them as "monkeys" and "hissing vipers." Well, they're a very emotional people--the Arabs are--and very sensitive people, and they never forgave him for that. I think another reason he may not have been revered is that they had the feeling--the Egyptian people--that he was not really one of them, that maybe he'd grown away from them. As a matter of fact, I don't believe that was the case, but the appearance was there, because he lived very well. His wife, who is a--is a lovely lady, was beautifully groomed, a beautiful woman, as a matter of fact, but she did not relate as much to the people, although she was very active in supporting hospitals and charitable causes and so forth, as some others might have. At least that is what I have heard. But in any event, there's no question that when Nasser died, there was an enormous outpouring of affection 00:24:00and grief, and when Sadat was assassinated, the streets were quite still in comparison.

GANNON: You went to that funeral, didn’t you?

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

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

NIXON: I--it was the first time--not really the first time, no. It was the first time that Ford, Carter, Nixon, and Reagan had been together, but the first time we were together was at Humphrey's funeral. We were there--although we 00:25:00never had any talks then. This was the first time we'd ever had a talk. So all night long we talked about Sadat and the Mideast and what he meant. We agreed that he was one of the most intelligent men we'd ever met. We had agreed that he was one of the boldest and most courageous men, and we agreed, too, that he had shown great vision, vision in looking over the problems of the moment and looking to the future in making his trip to Jerusalem and agreeing to what he did to--at Camp David. But I knew him in another respect that the other two did not know him. And I told them this on the plane, and I thought they were quite moved by it. That was not the first time I had gone to a funeral in Cairo. It was only about a year before that I had gone to the shah's funeral, which was in Cairo. And when I was there, I--I was the only dignitary of any rank who came to the shah's funeral, because here the shah, who--before everybody was bowing and 00:26:00scraping before him, the heads of state in government and so forth, because he was rich and powerful and so forth, and now they all avoided him because he was out of power. And I never forgot that, as I was standing there in the big tent where all the V.I.P.s--usually ambassadorial level, not head of state level--were standing, Sadat came walking in , resplendent in his uniform--general's unif--uniform. He saw me, his eyes lit up, and he walked over, held both hands out, and said, "How good of you to come. How good of you to come." And I said, "Mr. President, it was very courageous of you to receive the shah after virtually every other country did not grant him sanctuary." And he said, "Courageous, sir? It isn't courageous to stand up for a friend." And that loyalty went further than that, even. I remember I had a long talk with him after the funeral up at Alexandria--that is, the summer palace--and we were 00:27:00talking far into the night. And when we were talking about what had happened at Camp David and so forth, he referred to his friend Jimmy Carter. Now, let's understand when this was. This was at a time before the elections in 1980, when Carter's stock was very, very slow, when it appeared that Reagan was going to win, and when he knew I was for Reagan, because I had told him so, and told him that I thought Reagan would be very reasonable toward him, despite the fact that he was a little concerned that Reagan seemed to be totally pro-Israel, as he had in some of his statements. But he refused the opportunity to do what most politicians do--do--to say what he thought I might want to hear, that Carter was not all that good. He said, "My friend, Jimmy Carter." Now that's Sadat. That's quite a man.

GANNON: How did Jimmy Carter react to you or treat you on this plane ride, the 00:28:00first time you'd had a chance to talk to him personally as a f--as an ex-president?

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

GANNON: Did you consider bringing Mrs. Nixon?

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

GANNON: How--

NIXON: And Mrs. Ford did not come either.

GANNON: How did President Carter react to the story about the--the shah's funeral, because, after all, he was--he had a vested interest in that story in that he had not let the shah come--

NIXON: Well-

GANNON: --into the U.S.

NIXON: To President Carter's credit, he didn't react negatively when I told that story. I think, deep down, President Carter felt very badly that he could 00:29:00not let the shah stay in the United States, because of his concern about what would happen to the hostages. And I understood that. Deep down, President Carter had said some very flattering things about the shah just a year before the shah was overthrown--had praised him as one of the great statesmen of the world. And so, under the circumstances, I think that he felt very badly that this had happened. It was a political decision on his part, and I think, frankly, he admired Sadat for standing up and doing what Carter really would like to have done except for the political consequences as far as the hostages were concerned.

GANNON: Do you think that the shah was the President Diem of the latter day--that the--that the United States, openly or covertly, destabilized him?

NIXON: I would say that as far as what happened to the shah is concerned, that I think the shah's own appraisal of what brought him down is the best evidence. I saw the shah the last time in Mexico, at Cuernavaca, Mexico. He was then in 00:30:00the last phases of terminal cancer, although he would never admit it or talk about his own problems at all. But he was quite thin and quite pale, but his head--still as active and sharp as it'd always been. He's a very intelligent, introspective man. And he said that what concerned him about the way he was treated by the United States was not that the United States was for him or against him but was the uncertainty of the policy. He says, "There's nothing worse when you are confronted with revolutionary and rebel forces and uncertainty insofar as support is concerned." One day, for example, he said, statements would come in, public and private, from Washington indicating total support, urging him to stand firm. The next day there would be some story leaked from a high-level aide, printed all over the world and par--given particular 00:31:00credence in Tehran, to the effect that lower-level or second-level people in the administration were meeting with Khomeini and others who were out to knock the shah o--off--or out, as the case might be. And then the next day i--i--there would be a story to the effect that, in the event that the shah left Iran or was overthrown, the United States would be prepared to accept any government that the people chose. Well, he said, all of this had the effect of encouraging his enemies and, of course, discouraging his own supporters. He said that was a mistake, and I believe it was a mistake, too. As a matter of fact, what happened to the shah, I think, could only be interpreted in that part of the world, and in other parts of the world as well, is that it is dangerous to be a friend of the United States, and it may pay to be an enemy. I think what we have to 00:32:00understand is that the shah was the best friend of the United States in that area and the whole Persian Gulf area, and it was Israel's only friend. The shah, we must remember, in the 1973 war, furnished oil for our Mediterranean fleet when the other countries in the area had cut it off. And the shah tied down the Iraqi forces by supporting the Kurds against the Iraqis so that they never got involved in the '73 war. And I know that the kah--the shah, when he spoke in Mexico about what had happened--that he--he could not understand why it was that, among his critics in the American media, there were some of Jewish background--not all, but some who were among his most violent critics, because they were liberals, and they thought he was too reactionary and the rest. And he just couldn't understand that, because he was the only friend that Israel had in that whole area of the world.

GANNON: Why did you go to his funeral?

NIXON: First, because I knew him better than any world leader I had met in thirty--over the past thirty-seven years of public life--in and out of it. I met him first back in 1953, when I was a young vice president and he was a very young shah--in his early thirties--a--and I met him over ten or twelve times after that. I found him to be a very sensitive man, a very intelligent man, one who understood the world as well as any leader that I had met, who--who could talk about India or Pakistan or China or Latin America with, frankly, as much perception and sophistication as any American leader could possibly talk about it. And I had great respect for him. And I think the r--major reason I went, though, I must say, was because I was concerned that our own government, again, 00:34:00I suppose, because of the hostage situation, was not going to be represented at the funeral by a high--high-level person.

GANNON: Were you concerned that your going might embarrass President Carter?

NIXON: No, not at all. As a matter of fact, i--it occurred to me that as--President Carter probably, deep down, wished he could have gone, but he couldn't. He didn't feel that he could, because of the hostage situation. No. I went because the shah was my friend, he was a friend of the United States, and I thought that some high-level individual from the United States ought to be there. You see, the important thing that we've got to get across to the people in countries that are wavering between standing with us or going in the other direction or remaining neutral is that the United States is not a fair-weather friend, that we will stand by our friends and allies when they are down as well 00:35:00as when they are up. Now, that may not make good diplomacy, but I think it--in the short run, but in the long-term I think it's absolutely essential if we're going to build the kind of support and respect and confidence in the United States that we need to have.

GANNON: The shah is--is generally accepted as having been a very repressive and oppressive ruler. His Savak tortured and killed. He lived in considerable splendor and opulence while there was terrible poverty in his country. In your book Leaders, you write that he was not ruthless enough in quashing those who threatened his nation's stability. Do you think he should have been more ruthless?

NIXON: Yes, I do, particularly in view of the fact that his opponents were not those who were basically more liberal, but--because basically they were reactionary. They were the true reactionaries. L--let's look at the shah for just a moment, and look at him very fairly. He actually was a progressive, a 00:36:00progressive in a number of ways. He instituted a land reform program. He instituted a literacy program. He sent thousands of students from Iran to the United States, and particularly to the United States, to study, and in other countries as well. He liberated women. The irony was that those he liberated, the women and the students he sent abroad--they came back and joined the revolutionary forces. And the irony was that the shah, being progressive, was attacked as being reactionary and conservative on these particular issues, whereas his opponents were the reactionaries. Putting it very bluntly and very simply, the shah was trying to move Iran into the twentieth century. His opponents, Khomeini et al., wanted to move Iran back into the Dark Ages, and that's what they've done. Now, there was some repression, true. Now there is 00:37:00total repression. There may not have been enough land reform. Now there n--is none whatever. What I am simply suggesting is this--that when we look at the shah, we have to look at him in terms of what he confronted, and he conturned --confronted revolutionary forces there that were not working, in my view, for what was best for Iran, and certainly not best for ourselves. And, most important from the United States standpoint, instead of having a friend in Iran, we now have one that is not only not a friend, but one that is--considers us to be the Great Satan.

GANNON: Could you say that if you had stayed in office that you would not have allowed the shah to fall?

NIXON: I would not have, no. I would have been steadfast throughout. I--I would have made it very clear down through the bureaucracy that where--there was to be absolutely no c--contact with those that were trying to overthrow him. I would have had a very good study made of Khomeini's background and would have found 00:38:00that--exactly what kind of person he was, because by studying his background, they could have known that he was going to do exactly what he was going to do. The man i--i--is a radical reactionary. He's not a progressive in any sense of the word.

GANNON: If you had been con--

NIXON: You see, the choice basically was not between the shah and somebody better. The choice bas between him and somebody worse, and it's very easy for me to make that choice.

GANNON: If you had been confronted with the worst case from that point of view, and the shah had been overthrown and hostages taken, and you were president, would you have taken him into the United States?

NIXON: Absolutely. I would have--take him into the United States, and, as far as the hostages was concerned, I would have handled that a little differently, too. I don't say this in criticism of President Carter, because he certainly went through a lot on the hostage situation. He believes it may have cost him the election. I don't think it did. I think the economic issues were the major ones. But be that as it may, it didn't help him. But as far as the hostage 00:39:00iss--situation was concerned, American foreign policy can never be made hostage to hostages. That's why hostages are taken--for purposes of blackmail. And we mustn't let that happen. And, for example, the--when President Carter was asked about the hostage situation, he went overboard in saying that our first and then only concern was the safety of the hostages. Now, that is a concern, but our major concern is what happens to Iran, what happens to the relations between the United States and Iran. And in this respect, I would never have said, as President Carter did, that "I rule out the ru--use of force in order to get the hostages back." All that did was to encourage those that had captured them and were holding them in captivity not to give them up. I remember President Eisenhower, during our administration and--and the vice-presidential days, used 00:40:00to say on occasion that he had learned as a military commander that it's very important never to tell your enemy what you're going to do, because then he'll be ready for you. But he says it's just as important never to tell him what you're not going to do, because then that will encourage him to do things he otherwise might not do. And in this case, it was a mistake, in my view, to do that. The other thing I would say is that, with regard to the hoskage--the hostage rescue operation, that President Carter and the Pentagon--I assume they are the ones that joined in the decision--made a mistake and are not, again, following out an Eisenhower dictum, and that dictum is that when you make a play of that sort, you always assume the worst. Y--and you cannot assume that your intelligence i--is going to be absolutely accurate. I have a very interesting reaction in that respect that Eisenhower had at the time of Lebanon in 1958. As 00:41:00everybody will recall, in 1958 in Lebanon there was a crisis because the government there was under attack. There was a possibility that the Soviet Union might intervene, and Eisenhower had to make a decision as to whether or not to send Marines in in order to establish peace. And I remember the briefing that occurred in the Oval Office, and Eisenhower heard Allen Dulles, the head of the CIA, and Foster Dulles, the secretary of State, brief him, and to recommend that we send in a Marine group in order to keep order. And in they--when they gave their report, they indicated that they did not think there would be any intervention from the standpoint of the Russians and that it would be a peaceful operation. And Eisenhower sat back, and after they had given this report, he said, "Foster, let me ask you something. Let us assume our intelligence is 00:42:00wrong. Are you prepared to take the next step?" And Foster Dulles thought a long time. He said, "Well, Mr. President, I'm 90 percent sure that there will be no problem. But if there is, yes, we should be prepared to take the next step." The point of that anecdote is that Eisenhower would never have made the mistake of the Bay of Pigs, when the intelligence proved to be wrong, and there wasn't the wa--uprising that--that he had--they had hoped at the time, and when it was necessary to have committed more air strength than had been planned, or at least not to cut back on what had been planned. In other words, in the hostage situation, rather than sending enough helicopters plus one, you should say twice--send twice the number to be sure that if there were, as there turned out to be, mechanical or other difficulties, you'd be pared--be prepared to carry out the operation to a successful conclusion.

GANNON: If you had still been in office, would you have taken the risk of the rescue mission?

NIXON: Oh, yes. Oh, I think President Carter deserves high marks for taking that risk. I took a similar risk, somewhat, during the Vietnam War. We had the Son Tay operation, where we had intelligence reports with regard to a prison camp for our POWs, and we sent in a--a magnificently trained group to rescue them. It came off--after all the training and so forth that they had had and the support we gave them, it came off perfectly. Unfortunately, they had moved the POWs from the camp, and it was found empty.

GANNON: Did you direct that they follow that worst-case dictum and send in--

NIXON: Oh, yes.

GANNON: --twice as many--as--

NIXON: Oh, we were ready. Oh, yes, we were ready. In fact, we lost a helicopter or two, but there were plenty there, and we--as a matter of fact, we lost no men on it, because we were prepared. No, that didn't fail because of lack of preparation or because of lack of equipment. That failed only because our 00:44:00intelligence was faulty in terms of not finding out that the P.O.W.s had been moved from that camp to a place in Hanoi.

GANNON: In practical political terms, could you have resisted the tremendous domestic feeling and pressure against the shah at the time? If you had been in office and had invited him into this country, wouldn't that have created a--almost an unmanageable national uproar?

NIXON: It might have, but I would still have done it, because in the long term a president on occasion has to stand against what appears to be the best opinion of the brightest and the best in the media, who, of course, would try to create that uproar, and I'm not--I would not say that you would find that, when the American people really realized what the stakes were, that they would have opposed what the president did in that respect. I think, in retrospect, that the American people perhaps would respect a president for his--doing what he felt 00:45:00was right and what was in the interest of the country. I must say I was quite moved by the fact that after I went to the shah's funeral--I went at my own expense, of course--and took this long trip and came back--that I received a great volume of mail from the United States, from all over the world as well, saying, "Thank you very much for standing by a friend." Now, I'm not sure that's the majority opinion, but, in any event, there's still a lot of support in the world and in the United States for doing the right thing, even though it has some political costs.

GANNON: Do you think that the government should have picked up the tab for your going to the shah's funeral to represent the country as you did? Even unofficially?

NIXON: Absolutely not. I never asked the government to do that. For example--

GANNON: But--do you think they should have offered?

NIXON: No. No, they wouldn't and I wouldn't expect them to, because basically 00:46:00if they were to pick up the tab for that, why didn't they send me on an official mission? No. As a matter of fact, in all of my travels abroad, I don't ask for government support. Secret Service has to go along by law, but I--for example, my several trips to China since I've been out of office, my trips to the--the Mideast, and also my trips over to Europe have all been at my own expense. I--I want to be--if you go as the representative of the government, then of course you have to do what the government wants. And I want to be independent to do whatever I want and to say whatever I want when I come back.

GANNON: Would you accept a government mission if it were--if you were asked to take one?

NIXON: No, if I thought it would be appropriate, like f--well, for example, let me say I was a member of the delegation that went to Sadat's funeral, and we rode in a government plane down there. From Sadat's funeral, however, I did not stay--I didn't--not come back with Ford and Carter on the plane. I went on 00:47:00around to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Tunisia, and Morocco after I had attended the funeral. I did that at my own expense.

GANNON: There's a great story about that, that they didn't know that you were going to peel off and--and go off on your own, and that the w--when they found out you were gone was when the door was about to close, and they looked around and found you weren't there. Did you plan to shake them up a little bit by just disappearing?

NIXON: No. I--I didn't plan to shake them up, but I--I couldn't inform them that I was going to make this kind of a trip, since it was being done on my own. And I c--I couldn't inform them without getting involved in a lot of diplomatic double talk and so forth and so on. But I did inform--let me make it very clear, I did inform the--Secretary Haig, because the State Department did furnish me 00:48:00briefing materials for the trip. But I didn't--but I did not want--I did not want the trip--l--let me explain. The major reason I couldn't inform them is it wouldn't have been proper, before going to a funeral and before the funeral was completed, to announce that after the funeral I'm going to go visit other countries in the area, particularly when the other countries in the area--none of them at that particly time had good relations with Sadat, and none of them had attended the funeral. So I had to wait until after the funeral and then just to take off.

GANNON: Do you think that if President Sadat had been dealing with anyone other then Prime Minister Begin that he could have achieved a broader, more comprehensive peace settlement?

NIXON: Doubtful. President Sadat didn't think so. We've referred to his various 00:49:00abilities, his intelligence, and his determination, and his vision, et cetera. He was also a pragmatist. I remember the last time I saw him, a--at his suite in--here in New York on his last visit to the United States. Begin at that time was pretty low in American public opinion, because he--I think that was right after he'd bombed the Iraqi reactor, or something like that, and people were referring to him as being crazy. In fact, there was a column that morning in one of the papers saying he was crazy. And I said, "What do you think, Mr. President? Is this Begin crazy?" He says, "Oh, he's crazy, but he's crazy like a fox." And I said, "Wouldn't you prefer to have somebody else to deal with, somebody who would be, perhaps, easier to deal with and not as intransigent and difficult as he apparently was at Camp David?" He thought a moment. He says, "Oh, no. I prefer to deal with him. He's tough and he's strong, but I know that once we make the deal, he will be able to deliver on it." And he says, "I'm not 00:50:00sure that some of the others would." So I would say that, as far as Begin is concerned, it'll be hard to make a deal with him, particularly when he says that Galilee and Samaria belong to Israel and so forth. But, on the other hand, once he makes it, he is certainly one that can get support from it, because those who oppose a deal in Israel are not the liberals but the conservatives, and Begin, of course, represents them.

GANNON: Some observers say that because of Begin's aggressive and tough and--and, as some people see it, unpleasant personal characteristics, he does Israel's cause harm with United States public opinion. Do you think that's true?

NIXON: I think he does in many respects. For example, I do not think that, if it had been Golda Meir or Rabin--that the whole Lebanese operation would have 00:51:00received the bad press that it did in the United States that it did with Begin, because Begin was so hard-nosed and tough all the way through. On the other hand, there's a lot of grudging respect for him, too, in this country. I mean, d--this country doesn't like to lose. This country likes to--to see another nation stand up for its rights. A--and so, under the circumstances, I think Begin has some support. But I think in--in overall terms, his personality was not particularly a pleasant one for most Americans, particularly when Israel was engaged in what many considered to be--was inconsistent with Israel's basic ideals.

GANNON: Some observers feel that President Sadat was naïve in his policies. The--the distinguished Arab journalist Mohamed Heikal says that he was naïve in that, when he traded R--Russian support for American support, he confined 00:52:00himself to having to negotiate to Israel. And even Henry Kissinger, apropos Sadat's throwing the Soviets out in 1972, said, "He should have let us known it--known us--he should have let us known it in advance. We would have paid him well for it." Was--how sophisticated was Sadat in planning his policies, thinking them through?

NIXON: I never think of Sadat as being a particularly sophisticated person. He's intelligent, but I think he is a man who sometimes is moved by impulse. I think what happened when he flew to Jerusalem--he just decided that there was a bottleneck there, that--that a big play was required. It was risk for him, but he believed in taking risks, risks for peace. It's very important for all of us 00:53:00to remember that it takes a--a--a cer--it takes courage to fight war, but it also takes courage, a different kind of courage, to wage peace. Sadat understood that. He was willing to take risks for peace, and it paid off. As--I think as far as the Russians were concerned, what happened there is that one of the reasons that he had them leave, as he told me when I saw him in 1974, he says, "We just gave up on them, we gave up on them," because they weren't providing the economic and military support that he thought that they had promised. And let me emphasize, too, that Sadat was influenced to a certain extent, I am sure, and maybe to a great extent, by Faisal, because Faisal was very anti-Soviet, and Faisal constantly remonstrated with Sadat with regard to having too much Russian influence in Egypt and tried to wean him away, and that played a role as well. So maybe it just possible that Sadat should have played it in a tougher way and have said that the United States had to pay a price in order for him to throw 00:54:00the Russians out. But that was characteristic of Sadat. He did what he thought it was right. And, incidentally, it was the right decision. And let me say another thing that set up Sadat's doing what he did with regard to renewing relations with the United States. That occurred because Sadat was convinced, after the '73 war, where, you've got to understand, the United States supported Israel with an airlift at a time that Israel was about ready to be overrun by the Egyptians and the Syrians that--nevertheless, he--every--shortly after that--pe--the ceasefire ended that war--resumed diplomatic relations with the United States. And I think he did that because he realized that the United States could do something for him in terms of peace that the Russians were unable to do in terms of waging war. And he also did that because he was convinced that, while there was no question about my being pro-Israel, he felt 00:55:00that being I--that being pro-Israel, as far as I was concerned, did not mean that I would be anti-Arab or anti-Egypt. As a matter of fact, he had a very candid talk with me on that '74 trip a--about the American political scene. He'd followed our elections pretty closely, a--and he realized that, except for Eisenhower, I was the only American president since World War II who had been elected without substantial Jewish support. He thought that I would support Israel, but he thought I would not be unfair to Egypt or anti-Arab as a result of that support. And he was right. That's why among--those are among that factors that got him to move as he did.

GANNON: On that last trip, the 1974 trip, did he mention Watergate to you at all?

NIXON: He did not mention it, but his--his wife, interestingly enough, spoke to Mrs. Nixon about Watergate. Now, understand, this is before Camp David, before the so-called "détente" between Egypt and Israel. But she said that they in Egypt just couldn't understand Watergate at all, and that they thought it was a conspiracy, and that she and many Egyptians thought it was a Jewish cons--conspiracy. I don't think that was the case, incidentally, but that does show that there was still a strong anti-Jewish sentiment back in 1974, which of course still is the—

THE FOLLOWING IS IN THE ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT BUT NOT ON A TAPE

NIXON: --[the]re to an extent but changed by the new relationship created by Camp David.

GANNON: How did Mrs. Nixon handle the diplomatic confidence of that nature?

NIXON: Well, she handles it very properly. She listens and she nods and, of course, does not make comments of her own, because she wasn't asked to.

GANNON: There's a very vivid film of you and Sadat standing by the pyramids on the '74 trip. Do you remember that scene? Was it as dramatic to live it as it is to watch it?

NIXON: I had been to the pyramids before, but being there with Sadat, of course, was a different kind of experience, different in kind, particularly, even though the place was the same. And as you stand there, you think of Egypt's past, which is a great past. We think of China being an old country and--