George H.W. Bush knew the names of world leaders. If his son is elected president Tuesday, he could finally learn a few himself by just listening to tapes of dad with an early mentor, President Richard Nixon.
That’s assuming he were interested in exhibiting such intellectual curiosity.
The National Archives just released 430 more hours of secretly recorded Nixon conversations. The Bush family, led by dad and his attorney, tried to get their release delayed under the dubious premise that they could affect the son’s presidential campaign. Then again, they might have felt the same way about drunken-driving records.
In fact, the Nixon-Bush phone and Oval Office chats tend to reflect well on the father, our United Nations ambassador during difficult times in 1971. He comes off as smart and as loyal as a puppy dog, including sitting mute while Nixon vents his typical bigotry.
“Hi, George. Well, I thought that was a fine vote you were able to get out last night. How do you feel about it?” Nixon said at 11:06 a.m. on Dec. 8, 1971. Bush was in New York, where the United Nations was embroiled in the India-Pakistan war. The U.S. lobbying for a cease-fire and withdrawal of troops by India, a democratic ally with whom Nixon was displeased.
Pakistan was a military dictatorship trying to murderously quell a quest for independence, backed by India, in Hindu-dominated East Pakistan, which ultimately became Bangladesh. But Nixon had used Pakistan as a go-between in National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger’s secret talks with China.
In addition, India had just conducted its own secret talks with the Soviet Union on a friendship treaty, and Nixon personally disliked Indian leader Indira Gandhi. That tended to put him at odds with many members of Congress.
“Well, you’re nice to call about it,” Bush responded. “We felt very, very good about it. Given the editorial attacks on our policy, I think we can use this . . . to point out that we’re not, it’s not us who is isolated from world opinion on that.”
Nixon’s big point to Bush is that we must underscore that we are neither anti-India nor anti-Pakistan, but “anti-aggression.”
“Yes, sir,” said Bush.
Nixon: “And basically, or if you want to put it, we’re not pro-Pakistan or pro-Indian. We’re pro-peace. And it seems to me you wouldn’t have gotten this kind of vote . . . with both the Indians and the Russians lobbying the other way, weren’t they?”
Bush: “Oh, strongly! And all they got was their Iron Curtain. I mean, and they’ve lost Romania on that.”
Nixon: “They’ve lost Romania. To what do you attribute the big vote, George?”
Bush: “I attribute it to the fact, Mr. President, that there was total agreement on the principle of cease-fire and withdrawal, which, you know, you made fundamental. And the fact, also, that India, despite of its sanctimony, was really the aggressor.”
Nixon: “Did most people in the UN realize that?”
Bush: “They totally realize it.”
Bush offers to talk to anybody with qualms in Congress, cites countries backing our position and how some nations involved in their own military skirmishes are partial to the notion of cease-fire.
“Ah, hahahaha,” Nixon says with a rather forced laugh. “I hadn’t thought of that, yuh.”
Bush notes how, after the U.S. lost a Security Council resolution, countries that didn’t always vote with the U.S. voiced their backing to Bush.
“Doesn’t this sort of indicate that India’s support, apart from Russia, in the UN isn’t all that great, then?” Nixon wonders, starting a typically Nixonian riff:
“God, because you know that the Indians put on this sanctimonious peace, Gandhi-like, Christ-like attitude and that they’re the greatest, the world’s biggest democracy and Pakistan is one of the most horrible dictatorships. Ah, I noticed that, for example, it shows you how the decline of morality among the intellectuals where they say that the United States has really taken the wrong position here because there are 600 million Indians and only 60 million Paks. Now, what the hell, should that determine what your position should be?”
“I don’t know,” replies Bush. “The intellectuals” are somehow overlooking that “we’re talking about invasion, we’re talking about 150,000 troops in the other guy’s country, and that’s the point where the United States is right. We’re trying to stop that. We’re not whitewashing Yahya [Pakistani leader Yahya Khan], and I think they’re being unfair on us.”
Nixon stoutly declares that “whatever the criticism of the West Pakistanis and Yahya’s government may be, and a lot of that criticism is justified, it does not justify resort to invasion of another country. If we ever allow the internal problems of one country to be justification for the right of another country, bigger, more powerful, to invade it, then international order is finished in the world. That really is the principle, isn’t it?
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“Yes, sir,” says Bush. “And I will emphasize that. But that’s it.”
The two men discuss editorial opinion sympathetic to India. Bush had asked Chicago native Charles Bartlett, who was a Sun-Times columnist friend, fellow Yalie and World War II veteran, and “He said, `George, you’ve got to understand,’ he said, `back in Kennedy’s days, Kennedy spent more time on India, and the mystique, and they know, they didn’t like us. But it was a kind of liberal mystique.’ So I think we’re fighting some of that.”
“That’s right,” said Nixon, who forever carried the self-image of being a victim of that mystique.
Nixon then claims that one writer believes that he’s anti-Indian “because the Indians were not courteous” to him when he was out of office. “Bull—-,” he snaps. “Hell, they could not have been more courteous. You know how the Indians are, they play up everybody. When I was down there, Christ, they had me stay as a guest of the government when I was out of office. I met Mrs. Gandhi. Of course I had known her before. Of course, all that is ridiculous. What really is the case is that India’s hands are not clean. They are caught in a bloody bit of aggression.”
Yes, he says, Pakistan’s hands aren’t clean. But India sent its troops in, part of a “pretty damn lousy record” that Kissinger had laid out in a background paper on the whole subject.
“Yeah,” said Bush. “I’ve got it in front of me and am studying that.” They conclude their chat thus:
Nixon: “Anyway, you’re doing great. And the main thing, if you can constantly emphasize that world opinion, it isn’t a question of being pro-democracy or anti-democracy, for 600 million as against 60 million. Aggression is wrong, and the difference in size between countries does not justify it and the difference in systems of government does not justify it. Aggression on the part of a democracy, if it is not justified, is just as wrong as aggression on the part of a dictatorship. I would put it as coldly as that. It is aggression that is wrong. That is what the UN is built upon. After all, those communist countries engage in it. It is wrong on their part. But if a democracy engages in aggression, it is wrong.”
Bush: “Thank you, sir.”
Nixon: “You’ll do well. You’ll knock them dead.”
Bush: “Thank you, sir.”
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James Warren and Michael Tackett of the Tribune’s Washington bureau are hosts of “Unconventional Wisdom” at 7:05 p.m. Sundays on WGN-AM 720.