Nixon, Soviet leader enjoyed friendly chat, tapes reveal
Reagan, Bush called with support after Watergate address
YORBA LINDA, Calif. President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev chatted warmly in the White House before a historic summit in June 1973, as revealed by secretly recorded tapes released Wednesday.
The long talk was captured on a hidden recording system Nixon used to tape 3,700 hours of conversations between February 1971 and July 1973.
The final chronological instalment of those tapes — 340 hours — was made public Wednesday by the National Archives and Records Administration, along with more than 140,000 pages of text documents.
Nixon and Brezhnev, who met one-on-one with only an interpreter present, talked for an hour on June 18, 1973, and chatted about personal topics, including their families. The conversation happened before the start of a historic seven-day summit that was part of Nixon’s larger strategy of détente with the Soviet Union.
“We must recognize, the two of us, that … we head the two most powerful nations and, while we will naturally in negotiations have some differences, it is essential that those two nations, where possible, work together,” Nixon told Brezhnev.
“If we decide to work together, we can change the world. That’s what — that’s my attitude as we enter these talks.”
The conversation is remarkable because of the camaraderie that is evident, said Luke Nichter of Texas A&M University-Central Texas in Killeen.
“These are Cold War archenemies who are talking like old friends,” he said.
The recordings also revealed that in the hours after Nixon’s first major national address about the Watergate scandal that would eventually drive him from office, two future presidents called him to express their private support: Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
Nixon remains the only U.S. president to resign. His second term was quickly overrun by the Watergate scandal, which began in 1972 when burglars tied to his re-election committee broke into the Democratic headquarters to get dirt on his political adversaries.
Faced with impeachment and a possible criminal indictment for obstructing the government’s investigation, Nixon resigned on Aug. 9, 1974 —a little more than a year after the tapes end — and retreated to his native California, where he was pardoned a month later by his successor, Gerald Ford.
Reagan, governor of California at the time, called late in the evening of April 30, 1973, to support Nixon after the 37th president delivered a landmark speech about the Watergate scandal.
In the speech, Nixon defended the integrity of the White House and said he was not aware of or connected to the Watergate break-in.
Reagan told Nixon the speech was the right one to make and sympathized with the staff exodus.
“I just want you to know, we watched and my heart was with you,” Reagan said.
That same evening, Bush, who had recently been appointed chairman of the Republican National Committee, called to say he had watched the speech with “great pride.”
This time, however, an angry and exhausted-sounding Nixon complained to Bush about the reaction from TV commentators.
The following year, Bush would privately write Nixon a letter urging him to resign.