The Watergate Memoirs of Gordon Walter by Gordon Walter

Author:Gordon Walter [Walter, Gordon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: White House, Watergate, Haldeman, Nixon
Publisher: Christopher Matthews Publishing
Published: 2013-08-12T06:00:00+00:00

Secretary of State William P. Rogers

V

“I’M AN EXPERT ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,” Nixon told me one day. “But you know that. Everyone knows that. It's common knowledge. Even my enemies know it.”

“So what's the problem?”

“It's hard to keep track of all these little countries. Who can even remember the names of them all, let alone where they are and what they want?”

“You know what they all want. Our money.”

“It used to be a lot easier when Kennedy was president. He really had it easy. They were either for us or for the Russians and that was that. Now we have those who are for us, and those who are for the Russians and those who are communist but like China instead and those that are part of the Third World, whatever that is. And some belong to more than one group. Yugoslavia is a communist country, but it says it is Third World. Maybe the whole Third World is a communist front organization. It's hard to tell. Kennedy had it so much easier. It was simple to make decisions then. I would have been able to do really great things if I had been elected in 1960. History would already know me as a great president. Damn that makeup man.”

He leaned back and we both puffed our cigars.

“There's something so terribly masculine about the sight of cigar smoke,” he said, unleashing a cloud to float lazily toward the ceiling. He watched his smoke drift upward until it mingled with mine and lost its separate identity.

“One thing I'm not good at is blowing smoke rings,” he confessed. During our meetings he was often very relaxed and surprisingly candid. All presidents need someone to talk to and Nixon was no exception. I was ideal for his purposes, better than Rebozo or Abplanalp, of course. I was connected with the White House, but yet wasn't, so I knew what was going on and he could talk freely to me about problems and people without fear of anything getting back. Plus I was one of his oldest friends and we had shared a lot together; that builds confidence and ease.

“I can't blow them either,” I told him.

“Maybe it's just a trick.”

He tried one and it didn't work at all.

“There are too many countries in the world,” I said.

“Don't I know it. Little countries that can't even stand on their own two feet, thousands of them. They are populating like rabbits. You rub two little countries together and you get a third. Sometimes they have twins and suddenly there are four countries instead. And each country demands that it be treated seriously and as if it were the most important country on earth. And they gang up on you. It's not really fair, hundreds against one. And they are stupid, so easily manipulated in the UN. Anti-America. That's the popular thing there nowadays. And none of these dinky countries has the balls to stand up and think for itself. I had to cast the first U.S. veto in the history of the Security Council last year.

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