(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
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Compiled by DuPre Jones [1]

[]

Date: 1973-10-28

I would like to make a few extemporaneous remarks and I hope you will let me move the verbs around in the transcript.

NEGOTIATION

When I'm talking to Le Duc Tho, I know how to behave with Le Duc Tho, and when I'm with a girl, I know how to behave with a girl. Besides, Le Duc Tho isn't agreeing to negotiate with me because I'm an example of all the moral virtues. He agrees to negotiate with me because, he wants certain things from me as I do from him. RICHARD NIXON

The worst kind of bastards in this town are those who hold high positions and then go out and say they really didn't believe in (Administration policies]. If anyone would ever say I didn't believe in what Nixon is doing, I would publicly dispute him. I like the President. I agree with him. We've gone through all this for three years, like two men in a foxhole... It's almost irrelevant whether we like each other. It's like asking me whether I like my arm. We have no disagreement over anything central or basic. No disagreement over policy. We're too close for that.

I didn't know him, that's all. My attitude towards him was the conventional highbrow one, that's all. I was wrong. President Nixon has shown great strength, great skill. In summoning me to his side, too: I had never met him when he offered me this job. I was astonished. After all, he was acquainted with the unfriendly and unsympathetic attitude I had always assumed towards him. Yes, indeed, he showed great courage in turning to me.

INTELLIGENCE

I have a first‐rate mind but a third‐rate intuition about people.

Intelligence is not at all that important in the exercise of power, and is often, in point of fact, useless. Just as a leader doesn't need intelligence, a man in my job doesn't need too much of it either. My theory is quite different, but, I repeat, I won't tell you what it is. Why should I, while I'm still in the middle of my job?

[END]
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[1] Url: https://www.nytimes.com/1973/10/28/archives/the-sayings-of-secretary-henry-language-negotiation-humility-the.html

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