Word: states
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...time went by, the President, or I on his behalf, came to deal increasingly with key foreign leaders through channels that directly linked the White House Situation Room to the field without going through the State Department-the so-called back channels. Nixon moved sensitive negotiations into the White House where he could supervise them directly, get the credit personally, and avoid the bureaucratic dispute or inertia that he found so distasteful. In May 1971, the Secretary of State did not know of the negotiations in White House-Kremlin channels that led to the breakthrough in the SALT talks until...
This time it was clear what Nixon had in mind; I was offered the job of Security Adviser. The President-elect repeated his view of the incompetence of the CIA and the untrustworthiness of the State Department. The position of Security Adviser was therefore crucial to his plan to run foreign policy from the White House...
...days after my own appointment, Nixon informed me that William Pierce Rogers was to be his Secretary of State. He said that he and Rogers had been close friends in the Eisenhower Administration when Rogers was Attorney General, although their friendship had eroded later. Nixon considered Rogers' unfamiliarity with the subject an asset because it guaranteed that policy direction would remain in the White House. At the same time, Nixon said, Rogers was one of the toughest, most cold-eyed, self-centered and ambitious men he had ever met. As a negotiator he would give the Soviets fits...
This curious antiphonal relationship between the two men had the consequence of enhancing my position, but my own role was clearly a result of that relationship and not the cause of it. From the beginning Nixon was determined to dominate the most important negotiations. Throughout his term, when a state visitor was received in the Oval Office by Nixon for a lengthy discussion, I was the only other American present...
This sometimes led to absurdities. On a state visit to Ottawa in 1972, an advance man decided that the tan furniture in Pierre Trudeau's office would not flatter Nixon on television and took it upon himself to redecorate the Prime Minister's private office with blue-covered sofas. He was stopped at the last minute by an incredulous associate of Trudeau almost incoherent with rage...