"I Did Not Want the Hot Words of TV"

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He sees the world as five key areas—the U.S., a Western Europe grouped around Germany, the Soviet Union, Red China, Japan. "Whether we have a world war will depend on how we go about developing the programs and the leadership now to defuse the problems of these nations." Nixon is troubled about the situation of Japan and West Germany, both denied nuclear weapons and thus a major role in their own defense. "What do you say to them? That we won't help? If we don't, it is inevitable that they will have to make arrangements with someone else."

The President hopes to improve relations with China. A dialogue, essential if Peking is ever to assume a normal world role, has begun. "Maybe that role won't be possible for five years, maybe not even ten years. But in 20 years it had better be, or the world is in mortal danger. If there is anything I want to do before I die, it is to go to China. If I don't, I want my children to."

There remains the problem of the Soviet Union, "the big one—currently." When dealing with Russia, "it doesn't serve the cause to say that if only we get to know each other better our differences will disappear. Great nations are going to have different views." The President is keenly conscious of differing political and economic systems, but the fundamental difference he sees is that while the U.S. seeks peace, the U.S.S.R. seeks dominion.

When Nixon talked of these gigantic gulfs between the two powers, he did not grow excited and angry as he did years ago: It is a fact of his life now. His job, as he sees it, is to convince the Soviet Union that it can still have its goals but must compete for them in the peaceful ways of commerce, ideas, even diplomacy. Bringing this about is not a matter of verbal persuasives, however; American power must be used to make it impossible for Soviet expansionism to succeed other than in peaceful contention.

In the uncluttered minutes Nixon looked out the windows of his office down the south lawn. In some ways it is unchanged since Thomas Jefferson, but beyond those serene acres almost everything has changed. Nixon sometimes brooded out loud about the United Nations and NATO and the other institutions that now must be replaced or altered to fit reality. Reading history, he has been impressed by the fact that "we are always ending wars but never winning the peace." His fervent hope was "to do now what we didn't do then. I would rather be known not for the fact that I ended a war but for the fact that I won a lasting peace."