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October 26, 1971

Introduction

This almanac page for Tuesday, October 26, 1971, pulls together various records created by the federal government and links to additional resources which can provide context about the events of the day.

Previous Date: Monday, October 25, 1971

Next Date: Wednesday, October 27, 1971

Schedule and Public Documents

Archival Holdings

Any selection of archival documents will necessarily be partial. You should use the documents and folders identified below as a starting place, but consult the linked collection finding aids and folder title lists and the collections themselves for context. Many documents to be found this way do not lend themselves to association with specific dates, but are essential to a complete understanding of the material.

  • Selective document listing

    President's Office Files

    The President's Office Files consists of materials drawn together by the Special Files Unit from several administrative subdivisions within the White House Office. It is the handwriting and sensitive papers sent to the Staff Secretary that now comprise much of the President's Office Files. Visit the finding aid to learn more.

    President's Personal File

    The President's Personal File is essentially a President's secretary's file, kept by Rose Mary Woods, personal secretary to the President, for two purposes: (1) preserving for posterity a collection of documents particularly close to the President, whether because he dictated or annotated them, or because of the importance of the correspondent or the event concerned and (2) giving appropriate attention–letters of gratitude, invitations to White House social events, and the like–to members and important friends and supporters of the Nixon administration. This generalization does not describe all the varied materials of a file group which is essentially a miscellany, but it does identify the reason for the existence of the file group's core. Visit the finding aid to learn more.

  • The H. R. Haldeman Diaries consists of seven handwritten diaries, 36 dictated diaries recorded as sound recordings, and two handwritten audio cassette tape subject logs. The diaries and logs reflect H. R. Haldeman’s candid personal record and reflections on events, issues, and people encountered during his service in the Nixon White House. As administrative assistant to the President and Chief of Staff, Haldeman attended and participated in public events and private meetings covering the entire scope of issues in which the Nixon White House engaged in during the years 1969-1973. Visit the finding aid to learn more.

    • Transcript of diary entry (PDF)
      Tuesday, October 26th. The main action today was on the UN vote. The President had me in this morning and called Rogers to discuss that and the European Security Conference...

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      DECLASSIFIED - E.O. 13526, Sect. 3.4: by MS, NARA, June 12, 2013
      Audio Cassette 15, Side A, Withdrawn Item Number 9 [AC-15(A) Sel 3]
      Duration: 11 seconds

      ...trial balloons that have been floated by Brezhnev and Pompidou. The President told Rogers to keep it cool on that, that we should not let the press push us in to it, that it would be a mess right now.
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      He also assured Rogers that he'd wait until tomorrow to get a report from Henry on the China advance, since Henry gets back this evening, or late this afternoon. He did some schedule shifting for the week, so that he could spend a good deal of time with Connally this afternoon and tomorrow afternoon, since he leaves on Thursday. The UN vote has, of course, stirred up the Conservatives substantially, and the Attorney General called with considerable concern. Reagan had been very upset last night and tried to reach the President after midnight, and the President returned the call this morning. Reagan feels that the President should go on television and make a big thing that we won't abide by any UN votes in the future, etcetera. The President explained to him why we couldn’t do that…

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      DECLASSIFIED - E.O. 13526, Sect. 3.4: by MS, NARA, June 12, 2013
      Audio Cassette 15, Side A, Withdrawn Item Number 10 [AC-15(B) Sel 4]
      Duration: 8 seconds

      ...because we're relying on the UN groups to try to resolve the India-Pakistan situation...
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      ...and that apparently didn't calm him down much. Rogers called Reagan later and thought he had made some headway, saying we're going to sleep on the whole thing and see how it works out. But then Reagan saw Rogers on television later, saying that we weren't going to suspend funding of the UN because of the vote, and that got Reagan all upset again. He thinks that, he talked to the Attorney General after that and said that he thinks we've at least got to call Bush down for a consultation. That this should be a strong Presidential statement we'll no longer abide by UN votes, and at the very least, he should take a strong stand on cutting funds before Congress does it beneath him. Mitchell tends to agree feeling that if we don't do that and take the line we're taking now, which is leaving it up to Rogers as the spokesman, it leaves the President behind the parade. Later, Mitchell talked to Bill and Jim Buckley at my suggestion, and also Goldwater. He determined that the Reagan line and suggestions had come from Bill Buckley and that Jim Buckley feels basically the same as Bill Buckley does. Goldwater was in Tucson last night and said there was quite an uprising over the news, and also a problem at the Republican luncheon today. That he thinks that now that we're pulling on our horns on foreign aid and the currency reform, and all that sort of thing, that the little nations are now flaunting their independence. Mitchell feels there's some very negative political factors and that the President's going to get the blame for it all because of Peking. He doesn't think we need to do anything in a hurry, but he feels the President should do something personally to get the initiative on this.

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      DECLASSIFIED - E.O. 13526, Sect. 3.4: by MS, NARA, June 12, 2013
      Audio Cassette 15, Side A, Withdrawn Item Numbers 12, 13 [AC-15(A) Sel 6, 7]
      Duration: 33 seconds

      The President's urging that we get Sam Devine and some of the other Congressmen to move out on cutting UN funds and that sort of thing. And also wants Kissinger to call Reagan and try and get it squared away with him. Later in the day, he got to thinking we would call Bush down, which we've now done, and that we might remove him from the UN and reassign him to NATO or something like that. And just leave the UN sitting there or downgrade it with a lesser appointment.
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      The President called me at home later this evening and said that he had his talk with Henry, who was back from China, and that Henry had called Reagan as I asked him to do, and will also call Buckley. The President makes the point that we need to keep the right wing on track. Their plan is to keep Bush down here two or three days, which will shake them up a little at the UN, and in some way, we'll say we're disgusted by their performance. He feels that beyond that, there's nothing we can do about it. We just have to ride it through. We have to see if Kissinger can keep Reagan in line and try to do so with Buckley also, and that we've just got to keep Reagan from jumping off the reservation. He does want to make it clear to the conservatives that the President fought the China battle as hard as he could, and the right wing should understand that. And that the point here is that we mustn't be defensive with them. They’ve got to face up to the fact that we have common enemies, and that the people they should be after are the UN, not the President.

      We had a fairly long discussion at, this morning also on China guidance, before Henry got back. The President's now concluded that Pat Nixon’s got to go on the trip because of the way Henry's set things up, but that if she goes, none of her staff are to go, but she has to have an advance man to handle her activities. She should be separately scheduled, take no women's press along with her, should not ride with the President. Also, Rose should be lectured cold turkey that she is going along, but she's to work for everybody. We should go with a very thin staff. Rogers can take a secretary, but not his wife. And he, the President wants to review personally the specific man-by-man lists of people to go along on the trip.

      He says he will approve Teddy White going, on the basis that we need an historian and somebody who understands the China situation, but we should get some mileage out of it with Teddy though, that we're, the President's made this decision over other people's advice, etcetera, and is going to let him go.

      He made the point that we've got to move now to get Kissinger under control on backgrounders. He doesn't want to give so, have him give so many, because he feels they build up the man who's doing the backgrounding, rather than the President. He's talked to Ehrlichman about this too, apparently.

      End of October 26th.

      Going back over the weekend for a minute: the phone sheet showed that, as a result of the meeting the President had with Rogers and Bush on Friday to discuss UN-China strategy...

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      DECLASSIFIED - E.O. 13526, Sect. 3.4: by MS, NARA, June 12, 2013
      Audio Cassette 15, Side A, Withdrawn Item Number 14 [AC-15(A) Sel 8]
      Duration: 50 seconds

      ...the President made some phone calls to put pressure on some of the nations to vote: he called Colombo of Italy, King Hassan of Morocco, Echeverria of Mexico, and I believe, a couple of others, which would show in the log. A point he made afterwards was that he had gone way beyond what one would expect the President to do, and that we must not put the word out of the calls that he made, because of course, we failed in the vote. Some of the calls did manage to save a vote, or at least, move it to the abstentions column. But it wasn't enough to keep Taiwan in.
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    • Original audio recording (MP3)

  • The National Archives Catalog is the online portal to the records held at the National Archives, and information about those records. It is the main way of describing our holdings and also provides access to electronic records and digitized versions of our holdings.

    The Catalog searches across multiple National Archives resources at once, including archival descriptions, digitized and electronic records, authority records, and web pages from Archives.gov and the Presidential Libraries. The Catalog also allows users to contribute to digitized historical records through tagging and transcription.

    Nixon Library Holdings

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National Security Documents

  • The President's Daily Brief is the primary vehicle for summarizing the day-to-day sensitive intelligence and analysis, as well as late-breaking reports, for the White House on current and future national security issues. Read "The President's Daily Brief: Delivering Intelligence to Nixon and Ford" to learn more.

  • The Foreign Relations of the United States series presents the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity. Visit the State Department website for more information.

    Vol. III, Foreign Economic Policy; International Monetary Policy, 1969-1972

    International Monetary Policy, 1969-1972

    Vol. V, United Nations, 1969-1972

    Chinese Representation in the United Nations

    Vol. E-1, Documents on Global Issues, 1969-1972

    Oceans Policy

    • 415. Telegram 3859 From the Mission to the United Nations to the Department of State, New York, October 26, 1971, 2230Z

      U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Bush reported continued Spanish opposition to the U.S. position on international straits.

      Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Files 1970-73, POL 33-8. Limited Official Use. Repeated to Madrid and Defense. Sent with a request to pass to the Office of Ocean Affairs in the Department of Defense.

    Vol. E-13, Documents on China, 1969-1972

    • 55. Memorandum of Conversation, Beijing, October 26, 1971, 5:30-8:10 p.m., Beijing, October 26, 1971, 5:30-8:10 p.m.

      During the final meeting between Chinese and American officials, President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs Kissinger cautioned that he was out in front of official U.S. policy on Taiwan and could not guarantee that President Nixon would agree to the entire formulation. He agreed that the U.S. would not challenge the reality of one China and that Taiwan was a province of China. Chinese Premier Chou En-lai maintained that where there were fundamental differences, especially in the interpretation of words such as “peaceful competition” and “individual freedom,” the differences should remain in the communiqué.

      Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 1035, Files for the President-China Material, HAK visit to PRC, October 1971, Memcons-originals. Top Secret; Sensitive; Exclusively Eyes Only. No drafting information appears on the memorandum. The meeting was held at the Government Guest House, Attached at Tab A is the third Chinese draft of the communiqué. See Document 56 for text of the draft. At Tab B is the final agreed tentative draft, which is printed in Foreign Relations, 1969-1972, volume XVII, China, 1969-1972, as an attachment to Document 165. The final version of the draft is in ibid., Document 203.

    • 56. American and Chinese Drafts of the Joint Communiqué, Beijing, October 22-26, 1971, Beijing, October 26, 1971

      Each nation submitted three drafts of the joint communiqué for President Nixon’s visit to China.

      Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 1035, Files for the President-China Material, China-HAK October 1971 Visit. No classification marking. All brackets in the source text. See Documents 165 and 203, Foreign Relations, 1969-1976, volume XVII, China, 1969-1972, for the final agreed tentative draft and final version of the communiqué

  • The Kissinger telephone conversation transcripts consist of approximately 20,000 pages of transcripts of Kissinger’s telephone conversations during his tenure as Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (1969-1974) and Secretary of State (1973-1974) during the administration of President Richard Nixon. Visit the finding aid for more information.

    Digitized versions can be found in the National Archives Catalog.

Audiovisual Holdings

Context (External Sources)