Presidential Recordings Program

President Nixon: Yeah?

Operator: Mr. Pat Buchanan^∇.

President Nixon: Hello Pat.

Patrick Buchanan: Yes, sir.

President Nixon: First, I think you've done a fine job on this book.1

The one--I wanted to ask you about one point at this time. I was rather shocked to see--and I don't know whether it's your language or Henry's [Kissinger^∇]--about the peace movement: "The peace movement contained men of conviction and great moral courage who sincerely believed in the rightness of what they were doing." I don't believe that and I'm not going to put it in. And--who's insisting on that?2

Buchanan: No-one's insisting on that, sir.

President Nixon: OK, it's not going in.

Buchanan: OK.

• 1. Patrick J. Buchanan had published The New Majority: President Nixon at Mid-Passage in 1973, (Girard Bank, 1973).
• 2. Nixon had turned the conversation to the topic of a draft of a speech. He gave two speeches and a toast the following day, and the White House issued a statement. It is not clear which speech Nixon was referring to, but it was likely a draft of his remarks at a National Prayer Breakfast held the next morning, on 1 February. As delivered, his remarks at the Prayer Breakfast read: "And then finally, and reference has already been made to this, for the first time in 10 years at one of these prayer breakfasts, the President of the United States is able to say the United States is at peace in Vietnam. Could I put that peace in perspective? I refer to these journeys abroad and also the agreement that has just been reached. We could read too much into the peace that we have talked about, much as we would hope that it could mean everything that we could possibly imagine. But as we look over the history of agreements between nations and as we look at those periods of peace that follow war, the record is not too encouraging. Because what we often find is that after war and after a period in which a nation has peace, the conflict that we were engaged in in war tends to turn itself inward and we continue to engage in that conflict in peace. And rather than a period of peace being one that is creative and positive, it is one that is negative, one of withdrawal, one of isolation, and that plants the seeds for more conflict, not only at home but abroad." "Remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast," 1 February 1973, Public Papers of the President: Richard Nixon: 1973.