Remarks at an Informal Meeting With French Correspondents Who Accompanied President Pompidou of France on His Visit to the United States

Ladies and gentlemen:

I asked you to drop into the office here because it seemed to me you have come a long way, and at least you should have the opportunity to see where we have been having our talks and also to have the chance to at least sense the atmosphere of those talks.

When I first suggested this to Ron Ziegler, I said, "Why don't you get in the dozen or so who are along and we will have a little talk?"

So, he said, "There are 180." That is why, rather than having a talk--and I think we have a time problem, I understand you are going on as the President goes on and mostly we have a numbers problem--so I would limit this to a monologue rather than a discussion on an informal basis, which I think all of us would have enjoyed more.

I want to say, first--and I am going to be quite candid--that I am always fascinated when I meet the head of state or head of government who comes into this office because I read about him before he comes; I get the evaluation of our State Department people, also, the evaluations of the press. Sometimes they vary, just as they do in this country.

But in any event, I get a picture in my mind of the man and then when I meet the man I sometimes have a picture either underlined, and it proves to be quite accurate, usually, or I find my attitudes changing.

I thought you would be interested to know--and I do not say this in criticism of our State Department evaluation or the press version that has been written-that President Pompidou created a rather different impression in our private meetings than I expected he would create.

I had never met him before. We both rather wondered why that was the case. But it seemed that when I was in office he was not the Prime Minister and when I went out of office he was. I did not see him on the several occasions that I was in Paris between 1961 and 1969. So, I only knew him in terms of what I had read and what I had heard on television.

So I thought of a man who was highly intelligent--and I found him to be that-very suave, and I found him to be that, very measured and deliberate, not one to, as we say in this country, to "pop off" and to say something indiscreet.

All of these pictures I had already in my mind as a result of having read and heard what had been said about him.

But in addition to that, I found a man who was very strong. I thought of President Pompidou more as a man of the city--and this is not said critically because I, like most Americans, always like to go to Paris--as a Parisian with the sophisticated, sometimes rather brittle personality that you think of as a man of the city.

What I sensed in my talks with him was: Here is a man who not only was born in what we call the "heartland," in the country, but a man who retains that strength, a very great strength, a strength of purpose, a determination, that is very impressive.

What I am trying to say, and not with any idea of "buttering him up" or anything of that sort, but what I am trying to say is that I believe that he is a man who has a very difficult task, as he himself recognizes, to follow a man like President de Gaulle, one of the great, majestic figures of the century. But he can do it. He will not be like de Gaulle, just as no one man is like another. But in addition to the high intelligence, the competence which all of you have written about, I sensed in him a very great strength of character, and it is strength of character that great nations, and small nations for that matter, need in their leadership positions at this point.

So much for my evaluations of him, In regard to the talks, as all of you know-you are sophisticated reporters--after every one of these talks you find we have covered a whole landscape--the Middle East, the international monetary affairs, East-West relations, Europe. And we talked about more precise things, like Comsat, and so forth. The subjects are the ones that you would expect.

As all of you know, and we were quite candid to say, there was not quite complete agreement on all these issues with him, or for that matter, with any other leader. But what was helpful in these talks, despite the translations, we covered an enormous amount of ground, because the President and I, while we are from different backgrounds and from different countries, and he is a finance man and an economic man and I am from the law, are very much alike in one respect. We are quite direct. We came right to the point, and there were very few wasted words.

I would say that in the 4 hours of talks we had in this room, and, of course, the private talks we also had at dinners, while of course there is some chit-chat, particularly at the dinners, that when it came down to the issues, that we covered the ground very speedily and directly. He had done his homework and I had done mine, and this meant that when we finished, we had covered all of the subjects that either of us wanted to raise, which was very helpful.

Now having said all of that, I think this bodes well for the future. The meeting with President de Gaulle was a beginning in restoring the proper relationship between two nations that have been allies for so many years.

This meeting was essential---essential in terms that each got to know the other and to know how we can communicate. I am very optimistic that the relations between France and the United States will continue to be on a very sound basis in which each respects the independence of the other, and in which, more in the future than in the past, we will find we are on parallel and sometimes the same course.

This is our goal--it is his and it is mine. I think we can achieve it.

One personal note. The President very kindly asked me at the conclusion of our talks to pay a return visit to France. I have no plans to do so in the immediate future, but I always want some excuse to go to Paris, and that would be a very good one, Of course.

But I do plan, I told him, sometime, as soon as our schedules would permit, to make another trip to Europe, and, of course, have the opportunity to visit France again, and I hope he will return here, because I think this kind of talk should not be simply one of those protocol things that is done for purposes of appearances. It should occur quite regularly so that at the very highest levels we can have communication and then give the--I was going to say guidelines, but that is not a very good word in this Presidency--give the directions to those in the Cabinet levels for implementing our future policies.

Finally, on a personal note, I always try, when somebody comes so far on a journey like this, to give him something to remember us by.

This is, incidentally, a very inexpensive gift, but whenever we sign a bill here, we have the custom of giving a pen to the Congressmen and Senators who were cosponsors of the bills.

So, we thought that since all of you had come so far on this journey that you might like to have a souvenir. It is a very good pen, and it has the signature on it. It is a real signature. I didn't write it, but I don't write most of my signatures.

I use this pen, incidentally, for everything except vetoes.

So, we will hand you one as you leave. I can assure you that as you receive the pen, don't feel that you are compromised, because I always expect the press to write anything about me that they like.

We are delighted to have all of you, not only those of you from France, but those from the other countries here. I think you will find the balance of your trip in this country interesting.

As I told the President, he will see probably a demonstrator or so, but we live in an age of demonstrations and the most important fact to bear in mind, as I said out there is, as I firmly believe, that the great majority of Americans want good relations with France. They have great respect for this nation, and he will be welcomed warmly by the people of this country, and that is keeping it all in perspective.

A word about this room that might be of interest to you. This room was built during the term of Theodore Roosevelt. He conceived this west wing, which is called the West Wing. Each President, of course, redecorates it according to his taste.

When President Eisenhower was here-as you know, that is the seal of the President on the ceiling and the seal of the President is also inscribed in the rug--he had the walls painted a pale green shade, and after that, during the period of President Kennedy and President Johnson, it has been the tradition to have the whole room in white--a white rug and carpet and curtains and the rest.

So I thought we would continue the tradition, although as Mr. Bailey ¹ and some of the other old-timers around here know, a white rug gets pretty bad looking after people tramp through it for awhile, so we were going to change the rug and get a new one.

Just to show you the influence of television, my television advisers say when you have a white rug and white curtains, you don't get a good picture. So we bowed to television and that is why you see this colorful rug and curtains and so forth.

But the items in here are quite interesting. These are the flags of the services. Incidentally, that is all the President takes with him, unless he steals something, but that he doesn't do. The flags go with him.

For those of you from abroad, these are American birds. You, of course, know about the birds in Britain which my wife collects, to the extent that I can afford them. These are Boehm birds and Boehm is the American counterpart of the famous English birds. They were given to the White House. Over there on that back corner is the last bird he made. It is a baby eaglet. The clock is French, incidentally. It is an antique.

But the thing in this room that I am perhaps most proud of is this. My daughter Julie [Mrs. David Eisenhower] made this for me. And to show you that there is one optimist in the family, she made it before the election. That is not the seal of the President; it is the seal of the United States. But it is an indication of perhaps another Eisenhower's political prowess.

Thank you very much.