President: I'd kind of like to do it. It wouldn't be similar to the others.
Kissinger: The problem is not the cosmonauts, it's Dobrynin.
President: Let Dobrynin come if he wants.
Kissinger: Okay.
[Dr. Kissinger then described the projected attendance at the NSC meeting on the Middle East.]
President: No. No on Treasury and OMB. I'd like Hartmann and Haig there.
Kissinger: The New York Times has a copy of something on 40 Committee operations in Chile. We will brief the 40 Committee next week. What happened is this: Johnson put money in the '64 elections. We put into the '70 elections and spread it out. We then put more in to the Congressional elections and that failed too. After the elections we put money into opposition parties and newspapers. It was designed to keep the democratic process going. This was not a regular covert activity. There was no attempt at a coup. Though there could have been in '70 if we hadn't failed.
There are two problems: The substance is embarrassing but we can ride it out. The other is the leaks. The 40 Committee has followed the same procedures since President Eisenhower.
Rockefeller: I was on it.
Kissinger: All these activities are approved by the Deputies in regular but secret process. If these things leak, we haven't a government.
President: Who did it?
Kissinger: I want to think about that. The Committees are briefed on these activities. The problem is this is the most secret activity we have. If there are minutes, we should be able to track it. We might have Ter Horst make a statement not on the facts but on the principle.
SECRET/SENSITIVE/XGDS
