'Nixon too drunk to take call'

2004-05-27 13:19

College Park, Maryland - Five days into the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, with the superpowers on the brink of confrontation, President Richard Nixon was too drunk to discuss the crisis with the British prime minister, according to newly released transcripts of tape recordings.

Henry Kissinger's assessment of the president's condition on the night of October 11, 1973, is contained in more than 20 000 pages of transcripts of Kissinger's phone calls as the president's national security adviser and secretary of state - records whose privacy he had guarded for three decades. The National Archives released them on Wednesday.

They show the powerful adviser trying to manage world crises even as Nixon's presidency teetered from the Watergate scandal that would consume his administration in August 1974.

In October 1973, US-Soviet tensions were peaking over the Arab-Israeli war, and British Prime Minister Edward Heath's office called the White House just before 20:00 to ask to speak with Nixon.

"Can we tell them no?" Kissinger asked his assistant, Brent Scowcroft, who had told him of the urgent request. "When I talked to the president, he was loaded."

Scowcroft replied: "We could tell him the president is not available and perhaps he can call you."

Kissinger said Nixon would be available in the morning.

At the time, Kissinger was both national security adviser and secretary of state, his dual titles testifying to his influence with the beleaguered president.

The transcripts cover Kissinger's phone calls with world leaders, politicians, White House aides, celebrities and journalists from January 1969 to the end of Nixon's presidency in August 1974.

- AP