Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 34 › Conversation 034-030
Nixon phone call with Dobrynin on Vietnam War and DMZ
Sunday, December 10, 1972 · 12:04 PM–12:55 PM ET · White House Telephone · 10 min
AI Summary
President Nixon and Ambassador Anatoliy Dobrynin engaged in a diplomatic call to address a final sticking point in the Vietnam peace negotiations regarding the status of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Nixon expressed his firm insistence on returning to previously agreed-upon language, emphasizing that this resolution was essential to removing an irritant from U.S.-Soviet relations and enabling future cooperation. Accompanied by Alexander Haig, Nixon requested that Dobrynin convey this position to Moscow and Hanoi, resulting in a decision to coordinate a follow-up meeting to finalize technical details.
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Oh, good morning, Mr. President.
I hope we didn't get you up too early.
No, no, thank you.
You see, now is the time we have to be early.
That's right.
Mr.
Ambassador, I had a couple of personal things and then one substantive thing I wanted to talk to you about briefly, if I could.
Yes, of course.
First, to thank you for the very gracious way that you and Mrs. Dobrynin
are helping our children on their trip.
They're looking forward to it.
It'll be the high point of their
travel, and I just hope they aren't too much bother to your people.
Oh, they're really nice kids, kids, really very nice.
We enjoyed being with them the whole evening.
Well, they told me, and they just had a wonderful time, the movies and everything, and they'll be good representatives over there.
I'm sure about it, no doubt.
And Mr. President, if I discuss with him when I was in Moscow, he will take care of it.
He asked me to tell you that he will take care about everything will go right.
You shouldn't bother.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
All right.
The second point is that I wanted to thank you for, as you know, I'm very much on top of these negotiations and so forth, and I want to thank you for the
work that you have done, you and your government.
And without you and your government, well, you know, we've got our problem.
And I've handled that personally, as you know.
I know.
And I've gotten that coming along, although it's tough.
I mean, I must say it's tough.
But you've got—you and your government have the other problem.
There's really only one issue left.
Yeah.
And it's the issue really is to me it's hard.
I just think very, very hard for me to understand how they can go back on what we had agreed on October 8.
I just have to take a position on that which is
I want you to know that I'm not doing it in order to, you know, I don't want to give you an impossible problem, but I've had to put some impossible problems to chew, you know, like the withdrawal of forces, and I've done it.
And on this one, like the DMZ, you and I know what the DMZ means.
Symbolically, we know also what it means as a matter of fact.
And on this one, we just can't let these talks fail.
to that one item.
And I just wanted you to know that I—that when Haig reported to me about some compromise language, I said that just wouldn't do.
I just think we have to have the—I mean, we agreed to this language long ago.
It's the right kind of language.
And I wanted—I just want you to know that—hear it directly from me, you see?
Yes, I do.
Now, I don't say this for the purpose of
You know I'll never do this because, let me put it quite candidly.
Yeah.
Mr. Brezhnev and I and your government and I, we got bigger fish to fry than this damn thing.
Exactly.
The main thing is to get this one out of the damn frying pan so that we can get busy on with other things.
We'll go on with the other things anyway.
You understand, not that.
Yeah, I understand.
But this always is an irritant.
And now is the opportunity.
And frankly, I think the biggest step toward...
toward the great goal that Mr. Barstaff and I are working together and that you and Henry and all of us have been working for to get this thing out of the way and out of the way tomorrow.
But we just can't let this one clause where we had agreed on a clause
And then it turned around.
We just can't get it to turn, to stop.
But that's, see, I just want you to know how I felt about it.
And if you would convey it, I would appreciate it.
I will definitely.
And thank you very much, Mr. .
And I'll, I just like to take one minute.
Al Haig is here with me.
Yes.
And if there's any, I just, he's listening.
And if he has any technical thing to add, I'll have him say a word to you.
Okay.
I'll stay on the line with you.
Do you have another minute?
Yes, of course.
Yeah, yeah.
Of course.
All right, here's Haig.
Thank you very much, Mr. President.
And on the first point, it's a real pleasure.
On the second, I will send a message to Mr. President.
Yes, thank you very much.
Good.
Mr.
Ambassador, this was the issue I told you this morning.
If I understand correctly, the compromise you proposed is not good, so you're coming to that one, which was before, yes?
Yes.
But you see, Mr.
Ambassador, the compromise was something that...
you know, Henry, everybody there, they all get tired and they say we will compromise.
And he hadn't recognized the fact that I've got, you know, I've got to get the other people in line.
And I just, the compromise won't do.
And it isn't all that important.
Hell, the DMZ is there.
It's written into everything, and so to put in some language about whether civilians move across or this or that, I think it's just nonsense, really, really to have a talk break down about such a small issue.
Yeah, I understand.
See, that's my feeling, and I want you to know how that I felt here, that we just had to, we're going to have to insist tomorrow on the original language, and I just want you to know that
If that is done, then we're going to be able to do other things that are very important, because when we come right down to it, let's look at it.
North Vietnam is a dragon huge like it is on us.
Then I can get into the Congress, and I can get some of that economic assistance and so forth that they need, and I can do it on a strong, positive note, which I want to do, because I just...
and this is no thought of defeating anybody or anything.
It's going to be one of those things where neither side, most sides will claim victory, neither will have it.
The main thing is
that it will, what we're trying to do here, Mr.
Ambassador, to accomplish, which I know you want and we want, we want to remove this irritant between our relations.
That's the real thing.
We can't allow this damn place to interfere in the relations between the Soviet Union and the United States.
That's really what it gets down to.
And this is what our approach to you is.
This is exactly it.
The only one question, Mr. President.
Yes, sir.
You referred to
or the formulation of October 8, but my impression is that this question of GMZ really arises only on a
the previous session, which was two weeks ago.
Well, that's right, that October 26th.
Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry, I got...
So it was not...
I had my, no, I had my day wrong.
October 26th is what I, if I said October, I meant October 26th.
When they have the last meeting, the last previous one.
That's right, that's right, it was the October 26th one, that's what I meant.
I see.
No, the October 8th one was the first one, before they got this spelled out.
Then it was, when they have the next meeting, I think it was really, even in November,
Right.
Yes, and then .
Right, right, I know.
It's clear.
But the point is that we came to that position, we had an agreement on it, and then now they...
Yes, we just want to have that agreement which was agreed.
Right, right.
And we just want to go to the language that we did agree to at one point and just have it done with, and then we'll, I can assure you, you'll have every possible support from our side.
And we would hope also from your side.
Yeah, I understand.
The only thing is there's no rather short time left.
In Moscow it's already midnight.
The meeting will be tomorrow morning, so it's rather short time.
You understand what I mean?
It's a physical possibility.
Now it's in Moscow.
How could we go to 3 o'clock tomorrow afternoon?
Something maybe...
I'll tell you what we'll do.
Let me see if I can get Henry to have the meeting at 3 o'clock tomorrow afternoon.
Would that be better?
Yes, I think it's a little bit better, but still maybe even in the evening, because now I have to send Moscow to Hanoi.
Oh, boy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Right.
I get it.
All right.
I'll get at that right now.
They're working on technical details anyway.
I would just say they do.
They might have, but then we wait a little bit earlier.
I don't know what will be the final result.
They could meet by, say, 3 or 4 in the afternoon.
Yes, I'm sure that my government will interfere, but I don't know what will be the final response of Hanoi.
I understand.
And I can assure you that when I talk to Saigon, I can't tell you what they're going to do either.
But I would like to have a time, because I know for my government, to have a time to be in communication with Hanoi.
But I just wanted to know you.
how strongly I felt.
It isn't a matter of me trying to embarrass or humiliate him.
It's just one of those things that this is what's going to make or break the deal.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Bye-bye.
NARA Description
On December 10, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Anatoliy F. Dobrynin talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 12:04 pm and 12:55 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 034-030 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 34-30
Date: December 10, 1972
Time: 12:04 pm – unknown before 12:55 pm
Location: White House Telephone
The President talked with Anatoliy F. Dobrynin.
[See Conversation No. 384-4C]
Dobrynin’s schedule
Expression of appreciation
-Trip by [Tricia Nixon Cox and Edward R. F. Cox]
-Irini Dobrynin
-25-
NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM
Conversation No. 34-30 (cont’d)
-Leonid I. Brezhnev
Vietnam
-Negotiations
-Expression of appreciation
-The President’s role
-Status
-October 8, 1972
-Withdrawal of North Vietnamese forces from South Vietnam
-Nguyen Van Thieu
-The President’s role
-Demilitarized zone [DMZ]
-Meaning
-Compromise language
-Alexander M. Haig, Jr.
-US-Soviet Union relations
-Brezhnev
-Henry A. Kissinger
-Haig
-Brezhnev
The President and Haig talked with Anatoliy Dobrynin.
-Compromise
-Kissinger
-Language
-Civilian movement
-Return to original
-December 11, 1972
-Post settlement period
-Economic assistance
-Congress
-Victory claims
-US-Soviet Union relations
-October 26, 1972
-November [20, 1972] meeting
-Meeting
-Time
-Moscow
-Hanoi
-26-
NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM
Conversation No. 34-30 (cont’d)
-Paris
-Technical details
-SaigonAlso recorded on December 10, 1972
- 034-028 9:55 AM · 6 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson talked on the telephone from 9:55 am to 10:02 am.
- 384-003 9:55 AM · 6 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 9:55 am to 10:02 am.
- 384-004 10:01 AM · 3 hr 25 min — President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, Manolo Sanchez, Alexander M. Haig, Jr., White House operator, Anatoliy F. Dobrynin, and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 10:01 am to 1:12 pm.
- 034-029 11:50 AM · 14 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 11:50 am and 12:04 pm.
- 034-031 12:55 PM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Mrs. Howard Cox talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 12:55 pm and 6:06 pm.
- 034-032 12:55 PM · 13 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 12:55 pm and 6:06 pm.
- 034-149 12:55 PM · 15 sec — the White House operator and President Richard M. Nixon talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 12:55 pm and 6:06 pm.
- 819-001 1:15 PM · 15 sec — Unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House on an unknown date, sometime between 1:15 pm on December 10, 1972 and 10:18 am on December 11, 1972.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 034-030, December 10, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/034-030 (accessed October 17, 2026).