Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 37 › Conversation 037-130

Nixon phone call with Kissinger on Vietnam War

Friday, March 16, 1973 · 7:41 PM–7:50 PM ET · White House Telephone · 9 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Kissinger, Henry A.Conversation037-130 on Tape 37StartFriday, March 16, 1973 at 7:41 PMEndFriday, March 16, 1973 at 7:50 PMRecording deviceWhite House TelephoneSourceNixon Library record for 037-130 ↗ · National Archives Catalog, NAID 417195393 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon and Henry Kissinger discuss North Vietnamese cease-fire violations and the potential effectiveness of resuming U.S. bombing operations in response. The conversation highlights the administration's strategic use of the President's perceived irrationality as a deterrent, as well as the support Nixon is receiving from Chinese leadership in contrast to domestic opposition from Senate Democrats. Nixon expresses frustration with the ineffectiveness of previous air campaigns and emphasizes the need for a surprise-based military plan, while also directing Kissinger to mobilize sympathetic columnists to counter the partisan pressure on his foreign policy.

Audio

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NARA Description

On March 16, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger talked on the telephone from 7:41 pm to 7:50 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 037-130 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 37-130

Date: March 16, 1973
Time: 7:41 pm-7:50 pm
Location: White House Telephone

The President talked with Henry A. Kissinger.

       Vietnam
             -North Vietnamese Economic Commission member
                    -Conversation with US delegate
                           -Treaty observance
                                   -Inaccurate intelligence
                           -North Vietnamese infiltration
                           -US Response
             -North Vietnamese cease-fire violations
                    -US bombing
                           -Economic aid
                           -US Air Force
                           -Effects
                                   -Prisoners of war [POWs]
                                          - 90 -

                     NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY

              -President’s reputation
       -President's conversation with Capt. Jeremiah P. Denton, Jr.
              -Conduct of POWs
              -President’s appearance of irrationality
                      -Media coverage
                              -Harvard University

People's Republic of China [PRC]
       -Respect for President
       -Vulnerability
       -Effect of US aid
               -George S. McGovern
               -Hubert H. Humphrey
       -Delivery of President's letters

Bombing Of Vietnam
      -Plan
      -Effectiveness of US Air Force
              -Hanoi
              -Ho Chi Minh Trail
Show the rest of the log (36 more lines)
      -Planning
              -Gen. Creighton W. Abrams, Jr.
              -Adm. Thomas H. Moorer
              -Cambodia
              -Trucking on Ho Chi Minh Trail
      -Kissinger’s schedule
              -Mexico
              -World report
      -State Department
      -Defense Department
      -PRC
      -Soviet Union
      -US warnings

President's Senate opponents
       -Administration response
               -Democratic Caucus
                                               - 91 -

                           NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY

                      -Effect on Vietnam settlement
                              -Europe
              -Reduction in forces
                      -Visit of Leonid I. Brezhnev
              -Columnists
                      -Joseph W. Alsop
              -National mood
                      -Opposition to administration policy
                              -Peace
                              -Soviet Union
                              -Arms reduction
                              -Withdrawal from Europe
              -Press relations
                      -Richard L. Wilson
                      -William S. White

Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

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Hello.
Mr. President.
Henry, anything new today?
No, it's been fairly quiet.
The head of the North Vietnamese, the member of the North Vietnamese Economic Commission took aside our guy and was pleading all over him how they were observing the treaty and how we
Our intelligence was wrong, and they were not infiltrating.
Yeah.
So they are getting nervous.
What about our guy?
Did he have this gumption to say something?
Oh, yeah, we had him well coached.
Good.
We had him very well coached.
I think just clobbering them for two days next week is going to be very healthy to them.
Uh-huh.
Yeah, because we know they're violating, so what the hell?
We know they're violating, Mr. President, and they're not going to face us down now.
Well, if they want, if they really, I just can't believe they seriously want the economic thing.
and could uh blow the whole thing because of the of a bombing that's the point no they won't but the point is what the hell the good the bombing does is irrelevant i think perhaps it isn't gonna do much good the air force never hits a goddamn thing as you know except when they put it over there but it will just raise the price of admission what it will really do is to show that even while you still have prisoners there you're just putting it to them
yes i suppose i think that our best hope for preserving this accord is your reputation mr president interesting thing that denton told me that when he was talking to them this this high-ranking fellow that saw him two or three days before that
the thing that impressed the high-ranking guy was that the prisoners had been so irrational in their conduct.
The fact that they were rational, they would have caved, but they were irrational, and that was the thing that disturbed them about the president, that he was so irrational in the way he conducted himself.
So the irrationability, he said, what Denton's point was, he says, the irrationability really got through to him.
That's your greatest, that's one of your great assets, wasn't it?
And the fact that the
All of your friends in the press and all your old Harvard and other colleagues constantly talk about irrationability.
Of course, the funny thing is that the Chinese all over the world are saying you are the best force for peace.
They're the best propagandists we've got.
Really?
Oh, yeah.
We're picking up, I don't bother you with it, but we're picking up intelligence all over the world.
They're really puffing you up.
Because they realize that without...
Thus, they are nothing.
They are in mortal danger, and that you are the only one that had the guts to draw the conclusion from it.
You know, McGovern or even Humphrey would have bled all over them about understanding and communication, which doesn't mean a damn thing.
Right.
And we're delivering your letters tomorrow morning.
Right.
To the Chinese?
Yeah.
Right.
Well, we have till Wednesday, Mr. President.
We can always call the other thing off.
That's right.
I mean, we may not call it off.
I mean, the point is we're going to go forward unless they do something.
Well, that's my very strong advice.
Right.
Well, yes.
And that they'd have to do something.
No, I haven't heard of anything they're going to do yet that sounds anything but a bunch of damn words, which are pretty cheap.
That's exactly right.
And if we can...
The only thing that...
What is disturbing to me about it is the ineffectiveness of the Air Force in the way, you know, except when we did the Hanoi drill.
God damn it, on the trail, Henry, they never went worth a damn, as you know.
Never been worth a damn.
They never had the targets they have now.
You don't think so?
No, they've never... Now, I want a plan this time, though, that doesn't, you know, give them a lot of warning and do it all in daytime, and they're all gone at night, and we go and drop a lot of, you know, nothings.
God damn it, let's have some surprise.
Go back and forth, and then in.
Let them think we're gone.
Now, is Abrams...
I mean, or... Well, of course, Abrams is in it, and everybody else, but God damn it, has Seymour got a good plan or not?
It looks like a good plan to me, because they're going to fake it if they're going into Cambodia.
And in the daytime, they really have it.
I've seen the photographs.
These trucks are bumper to bumper.
They're going to get a lot of trucks.
You see, they don't have to do it at night this time.
And they're going to do well, but that's not the real justification.
The real justification is to set up a situation where you...
They fear it would happen in other places.
And where they fear that it may happen in the fall, if that's when they want to go.
In other places, that's right.
That's our big point.
I'll be in Mexico, Mr. President, for the next week.
Yeah.
I'm going down there tonight.
Yeah.
But I have good communications, and I'm easily reached.
Right.
Now, with regard to the...
That's fine.
You're going to work on the world report and all that.
But the point is that with regard to this whole situation on the north, we just keep the heat right on them.
Everybody is all programmed at state and defense.
There's not going to be any backwash on this.
Absolutely not.
They are all aboard.
Mm-hmm.
And the Chinese and the Russians have both been informed, so they know.
They haven't been informed what we will do, but they've both got very serious warnings.
They have very serious public warning, too, which, of course, they'll pay attention to.
That's right.
Well, what is your feeling about the...
marketing position we have in view of the statements of the Senate caucus, the Democratic Senate caucus and all the rest.
What the hell does it do to us?
Does it destroy us or not?
Not quite.
It doesn't destroy us, but it means you're again.
I think, Mr. President, we have to take them on fairly soon.
These bastards made it impossible to negotiate, nearly impossible to negotiate a peace.
Now they're making it nearly impossible to preserve a peace.
Now they're wrecking us in Europe.
They are.
That's my point.
And I think we just have to attack them as being...
It isn't just wrecking us in Europe.
It's wrecking the chance to negotiate a settlement, a reduction of forces on a mutual basis, which would produce... Of course, they wouldn't dare to put it through two months before Brezhnev comes over here.
Well, maybe not.
We're going to get way ahead of them again.
But still, that doesn't change the moral issue.
I hope that this gets across.
I'd get it across to, good God, can't some of the columnists or somebody pick this up and knock the shit out of them on this?
What's the matter with Alsop and the rest?
Are they all afraid of this kind of issue?
Oh, no.
Alsop is all right, but most of them are really pretty stupid.
Not stupid.
They are gutless.
Gutless.
That's right.
They know what the Senate is doing.
They don't say it.
Well, except that I think essentially...
In foreign policy, you are likely to win any battle that you really join right now.
Maybe.
I wouldn't overestimate that, though, because these people are so partisan now, and the mood of the country is so peacenik.
You know, everything, you know, we've got peace, and we're meeting with the Russians and the rest, and why do we have to have all these arms, and why can't we get out of Europe and all the rest, you know?
Well, it's going to be tough.
You would have thought that somebody who accomplished what you did would then be left alone for a while.
That's my point.
They're not leaving us alone, you see.
They're making it harder, aren't they?
Exactly.
You get that across to a few people before you leave.
Right, Mr. President.
Dick Wilson, Bill White, Cullen tonight.
Right.
God damn it, they ought to write something.
Okay.
Right, Mr. President.

Also recorded on March 16, 1973

  • 881-013 6:43 PM · 10 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House at 6:43 pm.
  • 037-129 7:05 PM · 11 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 7:05 pm and 7:41 pm.
  • 037-131 7:50 PM · 11 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 7:50 pm and 7:53 pm.
  • 037-132 7:53 PM · 19 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson talked on the telephone from 7:53 pm to 8:12 pm.
  • 037-133 8:12 PM · 10 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 8:12 pm and 8:14 pm.
  • 037-134 8:14 PM · 9 min — President Richard M. Nixon and John W. Dean, III talked on the telephone from 8:14 pm to 8:23 pm.
  • 037-135 8:23 PM · 14 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 8:23 pm and 8:34 pm.
  • 037-136 8:34 PM · 22 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at 8:34 pm.

All 34 conversations from March 16, 1973 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 037-130, March 16, 1973. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives (NAID 417195393). Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/037-130 (accessed October 28, 2026).