On April 18, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger talked on the telephone from 10:23 am to 10:35 am. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 001-145 of the White House Tapes.
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Yeah.
I have Dr. Kissinger there, Mr. President.
Yeah.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Hello, Mr. President.
Henry, are you in New York or here?
No, I'm here.
Yeah.
What's new?
Anything this morning?
Nothing of very great consequence.
In fact, there's nothing really going on.
The Chinese keep needling the Russians, where they keep it without indications that they were easing their terms and diplomatic relations with us.
half implying that maybe Taiwan wasn't a complete obstacle.
Yeah, I saw that.
And in a Vietnam activity slide at the moment, Abrams made an injudicious comment.
Somebody asked him whether that... Yeah, I saw that.
I was wondering...
But basically they tricked him into it.
They said, is it possible that this drive will go into Laos?
Well, actually, they are on district orders, Mr. President.
There will not be any of these horror stories coming out.
Yeah, yeah.
Because we won't use many helicopters.
Yeah.
And it has the advantage of tying down the North.
Yeah, I know that's true, but Henry, the orders have got to go out there that I want Abrams and Bunker to pipe down.
I mean, I just got to say, I mean, the thing is that this is the,
What the press is trying to do is that they want a story.
It doesn't make any difference what he does.
I don't care if he goes in and bombs the hell out of them.
But don't say it.
See, the press wants to put Vietnam back on the front page.
Now, they use this one little story.
God damn it, they're in two papers at the front page, right?
That's right.
I talked to Laird about it.
Does he understand it?
Oh, yeah.
And he's getting...
He said he'd get right on the phone with Abrams.
Yeah.
And...
You know, when we wanted him to talk, he didn't.
And now... Well, he didn't...
He didn't really...
Sucked into it.
Sucked into it.
Some goddamn newspaper guy wanted to get a story to the effect that we were going back and lost because the news guys out there are dying because the Laos is over and the South Vietnamese held the hill and now they're moving around and they're having their award ceremony and I think they're just trying to suck Pearl Abrams into a... into a...
Sir, but he just feels so compelled to be so goddamn honest all the time.
Why don't you just shut up?
That's right.
He should just say, Jesus Christ, do what I say.
Don't comment on that sort of stuff.
Exactly.
Dodge it.
That's what I told Layard.
I said, there's no law against saying no comment.
That's right.
And I don't speculate on operations or anything like that.
Instead of, if you say I don't rule it out, then they get through writing it their back end.
Although, if one reads the actual stories, they're not written in a particularly inflammatory way.
Well, yes, but most don't, Henry.
Most of them will say the little bit on television.
General Abrams says we may go back into Laos.
You see, that's what we... You must understand that it doesn't make any difference what the actual stories say.
It's what hits...
in that minute that people see on television.
Oh, you're absolutely right.
And the minute they see on television, well, General Abrams says, we may go back to Laos.
And everybody that was beginning to calm down over Laos, they get all stirred up about it again.
I don't ever mind people getting stirred up if we're going to do something.
That's right.
But God damn it, I don't want to do it when we just...
Besides, he's had his shot.
Now, this is a time when the military gains are not going to be that crucial.
There aren't any more left to play, as he damn well knows.
I mean, he had his shot, and he's not going to get any more.
We can do these harassing acts.
Oh, Christ, I know, but this is nothing compared to the others.
Exactly, exactly.
And he can't continue to talk about it.
Well, I think he'll get the point, because they'll do it.
I hope that they can tell Ziegler if he gets any comment on that, just to...
Just not to say anything.
I don't know.
He can't say no comment.
If he does, it'll build up the Abrams story, but he's got to...
He simply says that there are no plans for any... many... many of your things.
I mean, I don't get the impression that by Abrams saying a silly thing like this that that's going to hold down the North Vietnamese.
It isn't.
Not one of them.
It wasn't nobody's plan, Mr. President.
I know, I know, but my point is with Ziegler, then, he should just say there are no plans.
That's right.
Don't you agree?
He should nail the thing down.
Well, they are going to go over with raids, but there are no plans of anything of that scale before.
Well, then better say that.
Right.
What I meant is it's important to get across the idea that there are no large-scale operations in Laos are planned, period.
That's right.
Because he's going across.
You see, they only have two weeks left to do it anyway.
Yeah, well, they've got a little more in that area to go to the south, but I think we should...
I'll work something out along that line, Mr. President, and check it with you.
Well, just get it down to... You don't have to check with me.
You know what we're trying to get at here.
Right.
Just calm it all... Just cool it down.
What I mean is I don't want Zegler to make another story out of it.
Right.
He must not make another story out of it.
You see, if he comments, he'd say as little as he possibly can without making another story.
But remember that the whole purpose now is not to try to keep the North Vietnamese off balance.
We got them off balance.
The purpose now, by statements, the thing to do now is to keep our own people from getting stirred up about things we aren't going to do.
See, that's the difference.
When we are going to do something, then we have to pay the price of being stirred up.
But when we're not going to do something,
we must not be forced to pay a price.
That's what it really comes down to.
Right.
I'll get that.
I'll call Ziegler immediately.
Well, he'll probably have a query on it.
And I'd simply tell him not to take any press calls today.
Right.
Tell the whole office not to take any.
This is Sunday.
And there's no press calls.
And just say that he can't be reached.
Just leave it a little bit dumb for a while.
Maybe that's the best way to handle it.
Or he says, well...
And they'll wonder, well, I don't know that they will or not.
Well, let me find out first whether it has made any waves.
And if it has, I'll get it down.
Well, I'll tell you what you do.
You better give Ziegler a call, see if there's anything.
You better call me back, and we'll have to develop the thing.
What about the rest of the news?
I haven't, I've only seen the front page out of the house.
That's right.
Oh, very good, very good.
And I saw last night on television, Martin Okagronsky has a,
At a panel of newsmen, Seide and Kilpatrick and... His usual group.
His usual group, and Seide was just raving on about your great initiative, and even Karl Rowan had to say some grudgingly favorable things.
Right, how'd Kilpatrick handle it?
Oh, very favorably, strangely enough.
He usually does anyway.
Oh, he was very favorable.
Then they talked about Hoover, and there Kilpatrick was the only one who stood up for him.
Oh, well, that's true, that's true, but they know damn well I have to stand up for them.
No, no, that didn't touch you.
No, it wasn't.
They didn't attack you on that.
Right, right.
Did they use some of the news summary, did they use some of the newscast stuff from the night before?
I frankly didn't see that you were looking at other things.
That's good, fine.
But looking at the papers today, whether they... Oh, no, they're carrying a lot of your stuff in the weeklies.
The balance is pretty good, is it?
Very good.
Very, very good.
All of your stuff is exceptionally good.
In the weekly news summaries, you mean?
Yeah.
The China story is, of course, very big.
Yeah.
And very favorable to you.
Everywhere.
You know, the thing I feel is this, that you'll probably see you're bringing Tuesday right, or Monday, maybe Monday.
I'll see him if he comes back.
He'll come back either tonight or Wednesday night.
Those are the only two flights they have this week.
And it's just barely conceivable that this China thing kept him back a few days for reassessment.
Fine.
What I was thinking was this, and I don't know just
quite how it will work.
I would delay your meeting with Bogdan until after you see him.
All right.
Or have you already set it up?
No, no.
Let me tell you why.
After you see him, we may want to play a very different game.
Let's suppose, for example, running it out.
Let us suppose that we get a straight...
Cut off.
You see what I mean?
Right.
Then instead of diddling around with this sort of thing, we might go immediately to the highest level.
You see what I'm getting at?
Oh, yeah.
And I don't mean on the... Just in this time, we would have to play that kind of a game.
And knowing the Asians, the way they operate, while they would go like molasses on...
In a moment like this, they just might bite for the whole thing.
You know what I mean?
Right.
Have a drink complete.
And so rather than wasting anything with telling the show and lie that we'd like to have Mansfield and Scott received and the rest, let's just wait.
I think that's a good idea.
Now, he's our best contact, isn't he, the Bogman?
We'd have to think about that.
Well, what I was thinking was...
Are we sure then?
Yeah.
Yeah.
What I was thinking of was, how secure are their lines?
They always send a messenger.
Yeah, okay.
That's fine then.
I was going to say that they'll send a messenger.
That's good.
And they'll send a messenger to Bucharest.
Right.
Well, that's good.
Otherwise, we could send somebody to Bucharest.
Well, another way of doing it is that when I go to talk to the North Vietnamese, I talk to the Chinese ambassador in Paris.
Yeah, yeah.
And get it set up that way.
Yeah.
Well, you see what I'm getting at.
We may as well play our little games or just forget what I told you to do about Bogdan right now, huh?
Right, Mr. Clay.
It's...
I don't think it's going to play that way.
I think that the Russians are going to come.
But you know what I mean is that we now have got to play.
We're playing for very high stakes and we have very little time left and we can't fiddle around with the Russians or anybody else.
Right.
Yeah, okay.
Right, Mr. President.