Nixon White House Tapes ›Tape 2 › Conversation 002-019

Nixon phone call with Kissinger on Melvin R. Laird and Laos

Tuesday, April 20, 1971 · 7:40 PM–7:43 PM ET · White House Telephone ·3 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President);  Kissinger, Henry A.Conversation002-019 onTape 2 (tape position 00:18:37–00:22:05)StartTuesday, April 20, 1971 at 7:40 PMEndTuesday, April 20, 1971 at 7:43 PMRecording deviceWhite House TelephoneSourceNixon Library record for 002-019 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon and Henry Kissinger discuss the need to manage Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, whom Nixon accuses of distancing himself from the administration's Laos policy while speaking with Republican senators like Howard Baker and Edward Gurney. Nixon expresses frustration that Defense and State Department officials are attempting to shift blame for the Laos operation, insisting that Laird must publicly support the administration's decision. To address this, the President decides to schedule a breakfast meeting with Laird for the coming Thursday to ensure internal alignment and improve communication.

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Transcript (AI-generated)

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Dr. Kissinger, sir.
There you are.
Hello, Henry.
Mr. President.
Are you having a meeting tonight?
Well, one of my former State Department employees is now a professor in residence at Georgetown, and he brought some of his students by.
Oh, I see.
Fine.
And that's where we'll go in a few more minutes.
Oh, that's fine.
Fine, fine.
Well, I wanted to tell you that I... Two things.
One...
You must not be concerned, as I told you earlier, about the babbling of these senators.
Oh, I'm not, Mr. President.
They always babble.
But the second thing is that the guy that I think has talked to them along these lines is Laird.
You know, Laird is one who's always playing both sides, and you've got to keep Laird hard and tough and fast.
That's right.
Well, Mr. President, I'm wondering, last week,
You suggested having perhaps a breakfast with Laird, and he couldn't do it because he was gone.
He was in New York.
Yeah.
I think it might be good for his morale if he at least had a chance to see you at some point.
Fine.
Well, we'll have a Thursday morning.
Okay.
Thursday morning, we've got a cantor tomorrow morning.
That's too late notice for him.
But Thursday morning, we'd have him in for breakfast.
And I will do my best on his.
I think you're right.
He talks around to fellows like Baker and Gurney and the rest and says, well, we shouldn't have done the Laos thing.
You know how Blair plays it both ways.
I advised against it, but they insisted, you know, even though, you know, all that sort of thing.
That's the whole gimmick here, friendly.
You know, Henry, what's really involved is that
that both the state and defense are trying to play the Laos thing as if they advised against it was a great mistake and this and that.
If we hadn't done that, everything would be hunky-dory.
Of course, they don't look forward to see what would have been if we hadn't done it, see?
Exactly.
We then have the problem of, I think if we had on television every night North Vietnamese troops in Hawaii, that would be even worse.
I know, I know.
The point is that it was a decision.
We've made it.
It's done now.
And now everybody's got to stick by it.
Right.
And as a matter of fact, it's turning out very well.
I don't think we would have had the Chinese move.
That's right, that's right.
But the point is that we have to realize that Laird in particular must stand up, be countered in this sort of thing, and he's got to tell the others this is, you know, because these fellows...
Well, it's true, though.
They must get, you know, Baker's an honest man, and so is Gurney, and they're reporting their mail and their editors and the rest, although that's still a small section of what they hear from, you know, because we polled the whole country.
We know what it stands for.
Right.
I think that's...
I'm sure that that is right, Mr. President, and I think that in the next few weeks we may get a turn in that situation.
Right.
But Laird is very key to this because he's got to stand up, and then we, of course, have got to recognize the realities of life and move with it very effectively and affirmatively on our own so that we don't let these other people take it away from us.
Right.
Okay.
Right, Mr. President.
Thank you.

NARA Description

On April 20, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger talked on the telephone from 7:40 pm to 7:43 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 002-019 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 2-19

Date: April 20, 1971
Time: 7:40 pm - 7:43 pm
Location: White House Telephone

Henry A. Kissinger talked with the President.

     Kissinger's schedule

     Republican senators

     Melvin R. Laird
          -President's possible meeting with Laird
          -President's schedule
          -Howard H. Baker, Jr.
          -Edward J. Gurney
     -Laos
          -Departmental positions
          -Administration's policy
     -People's Republic of China [PRC] initiative
          -Baker and Gurney
          -Polls
                                               10

                           NIXON PRESIDENTIAL MATERIALS STAFF

                                      Tape Subject Log
                                         (rev. 9/08)

Also recorded on April 21, 1971

  • 002-016 7:30 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman talked on the telephone from 7:30 pm to 7:33 pm.
  • 002-017 7:33 PM · 2 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 7:33 pm and 7:34 pm.
  • 002-018 7:34 PM · 10 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at 7:34 pm.
  • 002-020 7:43 PM · 2 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 7:43 pm and 7:45 pm.
  • 002-021 7:45 PM · 13 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson talked on the telephone from 7:45 pm to 7:57 pm.
  • 484-011 12:46 AM · 3 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 12:46 am and 12:50 am.
  • 484-012 12:46 AM · 3 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 12:46 am and 12:50 am.
  • 484-001 8:52 AM · 5 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 8:52 am and 8:57 am.

All 46 conversations from April 21, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 002-019, April 21, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/002-019 (accessed September 18, 2026).