Nixon phone call with Kissinger on People's Republic of China

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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

Download transcript (.txt) · JSON data

Hello.

Dr. Kissinger returning your call, sir.

Hello.

There you are.

Hello, Henry.

Mr. President.

I had a couple of thoughts on this.

One which, with regard to the Bruce thing, which it seems to me may pose for them a difficult problem because of his being so directly involved in the Vietnam negotiations.

That's something we have to think about.

Now, we may want it that way.

The second point is that I've been trying to think of whether there is something else.

And let me just throw a real wild one out.

How about Nelson?

No.

Can't do it, huh?

Well, he wouldn't be disciplined enough.

Yeah.

Although he's a possibility.

You see, the point is that it's a way to really engulf him and

completely in a big deal.

And then, of course, an absolute, you know, he's outside of government, you see.

I might be able to hold him in check.

Yeah.

And the idea being that he's not there to load the Chinese, but for the purpose of getting something done for us.

I mean, the war and all that.

See?

I, on second thought, Mr. President, I'd like to...

It's intriguing.

I thought about Richardson.

He wouldn't be the right one.

No, well, it's still too close to us.

I mean, if we're going to go close, then you have the Rogers problem.

On Nelson, just thinking it out loud, you have a man who's, you know, I mean, the Chinese would consider him important, and he would be, and he...

it could do a lot for us in terms of what could happen, you know what I mean, in terms of the domestic situation.

Of course, we know Nelson's sort of a wild hare when he gets running around, and he'd get some silly staff with him.

That's a problem that I see with him.

Well, I think for one operation, I could keep him under control.

Yeah.

And he has the advantage.

I mean, to them, of course, a Rockefeller is a tremendous thing.

That's right.

Well...

Let's just put it in the back of your head and keep it.

Now that, I think, actually now... See?

I think... Nelson has possibilities.

He has a possibility, yeah.

Yeah, that, of course, that would drive State up the well, but they couldn't really complain a hell of a lot about that.

Well, he'd have to take someone from State along, but he despises them so much he'd take our direction.

Yeah, well, we'd have to find somebody to go along with him to tell him.

Well, I'd get somebody from my staff to go along with him.

I'd send Haig.

Yeah, that's what I'd say.

You know, really, really, and...

You know, somebody like that, I mean, real tough.

That's right.

And he knows, hey.

All in all, of course, the whole thing that you can take some comfort in, you know, we talk about how this happened.

It wouldn't have happened if you hadn't stuck to your guns through this period, too, you know.

Well, Mr. President, you made it possible.

We have played a game, and we've gotten a little break here.

We were hoping we'd get one, and I think we have one now.

If we play it skillfully and we all wait a couple of weeks and then...

But we set up this whole intricate web over when we talked about linkage, everyone was nearing.

Yeah, I know.

But we've done it now.

We've got it all hooked together.

I mean, we've got Berlin hooked to salt.

And now I think Nelson might be able to do it.

He might follow, particularly if I send Haig along.

Oh, we'd have to have Haig.

Haig and a state guy.

I wouldn't let that fellow Green go, of course.

No, one could send Green because Nelson.

I think if Nelson goes at all.

Yeah, if he were to go, well, maybe.

Because on foreign policy, he would take my advice.

And that, you could have a Green go along and warble around.

But that is a special envoy, in a sense.

He's...

Now that's actually, Mr. President, a very original idea.

And he's tough.

Well, I think so, and particularly if you just have to get him right in on the mountaintop and say, now look here, this is going to make or break you, boy.

This can't be like Latin America or anything else.

This is one where everything is in the balance, you see.

Oh, he'd do what I tell him on this.

For one operation, you know, for a long period, it'd be hard to keep under control, but...

But for one operation, he'd follow his script.

Well, if Dewey were alive, he could do it, you know.

I think Nelson actually would be a little better.

But Dewey's not alive, so he considered... And they dodged off Dewey.

That was given to them.

Yeah.

Well, they've opened that up, that it is not to be just Taiwan, haven't they?

Well, they've given one of these very ambiguous formulations, but we could fix that.

We could make that clear in the exchange and in the announcement.

Yeah, I suppose their reply is one that we'll come over and talk about Taiwan.

Well, that we can't do.

There's no limit to that.

There isn't going to be any meeting, you know.

Well, Mr. President, the difference between them and the Russians is that if you drop some loose change and try to pick it up, the Russians step on your fingers and fight you for it.

The Chinese don't do that.

I've reviewed all the communications with them, and all of it has been on a high level.

I mean, if here you look at the summit exchange, they haven't hosed around like the Russians.

No, they haven't.

Compared to what the game was, the Russians squeezing us on every bloody move has been just stupid.

And so I think that they probably figure they cannot trick us out of Taiwan.

They have to have a fundamental understanding.

Yeah.

Well...

Well, putting Nelson in the back of our minds is one possibility.

That's right.

Incidentally, what did Haig think of this?

Oh, he thinks this is one of the great diplomatic breakthroughs.

Does he really?

Oh, yeah.

And he thinks if we play it coolly and toughly and with the same subtlety we've shown up to now, we can settle everything now.

He thinks he goes that far.

Oh, yeah.

I have absolute...

I've never said this before.

I've never given it more than one in three...

i think if we get this thing working we'll end vietnam this year the mere fact of of these contacts is is one of another thing of course that is uh important is you know we do have a little problem of time in terms of uh wanting to announce something in this period of time yeah but we ought to be able to announce this by

at the end of the first week of June anyway.

Well, we'd have to if you're going to be there in June.

If we have the salt.

If we could get it earlier.

Now the thing is, is the salt going to turn them off?

No.

No, particularly, yeah.

But I must say, we're going to drag our feet on that summit with the Russians, though.

Well, nothing can happen on that for a while now.

No, no.

That's the balls in their court, and they're sitting there piddling around.

All right, they can piddle.

They won't move fast, and they'll be confused by the protest in this country.

I told you, Mr. President, that the most sophisticated analysis of the world report was made by Chu and Lai.

You remember I said that two months ago.

He's the only fellow who's understood it.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Well, his analysis, in effect, realized what we were doing.

That's right.

But it was a very subtle analysis of the international situation.

Well, anyway, there's another player we can keep in.

Bruce is a possibility, too.

I mean, Bruce is a possibility.

it would be quite dramatic, you know.

It would have a hell of an effect on the South North Vietnamese if you were to pull Bruce out of Paris and send him to Peking, you know.

Boy, just that very move.

That's right.

That would just shake the living bejesus out of them.

For that reason, they might not take him, but I think they would take almost anyone, as long as he's very senior.

Yeah, well, we'd say he is, you could put it in terms of, if you were Bruce, he's our senior career ambassador.

He's been to

ambassador to you know to do all this and we feel he's the best qualified man to to participate in this he has our complete confidence and so forth then they jump a jockey fellow which is another yeah it's of course a high visibility one visibility oh boy visibility there would be enormous however the what that would do to the uh

the libs in this country would be.

Absolutely.

Wouldn't that do them in?

Oh, God.

Send a Rockefeller over there, you know.

Jesus Christ.

I mean... That has really great possibilities the more I think of it, Mr. President.

You see, it shows that here's Rockefeller.

He's lined up with us all the way.

It nails him in on the foreign policy thing all the way.

That's right.

And... And...

Well, anyway, that's something to think about, too.

A good problem to have.

Yeah, we got a little more luxury than we usually have.

That's right.

Normally, we haven't got much to move with.

Well, Mr. President, once this thing gets going, though, this is one of those occasions where everything is beginning to fit together.

Well, we hope so.

We hope so.

We'll have to hold hard.

on Vietnam on Thursday.

Oh, hell, don't worry.

I plan to.

I don't plan to give a goddamn inch.

Do you think of anything to do on the prisoners?

Yes.

We have three proposals, which I'm writing up for you.

Right, right.

Well, I'll look at them tomorrow.

Don't worry.

They're releasing 1,000, and they're opening their camps for a foreign inspection, which they've never done before in South Vietnam, and calling on the North Vietnamese to do the same, and a proposal to move all prisoners to neutral countries.

Now that's good.

That's a good move.

Those are three big steps.

Yes, and that should be announced.

That would be announced by Bruce in the morning.

That's right.

And you could pick it up in the evening.

That's right.

That's good.

And then he hits that, and I could hypo it in the evening if they don't give it the play, although they're likely to give that a play if we build it up a bit.

Right.

We'd build it up by saying that by having

had announced that, you know, indicated Bruce is going to make a major proposal that they'll all think it's about bugging out and it'll be on prisoners.

But actually, Mr. President, with this thing cooking, these stuffs can go out on the limb as much as they want, now as much as they want to.

I think we're beginning to hold the cards.

Yep, that's true, true.

It's accepted, as you know, we've got the, well, we're going to hold.

And, uh,

We shall see.

The demonstrators may overplay their hand.

John Chancellor, with whom I had lunch today, said he thought that the tide had turned.

Did he really?

Yeah.

What turned it?

Well, he said he didn't think that the demonstration on Saturday was all that spectacular.

Yeah.

And he said what's happening this week is going to ruin it completely.

Or, you know, be overplaying, huh?

Yeah.

Well, Chancellor loves the China thing, doesn't he?

Oh, he's absolutely crazy about it.

Yeah.

And he's beginning to think that you've set up a...

He said he doesn't quite know yet what you're doing, but you've got some great ploy up your sleeves.

You're much too cool, he said.

Well, we're going to play it awfully cool on Thursday night.

I'm just going to just... And incidentally, I'm not going to say anything about China policy.

I'm just going to say, no, this matter is now in a very sensitive stage, and I don't intend to comment further on it.

I mean, we're...

Our goal has been set forth.

We have begun this, and I'm not going to discuss it any further.

What's the next question, gentlemen?

I mean, just not say much about it.

Don't try to.

That's the way to handle that one.

Right.

Rather than to get into the business of, say, I don't want to get into the business of, well, what are we going to do about two Chinas, and what are we going to do about the UN, and what are we going to do about Taiwan, and do we still stand by Taiwan, et cetera, et cetera.

I'm just going to finesse all questions on China by saying this.

There have been some developments here that

that are significant and that I don't think the interest of the nation would be served by commenting publicly on them at this time.

What do you think?

I think that's right.

Just be enigmatic as hell.

That would be the best possible position to take.

And let them thump around and squirrel and squeal as they will.

Okay.

Yeah, so Haig was pretty pleased, wasn't he?

Oh, yes.

Well, this isn't much.

If anyone had predicted that two months ago, Mr. President, we would have thought it inconceivable.

Yeah, yeah.

That's what I mean.

What is really intriguing about this is that after Laos, when these bastards were all saying, well, this broke it off with the Chinese and the rest.

Caspodia, they were saying the same thing.

But here comes Laos, though.

Let's look at that one, where after Laos, when

And the people over two to one think it failed and all they're at, you know, they've had all the polls show that and so forth.

And we know that.

And yet, here comes a Chinese move, the ping pong team, and now something that is so much more significant that that looks, pales into nothing.

And that's the kind of thing that, if we can play it cool, can have an enormous significance.

An enormous significance.

Well, look, I'm sure, too, that it is not any accident that Mao Zedong made that statement to Edgar Snow.

Of course.

Now, there's a couple of other things.

We've got to get the Mansfield thing turned off somewhere.

I don't know how we can do it, but one way we could do it would be to, if we get this game going, is to

You know, you could invite him to go along.

No.

Why give this to him?

I know, I know.

But they go along with you when you go.

Oh, that's what I mean.

But not when your emissary comes.

Oh, Christ, no.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

I mean, that is to invite him and maybe Scott.

See?

See my point?

Right.

If you want to share it with the Democrats.

You don't have anything to share.

It doesn't mean a thing.

They're just big...

I mean, the Chinese will treat them very well, but they'll know where the power is.

We know that when it comes.

Yeah, that could be done, Mr. President, at that point.

The only thing is that the Chinese seem to be grabbing so much now that... Yeah, but they haven't actually invited anyone yet.

Mansfield, well, to an extent, haven't they really, through that... Well, I think I can get some oral message to them together with that reply.

Well, but that's two weeks away, Henry.

I just wonder if they'll move on Mansfield.

I doubt it.

You don't think so?

But they may.

They may do that.

Well, could you get that message out now?

What I was thinking of was just as a temporary delaying action to say that the president is in California or something like that and that we will be replying.

And that I've already said, that there will be a constructive reply in two weeks.

In two weeks.

Oh, you've told that to the, yeah.

Well, if you could add to that reply, is it in the meantime that we feel that any other visits should be held in abeyance until they hear our reply?

Could you do that?

I'll get something like that across to him, yes.

Any other visits should be held in abeyance until, you know, there will be many requests and that we feel that other visits by political people, by representatives of this government or the Congress and so forth should be held in abeyance until we are ready and that they will have a constructive reply in a matter of a couple of weeks.

Right.

Good idea.

Right, Mr. President.

I'll get that done tomorrow.

Nixon phone call with Kissinger on People's Republic of China

AI Summary

Audio

Transcript (AI-generated)

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on April 28, 1971

Cite this conversation