Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 4 › Conversation 004-001

Nixon phone call with Kissinger on ABM and SALT

Tuesday, June 1, 1971 · 11:25 AM–11:30 AM ET · White House Telephone · 5 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Kissinger, Henry A.Conversation004-001 on Tape 4 (tape position 00:00:43–00:05:26)StartTuesday, June 1, 1971 at 11:25 AMEndTuesday, June 1, 1971 at 11:30 AMRecording deviceWhite House TelephoneSourceNixon Library record for 004-001 ↗ · National Archives Catalog, NAID 417188671 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon and Henry Kissinger discussed a recent Richard Wilson column in the Washington Post that criticized Democratic presidential candidates for their opposition to the administration's ABM deployment policy. They noted that the column strongly supported the White House position on strategic arms negotiations, contradicting a poorly phrased entry in the daily news summary that had initially confused the President. Kissinger agreed to meet with William F. Buckley to ensure that the administration's strategy and the nuance of these developments were effectively communicated to conservative audiences.

Audio

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NARA Description

On June 1, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger talked on the telephone from 11:25 am to 11:30 am. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 004-001 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 4-1

Date: June 1, 1971
Time: 11:25 am - 11:30 am
Location: White House Telephone

The President talked with Henry A. Kissinger.

[See Conversation No. 256-16]

     Richard Wilson's column in Washington Post
          -Democratic Presidential candidates
               -US-Union of Soviet Socialist Republics [USSR] relations
               -Curb of strategic weapons
                     -Edmund S. Muskie
                     -Democrats in the Senate
                     -White House news summary
                     -Antiballistic missiles [ABM], Strategic Arms Limitation Talks [SALT],
                           Mutual and Balance Force Reductions [MBFR]
                     -William F. Buckley
                           -White House news summary
               -Joseph W. Alsop column
               -Patrick J. Buchanan and news summary staff

     Buckley
          -Influence on young conservatives
          -Kissinger's forthcoming conversation

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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Mr. President, I've read the Wilson column and it says exactly the opposite of what the new summary says.
It gives exactly our line.
Let me just read you the first paragraph.
The Democratic candidates for the presidency have brilliantly succeeded in opening up their own credibility gap on one of the most critical questions of the time, agreement between the United States and Russia on curbing the bomb.
To a man, these aspirants have made a political issue of the most serious business afoot in international affairs, and to a man, they have been wrong.
They chorus and parroted the idea that a go-ahead with the ABM and safeguard system was a provocative act which would submarine the talks, and that therefore which must stop this program dead in its tracks.
Deployment of the safeguard, proclaimed Senator Muskie in May, is a provocation we cannot afford, and then he lists a lot of them.
what they all said.
And then he says, so we went ahead with the ABM system, and President Nixon was able to announce that we had gotten off dead center in these old talks.
The Russians agreed to move towards an agreement on ABM and offensive weapons deployment, thus breaking a critical impasse.
with the secondary effect of exposing the faulty judgment of the Democratic prophets on the Senate side of the Capitol.
And it goes on and on like this.
Well, how in the world?
Do you have the news summary in front of you?
Yeah.
What does it read?
Yeah, I've got it here.
It says, Richard Wilson looks at Democratic White House contenders and their criticism of ABM, a move which, deployment, a move which turns out to have helped bring about sole progress.
Well, what's helped bring about
Assault Progress, it's the APM.
That's, it's a poorly written sentence.
Maybe, maybe that's what they intended.
Maybe they were just writing it, I see your point.
Maybe, I see.
The sentence is written, I don't think they could possibly read the column and written it and put it this way.
That's right.
I see.
What they, they probably meant that the deployment
It sure does.
It sure creates exactly the opposite impression.
You read that then.
If you read it quickly, it gets exactly what it says here.
What is evident is that Mr. Nixon knows better how to go about moving towards an agreement than his opponents in the Senate.
Their faces should become all the redder when they consider that the movement and the soul talk is accompanied by a Soviet initiative in discussing mutual troop reductions in Europe.
All of these fundamental and critical problems
have been made political issues with a highly virulent contact.
From any detached point of view, this is deplorable.
Couldn't be a better column.
If we had written it, Mr. President, it couldn't have been better.
Well, I'm glad to see that.
You know, you read a news sermon, you get the impression that everybody's off.
Maybe they're wrong on the Buckley one.
You just never know about it.
Because we worked Wilson over.
And on Buckley, they may not have understood that either.
And he's a gentleman.
Well, he's an honest reporter.
And the same with the Alsop column.
The Alsop one is quite a good one.
The Alsop says, look, this is a tough president.
If he doesn't get an agreement, he'll do what's necessary to protect us.
That's right.
Well, that's what we want.
Exactly.
It may be that the fellows, this isn't Buchanan, this is the news summary guys, and they're pretty conservative people, and maybe that they...
They're kind of trying to, I mean, they may load it a little.
I don't know.
You see what I'm getting at?
It may be sloppy riding, Mr. President, because they do this in a hurry.
An ABM deployment, a move which helped break the deadlock.
It's the move, the ABM deployment, not what the critics said.
Well, I don't criticize them.
They work fast and hard.
I just couldn't imagine what the hell it was.
But I was astonished when you called me.
Yeah.
And actually this column, we couldn't have written more positively ourselves.
That's right.
I'm getting the Buckley one.
Well, that one don't bother me with, but just follow up with him directly.
He is sort of the Bible to these young people and young conservatives.
I'll get Buckley around, Mr. President.
Buckley should be, he should understand this damn thing.
I'll have no problem.
Fine, fine.

Also recorded on June 1, 1971

  • 256-016 11:25 AM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 11:25 am to 11:30 am.
  • 256-017 11:30 AM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 11:30 am and 12:06 pm.
  • 256-018 11:30 AM · 1 min — President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 11:30 am and 12:06 pm.
  • 256-019 11:30 AM · 36 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 11:30 am and 12:06 pm.
  • 256-020 11:30 AM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 11:30 am and 12:06 pm.
  • 509-001 12:07 PM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Mary Kay Leavitt, Harley O. Staggers, John E. Nidecker, and White House photographer met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:07 pm to 12:09 pm.
  • 509-002 12:10 PM · 35 min — President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:10 pm to 12:50 pm.
  • 256-021 1:20 PM · 6 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 1:20 pm and 7:35 pm.

All 49 conversations from June 1, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 004-001, June 1, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives (NAID 417188671). Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/004-001 (accessed November 2, 2026).