Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 004-047
Date: Friday, June 4, 1971 at 9:03 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Kissinger, Henry A.
Recording device: White House Telephone
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/004-047

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:00] Yeah.
[0:03] Henry, I was thinking on that matter of the conversation you had with Lovestone, that the real emphasis should be the idea that, well, we're not really changing the thing.
[0:18] We're just putting this in the general thing.
[0:21] You know what I mean?
[0:23] You see what I mean?
[0:24] If you put it in terms of specifics,
[0:31] you know, specific waiving of the thing for this or that.
[0:34] I don't know, but I, when you talk to him again, you might, the thing you mentioned to me earlier that the... Yeah, I frankly, unfortunately, didn't discover that formula until after I had talked to Lovestone.
[0:48] Yeah.
[0:49] But I will explain to him how that will operate.
[0:51] Explain to him in the morning that what we are thinking about is not changing it with regard to specific items or anything of that sort of thing, but just
[0:59] just including, just making this part of the, which we have in other areas, don't we?
[1:05] Oh, yes.
[1:06] And in fact, it can be enforced only, as I said, if one has specific licenses for each case.
[1:18] Yeah.
[1:19] And we can just avoid that.
[1:24] Yeah.
[1:24] In other words, announce it, and then...
[1:27] Then give the licenses or not, you mean?
[1:29] Is that what you mean?
[1:31] No.
[1:32] If you make a general license, then the individual items of shipping can't be controlled.
[1:39] I get your point.
[1:40] Well, that's what we want to do, a general license for grains only.
[1:43] Exactly.
[1:44] And I'd point that out, that that's what we have in mind to avoid congressional pressures to do more than that, see?
[1:50] Right.
[1:50] And to attack the whole thing.
[1:52] Right.
[1:53] And he understood it anyway, Mr. President.
[1:56] He's a tough pro.
[1:57] Well, you could tell him that in the morning, that that's what we have in mind.
[1:59] His intention is to be helpful.
[2:06] Sure, sure, sure.
[2:08] Okay, fine, Henry.
[2:10] Well, I'll talk to you in the morning about it.
[2:12] I've now gotten more reports from Cambodia and the East.
[2:15] Unfortunately, the press was telling the truth, and Abrams wasn't again.
[2:19] Is that right?
[2:20] Yeah.
[2:21] You mean we took a banging, huh?
[2:24] Yeah.
[2:25] How bad is it?
[2:27] Well, it's pretty bad.
[2:28] It was a lousy outfit.
[2:29] They obviously ran.
[2:33] And the worst of it is,
[2:35] For three months, Haig and I have been sending telegrams out there.
[2:38] We can't bother you with every division.
[2:42] Well, is it bad in terms of the long range or the short range?
[2:45] No, not in terms of the long range, but we may, we ought to look at this whole Abrams problem again.
[2:56] Well, I think the story is virtually over now, don't you?
[2:59] The story is over, I mean, and actually... And it's confused.
[3:03] In a confused way.
[3:05] Mm-hmm.
[3:06] But the, well, what about this, the reports about casualties inflicted and so forth?
[3:13] Did we inflict a lot or not?
[3:15] You don't know?
[3:16] I don't know.
[3:18] Let me put it this way.
[3:20] They are out of proportion to the number of weapons we captured.
[3:23] Yep.
[3:25] And
[3:26] Well, I think most of it's bombing.
[3:28] That's what they're really talking about.
[3:29] So it's hard to know.
[3:32] They did inflict some heavy casualties, and the other side hasn't pursued, so this suggests that they too took heavy losses.
[3:39] Right.
[3:41] Okay.
[3:43] But I'll take care of this.
[3:44] You'll have to take care of it.
[3:45] The Abrams thing is a problem, isn't it, though?
[3:49] It's a problem.
[3:50] He and his staff, too, must be giving us a bunch of jazz.
[3:54] Yeah, they're pretty lousy.
[3:56] Mm-hmm.
[3:57] Okay.
[3:58] Haig, what?
[3:58] But Haig tells me he has a tendency always to have second-raters around him.
[4:05] Hmm.
[4:05] Well, I don't know how we can shake it up much now, can we?
[4:08] No.
[4:10] Can't change him now, can we?
[4:11] Not at the lower levels.
[4:13] No.
[4:13] No.
[4:15] I don't know whether you can shake him up, that's the point.
[4:18] That's the thing that one might take a look at.
[4:23] I don't know, that'd be pretty drastic, wouldn't it, at this point?
[4:25] It'd be pretty drastic.
[4:26] I mean, the psychological effect of that could be...
[4:30] Unless he did it for health reasons.
[4:32] Yeah.
[4:36] But that's not anything that requires an immediate decision that can depend on some of the other...
[4:42] But you do not see a follow-up on their part, at least?
[4:45] No.
[4:45] Absolutely not.
[4:47] So it was just one of those things, right?
[4:49] Yeah.
[4:50] Mm-hmm.
[4:51] Okay.
[4:51] Right, Mr. President.