Nixon phone call with Kissinger on Bangladesh and Foreign Policy Report

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Hello.

Hope the weather is better there than it is here.

Well, it's raining here, so it's good you're there.

Yeah.

I was wondering this.

I saw Hague briefly, and I sent him home to bed.

He looks so tired.

I saw him.

I don't know whether you talked to him.

Oh, he's still up?

I told him to go home and go to bed at 6 o'clock.

I said, you go home and go to bed.

But he's done a fine job over there, I'm sure.

I talked to him about 20 minutes, and he, of course, I told him I'd heard the other reports.

But he, Henry, is more optimistic about being able to work out the Taiwan thing than you indicated.

Well, let me say that it seems to me we have it in the right thing.

And believe me, I talked to Ziegler just for a minute.

Of course, he and Scali, they both felt and said that they thought it was worth everything just to get to go, you know, all their work in the administration.

So it had a great effect on these guys.

Even Haig, as much as he's been true, was quite moved by it, don't you think?

Oh, hell, yes.

We know that.

That's one of those things that we know, but it's just going to take a little time to set in, and that's that.

On the Bangladesh thing, I noticed that the British and the French were out at the airport, as we might expect,

But I feel that our policy should be one of just being quite... Yeah.

Yeah.

Correct.

I get it.

Exactly.

And that's...

That's fair enough.

Right.

Well, look, be that as it may, Haig made another interesting observation.

He said that Joe and I told him that they were pretty close to Mujib.

See?

So that's...

That's something that I wouldn't want to just, I just, but Budo, what's Budo's game then?

What's he going to do?

Well, Budo, I'm afraid the Pakistanis and stuff, just because there are so many clouds, Budo's game is going to be to claim for a while some connection to Pakistan, but because in three months, I'm sure there's a lot of stuff.

Yeah.

And then the other hand, Higg also felt that the Chinese, he said, of course, they just may be talking.

He said, Zhou Enlai says the Russians and the Indians will live to regret this.

I think that's right.

I think it's going to happen, Mr. President.

Well, the main thing is to just keep our... One thing we have to be careful is that all this bad things are going on.

Yeah.

About me and about what we did, about me and George Gordon, about what we did.

Sure.

They encouraged me to...

Oh, boy.

You mean militarily?

Yeah.

Yeah, but you understand.

I know.

I know the other one.

That's one of the dangers.

But if West Pakistan survives, I think what's going to happen is that East Bengal, one of the things that will happen, either if you remain in the military occupation, in this case, if the military becomes the West Pakistan, or East Pakistan or Bangladesh, the radical state, that will start attacking West Bengal, if it goes to Afghanistan.

Well, I guess Laird got back to you.

I called him immediately and told him that $70,000 was it, and apparently he called you right afterwards.

Well, of course he can do it.

He's just playing.

I don't know what.

He knows damn well that's what we have to do.

We've got to do just a little more than we've done previously.

We're out there.

What difference does it make whether we have 69,000 or 75,000 there?

Not a bit, does it?

Not at all.

Well, we're not going to go, though, with the offer of not running, that's for sure.

That's out.

Well, and I don't think we should ever offer it.

I think this is plenty, and we'll just keep that one to ourselves.

It isn't necessary at all.

It does show, though, that we all know that historically he was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to bring the darn thing to an end.

Now, tell me, with regard to Eimlich, as you know him,

meshed in the State of the Union at the moment, but I will wait.

I mean, you'll get back Thursday, and you'll have some sort of a draft of the first one, I mean, of the 18th one.

And you still feel good about that date, do you?

Well, on the other hand, I think it's best to get it behind this...

Yeah.

Well, I think... Yeah.

Yeah.

That's my view.

I'd like to just put a lot on Congress' plate and confuse the hell out of them right at the beginning.

Might.

Although, as you know,

It isn't going to satisfy them.

They'll up and say, well, why don't you offer that or this or that or the other thing.

You know, Humphrey's announcement was made today, and I understand he said that if he had been president, we would have been out of Vietnam by now.

That's your easy way to second-guess it, isn't it?

Yeah, and he showed damn little to suggest while we were trying to, you know,

Well, that's neither here nor there.

You don't feel so?

I think that what we may find, I think we do, that the bombing itself had a temporary blip because it just worried people, you know.

Yeah.

Yes, within a week.

And particularly, it will be forgotten, we have the withdrawal on Thursday.

Again, I can't cut down here, but most of those people, those Democrats that I know, nobody in Pakistan knows them.

They're not, huh?

And what do they say in India-Pakistan?

They just don't understand it, do they?

think it's confusing and they know that we didn't win and that worries them but uh yeah i know they don't like to support the losers so but uh we didn't we know why we did that's that well we i had a very good talk with rush as i i think bob may have told you i uh and he is uh we've got a total i had the the colonel leave the room or the whoever he is

And then I talked to Rush alone for about 25 minutes, and I said, now, look, I laid it all out.

Perfectly worked out, with Mitchell as the communications belt.

See what I mean?

Which I think is really, really very good.

I said, the main reason I wanted to take this job is because he'd be sitting in the Wesson meetings.

And I said, now, you have in Mitchell a man you totally trust.

you can always talk to, so he won't have the problem of going to me over Laird's head, you see what I mean?

Oh, yeah, well, that's understood.

No, but what I meant is, I said he could, he understands that.

Yes, yes, yes, there's no question about that, but you know what I mean, he's, as you know, he and Mitchell are great, great, well, they're very close, particularly on a number of issues, you know, and it'll be a very, very salutary arrangement.

And, uh,

Laird said an interesting thing.

He said six months ago he recommended him for this job.

Oh, I see.

Well, I wondered what it was.

But in any event, Laird seemed to be happy about it at this point.

Well, at least he can't say anything else because he knows the Dyer's cast, and I think we've done exactly the right thing, don't you?

I just... Of course, he's going to have to

take a wallop on his conflict of interest because that company of his has a tremendous amount of defense business, of course, just like Packard's, but that's inevitable with anybody that we put in this job.

And the fact that he's been ambassador to Germany, I think, when he's been confirmed to the Senate there, will help him in confirmation here.

He's going to see Laird tomorrow and have a talk with him.

And then, well, the point is that

He will be, Henry, far more effective, in my view, than Packard in the clutch.

You know what I mean?

Not that Packard was totally loyal, but I mean that... Yeah, yeah.

And he will know how to play the game.

That's my point.

And he'll know, as I told him, I said, we just had to do some things from the White House that...

I didn't sometimes want to go through the secretary office.

I said, he had to understand that.

He said, oh, yes, he understood.

He didn't have to spell out a thing, because I think, see, he knows about Berlin and all the other things.

So that's that.

Well, anyway, I hope, you say you're making good progress on the report?

Yeah, I think that's that.

How many people do you have there working on it?

Good, well, I'll give them my best.

Yeah, well, at least...

at least we'll get a little play.

And incidentally, that's the place to have a damn good chapter in India and Pakistan, don't you think?

That's the place to do it.

Don't do it till then.

And that's enough.

Well, I heard you did.

I had mixed emotions.

I told Bob that I told you to go ahead, whatever you want to do.

But it just may be as well to let them blow for a while and then go on.

And then we speak out on this.

But before that, of course, I'll be having a press conference, and they can hit me with it, and I'll knock it down quickly and then come on with the annual report.

What's the date of that again?

About February 8th.

Sure, well, I see.

That's a good date, because my press conference is scheduled for the 10th, June 10th.

That's what I meant.

If you go the 8th and the 10th, I can give it another blip, you see.

It'll get a big, big, it'll make a thing.

You don't want to launch it at the press conference?

No, because I'll tell you why.

It will, the thing is that if I launch it at the press conference, they'll ask a question about something totally unrelated that will lead it, see?

And I want this to lead by itself.

So you ought to run this and lead and get a two-day ride on it.

the press conference comes, then we'll get another ride on it, see?

You see the point.

I know these people.

They'll ask some political question, and some jackass question will lead the other question.

And the report will be a secondary story, and they must not have that.

The 8th is a good date, just looking at the book here.

Yeah, it's a very good date, if you can make it with that.

And if you can't, we'll shove it to the 15th.

I know, I know, but what I meant is...

If you can't make it by the 8th, I understand your problem, but if you can't make it by the 8th, don't feel that it's life or death.

Yeah, but that's good from our standpoint.

We go on the 8th, I do a press conference on the 10th, and then from there on, we're preparing for China.

When do we leave China?

15th?

16th.

Yeah, well, I want to have everything out of the way on the 10th, which I will.

I remember going to Florida then and relaxing.

get my energy back.

Sure.

Well, you see, I'm scheduling nothing from the 10th on.

I'm going to try to... Well, but it's five days of

Well, I'm keeping the schedule very loose between the 20th and then 2, you know.

I have a... except the press thing.

Well, I will except for one press conference.

I should have one before I leave.

And that, of course, always takes two days.

So except for those two days, I'm going to keep it...

Sure.

I'll take another look at this tomorrow and be sure that between the 1st and the 8th, the 1st and the 10th, that I'm as clear as possible.

Well, the problem is, you know, we've got those borders that you have to see.

Listen, Colombo's off.

Isn't that off?

Well, we've got to offer it to him.

We hope that he gets knocked out of office before then.

I see.

This is a good plan.

Well.

But you think we have to offer it to him?

Already offered.

Thank you.

Yeah, I understand.

Well.

Okay.

I see.

Okay.

Well, I won't bother you.

It's only 5 o'clock out there.

It's 6.

All right.

Well, you've got to... Good evening.

Okay.

Bye.

Nixon phone call with Kissinger on Bangladesh and Foreign Policy Report

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on January 10, 1972

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Nixon phone call with Kissinger on Bangladesh and Foreign Policy Report

AI Summary

Audio

Transcript (AI-generated)

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on January 10, 1972

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Cite this conversation