Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 019-065
Date: Tuesday, January 25, 1972 at 8:55 PM
Participants: Kissinger, Henry A.; Dobrynin, Anatoliy F.
Recording device: White House Telephone
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/019-065

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:01] Hello.
[0:02] Ambassador De Bruyne.
[0:06] There you are.
[0:06] Hello.
[0:07] Hello, Kennedy.
[0:09] Anatole, how are you?
[0:13] Thank you.
[0:15] How are you?
[0:18] Okay.
[0:18] I called you to...
[0:20] I told you to tell you that if there is any way you can get to your allies, then make clear to them
[0:31] that now they can, of course, start raving about us.
[0:35] Or they can try to make a...
[0:38] They can start raging and use their usual adjectives.
[0:43] And that would be a very unhelpful approach.
[0:45] I'm here with the president, so in the residence.
[0:51] On the other hand, we are willing, if there's any chance at all of a constructive outcome, to meet with them again and to bring this board to a reasonable conclusion
[1:02] but they cannot tempt us into a military, they cannot force us into a military outcome or there will be very serious consequences.
[1:14] I beg your pardon?
[1:22] Well, I said if they try to force a military outcome, there can only be very serious consequences.
[1:30] But I want you to know
[1:32] that if they behave in a reasonable manner, we are prepared to meet them in the spirit which I described to you.
[1:40] And the president has again asked me to say that if your government thought that a meeting in Moscow would speed things up, I remain ready to do that.
[1:55] So...
[2:06] Very well.
[2:18] Now, two top men are out of country, but maybe they already did, but I am 100% sure that they were prepared for that.
[2:31] But now, I don't know really.
[2:32] It sounds that even without waiting for their response, which I hope to get, I really certainly keep hope to get it within a week.
[2:37] But now it sounds rather, for us, this might not be accurate.
[2:50] I expect to do.
[2:51] Sending this proposal, sending everything to the public, it's a bit complicated.
[2:53] Well, it makes it complicated, but on the other hand, making the proposal public also has the advantage that it commits
[3:00] us and the Saigon government to a certain outcome.
[3:14] Yes, but our experience in this has just not been good enough.
[3:19] And what they have to understand is that we are very serious, we are prepared to be very generous,
[3:26] and that we would like to proceed in the spirit with which we talk because we don't want to be in a position where they launch an offensive and we then react to their offensive without having made it clear and because we will certainly in case of an offensive have to take drastic measures
[3:53] But we certainly want to proceed in the most conciliatory spirit possible.
[4:10] And if you and I can have lunch on Friday, I know you asked, hey, Friday would be good for me.
[4:20] Well, let's do it Friday over here.
[4:30] One o'clock.
[4:32] But if you could transmit this, and if you found some means of getting it to them before they do something irreparable, it would be helpful.
[4:46] Well, it's up to you.
[5:03] Well, it is that, you know, that's anything that...
[5:09] But it would be important that they don't breed themselves into a profession that
[5:24] that would have consequences we'll all regret.
[5:41] But they have given us no choice.
[5:43] They have given us no choice.
[5:45] It's simply not proper, simply not to respond to a serious proposal transmitted
[5:51] through another government and then separately at their own request.
[6:07] Well, that's, you know, Anatole, that's their problem.
[6:10] And we are perfectly willing to have another confidential channel or to do it in other channels.
[6:17] But that's entirely up to them.
[6:19] We have kept every secret where there was any prospect of a constructive outcome.
[6:41] Exactly.
[6:44] Well, let's see.
[6:44] That is the reason, that is the exact reason.
[6:48] Good.
[6:51] I see you Friday at 1 on the show.
[6:53] Good.
[6:55] Good.
[6:56] And the President found our talks on Friday very constructive.
[7:14] Good.
[7:14] Well, that is the problem that occurs
[7:16] When one side tries to impose a military solution, if they hadn't done that, we would have had more time.
[7:28] Within the next two or three weeks, yes.
[7:42] And we don't want...
[7:49] It isn't so much a question of how dangerous it is, it's a question of if there's a major offensive in two or three weeks, we cannot then respond with a peace proposal.
[8:16] Exactly.
[8:19] Good.
[8:24] Okay.
[8:24] Bye.
[8:24] Right.