Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 19 › Conversation 019-067

Nixon, Kissinger & Haldeman on Vietnam War and Public Relations

Tuesday, January 25, 1972 · 8:55 PM–10:03 PM ET · White House Telephone · 5 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Kissinger, Henry A.; Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob")Conversation019-067 on Tape 19StartTuesday, January 25, 1972 at 8:55 PMEndTuesday, January 25, 1972 at 10:03 PMRecording deviceWhite House TelephoneSourceNixon Library record for 019-067 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and H.R. Haldeman discuss the overwhelmingly positive initial media and public reception to the President’s recent televised speech regarding Vietnam. Kissinger reports that his pre-speech briefings with major network commentators effectively countered critical perspectives, specifically noting how Marvin Kalb and Eric Sevareid defended the administration's policy against skepticism from Dan Rather. To maintain this momentum, the President instructs Haldeman to have Charles Colson organize a grassroots telegram campaign while Kissinger continues to leverage a potential future interview to keep media coverage favorable.

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Transcript (AI-generated)

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Hello Bob, how are you?
I'm with the president here and we wanted to check how the reactions were.
Extremely good.
Extremely good.
Oh, yeah.
On television, too?
Very much so.
Who?
Threw them completely off on television.
Really?
I didn't watch ABC, and I don't have the full rundown on it, but they apparently played it very well on ABC.
NBC just did a couple-minute summary and then went back to their program.
How about CBS?
CBS went into quite a little detail.
Calvin Severide were both extremely good.
Really?
Well, those are the ones we briefed.
Rather was terrible.
Well, Rather wasn't there.
Well, and as you'd expect, he tried to turn the negatives.
But Rather, they're going to do a, CBS is doing a special on 1130.
Oh, really?
Yeah, they're going to do a special, and NBC is going to do a special, I think, at 930 or 10 for an hour.
Huh.
Well, but that... Well, no, they say in about an hour, so at 930, I guess, they're going to do a special.
Well, that shows how that briefing pays off.
I thought the delivery was extremely good.
Oh, excellent.
And everybody did.
And I'm getting a lot of the phone calls in from around the country, reports now, press reports, and they're all just excellent.
Really terrific.
The president is eating, so he'd be talking to himself.
What'd you say?
I'm with the president.
He's eating.
Otherwise, he'd be talking to himself.
Good.
Awesome.
But you're getting very good reports.
Absolutely.
And Calb, especially, has been very positive.
Well, we are dangling that interview in front of him.
Okay.
We'll have to keep it dangling.
Yes.
The president wonders whether you could get Colson stirred up to get some wires and so forth.
Yeah.
Sure.
Good.
But good.
Well, that's terrific news.
They weren't pissing on it, in other words.
No, no.
Rather did, you know, like he rather said, now, don't you agree that the headline out of this will be that the president still has failed to set a specific date for withdrawal?
Trevor said, no, it won't be at all.
This is the first step he's taking on it.
This is a first step, and that's what it'll be.
And then Cal said, this is just exactly what the president said.
It's a very fair approach, but it's very difficult because he's asking the communists to have faith in an electoral process where they want a deal, not an election.
That's exactly what happened.
what I breathe.
That isn't bad.
And then Rather said, what will happen if North Vietnam and the Viet Cong don't accept?
Where will that leave Nixon as the election gets close?
Severide said, well, there's going to be a long period of dickering now over the eight points.
And then, though, if they reach an agreement, they'll start the six-month withdrawal process.
And Rather said, well, that means that we're not likely to have the troops out by election time.
And Chow said, I don't think that's right at all.
Terrific.
He said, in the first place, the president's proceeding was Vietnamization, and he takes the troops out.
But he's also said he's not going to abandon an ally.
That couldn't be better.
And he said the White House has emphasized the sense of a moral obligation here.
Beautiful.
Well, that couldn't be better.
And they ran until ABC and CBS ran until 9 o'clock for commentary.
The speech went exactly 19 minutes.
I thought it was, I've said it to the President, one of the best delivered speeches that he's given.
Excellent.
The dive speed, yes.
It is.
Calm, strong.
Very much so, and that's the kind of reaction we're getting.
It obviously had a very, you know, it had a very strong reaction with the people.
Actually, you know, the meeting with the staff at 4.30 this afternoon, irritating as it was, was one of the best things that we did.
Oh, sometimes we've got to be irritated to sort things out.
No, no, that enables me to get the briefing straight for the others.
Otherwise, I would have gone the route that would have stressed, you know, the disappointing stuff.
Yeah.
Well, good, Bob.
We'll be checking with you from time to time.
Okay.
Thank you.

NARA Description

On January 25, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, Henry A. Kissinger, and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 8:55 pm and 10:03 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 019-067 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 19-67

Date: January 25, 1972
Time: Unknown between 8:55 pm and 10:03 pm
Location: White House Telephone

Henry A. Kissinger conferred with the President.

     Vietnam
          -Possible military action
     -US response

[End of conferral]

Kissinger talked with H. R. (“Bob”) Haldeman.

     The President's previous speech on Vietnam
          -Reaction
               -Television commentators
                      -American Broadcasting Corporation [ABC], National Broadcasting
                            Corporation [NBC], Columbia Broadcasting System [CBS]
                      -Marvin L. Kalb, [Arnold] Eric Sevareid, Dan Rather
                           -Broadcasting
               -Forthcoming television network special broadcasts
                      -CBS, NBC
               -The President's delivery
               -National press reports
               -The President’s schedule
               -Kalb
                      -Possible interview
               -Charles W. Colson's possible action
                      -Telegrams
               -Rather's comments
                      -Withdrawal date, Vietnamization

                            -Responses by Sevareid and Kalb
                -ABC, CBS
           -Duration
           -The President's delivery
           -Kissinger's previous briefings
                -Staff

Also recorded on January 26, 1972

  • 019-064 8:55 PM · 15 sec — Henry A. Kissinger, President Richard M. Nixon, and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 8:55 pm and 9:21 pm.
  • 019-065 8:55 PM · 8 min — Henry A. Kissinger and Anatoliy F. Dobrynin talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 8:55 pm and 10:03 pm.
  • 019-066 8:55 PM · 9 sec — the White House operator and Henry A. Kissinger talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 8:55 pm and 10:03 pm.
  • 019-068 8:55 PM · 18 sec — the White House operator and Henry A. Kissinger talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 8:55 pm and 10:03 pm.
  • 019-069 8:55 PM · 3 min — Henry A. Kissinger, White House operator, President Richard M. Nixon, Michael M. Marshall, and Alexander M. Haig, Jr. talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 8:55 pm and 10:03 pm.
  • 019-070 8:55 PM · 1 min — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 8:55 pm and 10:03 pm.
  • 019-071 8:55 PM · 2 min — Henry A. Kissinger and Charles W. Colson talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 8:55 pm and 10:03 pm.
  • 019-072 8:55 PM · 9 sec — Henry A. Kissinger and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 8:55 pm and 10:03 pm.

All 102 conversations from January 26, 1972 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 019-067, January 26, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/019-067 (accessed October 12, 2026).