Nixon phone call with Haldeman on Vietnam War and Air strikes

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Yeah.

Yes, sir.

Well, any developments in Supergon?

No.

Has Supergon been gone 36 hours, 48 hours?

Nothing startling that I can catch up with here.

Good.

You're able to get to Colson and tell him to crank up the things, or is he out?

No, we've got that started.

Oh, good, good.

I talked to Henry, and we want to do that, and we're just...

been the greatest of confidence.

I just worked out a scheme with Henry where he probably will still make the Moscow trip.

Oh.

Just forget you ever heard that.

Right.

We have other reasons.

All right.

Very good.

And I told Rogers that you were dictating a thing for him.

Yeah.

Fantastic.

So Henry's going to get that to him, I understand.

We're going to work on that, yeah.

I've already given him the bare outlines of it.

Okay.

for his testimony.

And they are going ahead with the strikes tonight, we finally decided to.

Oh, good.

Laird took the heat himself for a change, at least to us.

He probably took the lie to Abrams, but I don't know.

One day out of that battle isn't going to make that much difference, I think.

We just got to show some strength at this point.

And as I told Henry,

Look, and we're even considering a blockade by the end of the week.

I said the thing to do, you've got to do it while the public might support it.

As time goes on, the public support might go down.

Now, I don't know how much support there is or isn't, but God damn it, we're not going to be concerned by the fact that, you know,

these people are doing.

And that's why it's very important for Colson's crowd.

And I hope you do let them know that I think it's important to Colson, McGregor, the whole bunch.

They can get the hell off of ITT and the other crappy stuff they're on.

And let's start beating the war drums a bit, see if they could.

I don't mean that the other things aren't important, but you see what I mean?

Right now, this is Subject A.

Okay.

Mitchell, uh,

That's nothing new to add, huh?

I haven't talked to him yet today.

No, you shouldn't.

We'd guess he... Saturday.

We'd guess he won't.

Well, as Henry said, at least we can say that the trip to Canada, while it was a pain in the ass, was a minor plus.

Yep.

But, boy, I'll tell you, as far as those trips abroad are concerned, let's...

They're really for the birds, aren't they?

Well, especially one like that.

Oh, they all are.

I mean, things like that I mean.

I mean, to these little countries.

I mean, it means very much to them, but it doesn't mean very much to us.

But it did no harm.

I think it probably did some good.

It probably had people thinking of, you know, working on foreign relations and that sort of thing.

Burlechman doesn't have any

things charging up on his front says he is he's okay i guess he's going to work bussing next week that's not bad yeah that was his plan one each week is not bad give that a shove and uh couple they had something they were going to break on the crime thing i had the drug thing too i think next week they were

You see, on Roger's thing, the reason I've got to write him a memorandum on it, he wants to back away from Laird.

Yeah.

And he can't do that.

I mean, goddammit, we can't have the administration speaking with two voices, don't you agree?

Well, and sure not backing away.

Huh?

Well, that's the point.

Well, of course, here we've been in this three weeks, Bob, and at least Laird stepped up and said a couple things, and Bill has been like a mouse.

He hasn't said anything to a congressman or a senator or anybody else, you know.

Nobody's carrying the thing, and goddammit, that's the reason I'm not seeing him.

I'm just not going to just see a fellow when he's decided he wants to go down and...

say, well, we'll negotiate without any conditions and that sort of thing.

And also, I don't believe the American people will appreciate that.

Do you agree or not?

Well, I think that's right.

Whether they do or not, it's my policy.

Yeah, well, it's the wrong tone at this point.

It isn't.

You're going just the other way, and he ought to be sounding, if he's going to go off in a different direction, he ought to go the other way.

He wants to sound as if we're ready to negotiate.

Yeah.

give anything away and all that sort of thing.

Well, we'll negotiate at the right time.

He ought to go the other way.

He ought to go tougher and let... Well, he ought to just want someone back off, back down from it rather than vice versa.

Take somebody on, but... Well, it's our problem there is that we just have a fellow who isn't

I mean, it's not his fault.

He just loves to get along with people, and it just isn't the right job for him.

Don't you agree?

Yep.

And he always wants to say things that pleases people, and sometimes you just can't tell people things that please them.

Nothing further from Connolly today, huh?

No, sir.

He's in Texas.

That's good.

Okay.

Well, we'll batten down the hatches and let the bombs fall.

Good.

But I'm

I'm convinced that's the right one.

Henry was, of course, he was afraid the 52 strikes would raise hell and so he said, oh, there's going to be a hell of an outcry.

So there will be.

My own view is that once you've started it, I don't think it makes a hell of a lot of difference where you do it.

Well, that's what you've always felt on all of these.

We've always avoided going as far as we could when we could have done it without any more, you know, stir than we've already created.

It's true that the Hanoi High Farm Complex is closer to there and there'll be more pitching, but

Bob, bombing of the North is bombing of the North.

You remember when we even hit those passes, I said, we hit the North.

That's right.

So we're hitting the North.

But what the Christ, they're killing people by the hundreds of thousands in the South.

Oh, this point for once has been a little better made than before.

Yeah, that's the one point that Colson and his crowd have got to get across, that we will stop hitting military targets in the North when they stop killing Americans and South Vietnamese in the South.

It's very simple.

Yeah.

But I think Colson will jump at the chance.

Is anything at all underway on it yet?

I mean, the things I mentioned to you, they, I mean, you will do that, get the tell it to Hanoi committee, the ads, everything.

I think, really, I'd crank it up, having in mind that, in other words, let's anticipate the attack of the opposition and have some strong right-wing stuff come in here and get all the speakers down there, get the Goldwaters and the Towers and the Fords and the rest to crack out a bit, you know.

Yep.

And I kept McGregor in.

Okay, thank you.

Nixon phone call with Haldeman on Vietnam War and Air strikes

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on April 15, 1972

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