Nixon phone call with Rogers on Vietnam War

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Hello.

Secretary Rogers, Mr. President.

Okay.

Fine.

There you are.

Hello.

Well, I just got back from the house, but I tried to reach you before.

Yeah, I know.

I appreciate it.

They kept me later.

Everything just went great, and I have...

I apparently, Haldeman, had told you, but I had...

I'm trying to, as soon as we can get a transcript, but I'm not going to wait until tomorrow, but we'll try to get one today.

I'm going to have Buchanan go through and get out the highlights, and then...

uh, distribute that, uh, broadly to the members of the House, Senate, Cabinet, Sub-Cabinet, uh, uh, you know, Speakers and so forth and so on, because I think the line is now so well established that we just ought to have everybody repeat the same thing, as you see.

I think I hit every, every note.

Well, that's what, uh, I, I saw a little of it myself as I stepped into Ziegler's office for, and, uh, after seeing the Polish Ambassador, it looked very good, and, uh, but the point is that, uh,

You hit every one of the subsidy points.

It's on the Russian ships that I told Zygur this afternoon that the line he should follow was simply to say that since it didn't come up, he said, we've responded to that through the regular official channels, and I have nothing further to say.

Not to say anything more about it, not to say it was inadvertent, not to apologize, not to say we didn't do it or they shouldn't have been there, but we've responded and just say nothing further about it.

So have your people say nothing about it.

And that is the truth.

We have responded through official channels.

That's right.

Well, I thought, on the whole, it went very well.

I got him on the defensive right away.

I heard about that.

I got a run down on that chapter and verse.

He always asks five questions.

And furthermore, toward the end, I did what you suggest.

I challenged him.

I said, you know, I've been up here now two and a half hours, and I've been subject to all kinds of questioning and criticism, and nobody's condemned the North Vietnamese for what they've done.

How about that?

Well, then they all...

I said, there hasn't been anybody that strongly condemned the North Vietnamese for the attacks they were making on the South.

They said everything was going fine.

Well, then they all sort of said, Cooper said, well, I mentioned it.

And I said, well, I apologize.

You did mention it.

And then Case said, well, I referred to it.

And I said, yes, I know.

But there really were no strong attacks on the North Vietnamese.

I mean, they're the enemy.

And then Covite lamely said...

Well, I understand that, but you're up here talking about our policy, and I said you can't talk about our policy without considering what they're doing.

Great, great.

And they all were a little defensive on that.

And I think, really, we ought to...

Maybe Congress, instead of adopting or considering Muskie's resolution to stop military activity, should condemn North Vietnam for its aggression.

You know, Aiken made a hell of a good statement to begin with.

Did he?

He was a little confused, but it was a good statement.

And he said he thought the bombings of...

He was opposed to the bombings of Haiphong before, but he thought now they were justified.

Great.

And I said, the American people have great respect for your judgment, and I want you to know I thank you very much.

That's great, isn't it?

That helps for you to say that.

It sure does.

Well, I think it went as well as could be expected.

I think we've got a good line that we just stick to the line.

Yeah, you will.

I think...

The difficulty with sending the whole transcript, of course, you can do that to your missions abroad.

It's too much crap.

But Buchanan is great at summarizing, see, and he'll go out and pick the best lines and fire the damn thing out.

As a matter of fact, I'll have him send a copy over to you, and you might want to send his summary to your missions.

You understand me?

The main point being is that most people just won't read the whole thing and won't understand it.

Well, we don't have to put it all in, but there are enough good lines in there, the straight phrases.

I was very helpful to talk to you because I think that I made every point that you suggested.

Ziegler will say at 3 o'clock that we discussed it this morning and last night and Saturday.

So we'll be covering that base in case you're asked about it.

That's what we did.

Now, Mel is testifying tomorrow, you know, Mel and Moore.

So I'm going to get hold of him at about 5 o'clock, and I've told him to read your testimony so that I say I want the testimony to be right on all fours.

He will be, of course, more questioned on some of the military aspects, which is fine, rather than the diplomatic.

But he's all set to go, and I'll see that he's kept in line.

As you know, I'm not going to say a thing this week.

I'm not going to go on on any press conference or the rest.

But next week,

week I shall have to do a press conference because I have to make another announcement, you know, on troops.

I know.

And that'll be a good time to do it.

I mean, I think if I can step off with a troop announcement and then, you know what I mean, right at the middle of the battle, that'll have a hell of an effect, don't you think?

Sure will.

And I left it doubtful, you know, what you were going to do.

Sure.

I just didn't know.

Let me tell you, I'm having Haig check with Abrams what we can get away with right now.

But

just for your information and don't discuss it with anybody because of the fact that it just... Well, I know you want...

I mean, I want to tell you why we can't because Abrams is...

I don't want him to...

I don't want the military to lobby me on this.

I have to do it.

I want to do it.

I want to do it quickly.

But what I have in mind is rather than doing just a month, which I first had in mind, and, of course, we can't do it at the same level.

If you do it at the level of 22,000, you know, you're down to nothing.

I think we should get down to 50,000.

I think that means that we will have withdrawn, in effect, a half a million, see?

So what I am thinking about now is to make an announcement for two months, which will bring our ceiling down from 69 to 50.

How does that sound to you?

Now, 50, you see, gets us down to basically the...

Since we came in with 550, we're down then to a half a million withdrawn and 50,000 residual.

And then in June, I'll make another one.

That's tentatively what I'm thinking about.

Now, the other possible course which you will discuss with Abrams is to announce only a month.

But I think a two-month announcement maybe gives us a little bit more running room in getting down to the 50 as something.

And in June, then we can be prepared to say no draftees and all of those sort of stuff, too.

But we don't want to say that right now.

Well, I think it means you don't have to come up against it every time, and it shows confidence in the policy and so forth.

The number is not, I think, too important, just so we

That's a pretty good chunk.

It removes 20,000 more.

Yeah.

I had a good chance to say a lot of good things about the South Vietnamese today.

Thank God.

Well, they are fighting well.

You know, they're dying, but the thousands of poor devils.

That's right.

Did you get that in some of that?

By God, we ought to be—we're our brave airmen and sailors.

are frankly risking their lives to help these people defend themselves against a massive communist invasion.

And God damn it, Americans ought to be proud of our guys and not pissing on them.

Exactly.

All right, Mr. President.

All right.

Bye.

Nixon phone call with Rogers on Vietnam War

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on April 17, 1972

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