Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 23 › Conversation 023-028

Nixon phone call with Kissinger on People's Republic of China and Soviet Union

Tuesday, April 18, 1972 · 8:18 PM–8:24 PM ET · White House Telephone · 5 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Kissinger, Henry A.Conversation023-028 on Tape 23StartTuesday, April 18, 1972 at 8:18 PMEndTuesday, April 18, 1972 at 8:24 PMRecording deviceWhite House TelephoneSourceNixon Library record for 023-028 ↗

AI Summary

Henry Kissinger updates President Nixon on a highly successful and warm meeting with Chinese officials, confirming Beijing's strategic interest in maintaining a U.S. presence in Asia as a counterweight to the Soviet Union. The discussion then shifts to the vulnerability of U.S. officials during diplomatic visits to Moscow, with both men expressing frustration over the perceived weakness of Ambassador Jacob Beam and other Cabinet members in rebutting Soviet propaganda. Nixon concludes by emphasizing the need for stricter oversight of U.S. personnel traveling to the Soviet Union to prevent them from being manipulated or misled.

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Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

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Hello.
Mr. President.
How'd your meeting go?
Very well.
I started out by giving them some information we had picked up about the Indians offering consultation treaties similar to the Russian ones to the Indonesians and Japanese.
And it's obvious from their behavior that they have made a decision in Peking to be very friendly to us because I could see that already with the ping-pong team today.
Well, Scali, of course, was completely wrong on that, you know.
He was really uptight, wasn't he?
And he was absolutely charming.
Yeah.
No, what I meant is that Scali was uptight thinking that the ping-pong team might not come or that we couldn't do it.
Actually, they couldn't have been nicer today, remember?
Well, President, with them you always know that it's never an accident and that it's never by design.
I mean, if they could have written something, if you could have written something that would do you the most good in this situation, you couldn't have done it better.
Right.
Speaking of the great friendship and so forth.
Right.
And so then I told him what I was going to do, and I said, all the principles which the president mentioned to you are in full force.
All his convictions as to the source of the real danger is still in full force.
We, however, have a particular problem now which we must solve.
And we will keep you fully informed.
As soon as I'm back, I will call you.
The problem basically is that we're going to there only for that purpose, basically.
That's in effect what I'm trying to say.
And when he left, he said to me, we wish you a good journey.
And I said, that's very generous of you.
And he said, we respect honorable friends.
So it went very, very well.
It was the warmest meeting I've had with him, in fact, ever.
Well, listen, we've got to face the fact that they...
have reasons, just as our Russian friends have, you know, to do things.
And, Mr. President, that for them, an American collapse in Asia is a worse event almost than for us.
Yep, it sure is.
It deprives them of their counterweight.
That's right.
They know whom we are really standing up to there.
Huh.
Yeah.
And, uh... Yeah.
So it's been, uh... Well, good.
It's been very good.
Right, but that's the way to handle it.
You know, the thing about our Russian friends is the way that they, I'm just thinking about the butts thing, the way they take in all the Americans, you know, they took in butts and they took in stans and they took in, you know, everybody else.
And poor Butt saying, you know, that the poor...
He doesn't have the right information.
He doesn't have the right intelligence.
He must not know.
Well, for Christ's sakes, where the hell was Beam all this time?
Is he weak or what?
Well, Beam is a nice guy, but he's a very cautious and careful fellow.
And Beam knows better than this, though.
Oh, yeah.
But he should have spoken up.
Don't you agree?
Beam probably was so overawed to be in the present that that was the last thing that occurred to him.
But, you know, it really, to me, I thought, well, I'll tell you one thing.
We've got to be more careful, though, about, I mean, Butts is one of our best men, about sending any of our people abroad.
Don't you think so, to the Soviets?
Absolutely, especially to the Soviets.
Yeah, because, you know, our guys don't know how to handle themselves.
They get overwhelmed by all this bullshit.
Huh?
Absolutely.
Stantz was taken.
Peterson, in this respect, will be pretty good.
If they don't get to his vanity, he won't be taken in.
But they may flatter him out of it.
Well, I understand.
Butts is a good, strong anti-commerce or anything else.
But, you know, I sort of thought, my God, maybe we are bombing those
innocent women and children.
Jesus.
I know.
He said, Jesus Christ.
I mean, what the hell is he thinking about?
I mean, somebody should have snapped back at this fellow right there.
Don't you agree?
I mean, not him.
He doesn't know enough about it.
But what the hell was Beam there for?
I just can't imagine an American ambassador sitting there and allowing the Soviet chairman to say, why are you bombing these innocent people?
Of course, State doesn't... Well, until we got Rogers out, they weren't saying anything, were they?
They weren't saying a thing, but the great advantage...
of Rogers being out as this, the Foreign Service is really not loyal to the President.
Occasionally it is loyal to the Secretary of State.
So maybe they'll...
So they now have their own prestige involved.
Yeah.
So now they'll pick it up a little more.
We will see.
Right.
Okay, Henry.
Have a good time.
See you tomorrow.
Thank you.
Bye.

NARA Description

On April 18, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger talked on the telephone from 8:18 pm to 8:24 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 023-028 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 23-28

Date: April 18, 1972
Time: 8:18-8:24 pm
Location: White House Telephone

The President talked with Henry A. Kissinger.

[See also Conversation No. 332-5]

     People's Republic of China [PRC]
          -Kissinger's meeting with unknown PRC officials
                -India
                      -Soviet Union, Indonesia and Japan
          -Behavior
                -Table tennis team
                -John A. Scali's analysis
                -Table tennis team
                      -Significance
          -The President's possible message
                -Current situation
                      -Kissinger’s meeting with an unknown PRC official
                      -The President's trip
                            -Unknown PRC official's expressions
          -Relations with US
                -Kissinger’s successful meeting with an unknown PRC official
          -US position in Asia
                -PRC position
                      -Reasons

     Soviets
          -Meetings with US officials
               -Earl L. Butz
               -Maurice H. Stans
               -Butz
               -Jacob D. Beam
                     -Reaction to Butz meeting
               -Peter G. Peterson
                     -Reactions
               -Butz
                     -Statements in Moscow
                           -Rebuttal
                                -Beam

     Vietnam
          -William P. Rogers's statement
               -Foreign Service
                    -Support

Also recorded on April 19, 1972

  • 023-026 8:05 PM · 4 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 8:05 pm and 8:18 pm.
  • 023-027 8:05 PM · 17 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 8:05 pm and 8:18 pm.
  • 332-005 8:18 PM · 4 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 8:18 pm to 8:24 pm.
  • 023-029 8:24 PM · 8 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 8:24 pm and 8:25 pm.
  • 332-006 8:24 PM · 11 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 8:24 pm and 8:25 pm.
  • 332-007 8:24 PM · 58 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 8:24 pm and 8:25 pm.
  • 023-030 8:25 PM · 20 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson talked on the telephone from 8:25 pm to 8:45 pm.
  • 332-008 8:25 PM · 9 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 8:25 pm to 8:45 pm.

All 56 conversations from April 19, 1972 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 023-028, April 19, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/023-028 (accessed October 1, 2026).