Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 023-127
Date: Tuesday, May 2, 1972 at 9:25 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Dent, Harry S.
Recording device: White House Telephone
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/023-127

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:01] Hello?
[2:20] Well, you know, you're hearing and you will hear some more about some tough battles in the South Vietnamese.
[2:27] You know, they're going to lose some more towns.
[2:29] We understand that.
[2:32] But as you know, wars are not won or lost by battles.
[2:35] They're won and lost by the end.
[2:38] And we're bombing the hell out of them, I can tell you.
[2:41] We had 1,200 sorties yesterday.
[2:43] I just ordered some more B-52s out.
[2:46] They were just scraping the bottom of the barrel of it.
[2:51] Well, the point is that if the South Vietnamese really can't make it because of their inability on the ground, then we've done our best.
[3:01] But we're going to do our goddamnedest to see that they do make it.
[3:05] But I think people are for it.
[3:06] What do you think, Terry?
[3:09] They like a strong stand.
[3:10] Is that it?
[3:25] Let me ask you this.
[3:29] Don't you think there's a real problem in going to Moscow as long as this thing's going on?
[3:57] The difficulty is, though, that just putting it out, and I think they'll probably go, but just putting it out, if you've got Soviet tanks shelling the way, and I'm in Moscow tipping glasses with freshness, that's not very good, is it?
[4:42] Well, if we take a hard, we could do it, of course.
[4:45] We could put it out very hard.
[4:50] Look, we're going to postpone this until they stop their invasion.
[4:53] People might like that, too, huh?
[5:15] Thank you.
[5:50] you