Nixon phone call with Rogers on Vietnam War and 1972 Presidential Election

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Can I wake you, I mean, get you a dinner?

No, no, I'm just finished.

Thank you.

I was just talking to Al, and I know he's been in touch with you.

Yes, yes, we were talking about it.

My view, which I understand you share, and Henry, I deliberately had him delay his getting back so he wouldn't get back while I was in New York campaigning, so he'll get back rather than six, he'll probably get back

you know very late you know midnight or so so we don't have to do anything for tuesday morning but any event my view first is that it is very important that we not allow this to in our in our way in other words looking to the fact that we are going to have to do something about to ourselves but we must not let it appear that he is blocking

the road to a settlement because the POWs and of course the McGoverns and so forth will all raise hell.

It was interesting to me to note, rather shocking there, where McGovern had said that we were going to, the charge that we were going to drop two in order to have an election day settlement.

Thank God.

The second point I think is important is that we must

We must certainly not have any kind of an announced bombing halt.

I think we can, as you know, we are doing less right now, which we should, because we don't want to bomb the embassy or some damn thing at this point.

But to have any sort of an announced thing looks like a repetition of the 68 thing and would be exactly in the wrong direction.

Now, I think what we have to do is to try to

My own view is, if we can keep the lid on in both Hanoi and Moscow as letting alone, but we won't have any problem in Saigon, if we can keep the dialogue going past the election, I just feel that having something at this point

uh come out this late will look like a pretty callous deal no way we could do it unless it was one that you was going along with enthusiastically but how do you feel i agree uh you know that this is how i felt very well from the time we had the breakfast i think that if we could if he had gone along with it been great but i don't see how we can

to make him now.

I think we've got to pressure him as we go along, but gradually.

And secondly, I don't think we can afford, for obvious reasons, to have any public fuss about it now.

And I think we, on the bombing haul, I don't think we should stop the bombing.

We've said we weren't going to.

Unless we got a settlement.

Oh, well, yeah, sure.

But I think we ought to, you know, minimize it maybe and not take any chances, but keep it up.

Right.

So we don't give away that card.

Right.

Because you see, one of the reasons they are talking is that they want to get rid of that.

And hell, if you stop it, then we can never start it again.

Right.

And I think we've got to keep them on the hook and set up another meeting and tell them we're having a little difficulty.

We think we're going to be able to... That's what I passed on to them today.

And I put the blame right on them.

I said, by reason of their...

Pam Bondong having that interview that he blew the whole thing.

And that threw it at us.

Well, it was.

It put us in a position where Q, I understand Q might have disagreed anyway, but nevertheless.

put yourself in his position.

He can't have North Vietnam saying, we're going to do this and that.

It's going to have a coalition government at some time in the future.

Then have Pew go knuckling down.

And so we'll say they blew it.

Now give us some time.

We'll work it out.

Because basically, you know, they've really come along on damn near everything we've asked for.

Well, it's really the acceptance of your proposal.

It's a hell of a good deal.

It does, what Pew is concerned about, it does de facto

because of its being a ceasefire, it does give the BC the control over their territories.

But on the other hand, he's got every provincial capital.

He's got the country.

He's got the horses.

And he can negotiate the whole thing out.

And if he isn't clever enough to handle that, why... And they've got the territory anyway.

We're not giving them territory they don't have.

That's right.

And so the only other thing is to stay in and

and have them continue to fight for two years until they get it back.

And that we can't do.

That's right.

Well, we've got to all keep our heads, and if we can just keep people from, you know, I think the Q thing, I mean, you and I know he's being goddamn unreasonable and the rest, but I think that it'd be very unfortunate if, we'll say it anyway that he's blocking it, but on the other hand, we must not, we must just, I don't know how we can

get off that wicket ourselves, except to just deny it or say nothing.

What do you think?

Well, I don't believe...

They're going to try that, but, you know, with McGovern saying that we're going to drop him, it's a little hard to say no, that we're bolstering him.

He can't have it both ways.

I don't think we've got that problem.

I think the principal thing is to be sure that Hanoi doesn't blow it.

Well, I...

In other words, I think that the public impression is that we're doing everything we possibly can.

We're very close to a settlement.

We still have a few things that are troublesome, but we're going to be able to solve those problems.

And we've just got to keep it going.

I know he's blowing it, of course, would mean they're simply saying publicly what they already have said publicly.

They've already said it to DeBarschgrave or whatever it is.

DeBarschgrave, yeah.

DeBarschgrave.

But so they could say it publicly again.

but then make some sort of a public offer.

But that is a risk for them, because even though they say it publicly, we're going to win the election, and if they do that, we'll say, all right, that's the way you're going to have it, and here we go.

Is Henry going to have another meeting?

Has he got another meeting set up with him?

Well, I think it's purely pro forma.

He sees them at, say, 8 o'clock now.

I met with the... Oh, not yet.

No, that's what he's trying to do, yeah.

That's what...

That's what we'll try to do, but as late as possible.

As late as possible.

What he's doing is we have sent a message to them that because of these developments and they're blowing the privacy, the secrecy of the thing, that he has to return.

that we want to continue to have another round of negotiations in Paris and so forth.

But we, of course, have not heard back from that, but that will be our drill, I think, to have one more meeting to keep the dialogue going so that they don't blow before the election.

Also, you've taken care of the point of the election because you said that you were not going to make a bad deal just because the election was coming up.

Absolutely.

And we can keep it going that we're very close to a deal.

We've got a few things to work out.

I don't, we don't, we're not going to have any problem in my department because first place nobody knows anything except me.

And then of course Sullivan.

He'll be alright.

Yeah.

And we have none of the underlings have any idea of these coils at all.

Yeah.

But we'll, I think the, we may get some flare up.

I would think that our point of vulnerability there would probably be the POW business because

Basically, they'll say, what the hell?

They've offered the POC.

That's where I think the North Vietnamese might have us on the hook a bit.

What do you think about that?

I don't know.

I think if they start playing that game again, they've tried it so many times.

I mean, they might say, by what I was thinking, though, they might say, look, we have made an offer in which all POWs be returned, and the only thing that keeps this from being consummated is two

See, that is the way I would see their scenario working out.

Of course, if they play that game, then that's pretty high stakes for them because I think they want a settlement.

Yes.

If they do that, they know the settlement possibilities are off, and they also know they're going to make you madder than hell.

That's right.

And no telling what will happen after the election.

Well, it will hurt us.

It will not hurt us fatally.

That's their problem.

They cannot hurt us fatally.

That's where it's different from 68.

Exactly.

Where their game is, of course,

They were playing for high stakes to win an election.

It was very close.

But now it's not that close.

They can't hurt us that badly.

I think that's right.

And I think they'll hesitate to do that.

They may try to place themselves in a good position so they can hope they get some benefit in the election.

But I don't think they're going to take you on friendly now.

I think they've been too wounded by what's happened.

Well, I'm not really all that concerned.

I felt good last night.

I'm sure you did.

12 o'clock?

Yeah.

He called me and then called you right after, I guess.

He said, yeah, it looks good and breakthrough.

But apparently, Pugh was saying, okay, and then the next day he changed his mind.

I have a feeling that I told Ellis a few days ago that Hawk and

and CCK and Chewer working together because when Park made the speech, when he sent us the draft of his speech, he had two paragraphs in there that I said right away must be as a result of collaboration with the others because he

He said, in effect, that we were going to let down the people in Vietnam.

And he also said that we had sort of neglected our friends in Taiwan by taking the visit to Peking.

Now, those two things were quite inconsistent with what he'd said before.

Hell, he approved the visit to Peking before.

So I had the impression that the three of them had gotten together and said, we can't do this.

You see, the Koreans resisted very strongly on the planes and the rest of it that we were trying to send to Vietnam.

And I had a feeling that probably Park got in touch with you and maybe CCK and said, let's all keep our...

The thing about that is that when you look at those damn Koreans, the game they're playing is a very foolish game, too, because look how we fought and bled and died to keep that thing going there.

And...

It's a cynical game, though.

They're just doing it before our election.

There's no doubt about that.

Sure.

Well, as you say... We will remember.

I must say, on the case of CCK, though, he's been much, much better.

Yeah.

His attitude was quite reasonable.

And the questions he asked were damn good questions.

I must say, the more I see the time with these, the better I like them.

Well, they're responsible people, you know what I mean?

They're decent people.

Also, they have another point.

They have a greater sense of history and more depth, and they realize that without us, they got nobody.

Not really.

They haven't got a damn soul.

And also, the same is true of Brother Q.

If we just wanted to flush him,

We could do it.

Of course, we aren't going to do that.

We're not going to go through all this blood and everything and all this sacrifice and then because two acts up say, all right, you're out, boy, and then let the Communists take it.

We can't do that either.

I think in the meantime, though, in the next two weeks, we should keep the maximum pressure on to make it damn clear that this is right after the election is going to be flushed out in a reasonable way.

That's certainly my intention the day afterwards.

He's got to either fish or cut bait.

Well, he's got to.

Because, well, goddammit, we can't, we're not going to, as I think Henry had put it pretty well at, I think at Breakfast, where he made the statement to the effect that basically our interests and theirs now diverge.

I mean, they're not the same.

His interests basically are to, for us to help him win his war and stay in two years.

Our interests are to

We have finished our war, basically.

And we've got to get our prisoners, and we've got to get out in a decent way, and we've got to leave him in a way so he can handle the damn thing.

Another thing, too, that is impressive to me is that Abrams, for example, who is very deeply involved, strongly for this whole settlement.

Isn't that good?

He is.

Well, I think probably most of the professional military people are, because they realize this is very unpopular from the standpoint of the Army.

It's ruining them.

It's hurting them.

It's ruining them.

And as Abram says, we just, well, we can stay in Europe because we're sort of the same kind of people, even there it's difficult.

He said, we've got to realize that our days are numbered out there.

He knows that.

Well, I think it's going to work out all right, and I'm glad it's quieted down, and Henry's better frame of mind, I guess, isn't he now?

Well, it's tough for him.

He was close, and the guy was saying fine, and then he said no, and everybody knows it's reasonable, and he's informed everybody, but...

Well, also, he must be exhausted physically, because he's been on the go so much.

That's right.

But we'll try to get down.

We'll have to look at it in the cold morning of Tuesday, I hope.

Good.

Well, I hope I can be included in that, too.

Well, you will be.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

When he gets back.

When we get in.

And I don't know what time he'll get in, but I told him that I had to be in New York, and I didn't want him to come here Monday afternoon.

you know, at 6 o'clock, because I'd be up in New York until midnight.

I think we'll get together and go over the whole thing.

I had a good time on California.

We've got a World Affairs Council.

Great, great.

And I feel very strongly that any settlement that two is not four

could be very, very detrimental to us.

It looked like we were pushing him in order to win the election.

And I don't want this election won because of a last-minute trick.

Well, not only that, the election, of course, is fundamentally important.

And I think it would be very harmful because McGovern could say, well, hell, you could have done that two years ago.

Of course.

But more than that, from the standpoint of the good of the country, I think it would be ruinous as far as our foreign policy is concerned.

Would it be ruinous because you'd be making the deal, and then later on, and because, as I said, we have gone too far to make a bad deal now.

And that's why we're...

But, of course, this is a good deal if he would go along with it.

Yeah, but I mean, what we're really talking about is trying to force him to undertake.

Oh, no, no, we cannot.

We can't do it.

No, sir.

Okay.

Hey, what did you think of the Redskins today?

Waddell and I went.

Were you there?

Yeah.

I saw it.

I was able to get it at the Baltimore station.

They had it on the third floor here.

It was terrific.

I thought the first half...

I didn't think the Redskins could even beat the Eagles.

What the hell happened there?

Wasn't that Larry Brown terrific, though?

Oh, well, I mean, he just always makes those extra yards.

And those passes, he caught passes.

Nobody over and over again.

But they had no business beating Dallas.

Dallas had more horses, but what did you think?

Oh, I thought so, too.

I thought they were lucky he was a dude.

And Dallas had a couple of bad breaks.

You didn't happen to see the first one.

First, the second play of the game.

Oh, yeah, when that guy had, Calvin Hill had that pass.

Absolutely.

I saw that.

But, you know, although you've got to say on the breaks, the Redskins had some pretty bad ones in the first half.

Very, very bad.

And those intercepted passes are not accidents.

They were pretty good.

But, geez, for them to win that game.

It really was a great game.

Okay.

Thanks, Mr. Preston.

Good night.

Nixon phone call with Rogers on Vietnam War and 1972 Presidential Election

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on October 23, 1972

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