Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 34 › Conversation 034-013

Nixon phone call with Haldeman on Vietnam War and Henry Kissinger

Monday, December 4, 1972 · 8:03 PM–8:16 PM ET · White House Telephone · 13 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob")Conversation034-013 on Tape 34StartMonday, December 4, 1972 at 8:03 PMEndMonday, December 4, 1972 at 8:16 PMRecording deviceWhite House TelephoneSourceNixon Library record for 034-013 ↗ · National Archives Catalog, NAID 647841630 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon and H. R. Haldeman discussed the stalling Vietnam peace negotiations and the potential for a diplomatic breakdown. They evaluated Henry Kissinger’s suggestion that the President deliver a televised address to rally public support for intensified military action, with both men ultimately agreeing that a television appearance was inadvisable and unlikely to be effective. Instead, Nixon decided to maintain a hard-line stance in negotiations and opted to simply escalate bombing operations if necessary, without formally announcing the shift to the public.

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NARA Description

On December 4, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman talked on the telephone from 8:03 pm to 8:16 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 034-013 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 34-13

Date: December 4, 1972
Time: 8:03 pm - 8:16 pm
Location: White House Telephone

The President talked with H. R. (“Bob”) Haldeman.

       Vietnam negotiations
            -The President’s recent conversation with Col. Richard T. Kennedy
                  -North Vietnam stance
                  -Possible break off of talks
                        -Henry A. Kissinger’s view
            -Possible break off
                  -Possible television [TV] statement by the President
                        -The President’s view
                               -Possible failure
                        -Alternative
                               -Kissinger’s return
                        -Kissinger’s view
                               -Timing
                                     -US bombing
                        -The President’s view
                               -Press relations
                               -Timing
                               -Kissinger’s return
                               -Bombing
                                     -Newness of tactics
                                             -13-

                   NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

                                                              Conversation No. 34-13 (cont’d)

                               -Public relations [PR]
                                     -Hopes
                        -Kissinger’s view
                        -Haldeman’s view
                               -Newness of tactics
                        -Alternative
                               -Kissinger’s return
                        -The President’s view
                               -PR
                                     -Continuation of bombing
                        -Kissinger’s possible statement upon return
Show the rest of the log (32 more lines)
                        -Kissinger’s recent public statement
                        -North Vietnam’s recent public statements
             -The President’s recent conversation with Kennedy
                  -Instruction for Kissinger
                        -US stance
                               -Hard-line
                                     -Nguyen Van Thieu
                                     -Domestic front
                                            -Coalition government

      Poll
             -Timing

      Vietnam negotiations
           -Alexander M. Haig, Jr.
                -View
           -PR
                -Repeating past successes
                       -Kissinger and Haig
                       -Cambodia, November 3, 1969, May 8, 1972
           -Resumption
                -Timing
           -Mood of meetings
                -Kissinger’s December 3, 1972 message

      The President’s schedule
           -John B. Connally, George P. Shultz, Helene (Colesie) Drown

An unknown person entered at an unknown time between 8:03 pm and 8:16 pm.
                                             -14-

                   NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

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.
Yes, sir.
I just talked to Kennedy, and he gave me a report.
He said they're very tough and so forth, and that Henry is saying that he feels that we may have to break off and that he'll have to return.
He'll have to advise the eating side would go on television and rally the American people, as I heard previously.
And I told Kennedy that he just had to indicate to Henry that that was not a viable option, that we had to be just as tough as we can.
And if they don't agree, then we do it.
But I just have a very strong feeling that my going on national television right now and saying, well, it's broken down because of their deviousness and so forth and so on, I think the thing to do is to just up and do it.
What's your feeling, Henry?
Well, I think so.
I just have a very uneasy feeling about doing a national television broadcast at this point.
Yep.
Very tough to pull off.
Well, tough to pull off when this time may fail.
Yeah.
I mean, this is one of the few times it really could.
Yep.
And I don't think Henry Heerer is quite in touch with reality.
Do you agree?
I think that's right.
But on the other hand, they refuse to make the agreement.
You just state it as a practical matter.
He comes back and we do what is necessary.
Yep.
Doesn't that sound like a more viable way to do it?
His thought is you do it while he's still there.
Oh no, he'll come back and then we go on.
And then he has, and I would go on and say,
Wednesday or, I mean, Thursday of this week and make a big television appeal to support the resumption of the military activities.
My view is that at the time of year and all that sort of thing, it's just the wrong thing to do.
The thing to do is to just do it and let the press handle it any way they want.
Well, I would think so, because I think
In fact, I think you might come out better as far as the backing by just doing it than by trying to build a, well, then you just come out and just do it.
And we won't have to decide it right now.
Wait till tomorrow, see what happens tomorrow.
But my feeling is that what we do is to just go ahead when he returns and say, well, we still haven't
completed the negotiations.
We're prepared to negotiate whenever they are.
But then just step the goddamn—you know, the bombing up and so forth and so on.
But just do it rather than go on and say—because, you see, there's nothing new we're reordering.
Well, we will have to bomb the North and—you know what I mean?
It's—I think the people are not going to—I don't think the people are going
I don't think they're going to be too damn surprised that things break down, you know what I mean?
Although they built up tremendous hopes that it's going to be over.
I mean, a lot of people have.
Yeah.
On the other hand, I think that if you go on TV, that sort of puts the cap on it.
Yeah, which doesn't seem to be desirable.
It puts the cap, basically, of just a failure on it.
Yeah.
You just say, well, that's it.
Yeah.
That's the end of that.
But we'll wait till tomorrow, see what happens.
But my own view is that we have the best thing to do is to just let him have it and take whatever heat we have to take.
I would think so.
I mean, he's got his usual melodramatic thing
the president should go on television again and rally the American people as he has on such—on previous occasions.
And my—I've never—you know, I've never—never doubted doing it before.
But I don't think Bob—I think Henry, of course, and he has a feeling about this, but I don't think he realizes that we're in a box where it isn't going to quite work again.
What do you think?
Well, I think, yeah, I think the combination of circumstances is such that it isn't going to where the other is, because in the first place, it isn't a new step.
That's right.
We're not ordering anything new.
That's right.
And it's, you're really, you're really, it's another stage in the ongoing thing, in a sense, rather than some new... Basically what happens here, he comes back and his negotiations have not succeeded, so we just continue until...
until they do.
And we just continue to do what we have to do.
In the hopes that the fact of doing that may cause them to reconsider, too.
Right.
And being prepared, in other words, to go, but just doing it, you see, going on and saying it creates, in my view, a
We unnecessarily escalate the public reaction to this and so forth.
We've been bombing.
We just continue it.
We just do more of it.
Yeah.
But don't announce anything because there isn't a hell of a thing, a lot to announce.
I mean, these negotiations, I think we have to realize that we're confident they will succeed and so forth.
And we just come back.
If anything he can say, or maybe that's what has to be said when he comes back and says, well, we've tried it and they refuse.
Would that be a thought in mind?
Well, it sort of depends on the nature of how it's left there, I would think.
Yeah.
I mean, if it, how definitive the thing is.
My guess is he'll leave it with them, but yeah, as to whether or not even there's
Whether there's anything left.
Any further negotiating room left.
Yeah.
Because whether there's going to be another meeting or anything of that sort.
Yeah.
But at least he didn't box himself into the corner of saying this is the last meeting this time.
Good.
At least that's my impression.
He hasn't said that to them.
Well, I don't think it's been said publicly, has it?
No, I don't.
No, no.
That's what I meant here.
I'm not concerned about it.
It's been speculated, but I don't think we've said it.
No.
And...
But I...
I've just been thinking about my own position at this point, and I'm inclined to think that my having to go on for the first time after the election and saying, well, the enemy refuses and that we, therefore, are going to continue or step up the bombing of the North until they, frankly, agree to be reasonable.
How do you think you'd do it?
What do you think?
I think that's what you do, and you...
There's got to be some report on status, but it, well, it depends on what it is.
It also depends on what they say.
What they say publicly?
Yeah.
And how they play it.
That's right.
That's right.
And I would think that would be a major factor in the question of degree of toughness.
The degree of toughness in what we do in the event they do not agree to—see, they're backing off of their previous positions and giving nothing.
The degree of toughness in what we do, there's no question, it has to be tough as hell.
See?
Uh-huh.
Whatever they say.
I mean, because we know that—we know they're not giving an inch, you know, in the important things.
We'll take a look at it tomorrow and see what happens.
But I told Kennedy to—tell him to stay on the hard line until—you know what I mean?
Because we have to get something or we have no way to—well, we not only have no way to get two to come along, but we would have a very serious problem here in the event that they back off.
of their previous positions, you know.
It's just basically on what I would interpret it being as a coalition government.
See what I mean?
Mm-hmm.
What about your poll?
We'll have it Wednesday.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
I'll be too late to affect what we would agree to, but we'll see what develops.
bad we don't have any line to Haig here so we could get a feeling.
Of course, Haig basically is a hard line and we'll figure that maybe we should do it.
I just think that the one thing that Henry and Haig, neither of them can figure on is to think that you can repeat the history again.
You can't repeat what you have done at this point.
told him that very categorically before.
And I told him that in Florida.
And he kept saying, well, we've always rallied the people before.
I don't think it's there to rally at the moment.
What do you think?
Well, I think it can be.
There's a real question of whether that's the best way to deal with the position you're in.
That's the point, isn't it?
Because each time you do it, you've got to expend
A major chunk of equity trying to do it.
That's right.
And then some things, the people have got, they're rallied if they think it's going to work.
That's right.
That's the whole point.
You know, like Cambodia, they thought that was going to help, and it did.
And November 3rd, they didn't want to be humiliated.
May 8th, they were for it because they thought that was going to help, and it helped a hell of a lot.
It stopped the offensive.
But now, you see, you say, so you rally them for what?
For the purpose of getting a settlement or what?
Well, we shall see.
We'll take a look at it in the morning.
Okay.
Are they going to meet tomorrow again?
Oh, sure.
They meet tomorrow at 9 o'clock our time, 3 o'clock their time, so they'll go around another round, see what, uh, what, if anything, they're going to do.
But, uh— Okay.
But, of course, it's always been my, my, uh,
my own feeling is that this whole business of mood, you know, and so forth, has very little to do with what they do.
Don't you agree?
Yeah.
And it was usually, you know, like his message yesterday said, I was impressed by the fact that, you know, that the attitude was, you know, somewhat—even though they were tough—that
the mood was right and so forth.
That's a hell of a lot to do with it.
And that's—we'll just have to play the string out.
Well, we'll see.
We'll see.
I'll try to get some word tomorrow sometime.
Mm-hm.
Fine.
We have Connolly tomorrow at three o'clock, huh?
Yes, sir.
Schultz at 10, right?
Right.
Fine.
And we do the drown thing at—come in.
Have the drown thing at—yeah.
7.30 or something like that.
Okay, fine.
Right.
Bye.

Also recorded on December 4, 1972

  • 034-011 7:51 PM · 13 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Col. Richard T. Kennedy talked on the telephone from 7:51 pm to 8:02 pm.
  • 034-012 8:02 PM · 15 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 8:02 pm and 8:03 pm.
  • 034-014 8:16 PM · 13 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 8:16 pm and 8:23 pm.
  • 034-015 8:23 PM · 9 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Col. Richard T. Kennedy talked on the telephone from 8:23 pm to 8:32 pm.

Cite this conversation

Conversation 034-013, December 4, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives (NAID 647841630). Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/034-013 (accessed November 2, 2026).