On January 20, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger talked on the telephone from 9:32 am to 9:59 am. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 036-021 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
Hello, Mr. President.
Did you enjoy the evening?
I think it was really very nice.
Which one did you go to?
I went to the symphony concert and... Yeah, I thought that was, I saw the last, I mean, part of it, the intermission and...
Boy, that Armody certainly knows how to play up to a piano, doesn't he?
Beautiful.
That is really hard to do.
The Grieg, of course, is a famous, every pianist loves to play it, but orchestras usually overwhelm it.
And, of course, this was, this, this, this, Clyburn was never better.
And Armody, they're both great actors.
They were just fantastic.
It was done with great delicacy.
Yeah.
Very good.
Right.
And I thought all the choral groups and then that 1812 thing is a good patriotic moment.
I thought it was a great evening.
And I like the spirit of the people who are there.
Oh, yeah.
They're our people.
Yeah.
It's all right.
They actually were, they're actually, though, I compared with four years ago, they were all, I went to the symphony down at Constitution Hall and they were all
I mean, they were cheering and everything, but this time, you know, there's a lot of, there's more shouting.
Oh, and there's tremendous pride.
Yeah, yeah.
That one walks through these halls, people come up.
I'll bet you really needed your Secret Service last night, didn't you?
Oh, God.
But they were nice, weren't they, all the people and everything?
Oh, they couldn't, it's really moving because... Yeah, they see through a lot of this stuff that we all see.
Oh, God, I mean, everyone says...
Do the right thing.
Tell the president to just thank God, and it's really a very moving thing.
What is the word from Haig?
We've, well, he's had a session, and Chu has written you another letter, but... Oh, God.
Well, it's important, I think, that we are patient, because what the guy is doing, he's obviously posturing himself step by step.
He's now reduced...
In his last letter, he made four conditions.
He's now reduced them to two.
and of which one we can't even consider and one we can probably get him.
He's also sending his foreign minister to Paris to meet with me.
Oh, God.
Well, Mr. President, it has this advantage.
My first reaction was exactly like you, and I've been in now for two hours analyzing it together with my staff.
And we all have come to this conclusion.
The problem with him is if we initial an agreement on Tuesday without visible participation by them, it's a great loss of face.
Yeah.
If he has his foreign minister there, then he can claim he participated.
Yeah.
And...
The foreign minister is his nephew?
No, no.
His nephew is that little bastard kid who is the minister of information.
Yep.
The foreign minister's an ass, and he won't be able to do anything.
Now, what I thought, though, Mr. President, we should do is this.
We should send him a letter by you in reply, saying you're delighted his foreign minister will be there, and of course I'll talk to him and brief him fully.
But you have instructed me to proceed with initialing.
I will try to get that one change in the protocols that they want.
And on this, they are not wrong.
I think Sullivan goofed on that.
What is the major point?
The problem is, Sullivan put into the protocol, and I didn't watch that, that the police should carry only pistols.
They point out that their police carries carbines and M16 rifles.
Now, I think we can probably get something done, but even if we can't in changing it, at least we can tell him you're going to make the effort.
but what we should put in the letter from you is that you must have an answer from him by noon tomorrow whether even though you have instructed me to seek that change yeah he will proceed he will concur in letting us initial it letting us i mean he will concur in our initialing it yeah uh
Because if not, you will have to initial it unilaterally.
Yeah.
And you would then have to call the congressional leaders in Sunday night prior to my departure and inform them of that fact.
I mean, you don't have to do it.
I just want to give him an explanation why he has to handle it tomorrow.
That once the congressional leaders are informed, aid will become difficult, even if he then still finally comes along.
Yeah.
At the...
the congressional leaders will will will in my opinion be adamant and say that we should go unilaterally and not seek further cooperation my worry is if we don't give him an absolutely unshakable deadline he will yield i will now bet it i would say the chances are 99 out of 100.
But you, of course, it's a question of which day.
I guess we all thought he'd yield Tuesday, and now we thought he'd yield Saturday.
No, I never thought he'd yield Tuesday.
No, no, I mean, I mean, some did.
I thought he'd yield either today or next Tuesday.
And what we have to bring home to him is that Tuesday is too late.
That's right.
Yes, that at the time...
But Haig and Bunker and our intelligence chief there
we have all their units have already been informed that the ceasefire will go why don't you say this that uh that before and he doesn't need to know that one i said before you leave for paris uh on sunday evening uh i have to meet with congressional leaders uh that at that time uh they are going to ask whether that
that I will have to tell them yes or no, whether or not he will concur in the initialing, that we will do our best.
But I cannot guarantee, but in any event,
We will try.
But if I tell the Congressional Union that we will not concur, then that it is my judgment that I am convinced from having talked to Senator Goldwater and Senator Stennis, who are his major supporters in the Senate,
that they will throw up their hands, that they will, in effect, direct, they will, in effect, inform me that Congress will not go along on further aid unless he goes along on Tuesday.
How about putting it that way?
Tell him I'm going to have a meeting with the congressional leaders.
He doesn't need to know whether we have it or not.
Or you don't want to say that?
I think we'll say you'll have a meeting, and at that time,
You'll have to tell them on what basis we're proceeding.
Yes.
Tell them I'm going to have a meeting on Sunday with the congressional leaders before you leave, which is, say, with selected congressional leaders, with the selected congressional leaders before you leave.
At that time, the question will be, I have been informed that the question will be raised as to whether or not he will concur
in our initialing of the agreement.
If his answer is that he will not concur in the initialing of the agreement, that the congressional leaders, in my view without question, then will move to cut off assistance.
Is that going too far?
In other words, I don't know whether the threat goes too far or not, but I'll do any damn thing it is or to cut off his head if necessary, but...
The way to put it, I think, Mr. President, is to say that even if he should then later come along...
Yes, that is... ...will do him no good because they will look as if they've been extorted.
Yeah, that is.
The problem is that if he waits, that I feel that it is imperative that when I meet with the congressional leaders, tell them that I'm going to meet with the congressional leaders, that I'm going to inform them then...
inform them at that time that I've been in consultation with President Tu and that Dr. Kissinger will go to Paris Tuesday, that he will initial the agreement on Tuesday.
at that time, unless I can tell, they will inevitably ask whether or not President Chu, despite some differences which he has mentioned, whether or not he will concur.
If I am unable to tell him that he will concur, his going on later will appear to them to have been an extortion and will I think
will probably without question result in congressional cutoff of aid.
How's that sound?
Or something like that.
Does that go too far?
See what I mean?
No, no, I think that's right.
That's what we should do.
And without question, I feel that it's imperative that in confidence that I be able to tell the congressional leaders that he has objections, that we will do our best on the Tuesday session to try to get those objections dealt with.
that we will raise those objections, but that we are going to initial, but that if I don't, and that you're going to meet with the former, but I must have a private assurance from him that I can pass on to them in total privacy, selected leaders, that he will concur.
Otherwise, I think his aid, the aid which we both, which I want very much for South Vietnam, will be in very, very deadly jeopardy.
Right.
Something along that line maybe will do it.
I completely agree.
Well, whatever it is, I'm resigned to it.
We've had so many disappointments in this thing for the four years.
But we just fought every battle.
Let me find here what Bunker is saying.
Bunker's not much in touch with anything anymore.
No, but...
Now, this is from Hague.
He says, it is important that we view Thieu's response in the context of Oriental pride and faith.
Thieu has, up until now, ducked in firmly against the agreement.
It is already apparent from intelligence that the military, the NEC, and other personal advisors are having no prospect, no problem with the prospect of Thieu's signing.
That what?
Are having no prospect with the problem of Thieu's signing.
Yeah.
Bunker and I believe that Thieu is going to make a fight right up until the last possible minute.
so that he can take the position with factual evidence that he has done his absolute utmost.
At the same time, it has been evident to Bunker and to me as well in our personal assessments that he has made up his mind to proceed.
Since my first meeting with him this week, he has become relaxed and confident.
I believe it is important that you bear this in mind in developing a response.
I see.
That's where you want to go, then.
And he says, I'm confident that he does not expect any changes because of Lam's trip to Paris, but it will be less difficult if Lam is in Paris once he decides to formally notify us of his acceptance.
For this reason, I do not think we should challenge his decision.
I completely agree with him on this.
In fact, I had independently come.
Yeah, all right.
Just say that I would say that I believe that Lund's going to Paris is a very good idea, that it will be a message to the world and to the North Vietnamese that we are in the closest of cooperation.
It will also be a very salutary message to the members of our Congress
to the American people, as will, of course, the Vice President's trip at a later time and his and my meeting this spring.
But let's say, on the other hand, I believe, I think that we must not wait until Tuesday for his private.
I'd like for him to convey to me in the most secret channel, through a back channel, his assurance.
that we are going to have to sign on that day.
We'll make an effort after your conversations with Lunds to get, you know, to work out things.
But I must have his understanding that after we have made every effort and as we agree to initial, that we go along.
And I must be able to tell
the selected congressional leaders, those who are particularly his supporters, like Senator Sennis and Senator Goldwater, that we are going ahead.
Otherwise, I feel that if it would appear
if we wait until then, that it will appear that he went along unwillingly, and that would give basically his enemies in the Senate and the Congress a chance to kill aid for Vietnam, which is, of course, something that I desperately am trying to save.
Something like that.
Exactly.
I agree completely.
Okay.
If you can get the tone of that in it, that's fine.
Right, Mr. President.
And I think it is on course, and it will go through.
It's just nothing with these bloody Vietnamese works simply.
Well, at least, though, Henry, the North Vietnamese you knew damn well were coming along on the 9th, Tuesday.
It took you four more days.
This fellow doesn't let you know anything.
Or is he?
Well, he's sort of.
We know about as much from him as we knew from the North Vietnamese on the 9th.
It's just that with the North Vietnamese, we could meet 10 hours a day.
And with this fellow, we have to do it by cable.
It's about the same process.
Once they agree in principle, then they start hackling.
Well, he has agreed in principle, hasn't he?
In fact, you pick up the morning paper, even as vicious a sheet as the Washington Post, and
They say agreement in principle has been reached on the, there is agreement on the agreement, but they still have some objections to the protocol.
Exactly.
Well, you and I know the protocols don't mean a goddamn thing, but I agree that, I agree Sullivan did goof on that, but how could the hell, Henry, can we watch everything?
I mean, I would have known that, I would have known that, but he's a good man, but I would have known that you cannot change the, let me put it this way.
Sullivan, was he ever in the service?
Well, you were, of course.
He was in the Navy.
I know.
Well, so was I.
Let me tell you something.
The point about the pistols and the other, do you realize that you have the problem with any police force, where you have a police force which is army-based,
Damn it.
Enlisted men, it's only officers that carry pistols.
They don't even issue to enlisted men.
They carry carbines.
That's what this is all about.
You know, Q's got a hell of a point there.
He'd have to change the whole, he'd have to give every one of these damn enlisted men pistols.
And, of course, that's a dangerous damn thing.
A pistol can be concealed.
It can be used to rape and everything else.
For riot control, you can't really use pistols.
I know that.
I'm just sort of raising more of an esoteric point, which anybody could raise and say, look,
you know if a guy's carrying carbine at least you know that uh I mean it's out there in the open where you're not going to shoot somebody with stealth with a pistol it's a that's that's all that's only the prerogative of officers exactly well that was a mistake but I think we may be able to do something but if not we can't hold up the agreement on that point yeah
What's the other point he wants?
All South Vietnamese leave?
All North Vietnamese leave, but he's now made a number of that we can handle.
I figured out a way not of what I thought... You can't change anything.
I thought you said you...
I can't change anything in the agreement, but what we can do... Well, you can't even change anything in the protocol, can you, Tuesdays?
I understand you're just going over there to initial it, or is there... Well, the protocols we have a little more flexibility with because those were still being negotiated last week, and we can still say...
that I had never put my thumbprint on those.
Well, you can be very positive about it and say, look, we've got a lot of objections to the protocol.
You could talk to the North Vietnamese, and the president has said to hell with them all, but there's just one here that we just feel is fair enough we ought to have.
Right.
Exactly.
That we can do.
We probably won't get it, but at least there we have a chance.
On the North Vietnamese troops, I won't even raise it.
The way to handle it is to give Chu a note saying that we do not construe anything in agreement with them the right to have troops there.
That's right.
And that we will so state at a proper time.
Well, right.
That we will so state.
after the agreement is signed can we say that yeah after the agreement is signed but i wouldn't say it before yeah just say that i will make that that we will just not we and we will we will make that position uh we will make that position public after the agreement is signed right fine uh without uh without equivocation right right and that that is the key thing is that we do not recognize that right and that when we don't recognize it right
Well, I have a feeling, I don't know, as I've always said, that he's got to go along apart from all these intercepts and the rest.
There's only one thing that sort of got into my mind last night, which perhaps has occurred to you.
I'm not sure how much you can rely on the intercepts.
I mean, after all, these people are not stupid.
And I remember when I was in Moscow and Peking, knowing the rooms were bugged, I used to say things, outlandish things sometimes, just for the purpose of putting them on the wrong trail.
These characters may be doing this in order to set us up for a fall.
Has that occurred to you?
Well, if it were only one bugged room, Mr. President, I would agree with you, and I thought that for a long time.
But when Corps commanders, regional commanders, other people have been given instructions,
If it were any one sewers, but when you get five or six sewers all coming together saying the same thing, what you would then have is a massive deception campaign, which is not totally impossible, but which is totally suicidal.
He tells all of his corps commanders, Henry, that it isn't going to happen.
Why?
I mean, if he now tells his core commanders that he has decided, he, the man who has prided himself on his friendship with America, that he has now decided to kick America in the teeth, to cancel his orders, it would be impossible.
Can he not be unaware of the enormous expectation that has now been raised here, and can he not be unaware that
that not only is his age jeopardized, but that there's no way that we can reverse this course.
I mean, remember, I never did like, and neither did you, Roger's constant use of the word irreversible, remember?
Yeah.
On Vietnamization.
But now it is irreversible.
You and I both know it.
No question.
I mean, you can carry a country just so far.
And understand, it isn't irreversible if there was a horrible rape on the other side.
But here, when he rapes himself, it's irreversible.
Well, and the other side has been very restrained this week.
Well, I know, but you see what I mean.
Oh, yeah.
We can do anything if there's an invasion and that sort of thing, then we can, you know, gin up people.
But if, on the other hand, simply for the sake of fighting for a word in the protocol to the effect that police should carry carbines and also, or that the principle, an esoteric principle that the North Vietnamese have no right to be in the South, do you think people are going to want us to bomb Hanoi for that?
Hell no.
I don't give a damn about it.
They say, well, Christ, if we say it particularly in that light, well, no use to rationalize and kid ourselves about it and convince ourselves.
We're all convinced.
I think it should be a rather soft answer that will turn away wrath.
but very firm that I have to have an answer by Sunday that I can convey.
Shall we say that I will convey to the congressional leaders, or do you want to say that I need an answer, or I will have to call?
You see, calling the congressional leader in if I don't get an answer is more of a threat
calling him in, just a couple of his, you know, selected ones to tell them.
I understand which, whichever way, which do you think is the better way to play?
I think your suggestion is the better way of playing.
You have to say that before you go that I have to call in some selected congressional leaders, a very, very small group of some, who are his best friends, including Senator Gold, men like Senator Goldwater and Senator, so they, and I, I need to inform them that at that point that
and will of his objections.
But I also, they will tell him that we are going to head to initial, that he's going to meet with the foreign minister.
I'm delighted that he's coming because I think it's important that we have a
consultation which we have had and we have a public show of it right up to the last up to the time of initial but I need to tell them that or they will not be able to stop the irresistible tide of his enemies who would say that South Vietnam did not go along that they were forced to go along and therefore are not
a, uh, dependable, uh, uh, how long is it?
Okay.
Well, you know, just work the language out.
I think, uh, if you want me to look at it, I can.
Mr. President, given your schedule today, I think I like your thought very well now.
Yeah, well, you know, it's just a question of, you've got the thought.
I think speed is more important.
Sure, sure, sure.
I'll show it to you right after the break.
No, no, no, no, I really don't need to see it.
I don't need to see it, unless you think I need to.
I think what we discussed is exactly what we put in there.
Fine.
Well, fine, fine.
You go right ahead and send her off then.
The main thing is to get the darn thing over there, Henry.
Right.
And I realize that.
Don't worry about me.
I've got the thought across.
And when you finally come down to it, it's more the mood than anything else.
Two things, the mood and the deadline.
He's got to know both.
Now, just to go down the road on the contingency, suppose he wires back and says, no, I'll have to say that he cannot.
He says, I cannot agree until we see what the final.
Then we can still give him till noon on Tuesday.
All right.
Then on noon on Tuesday.
I would still announce the agreement.
In other words, your view is you will come back and say, you wouldn't say that he wasn't going along, but you'd say that he was.
Now, on the other contingency we have in mind, which I know you've always ruled out, suppose, are we inciting him to come out and make a public statement before
No, before Tuesday, he won't go along.
This will be so much the worst for him as the president that he can never be better off making it early rather than late.
Yeah.
In other words, you believe that his interests absolutely require him
his objections in private channels.
At this point?
That's right.
Until we absolutely force him to go public by some irreversible action on our part.
Well, that's going to be Tuesday, isn't it?
That will be after Tuesday.
He won't do it.
No, no, no, no.
But I mean, I have to go public Tuesday.
That's my point.
That's right.
Your initialing, of course, will go, and then I announce it publicly.
I just put it coldly that you will go there.
You will meet.
You will do the best you can.
You'll meet with his foreign minister.
You will work on the protocols.
But then...
that I have directed you to initial it at that point, and I will announce it Tuesday night.
Right.
Right.
Okay.
Fine.
Any other wars in the world you've started?
No, I thought we should get the inauguration behind us before starting another one.
No problems with any of our bureaucratic friends?
Well, I don't think we should let them in on any of this.
Oh, of course not.
Never, never, never, never, never, never, never.
And, uh, oh, incidentally, uh, do you think it's necessary to inform, uh, oh, very good point.
And this is an order.
There is to be no informing of allies.
with regard to the Tuesday night thing, like Australia, is that clear?
Absolutely.
I've already taken care of that.
And are you sure that Green isn't going to slip a message out to him or something, or they're not going to call the ambassador in?
No, well, the ambassador's not to be called in and informed.
Well, Green doesn't even know yet when the message is, so he can't slip a message.
Okay.
Do you understand?
Green won't know until Tuesday morning.
No, we'll sit on that.
Do you understand?
It's just a matter of...
Neither Australia nor New Zealand.
And needless to say, not Canada.
But Canada, Mr. President, we must because they're on the international supervisory body.
And Canada, actually, the trouble is that Trudeau governs together with that leftist party, and he was in a box there.
No, he can make all the excuses he wants, Henry.
I'm through with him.
Totally.
That I agree with.
Totally.
All right.
Inform them.
You can inform them 15 minutes before.
No, it's an order.
Right.
No, I don't.
Not more than 15 minutes.
I don't care if they're on the supervisory body.
They are not to have any advance information.
Is that clear?
Right.
The message is not to be from me.
Is that clear?
Oh, that is clear.
Under notes, my name is not to be mentioned.
There is no appreciation for that.
There is to be no response to anything he says, saying, but we're glad that this thing is over.
I want no responses to anybody of that sort, either individual or governmentally.
Is that absolutely clear?
Fully clear.
There is, I'll fire the whole State Department.
Fully clear, Mr. President.
Okay.
Good luck.