Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 36 › Conversation 036-035
Nixon phone call with Kissinger on Vietnam War and Paris Peace Accords
Sunday, January 21, 1973 · 5:22 PM–5:29 PM ET · White House Telephone · 7 min
AI Summary
President Nixon and Henry Kissinger discuss the final stages of the Vietnam peace negotiations, focusing on ensuring South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu’s compliance with the impending agreement. Kissinger briefs the President on technical details, including language regarding personal weapons and the planned schedule for his upcoming meetings in Paris. The two leaders agree on the strategic value of including the South Vietnamese Foreign Minister in these talks to provide Thieu with a face-saving "fig leaf" while finalizing the transition toward a ceasefire.
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Mr. President?
I'm just calling to, uh, to, uh, so that, uh, Ron's story will stand up and, uh, assume you have nothing else to report.
I've had a long talk with Haig.
I talked to him on the phone briefly, too, before, uh, before I went to reception.
He told me that, yeah.
And it looks, uh, well, I think it's safe to say that it looks, uh, that it's lined up.
He gave that impression to me.
Of course, I, uh, as you know, we, uh,
My feeling is that Haig tells him personally it's lined up, but then writes something different in the letter, but he thinks he's making a record in the letter.
So that's very possible.
That's exact.
But the only problem we really have here, Henry, is that I hate like hell to meet with those leaders Tuesday afternoon after you return.
They're going to ask, well, what about this son of a bitch?
Well, I think we have a good enough record now to say that he's gone along.
that he's gone along and then let him to take the responsibility of turning it down well it's inconceivable he'll turn it down it's really for him even though whatever one may think of that phrase in the protocol for him to kick over agreements all the rest he's accepted one phrase of ambiguity is inconceivable
Yeah, well, the phrase is deliberately ambiguous.
The North and us don't agree on the damn thing, let's face it.
You have some feeling that Sullivan might be able to get something on the carbines.
Yesterday, after we talked, I said I brought him back from Switzerland, where he was going to be for the weekend.
I had a meeting today, and the North Vietnamese said he was going to raise
sentences with Lee Doctoe, which we sent him.
If he takes those two sentences and then a buzzword about pistols, where they say pistols and we say carbines, then we've definitely got it.
Who said they were going to raise two additional sentences?
Well, we gave them two additional sentences, and Tuck said, well, sentences say, in effect, that each side's police can carry personal weapons.
except in unusual circumstances.
In other words, then what are personal weapons?
Well, we'll argue about it after that.
I find it almost inconceivable now that he'll kick over the traces.
None of his propaganda runs that way.
All the people they leak to now speak about the inevitability of a ceasefire.
But we will just take a quick gander at the thing at 8 o'clock in the morning, right?
We'll be here.
We'll meet at the EOB.
Right.
And just as well to go over if any contingency does arrive.
I don't see how the hell any can now.
It seems to me that all you've got left to do is just go over there and go through the motions and sign the damn thing and get on the plane and come back.
No, we have some more that I didn't want to bother you with because they're settleable.
For example, on the economic program for afterwards, we have a long discussion, maybe an hour, an hour and a half.
Then there are a number of other technical things that will get settled.
In fact, what I was thinking was the opposite.
It wasn't a sense of pity.
We might have scheduled two days.
It would have looked as if more had gone on.
It didn't look so precooked.
I don't think at that point the people will give a damn.
Oh, hell no.
Hell no, no, no.
It means you'll meet long enough.
For any reason, Mr. President, we should get one of these three or four items that come up.
For example, we have to discuss the post-war conference, too.
Yeah.
It could conceivably go over one night.
But if you do, there's no problem with us, you know.
No problem at all.
No problem with us.
We're still going forward on the same date for signing.
Although they have a clear understanding we do initial on this day, isn't that it?
It won't happen.
I'm just running through unlikely contingencies.
That is more likely to happen that that two won't go along.
Make it easier for two a two-day thing.
wouldn't look so good.
But we shouldn't really discuss that because there is next to no chance of that happening.
Well, hell no.
What will be your game plan with regard to seeing that foreign minister when you do that tomorrow night?
I'll see him as soon as I arrive, and then I'll have breakfast with him again, and we'll put it out just so that it looks as if he had been listened to.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You say it would look a little, giving them more face if we'd had two days.
I don't know.
We've gone just the extra mile with these fellows, for Christ's sakes.
Now they've got to just face up to it and get it done with because we've horsed around long enough.
And I don't think nobody's going to pay attention.
Nobody's going to pay that much attention, and he isn't going to pay that much attention.
And, you know what I mean, we'll just...
But after all the agony everyone has gone through, I think now that we are closed, we might as well wrap it up.
And we'll just come right back.
But I guess the main thing we understand with a foreign minister is certainly what he tells Hugh is not going to have any effect on Hugh, is it?
President, he has no real influence.
He's a dumbbell.
I think the major use of having the foreign minister there for two is, one, so that he can claim the final result was achieved together with his participation, and secondly, so that he has his foreign minister in Paris in a plausible way and have him for the signing.
Rather than have...
In other words, he wants him there with you rather than just with Rogers.
I understand.
I understand.
Good.
Well, that's the thing to do.
I consider that actually a step forward.
Sure.
That had occurred to me that has the whole purpose of that.
That's fine.
Give them all that fig leaf they want.
Why put him on a plane after you've made a speech?
That's right.
This way he's got a day and just helps him to go through the whole process.
That's right.
That's right.
That's right.
Good.
Good.
All right.
We'll see you tomorrow at 8 o'clock, Henry.
Good.
Fine, fine.
NARA Description
On January 21, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger talked on the telephone from 5:22 pm to 5:29 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 036-035 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 36-35
Date: January 21, 1973
Time: 5:22 pm - 5:29 pm
Location: White House Telephone
The President talked with Henry A. Kissinger.
[See also Conversation No. 402-7]
Vietnam settlement
-Ronald L. Ziegler
-Comments to press
-Conversations with Alexander M. Haig, Jr.
-The President
-Kissinger
-Nguyen Van Thieu
-Acceptance of agreement
-Conversation with Haig
-Letters
-27-
NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM
Conversation No. 36-35 (cont’d)
-Meeting with Congressional leaders
-Protocols
-William H. Sullivan
-Le Duc Tho
-Wording
-Police force
-The President’s schedule
-Economic aid
-Kissinger’s schedule
-Postwar conference
-Signing ceremony
-South Vietnamese Foreign Minister
-Kissinger’s meeting in Paris
-South Vietnamese acceptance
-The President’s view
-Kissinger’s view
-South Vietnam Foreign Minister presence
-Purpose
-William P. RogersAlso recorded on January 21, 1973
- 402-004 5:00 PM · 1 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 5:00 pm and 5:02 pm.
- 402-005 5:00 PM · 16 min — President Richard M. Nixon met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 5:00 pm and 5:22 pm.
- 036-034 5:02 PM · 15 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 5:02 pm and 5:22 pm.
- 402-007 5:22 PM · 7 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 5:22 pm to 5:29 pm.
- 402-008 5:33 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 5:33 pm and 5:43 pm.
- 402-009 5:33 PM · 1 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 5:33 pm and 5:43 pm.
- 402-010 5:43 PM · 15 sec — Unknown person(s) met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building on an unknown date, sometime between 5:43 pm on January 21, 1973 and 7:56 am on January 22, 1973.
- 402-011 5:43 PM · 38 sec — Unknown person(s) met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building on an unknown date, sometime between 5:43 pm on January 21, 1973 and 7:56 am on January 22, 1973.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 036-035, January 21, 1973. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/036-035 (accessed October 12, 2026).