Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 36 › Conversation 036-037
Nixon phone call with Haig on Vietnam War and Paris Peace Accords
Monday, January 22, 1973 · 9:10 AM–9:47 AM ET · White House Telephone · 6 min
AI Summary
President Nixon and Alexander Haig discussed the drafting of the President's upcoming public announcement regarding the Vietnam peace settlement. The two men focused on streamlining the length of the statement and ensuring it provided necessary reassurances to South Vietnam while projecting strength against domestic political opponents. Nixon tasked Haig with reviewing the final draft later that day and coordinating with Henry Kissinger to manage potential scheduling adjustments for the treaty process.
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Transcript (AI-generated)
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hello general haig sir good morning sir hi al i told henry before he left that uh uh in working out my uh remarks for tomorrow and assuming that he finishes tomorrow or the next day that i would be uh calling on you i will of course have kennedy over as well so that we can keep it in the chain here he totally agrees the main thing i want to be sure is that we have
what we have in what is necessary with regard to the South Vietnamese.
Yes, there is some problem there.
Yeah, and he's got a lot in there already.
I mean, I think we have everything in, but have you seen the draft that they prepared?
Yes, I saw it yesterday afternoon.
Right.
Maybe it could be tightened up somewhat.
Yeah, well, it's too long now, I think.
Yeah.
But I mean, I don't know what they prepared.
I plan to cut it in half, actually.
I really think, Al, that Dole is...
I mean, I don't mean that we can put in the stuff reassuring us and that, but I don't think this is the time to go gassing on about it.
I think we just announced, here it is.
This is what we said we wanted.
Now the South Vietnamese have participated in it and so forth.
We call on everybody to thank the American people for supporting it and get the hell out of there.
Don't you agree?
I think it tends to, I think the present draft, although...
You just don't have to talk that long about it, or do you agree?
Well, I thought there was some redundancy in it.
The last paragraph sort of repeated the third or second paragraph.
Right.
But I think we do have to have this reassurance in there.
South Vietnamese stuff I'll leave in, and when I get the thing done, I'll have you take a look at that and see what it does.
Good.
In regard to that, I suppose that, I guess it's...
It's a good public position that Henry's going over earlier, and we'll meet tonight with the foreign minister.
This is very helpful in that their guy is over there.
The foreign minister.
Yeah, that shows.
He'll meet with the foreign minister, and they'll meet tomorrow, and we'll just go forward on it.
As far as Tu's response is concerned, it's still...
Still one that indicates he's going to wait to see what I say and so forth.
But after I step out, he's going to have one hell of a time not coming along, isn't he?
Oh, he'll be with us before then.
Before you step out.
He can't afford not to be.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, you know, it's an interesting thing.
I just think he's sitting here after talking to Henry this morning and
thinking of how our whole opposition and so forth in this country, how they must be gnashing their goddamn teeth.
Now it's killing them.
They, of course, will come back.
They'll say, well, we didn't get anything out of waiting since October.
We could have gotten it then, and it wasn't worth fighting for four years, and why didn't we do this, and it isn't going to last, and it's a bad piece, and so forth.
But
I don't think that's going to wash with most people.
What do you think?
I don't know.
I don't think it washes at all, and I think McGovern's performance yesterday just turned everybody absolutely.
Is that right?
Did you see that?
No, I didn't see it.
In Oxford?
God, yes.
He attacked the Democratic Party.
The presidency.
The country, the presidency.
Yeah.
This guy, he's just an out-and-out revolutionary.
Sure.
Good.
Well, I'm glad to have him where he is.
That's right.
He was beaten badly, and that's that.
Well, that's exactly the interpretation of the average American.
I think there's another revulsion building to this crap.
Sure.
Well, peace will help it.
I'm not going to, as far as revulsion is concerned, they were really a pitiful bunch during the inauguration.
I mean, they're squealing around, but they all know it's coming, and yet they still have some to squeal.
They're going to commit suicide, some of these bastards, you know, really physically.
Sure.
When they don't have something to hate about, isn't that it?
That's exactly it.
They're really so frustrated.
They hate the country.
They hate themselves.
And that's what it's really about.
It isn't just war.
It's everything.
Well, that's one thing to keep in mind, because that's exactly right.
It's not the war.
It's now a bigger issue, and they're fighting this as their last leg.
Yeah, that's right.
It's going to leave them on a limb.
Well, I'll work a little more on this thing, and then I'll probably have you come over this afternoon to take a look at one draft.
Yes, sir.
Fine.
You'll be at the Pentagon, will you?
Right, sir, and I'm going to keep following this thing right on through because we'll have some schedule changes if there's a 24-hour slip, and we'll have to back-channel these leaders so that they're appraised of the schedule.
We'll know about that by probably the middle of the night, won't we?
Right, right.
No, no, no.
We'll know before then, probably, because I think Henry may do something tonight, Paris time.
Meet with Lee Doctor even tonight?
Well, it may be a communication.
He's going to see the South Vietnamese, of course.
Yeah.
And I'm just not sure how to do it.
We'll either know early tomorrow or late tonight.
Well, I told him that slipping it a day made not one damn bit of difference.
If it helps with the south and if it doesn't hurt with the north, that's the line he has to take.
But don't slip the, I'm not going to slip the signing of the treaty.
No, no, no.
We can't do that.
That can go.
But the point is that if he wants to slip the initialing, it doesn't make a damn bit of a difference.
That's right.
It might give us a chance to iron out some.
If it can be ironed out.
Yeah.
NARA Description
On January 22, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and Alexander M. Haig, Jr. talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 9:10 am and 9:47 am. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 036-037 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 36-37
Date: January 22, 1973
Time: 9:47 am - 9:53 am
-28-
NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM
Conversation No. 36-37 (cont’d)
Location: White House Telephone
The President talked with Alexander M. Haig.
[See also Conversation No. 399-8]
Vietnam settlement
-The President’s conversation with Henry A. Kissinger
-The President’s possible public statement
-Haig
-Richard T. Kennedy
-Possible problems
-Nguyen Van Thieu
-The President’s announcement
-Content
-Length
-Haig’s view
-South Vietnam
-Kissinger’s meeting
-South Vietnamese Foreign Minister
-Thieu’s acceptance
-Haig’s view
-The President’s conversation with Kissinger
-The President’s opponents
-George S. McGovern’s Oxford speech
-Haig’s view
-The President’s view
-Haig’s schedule
-Informing allies
-Backchannel
-Meetings in Paris
-Kissinger’s schedule
-Le Duc Tho
-Treaty signing ceremony
-TimingAlso recorded on January 22, 1973
- 399-003 9:10 AM · 5 min — President Richard M. Nixon met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 9:10 am and 9:47 am.
- 399-004 9:10 AM · 7 min — President Richard M. Nixon met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 9:10 am and 9:47 am.
- 399-005 9:10 AM · 14 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 9:10 am and 9:47 am.
- 399-006 9:10 AM · 37 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 9:10 am and 9:47 am.
- 399-007 9:10 AM · 25 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 9:10 am and 9:47 am.
- 036-036 9:47 AM · 13 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone from 9:47 am to 9:53 am.
- 399-008 9:47 AM · 6 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Alexander M. Haig, Jr. met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 9:47 am and 9:53 am.
- 399-009 9:53 AM · 14 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 9:53 am and 10:14 am.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 036-037, January 22, 1973. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/036-037 (accessed October 11, 2026).