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Conversation 039-001

TapeTape 39StartThursday, May 24, 1973 at 1:27 PMEndThursday, May 24, 1973 at 1:29 PMParticipantsWhite House operator;  Nixon, Richard M. (President);  Kissinger, Henry A.Recording deviceWhite House Telephone
AI Summary

President Nixon and Henry Kissinger discuss the positive progress in Vietnam and Laos negotiations, noting that the status of talks is better than the original agreement. They coordinate a forthcoming press briefing for Kissinger to publicly discuss the President’s upcoming meeting with Georges Pompidou, the US-USSR summit, and the status of Vietnam negotiations. Additionally, Nixon emphasizes the importance of the administration's recent Watergate "White Paper" as a necessary measure to assert the national security implications of the scandal.

Vietnam negotiationsLaosUS-USSR summitWatergate scandalNational securityPublic relations
AudioNARA Description

On May 24, 1973, White House operator, President Richard M. Nixon, and Henry A. Kissinger talked on the telephone from 1:27 pm to 1:29 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 039-001 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 39-1

Date: May 24, 1973
Time: 1:27 pm - 1:29 pm
Location: White House Telephone

The White House operator talked with the President.

       Incoming telephone call

Henry A. Kissinger talked with the President.

[See also Conversation No. 440-35]

       Kissinger’s location
              -Sans Souci
              -George P. Shultz
                      -Lunch
                      -Treasury Department

       Vietnam
             -Negotiations
                    -Laos
                    -Compared to original agreement

       Kissinger’s forthcoming press briefing
              -President’s forthcoming meeting with Georges J. R. Pompidou
                      -Reykjavik, Iceland
              -US-Union of Soviet Socialist Republics [USSR] summit
              -Vietnam negotiations

       Vietnam
             -Negotiations
                    -Kissinger’s conversation with Le Duc Tho
                           -Congressional relations
                                   -December 1972 bombing
                                              -2-

                   NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

                                     (rev. February-2011)

                                                            Conversation No. 39-1 (cont’d)

       Watergate
             -White House response
                    -White Paper [Statements about Watergate, May 22, 1973
                           -National Security
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.

I just want to say welcome back.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Where are you?
I'm having lunch with Truett Schultz.
Oh, good.
Over at Treasury.
Oh, fine, fine.
And I think we've settled the Vietnam part of this thing and the Laos part.
And both of those feel better off than we were with the original agreement.
Henry, that's good.
And in June, when we publish this.
You can do some briefing, I would hope, on Tuesday.
I think it would be very helpful if you could.
I could do some briefing, Mr. President, on your Reykjavik visit.
On your visit with Pompidou.
Well, and also the upcoming summit, maybe a little.
And the summit.
And I can create a little impression of the Vietnam negotiations.
And say that we've made progress, but that we can't announce yet, huh?
I think it'd be very helpful, you know.
We can talk about that later.
Right, right.
But it's really going...
Right, right.
It went... Now, don't get back to Washington and let your morale get down now, Henry.
No, Mr. President, my morale is fine.
And I totally talked to him.
I said, you know, you read a lot of stuff.
We'll take the Congress four weeks to organize if we do something.
And you know what we did in two weeks last December.
Yeah, that should be...
So we... Well, we've...
As you know, we got on, I thought, a very good paper this week on this.
I thought it was important.
I think it puts the whole thing in perspective.
It drives the lips up the wall, but we had to do it.
We've got to put this national security issue out there where it belongs.
And we have to staunch the hemorrhage.
Okay.
Good luck.
Right, Mr. President.
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