{"conversationCode":"039-001","tapeNumber":39,"conversationNumber":1,"identifier":"37-wht-conversation-039-001","startDateTime":"1973-05-24T17:27:00.000Z","endDateTime":"1973-05-24T17:29:00.000Z","startDate":"24-May-1973","startTime":"1:27 PM","endDate":"24-May-1973","endTime":"1:29 PM","dateCertainty":"certain","timeCertainty":"certain","participants":"White House operator; Nixon, Richard M. (President); Kissinger, Henry A.;","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.","locationCode":"WHT","recordingDevice":"White House Telephone","latitudeEstimated":38.89767,"longitudeEstimated":-77.03655,"chronCode":"5.5","chronRelease":"Fifth Chronological Release: Part V","chronReleaseDate":"21-Aug-2013","aogpRelease":"Abuse of Governmental Power Release","aogpSegment":"Segment 0","lastModified":"2015-07-27T17:04:10.235Z","findingAid":"Conversation No. 39-1\n\nDate: May 24, 1973\nTime: 1:27 pm - 1:29 pm\nLocation: White House Telephone\n\nThe White House operator talked with the President.\n\n       Incoming telephone call\n\nHenry A. Kissinger talked with the President.\n\n[See also Conversation No. 440-35]\n\n       Kissinger’s location\n              -Sans Souci\n              -George P. Shultz\n                      -Lunch\n                      -Treasury Department\n\n       Vietnam\n             -Negotiations\n                    -Laos\n                    -Compared to original agreement\n\n       Kissinger’s forthcoming press briefing\n              -President’s forthcoming meeting with Georges J. R. Pompidou\n                      -Reykjavik, Iceland\n              -US-Union of Soviet Socialist Republics [USSR] summit\n              -Vietnam negotiations\n\n       Vietnam\n             -Negotiations\n                    -Kissinger’s conversation with Le Duc Tho\n                           -Congressional relations\n                                   -December 1972 bombing\n\f                                              -2-\n\n                   NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM\n\n                                                            Conversation No. 39-1 (cont’d)\n\n       Watergate\n             -White House response\n                    -White Paper [Statements about Watergate, May 22, 1973\n                           -National Security","filename":["039-001.mp3"],"tapeStart":"","tapeEnd":"","participantsList":["White House operator","Nixon, Richard M. (President)","Kissinger, Henry A."],"prevCode":"038-161","nextCode":"039-002","transcript":[{"start":1.35,"end":8.71,"text":"I just want to say welcome back."},{"start":9.18,"end":10.36,"text":"Thank you, Mr. President."},{"start":10.72,"end":12.64,"text":"Where are you?"},{"start":12.76,"end":15.86,"text":"I'm having lunch with Truett Schultz."},{"start":15.88,"end":16.6,"text":"Oh, good."},{"start":16.62,"end":17.52,"text":"Over at Treasury."},{"start":17.85,"end":18.69,"text":"Oh, fine, fine."},{"start":18.95,"end":24.07,"text":"And I think we've settled the Vietnam part of this thing and the Laos part."},{"start":24.99,"end":28.96,"text":"And both of those feel better off than we were with the original agreement."},{"start":29.33,"end":30.11,"text":"Henry, that's good."},{"start":30.79,"end":33.89,"text":"And in June, when we publish this."},{"start":34.81,"end":37.23,"text":"You can do some briefing, I would hope, on Tuesday."},{"start":37.27,"end":39.18,"text":"I think it would be very helpful if you could."},{"start":39.54,"end":44.72,"text":"I could do some briefing, Mr. President, on your Reykjavik visit."},{"start":44.82,"end":46.23,"text":"On your visit with Pompidou."},{"start":46.42,"end":48.73,"text":"Well, and also the upcoming summit, maybe a little."},{"start":48.89,"end":49.61,"text":"And the summit."},{"start":49.77,"end":53.39,"text":"And I can create a little impression of the Vietnam negotiations."},{"start":53.41,"end":57.6,"text":"And say that we've made progress, but that we can't announce yet, huh?"},{"start":57.62,"end":59.3,"text":"I think it'd be very helpful, you know."},{"start":59.87,"end":61.03,"text":"We can talk about that later."},{"start":61.61,"end":62.61,"text":"Right, right."},{"start":62.69,"end":64.45,"text":"But it's really going..."},{"start":64.47,"end":66.14,"text":"Right, right."},{"start":66.44,"end":70.36,"text":"It went... Now, don't get back to Washington and let your morale get down now, Henry."},{"start":70.42,"end":72.34,"text":"No, Mr. President, my morale is fine."},{"start":72.52,"end":73.84,"text":"And I totally talked to him."},{"start":73.86,"end":75.39,"text":"I said, you know, you read a lot of stuff."},{"start":76.08,"end":79.79,"text":"We'll take the Congress four weeks to organize if we do something."},{"start":79.89,"end":86.66,"text":"And you know what we did in two weeks last December."},{"start":86.67,"end":88.6,"text":"Yeah, that should be..."},{"start":88.62,"end":89.76,"text":"So we... Well, we've..."},{"start":91.73,"end":94.95,"text":"As you know, we got on, I thought, a very good paper this week on this."},{"start":95.52,"end":97.54,"text":"I thought it was important."},{"start":97.56,"end":99.8,"text":"I think it puts the whole thing in perspective."},{"start":100.1,"end":102.58,"text":"It drives the lips up the wall, but we had to do it."},{"start":102.61,"end":105.51,"text":"We've got to put this national security issue out there where it belongs."},{"start":105.59,"end":107.39,"text":"And we have to staunch the hemorrhage."},{"start":109.86,"end":109.95,"text":"Okay."},{"start":109.97,"end":111.12,"text":"Good luck."},{"start":111.14,"end":111.9,"text":"Right, Mr. President."}],"aiSummary":{"text":"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.","topics":["Vietnam negotiations","Laos","US-USSR summit","Watergate scandal","National security","Public relations"],"generatedAt":"2026-04-06T05:42:29.648Z"},"topicSlugs":["vietnam-negotiations","laos","us-ussr-summit","watergate","national-security","public-relations"],"audioDurationSec":119,"audioFiles":[{"file":"039-001.mp3","bytes":3805184,"durationSec":118.81,"bitrate":256212,"missing":false}],"audioIsShared":false,"audioProbedAt":"2026-09-18T02:20:02.069Z","findingAidSource":"nixonlibrary.gov subject log (2024-05), reslice-v2","findingAidUpdatedAt":"2026-09-18T08:42:42.797Z","audio":["https://nixon.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/audio/039-001.mp3"],"url":"https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/039-001","nixonLibraryUrl":"https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/white-house-tapes/039/conversation-039-001","license":"Public domain (U.S. Government work). AI-generated fields (transcript, aiSummary) are provided as-is without warranty."}