Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 42 › Conversation 042-082

Nixon phone call with Haig on Prisoners of War and Vietnam War

Thursday, April 29, 1971 · 6:32 PM–6:37 PM ET · White House Telephone · 2 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Haig, Alexander M., Jr.Conversation042-082 on Tape 42 (tape position 02:16:31–02:18:31)StartThursday, April 29, 1971 at 6:32 PMEndThursday, April 29, 1971 at 6:37 PMRecording deviceWhite House TelephoneSourceNixon Library record for 042-082 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon and Alexander Haig reviewed the administration's strategic messaging regarding North Vietnamese Prisoners of War (POWs) to ensure that the term "reciprocity" was avoided in official negotiations. Haig clarified that while the proposed prisoner releases were conditional upon agreement regarding neutral host countries, the U.S. remained flexible regarding specific numbers and inspection arrangements. The discussion focused on differentiating new proposals, such as expanded inspection rights for neutral organizations, from prior public statements to maintain tactical clarity with North Vietnamese counterparts.

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Transcript (AI-generated)

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There you are.

Mr. President?

Yeah.

Sir, I just thought I'd better recap this POW thing because the reciprocity term is a little dangerous.

First, the 570 to go north.

That is not new.

We've done it before, but we've never done it in this number.

Okay.

Secondly, the 1,200 long-held prisoners

We made this proposal three weeks ago on April 8th, the GVN did, only in conceptual form, and you endorsed it by a statement the following week.

Now this is a new articulation of it in that it quantifies it in terms of numbers and years.

Now in terms of conditionality, it's really not good to say that it's reciprocal, but we do expect

that it's conditional upon the North Vietnamese agreeing to a neutral country.

They don't like to use the term reciprocal with respect to it.

Agreeing to a neutral country for sending these prisoners, but... And we would anticipate they would do the same.

Yeah, I see.

But not in terms of numbers or anything else.

We would take, if they'd send five, we'd be delighted.

What we really want is for them to agree on a country.

That's right.

Now, the third issue is the proposal for an inspection.

Yeah.

And that is brand new.

It's never been articulated before.

Well, we've never posed this proposition.

We have always had our South Vietnamese camps open to the Red Cross, but the North has never accepted the Red Cross there.

But this is new in the sense that we've suggested that another nation or other organizations could do it.

Right, sir, and we would agree if they wanted one nation for their camps, different from the one in the South, that would be all right, too.

Yeah, okay, fine.

All right, sir.

NARA Description

On April 29, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and Alexander M. Haig, Jr. talked on the telephone from 6:32 pm to 6:37 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 042-082 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 42-82

Date: April 29, 1971
Time: 6:32 pm - 6:37 pm
Location: White House Telephone

Alexander M. Haig, Jr. talked with the President.

[See Conversation No. 251-40]

     Prisoners of War [POWs] negotiations
          -Reciprocity
                -Administration's response
                     -Previous statement
                -Numbers
                -Conditions
                     -Neutral countries
                -Henry A. Kissinger
          -Inspections of camps

Also recorded on April 29, 1971

251-040 6:32 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Alexander M. Haig, Jr. met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 6:32 pm to 6:37 pm.
251-041 6:37 PM · 12 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 6:37 pm and 7:27 pm.
251-042 6:37 PM · 36 sec — 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 6:37 pm and 7:27 pm.
251-043 6:37 PM · 46 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 6:37 pm and 7:27 pm.
251-044 6:37 PM · 6 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 6:37 pm and 7:27 pm.
251-045 6:37 PM · 17 sec — 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 6:37 pm and 7:27 pm.
042-083 7:27 PM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger talked on the telephone from 7:27 pm to 7:30 pm.
251-046 7:27 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 7:27 pm to 7:30 pm.

All 64 conversations from April 29, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 042-082, April 29, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/042-082 (accessed October 3, 2026).