Nixon phone call with Kissinger on Foreign Aid and North Vietnam

Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

Download transcript (.txt) · JSON data

Hello, Mr. President.

Hi, Henry.

Did you get a hold of Bill Rogers all right?

Yes, I did.

I had about a 20-minute talk with him.

On the phone, huh?

On the phone, yeah.

That probably did it.

He really needed one.

Right.

So he could say he talked fine.

Exactly.

What times did you talk to him about?

He asked me whether there were any surprising announcements about China, and I didn't tell him about the liaison office.

Well, that isn't...

I think that's already leaked out, though, hasn't it?

I saw something.

No.

You haven't seen it?

No.

Mm-hmm.

I just was worried that... Yeah.

Well, I suppose it's a problem that if he...

Well, he'll sure as hell leak it out if we give it to him, but I don't know.

You think he will?

Yeah, he's engaged in another one of his campaigns, but it makes no difference except with the Chinese.

You know, what I would do is in the morning perhaps give him a call and say that we may...

I don't know.

Did you tell him about the communique still being worked on?

I just fussed it up.

I said it won't be ready till Thursday.

Right.

When will we tell him?

We'll tell him all about the liaison office at breakfast, I suppose.

Certainly.

And I don't mind telling him tomorrow afternoon.

I said I'd go over there and talk to him.

Well, tomorrow afternoon, that's a good idea.

Just go over and tell him that we just got this cable in, and they want to set this up, especially as an office, and that I have to prove it.

Why don't you do it that way?

Right.

Good.

I think that's the best thing.

If you're concerned about it, you mean he'll leak it out in his testimony?

Well, he'll leak it out in such a way that it isn't quite a leak, but it's quite clear that... All right, fine.

Wait a minute.

Wait till tomorrow afternoon, or you might give him a call in the morning and say that we're expecting a cable or something like that, and you want to come over and set a time for tomorrow afternoon.

How would that be?

Right.

That's what I do say.

We've got a cable, and you want to see him after his testimony tomorrow afternoon to give him a report on it, okay?

Right.

How would that be?

Then I tell him so that he knows before the breakfast.

Absolutely.

He should know it before the breakfast.

That way you can cover it, okay?

Right, Mr. President.

But otherwise, everything's in good shape.

I see your point.

Does he...

Is he all on Savo as to what the hell to answer on aid and all that sort of thing?

I think so.

I think he's... What did you tell him on that?

I told him that he should get strongly behind it, but that he shouldn't commit himself to either... You tell him about the multilateral?

He says that bilateral aid has no support in Congress.

We know that.

But that's partly because they don't understand it.

That's partly because we've always been plugging multilateral for the last...

You know, the whole establishment's hitting multilateral.

Let's all do it through the United Nations and UNESCO and all that damn stuff.

It eliminates any influence we have, even on aid to countries.

The point is that we should emphasize that a number of countries are going to participate, and that we know.

That we should emphasize.

You told him that, did you?

Yes, I told him to say that a lot of countries should participate, but the particular forum in which the coordination occurs will have to leave open until the program takes fuller shape.

That's good.

And then what we'll have to do really is to work out the support for the bilateral.

You see, that's where we'll get the hawk.

The Hawks will be for bilateral.

So we'll get the Hawks on that.

You can even sit down and maybe we can turn a Goldwater around on that or a Buckley.

I'm not sure, but we can try.

I think once we explain it to them, we have a good crack at it.

The way I would get at it is to frankly take them on one by one and say, now, damn it, let's be cold turkey with you.

You can't say this, but we've got to have some leverage.

If these clowns start something, we can cut it off.

That's really what it gets down to.

Exactly.

I mean, suppose, for example, that they do not withdraw their forces from, you know, like my wire to you when you were over there, if they do not withdraw their forces from Cambodia and Laos, they get no aid.

Exactly.

What other leverage have we got?

The purpose of this is the leverage to get them out of...

I think that's a very strong point to make to them on a confidential basis, don't you think so?

I think that...

I think...

I'm not so worried about selling the right-wingers, but the...

the conservatives are the liberals are of course totally corrupt morally i know but what are you going to say to them i'll put it on you i'll say put it on human humanitarian grounds to them i mean i don't say that's our reason but i'll tell them that well it's also i think for them too i'd be a little more pragmatic i think we'd say look

This is the only way that we can have any leverage to keep the peace in the area.

That's what they want.

They should.

Then maybe they'll vote against it, huh?

Well, that's one of the problems with these people.

They don't want the peace, do they?

They don't want it to keep.

They just want it to fail.

Is that the thing?

They basically want it to fail.

That's my long conclusion.

But I think we can put it on a paper.

On the other hand, I think.

And not humanitarian necessarily.

We could say.

If you say humanitarian, it'll look like reparations and that sort of thing.

And what we could say is we have to find something to work with the North Vietnamese on.

That's right.

Give a mistake in the peace.

I just simply, what we want to do is to give the North Vietnamese and the South Vietnamese a stake in the peace.

And we can't do that.

We can't do that if we have no communication and no participation.

Exactly.

I think that's the thing.

But I think starting next week, I ought to see some of these senators on a... One by one.

On a small... Or two or three at a time, or three or four.

I don't know what you can do with the media bastards, but probably nothing.

I can get a few of them.

God, they ought to be.

Gee, God, it's just unbelievable that they...

But in some way, there's got to be a streak of patriotism in the bastards.

It is unbelievable.

They talk about being for peace.

What the hell do they want?

Well, and if...

They really want it to blow, and they want...

They used to say, we don't care for people, and the poor people of Vietnam, they're being under our hail of bombs, and as soon as we do something for the people, they think of the American people.

I know the American people.

They know damn well that our 4 and 8 programs have always been

carried on because of our interests, not because we're simply helping people.

You know that.

Why the hell do we help the Romanians and the Yugoslavs and the rest?

Not because we love communism, but because, God damn it, we just want to have a little leverage in there, right?

Absolutely.

And sure, we help in a flood and this and that now and then for humanitarian reasons, but you can't justify a foreign policy on that basis.

Well, certainly not with a country that has the history and the brutal behavior of the North Vietnamese.

We have to wean them over to a constructive pattern.

These guys have been either in prison or fighting wars all their lives.

After they've done two or three years of a more positive thing, perhaps there's a chance it's going to be hard for them to start a war again.

If not, it's still one of our best chances.

Well, the point is, Henry, there is nothing else.

What in the hell else do they want?

Do they want to bomb them?

That's the point.

These people are against the bombing.

So what the hell?

They don't want us to use military means.

So if they don't want us to use aid, then they're simply saying, okay, boys, go ahead and go on your relentless aggressive course.

Exactly.

I must say, well, it's a hard fight, but in the end, we're just going to win it.

You'll win it if you've won every other Vietnam fight, but it's an interesting thing.

I can, as I said, I can understand the Buxleys and the Goldwater's.

But I would have sworn that the Humphreys and McGoverns and company would perhaps go overboard.

I know.

Remember, we thought that.

I was sure of it, but I was totally wrong.

And you thought the Washington Post would and the Severides and the rest.

I thought that the liberal press would.

After bleeding about these, what we've done to this poor country would say now.

I don't know, mea culpa, let's get down and, you know, purge ourselves and aid these bastards.

No.

It's really a shocking thing.

Well, we won't commiserate about it.

The main point is that we have a tough sale to make here.

And the president, let's face it, if they don't do it, and if the thing blows up, we're going to crucify them.

Well, I think they should be told that, that we believe that peace depends upon...

are having some leverage with this thing.

Exactly.

And that if they want to take the responsibility, that's up to them.

Exactly.

But it's an amazing situation.

Yeah, yeah.

But I can only repeat what I told you before, Mr. President.

Your standing as a world leader, well, as this conversation that I reported to you demonstrates, demonstrates

is really something that perhaps even you can't realize sitting in Washington at this moment.

Well, it must have some effect there.

And my guess is that deep down, these European politicians have got to be impressed, too, with it.

Oh, they're impressed.

They just don't have the domestic structure to do anything.

That's right.

I mean, that's their problem.

Fellows like Heath and others, they know.

Well, Heath, of course, is impressed.

Yeah.

and i think they're all impressed but the europeans no longer think in global terms when they think of their domestic constituencies and their state-owned television they've almost become like state government governors yeah yeah well anyway you deserve a good night's sleep try to get it the president

Nixon phone call with Kissinger on Foreign Aid and North Vietnam

AI Summary

Audio

Transcript (AI-generated)

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on February 21, 1973

Cite this conversation