Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 90 › Conversation 090-002

Nixon & Kissinger on Foreign Policy and Diplomacy

Wednesday, February 9, 1972 · 7:58 AM–11:31 AM ET · Cabinet Room · 11 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Kissinger, Henry A.; [Unknown person(s)]Conversation090-002 on Tape 90StartWednesday, February 9, 1972 at 7:58 AMEndWednesday, February 9, 1972 at 11:31 AMRecording deviceCabinet RoomSourceNixon Library record for 090-002 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon met with Henry Kissinger and his staff to express gratitude for their extensive efforts on major foreign policy initiatives, specifically regarding the Soviet Union and China. During the discussion, Nixon reflected on historical figures like Woodrow Wilson to emphasize the necessity of balancing idealism with pragmatic, disciplined diplomacy. He concluded by asserting that the rigorous 'homework' performed by the staff provided the best opportunity for achieving global peace in 1972.

Audio

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part A, 1:11:45

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NARA Description

On February 9, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, Henry A. Kissinger, and unknown person(s) [members of Kissinger's staff] met in the Cabinet Room of the White House at an unknown time between 7:58 am and 11:31 am. The Cabinet Room taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 090-002 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 90-2

Date: February 9, 1972
Time: Unknown after 7:58 am until 11:31 am
Location: Cabinet Room

Henry A. Kissinger’s staff met; the White House photographer was present at the beginning of
the meeting

     [General conversation/Unintelligible]

     Photograph
          -Pose

     [General conversation/Unintelligible]

The President and Kissinger entered at 11:22 am

     President’s gratitude
          -Work

     President’s schedule

         -Socializing

    Foreign policy accomplishments

    Credibility gaps

    President’s remembrance
         -1971
               -Importance
         -1972
         -Theodore (“Teddy”) Roosevelt
         -Dwight D. Eisenhower
         -[Thomas] Woodrow Wilson
               -Democrat
               -Relation to Nixon

******************************************************************************

BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 1
[Personal Returnable]
[Duration: 17s ]
Show the rest of the log (47 more lines)
END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 1

******************************************************************************

                       -Wilson’s life
                            -Intellect
                            -Idealism
                            -Accomplishment
                                  -Peace
                            -Lessons
                                  -Present US needs
                                       -Idealism
                                       -Pragmatism
                                  -US - People’s Republic of China [PRC] relations
                                       -Missionaries
                                       -Chinese history
                                  -Union of Soviet Socialist Republics [USSR]

                                  -H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells
                                        -Historian
                                        -Better educated nations
                                        -United Nations
                                              -Value
                                                   -Education
                                                   -Conflict settlement
                                                   -Idealism
                                                   -Hopes
                                                   -PRC
                       -Reasons for being
                            -Optimism
                            -Ideals
                            -Nations
                            -Leaders
                            -Differences
                            -Failures
                                  -Past
                                  -Future

     Future
          -Success
               -Homework
          -Work for peace
               -1972

     [General conversation/Unintelligible]

The President, et al. left at 11:31 am

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.

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This is a guy with a camera.
He's in the back room taking pictures for Christmas.
I'm not sure if you're all in range, but I think this right side is probably a little farther out, so she can say nothing.
You guys can go back in a little bit.
If you want to be in the picture, you can do this.
If you can see this.
If you can see this.

— 1 min 44 s with no transcribed speech —

Well, let's see.
Take it on the side here.
Okay, this will blow your cover.
Okay.
All right.
Done.
All right, now you get the first pen.
Everybody else has a pen, but I do want to take this time to thank you for your work.
And, you know, we care a lot about who does the work around here.
You guys tell me who does it, but I don't know.
I'll keep you up at all times.
I want you to socialize.
But I do know that, to show you that I do follow on these things, I told you to come forward.
And we told you that some of the staff worked all night.
And I remember on the night, the Sunday when I called, you said, I got you about two o'clock in the afternoon.
I said, how's it coming?
You said, we're going to get done by three.
And I said, the staff has been working all night long.
And I'm most grateful.
I wish we could pay you what you're doing.
But, uh...
It is the fact that perhaps never in history have people working in the field of foreign policy in this country lived to a mark of magnitude.
Who would have thought at the beginning of this year, besides the reportings we've got, that this year we'd be writing about a potential Soviet government, and this is China.
If we decided that there was a credibility gap, of course we know it's going to happen all the time, but while we have had some disappointments, we'd like to make more progress in some areas.
You may look back at the year 1971, that's the year of the breakthrough,
This is the end.
We would also look back at 1972.
Perhaps we concentrated some of these initiatives.
I want to put this all in perspective.
You know Will Hyatt, D.R.
Eisenhardt, Woodrow Wilson, I didn't like to call him, I said Wagoner Wilson, Democrat.
It's a great tragedy because he was, of course, in terms of intellectual capability, without question, an ableist man.
In terms of idealism, we would call it morality, that sort of thing.
That's what he just remembered.
In terms of accomplishing, it's as far as speech is concerned, that his life was a failure.
He knew it.
It broke him, it broke him physically, it broke him emotionally and everything else.
As I look back on that, I think we get some lessons.
And the lessons are that
We need the idealism of the Wilsons, but we also need that pragmatic approach to these problems.
It's so easy, I found, when I talked about the China-Turkish relationship.
It's wonderful.
Finally, that wonderful relationship the Americans used to have with China.
Our missionaries might be doing so much more than just going to be restored.
Of course, that's wrong on two counts.
It was a wonderful relationship the Americans used to have with China.
A great story.
It felt that if only the nations of the world could be better educated, if only they could all get together in a world organization, and all differences could be solved.
We thought that too.
The U.N. was set up in a consistent way.
That's the last war.
Here's the U.N.
It didn't work out.
That's no reason to say the U.N. is a nation.
It's just a reason to say, let's look at why we set it up.
And what we should have expected, what we should have expected is exactly what we got.
The UN was very valuable in many of the fields, in all of them, educational, in all of them, very valuable in settling conflicts that did not major, not major major problems.
But,
No practical person could possibly have hoped that any major power would submit its favor to the vote of a hundred and forty nations.
Now, this doesn't mean that it's a simple world.
It doesn't mean that idealism doesn't have its place.
It doesn't mean that it's a world in which we have no hope.
I think this has been the essence of our policy.
We set our ideals high.
We want to be a peaceful world.
We want to be an open world.
Everybody has the opportunity to go to China, which we couldn't take.
As far as we're concerned, we don't talk.
It's too optimistic for
Perhaps our rhetoric is not strong enough in terms of saying we're going to do this, this, this, not the other way.
But let me say, if there's any question about what our ideals are, the point is, we know history.
We know nations.
We know leaders.
We know differences.
We know the failures of the past.
We're not going to make those mistakes in the future.
And as we approach the problems that way, we think that we can perhaps make progress.
Not to the perfect world, because man is not perfect.
And never will be.
But to a world that is safe and cool.
It's really all in there, because I see this report and know the hours that went into it, the hours that went into my reading, which are so-called European and other summits.

Also recorded on February 9, 1972

  • 020-075 7:58 AM · 30 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 7:58 am and 8:31 am.
  • 668-002 7:58 AM · 25 min — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 7:58 am and 8:28 am.
  • 668-003 7:58 AM · 4 min — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 7:58 am and 8:28 am.
  • 668-004 8:28 AM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Rose Mary Woods met in the Oval Office of the White House from 8:28 am to 8:31 am.
  • 020-076 8:31 AM · 1 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Rose Mary Woods, and John N. Erleborn talked on the telephone from 8:31 am to 8:32 am.
  • 668-005 8:31 AM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon and John N. Erleborn met in the Oval Office of the White House from 8:31 am to 8:32 am.
  • 020-077 8:34 AM · 43 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and John T. Myers talked on the telephone from 8:34 am to 8:35 am.
  • 668-006 8:34 AM · 4 min — President Richard M. Nixon and John T. Myers met in the Oval Office of the White House from 8:34 am to 8:35 am.

All 47 conversations from February 9, 1972 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 090-002, February 9, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/090-002 (accessed November 2, 2026).