Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 133 › Conversation 133-015
Nixon phone call with Kissinger on Moscow Summit and Vietnam War
Thursday, June 8, 1972 · 12:38 PM–12:46 PM ET · Camp David Study Table · 8 min
AI Summary
President Nixon and Henry Kissinger discussed the positive results of the recent Moscow Summit, noting Soviet leaders' desire to strengthen personal ties with the President. They also assessed the deteriorating situation for North Vietnam, with Nixon reiterating the administration’s strategy to attack presidential candidate George McGovern's proposal to visit Hanoi as a form of surrender. Finally, they coordinated the logistics for announcing Kissinger's upcoming trip to China and his subsequent testimony before the Senate, aiming to minimize political backlash by controlling the timing and narrative.
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Hello, Mr. President.
Well, you've got your hair cut now and all ready to go, huh?
Yeah.
Fine.
I had a long talk with Sabrina this morning.
Yeah.
He came back absolutely effusive.
Personal message to you from Brezhnev saying that there were many important and historic results of the summit.
But the most historic result was the relationship established between the Soviet leaders and President Nixon.
Good.
That's good.
Not since the war have Soviet-American relations been on such a basis, and they want to express their personal confidence, and so on and so forth.
He also sent me a very nice note.
Good, good, good, good.
And he mentioned to me about the Vietnam thing,
They sent a summary of our discussions to Hanoi and said that Podconi would be glad to come and fill them in on the remainder.
They didn't give them everything.
And Hanoi hasn't replied yet, and that's why Podconi is gone.
I see.
Which is amazing.
Yeah, well...
It doesn't make any difference, Mr. President.
We just continue doing what we're doing.
Exactly.
Hanoi, in fact, it gives us a better justification.
Yeah, yeah.
If Hanoi didn't feel that Moscow wasn't on its side...
would be there now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So we'll go ahead on that hydroelectric thing, right?
Mm-hmm.
Fine.
Did the matter come up indirectly, directly with regard to the possible visit of the Democratic nominee to Moscow or to Jude?
I mentioned that he said they know where they stand.
He said that they had no overture.
I don't expect that to happen, but... Yeah.
The other point I was going to make is this.
Did you see this utterly stupid thing of McGovern's, the fact that he'd go to Hanoi?
Well, not only that he would go to Hanoi, but at Hanoi he would promise them withdrawal of all U.S. forces and of help to put you...
I think we should say that we can do in Paris, but that you don't have to go to Hanoi.
Yeah, you can surrender in Paris.
You don't have to go to Hanoi to surrender.
That's right.
That should be the line that you should put up to Colson's group.
Look, he should be attacked.
This is a shocking thing.
He doesn't have to go to Hanoi to surrender.
We are getting a flood of reports now that they are in deep trouble.
We got a report from Peking today.
Mm-hmm.
Speaking of sharp divisions in the Politburo in Hanoi, another report from Belgrade.
Mm-hmm.
They are in deep trouble, Mr. President.
Mm-hmm.
They've just got to be, Henry.
They've got to be.
Uh-huh.
It looks as if they have finally linked up with ANLOC.
Oh, really?
Yes.
That 21st Division?
Not the 21st Division.
They've brought in an Airborne unit to do it.
Mm-hmm.
And then at least in Abrams, he's still hammering hell out of them with those P-52s.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, and now he's moved.
Now we are up at an 84-40 rate, 87.
And he's now beginning to creep up in the panhandle.
He's across the DMZ now.
He's just leveling it.
And you mean by that, he's making the trail almost unusable then, isn't he?
Well, making the supply through the panhandle.
Oh, I see.
The trail, it slows down anyway now by the weather.
By the way, it rains.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
And God damn it, you know, these people are not Superman, Henry.
They're not Superman.
There's a limit to what they can take.
Oh, that's fine.
Well, I wish you well on your trip.
You leave at 4.30.
I leave at 4.30.
That'll take plenty of sleeping pills along.
Right.
Well, I can go right to bed when I get there, too.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, what the hell, what you do there is, you know what I mean, it's off the back of your hand.
It's to try to make our ambassador feel, bring him into something.
because basically he is totally loyal and it'll build him up with his staff.
And, you know, I mean, it's one of those things.
So if you can do that, it isn't like with the Soviet and the Chinese where we didn't want the ambassador.
He's coming in to everything, Mr. President, except the meeting with Sato, which they insisted he alone.
That's right.
And the meeting with Fukuda, but he will join us at the end of the Fukuda meeting.
Right, right, right.
That's good.
That's good.
That's good.
We're going to go forward on a very quiet basis.
I'll handle it myself.
I mean, you can just put Fulbright off by saying you can't have an answer until you've submitted it to me.
Just leave it there.
Because we can't give him, when you go down there, we can't give him
the satisfaction of announcing it.
See, I have to announce it.
The one thing, Mr. President, though, that I feel now very strongly is that you should not announce my China trip.
Oh, fine.
Putting it too much to the discussion.
You mean just have that announced by Ziegler?
Have it announced low-key by Ziegler.
Before my conference?
If you have a conference, schedule your conference for the afternoon.
But you should not jeopardize your relations with President.
No, no, no, I wouldn't.
But when do you want it announced?
On Tuesday, when the day is back?
It will be announced on Wednesday.
Well, then it could be announced in the morning, see.
I don't plan to have my conference till 3 in the afternoon anyway.
Well, that would be better.
See, I'd prefer not to announce it.
And then you'd be sort of blanketed a little bit, which would be... Yeah, it'd be good for me to come on then and announce you're going to testify, and that'll blanket it, see.
I don't think you can hold it that long if I'm going to testify on Thursday.
Oh, yes, I can.
I can if I, because of the, you just don't figure that you've got, the way the Senate always plays, well, we've got to know three days in advance.
They don't have, they can know one hour in advance.
They'll take you.
And this will be 24 hours in advance, and it'll build like hell that day and the next morning.
And...
entirely up to you.
They can get the right coverage if you want.
It takes 24 hours.
Oh, Christ, the moment it's announced it that afternoon.
You see, if we announce it free in the afternoon, the networks will all go right to work.
Well, that's entirely up to you.
We want to get it with maximum jolt, as little discussion as possible from the sort of the peers.
We have done it rather than that they have forced us to do it.
Right.
Because the
And we'll let them know an hour in advance that I'm going to announce it, but that's about all.
I think that's the way we want to do it, so that we are not in the position of being dragged down there.
It would be a very bad situation if it were that way.
But we should work out something by which he says ahead of time that this is an exception.
Oh, sure.
We'll tell him.
Tell him exactly what he can say.
I'll probably do it in the form of a letter.
or something like that.
But in any event, we will now not submit the treaty until Tuesday.
Is that correct?
That's correct.
But we'll work out the logistics of the announcement, all right?
Right.
Well, we hope you have a good trip, Henry.
Right.
At least I know it isn't going to be good, but I hope it's not too tiring.
Well, I'm sure it will be all right.
All right.
Bye.
NARA Description
On June 8, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger talked on the telephone at Camp David from 12:38 pm to 12:46 pm. The Camp David Study Table taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 133-015 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 133-15
Date: June 8, 1972
Time: 12:38-12:46 pm
Location: Camp David Study Table (telephone)
Henry A. Kissinger talked with the President.
[See Conversation No. 193-18]
Kissinger's location
-Soviet Union
-Kissinger's meeting with Anatoliy F. Dobrynin
-Message from Leonid I. Brezhnev
-Moscow Summit
-Soviet-American relations
-Soviet assessment
-Vietnam
-Hanoi
-Nikolai V. Podgorny
-US policy
-George S. McGovern's possible trip to the Soviet Union
-North Vietnam
-McGovern's possible visit to Hanoi
-Mcgovern’s statement
-Administration’s response
-Charles W. Colson
-The President’s view
-People's Republic of China [PRC] report
-Belgrade, Yugoslavia
-Report
-An Loc
-Army of the Republic of South Vietnam [ARVN] 21st Division
-Creighton W. Abrams, Jr.
-B-52 bombardment
-Bombings
-Location
-Demilitarized Zone [DMZ]
-Ho Chi Minh Trail
-Attacks
Japan
-Kissinger's forthcoming trip
-US ambassador [Robert S. Ingersoll]
-Japan
-Soviet Union
-PRC
-Meeting with Eisaku Sato
-Meeting with Tokuyasu Fukuda
Foreign affairs
-J. William Fulbright
-Request
-Kissinger's PRC trip
-Announcement
-Ronald L. Ziegler
-Timing
-The President’s forthcoming press conference
-Brezhnev
-Kissinger's possible testimony before Senate
-Announcement
-News coverage
-Handling
-A treaty
-Kissinger's tripAlso recorded on June 8, 1972
- 133-012 11:25 AM · 34 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Camp David operator talked on the telephone at Camp David at an unknown time between 11:25 am and 12:30 pm.
- 133-013 11:25 AM · 9 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Camp David operator talked on the telephone at Camp David at an unknown time between 11:25 am and 12:31 pm.
- 133-014 12:31 PM · 16 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Camp David operator talked on the telephone at Camp David at 12:31 pm.
- 193-018 12:38 PM · 28 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David from 12:38 pm to 12:46 pm.
- 133-016 12:46 PM · 8 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Camp David operator talked on the telephone at Camp David at an unknown time between 12:46 pm and 3:30 pm.
- 193-019 12:46 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David at an unknown time between 12:46 pm and 3:30 pm.
- 193-020 12:46 PM · 7 min — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David at an unknown time between 12:46 pm and 3:30 pm.
- 193-021 12:46 PM · 14 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Camp David operator met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David at an unknown time between 12:46 pm and 3:30 pm.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 133-015, June 8, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/133-015 (accessed October 8, 2026).