Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 133-015
Date: Thursday, June 8, 1972 at 12:38 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Kissinger, Henry A.
Recording device: Camp David Study Table
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/133-015

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:01] Hello, Mr. President.
[0:03] Well, you've got your hair cut now and all ready to go, huh?
[0:05] Yeah.
[0:06] Fine.
[0:07] I had a long talk with Sabrina this morning.
[0:10] Yeah.
[0:14] He came back absolutely effusive.
[0:16] Personal message to you from Brezhnev saying that there were many important and historic results of the summit.
[0:26] But the most historic result was the relationship established between the Soviet leaders and President Nixon.
[0:33] Good.
[0:33] That's good.
[0:36] 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.
[0:45] He also sent me a very nice note.
[0:47] Good, good, good, good.
[0:49] And he mentioned to me about the Vietnam thing,
[0:56] 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.
[1:04] They didn't give them everything.
[1:06] And Hanoi hasn't replied yet, and that's why Podconi is gone.
[1:10] I see.
[1:11] Which is amazing.
[1:13] Yeah, well...
[1:15] It doesn't make any difference, Mr. President.
[1:16] We just continue doing what we're doing.
[1:18] Exactly.
[1:18] Hanoi, in fact, it gives us a better justification.
[1:21] Yeah, yeah.
[1:22] If Hanoi didn't feel that Moscow wasn't on its side...
[1:26] would be there now.
[1:28] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[1:31] So we'll go ahead on that hydroelectric thing, right?
[1:34] Mm-hmm.
[1:36] Fine.
[1:37] Did the matter come up indirectly, directly with regard to the possible visit of the Democratic nominee to Moscow or to Jude?
[1:47] I mentioned that he said they know where they stand.
[1:53] He said that they had no overture.
[1:58] I don't expect that to happen, but... Yeah.
[2:02] The other point I was going to make is this.
[2:04] Did you see this utterly stupid thing of McGovern's, the fact that he'd go to Hanoi?
[2:09] 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...
[2:19] I think we should say that we can do in Paris, but that you don't have to go to Hanoi.
[2:23] Yeah, you can surrender in Paris.
[2:24] You don't have to go to Hanoi to surrender.
[2:26] That's right.
[2:26] That should be the line that you should put up to Colson's group.
[2:30] Look, he should be attacked.
[2:33] This is a shocking thing.
[2:34] He doesn't have to go to Hanoi to surrender.
[2:39] We are getting a flood of reports now that they are in deep trouble.
[2:43] We got a report from Peking today.
[2:45] Mm-hmm.
[2:46] Speaking of sharp divisions in the Politburo in Hanoi, another report from Belgrade.
[2:52] Mm-hmm.
[2:53] They are in deep trouble, Mr. President.
[2:56] Mm-hmm.
[2:57] They've just got to be, Henry.
[2:59] They've got to be.
[2:59] Uh-huh.
[3:02] It looks as if they have finally linked up with ANLOC.
[3:05] Oh, really?
[3:07] Yes.
[3:07] That 21st Division?
[3:08] Not the 21st Division.
[3:09] They've brought in an Airborne unit to do it.
[3:12] Mm-hmm.
[3:15] And then at least in Abrams, he's still hammering hell out of them with those P-52s.
[3:20] Oh, yeah.
[3:20] Oh, and now he's moved.
[3:22] Now we are up at an 84-40 rate, 87.
[3:28] And he's now beginning to creep up in the panhandle.
[3:32] He's across the DMZ now.
[3:36] He's just leveling it.
[3:37] And you mean by that, he's making the trail almost unusable then, isn't he?
[3:42] Well, making the supply through the panhandle.
[3:44] Oh, I see.
[3:45] The trail, it slows down anyway now by the weather.
[3:48] By the way, it rains.
[3:49] Mm-hmm.
[3:51] Mm-hmm.
[3:52] Mm-hmm.
[3:54] And God damn it, you know, these people are not Superman, Henry.
[4:01] They're not Superman.
[4:02] There's a limit to what they can take.
[4:09] Oh, that's fine.
[4:10] Well, I wish you well on your trip.
[4:12] You leave at 4.30.
[4:13] I leave at 4.30.
[4:15] That'll take plenty of sleeping pills along.
[4:19] Right.
[4:20] Well, I can go right to bed when I get there, too.
[4:22] Yeah.
[4:23] Yeah, well, what the hell, what you do there is, you know what I mean, it's off the back of your hand.
[4:30] It's to try to make our ambassador feel, bring him into something.
[4:36] because basically he is totally loyal and it'll build him up with his staff.
[4:41] And, you know, I mean, it's one of those things.
[4:43] So if you can do that, it isn't like with the Soviet and the Chinese where we didn't want the ambassador.
[4:50] He's coming in to everything, Mr. President, except the meeting with Sato, which they insisted he alone.
[4:59] That's right.
[5:00] And the meeting with Fukuda, but he will join us at the end of the Fukuda meeting.
[5:04] Right, right, right.
[5:08] That's good.
[5:08] That's good.
[5:11] That's good.
[5:14] We're going to go forward on a very quiet basis.
[5:16] I'll handle it myself.
[5:18] I mean, you can just put Fulbright off by saying you can't have an answer until you've submitted it to me.
[5:25] Just leave it there.
[5:30] Because we can't give him, when you go down there, we can't give him
[5:35] the satisfaction of announcing it.
[5:38] See, I have to announce it.
[5:41] The one thing, Mr. President, though, that I feel now very strongly is that you should not announce my China trip.
[5:48] Oh, fine.
[5:49] Putting it too much to the discussion.
[5:51] You mean just have that announced by Ziegler?
[5:53] Have it announced low-key by Ziegler.
[5:55] Before my conference?
[5:56] If you have a conference, schedule your conference for the afternoon.
[6:01] But you should not jeopardize your relations with President.
[6:04] No, no, no, I wouldn't.
[6:06] But when do you want it announced?
[6:07] On Tuesday, when the day is back?
[6:08] It will be announced on Wednesday.
[6:12] Well, then it could be announced in the morning, see.
[6:15] I don't plan to have my conference till 3 in the afternoon anyway.
[6:18] Well, that would be better.
[6:19] See, I'd prefer not to announce it.
[6:22] 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.
[6:30] I don't think you can hold it that long if I'm going to testify on Thursday.
[6:33] Oh, yes, I can.
[6:36] 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.
[6:45] They don't have, they can know one hour in advance.
[6:47] They'll take you.
[6:49] And this will be 24 hours in advance, and it'll build like hell that day and the next morning.
[6:56] And...
[6:58] entirely up to you.
[6:59] They can get the right coverage if you want.
[7:04] It takes 24 hours.
[7:05] Oh, Christ, the moment it's announced it that afternoon.
[7:08] You see, if we announce it free in the afternoon, the networks will all go right to work.
[7:13] Well, that's entirely up to you.
[7:15] We want to get it with maximum jolt, as little discussion as possible from the sort of the peers.
[7:21] We have done it rather than that they have forced us to do it.
[7:24] Right.
[7:25] Because the
[7:27] And we'll let them know an hour in advance that I'm going to announce it, but that's about all.
[7:32] I think that's the way we want to do it, so that we are not in the position of being dragged down there.
[7:38] It would be a very bad situation if it were that way.
[7:40] But we should work out something by which he says ahead of time that this is an exception.
[7:46] Oh, sure.
[7:47] We'll tell him.
[7:48] Tell him exactly what he can say.
[7:51] I'll probably do it in the form of a letter.
[7:54] or something like that.
[7:55] But in any event, we will now not submit the treaty until Tuesday.
[7:58] Is that correct?
[7:59] That's correct.
[8:03] But we'll work out the logistics of the announcement, all right?
[8:07] Right.
[8:08] Well, we hope you have a good trip, Henry.
[8:10] Right.
[8:10] At least I know it isn't going to be good, but I hope it's not too tiring.
[8:13] Well, I'm sure it will be all right.
[8:15] All right.
[8:15] Bye.