Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 157 › Conversation 157-019
Nixon phone call with Kennedy on Vietnam War and Peace negotiations
Wednesday, December 6, 1972 · 5:54 PM–5:59 PM ET · Camp David Study Table · 6 min
AI Summary
President Nixon directed Colonel Richard T. Kennedy to draft guidance for a message to Henry Kissinger regarding ongoing Vietnam peace negotiations. The President expressed a preference for testing "minimum conditions" in a settlement agreement to secure the release of American prisoners of war, weighing this against Kissinger's inclination to break off talks and resume bombing to increase pressure on North Vietnam. Nixon and Kennedy discussed the strategic risks of these approaches, ultimately deciding to formalize these instructions for further review and editing.
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Transcript (AI-generated)
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Yeah.
Colonel Kennedy, sir?
Yeah.
Yes, Mr. President.
What I'd like for you to do is to prepare, you know, just in rough form, the guidance that I gave you.
Yes, sir.
And it would be better if you sent it up, you know, write it up to me.
Yes, sir.
Then I'll have time to work on it for an hour or two.
We don't have to send this cable off until it's making a difference until 10 or 11 tonight anyway.
Oh, that's right.
Because he won't need to have it until the morning.
That's correct.
All right, sir, we'll do that.
All right, you do that, and then I'll work on it here.
So you just got the general feeling of what I mean?
Yes, sir.
We'll have something up to you within an hour.
Right.
And after I've had a chance to look at it, then I'll edit it at a few points, and we'll get something off to him.
All right, sir.
Okay.
Thank you.
We'll have it up in about an hour.
Fine, fine.
But my own...
preliminary feeling about it is this that I think that when you look at it in the coldest way I mean with being totally objective you got to see where you come out at the end and on both lines and on both lines if you come out only with your prisoners it's a hell of a lot better to get him now than to get him in July you see what I mean right that's the real problem do you see any hole in that argument
I just think that's the weakness in the case for this dramatic, we'll step up the bombing until we get our prisoners because both South Vietnamese parties are so entrenched.
That's in effect what he's saying.
Well, you see there, the point is, and so why?
I mean, you could get the prisoners now if they're both entrenched.
If you're going to wash your hands of the goddamn thing, get it done now.
I mean, you could say, well, Q would be in a stronger position next July.
I can't be sure that, to that point, is made in his wire, you know.
If you have another view, I'd be interested.
Maybe I'm wrong about it.
I feel as you do.
You've got a different opinion.
Let me say that I'm the prisoner.
I'm not sure that the choice is that simple.
I'm not at all sure that at this point,
with that.
I'm not sure that we could do that.
Unless we got everything.
I think that they, I think they may, if we go that route, I think they may say quite well that they now have us and it's perfectly clear they've driven them between us and Saigon.
If that's the case, then we just, then we do have the only other course to go the other way.
My whole point is, though, that that makes, it makes the case for offering the minimum conditions.
We'll see what I'm getting at.
Yes, sir.
It seems to me that if you offer the minimum conditions and if you offer the minimum conditions and by unexpectedly have them be accepted, I mean, if we get minimum conditions accepted, although some of that stuff doesn't mean a goddamn thing that he had in there.
I mean, if there are only two or three that really amount to anything, a lot of it's nonsense.
I mean, I know it's important to
They're useful to Fragon.
They're not that useful.
None of them are fundamental.
When I talked to Ducky, he didn't mention any of them.
He didn't think any of them were important.
But my point that I'm making is this, that the case for at least trying the minimum position is that it does get the prisoners.
You see, the minimum position, assuming it were accepted by North Vietnam and returned down by South Vietnam, does get the prisoners, right?
I would think that's correct.
Well, then what do you lose?
Yes, sir, right.
So the only other thing is you put yourself in a better public posture by breaking it off.
That's what Henry wants to do, by breaking it off, by giving them what we know is an impossible demand and then having it turned down, and then we go back to bombing.
Yes.
Well, if you have another view, I'd be interested in it.
I know I may be wrong, but I think when you cut it all through, cut through all of it clearly, I think I can see what he wants to do.
He really wants to throw his hands up and say, these bastards just can't be talked to.
Sir, my feeling is that what we...
Negotiations are very painstaking in all of your process.
And take a long, long time.
And...
i think that uh we need we've come a long long way we've gotten them this far and i think that uh a temporary break isn't going to be helpful but a temporary i don't think we ought to think of a of a temporary interruption in this process as being as being a fatal thing that we we try to stop my own view is that we
We just have to be very patient and very slow and keep the pressure on.
Keep it on.
And never turn off the torque.
And when it comes off, when it comes back, though, we do bomb.
Oh, yes, sir.
That's what we can do.
That'll put some pressure on.
Well, anyway, if you prepare along that line, in other words, option two.
Yes, sir.
Okay.
Right.
Or no, option one, of course.
Yes, sir, option one.
NARA Description
On December 6, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Col. Richard T. Kennedy talked on the telephone at Camp David from 5:54 pm to 5:59 pm. The Camp David Study Table taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 157-019 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 157-19
Date: December 6, 1972
Time: 5:54 pm – 5:59 pm
Location: Camp David Study Table
The President talked with Col. Richard T. Kennedy.
[See Conversation No. 234-4]
Message to Henry A. Kissinger
-Vietnam negotiations
-The President’s instructions
-Timing
-Editing
-Return of prisoners of war [POWs]
-Timing
-December 1972
-Compared to July 1973
-US bombing
-South Vietnam and [Provisional Revolutionary Government]
[PRG] intransigence
-Timing
-July 1973
-Nguyen Van Thieu’s position
-Kissinger’s message
-29-
NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM
Conversation No. 157-19 (cont’d)
-Kennedy’s view
-Bilateral deal
-US-South Vietnam relations
-Breakdown in talks
-Minimum conditions in settlement agreement
-Importance
-The President’s meeting with Nguyen Phu Duc
-Acceptability to North Vietnam and South Vietnam
-Breakdown
-[Withdrawal of North Vietnamese troops from South Vietnam]
-US bombing
-Kissinger’s view
-Significance
-Deliberation
-Pressure
-Kissinger’s return from Paris
-US bombing
-Option 1Also recorded on December 6, 1972
- 157-017 5:31 PM · 16 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Camp David operator talked on the telephone at Camp David at an unknown time between 5:31 pm and 5:54 pm.
- 157-018 5:31 PM · 13 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Camp David operator talked on the telephone at Camp David at an unknown time between 5:31 pm and 5:54 pm.
- 233-022 5:31 PM · 29 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David at an unknown time between 5:31 pm and 5:54 pm.
- 234-001 5:31 PM · 10 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Camp David operator met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David at an unknown time between 5:31 pm and 5:54 pm.
- 234-002 5:31 PM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David at an unknown time between 5:31 pm and 5:54 pm.
- 234-004 5:54 PM · 5 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Col. Richard T. Kennedy met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David from 5:54 pm to 5:59 pm.
- 157-020 5:59 PM · 14 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Camp David operator talked on the telephone at Camp David at an unknown time between 5:59 pm and 8:16 pm.
- 234-005 5:59 PM · 20 min — President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David at an unknown time between 5:59 pm and 8:16 pm.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 157-019, December 6, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/157-019 (accessed October 10, 2026).