Nixon phone call with Kissinger on Vietnam War and Operation Linebacker II

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Hello.

I wanted to know if you were able to reach either Russia or Russia.

We're seeing Russia is in the Bahamas.

So I think we should let that go.

Russia, we will notify at 8.15 tomorrow morning because we found out that the timing is done.

That they don't have to give the orders until 9.

All right.

And we'll see Mora simultaneously.

Right.

We've had a general talk with Mora, but Mora's got more interest, to be told, in the presence of RAS.

Right.

I agree.

And that way, I tell them, to Mora and Mr. President, they get the messages out tonight, and it's not that it's going to leak it.

I agree.

I, I, I just want you to tell Mara that I figured you guys in, but I meant, uh, we're asking you to tell her you can tell her tomorrow at the same time.

We can draft tonight.

But he was, he was, uh, he was away, and he preferred to be seen.

He knows we tried to get him tonight.

And, uh, so I called him first thing in the morning.

Now, draft is going to be back.

I'm going to ask him who he is, so we'll tell Alex that tomorrow afternoon.

Now, I've been thinking about my own position.

I'm inclined to think that I don't have a lot of time to come up here.

I think he should make this announcement.

I don't want to bring it up.

I think he should do everything he can, but I don't want to bring it up.

I don't want to bring it up.

And he should do it.

He has to make that announcement.

He's going to make that a little too late here.

Exactly.

It should be in the lowest e-way parking position.

My instinct is to be quite honest with you, that what they did to us last time was that they got the attention to the very eagerness.

That's true, but the more low-key

since it will be in the White House anyway, I think your personal involvement is... Well, if I do that, I'll just have to go down.

No, no, that would be worse.

That's the problem.

It's choice between you going down and his going up.

Yeah.

There's no doubt that it's better for him to go up.

It would be very sad for you to go down.

Well, that's the problem.

Because the thing is that it would have to be...

It would have to be...

But I think that would come across in any way.

So I'm thinking about it that way.

If you want to deny it, maybe you have to.

Or you may have to go up to me to another person.

But I'm thinking about it that way.

So keep that in mind.

But I think he'll pay for it later.

Absolutely not.

Well, it's no big thing.

He can do it in 10 days or so.

But I think, frankly, we should keep you

I mean, it should be clear that it's you, but what we should do is to keep it in such a way that they, that right now they are the anxious ones for the first time again.

Yeah.

And the message looks as if we needed this.

That's true.

The poor, it will pay off later on, and one mistake we made.

The way to get it quickly is to see the difference.

And that's why if we did it in the most lateral course, low P, very positive.

We'll tell them that is.

I think it would be very bad for you to go down.

I don't want to go down.

I think any event it would be a White House announcement.

I don't think anybody else is going to be able to do that.

That's the only supplement the President and I can be candid.

My experience with the cement operation is they are trying to be concerned with their immediate problem.

If we miss the next round, we're just not going to get it at all.

It's already been a half of what I was thinking about.

They do it in a very low key way.

It's already been a half of what I was thinking about.

I think it's always just no, no conversation.

That's why I didn't let out of them, other than I don't hear from these guys, because they would, we wouldn't, we wouldn't be out in front of them.

Oh, no, I, I don't think we could talk to them, I don't.

Yeah, yeah.

Or if you, if you would call anybody to hear that, because they want to know where you are, what you're doing, and you're, and you, and that's very, very important.

Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry about it.

I'm not, I'm not going to do it.

Right.

They have to know how to wait.

There's no way we can avoid letting them know.

They have to know how to wait.

Well, they need it.

They need it.

I don't know if they can do it.

I don't know.

That's right.

Right.

If you let Helms know a couple of hours, he will run you the way.

Tell him he's out of the country with Mexico, he's already gone.

I wouldn't want him.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

I think the best thing is to not try to interpret it because everybody's going to be everywhere after you, and it would be really handy.

I won't try anything.

I think we should keep it.

I don't.

And that's all.

Exactly.

I think that is the moment.

Right.

I'd be so constrained on this because the United States has the military in need.

So you want to bring that, but I just want to be straight.

I don't want to be straight in the question.

Fairly late.

Fairly quick.

Right.

Exactly.

Okay.

Right.

Yes, I can protect the Kennedy, but he has to get there tomorrow afternoon.

to Kennedy's in Texas.

I'll be announcing on the air in two to the one time.

That's all.

Oh, good.

I've already done that.

Thank you.

Whatever they say, we'll just have to hold our time.

You know, the problem we don't have, as you can imagine, is that there's a lot of people that tend to, you know, the president, the senator, the one that's going to clarify those and all that stuff.

That's what they say, uh, standard.

Finally, they say that we're conscious now that the country's stable in the Middle East.

As a matter of fact, that's the only way to go there.

Exactly.

They all said that nobody expects the negotiations to be reduced so soon.

Everyone is waiting for Congress to be all over.

Oh, it is?

Yes.

We'll see what the Congress says now.

I don't think they can do anything before the negotiations are reduced.

What can they do if they want to negotiate?

Well, Mr. President, the facts are they won't really be back until the 4th.

I'll be leaving until the 7th.

On the 8th, I'll be actually negotiating.

Okay.

I'm not trying to avoid, for that reason, any kind of a meeting, but any kind of a meeting until after we complete the negotiations, which is going to be goddamn hard, because we've got a lot of defensive stuff that we want to pick up on, you know, a fight party when we leave, and all that sort of stuff.

But I think it's just critical not to have any meetings in the middle.

That's going to hurt.

than, uh, being in a different ballgame anyway.

You see what I'm talking about?

That I'm talking about is that there's a time limit for us on how we, uh, uh, get, uh, 30, 30 minutes to come back here on the third.

Yeah, but they're not going to get organized until this, I mean, people won't come back until the third.

Yeah, and then they'll, uh, they'll come back on the third.

I think what I would be on that is to let you take care of him.

I have to take care of him.

That's easy.

And you just have to.

I can feel it.

You see, prior to the time the thing was put down, by the time it was put down, I feel like I'm not going to be able to do anything.

Now, I just don't want to see it.

No, I can keep max field quiet.

At least till I get back.

And after that, we don't know where the car's at.

It's pretty good that way.

I just don't understand about that.

No, but it's pretty good.

I could give him a general feel.

That's good.

Huh?

No later than the second, so I can see him on the third.

But you could see him on domestic policy, and I could have bring him to some foreign policy.

I don't want to, I don't want to be in that situation.

I understand why.

My instinct is, Mr. President, that it might be wise for you to see him.

But if I have seen him served on foreign policy, or if you tell him I will treat him on that, but entirely up to you, I can't judge how he handles himself when you discuss domestic policies.

I can certainly, I'm confident I can keep him quiet.

Let me just say, knowing that I've got to see him,

After this announcement is made, you know, there's going to be, if you can tell me, just one call to them.

Right.

And tell them that the president is on his way to the region when he returns.

Good.

You can do that.

Absolutely.

Now he will, I don't know, I don't know, you just take him on the mountain pass and say, you can tell them, you can do that.

All right.

And then, and then, and then, and then.

Oh, no.

Well, I'll call them.

I'll call them in seven.

Yeah.

Well, he may be in Montana himself, but I'll get him located tomorrow.

And I'll call him on Saturday morning.

And if you want to be free, then let's do that on the day first.

Two days first, and then later.

Especially if you don't have a lot of money, you've got to get out of that farm soon.

I'll take off after 7.

Yeah.

It's really much better now.

Good.

These guys.

My words to my family is Mr. President, they would have dragged us through two more weeks of it.

You see how adamant...

I suppose, yeah.

I suppose we have only one thing here which isn't good.

And that's why we have to play it cool.

That's why we have to play it cool.

I think it's up to two to the eight, Mr. President, because... Well, no, we can't leave while we're bombing, and it takes us five days to get there.

I see.

And with the humiliation of this going, I'm getting underway while we're bombing.

Yes.

Wouldn't be too much.

That's true.

So maybe that is a bad time.

Yes.

Secondly, to bring it up, because I can tell you this, apparently the Russians are putting them to leave.

So...

They told them he doesn't know what he's feeling now.

Oh, I see.

He told me that, and I started laughing.

I said, you know, he always feels bad.

He said, yes, we thought that too.

So they asked us to send a Russian doctor to look at him.

Now, unless these guys were in despair, they wouldn't do that.

Yeah.

I got to go now.

Yeah.

It'll be a pleasure.

So I think the guys, these guys are really, but that's why it's so expensive.

I know what you said to me earlier today, Mr. President, is 100% right about our real situation.

But I think the only way we can make it go now is because what you've done,

Who do these things so matter of factly that you take it for traffic?

It's an interesting thing again.

We've put everything on the line.

We've taken them to their feet.

And we've got the money at the bank again.

And this is going to go down as one of the really big decisions to make.

Because on the other side, there was just no way we could get it done.

And, uh... And of course, they were being helped by their friend, Mr. Keith.

That's right.

But now we've turned on voting.

And in terms of timing, Mr. President, if they had any other choice, hell, they'd let go of the bombing for four years.

It demanded an unprofessional end to the bombing.

Yeah.

Supposing they had said, we've got to stop bombing altogether.

Yeah.

Uh, the way the media was ranking up, we would have seen it...

We would have had hell to pay.

Yes.

They sell you a hat now.

Now, I don't think you want to do it, but even if you had a job out here, you'd buy two or three big breadsticks from your domestic critics because nobody would now know what time you're old.

I shall do that.

Nixon phone call with Kissinger on Vietnam War and Operation Linebacker II

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on December 29, 1972

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