Nixon, Kissinger & Haldeman on Moscow Summit and Vietnam War

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They were sending up another book today.

That's all right.

I've got enough books.

Yes, bilateral things.

And again, I've got something coming on the shoulder on that nuclear agreement.

Well, I spent the morning now going over the communications in 15 pages.

And, yeah.

than we were in China and I think in a day or two we can settle and it will be a very significant communication addition to the principle because it's going to tremendously and for the first time people are going to see in one document everything that's been done.

I see no reason.

I think the one I think is, I think space and salt and the principle of space-salt principles.

Well, why not have plenty of signings?

Anything you want to sign, we can sign.

There's no damn reason why I shouldn't be up front and center.

Now, they all say that the environment thing worked out before we got here.

Well, Mr. President, the fact of the matter is that, I mean, for example, on the science agreement,

I don't bother you with these things because I know what you want to know, but I just want to give you an example.

That thing has been kicking around for a year.

I got David in and I said, let's go over these points.

You're going to settle it in three days.

So he did.

Then we gave it to stay to do some drafting.

Total deadlocks developed immediately because they came up with 30 nitpicks.

So we settled that yesterday afternoon.

On the incidents...

The state doesn't know that we settled that.

No.

On the incidents at sea, for example, you remember the issue about which Rogers came to you at fixed distances and so forth.

I knew this would drive the military off the wall.

We didn't want the military yelling at it since we need them on soil.

So I went to Lubrin and I said...

and I suggested a formula to them by which they accept our terms this year, and we agreed to review it at the end of next year.

Without agreement then, but so.

And I had breakfast with Laird on Monday morning and tomorrow, and told them we'd do what we could.

And that evening at 9 o'clock the Russians yielded and accepted our petition.

Laird called me up and said he couldn't believe it.

He said, in 18 hours we settled something.

that they had negotiated four months over.

So your influence, whether you physically have done it all, we can demonstrate that of these agreements, not one could have been done without your personal channel depression.

Well, we will have some of the departments.

Peterson will try to claim that he didn't.

He can.

And naturally, Smith will say he didn't solve it.

Mr. President, I think what I ought to do when we get back, I ought to get in some of the leading journalists or maybe go on television.

You may have to do more than that.

We've got to really set it in.

It just can't be in three or four columns.

It's got to be something that has a national impact where they know.

I have no great desire to do it, but one way of doing it would be television.

Because the way to do it would be, instead of arguing who did what, it would be just to have somebody ask me on the biggest forum that you see is considered suitable.

How was it done?

As we could say, the president has been exchanging correspondence with Brezhnev.

This is how their replies came back.

This is how we handled it.

This is how we... At that point, we don't give a damn, because they're all done.

I mean, to bring these agreements to a head all at the same time.

Now, with regard to the signing, there are two different ways.

Maybe it's not as well for us to be in on all sorts of signing things.

Maybe it's well to sort of hold back and do salt, for instance.

Well, no, you should do it with the space, because that's got so much imagination to it.

Also in my 1959 speech, remember, I said, let's go to the moon together.

He told me that that evening, the first evening, there'll be a very positive speech.

And he told us it will be a short speech.

I told Hall and Mars that mine had to be 200 words.

But not the first evening, Mr. President.

You have to give a substantive speech.

About 10 minutes.

10 minutes of copy or 10 minutes translated?

No, I was writing a copy because they're going to give at least 15, 30 minutes.

You see, what we're talking about is a translation.

At Spazzo House, you can bring it.

I'm not going to wing anything.

You could be up.

My point is, I want to find out what the length of their speech is.

I've just found out.

Well, if it's 15 minutes in Russian, that's 30 minutes.

They told us 15 minutes.

They said a short speech.

I asked him, what does that mean?

He said, that means between 10 and 15 minutes in Russian.

And it will close with a toast to you.

But it will happen.

Who the hell's working on that?

I've got Andrews and Sapphire working on it with one of my people.

You've got Price working on the television.

And Price is working on the television one.

We spent an hour and a half together yesterday in the light of your phone call.

We spent some in the morning, but then after you called me, I got them all together again.

He'll come around.

I think the television speech, actually, we have plenty of time for.

Yeah, but the first speech.

The first speech is very important.

I've got to have the damn thing on the plane.

That is very important.

That should be rather sober.

And rather mean.

All right.

Along the signing of agreements, what is your view?

Should we be up there signing agreements over there, or does that take too much away?

Well, the Spaceman, the environment, I don't have to sign.

I don't care what you know.

Do you want to let Roger sign the environment?

Some other guy doesn't know anything about it.

There's no reason for him to do it.

Did they put this together?

Yeah, it's in the second page.

I'll get it for you.

Well, if you did environment and space, then you'd do fun each day, except Thursdays and Fridays.

Might as well start out with a bang.

Environment's a big thing in this country.

Might as well do environment and space.

Then you get the feeling that that's another way to get it across in a lot of things being done.

Environment, space, salt.

Yes.

On the statement of principles, I noticed that you had, well, we can talk about this later, some doubts as to whether I should sign it because of the fact that I've changed my mind.

What the hell?

Why not?

It isn't a treaty.

I've changed my mind.

It isn't a treaty.

If they want it, let's go.

I think you should sign it.

It should be jointly signed by President and you.

But the combination of this is a hell of a thing.

of this meeting communique, which is really a communique, a statement of principles, and these agreements are here.

Cary could never get even that space thing, something people could talk about for years.

No, what I would recommend, though, Mr. President, is that you are very low-key with the congressional people.

I wouldn't say this is going to be the most significant meeting.

I'd just say there's a number of things we're going to try to advance on.

You give us response points as to what number and what they say are.

I got to say, obviously, we're talking about a song.

I think that is, I think the lower key we are, the more impressive, I mean, nobody has any idea.

They all think it's, I mean, the newsmen that I see, all things can be like P.K., nothing, and then at the end they're from U.N.I.K.,

Each one of these, well, space is a major story.

Environment is a major story.

Health is not.

Science and technology is not.

Maritime is not.

Incidents at sea is not.

The Joint Commercial Commission isn't sold it.

So you've got four major stories.

The Joint Commercial Agreement might be done.

But also, incidentally, there's a good chance that we'll get an agricultural agreement for three years worth a billion dollars.

I haven't put that on there yet.

Well, I think we've got Dabrina and I in a well position.

That was beautiful.

And the way you handled Vietnam was beautiful, and the way you put the Middle East after.

And then another thing I did with him, I went over his paper with him on the Middle East.

And we, for the first time, the Soviets are willing to talk sense now, in addition to the withdrawal of their forces.

When you said there's some things you can't ask Israel to do, he said, all right, now, just put down concretely it.

I think the best position for you is to come out of this meeting without an agreement on the Middle East, because it sure is held that with a plan by which to move it ahead.

What do we say about the Middle East that we discussed it?

That Yarin should redouble his efforts or something like that.

The trouble with pressing too hard on the interim agreement, which we may get, is that it may raise more questions about the final agreement than it's worth, because we don't need any more agreements after this, dear.

I don't think.

Except there's going to be great entries in the Mideast.

I don't give a damn about it, except, well, we'll do that later.

Well, we can perhaps get that before November.

We might do it in September, you might do something.

Right.

Now, Vietnam, though, I think it's well that we now agree to bring Vietnam up.

We used to bring it up at an early point, because we're not going to give a goddamn inch, and neither are they.

This idea that we're going to give an inch... Well, I wouldn't say to them... One thing I'd criticize... Can I have suggestions?

Don't say they won't give an inch, because I think they're beginning to give an inch.

No, I mean, I'm telling you that.

I'm not going to tell them that.

I mean, I would suggest that you tell them there is great power, we have an interest.

But as you said, not to let these little countries drag us into confrontation.

Because I really think

You got your message.

I know.

What we got was nothing.

Well, no, they submitted a 17-page document in reply to my considerations.

The fellow who received it didn't get it.

I mean, can't understand the significance.

I don't know whether it's boilerplate or not.

But for them to submit, I can't believe when they submit 17 pages, that's a convoluted way of getting into a discussion with us.

That isn't just boilerplate.

So then you haven't got a reply yet as to whether you were involved?

Not through there.

But Dubrini told me, and I really don't believe his lie, that he never had to put so much pressure on Hanoi to talk as on this one.

But I think, though, the logic of events is kind of forced on Hanoi now.

We are getting one report after another all along the front.

I will send you, we had a report for example where the French delegate general in Hanoi wrote to the French foreign minister and according to him the morale in Hanoi is unbelievably low.

The people are saying, now we're led by crazy men, that sending the children out of Hanoi has had a devastating impact on their parents, that they all think they have tremendous casualties in the south, and they don't know what's happening in the south, that they all know the bridges are all cut, and he writes, they know the sea is cut, and he says, there are not yet riots.

Well, when you say, not yet riots in a communist capital, that sounds amazing.

Well, I don't believe it either, but it is an astonishing... On the other hand, when I say they'll never have them, I don't mean to watch this report.

Yeah, but it's a very astonishing document.

Secondly, we've had one report, for example, of a regiment in Military Region 1 that was down to 83 men.

They've got 400 replacements.

Their normal strength is 800.

They've got 400 replacements.

Now it's down to 120.

There's one company in the military region, one again.

It's down to 23 men.

And that's whose commander asked for permission to withdraw and was not given help.

And in ANLOC now, there's no anti-aircraft fire anymore.

and the smallest number of artillery shells since early April in Khantoum.

An attack started by a regiment and we laid a B-52 strike on it and it stopped.

Now the fact that Khantoum, we have 24 artillery pieces in Khantoum, that's all.

They changed nothing.

Very few tanks.

We pulled out the good troops and put in nothing to tell you.

So I would have thought that Khantoum would go three weeks ago.

Any week that passes, any day that passes, Francis Bridgestone, any season closes.

So hate believes, and I can do agree with him, maybe they have enough for one more big push.

But up to now, this offensive is a fiasco for them.

Sure, they took one tree, but that's all.

They asked for it, except for, as I said, the three news magazines that came out the day we made the broadcast.

But those side pictures all said defeat, retreat, humiliation.

That was not true.

Well, it might have been if you had done what you did.

It might have been.

If you had done, it would have gone down the tree.

Because the big impact of your speech, in addition to what it does to the North, is, as you pointed out yesterday, is what it does to the South.

As all the generals that were thinking of making their own deals now are back in the fold, there was no offensive action anywhere until your speech.

They've now moved little things.

None of them by themselves mean anything.

But they've now moved artillery to within three miles of Anlark.

Our people have.

So for the first time, Anlark has its own artillery protection.

And the South Vietnamese are just beginning to move much more aggressively.

All of this is the result of your speech, because the major problem there was psychological.

Sure, they had the troops.

Well, Abrams said that in his report.

He said it's will.

Yesterday, we dropped that span near China.

And it's just...

It's just a very...

They...

Even if the Chinese and Russians made a massive effort, the first thing they'd have to do is bring anti-aircraft down on these railways.

That would take them a month.

Then they'd have to repair these railways.

It'd take them another month.

And I just don't think that they're going to do it that way.

I think you have a chance to engage Russia in a solution of this issue.

I really do.

We're going to try.

But I would play it just as tough as you did here, that you're determined to settle it, to pad it out, and that they and we have a common interest not to let it get in our way.

The only thing we could ultimately consider, but I wouldn't play that card yet, is that you won't run in the election, as he's promised.

That he's already said, but before we even consider that, they've got to make a major concession to us.

Ceasefire, I thought.

And if this military situation continues, they're going to lose their territory.

See, they're planning now a two-division operation with armor in military region one to go for Kwong Tri.

They want to wait first to absorb one flow, and then they want to head up north.

And when that thing gets unstuck,

The North Vietnamese could be.

That's a breakthrough.

It's about like Germany in 1918.

They don't make it in one push now, they've had it.

I had the Ivy League president yesterday.

Oh, shit.

I wouldn't have seen them.

It wasn't a mistake.

They don't deserve it.

But I tell you, they are never...

I'm surprised that we really have... Who did this?

Haldeman told you that?

Oh, I did.

They called in for a meeting with you and I made a mistake.

Do you have any credits?

I won't let those sons of bitches ever in this White House again.

Never.

None of them.

They're finished.

I even think schools are finished.

I've tried to make that...

I spent an hour with them and it was revolting because they have now...

embrace the program of the radicals, they said.

In effect, they want us to cut off economic and military aid.

And what happens?

If a communist government is power in Saigon, I said.

And I said, and you considered that.

I'm amazed that leaders of educational institutions should take such a position on a moral issue.

The president of PAPA said, look, there are a lot of immoral things happening in the world which we don't resist.

I would not have had the men.

Don't ever do that again.

Don't ever have been.

They came out against us when it was tough.

Don't ever have the men again.

And when they have to get back from this trip, they want to do it.

Don't ever go to an Ivy League school again.

Never, never, never.

I tell you, I said the New York Times, the Washington Post, I wouldn't care if they wrote the most slobbering editorial in the world.

I will never see one of them again.

Never.

They're never going to be in the White House again.

At the end, I said, now...

I really let in to them.

I said, you know, it's really amazing that you people could condemn the bombing and not even mention the evasion.

I said, but I've given up on you saying anything political.

What I can't understand is that you, the leaders of educational institutions, cannot even bring yourself to ask your students to show a little compassion.

How can you encourage people to believe that you have a monopoly of anguish and that you are the people who want to end the killing and the president wants to continue the killing

At least you ought to contribute to defining the issue properly.

One of them, the president of Brown, said, another one of Brown, Cornell, said, look, if we ask for compassion for the president, we'll get killed.

So I told them, they finished.

They don't know how bad they're going to be off, too, because I'm going to turn on those sons of bitches.

I'm going to finish those schools off to the extent that I can.

I forgot it.

power in place.

John, he had nothing to do with it.

John Connolly, at that dinner at the Alcove yesterday, he said that he hoped he was going to be elected to be an author in the campaign.

They were talking politics with him, and he said that he thought that he could have a tremendous victory if it was essential.

show that is trying to enjoy but I know you know you certainly got a natural restraint to this whole Friday and Mansfield got them and I he said it gave a trip to China sucked around exactly like about them oil perhaps yeah yeah one thing that I that Ehrlichman has been dragging his feet on because of Schultz now that we got Schultz the hell out of the OBM and I want you to get wine burgers

I want those funds cut off for the MIT.

You get ahold of Weinberger and say, I want the goddamn funds, and I want them to know it now.

Get it done.

Okay.

You get $40 billion a year.

Why?

They don't want to be in the military.

Why did they write to you?

Get ahold of them.

They're going to get it.

I think they've done it a bunch.

Soft.

But I think we got the thing in good shape now.

Oh, they don't mention when they come in that China initially was a Soviet nation, but all the rest of these sons of bitches, they're just whining about this.

I could have killed them next week, Mr. President.

No one has any idea what you're going to come up with.

The main problems we got, Henry, I think, as you're quite aware, is not with the left, but with the right.

This is great with the left.

It's going to be terribly difficult for the right, particularly so.

and the statement of principles.

And that's, we just got to be sure that on assault, that we're not free.

They'll do two things.

One, that we let down our allies.

Two, that we put our arms around our enemies.

And three, that we froze ourselves in the interior.

Those are the things we've got to handle.

That last one, they just can't make.

I'm going to get, McGregor's getting them together for me tomorrow morning.

Wonderful.

And I'm going to brief them together with more.

More?

Yeah.

And.

That'll pull the rug out before Rogers and his people get a chance to piss on it.

How can Rogers' people piss on it now, though?

I mean, Smith is going to be for it.

Of course.

Oh, yeah.

He's giving us more trouble than there is right now.

Every day.

Again, if it weren't for your channel, this thing would never have...

But every breakthrough was done by you.

With the May 20th, the submarines, every solution was worked out in the Breslin channel.

And

and every detail this last week.

I just don't bother you because I don't believe you give a damn whether there's 18 radars or 16 radars, but...

I haven't got the time to look into it.

Well, experts have to determine.

But there's... Henry, let me tell you about the Ivy League presidents and time for this week.

The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the network leaders.

They're finished.

And that includes the business elite.

The time has been a little better.

Yeah.

Society has been a disaster.

That's right.

Life is a disaster.

That's right.

But my point that I'm making is this.

They're finished for this reason.

That if, when it's tough, they aren't there, we don't want them.

Now, we've got to build a new establishment.

We're going to.

And it isn't going to come out of the Ivy League.

And let me say, I've already given instructions.

You know, there's never going to be another Harvard Manhattan.

Hired in our staff.

Not many new ones.

We've got too many already.

No more.

It's too bad some good men will be missed.

But why do we take people that have had their minds poisoned by the fact?

No, never, never, never.

You've got to put them to the show.

I'm going to.

I don't mean that we get much better out of Ohio State, but God, there's a chance.

At Harvard, there's no chance.

Yale, same.

Harvard, much worse.

But you see the whole bunch.

These people have no courage, no guts.

They're nothing.

You know, they don't even... Another thing, they must have no intelligence.

Don't they realize that what we're doing may work?

No, they don't.

Well, they're more afraid that it will work than at that moment.

I think, Mr. President, I think if it weren't for the elections, it would certainly...

The only question is, are they going to stagger on until November?

That's really the only question.

But if they...

I know Africans are going to be leveled up.

They'll be leveled up.

Right after the Soviet summit, we're going to really hit a... Because you have the option now, as soon as that military campaign is... of accelerating the withdrawals and keeping the blockade in place.

But I don't really think withdrawals make a hell of a lot of difference anymore.

I think we are at the point, we can step it up somewhat, but this is the first time they've been hit scientifically, Mr. President.

They were never hit by, they're being hit by about 300 planes a day.

That's more than Johnson ever hit them with.

And then Johnson threaded his effort all over the place.

They've never had two or three targets that were just clobbered.

Their POL ought to be finished in another six weeks with nothing new coming in.

Well, one thing we're going to do, incidentally, right after the Soviet summit is take out the power plant in the middle of Hanover.

We've got to do that.

Two good targets.

But we're taking out... No problem.

They can get that power.

We're taking out this week, before we go, there is a big transformer station at the outskirts of Hanoi into which all the grid speed, that's going this way.

Then there's a power station and these rail yards in the center of Hanoi, which we can take out any time you want after we get back.

And...

The power station in the center of Hanoi serves Hanoi primarily.

That transformer we are getting serves all of North Vietnam.

And, uh, is there anything you agree on?

We'll call Rogers this afternoon at 24 o'clock.

Give him a little song and dance.

All right.

Because we, uh, we are not just going to have this Rogers thing.

We're not just going to have this.

He asked something for you.

It's too late now.

And you know, God damn it, he doesn't like this, it's too bad, he tells me for my own good, this and that, like he did about the Shanghai communique and all the things he worried about, he's an entrepreneur.

And we know there are problems, there are problems in all this, the salt agreement and so forth.

The point is, how could he have done better?

The point is, this is what I feel, that you've got to do this, and I feel you've got to do that.

He never comes up with anything that just goes on.

There's something we ought to do.

Except signing the Berlin Agreement.

Thank God that's no problem.

The German treaty won't be done.

But signing it, we negotiated it, and when it was done, he pissed on that.

He gave Russia nearly a nervous breakdown by thwarting something we had worked six months to bring about.

You see, the point is that we're not going to...

You'll piss on the principle, Sue, I'll guarantee you.

If you take the negative, it's always possible to...

Try it.

Show us, for example, what their first... their first paragraph, for example, Paragraph 3, was so much tougher than what they finally agreed on.

God damn it, we've gotten down to a few things.

And we got them, in fact, to put in a renunciation of depression as doctrine.

Well, he is delighted.

And I think this is going to be a tremendous decision.

We've also got him on the mountaintop, too.

Well, I like the way you handled the president.

Stay here.

You know, like they told you what you were doing, so this is only Russ and Frost.

Oh, yeah.

And hell, they'll love it.

You'll find, see, this guy's so insecure.

If you feel, if the thing is going well, it could even dangle perhaps beforehand that when he's here, you might take a trip out of California to greet him.

I've played that on all your meetings.

Well, there's no, there's nothing concrete.

Give me three, three, three.

Nixon, Kissinger & Haldeman on Moscow Summit and Vietnam War

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Also recorded on May 18, 1972

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