Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 234 › Conversation 234-004

Nixon phone call with Kennedy on Vietnam War and POWs

Wednesday, December 6, 1972 · 5:54 PM–5:59 PM ET · Camp David Hard Wire · 5 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Kennedy, Richard T. (Col.)Conversation234-004 on Tape 234StartWednesday, December 6, 1972 at 5:54 PMEndWednesday, December 6, 1972 at 5:59 PMRecording deviceCamp David Hard WireSourceNixon Library record for 234-004 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon directed Colonel Richard T. Kennedy to draft a cable outlining his strategic guidance regarding ongoing peace negotiations. The President expressed a preference for offering minimum conditions to facilitate the potential release of prisoners of war, while simultaneously weighing the optics of breaking off talks to justify a resumption of bombing. Nixon requested that Kennedy prepare a draft for his personal review and refinement to ensure the message reflected these complex tactical considerations.

Audio

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Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

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Yeah.
Yeah.
What I'd like for you to do is to prepare, you know, just in rough form, the guidance that I gave you.
And you better be sending it up, you know, right up to me.
Then I'll have time to work on it for an hour.
We don't have to send this cable off to...
It would make a difference until 10 or 11 at night anyway.
Because he won't need to have it until morning.
Fine.
All right, you do that, and then I'll work on it here.
So you just got the general feeling of what I mean, right?
Right.
And then after I've had a chance to look at it, then I'll edit it.
Edit it twice.
Something off to it.
Okay.
Thank you.
Fine, fine.
But my name.
My own preliminary feeling about it is this, that I think that if you look at it in the coldest way, it would be totally objective.
You've 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 them now than to get them in July.
Do you see what I mean?
That's the real problem.
Do you see any coal in that?
I just think that's the weakness of the case for this dramatic, we'll step up the bombing until we get our prisoners because both South Vietnamese parties were so intransigent.
That's in effect what he's saying.
But you see, the point is, and so why?
I mean, you get the prisoners now, they're both intransigent, you just wash your hands of the goddamn thing and get it done now.
You could say, well, June would be in a stronger position next July.
I can't be sure of that.
To that point, it's made, it's wired.
If you have another view, I'd be interested in it.
Maybe I'm wrong about it.
If you've got any questions, there's a different opinion I'd be glad to have.
There we go.
But that's the case.
If that's the case, then we just, we do have the only other course to go the other way.
My whole mind is, though, that it makes the case for offering the minimum conditions.
See what I'm getting at?
You see, if you offer the minimum conditions, and if you offer the minimum conditions, and by some, by unexpected, they happen to be accepted, and if you get minimum conditions,
are only two or three that we can mount anything on.
I mean, I know it's important to, you know, but they're not that useful.
None of them are fundamental, so when I talked to Doug, he didn't mention any of them.
But my point that I'm making is this, that the case for at least trying the midland position is that it does give the prisoners
North Vietnam.
And if we're turned down by South Vietnam, it does get the prisoners, right?
But that money you lose, see my point?
So the only other thing is you put yourself in a better public posture by breaking it off.
That's what everyone 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.
You see what I mean?
Well, if you have another view, I think we can cut it all through and 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 this bastard just can't be talked to.
And take a long, long time.
And now when he comes off, when he comes back, though, we do bomb.
That's what we're going to do.
That'll put some pressure on him.
But anyway, I do prepare along that line.
In other words, I'll be two.
Okay?
Or no, I'll be one, of course.

NARA Description

On December 6, 1972, 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. The Camp David Hard Wire taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 234-004 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 234-4

Date: December 6, 1972
Time: 5:54 pm – 5:59 pm
Location: Camp David Hard Wire

The President talked with Col. Richard T. Kennedy.

[See Conversation No. 157-17]

Also 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.
  • 157-019 5:54 PM · 6 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Col. Richard T. Kennedy talked on the telephone 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.

All 49 conversations from December 6, 1972 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 234-004, 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/234-004 (accessed October 10, 2026).