Nixon phone call with Haldeman on Vietnam War and Henry Kissinger

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I think you're right.

The choice is obvious.

If what he outlines is there, you've got to go first now.

If you're going to go... Because I understand that if you go his second route... Good boy.

Be good boy.

Of course, he may not get that.

He could have just started out and said, I don't think anything's going to work.

In fact, I consider it nearly impossible.

He said, I think this is impossible, I think this is impossible, and this and that.

I think part of the problem is that he's tired, Bob.

He's talking too much.

You know what I mean?

He's gone through five and a half hours, and all they did was just repeat the same goddamn thing.

To be fair, if we can't, I think we need to go to Bush here and do it.

The only advantage of Operation Option 1 is you get the prisoners back now, and then it still may all fall apart.

Because there's no reason.

It may lack the foundation of minimum trust.

If we get the prisoners back and it falls apart, we're no worse off than if we go on and it falls apart.

The choice of trouble with Option 2 is that we only stay in.

prisoners.

All right.

Now, let's look what happens in that six-month period.

In that six-month period, we poisoned our relations with the Russians and the Chinese, including the Soviet Union.

We continue to have problems, massive problems with the Congress, including our own Republicans.

We continue to have a pall over the administration, because as we're beginning the second term, we have bailed in the goal to end the goddamn war, which we have hoped to end

right i mean i'm just looking at it and i bet on the negative those are the negatives you're buying but if it were worth it if the positive were saving south vietnam in an honorable peace christ let's do it but that is what he's saying what he says here is that he thinks that we should simply say the hell with south vietnam he's given up on that it's quite clear he's probably being very personal there too because he knows that they don't trust him and he's in effect saying

two sides will not agree, and therefore, we will continue to bomb until we get our prisoners back.

Bomb, that is an untenable position.

For us just to continue the war.

Bombing.

Which, what he said to me, that's probably where we'll be anyway.

Maybe.

All right.

It's likely to be where we end up even if we present the barrier.

Yeah.

Maybe.

Except that.

It might not be.

Except that what you might have there

is that if that is what the position is going to be, if we think that that is all we can get after bombing, then the thing to do is to offer the bastards everything you need right now and flush it and get it over with.

In other words, if it's going to hurt, we will say right now the South Vietnamese wouldn't agree and the North Vietnamese wouldn't agree and therefore we'll do everything that the North wants.

Now they won't.

And make the best of you as you can.

This we haven't done yet.

We haven't gone that far to say, alright,

he was our president and we withdraw the bomb the bomb and mining we withdraw and looking at your poll your poll would say you didn't have that question specifically put that if we would stop the bombing should we stop the bombing and mining and withdraw your poll said the majority of people opposed our getting out opposed the bomb

It was on the point of getting out, of getting the North Vietnamese out of the settlement.

Remember that question?

And they said they opposed a settlement that would leave them in.

They're not very strong.

Justify this as being an honorable settlement.

Sorry.

goes far beyond saying in effect U.S. military withdrawal for prisoners you know what I mean all this political gothic book in there

that rather than rather than going all the way down the other road what it seems to me we come down to is that the we really come down to the fact that that's what

It's obvious that what he wants to do is to break it off and come back and go public and start bombing, start bombing.

Would you agree?

Yeah.

Because it's obvious, yes, he's tired, but they actually think everything is terrible.

Brutal murders.

You know what happened.

He's obviously very uptight and discouraged and so forth and so on.

seems to share with you that we ought to, negotiating takes one hell of a long time, and we've just got to continue to keep it open.

Keep yacking, keeping the channel open, and recognizing that stuff is hell.

What I come down to is this.

I come down to the point that, as I told you, that I did not think that he should offer that what he knows would be a totally unacceptable proposition and force a breakup of the talks.

I had thought we had covered that in the message yesterday, of course, that we should not take the initiative to break the talks.

If you may recall, I think that was in the message, wasn't it?

Or was it?

Yes.

The second point is that

I think that what he should do is to offer these provisions.

And if they turn him down, he just comes back and says, well, we're going to have to go another round.

And when he comes back, he'll start bombing.

And then in order to stop the bombing, he'll say, we'll talk some more.

And we'll start talking some more.

You see, that's the way he reads words.

You've got to have some leverage on it.

They turn it down and say, well, we'll have to talk again.

And we'll start bombing.

I mean, we'll start stepping up some, but not a hell of a lot.

Or, by no means to make the cataclysmic mistake of frontally saying,

making of it, which, of course, is very critical.

But the record's already clear that they will not accept the withdrawal of all our Vietnamese troops from the South.

And everything goes public.

You say that they refuse to do that.

You can lay that out.

He doesn't need to say, well, Henry and other meticulous people, that wasn't in my final statement or something like that.

But the point is clear.

The point is clear.

We've got that point public relating to twice in any event.

Let me explain.

He seems to think that we have to have in his final offer, in that particular point, you don't have to have that in the final offer in order to make it public at a later time.

You see, you don't have to have that in the final offer.

Yeah, because they say they reduce.

You've got to remember this.

He did make the October 8th agreement and told him this morning.

Me?

And the other case he lays down conditions that they may not accept.

Probably will not accept.

But which still...

Well, you'll get back to a recess and come back for more talks.

Second, would you avoid the confrontation with two, or at least reduce the mass level of it?

That's not as big a problem as the...

They're chopping everything off.

Well, look at that.

If you're going to make that argument in Strong's case, your son might say that because of the President, we know how this prisoner issue can escalate.

Yeah.

But...

Is it better for us, at the end of this long and difficult war, at this point, to say that our Vietnamese have refused to negotiate an honorable settlement, an honorable peace, and therefore we're going to continue to work to get our prisoners back?

And with them, it means that we will continue to take the age of return to law.

Or is it better for us?

Understand that we're still waiting for honor.

We're standing up against the communists.

Or is it better for us to take the best goddamn deal we can get now and cut it off?

And say, well, we've done our best and it was honorable.

We want the American people to forgive and forget.

That's it.

After he throws in there, that means a certain collapse of the GBN because they won't.

Neither does.

That's the problem.

The course of action does for the reason that I do not believe, I don't believe, Mr. McConnell, that if our only goal is to continue the bombing, et cetera, et cetera, and get our military back in July, I don't believe that the Congress...

and so forth and furnish the $4 billion that is necessary to do that.

That's the other thing is, the Congress is going to throw this in.

They're going to know who blew this up.

It's you, God damn it.

I mean, think about when they're going to continue to give that money to them.

I don't know.

It depends on how far you could expend your equity to get them to do it and how much you've got.

You can get them to do it for a while, but there's some point where you can't.

What the immediate problem is, I think that this is vital.

I have another talk with Kissinger and work up another negotiating strategy for another meeting before, rather than just have him decide up there.

that we're going to break it off.

And you need to get him out of the hot house there where you can center it in.

So that you can do that.

Yeah.

Hey, we're here.

We'd be in a better position, too.

I don't know what you could...

I don't know what...

He would just say, try to keep it open.

Yeah.

Tell you what you do.

take it, you take the thing over there.

Is John still here?

Yes.

Take it over to him and give him a little bit of background on the thing.

Let me explain the traces here so that we clearly understand.

When you say that, when Henry says that

We've got to realize there's the terrible heat we're going to have to take to carry that for six months to get our business back.

We've got to realize, and that's an option, but that's what happens if we just bust off and tell them to go to hell and start bombing.

The other thing, never got a bomb anyway.

I say you start bombing, but if you don't have anything.

The other possible other here,

stop the, is to put up the second auction without an intransigent particular legal basis.

Henry is a compulsive one also when it comes to, you know, he talks about we've got to get him to cave.

Well, sometimes people don't cave.

Sometimes they breathe.

I don't think he's going to get caged in the

I won't go back to the back.

I'm starting to say that's just a position.

I don't know if kids are not being cluttered with video.

Let me read you the back ones.

Let him read this first and see what his view is.

I need to go back and read the back ones.

Well, the reason I didn't read you the back ones

and review about the big television broadcast and all that.

Which I answer that, I don't know.

I'd like to get down to you on the decision question here first, before he gets into that, then he'd go back.

Let me get that down, then go back.

And I suppose we try to get that down and pick a crack and say something around the overnight dinner and so forth.

Well, there's going to be, it's now 6.30.

8.30.

Okay.

I know, I know we're right on that.

That I know.

I'm curious to see what John's reading is on that.

He might.

I don't know.

If he's not, that would sure confirm the judge's safety.

He almost always is for it.

That's right.

Because he believes that I should get out and explain everything.

That's right.

But then, if he is for it, then I would really say, no, I'm here for our decisions.

Okay.

We need another record of 830 in line for message.

They will be expecting the message from the colonel.

She'll send the... You can bring over 832.

All right.

All good.

Very good.

Any other work done today?

More appointments?

Yeah.

No?

No.

Okay.

Nixon phone call with Haldeman on Vietnam War and Henry Kissinger

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NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on December 6, 1972

Cite this conversation

Nixon phone call with Haldeman on Vietnam War and Henry Kissinger

AI Summary

Audio

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on December 6, 1972

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Cite this conversation