On December 29, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David from 11:24 am to 11:46 am. The Camp David Hard Wire taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 237-014 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
Hello?
Oh, Henry, how are you?
I, uh, how long you been up?
Uh, you waiting?
Oh, I see.
Right, right.
I was talking to, uh, Kennedy getting the, uh, report, and, uh, he, uh, then he made a, uh, he raised a point that, uh,
concerns me that I've implied last night that I want to go into again.
And I think that Russia is a pretty good guinea pig on this.
The posturing of this announcement is extremely important.
I don't want to posture it in a way that in any way will be damaging to our future negotiations.
On the other hand, I don't want to posture it in a way that looks as if because of the
And Russia, of course, is on our side.
In other words, he's not the one that's trying to look for that sort of thing.
And so what is your, what's your feeling as to... You understand, if Russia reacts that way, you can figure you're good about
80% of the media reacting that way.
I guess, just saying, only because he is a totally, totally loyal fellow who wants to look at it our way, but he's, he just, that's the way it hit him.
He's the only one that's been told, I mean, that I know of, I mean, except you and you.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
The bombing a little longer is a bunch of crap.
The Rush doesn't want to bomb any longer.
Mortar does, but Rush doesn't.
So his reaction is a very different thing.
I know what Mortar's doing, but this is Rush reacting this way, not Mortar.
We know that.
We know that.
The only thing that I which I don't want to have happen here, we've got to remember what is involved here.
Of course, the most important thing is to settle it properly.
But on the other hand, we don't want to have the Congress come back under the situation where it appears as if we started down a course and then we backed off and decided to go back to talking.
You get my point?
That's basically what Russia said.
Now, what's the answer to that?
It's not true, of course, but what else is the answer?
I know that.
I know what the answer is, and you do too, and you know that they, it is they, rather than we, who are doing this.
I understand all that, and I'm just trying to see if there's anything that, well, there's
we could do on the posturing side.
Not in Warren's announcement, but in any other way.
Have you given any thought to that?
Oh, the hell with the congressmen.
I am speaking more of the people that make opinion.
No, that's too dangerous.
into that game, then it'll look as if you're doing something in terms of...
Right.
In other words, let me come out of the questions with Warren, because I'm going to call him on the phone and go over it with him one by one.
He has been hard-lining
at my direction, all these little lips of rumors, well, is it possible the negotiations may come?
Is it possible the bombing may stop because of, you know, there have been low-level rumors for three days, and he has said there's absolutely no truth in it, whatever.
That's total speculation.
Absolutely not.
In other words, I deliberately am having to play a very, very hard line.
Now, having played that line all week,
The obvious question will be, well, were you, Mr. Warren, you said on Wednesday and Thursday you prayed these things.
There was absolutely no truth.
Now, is this just a sudden decision, or were you misleading us?
How do you want him to answer that question?
See, I just want to give him an answer so that he doesn't get
Well, he's a great Paul, but, you know, Ziegler is just tougher and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and,
But until something final is agreed to, we do not announce it.
Period.
And now it's being announced because it's been finally agreed to.
Before then, it had not been agreed to.
It's not quite true, but almost.
It's true, except for about 24 hours, because he's going to cease saying the same thing today.
I'm just saying you and I know that it's true.
I'm not going to tell him when we agree to it.
It's better that he not know.
But on the other hand, as far as bombing the other day, you and I know we discussed that because that was the deal.
We told him that we'd stop 34, 36 hours and stop 34 hours later, right?
All right.
Let's see.
Do you think of any other?
Why is he written, hasn't it?
I don't think so.
Well, I don't believe that, but nevertheless, let's see.
No, he'll knock that down.
He always, he told him, the singer, he'll always knock that down.
Sure, sure.
The point is that with you there,
I'm just trying to get him postured in the right position, Henry.
I think he did something very seriously in talking about this.
Do you have any questions?
Obviously, nothing like that.
that we wanted to stay off of is, when was this agreed to?
How long has it been under discussion?
And they'll ask the key question, is this a result of the United States stopping the bombing because of, in other words, quick sidekick in?
You know, that's the real, that's going to be the essence of their trust.
Now, how do you want to get that postured?
We don't want the crow.
I understand that.
But we will just take the heat.
We always have to take it anyway.
Because most people have to realize that if this kind of certain intuitive reaction comes from a hoax, as close as a thrush, it's going to come from others as well.
But it hasn't bothered me.
How it all comes out is what bothers.
But I just think we should know that that's the way it's going to be.
Probably the way the ball is going to bounce.
Yes, this has been a discussion for a week.
All right.
Bye.
between the two sides.
We must have in mind that insofar as the immediate domestic impact
because the worst of both worlds would probably be that the bottom was all a bad mistake and that we just finally had to throw in the sponge and agree to go back to talk, which we should never have put Bill in the first sentence.
They forget so quickly your briefing where you pointed out that you'd reached an impasse.
Because that was the
Remember, that was the whole point of the reason.
I said, good.
It doesn't matter.
One fault, poor God, I hope it's not around Cambridge at the moment, except for Moynihan.
God, they must be just riding the hell out of him.
I mean, the Harvard crowd.
It's the last flip of the Montgomery Knights.
That's what it is.
They couldn't swallow the election.
And this is just something.
And so now they're just enraged.
This gives them a chance to pop off again.
But it's going to work out.
We just fought it.
We'll stop the bombing, provided you come back and talk.
I'll have you answer that.
It's not true.
I can't see it correctly.
You think it's going to be a surprise to him?
Good.
Isn't that great?
I hope you didn't call him off of it.
They might have to change their cover to have their own thing.
So that we would be able to stop it in a latter way.
Yeah.
There's a point that, what would you call it?
It might be helpful, frankly, as far as I can give it.
All right, let me, you've got your pencil, let me give you the names.
Reagan, Goldwater, Stennis, Averitt, Ford, Albert.
If you can get that bunch, that's good.
And then make the call to Mansfield.
When will you do that?
I think tonight.
Don't tell him about what's going to happen.
You mean you tell him about the announcement?
Yeah, I guess you can.
No.
None of these others that I mentioned will say anything either.
No.
No.
Let me see.
If you call these others, though, I think I'd call them tomorrow.
The main thing with the others, Henry, is not tonight, but tomorrow.
But I think you might get 12 hours of us two.
I think it's just us.
Very.
Oh, Rockefeller tomorrow, Reagan tomorrow, Goldwater tomorrow, Ford tomorrow, Albert tomorrow, Avery tomorrow.
Okay?
That's what I have in mind.
And if you can do that, and incidentally, do you think you ought to be informed?
Well, let your guy do it.
Well, he doesn't even know what night is it.
No, I just tell him the first thing in the morning.
That's right, that's right.
Why have that dragon around up at his place?
Well, it's just not going to happen.
He should know a couple hours in advance.
And then they can...
It's not a bad idea.
Now let's talk in terms of Hawks.
So what about the likes of, like a responsible guy, like a Wilson?
Now, I'm afraid you could get into the Wilsons and the Smiths and the rest of the winners if you were trying to pump the line.
Or do you think so?
Think of any others of that?
Think of any other.
You see what I'm getting at?
And also.
Don't do it then.
Wilson, Wilson would be totally reliable.
I trust.
And you might just say, and just putting it, the two of them is enough, and then they can spread it to the others.
Well, the Times isn't going to break this because they editorialized Henry.
They would not have written the story if they didn't.
You can't do it through the Times, of course.
You take a Tom Wicker, some of those, they don't want him to succeed.
They want them to go down because they're passionate to point the tube up and make their
They're blind hatred of me.
That's what they don't want me to succeed, you see.
And so you see, for that reason, it's a terrible thing that the bastards want to cook negotiations.
You see, they don't care about the bombing and the rest.
They just want us to be embarrassed.
The decent ones, I agree.
Oh, Schefter's, he's a right, he's a decent man.
Not to have euphoria.
I think in terms of the calls, that's about it.
The only thing I would do, too, I would call, no matter if you go to Otis Chandler and tell him the Los Angeles Times or you ought to be ashamed.
What do you think?
Well, I would go that far.
I would say that Otis...
That, you know, sometimes before you run ahead of trial, maybe you ought to think a little bit.
We're trying to restore the same goal.
Huh?
Right.
And this main thing is, say, oh, don't you, because you owe us a lot.
Say, maybe we were wrong.
Why don't you try that one?
Okay.
Good, good.
All right, thank you.