Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 238-018
Date: Saturday, December 30, 1972 at 12:45 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Kissinger, Henry A.
Recording device: Camp David Hard Wire
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/238-018

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:00] Well, how's the weather now?
[0:15] Good.
[0:15] Oh, I know.
[0:15] It's all right.
[0:29] There was a group of 60 in there that filled up.
[0:46] Good.
[0:50] Sitting is all good.
[0:55] It's all right.
[1:09] No, that's very foolish, very foolish.
[1:19] Because basically, you give a report on what?
[1:21] The only point that people are going to be interested in is what are the prospects.
[1:25] And anything we say there can have no help on the negotiation and could hurt.
[1:36] After what?
[1:37] Oh, after you negotiate.
[1:38] Oh, that's fine.
[1:51] Well, I agree, but the point is that I thought of that too, you know, something before the inauguration, but the point is that we can't do that without, because
[2:23] But you see, if we get into that, we've got to build up an enormous anticipation of a report.
[2:45] And you may find you've got a delay of a week or something and so forth.
[2:47] And I don't want to have any indication.
[2:48] You see, at an appropriate time, you see that if Coney is a zigger, virtually every conference he has, well, now he's missed the time.
[2:51] Dr. Kissinger's just come back from Paris.
[2:53] He'll be back on the 12th or the 14th.
[2:54] or whatever it is, or the 9th, and they'll say, oh, what's the report?
[3:09] You see what I mean?
[3:10] Quite a concern.
[3:13] But I understand I've got to make a report, but I've got to make it at a time that we've got the damn thing sewed up in our own minds.
[3:17] See, I don't think that we should give this idea of giving a...
[3:26] We were, of course, under great pressure.
[3:37] Well, hell, we were blown to the other side.
[3:38] And we have to do it.
[3:39] But I think, you know, Scott, for us, brought me to get out in the act.
[3:41] But I think that should just play up.
[4:02] Some of them understand it.
[4:13] That's good.
[4:26] Albert was good, too.
[4:27] Good.
[4:28] What did I say?
[4:28] Yeah, I told him to call you.
[4:34] Good, I want Ed Wilson, Dick Wilson.
[4:52] What did Smith say?
[4:52] Yeah.
[4:52] Yeah, December 18th.
[5:02] Right.
[5:03] Oh, I heard about it.
[5:03] I heard about it, yes.
[5:15] 1,500 children are made in the countries a little softer than the Peloponnesians.
[5:26] You see that?
[5:35] Good for him.
[5:35] Well, he feels pretty good then, doesn't he?
[5:40] Good, good.
[5:42] That's good.
[5:43] That's good.
[5:46] the people that stick with us we and i would if i were to i wouldn't uh charge funding or any of those calls but now now they've all had it you see because that's they exposed them always
[6:23] Good.
[6:24] Well, any others that you think of that stand up and you let her know, okay.
[6:54] Well, we wanted to, right?
[6:58] Well, even last night, she told me Mansfield was all right, too.
[7:09] The line of the Fulbrights and the Doves will be there to yank somebody up.
[7:20] explain as why did we bomb and all that, in other words, and so forth.
[7:28] And we must.
[7:29] And we should refuse.
[7:29] The other thing, too, is for me to go on and explain.
[7:31] I have nothing to explain.
[7:49] What we have to aim at now is to have this thing succeed, and everything must be played to that.
[8:01] So your meeting is next week.
[8:01] Oh, what do we do with regard to letting our funeral—I hope not too much.
[8:24] We're going to have to do.
[8:28] That's why I think they're chucking it out and letting him.
[8:33] In effect, getting a veto is finished now.
[8:35] We just finished the deal and presented it to him as a fait accompli.
[8:38] No more fooling around.
[8:47] Well, provided that he doesn't get any idea we're asking for his support or for his agreement, it's just about that.
[8:55] He's got to just understand that we're going to go forward, and that's that.
[9:07] Because you see, as long as he can milk anything out of us, he will, but there's no more to milk.
[9:23] Yeah.
[9:24] Which, in the case of Elizabeth,
[9:33] Started the bombing.
[9:57] Yeah.
[9:57] Well, he's kind of broken his pick on this one, hasn't he?
[10:00] Well, he just doesn't have the stuff, the character to stand up.
[10:02] You know, he's got a wife.
[10:05] No way, no way.
[10:13] He's got to be just informed.
[10:18] I would warn him of too goddamn much.
[10:21] He really is, in all these things, Henry has never contributed anything except, well, meeting the problems on May.
[10:31] Well, he says it was a mistake that started, I don't know.
[10:42] Which we all know.
[10:44] In other words, beating the op.
[10:53] Beating the op just to death.
[10:54] Right.
[10:54] Right.
[10:54] And he said he got more wires than he'd ever received and most of them positive.
[11:13] Well, it's because we sit here and read the Washington Papers, you see, and they give a different view of that than the country.
[11:34] I hope you will follow through on taking a little hike off Lord's Channel.
[11:36] I'd do that.
[11:36] Okay, Henry, fine.
[11:37] Enjoy the day.
[11:37] Bye.
[11:37] Bye.
[11:37] Yeah, that was...
[11:44] He's always cautious.
[11:50] He gets glad to be off the hook, but it's good that Scott is playing the line.
[12:05] Scott will save him.
[12:11] That's good.
[12:11] Were you able to get a bear?
[12:12] Yeah, okay.
[12:12] That's all right.
[12:12] He knows.
[12:12] That's all right.
[12:14] with anybody else.
[12:33] Dakin, we're handling him from here.
[12:34] We've got to inform him or he'd feel hurt.
[12:35] So, I think we've covered the patient basically.
[12:39] Okay, bye Henry.
[12:39] Bye.
[12:39] Oh, one other one that you might just call is Chancellor.
[12:41] Right.
[12:41] I don't know if he's feeling good, but at times he has been.
[12:43] You could just, you know,
[12:44] Because he'll get it.
[12:50] Here's the problem, you see.
[12:54] Some of the Washington reporters will understand this, but then in New York, by the time the Cronkites and the Brinkleys get out, they just tear hell out of them.
[13:03] So you just might...
[13:04] Right, right, right.
[13:04] I would not call the fellow like Cronkite or Sarah.
[13:05] They're not worth it.
[13:08] Okay, fine.