Nixon & Kissinger on Vietnam War and Presidential Speech

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I went to see George Meany.

Yeah.

Did you see him?

Yeah.

I told him to test if he could speak.

We'll make a statement of support.

He's one that understands why you can't set a deadline.

Oh.

He said he'd never.

I said to him, there's other people who would want that, too.

Deadline.

He said we'd never forgive him.

He said, you know, the best we could have done is to do it.

He called the doctor and said, did you tell him about the $100?

Yeah.

How many police was that?

Three.

The doctor said they'd better make an effort to get him as long as he's better than that.

He doesn't care what it is, as long as you know what you're doing.

I told him I didn't give him the figure, but he knows I don't know.

No, no.

But he'll have that.

He'll have it.

He said, he said he was completely with you.

He said, for whatever it was good, actually he called me.

He called me another time for the interview.

He said he talked to a girl, Bridget, and the only two people left there was the man who came out naked.

That's what I heard.

Yeah.

I don't know about that.

It may be that he's not, he's getting stuck in the snap, and he's pushing it one way and not the other way.

Well, of course, he's thinking through his own possibilities.

I don't know.

It might be that he's got less chance than I do.

Yeah, that makes sense.

I was just wondering if that's true, I think.

He never scored, whether it's three minutes or not.

He said, I am the goal scorer today.

He's right.

Whenever he says, I am the goal scorer today, through the fact that he's a great man, he says, maybe he'll lose some of his players, but he's not.

He's a great man.

He's got one thing missing.

He's got everything else.

Except something final.

He couldn't have watched it here alone.

And this guy here.

If he had to go through this, he would have 20 bloods in his eyes.

He'd fall.

And I think he's going out of their minds.

He is.

He's a patriot.

He's really the wildest man.

But he's the next.

I don't care how he fights the clutch.

I would beg you to tell me when you hear the speech.

When he talked with Ray Gaines, he was totally behind us.

What are the changes?

I've got to finish this up.

There were no Americans on page two.

I checked.

There were no Americans that died in combat.

I'm glad to see that.

At the end of the search, you were killed in the movie theater.

I said, what do you mean?

I said, the city interior.

Do you think it's any question about taking the whole stuff out?

No, it's such a strong line.

On page three, one of them, you can hear backgrounders should say, now look, we've made a thorough check here.

The only two American deaths were two that were killed in a movie theater.

Are they going to find it?

Well, there was no combat going on.

No, there was no war.

No war.

No, that's right.

And Americans were doing no combat.

Jim was still in charge.

Oh, yeah.

Jim was in charge.

Go ahead.

31,000.

June 69.

Yeah.

Announced the withdrawal from 20th of September.

It was 40,000.

Well, all right.

September 14th.

That will come out each.

All right.

December 15th.

That's correct.

150,000.

I think it's from the U.S.A.

I'm sorry?

I don't know.

I think it's a total number of Americans who were drawn from South Vietnam.

Yeah, but if you say from Southeast Asia, what you should say is South Vietnam.

Right.

Who were drawn more from North Korea and South Korea.

And then we're going to say, as you can see on the chart, that people bring it over.

The chart says that we have to go back to a child.

If you go back to it, they can look at it.

Yeah.

You can show them.

You can tell them.

At that point, they show the chart number two.

That round-ballon speech chart number two is shown.

The first time, they show the chart number one and two.

Is this correct?

Marguerite, she was a Marguerite, and she was negotiating pawns.

You know, she had a type of it, and it was peons.

It's negotiating pawns.

You know, Larry, the one we're talking about, he's such...

Irish terms about, you know, he throws in the sponge even before you can go in there, you know.

But he does that all the time.

The way he is, he's always saying, crying, well, the land is copper, I can't say.

No matter what he does, you know, in the woods, you can say, all right, let's do that in the woods.

I'm just wanting to explain what, I'm just wanting you all to see the guy who, who tells us all the time, he doesn't say how he does it.

He doesn't say how he does it.

I think you, Henry, the difficulty with our position is that they know that there will come a time when there ain't nothing more to negotiate.

When you're down in January of next year, when the husband's associate is on it, I'm telling Chris that something's up with the deadline.

That's why, that's why the deadline guy, unless there are, except for those guys, the business that I find so imposing is that years ago, these guys were making a bad design.

Two years ago, if you were against negotiations, you were all, now if you're for negotiations, you're all.

I don't know, I guess I'm just saying, I'm afraid, you know, this is a black market, you can't keep them over there, you can't show them money.

I have to say, it's offensive.

Look, they're whining about everything.

He may be discouraged, but he's had to vote for the Congress.

Rajah has not, has no, but has filed them, uh, they're not even talking about, uh, cities.

And, uh, Rajah said it's not to say I was not, uh, trying to be right about that.

And Laird said he was out trying to make the sale, and it's a goddamn tough sale to make.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

The real problem is that they have money.

There's a vacuum in their lives.

But that's why they must have been enlightened, Mr. President.

They didn't.

It had nothing to do with me.

You both did, though.

They know that you will have done it again.

They've always done it.

All the intellectuals, most of the people should do it.

And what the hell are they going to say then?

And I was talking about the economy.

They've got to work for that to succeed, too.

They're not going to do it.

They're going to do it.

Or the blacks.

I mean, the blacks.

I was telling them, and then they explained it all along.

It's gone decent.

Take that news.

We announced today three American citizens murdered 40,000 people.

There were untold war crimes.

But at the end of this, you have to count on this flag over Saigon.

Every accident in this country is going to go wild.

And every fall, it's going to be a people's shutdown.

So the middle is going to get screwed.

I remember this.

You remember the recrimination in the first place in Germany after they lost the war?

They always won the war.

They lost the World War I.

They turned.

They turned on the whole of Boston.

Right.

They always did until they made a revolution and it was that and the back.

I mean, there was a revolution and it wasn't much of a...

But it wasn't the Russians, you know.

When the Russians got out of World War...

One, the Russians have fought valiantly, bravely, and yet, Henry, if it hadn't been for the Russian people turning on their war command, the communists by that ideology there, the communists played that into a bear victory, didn't they?

I mean the Russian people turned on their people because they lost.

I don't understand my intellectual history.

They don't mind too.

They don't like America.

They don't.

That's just great.

I wish they did.

They don't have to.

.

Closer, closer.

You don't hear that at the summit.

That's what it means at the summit.

It means something.

It means some kind of a break.

It means we, Jews, all sort of break.

You see, that's what I mean by freedom.

You go out there and around and you agree that that break is hell.

That's the idea that I hear.

greater and greater in all the forces of the Buckeyes and North Carolina.

And not that now, but any later than one or two more later, because if they catch one American soldier on patrol, after, and then after, after the briefing comes back, now the body country is going to end no later than the country I think they're going to lead after this.

And then we have to make it the magic that we throw it all out into the world.

You know, but, uh, then we can just keep continuing with what we've got to do.

And that's all proposed.

Well, I just thought that that would be the best thing.

And salt, salt for the world, and also salt for the world.

And, you know, it's all, you know, it's just great.

And I believe that ladder's deepening because it's a little bit of,

We couldn't have two to one thousand guys together on the camp ground.

But, what we could do, as soon as the party countries were over, it was possible to get an accidental war agreement with Geneva.

It was a two-day deadline, but it was a sort of head-to-head agreement.

So we went and we did this all the same time.

We'd come in and out sometimes, but the same time we paid.

The issue will be dominating the news from then until September.

Then you get re-elected in October.

So, when we arrive, we have another three hours.

Then we end.

By that time, though, we may even have to be in that whole session.

But even if we don't, there's a summit on the other side.

It will require six hours for a month.

It's impossible in my village, too.

You can't have anyone stand with a gun in front of you, and everyone who harassed you can stand there with a gun in their face.

Every time you're depressed and get out of the building, and they go to attack you, and the ones who fail to support you, they're the ones who attack you the most.

What do you want to do with that?

Well, one of the things is, oh, we're going to act.

The thing is, we're going to act cool.

I mean, generally, I'm going to be real cool.

I'm not going to play.

I'm not going to play any more.

I'm going to knock the gates off of it.

I guess losers are, in general.

Therefore, we created that board in order to keep an eye on the Arch-Control.

In fact, we turned it over to the left wing of the Arch-Control.

It existed by statute, but we had to somewhat increase power because we thought for Floyd.

So that you didn't have to fill the irresponsible proposals we thought for Floyd.

Now he's being only a conqueror.

Another text, what can I do for you?

I hope you need this.

I don't.

You make a statement.

The only left-winger that I have any confidence in is Reese.

She's a decent, honorable, bold establishment type.

She would not do anything wrong to be left with my mom.

Well, Dale Gunley is a goddamn good running winner.

He's been a hell of an asset.

He's shaking this whole cabinet up.

They're all running around trying to be a little bit better.

He does not understand that.

Well, it is so refreshing to hear it happen in that the cohort has praised the segment instead of promoting itself.

So many of these candidates are really healed with the touch, you see, of submitting themselves to a group of the under-seemingly popular groups.

I really have thought that

Well, the fact that they never called to say, you know, what you're going through, they don't even have to report you.

Well, then, you know, why doesn't one call you for a day to drop you down?

If somebody was calling you to say, I'm back, they don't even have to say that.

Well, remember, Atchison did report him every third.

You know, he doesn't know because he shouldn't, basically.

At this point, he can't report you to jail.

That's true, but Atchison still let us in on this sort of thing.

However, he did.

None of them did.

I don't want to kill your family.

None of the New York, none of the Republicans in New York have died.

There was no one.

We stood there.

We grew up.

We played.

I thought I should have a sense of well-being.

.

You know, I can assure you

.

The only consolation we have is that the people who put us into this are going to be destroyed.

They're going to be destroyed.

The liberals and radicals are going to be killed.

This is a basically not a good country.

I think it is.

You get a war.

We get a war.

But a war is without a sudden action.

Put a ring into some small piece of paper that you take.

All of our arguments have been soundly said.

But if we could get, if we could get that.

We have enough.

Yes.

Take a little ring.

We have enough.

It's all very, very simple.

Thank God it's simple on our side, and we'll do it very well, and I'm proud of you for it.

If you publicly had seen it, it would be extraordinary, and I'm thankful to you for that.

You'd think that if it was a little too much of a measure to go to be bad, you could have gotten up to a point where we had to have a no-man's-sake battle.

He had that mind spot about the Christian Democrats, but he said it was, you know, it's your mind, and I don't think that's true.

.

It was a disaster.

That's what I mean, the middle left.

The middle left drinks the communist education.

They're turning more to the right than to the left.

That's a very, uh... Do you have any little confidence in them on, uh, this is about all doings because... About our sugar?

No, I'm not sure they're on trade.

I think they've been such good friends, we don't have to do anything else.

We'll see what we can do.

Well, let me tell you about refuge, Eric.

For God's sake, sit down there.

You don't need today.

It's an additional burden on your mind.

At this stage, the best thing for the country is to have you confident.

You are anyway.

You have to read that.

He doesn't know what I'm talking about.

His job is to be easier than you.

You know the job you can't do.

I don't know.

All right.

I don't know if they kind of need you to stand up and speak to us, but I don't know if that's the fire or not.

I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't.

.

We're lying because I'm telling you.

We've got to keep a lid on it because of the evidence.

She will not be informed until 7 o'clock tonight.

We've got to do it as an excuse to do it.

Oh, no.

We've got to do it as an excuse to do it.

That is the only informant.

You cannot have a brain here.

So, until after, uh, until we do it.

So, I mean, I mean, I'm talking to you.

I'm talking to you.

You know, he might find something that he does from the outside, you know.

I don't see how he could have threatened himself, you know.

He likes his job.

But, you know, you see how he says it.

We haven't had a loading cabinet since we came to Kentucky.

I know that John's cabinet was okay, of course, because we should have taken him for sure.

But Gus and Mackinac and then next to him was the third one.

Wyatt.

I and R had...

And Dulles.

And after that, he had no more.

He had no real problems, but we know that his secretary has believed him.

You know, he was an acrobat.

He was a terrible disaster.

And then Tom Case was a disaster.

None of them are ready for Icon.

They were really subtle.

Except for Dulles.

I don't think it was great credit, you know, although it was a nice powering voice.

Man, it was cool to work with.

But I didn't think it was cool at all to be invited for a 20-something free movie.

It was a good pass, and it was great that the gallery never made a move, no matter what it was that was there.

So I think it was great that they invited me to that, and I'm glad I did it.

and came out.

And these guys now would say,

It may not come out.

It doesn't come out, Mr. President.

It doesn't come out.

It's 45 years from now.

If you go down, having made history, then we know the American people couldn't carry it.

But if you try to do it,

But now we have .

We have .

So I understand what we're up against.

I understand what we're up against.

This will

It would be more hopeful.

Go beyond that.

We have the anti-contact tenders.

They're going to ask what next.

Let's say that, mind you, if we throw that about three months from now, two months from now, we've got that.

Then if you wanted to shoot me, the period would be right.

Middle children are bad.

Being them, we could just confuse them by having some accident on ours control.

That was their control.

About the accidental wound, we can pick that up.

Next week, if you want.

But let's pick it up next week, and I can see if we want to drive it.

If they have it, they'll be better.

Well, Mr. President, if they want this family to have only what the body has now on the soul, the soul mind, it's a question of time.

If they want an agreement, they ought to agree to it.

Maybe we just don't have to agree to it privately.

I just think it's common.

So, that's going to be too much.

I'll try not to.

Yeah, I'll try to be clear.

I'll try to be clear.

We better get out of the way, please.

If you have any other change, fine.

I hope this does it.

But understand, you have something to open on this date of call.

I understand.

Nixon & Kissinger on Vietnam War and Presidential Speech

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on April 7, 1971

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