Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 251 › Conversation 251-021

Nixon & Haig on Vietnam War and POWs

Thursday, April 29, 1971 · 9:31 AM–9:48 AM ET · Old Executive Office Building · 7 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Haig, Alexander M., Jr.; [Unknown person(s)]Conversation251-021 on Tape 251 (tape position 02:14:40–02:21:35)StartThursday, April 29, 1971 at 9:31 AMEndThursday, April 29, 1971 at 9:48 AMRecording deviceOld Executive Office BuildingSourceNixon Library record for 251-021 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon met with General Alexander Haig and an unidentified staffer to review a wide range of foreign policy and administrative matters, including the status of POW statements and military operations in Vietnam. The discussion addressed the diplomatic complexities of potential aid to Indian refugees from Pakistan, the desire to maintain a flexible policy regarding Middle East peace prospects in the Suez region, and concerns over media speculation regarding U.S.-China relations. Nixon requested updated, verifiable casualty figures for North and South Vietnam to better inform his upcoming public messaging.

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Transcript (AI-generated)

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Hey there.
Al, do you have a, did the POW statement go out for, did he get one off yet today?
Do you have that now, or have you sent it, or where is it?
Fine, let me go over a couple of other things.
With regard to this, as you all probably think, that's a South Vietnamese operation, is it not?
Not as far as, as far as, as far as any attitude, any situation with regard to secrecy and so forth.
That is not with regard to what our people are doing or their usual people or whatever.
So, mainly, this is mainly a South Vietnamese action operation.
It's going, you know.
About the secrecy of it, I mean, it's very...
The fact point is, you can't be really saving for others.
Nothing to report.
What is it?
I don't know.
They're not making anything else.
They're nothing to cover up for.
Right?
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
Okay.
There's a situation with regard to the one thing in here with regard to...
Aid to India.
Somebody said we're contemplating aid to India to help refugees from Pakistan.
I'm sure as hell hope we're not.
What was it?
We had a request.
Refugees?
Do we do that through the West Pakistan government?
How do we do it?
So we will help.
What about a request from India?
Have we had one?
Well, I suppose we can say on that that our attitudes toward refugees were always separate from any other activity.
What about the idea that the one question that somebody may raise is that we...
whether or not the United States is helping to end the fighting in Pakistan as are the Russians.
I don't know.
There's not much fighting going on now.
It's not working.
It's not done.
What are they doing, you know?
It's not the battle.
And then they decided somehow, haven't they?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
In the briefing book, I noticed an answer with regard to the committee on which, at considerable length, says that we welcome a breakthrough on Suez.
Is that the statement, or is the muscle why?
The feeling on that is that I don't want to put the whole trust on Suez.
It might be prior to the time Rogers gets there.
He just ought to do whatever he wants to do.
In other words, is this what the state wants us to say, what Rogers wants us to say?
See, in fact, the basic draft of this is we would walk on the break road to Sue Ann's.
It doesn't look like we could get one on the general.
Well, we all know that's true.
But do we want to say that so that when he gets there, that's not all they'll talk about is Sue Ann?
But I'm sure that Suez is part of it, but we're not going to speculate.
Secretary Schultz is not going to be there.
We're not trying to dictate anything.
We're just trying to get Suez as part of it.
I think it's better to keep it pretty open, though, because it's a miserable situation anyway.
Suez?
So that's different too, but either.
And in fact, the whole, there isn't,
There's no indication of any movement on either side, either on any point.
I think the problem is that Israelis just aren't, they don't want to make any offers.
Their situation out there just isn't what it is.
Now, is there anything else new?
I've just checked the papers.
What did you say?
I'm not going to mention it, but I just wanted to use it all for a very short time.
He still seems to be fairly optimistic.
I'm glad.
It's not hysterical or anything like that.
I'm going to take a very disavowable China thing.
I'm going to take a very...
I'm trying to cool everything.
We've got everybody talking about this.
What are we going to do?
When they're talking about, well, we're going to do this, it looks obvious.
Let me ask.
The New York Times said today that some fellow by the name of Braves made a statement after a long day of consultation.
You know what I'm talking about.
The statement Braves made this morning.
He approved.
I'm going to slap everybody on the wrist for speculating.
And that scared me.
There's something else to it a little bit.
And of course, the goddamn access to the other parts of the bomb.
I don't think of anything else to get over to get out back to the prisoners.
And that's about the only other thing I'll probably need to know is what I already have.
But one other thing, if you could get that just sometime in the morning here, every evening, it's either my fingers are still right with regard to the...
the figures with regard to the number of people that, uh, the number of people that they've killed in North Vietnam or so, I think it's around that many, the number of people that they've killed in the South, and, uh, in the Hamptown area, I think that, uh, we need a little bit more specific numbers.
Dig around a little, get me a little stuff like that.
Would you do that?
I'll use solid figures.
Okay.
All right.

NARA Description

On April 29, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Alexander M. Haig, Jr., and unknown person(s) met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 9:31 am and 9:48 am. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 251-021 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 251-21

Date: April 29, 1971

Time: Unknown between 9:31 am and 9:48 am
Location: Executive Office Building

The President talked with General Alexander M. Haig, Jr.

     Prisoners of War [POW] statement

     Vietnam
          -Ashau Valley operations
               -South Vietnamese
               -Secrecy

     Aid to India
          -Pakistani refugees
          -Possible US assistance
          -West Pakistan government
          -Request from India

     Pakistan fighting
          -Possible US mediation
          -Union of Soviet Socialist Republics [USSR]
          -Developments

     Middle East
         -Statement in President’s briefing book
         -Suez
               -State Department
         -William P. Rogers
               -Visit to Suez
         -State Department
         -Rogers
         -US role
               -Possible breakthrough
         -Suez
         -President’s policies
         -Suez
         -Peace prospects
         -Israel

An unknown person entered at an unknown time after 9:31 am

     News summaries

     Vietnam
          -Casualties
          -Unknown man’s views on negotiations

     People’s Republic of China [PRC] initiative
          -President’s policy
          -New York Times story, April 29, 1971
                -State Department
                      -Press statement by Charles W. Bray, III
          -President’s policy

     POWs
     Vietnam
          -Casualties
               -Number killed in North Vietnam
               -Number killed in South Vietnam

The unknown person left at an unknown time before 9:48 am

Also recorded on April 29, 1971

  • 042-077 9:29 AM · 16 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Rose Mary Woods talked on the telephone from 9:29 am to 9:31 am.
  • 251-019 9:29 AM · 19 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Rose Mary Woods met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 9:29 am to 9:31 am.
  • 251-020 9:31 AM · 9 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 9:31 am and 9:48 am.
  • 251-022 9:48 AM · 10 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 9:48 am to 9:50 am.
  • 251-023 9:50 AM · 25 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Alexander M. Haig, Jr. met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 9:50 am and 10:24 am.
  • 251-024 9:50 AM · 5 min — President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 9:50 am and 10:24 am.
  • 251-025 9:50 AM · 41 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Alexander M. Haig, Jr. met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 9:50 am and 10:24 am.
  • 251-026 9:50 AM · 4 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 9:50 am and 10:24 am.

All 64 conversations from April 29, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 251-021, April 29, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/251-021 (accessed October 3, 2026).