Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 253 › Conversation 253-032
Nixon & Kissinger on David K. E. Bruce and Vietnam War
Wednesday, May 26, 1971 · 6:46 PM–6:57 PM ET · Old Executive Office Building · 7 min
AI Summary
President Nixon and Henry Kissinger met to discuss diplomatic personnel, legislative strategy, and the administration's broader foreign policy messaging. Nixon praised the integrity of Ambassador David K. E. Bruce, specifically highlighting him as the ideal candidate for potential future negotiations regarding the People's Republic of China. Additionally, the two discussed the administration's recent victory in defeating the Harold E. Hughes pay amendment in the Senate and Nixon's desire to shift the public narrative away from Vietnam to focus on the future of U.S. relations with the USSR, China, and the domestic economy.
- David K. E. Bruce
- Vietnam War
- Foreign Policy
- Senate
- People's Republic of China
- Harold E. Hughes Amendment
Audio
Transcript (AI-generated)
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Yeah, you were going out to dinner, I thought.
Yeah, yeah.
Or was that just an excuse?
You do have a date, though.
I knew that.
Oh, great, great.
You would have lots of fun at Alice's tonight, apparently.
Alice, apparently, and Joelle's.
Boy, they were really subtle.
They were a great crowd.
You know, and incidentally, I want to tell you that I was just delighted with Bruce.
God damn.
When I heard him sit there and say, well, you know, usually a guy would suck along and say, I'd like to be a consultant.
I remember like a lot he did and all the rest.
He said, no.
He said, you should resign.
He said, I'll be leaving for a while.
They went on to say, I'll support you, Mr. President.
And I'm like, God damn, I thought, what a hell of a guy.
And that's a deadline.
If we get a chance, Henry, to send anybody to China, he goes.
He goes.
He's the best man.
Now, look, Murphy could be terrible.
Lodge would be worse.
Lodge would be impossible.
But who the hell else do we have in the Congress?
And if he wants to go, I think the Chinese would take him.
Would you please, how was your lunch with him?
Was it, was he?
I hope that we've done the right thing.
He lived, you know, and I hope, hope.
Yeah.
All right.
All right.
I mean, he did, but I didn't see him.
Nothing.
I just brought him back to him to look up.
What a guy he is compared to the clowns.
You know, there aren't many we've got that are like this.
Maybe Rush.
Who else?
Oh, no, no, no, no.
What I meant is Rush got his character, but not his wisdom.
Rush, 40 years, would be like Bruce, but he's got a lot of time to go.
But I don't want him to stay over there and sit.
My God, I really feel that you ought to go to his idea of having me at every meeting.
I think you ought to skip the meeting now, don't you?
Take care of yourself.
Take care of yourself.
Oh, on the Canadian thing, right?
This is after our Soviet invasion.
They're going to respond.
They may not fight on Earth with Soviet men, but they might.
It's Bruce.
And I'd make a cold turkey with him.
All right.
So it's fine, because it's the best way.
And then what I think, I think we might let Bruce go anyway.
You know, what the hell.
In between.
It keeps things going and it doesn't leave, it doesn't leave the panorama.
So when you talk to them, if you do talk to them, I would say, all right, Ambassador Bruce will come, he's resigning, we're going to send him at a certain time, because that keeps them going.
And then he will come to make public arrangements for the presidency.
And the, you think the meeting that...
I suppose this guy's gone over to Muskie now, probably your friend, Lee.
Oh.
Yeah, I know him.
Yeah.
Oh, Harvard Law?
I know him.
Yeah, yeah, he's a very able fellow.
I know him in the mind, he was a matter of fact.
Yeah.
Yeah.
A few years ago, one of the law enforcement had me up there, and he was a young professor in Harvard Law.
Very brilliant fellow.
Henry, did you know we beat the Hughes Amendment today?
Do you know what the Hughes Amendment is?
Well, it's the one, you know, they beat the Nelson Amendment yesterday.
Today, the Hughes Amendment provides a $2,700,000 pay increase, and it brings the draft.
We all thought we were going to lose in the Senate voters now, 47 to 32.
Now, according to Colson, I said, what's the reason for this, Chuck?
He said, well, he said, first, you're strong on this issue on the NATO thing.
And second, when you hit them with the Soviet thing, he said, this made it extremely difficult for these people.
They're scared to death that you might do something else.
I don't know what it is.
You know, I'm giving my best.
He's an old friend.
He's never supported me, but I like him and respect him.
But you tell him, you just tell him what I said that I remember.
It was 20 years ago.
Let me say it.
He'll remember that Mrs. Myers' house, the, you know, Eugene Myers, and I'm proud of you.
Their house was a young house.
47 years there.
and I recall about it.
Vietnam is spinning.
You tell him that that was the theme, and I want you to read.
I made a rather long rambling talk with my characters yesterday, but I covered all this thing, and I said, look, Vietnam is done.
I said, that issue is in one way.
You can argue about when, but it's over.
The main thing is what's going to happen to Russia, what's going to happen to China, what's going to happen to the East, and what's going to happen to America.
economy, what's going to happen to the spirit of this country.
This is a very important line for us now to take.
Let them yak around about Vietnam.
Let us talk about the future.
I agree.
Besides us with Giles, we're thinking about the future and everyone's thinking about the present and the past.
He saw that point, didn't he?
Because we're sure.
We're certain about this.
We're not sure about the others.
That's true.
That guy, I wish you would see.
See Bill White, because Johnson asked me if he would, and I said, of course you should.
He does support us, you know, and the poor guy is, they kick him around, and he's with us all the time.
Can't sometimes.
The next couple of days, we meet tomorrow with Robert.
Now I want to see a paper on that before we meet.
I want to get through that.
Okay.
NARA Description
On May 26, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 6:46 pm and 6:57 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 253-032 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 253-32
Date: May 26, 1971
Time: Unknown between 6:46 pm and 6:57 pm
Location: Executive Office Building
The President talked with Henry A. Kissinger
Kissinger’s schedule
-Dinner
-Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Joseph W. Alsop
President’s call to J. Edgar Hoover
President’s meeting with Dr. David K. E. Bruce
-Henry Cabot Lodge
-Possible future position
-[Robert D.?] Murphy
-Lodge
-Kissinger’s meeting with Bruce
-[David] Kenneth Rush
-Bruce’s role in Paris negotiations
Canada
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics [USSR]
Bruce
-Possible action
-Forthcoming announcement
A meeting
-Edmund S. Muskie
-William A. K. (“Tony”) Lake
-Harvard Law School person
-President’s previous visit
-Lon Ford [?]
Harold E. Hughes Pay Amendment
-Congressional vote
-Gaylord Nelson Amendment vote
-Content
-Vote total in Senate
-Charles W. Colson’s analysis
-North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO]
An unknown man
-President’s meeting as a Congressman at Eugene, II and Agnes E. Meyer’s house
Foreign policy
-Vietnam
-President’s statement to editors, May 25, 1971
-People’s Republic of China [PRC]
-USSR
-Middle East
-American spirit
-Economy
-Vietnam
Future
-Lawton M. Chiles, Jr. [?] and Robert P. Griffin [?]
-An unknown man
-Administration position
William S. (“Bill”) White
-President’s forthcoming meeting
-Roger E. Johnson [?]
-Position on President’s policies
President’s and Kissinger’s Meeting with William P. Rogers
-A paperAlso recorded on May 26, 1971
- 003-142 6:42 PM · 4 min — President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman talked on the telephone from 6:42 pm to 6:46 pm.
- 253-031 6:42 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 6:42 pm to 6:46 pm.
- 003-143 6:46 PM · 1 min — Alexander P. Butterfield, White House operator, and Toni Sidley talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 6:46 pm and 6:50 pm.
- 003-144 6:50 PM · 5 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 6:50 pm and 6:58 pm.
- 253-033 6:50 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 6:50 pm and 6:58 pm.
- 253-034 6:50 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 6:50 pm and 6:58 pm.
- 003-145 6:58 PM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover talked on the telephone from 6:58 pm to 7:01 pm.
- 253-035 6:58 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 6:58 pm to 7:01 pm.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 253-032, May 26, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/253-032 (accessed October 12, 2026).