Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 258 › Conversation 258-010

Nixon, Mitchell & Kissinger on Pentagon Papers and Vietnam negotiations

Monday, June 14, 1971 · 7:19 PM–7:37 PM ET · Old Executive Office Building · 12 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Mitchell, John N.; Kissinger, Henry A.Conversation258-010 on Tape 258 (tape position 00:11:28–00:23:17)StartMonday, June 14, 1971 at 7:19 PMEndMonday, June 14, 1971 at 7:37 PMRecording deviceOld Executive Office BuildingSourceNixon Library record for 258-010 ↗ · National Archives Catalog, NAID 417183885 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon, John Mitchell, and Henry Kissinger met to discuss the administration's response to the unauthorized publication of the Pentagon Papers and its potential impact on ongoing peace negotiations. The participants emphasized the need to defend government integrity against the leak while strategizing how to prevent political rhetoric from undermining the North Vietnamese incentive to negotiate. Additionally, Kissinger briefed the President on his upcoming Asia trip, highlighting the diplomatic importance of the China initiative and the necessity of maintaining operational secrecy during his travels.

Audio

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NARA Description

On June 14, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, John N. Mitchell, and Henry A. Kissinger met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 7:19 pm and 7:37 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 258-010 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 258-10

Date: June 14, 1971
Time: Unknown between 7:19 pm and 7:37 pm
Location: Executive Office Building

The President talked with John N. Mitchell

[Conversation No. 258-10A]

[See Conversation No. 5-70]

Henry A. Kissinger entered at an unknown time after 7:19 pm and talked with Mitchell

[End of telephone conversation]

     Mitchell

     Pentagon Papers
          -Prosecution of the New York Times
               -Criticism of President’s action
               -Robert A. Taft, Jr.
          -Effect on negotiations
               -Meeting of the President and Congressional leaders
                     -Attitudes
                           -Gerald R. Ford
                           -Leslie C. Arends
               -Incentive to Hanoi
               -Upcoming projects
               -North Vietnamese incentives
               -South Vietnamese elections

******************************************************************************

[Previous National Security (B) withdrawal reviewed under MDR guidelines case number
LPRN-T-MDR-2014-016. Segment declassified on 01/12/2018. Archivist :DR]
[National Security]
[258-010-w001]
[Duration: 20s]

    Pentagon Papers
         -Effect on negotiations
              -People’s Republic of China [PRC]
                    -Practice flights
                          -Create radar patterns
Show the rest of the log (50 more lines)
******************************************************************************

    US-Soviet relations
        -William P. Rogers
        -General Alexander M. Haig, Jr.
              -Soviet rhetoric
                     -Party elections
                     -Substance
                           -Theory versus practice
                     -Aleksei N. Kosygin line
                     -Nikolai V. Podgorny and Leonid I. Brezhnev line

    Vietnam negotiations
         -Meeting between the President, Kissinger, and Ellsworth F. Bunker

    Kissinger’s Asia trip
         -Previous meeting with Lakshmi Kant Jha
               -Kissinger’s comments
         -Press coverage
               -Effect
         -Rogers’ role
               -Delhi, India
               -Pakistan
               -Other stops
                     -Saigon
                          -General Nguyen Van Thieu
                     -Bangkok
                     -Cambodia
                    -Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan
         -Democratic response
         -Relation to Soviet relations
         -Role of PRC “issue”
         -[David] Kenneth Rush
         -Role of “Soviet” issue compared with Vietnam

          -Clearance of communique versions
               -President’s schedule
               -Kissinger’s schedule
          -Lyndon B. Johnson
          -Chinese
               -Price for normalization of relations
          -Bureaucratic problems
               -Communication with Thieu
               -State Department compared with the White House
               -India-Pakistan; Laos, Cambodia

     Meeting between the President, Bunker, and Kissinger

Kissinger left at an unknown time before 7:37 pm

Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

Download transcript (.txt) · JSON data

Click a timestamp to play from that point; the page address then links to that moment (e.g. #t=125).

So, what are your advice on that, uh, times that, uh, you would, you would like to do it?
Or, I don't know, has the government ever done this to a paper before?
Do you know about it?
Do you know about it?
Do you know about it?
Well, look, look, as far as the Chinese are concerned, hell, they're our enemies.
I think we can do it in any way.
Henry, come on up to this here.
Well, Roscoe calls on behalf of John.
And he said that it is Johnson's strong view that this is an attack on the whole integrity of government, that this whole file cabinet can be stolen and then made available to the press.
You can't have order of the government anymore.
And he said if the president defends the integrity of any action we take, he goes back to the president.
Yes.
Yes, I agree.
I'm a strong man.
Well, anyway, I tell you, a lot of people will say this is trying to suppress the press and the rest, but so be it.
We're going to fight it.
As a matter of fact, I even come to the opinion that Bob Tannis, when I said, well, you wouldn't take the remarks of the person, maybe they changed what he was saying, I said, no, we can't take any comments.
Anybody that votes for a date destroys the negotiations.
No.
There's a chance for negotiations.
I don't see how that's a good thing.
You want to destroy it?
Take on responsibility.
These bastards are really...
The one thing I would suggest, Mr. President, though, is some of the things I've heard you say could be twisted as saying that once you give up on negotiations, you might give them up.
I guess I would, if any of the senators or congressmen say it,
Then, they're giving Hanoi an incentive to wreck the negotiations in order to get it done.
They're wrong.
So I think, I think for the next six weeks, Mr. President, there are so many things going.
If we're going to end the war by negotiations, which is still one chance at four, it's going to happen this summer, this time.
It's going to be done.
It's going to be the one big incentive that the North Vietnamese have.
is to do it before there isn't a selfie in this event.
I look at the eagerness of the Chinese to say that they're letting them fly practice flights now already to set up a radar panel and to let us know that.
Three days.
I think Bill doesn't know what he's talking about.
He was very hard-line.
I said, Mr. President, it isn't so hard-line.
These are party elections.
Now, of course, they're not opposed, but still they're talking to the faithful.
And if you read those speeches carefully, they're giving the hard line on theory and the soft line on practice.
And they say we're tough communists, and as tough communists these are the deals we propose to make.
The only potentially hard line one is the proscenium one.
but it wouldn't go on the impression if I actually quite saw it.
Instead, I think you and I should have a talk with Bunker tomorrow or the next day.
We can get out of it 100% or halfway 100%.
It will hurt the negotiation in Paris, unless they're turning us down in the 27th.
And it gives me a tremendous cover.
We're safe.
We're going to live away from it.
That's fine.
We have to go with it.
I had lunch last week with the best Indian man in the job.
I told him you're terribly sympathetic, but you need a few months.
She took the whole trip, totally, without press.
You just don't see any press people on the trip.
You don't have nothing.
No background news, nothing.
Which, of course, you need to do.
And people laugh because that would be much more interesting.
I don't know.
It's an argument, but my point is, this totally will obfuscate the...
Bill's problem, because then if you get out the other way, she sent a message, and I'll say, no, no, no, you know the ring, you'll see some Chinese guy.
I'm back days in Delhi, could have an excuse for spending two days in Pakistan.
I spent two days in Delhi.
What I will do is I'll go to Saigon for two or three days.
I guess if you don't meet you, I better go for three days.
Or for a day to Bangkok.
I'd like to thank, uh, I think, uh, at the end of that week, I'll be tired.
I'm going to be in the town of, uh, I think that's two planes.
I leave.
Yeah.
Yeah, but Mr. President, what American politicians...
American political leader would have had the vision.
You set it up with Yang Yang two and a half years ago.
These Democratic jackasses would have been beating him over the head for the last three months on his bucket.
Difficultly, they're flying on the plane out into the mountains.
It's something the Chinese were saying about America today.
When it's said, I think it's five in the morning or
I had a sense in this chapter that a lot of it was because they needed the way to pull the boat.
And then when you handle it now, it's easy.
and the Russians for only this purpose, and the President feels that his legacy for history is China, and I agree with that, and I have just a guess.
Just like I told the Russians there today, I think 25 years from now, people are going to look back and think the Chinese initiative is more important than the Russian initiative.
Oh yes, no question.
I guess what they're going to see is the Russian initiative is more important than Vietnam.
What I have to do
If you can spare the time, if we could spend a few hours when I'm over, I could go.
Because I have to get your authorization for three different versions of communicators after I get back.
But we have to leave in a day.
I'm going to be in Florida the following week, next weekend.
Oh, but the new one is coming.
It's coming.
It's coming.
It's coming.
I have to look at my account in the bar, but that would be a good place to do it.
It's a good cover, too.
I might do it, Mr. President, if this 26th meeting works out well.
I don't think the test is... No, but it's enough.
I haven't given anything to this man on this conversation.
I do this, Mr. President, if they think we're going to be better than them.
But you are no good to them as a humiliated, discredited message.
What good will Johnson in 68, 25?
They're giving up their position as the world's leading revolutionary country for what?
I mean, if you are a one-term president, the dollars already...
The major risks for the Russians are going right up the wall.
You won't be able to deliver on your promises.
If I had to be on the, uh, if we could get out of here, what do you think?
I don't think I'd be anything else.
It's not a bias.
I mean, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I.
You can tell Bill you wanted a tall profile, and I won't take any credit for that.
You shouldn't be exposed to that.
I go through this...
I can't go through this constant haggling around about who you are.
You certainly are.
The point is, we're trading you for... You're pretty good with it.
It's spectacular.
Yeah.
I don't know if he would understand why I'm going.
It makes perfect sense that once I'm out here, I won't be going out in peace.
But the fact that you will get in arms to listen to him every day, the fact that you don't understand, I'm not saying that he's right, but he will worry if he doesn't listen.
Yeah, but on the other hand, I think he's figured that he's not meant to do that.
He hasn't shown any indication that he might get in arms to listen to me at all.
I grieved on Laos, Cambodia every week.
I never heard that statement that you send a preacher over.
On that one, I think you'll be glad to stick me with it.
I'm glad it's going to work.
We'll turn off.
It's not them.
It's the government.
It's the government.
We've had just so many calls, and you arranged for us to come here and give you life.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.

Also recorded on June 14, 1971

  • 519-018 7:07 PM · 12 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 7:07 pm and 11:59 pm.
  • 005-068 7:13 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and John D. Ehrlichman talked on the telephone from 7:13 pm to 7:15 pm.
  • 258-007 7:13 PM · 37 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and John D. Ehrlichman met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 7:13 pm to 7:15 pm.
  • 005-069 7:15 PM · 6 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 7:15 pm and 7:19 pm.
  • 258-008 7:15 PM · 2 min — 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 7:15 pm and 7:19 pm.
  • 258-009 7:15 PM · 3 sec — 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 7:15 pm and 7:19 pm.
  • 005-070 7:19 PM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon, John N. Mitchell, and Henry A. Kissinger talked on the telephone from 7:19 pm to 7:22 pm.
  • 005-071 7:22 PM · 6 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 7:22 pm and 7:37 pm.

All 57 conversations from June 14, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 258-010, June 14, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives (NAID 417183885). Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/258-010 (accessed October 28, 2026).