Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 276-018
Date: Monday, September 13, 1971 at 8:50 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Kissinger, Henry A.
Recording device: Old Executive Office Building
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/276-018

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:00] Henry, how are you?
[0:01] Am I disturbing you?
[0:02] I could come back.
[0:03] No, no, no, no, no, no.
[0:05] I was just, uh, looking at Paul Keyes.
[0:06] Oh, yeah.
[0:07] He showed up.
[0:08] I never watched television, but he asked me to see his first show this season.
[0:14] Yeah, he was so good.
[0:16] Well, uh, that's how you go to the show, if you, um, don't know if it makes sense.
[0:24] Well, I'm not going to tell you.
[0:30] Did you raise her?
[0:36] Did you happen to raise her?
[0:40] She knows that what McGovern said isn't true.
[0:49] When you say ceasefire, it means ceasefire between the American and the Vietnamese, and then not between another ceasefire.
[0:58] It means no ceasefire for Laos, no ceasefire for Cambodia, no ceasefire for South Vietnam.
[1:04] It's got bombing the supply lines, and they won't buy it on our troops.
[1:09] It's our way of selling out.
[1:12] And it's going to be by December 31st.
[1:15] My father was told that.
[1:17] That's all he told me.
[1:19] He told me to do that for a change.
[1:21] But his hand was dirty first, then my brother.
[1:24] He had my brother.
[1:26] That is absolutely true.
[1:29] Yes, yes.
[1:31] We talked about, well, that we might not withdraw.
[1:34] That's true, you know.
[1:36] I lied.
[1:37] Even if I did not eventually withdraw, it was because they thought that you...
[1:45] So they figured these principles would lead him, I mean, actually giving up these principles, none of that would take them for the fall.
[1:51] But it was the usual Kanye.
[1:54] It would have given us six months, would have given us a way of getting out, right?
[2:00] Would have been confused, but now they figured he's so weak anyway.
[2:03] And I see now that it's not a problem.
[2:08] You need to go to the Unilateral Control Room.
[2:12] It's mandatory, if you don't get any.
[2:16] You still have a splash for the week.
[2:19] I don't see two trips and all of that, at all.
[2:22] It's a shot, it's a one-night-a-day.
[2:25] Just two trips.
[2:27] Just one.
[2:28] Two is to break out the package and say,
[2:32] From then, you know I was tempted, tempted to return to my home.
[2:37] And believe me, I was a prisoner.
[2:40] After a very short time.
[2:42] Today, they will demand a ceasefire to our forces under your control.
[2:48] If you can't vote, you will vote immediately.
[2:53] When you're dead in filtration, they put 90,000 cunts into the pipeline last year to get 15,000 through.
[2:56] They'll be able to do next March.
[2:59] I'm just telling you, I'm a little drunk.
[3:02] There I come on.
[3:03] So it is.
[3:03] So it is.
[3:05] I'll find it.
[3:06] And I'm just going to do it for safety.
[3:15] We're doing a negotiation.
[3:16] We're not going to do this.
[3:19] We recognize the fact that we've come to the point of being in a situation where we're in a domestic situation.
[3:25] And we have to see that these guys have nothing going for them in this area.
[3:31] Our moral collapse.
[3:31] That's what's driving us crazy.
[3:34] If you had enough of those people to do one more strange campaign, you could drive to church.
[3:41] That's what's driving us crazy.
[3:44] Except for the other possibilities, to go to them and say, all right, we will redefine our policy.
[3:51] Compromise, because it's a half-assed government of national compromise.
[3:55] It's a half-assed government of national compromise.
[4:00] It's a half-assed government of national compromise.
[4:04] It's a half-assed government of national compromise.
[4:10] It's a half-assed government of national compromise.
[4:14] We met our forces there.
[4:17] We had an agreement with Saigon, you know, not that I know of.
[4:24] We're going to be alarmed, but that could happen.
[4:31] We could do it this way.
[4:33] I know you just like the idea of testing.
[4:37] I have no interest in being affiliated to this thing.
[4:41] The Soviets would be the as we could tell the Soviets.
[4:44] And he makes remarks about the conceivable interest in peace.
[4:48] And that's the normal as it relates to any state.
[4:51] But it ought to be the pieces that they are mortified with.
[4:57] They have a proposal which they ought to accept.
[5:00] And offer it if it doesn't work.
[5:04] What would it find them in order?
[5:07] If they know well enough that we are now
[5:11] Better than 40, I'm telling you now.
[5:13] The thing about it is, it's a secret business, the truth to us, they say.
[5:18] Almost anything but the Chinese, because that's where their paranoia works for us, because the Chinese won't make any deals with us.
[5:25] One possibility war, we can just go to Paris and make that four thousand.
[5:30] That's what we must do.
[5:32] They do that.
[5:32] I'm worried that if we do it directly to them, their normal tendency is to string us along in other demons' negotiations.
[5:40] I'm working on a memorandum.
[5:45] In many ways, going unilaterally is the most honorable way.
[5:53] Somebody has sent a check-in.
[5:55] They transferred everything I sent to them.
[6:03] They want you to go ahead and take it.
[6:10] I am.
[6:11] But we're not.
[6:14] The maiden may work for me.
[6:15] It's true.
[6:16] This may be the case, and this may not.
[6:17] I don't know.
[6:19] Right?
[6:20] Now, what I would do... You don't have to decide.
[6:23] On the 1st of November, today, I would have been up in two months with Joe.
[6:26] That was the beginning of the...
[6:28] Right.
[6:28] That's the beginning of the announcement.
[6:31] I wouldn't do that often.
[6:41] calling the truth.
[6:43] Why?
[6:43] And we'll bring it on for better or worse.
[6:44] It's another one of the methods that I need to use to get me through this stuff.
[6:47] I was announced today to be a victim of the past, and I'm feeling it.
[6:49] I'm feeling it today, too, because it's been out of this world.
[6:52] People are going to say what they have to say.
[6:53] It's been an announcement today.
[6:55] It wasn't made by the man.
[6:55] It's been out of this world.
[7:14] They said this would be settled today, and I said, no, you have to understand.
[7:17] They said this would be settled today, and I said, no, you have to understand.
[7:21] They said this would be settled today, and I said, no, you have to understand.
[7:28] They said this would be settled today, and I said, no, you have to understand.
[7:34] They said this would be settled today, and I said, no, you have to understand.
[7:38] They said this would be settled today, and I said, no, you have to understand.
[8:10] Today was the day of the announcing day of the one that would be next week.
[8:14] I had to go for an announcement that there was an impossible for the Russians.
[8:19] I had to go for an announcement that there was an impossible for the Russians.
[8:25] I had to go for an announcement that there was an impossible for the Russians.
[8:30] I had to go for an announcement that there was an impossible for the Russians.
[8:36] That's when they had two out of three of them on the set.
[8:39] They sucked up.
[8:40] I mean, they would be at ten.
[8:43] Ten out of three.
[8:45] Right.
[8:45] You can't see it, but that's it.
[8:48] I mean, it was great.
[8:50] I mean, all I can tell is what he's doing.
[8:52] And I'm not afraid of him.
[8:55] I'm just careful.
[8:56] I mean, it really blows me away when I talk to the president.
[9:01] He said, you know, he said, I want to do this.
[9:04] I'll do it.
[9:05] Thank you.