Nixon White House Tapes ›Tape 284 › Conversation 284-012

Nixon & Kissinger on Foreign Policy and People's Republic of China

Wednesday, October 6, 1971 · 4:06 PM–4:30 PM ET · Old Executive Office Building

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President);  Kissinger, Henry A.Conversation284-012 onTape 284 (tape position 00:45:43–01:09:40)StartWednesday, October 6, 1971 at 4:06 PMEndWednesday, October 6, 1971 at 4:30 PMRecording deviceOld Executive Office BuildingSourceNixon Library record for 284-012 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon and Henry Kissinger met to coordinate foreign policy maneuvers, specifically focusing on the upcoming announcement of Kissinger’s trip to the People's Republic of China and the strategic timing of Vietnam-related policy announcements. They reviewed recent legislative developments, including the passage of the Byrd Amendment, and discussed managing domestic political reactions to foreign affairs, such as the UN vote and potential impacts on the U.S.-USSR summit. Nixon emphasized his desire to keep foreign policy initiatives low-key to minimize criticism while simultaneously pressuring officials to ensure that ongoing crises, such as the India-Pakistan situation, remained under control.

Audio

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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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

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46:03Matthew, have you heard what happened to the Bird Amendment?
46:06No.
46:06They defeated the Fulbright Amendment.
46:09Good Bird Amendment.
46:09Passed the Bird Amendment.
46:11And now, at our request, they're going to delay application of it for three months, so we just cannot use it.
46:20They defeated the Fulbright Amendment.
46:21Thank you.
46:23This will put it on mute.
46:30Yeah, that's something that anybody can see.
46:31You know, the bird in the past, you know.
46:32Isn't that great?
46:33It kind of has a beautiful, you know, that mystery.
46:34I don't understand it.
46:35We didn't get caught in it.
46:57I told Bill last night that we wanted to go to the coast of the Andes.
47:01We've got to put the interest of this country and the interest of our allies above the interest of a bunch of goddamn cannibals.
47:08And I told him that's what I was going to do.
47:10And I told him that's what I was going to do.
47:13I told him that's what I was going to do.
47:27You know, in addition to the things that you've done, the thousands of ways in which this government would have tilted from chrome to... We have allowed this to go off-way.
47:38You know, I talked on the helicopter last night.
47:41I talked to you yesterday.
47:43We talked this morning.
47:44We're working on it.
47:45That is the total impact.
47:46Another thing I'm going to ask you... We are sure...
47:56We were sure blacked out that goddamned DMV collection.
48:00So... By the time they recover from this time, the trip...
48:08The next one will be a hell of a bomb.
48:09That's right after Fort Gardner's there.
48:12And I'll be...
48:14He changed for a while.
48:16He said, that'll worry him.
48:18And it'll be a good... And by the time I'm back, I don't remember there was anything.
48:26Well, our fight is... Well, I guess I have to announce it myself.
48:30Can I say at the end of the contract, the end of the draft, you would announce it?
48:37Yeah, but why don't you... You've done it before.
48:40At news time, out of all the... You've done it very well.
48:45Yes, I'm very glad to do it this time.
48:54I remember you made two of these announcements as ten-minute announcements.
48:59Right.
49:00You know, nobody really knows, Henry, though, how many of the little things were on.
49:06I figured today you're not working on this very important phenomenon of speech.
49:12And I'd like to call a couple of others.
49:16I'll call Schoenberg, John H. Scherzinger, Senator Fitzgerald, on the way to today, and I'll call you.
49:24I just sort of think, in a day, we do more things.
49:29Well, let me put it this way.
49:31I don't think, though, that I get to think that I should, because I think Johnson called all the time, too, but he was in every picture on the show.
49:40I've never been a big one.
49:42I've never been a big one.
49:45Well, he never concentrated.
49:47What you've got to do is put aside what you want to say.
49:50And also the way you always have a game plan.
49:52I don't think so.
49:53over a substantial period of time.
49:56One thing we might do, Mr. President, is we get the China announcement, try to get that settled with Joe and I, and then we start talking to America.
50:13He wasn't getting asked.
50:14But the American press?
50:14No, there was no press at that time.
50:16He came and told them he had a 16-year-old.
50:17Told them a lot.
50:29Well, he said, you know, I just wanted to keep in mind, you know, I just wanted to keep in mind, you know, I just wanted to keep in mind, you know, I just wanted to keep in mind, you know, I just wanted to keep in mind, you know, I just wanted to keep in mind, you know, I just wanted to keep in mind, you know, I just wanted to keep in mind, you know, I just wanted to keep in mind, you know, I just wanted to keep in mind, you know, I just wanted to keep in mind, you know, I just wanted to keep in mind, you know, I just wanted to keep in mind, you know, I just wanted to keep in mind, you know, I just wanted to keep in mind, you know, I just wanted to keep in mind, you know, I just wanted to keep in mind, you know, I just wanted to keep in mind, you know, I just wanted to keep in mind, you know, I just wanted to keep in mind
50:58Well, then at least he's written through the U.N. thing for the moment.
51:01Well, the U.N. just said it's all unacceptable.
51:04That's impossible.
51:06But he smuggled it all.
51:07He got enough to take me into the U.N. now.
51:10That's the dramatic thing that really stands out.
51:13That's it.
51:13Listen, he knows the U.N. doesn't mean a goddamn thing.
51:16Well, but we have to show him that it's what it is.
51:19That's what he has to realize.
51:27The Russian announcement will make it public.
51:29He has to know that he can carry out what we promised him.
51:33But if he doesn't, then he will start...
51:36I mean, like on Taiwan.
51:37No, on Taiwan, if he tries, he hasn't promised him anything.
51:39But it is important that we can show that he doesn't.
51:41That is important.
51:43Because otherwise he doesn't know what we're going to carry out.
51:47That's got to be an obstacle.
52:05I wish you a good life, my son.
52:20Good work, my son.
52:34He doesn't believe this is correct.
52:44I hope you brought that up.
52:46I told you that as an example.
52:49You're looking at the list of what we've come to as far as the list of what we've lost this time.
52:59And it hasn't been won.
53:03correct proposal on Seoul, on Berlin, on ADN, on Cambodia, everything.
53:10And I said that he has written against it.
53:14We are just being slapped by the Democrats.
53:17And I said also, he's against the cabinet.
53:20He said, that's absolutely right.
53:22He said, this whole president, he said, anything like you have in front of your vision is true.
53:34Truman had a lot of courage.
53:40What Truman was, we could be dedicating credit for a certain Midwestern earthy craftiness, but Truman was not a very smart man.
53:52He had good instincts, but Truman didn't.
53:54Truman would no more sit down and write a speech like I do or try to think through a hell of a lot of things.
54:02Truman was, he said,
54:03in the sense Truman says that he had to think about it, he hasn't no decision.
54:08He didn't have this intricate, in the way he's machined all of these moves together so that they, they follow each other.
54:16What I told him was, I said to him, if you, if we get to China now to set it deeper, then I think you ought to make you remove this drone announcement two days before.
54:30And then, just as they're babbling along,
54:34Yeah, crack.
54:39They'll be talking about something else again.
54:42Were you able to find some little things, Stuart, about the man best qualified to go to the summit?
54:49Did he see that?
54:50Oh, he's a great...
54:54I think that's a very important point.
54:56All the way these people yack about symmetry and all the rest, and it's dangerous, and a lot of the running does, and frankly, I'm used to talking about it.
55:04I know it's dangerous, but there comes a time, and this is it.
55:09I don't even grab that it's dangerous in these circumstances.
55:12It's not for me.
55:13It's not dangerous for you.
55:16I'm never going to lose anything.
55:17And in the objective conditions that existed, now, Mr. President,
55:24We have news that a license for the Soviets is on health.
55:26Within 10 days of their offering us a son, a human is allowed.
55:28Another thing, I don't say it's a dummy with regard to Joe in line.
55:30He's saying that for his domestic use only, and not just the Russians.
55:34He's probably got his hardliners that want to keep up their strength and all the rest.
55:39Just like we've got hardliners, even more so.
55:41And also, I think he's trying to show us that we've got a little bit of a program.
55:46Don't beat me.
55:50We won't do two.
55:53I mean, what we are doing to them in the U.S. is extremely unfathomable.
56:10But we are going to lose that one anyway.
56:14Once we get up the old...
56:15It would be better, frankly.
56:16It would be better, Henry.
56:19We would not lose.
56:22We have to do this in order to keep our right wing under control.
56:33you can say to the state, but you'll notice the President of the state, miles away from the Senate, when I do this, I want you to get to work and you wouldn't prepare me a brief Q&A, not too much, and all that thing, and I particularly want to prepare a picture of him, and I said, now the U.N. is in there, and I'll say it's hopeful or not, I said, it's very close, our position is known in the state, and I said, well, I said, well, another point I would just do is what's going to be, I said that
57:02One thing about the President's target operation is that he's so low-key that he doesn't get credit if you take the 7th, September 16th press conference.
57:11I said, all that did was to prevent him from pleading for life in Vietnam, because the situation was that they had her fucking immediately empty.
57:23You cracked it, and that was it.
57:26And I said, we had to have this, because the only hope that the North Vietnamese now have is
57:32I said, we cannot let go of you.
57:33You cannot let go of yourself.
57:35But there's no reason for me to cannot let go of you.
57:40Right.
57:42That's not good.
57:44That wasn't good enough.
57:46That wasn't, that wasn't straight and accurate.
57:49That was absolutely not right.
57:52You don't have that much of something big to do, of course.
57:57Well, you actually, well, I've always had this thought about it, that you do,
58:02It was pretty good, but it didn't have, but also it didn't have anything particularly sad.
58:32I was trying to get so many things to get across.
58:38Sapphire, I talked to him.
58:47I said, you know, we're getting, we're not mentioning for a minute, but I was trying to bring on a new
59:02We're not just going to talk about .
59:07We're going to talk about this.
59:10We're living in a great, potentially, we can have a great future.
59:19Great future.
59:20Progress.
59:21Progress.
59:21Progress on oil and on peace.
59:25Well, if we can have it.
59:27I put it that way.
59:28I didn't say we will have it.
59:30But anyway.
59:31I said, you know, Bill, I said, do you realize what's going on?
59:37I said, do you realize that, bless the God, everything else has been done?
59:43I mean, you look at the danger points for war.
59:44Berlin is number one.
59:46The Mideast is number two.
59:47And Vietnam is way down there.
59:50There's no chance of falling.
59:52I said, now, the Mideast could.
59:53Berlin would.
59:54And here we have crisis.
59:55I said, I've been waked up several times.
59:58by hammering a button.
59:59Somebody in my heart screwed up the oligarch.
1:00:00And here, we, for the first time, hung here.
1:00:04Walls built and all the rest.
1:00:06Here, he was a great entrepreneur.
1:00:08I said, it was done right here in my mind.
1:00:11I said, I don't want to tell you, but she said, I love you most, man.
1:00:18So now it's upside down.
1:00:19This is what's most important to his life.
1:00:21Did he?
1:00:22Yeah.
1:00:23What does he say?
1:00:24What does he say?
1:00:26I didn't think they'd even say go to the river.
1:00:34I think that's, uh...
1:00:36I don't know if that's a good idea.
1:04:55We still have on negotiating that with the president.
1:04:59But I'm hoping that the president should mind his own business.
1:05:05His hellish standards should mind his own business.
1:05:07They should mind his own business.
1:05:08There's no goddamn reason for them.
1:05:09Mr. President, they've got crazy eyes to leave again.
1:05:11Now they've been strengthened too.
1:05:14Where the hell are they going to go?
1:05:15They were hoping it would be right, right, and go with it.
1:05:17But out of this, there's an old-fashioned view that there's an even-minded sense of duty to do something.
1:05:22Well, they pitched about the fact that there's no opposition.
1:05:25but he got 94% of the vote.
1:05:27The matter is, no matter if he ripped it, it's a testimony to his strengths.
1:05:33You have to be in control of the machinery to get yourself 90% of the votes like the communists.
1:05:38And if they have 100% elections, what do we say?
1:05:40Well, they say they're in charge.
1:05:42That's my point.
1:05:42It's a rather interesting point.
1:05:45And he may have been right.
1:05:46His enemy is not men, for he, his enemy, is the communists.
1:05:49In fact, it's the communists who are not the voters, the way the voters stand in the back.
1:05:57And his domestic opponents don't get enough rights to shake
1:06:03So he's done what he wants.
1:06:05We don't like it, but he may have done what he was told.
1:06:08We have more to write each year.
1:06:32I'm sure glad to hear that.
1:06:40Would you mind calling Bird?
1:06:47I think it's come out so well, it would be better not.
1:07:02Because good is happy, then.
1:07:03Good, good.
1:07:03Thank you, Henry.
1:07:06Henry?
1:07:06Yes?
1:07:06The only thing I would urge that you put your mind to is that goddamn India-Pakistan thing.
1:07:11I'm having a meeting tomorrow afternoon.
1:07:13And, uh, just tell them that I asked, that I was terribly concerned about it, and I didn't want to watch it.
1:07:22And your sister will work with you a little more.
1:07:33I'm having lunch with Cisco on Monday, and I was wondering whether you would consider meeting him on the bill.
1:07:37He's telling him that he should work closely with us so that they don't go down to the bar.
1:07:43I'd say, Joe, I've got tremendous pressures from the output of this, and I've got tremendous pressures from people coming in.
1:07:47I want you to keep very close with us in this.
1:07:53We're not going to do anything to other countries.
1:07:57We just need to know what's helpful to us.
1:08:03Because Stuart L. Zavosa said that he thought that drought should have reached the United States.
1:08:10But the major thing now, without nitpicking around the food, is just to keep it loose long enough for us to get started with the rush.
1:08:20Because then you could come out of that summit with an agreement of the Middle East.
1:08:26And salt.
1:08:26We don't want salt for them.
1:08:28I don't think so.
1:08:29I don't want salt for them.
1:08:30We want salt.
1:08:31We want trade.
1:08:32We want the Mid-East.
1:08:33For that, I think you might consider telling Rauchist that for political reasons you don't want to get the Jews all that stirred up, and you want him to slow down.
1:08:48He isn't going to get anywhere anyhow.
1:08:49Nothing's going to happen.

NARA Description

On October 6, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 4:06 pm to 4:30 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 284-012 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 284-12

Date: October 6, 1971
Time: 4:06 pm - 4:30 pm
Location: Executive Office Building

The President met with Henry A. Kissinger.

     Senate
          -J. William Fulbright amendment
               -Vote
          -Robert C. Byrd amendment
               -Vote
               -Application delay
               -The President's previous conversation with Robert Dole

     Foreign policy
          -Allies
          -William P. Rogers
          -Nixon’s role

     Vietnam
          -Forthcoming election
               -John G. Gorton’s visit to Vietnam
               -People's Republic of China [PRC]
                    -The President's schedule
          -Forthcoming announcement on Vietnam War

     Announcement of Kissinger's PRC trip
         -Barry M. Goldwater, Sr.

     -Hugh Scott
     -Rogers
     -Lyndon B. Johnson
     -The President's activities

PRC announcement
    -Chou En-lai
         -Press responses
              -United Nations [UN]
         -Union of Socialist Soviet Republics [USSR]
         -Taiwan

Foreign policy
     -New York Times editorial
          -Kissinger’s conversation with Stewart J.O. Alsop
          -Strategic Arms Limitation Talks [SALT]
          -Berlin
          -Antiballistic missiles [ABM]
          -Cambodia
          -Rogers [?]
          -John B. Connally
     -Harry S. Truman
     -PRC announcement
     -Vietnam
          -Troop withdrawal announcement
     -Alsop
          -Summit
                -USSR
                      -Laos military action
     -Chou En-lai
          -Domestic concerns
          -UN Vote
                -Political concerns
                -The President’s instructions
                -Kissinger’s comments

Kissinger’s comments to Chou En-lai
     -Vietnam
           -North Vietnamese
           -Nguyen Van Thieu
           -The President’s policy

    PRC
          -Newsweek
          -Time

    The President's conversation with William L. Safire
         -World outlook
              -Berlin, Middle East, Vietnam
              -Hotline

    Alsop
         -The President’s policies
              -Economy

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

BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 4
[Personal Returnable]
[Duration: 4m 14s ]

END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 4

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

    Kissinger's conversation with Alsop
         -Thieu
               -Vietnam election
                    -Effect
                    -Communion

    The President's foreign policy record
         -John F. Kennedy
         -Johnson
         -Eisenhower

    Byrd Amendment

    Kissinger's schedule
         -India and Pakistan
               -Forthcoming meeting

                 -Joseph J. Sisco

     Alsop
          -Rogers
          -USSR

     The President's objectives with the USSR
          -SALT
          -Trade
          -Middle East
          -Possible conversation Rogers
          -Jewish vote

Kissinger left at 4:30 pm.

Also recorded on October 6, 1971

  • 010-093 3:41 PM · 8 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at 3:41 pm.
  • 010-094 3:41 PM · 16 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson talked on the telephone from 3:41 pm to 4:00 pm.
  • 284-009 3:41 PM · 10 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Charles W. Colson, and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 3:41 pm to 4:00 pm.
  • 010-095 4:00 PM · 8 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at 4:00 pm.
  • 284-010 4:00 PM · 1 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at 4:00 pm.
  • 284-011 4:00 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and William L. Safire met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 4:00 pm to 4:05 pm.
  • 284-013 4:39 PM · 20 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at 4:39 pm.
  • 284-014 4:40 PM · 35 min — President Richard M. Nixon, William L. Safire, White House operator, John B. Connally, and Charles W. Colson met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 4:40 pm to 5:25 pm.

All 110 conversations from October 6, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 284-012, October 6, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/284-012 (accessed September 18, 2026).