On November 12, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Henry A. Kissinger, and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 12:33 pm to 12:59 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 297-028 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
I've got to do this announcement in somewhat different form.
This is fine.
But, uh, I don't know how to do it.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I would have bought it in the fresh
especially remaining absolutely committed to the 75.
No, I don't.
I'll say it.
The way you say it, you're going to say, oh, the next rate of withdrawal will depend upon each other factor.
And you couldn't every total force depend upon the other factors.
But you could say that, of course, every instrument we pull out now is a greater percentage of the total force than the beginning of the depression.
They can't force us.
We have 22 indefinites that we can't move on.
But we have to be careful.
The data are rejected themselves, but I will not reject it for them.
Mr. President, do you believe it's not a deal?
Did McGregor call this a deal?
I don't think so.
I don't think so.
Mary Colson doesn't talk to the Congress.
Then...
to protect August 1st.
There's a deadline.
We are dead in negotiations.
Right.
Then we'll have a three week deadline now and we'll be through with negotiations.
We'll help with the negotiations.
Well, that's what we're making too much money from.
Actually, from the negotiations, we're increasing the rate and all that, but we can live with it if they think we're going through the situation.
You know what you've done yet?
You've just fired.
You know, we don't really want to do that.
We're trying to do it, but we believe it's going to be a real problem.
I realize that, but we're not going to do it just because we may not depend on that.
If you go, if you just go on the line,
It's irreversible.
And that's exactly what I like to do when I'm playing a song.
I like to do it.
It's a little bit of guessing, but it's my favorite part of the time.
What did I mention?
I've got to mention later.
I don't know what I've mentioned.
I don't know what I've mentioned.
I don't know what I've mentioned.
I don't know what I've mentioned.
I told the Congress, I told all of them to take an appointment with Congress and have our report made and tell them the announcement was going to be a four-period.
And the rest of the day, which person he is, that's what the press is reporting on the wire.
I thought the, uh, I've been talking to, uh, with the director, I thought it was, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
I think it just keeps it protected all day.
The thing I want is to have Ford and Scott and others who are as good with us as we are and say, this is the fractional component and so forth and so on.
Scott should have his own day and it's going to be a lot.
Scott is headed to Nelson.
God, man, that letter is going to save my husband.
to get that impression from what he said in Sidon this time, you know, that, you know, the medalists sort of got going down through the residual rule, and, oh, well, that's fine.
Residual force is what it is.
Rogers has been doing pretty well out there.
Yeah, yeah.
Rogers has toughened the team up, you know, with reaching residual force, but that's the thing.
Is that what he had in saying he had to leave?
About, with regard to that, is he been saying residual force?
He hasn't given it to him, but he's been having it in the employees, you know.
And it's important to the negotiations .
If we have negotiations, we will withdraw all of our reports.
If we do not have negotiations, it's not necessary .
I would say that you'll take a little leave, but it's better to take it now.
Yeah, well, let's help with negotiations all we can.
But this is a better way to say it than .
I mean, the state would be fine if you came here.
Nobody told someone about this.
The average person doesn't understand.
I mean, after all, 300 weeks, less than eight.
Actually, it's less than 10.
First, the fifth week, we're going to be out eight years from now.
Okay.
Good.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
And when it's not vacation, it's not the bomb.
It's the fact that we're there.
And the fact that it isn't coming is the fact that we're still there, that we haven't been run out of the place.
It's the fact that I'm here doing this, Mr. President.
If you had said on January 20th, 1969, that in less than four years, veterans will be down to eight, and we'll be down to, we'll be down by four states,
They would have said, that's insane, it can't be done.
I'll be very comfortable.
Yeah, I think you'll be very comfortable.
I think, I think what you said on September 16th is a good house.
And whenever we can get some capital into it, it pays off.
I think in Pakistan, in a couple of points, we want to mention two or three things.
Before Ali was done, he got out of town.
What has he done?
He said he was a very good government.
He's agreed to the U.S. service.
He also has agreed to the U.S. distribution.
The U.S. distribution is pretty surprised.
And also, if it's not true, he's agreed to have discussions, of course, with the U.S. government.
But also it's true that he's agreed to, and to come out publicly that he's agreed to pull back some.
And I don't say that.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I want to be too rough on her, but it wouldn't hurt.
to have a little counterweight to the anti-Russian propaganda.
I don't want to do, I don't think it would be desirable to be anti-Indian if they stayed out.
We are in favor of a political solution.
We are in favor of the activity of the Chief of Chiefs of Order.
They always say, here's the sign.
But the force is the force.
The trust is what it is.
to us to not just say re-market, but it is totally unacceptable and it is a great support that they can come to the United States on it.
I'm going to put a response to that.
I do that so often that I think that they can start to work as far as any continuing economic assistance at any time.
We can just come to the United States on it.
That's it.
How does that sound to you?
I don't know.
India, you see, is the biggest receptor in America.
And much of Pakistan, they've had big problems with it.
Well, they told us to crack down on it.
They read the instructions.
They told us to crack down on it.
They told us to crack down on it.
They told us to crack down on it.
I think I should have got the computer to come up with it.
Strong man in Russia could have done it.
I'm glad I'm in Vietnam, and I'll let the eggs over.
That's too good.
There's a lot of them there anyway.
Only this one.
But that's what I'm going to propose.
Yeah.
Is that all right?
I mean, unfortunately, sure.
But it's an American thing.
It's an American thing.
It's an American thing.
I mean, go to Paris, you know.
just so we can say hello out of Europe and go to the A's or whatever.
Well, the Travelman's President has just, I agree with you, that if you were to go through Europe at this stage, oh, if they're wrong, you get a sort of chunk of the impression also that we've got too many tough men in the hand and we've got too many flaggers.
But if you see Pompidou at the edge of us and you come back and you see the other flaggers, I think we'll do that.
What are you going to let me know that you would like to see?
Well, we'll know by 2 o'clock this afternoon.
Oh, I see.
So, uh... We've got that, I think.
It's a devil.
As a matter of fact, I can talk to...
property that he owes us this time.
It's true he was here for a visit.
But I went to the funeral.
And I had a property.
And I think we could meet at the ACL this month.
I'll show you that.
Yeah.
I don't see why you can't.
You should have come to Monty next time.
I don't know.
That's something for another day.
Do you think he wants him?
There's lots of discussion as to what's this fact.
Although what's been so key to our good state is the fact that your trouble is good.
What's in check, man?
All that driving energy.
But the heat on the state market is quite intensive, and there's a lot of this.
Well, maybe we're misjudging.
I'll tell you one thing.
Say this for Walter Amherst.
Walter is energetic.
Oh, yeah.
Actually, Walter would go in there and tell him.
You'd get to see him.
No, Walter is a bunch of kids.
He was a good man at the time.
He's turned out to be a...
He can't understand, Andrews.
Better than I thought he could.
Andrews was 1,000% loyal.
Oh, totally.
I think Watson's.
Oh, yeah.
I think Russian's.
But Russian's... Yeah, I talked to John.
I talked to him.
I called John tonight again.
Oh, you did?
And I thought I'd better give him these things for reflection overnight.
All right, I can talk to you at this point.
So I would call it out to them, who, I would write to them, and you could call them right away and say, now, Bill, the president sits right in the back, and I would just talk to him and say, we're going to go today.
We're telling you now, but for your information, we're not informed yet.
We're three-thirds of the time.
Most of the possibilities of a leak, and I tell them this is a leak, is it will have 300 Christmases in it, and I can't remember who it was.
And you could say that as far as the discretionary people are concerned, that they will be informed.
In fact, it would also be very important that you should not do any of the things that I'm going to do.
I'm going to talk a little bit about the Raiders.
I'm going to just say that the Raiders have been here
I talked to him this morning.
He asked me what the decision was.
I said, I was seeing you walk down the stairs.
I said, you just walked down the stairs.
I called back now and said, all right, two months.
I said, two months again.
I said, two months again.
I said, two months again.
I said, two months again.
I was too late to get that scheme anymore.
Well, let's see what it looks like.
It may be and it may not.
It depends on what kind of a campaign they're starting.
I think they've done enough.
They've stopped all of their big, deep strides and accused us of not answering their seven points.
We think it's wrong not to pull out what we've done.
If they don't stop... Oh, your point?
Oh, I didn't get it.
I don't know.
Any time we want to.
We're out with that.
It's not like we want it.
You see, if they start on their seven-point campaigns again, I think we'd be wrong not to put it on that one.
If they don't start a big peace campaign, then I do trust another two months.
So it depends a little bit on what they do.
And also, we have to remember, we'll have to look at the peace campaign here in Congress.
My point, you know, we've got to get a good reading on what the Congress is planning.
And we can't let the thing, we shouldn't let the negotiations
Supposing they break up.
Well, let's see what happens on the 20th.
We can maybe take a better look at it.
There's many damn ways to worry about it.
If they break, we certainly, from many points of view, it would be better if we didn't take another two months.
Some folks do.
I'll hear that.
It won't be said that way.
I can see it could be said.
Yeah.
Now listen, why don't you tell Bill and say no.
I'll tell him.
I'll tell him.
I think of you and two and two.
I said Bill, please, please don't tell Larry.
He's looped everything on me.
Put Bill on his arm, not discuss the two and two.
Because that's where you want to keep this thing until some money comes.
Right.
I'll call him this time.
Yes.
One other thing about the air color, and on that, we just want to leave the impression that we're just going to continue to bomb regardless of the settlement, right?
Well, we can have a settlement, but without a settlement, both the residual force and that air color are going to be continued until our goals are achieved.
Now, suppose...
Then if they say, well, what would you do for Christmas?
I would just say, look, we have established places for negotiations.
And they know our position.
And we are not doing it.
I'm not going to discuss it.
Can't you also, would you, you might have said that they, but would you do it for Christmas?
Just say that's a good question.
They've already turned that down.
You don't want to do that.
No, they've already done that.
That's clear.
We had somebody to a lot of staff
It was, but something other than that.
You don't get any more questions now, any different from what you get from an adult audience.
And Vietnam came at the very end of the question period.
That's why it was goddamn dangerous to come on the other end.
our real problem is whether or not we might make it possible
Now, of course, the negotiation is an enormous one.
That's why we're trying to do anything to screw up the negotiation.
That's why, to be frank with you, why I was judging for two months.
I voted for four months, but not seriously.
No way to cut four months for less pressure on the two months.
Two months worries me.
Take me the way I want to put it.
If you put it good enough, that's the way it is.
That's the way it is.
If we can pull off a negotiation, that's my conviction.
That's my conviction.
Now, if we don't pull off the negotiation, we can then miss the positive, but we can avoid a negative by simply saying, by continuing on our own unilateral course and getting down to a certain level, stopping the captains, stopping the draftees, and putting on our negotiation-ranked record.
The real problem we've got is that is what we do about those dealings.
And I don't know
The real problem we've got to think about, we've got to think about, is whether or not the modeling of an arm, on a selective basis, has to wait until after the shoot.
That's the question.
You're trying to think of the other question.
Yeah.
I, do they, or do they not, you know, suppose they do not negotiate.
Remember, I, I, I'm thinking of my G.O.
Grant.
Suppose they do not negotiate.
Well, if they don't negotiate, I will certainly give them a tremendous few vats with the air.
If you would, in an hour.
Even before the first.
Put a couple of days, hold that.
All right.
Hold that up with Susan, too.
If the negotiations break up, I really... Well, let's have that plan ready, shall we?
Let everything that's live go for two or three days.
That's that.