Conversation 314-013

TapeTape 314StartThursday, January 13, 1972 at 4:15 PMEndThursday, January 13, 1972 at 5:00 PMTape start time01:32:12Tape end time02:15:21ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President);  Safire, William L.;  [Unknown person(s)];  Nixon, Richard M. (President);  Safire, William L.;  [Unknown person(s)]Recording deviceOld Executive Office Building

On January 13, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, William L. Safire, and unknown person(s) met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 4:15 pm to 5:00 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 314-013 of the White House Tapes.

Conversation No. 314-013            Conversation No. 314-014              Conversation No. 314-015

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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.

Well, I think this is a very good start.
Very good start.
I, uh, worked on, I guess, I mean, four of those.
Six of them.
I worked on about 12 of them.
His staff isn't very good about a man on record.
Now, let me ask you, if you've ever gone back and read
And you read this draft of the paper.
You know what that would have done?
That would have laid the goddamn, this big egg.
It would have been awful.
But am I wrong?
Am I being, you know what I mean?
I could hardly understand it, and I knew what had happened.
But how did you deal with it?
I'm not saying critically, Henry, but I know what happened.
Henry is so dominant that he cannot even allow a bright spirit to
And all of these are the same thing.
Every band, one of them, they come out with something.
Henry, I'm sure, wrote this great classic to start the thing out with this small band.
I want to tell you now about my secret search for peace, for Christ's sakes.
If you want to do that, you've got to say it.
My point is, the whole thing, over and over again, goes through this time and time again.
They come in with this convoluted construction.
and then you've got to start reorganizing.
The main thing, they never start with a theme, a building.
The order of Syria and the war in Syria.
The first year, I had to try to reorganize, to spread the word.
Pull that old bird from the end.
Pull that old bird from the end and start putting some old Germanic traits
I had a couple of thoughts.
First of all, I think that you will find that you've got to check with Henry on this question.
See, I don't want to go into much of the details of the negotiations, but to give you the most important, on May 31st, on the May 31st, we did not offer a date.
We said we will offer a deadline in exchange for the release of President Xi's fire.
That was the May 31st offer.
That is properly set.
After that, in August, my recollection is we offered a nine-month deadline.
That should go in.
In other words, then in August, we offered a nine-month deadline.
And then finally, we offered
And we are offering the ninth, or basically it's the sixth month.
Actually, Henry said we're offering the seventh on October 11th.
And we may have been good at offering that, but it's not.
Yeah, it shows.
First, we offered a deadline, a negotiated deadline, in June.
In August, we offered a nine-month deadline.
You'll have to ask Ken for it.
But if you can't talk or read his draft, I can assure you that I had to get it out of him.
I said, Henry, my hard life was a nightmare, but if he had it, then that's right.
If it wasn't the basic truth, I wouldn't care.
And then finally, we got into this.
I just marked where it would be in Comp.
Page 9, at least it is.
Now, I have the two inns.
They'll let me.
I'm not comfortable with the last.
I think it's awfully good writing.
It would be good for a radio or maybe another address, you know, where I'm talking to a patient before a follow-up audience or maybe a press audience or something.
I think we want to make this a crisp, briefly possible
say this is an offer that ought to be accepted in this week's model of hope.
And rather than talking about the, I don't mind, the last paragraph, but I meant that they,
We ain't going in with the idea, so... Good luck.
Die.
Die.
Die.
That is of no great value at this point.
The main thing is that what I think is particularly effective is the way you have the market events and the way it begins.
There's a plan to end the war now.
It includes an offer to withdraw all American outside forces in six months.
It's acceptance will be the return of all the persons who were to their homes starting right away.
And that's what I call running.
I couldn't call you out on that.
No, you know, you've done it.
You've put it there.
I mean, it didn't take me a little longer to get it figured out.
Well, I'll just point out to you what you want me to do.
On page two, you need to fulfill a pledge.
Your pledge was...
I like it, but I didn't buy it because it stops the march.
I like the way that
Once this starts marching, we're going to march it right through there.
It's a beautiful quote, but I'm here trying to make a point.
I'm going to make a debating point.
I'm going to make a debating point.
I'm going to make a debating point.
I'm going to make a debating point.
I'm going to make a debating point.
I'm going to make a debating point.
I'm going to make a debating point.
I'm going to make a debating point.
after blank, unproductive public meetings, public sessions.
Oh, shit, I didn't, I want, that's Henry and I, but I didn't.
Don't even mention it.
The consultation was like, here's the guy, here's the guy, here's the fucker.
Our chief negotiator in Paris.
He was always kind of angry.
Whether it's Bruce, I think the public will immediately say, did Bruce know before that that was our chief negotiator in Paris?
What does that mean?
No, our chief always did this.
I don't want to say logs, our chief negotiator in Paris.
I guess our chief negotiator in Paris.
That bill, can we say it on the catalogs?
We, to be perfectly frank with you, we didn't trust Locke.
He was known for his civility.
And so we only informed him and I had that way.
But Bruce was informed every step of the way, even right after he killed him.
Name Booker and not me.
Okay.
I'll say it again.
I'll say it again.
I'll say it again.
I'll say it again.
I'll say it again.
I'll say it again.
I'll say it again.
I'll say it again.
On page seven.
There's one weakness there.
I don't think people really have raised the question of why we have not offered a permanent rehabilitation in South D.C.
I know I put it in my memorandum, but I don't think most people did in any of our classes.
Why we have not submitted a new peace plan.
Why we have not submitted a new peace plan.
Yeah, much better.
And if you want a lot, I put it this way.
Why we have not proposed a deadline for the withdrawal of all American forces, period.
Why we have not proposed a ceasefire.
Why we have not offered, no, I don't know, a deadline for the withdrawal.
Seriously, the like it is.
There's a picture.
Publicly, we have opened the ceasefire.
Yeah, we did that on October 17th.
But you know, this deadline in exchange for ceasefire in front of prisoners of war is the same.
It isn't the pressure of the Bush.
No, it isn't.
Yeah, essentially.
Plus, even out of the ceasefire.
Sometimes it tends to affect that.
You can't hear, um, when to leave the ceasefire out.
You just meant to leave it for the 7th?
We do.
Do you realize what you did?
No.
Oh, yeah.
That's the beauty of the new kitchen.
You can just keep breathing.
There's two faces to it.
No, you have a withdrawal.
You agree to withdraw it in six months and return all prisoners of war.
That's to be accomplished in six months.
You just sign that in principle.
And then, at the end of the six-month period, you negotiate a ceasefire.
You know what I mean?
The second phase will be a ceasefire.
No, he's covered that.
Ask them about it so they can understand, so they can understand, so that you understand.
And that way, now we, see, we thought through all these things, so I worked out this proposal myself.
I asked you to resign.
This is to be absolutely, you know, to resign before the election, the election day was something that I, I suggested to the bodies.
And I also, I also propose we've got to separate Deadline from Ceasefire.
So have you heard about this movie?
It's a goddamn good deal.
Well, no, no, no, I don't think so.
the procedure to pull out the ceasefire.
Henry, you can tell me if that's what we have done in the last proposal, and we can say yes.
Nine points and seven a little here so that the panel is a little more satisfied.
I know you left it out of my suggestion, but that's a definite one.
Never use the other side.
That's a State Department government because it's the enemy.
They're done damn right.
No, they're the enemy.
They're the enemy.
The way to handle it.
I don't think that careful selection of words double-dealers
I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm striking.
I'm striking how Congress would not know, or I could tell Congress would want to run a voter revolution.
I'm really a non-secretor in a way, but you don't have to explain enough why you can't tell Congress.
Can I have a poll, Congressman?
I'm just mucking up that part.
It's the last sentence.
Let's see what we've got.
Last sentence on page three.
I mean, the last sentence of the paragraph.
I just, just prompt in a little, I get the concrete, I get the resolution, the manual, we make the offer, the order, and then turn it off.
Now, let me point out the same kind of evidence.
Let me point out, I'm like, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.
It's now been revealed that one or two weeks after I submitted my amendment, the United States...
Wait a minute.
Sorry.
We were, we were, we were listening.
Okay.
Let's do it again.
We, we, we, we respect the issue, but we did it.
I'd rather come back all day long.
They're going to have a hell of a time coming back.
I don't think it adds anything anyway.
Yeah, that Henry made that one.
Also, it cuts it down.
Very bright.
About the page 11 you put in in the August.
Nine months, then.
About the page 11?
Yeah.
Nine months, I suppose.
No, no, no.
It doesn't matter.
I can take a small one.
I think it falls.
Oh, I don't care.
Where it comes in, see if I can help you with that.
Well, the beginning, the secret beginning.
The beginning says, the secret gets on first.
Not conciliatory, except that we believe that the time has come to make peace.
We believe this is a reasonable offer, that President Chu's offer to resign removes the last possible option of objection.
I'll resign a month before the election, so that the election can be conducted entirely by an independent body, which the Congress will participate in.
It removes the last possible objection that they have.
We call upon them to respond.
And we are prepared to negotiate on this.
Don't say we're prepared to give up.
A couple of thoughts.
Every time you remain present, we shall exchange offers for the six-month period of final withdrawal.
Again, now, so that people will feel they are ready to.
I think we shall withdraw.
We shall exchange.
We have agreed that a new presidential election, we are ready to hold the seat.
We should not, we don't hold the election.
We've agreed that a new presidential election, we've agreed that a new presidential election would be held in South Vietnam in six months' time, so we can sit down.
I don't want to make it appear we're holding the election.
I tonight make this offer as part of the peace plan, this additional offer.
It's part of the lease fund.
It's so fun to play with those things.
It's a good one.
It's a good one.
It's a good one.
It's a good one.
It's a good one.
It's a good one.
It's a good one.
It's a good one.
It's a good one.
It's a good one.
It's a good one.
It's a good one.
It's a good one.
Our proposal suggests that we first sign an agreement of principles which would immediately start the final troop withdrawals and to release the prisoners.
Meanwhile, the parties in Paris have worked on other details of a final settlement, including an immediate, unconditional cease-fire throughout China.
But you see, that's six months later that I understand.
They work on that.
My point is, we sign an agreement of principles, and right then,
troops for presidents.
Then, you separate the parties in Paris who worked on other details of a final settlement, including the immediate unconditional ceasefire throughout the whole of China and the election.
I think that's correct.
Now, you have then a substance, and from where you can move it, you can pull close to the paradigm you were before.
Well, I think they are very important to discuss and ensure that we're accurate.
615, I want to ask your PR.
I think it's wise to say to you that we have not included in our proposals the Orbit rule of the government, of course, in the position of the Congress.
A lot of people don't do it yet.
Of course, in that position.
Many feel that we shouldn't be prayer allies.
We mean our sacrifice.
We've got to be prayer allies.
I don't agree.
Somehow or other, I like it.
Oh, should I make it stronger?
But I'm just interested in other relationships.
I don't know.
I mean, it's great.
But I say it won't make sense.
Bomb the batches and destroy them.
That's not really what I would have done.
I would have had an earlier date.
The war would have ended in 1966.
That's what I call it.
It would have been so easy.
I said, Bill's cramped.
He gave me great credit.
He came back and he was facing up to the one side.
I said, mine.
Mine.
I bombed.
Take out the railroads.
Take out the dikes.
And the war.
Take four or five months.
Tell them.
How the hell did you beat German in World War I?
How did they get into World War II?
You don't know.
The blockade.
How did we win the Civil War, Bill?
Don't think that blockade didn't have one hell of an effect.
That's right.
We blockaded them.
The Navy had a much bigger role than people realize in the Civil War.
That's where Ann Lee was fighting for.
We never used her.
Well, I just don't have a feeling.
I don't know, it's just a question of, I don't believe I want to ask for trust.
I don't believe I want to raise that question.
I just want to say that we are for peace.
And now I ask that this answers the question.
I have answered the ninth question.
Your government has worked for peace.
We have made offers for peace.
We ask for your support.
With your support, we can end this agonizing struggle.
Do you like the...
I'm not suggesting you cut it.
When you start letting me add this personal work, that's the kind of thing that I'm not sure I can really pull off at this point.
that I want to sort of make a defense of myself.
I just like to stand there as basically a ruthless, no-nonsense guy, not asking for any mercy, not asking for any understanding, but saying, here's our honor.
It's fair.
I ask for your support.
I'd rather feel better about that.
I don't mind the last paragraph on page 20.
How about the last one, Mike?
I like that.
I don't mind any of that.
Yes.
As this record now, clear, shows me on a shadow of a doubt, by our program of withdrawals, withdrawing a half a million, by our program that we have tried to bring it home, and have negotiated in front, we have gone the extra mile.
And we can be proud of this record.
You know what I'm saying?
Thank you.
Yeah, yeah, I saw it.
Yeah, I called him just now, and when you came in, he was in Holloman's office, so I paid my march to give you guys a talk.
That's what you're doing, see.
You just say, Henry, the president called you, you were in Holloman's office, and so he just wanted to listen to you, and he told me that he was going to get back to the state of New York.
That's all.
All right, so now he will want, he will not like the fact that you've taken Dissinger out so much.
But let me say, Bill, that's absolutely essential.
You can't have Dissinger unless Dissinger went there.
I mean, it's all there.
The world's going to know it.
The one sentence at the beginning that he went 12 times to Paris, that's enough.
You see?
And you don't say, and Dr. Kissinger offered this, and only Dr. Toews said that.
You don't know.
You understand.
No, I understand.
It's for his own good.
I just don't want to, I don't want to also make it easier when I have to show the goddamn thing to Roger.
How do you want to work it out?
I'll give you a new draft.
What Kissinger's opinion is.
You and Henry now work on it.
Bill, I really can't take another look.
Tomorrow is Wednesday, and I'll...
I've got to fix this thing.
And then tomorrow I'll have to get some of it in my... in my consciousness.
Imagine it's only run past a few...
Henry, you take it to Henry and tell him what we want.
He may want to add .6, .7, .8, .9.
I don't think that needs to be there.
Oh, another thing.
We are not going to publish the record
you have in there, and Ray, I've talked to him about this, and I'm sure you understand, we're not going to publish the record of the initiations, we're only going to publish the proposals, and I've changed that in there.
I think you're absolutely right in making a professional thing on this matter.
And after the Green I Work is over, he will send an early draft of the draft that he and I worked over this year.
Yeah.
He can send that any time.
That's no problem.
And don't submit anything to Rogers or anything.
So you and Henry have worked it over.
You come back with me.
But you consider it to be a good time.
Now, one way to help Henry a bit on this is to save the president months.
Henry pointed out some of these things.
He was so important.
He was going to be on the record for all of this.
Well, I mean, Thursday night by 10 o'clock.
And I'll follow with me if I go to Florida that night or the next morning and study it on the way.
Fair enough.
Now, I may not work on it before.
If I do work on it, I'll ask you and Henry to come down.
But I may.
But I may want to work with you.
And if I do, I'll just ask you to come down.
I want you to come first.
I want you to take off.
pretty well down the pipe.
It's a damn good, no, it's a, don't you feel good about it?
How do you feel?
I mean, that's what we had, basically, from what you know.
And every time we'd get something started, you see, that was the reason why the Mansfields were gone.
They went a little bit further in time.
You know what I mean?
They pulled the rug right out from our negotiating position.
Every time they did that, every time there was speechlessness, they pulled the rug right out.
And our negotiating position went very far.
That's why it went wrong.
I think the general reaction would be a big gasp.
That's what they would do.
You think it would be a gasp?
Yeah.
Or they would say, why didn't we reveal it, sir?
And we lied to the people.
Yeah, I think that's what the negotiations are supposed to be for.
I mean, you know, this is really, I think the reaction would be one of the gasped, by God, that had spoken, that had stuff going, that's what was interesting.
Then, Jesus, she was agreed to resign, that's the big stuff.
And then, three or four days later, the interpreters would say, do you realize what they've really done?
They've offered a deadline for the prisoners with a divorce.
That's his voice.
They need you to turn away.
It's a big speech, a big move.
A big speech and a big move.
A big move.
A big move to put it on.
The only great problem with it would be, you know, the secret negotiations fail, and therefore... Yeah, that's my point.
That's Jesus Christ.
Oh, Christ, here we go again.
Patrick's been here three years, and they can't end this war.
Get out.
Well, of course, the point is that we are.
That's why, see, what I vetted that was not in Henry's draft was that the Vietnamization is working.
And maybe you've got to put that in in the last two years.
This war will come to an end.
This war is at last going to end.
We are, our Vietnamization is back.
Withdrawal will continue.
Remembering, however, that we will all be making abortions that are going to be done.
But there is a better way, a faster way, to peacekeeping rather than battle.
And if this is the way, let's seize this moment now.
Let's stop the fighting, let's stop the killing.
Not only for Americans.
Withdrawal of Americans is the fight that I make.
The end is the war for America.
It doesn't end it for the long-suffering people of America.
That's another point that we have to make.
We have to make a plan.
Whereas this peace plan ends it for all of us.
I guess that is.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you, Percy.
That gives you a lot of time to negotiate and push around and so forth and so on.
We don't run a test, right?
Oh, no.
No, no.
That's not the way to do it.
No.
Yes, yes, it will.
I'm going to have you do it because I don't want to have a conversation.
Of course, Henry can't.
If you just say, Bill, you're not showing this to another single solitary soul except you, you will see it.
You'll see it.
You'll see it.
You can't pick some of them, I'm sure, if you want to try to fix it or not.
I don't know how you can try to fix it.
I mean, now that they're both, everyone got it down to the nub.
And also, I protect Bill nicely.
He's very specific.
I don't think he's going to be able to handle it properly.
And it's totally true.
He wasn't one of them.
Why don't you let me know then when to run a fight here.
I have no objection to do anything about him after you and Henry get the draft.
In other words, you can do it Thursday.
Okay.
Yeah, you can work on Bill Thursday.
Fine.
No, I understand that.
It's all on Bill Anderson because I don't want him to be waiting to hear about it from you or Bunker.
Okay.
So you can just assume as soon as you and Henry have reached some meeting of the minds, you take it over to Bill and say,
He said, I would make this point, Bill.
I think Bill, you should know that the draft was prepared by Wynne Lord, Bill Sagan.
And it was pretty good when he put out his letter when he got in a convoluted conflict and when the function failed.
And that I remember that Bill said, and Bill called him, don't put out the whole damn record.
So he did.
so that I can't be a rough guy.
But if you took the rough guy and smoothed it and put me here, this might be the right culture.
Just be the usual one.
It's not unusual, of course.
But, of course, Henry doesn't feel honest.
He can build on some honesty and honesty.
It's the people of the administration that always fight.
Well, my God Almighty, Lincoln's captains were a disaster.
But I think the British captains were really, really, really Churchill.
And I, of course, I was rereading Elbert three nights ago.
I was reading it last night.
They loved it.
This is actually .
There has been a man.
But there is between Rogers and .
There are just two men.
And he used both of them well.
Well, yeah.
Bill has Henry .
Bill thinks Henry is lies to Henry.
Henry really, he does some hot, but Henry just plays him close the best because he doesn't trust the State Department.
Bill goes into state government.
The difficulty is that, and also, Henry doesn't think Bill is profound.
He is not.
Bill is a tactician, not a strategist.
But on the other hand, Bill's tactics are goddamn important, because you know, he has a very big public relations thing.
He will not step up to Harvard.
He would have never stepped up to the reference that I had used on the page alone.
He wouldn't step up to Cambodia.
arise, but once we get it, the bill has been sold.
I don't think the other ones .
By egomaniac.
I mean, all of us are egomaniac.
But some do not grow it.
And some get worse, but some don't grow it.
If I remember when I asked a question a long time ago,
But the difficulty is that no point comes from vanity.
It is, in a curious way, an expression of love that really only comes from the lines of his own comments, which he tendered hands, and which he wouldn't possibly believe to fill in his letters.
He has, for a reason.
But we can all understand, this is not his view.
He knows God damn well.
And the boat's over there.
No, I don't.
And I just assumed the boat was quite important to him.
Well, I'll move in that interesting area with that advice.
I've tried to go over, drop by Henry's office now, so that you will have at least paid your respects.
Just say, well, when it's convenient.
If you read.
Other than that, I think you can say it.
I've done mine, and I want him to do it separately.
Great job you've done.
all that, this is going to make it look better.
And leaving, Tom, I think he's got some great stuff in his draft, but he ought to make those points tomorrow on the Congress and all that.
I'll mention that to you on Thursday.
I'll mention that to you on Thursday.
I'll mention that to you on Thursday.
Oh, yes, you've got to say now.
Now, look, since the copy is going out to Cuba, that I want you to take it by Rogers and just sell it to him.
I'm going to make the decision, but it's going to go by.
And I don't want to have a competition.
Well, you did it once before.
Thank you very much.
I don't know why I'm like this.
Thank you.
In a sense, it's too bad now that the two men, both of whom I have great respect for, and frankly affection for, that they just can't get along.
I've never been able to understand why they get along with anybody.
They're not that good at their own best.
that's what I can get along with, but that's the story of God.
And I think he's that ego.
Everybody must have it, but if an individual does not recognize that he has it, and then deliberately does not overcompensate the other way, he's lost it.
Now, Patty said that in Jesus Christ.
No, no, no.
I've got to say, take Nelburn and Disraeli.
They're very different kinds of men.
If you read their biographies, both of them had enormous egos.
They were smart as hell.
And Disraeli, in his younger years, was really a pleasant son of a bitch.
But Nelburn was always pleasant, didn't he?
But both of these guys were so confident in themselves in their older years, you see, that they had no...
All right, good luck.