Conversation 315-008

TapeTape 315StartMonday, January 17, 1972 at 3:16 PMEndMonday, January 17, 1972 at 3:34 PMTape start time00:21:34Tape end time00:38:02ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President);  Safire, William L.Recording deviceOld Executive Office Building

On January 17, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and William L. Safire met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 3:16 pm to 3:34 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 315-008 of the White House Tapes.

Conversation No. 315-8

Date: January 17, 1972
Time: 3:16 pm - 3:34 pm
Location: Executive Office Building

The President talked with William L. Safire.

[See Conversation No. 18-93; one item has been withdrawn from the conversation]

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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.

Are you coming along now?
Let us say that you have something tomorrow at 3 o'clock.
Well, I mean, is that enough time?
Would you rather wait until tomorrow at 7 o'clock?
Then that will give me something so that you don't get off on the wrong trail that I didn't work on before today.
I'm not interested now in this one.
I'm interested in more.
See, the difficulty is, I'm sure you can tell from...
Well, basically, in the history of negotiations and wars, there's always been a combination of secret and public talks.
For example, the negotiations in World War I were that way.
There was negotiations going on all that time.
And then, of course, World War II, you know, there were talks long before the war was over, and then finally it became public, and so forth, and so on.
Who knows what finally did it?
The point is, if you're doing this, begin with the thought that, God, this public disclosure, we will now, and also we're offering, we're going somewhat beyond our offer, and we're going to leave the deadline for 76 months.
Right, I think that in terms of a...
Why didn't we offer a deadline?
Why didn't we offer a deadline?
Why didn't we offer a deadline?
That is not our purpose.
That is not our purpose.
That is not our purpose.
That's why I hold you to this moment.
When we heard the fact that the matter was back three months later, or whatever it was, the Senate had no confidence in the resolution.
As for the very thing that you had called for, it was offered, and then you turned it down, and it was offered to the government.
That's where it went.
That's where it went.
That's where it went.
The purpose of this is not to be one of the debating points.
The purpose of this is to break the headlock.
Well, what I think you do some, if you say, is to be aware of the problem, to be aware of it,
But on the negotiating front, which is what he had done, we had had a blank public meeting.
There had been some of that, and some private meetings.
In addition to that, as I said, my brother, or my brother-in-law, that I determined all things.
We ought to pursue other channels as well.
Nobody has believed this.
You have noticed that I have said rather and rather, but we have pursued a number of channels, and I have never been able to say why, because I had to protect the channel.
We have pursued other channels.
And so, I have said that the conservation of the Secretary of State has responded in our delegation to Paris,
The...
The progress was made on some of the issues, but the first critical point came in May of 1971, when we offered a...
They rejected them.
Then, in August, we came back and offered a deadline.
Last October, we made another offer.
And now, of course, as you know, we have a big offer to make.
We're offering...
Now, we have offered a deadline in exchange for a deal that was impersonated on a ceasefire on the 11th of September.
So, it's really built.
The main thing I want to get across here is that all the negotiating is fun.
We've gone the extra mile.
We're doing everything we can.
I think we should be banking on this offer until it gets backed up.
That's the other thing in it, is that you put things on them now, and they know what they have to offer.
They constantly come back and say, and they always use the term that they have said, in their condition, where they've not been able to use free conditions, the overthrow of the government itself did not ever say to you, that the government itself did not overthrow every other side.
I've made several semantics,
So that's sort of the deal.
The main thing is to remember that we really have, this has got to be kept for 20 minutes.
We just can't go beyond that.
So that's 2,500 words.
That's outside.
That's 125 words a minute.
And I think 20 minutes is what it takes to read.
You know how long his draft would take?
About 38 minutes.
and studied the ending of the war over the years, you might say that anyone will recognize that that has been the history, the record, and go ahead.
But now I feel that maybe you want to put that at the beginning.
Yes.
And then, when you're taking them into their comfort spot, what do you say?
And I had, I realized that I had had to, in order to protect the secret negotiations with the hold that they might feel, I could not reply when I was under attack, or failing to respond to the subject once we had answered to it, or failing to offer a response.
We had offered a response.
You see, that kind of thing.
Is that what you meant?
I'm trying to know everything.
But now, we believe that now that we have reached this point, now that we have reached the period of our withdrawal, that we can conclude this time, end this war quickly, honorably, and in a way that there will be peace, not only for the United States, but peace for all of us out in the United States.
That's what I'm trying to do.
That's what I'm trying to do.
The Vietnamization means peace for America.
Thank you.
This negotiation is to end our involvement with Southern and bring peace not only to the United States, but peace to the long-suffering people.
40 million people in Southeast Asia who have been plagued by war for 25 years.
It's not a bad thing.
Let's show you what we're doing.
No, no, no.
It's such a beautiful and obviously weak thing to do.
You know what I mean?
I would do it, but I mean, that's a jock song.
It's not credible.
We have to support the people of this proposal.
We believe it's a good proposal.
We believe it's as far as any of us want to go.
Berna?
Ha?