Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 315 › Conversation 315-008
Nixon & Safire on Vietnam War and Peace negotiations
Monday, January 17, 1972 · 3:16 PM–3:34 PM ET · Old Executive Office Building
AI Summary
President Nixon met with speechwriter William Safire to refine a public address regarding secret negotiations to end the Vietnam War. Nixon emphasized the necessity of demonstrating that the administration had exhausted all diplomatic channels, including specific peace offers and withdrawal deadlines, while justifying his previous silence on these efforts as a means to protect ongoing back-channel discussions. The primary goal of the meeting was to distill these complex foreign policy developments into a concise, credible 20-minute speech that would convey a narrative of an honorable and inevitable path to peace.
Audio
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This conversation has not yet been cut into its own clip, so the player above contains the full tape segment shared with neighbouring conversations. It begins about 00:21:34 into the tape and ends around 00:38:02.
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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.
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· Timestamps are positions within the full tape recording.
22:39Are you coming along now?
22:41Let us say that you have something tomorrow at 3 o'clock.
22:47Well, I mean, is that enough time?
22:50Would you rather wait until tomorrow at 7 o'clock?
22:56Then that will give me something so that you don't get off on the wrong trail that I didn't work on before today.
23:12I'm not interested now in this one.
23:20I'm interested in more.
23:23See, the difficulty is, I'm sure you can tell from...
25:46Well, basically, in the history of negotiations and wars, there's always been a combination of secret and public talks.
25:53For example, the negotiations in World War I were that way.
26:00There was negotiations going on all that time.
26:06And 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.
26:14Who knows what finally did it?
26:15The 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.
26:31Right, I think that in terms of a...
26:33Why didn't we offer a deadline?
26:40Why didn't we offer a deadline?
26:42Why didn't we offer a deadline?
26:50That is not our purpose.
26:51That is not our purpose.
26:53That is not our purpose.
26:55That's why I hold you to this moment.
26:58When we heard the fact that the matter was back three months later, or whatever it was, the Senate had no confidence in the resolution.
27:05As 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.
27:13That's where it went.
27:15That's where it went.
27:16That's where it went.
27:18The purpose of this is not to be one of the debating points.
27:24The purpose of this is to break the headlock.
27:36Well, what I think you do some, if you say, is to be aware of the problem, to be aware of it,
27:45But on the negotiating front, which is what he had done, we had had a blank public meeting.
27:54There had been some of that, and some private meetings.
27:57In addition to that, as I said, my brother, or my brother-in-law, that I determined all things.
28:04We ought to pursue other channels as well.
28:09Nobody has believed this.
28:11You 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.
28:20We have pursued other channels.
28:21And so, I have said that the conservation of the Secretary of State has responded in our delegation to Paris,
28:34The...
29:00The progress was made on some of the issues, but the first critical point came in May of 1971, when we offered a...
29:31They rejected them.
29:35Then, in August, we came back and offered a deadline.
29:46Last October, we made another offer.
30:01And now, of course, as you know, we have a big offer to make.
30:05We're offering...
30:07Now, we have offered a deadline in exchange for a deal that was impersonated on a ceasefire on the 11th of September.
30:17So, it's really built.
30:17The main thing I want to get across here is that all the negotiating is fun.
30:20We've gone the extra mile.
30:21We're doing everything we can.
30:24I think we should be banking on this offer until it gets backed up.
30:30That's the other thing in it, is that you put things on them now, and they know what they have to offer.
30:36They 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.
30:58I've made several semantics,
31:28So that's sort of the deal.
31:29The main thing is to remember that we really have, this has got to be kept for 20 minutes.
31:36We just can't go beyond that.
31:37So that's 2,500 words.
31:39That's outside.
31:40That's 125 words a minute.
31:41And I think 20 minutes is what it takes to read.
31:48You know how long his draft would take?
31:50About 38 minutes.
31:55and 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.
32:13But now I feel that maybe you want to put that at the beginning.
32:21Yes.
32:22And then, when you're taking them into their comfort spot, what do you say?
32:32And 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.
32:48We had offered a response.
32:49You see, that kind of thing.
32:50Is that what you meant?
32:56I'm trying to know everything.
32:56But 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.
33:14That's what I'm trying to do.
33:20That's what I'm trying to do.
33:21The Vietnamization means peace for America.
33:24Thank you.
33:48This negotiation is to end our involvement with Southern and bring peace not only to the United States, but peace to the long-suffering people.
33:5840 million people in Southeast Asia who have been plagued by war for 25 years.
34:04It's not a bad thing.
34:06Let's show you what we're doing.
34:12No, no, no.
34:13It's such a beautiful and obviously weak thing to do.
34:19You know what I mean?
34:23I would do it, but I mean, that's a jock song.
34:26It's not credible.
34:30We have to support the people of this proposal.
34:35We believe it's a good proposal.
34:38We believe it's as far as any of us want to go.
36:10Berna?
36:11Ha?
NARA Description
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.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
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]
Also recorded on January 17, 1972
- 018-091 2:47 PM · 22 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson talked on the telephone from 2:47 pm to 3:10 pm.
- 315-006 2:47 PM · 12 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 2:47 pm to 3:10 pm.
- 018-092 3:10 PM · 8 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 3:10 pm and 3:16 pm.
- 315-007 3:10 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 an unknown time between 3:10 pm and 3:16 pm.
- 018-093 3:16 PM · 17 min — President Richard M. Nixon and William L. Safire talked on the telephone from 3:16 pm to 3:34 pm.
- 315-020 3:43 PM · 58 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and William L. Safire met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 3:43 pm to 3:44 pm.
- 315-021 3:44 PM · 4 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Roger Staubach met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 3:44 pm and 3:58 pm.
- 315-022 3:44 PM · 56 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 3:44 pm and 3:58 pm.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 315-008, January 17, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/315-008 (accessed September 29, 2026).