Nixon, Kissinger & Haig on Vietnam War and North Vietnamese Offensive

Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript is incomplete. The transcription skipped stretches of speech — roughly 15 minutes of this recording (about 49% of it) is represented by only a few words. Listen to the audio rather than relying on the text below; a corrected transcript is queued.

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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

Download transcript (.txt) · JSON data

But where do they stand?

I think they're going to do some massive data action as soon as they're done with that.

I think they're self-reporting the error, and I know it's always the middle of the night, and I know it's always the middle of the night, so what about the weather?

The last forecast was that it wouldn't be up until tomorrow morning, day at night, which I don't really know the time.

We of course were not wanting him at that time.

that we were kind of lying before the email in strikes, but my recollection was that we were supposed to be dealing with the DMC.

Oh, no, the DMC.

No, I mean SAM and so forth.

No, no, we did give them authority to attack in the northern half of the DMC.

Right, right.

There's not anything in the northern half of the DMC.

The trouble is, Mr. President, as always, they gave you an impossible proposition.

We couldn't let them go in there day after day on their own judgment.

And what they wanted was unlimited authority to attack India.

And given the situation with the Chinese and the Russians, we asked the Lord why we shouldn't do it.

And we were appalled by the Chinese trip at that point.

on the Chinese trip and also on the upcoming Russian trip, it is something that would look like a daily campaign.

Now, I do not believe it ever came to us, but I have to say, in San Francisco, it would have been important if it had come to us.

And therefore, normally, I don't think it came to us, not whatever it was, but it was very important.

Get me a general bag.

I don't know what that is.

Here you go.

I don't know what that is.

This, uh, question, I thought we had a thing you were gonna go through, thank you very much.

I know you've had to do all the time.

I know that we've had to do all the time.

But did we, uh, did you find out about this March 8th request from the chiefs that had everything done?

Have you got this, or are you getting it?

Seven hours?

Yeah.

Uh, it's seven, sorry.

Yeah.

All right, well, what... At any rate, Mr. President, I don't think it was the wrong thing.

We had, coming back from China, a bond code we found there.

So, what I was thinking, though, was that on our meeting in Turkey, we have yet to know Vietnam.

I mean, certainly, they won't know Sam's out of that period, but I don't know if they'll ever know.

Well, if Sam keeps moving, it's a better day to go than a month or so.

But it isn't a bad public posture to say that for a month and a half you disapproved the request to leave.

Now we're done.

And we're doing it.

We've watched the build-up.

But we want to make absolutely sure.

So I don't think it's a bad thing.

Right.

Now, first, there's no question about our getting reports.

There's no question.

Mr. President, I just spoke on it.

As always, you put things together.

But the thing is, I can't understand what in the hell, I don't know what Christian Morris got surprised.

He riding up the Air Force.

Is it true that the Air Force couldn't have done more than 138 services?

You can't do that.

Because he backed it up completely.

I don't know.

The thing is, I'm going to watch this every day.

I'm going to keep watching this myself.

So we're not going to... See, the struggle of this war is good for the neighborhood.

It's what he does in Iceland.

I know.

Secondly, he's doing again what he didn't love.

He's backing up his fears from after the war.

That's right.

He'll be candid.

He says, we can't run the war from here.

All right.

They prove they can't run it from there.

And he knows goddamn well that on Abrams, he's got the responsibility now to come up with something.

That's right.

And Rush told me afterwards that he'd been kept out of everything by Rush.

And that with the charter of...

of what you've told him, he's not going to make sure.

Rush, please.

Oh, well, you know, Rush, incidentally, you are right about Mr. President.

He was just playing cards with you in Queens.

Sure, too.

And Trump?

He's totally wrong.

That's it?

And you can give him any job after the election.

Yeah.

You'll have him.

Yeah.

I know that.

I told you I wanted to watch it, but I've got the money.

He's got to get in and gain the confidence in people he has to work with.

You don't have to fear to be coming in as our man when you get in.

Has he got Larry's number?

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, because you told me you wanted to say, Larry's got to keep everything, you know, and when he's, when you're going to see Rick, but when you, when you, or just pass him the message to him.

Right, right.

Well, we've got that up to speed in the past five years.

because they wanted to eventually be verified, and I'm going to tell the truth.

Russian tanks, Russian artillery, including Keturin in there.

He held out airstrikes because of Brezhnev's letter.

He can't do it, not many of them.

It's true, but I'll say it's right.

And I'd say this is it now.

Every time he laid out the law of the day,

They've done something.

Whether they can do anything now with these people, I don't know.

These people probably received the ban, but they can make them struggle with Russia and China.

Maybe they can't catch COVID.

President, I, if we can do this to nature, I think we would have done this.

What is interesting to me is that the press is not yet savaging us the way they'd like to.

Perhaps I'll have to be calling everything

but they all talk about that you shouldn't, you know.

I think this topic can go to the woods without getting all of that.

Let me say this, and I trust that this is important, but I think it's very important, and I think it's also incredible for the doctor to not let this all happen.

I don't want to be able to write anything about it, but I know it's very important for that to be done.

And on that score, I think that there is, you know, we don't know what's going to happen here.

I would say that what I meant is, don't let them trap you into saying, well, what is the evaluation?

Well, that I don't do.

Well, like you were saying about how we have more information to do.

Well, but I don't think it's bad for us to, all traps, as you say, to divide us into families, and we stay calm.

They are in

I think on that score, too, that it's very important this time to run this better than we did last year for the PR.

And I think if you want to get together with all of them, and just three, all of them, Scalise and Hickler every day, just, you know, just, you say, I hear this from the Eagles, don't bring Kline in.

Just tell them.

Now Scalise is our team.

Scalise will play in the game as well.

And then the thing that we want is to get all the stories to help out of the White House.

Let the state make comments.

Let the feds make comments.

Let the mayors make comments.

For example, all of this idea which to prepare for losses of territory and so forth is bad.

I thought we had done that very well already, but apparently we haven't done that.

I think no one has succeeded.

territory with all the police that we have not done anything in the past.

Now, what we are doing, Mr. President, today, is that the state is going to make a statement that what is happening in Vietnam is an active invasion of one part of Vietnam and the other part of Vietnam across the demilitarized zone.

The Geneva Agreement, which was in 1954, said, of course, our territory will be lost because of this violation.

And the answer, the defense is trying to put out some of the units that crossed the DMZ.

They said two residents, two battalions.

without indicating panic.

That's right.

I think some indication that the, or there's something, I mean, he's fighting well anywhere where they don't have another troop.

My understanding is they're not fighting well.

That is my understanding.

But there is not one more attack.

It's a little hard to tell because they attacked their newest division.

This massive, isolated attack

So they retreat.

Where are the tanks that the order sent up to the North?

I'll check on that.

There are two tanks that have them.

But are they out deep?

So they've got a good tank.

Then they take on another tank.

Yes.

If nothing worse happens than what has happened, it is a manageable situation because they have now retreated and exported a defense line around the Dong Ha and one tree.

They could hold those two towns.

But I think I do.

But I think if I do think they do, it's just not clear.

If we don't lose Buey, I think we can succeed the areas.

No, they should determine a line now that they want to fight on.

Maybe around Buey.

And be prepared to give those things up.

Of course, if the air moves, I don't see how in the hell they would, with us getting, frankly, to take those tanks out with our aircraft.

If that was safe.

If they were to do it, we ought to be able to tear them to pieces.

We ought to have them held in the jungle for hours and inflicted, contributed to many thousand casualties.

We can inflict that many casualties on them.

They're here now, they're fighting every year now.

And it's just much too early to tell.

Right.

Do you think it'd be a good idea to have Rock and Blair?

They don't want to hear it.

Let it go.

Of course, it is a crisis.

I don't think we want to make it appear like a crisis.

Let's let it look like a crisis for some, but not.

That's the way everybody should play it.

And then you have the meeting.

What's the decision?

After all the decisions you can take, you take.

See if we are putting out that you've been in close contact with, uh, this land, or, uh, uh, that we had a weapon we needed more than just food, and, uh, that we've kept focused and concentrated forward.

If anything is necessary, I don't

as soon as we get led under control which we now seem to have rogers has always been

You couldn't get it after the fact that it had to be dead, you know.

You let that go, and when you put it in, somebody's got to.

What are you going to do on that?

I may have to do it anyway.

You've got to do what you're doing.

I'm sure that's... Well, it may go into our hands.

We may even get into some one goddamn argument about it, though.

Well, but it's better not to have it done than to have it done in confidence.

I don't think we have to do that.

Laird?

How do you do it?

Laird can do it.

Laird?

He stumbles up to things like that.

No, Laird, Laird would be able to do it.

After the attack, Laird ought to do it.

He ought to have to do it.

He does his best.

But Laird should do it in terms of the demand and the art.

That's it.

You know, I've heard some of the other...

We don't know whether they can hold or not, but God has given us that.

You see, we come to them and try to rationalize here by saying, well, if they can't hold, they'll never be able to hold.

If they can't hold, it's...

They have about seven residents.

If we could let one division in space, it would be a normal whole.

If we had a MacArthur work charge, one division could drive up to one of them.

I know there's something, Henry, I'm here to do an assignment quickly on the way on Cambodia, if someone's... Yeah, I saw it.

Well, it's ridiculous, Mr. President, because actually not both do any marriage in Cambodia.

The three North Vietnamese divisions that are in Cambodia have all moved to the South Vietnamese frontier.

There's practically no fighting at all in Cambodia.

They indicate that all we have around Cambodia will be restricted, and Cambodia will be strained around and on and on.

Oh, but what difference does that make at all now?

I, uh, detest it, true, but also detest it because the North Vietnamese divisions right now are concentrating on fine-hand drives in order to tie down the strategic reserves.

You remember, Mr. President,

When we started reading them, I said, both of us had serious thoughts with Iraq.

We had nothing to do with Iraq.

I have fought for them, fought for them, and they've been free.

In reality, a lot of fighting.

They've been frozen free for hundreds of years.

They've got to be killed somehow.

I've experienced British and French troops in March 1918 who had driven back under the outlaw of the Germans.

And I don't think we can tell them to face it.

They put all their artillery and most of their tanks into attacking the most contrived south-easterly situation, and they had laws.

Uh, there had to be no matter of a successful truth attack that did work.

So they spun off it and carried it.

They trusted the record.

They did.

Yeah.

So these others that were able to do it, thousands of others, uh... Well, I suppose they'll use the deal to deal with, uh... And get around.

A thousand push companies to put down there.

But they're violent, that's a great fact.

Do we have enough children?

I thought we had some.

What the hell is the country all about, sir?

We have just too much fear for this technology.

I would say it's actually the same question here.

For example, they say, all of us, we can't get out of here.

We can't get out of here.

I've said to them,

We're on the airspot.

That's right.

So we are just finding a lot of these sort of rewards.

We're too technological.

Morris said this morning, you've got to take 10 calibrated on all the fireplaces in the second floor.

I said, why the hell don't you take out the other one?

Because now you can draw the circles.

What do you say?

You're doing it.

We don't have any children.

We just don't have any.

We're just looking at the artillery and not the spaces.

If we've got to keep their power forever, she might want it.

They've got to be able to do something about it.

We've got everything.

First, we'll get the reports and whoever that's for.

And we perhaps have a gift for them.

I don't mean everyone.

They all have a proper line that they can put out.

And as far as we're concerned, for Southfield communities,

The North Vietnamese are aggressors.

The South Vietnamese are fighting with their own men.

I think some of the American press must have enough oil in their goddamn eyes to do that.

Maybe that's what you're working into.

Huh?

Mixed over now.

I think you were implying that...

I think they are not in this case.

They're not establishing us to meditate over love.

It's very rare to approach into another...

Wait a minute.

Now they are.

That's the...

They're invading across the DNC.

Not true.

People's revolutionary forces fighting against the government that they're coming across is the Russians, correct?

And so, real good.

But, of course, what can change this battle and change an awful goddamn fact?

Apparently, your beliefs on use of air policy, right?

That can't do it, no.

I believe it must do it.

It did it in Laos, and it will do it there.

I think that's better.

So if the Germans got the bomb, it could have done it.

Now, the right is that the spokesman doesn't.

Well, if at least it's the last, if not the last, how would it count?

If it counted, if the way in which I spoke,

I think if we get a real deluxe way that I'm for, then I'll go over there and settle it.

I don't know if we said it, but the quicker we get out, the better it is.

Let's get out of the boat, right?

Yeah.

All of this is a hell of a lot better now than it was before.

Oh, I agree with that.

I agree with that.

I mean, I'm just thinking of how we handle it.

It's sort of basically, you know, we're looking at one possibility.

I don't think it will happen.

I think that I still have some confidence, some confidence in the Air Force.

They're bound to this.

Well, God damn it, they're going to do it.

If they then sweep across the central highway, that's just the conclusion.

Sweep across the what?

The central highway.

Right.

Because if they can't hold up there, they won't be able to hold the highway.

That's it.

See my point?

That's why we have to do so much now.

The only reason I went through this exercise is that we have to realize that there is no good option.

Yeah, he's all right.

So you look at what it does in our part, in our part with the Chinese, in our part with the Russians, you look at what it does to Indonesia, what it does to Japan, huh?

You'd be all right.

I'm sure you'd all be all right.

That's what I realize.

I know that the domestic politics is bad, too.

It's not critical, but I mean, not...

Not moral, necessarily.

Anyway, let me just say that it doesn't mean the best we can, but it doesn't mean...

I just think... We're not going to borrow a cuddle.

We're not going to be participating in this thing.

At the end of this week, I think we still have the chance to scan it tomorrow.

You're not going to...

The words of those songs will help us to bomb the hell out of it.

Bomb the hell out of it.

Get rid of it.

But I think that's the Chinese...

What would the Russians do?

I think I must tell them that... No, but that the Russians...

If you tell them...

If the Russians influence that, they better lay off this for a while.

It seems to me that you're responding to a meeting on the 24th.

That's all right.

It's a good record.

But we should cancel it.

We should cancel it.

It's a record that we can't continue to make.

If they canceled it on the pretext of what they said were intact, remember?

No, we can't go there.

You get the point?

I agree.

Yeah, we can't go there under the gun.

But we have told them that we will resume the other meetings on the 13th.

Yeah.

And we will not make the offer of the 1,500 trips.

Yeah.

We can't leave on the 13th.

I agree.

I think we have to play it that way so that it gives us a good record that we can serve as if we can save each other.

Before these attacks started, they started everywhere.

Now, we face a situation where the Jews and communists have a very good relationship.

I think Jews have some very good relationships.

But its destruction may be impossible.

They can't do things like that.

They can't do big divisions like that.

We probably haven't really talked them to fight the wrong kind of a war, but we've talked them to fight a mechanized war.

The other side carries everything on its backs.

They don't have any spotters.

They don't have any planes.

They haven't got a goddamn thing.

Now, in the name of God, what's the matter with our side?

What the hell is the matter with our side when I am?

Oh, yes.

And also, we have to pay for the morality of the others.

Do you think it was a thousand or more than a thousand?

Maybe less than a thousand.

The only one you think they know of over there, Chris?

That's right.

The others seem to have gotten back and put it over their head.

Touching from the up to now recorded losses of material, that seems to be the case.

They have taken a little bit of it.

But, can you tell me if it's a very heavy loss?

It's very heavy.

So you can't say that they bought it?

$2,500.

Well, then the person may be that they just have to help each other from here to over here.

Did you get about the story?

One last thing.

Do you think that they have... You doubt it now, don't you?

I'll speak up around this report of what they inflicted, but frankly, Mr. President, we were all wrong.

We killed half.

We killed everybody in North Vietnam.

There's so little they have followed this.

I don't think they casually cut off that message.

Well, they're bound to kill some.

Oh, I mean... All right.

In any event, you've got to report everything on the way.

It's got to be set right.

It's got to be set right there.

Nixon, Kissinger & Haig on Vietnam War and North Vietnamese Offensive

AI Summary

Audio

Transcript (AI-generated)

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on April 3, 1972

Cite this conversation