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Conversation 329-052

TapeTape 329StartSaturday, April 15, 1972 at 5:35 PMEndSaturday, April 15, 1972 at 5:59 PMTape start time05:06:24Tape end time05:22:59ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President);  Kissinger, Henry A.;  [Unknown person(s)]Recording deviceOld Executive Office Building
AI Summary

President Nixon and Henry Kissinger discussed intensified military operations in North Vietnam, specifically focusing on naval bombardment and air strikes against Haiphong's shore batteries and oil storage facilities. The conversation centered on the potential cancellation of Kissinger’s upcoming Moscow trip and the subsequent implementation of a blockade as a retaliatory measure. Additionally, they reviewed diplomatic strategy regarding future peace negotiations, with Nixon instructing Kissinger to ensure the administration takes a firm public stance against repeating the failed 1968 bombing halt.

Vietnam WarHaiphongNaval blockadeHenry KissingerSoviet-US relationsMilitary strategyPeace negotiations
AudioNARA Description

On April 15, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, Henry A. Kissinger, and unknown person(s) met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 5:35 pm to 5:59 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 329-052 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 329-52
Date: April 15, 1972
Time: 5:35 pm - 5:59 pm
Location: Executive Office Building

The President met with Henry A. Kissinger.

     Vietnam
          -Kissinger’s conversation with Yuli M. Vorontsov
                -Attack on Haiphong
          -Haiphong operation
                -Harbor
               -Shore batteries

An unknown man entered at an unknown time after 5:35 pm.

     Food order

The unknown man left at an unknown time before 5:59 pm.

     Vietnam
          -Haiphong
               -Shore batteries
                     -Bombardment
                           -Feasibility
                           -Damage
                           -US landing
                                -Harbor
                           -Naval operations
                                -Coastal artillery
               -Air strikes
                     -B-52s
                           -Number
                           -Targets
                                -Truck parks
                                -Oil storage areas
                                -Shore batteries
          -Kissinger’s message to Vorontsov
               -Soviet reaction
                     -Helmut (“Hal”) Sonnenfeldt
                           -Views
                     -Blockade
          -Blockade
               -Cancellation of Kissinger’s Moscow trip
               -Public reaction
                     -Compared with reaction to bombing
               -Bombing
                     -Destruction of supplies
          -Soviet summit
               -Possible conciliation
                     -US reaction
          -Soviet/German issue
               -Possible meeting with [Franz J.?] Strauss
-Air strikes
      -Anatoliy F. Dobrynin
            -Conversation with Kissinger
-Negotiations
      -Plenary meeting on April 27
      -Meeting on April 24
      -North Vietnam
      -Soviets
      -Meeting on April 27
            -Benefit to US
            -William j. Porter's views
            -Bombing
      -Private meeting on April 24
            -Conditions
                  -Bombing
                        -William P. Rogers's statement
                              -Timing
                              -Porter
            -The President's instructions to Kissinger
                  -Porter’s statement
                        -White house support
                              -Rogers
-An Loc
      -Current situation
-Rogers’s proposed statement
      -Past negotiations
            -October 1968 bombing halt
                  -North Vietnamese refusal to negotiate
      -Negotiations
            -Resumption
                  -Conditions
      -US position
-Kissinger’s conversation with Melvin r. Laird
      -Thanks for support
            -Conflict with Rogers
-Negotiations
      -Edmund S. Muskie's and Edward M. Kennedy's positions
      -Value
-Air strikes
      -Effectiveness
      -Meeting on April 24
            -Hanoi’s acceptance
      -Vorontsov's message to North Vietnam
            -Kissinger’s Moscow trip
-Naval bombardment
      -Schedule
            -Kissinger’s instructions to Thomas H. Moorer
-Kissinger’s trip to Moscow
      -Cancellation
            -US response
                  -German issue
                        -Strauss
                     -Blockade
                          -Timing
                                -Public support
           -Alexander M. Haig, Jr.'s report

Kissinger left at 5:59 pm.
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.

We ordered an immediate attack.
Where are you from, my son?
Mr. President, as you agreed, I've looked over this map of Haifa, where the ships were yesterday.
They cannot reach Haifa now, but they can reach the shore batteries when they're here.
And I think while we are bombing up there anyway, we ought to tell these shore batteries that's never going to work.
I talked to him already.
He says it's feasible.
They could make a hell of a lot of money.
Can they stay out of the way of them and not get a ship knocked down?
Do it.
Do it.
I think, Mr. President, for this, we're going to take any more of these than we already have.
I think we're going to do more.
I think we're ready to land.
That's right.
What they'll think is that we're going to try to get into the top of it.
Of course, I'm ready to do it.
I always do it.
Something good always comes out of some client coming.
I know there's something you can do up there.
I'm not saying Mr. President, the name of the thing is .
Let's get it out there and hit it again.
That's a very good idea.
Take those sharp arrows out.
Sort of like Coastal Archive.
Because it was tracked on my phone.
It's completed.
No plans done already.
The A6 track is completed.
No plans done.
That's all we did there.
That's the show about there.
We did that with these guns.
Oh, I see.
But I mean what we're going to read about in the morning.
The only thing is the oil store.
All right.
Good.
Good start.
Don't worry about it.
I don't know what it is.
I don't know what it is.
I don't know what it is.
I don't know what it is.
I don't know what it is.
I don't know what it is.
But I feel good.
I don't need it.
No, I just want it.
I don't need it.
I let it.
I don't need it.
I don't need it.
I don't need it.
I don't need it.
I don't need it.
I don't need it.
I don't need it.
I don't need it.
There's also a good chance that that dog cancels my trip.
If that dude cancels your trip.
If they do, then we blockade.
If, Mr. President...
If they cancel your trip, we blockade your trip.
No choice.
If they cancel my trip, it's on the Mr. President.
And that reminds me, I've got a call from the president.
He's got the next three months.
He's got the next three months.
As I've told you, I think you can protect a sheet from barcades and bombing.
But in order to make the barcades work, you have to bomb them.
You've got to get their supplies done.
Practice doesn't, if my boss, if they don't, it's called over to sell it.
And then it doesn't make a damn bit of difference.
And you know, I trust you to work your way out of it.
We have no reason not to.
Immediately then, get busy with the Germans now.
What can we do with the Germans?
We do it with the Russians.
We do it with the Russians.
How would you do it?
Call some?
We could call some of the partners.
I don't know if that indicates that we're leaving that area.
I don't need you.
I know that.
I got to deal with them.
That's all we need.
I said, the freedom told me, when we go to the fields, I support it.
.
.
.
.
.
Well, the only thing that I raised on that, if that is the case, is why I raised the question over here as to whether it's the advisability of the same.
The idea being that on the so-called negotiating willingness, the public crap on that, we might go get the benefit of the 27th.
So we'll give them another, let me see what I can do.
Making sense.
But it's a coldest point is that as soon as we could lead to that, they're going to threaten us that they'll walk out if we don't stop the pass.
We'll be right back to where we were in 68.
So we don't want to...
Meet at all on the 27th.
Well, now he's going to meet on the 27th.
There's been a private meeting.
What's the private meeting?
Well, then tell us.
If the private meeting is successful, we can go.
If it's unsuccessful, we can go to the one plenary meeting.
Well, that's a hell of a thing to pay, a price to pay.
You mean, in other words, that we'll, that they'll, they'll, they'll say we won't meet with you again unless you stop the bombing?
Exactly.
But, Cox, we've been meeting with them for three years.
But that's what's going to happen.
That's right.
Well, that's just right.
We've got to start putting Rogers on the table.
We gave up bombing for about three years, a fruitless meeting.
I want to give it up again.
We just played that out in the propaganda field.
No, sir.
They're not going to sell that one again because they sold it once.
This is the instruction for Rogers.
Oh, good.
Well, I want to work on that.
Except that you have to get it out tomorrow.
Yeah.
I think we ought to send a reporter too.
It expects us to do what we have.
They don't back down, right?
To me, privately, they don't back down a bit.
Reporters might think, you know, we've got to be open, which is what I've stuck up for.
Once one of our guys steps up and says something, we've got to stick right with him or otherwise he won't do anything again.
And the market's pretty good today.
And I've been watching the pep all day.
All night.
It's been a whole good day.
Swimming down your throat?
Yeah.
All right.
I'd make this for both of them.
Yeah.
Sit for part minutes.
Yeah.
Other than the single.
In 1968, October of 1968, over three years ago, we stopped bombing North Vietnam in return for negotiations for over three years.
In return for negotiations.
I refuse to negotiate seriously.
That would be the first point there.
We are not going to make the same mistake again.
We are ready to resume negotiations whenever they are ready to resume negotiations seriously.
Whenever they are ready to talk seriously about something like that.
negotiations, or cover-up, or screen, or negotiating a conference table, or screen, or escalating attacks in a battlefield.
What we really are doing here is giving rockets multiple
better medicine because he didn't want to say this kind of tough language to him, but by putting it this tough, he thereby will Well, we put it this tough.
They at least brought it to say it had this tough.
That's my point, and that's good.
Can't take any other position on this one.
This point could have gotten them a voucher here.
No reason.
further go through the charade of indicating that the negotiation means anything in its present context.
In other words, that the whole case, it must be that Kennedy followed it.
But we ought to go back to the negotiation table.
Ball's flat in its face.
Why?
What the crisis is negotiated.
You see my point?
That's what we've been doing for three years.
We are trying to get, we are willing to negotiate, but I think it's pretty clear that we aren't as huge.
The other big question, just a small one.
you never know maybe maybe we don't wish they had maybe they would have just gone to the 24th but we'll give them this
There'll be no other effect in the area until after the Moscow D-Day.
Oh, the Moscow D-Day with you?
With me.
Yeah.
In other words, this was it for the day.
Oh, wait a minute.
What about the naval ships?
Well, I mean, it's that whole contact.
All of this will be done in the next 12 hours.
Oh, can the Navy get up there and shell in the 12 hours?
Yeah.
Well, you better order it right away, or did you?
I...
I tentatively did.
They're on the way.
I talked to Ruth Moore and I told her to make another thing.
All right, good.
Good.
And then knock it off, I agree.
The Russians aren't going to cancel your trip.
70-30.
They're going to cancel it.
Huh?
Is that going to cost us that much?
I don't know.
Now, if they cancel the trip, we immediately move on to the German problem.
Oh, if they cancel the trip.
You're correct.
Yeah.
And, uh, well, I'd have Strauss, too.
Uh, do you think, and you may, will that be a signal?
Uh-huh.
And, uh, and then also, I mean, let's get our lines ready.
And then, Henry, I think we've got to be ready to blockade this next week.
If they cancel, here they are.
If they cancel my trip, we've got to move towards the blockade by next weekend, that's right.
Henry, we better do it quicker.
I'll tell you why.
We can do it quicker.
I'll tell you why.
Because you'll have greater public support.
Every day that goes on, the public support for a blockade slightly erodes for anything.
Mr. President, if they cancel my trip...
I'll do it as soon as the Navy will be ready.
You can do it then, any time.
Well, won't you think I've got a plank?
I think so.
It would be a good way for Hayden to come back.
He's still there.
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