On April 26, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 6:36 pm and 7:07 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 333-035 of the White House Tapes.
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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Hello, America.
During the past three weeks, we've been reading and hearing about the massive invasion of South Vietnam by the Communist armies of North Vietnam.
And I don't want to give you a first-hand report on the military situation in Vietnam, the decisions I have made with regard to the role of the United States forces in the conflict, the efforts we are making to protect the peace and the negotiations in Vietnam.
Let me begin by briefly reviewing what the situation was when I forgot what we had done since then to end American involvement in the war and to bring peace to the long-suffering people of Southeast Asia.
On January 20, 1969, the American crew sailing in Vietnam was 549,000.
Our category grew running as high as 300 a week.
30,000 young Americans were being drafted every month.
Today, 39 months later,
Through our program of de-ethanization, helping the South Vietnamese develop the ability to defend themselves, the number of Americans in Vietnam by Monday, May 1st, will have been reduced to 69,000.
Our casualties, even during the present fallout and in the offensive, have been reduced by 95%.
Draft calls now average for within 5,000 minimum.
The expected breakdown is zero for the next year.
As I reported to my television address to the nation on January 25th,
We have offered the most generous peace terms in both public and private negotiating sessions.
Our most recent proposals provided for an immediate ceasefire, the exchange of all prisoners of war, the withdrawal of all of our forces within six months, and new elections for Vietnam, which would be internationally supervised, with all political elements, including the communists, participating in and helping to run the elections.
One month before such elections, President Hu and Vice President Huang were resigned.
Hanoi's contemptuous answer to this offer was a refusal even to discuss our control cultures, and at the same time a massive escalation of their military activities on the battlefield.
Last October, the same month when we made this peace offer to Hanoi and Syria, our intelligence reports began to indicate that the enemy was building up to a major attack.
Yet we deliberately refrained from responding militarily.
Instead, we patiently continued with the Paris storms, because we wanted to give the enemy every chance to reach the negotiated settlement of the bargaining table, rather than to seek a military victory in the battle, a victory they cannot be allowed to win.
Finally, three weeks ago, on Easter Wednesday, they mounted their massive invasion of South Vietnam.
Three North Vietnamese invasion divisions swept across the military-decided zone into South Vietnam, in violation of the treaties they had signed
and in violation of the understanding he had reached with President Johnson in 1968, when he stopped the bombing of North Vietnam in return for arrangements which included their pledge not to violate the DNC.
Shortly after the invasion across the DNC, another three North Vietnamese divisions invaded South Vietnam further south.
As the events have progressed, the enemy indiscriminately shelled civilian population centers in clear violation of the 1968 bombing order in Nha Trang.
The facts are clear.
More than 120,000 North Vietnamese are now fighting in South Vietnam.
There are no South Vietnamese troops anywhere in North Vietnam.
12 North Vietnam's 13 regular combat divisions have now left their own soil in order to carry aggressive war on the territory of their nation.
Whatever pretext there was of a civil war in South Vietnam has now been stripped away.
What we are witnessing here, what is being brutally inflicted upon the people of South Vietnam, is a clear case of naked and unprovoked aggression across an international border.
The only word for it is invasion.
...has been resisted on the ground entirely by South Vietnamese forces.
No United States ground troops have been involved.
None will be involved.
To support this defensive effort by the South Vietnamese, I ordered attacks on enemy military targets in both North and South Vietnam by the air and naval forces of the United States.
I have before me the report which I received this morning from Colonel Evans.
He gives the following evaluation of the situation.
The South Vietnamese are fighting courageously and well in their self-defense.
They are inflicting very heavy casualties on the invading force, which has not gained the easy victories unpredicted three weeks ago.
Our air strikes have been essential in protecting our own remaining forces and in assisting the South Vietnamese in their efforts to protect their homes and their countries.
Colonel Abrams predicts there will be several more weeks of very hard fighting in which some battles will be lost and others will be won by the South Vietnamese.
But he is convinced that if we continue to provide air and sea support, the enemy will fail in its desperate gamble to impose a communist regime on South Vietnam.
The South Vietnamese will then have demonstrated their ability to defend themselves on the ground in the future and in the future.
Based on a realistic assessment generated at the consultation of President Chu, Ambassador Bunker, Ambassador Porter, and my senior advisors in Washington, I have three decisions to announce tonight.
First, I have decided that the Vietnamization has proved itself sufficiently that we can continue our program of withdrawing American forces without jeopardizing our overall goal
without jeopardizing our overall goal of ensuring South Vietnam's survival as an independent country.
Consequently, I am announcing tonight that over the next two months, 20,000 more Americans will be brought home to Vietnam.
This decision is a vote of approval.
It will bring our troops to the endowment of $49,000 by July 1, a reduction of half of a commitment since this administration came to the White House.
Second, I have directed Ambassador Porter to return to the negotiating table in Paris tomorrow, but with one very specific purpose in mind.
We are not resuming the Paris talk simply in order to hear more empty propaganda and progress.
to hear more empty-town propaganda, to hear more empty-town propaganda at Bobbitt, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong governments, but to get on with the constructive business of making peace.
We are resuming the Paris talks with the firm expectation that productive talks, leading to rapid progress, will follow through all available channels.
As far as we are concerned,
First order of business will be to get the enemy to halt the invasion of South Vietnam and to return the American prisoners of war.
Finally, I have ordered that our air and naval attacks on Leonard Northbury installations in North Vietnam be continued until the North Vietnamese stop their offensive in South Vietnam.
I have flatly rejected the proposal that we stop the bombing of North Vietnam as a condition for return to the negotiating table.
They sold that package to the United States once before in 1968.
We're not going to buy it again in 1972.
Now let's look at the record.
By July 1, we would have drawn over 90% of our portions were in Vietnam in 1969.
Before the enemy's invasion began, we had cut our air sorties in half.
We have offered exceedingly generous terms for peace.
The only thing that we have refused to do is to exceed the enemy's demand to overthrow the lawfully constituted government of South Vietnam and to impose a communist dictatorship in its place.
As you will recall, I have warned on a number of occasions over the past three years that if the enemy responded to our efforts to bring peace by stepping up to war, I would act to meet that attack for three reasons.
To protect our remaining and our enforcement, to permit the continuation of our withdrawal program, and to prevent the imposition of a communist regime on the people of South Vietnam against their will, with the inevitable bloodbath that would fall over hundreds of thousands who have dared to oppose communist direction.
The air and naval strikes of recent weeks have been carried out to meet those objectives.
They have been directed only against military targets supporting the invasion of South Vietnam.
They will not stop until that invasion stops.
Communists have failed in their efforts to win over the people of South Vietnam militantly.
They have been pleased that they will put in their effort to conquer South Vietnam militantly.
They are one of remaining hopes.
is to win in the Congress of the United States and among the people of the United States, and the victory they cannot win among the people of South Vietnam or on the battlefield of South Vietnam.
The great question is how we, the American people, will respond to this final challenge.
Let us look what the stakes are, not just for South Vietnam, but for the United States and the cause of peace in the world.
If one country, armed with the most modern weapons by other countries, can invade,
and succeed in conquering it, other countries will be encouraged to do exactly the same thing in the Middle East, in Europe, and in other international danger zones.
If the communists win the military in Vietnam, the risk of war in other parts of the world would be an armistice.
We are not trying to conquer North Vietnam or any other country.
We want no territory.
We seek no basis.
We have offered the most generous peace now, peace with honor for both sides, South Vietnam and North Vietnam, each respecting each other's independence.
But we will not be defeated, and we will never surrender our people, and we will never surrender our friends to common aggression.
We have come a long way in this conflict.
South Vietnamese have made great progress and are now bearing the brunt of the battle.
We can now see the day when no more Americans will be involved there at all.
But as we come to the end,
With this long, difficult struggle, we must be steadfast.
We must not hold back.
For all that we have risked and all that we have gained will be years, now hangs, in the balance during the coming weeks and months.
If we now let down our friends, we are sure to be letting down ourselves and our future as well.
If we now persist, history will thank America for her courage and her vision at this testing time.
Let us bring our men home to Vietnam.
Let us end the war in Vietnam, but let us end it in such a way that the younger brothers and sons of the brave men who have fought in Vietnam will have not to fight again in some other Vietnam and some other region.
Any man who sits here in his office feels a solemn and heavy weight of obligation to future generations.
Any man who sits here has the right to take any action which would advocate America's great tradition of world
Earlier this year, I traveled to the canyon to story journey with you.
Next month, I shall travel to Moscow, and what I hope will also be a journey with you.
In the 18 countries I have visited as president, I have found great respect for the office of the President of the United States.
I have reached the respect, based on Dr. Kennedy's report, that I shall apply that same respect to the presidency when I leave Moscow.
I do not know who will be in this office in the years ahead, but I do know
Future presidents will travel the nations abroad.
If the United States betrays the millions of people who rely on us in Vietnam, the President of the United States, whoever he is, will not deserve our respect, which is essential if the United States is to play the great role we are destined to play in helping to build a new structure.
It would amount to a renunciation of our morality, an abdication of our leadership among nations, and an invitation for the mighty to prey upon the weak all around the world.
It would be to deny peace the chance peace deserves to have.
This we shall never do.
Let us then unite as a nation in a firm and wise policy of peace.
Not the peace of surrender, but peace with honor.
Not only peace in our time,
peace for generations to come.