Nixon & Kissinger on Vietnam War and Naval blockade

4:26Well, they turned out to be a little pretty today.
4:29A nice spring day.
4:30How did the strike go?
4:31The chessbook was completed.
4:32They didn't have the final report on it yet.
4:34They said they got a good wife.
4:36They had a good business together.
4:57We may be driven to have to put more restrictions on these pilots.
5:37Well, we'll know tonight.
6:23It's a, it's a...
7:02The enemy is bringing up supplies, but must be paying horrendous losses from the airstrikes.
7:06They're now probing more.
7:07The RN is going out more in patrol.
7:09And yesterday alone, they've ended up re-airing for the SP-52 strike with around 400 pilots.
7:11That's one of the few times they've ended up in these airings.
7:14They're going around in losses, but it's not going to be horrendous.
7:30telling me how their situation had come through three weeks ago.
7:34They could literally have walked into the country.
7:36Now they are there.
7:37Now I've been to this really lousy division, one foot at a time, and now they're open.
7:40But they've never managed to put it all together because they can't.
7:43I think that's the thing, because they haven't done it.
7:45Even if they don't take it, it's really, to my judgment, only a question of three or four days.
7:49I haven't even seen him for days.
8:06We now are on the 10th of May, the rainy season starts just about now.
8:09After they take home food, they're going to go to play school.
8:12It'll take them three weeks if they're ready to get down, or they're coming to play school without having to take in an accident.
8:20So there's a potential harvest from this close down on 5th of October in about three weeks.
8:45And what happens when they get back?
8:47It's not like talking to a tree.
9:06I mean, did they give him what he wanted?
9:08I don't think so.
9:08I'm not satisfied.
9:09But I mean, of course, there's a campaign out.
9:48We can do it.
9:49We can do it.
9:49We can do it.
10:39Also, I don't know whether all of this has been getting to you or not.
11:37We need to hold with the argument saying that you think that we've made the most sense of this piece of it.
11:47Well, of course we have.
11:48That's the thing that I think is everybody ought to get.
11:52You think what you ought to do.
12:05Oh, who didn't support him?
12:29That's right.
12:29But if not, the Times supported it, the Post supported it, the Free Network supported it, every Republican supported it.
12:37The L.E.L.
12:37all supported it.
12:38That's the difference.
12:39But I think we understand the difference.
12:42But the point is that even then, the intellectuals were saying he was running it like this.
12:51frightening everybody.
12:52And I don't see as much of the World War III crap that's in the Cambodian view at this point.
12:57Or do you?
12:58I do not.
13:32Oh yeah, it doesn't affect the wind.
13:33We've taken that into account in the whole Soviet-Chinese reaction.
13:36It can be strong, you know what I mean?
13:38You can't get all of us disturbed when it is strong.
13:39Even if they say it is not, but it's more major than something else.
13:42You get all the message from the Chinese regarding the ship and how it's going to play out.
14:34I don't think you'll get a much response until after the children are treated.
14:38By the way, that was until their attention hour.
15:30and I'm going to get a hold of them.
15:31What is the situation with regard to what we want to do besides the PR group to just empty out everything and cross it.
15:34But I think the PR group is going to cause a massive
15:57But I think...
15:57The generosity of the people.
15:59Yeah, but we shouldn't babble too much about that.
16:03Well, I don't mind that you're reiterating my race as a Jew, Rick.
16:06I call it, we always have, I call the Israeli a bad thing, and he's intended to help shape up the Jewish group.
16:12Also congratulated for the way they handled a hijacker.
16:17He's talking, he's a evangelist, he's talking to Jews.
16:27Yes, it's withdrawal or ceasefire.
16:30We've changed the deadline a little bit.
16:57It's a pretty hard one.
16:58Well, what do you want to emphasize in that?
17:01Is support by the president positive?
17:03Is there support for the president?
17:04Is there an action on the president?
18:02And he sounded like a mad, you know, Bill.
18:04When you see Bill, he kind of looks a little shifty.
18:06Well, he looks so scared.
18:07Yeah, he looks so terrified.
18:08I think it's, of course, it's all high up and everything.
18:12You know, really, Henry, everybody is, I suppose, we're all a little bit scared of you.
18:16I think we all know you do that the same, very curiously, don't we?
18:32The greatest essence that I have, and very easy to bring to mind, is that I never give away any attention by my words.
18:39You know, I go on, I told myself this, and I have to do it.
18:44I think that's important.
18:45Monday night, even people who highly critical of you, come to this video.
18:55but I went last night.
18:57Well, I went.
18:57I think you should, but I know it's hard for you.
19:00No, I just want to show that you're not afraid.
19:04I know.
19:04I called yesterday and said he was having a few people in, but I'll drop by.
19:14But it's going to get to them.
19:17So I dropped by and drank a shirt.
19:38What do you want me to do in the Middle East?
19:41This is not the third time, the second time since we announced this Sunday that Soviet arms are attacking American allies.
20:08Yeah, they are.
20:09So many have forgotten.
20:40But listen to that.
20:43He's encouraging us in the day.
20:49The Democrats aren't the best possible way to thank Stevenson for his readiness, I had to say last night.
21:10I don't think we both saw running through this cooler thing.
21:31I think what we ought to do is, before this went on, we've got to pull it off.
21:36We'll understand it.
21:37When we talk about it, I understand all the bad things that are going to happen.
21:43So we can cancel the training, the ring cell, so the campuses can blow up, and so forth and so on.
21:51But, in fact, it's still all going to happen.
21:53We've got a major reaction to that.
21:56That's a silver arrow, not major.
21:59There's one thing we, and those are things that are probably not certain, but there's one thing that's certain.
22:07We have to win, and we can win.
22:10That means, basically, that we bring that, and only we bring that.
22:15It's the whole thing.
22:20I mean, now that we have dropped out and gone, some will hope they may remove San Juan.
22:24But I think so, too.
22:25And I just cannot see.
22:26Just look at the governmental process in the north now and leave aside how effective it is.
22:31Assume they can reroute all the supplies .
22:33They're assuming they're twisted, technical problems, running 50 million operations, rerouting two and a half million tons of supplies.
22:50Uh, they're having the time to do all of this simultaneously in a compressed period of time.
22:57No government can do that.
22:58What about the Dalts and the Chinese?
23:00I understand they work for one of the most important reports of this and 90,000 techniques of the church.
23:06Well, that would take them about a month or two to get organized.
23:09We're talking now about taking them back.
23:11And in a short period of time?
23:13Well, the...
23:18It may take them a month or two to get these troops organized, to get them in place.
23:22Then they had to pretend what they did was repair the roads and the railroads.
23:24And that's still in place in Texas, where it's the deepest event in all of Russia.
23:27I don't know whether it was straggled out of time.
24:10I think even at the rate of 200 sorties, we're going to do a lot of them.
24:11And I suggest probably we have it once a week.
24:12That's it.
24:13We're going to do a lot of them.
24:41It's never what happens to 30 divisions.
24:42It's what happens to a part of a division.
24:43It's sort of an old mystic, I know it.
25:11Oh, I didn't want to already take this on yesterday.
25:13I thought that would have been a domestic event.
25:24Could Bush, oh, since that was not, did not push the quarter, the quarter picked on this idea, you know, and all he says is that we have given them an ultimatum, and it's a nice place, I don't know.
25:32Who the hell gave the ultimatum to them?
25:33I didn't give it to us.
25:34I wouldn't.
25:34The New York Times is going to know.
26:09That's one thing.
26:10You can't say that record was tough.
26:10Well, I'm just kidding.
26:11It was tough, but it was not for a hunt.
26:12We have no intention, however, of having our logs take on all the essential supplies.
26:14That's what I know.
26:15And also the amount of support...
26:40You know, I, you know, four weeks ago, I did a few, but that was when we were trying to keep things quiet.
26:44You know, we're working on an enormous wire now.
26:48It's really right now.
26:49Well, I know some people try to send me lines.
26:50They send me lines at 3.30 a.m.
27:17So we've got some, we've got men here who do talk to people around the country.
27:21So I think in public, where you see these television shows where you can be sure they're not picking people to support them.
27:27Do they have some that aren't?
27:29Yeah.
27:30And the men in the streets are always human.
27:33Either they say they support you or they say they don't know enough about it.
27:37Which is to help the American people.
27:39The thing that I think is that you and I, like you before,
27:45I mean, whatever happens, whatever criticism we get, I don't care if that administration
28:09I heard that there were some.
28:09Did you see them?
28:10What did they say?
28:11They said they're proud of the Americans, they're proud of the president.
28:12And that they had good interviews with prisoners' wives on CBS this morning.
28:14What did they say?
28:15They said they are so proud of the president.
28:16I knew who it was.
28:16Yeah.
28:16Well, this is giving them hope.
28:17This is the
28:49You still think it's alright for me to go to court?
28:53Yeah, I'm not mistaken.
28:55No, I think you're going to court.
28:57I feel fine now.
28:59That is important.
29:00I had enough to go through my law school class last night for 11 o'clock.
29:04You may have a lot of months ahead of you.
29:52Look what I've laid out.
30:28you
32:27Let me know what happens.
32:28We'll let you know.
32:29I'll call the breeder and tell him that if any token should be paid, we want them to pay.
32:37We want him to inform us on that sort of thing, because we have no intention whatever.
32:46We're trying to be very restrained in this action.
32:52Basically, Henry, there is a restrained action.
32:58As far as the Soviets, we are not stopping ships in the high seas.
33:00It isn't like the Cuban Missile Crisis in that respect.
33:02But what we're doing is choking these bastards to death.
33:04That's a different matter.
33:05The point is, what were they doing to us?
33:06They were choking us to death.
33:07I'll tell you what we do.
33:08Sit down and get choked.
33:09I'll tell you what we've got to get across.
33:10That concludes it.
33:11You know, I'll tell you what we've got to do.
33:30Thank you.
35:49This is a letter to John S. Bradley.
35:50Dear, uh...
35:51I don't know how very much I personally appreciate your letter of April 1, 1939.
35:54John's comments...

Nixon & Kissinger on Vietnam War and Naval blockade

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on May 10, 1972

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