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Conversation 338-042

TapeTape 338StartThursday, May 11, 1972 at 12:04 PMEndThursday, May 11, 1972 at 12:51 PMTape start time03:11:47Tape end time03:41:18ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President);  Kissinger, Henry A.;  Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob");  [Unknown person(s)]Recording deviceOld Executive Office Building
AudioNARA Description

On May 11, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, Henry A. Kissinger, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and unknown person(s) met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 12:04 pm and 12:51 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 338-042 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 338-42

Date: May 11, 1972
Time: Unknown between 12:04 and 12:51 pm
Location: Executive Office Building

The President dictated a memorandum for the files.

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BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 1
[Personal Returnable]
[Duration: 32s ]

                                         (rev. Dec-01)

END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 1

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Henry A. Kissinger entered at 12:51 pm.

     Vietnam
          -Air strikes
                -Report
                -Bridges
                      -Damage
                -Soviet Summit
                -Haiphong Harbor
                      -Instructions
                            -Soviet ships

H. R. (“Bob”) Haldeman entered at 12:53 pm.

                -Damage
                      -Bridges
                      -Petroleum, oils, and lubricants [POL]
                      -Gen. Creighton W. Abrams, Jr. cable
          -USS Newport News
                -Shelling
          -Air strikes
                -POL
                -Power plants
                      -Destruction
                -Impact
                      -Le Duc Tho (?)
          -Blockade
                -Soviet protests
                -Mines
                      -Soviet shipping
                -People's Republic of China [PRC]
          -Central Intelligence Agency [CIA]
                -Propaganda efforts
                      -Leaflets
          -North Vietnam offensive
                -An Loc
                      -Casualties

                                        (rev. Dec-01)
                -Kontum
                -An Loc
                -Tanks
                     -Destruction
                     -Number

An unknown person entered at an unknown time after 12:53 pm.

     Refreshments

The unknown person left at an unknown time before 1:12 pm.

     Vietnam
          -Air strikes
                -Intensity

     Soviet Union
          -German treaties
          -Relations with Hanoi
               -North Vietnam public statements
                     -Tone

     Vietnam
          -William P. Rogers
                -Public statements
                      -Contents
                      -Kissinger’s view
                -Press conference
                      -Meeting with the President
                            -Purpose
                      -Advisability
                      -Purpose
                            -Legality of blockade
                                 -Soviet reply
                            -Legislation on Vietnam
                                 -President's peace offer
          -Soviet statements
          -Melvin R. Laird
          -Rogers
                -Public statements
                      -Legality
                      -Criticism of Soviets

                             (rev. Dec-01)
            -Peace offer
                  -Interpretation
                        -Kissinger’s view
      -Forthcoming testimony on Capitol Hill
      -Business Council
      -Press conference
-Blockade
      -Soviet ships
            -Kissinger’s previous conversation with Jerzy Michalowski
      -Soviet public statements
            -Tone
-President's Soviet trip [Soviet Summit]
      -Warsaw stopover
            -Approval
                  -Significance
      -Announcement
      -Kissinger meeting with Anatoliy F. Dobrynin
            -Summit
                  -Camp David
                  -Possible incident concerning Soviet ships
      -President's meeting with Nikolai S. Patolichev
      -Soviet response to President's previous speech
      -US air strikes
            -Limitations
-Air strikes
      -Damage
-Soviet Summit
      -Cancellation
            -Likelihood
      -German treaties
            -Ratification
                  -Willy Brandt’s role
      -Plenary sessions
      -US position
      -President's meeting with Foreign Trade Minister [Patolichev]
      -Cancellation
            -Likelihood
      -President's meeting with Patolichev
            -Leonid I. Brezhnev
            -Significance
            -Soviet Union, Iran comparison
                  -Mohammed Reza Tahlavi [Shah of Iran]

                                       (rev. Dec-01)
                -Kissinger meeting with Dobrynin
                     -Purpose
           -Rogers
                -Public statements
                     -Administration line
                     -Soviet response
                     -Advisability
                            -Kissinger’s view
                     -Effect

Kissinger left at 1:12 pm.

     Vietnam
          -Soviet Summit
                -Cancellation
                      -Timing
                -Soviet intentions
                -President's position
                -Cancellation
                      -US reactions
                            -Public opinion
                            -President's critics
                                  -Haldeman’s view
          -President's press conference
                -Scheduling
                -Timing
          -Soviet summit
                -News reports
                      -Robert B. Semple, Jr.
                      -John B. Connally
                      -New York Times
                      -John F. Osborne
                      -Wall Street Journal
                      -Effect

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BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 5
[Personal Returnable]
[Duration: 1m 44s ]

                                         (rev. Dec-01)

END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 5

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     President's schedule
          -Camp David
          -Meeting with Rogers
          -Meeting with Wilbur D. Mills
          -Camp David

     Vietnam
          -Support for the President

Haldeman left at 1:29 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.

Keep up the good work.
And file.
Not that you can't drive.
The two spans are completely down.
So was the first span.
But they're going to get the other spans tonight.
And so they're littering the bridge now.
I don't think it'll be possible.
And now another bridge over there.
So that all the loading stock is now trapped between these two bridges.
And they're going to go get open tonight.
The bridge on the other side tonight can trap all the loading stock in there.
I was just at a convention and they knocked out the manager of
April sent a cable and said, General Vogt is the best in the town.
He's put in three squadrons of that.
And I think that's just Vogt.
Oh, no, Vogt knows what we want, Mr. President.
We don't let the drum last for that.
And he's doing it.
I believe so.
Newport Newsbook.
I think we're going to send them this time, Mr. President.
I think we've got these cameras.
We've got those laid behind us.
I accepted them yesterday.
The next time from the press conference, the press conference to set the channel is over.
But not if they're like passengers.
It's not even our interest to talk to the press.
They are absolutely rejecting the theory.
That's what I thought, too.
It was a question.
Did we start with the interference in Chile?
Yes, everyone, every expert in the government, you used it so very moderately.
The Chinese have been bad at it.
What is the situation?
I don't know.
I don't know.
One of the things that's happened to Matt is that Matt and I thought, let's start at 10 hours before our because we do something.
Which means, in other words, that our because we just try to respond to hitting something that would run into them.
Well, they stick up because we do hitting.
And the North Vietnamese were so panicked that they ran.
Our guys planned to have knocked out 25 hands here at the club.
Now, if they're preparing a massive blow, the reception is so great that it must be overcome.
And I can't quite seem to do this, but how will they do it?
Have they got the resources, nor have they got the examples?
What are they going to get?
Unless they have made a secret deal with Hanoi,
The public statements on behalf of Hanoi, I believe, Hanoi can not make any comments.
We have to get, I'm sorry, I'm wondering if we have to finish your last show.
Well, it can't be.
He's told specifically what he's supposed to say and what he's not supposed to say.
He shouldn't have a dress count.
There's nothing but trouble that can come up with a dress count.
Well, but the... Well, I don't like to have one, but you...
legislation and all that the President's made a very generous peace offer, and Congress should be supporting the President's peace offer.
Well, you got it.
All right, now, if you don't want to do that, you got to face the fact that he was telling us that, which I already started, that he's got to be told that on an authoritative basis, that the line, right, that we don't want that.
The legality of both the foreign and the Russian
It is not worth thinking about the issue of what we will never do.
I don't think it's necessary either.
We might want to have a... And I've said what there needs to be said about the peace office.
I think we are now so well positioned that we ought to keep quiet.
You can get away with that.
I don't think you want to say any more about the peace offer.
Because that softens the position.
I know Bill.
He will interpret the peace offer in such a way that...
He will.
He'll phrase it to the Scots.
He'll say, they'll say, well, does that mean they can stay in place?
He'll say yes, or he'll say something close to being free.
He gave a map of problems in Saigon last month.
People were confused and not confused.
And we really don't need it.
The next problem is he's got to testify on the Hill.
I'm not very much a business counsel.
I'm just going to declare this notice.
You just got to say no.
No, Mr.
Ambassador.
I think we should say the president is going to campaign for this meeting.
He's studying for the summit.
And he's going forward.
And we're going to do everything we can to avoid incidents.
Your ship's serving that sort of mission.
I'm actually a victim of the president.
The defense that I can do is...
summit because of you, to stay at the summit.
What you said this morning, that was very powerful.
Because it went beyond the big pattern and it showed the reality.
The rest of it, I think, having waited three days now, having protested privately on the ships and on the other side, which was the army, I think
Well, we have to stop noise of the 20 paddlers for a week.
I would say.
That's no problem.
But we'll have to work.
We have knocked out most of the bridges by then.
We'll take them a week, and then we start again after the day.
My God.
I mean, just reach.
When you're talking about this, I'd say, where do you want to go?
Where do you want to go?
I just don't like to go spend my waste my time every other
Because basically the thing that kept it from being ratified is that Brown couldn't produce a medical issue.
But if you want it.
But Brown's position was that the Americans don't want to graduate.
But so said, how do you know?
No, but you see, another move we can make, Mr. President, which I thought of, or thought of today, was to meet you in Moscow.
We could call for a plenary, Harry, to present you to a plan.
I don't know if it was prepared, but it is.
I have something in mind in Moscow.
I don't know, I meant it.
Well, I don't think you do that, because I think people will think you did something and will just let you try to discuss it.
Well, if you have a plenary that week, you can have that.
But we'll present it on Friday.
without instructions.
He didn't directly talk about the summit.
He was very careful.
It was implied throughout.
But all of what you said is going to be done at the summit.
You know, Sam, we're not going to be ready to direct until they cancel the summit.
And that's for sure.
None of this can happen on that same summit.
And if the Russians were mining the harbors of Iraq, and an American minister was sitting there smiling along with Russia, I don't think the Shah of Iraq would get the sense of very support from us.
If they're mining the harbors, if we start yakking about it, it should succeed.
We had a regular, we had, I don't know, Thursday lunch with Landry Summers, and I told him, you know, I'm going to have a good time.
He said, yeah.
He said, really, I have a lot of business we're going to go over, the communique and the principles, and a lot of odds and ends.
Why don't you get Rodgers in and just tell him that we,
Well, he wants to know what's the line that he wants to know.
All right.
That president is going to give you credit.
Well, we've got everything out in town now.
That's where you want to leave it.
Then they'll say that I just turned this up.
By Monday or Tuesday, they'll have this thing.
They're going to cancel it.
They would want to do it with the maximum humiliation for you.
Because they're going to hurt you.
They know they're going to screw up their own position anyway.
Get the most out of the place.
I think we have a problem going from now on.
I think you can take the hard action, but not because of the science.
They're trapping themselves.
They have trapped themselves into racing everything you've done up to.
You need a sub-insert if your whole building is structured for sub-insertions.
And they can freeze the hell out of them because they think the more they build out, the more they hurt you by saying, do rapid.
In the process, they're pointing out that you build them too.
So, if it stays on, there isn't going to be any big acclaim for the fact that it stays on.
But if it builds,
except that it will really strike consternation in the minds of our critics.
Either that or he's letting his friend work for Williams, which he's probably more likely to do in his position.
He went, he had Bob Semple in and told him all this stuff about how he was the guy that did the consulting with you on the side.
That's a big problem.
He doesn't, I can't believe he did that to them.
I'm sure Semple asked him to do it again.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
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