Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 338-042
Date: Thursday, May 11, 1972 at 12:04 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Kissinger, Henry A.; Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob"); [Unknown person(s)]
Recording device: Old Executive Office Building
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/338-042

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

[3:12:08] Keep up the good work.
[3:13:44] And file.
[3:13:45] Not that you can't drive.
[3:14:32] The two spans are completely down.
[3:14:33] So was the first span.
[3:14:34] But they're going to get the other spans tonight.
[3:14:35] And so they're littering the bridge now.
[3:14:36] I don't think it'll be possible.
[3:14:37] And now another bridge over there.
[3:14:38] So that all the loading stock is now trapped between these two bridges.
[3:14:40] And they're going to go get open tonight.
[3:14:41] The bridge on the other side tonight can trap all the loading stock in there.
[3:15:45] I was just at a convention and they knocked out the manager of
[3:16:26] April sent a cable and said, General Vogt is the best in the town.
[3:16:29] He's put in three squadrons of that.
[3:16:30] And I think that's just Vogt.
[3:16:31] Oh, no, Vogt knows what we want, Mr. President.
[3:16:32] We don't let the drum last for that.
[3:16:33] And he's doing it.
[3:16:34] I believe so.
[3:16:34] Newport Newsbook.
[3:17:18] I think we're going to send them this time, Mr. President.
[3:17:19] I think we've got these cameras.
[3:17:20] We've got those laid behind us.
[3:17:22] I accepted them yesterday.
[3:17:23] The next time from the press conference, the press conference to set the channel is over.
[3:17:27] But not if they're like passengers.
[3:17:28] It's not even our interest to talk to the press.
[3:17:53] They are absolutely rejecting the theory.
[3:18:23] That's what I thought, too.
[3:18:24] It was a question.
[3:18:24] Did we start with the interference in Chile?
[3:18:26] Yes, everyone, every expert in the government, you used it so very moderately.
[3:18:28] The Chinese have been bad at it.
[3:18:29] What is the situation?
[3:18:29] I don't know.
[3:18:30] I don't know.
[3:19:06] 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.
[3:19:10] Which means, in other words, that our because we just try to respond to hitting something that would run into them.
[3:19:13] Well, they stick up because we do hitting.
[3:19:14] And the North Vietnamese were so panicked that they ran.
[3:19:38] Our guys planned to have knocked out 25 hands here at the club.
[3:21:05] Now, if they're preparing a massive blow, the reception is so great that it must be overcome.
[3:21:08] And I can't quite seem to do this, but how will they do it?
[3:21:10] Have they got the resources, nor have they got the examples?
[3:21:12] What are they going to get?
[3:21:13] Unless they have made a secret deal with Hanoi,
[3:21:34] The public statements on behalf of Hanoi, I believe, Hanoi can not make any comments.
[3:21:36] We have to get, I'm sorry, I'm wondering if we have to finish your last show.
[3:22:29] Well, it can't be.
[3:22:29] He's told specifically what he's supposed to say and what he's not supposed to say.
[3:22:32] He shouldn't have a dress count.
[3:22:33] There's nothing but trouble that can come up with a dress count.
[3:22:36] Well, but the... Well, I don't like to have one, but you...
[3:23:09] legislation and all that the President's made a very generous peace offer, and Congress should be supporting the President's peace offer.
[3:23:13] Well, you got it.
[3:23:14] 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.
[3:23:25] The legality of both the foreign and the Russian
[3:23:53] It is not worth thinking about the issue of what we will never do.
[3:23:55] I don't think it's necessary either.
[3:23:56] We might want to have a... And I've said what there needs to be said about the peace office.
[3:23:58] I think we are now so well positioned that we ought to keep quiet.
[3:24:22] You can get away with that.
[3:24:23] I don't think you want to say any more about the peace offer.
[3:24:25] Because that softens the position.
[3:24:26] I know Bill.
[3:24:27] He will interpret the peace offer in such a way that...
[3:24:28] He will.
[3:24:29] He'll phrase it to the Scots.
[3:24:30] He'll say, they'll say, well, does that mean they can stay in place?
[3:24:32] He'll say yes, or he'll say something close to being free.
[3:24:33] He gave a map of problems in Saigon last month.
[3:24:54] People were confused and not confused.
[3:24:55] And we really don't need it.
[3:24:56] The next problem is he's got to testify on the Hill.
[3:24:57] I'm not very much a business counsel.
[3:26:45] I'm just going to declare this notice.
[3:26:47] You just got to say no.
[3:26:49] No, Mr.
[3:26:49] Ambassador.
[3:26:50] I think we should say the president is going to campaign for this meeting.
[3:26:56] He's studying for the summit.
[3:26:58] And he's going forward.
[3:26:59] And we're going to do everything we can to avoid incidents.
[3:27:04] Your ship's serving that sort of mission.
[3:27:07] I'm actually a victim of the president.
[3:27:10] The defense that I can do is...
[3:27:21] summit because of you, to stay at the summit.
[3:27:22] What you said this morning, that was very powerful.
[3:27:23] Because it went beyond the big pattern and it showed the reality.
[3:27:25] 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
[3:28:08] Well, we have to stop noise of the 20 paddlers for a week.
[3:28:11] I would say.
[3:28:12] That's no problem.
[3:28:12] But we'll have to work.
[3:28:14] We have knocked out most of the bridges by then.
[3:28:16] We'll take them a week, and then we start again after the day.
[3:28:19] My God.
[3:28:19] I mean, just reach.
[3:28:20] When you're talking about this, I'd say, where do you want to go?
[3:28:22] Where do you want to go?
[3:28:39] I just don't like to go spend my waste my time every other
[3:29:07] Because basically the thing that kept it from being ratified is that Brown couldn't produce a medical issue.
[3:29:11] But if you want it.
[3:29:12] But Brown's position was that the Americans don't want to graduate.
[3:29:14] But so said, how do you know?
[3:29:36] 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.
[3:29:38] We could call for a plenary, Harry, to present you to a plan.
[3:29:39] I don't know if it was prepared, but it is.
[3:29:40] I have something in mind in Moscow.
[3:30:13] I don't know, I meant it.
[3:30:14] 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.
[3:30:17] Well, if you have a plenary that week, you can have that.
[3:30:19] But we'll present it on Friday.
[3:30:45] without instructions.
[3:30:46] He didn't directly talk about the summit.
[3:30:48] He was very careful.
[3:30:49] It was implied throughout.
[3:30:50] But all of what you said is going to be done at the summit.
[3:30:52] You know, Sam, we're not going to be ready to direct until they cancel the summit.
[3:30:55] And that's for sure.
[3:30:56] None of this can happen on that same summit.
[3:31:55] 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.
[3:32:00] If they're mining the harbors, if we start yakking about it, it should succeed.
[3:32:25] 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.
[3:32:28] He said, yeah.
[3:32:29] 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.
[3:32:31] Why don't you get Rodgers in and just tell him that we,
[3:32:51] Well, he wants to know what's the line that he wants to know.
[3:32:53] All right.
[3:33:18] That president is going to give you credit.
[3:33:20] Well, we've got everything out in town now.
[3:33:21] That's where you want to leave it.
[3:33:22] Then they'll say that I just turned this up.
[3:33:24] By Monday or Tuesday, they'll have this thing.
[3:34:21] They're going to cancel it.
[3:34:23] They would want to do it with the maximum humiliation for you.
[3:34:27] Because they're going to hurt you.
[3:34:30] They know they're going to screw up their own position anyway.
[3:34:32] Get the most out of the place.
[3:34:34] I think we have a problem going from now on.
[3:34:47] I think you can take the hard action, but not because of the science.
[3:35:17] They're trapping themselves.
[3:35:18] They have trapped themselves into racing everything you've done up to.
[3:35:42] You need a sub-insert if your whole building is structured for sub-insertions.
[3:35:45] 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.
[3:35:49] In the process, they're pointing out that you build them too.
[3:35:52] So, if it stays on, there isn't going to be any big acclaim for the fact that it stays on.
[3:35:55] But if it builds,
[3:36:12] except that it will really strike consternation in the minds of our critics.
[3:37:25] Either that or he's letting his friend work for Williams, which he's probably more likely to do in his position.
[3:37:27] 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.
[3:37:31] That's a big problem.
[3:37:32] He doesn't, I can't believe he did that to them.
[3:37:33] I'm sure Semple asked him to do it again.
[3:38:20] I don't know.
[3:38:20] I don't know.
[3:38:20] I don't know.
[3:38:21] I don't know.