Nixon, Haig & Ehrlichman on Vietnam War and Military strategy

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Hello?

Is that sort of a surprise?

Well, it's sort of significant.

It looks to me like a lot of people were on all that thrill to run with it.

Is that it?

They were both crazy men.

Yeah.

In the word.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Did he fire?

I don't know why he didn't fire.

That's unbelievable.

Well, he told me on the plane, you remember, and I didn't believe it at all.

I didn't believe it at all.

And, uh, so that's that.

Maybe I was just doing

But anyway, that's a good job, Bill.

I'm glad you got it.

That was a, that was a good privilege.

You know, those scholars, you know, they're, they're, they're all, General Tate, they're coming in.

Yeah.

And, well, I had periods now.

Yeah, we had a good problem then, a good problem.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, it's a way, really, I mean, to knock off an awful lot of people for the day, but it was worth it.

It was worth doing.

Yeah, yeah.

Sure they did.

Well, that's a good job, though.

Yeah, okay.

.

I gave you some of those.

The aircraft called to the AIDS channel and said they were airborne.

But that was only from when I came to Paris.

Oh, Harry has not taken off yet.

Well, he had not, or has not.

Has not taken off yet.

He had not as of the time I spoke to you.

Now in Watson's residence.

And he does stay overnight.

Let me tell you one thing about this today.

And all of these folks, in my view, are, I mean, I didn't go through the motions.

And we really got to, you know, we got to be considerate of them because they, in the sense that having some sort of yacking go along makes a few jackasses fear that maybe we're working on the problem.

They think we ought to solve it.

But my own

that frankly is not the reason .

Because when you really come down to it, I don't know, Henry has talked about what I just said about .

You know, we've had a good atmosphere this time around.

But if you will examine the records each time, Al, they have never, in all of this period, given one inch on the political center.

Or am I wrong?

All the political

If we can't give on, they give nothing.

Nothing, really, that says they've said it.

They said, well, because of what they really come down to.

And Henry, he knows this.

They've stuck this in.

I think what you've got here is just, I don't know, and I think this is where you've got it.

We know, and no matter what you're going to do with it.

And we've just had enough of this.

I mean, they've killed these guys.

We're going to have a couple of kids in the sea.

You know, just horrible.

And we are able to finish.

And we've got to do it.

Do you agree or not?

What the hell?

We can't just continue to sit in our ass.

Now, let me say it.

And certainly, the fact that McGovern hangs over it does affect that category.

But basically, Al,

The fact that these fellows say, well, that we shouldn't have divulged the fact that the meetings were public and all that, that we had a private meeting, that they get mad when we do that, that they sort of don't want to negotiate that, or that we shouldn't have probably worked that out, and that we shouldn't have indicated anything about how they're going.

I agree.

What a thing, which he is affected by, which has, Malik, has no effect on the manners.

You know, he's a sucker for manners.

That's why the Chinese, you know, he likes the Chinese.

Goddamn Russians don't like that so much because their manners are so nice.

Now, these little sons of bitches know that.

They know that, you know.

You watch them.

Because Henry was so sensitive about the atmosphere and the mood and so forth and so on.

Now, believe me,

You never watch the son of a bitch's manners.

That's a game.

We use manners, right?

Don't you?

Excellent.

You don't.

Just when you're ready to stab a guy, you want to be smiling.

Now, I will say this critically, but my point is, you and I have to understand that we've got to let it go on and play off this game, because it's just as well to have negotiations if they can and do the auction.

I agree that maybe, just maybe, before the election, they may take a very, very hard look at their whole plan to make you take a deal.

They got that well better, because let me show you something.

We withdraw all offers the day of the election.

Don't you agree?

Or do you?

I don't know.

You've seen that one.

No.

I don't.

If you don't withdraw, what the hell are you going to do?

I really think that had you governed and not been a candidate, that there would have been a chance to negotiate .

You see, a number of things can happen.

First, they are told by the left, the belief of the left, that the governor's going to win.

Now, he isn't likely to win.

That's a pretty good bet.

But another thing could happen.

Something could happen to me.

And they know that.

Yeah.

Something could happen to me, but I mean, it's like, if

Christ, what would you do?

Would you settle now?

Yeah, I'll tell you what you would do.

What I think I would do, and that's what I do, and I say there may be a little bit of a chance in about the 1st of October or the 15th of October, just before the election.

That would be the best of all possible worlds.

They'll say, all right, we'd better settle now because we aren't going to get laid.

same offer.

Don't you agree?

We don't give a shit what happens there.

I don't.

And I don't care.

Let me tell you, if it has to be the Dykes, it has to be the Dykes.

Well, that's a particularly hard to handle.

What we're doing here is a hard to handle.

You've told me you haven't been to the most powerful.

Isn't that true?

We haven't been to that.

My view is, look, for Christ's sake, we're a war group.

We didn't hesitate to bomb the hell out of Tokyo, Osaka.

We didn't.

hesitate to bomb.

We bombed a crumbling plant, and the world blew to him, including the whole city of Essendon.

We took out Dresden.

We took out Humber, didn't we?

What in the name of God?

Now my point is, that was dealing against the Nazis.

Now these sons of bitches, sure, it's a small country and all that.

We don't want them, we can't be in the city, but we've been tolerant long enough.

You can do it without bringing the Chinese in.

I think just go in there and warn him in advance.

I'd take out those goddamn docs.

I mean, I wouldn't even take them out.

I'd crimp them.

I think you've got to do it, because I don't think they're going to respond to anything else.

I believe, too, that's a very good deal.

What's he said?

He said to me, he said, we are not going to get in there.

He said, we are not going to get in there.

Now, if they make a positive judgment, if there's some change, then they move.

But he said, in terms of the mind and the body, before they were on their knees, it would be the same.

But then they would be.

In fact, he said this today in his speech.

In his second speech.

He said, in another six months of this, they'll collapse.

They will collapse, won't you?

Yeah.

Now what?

We know the mind.

In fact, he's now building that pipeline down there.

But I don't know what a pipeline is.

I think I know.

What would you do about the night?

And to warn the people, don't they get their ass out of there?

I don't know.

My interest is to knock on the backs of us, not to kill the people.

But the interest is to knock on the cross.

What else can you do?

I mean, I think the military has got to give us a plan, without getting too close to China, a plan as to things that we can do to up this damn enemy.

I said, we are not going to be, I will not be on the oblivious that we won the election.

I'll do any international pressure.

I don't want to be barbaric, but we've got to go after what we've done.

Well, I think it would be wise to think about the whole spectrum of the country.

I really do think that nothing overnight is going to change.

I think people will level up in the right hand.

About right.

But beyond that, I don't think that's the point.

I think it's the steady, out of the way.

The real problems are communications and transportation.

Yes sir, I do.

I think every day it's 100, 200 guys, the airborne and the marines are doing a good job training.

What the hell has happened to the emergency runway that was supposed to come through?

Where the hell is it?

It hasn't jammed up now.

I think they're going to do it, but they're not going to do it.

The first thing they'll try to do is cut off those units.

And only after they do that

Really?

Yeah.

.

Yeah, you think we are willing to do a job on the mountain.

The boys are really, they're really, they're really, they're really better at everything.

You know, a better job at the market.

You know, I know the enemy's hurting.

We've been to a bunch of penalties.

But it isn't enough yet.

It's just going to take a steady moment, which I think we can get away with.

I think we're getting away with it quite largely.

I hope that's right.

Yeah, so we actually came up with a deadline.

I think that's right.

that night.

It was important that we hit it.

You know, it was a goddamn important thing that we said, no, this is just a bunch of, you know, we hit it.

And, oh, one thing I wanted to mention to you, and it's very important, is the fact that we're all in the same situation.

I know this place is obviously, you know, we're all just sort of worried about it, and it's perfectly all right.

Both of us have been in politics

The American people don't like the Secretary General of the United States kicking us around.

And I was giving him a shot across the bum.

I told the son of a bitch that we had that with UConn.

And he convinced you that he's going to get it right in the ass.

He's scared of that.

He's got to be scared.

That is it.

Don't let him.

Don't let up.

Because from a public standpoint, Bush and Bush will have been all the time.

It's on this public, from a public standpoint.

Al, we cannot have the UN kicking us in the ass.

Would you agree?

Oh, I agree.

Yes, I agree.

public reaction to that.

I mean, your media is nothing, but the public isn't for the UN as against the President of the United States, ever.

Don't you agree?

But he's starting down the same road, you know, putting out, taking it, what is in effect, hearsay, right, from a cognitive source, and putting it out, you know, and saying, well, I didn't read it.

But goddammit,

He has absolute proof from our side that they've been killing civilians.

Why in the hell doesn't he say that?

Is Darby another member of the U.S.?

No.

Oh, yeah.

Good, yeah.

We're sure we stand firm.

We're not going to back an inch off of this damn thing.

We understand that we can't stand here and take that kind of murder and treatment.

Oh, God.

What I had in the wake of the morning, I was just talking to Al.

I was, I felt he picked up a chapter about this, a bubble on that conversation yesterday, you know, with the materials and so forth.

So, in that connection, I would like for you to put your mind to the problem, all the people you had to deal with earlier.

we've got this dead good economic case to sell.

On the other hand, selling it runs the risk of being poor, things as they are.

And that's why I think from the attack line, I think we have to do both.

If the leader tries to take it, it won't reach the folks.

Yeah, we tell them that they do have .

That's the point, too.

And you're telling us they're .

There are any more we can do.

And you see, when we come down to Stein, it seems to me, and down pretty gladly, and I agree with you, and you're a Democrat, and I'm a part of Georgia, and I'm for it.

Now, well, the problem that I see with it, they say the election year trick.

See?

And also, that's right, in this case, I just think

But I, on the other hand, I must say we can play this positive line on the one hand, and then as much as we can get our guys talking about changing a bit, we'll change it a bit.

Don't you think so?

You've tried it before.

You've tried it before, audience.

Just notice it go.

Well I think what he did was

He wanted to talk to Watson and his kids were over at Watson's.

What time did he finish his meeting?

Just two hours ago, so.

How long did he finish it?

I don't know.

Thank you.

Nixon, Haig & Ehrlichman on Vietnam War and Military strategy

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on August 1, 1972

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