Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 372-011
Date: Wednesday, October 25, 1972 at 9:40 AM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Kissinger, Henry A.
Recording device: Old Executive Office Building
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/372-011

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:10] Thank you for watching.
[0:45] and our prestige should stand in the way of each other.
[0:49] But if I went to Manali, it would threaten me.
[0:51] I don't think I should do that.
[0:53] I just want to tell you, go back as long as you can go.
[0:57] Out of the question.
[0:58] Out of the question.
[1:00] But when they're talking modalities, and I've had another thought which we should also in my touch.
[1:08] The message yesterday, we all said that, that they take us to Paris next week.
[1:13] And if we don't do that, then people tend to consider that's fine.
[1:19] We'll make ourselves responsible.
[1:21] Yeah.
[1:22] Because having to decide that, it could be a good accident.
[1:31] It wasn't a good idea.
[1:32] I don't know.
[1:33] I don't know.
[1:33] I don't know.
[1:35] I don't know.
[1:35] I don't know.
[1:36] I don't know.
[1:42] They're taking zygote trenches to them.
[1:46] That's what the meeting is about.
[1:50] I don't care what we're talking about.
[1:53] I expect that it will be different.
[1:56] If they don't accept this document, it just incorporates a lot of this zygote trench.
[2:02] We have a final document that we have stopped.
[2:08] I know you would like to do it, but it is a hell of a thing to ask one to be bound for another two weeks.
[2:16] A document be considered final.
[2:20] Because Saigon is growing up on here.
[2:38] The only thing we did is hold the bombing.
[2:43] We've got nothing else.
[2:46] This time it will be a two-billion, two-billion, two-billion, two-billion, two-billion, two-billion.
[3:22] Just don't want to risk it.
[3:32] I have no problem with that.
[3:36] I think I have a problem with it at this point.
[3:41] It's a few days before the election.
[3:43] It's a question of American public opinion.
[3:44] How are we going to talk to the public?
[3:47] It would be a good idea to do that sort of.
[3:50] I don't.
[3:58] I don't.
[4:00] I don't.
[4:02] I don't.
[4:03] I don't.
[4:06] I don't.
[4:35] He wants to kill him.
[4:40] He wants to kill him.
[4:43] But he doesn't have the skills.
[4:48] But you see, we have this additional problem.
[5:10] I'm very sober.
[5:12] Stopping the bombing doesn't bother me at all.
[5:19] We've seen a problem in our assistance, Mr. President.
[5:26] The other side, I think the ground will be healed a lot.
[5:30] We keep everything in place.
[5:33] The other side has been, has been really screwed.
[5:34] They put all their local forces out into very exposed positions when they feel that they can seize power.
[5:38] It's really good.
[5:38] Which we told the North Vietnamese,
[5:39] What is your analysis?
[5:46] Could we go back to that?
[6:00] What is your analysis?
[6:24] My theory is that he's got to be reassured.
[6:28] I think it worries me the most.
[6:31] It worries me the most.
[6:34] I worry me the most.
[6:36] You're dealing with a nut.
[6:40] You're dealing with a box with a handle on it.
[6:42] My theory is that he's posturing himself to do one, that he has a major role in the negotiation.
[6:45] Two, he's setting up a stronghold of coalition government that he can then say he wants to take over.
[6:53] He knows that the communist infrastructure is hanging out there, that he wants to get itself together as many of them as possible.
[7:05] That's the part that bothers me most because the only reason the other side can accept it is because it preserves some assets.
[7:13] If they don't preserve the assets, they're going to go another year and reestablish the assets.
[7:21] And that's why, and that's because there's some really, you know, some military pressure.
[7:31] See, as it is, people have stopped the bombing this week, but they can't run away.
[7:34] Yeah, I know that.
[7:35] While you were there.
[7:35] Well, we wouldn't have moved you.
[7:42] In a way, we wouldn't have gone unless you had signed.
[7:50] Yeah.
[7:50] We've got to get this done, too.
[7:51] I don't know.
[8:28] I think what it's getting at is partly the farming of the North, but it's also the mass of the drink that goes with it.
[9:22] The purpose then was to say, well, we're going to have negotiations.
[9:30] The purpose now is that we need to integrate.
[9:52] You know, if these were to add in the stock trading, it would be terrible.
[10:02] If they were to add, you know, it would say to the, to announce the box, it has the box, you know, the value.
[10:18] Well, then what happens is they apply the status.
[10:48] Thank you.
[11:25] Then I could say, I'm coming back Friday to get your final approval.
[11:38] Then Saturday night, we'll just hit the button.
[11:45] I'll tell them it takes 48 hours to stop the button.
[11:46] Then we'll just stop it Sunday night without it.
[11:47] And I'll tell you, you've said it already.
[11:48] You will not be able to stop it.
[11:48] You will not be able to stop it.
[11:49] You will not be able to stop it.
[12:05] I'm now really getting worried about the fact that you, from this point of view, could actually affect such a brutal day.
[12:15] This is how we clean up the infrastructure of these guys.
[12:43] And I really like to do it without setting myself up.
[12:59] I like to see how these good bodies come from.
[13:04] I know it's good to be outside.
[13:07] How's it at?
[13:07] I think it's all right.
[13:21] Ane ka loike, azele clare, tere hi texte, tere hirakto vizcate.
[13:42] .
[13:43] .
[13:45] .
[13:47] .
[13:48] .
[14:15] Thank you for watching.
[14:46] I know that, but you see, that time's a-wasting.
[14:52] I think it's got to be, it's got to be iterated.
[14:55] That's the problem, my problem.
[14:56] I think you should sit in the president's office.
[14:59] I think I should sit in the president's office.
[15:03] I wonder what happens.
[15:03] I could do it if that's the way that I can take something out of the way.
[15:05] I just would like to have to see how that plays out.
[15:09] So you'd like to play in the department?
[15:11] Can anybody do anything today?
[15:14] No.
[15:19] I think that they're not there.
[15:58] I don't know whether you have read Victor Shaw's Soja's article today.
[16:02] I don't know who the hell the guy is.
[16:03] I never see him.
[16:05] There's a fellow called Soja who writes for the Washington Post.
[16:10] Two weeks ago he wrote a brilliant article on the negotiation.
[16:16] Today he wrote an absolutely brilliant article saying that my trip was an enormous success.
[16:26] Benji, that's a fella I've never talked to.
[16:30] They're my mates.
[16:48] Here's what we are going to do.
[17:00] You said that the air is going off.
[17:03] I'm sorry.
[17:04] I'm sorry.
[17:05] I'm sorry.
[17:06] I'm sorry.
[17:07] I'm sorry.
[17:08] I'm sorry.
[17:09] I'm sorry.
[17:12] I'm sorry.
[17:13] I'm sorry.
[17:37] Thank you.
[18:19] I'll do it because I don't want to
[18:47] We've got to find out how our peace thing is.
[18:56] We've got to find out how our peace thing is.
[19:05] We've got to find out how our peace thing is.
[19:25] I don't believe it.
[19:36] I don't believe it.
[19:39] I don't believe it.
[20:51] Aspects emerged of which we agree that which we want to create and which need us to operate.
[21:51] battle there at the present time.
[21:54] And that's not hard, because the progress has been made.
[21:57] And because the breakthrough has been made.
[21:59] As soon as I know that we've got to go to this meeting, we know we're proper to a fair degree.
[22:07] And I hope we can't use too much of what they've been saying.
[22:13] I can't be sure.
[22:15] Unless I want to give them a chance.
[22:37] We've got a lot of things we have to work on here.
[22:42] But you've got to be here for a while, all right?
[22:45] Well, I can't go there.
[22:46] You can't go there.
[22:47] You just say, we can't do that.
[22:50] At this time, you've got to have one more round.
[22:52] We've got to go before you go.
[23:21] It's the extra time that people settle, I think, by November 20th.
[23:31] And so they brought up the, were you able to call Nelson?
[23:37] There's no rush, but they do it today.
[23:42] Just so, just, you won't take too long.
[23:45] Just say, look, Nelson is very tight, very, very fed up.
[24:49] All right.
[24:52] All right.
[25:29] I don't want to talk about the big strategy.
[25:34] I don't want to talk about these emissions.
[25:36] They don't really matter.
[25:37] But I want to repeat on the basic strategy.
[25:41] There's the, I don't know whether you saw a column show outside the other day.
[25:46] But he wrote about the whole speculation about what's going to happen.
[25:50] What people don't realize is to what extent all the fundamental decisions have been made.
[26:01] I know one thing, I know what the history books are going to say, because no president that I know has had to do
[26:32] I mean, the decision which you sort of take for granted, just by talking to one or two people, you then send them out.
[26:47] Johnson could never have done this.
[26:48] He would have tracked down to them.
[26:51] He would have had 30 people and brought them down to a point where they didn't make a gun.
[27:05] And good luck.
[27:07] Keep at it.