Nixon, Haldeman & Kissinger on Vietnam War and Laos

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I took the liberty, Mr. President, this afternoon of hearing a message to Sato.

The problem was this, that our message was handed to the Japanese at 2.30, and it was everybody's feeling that Sato didn't hear from you.

More or less, I was paying you...

I didn't want to take the liberty of talking it over with Johnson, just in case the guy resigned.

Alex Johnson.

And he, of course, thought it was very tough, but he thought it was tolerable.

He said it's...

But this is not going to be our public.

No, no, that's...

I don't have no message.

I thought you wouldn't be back till five, so I put it over the calendar.

Okay.

Now that's fine.

I want to think like I had never

I think there are other rules.

There is an attack on the right of the president.

The right of the president is their foreign policy.

The Japanese know it.

Okay, okay.

Don't do it.

Don't.

Well, let's have it.

We'll just pick up a little more.

Are you going down or not?

No, I...

I guess it's only... What is it?

You're not going down?

You're going to lose your medication?

You're not going to lose your medication?

Please, please, I'm trying to make a show up.

I won't be any further.

I'm not getting anything done.

I don't know if it's the weather.

You're here just a couple of weeks now.

I don't know why you're still here today.

You said they predicted we'd be out here some time.

I'm sorry to hear you.

It's raining.

It's only about maybe 80 degrees.

And I hope so.

We've got some horrible weather.

I'm trying to figure out what is in the water for this thing.

I'm sure it's going to rain.

I don't know.

I think it's going to be 75 or 80.

Today will be the 28th of the morning to me, but I don't know what to make of it.

I don't know.

Right.

We had to apply that, but then we hear, uh, Mitchell applied it out.

He said, helicopter coming back.

He said, well, I understand.

I'm over the free trade-off.

It was over.

But I did not do anything.

He said, well, we didn't do anything.

I said, well, didn't you?

What does he mean by that?

What free trade-off?

That was all for years.

No, I said, I was trying to get to the State Department.

But he knows where Henry stands.

I told him my name is Henry.

My only concern was how to position Mills so that we can keep hitting him and he doesn't have us in a corner, but you can judge that a lot better than I.

As far as the Japanese are concerned, I'm 100% behind him.

I think, too, you've got to realize the Japanese, they're just like any, frankly, let's face it, any big, strong nation, the British, you can't screw around with the British.

There's no honor in anybody.

You know that, Henry?

Well, the British are a little more honorable than most of them.

But they thought, they found it paid.

That's my point.

They're honorable because there's a personal relation between them.

Sato, I think he just thought that he could get away with it.

Yeah, he thought he solved America.

Another thing is this.

Henry, all we're doing is reaping the consequences of years of American solvency for Japan and everybody else in the world.

That's what we're reaping the consequences of.

I just expected me to cave.

And actually, that conversation started with our ambassador, who was pretty insolent.

In that tedious way of theirs, when he said, in negotiations with Flanagan, when the success of the textile industry, surprisingly, he came up with a solution of their own.

Impossible.

He came up with a statement half an hour later.

Thank you very much, Your Honor.

I think they'll stay down this week.

I don't think they're going out this week because there are not many other customers.

Now, what is the situation because of the weather?

What is the situation there?

Is the weather still bad?

The situation, Mr. President, that's why it would be good to have Hayes there.

When's he going to be getting off?

He's leaving Sunday night.

All right.

We'll take that one.

All right.

the situation is that right now there's very little fighting that they're not covering I'm getting a compilation for you on comparing Laos with Cambodia just on patches in TOL for example we've picked up 20 times the amount it varies Cambodia is still way ahead but in

But it's not insignificant in, for example, in large rounds of large ammunition, which is heavy to transport, we have 93% of what we have in Cambodia.

That's important.

In small arms ammunition, just to give you a feel, we have 25%

But that's exactly what you'd expect because...

Exactly, Mr. President.

We're doing very well on stuff that has to be transported with trucks.

This is why I tend to believe that there's something in these figures.

Cruiser weapons, we have, I think, 70% of Cambodia.

Rifles, we have 20% of Cambodia.

All of this makes sense that this is reserved stock.

And I ask you something, Mr. President.

Let it be a military decision.

He wants to move.

Let him move.

I see no problem with that.

Live with me.

I don't want to get sucked in.

That's the one thing I told you.

We must let it happen.

You mentioned this around line 14, the enemy.

But war is always repeating the same patterns, and always the Russians sucked in the Austrians, and the Austrians had sucked in the Russians, and the Germans sucked in the Mayorkas, you know, I mean, it's the way it's done.

Even the Boers, we call them the sucking, and it wasn't really sucking.

I took, lastly, Mr. and Mrs. President, Mayorkas, you too, and Mayorkas, can't we, with an A,

He wrote a book.

He's one of the greatest British historians and a conservative.

He wrote a book on the German army called The Nemesis of Power.

I asked him about Falkenhayn.

I told him I thought we couldn't get out anyway that you had been reading.

And that you've been working for me.

He doesn't think.

He thinks that Ludendorff and his people, Hoffman...

Let me say this, though.

Let's build up what...

and leave the Residual Force in.

And what you have to do at that stage, then you have to start arguing about the Residual Force.

But if on April 7th, you can say by May 1st, or by April 15th, they'll all be out, so that you can announce the end of the operation on that day, there's nothing you can't in either event.

You can end, now's the end of that.

Are you ready, or is that not?

I'm sorry.

No, I'm sorry.

No, no, no, no.

I'm just asking about, are you here about that?

We're going to go with the text, I don't mind.

Yeah, is he ready, or he doesn't have to see me?

I think we're all sincere.

Well, she's doing something now.

I mean, he's John Hurt.

She's got her sausage sticks.

He's strong.

And, uh...

I think he's got to step through the office.

Okay, we'll come down on, yeah, just 25, just so that he can say he was in and we were talking about his stay here.

All right, good.

All right, this woman down here, on the, in this afternoon, in order to get a transcript, we'd like to put a microphone over here at the table.

So we don't have to have a stenographer in unless you don't have one?

I don't have a stenographer.

She certainly could be an operating hand, or not an operating hand.

No, no, this would just, I mean, I don't think you should be here.

I'd rather have this person come in and let the comments, and she didn't, who's the press person for comments?

Is she the press person for comments?

Well, if you want to, I don't think there's any need for it.

Look, I saw Salisbury at the moment.

I just think we ought to have the feeling that it's their show.

You don't want it?

I don't want it.

You'll be here.

But we will today.

I don't care about them.

I'm not going to say that we're regretting it.

Right.

Or you're mad at me.

Just like me.

Why do I see you here?

Because we're going to release the cancer there as well.

Are you?

Yes, I am.

Won't be much said.

On the day after I arrived at it,

When did the first thing arrive?

I think it was the first time they made me wish reform, and I was in here with the state court.

And then the TV program, the only court that was up high, there goes the three key elements.

Got the lead tonight.

Got the lead on TV.

The wire cut was after the reform.

It was quite a show we gave them.

you were doing.

And I, at that same dinner last night, there was Tom Braden who was rocking you all over the place two weeks ago.

And...

It was back off.

Oh, yes.

And you guys did it again.

The PR case, about PR, we don't have to worry much.

In fact, we can make it very confident.

We all know what the future holds.

The future is told.

Let me say this.

We know what these people can or can't do.

It's going to be close.

They're going to take some rags.

We've got to get the hell out of there.

That's for sure.

Because it's quite clear that they're there.

And it's good for them to know how strong they are.

I'm not going to allow their weakness and their fear of our Vietnamese people to delay us.

The only other thing I'm going to say is you see

We've been thinking all along about what's going on.

Now we know.

We've done everything the military wants.

We've done everything to our own satisfaction in order to bring the war to a successful conclusion.

I think it's going to work.

I think, I agree with you, there's a 40 to 50 percent chance, maybe 55, in that ballpark, that we might even get an agreement, but why an agreement?

I think it may work otherwise.

I just think, in other words, the forces will, there'll still be war out there, back and forth, but the South Vietnamese, they're not going to be an awkward with our Vietnamese, not easily.

Not easily.

And that's all the good thing about it.

And that's all being admittedly.

that we have a good chance to get it out of the way.

I don't know if you're concerned.

You've got to worry about public opinion now and so forth.

But if, by being restrained now, we have even a, if we even have, and it's a little better than that, if there's only a 25% chance, or a 20% chance, that we can make this, have a settlement,

in the late fall.

My confidence is working.

The less you announce in April, the better.

You see, Beacon has a hard time.

That incidentally is going to be as effective as any.

No, no, no.

We'll be sent to Vietnam.

But you know that, the no ground feet, that's the thing that hangs over all these people's heads.

And my kids don't have to go to get them, or I don't have to go to get them.

The only problem about that is there's a hell of a lot of poor bachelors that volunteer because they're afraid of being drafted, so they go.

What about those?

Well, he's a big take, you know, and he's, I still speak to him.

None of those kids are going to be in combat.

The whole dance-off, the NCAA is taking over there.

So say, Henry, remember, we have got to create the conditions for a victory out there.

Now, the other thing is, get them the hell out of there if there's any significant danger.

Absolutely.

Mainly because we don't want two to have a political defeat.

That's my view.

My view is the best.

their whole proposition is, what the hell is our intelligence?

Apparently we don't have much to tell you because the rankings are in there.

Well, we had pretty, actually, Mr. Benson, we are in the anomalous position.

Yeah, or there's no more than they do.

No, if we had American troops in there now, we could clean it up completely.

The North Vietnamese have taken a belt.

After all, since Hill 31.

But what about those 30 regiments you said?

No, 10 regiments.

They have not done what their dispositions, they are now defending their supply depots.

And every day, we are getting, yesterday they hit, you see what the presence of these troops does, is it forces them to defend their supply depots.

Then we go in the day, yesterday we had 391 dead in,

that not much can survive.

And even if you cut these casualties in half, that daily toll of several hundred.

And we, for example, that's why I want to hit those passes.

This path would be ideal.

They're choked full now.

But we can't do it until that Trump moves out of there because we don't

For example, we've got intercepts today, Mr. President, in which supply units are saying we are cut off from our water supply.

And where the other say, the combat units say that 12.7 millimeter shells are not arriving and we have nothing for our guns.

So therefore, if we could, if the South Vietnamese could keep it going another three or four weeks, we are now at the point where almost everything is a multiplied effect.

But I agree with you, we shouldn't push them.

But they are not fighting as well as they did previously.

When Mr. Burns comes in, our private partners, the two of us, since we didn't forget him,

So they're taking a, we've got them in a meat grinder there, Mr. President, and the tragedy is we see now that if Johnson had dumped it in 67, it would be a footnote in the history book.

Well, if he had, we might not be here.

Well, that's true.

But at any rate, I don't know whether you saw the Daily Telegram in the news somewhere, which they said if anyone had predicted you could withdraw 300,000 troops and be better off at the end of the process than at the beginning, they would have said you were insane.

It was on every television show.

Some of them may be, but I don't know.

Well, they have to be negative.

People like Scali and others have got to say, what do you mean the last war?

Everybody says that.

However, there's a hell of a difference.

And you and I know there is not going to be a move to your war unless there's a hell of an accident.

It's a pretty good statement, of course.

And I was talking about the United States.

You see, that poor old side, right?

I said, we can't say what's going to happen.

We're going to be involved in it.

I thought it was extraordinarily sophisticated.

Well, people like Alstom saw it.

Well, Alstom was raving about it.

Well, then he reads it within his health.

They were, I think the reason why they stirred up the animals was because they started to put some of the feces.

But also this, they all,

have their own right to make millions and so forth, own it in their own way.

And having the New York Times as sort of a diabolical thing to do, the most ridiculous goddamn thing to do.

Rather, I told Bob, say that I was in trouble with the polls and the rest of it.

I called the press conference, which was untrue.

I called the press conference long before that.

And the second, that I called my old friend, Sol Sprecher, for Christ's sake, Sol Sprecher isn't a friend of mine, is such.

I think it was three months ago.

Three months ago.

And that's why the whole deal is a mad time.

Oh, my God.

I thought we'd get a picture of you online for ourselves, and I might send it to your, if we might just, what do you think of having a picture taken of us, and then pushing it to, I'm not sure of the picture, but we do have a picture.

I think we all have them all, or is it just our own questions?

We have quite a few questions.

Let me call you in just a moment.

If we do it, we have quite a few more to look at.

I think that Johnny and I will sell it.

Why don't we go down to Johnny and I will look at it.

Excuse me.

I heard over there you had a raise over a quote you came back to him.

I think you did.

This morning.

Yes.

The comment was .

I appreciate you noticing that there's a staff that comes through good for you.

Yes, sir.

All right, boy.

We're just trying to find somebody to bear a war on.

That's okay.

All right.

But I think he enjoys them, too.

Henry?

I get it.

He enjoys them, too.

Yeah.

Well, I... Sure.

I...

He's a...

I think he's trying to set up a bit of heart.

I think this is what I'm talking about.

It's the nicest look I should... John Clover Mills has done this to respect everybody's person.

It's goddamn...

It's time for you to stand up there.

So, I don't know if there are other views as well.

This is the thing that came to emerge to do, put little balls into the Republicans.

They're just walking, I don't want to go out there and have no runovers.

They're building attendance.

There are a hell of a lot of Democrats who love it.

Many that are very happy about those taking the Supreme and the Senate.

Their jobs are very, very, the one thing about that Congress is they're jealous.

They hate Mike Gill to see another guy get detention.

I think incidentally that the Russians are feeling that, I don't know, Smith, did I quote him?

He had always said the Russians will never accept trading Washington, anti-Washington system in for ADN.

He had to bring an offer to him yesterday for nothing.

And that actually helped us

And he said if we screw him on this Washington defense, after all the pleading he's done for us, I'm saying to us, he'll never forgive us.

But you told him we burned him.

I told him we burned him.

He should come in.

I'm seeing him Saturday, and I'll tell him.

Because after all, he is a decent man.

I think he's a decent man.

He's got to fight his own battles.

As you know, a year ago, in Cambodia, mainly because of the violence, you know, well, they just, I guess, I guess, part of the basis is, can't say, part of the basis, some of them, yeah.

But the whole thought, they, a lot of them, honestly believe, you know, it's, it's running out here, you know, time, they're going to march in here and kill us all and hang our heads on the gateposts.

They, they wouldn't.

It enhanced the day's success.

I hear you mean it is, though.

Oh, yeah.

It's accomplished, they call it.

It's accomplished if you look there.

We've at least bought three months, I would say.

Five, three, would you say?

That's right.

The thing is... Are they getting that line over?

We're getting it.

But we're getting five o'clock this week for no good reason.

They were doing better last week.

I know.

Well, they're getting a lot of cash this week, and they...

But the network should really die before they're out of aid.

And the other side, this obviously doesn't have to punch right now.

And if we can just get that damn strike off, because that's where all their supplies lie, well, we'll get it off just by Saturday or Sunday.

Do you want to approve the bleeding?

I understand Americans approve it.

No.

As I was saying, you know, it seems to me that, again, if you have any kind of a difficult trust, you've got quite a good show up.

It's a good little show.

It's good to be out of the garage, out of the garage.

You know, there's a few, there's a few, I think there's a guy,

I can see about 30 of them.

That's probably what it was, 20 or 30.

They busted one, did you see him?

No.

Who did?

Thomas.

One guy lunged across the line and did something.

New device, interesting and useful.

Four cops were picked up.

One guy holding his two legs and one on each of his arms.

And then the fourth cop, they had a face, carrying face down horizontally.

The fourth cop grabbed him by the, grabbed his pants by the ass, by the seat of his pants, and just pulled up as hard as he could and just pointed at the guy.

He must have damn near came straight at him.

They pull the pants up through his crotch, and then they just carry it that way.

He wasn't resisting at all.

That's what we need.

We've got to use force.

All right.

I can go back to South Park and see if there was a fire under the wall.

I was sitting next to him during the speech, and I told him, he's reading it all so fast.

And I said, that's because it's too long.

And I said, there's a lot of stuff there that could have been taken out.

Bill is the best in the county.

That speech could have had five minutes taken out of it, very easily.

But as a matter of fact, it was just 72 minutes.

It was 72 minutes of the action piece, but I read it like it all.

But it was good to read the facts.

Sure it is.

People like to hear it though.

On the proposal type stuff, you slow down for the mean, for the books, and you also have the humor and the good little stories.

Which was the main thing.

The humor in the beginning is what all these people remember.

And the oligarch which was in the speech.

That's all.

The oligarch which was in the courtroom.

The oligarch which was in the courtroom and the state chief justice.

And, um, fire is strong.

And Clark was thinking, good.

Oh, they're printing that all out.

Oh, they were moved.

They were wrapped right there.

That was a very prestigious room and so forth.

Oh, I have a comment.

I hope this is a public stand-up speaker.

He must remember that in the campaign, he reads about ten words a minute.

Is that not something?

I don't believe he ever did it.

But, but, I just thought...

God, why does it take so long to get a nice picture?

You see, Sapphire, our writers, all want me to read very slowly, because they don't want to learn to shift stuff.

No, it's reading in fast gives it lift.

But there are places you can do it.

Well, the way you read them, though, that kind of is awfully good when you shift things like that.

But I just told them, I said, fine, that's the part you're bored with, that's the part the audience is going to be bored with.

And that's the part you eat, that's the part you're bored with.

And they all, none of us speak, these are your regular practical weeks.

I mean, part of this was short speech, and I said, we all have to act.

There's no speech in the original thousand words.

That would be one of 15 minutes.

But it's exactly boring before a crowd like this.

It makes it funny.

I will always have three to four minutes of jackass.

But maybe not all of us, but almost all of us.

There's some silly things you've got to say.

You tell your son, Clark, and the governor of Virginia, and senators, and all that.

And it's very important to do, you see.

When a speechwriter is about learning, cut it down, cut it down.

Nothing over 2,000 words.

Everything is too long.

That's exactly what I said to Doug, because it's too long.

I said it shouldn't have been more than 2,000 words.

But he wrote, it was a damn well-written speech, though.

He had a lot of good lines.

Well, I had good lines, and I felt so good.

But there's just some textbook stuff that could have been left out on the sort of reciting what goes on.

Yeah.

Paraprofessionals and all the rest.

I mean, you could just summarize.

Paraprofessionals is kind of an interesting thing to push because maybe it's been pushed in the trade.

It hasn't in the public.

I hope they've been told that it's not non-substantial.

I hope they're not going to go non-substantial.

Is that understood?

Who's been told?

Yep.

Okay.

It's the only really dangerous ones in that area.

It's not in your health.

It's in tranquility.

They won't show that they know.

On a thing like that, a little church down there, a little sapphire, I'll get E.O.G.

now to get out the story about the deception in some way.

I'll write it.

See, Ziegler will not decide.

Ziegler is only looking at it in terms of beliefs.

Well, he led with this or that.

That's irrelevant.

Beliefs are not important at all.

Nobody gives a damn about beliefs.

But on the other hand, the other thing, you know, the judges and the people and the color and so forth and the nice reception and the good humor and the rest of it, that obviously is gold.

That's what we have never been getting out.

We just can't get it out.

So then it goes, the problem in the press is that they say you've got a problem getting something out.

Why?

They're there.

So they don't write it the way they... Yeah.

I think that there's something to the idea of, I didn't want to explore it too open, I wanted to keep it close.

I think you ought to consider the compromise in Paris if it can be done.

And I would move on through Colson, Coffey, and the rest, and get going on how to build up a basis that we'd like some folding in depth done.

And get him a little contract.

I don't know if you've got any contracts.

No, there's no problem getting some contracts.

You know, we moved out.

In fact, before, in fact, we had a hard time turning him off.

And we got him.

We finally did.

Right.

So he's gone.

He's gone a good year now where he's gone.

He has gone.

We've got Danny Locke in here.

But let's get him to do some bowling for us.

Right.

We'll see.

Right.

This was before, and I would point out, this was taken before the President's conference.

See my point?

And his voice, he says it in his, in his release.

We should, and we hope we should.

That's what's forward, isn't it?

Yeah, right.

That's what we need to know about our state so we can hang down.

And we know damn well it's honest.

Because there you go.

They tell us whatever it is.

There's a lag, too, in the effect of anything you do.

It builds.

It could well be...

I don't know, but there's not necessarily...

He's so well-beaten, I say.

I don't know if he loves it.

What?

It's Bryce.

I don't know if he really loves it.

No, well, he is on another subject, right?

I think Bryce is thinking of another hero.

Yeah.

What I'm thinking is this.

If you've got something going, and it builds up like it, for example...

If you don't drop ten points in a day, that's all.

If you go down for three weeks, it's impressive.

Dredge, dredge, dredge, dredge.

And at that same point, you don't come back ten points in a day.

I just think it's the day after the November 30th speech.

It's trying to go ahead with that dramatic turnaround.

I think that's probably right.

I think it took all of the times people got to make up their minds, start thinking about it and saying, gee whiz.

During the end of this thing, as sad as we were lucky, after the press conference and things,

If you didn't start, then it's got to get better.

But wow.

It doesn't look like that.

Your analysis of the economy is correct.

People sort of thought that pretty well.

The police officer, well, it's pretty well done.

It's not an issue with him on here.

And all of a sudden they said, oh, God, here we are again.

And it devastated us.

Great frustration.

They said, oh, Christ.

And then that's combined with the fact that we have, we're under fire attack from the press, from the TV.

Those two things.

You see, the TV attack is not inconsequential.

You ought to remember that our standing immediately after the election was in Gallup about 57.

It dropped down in Gallup to around 52 or 51 after two weeks of conservative TV attacking.

You know what I mean?

Delusional targeting.

The TV thing is terribly important.

That's why you need to drum it in.

They should have drummed it in.

On the vehicle announcement, my only urging there is to go down to this town.

I don't think we can go much further than that.

I understand that.

Basically, there's another reason.

I said that we were children's and we'll get down.

I've been saying it, but if we go too soon, they said I stepped it up because of public reaction.

I mean, if you go too late, they'll say you did it for public reaction.

Well, April 15 would be the logical time the Democrats and everybody thinks they're going to make it.

So we could say April 7th because I want to speak to the editors of the 13th and the same thing the rest of the day.

Hopefully, the nudes out of that ought to be the summary of Law Street rather than the troop withdrawal.

Because whatever you send troop withdrawal, I buy in and cut it.

It ain't going to mean a thing.

Everybody just got it.

Nobody understands the difference, except the technical bit.

All you got to do is say, well, I need one to withdraw some troops.

This is insured or continuing the program.

And I think I'll use the charts when I'm going to the show.

What's happened to the players?

I mean, make a real sales pitch.

That's what I'm trying to do.

The Lord's coming.

No, I was going to listen to where it happened.

And, you know, we can't believe you cut it off here.

I was going to cut it off here.

Rather than that, I was not thinking of those charts so much.

No, the charts of America.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

There were so many of them in games.

I see other times.

So many deaths.

Down.

So many suicides.

Down.

See my point?

Yeah.

Very good.

Nixon, Haldeman & Kissinger on Vietnam War and Laos

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on March 11, 1971

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