Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 470 › Conversation 470-003

Nixon & Moorer on Lam Son 719 and Vietnam War

Friday, March 19, 1971 · 8:51 AM–9:05 AM ET · Oval Office · 7 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Moorer, Thomas H. (Adm.)Conversation470-003 on Tape 470 (tape position 00:05:15–00:18:53)StartFriday, March 19, 1971 at 8:51 AMEndFriday, March 19, 1971 at 9:05 AMRecording deviceOval OfficeSourceNixon Library record for 470-003 ↗ · National Archives Catalog, NAID 417176247 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon and Admiral Thomas H. Moorer discussed the ongoing withdrawal of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) forces from the Lam Son 719 operation in Laos. The President expressed frustration with media narratives framing the operation as a failure and emphasized the need to pivot public focus toward significant North Vietnamese casualties. To counter negative press accounts, the administration sought to better highlight the operation's strategic objectives and utilize eyewitness accounts from pilots to convey the military success of the mission.

Audio

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NARA Description

On March 19, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and Adm. Thomas H. Moorer met in the Oval Office of the White House from 8:51 am to 9:05 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 470-003 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 470-3

Date: March 19, 1971
Time: 8:51 am - 9:05 am
Location: Oval Office

The President talked with Admiral Thomas H. Moorer

     Laos operation (Lam Son)
          -Military situation
                -Timing of withdrawal
                -White House news summary
                -Army of the Republic of Vietnam [ARVN] withdrawal
                      -Media interpretation

                              -Administration response
                                  -North Vietnamese losses
                                  -Press accounts
                                  -Interviews with pilots

Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript is incomplete. The transcription skipped stretches of speech — roughly 1 minute of this recording (about 15% of it) is represented by only a few words. Listen to the audio rather than relying on the text below; a corrected transcript is queued.

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

Download transcript (.txt) · JSON data

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Yeah.
Okay.
Good morning.
Yeah.
All right.
Sorry.
Sorry.
Sorry.

— 1 min 15 s with no transcribed speech —

But he plans to, when you talk about April 5th, that he plans to be substantially out by then, or, and then just have to raise that with that, or what is the situation there?
Yeah, what about the 1st of April?
Direct assembly place enabled.
I'm just looking for a new song.
I need to call him.
Thank you, sir.
He gives us quite a bang.
He does a song called The Name of Brady.
Yeah.
I don't know what the general thing is.
Really, we know what is and what happens.
At this point, the matter is figuring out how to interpret it.
And, uh, I think, you know, the press expertly makes the appearance that this is a defeat or something like that.
Well, actually, uh, hey, they just haven't, they just don't apply the point that we have made all along that they were going in there for this purpose.
They, they emphasize the heaviness of Vietnamese losses.
Can we get out anything on the North Vietnamese losses?
Yeah, of course I was in the newspaper, yeah.
And they needed us.
They didn't show more understanding.
Well, that's what we want.
Continue on some other ratings for that report.
In-laws.
But it's just these individual pilots, crewmen, they get an interview that make it, who's trying to put out the... Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, thank you.

Also recorded on March 19, 1971

  • 470-001 8:45 AM · 4 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 8:45 am and 8:51 am.
  • 470-002 8:45 AM · 2 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 8:45 am and 8:51 am.
  • 470-004 9:23 AM · 55 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:23 am to 9:25 am.
  • 470-005 9:25 AM · 1 hr 36 min — President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman, White House operator, Paul W. McCracken, Stephen B. Bull, Clarine (Billingsley) Mills, Jack Mills Dickson, Mrs. Jack Mills Dickson, Jack Young, Mrs. Jack Young, John S. Davies, White House photographer, Mrs. Randy Carlson, and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 9:25 am and 11:15 am.
  • 470-006 10:53 AM · 3 sec — H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman and Manolo Sanchez met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 10:53 am and 11:15 am.
  • 470-007 10:53 AM · 42 min — President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, White House operator, John D. Ehrlichman, Henry A. Kissinger, Charles W. Colson, and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 10:53 am and 11:45 am.
  • 470-008 11:45 AM · 21 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Henry A. Kissinger, unknown person(s), and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 11:45 am and 12:06 pm.
  • 050-008 12:06 PM · 6 min — during the Signing of the National Week of Concern for Prisoners of War/Missing in Action, President Richard M. Nixon and members of the military and the Executive Committe for the National League of American Families of Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, including Joan Vinson, Carol North, Kathy Plowman, Patsy Crayton, Iris Powers, Mary Jane McManus, Eldora Ford, Alfred F. Moe, Mrs. Alfred F. Moe, Lt. Russ Buckley, Marianne Nelson, Stanley R. Resor, Gen. Bruce Palmer, Maj. L. Jones, Adm. Thomas H. Moorer, Lt. Col. Walter B. Ratliffe, John H. Chafee, Adm. Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr., Gen. Leonard F. Chapman, Jr., Dr. John L. McLucas, Gen. John C. Meyer, Mrs. Russell Davis, Lt. Russell Davis, Frank A. Sieverts, Adm. H. H. Epes, Jr., Col. Milton Kegley, William E. Brock, III, Edward P. Boland, William J. Keating, Romano L. Mazzoli, Robert H. Michel, John T. Myers, William F. ("Bob") Nichols, Thomas M. Pelly, Paul G. Rogers, Garner Shriver, William J. Young, Roger Zion, William L. Dickinson, Olive Hunt, Mrs. Richard Morin, U. Alexis Johnson, and Richard Capen, met in the Cabinet Room of the White House from 12:06 pm to 12:13 pm.

All 22 conversations from March 19, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 470-003, March 19, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives (NAID 417176247). Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/470-003 (accessed November 2, 2026).