Nixon, Haldeman & Kissinger on Vietnam War and Political strategy

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Well, on the 23rd, uh, the, uh, Friday, uh, I am thinking about, uh, flying down to where Julie is and having dinner there, and then picking them up and flying to be there at Camp David, all by helicopter.

It has to be checked.

We'll see if that works out, but we talked about it last night.

And so if you could sort of figure on that, then we'd go and spend the day at Camp David.

Uh, second point, I think that it might be a good idea on probably 5th, and without the canon and the publicity this time, that might be a good time for us to go on over to, uh, Gettysburg Church in Lincolns, you know, but without the publicity this time, uh, we're just too far out of the zone.

Something, something to do before, so this time we'll just go, uh, and just, you know.

I think you ought to know a half hour before an issue.

Yeah.

I'm not saying they know, but a half hour before would just, you know, they want to get the choir shaved up and get the head of the seats and so forth, so a half hour before an issue.

Good.

But I think that would be a good idea.

I think that may, particularly after the months have been, it's just a long show at some church.

I want to be sure that just so that at least I don't have all three of them together.

Let's be sure both of you own them.

I think I really didn't do with Elsa on the last three to get that dinner because he called hay and asked for lunch.

And he said he was embarrassed to see me and because I told him that it was all very well, they still drank, but I thought it was different.

But if an outsider neglects the national interest, so now... Well, you know, you've been talking very tough to these people and it works with some and it does work with others, but the few I have about Henry is this.

You know, that's fine.

You know, I'm a...

I, uh... Like when I spoke to the editors, if there's any words about what the hell I believed in, I'm just their fan.

It's not Hoover or anybody else.

So, you know, if you're able to think of Hoover, I was thinking of Peter.

I've heard of him.

I've heard of anybody that's heard of him.

Some of you can make a statement on that.

I think that's the type of people that are, when you really come down to it, that really want to come back.

Really want to come back.

Or they don't want to come back, but they also want to come to me.

Not really.

I mean, there are a few who sign, but not a hell of a lot.

Some just, somebody else can strengthen the ticket, but that's it.

Maybe, maybe who knows.

But you take after who.

There's anybody that wants to resign, but they want me to resign.

Not really.

That doesn't mean that I may not have some support that he doesn't have, but

When you really come down to it, his enemies are my enemies.

Now, I'm getting to the point where, like, you know, as I said, when I built that DA, no president has done it for 17 years.

Now, the DAR, frankly, I think it's a silly organization.

I mean, you know, I don't believe in all that, but this is where he knows who your grandfather was and all that.

But...

My God, they run citizenship courses.

They love the country.

They supported us on Cambodia.

They supported us on laws.

They made flags.

They sent citizenship manuals.

They helped kids in Appalachian.

Why shouldn't I go to the P.A.R.?

I agree.

Oh, I agree with Bill Buckley.

It's absolutely right, Mr. President.

You cannot charge up your normal support.

It's almost impossible to win over the others.

The others you will have only when you don't need them anymore.

Now and then, like for example, if things go really great with the Russians and so forth, then they'll slog around.

But they'll vote against you.

I'm getting a flood of letters now.

There's a committee at Harvard that studied China policy that I had down here to ask their opinion about six months ago so they remember we were thinking about it.

And they don't make congratulatory letters now for you.

No, no, they don't.

They're fine.

But you see Henry, that's why I say when you tell Stuart and the society it works off, I know that, but I get to know.

I don't mean that you simply don't try to lend a minute.

We have to realize that

Otherwise, you might not like Goldwater.

Goldwater, of course, ended up the way that he did, or he ended up like Reagan.

Well, it's a different thing.

Reagan is considered to be the one thing they at least are asking to give me credit for.

They think I'm smart enough to handle the bastards.

They don't think either one of them is.

I said, well, no, you can be on the left wing of the conservative spectrum, which you are.

They were on the right wing of the conservative spectrum, and they didn't have any particular subtlety and understanding, but you take that October 7th speech, it served their tactical purpose to support you for that, but you cannot win them over permanently.

David was not forced, because he found him to be paid on a true issue.

I think it was an English issue.

Back in the Spanish Civil War era,

Every issue, not just one or two.

The Civil War, changing Chiang Kai-shek out of China, Castro, the Q1 mess, all of the issues, national events, they are on 100% of the time.

Now that can be on 15% or 20% or 25% because we all make moves.

But when you're 100% of the time, what does that mean?

It means they simply want the United States to lose.

They want the communists to win.

Not that they're communists, but they're basically leftists.

In fact, communists are easier to deal with.

It's the left-right struggle.

That's what it's about.

Communists are easier to deal with than these fellows are because the communists are at least tough and strong.

Yes.

These people have such a vapid, good mentality.

Oh, I get my keys.

The whole interpretation of the world here that if we did if we had built 61 new missiles and two new ABM sites during Salkord secretly the way the Russians have, they'd be climbing up walls.

Now that the Russians have done it, everything that has stayed

One has to be weak, and the other has to be strong.

This is because they don't trust our society.

They are very uncivilized.

No.

Oh, no.

No, I remember Kistiakowsky, the night of his speech, they had a meeting of the Harvard faculty.

One of the professors' house in Georgia, Kistiakowsky, called me up and he said,

For this, we will never forget him.

For about three or four days, Harvard was heading for an uproar.

But then when it worked, they liked success.

And just like Lobs, it turned out a little better.

And frankly, it turned out very well.

What do you think?

I think it turned out very well, but if it had turned out visibly better, if Abrams had told us on March...

First, that he was getting out so that you and your March 4th press conference could have said they'd all be out by the end of March.

Sure.

It wouldn't have mattered if we had lost six battalions on the way out.

You know, it's an interesting thing.

I've chased these people more than anything else that happened in Vietnam.

It's probably that little thing he wants to fire A6.

Yeah.

I'll bet you they'd read that.

They'd wonder, maybe the iron will make it.

But they're going to make it happen.

Well, Mr. President, if you consider that they hung in there even in Laos, leader one inferior to him.

For the first three weeks, lousy American tactical air support.

Very often, no supplies coming in.

And they still hung in there for six weeks.

They fought well in Laos.

And as far as phase six, where they were fighting on their own terrain, they fought extremely well.

And won.

Does the General realize they won?

I think that's coming through now, yes.

So I had lunch with Ben Bradley, who was just taking a trip around the world.

Yeah.

Well, it's also interesting, he said to me he wasn't back.

I didn't know that the Bushes are a waiting note.

I expected it to be, but he had met with them.

He'll just be gathered here some February 5th.

No.

Sorry, April of it.

The note was made in April of it.

It was two days before the station.

Fortunately, I didn't see it.

Well, it would have made sense anyway.

It's the news week editors to a man, and Bradley Hartigan is totally opposed to what we're doing.

They think that Laos was a total disaster.

That's right.

That's what was Bradley there.

Bradley was there.

Well, that's not what I mean.

And then their foreign editor, Christopher, has a son of draft age, and he's almost irrational.

But Bradley said that what really shocked him was the press corps in Vietnam.

Did he?

Yeah, he said they're shacked up, they don't leave Saigon, they're making lots of money.

He said to the Vietnamese girl to the French correspondent, and he says that it's demeaning to go through these press briefings.

There was one guy, he said, who had a piece of film, which was useless to him unless he could trick the briefer into saying something that would validate the film.

But he never told the briefer why he was asking the question, so everyone had to sit for 40 minutes while he was trapping some poor major.

So I told him, why don't you write it?

He said, well, we can't.

That would cut all our fridges to the other newspaper.

It shook him.

Newsweek is hysterical on the world.

There's no doubt about it, except since the speech.

Since the speech, I've read the Newsweek article.

They actually do give you more credit than I.

Let me say, Newsweek.

Newsweek.

They were hysterical about not seeing us with.

But time is a, more, shall we say, more susceptible to time.

Basically, they had security as one thing.

They thought they had us going.

They were down on the winning side.

Now they move the other way, they jump the other side and pull out and jump.

The other hand, Newsweek is basically

All Democrats will act.

Okay.

And, Mr. President, you are a particular... Alta Dutt has said in his column today, he says, you've been the head object of the Democrats for 20 years.

The thought of you succeeding is unbearable to them.

He says that in his column.

Oh, yeah.

That's Stuart...

The thought of our succeeding, yeah.

Yeah.

Does he mention China in his column?

No, it's not about that.

No, it's about the sterility of the Democrats, he says.

They act.

because they all say the same thing.

None of it amounts to a program that solves their poor, defense their against, Vietnam their against, but they have no idea of what to do.

And it's a very... And that's actually by a victory by you, and they know that it's going to be a revolution.

Your first victory, they could say, was a fluke, or they could blame on Johnson, but if you win next year,

Uh, they're finished.

They are finished.

That generation is finished.

Let me say, let me say, if you don't know how that will be finished, we're waiting next time.

We should, I think we have to reach out and pick up this guy.

In my opinion, I don't give a damn whether he's been tempered or not, or even being forced.

If I don't know some official name, he's out.

And I'll go to Texas A&M or other places, and they come in.

And they all go out.

One of the tremendous advantages the Democrats have is that, I don't say this has nothing to do with Bill Rauch, because Bill really is not a liberal at all.

But 95% of the State Department's bureaucracy is really on the wasteland of the ideas.

90% of ACW, this whole town, has had Democrats in office now for 30 years.

Eisenhower didn't clean them out.

And until the Republicans do,

That's right.

That's 40 years now.

That's right.

40 years.

And if you don't clean them out after the next election, then in 76, there'll be another change of people.

We're going to take a terrific beating from the bureaucracy next year.

They're going to leave us silly.

It's too late to purge them now, but...

But one of the greatest advantages that the Democrats have is for Kennedy and McCloskey on his trip had documents about refugee reports.

I mean, say, though, we have an arms advantage to the next generation.

Well, if you've been right, that's a challenge.

Don't worry.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah, I see.

Nixon, Haldeman & Kissinger on Vietnam War and Political strategy

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on April 19, 1971

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