Nixon & Kissinger on Vietnam War and 1972 Presidential Election

2:38:55I just thought we'd call it.
2:39:01My patience is turning up.
2:39:13I don't want to arrest the press, so I only buried it to you.
2:39:19And particularly with this bomb.
2:39:21All this bomb?
2:39:21That's bad.
2:39:27We will take some heat now when we hit them.
2:39:35But on the other hand, it's a good signal to the Russians.
2:39:39It's a good signal to the North Vietnamese.
2:39:43And then we're going to get above the DMC in that area.
2:39:48That's at 25 miles north.
2:39:50Building up and protecting our forces.
2:39:52And protective reaction.
2:39:54And by the time they can start screaming, it will be done.
2:39:58It'll be over.
2:40:12I mean, we'll announce at the end of the day that it's over.
2:40:15You know, you never know.
2:40:17Oh, Kupchetsu is going to have to North Vietnamese right in.
2:40:25Oh, yeah.
2:40:25He gets it back soon enough, and then we bomb.
2:40:29I don't think that's the beginning or something.
2:40:36Why should we sit here?
2:40:39No.
2:40:40As a matter of fact, I've been doing a lot of thinking about this.
2:40:45It may be that we're worried too much about the elections and all that sort of thing.
2:40:53Maybe 30 doesn't make any difference or anything like that.
2:40:56I mean, that country is so goddamn far gone anyway, you know, in terms of this and that.
2:41:02And it wouldn't take much to push me to the point that I'd say blockaded,
2:41:09to our prisoners and say, go to hell, and break up the China initiative, the Russia initiative, everything else, and by and large, get this goddamn war over with.
2:41:20You know, it could take much, believe it or not, but we've got the peace that we want.
2:41:25My view, Mr. President, is that we ought to save that for after the election.
2:41:31I'm convinced now, I've really done, I think, if we play it,
2:41:38I think even if we make another peace move this fall, your instinct is right, they'll probably not accept it.
2:41:44But we'll be in a much better position to go the long road than next year.
2:41:49When we go the long road, in my judgment, they will almost certainly settle before the election.
2:41:55I'd say the chance is 90%.
2:41:56Unless the polls show you have no chance, whatever will win it.
2:42:01But if the polls show any chance of you winning... You'll get Mrs. Kim Gardaugh of the New York Daily News.
2:42:12Gardaugh.
2:42:13She's a TV correspondent.
2:42:16And I think if the polls next year show that you have any chance of winning the election, they must show that, I mean... Then they'll settle before November because they will not let you win this election and be unsettled.
2:42:31after the election.
2:42:33So the long road will also get us a negotiated settlement further down the road.
2:42:36Well, let me tell you.
2:42:37But we've got to be in a match there.
2:42:41But this is great.
2:42:42We may just decide to throw everything over and just go out and eat some veggies.
2:42:53We just might do it.
2:42:57Well, this is it.
2:43:00I must say this, Mr. President.
2:43:03If the war is still going on after your elections,
2:43:27Oh, then!
2:43:28Oh, then, perhaps I'll take out the whole country.
2:43:32I would say it then, in January 73, I would go for broke.
2:43:35Henry, no, no, that's too late.
2:43:36Can't wait till then.
2:43:37We can't let those poor prisoners sit up there, rotting in those goddamn jails.
2:43:41I won't.
2:43:41No, sir.
2:43:42I'm inclined to think that, well, that would be something pretty to think about.
2:43:52Could I suggest a couple of things?
2:43:57I mentioned it to Haig last night when I chatted with him and we were out.
2:44:03And he, I feel, he said he'd already had it on to Bunker and he was going to give his guidance also.
2:44:07I said give it to Porter.
2:44:09But could I strongly urge that such points as, that only the strong in America, you know, that there are such points, such points that, I've got the notes here just a second.
2:44:26That we, that we,
2:44:41the cutting off A, if we cut off A, we cut it off to, on the ground, what kind of government, apply that to Greece as well, or something like that, and pass that on.
2:44:53We have to follow the fashion in Greece.
2:44:55Another thing is that,
2:44:58that the way we got into Vietnam was to murder a camp.
2:45:03The way to get out was not to murder a chief.
2:45:05That's the point I made to these press guys.
2:45:08That's a hell of a strong point.
2:45:09They had to go down that same very road.
2:45:13Coups, and they'd come and escape.
2:45:15And then the responsibility that the Brethren has a plan that will bring us honorably out of Vietnam.
2:45:23The responsibility for a dishonored election in Vietnam must be for those who got us in, and then sabotaged our efforts to get us out.
2:45:32That's the other line.
2:45:33But I wish you would pick up things out of the conference, because I do a lot of thinking about what those will want to be, and they're done now.
2:45:42As you notice, they're precise and tough.
2:45:45But Mr. President, I think that second point particularly,
2:45:49is ODP-USC because you are trying to get out unruly and with dignity.
2:45:56What the opponents want, if they don't want that, then they are responsible for the dishonor.
2:46:01The dishonor and the communization of Vietnam with the bloodbath that will follow.
2:46:07That must be the line, Mr. President, because that will force them to defend themselves.
2:46:12It's true, for one thing.
2:46:13It will force them to defend themselves.
2:46:15I think we have to... You know the figures on what happened in North Vietnam.
2:46:18Oh, yes.
2:46:19I know that many refugees came down, and I visited the refugees camps in 1966.
2:46:24But also, if you remember the figures from RP9, the Catholic bishop of Dinan conservatively estimated that 60,000 were murdered, and that 500,000, meaning 500,000 admitted died in slave labor camps.
2:46:41Now, that's what they did.
2:46:43What the hell are they going to do when they stop where they've been fighting for years?
2:46:48We are not going to let this happen.
2:46:51I must say that.
2:46:52It's, I suppose, too bad that Denton wasn't on call, but on the other hand, maybe it's just as well this will, you think this will get the leadership point across?
2:47:01That will count.
2:47:02That will get the leadership point across, and we don't want to roil up things too much.
2:47:06I think we've seen on the draft, we've seen on the Mansfield Amendment, when you stand, then these guys have to, have to pull back.
2:47:17It's when you start throwing babies to them, then they start asking more and more.
2:47:23When you did the Hershey thing, it didn't help you.
2:47:25Whenever you have stood, it's a unified, and it forced the others to pull back.
2:47:34And I said to these guys this morning, I said, where would we be without Cambodia and Laos?
2:47:45And they...
2:47:48I asked Gally afterwards, he would say what he thought.
2:47:50He said, well, they certainly didn't have the old district attorney attitude.
2:47:53They were certainly very cautious.
2:48:01And this is one of the more disgraceful periods.
2:48:06I'm meeting with a group of Howard Stein's friends next Wednesday, and I'm going to sort of,
2:48:14speak in vague terms about the moral collapse of everybody.
2:48:17That obviously is a help for McCarthy.
2:48:21And... Yeah, and at least you've got it next to McCarthy, you could say, two men who do disagree, but their goals are the same, and they have the guts to stand up and fight for it.
2:48:32Well, you know, McCarthy has said that that line is baloney.
2:48:35Yeah.
2:48:39But build up on McCarthy so that we don't have
2:48:42Well, I mean, it was pure.
2:48:43And Muskie was a goddad, so he stayed in front of the blind.
2:48:49He was so cynical.
2:48:51Well, I've been building McCarthy like crazy on the West Coast, and I'm not going to do it in New York with Howard Stein on Wednesday.
2:49:01Also, we've got to conserve if you want to read it.
2:49:08conservatives ought to start raising hell in the Senate for their opposition to the draft.
2:49:13Well, I got Buckley to switch his vote on the draft.
2:49:17He was going to go with Dallin.
2:49:19And he is going to make some speeches for us.
2:49:22We're going to draft them for him.
2:49:24Well, he's...
2:49:25I would say you draft some based on this conference.
2:49:29That's right.
2:49:34Well, you suck it, but you really did put an act of the highest policy side.
2:49:42The word went around the same time.
2:49:48Your primary, it shouldn't be your primary problem, but it is.
2:49:55I thought that if we got totally on the defensive, it was over.
2:50:01Yeah, yeah.
2:50:01All we've done is set it in this room.
2:50:03Now it's going to fall through.
2:50:05That's right.
2:50:06That's exactly right.
2:50:07You can't do more than say it.
2:50:08If we don't follow through, then we're failing you.
2:50:10And I thought it was, in many ways, one of the most important press conferences you've been in.

Nixon & Kissinger on Vietnam War and 1972 Presidential Election

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Also recorded on September 17, 1971

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