Nixon & Kissinger on Vietnam War and 1972 Presidential Election

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Monday.

Let me tell you what.

It's true.

We will take some heat now when we hit them.

But on the other hand, it's a good signal to the Russians.

It's a good signal to the North Vietnamese.

We're going to get above the DMC in that area.

That's it, 25 miles north.

Building up and protecting our forces.

And protective reaction.

And by the time they can start screaming, it will be done.

It'll be over.

I mean, we'll announce at the end of the day that it's over.

You know, you never know.

Oh, Kupchatsku is going to have to North Vietnamese right in.

Don't you think he will?

Oh, yes.

He gets it back soon enough, and then we bomb.

I don't think that's the beginning of something.

Why should we stay here?

No.

As a matter of fact, I've been very well thinking about this.

It may be that we're worried too much about the elections and all that sort of thing.

Maybe 30 doesn't make any difference, but I mean, that country is so goddamn far gone anyway, you know, in terms of this and that.

And it wouldn't take much to push me to the point that I'd say blockaded

to kill 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.

You know, it could be as much, believe it or not, but we've got the peace thing going on.

My view, Mr. President, is that we ought to save that for after the election.

I'm convinced now, I've really done, I think, if we play it,

I think even if we make another peace move this fall, your instinct is right, they'll probably not accept it.

But we'll be in a much better position to go the long road than next year.

When we go the long road, in my judgment, they will almost certainly settle before the election.

I'd say the chance is 90%.

Unless the polls show you have no chance, whatever will win it.

But if the polls show any chance of you winning... You get Mrs. Kay Gardoff of the New York Daily News.

Gardoff.

She's a TV correspondent.

And 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.

after the election.

So the long road will also get us a negotiated settlement further down the road.

Well, let me tell you.

But we've got to be in a much better position.

We may just decide to throw everything over the floor and just go out and eat some veggies.

We just might do it.

Well, this is it.

I must say this, Mr. President.

If the war is still going on after your election,

Oh, then!

I would... Oh, then, Christ, we'll take out the whole country.

I would say then, in January 73, I would go for broke.

Henry, no, no, that's too late.

Can't wait till that night.

We can't let those poor prisoners sit up there, rotting in those goddamn jails I want.

No, sir.

Oh, I'm inclined then to... Well, that'd be something for you to think about.

Could I suggest a couple of things?

Uh...

I mentioned to Haley last night when I chatted with him, we were out, and he, I feel, he said he'd already had it on to Bunker, and he was gonna give his guidance also.

I said give it to Porter.

Could I just tell me, Herbs, that such points as, that only the strong in America, you know, that there were such points, such points that, I've got the notes here, just a second.

That we, that we,

the cutting off A, if we cut off A, we cut it off to, on the ground, the kind of government applied that to Greece as well, so they got their intel and passed that on to, you know, follow the invasion of Greece.

Another thing is that,

that the way we got into Vietnam was to murder a camp.

We're not, the way to get out was not to murder a chief.

That's a point I made to these press guys.

That's a hell of a strong point.

They go down that same dirty road, uh, coups, and they come and escape.

And then the responsibility that the Brethren has a plan that will bring us honorably out of Vietnam.

The responsibility for a dishonored election in Vietnam must be for those who got us in, and then sabotaged our efforts to get us out.

That's the other line.

But 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.

As you notice, they're precise and tough.

But Mr. President, I think that second point particularly,

is ought to be your seat because you are trying to get out honorably and with dignity.

What the opponents want, if they don't want that, then they are responsible for the dishonor.

The dishonor and the communization of Vietnam with the bloodbath that will follow.

That must be the line, Mr. President, because that will force them to defend themselves.

It's true, for one thing.

We'll force them to defend themselves.

I think we have to... You know the figures on what happened in North Vietnam.

Oh, yes.

I know that many refugees came down, and I visited the refugee camps in 1986.

But also, if you remember the figures from RP9, the Catholic bishop of Da Nang conservatively estimated that 60,000 were murdered and that 500,000, 500,000 and a million died in slave labor camps.

Now that's what they did.

What the hell are they going to do in the South for they've been fighting them for years.

We are not going to let this happen.

I must say that.

It's, I suppose, too bad that Denton wasn't on call, but on the other hand, maybe it's just as well, you think this will get the leadership point across?

That will get the leadership point across, and we don't want to roil up things too much.

I think we've seen on the draft, we've seen on the Mansfield Amendment, when you stand, then these guys have to pull back.

It's when you start throwing babies to them, then they start asking more and more.

When you did the Hershey thing, it didn't help you.

Whenever you have stood, it's a unified, and it forced the others to pull back.

And I said to these guys this morning, I said, where would we be without Cambodia and Laos?

And they...

I asked Gally afterwards, he was there, what he thought.

He said, well, they certainly didn't have the old district attorney attitude.

They were certainly very cautious.

And this is one of the more disgraceful periods.

I'm meeting with a group of Howard Stein's friends next Wednesday, and I'm going to sort of

speak in vague terms about the moral collapse of everybody.

That obviously is a help for McCarthy.

And... 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.

Well, you know, McCarthy has said a deadline is bologna.

Yeah.

But build up on McCarthy so nobody will have

Well, I mean that he's impure.

Yeah.

And must be with that goddamned, so he stayed with him on the block.

He stayed with him.

He was so cynical.

Well, I'm, uh, I've been building McCarthy like crazy on the West Coast, and, uh, I'm not going to do it in New York with, uh, with Howard Stein on Wednesday.

Also, we can get him to conserve if you want to treat him.

conservatives ought to start raising hell in the Senate for their opposition to the draft.

Well, I got Buckley to switch his vote on the draft.

He was going to go with Allard.

And he is going to make some speeches for us.

We're going to draft them for him.

Well, he's...

I would say you could draft some based on this Congress.

Well, you suck it, but you really did both an act of the highest policy side.

The word will get around to the second one.

I have to tell you, your primary, it shouldn't be your primary problem, but it is.

No, I thought that if we got totally on the defensive, it was over.

Yes, yes.

Oh, we've got to set it through.

Now it's going to fall through.

That's right.

You can't do more than say it.

If we don't follow through, then we're failing you.

And I thought it was, in many ways, one of the most important press conferences you've had.

Nixon & Kissinger on Vietnam War and 1972 Presidential Election

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Also recorded on September 17, 1971

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Nixon & Kissinger on Vietnam War and 1972 Presidential Election

AI Summary

Audio

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on September 17, 1971

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