On September 28, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, Thelma C. ("Pat") (Ryan) Nixon, Henry A. Kissinger, White House operator, and Charles W. Colson met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 5:51 pm and 6:42 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 579-015 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
Well, as Henry's crew had approved those suggested remarks, now he's in the station.
When Henry focused on them this morning, he declared them all wrong, saying the president should not express empathy to the families, which Ray disagrees with, and had his staff prepare this subject too late to try and combine the versions of the reference on the terms of the hearsay.
One and a half page thing that I guess Henry feels is what you should cover rather than what...
I have to go to the PWW at dinner.
I've got to stop by there, so I just want to make sure you don't have to go to dinner.
They just had to schedule me.
Okay, fine.
I ran into a big bear in the hall a little while ago.
Oh, there.
Do you think she might be able to win it in the house?
Well, we get back with four of the urns now.
David told me that.
Well, I remember we spoke the draft and the Mansfield Amendment.
We were told we didn't have the chance until we started fighting.
Henry, don't get the impression we're not fighting.
No, no, I know you.
I know this guy.
No, they are, too, though.
They are, Board, and parents are fighting all out.
Board has made it a part of that.
He's done everything.
It isn't a question of whether we're fighting.
The point is that at this particular time, the fight becomes more difficult.
And you can't really, you just have to realize it, look at the options, I mean, in terms of the candidate.
What's he want to do?
Does he want to be on record?
He wins either way, voting against us now.
That's what they're challenging him.
He votes to say, well, in six months we'll get out.
Provided Patrick doesn't feel that way.
So we, Patrick, are supposed to pull off a negotiation.
And then they say, well, we finally got the president off his ass and he did something.
That's the line there.
That's the way they're figured.
They're telling them all they're done.
And I must say, our Republicans are standing up awfully well.
And he's there, of course, he's standing well.
He doesn't even have one.
But he does not have the votes that he used to have.
That's the problem.
That's no question.
We're trying all we can.
I talked to Rogers about the China announcement.
He, uh, well, he, uh, he thinks, uh, a more junior person ought to go.
Well, thank you.
Yeah.
Well, I'm just telling him he made a decision.
He wasn't nasty about it.
No, but I think if you talk, I suppose you told him that's what they suggested.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Not our suggestion.
And then he says this may make us lose the U.N. vote, and...
Well, it's the same thing as when we went on the trip to India, the first time.
But in a friendly way.
There was nothing bellicose about it.
What do you think?
The problem, I thought it would come up later.
I thought it had never in the past come up before November.
Well, he says no, Bush says yes.
I've checked Bush.
I don't know.
They could just prolong the debate, the general debate, by getting more people to speak.
I think that's next to impossible.
Well, if we, we were the ones they wanted on the 14th, and we never questioned the dead before,
In fact, we had proposed the end of September.
I gave him such a complicated explanation that they...
I mean, as to how it came to us... Well, I said, you know, I gave him a very complicated explanation.
I said they had first raised it when I was there.
And I had sort of fluffed it off, which is true.
I mean, I had just not responded.
Then when we came to talking about advance team...
to go there before you visit at the time I gave them the dates, which I'd already told him I had done.
Then they came back and said, well, that should be the occasion for my interim visit.
So I put the whole initiative on them.
Well, he's actually concerned about it.
In the junior person thing, of course, it's a lot more ridiculous than we're considering.
Because no junior person can go over and discuss agenda.
Well, that's what he doesn't want either.
He wants you to come there.
He says if you discuss agenda, it looks like collusion.
And you should just go there and start talking.
But that would be, that would make you their prisoner.
Walk right into them and be cranky.
You have no idea how these things are set up.
I mean, they're not set up that way.
I mean, you don't go into a meeting and you don't know what the hell is going to come out of it.
Be a disaster.
Huh?
It is out that they'd have you.
They'd have you as their prisoner.
Well, and you couldn't leave without something.
In every problem that may arise in my talks with them, it would then arise with you there that had clock running.
And the press...
last Thursday, and you were traveling, and he wasn't at all belligerent or, well, then he was worried, but said, I take a lot of press along.
I said, I won't take any press along.
Good Christ almighty, that's purely fabulous.
And then he said, but God damn it, Henry, you get more publicity not having press along.
That makes it mysterious.
So it's
See, what you take for the purpose of this is, I mean, just as well as anything that has us front and center on foreign policy is good at this moment.
That's our point.
And then I said, then I told him to send a State Department guy along.
So now he's sort of toying with Alex Johnson, but that would be also... Too high.
Much too high.
Besides, they wouldn't accept it.
They've already vetoed Bruce, but that's for other reasons.
But I couldn't get rid of Alex Johnson.
I couldn't slot him into another meeting.
No, sir.
Well, you've worked on it over a period of time, actually.
Well, if Bob handles it, Bob and I can do it.
It's like the Indian trip.
He won't tackle you directly.
And if...
Well, it just has to be there.
Like, say, by example, you can say that you vetoed, we vetoed the idea of early one going to do the advancement, and it's too high.
Right.
And we think we could say we ought to keep it at another level, too, so that we don't, so that we can save the big things for later.
And after all, Bill's going to go, Secretary of State of Gallup goes now, takes too much of the cream off.
Henry's going the second time in spring.
What the hell, he's been there once.
The second time, he's going to be much longer.
Well, I think he's right.
You know, it's right.
It may sort of break things.
In the U.N.?
No, in the U.N. it could make some people an alibi, but this is true, and it depends how much he'll cooperate.
If he tells Bush, or I'll just tell Bush we want to delay it,
It can be done.
Well, as long as the debate doesn't take place while I'm there, then we can explain after I'm back that it has no effect on it.
It would be embarrassing, it would be embarrassing for me when I'm there if Phil runs around there making a bush, making anti-Chinese speeches.
We didn't realize that they had moved up the date of the debate, but it's only a five-day.
We need a five-day delay.
What Bush has to do is to throw some people into the breach in the general debate and drag it out longer than is planned.
I don't think he could.
Would you tell him, would you tell him and say, ask him, George, can you do this?
The Chinese are going to make an announcement at 7 a.m. tomorrow morning about the trip, about the cancellation of the parade.
They never made one today?
No.
7 a.m. tomorrow, I'll tell you.
Mr. Weiler, can you...
They said yesterday, they're going to do it today.
Yes.
What's your guess?
What the hell are they going to announce?
Why the hell are they going to announce?
Why are they going to support it?
Mysterious.
I have absolutely no idea.
But I think true and lies on top of whatever else is happening.
And they have given a briefing.
In Hong Kong, for example, at a communist bank, they gave a briefing, and one question was, if Mao has died,
would the President's visit still take place?
The answer was Mao is alive, but even if he should die, the President's visit would take place since it is in the interest of world peace and was made, the invitation was extended by the Chinese government and not by any individual.
So that was the party line they put out there.
They may be purging Madame Mao.
Now, definitely attacking.
It's what they called in May 16th group, the extreme right-winger, left-winger, whatever you call them in their context.
You mean the more violent?
Yeah.
Somebody from the West Coast called Tuttle.
Do you know who he is?
Yeah, Holmes Tuttle.
Holmes Tuttle called up and said,
My briefing has convinced him that you're worthy of conservative support.
I don't know who he is.
Well, getting back to the thing on Bill, I guess we just did the thing about the press going along on the theme of Christ.
In the name of God, who's that got to do with it, Bob?
That doesn't surprise me.
That was hard to say on that.
On India, not India, Jack.
It's inevitable that you're going to have this.
But Bob LaFarge will be the one to realize Henry is already identified as the man that went to China.
And it's not going to...
I don't think...
But I frankly have to want neither Alex nor Marshall Green along.
I want a country director that I can keep under control.
Thank you.
Well, in fact, I just do not have any State Department member.
I think it would look better if I had a State guy along.
Why?
Maybe it just...
It would certainly ease my life not to have any State guy along, but if anything at all, so that these guys can't say we disregarded their advice.
Hmm.
I can have...
I've already told the Chinese that there have to be three tiers of negotiations.
one that I have, but so in life.
But I think the timing is not good, but leaving aside the, well, the timing is not bad from our domestic point of view, I think, but you can judge that better than I do for the announcement.
It's to all practical purposes impossible to change it.
Oh, well, we're going to change it.
or damn bold.
The U.N. is just one of those things.
We could have delayed it a month.
That would have put it clearly beyond the U.N. vote.
Let's see how flexible you become.
You're there to think you're there talking about how to plug people's title into it.
And don't be left high and dry.
You're ready for it.
And with cooperation from the state, we can do that.
Bush's, after all, will do what we say.
If the debate is delayed, it makes no difference at all, because the debate takes about two weeks.
If the debate starts the day I get back, which is the 25th... Well, they could put in some African issues.
They could keep the general debate cooking along.
They could start some...
I didn't quite understand what point you were making, which was just as well.
They were all delighted, though.
You spoke...
Oh, oh, I'm, oh, I'm... Actually, I am for the birdman.
Mr. President.
And I just want to be sure that the State Department can sink the gun.
And we want to continue to buy that chrome.
We rush it.
Mr. President, I didn't even bother you.
I saw your note.
That came up for the first time last week.
And they wanted me to call up Senators who said they would shift if I spoke for you, but they would not shift for the State Department.
So I refused to intervene because I knew your view, but I didn't want to come to you so that you could disavow me, verse came to verse.
You could say I'd done it on my own.
I didn't do that.
So, you know, there's a negative... You see Negro matter, but you see... You see those twirled, childlike aggregates.
God almighty, you think about the world.
We did all this.
You did an absolutely superb job.
Picard was almost intuitive in any way, but it was hard to react to him.
And these other savages that he...
This is really something that you've got to think about after you've done it.
But Luton called me and he said that they were just floating on air.
I said, they started.
A lot of them got them on the Astros a long way.
I think what you've got to do here, Ron, I just feel Hill is, well, he cannot, he will rationalize and use the tissues.
I mean, he may, but the Chinese trip has got, you know, it's got to go and so we plan it.
The trouble is, this has been going since August.
We told them first late September, if you remember.
They then said late October.
I suppose we could have said late November, but well, we didn't do it now, so it's water over the dam.
It won't affect the vote if the debate isn't going on while I'm there.
If the debate is going on while I'm there, it's just going to be embarrassing to me more than anything else for three days.
Well, it may give some people a look, and I'll advise.
saying, what the hell is Kissinger doing there?
But doesn't everybody know that you... Everybody knows we're going to take a trip.
So that's why, in the way of handling it, this is a... You're going home and taking a trip.
You're not going to...
Since I arranged the original thing, I want to supervise the concrete arrangement.
That's all the announcement says.
Well, I see true and lie, certainly.
But it won't affect any of the votes.
It won't affect our stance.
Nothing has changed.
We can handle it if we get cooperation at safety easy.
I'm trying to think through this business of the House deadline thing, I mean, that Congress deadline.
I think we can kind of follow that.
Jerry Horton said that Teddy Kennedy had made an outlandish and vicious attack on the POW issue, and he spoke to the wires that the blood of the POWs is on the hands of the President.
Who the hell is the EMSA?
The Kennedys are more responsible than any other single group for all the blood that's been spilled there.
It's not just the EMSA, it's the whole treatment.
So there's somebody really going to whack him on that, you know.
And, uh, come back with it.
Maybe it's the time now.
You know, those sons of bitches say it, you know.
Well, I am afraid that McCarthy, the other McCarthy, was right to begin with.
He was crude and... Yeah.
You ever meet him?
No.
You don't like him?
Well, he was good.
He was attractive, smart as hell.
Fine lawyer.
Had been in jail, actually, for a while.
He was tragic.
And he had an enormously, enormously attractive personality.
And he had the ability to booze without killing himself.
So, too bad.
But I was going to say, let's try to gain five minutes and just see how the hell we... You've got two different problems.
Who gets the credit?
Well, on that problem, we don't have any...
They can't get the credit.
Well, I think that's a matter of judgment.
My guess, my feeling is that they're more likely Jews than you think Jews, the fact that the press will play their game.
and that the press is going to make it that well if they pass it.
But that is not the main consideration.
My main consideration is not who the hell gets the credit for whether or not their goddamn initiative is going to screw up what little chance we have on the negotiation process.
Well, luckily, they're a little bit passe.
Because I don't think one reason we have delayed every one of these concessions is because you and I have known that it would just lead to the next one.
that the ceasefire we knew was going to open up the deadline issue, and the deadline issue is going to lead to the overthrow of Q issue.
And so Scott brought up the days of what are we going to say next week after a huge election.
I don't think it's going to be any worse after a huge election than it was before this election.
I don't think it's going to be as bad.
I don't think it's going to be as bad because you don't believe for one day that it's a lousy election.
You don't believe for months that it's a lousy election.
And then the day after we have the China announcement.
And you know it's China, and so what?
See, that China thing is...
It's going to help us.
Well, it's going to help us.
A, it takes some of the steam again out of the North Vietnamese.
Now, I don't exclude Mr. President.
I think there's a 10% chance, but it isn't impossible, that the Chinese may want to cancel the visit somehow or other.
And that they'll want me there to have a pretext for doing it, saying we couldn't agree.
I think there's a very, there's almost no chance that they're doing that.
But these are not basically our friends.
And I don't believe it.
Well, what happens now?
But if that happens, it would be as true at the end of November.
Well, what the hell.
I'm just speaking.
It's just me.
It's all over the place.
Don't borrow any trouble with it.
So it happens, it happens.
I don't think the Russians, maybe they threw up on air, so it happens.
Neither did they.
Maybe they threw worse.
So far, almost everything we've planned except the negotiation on Vietnam has come off.
A little slower than we had hoped.
On the negotiations, let's look at that.
I think you've got to recognize that from a political standpoint, they're probably right.
probably, because in a sense they're saying, well, the Senate finally, the Congress finally forced the President to, and moved out in front, you see.
That's my view, but forget that.
I'd still come back to the proposition.
I think it could be extremely harmful to the, you know, to the, your message.
Oh, extremely, of course, it would be very, very harmful.
Yeah.
except that they are no longer prepared to trade a deadline for withdrawal.
That's the thing we've got going for us.
Yeah.
So we've got little something to give them that the Senate isn't giving them.
But it would be a hell of a lot better, Mr. President, if it didn't happen.
Well, we're going to try.
I've got everybody's mind up.
I read the act so goddamn much.
And we also should keep our own people quiet now for a few months here.
It will be a problem when he starts traveling.
I think when all is said and done, you have no political interest.
If we should succeed in ending the war by negotiation, I don't give a damn who passed what.
You're the one who did it.
But especially if we go on the attack and accuse them of nearly killing it.
I can't say they made us do it.
We offered it in May already.
I think the average person now thinks that you're getting us out of the war.
They don't know whether you're planning six months, nine months, or whatever.
They think you're getting us out and that these guys should stop yelling at you.
Well... That is my feeling of sweat.
I must say that this doesn't...
I'm not...
The only thing that really concerns me about this is the fact that we...
This negotiating issue, we didn't have that.
I would do a goddamn lucky pass.
No, it hurts with respect to...
If it is, my point is, if it hurts, make it exclusive totally.
We just might have to take another look and see what will we go on.
Well, we're going to go...
I think we need it for the record, and I think we should go on it.
And I think this one now that we got Jews promised, I think if they're willing to settle for anything short of unconditional surrender, they're going to take this.
With some modifications, they won't accept the first formulation.
Dr. Kripp, of course, Chinese.
at the moment of this announcement, are you going there to discuss the UN recognition problem?
The answer is no.
That's right.
You're saying, as a matter of fact, you're not there to discuss any problems of substance abuse, right?
Those will be discussed when the President gets there.
That's right.
That's the way you handle that.
I think that stands up pretty well, don't you think?
Oh, besides the UN issue isn't what really bothers the...
I don't think he's concerned with that, but it's a good question.
On the other hand, you've got to go sometime, don't you?
Well, I... That's what I mean.
What I meant is... Somebody has to... No, I know, but somebody has to go over there.
Yeah, it's one of those accidents, isn't it?
I didn't know until last week that it was going to be stood on in Madrid earlier.
Last year it came up in the first week of December.
Oh, he doesn't complain about that.
No, he doesn't complain about that.
I think...
To be honest, I think his basic problem is the publicity.
But that does not change the fact that he may not have some good arguments.
I think if he was not getting the publicity, he'd find 5,000 reasons why it would be good.
But still, that vote, it bothered me independently of him.
And that's why when I found out I had my people check Bush,
to see whether it could be delayed.
The vote can be delayed.
The vote won't take place.
The vote we can delay by just throwing more people into the debate.
The vote will not take place while I'm there.
The debate is slated to start about the 19th, which is just about the time I get there.
And it's supposed to run about two weeks.
Well, they didn't know that either.
Problem is, we would have had a whole month of speculation of what the hell is going on in China.
I mean, if we hadn't gone in October...
And delayed it till November with an announcement a month later, which is the only other... We had another problem, too.
The Russian announcement coming.
Yeah.
We just got to get something on China and the books before we went to the Russian announcement.
That was the real thing.
Bill doesn't know about that.
He won't tomorrow.
Yeah, but that's easy.
Because I have nothing to do with that as far as he's concerned.
Not a bit.
All that's good to say.
They didn't know that, did they?
Just say Grimley Cook wrote it in.
I've got to get it typed up on some lousy piece of paper that's flawlessly there.
We'll occupy him after tomorrow, Doctor.
We'll only see his disturbance this evening.
Oh, yeah.
He just promised a Russian trip, isn't he?
Oh, no, no, he'll see it significantly.
He'll see it significantly.
I'll see you at 9 tomorrow to find out exactly what is, what, if anything, that he may raise that I haven't put in the memo yet.
Yeah, Chuck, these fellows, when they were in here, were very insistent that we just had to get some mail up there.
They've left here now.
But I just wanted to be sure that some of your boys haven't dropped a ball on that thing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, this is the first boat in which they blow the whole lid off the program, and destroy the program.
Support the president.
Yeah, yeah.
If they don't do it, maybe you're just going to follow through and say...
Okay.
They're all such a bunch of man-crimes, you just gotta get started drawing the truck, you know.
Make up something.
Okay.
Yeah.
Have you got enough mail?
I have.
All right, well, anyway, I told them, the reason I told them they were there, I was telling them that we were following the crew, so we'll see if they get us some mail.
Okay.
Good, good, good.
Good, good.
Somebody was telling me Terry Ford said that Teddy Kennedy made an outlandish talk and texted a load of the people that was on the president's hands and all that.
That's funny.
Yeah.
What is their offer?
I hope somebody takes him on.
I don't know if we've got anybody with the guts to do it.
Come on.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, you have to kill a day with him.
Okay, thanks.
I guess we have to do this tonight, don't you think?
With each one?
You don't have to.
I found helpful with them when I talked to them was to say that
We'll justify ourselves by our performance, not by our words, and therefore we are not going to make any usual platitudes irritate them.
Like what?
Well, I mean, we can say we know what you're suffering, but how do we have come?
Or how we've sent envoys all around the world.
Oh, I suppose so.
I don't think any letters were covered, but I'm not going to talk about that.
What do I always say?
I just think I'll just say that I am back personally here.
My highest goal is to retain the parents of the U.S. and M.I.A.
and any policy that the policies of the U.S. are pursuing.
Right.
And that, however, you want to bring the prisoners back, not...
and not engage in grandstand plays.
Because your opponent, no matter what you say, Teddy, can sound more... Yeah.
That works.
But as long as I found when one shows some compassion for what they've gone through...
The general feeling is that I should do this other time.
Yeah.
You know, well, it's been a while and I'm not used to it.
I think probably yes, because if you don't... And the question...
It feels very strong, you should.
Well, we'll go to find out.
Right.
Problems, yeah, problems.
They are irritated with Laird, at least the ones I meet, because they feel he's bolstered them.
He's given them too much.
I always tell them, I've met with them over a year now, we will promise you nothing.
We know what you've suffered.
We are working.
There's no higher objective that the president has than to achieve this.
And you will be able to judge it when we have your people back.
The way this is going to work is they will have full press coverage of Blair's speech.
I don't want her to lie.
But there's a pretty good chance that there won't be any on yours because they will have set it up, but then they'll have left the room, probably, except for a standby crew or something.
By the time you get there, they may scramble and get the cameras going and cover you.
I don't want them to know.
But I'm there until I walk into it.
Yeah, but it won't.
Because once you walk in, if they're on the platform, you know, on their camera platform, they start grinding away.
We will not tell the White House for us.
No.
You know, so there won't be any.
That's the problem.
There's a goddamn thing.
Good one.
Don't be late.
They want understanding more and assurance that you're working as hard as you can.
They have a hell of a lot more confidence in that.
I know.
Yes, I was wrong to tell us that you're starting to open this now at the wash.
What they're going to do is quote you here until the head table guests move in and then you leave here so that you won't get there.
But the time is what, 7 o'clock?
Approximately 7 o'clock over here.
Ready for it.
Well, Henry, we'll see.
We may be able to do better.
I don't know.
We've got to have any variance here today.
It's harder to block, but he got the inerrancy to be so goddamn mad.
You see, it was a very unusual practice for them in Stuttgart, Greece.
Very unusual, particularly with that committee.
And they'll be so mad.
But on the other hand, it just shows you the very fact of considering it.
I'm sure they're coming down to the wire.
I think we did not, there's no scene left.
Well, they practically got three in the department last year.
Yeah.
Man, Steele said it's a hell of a way to wind down a water house.
I don't know about him.
I don't know about him, because I think that's a great statement.
Well, on the other hand, he has some things that have been so bad, too.
You know, he's got a general thing.
Yeah, he's just on the war.
He's just got a one-track mind.
Cooper?
I know.
Cooper is a smuggler.
It's not going to happen.
It's really not going to happen.
And Cook, Cook was also helping me out that he might not retire after I'm gone.
That's right.
And the son of a bitch is already gone.
He's going to live for six more years.
And he said he was going to retire.
Oh, he was all worked up.
Nice.
I can't say that the world needs him.
I don't believe this.
I saw it that way.
Jesus.
Leave here at 7 or arrive there.
Leave here.
Maybe a few minutes after you leave.
645, they move the people in to dinner.
As soon as the people are in, the head table will go in and take its places.
As soon as the head table goes in, they will call here and that's when you should leave here because it'll take you five minutes to get there.
I'm totally unable to see, you know what I mean?
I mean, I can't even see.
It's a rigger.
Forward.
All the rest of you are just fine.
It's all folded in.
For Christ's sakes, I mean, he just, he just, he's really totally blind on this spot.
I mean, that's, it's just easy to talk to him.
A-Bear, A-Bear thinks we can win.
A-Bear always thinks we can win.
Maybe they can.
But guys, you've got to be realistic about fighting these battles.
And we said, well, when we start to fight, we win.
Not every time.
No.
We fought a few, we lost.
You're goddamn right, we haven't.
We haven't.
We haven't.
We haven't really failed on anything.
Because we didn't fight.
We haven't fought at all.
In H-Work, we fought like hell.
We had a good fight.
We lost.
We fought like hell.
All the way.
And we want to answer them.
Yeah.
Number one, I didn't... Well, no, we didn't want it in the house, though, in the conference.
Instructions.
Respectability, sir.
We've got a political one, and they've got security.
We've got a period of loss, and they're starting to...
Lining up to...
I guess a win in the election, they're going to...
The stakes are very high.
They want to get up there at that trough, even when they know it isn't their own thing.
Yep.
That's right.
They can justify it on the grounds that it's bigger stakes.
Sure.
Yeah.
Just ridiculous.
You know what I mean?
That says if nobody else can go over there, he can't.
You don't want to consider letting that wire proven car go to the cabin.
Never.
I've covered that a hundred times.
And I'm never going to allow him again.
There's no wire car going with me.
And I'm just going to drop by just like any general.
I'll take a check about that.
I'm not sure.
There are people out there.
I did this for a long time.
I might just do this for, I think it's just a week.