Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 593 › Conversation 593-007

Nixon, Haldeman & Kissinger on China-US relations and State visits

Friday, October 15, 1971 · 9:37 AM–9:52 AM ET · Oval Office

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob"); Sanchez, Manolo; Kissinger, Henry A.Conversation593-007 on Tape 593 (tape position 00:43:39–00:57:40)StartFriday, October 15, 1971 at 9:37 AMEndFriday, October 15, 1971 at 9:52 AMRecording deviceOval OfficeSourceNixon Library record for 593-007 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon and H. R. Haldeman engaged in an extensive discussion regarding the logistical and symbolic challenges of managing the President's upcoming state visits to China and Russia. The conversation focused on balancing the desire for positive public optics—such as large crowds—with the diplomatic necessity of not appearing as a captive of foreign governments. Nixon emphasized the importance of maintaining control over his itinerary and messaging, particularly regarding the potential inclusion of First Lady Pat Nixon, to ensure these high-stakes diplomatic missions aligned with American foreign policy interests.

Audio

part A, 43:39

Download MP3 (part 1) · 89.9 MB ·Download MP3 (part 2) · 90.0 MB ·Download MP3 (part 3) · 141.8 MB ·Download MP3 (part 4) · 89.3 MB ·Download MP3 (part 5) · 55.2 MB

This conversation has not yet been cut into its own clip, so the players above hold the full tape, shared with neighbouring conversations. By the archivists' log it runs from 00:43:39 to 00:57:40 into the tape; their log often drifts a minute or two from the audio, so listen for the subjects in the finding aid.

NARA Description

On October 15, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, Manolo Sanchez, and Henry A. Kissinger met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:37 am to 9:52 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 593-007 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 593-7

Date: October 15, 1971
Time: 9:37 am - 9:52 am
Location: Oval Office

The President met with H. R. (“Bob”) Haldeman.

     Textile agreement
          -Statements of support by industry
                -Harry S. Dent
                -Charles W. Colson
                -Strom Thurmond

     The President's schedule
          -Camp Hoover
          -Camp David

Manolo Sanchez entered at an unknown time after 9:37 am.

                 -Sanchez's schedule

Sanchez left at an unknown time before 9:45 am.

           -Camp Hoover

     Romana A. Banuelos confirmation process
         -Gordon L. Allott
         -Congressional action
              -Vance Hartke
              -Joseph M. Montoya
         -Support
              -Alan Cranston
              -John V. Tunney
              -Mexican community
                   -Robert H. Finch
                   -Ignacio E. Lozanos, Jr.
              -Los Angeles Times
                   -Newsday magazine
                   -Illegal aliens
                   -Banuelos appointment
                         -Editorial policy

Henry A. Kissinger entered at 9:45 am.
Show the rest of the log (40 more lines)
     US foreign relations
          -Kissinger's meeting with Nobuhiko Ushiba
               -John B. Connally
                      -Exchange rate
               -Textiles
                      -Eisaku Sato

Kissinger left at 9:47 am.

     Supreme Court appointments
          -Request for meeting with Attorney General
               -Mildred L. Lillie
          -John W. Dean, III
               -Lillie
                     -Husband
          -Leaks
               -American Bar Association [ABA], Justice Department, White House

               -John D. Ehrlichman
               -Justice Department
               -Dean
               -ABA
                     -The President’s view
                     -Justice Department
          -The President’s relationship with appointees
               -Warren E. Burger
               -Lillie
               -Arthur F. Burns
               -Cabinet

     The President's schedule
          -Thelma C. (“Pat”) Nixon
                -Camp David
                      -Andrews Air Force Base
          -William F. (“Billy”) Graham
          -George P. Shultz
          -Donald H. Rumsfeld
          -Connally

Haldeman left at 9:52 am.

Transcript (AI-generated)

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

Timestamps are positions within the full tape; click one to play the tape from there.

What the hell would it be for if he didn't achieve the protocol?
I think it's the wrong thing.
I'd rush, I guess, to keep going on a state visit.
Obviously you'd take them, but this is our state visit.
I think what you ought to do...
This isn't seeing any keepsakes.
We don't understand the nature of this visit.
The way we've understood this visit is look at an old Western movie.
Remember when the Cowboys were fighting the Indians or the North was fighting the South?
And then you get to a point, and a bunch of guys have put up a white flag to go across to talk to the other guys about something.
He said, that's what we're doing.
We've got a white flag up.
We're going over to talk to the other guys, because a lot of them are coming back.
Now, there's no, you don't do that with a lot of Van Ham or any of the kids in the church.
He says, well, we've got to go to the other cities.
Why do you go to the other cities?
And he said, well, he's going to shoot those.
I don't know.
He said he's only in a position he's concerned about.
He said, well, what the hell is involved here?
He feels it's a, he's lost his sense of perspective to some extent.
But I think you just, you still got to go with him.
You know, hope he does the best he can.
I think we've got a position about right.
Well, he said, he said, you can't go in there and ask Joe and Liza to have a crowd turn out to the front center.
And I said, well, that isn't the point.
But obviously, Joe and I raised the point with you, if we would like to have a crowd turnout, is that satisfactory or something, that you would say, of course, the President would be very pleased with that.
He said, well, I can't raise that.
He said, we'll get a reading on that anyway.
When I arrive, if they have a big crowd out, that would be an indication.
And I almost said, he just fell out of the chair and said, I wouldn't say anything.
The poor guy, I think he's going to be heartbroken if he arrives there and they don't have Red Square filled with screaming Chinese.
He did this all the time.
I told him, I said, I don't want that.
It's a good idea.
But he said, they can't do it.
And he just, he just, he just strong-armed that truth.
That's part of the price of having a gun.
But on his crowd and so forth, he really believes that the police is over there running around the whole city.
I finally got across to Mark that more than in the K, it's 100 times more value for us to see one round.
I put that in my notes too.
I wrote out the notes yesterday.
He didn't copy.
He didn't copy out.
But he needs to go out and read with that.
I think that's what he needs to do.
Oh, it's good enough.
Well, do that again.
Let me tell you, on the Russian visit, though, you're gonna have a lot.
Believe me, I'm going to handle that one.
We're going to get the maximum crowd and everything there.
We're going to strong-arm them like we did with the Maynons and the others.
And Henry is the worst advance man in the world.
Absolutely the worst.
In some respects, yeah.
I mean, in terms of logistics.
Yeah, because he would have you working 30 hours a day on substantive matters.
Did he get no money, Jeff?
Yeah, well, I've been working in this office all the time, and you have to be impressing people, and people say, well, isn't it wonderful to be impressing people?
What's going on to the provinces and having a dinner with the province officials?
What in the world are you getting from that?
They won't allow coverage, so you don't get any, you know, public knowledge out of it.
And what's going to affect world history about you meeting with the warlords of Chengdu province?
Well, the crowd didn't expect me to do it.
I don't care about the past life in any way.
It's just probably that it's a little more work for other reasons than we think it's useful to do.
You know, we fought like a tiger about Earth, advancing it.
I don't know why.
Earth was too strong for me.
But he gave us a reason to pursue our power.
He said if I didn't have an opportunity to do it,
We must, of course, I don't want this to be true.
God, God, God, God, those bastards.
The point is, he said, well, these are enemies.
The truth.
The people are come.
Therefore, we need some people contact.
That's the point of it.
It's not real, but you've got to have a deeper understanding.
I was just talking to you about Chamberlain, and I said, oh, this is a question for the Chinese, and the question raised, thinking about the business of the other cities.
I don't want to go too much, I want to attempt to amend them, because I don't want to leave too much of a question going over the ceiling of warlords and that sort of thing.
What I'm really more interested in, you know what I mean, their leaders,
Let me put it this way.
We know that the meeting with the leaders is, and that's what I had to be prepared for, and that's what I had to do.
But the government of China is our ally.
The people with the minds of the American people are not necessarily our enemy.
That's why I don't have any.
Some indication.
Some indication.
It's like a bill.
Maybe you put some 30 minutes.
You've got to look back at it.
You've got to look at the meanings.
You've got to like it.
because the factory workers are our friends, and the organization is our enemy.
Now, I've not tried to undercut it with these people any more than I have, but I don't think you can raise the subject in terms of something that we want, but I think that we, that the leaning should be in the sense
of not appearing suddenly to be there as a captive of the government.
Any time anybody's going to break out so that there's some people contacting them.
But I agree, Mr. President, but I must tell you I'm worried about the advancement because if that's their instruction, they're going to do it with this dedication that's so characteristic of them.
And we may be able to get it, but this is a precarious situation there to begin with.
the Chinese and their whole history have had a very different attitude towards foreigners than anybody else.
They've jealously guarded, they're saying, I believe you're going to get a good popular reception.
We're not trying to help.
What I'm simply saying, we're not trying to help.
I don't expect change, but I already thought you could only grasp my voice.
Yeah, he's going to raise it.
He's going to raise it to us.
I'm going to raise it.
What I'm saying is that, yeah,
And what we are trying to do here is to let that be as much as possible, and in some way, the message gets through.
That's all I can say.
Right.
Now, I will be able, particularly when I talk about Mrs. Nixon,
to make the point of... That is the point that I'm not... No, no, but I know I...
But I can get in the point of...
Even if we drop out Mrs. Nixon eventually, I can put in the point that for the American public, the contact with the...
The way I can handle that is something that's true.
Mr. Prime Minister, Mrs. Nixon is going to Russia.
I said, start with that proposition.
Now, we had no plans at the present time of her coming here.
We have deliberated on that.
Tell us honestly, would you want her to be online?
That's the way I get things.
No, I see.
No, then we are going to Russia.
That's the way that all is going.
We have two problems.
I mean, one is how to introduce the Mrs. Nixon proposition.
That's easy.
The second is to use the Mrs. Nixon proposition.
to introduce the point of the crowd it's very tough for me and i want to be careful about this to say to choke i mean these are mortal enemies i mean there's no way they will not let us go over there and we may be bringing down the guy who's on our side if we try to
creation of a situation.
We don't want to go rushing around and be
We totally, shall we say, captured a period if we can avoid it.
Part of it is the way we present.
There's an impression that could come up that we don't want, that we were worried about security, that we don't want any exposure to that kind of people.
Don't let that be the impression.
Let the impression be that it's not to do with racism.
It could be in their mind.
We just want to welcome the opportunity that we would be glad to just do, you know,
expose the people for us, not that we are in the other hand, in the other way.
Right.
Now, I can make that point.
I'll do it in a complicated way, but I'll make it very clear.
It's less easy to make on the visit to the top
out of town.
It's just not predictable what would happen.
My instinct is that it's in their interest to produce it.
This is not the important thing.
I don't consider this the important thing.
I guess what I'm sure is that you know in your own mind that in terms of the effect in this country,
That's all we want to hear.
Now, let me say the decision on this is yours.
It's not Chapin's.
That's what I just told him.
I said, you've got to decide it because anything we do in this thing must not be...
interrogation of our major negotiations.
And I understand that.
But on the other hand, Chapin won't take the program.
That's one of the reasons.
Oh, he wasn't my candidate.
But he'll do anything you want.
He's done us a good job in putting this stuff together.
When you come to you, just tell them what you want.
But if you won't start an army, don't worry about that.
You won't be talking to the people who can start an army anyway.
You will.
We'll have to figure it out.
Chapin's
instructions are clear he's not going beyond what you've set up using the coin that's right i understand what is involved mr president i will kill myself
would be better actually should, but I think that you should, the way I would very well introduce it, and I would be, I wouldn't be here on the question much, I'd say there's one personal thing that I think that I'm presently asking to Rick.
Mrs. Nixon has been invited to go to Russia.
She has been, as a matter of fact.
So she is going to Russia, and as far as we are concerned, we have no plans on it.
She would welcome the opportunity to come, but tell us the end of it since we do not have a relationship with any of the leaders.
It's a good idea.
If it isn't, we want to go.
Basically, this ain't going to be a relationship.
That's what you want to raise that on.
They say you're failing to do a job that we do not want to do.
That's different from the Russian thing, unless they want to.
I raised with them on Wednesday that I'm a member of the Floyd Committee.
Yeah, sure.
I arranged with them on Wednesday just to see if they could establish a president, so that I could communicate directly with Washington while I was there from the airplane.
You know, from my airplane, I don't need to do it, but I just wanted to establish a president that they would choose at the ground station.
Well, so that at least they had been at one time a director and they've today agreed to it.
You know what the shot did?
It's unbelievable.
The Vice President over there at Persepolis has a telephone, quite quite his, wherever he is, that he said, when he picks it up, our White House board says, yes, Mr. Vice President.
Just like that.
24 hours a day.
You were in charge here.
There's no question about it.
The Chapin will not have your country.
Chapin, on the other hand, will carry out these things through the letter.
Oh, yeah.
So you talk to him a little bit.
But you see what I've turned into.
It's just, frankly, the subtlety of the thing.
It's got to be handled their way.
I think myself, though, turned out a hell of a crime.
I do, too.
And I don't mean to ask it.
You don't ask it.
And I think that let's be honest.
You don't ask it, too.
I don't mean that.
But what I'm suggesting is don't get in the way that they're all in the way of it.
played a Russian visit against the Chinese without very... We've got to tell them that the President has been invited to visit another city in Russia and probably will.

Also recorded on October 15, 1971

  • 011-096 8:43 AM · 7 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 8:43 am and 9:09 am.
  • 593-001 8:43 AM · 8 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 8:43 am and 9:09 am.
  • 011-097 9:09 AM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Donald McI. Kendall talked on the telephone from 9:09 am to 9:10 am.
  • 593-005 9:09 AM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Donald McI. Kendall met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:09 am to 9:10 am.
  • 593-006 9:10 AM · 29 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Stephen B. Bull, Henry A. Kissinger, and Peter G. Peterson met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:10 am to 9:36 am.
  • 593-008 9:53 AM · 5 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Henry A. Kissinger, and Nobuhiko Ushiba met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:53 am to 9:58 am.
  • 593-009 9:58 AM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 9:58 am and 10:08 am.
  • 593-010 10:08 AM · 37 min — President Richard M. Nixon, John B. Connally, Henry A. Kissinger, Robert S. McNamara, White House photographer, and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the Oval Office of the White House from 10:08 am to 10:37 am.

All 21 conversations from October 15, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 593-007, October 15, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/593-007 (accessed November 2, 2026).