On October 28, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Stephen B. Bull, Rose Mary Woods, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and Henry A. Kissinger met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 8:45 am and 10:43 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 605-005 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
They don't have lighters or matches or cigarettes, you know.
Whenever they do smoke, you have to be sure there's cigarettes around, you know.
I think he does, but I'm not sure if he does.
Oh, Rose, I'm going to introduce the...
What is the situation tomorrow?
I can leave at noon if I want, for Florida.
We got everything out of the way, right?
Or, well, I mean, just ask Tom.
I don't know.
I've got to tell Pat to see if she wants to go.
Come on.
Yeah, well, all right.
What is the situation on my schedule?
All right, fine.
I can leave at 1235, won't you?
Yeah.
Now, incidentally, don't have a mention of the date.
He's not asking a question, is he?
This is just a regular.
See, I've been through enough, right, on the coroner thing, and I need you to keep that time free in the case that I'm going to have to spend more time in the column.
So just don't mention the date, just to flush that.
Now, the meeting tomorrow with Tito is an hour, so take blood out of there.
His second meeting has to be an hour, just like the other.
He's going to run against him, isn't he?
Well, it's ridiculous.
He understands that, doesn't he?
Well, if he doesn't understand it, it's just too damn bad.
It's more important to get...
It's far more important.
We need the tax bill more than we need blood.
And just shot him.
And he said, if he's gonna help, he doesn't come in at all.
He said, quit.
Okay, all right.
No, we just want to see whether there's a problem.
There is some.
They're just, they're open.
Yeah, okay.
There's something.
There may be something.
I don't know whether they should deal.
And so I will.
Yeah, there you go.
Somebody said, you know, they're so sensitive, once they tell them, they're gone.
Yeah.
Oh, well, they...
You know, we get shifted all the time.
We've got to be careful.
Oh, everything.
Never mind.
We don't care.
So, the man has to give it the time.
Well, if you were going, you would go at 12.30.
You wouldn't go after.
I guess that 4 o'clock was after her party.
Yeah, well, just the main thing is to find out whether she wants to go.
If she doesn't want to go, fine.
See?
Perfectly all right.
But if she does, fine.
Either way.
But if she doesn't want to go, I don't know what's going to be.
I mean, Mother Julie's going to come.
I just don't know.
We're not inviting anybody else.
And again, just see if she wants to go.
Correct.
If, of course, she wants to go, I can go right in.
Thank you.
Making roses, I just want it worked out.
So that, uh, so that...
So we know if she wants to... Yeah, off my mind.
I just want to know if she wants to go down.
And if she goes, it would be nice if we could go down, too.
If it doesn't do me any good, I've decided to go to more than any place else.
If it's a situation where I'm worried whether I have to stick around or go out, I can do that if you can.
It's just as well to go here.
What is it, the including camping?
I'm going to sit around here and do it up there.
So it's just up to her.
She just wants to know why it's not.
I'll talk to her about it.
Yeah, after this is all over.
The vice president brought some papers in yesterday that he handed to me.
No, he said that he would, they are, you know, I tell me, I forgot to keep papers, copies, but I just copied it.
You know, they were for him.
Here you are.
Here's the papers.
Yeah, I'll bring it back to you.
You know, that's why he said that he hated your involvement, that he wanted to keep you.
I understand.
And, Tom, he's exactly right that you, that you'll make a copy, and that he always had an understanding of that.
You know, Rose, on these, uh, invitations, and as an assistant, it's not a good job.
Don't let the, don't let the service department and NSC staff go through that business of,
you know, musical chairs.
I know Sonnenfeld's on there again, whereas it gets to the dinner.
He shouldn't be on there.
I don't think he should be, and I've talked to him a long time.
We're not going to have him.
I just don't want Sonnenfeld to be on there.
Neither should Holdren be there, those guys.
Why?
Because, frankly, I think if you were there down here, I think they could protect their face to me, but not my face to me.
The point is...
I just can't go through the business team.
I want to go to the State Department first here.
Well, it isn't then, because we've held them to the secretary, the chief of protocol, and then the assistant secretary for the areas involved.
And I do think they can do that when they travel.
Oh, sure.
But nobody healed him.
I have to tell you what, Jim.
I'm not going to even be the son.
Well, I'll just say no, they can't come.
I don't care about being the son.
I know that.
I know that.
But I don't want them to come around to me.
I want you to tell Paul that I have put this order out so that he'll know.
Because you know what will happen.
He'll say, well, I'm going to come and talk to him.
But I'm not going to have him.
Well, I couldn't agree more.
He's terrible.
Well, all these other people, he's got enough because he's, if he wants.
Well, he is.
But all these other people, I mean, I don't have enough.
And tonight, I told Mars to put a note on my friend's celebrities.
You see, we've got Kate Smith and then the one who's doing her singing.
Is Kate Smith coming tonight?
To sing?
No, no, no.
You told us to invite her.
Everybody was in that honor now.
Okay, well, go ahead.
It's her turn.
Go ahead.
But we invited the friend we're in.
No.
We invited about six different people.
But these darn celebrities, you know, they're always booked up.
Everybody's got to check.
That's fine.
So we've been invited.
Good.
Thanks.
No, there are about six different couples who were invited.
We can't make it tonight.
But that's what I want to say.
So you end up with Kate Smith because you don't have time to get the others to work with you.
That's all right.
Kate Smith deserves to come.
Yes, he does.
Another thing I was going to tell you, I know that they don't get a treat of a healer's office, or not his office, but the Prince's office should inform you of things.
I noticed, for example, they gave me the dope of Yugoslavs, people of Yugoslav background in this country, and none of them are on the list.
Helen Bentley is a Yugoslav person.
She's not coming to the list?
She's not coming to the list.
Yes, well, see, we've got it broken down for you.
He was invited into Washington, D.C., so he isn't coming.
He talked with me.
He was among the first ones who landed in there with our parents.
He is coming.
We've got comments that Edge, his wife, was born in Croatia.
She's coming.
A lot of people don't get to speak.
Like Edge, they called us two days ago.
I just noted those and I didn't see them.
I thought that maybe a crisis officer should have told you.
Well, they should.
We've got to have all the information.
They should have told you all.
They have all the lists on the shelf.
Now they've told me about it.
Grandpa, she's on my list here, and I saw that.
So I should mention you maybe.
Mentioning on the dividend?
Of course I'm not going to.
No, well, you can't, right?
Well, I'd like to.
He wasn't going to.
He'll feel good.
We'll practice.
But his wife couldn't come, so.
Well, he'll feel all right then.
His wife is sick.
I don't know.
He called yesterday and said she couldn't come.
He didn't want to come along.
All right.
Just so he's been heard.
Mr. President, I have this thought.
I know that it looks like $10.50.
We'll give you a ride in a second.
Where do you have time to get it now?
Yeah, before.
You can call and tell us on a later ride.
And then get the, get the bill.
Okay.
Bye.
I've got one back with a question.
Tito is flexible, but he has the number two man in the public bureau who could sit in.
And if that's done, and if you wanted me to sit in, we could come in after the picture taking so that it looks better.
I wanted to check with you how you wanted to handle it.
Wonderful.
The difficulty is that you've got Rogers out in another office, and you've got Peterson in another office, and the Roosevelt room, and talking about nine, I suppose.
So I think the best thing to do is to let Tito.
It doesn't mean anything to talk with him.
You know that.
I mean, it meant anything.
It'd be fine to sit in, but I mean, you know, we're supposed to do the same crap in the infancy.
Well, then should we keep it alone?
I think it's better to leave it alone.
Unless he wants the other man, fine.
But I wouldn't urge him.
No, I didn't talk to him.
So all I got it was from secondhand from the... That they want.
From the Yugoslav embassy.
Well, it's a...
I'm not sure whether he didn't go through the same drill you are now going through, that he thought you might want me.
I haven't talked to anybody.
This came to me through...
I see.
I understand.
Well, I...
It's totally up to them.
They want to ask you.
Well, why don't you ask him?
That would be the easiest.
You know, I bet Rajas wouldn't have to know because one could hope this guy out.
He wouldn't...
He'd be in the Peterson meeting ordinarily.
He wouldn't be in the Rajas talk.
Yeah.
You're all so ridiculous.
I mean, you're such a, what do you mean?
You're telling characters what the hell.
The only business transaction is a bias level.
At the time we were over there, Tito had us all sit down on the whole barren roof.
Yeah, put that around the table.
But you had a lot of time alone with him.
Oh.
Too much.
What I meant is, though, that he wants to remember you.
He wants you with that girl and after dinner.
Of that he definitely does not want.
Good, good.
No, no, he doesn't want to meet with the whole crew.
The only question is whether you want the other fellow at me or whether you want to see the second one.
Kirby, they are right.
If he likes me.
I have someone to ask him.
The other fellow who comes in has a Kirby bear on his shirt.
Why don't you ask him on the basis that he wants the other fellow.
The other fellow comes in, he should come in.
But I don't think he should have his ambassador in.
No, no, no.
The ambassador and foreign minister will in any case be with Bill.
Yeah.
And Bill wouldn't know whether the other fellow's in because he's scheduled now to be in the Peterson meeting.
So, uh... Sure, if he has an extra man, we have one.
So, what I'll do is find out what he really wants.
Exactly.
I don't... Yeah.
I'm afraid I've opened it up, Henry.
He's going to say, let's have the board minister and all the rest.
Exactly.
Now, that's why you shouldn't.
I'd like to.
And I just don't.
And that's just a useless thing.
Well, let me worry about it.
I'll get...
He can find a way.
The only question is whether the public, you remember, and I come in through this door after the picture taken.
So then... Oh, sure.
That would be good.
That would be good.
That means perfectly all right.
It's very good to do it, you understand.
He wants it that way.
All right, I'll put it that way.
I'll get it done through his ambassador.
Just ask whether he wants it.
He says that it's his option.
He wants to have a second man.
If he can't, then we'll have a second man.
Ambassador will probably understand why he can't come in.
Oh, yes, that's easy.
He said he wanted that other man, but I am not clear whether he said he wanted him if you had somebody, or whether he said he wanted him in any event.
This is what I frankly have not had a chance to look into.
Let me ask you, what was the situation on that?
Paul was saying that now with the U.S. laws of race, the question, I don't know whether this is stated in the protocol or who it is, or NSC, but about that they don't want to move, in terms of the story about moving the second meeting on Friday rather than Saturday.
I don't think they can do me my convenience on a matter as small as that.
What's the trouble with that?
Well, I think their problem was that they wanted a picture that they have a schedule for
Friday, and it was mostly to get a television picture of the day in which he was departing.
But after they erased it the first time, they'd never come back to it, and the way I think we should leave it, Mr. President, is if they don't mention it again, we should just leave it for tomorrow and act as if...
I was going to take it off, but he obviously has a different picture over there or something like that.
We've got to give him another offer, because I don't think we have to worry.
These borders may come in like this.
We're in a lot of business.
And he hasn't been all that forthcoming lately.
In India, he took an all-out pro-Indian position.
In Cairo, he went even beyond the Egyptian position.
He's been moving more to the left again.
I met with a group of about 20 senators this morning on the foreign aid film.
God, what a bunch these Republicans are.
These are Republicans?
Well, many Republicans, some Democrats, about 40% Democrats.
Sure.
But Chavez was, Percy was weeping around again, but Percy, we've diffused a little bit now, I think he's coming to help out.
Very weak.
Well, they want to add a new version of the Cooper Church Amendment to the foreign aid bill.
On Vietnam?
Yeah.
What the Christ are they trying to do?
And that's exactly what I began.
I said, gentlemen, what I would like to know is, what are you trying to do?
What are you trying to add to what we're doing anyway with these amendments except destroy the terms of negotiations?
I said, this is...
It's just unbelievable, Henry.
And I really let them out with it.
I said, someday, when we give up on negotiations, we can give you a deadline, and then we'll publish the whole record.
You told them that?
Yeah.
I've been hating that without telling them.
There was a record.
I said, when the record is published, I said, it's going to be pretty goddamn bad.
I didn't know I was on our side.
I said, you guys are doing pretty good.
Yeah.
It's awful.
Well, actually, these are...
When do we get, when do we go on this announcement?
Well, you see, I've marked the news, Tom.
They're really setting us up for a fact that we're going to make a final announcement in a minute.
We ought to get the word out that actually... Get out, get out, get out.
You can use that and say it well.
It's not necessarily a final announcement.
Well, I can say that to you.
We don't want to reduce it to the point where we get a lot of heat built up in the cattle line.
You see, the point is, Mr. President, now I've just got the text of the message from the North Vietnamese, and they definitely promise that Lead Doctor will be there.
The meeting is proposed for the 20th.
That means he's got to be there on the 18th.
I went over your schedule with Bob.
If you made the announcement on the 15th, which is later than you had planned, but that's a Monday that would be after the news magazine's out, then by that Thursday, Lee Ducktoe would show up in Paris.
And everybody would figure something had to be going on.
So this...
He's never yet shown up without something going on.
No, you can't do it the first.
No, the second.
The second, you've seen what may end.
All right, the third.
I mean, it's not all that.
It's not much of an announcement.
You see, it's a... You've got to take this too late.
It's much too late for us.
You've got to get the pressures, and we are going to build up enormously on this thing.
If you wait, we wait until the...
The advantage of the later date is that you get the lead octoge showing up shortly after.
The most important thing is to get this announcement out of the way before we have, you know, you're going to have everything down here.
You'll have to do it under amendment down in the House by that time, probably by the 10th.
It's just as well we get it over with.
It's not a reaction to them.
I think we've got to move.
How about the agents?
Yeah, it could be alright.
What will this include?
Well, I was going to get the final page.
Well, that's what I was going to get.
I had to mention it, not for this announcement, to, uh, lay it off as again dragging their feet.
I can give you a final answer of what it is all about.
We've got to save it, so we're just going to not save it.
Right.
And what else?
$40,000 for two months and end of ground combat.
See, they're going to protect the $20,000 figure anyway, and it's a big increase in the monthly rate.
This morning, he made a very contributory statement, and on television, he was very complimentary.
I don't know whether you saw that on our foreign publicist.
No, you've got to persevere.
We can do it the 10th.
I can't do it all night.
I could do it the 10th.
It would be Wednesday.
I think that's the best thing, you know.
I don't know.
But, uh, God, you know, how I would... Well, our experience, of course, has been that an announcement that didn't quiet people, it always stirred them up.
The number is totally almost irrelevant this time.
They all heard what he expects already.
He's already written about 20,000.
The numbers are already been bandied around, you know that.
The anti-gravity is only a second.
I don't know what's the next.
So again, we'll be looking to see what happens.
The end of the count back, that's been pretty much this count already, but the anti-gravity is not.
What the end of draftees don't mean is an increase in draft calls.
Next year.
I don't know.
Go ahead.
I don't know what you mean to say.
I do not get the means on this thing.
They will this time.
Because, but if we don't, then we are up against a hard place to do that.
Then we have to go unilateral early in January.
Oh yeah, no question about it.
Oh no, no, but that's no question about it.
Then we should go public with the whole record early in January and go unilateral.
Now that's why
We want to give it a chance.
I think it's going to work this time.
Because they're in trouble, too.
In terms of the 15, the pressures, the more you give them, the more the speculation and so forth will come up as to what we are going to do.
That's the fact away.
On the other hand, the food reaction is going to be stunned.
then when they see deducto come back, I think the average person in the country doesn't give a damn.
They believe you're ending it.
So I think our real problem are these madmen in the Senate.
I really do not believe where I speak today, Mr. President.
When I was in Chicago, there wasn't any question about Vietnam.
Vietnam is not a public issue in my judgment.
And in fact, the people who are harassing you are hurting themselves.
So the question, as it looks to me, is...
about these madmen in the Senate.
If you do it on the... Well, no, I think...
I really had them shaken this morning.
You have to get McGregor's view, but they were applauding.
They all came up and shaked my hand.
They all protested their support for you.
And they all said, it's all going in the right direction.
Yeah, but I remember in the past how passionately they'd make the case.
So the argument for the later date is that by the time they recover, Lee Ducktoe will be back in Paris, and for the guys who do scream, that is a factor.
The enemy is less of a chance to get organized.
We need to do it the 15th.
If you did it the 15th.
Well, in the best negotiations, we can always delay it for that reason.
That's very good.
That's more compelling than the other one.
Well, I think it's good to get them off balance if the North Vietnamese get sort of, that every time you show them that you are resourceful.
Because when we pick up their intelligence reports, they don't do the job on you that they did on Johnson.
They always warn their people that you are very resourceful.
Perhaps we can wait for the weekend and see how the mood is.
I think the 15th would be best, but then he... No, he's not busy.
No, no, no.
That's right, Mr. President.
And your instinct, as I said on these things, has been always good.
I know.
I don't have the sense that a lot is building up.
And he's really, really ideological.
He's got that message.
I'm Vietnam.
I've seen all the other names.
I'm Jesus.
The war is over.
Everybody knows that.
I mean, you're down less than 200,000 cash returning at 5 to less than 10 a week.
What price do they want?
What are they talking about?
How about, Tito, we want to get across the very top line.
Are you?
Yeah.
I think I will.
And you pass it right back to Mr. Stanley, of course.
Oh, yeah, that's good.
And how about, well, there's nothing to say about the committees.
You just keep his hands on the line.
Well, he's all out on the attention side there.
I know.
Well, that's good to talk to him about.
Now, the European Security Conference in Europe, the memorandum that your staff prepared, it actually was from him.
I agree, especially with his name.
But what I meant is that I think we're a very cruel organization.
I would play it very cool on the European Security Council.
And we have to have Berlin settled first.
Berlin.
I just make sure to get the word that it's not directed at anyone.
Although he sort of likes our Peking move.
But he made a public statement saying that if it doesn't end to Vietnam War, there'll be terrible disappointment in the world.
President made a statement in Paris yesterday saying that he thought we were colluding with the Chinese to end against the Vietnamese people.
I mean, that's with reference.
I really do think the Chinese are trying to end it and the Russians are lucky.
At least the Chinese have made no public statement against us in Vietnam.
I'd leave it hanging.
That's what I mean.
I'd leave it hanging.
I'd say we've offered almost anything that can be understood.
I said, they refuse.
I said, they're just not going to get out there with a table of complex.
And that's just not the way I am.
Very, very serious.
Anyway.
Well, I think you've got to...
I talked to Reagan last night.
Well, he was still raving along, but he's calmed down a bit now.
Your statement helped a lot with that.
Well, Reagan and Hagman are really almost two of a kind.
He's simplistic.
Well, Reagan has no brains at all.
He really hasn't.
He's a pure act.
But he still wants to really get out of the U.N., basically.
No, no, he's gotten off that now.
He recognizes now that that is a process.
So what does he want to do?
Well, he wants to make a strong statement condemning the U.N. No, no, he wants you to make a strong statement condemning the U.N.
He says...
I went as far as I could go yesterday.
Well, that's right.
And, you know, they started trapping you on TV, which is okay.
It shows that you hit the manager.
Well, sir.
But these goddamn CBS people, I was watching TV yesterday.
They were running your statement.
Then they said, this is what the president objected to.
And all they...
photographed was the Albanian delegation, wildly applauding.
They didn't photograph the Africans jumping up and down.
And doing the dance and the jingles.
None of it was so yet sounded.
Here is these people, sure, they applauded.
Maybe they shouldn't have done that.
But they didn't show any of the really objectionable... Why don't you point that out to Colson and John and Greg?
Did you see that?
They didn't show the other thing.
No.
That's right.
I don't think they can make that a scene.
Too many people saw it.
First of all, anyway, what the hell?
We're on the right side of the angels.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
You notice?
Yeah.
Sorry, son.
It's what the dinosaur said.
God, I looked over that list again.
Pretty sad.
Yeah.
We might have made it, actually.
Yeah.
I left the strategy of it to a state.
There are a lot of countries, Ecuador, shouldn't have come here, sir.
We've got cross-wise with them on the fisheries.
An impetuous move for us here.
We couldn't win it next year.
There was no chance of winning it.
So we have it next year and have this terrible hole next year.
It's better to have it out there than out of the way.
That's what I think.
We don't discuss it on the trip.
No, we can't say that.
Frankly, Henry, it's best to have it out of the way.
Sure.
Let's forget it now.
We couldn't get it next year.
There was no chance of it.
We couldn't go through this arm twisting the second year.
Well, at least we gave them enough story history.
We gave them that key code.
We gave them your announcement on China.
That was good, to give them a lot of that sort of combination of things.
And we just didn't want the UN to be the only story history.
It would have been a bad business.
But in the UN, I say by the UN, just the Reagan and otherwise had been the whole group yesterday.
That's right.
And if you had said nothing, it would have been, uh... Well, the pressure's really not that serious.
Oh, yeah.
No, no, it... it turned out well.
They vary a lot.
It's really on television, that's what I'm saying.
Well, with the, uh, the shooting thing...
I mean, it's happening on this...
I don't want somebody to, somebody like Mosbacher or somebody to raise the point of when I meet these bastards a second time, either Friday or Saturday, it has to be Saturday or I'll meet them Saturday.
We do work that out.
Oh, Mosbacher would not get into it.
Well, you know what I mean?
It's not his bed.
I just want to know if it's a problem.
I won't do it, but if he doesn't want to move it to, if he can't move it to Friday, we won't move it to Friday.
I'll see him Saturday.
It'll be gone that short.
Well, we'll keep it on Friday.
Well, to them it's probably a... Well, I'll see you then.
Okay, Ronnie, work it out, and I'll look after it.
And I'll look after the meeting.
I'll let you know then.