Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 608 › Conversation 608-002

Nixon & Kissinger on United Nations and Taiwan

Friday, October 29, 1971 · 6:19 PM–6:35 PM ET · Oval Office · 14 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Kissinger, Henry A.; White House operatorConversation608-002 on Tape 608 (tape position 00:50:05–01:04:10)StartFriday, October 29, 1971 at 6:19 PMEndFriday, October 29, 1971 at 6:35 PMRecording deviceOval OfficeSourceNixon Library record for 608-002 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon and Henry Kissinger met to discuss the political fallout from the United Nations' recent vote to expel Taiwan and the potential impact of Nixon's upcoming initiative to visit the People's Republic of China. The two reviewed U.S. diplomatic efforts, assessed public and political reaction among domestic critics, and discussed strategies for managing international relations ahead of the 1972 election. They also addressed coordination with figures like Ronald Reagan regarding his recent Asia trip and finalized arrangements for upcoming scheduling and correspondence.

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Position in tape: 00:50:05 – 01:04:10

50:03

608a.mp3

NARA Description

On October 29, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Henry A. Kissinger, and the White House operator met in the Oval Office of the White House from 6:19 pm to 6:35 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 608-002 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 608-2

Date: October 29, 1971
Time: 6:19 pm - 6:35 pm
Location: Oval Office

The President met with Henry A. Kissinger.

[The recording begins while conversation is in progress]

     United Nations [UN]
          -Previous vote to expel Taiwan
               -France, Great Britain, Italy, Belgium, Canada
               -Belgium
               -Effect of the President's People's Republic of China [PRC] initiative

     Daniel J. Boorstin
          -Smithsonian Institution
          -Previous conversation with Kissinger
                -Boorstin's talk at University of Indiana
                      -PRC initiative

     UN
           -Previous vote to expel Taiwan
                -Reaction of the President's critics
                      -Chiang Kai-Shek
                      -Academic community

     Boorstin
          The President's forthcoming trip to PRC
               -Leonard Garment's note to Kissinger
                     -Boorstin
          -Previous conversation with Kissinger
               -US aerospace program

     US intellectual community

     The President's forthcoming trip to PRC
          -Boorstin
          -Kissinger's possible written account
          -Possible article
               -Timing

     UN
           -Previous vote to expel Taiwan
Show the rest of the log (85 more lines)
                -Timing
                -State Department's efforts
                      -Kissinger’s assessment
                            -Rogers

                -Botswana
                -Guyana
                      -Leader
                           -US aid
                -Vote list
                      -Alexander M. Haig, Jr.
                -Timing
                      -The President's forthcoming trip to PRC
                      -1972 election
                -State Department's efforts
                      -Kissinger’s view
                -Timing
                -Public reaction
                      -View of UN
                      -Kissinger's previous conversation with Ronald W. Reagan

     Reagan
         -The President's schedule
              -Report on Reagan’s Asia trip
         -Kissinger's schedule

**************************************************************************

BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 5
[Privacy]
[Duration 6s ]

END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 5

**************************************************************************

          -The President's schedule

     Kissinger's forthcoming telephone call to Taiwanese ambassador

Kissinger talked with the White house operator at an unknown time between 6:03 pm and 6:35
pm.

[Conversation No. 608-2A]

[See Conversation No. 13-41]

[End of telephone conversation]

     Kissinger's forthcoming telephone call to Taiwanese ambassador
          -The President's schedule
                -Taiwanese foreign minister

     UN
          -Previous vote to expel Taiwan
               -Timing
               -US policy
                     -PRC initiative

     Taiwan
         -The President’s view
         -The President's efforts
              -Quemoy and Matsu
              -John Foster Dulles

Kissinger talked with the White House operator at an unknown time between 6:03 pm and 6:35
pm.

[Conversation No. 608-2B]

[See Conversation No. 13-42]

[End of telephone conversation]

     The President's schedule
          -Josep Broz Tito
               -India-Pakistan
                      -Indira Gandhi
               -Chinese
               -Vietnam
                      -Negotiations
               -Interpreters
               -Location

Kissinger left at 6:35 pm.

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.

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sold their interests.
The British sold theirs when they did what they did long years ago.
The Italians sold their interests.
The Belgians sold theirs.
The Canadians sold theirs.
We sold our interests, and that's bad.
And that's what affected the vote, Mr. President.
And all of these decisions had happened before you even mentioned P.K.
In other words, Belgium had started its negotiations.
Italy had concluded its negotiations.
Britain was in the middle of its negotiations.
France
was lost on this one.
So which country did we lose in Europe as a result of the peaking initiative?
And the answer is not, not one.
They did, they were insulting their interests.
It wasn't because of our, their, being men who failed to be insulted.
No, but the basic problem, I had lunch today with a fellow, I don't know whether you know, Boorstein, a historian who is at the Smithsonian.
He's very, very good.
He's a conservative historian.
He's a conservative historian and brilliant.
And he said he gave talk in the University of Indiana and he said people were saying, the professors, well, what's wrong?
We're sort of very lukewarm about China.
And he said, I said, well, why were they lukewarm?
He said,
He said, because Nixon did it.
He said that?
Because that's what killed him.
So now the people who were after us to throw Taiwan to the wolves and who we tried to defend Taiwan are going to try to kill us.
Oh?
The people who were saying that our foreign policy was made by Chiang Kai-shek.
Now they're going to discover that we are not taking care of our allies.
And it's an absurdity.
Isn't that amusing?
You said they were lukewarm.
You said they were mixed in.
You know goddamn well that's what you're going to find in the academic community.
One thought I had, Mr. President, after talking to this fellow,
You've never had a historian in the White House, and you shouldn't.
But whether for the trip to China, there might be some consideration.
I didn't discuss it with him, and I barely know the man.
I've read a book of his, and it interested me, and I had lunch free today, so I asked him to come over.
But Glenn Garman wrote me a note about that, suggesting that.
Having Gorshkin go, you mean?
Having him go and just write an account of how a historian sees that momentous event.
I'll consider it.
We can see where we are at that point.
Because one, it should not be done by anybody like any of us.
We'll eventually write it.
But we'll write it, but I mean somebody, your point is this would be something that
The historian, you know, he said, he really was very good.
He said about the SSC and space, he said it's impossible for America not to do the things it can do.
The whole American myth gets destroyed this way.
He said he doesn't know what the SSC can do and he doesn't know what space can do.
But when Americans don't do what they're capable of, you've said it a hundred times for them.
You've got to go to the moon because it's there.
That's right, and he said because you don't know what you're going to find.
It's not because you know what you're going to find.
You've got to explore the unknown because it's there, and it's not known, so you've got to find out.
That's right.
That's what found America, the crisis.
No, that's right.
The whole attitude that these goddamn does and everything, I think it's unbelievable.
Yeah.
Isn't it?
Absolutely.
In our intellectual community, I think.
fabric had just torn to pieces.
Well, I think it's possible that this kind of a guy would be interesting.
Well, he might just write something that could get published fairly quickly.
That's right.
Let nobody on our staff that's capable of doing that.
I don't want to...
Anyway, that would not be credible.
No, you haven't.
Eventually, I can do it.
Well, you shouldn't now.
That's the point.
You can't do it immediately.
No.
Eventually, you'll write about it.
What I meant is you're thinking of something for now, and to... Well, I'm thinking of somebody who maybe publishes an article or two in July and August.
Or maybe quicker, but maybe by July and August, and that we could then give a lot of publicity to.
Very attractive.
Looked good.
Winsome.
He got shluked by his bureaucracy because we could have delayed the vote.
You think we could have won it?
I think we could first have, in any circumstances, we should have delayed the vote by a week or two.
Because if we were going to lose it, the later the Chinese communists showed up, the better it was for us in this general assembly session, which is going to end in the middle of December anyway.
And if there was any chance of losing it, we shouldn't have voted while I was in Peking.
They just didn't look good.
and the other is a minor thing.
They're making more of it than they should.
I mean, they didn't state it, but I don't think they make so much of it.
Go ahead.
But the second thing is, now that I look over, stated everything that the diplomatic organization can do, but they didn't play it the way a hard game is played, and they were too publicity-oriented.
They concentrated too much on the countries where Raab has seen the foreign ministers would get them publicity.
which had the dual disadvantage of making it a domestic issue in too many countries, and secondly it concentrated on Botswana, you buy Guyana, we just cut off the 40 committee.
Subsidies.
We're subsidizing that son of a bitch in Guyana.
We've got a sugar mill that we're subsidizing that he owns.
And if you can buy a guy once, you can buy him again.
And so since we only needed to ship three boats...
I went over to Dan Lester when he was here and said, now, what about all this?
Well, you shouldn't even be involved in that.
Well, I didn't.
I didn't.
On the other hand, nothing would...
It's better to have it done now than next year, I believe.
Well, next year it could not be held.
There was no way... Well, let me say this.
Let us suppose they're still in the United Nations.
Let us suppose when they're staying in, all right, fine, and we go on our trip.
Sure, at the present time, we win that boat, but that would then make what's going to happen in Taiwan a much bigger issue than it's going to be now.
Because then they'll accuse you of having...
Yeah, at that time, that's right.
Then, after we had been in it, anything that happened after, we go to China.
And there was no way...
In October of next year, the goddamn vote would come up.
And right before the election, they'd drawn out, and it could never help a devastating effect, no.
There was no way of winning it next year.
There was absolutely no way of winning it next year, no matter how we played it.
Everybody was moving to the China thing.
I mean, there are a lot of countries we just barely held this year that we couldn't have held next year.
On the diplomatic front, I have to say, in defense of state, they did a superb job.
I mean, anything that could be done by diplomatic means, they did.
And, uh... We, uh...
And next year there was no way of holding it.
Absolutely no way.
So don't, yes, you see my point.
It was a bad show on their part now.
But getting it out of the way is better.
You see my point?
Oh yeah, no question.
I don't think it reflected too much on us here.
No, no.
I think the general public doesn't give a damn.
Well, the general public doesn't like the United Nations.
Well, we have the separations.
The general public.
That bounces off the people that give a damn about losing.
I think a hell of a lot of them.
It's like you're talking to Reagan.
They're taking it out on the U.N. more than us.
But I talked to Reagan again this afternoon.
Again?
Oh, God.
He's got a speech to give tonight, and I just wanted to keep him quiet enough.
He would like to come in here and report on his Asian trip.
And he's aiming for the 17s now.
I've told him if he comes in, I'll give him a super secret briefing, you know.
And that's before you go to Paris.
Yeah.
just before you go.
All right, good, that's great.
If you wouldn't mind, I do think you should call that Chinese ambassador.
I don't want to think you're lying.
I don't want them to think you're lying.
Just walk by.
You want to do it from us?
You want to do it from me?
Yeah, just... You've got to be the ambassador of China.
I just wanted to know that we were, but I don't think you should go to know that.
I didn't realize that the Board of Minister was there, and I just wanted to extend my regards to him.
You know, I can't do that.
But I asked you when you came, and the office was, that's who you received.
You know, a lot of us say, you asked me who I was with, and I said it was him.
And I said, oh, well, they must have been there when I went and came through there.
And that's my best wishes.
Would you do that?
Oh, I'll do it in a second.
That's the way to do it.
You see, I'm making it feel better.
No, don't have any.
And don't worry about that coat.
It was done, and it's better to have it out of the way.
I'm pretty cynical about that, aren't you?
It was, yes, it was bad, but I'll say this.
I'll say this to the people.
We have to realize that everything has to be done.
It has to be done.
The world has to be changed.
I've been there several times.
They're my friends.
And they're great people.
They're nice people.
They're all nice.
By the way, they've been loyal.
They've supported us, and I supported them.
And now we have to use the love of others against his own state.
Oh, I fought right to the neck.
They know we've lost, right?
So we had no other time.
Henry, I think tomorrow you're right that I can see the old man by myself.
Is there anything you want me to bring up?
No, I did a little hard on that in the attacks, John, as the Indians are making such unreasonable political demands that they are preventing, hey, if they were willing to settle for autonomy in a year, then that would work out.
But they're making political demands that are impossible to fulfill.
Well, I guess we'll be telling you that in the trailer.
That person's gone.
Well, we certainly didn't pay it pretty hard.
In fact, we trekked into the Chinese.
Oh, yeah?
Yeah.
You didn't spend a penny on it.
Which I don't know why somebody is not invited to Washington.
I mean, I say that we have everything, but that doesn't mean we have to open everything.
I say we've all got everything, but we haven't ever taken care of it.
And there's no more.
There's no more there.
I say we've made our last offer.
I understand.
I put it that way.
But you didn't sell it out to them.
We're waiting to hear from them.
And if you have any...
Just sit there and make the notes.
All right.
I agree, but it's been too long.
Just the two of us alone this time.
I think I'll take him over there.
He likes it.
He likes it.
I think he'd be better to go to a different place since he's been here.

Also recorded on October 29, 1971

  • 013-039 4:11 PM · 8 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 4:11 pm and 4:55 pm.
  • 013-040 4:55 PM · 47 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and John C. Whitaker talked on the telephone from 4:55 pm to 4:56 pm.
  • 608-001 5:20 PM · 49 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Alexander P. Butterfield, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, Charles W. Colson, and Henry A. Kissinger met in the Oval Office of the White House from 5:20 pm to 6:08 pm.
  • 013-041 6:03 PM · 25 sec — Henry A. Kissinger and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 6:03 pm and 6:35 pm.
  • 013-042 6:03 PM · 12 sec — Henry A. Kissinger and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 6:03 pm and 6:35 pm.
  • 608-003 6:35 PM · 6 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Rose Mary Woods met in the Oval Office of the White House from 6:35 pm to 6:42 pm.
  • 013-043 7:56 PM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger talked on the telephone from 7:56 pm to 7:59 pm.
  • 013-044 7:59 PM · 1 min — President Richard M. Nixon, White House operator, and Henry A. Kissinger talked on the telephone from 7:59 pm to 8:01 pm.

All 64 conversations from October 29, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 608-002, October 29, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/608-002 (accessed November 14, 2026).