Nixon & Kissinger on Vietnam War and North Vietnamese offensive

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If these two briefcases should go on the air today, that's all I need to know.

Alex may have something for us.

He's got some materials.

I think he can make a room in one of them and put some of the materials on the briefcases so that we don't have to carry them separately.

I think that speech went very well today.

I think it did exactly what you wanted.

Toprilin called me.

He said he had a long conversation with me.

I made some jokes about India-Pakistan.

He said, let's put it behind us.

Let's work positively for the future.

Also, I'm having dinner with him tomorrow night.

So he's...

He doesn't appear to be negative about it.

No, no.

One matter problem we have is, in Vietnam, we had a message from Abrams today.

They are putting in...

Every reserve unit they have.

Everything.

They're stripping North Vietnam.

They're stripping it there.

And, well, he wants to bomb the southern part of North Vietnam where they have the electricity filter.

So we've got to look at it tomorrow.

I want to talk to the brain and tell him, look, it's offensive.

Of course, they want to put it to us.

Well, I think they want to do it to us.

My view is that we may have to risk the Chinese thing, Henry.

My view too, Mr. President.

I just don't believe you can let them knock the shit out of us.

The Chinese are going to cancel the trip.

I don't think we should go quite as far north, but we should, as we did in the last attacks, I think we should let them do something.

I think it's free.

Remember, particularly after your peace speech, I don't think you should do it.

You won't do it now.

You wait until after the peace speech.

I get you right.

I'd wait until they... And if they respond to our speech or increase the...

I think so, too.

That's my understanding.

It would be just simply...

What is Abrams?

Does Abrams have a plan?

Well, he has targets.

And I think they probably are going to make them all out.

And then they're going to settle.

If they don't tip it, then they're going to settle.

They're going to settle either way, because if they win, of course, they're going to settle.

And if they don't make it, then they're going to settle.

And you say in terms of they win, what are they doing?

What are they doing?

Well, what they could wind up doing is have a massive attack in Tukor and come across the DMZ and across the... and go all out in I-Corps.

Now, we ought to be able to handle it with massive effort.

If they go across the DMZ, of course, it would be violating the understanding of Stokes.

And...

It's unfeasible that the freedom brings us a message tomorrow.

I don't really believe it.

Not only in the East, but he was very conservatory and very somewhat apologetic about India, Pakistan.

You think so?

Yeah, I said to him, you know, on the toll every time you leave town, I know you're doing something mischievous, because every time you're out of town,

been some crisis, he said, oh, I can tell you some interesting things.

He said, let's put it behind us, but as a friend, I'll give you a lot of explanations.

You'll probably say that he's not so shy.

About that I believe.

About that, in fact, there's no doubt.

Because we have that telegram from the Soviet ambassador to India.

He told the Indians on Friday, which was the 10th,

that they should take Kashmir as quickly as possible.

And on Sunday, Kuznetsov showed up, and everything began to turn.

So the signals were clearly changed after your conversation with that agricultural minister.

Oh, he stayed with us.

There's no question.

No, there's no question.

Let me ask you, is there anything that, well, there's nothing you can do to bring it on that damn Vietnam?

Well, I'm going to, well, I'll see you tomorrow.

You're going to have your statement tomorrow night.

Tomorrow night, but then I'll call you.

Is there a rest of the thinking, though, that we should still go ahead Tuesday night?

That's what we want to do.

I think so.

Oh, no question about that.

Everybody...

I mean, related to the reading conversation, will that change?

Well, unless he has a message that they're ready to start talking in that case.

But that's inconceivable to me.

They wouldn't send it through him.

Do you think that what they're really doing is...

What Mayburn said is a massive build-up.

Biggest build-up in four years.

Every reserve division they've got, literally they've stripped it.

If we could land one division up north, we could drive to Hanoi.

And where are they all?

Well, they're coming down.

Well, they're not off.

Well, some are on the train and some are just north of the DMZ.

And they've built a road across the DMZ.

which they don't need for infiltration.

What the hell?

Why are we hitting the road?

Mr. President, this has been one of the... What are we doing about the road?

Oh, yeah, we're bombing it, but it's one of the worst disgraces that here the great U.S. Air Force can't keep a road from being built.

They still haven't finished it completely, so I don't think they'll start the DMZ attack yet.

Our judgment is, or the intelligence judgment is, that they'll start their attacks in...

Vietnam in February, and in the second co-area, and in March in the first co-area.

I think they'll have knocked it off by May 1st.

They will not.

My judgment is that the Russians will not want you to come to Moscow.

They'd like you to be in Beijing with a leg on your face.

But if we set up these negotiations on the Middle East properly, they'll need you to deliver on it.

If you are the one that delivers, you need to be strong.

That's why we had to set up trade in the Middle East in such a way that you are the one that has to deliver it after the election.

Coming back to this immediate problem, I see no choice but to do away with your comments on that.

No.

We kicked the Russians in the teeth when we had to, for the national interest, and we'll have to do it to the Chinese.

But I'll do it after the peace offensive.

Yeah, I think you're right.

That isn't going to make that much difference.

I think we should send a note to the Chinese when you give your speech and a note to the Russians.

And this is now the time.

And we hope that it will use your influence to help us, to help us out of it.

We will do that.

And I give it to the President on Tuesday, just before your speech.

I know it before.

That's what I...

I really would.

Well, the warning I can give to Bremen tomorrow, but I think it feeds with the request.

We don't want to...

Yes, yes, I know.

Because otherwise... What will you tell him tomorrow?

Well, I'll tell him... Do we think, for example, that our industry is any good?

We do.

Yes.

And I'll tell him that what...

I'll say, now, look, you've watched the President.

Time and again, he's done things which you would have not predicted.

We're on a normal dress.

And I'll tell you now, he's going to do it again if this Vietnam Offensive comes off at the scale at which we are now seeing it develop.

It's a bit of a quarter of a second in terms of preparing to meet with us.

Well, he's changed the commander of two of the divisions in Second Corps.

Has he?

Yeah.

Has he?

The commander has changed?

They must be pretty good now, so.

Well, in I-4, they're pretty good, but that's where they may run into a lot of tanks.

It may be a replay of the...

But if we have tanks, they're not going to...

Yes.

That should be a gory battle, but, you know, it would be a lot of publicity in this country.

Look, it doesn't involve Americans.

And this is really one reason.

I don't know, have you seen Sapphire today?

No.

But he talked to Phil, and Phil had, I must say, every one of his suggestions except one was excellent and improved his speech, and there's no problem with that.

So I've gone over it, and the one is... Is Sapphire ready for me to go take to Florida?

Yes.

What I have done, Mr. President, on reflection, I thought, Mr. President, that if you put in your speech this complicated thing of a first agreement in principle, then an agreement in substance, and some things happen at one stage and then because we have a bridge in there of 8,000 troops staying

until both are completed, it gets too complex.

I can explain that, so we made it very simple.

We said, this is the package.

Now, tomorrow, when we present our proposal, we will explain how it can be negotiated, but we'll be willing to do it either as a package or in stages.

Roger, he sent me good suggestions.

Good suggestions.

He raised no issue at all on principle.

Irriterate.

Irriterate, nobody needs to change.

No, he was quite content.

In fact, he was very content.

I was amazed.

I thought he'd do that in 20, 30 seconds.

10, 30.

And I've worked with him all day.

I think it's a good thing.

You know, speaking of speeches, I think that what I finally worked out for the last five minutes of that speech.

I thought that was superb.

You know, that needed to be said in this country.

That was beautiful.

I thought that some of it was mine, some of it was Christ's, some of it was Christ's.

Well, that paragraph where you said that the country is bad because it's not yet perfect, that was beautifully put.

He said that we should say that we are evil because we are not yet perfect, that we are corrupt because we are not yet poor.

despite all of our effort and sacrifice and building America, that we have failed because the building is not yet done.

Jesus, you know, that was, that's something that, tell it to Kennedy that said that, or else they'd have a box on every goddamn editorial visit, wouldn't they?

I don't care what they do about it.

I thought the conclusion was really elevated, and

All of it had a nice tone.

You know, the foreign policy stuff is, I think, stated in such an incisive form that almost any, I was doing it basically, any Republican speaker or Democrat speaker is supposed to take that.

I told Sabrina, I said, I saw you applauding the defense program part.

He said, no, you must have been watching this.

Actually, I said it as a joke.

I knew he hadn't applauded.

But it was a good joke.

Well, we had one little hooker in there for the Russians, too.

He said we were a presentation of arms, looking to the future.

We made loose arms.

The president should know that.

Oh, yes.

That we're willing to talk about that.

He interjected a speech.

Hold on.

I have one thing that's clear to me ever since my meeting with his culture minister.

What we did in India, Pakistan, I don't care what it does here, we've gotten new respect from the Russians.

She's now sent me presents and a note of how much we enjoyed it here.

Great.

And to bring in, I can tell how he slaughters.

He says, I have some very interesting communications for you, and it's terribly important.

We have a big agenda.

Let's get right to work.

And he wanted to come for breakfast, as you know.

But he said he'd meet most of the morning.

So I said, no, why don't we do it?

At least the summit is still on.

You know, you hear about these people.

I told you, Sam, this morning that I thought we would have more results.

They kept saying, well, because of the vaccine, we're going to come back.

We're going to go to hell.

Well, they do.

Mr. President, there is absolutely no chance.

He told me, I had told his minister, his trade minister, I dropped in at Sands for drinks with his trade minister, and I said, you know, the president's prepared to do things that are beyond the imagination of everybody.

On the other hand, if you don't stop these propaganda attacks on us, we can only conclude you want, you don't want improved relations, and in that case, we're not going to trade.

He said, oh, we've got to get the president back, we've got to get him back.

He's the only guy that can straighten it out.

And Toprinan said he really had intended to stay another week, but they made him come back right after that conversation because they are determined to have this thing developed.

So... Why don't you talk to him about Vietnam?

You could give him almost anything right now.

The trade, of course, you could give him.

Oh, yeah.

But damn it, they don't want to play it.

I don't know what we can do.

We don't have any covers there.

None in the Padang Air Force.

We'll use it.

We've got to use the Air Force.

Mr. President, I think the demonstration of impotence of getting run out of Vietnam physically... What's that?

I couldn't hear you.

I mean, of being run out physically, it would be too great.

No, we can't do it.

Because I think they will be... After this shot, I think they...

They've got to settle it.

Yeah.

That's it.

Don't you think so?

It's got to settle this summer.

One way or the other, I think in making your plan, you can pretty well assume one way or the other it's going to be number three.

It's going to be that.

Have we got the two?

I think we'll get number three.

You know, it's an interesting thing.

When you put it down, you read that little foreign policy section in that speech, it's a pretty goddamn good policy.

It was very strong and very thoughtful.

And, you know, we've said our commitments will be limited.

We will not intervene militarily, but we can do this and that.

And also, we've got in, we're not going to use our number.

We've got it all now.

People know exactly what we will do and what we won't do.

And it's very strong.

And of course, as you know, the kicker is an interest.

That keeps everybody guessing.

I might decide that our anchors were threatened militarily, right?

It was no... City anchors was the thing that they, that they, the peacemakers will, well, some of them are too smart.

A lot of peacemakers will say, oh, thank God, we're not going to intervene.

Bullshit, they'll intervene anyplace.

Now, if you were president, they...

They'd be scared to death that I might do something foolish.

Foolish hasn't been your record, but something tough.

I wish we could do something tough in Vietnam.

I don't, well, God damn it, that Air Force plus the South Vietnamese should be able to do it.

I don't think the North Vietnamese are that strong.

I can't believe that Laos and Cambodia, they can be that strong.

What we ought to do is get a series of one or two-day strikes.

I don't think we can do five days at a clip, but we can.

No, we can't.

As I told you before, I really think that the last two days of the last hit, it must have failed.

But it didn't help us.

I don't think it was word of not discontinuing.

It looked like we just hit it for a couple days and then shot it.

If you notice that, we stopped the bombing.

They've been talking about it for a few days.

And two days, we can do one week, and then two weeks later, another day.

They've just got to...

I don't think that the fact...

The reason I asked you about the other one, Henry, I don't think the fact we did that five days... Oh, that was 30 minutes.

Don't you think it would worry them a little?

I think we may have to hit them early in February.

I don't think it's...

So that means next week maybe, though?

No, the week after your proposal.

Well, you want to wait that long?

Well, maybe at the end of the week.

I'd like to get your proposal a little more right.

I think... Yeah, I think we should let it ride a week.

I think we can.

Yeah.

How about that?

And if they hit us, then maybe we hit them for five days.

You know, if they respond to your proposal with an all-out offense, that's right.

I'm weakening your reason.

You could get that.

I don't want to threaten my speech.

I don't think I should.

I don't think I should be threatened at all with a speech.

Let me ask you a speech.

Is it in good enough shape, in your opinion, that I can now, that you and Sapphire will not need to come to Florida?

I'll just get back to work on Monday.

Frankly, what I think, Mr. President, frankly, I believe if you can, if your conscientiousness permits it, is if you could take these three days off, you'd be in better shape.

Because you, I know what it takes out of one if one has the right.

And you have spent about a week of the most concentrated effort on this.

And you spent time on this.

I think it's essentially in good shape.

If you can spend all of Monday and part of Tuesday on it... Yeah, because we don't have to give this out in advance.

No, we don't give it out in advance.

Is it your view that we give no briefing in advance?

No, no briefing in advance.

But brief the next day.

I brief the next day.

How about the legislative leaders?

You've got to brief them.

Yes, I brief them around 7.

But what you have to decide, Mr. President, is whether you...

Well, it'd be better if you do it, but on the other hand, it always takes away from your vigor.

Maybe you speak for 10 minutes and I speak for 10 minutes or something like that.

I'm just thinking of...

The importance of the speech.

You key yourself up always in a very effective way with it.

Yeah, you know, one of the things about that, the little talk today, first of all, I was smart.

I had the 30 minutes, you noticed.

Exactly.

The shortest date of the unit, 20 years.

Yeah.

Shortest of 20 years.

And it was long enough.

But the second was, a part of the cook came in.

He made a very interesting comment.

He said, you look better.

You know why?

I was totally relaxed.

Well, I talked to somebody.

How do you talk to them?

I talk...

John Drayton at lunch.

Yes.

And, well, of course, she actually is an admirer of yours, her husband.

Very pretty.

She's very pretty, and you remembered her once after a four-year interval.

You ran into her and remembered where you had met her, and she's never forgotten that.

Sure.

But at any rate, she said she had seen you, and she had never seen you appear more calm and confident, because I saw you in the hall, so I couldn't judge how it looked on television.

So if you could bring yourself not to read the text this weekend, because one always starts fretting, and then it's on one's mind.

I think you can easily handle it on Monday.

I would like to send it to you evening.

You send it to me.

I told Zach, you can send it any time.

He doesn't receive it much.

Are we in an age where we need to talk to this guy?

Uh, you had asked for the advancements to be brought back, but it's all gone, and it's passed now.

It's been a track record.

Who do we plan to send over to the...

I think that's just Ron and Francis, if it's good.

I think we should do it with the bird.

Well, it has constantly came in.

Do you know how long it's gone on?

He said, I just want authority to negotiate with you.

I said, of course you should negotiate with me.

But what in the hell happens over there?

Well, these guys.

That's the goddamn thing.

I've never heard of them.

They were really going to make another loan to Chile.

But again, this is trouble.

That's right.

And what it's putting into trouble is what you put down in this prison.

Is that right?

Take all this money.

They've managed to get some of the stuff that's happening to shut the area up.

It's exactly what the Brazilians did to Kulag.

The women rioting in the street.

You know, on the other side of the road.

Oh, he started tremendous defeats.

Oh, he's tremendous.

In my view, yes.

If we could just pull that off, that would be a good thing.

But today, he has missed his camp.

I don't know if that means he's getting ready for a coup.

Yeah.

But the military may move against him.

The other point there is that he exists.

I always talk about what's risky about it.

If we're going to bark around, that's one thing.

But when I'm getting out, you can tell me to bring it tomorrow.

The president has taken a heart attack.

Just like that.

And it won't be...

If you're going to screw us in Vietnam, we've got to do that way.

We're going to play.

Why don't you do that?

I don't know.

Nixon & Kissinger on Vietnam War and North Vietnamese offensive

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on January 20, 1972

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