On March 17, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, Henry A. Kissinger, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 12:36 pm and 12:42 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 686-012 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
It's the ceiling.
for a little while, and that we just cannot go through on this.
From an interest point of view, leaving aside that we can get it, because if we pay enough, we can get it.
From the national interest point of view, we are better off not having submarines as part of the program and raising land in the submarine field.
My fear is that if we put a freeze on submarines,
they will be able to continue their program for two years in the guise of conversion.
After that, they can start laying new keels and call it modernization.
Moore hasn't thought this through.
If they don't retire old submarines as soon as they lay the keel, they're going to have their program uninterrupted, while we're going to have one hell of a time in Congress when there's a freeze-on getting funds for it.
I think the practical effect of this read will be nothing.
What is the first judgment?
Does he want to negotiate a submarine or not?
We have no problem.
We should start by asking for submarines.
And I have no problem with that.
The decision point will come in the latter half of April if we are not making progress on it.
I'm afraid, though, that we will make progress.
I think we'll get it.
And I think it's not in our interest.
But it's, uh...
The thing to do is not to get in there.
Yeah, I, I see pretty hard lines.
Is this good time?
Yeah.
One other thing.
You wanted to come in, then I thought to bring in next, uh, take him as one in the bathroom.
You want to come in for ten minutes.
It's not essential.
Let's pull it off a little.
I've had a...
Well, I told him you would do it because he'd asked me to do it last year, but... Well...
Yes, only two things to do.
One is to say you're giving your personal attention to it, and to repeat again what you want him to do with me and what you want him to do in other examples.
I can't describe it.
I just thought it was sure to work out.
You said that in for five minutes.
Now that I told you to work out the details, how long?
Those bastards, you know, they screwed us again in the announcement.
Yes, it doesn't make any difference.
But when I compare them to the Chinese, we work a week on the announcement.
They again put out a different text.
It doesn't change success, but they're simply not meticulous.
I think that's the second one.
We want this to be successful, and for it to be successful, we have to maintain discipline.
We want to have discipline.
What's in our administration, and we've also...
that I put this under your direction.
And on the other hand, I want to rank so that various other Secretary of State and others play a role, because they will tell you how to do it, how that's done.
That's fine.
That's all you need to tell me.
Now, did you get it?
Did you get the memorandum?
Did you get the memorandum?
Did you get the memorandum?
Did you get the memorandum?
Did you get the memorandum?
Well, let me ask you this.
Why don't we just do this?
Why don't we take the letter after Peter's?
Let's do another subject.
A man would be competent.
He doesn't need to take it.
No, no, why don't we take the letter after Peter's?
The letter's no problem.
The letter will be saved by talking to the man.
But Larry, we've got to have him aboard.
And having him there would be bad.
We'll have most of this done before.
Just like it, but I think you're pulling the other hand.
Look.
Notice the weird thing about your boat.
Here's what you did.
I thought I marked it down there, of course.
The way we're doing this continues to do this on the rocket.
They didn't fix it, sir.
Well, we said, no, sir, God damn it.
It's probably not true.
Why not?
Why?
Because the state can't negotiate on that.
The state can't negotiate, in my view, on, uh, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on
where he feels that the thing has to be in charge.
And I don't know if that's a problem we haven't accomplished.
Of course, every time we have an extra cap on, we put it in the end.
Yeah, that's one of the things.
When the hell does he sit at the end of the seat and say, don't call me?
Well, he made an issue of it.
We had to divide it, and he called and made an issue, and... Well, why the hell did we come here?
Somewhere else.
Someone's got to draw the line, other than... Well, I'm frankly... What about here?
We come back all the time.
And so, we can't drive out the price of wanting to fly over Europe.
I found another interesting thing.
He has secret service protection.