Nixon & Kissinger on Vietnam War and B-52 air strikes

16:37There are problems there.
17:43Not a word out of Moscow yet.
17:56Okay.
17:57Did you, uh, did you give Lydia a smack of a shot today?
18:00Yeah.
18:01I gave her a shot.
18:03Give it now.
18:15It's been run off this morning.
18:22Well, I took your outline and just put in an occasional explanatory paragraph.
18:29The polls, Mr. President, would prefer not to announce it this week, what they want.
18:34No, no, not because of this.
18:36They want to do it very formally.
18:38They would like their ambassador to call on you and bring you the invitation.
18:43And then they could announce it next Monday or Tuesday.
18:45Right, right.
18:46Do you see any reason not to do that?
18:49Of course.
18:50It's the way to go about it.
18:53If the Goals do this at this time, what the hell?
18:57They had to do this after we hit, well, I know it wasn't until yesterday.
19:03Yes, sir.
19:04After the D-52.
19:05Mr. President, what is so fascinating is
19:10Hanoi has not yet told its people that these will be 52s.
19:14They've sent waves of Navy planes.
19:19Why do you think they haven't?
19:22Because they don't want to admit that they can't shoot down B-52s, and because of the terror this raises.
19:30That's why we've got to do another one Wednesday.
19:32Wednesday is the day.
19:33Tomorrow, it's done.
19:34I mean,
19:35It's planned, and it's larger than the other one.
19:37Can I ask a couple of questions?
19:39Yes, I'm all right.
19:40I took the liberty of coming in because .
19:42I'm waiting in time.
19:44I've been waiting for you.
19:46Oh, I'm sorry.
19:47No, no, no.
19:47I know you've got your stuff.
19:49You're in this period between 930 and January.
19:54I asked a couple of things looking at the
20:04Canadian thing.
20:07It may be just as well since we played the Russian thing, as long as we do it, not to hit it again there.
20:14I don't know why I'd hit it again.
20:16Well, I'm asking, Mr. Shannon, being the devil's advocate, I'd like to.
20:19I'd like to hit him every day.
20:20Mr. President, not every day, but we now must keep, we've got all the chips riding on this, and those sons of bitches must have known
20:31If not the details, they must have known that the masses of offensive weapons that were going in there had to be used for something.
20:39And I think they all miscalculated, because right now the armaments on the attack in Military Region 1...
20:46In what?
20:47Are we convinced of that?
20:50Yeah.
20:52Every report we've had of enemy-initiated activity
20:58of activity has been initiated by our side in military units.
21:04Now they are pouring in more supplies, but that's good.
21:07And the confidence of Chu is shown by the fact that he's moving a tank battalion or a tank regiment out of the Saigon area up north.
21:28And since we have to assume that you know what he's got riding on it inside, and the 21st Division at the same time has come up from the south.
21:39Now, in handlock yesterday, a P-52 strike hit right on top of the troop concentration that we had spotted, and since then there hasn't been any attack.
21:50There are no attacks at all anymore.
21:51That kind of thing has to happen.
21:53It's enormous.
21:56I told Haig last night, he probably should report it to you, and I know this is not the way that our people do things, but it's the way I found none of these.
22:05I believe in the concentration of power.
22:08I believe in the breakthrough theory.
22:10I don't believe in the jackass way that Haig's people are taught in all of our military, hold the whole front and attack the whole front.
22:17That was the mistake of all the bad generals in World War I.
22:26At this point, if we have them, for example, in two-core, if they've got a good banging there, or in a bi-core, if they've got a banging where on they'd have to, then I would warrant a B-3 type strike on them as they're moving back.
22:44What do you think?
22:45Don't you agree with that?
22:47He says, he agrees with it, and he thinks.
22:50I said, look, I said, mind reading the military history of this creature, because I said,
22:55I said, how could, why wouldn't Abrams this way?
22:58Because he's a Patton man.
23:00That was Patton's difference with Bradley, you know.
23:02That was his difference with Montgomery.
23:04They wanted to look at the numbers, and Patton says, hell no.
23:06He had to go around.
23:07Mr. President, if they should start tracking in MR1 and Vistro, I'm not sure we shouldn't go across the PMG.
23:14Ah, now you're talking.
23:17Now you're talking, go right across, follow them up.
23:20I think, uh...
23:20Certainly, I was going to say, shouldn't we attack them with our air interests and not just, uh... Oh, massively.
23:28But you know, when troops are retreating, retreating is a pretty frightening thing.
23:33It was for the argument they gave, you know, the mouse.
23:36But if you have bombs falling when they're retreating, it's horrible.
23:40Well, another thing they all agree now is that it's a naval compartment.
23:43It's a defensive moment.
23:44Generations.
23:46I don't even know about that.
23:48I already thought of it, but I just didn't dream or ever do anything that way to get that many out.
23:54I'll tell you, leaving as many out, if a little is a good thing, let's have a lot.
24:00Yesterday, the cruiser knocked out two tanks.
24:05The cruiser's there now.
24:06Yeah, the cruiser's there that can shoot 15 miles inland.
24:10Then there's another cruiser coming out that has 8-inch guns on it.
24:16Those are big cruisers.
24:18This is a light cruiser.
24:18That's a light cruiser.
24:19That's six inches.
24:20I know that.
24:22But they have a cruiser.
24:23But they have one that has eight inches.
24:24Well, that'll go by 20 miles more.
24:26That's right.
24:26And that's... And you said they're pretty comfortable.
24:31Oh, yes.
24:32Oh, no, they had visual observation of that and six secondary explosions.
24:39And this is just a tremendous human success.
24:42Yes.
24:44I mean, if you just run through this, well, they claim to have knocked out another 30 tanks yesterday, which eventually now makes it 131 altogether.
24:59Yeah, let's figure half of it.
25:00All right, let's figure half of it.
25:08And in military region three,
25:13There's little ground probing now after this air attack.
25:19We have had a setback that guerrillas got into an ammunition dump eight miles east of Saigon yesterday and destroyed 25% of the ammunition that was stored in that dump.
25:32But I figured we can always replace.
25:35Oh, well, it's a minute.
25:40They're going a lot farther.
25:42Yeah.
25:43For example, they went across the river near Dongha and they found in an area which had been hit by B-52s, they found 100 bodies, six artillery pieces.
26:00So if you figure this, if even one out of four of these B-52 boxes hit something, the demoralizing effect must be enormous.
26:12Yes, I have a question regarding the B-52s.
26:16I understand our standard number is 60, and we will now have 100.
26:21Is that it?
26:21No, no, we have 134.
26:22Our standard number is 50, and we'll have 134.
26:24That's all we can have with her.
26:25That's about as many as they can get.
26:28That's about as many as they can get.
26:30Okay.
26:33Regarding the Navy and the rest, we will now have six carriers, huh?
26:37The last five and the sixth one is another two.
26:39One thing that's showing, and stirring up the media, the Sun's pages are really disturbed.
26:44I know about Al-Ain, God looks, everybody's believing and so forth.
26:47And I would bring him in and look brilliantly when he said, look, he says the only ground forces, movement of ground forces in Vietnam is out of Vietnam.
26:55But actually, your summary, Mr. President, that's proper.
26:59It's a little bit shaded on the unfavorable side.
27:03In the 90s, the New York Times, the New York Times,
27:06When I read the Times and the Post...
27:08I saw the Newsweek.
27:09The news magazines didn't seem to get much of our story across.
27:13How do you feel?
27:15No, I think Time did very well.
27:17Did they?
27:17Oh, yes.
27:18Time got our story almost as we gave it.
27:21Newsweek I didn't have a chance to talk to.
27:23Yeah.
27:24And they're ideological sons of bitches anyway.
27:26You only saw Elton on Saturday.
27:28And I saw Elton too late.
27:32That's all right.
27:33But Time is getting it across pretty well.
27:38Are they?
27:39Do you feel they are?
27:40Yeah.
27:42I noticed the New Republic says that the only thing to do is to make the best of your leave and you can get out.
27:48That's a little clunky.
27:49I don't think, I must say, I don't think that the American people at this time want to do that.
27:55Now, I've ordered Baltimore not to have any polls taken.
27:59Goddamn, where everybody's poll comments are on here.
28:03Sure, you ask the guy the question, do you think we should get out and get 90%?
28:06Say yes.
28:07Mr. President, if you can go on television, the first week of May, and say the attack has been defeated and all fronts, Vietnamization is a success, we took determined and decisive action, as I promised I would, and the heroic South Vietnamese army has repelled the invaders, I think you will make people feel proud of themselves again.
28:29A good percentage of those who want to get out are those who've given up on winning.
28:34But you may have done long ago.
28:37And, uh... You feel, uh, how did you get the, how did the staff...
28:42Very well, very well.
28:43Good.
28:44The POW thing went well?
28:46POW went spectacularly well.
28:50That went really very well, and I told these ladies... What's the end now?
28:54Well, I said, first of all, secondly, I said, what is it that this president has not done?
29:00The only thing he hasn't done
29:02is to install a communist government in Saigon, and it would mark the sacrifices of your loved ones.
29:08And none of you will want that.
29:09If any of you want that, at least with you, I understand it.
29:13But all these politicians who were telling you last year that a simple deadline could get us out, we knew it wasn't true.
29:19Well, you indicated that that, in fact, has already been rejected.
29:23Oh, yes.
29:23I said they rejected it in every conceivable form.
29:27They don't mention that anymore.
29:29Oh, they gave me a, they just kissed me and gave me a good applause.
29:33What is the situation, Henry, with regard to the, who do you think now, you're indicating to, are you going to have a meeting with any congressional group or anything?
29:45I'll set that up now.
29:46I'll get it set up for later today.
29:48You feel that's a pretty good idea?
29:50Oh, yeah.
29:51Because now we can be confident, or maybe get it done through.
29:53No, I don't know.
29:54If I decide to have a leaders' meeting tomorrow,
29:58We'll let you give that a little crack, too.
30:00They're a sad lot.
30:01They've got to be on the right side.
30:04Republican leaders, yeah.
30:06But in addition, you might get a few Democratic caucuses.
30:11And I mean, like when he finished his arrest, it's good for them to be known.
30:17I don't see the politicians sort of jumping quite on hard on this.
30:21What do you think?
30:22No, Mr. President.
30:23What is the new summary?
30:25I agree.
30:25It's enough to do it because...
30:27The new summary does lean a little too much toward the negative, it's true.
30:31It's okay, but...
30:32But we mustn't, we mustn't.
30:34That's their job.
30:34They don't want to keep anything from us, and basically they have our name.
30:40Well, one is more conscious of the negative anyway, Mr. President, as one reads it, because it creates a... We all are, we all are.
30:47The Chinese made a statement yesterday, which is a riot.
30:51They saw that Goodwill...
30:54I've had somebody, I'm sending you a memo, compare what the Hanoi Statement says and what Peking says.
31:01Hanoi attacks next.
31:04Peking never mentions your name.
31:05They just criticize you.
31:08But where Hanoi, and in effect, Hanoi says, what Peking says is, they congratulate the North Vietnamese on their magnificent victories.
31:22And they say if the Vietnamese fight heroically, they're bound to win.
31:26They did not say they would support them.
31:29They did not say that we are behind you fully.
31:34It's just as if last week when you had made a statement saying, justice is on your side, President, you, and if you fight heroically, you're bound to prevail.
31:44Everyone would have concluded from that that we were bugging out.
31:50When you read it at first, it sounds like an attack.
31:53But when you analyze it, for example, the Hanoi Statement refers to the Nixon administration.
32:02Peking never mentioned anything other than the U.S. government.
32:08The North Vietnamese deny that they have their own troops in South Vietnam.
32:12The Chinese say they are theirs.
32:16And my people think, and I agree, that this is an absolutely minimal response, the absolute least that the Chinese could get away with.
32:29And the Chinese people support only the DRV statement and not the government.
32:36And since the Chinese view the military situation as fine, no concrete action from them is called for,
32:43It is significant that the Chinese statement neither pledges resolute support, which is their normal grace for Hanoi's war effort, nor does it demand that the United States accept Hanoi's terms.
32:57It is also interesting that the Chinese are making note that the Chinese are saying nothing
33:10that our attacks on Hanoi will in any way affect U.S.-Chinese relations.
33:16But I'm going to see the Chinese ambassador tomorrow, primarily to tell him about the Manchurian visit.
33:23It's already over.
33:37We will just follow up on the PR thing this week and in a few weeks.
33:43Let that load be carried, not by state, not by defense, I mean, not by Laird or Robbins, both, to keep both of them out of the play.
33:50You will not do anything.
33:52Right.
33:52But to let it be played by Congress.
33:54Well, let them talk it out with the newsmen.
33:56But the Congressmen...
33:57But you see, this... You can unleash scallion paper on this.
34:00Oh, yeah.
34:01But we are in rather good shape, for example, for democratic reasons.
34:05has a column today saying the Russians are culpable and the White House may be a little soft on the Russians.
34:21And maybe we should delay the summit.
34:24Now, that helps us.
34:25He knows Mike Hale.
34:26He wants us to delay the summit.
34:27Of course.
34:28But it's a good shot across the bow for the Russians.
34:32And above all, when Kraft says the Russians are culpable, the liberals are locked in a position that something bad is going on.
34:40I mean, it's awfully hard to attack us for reacting.
34:47I mean, he didn't say this is the natural root of the Nixon policy.
34:51So he sent me a copy of the 40.3 on the same one.
34:57Let me tell you what I think.
35:01Grant, first of all, he realizes that the Russian summit, any way it comes out, will be a help to us.
35:07Second point is that he is really too, however he's basically emotional about it, he's really getting the Democrats in the spotlight.
35:20Exactly.
35:21All I'm saying is, Roland Evans had a comment yesterday about Russian culpability.
35:25Kraft has a colorful...
35:27They all want to make it possible for us to go to Moscow.
35:31Well, not everyone so much, but Kraft, yes.
35:36But my point is, Mr. President, the reader has to assume that if they're culpable, that there's something bad going on in Vietnam.
35:44The Russians want this summit more than we do.
35:47The Russians cannot afford this summit to be knocked off because their German policy will be dead.
35:51That's very important to me.
35:54That cannot happen.
35:56Also, there are China's problems, policies and problems.
36:02So I think we are in very good shape with the Russians.
36:07I told you after the India thing that they would come back stronger, and I'm even more confident now.
36:15Tell me about your conversation briefly with Buck.
36:17He's a very thoughtful man.
36:20Well, on Vietnam he doesn't know enough, but he said that as an Englishman he finds it distasteful, but he thinks we have no choice.
36:32He said that if we got run out of Vietnam, shockwaves would run through our allies and through the whole world, and he therefore can only pray that we succeed.
36:46And he gave a series of lectures at the Council of Foreign Relations.
36:50You know, the new intellectual instinct is to attack you for being a balance of power man.
36:55Oh, yes, I saw that.
36:57And now...
36:58Does that bother you?
37:02Not at all.
37:03But the point is, he gave a series of three lectures in which he defended your policy at the Council of Foreign Relations.
37:10And that's very helpful because he has great prestige.
37:13Well, he's smart.
37:16But there's the people who criticize the balance of power thing.
37:20First, it's superficial.
37:21We're not saying that that is all the policy.
37:24We're simply saying those are certain facts of life for the moment, and you've got to balance them off.
37:28But you see, these idiots who don't go for balance of power, what is their policy?
37:33Well, it's a melange of these things.
37:36One, first, that there's some way or other the solution of all problems.
37:41is to have a United Nations in which we'll all get together and then therefore we won't have any problems.
37:45And second, is that we'll have a, through NATO or something or other, this will happen.
37:53Well, that's bullshit.
37:53You don't understand it, do you?
37:55To get back to Vietnam for half a second, I have a comment about this.
37:59McNamara came in this morning on IDA replenishment.
38:03I've talked to Conley.
38:04If you don't mind, I'd like to call out a passment.
38:07Conley agrees to get him to
38:11to do something.
38:12But McNamara said this attacking Vietnam has convinced him that NATO remains absolutely essential because it shows you can't trust the Russians, that they always like to use military power.
38:25So I think they all miscalculated.
38:28This is an invasion.
38:30This is us going into Cambodia and Laos.
38:33This is the North Vietnamese army marching into South Vietnam.
38:36Maybe Kelly spoke too fast.
38:38Too fast.
38:40I don't see the evening news, but I see the morning news on the Today Show and CBS News, and comparing it to Lowe's where they were smearing it.
39:05It's very factual now.
39:07And actually, it's an enemy offensive.
39:09It's the enemy.
39:15But to get back to this theoretical point, these people can't face this fact.
39:21They're against superiority.
39:23They were attacking you when you said you were for superiority.
39:28But there are only two choices.
39:32You can either be superior and have hegemony, which they're against.
39:37Or you must have a balance of power.
39:40If you're not superior, then somebody else is going to be superior.
39:45Unless you have a balance.
39:46Unless you have a balance, exactly.
39:48The second point where they're totally wrong at is, they say the balance of power probably undermines alliances.
39:54Nonsense.
39:55In the 19th century, you had balance of power and alliances.
39:59A life is not a way you get power.
40:01Well, how the hell do you build a balance of power if you don't have an alliance?
40:07So it's a very superficial way to look at the...
40:11There you go.
40:13You know what?
40:14I think they have...
40:16They, Henry, your former friends here, the Council for Foreign Relations and the public intellectual establishment, their problem is that they don't have a policy.
40:34They have totally failed.
40:36All of their ideas and ideals and so forth are shattered.
40:40All of their heroes have proven to be wrong.
40:42The Kennedys are great.
40:43Isn't that great?
40:45And therefore, they're just knocking the hell out of anybody else.
40:48They don't have any.
40:49Do you think they have any?
40:50No.
40:50They're intellectually bankrupt.
40:52That's a better word.
40:53Intellectually void bankrupt.
40:57Now, the annoyed press is now calling this fighting an all-out offensive and a decisive battle.
41:04It's good, because if they don't win it, what are they going to say?
41:11And I have a feeling that we are going to break in this time.
41:17I never thought that in love.
41:18That never looked right to me.
41:19No, and everything wasn't committed there either.
41:23But here everything is committed.
41:24That's the point.
41:25everything is committed and fortunately we i think one of their they have two miscalculations one i think they had the usual miscalculation at the moment they attacked that they needed this all again the people would rise up but neither of those things has happened the second thing i think they think they miscalculated on
41:46They thought that we would just go on business as usual.
41:48Give them just enough help.
41:51As much as was expected to them, not quite enough.
41:57I think this pouring in of portion has got to have a hell of a psychological effect on these passengers.
42:01The only thing we are having bad luck on is the weather.
42:04If the weather were good, and now it won't break for 48 hours.
42:10But if the weather were good, they'd be dead.
42:13Well, we're still hitting, but we are still bombing through instruments in that area.
42:19Yeah, but we are not bombing north of the DMC except for the B-52 strike.
42:24We'll put one more 52 strike in tomorrow.
42:28And that is, again, not going to be one that they feel unnecessarily risks because of the B-52s.
42:34No.
42:34Because there are not as many SAMs there as there are.
42:40Yes.
42:41heavy sand concentration is around Hanoi.
42:45And then again in the south, there is a belt in there where there isn't much.
42:51That's what that means.
42:53I'll report to you right after this.
42:57Well, we're right about the speech.
42:59Not this week.
43:00Oh, it really, you'll be creating a crisis that doesn't exist.
43:03Well, also, we didn't say nothing important thing.
43:08Nothing that would...
43:11nothing that would help us enough on the domestic side that would be worth what it would potentially damage on the foreign policy side.
43:19What really matters now is to take all we need domestically, we need to, if in some way it helps us foreign policy-wise.
43:26With regard to the Canadian speech, can I ask you one thing?
43:29Have you told somebody to work on that paragraph?
43:32Yes, I've written an outline of it, and you'll have it by noon.
43:36Fine.
43:37I don't need it until 2 o'clock.
43:38You'll have it by noon.
45:54I might, uh, I thought I might go to camp tonight.
45:59We're free to do so, in other words, until tomorrow.

Nixon & Kissinger on Vietnam War and B-52 air strikes

AI Summary

Audio

Transcript (AI-generated)

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on April 11, 1972

Cite this conversation