Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 708 › Conversation 708-009

Nixon, Kissinger & Woods on Vietnam War and Canada trip

Thursday, April 13, 1972 · 4:37 PM–4:46 PM ET · Oval Office · 11 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Woods, Rose Mary; Kissinger, Henry A.; White House operatorConversation708-009 on Tape 708 (tape position 00:30:09–00:40:52)StartThursday, April 13, 1972 at 4:37 PMEndThursday, April 13, 1972 at 4:46 PMRecording deviceOval OfficeSourceNixon Library record for 708-009 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon, Rose Mary Woods, and Henry Kissinger met to finalize the President's upcoming speech for his trip to Canada and coordinate congressional relations. Following Woods's departure, Kissinger briefed the President on securing public and congressional support for the war in Vietnam, specifically regarding the efforts of Representatives F. Edward Hebert, George H. Mahon, and John C. Stennis. The discussion focused heavily on the strategic necessity of upcoming air strikes against petroleum, oil, and lubricant (POL) dumps in Haiphong, with Kissinger detailing operational plans and the perceived effectiveness of previous military actions in Laos and Cambodia.

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Position in tape: 00:30:09 – 00:40:52

30:07

708a.mp3

NARA Description

On April 13, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, Rose Mary Woods, Henry A. Kissinger, and the White House operator met in the Oval Office of the White House from 4:37 pm to 4:46 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 708-009 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 708-9

Date: April 13, 1972
Time: 4:37 pm - 4:46 pm
Location: Oval Office

The President met with Rose Mary Woods.

       The President's Canadian speech
            -Draft
                  -Typing
                        -Airplane
                  -Changes
                        -Place
                        -Press copy
                              -Deletion
            -The President's meeting with Lt. Gen. Vernon A. Walters
                  -Instruction in French language

       The President's trip o Canada
            -Dinner
                  -Attire
            -Scheduling

       Weather

Henry A. Kissinger entered at 4:38 pm.

       The President's trip to Canada
            -Speech
                  -Kissinger's review
                  -Deletion
                  -Draft
                          -Press copy

Woods left at 4:40 pm.

       Vietnam
            -George H. Mahon
            -John C. Stennis
                  -Briefing
            -F. Edward Hebert
                  -Julie Nixon Eisenhower
                  -Speech
                         -Press
Show the rest of the log (77 more lines)
                  -Call from Kissinger
            -US policies
                  -Public support
            -Kissinger's briefing
                  -Mahon
                         -Support for US policies
            -Haiphong
                  -Air strikes
                         -Petroleum, oil, lubricants [POL] dumps
                         -Timing
                               -Current plans
                               -People's Republic of China [PRC] and Soviet Union
                         -Necessity
                               -Lyndon B. Johnson and W[illiam] Averell Harriman
                         -Effectiveness
            -Cambodia operation
                  -Melvin R. Laird
                         -Conversation with Kissinger
            -Laos operation
                  -Effectiveness
                  -North Vietnamese tank losses
                  -Gen. Creighton W. Abrams, Jr.
            -Haiphong
                  -Target
                         -POL dumps
                         -Truck parks
                  -Air strikes
                         -Aircraft
                               -Number
                         -B-52s
                               -Surface to air missile [SAMs]

                                     -Effectiveness
                                           -Gen. Alexander M. Haig, Jr.
             -Casualties
                  -Rate
                  -Comparisons

       William P. Rogers
             -Kissinger's call
                   -Schedule
                         -United Nations [UN]

Kissinger talked with the White House operator at an unknown time between 4:40 and 4:46 pm.

[Conversation no. 708-9A]

[See Conversation no. 22-123]

[End of telephone conversation]

       Vietnam
            -Kissinger's call to Hebert
                  -Thanks for support

       The President's trip to Canada

Kissinger talked with the White House operator at an unknown time between 4:40 and 4:46 pm.

[Conversation No. 708-9B]

[See Conversation No. 22-124]

[End of telephone conversation]

       The President's Canadian speech
            -Soviets

       Rogers

       Rogers's testimony

       Kissinger's call from Albert Stein

             -US bombing

Kissinger left at 4:46 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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on the press copy, but they won't give, they're not gonna go until, you know, tonight or tomorrow morning.
Yeah, I may be one more second, sir.
I'm sorry, but I'm gonna go over to the French part.
Oh, okay.
To teach you my French.
Oh, that's good.
Before I go to Canada's opinion that I get.
Somebody, I'll be hard for you right now.
Who's that?
I don't know, I'm just, I'm just, there's a, there's a white, yeah, there's a white, I don't know.
Well, it wasn't hard.
It was easy.
I've got a four-hour P.R.
training, and I can come straight into a village.
It's not bad.
It leaves you thrilled.
Well, then, get it out of the way.
It has to go sometime.
And the sun's out now.
I'm glad.
I was like, it's your turn.
I have to tell you, I did not know these young people when they came in.
I didn't think spring would ever come.
Oh, here's Henry, who's a queer right now.
I have one in here.
You have one?
Henry, could I ask you about one other sentence that I thought you wanted to take out?
I'll turn on this side.
Okay.
You remember we start here, don't we?
Now, we could take this out, too, if you want.
If you wanna, that's the only other thing.
You see, we've taken this sentence off.
That's fine.
But you see what I mean?
This sentence here.
It's on here to here.
You know, what I almost think.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Maybe that one, then.
The second one.
I hope.
Yeah.
Well, no.
No, I think the first one is good.
Maybe that one.
Yeah, that one.
Yeah.
That one.
All right.
All right.
But, uh, you see, that's huge.
I'll read the Congress in May.
People here, girls.
I said, I gave him a very good time.
And he said, I tell you, I had no idea.
So little Doug sent him into Congress in 67.
I said, I'll give you a good time.
Would you also give, you feel you've covered Stanislaus, you do, A-Bear, would there be any way you could, I guess I feel like there's one thing, just talking on the phone,
He, according to my daughter, was .
And he spoke out very strongly.
And he said, look, he says that he, I just want to say this to the members of the correction, pointed out that there are a few in Vietnam that don't want to serve.
He says when we send a new carrier out there, there's a hundred seamen volunteered to go out there.
And he said, I wish we could print some of that sometime.
And I think if you could just call Hebert, it could take you one minute, on the phone, and says, the President heard what you said, and we just want you to know that he appreciates your support during this time.
I think we've got the country with us this time, at least for a while, and now all we need is to last a week.
Mayhem said he'd never heard of Soviet Union.
He was practically in tears, and we briefed him before when he would reluctantly go along because he was very patient.
He transposed my act, and he said, in fact, the President told me, I told him what you had done, and so on, and so forth.
You did.
That goes with you.
I can do it better.
I know.
You can't do it with my presence, but you can do it with me.
And he said we were doing the right thing.
Absolutely.
He said, just make sure you go after high farm.
Everybody gets so high in that way.
But we're getting the P.O.L.
in high farms.
Now, Mr. President, we have to give them the choice of going Saturday or Sunday afternoon.
I know from PR, it would be better not to hit the Sunday papers.
My worry is that we tell them Sunday that bad weather closes and we shouldn't do it too close to my leaving.
If we hit them, the way I have it programmed is that the hour they hit them, we hit them.
We'll hand a note to both the Chinese and the Russians saying this is now not going to be done again until the meeting on the 24th.
I suppose that we're doing exactly what we have to do here.
We're taking a gamble.
On the other hand, I...
The safe thing is now to sit tight.
The seemingly safe thing.
But the seemingly safe thing also would have been Leopold again on the phone telling me, I just want you to know we can win at the South.
I said, well, I know.
I know.
They're not playing slow rhythm in the sound.
Did you tell him we were playing a...
I said, well, they're playing a big game.
Have confidence in us.
The president knows exactly what he's doing.
He said, yes, I just want you to know, though.
But he said to the fun camp, oh, do you remember when he said, we put it one with... Yeah, we did.
After it was over, he said that we didn't do it.
He said, it's good.
He said that we didn't.
I tell you, Mr. President, if they had those caches there in Cambodia, we would now have a military region free.
We'd have Saigon.
We'd be in an impossible situation.
And also, if we hadn't hit Laos, we would have had this hit last year.
If we hadn't hit Laos, we would have had this either last year or so early this year that we would have been in desperate trouble.
Plus all the tanks they lost in Laos that they wouldn't have had available, they wouldn't have been up.
The only tragedy is if Abrams hadn't screwed up Laos, we wouldn't have this one this year.
P.O.L.
We're hitting P.O.L.
in truck power.
And it's going to be a really massive effort, about 200 tactic layer and about 40 T-52s.
B-52s out there, I suppose there is a considerable danger, isn't there?
To them?
No.
What about sands?
They've got that... We haven't lost a plane to a sand since the first day.
They are... Hey, they're rusty out there.
They haven't fired those sands in a long time.
They're going to be saturated.
By the time the B-52s go in, they'll be saturated.
I see the catchments were at 13, that's right.
Well...
This would... Well...
compared to the past?
Or compared to last year?
Yes.
Well, Mr. President, I...
If you call Robert, I'll just tell him to go to the U.S.
I just thought I'd put that there.
Give me a second to call.
I mean, you can call anybody from Canada.
What do you want me to do there?
You say you're calling from Canada and on the plane out, and the President is saying, I want you to appreciate your support of something tonight.
Well, we need this Canadian for like a whole year right now.
What the heck?
Well, it gets us a different deadline for it then.
Only a deadline.
There's so little say it can.
Hello?
Oh, he spoke with Chief.
Good, I'll get him on the phone.
Well, he didn't want to testify.
That's what I meant.
I don't want him to testify because he'll be too soft, because he just doesn't give a convincing.
Yeah, but let's give him the excuse of getting the hell out.
Albert Stein, he called me and told me to find everybody.
Who?
Albert Stein.
Oh, he's going to tell you to quit bombing.
Yeah.
Take Tuff, Henry.
Oh.
Drag it in.
You got more of this here.
And I said, well, congratulations, you have proved what I've said on that.

Also recorded on April 13, 1972

  • 708-003 4:28 PM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Stephen Hess, Elena (Shayne) Hess, Charles P. Hess, Kenneth R. Cole, Jr., Stephen B. Bull, and White House photographer met in the Oval Office of the White House from 4:28 pm to 4:31 pm.
  • 708-004 4:31 PM · 19 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at 4:31 pm.
  • 708-005 4:31 PM · 26 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House at 4:31 pm.
  • 708-006 4:31 PM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Frank DeMarco, Jr., and John W. Dean, III met in the Oval Office of the White House from 4:31 pm to 4:34 pm.
  • 708-007 4:34 PM · 1 min — President Richard M. Nixon met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 4:34 pm and 4:37 pm.
  • 708-008 4:34 PM · 24 sec — President Richard M. Nixon met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 4:34 pm and 4:37 pm.
  • 022-123 4:38 PM · 9 sec — Henry A. Kissinger and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 4:38 pm and 4:46 pm.
  • 022-124 4:38 PM · 11 sec — Henry A. Kissinger and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 4:38 pm and 4:46 pm.

All 22 conversations from April 13, 1972 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 708-009, April 13, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/708-009 (accessed November 2, 2026).