Nixon, Hope & Ziegler on Vietnam War and North Vietnamese Offensive

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Let me get a key.

I think you will find... Do you want anything?

I don't know.

Let me tell you about this situation in a nutshell.

You've often heard in Vietnam, and you've been there many times over the last seven, six, seven years, that this is the enemy's last hop.

This is.

This is all they've got.

Fifteen of their 16 divisions in South Vietnam.

If, for example, we were still there and could land even a mini Inchon landing kind of a thing, you could go fall right into hell.

It's bare.

Now, point two.

Oh, too bad.

Anyway, the second point is that they have thrown everything in, and what they were guessing, and their calculation, we found, we had good intelligence on it, was that they thought that if they threw everything in, that I would not react.

And then the South Vietnamese would cave.

Well, they were wrong both of those particular propositions, because in the first instance, the South Vietnamese stood up well.

They didn't figure that instead of just keeping sergeants at 300 a day, which is what we've been having for the last few months, we've de-escalated a lot.

But I have ordered out there an armed force.

It's a health force.

We've got six carriers there now.

We've got about 35 destroyers, and we've got four cruisers shelling it in.

We've doubled.

every day.

And they are hitting the battle front every time they shake their heads up.

But you can see what that does for South Vietnamese morale.

This strike on Hanoi and Haiphong was necessary due to the fact that after they had violated the DMZ and invaded, you see now there isn't, they used to say it was civil war.

We are going to continue to bomb military targets in North Vietnam until they quit invading South Vietnam, until they quit killing Americans.

They're not killing any Americans.

You can still say that.

And South Vietnamese in South Vietnam.

Now, as far as the fighting is concerned, it's all being done in South Vietnam.

We are, our participation is solely in terms of air and sea power.

But when you say the immunization hasn't worked, I'm sure it has.

This is a proof of it.

It's only half of the tactical air stories are being flown by the South American peace themselves.

One half.

And that's quite an achievement.

So it shows you that this country, as a result of our long suffering,

to defend itself without our own.

With that, we have stayed, of course.

But now we come back to why bomb the Hanoi-Haito complex.

If, after such a massive invasion, we just tit for tat, it gets no message.

So what we are, in effect, saying is, look here, if you're going to play this kind of a game, we, then, are going to hit you.

And more is to come.

There's another reason, too.

We want the Russians to know this.

Now, do you well realize this is coming as it does after the Chinese summit and coming as it does before the Russian summit?

Many observers say, well, do you actually want to risk the Chinese summit?

All hope of that in the Russian summit.

The answer is, of course.

But the greater risk, the greater risk is to have a president of the United States go to Russia, hat in hand,

Oh, and losing to South Vietnam, to North Vietnam, supported by the Russians.

This is five years late.

That's right.

Five years late.

That's right.

How could you not?

That's right.

It's like taking and letting a guy, if you know a guy next door that has a gun, and you let that fella keep bringing ammunition in to fire at your house.

You know, it's stupid.

And this has been the story.

You know, one time we had a talk, and you asked me what I thought about it, two years ago, last October.

And I said, what Mr. Eisenhower said, you know, I asked him after one of the trips about five years ago, or four years ago, I said, if you were president, what would you do in the backyard of his house at Palm Desert?

And he said, I would invade North Vietnam and not be against you.

Well, if you don't give them a hard stroke, we can blame you.

They must think we're a victory.

You see, what we have done now, Bob, is that we have put it to them.

And they know it.

But they also, because of the naval strength we have there, that we could put more to them.

Because, you see, we now have a potential blockade there.

Yeah.

We see.

We've got it all there in place, Bob.

But what we're doing is now see how they react.

curiously enough, don't be surprised if they react.

Well, they'll come in any time, but they might react.

And Mark, it's only a jury, right?

You don't know?

lose Vietnam.

We can't lose 50,000 Americans and lose this war, sir.

And this is where our democratic critics are just dead wrong.

And what about the future if you have a future?

You have no future.

Nobody can beat you.

What about Southeast Asia?

Nobody.

What about the world?

What about the Mideast?

The world.

You're Jewish, Frank.

You see all those people.

Let me tell you.

If a Russian-supported invasion of South Vietnam by a communist North Vietnam succeeds against the United States,

What the hell do you think the Russians are going to do in the Mideast?

They will arm those missiles over there and man them with Russians in the UAR.

And Israel is finished.

The Jews have better understand that.

And what will they do?

All over the world, you see, the Russians will then get an enormous...

If they figure they can get away with this, they'll push us again.

But if you stop them, they'll back down.

That's what we're doing.

We're playing...

Let me put it this way, where we play each other.

I would say, in the guise, in the terms of poker, the way you might put it to you is this.

I was a pretty fair poker player.

Everybody's got a different style.

And to be a good poker player, you sometimes have to bluff him, sometimes.

But there was one characteristic of my poker playing that I recall now that most of you know.

I can hardly remember a time

that I was called, that I didn't have the cards.

In other words, we've got the cards now.

And if they call us, and if these bastards continue to go down there, and if they do not come to the conference table and really negotiate about everything, including prisoners, we're going to continue to bomb the hell out of them until we get them.

And I don't know what happens.

People say, well, you lose the election if you don't open the case next week.

might win an election and lose the country.

And you've got to win that way personally, too.

That's right.

I think so.

I don't know.

Who knows?

You can't.

If these guys start to sell you out, which you read every day now, you know.

God, I've never read such a piece about the Russian embassy.

I am surprised that the American Legion or some patriotic group doesn't go over there and kill those guys.

Did you read about that?

With

Give the North Vietnam more missiles so they can shoot down U.S. airplanes.

How do you like that?

Well, why didn't our people react to that?

Not here, no.

They should have.

I mean, I'd go over and have some of the boys work over some of those things.

They didn't like what I had.

Did you?

Did you also know that?

I haven't talked to Trump directly, but I think I would.

I didn't know that.

Was it in the paper this morning or something?

Yeah, well, it really is.

I mean, they can say anything they want, but when they stand in Washington and say to a Russian embassy, give no Vietnam missiles so they can shoot down our guys, something's got to happen there, huh?

Yeah.

Well, you know, you have to realize, too, Bob, the press, you know, we have to realize about 90% of the time.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

I guess maybe it's better to ignore them first.

Well, let me tell you, they're nuts anyway, aren't they?

They know what they're doing.

They just want us to lose.

Yeah, what do you want Agnew to say about that?

Agnew tomorrow is going to make a speech to the editors, and he's going to read it.

I am going to call him when I get back to the hotel, because I want to tell him this.

He should say something about this, you know?

Call him?

This will point at him.

Because Agnew is fine with it.

I wanted to bring it to him, and I said, oh shit.

I'm a doctor, you know, and I wanted to bring it back.

And I left it in my other coat.

I was going to just put it in the envelope and leave it at the door of the sheriff's apartment, you know, and say, give this to the vice president for me.

What a guy.

But I left it outside of the coat.

Isn't that great?

Well, listen, call in and tell him that.

You know, we'll be saying a little more next week, I think.

It's probably the right time, particularly as we see how the fight is evolving.

But if you, I told Higgins recently,

What happened?

You see, you remember there was a lieutenant colonel who was trained under Hay, worked under, and when a couple of young recruits, you know, didn't want to go out on some mission, these lousy son of a bitch reporters that were there, and this lieutenant colonel said, you pressed that.

I said, wait, let's find out what the facts are.

You know what I found?

He's the commander, according to General Abrams, of the best battalion, ours in Vietnam.

Second, this was a beautifully trained outfit and so forth.

They're all recruits.

None of them had seen any action before.

But members of the American press went to him and told him and said, look, kids, don't you realize that they're not sending helicopters because the South Vietnamese are going to use them?

and they're going to send you through a minefield on this thing.

You shouldn't take this.

They did that.

Abrams tried to get them recalled, of course, and we didn't do it.

And I am calling the guy back, and we're going to give him a medal right here in this room, a commendation for calling in Christ's baptism.

Let me press it on the cover.

Do you understand?

You're not going to post that in there, would you?

Not for his language, but basically for being a courageous man, training his people.

And he then talked to the kids and calmed them down.

He said, well, that's a goddamn lie.

He says, it's not true.

It's so amazing.

But to think that the American press were out there, in order to get a story, lying to these kids.

It was a horrible thing.

What do you think of it?

They should have their damn press

No, they're too much.

You know, when I was, a couple of years ago, after we did the show here, before we left, you remember we had the rehearsal here?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I went to Lai Cade.

It was our first day to Vietnam.

Lai Cade.

And I said, I just, I had a couple jokes about being here.

I said, and the president has a plan to end this war.

And a couple of kids, two or three went, boo, which they do if you say second lieutenant or anything, you know?

You know?

Boo, boo, like that.

Now, I have heard up until three days ago that they booed me at YK.

15,000 kids there, the greatest audience you ever heard.

Three kids went boo, and a newspaper guy jumped on and said, oh, they booed Bob Hope at YK.

You know what I mean?

— 2 min 8 s with no transcribed speech —

I'm doing a joke tonight about Anderson, you know.

He's the subject of the day, and I said, I don't want to criticize the way he gets his news, you know.

I said, there's a lot of ways to get the news, but putting on a blonde wig and a miniskirt and sitting on Kissinger's lap.

Well, anyway, it's a pleasure to go see you.

And Ollie will make up a little book for you.

I'll be there.

I'll be there in July.

And I will have one game.

All right.

Where will it play?

July, George.

We have your locker at Lakeside, you know.

Okay.

All right.

I'll come out in July.

I have one game to go.

That'd be marvelous.

See you, Mike.

Mike there, Duke Pat, and all the family.

Whatever you hear about being gone.

You don't worry.

Wonderful scene.

Nixon, Hope & Ziegler on Vietnam War and North Vietnamese Offensive

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NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on April 20, 1972

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Nixon, Hope & Ziegler on Vietnam War and North Vietnamese Offensive

AI Summary

Audio

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on April 20, 1972

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Cite this conversation