Nixon, Kissinger & Haldeman on Vietnam War and Media Relations

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I have called the committee for a minute to discuss the problem of putting out

which I think maybe we want to do.

Thank you.

This is from just at the end.

As for where we stand now, I've directed a summary and says, well, I'll read you two paragraphs.

As in all complex situations, there has been a mixture of the heroic and not so heroic.

But on the whole, the heroic performances stand out as the trademark of this battle to the death.

Governmental leaders and leaders of the armed forces have provided sound and timely guidance, shifted their resources carefully, and employed the governmental agencies

The Vietnamese Air Force has flown hard and well, and the Vietnamese Navy has continued to protect the coastal areas effectively.

Some of the most heroic actions of this war have been those of the people and their militia fighting for their homes and families.

Different from any other time in this war, this is a battle between the defenders of South Vietnam and the invaders of the North.

As for where we stand now, in 11 of the 44 provinces, important fighting has gone on and continued.

as the government and the population continue to function in the Norway with a quiet confidence that their government and armed forces have the strength and will to endure.

The South Vietnamese government, its armed forces, and its people are holding together.

We can anticipate more heavy fighting and additional hardships for the people of South Vietnam in the coming week.

The leaders in Hanoi are staking everything on a quick military victory.

The fabric of what the South Vietnamese have built here with our assistance has survived a severe test.

.2, I mean, you can read the press on that.

Second, I would give just only that portion of the new Scallion.

And I haven't put it out here, so it's important to make it present.

What do you think?

In other words, we've got a lot of .

Well, I must say, honestly, that I think we are not in bad shape publicly.

I agree.

I mean, about the way that we are.

Obviously we are not, but in the press we are.

I'm going to find a way they can get it out, sure.

OK. OK, OK. Now, to be brief, I've got to raise that agreement with you as well.

Zahler and McGregor both want advanced obviously speech.

I have rejected it.

The reason I have is that

I want to give them that chance.

I want them to have to hear the man.

You agree with that proposition?

Okay, so we should not give out the copies to the press in advance of this speech.

Now, the other possibility is to take out, I have in mind this, to take out the meeting.

I have before me a report from Jerry C. Jenner.

He gives a call.

and six, the first paragraph and six.

In other words, the decisions, in other words, writing the story, the story being the news, and say, all right, here's the guts of it.

And the president, of course, is still working on the other part.

When would he give it up?

He'd give it something in advance to provide the news.

Kind of.

I just wonder how much attention it then caused to the other

President will say tonight, this, this, and this, and we'll have a copy of the speech at 10 o'clock.

One other possibility is to do it not at 8.

What we've done in the past, occasionally on briefing, is to give it out at 9.30, or let's say 45 minutes before the speech.

Or maybe 9.

Or 9.

Then I breathe for 20 minutes.

We don't care whether they hear it.

Give them the goddamn speech.

But my point is, I just don't like running all over the...

If I'm going to do any briefing, Mr. President, I think the TV people are more important, even than the press.

We've done it three times now, and they've always literally given what we told them to do, because if we don't give them enough time, they are then almost forced to...

He lied all the time.

I agree.

But the point here is, this is a story that could be written several ways.

And given the opportunity to write it the way they'd like

I can say you people know how interested we have been in negotiations.

We've always said that we wouldn't go ahead with productive talks.

I won't talk about this.

I could all but say what I have in mind for the leaders.

They won't be on afterwards because they're holding the start of basketball.

People won't get mad if they're planning to watch the basketball game.

They're going to say that the start of the basketball game is being delayed.

I think they'll certainly be on from 10.20 to 10.30.

ABC will not.

But anyway, yes, it's OK.

already.

Well, Henry's going to read, though.

He will be repressing that.

Yeah.

And then I should see the TV people say the age and the press.

The 4, 5, and 6 says it so well that it's a... We've got the rhetoric.

We've got the substance.

Here's the key section, 4, 5, and 6.

You know, it says... And I decided to be in the relations group, so... Second, you're ready for a return, but we're going to need a bomb.

Yeah, but if it failed, if they figured it would fail, they wouldn't do it.

But you can say it publicly, and we will back you up, and we will make your trip look good.

Over in my closet, there are, you remember, the blue suits, the very light color ones.

There are two of them.

One is rather bluish.

The other is sort of a light gray.

And the other has sort of a speck.

Those three suits.

So that Mr. Carruthers can determine which of the three he prefers.

And also Kai.

Kai, he prefers to pick two or three.

Yes, sir.

Just getting those three to choose from.

Yes, sir.

And if he thinks none of them are all right, then he can look in and make an order.

And although I don't think that any of the others will do.

OK.

Yes, ma'am.

You work all the time.

Yes, ma'am.

Fair enough.

Let me go back then.

I think we can get back to four, five, and six and meet with our staff.

I think that gives me a try-out at the briefing.

Because once when I briefed you, I did not do well with the staff.

And then it helped me so much that I did it.

It helped me give one of the best briefings I gave.

I think it's good for him to do this.

They'll try to get it to his Moscow thing, and he can say, well, Radio Moscow had said this, and it was too funny.

He can pull that attention.

I can say it.

These reports are diplomatic sources.

I'm not going to comment upon them.

They can blow your eyes.

That's the deal.

They're building a very nice system.

So that one doesn't know what to do with the Senate because they figured something is up.

I really think, Mr. President, it couldn't be done through the prison because the prison says these guys are tough and determined.

And this fellow said, well, he's taken in by the Americans.

In fact, when I came into my first meeting with President, he said,

Jokingly, maybe the film should sit on your side of the table.

He's an American sketch.

And they now know they didn't mean it.

Those reports are going to come through on May 2nd.

And this was put out after you said the first order of business is ending the invasion.

I've incidentally cut off these website drilling just in case a ceasefire also comes.

And they all say now that if we get a ceasefire without them having

That could happen.

But it would go like all these other things.

If they don't get it by this weekend, over this weekend, I would say every succeeding wave has less seeds than the pre-seeding one.

The news reports are right, and we're getting more and more.

There's nothing left in that log.

The town itself, if we had lost it four weeks ago or three weeks ago, we could have ridden it off.

It's three miles from the Cambodian border.

It's a sign of their weakness that it's become a symbol at all.

I don't think they're going to get out of luck anymore.

But you may be probably going to come to a public house on June.

before this attack started, I said if there is an attack, we'll probably lose Khantoum.

Everybody has always said we lose Khantoum.

It's, besides, it's mostly Montagnard.

We can even afford to lose Flay Coupe, Mr. President, because if they gain nothing else, those we can gain back.

Because that's where they're way exposed.

It's like Laos.

There's nothing against it.

every morning

The black air had gutted.

They had to throttle it right north of Khantung.

Now, there are 1,500 South Vietnamese that are still coming through the lines.

They wanted to get them 24 more hours before they start trooding everything up that moves there.

But they are stopped at a river.

We've blown up the bridge.

The reason that I really don't want to put comments to the speech on is that we cannot get into the business of heading around this White House.

The numbers of people trying to get

I've made is that I have not allowed that before.

And basically, that's what these guys really want to get into.

And I understand that.

I remember I was eager, you know, to say the president was making a horrible mistake.

And I'm willing to make the same mistake.

Oh, my God, I can't get this subpoenaed.

I've got a call.

Is there anything?

I'm sure they hit some of them.

Oh, those are explosions.

So we are, you know, well, Mr. President, he had no strategy.

He would send maybe 50 planes.

He never found them anywhere near the dock, near the...

They didn't have to fight them.

They didn't have to keep supplies going.

They could wait.

They could delay.

They could avoid combat.

Now they're in a situation where they have 11 divisions in the south, and there's just no way of avoiding.

In this speech, Mr. President, there's one change we didn't make.

You said the people who will suffer

North Vietnam, so we wanted to stay with their own country.

But otherwise, every chance you and I

He doesn't understand it's precisely the personal qualities.

If you hadn't been personal in your November 3rd speech, if you had given the speech I drafted for you, it would have fallen flat.

of our morality and the education of our leadership.

I think that's not bad.

And it would take for the mighty to pray upon the weak over a thousand damn good lines.

It would be to deny peace the chance peace deserves to have.

It is a damn good speech, Mr. President.

I think it's a beautiful ending.

I hope you won't change much in this end.

Why not, don't you?

I've got to go over to Congress.

But you'd want to do that.

But I think this is an eloquent speech.

It's a simple speech.

And it's true, and it's a powerful document.

And what we've done in the last week positions it beautifully, because neither the doves nor the oaks can attack it.

One thing you will run into, incidentally, in your briefings, is how this is disappointing, nothing new.

And I believe later in the Sons of Ages,

trying that you all call this a lot of blood and invasion.

I wish you'd make that on this afternoon.

I think you ought to be quite tough on some of those things.

Oh, I'll be nasty.

And you see, we can keep this thing going.

We have given the Navy, Mr. President, I think you authorized it,

There is a river mouth about 20 miles north of Conway.

It's north of the 20th Paralympic.

Anything up there?

Just the name.

It's not the airport.

To go up there so that that is, then we will have blockaded everything except Hyphal.

And what are they going to do?

Shoot out the work?

Exactly.

We've knocked out a lot of the torpedo boats, and that naval gunfire is really hurting them.

In the next week, 16 more ships are going to come up the stage.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, they are hurting.

The President is calling back to the talk, Mr. President.

I mean, what the hell are we giving up?

We are bombing them.

Mr.

I suppose they might say after we talk that we won't talk because the President said the Russians needed a bomb, and we told them that we don't talk anymore.

Mr. That's right.

And then we will bomb them.

The President.

Mr. President, they won't.

The Russians won't let them say that.

Mr. You think the Russians say that when they talk to them?

The President.

Maybe not, but the Russians, on the procedural side, the Russians are really

He thought he was doing one of his minor league ploys.

He no doubt thought that any weakening of yours would be an advantage.

What he didn't realize is, I don't believe he realized that the North Vietnamese would go all out.

Nor how you would respond.

I'm sure he wanted to weaken you.

This is a tough customer.

And they've confirmed that we discussed Vietnam.

They said a good part of the subject concerned other matters they had to say.

Of course, they did.

But this is going to take a while.

I talked to Morer about the submarine offer because we want the treats on our side.

He's so enthusiastic, he couldn't believe it.

So that's something that gets our hog.

Paul Smith won't say that.

Rajesh can say that only because he literally doesn't know the difference between an ABM and an SLBM.

All Smith had was a vague reference.

On the ABM, he had about 80% of what I have.

On the SLBM, he had nothing.

And on the duration, I didn't even tell you that.

They gave us five years.

They had offered us three.

And that we also got.

But that's something we can conceivably hold for the summer.

But I think to have a summer in Solzheim ceremony is worth more to you.

Great.

And that you can have.

They have a beautiful hall.

They showed me where they want to do it.

Great.

And the first

It's a beautiful place.

It is.

And the place where they're giving the state dinner is magnificent.

Have you ever been in the Kremlin?

Yeah, I've never.

Do you remember the Jewish Hall?

I forgot.

We had a lunch there or something.

It's a magnificent hall.

And then the plenary sessions they have, and there's all of Catherine the Great, which is also magnificent.

And then, as I told you, they've closed off the whole Kremlin while you're there.

They've set up a little winter garden with a lot of plants.

such a huge place.

We've just got to save the roaches on Vietnam.

That's about the easiest thing to do.

That's what I'll tell you.

I think we still have a huge opportunity in our organization.

There is no way

In May of the election, there was a summit coming up.

No, like a large post-editorialist one, I thought that this is Nixon's war, that after all he's made reports and so forth, that it's clear that the anthonyms, the disclosures, which the coaches disclosed, that were shown, that Nixon was troubled before,

I think it is an outer engine.

And I think we're going to try to get back to it.

Do you agree with that or not?

Yes.

In the use of firepower, it is very good.

And we are now sending two most water towers.

And I've been told tomorrow, today, if you want to open another day, I bet it's in Taiwan.

Open another day, I bet you'll get more plants out.

Don't tell us the dangerous lesson.

We don't accept it.

Don't not have a loss.

Oh, we have conducted a large tragedy

I mean, they just didn't get the real job.

We wouldn't have this if they didn't get the job.

We still don't know about the events of this year, if they had violated the .

Let's face it, this is an entire new situation now.

They're just totaled.

So we can still work through it.

Because in the back five generations, they might have went out and might have had a speech where I said that, well, the purpose of law is to avoid .

As a matter of fact, it would have.

But this is a different kind of .

No, I don't think you could.

I agree.

Good luck.

Nixon, Kissinger & Haldeman on Vietnam War and Media Relations

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on April 26, 1972

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