On May 1, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, William P. Rogers, Henry A. Kissinger, Ronald L. Ziegler, Stephen B. Bull, Alexander M. Haig, Jr., and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 4:11 pm and 5:29 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 716-002 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
of the Soviet intentions.
You know, their advice on how much we will pay attention to it remains to be seen, but I think it's a hell of a lot more common to them to get those people to talk to them, rather than to tell them as much on our side.
And you could say that you will report confidante and wrong as to what the situation is, that the President would be very interested and you would be very interested in guidance as to how we should handle the Russians at this point, what we should do.
about them, most of them know them, and these are very important talks, and so forth.
It's sort of that, so that's about the general tone that I, that I, that I tried to... Mr. Benkert, I'd like to take this word about the conversation, but I think that if you could work out a paper that you can give Jerry, that you're just a young man.
that was based on your paper.
I don't like to brush that paper.
I think it'll .
In other words, if you can stay out of position and have a piece of paper, and then when we're questioned about it, we can say that .
I just think if we could do that, some of those things in there will be .
Well, his instructions, I think, will be in the equivalent of that, which you can have in the hand of a paper.
Yeah.
So this is the... Yeah.
All right.
And then you can negotiate with them.
I've got a report on that now.
Yeah.
On this thing, too, I would take every opportunity to level a heart in Vietnam.
I did the Vietnam issue extremely hard.
What's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your,
you'll get word to you my my inclination my my uh who's going to guess my giving is very substantial very substantial we go
But of course, it won't be older.
It's not going to be longer than $48.
But it'll be big.
It'll be the biggest we've had.
It's 100 minimum B-52s.
And of course, all the
And that's, of course, about 400 tankers.
So it'll be by far the biggest strike on the Hanoi-Hai Pong area.
It will be limited in military targets, of course.
And to the extent we can, it will hit some good things, like
And the event there is something really done on this occasion.
And the energy is very positive.
Is that right?
You know, if they come with a spectacular proposal, even with the editing and the whole thing, it's no surprise.
that upon his return it should be announced that it has been held.
I don't think we should announce it in advance, because then all the press will be there and want comments by the two.
So if you could meet without having to go out and face television and .
But I think, to me, upon return, we've not so had in mind.
And I think you should table a bill first.
at 10 o'clock, but wait until he'll be there.
He's going to be here at the same time you are.
Yeah, but he'll be in England.
Well, probably not.
He'll be in England.
England.
So I'll back-channel him tomorrow night.
All right.
And so we will announce the meeting.
And I think the real question I want to be faced with is the summit.
Yeah, of course.
They want to do the opening.
Well, I wanted to know what we think the chances are for the summit meeting.
And the president said that it was all right for me to say that the Boston summit meeting might be canceled, and he was prepared for that.
But we don't think so.
We don't think so.
I play it in terms that the plans for the summit are going on on schedule.
That nothing we have done so far has affected it detrimentally enough, and that is totally true.
As a matter of fact, it's affected it positively.
But on the other hand, that, uh, that, uh,
We cannot anticipate what the Soviet reaction will be in the event that the North Vietnamese continue their offensive.
And we react, and we will react, with strong attacks on the North.
And if strong attacks on the North bring reaction to the Soviet, then it will happen that way.
It is our judgment, I might say.
It is my judgment.
And you can say that you've been interviewed, but I say that it's my judgment that if some of them go forward,
But I don't want the Europeans to get the feeling, have any feeling more than the American people have the feeling, that we will pay any price in order to sit down with the Russians.
And I will say also that if the situation in Vietnam has seriously deteriorated with no – nothing that – by the time we get closer to the summit, there isn't going to be any – we aren't going to go to the summit there with
a lot of us in Vietnam.
I don't think that's going to happen.
From all the, did we get Abrams' report today?
I didn't, but he, of course, he probably has.
I think it would be best for the community to stick with a position that talks to you and you feel that something will go ahead.
Right.
There's always a possibility, but you feel that it will go ahead on schedule.
Well, I think so.
What do you think?
I think, yes, of course, the advance of various people, certainly with the British, the promise
Yeah, that we expect it to go forward.
And I think you might say this.
We believe, and we think the Soviet also believes, based on things that have happened at this point, that there are major concerns.
the Vietnam issue, and that the Vietnam should not be an issue that should stop the summit.
But then on the other hand, as far as we're concerned,
With Brock, you can't talk to her as frankly as you can with Keith, actually.
Well, as for the salt box, I thought in the salt box I would give him sort of general half, but say that Jerry will come to give him any specifics after the discussions he's had in Dallas City, because we don't want to get into this.
And I was saying, when you were out there in the prison,
I think it would be worthwhile to think about having a paper from President Nixon, which we can work from, so that if we do agree, I agree that if we can get a
as long as we don't have to sacrifice things.
We've got his paper to work on so that we can say, when the fight concluded, that we didn't operate from Gresham's paper, we operated from ours.
We either have Jerry do it or have the President send a back-channel land message and then have Jerry negotiate it so we can do it from his paper rather than Gresham's.
Well, I think what we should do is, we have to let the...
I've kept them from tabling this, because I thought we should have...
They were all set to table that in her chamber.
I said, give us a chance to look at this thing.
And I don't think there's any way we can keep them from tabling it.
But we don't have to accept that particular framework, although it incorporates, as was said at that meeting, many ideas we proposed.
The only addition to what we've already proposed is that in addition to the G and H class submarines, they are suggesting that they could trade in 209 old missiles for submarine missiles.
And there, you can argue that both ways.
You can say those missiles reduce the edge.
They have land-based missiles in return for submarine missiles.
And what about proposition ?
What we've given him is different in the mission.
That's different from what they've proposed to us.
Well, I gave him a letter.
We always had it before.
How would that be?
Well, we can lie in the letter.
I'll prepare a letter, which I've done before, but I'll say after our meeting that these are the considerations that we should have in mind.
Then he has that for the record.
Then we can say we negotiated the best thing we could get.
It's a curious proposition.
We don't have
We have to remember the Russians are moving forward like crazy on submarines and all that stuff.
And so we're, and with all of these things, we have one hell of a time to get them.
So I think, I don't know, it would accomplish something to get them to slow down.
And yet in terms of selling them to the country,
I guess all we can talk about are MERS.
I think we can sell them.
The MERS thing, I think, is a powerful thing to do.
Don't you agree?
Yeah.
It is a fact, which isn't our fault, that every missile we are now working with was designed in the Eisenhower.
That's right.
That we've waited eight years of matinee matters for 10 years.
We haven't.
We are in a disadvantage.
That's it.
And when you see this damn thing, that new missile they tested, I don't know whether you... Do you think it's a real one?
Yeah.
I thought you said they weren't sure.
Well, they popped something out of the hole, which they think is...
applying a submarine launch principle to land-based missiles, that is, just get it out of the ground and then give it an additional thrust.
That way they can double the payload of the SS9.
And they could give it as many as, well, five megaton warheads.
And it's really a scary thing.
I think on the summit, too, you can actually emphasize it.
Oh.
I think you can also say that we would assume that European security will be discussed, but naturally we're going to take our same position on that.
And the MPFR, I suppose, will raise that.
In the Middle East, that's pretty much the same thing.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, we'll wire, we'll wire you, uh, we'll wire you, uh, I mean, obviously, if you get your reports in Vietnam, you're probably going to be in a good time, probably about a week, about a week, excuse me, but I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't,
The president had another confidential exchange with Mr. Gresham.
His purpose was to see whether the last remaining.
Not their purpose, not the purpose of these exchanges.
The purpose of these exchanges was to see whether the last remaining.
discussions with Ambassador Smith and his other senior advisors, his other senior.
And the guy that I had a discussion with, Ambassador Smith, I put the names in.
The president has concluded.
It was one of the more extraordinary events I've attended.
decent paper like it, but that's gobbledygook to say it.
What difference does it make?
The problem is that President has accepted your propositions, every point in that President's paper we gave him.
We're cutting it down from 85 to 62 and we're giving up nothing in return.
We can't get another goddamn submarine.
So then, I'll guarantee you one thing.
By Friday of this week, if you don't do this, you're going to get stories out of Helsinki that they broke the law.
that, uh,
I wouldn't use the word breakthrough.
No, but I don't see that we're on the pressure as concluded that the possibilities for agreement are.
Very good.
That the, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, that, uh,
have greatly improved yeah yeah that is that the uh that the possibilities of reaching an agreement have substantially improved and that both sides should not press forward to conclusion
I don't like that last sentence.
Maybe you can't say that.
It can't deal with the conversations we've had here.
Maybe this is enough.
I don't know how to... Can I hear what... Yeah, just try to...
His purpose was to see whether the last remaining issues in these negotiations could be satisfactorily resolved so that an agreement covering both defense and offense could be concluded at an early date.
On the basis of these confidential exchanges and after discussion with Ambassador Smith, the President has concluded that the possibilities of reaching an agreement have substantially improved.
The President is sending Ambassador Smith back to Helsinki today with instructions which, together with the instructions he is assured the Soviet negotiator has received,
Well, what Henry is trying to do here, Ron, is simply to one-up him a little before Smith announces that he's made a breakthrough.
He said, maybe, how would you like to conclude it, Ron?
I mean, how do you want to conclude it?
I must say, the three guys that I stood up, and I know people at Laird, and I appreciate Laird more, and Helms.
Helms came to my office, and he said, how does the president stand it?
It was an extraordinary performance.
You remember how Smith has been tormenting us to cut everything back.
Now suddenly he's the defender of the national interest.
Well, Rogers is the one that said he had to be inclusive.
That's all the end of her.
I said, we all have to report.
Then I said, well, I said, well, do you want to leave it out?
He says, oh, no, I don't want to leave it out.
I said, well, then what do you want to do?
So he says, well, I just don't want to agree to fashion a proposal.
Well, we're not agreeing to his proposals.
I understand.
Just one.
Could I make this a gesture?
Yeah.
Why don't we stay on the basis of these confidential exchanges and leave out this discussion?
Yeah, on the basis of these confidential exchanges, that's much better.
Leave out after discussions with et cetera.
And then he can say after discussions with Smith.
Yeah, no, no.
Listen to that son of a bitch.
I don't want to get in.
I've got to know a way to handle him.
No, no, no, no.
No, Lee Smith and the names are on the basis of these confidential exchanges.
The President has concluded that we are on the, that the possibilities of reaching agreement have substantially improved and that both sides should now press forward.
Yes, after two minutes, after discussions with Ambassador Smith and all the others, he has today issued instructions or something.
No, after discussions, after the discussions that occurred today, after the discussions with Ambassador Smith and all the others, he has sent Ambassador Smith back with new instructions.
which he believes can produce agreement in the near future.
Does that sound clear?
Can produce agreement in the near future.
Is that right?
That the only big danger is that it doesn't produce agreement in the near future.
With new instructions?
Can produce such an agreement.
Yeah, with new instructions, which he believes...
Why not say, which together with the instructions, he's confident that Soviet negotiations...
It was new instructions, which together with the instructions, which he... which he understood, which he's confident...
Would you have reason to believe what we say?
You like that, right?
Right.
The Soviet will receive from Mr. Brezhnev.
Why don't we say that?
We'll receive from Mr. Brezhnev.
Mr. Brezhnev.
Then you don't want to say can produce agreement in the near future.
can produce such an agreement, can produce a satisfactory agreement.
Well, they're going to get into a press in advance of us.
Oh, you don't ask for this?
Yeah, yeah.
On this, I think we'd have to say this is highly sensitive negotiations.
Highly sensitive, and I can't get any of these
I think it will lead to an agreement by the summit.
I'm just worried that if you say this and then the summit gets canceled for whatever reason, then they'll say you screwed up.
That's all.
That's why I wouldn't say in the near future.
Can, can, can, can, can lead to an agreement, which is mutually acceptable to all sides.
Unless, can lead to an agreement.
Which is later, which is after, is after the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
Why don't you get ahead of him, unless you regret it.
I must say, I did good.
I seldom lose my temper or think about it.
My gifts are all right.
But when he handed the little chest, he takes it over.
He took it out of my hand, and I didn't even bother to use it.
I handed Supreme to the paper, which he had drafted, which said, one, we can't agree with all his considerations.
Supreme said, I'll try and spread it about.
His reaction was the same as yours.
He said, it's fresh, that's what he said.
He's dead.
He's dead.
He's dead.
Well, the point is, while we cannot agree with that, the lawyers, it's like writing a letter for the record or something like that.
Well, it puts you down, basically.
I didn't know what it was all about.
Now, I must admit...
Rogers, Rogers basically was pissing on the whole Brezhnev thing.
Of course.
And see, the Brezhnev thing is a bad deal.
I mean, it's as bad as he said.
Now, Mr. Brezhnev, can you imagine that Laird, Helms, and Morer would support it if it were such a bad thing?
That Laird and Morer, who have to testify about this?
Support it at the Brezhnev draft?
Yes, that's what they're supporting.
There are a few rocket ones that would be the President's proposal, not the President's proposal.
Mr. President, first of all, it is...
It is essentially...
It's one of the lowest performances I've ever seen because, first of all, we are accepting a freeze of 1,500 ICBMs against 1,000 ICBMs.
No one raised the issue there of equality.
The submarines, they have no leverage at all.
Where, where, where, where?
Supposing there is no agreement, how are we going to explain the fact that the Soviets can then build 85 to 90 submarines while we are not building one?
And I thought this was one of the most third-rate performances I've ever seen.
What are you, are you selling anything?
I was, I was sold.
What do you think of that, Pete?
Like Alice in Wonderland, he's arguing the precise opposite track that he did in the NFC meeting earlier.
Was he in a meeting earlier today?
No, two months ago, Mr. Benson.
When I was making a case against excluding, including SRBMs, because I didn't think we could get it, he was making a passionate case that it had to be included.
As big as we gave them, see, I didn't make up these figures.
I got them from his own bloody bureaucracy.
What the Christ is he up to then?
What about Rogers' point about the direction of paper reads?
Man, I read that gentleman when he said, do you give me the code, Dr. Rogers, right?
That's a bad record.
Legislative leaders need that to be wedged.
I'm telling you, it's a lot of facts.
What we've got to do is somehow get a stop on what the Soviets are doing.
We haven't affected ourselves in one way or the other.
And from the legislative support point of view, had we left SLBMs out, we would have been in the position of fighting for full war to get them advanced anti-marine missiles.
with nothing to go for.
Now our key congressional people want to see that there's a party that we've got the fun for.
And beyond that... Yeah, right.
Well, in this connection, Henry, just so that the record is clear, will you see that Al prepares, or somebody prepares a little instruction to this goddamn Smith from me, a letter from me to Smith, a message?
So that was in the record.
But Mr. President, I have a file of, it's perfectly clear who made the proposal.
You know what I meant.
You know what Rogers said.
So that's the Nixon proposal, basically.
I don't mean something he hands to them.
He says, the NISM, I guess, handles the whole thing, doesn't it?
Is that a presidential order?
Of course it's a presidential order.
Why don't I say that then?
I don't know.
We can write Jerry Smith a letter.
There's no problem about that.
All right.
But their strategy is perfectly plain, Mr. President.
They want to get it so screwed up that they can then claim when it's totally screwed up, they will come in with proposals which will make the President's proposal look soft.
I mean, look, tough in our favor.
I mean, these guys who have retreated on every single issue, who've been giving our four-pack positions to the Russians before we ever surfaced, for them,
When it happens, more or less, except our own proposal.
The reason when I cabled you from last time was because this is, in effect, our proposal.
I didn't know we were talking about the same thing when I listened to that meeting.
I couldn't believe it.
Well, but after all, I haven't positioned Laird, Mr. President.
I didn't position Helen.
I showed this paper to Mora.
I said, you study it.
You tell me whether you can live with it.
He made a study of it.
He's in favor of it.
What about Roger's point that it looks bad for us publicly to acknowledge that there frees inferiority on submarines?
It can't be where it will live with the Russians.
except that their overall number, rather than 6241, or whatever it is, the Minister has a very, very right personal meaning to say that there's not the advantage of having 6241.
We can express it in dates.
We can say submarines under construction, why isn't it safe?
Plus conversion of other submarines.
I mean, we'll never have to give the number.
So we can avoid that.
But the advantage, the fact that they give us both boats and launches is an advantage to us because if they have two kinds of boats, some with 12 missiles that are very long range and some with 16, which are like our Polaris, if we give them an upper number like 950, they can convert all their boats into 12 missiles.
missile problems, which means that their deployment is much easier for them.
If we say the absolute maximum is 62, then if they convert it into long-range missiles, they can't reach 950.
so they have a real choice to make either to take the poor missile and get a lot of them or to take the good missile and take fewer of them so expressing it in both boats and launches is into our advantage it's it's not to theirs we all have to be sure is that is that is that more and later he can be stronger so she first managed for this because they've got to sell off this nobody's going to believe this guy
Well, Smith, with Smith, Mr. President, it's a pure case of vanity.
These sons of bitches on ADM, for example, I didn't bother you.
He made a very strong point there.
He wanted agreement on ADMs alone.
I said, well, by God, they're never going to get that.
These sons of bitches would have done that.
On ADMs.
On ADMs.
he's put a real lawyer's trick on you i have been bothering you with this 150 kilometers of radius in effect combines two soviet missile sites into one so we are even getting a slight disadvantage on that that one he sneaked by you by defining the radius i didn't hear anyone say that we are losing an additional site
uh i thought it was a really uh sickening performance earlier about keeping the slbms
We both agreed to be better off not to have him.
I didn't want him in.
I didn't want him in.
I didn't want him in for the very reason that I think that we can build him and they can't.
But now, now we've gotten the goddamn things in.
that money.
Now, the incentive is going to be for the knowledgeable ones, the people we can rely on to say, well, here, this is the problem.
If we hadn't taken this deal, we would have been down to the tune of 80-some.
versus 80-some Soviet missiles versus ours.
Now, we have to build to the limit to reduce the gap, and we haven't lost a thing, except to have a great incentive for a responsible congressman to fund them and fight like hell.
I have studied salt for 15 years, Mr. President.
I use, not salt, but arms control.
I've been against including submarines to begin with.
I've been arguing with Mora and with Zumbor.
If you're going to include submarines, this is by far the best deal you can get, because for every additional submarine you build, they have to retire an old missile.
Well, I've been going through this all week.
I thought I had been beaten down.
Alec Johnson, who is an honest guy, is totally in favor of this proposal.
Is he?
Yes.
But Smith is out of vanity.
Smith has a gall to tell you the ATM thing is a breakthrough, which is nothing, and to piss on the SLD.
That's true, but I'm on the run.
It's to our interest to control the offensive missiles.
That's why I control them, not them arms control troops.
Don't you agree?
It's not to our interest to control AVM.
It's to theirs.
Because Rogers doesn't understand this.
I don't think he's ever studied this kind of thing properly.
Well, it's very complicated.
No, but nevertheless, I don't... His flight that he was making, he doesn't like it.
I think what I...
I think the basic problem is that Smith and Rogers were going to suffice as a sacred contribution.
The salt agreement was going to be theirs.
And now they have put out that it's in your channel rather than theirs.
I think that's the basic problem.
What about the office president in terms of the overall strategy?
the reason you can survive the hard line you are taking and the Johnson didn't, which was to the general public, you've become the man of the people.
I'm very interested in that poll, that 74% are in favor of your Moscow trip and 74% more or less are in favor of bombing, which makes it important to keep those two things as long in balance as we can.
I'll believe in that.
I am the same.
I haven't read some damn news stories
the fact that Henry has been talking about ceasefire and all that sort of thing, which is solidifying.
Who do you think put that out to overstate again?
It would be hard to—I do know this, sir.
We've got stories after West Ags on ceasefire that could only have come from state.
What's the thrust of the story?
The thrust of the story is that I took a softer position than you on negotiations, which, if you read the transcript of my record, is total nonsense.
And that I admitted... What plot do you take on?
Hard or different on negotiations?
Like, we're ready to negotiate.
Like, how do we say we... What percent of the... Mr. President, there is a five-year campaign going on.
In what respect was your position softened?
All that I said was that we were prepared to negotiate, but in fact we didn't negotiate.
We were going to bomb.
Mr. President, I did not take a soft position.
I pointed out, he asked me about Lee Duck Toe.
I said, whenever he travels, he comes with something.
But the something has never been acceptable before.
What I did try to do is create an air of mystery about what might be going on, but I did not indicate any deviation.
The ceasefire ideas I have not supported in any sense whatsoever.
I want the Russians and the South Park Vietnamese to be a little different.
They're up against a very, I mean, you're right,
No one who was in a meeting with me in Russia could have the idea that I was not...
I threatened to breathe in again today.
What did you tell him?
I said the offensive must stop.
That if there's one more offensive action this week, I don't care where it happens, how it happens.
I did this because I'm sure they're going to attack Konduzin if they can't...
So I'm free to go on after the surrender?
I really think they didn't fight well.
You mean that our team, the Soviet team, did not?
Well, it was the band division, huh?
It was the band division, and the commander was a polyglot force.
He had too many odd people.
That's why I have the Marines in his own division, and some Rangers have been just put.
Well, what about the other fighting place officer?
I think he's here.
Anytime from now on.
Sorry, the intelligence.
We've moved to 3.23.
That wasn't...
This is 2.23.
We said something in the face of the confidentiality.
We said something in the face of the confidentiality.
We are going to separate the discussion to submit the senior advisors.
Yeah, that's well...
I would say the major rather than the last remaining changes, whether the major remaining changes or the last remaining changes, the same thing, whether the major remaining changes.
This time, that was all right.
Thank you, sir.
I appreciate it.
No, no, no.
Take that.
I don't know why you didn't try.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
of these non-financial exchanges.
The president has concluded that the possibilities of bringing agreement
Thank you.
God bless you.
He can't say this categorically.
proceed in this direction, which, together with the new instructions, he has been assured that he is confident that he believes what he has the reason to believe.
Well, I said that earlier.
No, he's confident.
He is confident that he is confident that he can show the ambassador
will receive the Soviet might not like from its version, from, let's say, from its covenant.
The report is in.
Mr. Laird hasn't been selling it over here yet.
And I think Jim Abrams is a little upset with the art and performance in I-Corps.
But is he ready to
and lose 300 capital centers.
That's not our concern.
It's rather their own.
What's your feeling on that?
If they get off their asses and get fighting in there in I-Corps where they have the provisions to do it, and they're halfway, they do, all they need is to hold and stabilize.
And I'm telling you, it's going to be different if they haven't got the strength to hold there.
There's a chance in the world, in my view.
Well, my philosophy has always been that they should make the enemy concentrate and then get the hell out.
It always takes him three weeks or two weeks to follow on, and it's taking him ten days to follow from Drakto to Khantoum.
I understand that they don't want to lose provincial towns, but we are losing a division in each provincial town on top of the provincial towns in this key, sir.
And I think it's a stupid strategy.
But they've already cut their own.
I don't think they could get them out anymore.
You mean the division's going to be lost in concert?
The whole damn division?
They don't have the whole 23rd Division.
That's what's in there.
But you and I, they don't go anywhere from Khantou.
Kuwait is... We're happy.
They made a mistake in turning out in the Central Islands.
It was a great mistake.
I think they should have gone into these defensive positions.
Well, it's done now.
What do we do now?
I don't think they can leave Khantoum simply because if they do, they're going to get caught on the road and be cut up.
They've got to stand there and fight.
In a way, they've got to stand and fight.
That's my question.
And again, it's the development of the targets.
And to the degree they do that successfully, to the degree your air power is effective, to the degree they fold, you can put all the airplanes in the world in there and it's not going to change the battle.
I couldn't agree more.
It was fine that they wouldn't tell it before we used it.
But all the aircraft in the world was absolutely correct unless they did.
I don't understand why they voted so quickly after they thought pretty well.
I understand that the division commander just felt emotionally and physically collapsed, lost total control.
Probably means that's the third division command.
Well, they'll call that a route again, not a route.
Well, this one happens to be one.
I know.
I know.
I understand.
I just want us to help.
We do our best not to have to call that, don't we?
They call some things that are routes that aren't.
But you saw the third division commander, didn't you?
Yes, I did.
Yes, he did.
Except he hasn't touched an American.
That's very probably.
I just thought they were doing pretty well up there in this job.
And I thought, huh?
I did.
For the last two weeks.
And they weren't where it started where it was when they said they were going for a counterattack.
They never got anywhere.
Yeah, I remember.
And they tried and it didn't work.
They weren't fighting any goddamn battle.
They were just sitting there.
That's the problem.
These little guys have got to get out and fight.
It's almost incredible what they've done in Anaheim.
A shot-up regiment and two P.F.
battalions against massive anti-attacks.
And they've held and fought.
And that's very encouraging.
They had two R.F.
battalions over near Tainan just all the way down in the
So we can do it.
In a sense, I think they're maybe overly dependent on our air.
I think it's going to do everything for them.
It doesn't have any air.
We don't have any artillery either, I understand.
No tank, no artillery, both inferior to the Russians, is that correct?
I can see how that's the problem.
Can't expect a little access to win when they're got inferior as well.
Well, and you have to remember something else.
There are at least 12 new Soviet weapon systems that have appeared in this battle.
They have never appeared in a battle before, in the war.
So there were some real surprises.
And they're two missiles that nobody's talked as bad that have appeared.
Is that right?
Yes.
What's your honest impression of these things?
They can hold or not?
I still think they can hold.
Why?
But I'm facing that decision alone.
I'm surprised I felt that the North Vietnamese can still keep going at this level of activity for this period of time.
Four weeks.
This is May 1st.
Remember we said a month ago that by May 1st, remember Henry, you said by this office you thought that they could go for four weeks and that we should have drilled by that time.
It's a crazy amount of air we're throwing at them.
They must be.
No, I think they're at the Indian food position, Mr. President.
We now know that after the Indian food, they were finished.
I don't know.
Well, the 3rd Corps is quieting down for the time being.
What we haven't seen is any tanks now in the week.
And did you miss the emergency?
No chance.
Yes, I did.
Yeah.
Well, just a few quick questions.
Yeah, sure.
Obviously, I heard that you talked to the president.
Were there enough salt?
Yes.
That's what I would say.
I would say, I guess, well, obviously, gentlemen, that was a major subject of discussion.
So I've got a question.
Well, what is new in this?
What is the newness of this?
And that will probably go back to the President's statement he made tonight in 1971 when he said that when the agreement was reached on the 8th again, then they will proceed to talk about offensive weapons.
The question is, what is the newness of this?
I think it would be best not to say anything.
I think it would be best to say that there has been a major advance and its nature will become apparent over the next two
Yeah.
Yeah.
And they'll leave like crazy in Helsinki, but whatever they leave now, we'll play back.
You know what it is.
SLPN is the real pressure.
And also the five years of the agreement, that will come out of Helsinki.
And the fact that we've now worked out the 8 a.m. thing on the basis of two national command centers, but I'm not going to discuss the details because there's still a number of things that have to be done.
Well, you can say it will lead to a broadening of the scope of .
Whether this will be signed at the summit?
Yes, all will be signed.
Well, does this, the question, does this mean that we will sign at the summit?
No, I would say that, I don't want to say that it will be, no.
I would say we, it will depend on when the agreement will be agreed to be determined upon by the progress of negotiations.
Okay, then just going back to his May statement at the end.
Yeah.
On 8 p.m., they'll press on that, and I'll just say, no, I'm not going to talk about the negotiations.
Major advance has been made, and just hang it there without giving a direct answer.
Major advance is a good word, right?
There'll be questions like how many exchanges does the President have with Mr. President?
Do you want to start over?
Yes, I'm going to.
Is there going to start over a period of months?
A period of months.
Is there going to start over a period of months?
There'll be many plans, I'll say, to move this past several weeks and be intensified.
Do you have any thoughts before we go up to what is our hour now?
What's your hand?
The adoptee.
The adoptee.
I just continue to spread outrage at the idea that this big event is a memory that started on the day that we agreed to go back to Atlanta and what we got to do with the people there.
This message was started the day we went back to the Atlanta recession.
what is happening and so forth.
Well, I have to get back to the point that I constantly made, you know, that they are going to be battles lost and battles won.
And it's the advantage still going on as we expected.
And we expect it to continue to go on.
Right.
You might want to prepare for that.
I'm sure there'll be some.
You want me to add your line?
Well, just say what happened.
We lost one.
But you've made the point all along.
Right.
You want me to pick up your line?
What's your reaction to losing one tree?
And then the answer could be, well, as Dr. Kissinger pointed out, Utterston pointed out, we played, I mean, that was lost and won.
That is a scenario.
We expect it to lose, but you have to keep in mind that only three provinces out of 44 are...
The important thing is that the Army continues to play very, very good against the most sophisticated
We are continuing to provide our maximum errancy.
We will continue to provide maximum errancy support.
All right.
And we may say we're going to do more.
We'll do what is necessary.
I just think it's just great.
First, let me say this.
Don't be apologetic.
As is always the case when they all have seats.
I think it would be best for us to say as little as possible in Vietnam, if we can possibly do it.
You've positioned it very toughly.
I think it is a mistake for us to comment on the day-to-day events.
And I wouldn't keep explaining everything.
No, I wouldn't.
In fact, I don't want to say it.
I wouldn't go into the three capitals and the red lines.
Thank you.
Or military targets.
Don't need that.
I was going to say, I think, though, that he can say, he could make the record that we, that I have said, that the President has said, that they have said, battles won, battles lost.
That's fine.
We'll get to that.
I thought they'd lose it, but the enemy really went all out.
Not only its determination, but also it's, and now it's weaponry, it's having problems.
Well, you see, they threw in 4,400 rounds into Kwan Tree yesterday.
The enemy did.
And they blew up an ammunition tank two days ago that had 20,000 rounds in there.
Now, that's pretty demoralizing for troops.
I guess when 20,000 rounds go off, there's going to be... there must be one hell of a firework.
And, uh... What is the hell have we done?
Even 4,400 rounds is quite a... is quite a concentration.
I think the Navy is proud of the fact that yesterday they fired 2,000 shells into this whole area.
So that 4,400, isn't that quite a salvo, quite an activity for us?
Very, very tough.
And that's just tough to take, for truth's sake.
We can't hit any of it at all, is that right?
We can't hit any of those guns?
That's probably why they keep going in there, getting them.
We get the statistics every day, 20, 30 guns knocked down.
Well, I know they can't do that.
I'm not going to get discouraged about the thing.
Mr. President, I think the people, what they're trying to do is panic us.
Well, they are going to panic us, that's for sure.
And I want this re-study to stay.
If you threw out that scare number, which I found was a scare number, that 200,000 would drown, I hear that's not quite true.
Well, let's look into it, Don.
Yeah.
I feel, Mr. President.
Let me say this.
We will do what is necessary.
Believe me.
If we have to level the goddamn place, we will do it.
Now, we're out there.
I mean, if they start doing that thing, the United States is going to level it up.
That's what it's going to be.
I think that the blockade thing may have to be revaluated here.
The pick card we have is Icon.
Why can't we do it?
What the hell?
Why is Icon such a pick card?
Because that's what worries us.
That's a tough decision to make.
We've been worried.
We have been warned.
I think the Russians are doing something, but these guys are maniacs.
And the Russians will just do enough to keep us off their backs, so next week they need another pop.
Next weekend.
And...
I think we have to be worrying about Russia.
We have to be careful.
Russia is up to this point.
Maybe we can agree, though, if they help at all, only help procedurally.
Is that right?
Well, I will listen to your judgment until I hear what we've got told.
We just don't know.
You've got a letter from the president today, which, as I've told you, doesn't mean a goddamn thing, just saying that they have been assured that they want a reasonable judgment.
Of course, their definition of reasonable and ours have never matched yet.
Uh, nor do I expect, in the best possible circumstances, that Lee Doctor is gonna come in with something we can accept tomorrow.
But, we will know tomorrow, if he comes in with his old boilerplate and stuff.
Uh, and the Russians haven't helped at all.
If he makes a significant step forward, we may still have to pass Hanoi on by this weekend.
Oh, sure, sure, sure.
We, we have got to get Hanoi and Haifa on another top three.
That's right.
Of that I know.
Of that I know.
Unless they settle.
I agree.
Because I'll tell you another reason we have to do it.
We've got to do it for American public.
Oh, I agree.
This is one time that we have to do it for our own side.
I agree.
but not this time if they haven't had a strike.
everything how many circuits is there they finally come up with the same clock well they'll fly and we had told them to put in the maximum number of b-52s i think it's
It's going to be more in the order of 40.
They only fly 75 a day all together.
But if they put up there about 300 to 400 tankers,
for two successive days, plus 30 to 40 D-52s for two successive days.
That must be about what Johnson was at at the time of the bombing, all the way around.
I don't.
The first one Johnson ever used was a single D-52 up there.
All right.
What else?
I don't believe that Johnson ever used several hundred planted ones up there.
But, you know, he never did any cleared each target.
I think we did more damage last time in one day than he would do in three months.
I understand the Navy moved out of the ship.
I can't take the ship to the channel.
Are they going to do anything?
Is it important who's going to get out there?
Is the Navy going to do anything?
They're going to cut the boys.
They can, but the estimate I got is from Jim Waltz, the chairman had given, he said it would take three weeks.
That their real problem is that it would take, they can do it, but it would take an awful lot of the surface fleet that they have using for gunfire support to neutralize and protect the vessel as it goes in and protect the crews as they come out.
It would take three or four days.
when they demand to do that the other thing is that uh are we still overlooking henry not not going i mean if you really want to play with it when the right is not going into the blockade we cannot react strongly
We're on the verge of collapse.
I think you ought to go to blockade because you wouldn't want to go to Moscow anyway.
I think it is basically in our interest to play this supra-strategy of hitting them as hard as we can.
at the same time as we go to Moscow.
Because when all is said and done, I think you can use Moscow to buy yourself some more domestic peace and to keep congressional resolutions off your back.
I'm doing this in an absolutely cold-blooded way.
So I'm strongly in favor of a strike this coming weekend.
I would have been in favor of a strike last weekend, but they didn't want to use any of their assets up there.
Are they all ready to go this coming weekend?
Not during the meeting.
Bullshit, let them do it.
They're ready.
They're ready.
Now, can they move it up to Thursday?
I'd rather get it off sooner.
There are very important reasons to get it off sooner.
How about Friday, Mr. President?
Right after.
I mean right after he finishes that primary session.
But the best would be if he finishes the plenary session, and then the next day we do it so that it doesn't look too much like a play.
All right.
All right.
No later than Friday.
They can do it Friday.
But depending on what they give us tomorrow, if tomorrow is insolent, then we should do it seriously.
You have to cancel the plan.
I think what you should do, let me give you the game as I see it.
I think if we get back into that way, I can tell you about the fact you're going to announce today.
You think you need to?
Yeah.
Why?
So you have another one.
But just in case, so it keeps him from putting out his version of the country.
You'll come back.
You'll announce that you had a private meeting.
And then you'll announce, in my view, that that private meeting either made some progress or that we're canceling the public meeting Thursday and the end of Thursday.
That's what I think is the best thing.
Rather than having to go through the facade of another public meeting.
See my point?
Does that make any sense or not?
I'd go to one more plenary and let Porter walk out.
That's a dramatic story.
All right.
In other words, you won't say that you're eating pickle.
You just say you're mad.
I think we ought to keep this channel alive and not keep that presidential channel.
Yeah, I know it's a presidential channel, but you say keep it alive.
No, no, we shouldn't say it.
There's no way to talk.
There's no way to talk there, believe me.
I agree with you.
But I think the way to do it...
Well, I think the way to do it would be for Porter, on Thursday, to shoot through one more harangue and say, gentlemen, nothing has happened now.
Then we can say nothing happened in the private meeting we went to Flannerist Center.
But we can consider it Wednesday to cancel it.
I mean, let's see what happens.
I'm really, on this one, I have made up my mind to take it as nothing but boilerplate stuff.
There's a lot to be said for canceling it on Wednesday.
The only trouble is you get one, you get two different amounts when it's mixed up and you get a big story then of failure.
What time switch do you want to remember?
Do you want to remember every day the clobbering hell out of our voice?
They're going to jump open.
I think there's a lot to be said here.
If Porter, on Thursday, were to say, we agree to a plenary session, the result was you attacked Fong Tree.
There's another plenary session.
In the meantime, you've attacked Khantoum.
In addition, the private session hasn't led anywhere.
On this basis, it's a charade, and I'm not coming here anymore.
I mean, it goes out, and then any time you order a clapper, the patricians are there.
I think we might lose it before Thursday, but in terms of this game plan, that's an asset.
If we're going to lose it at all.
Well, for Christ's sakes, is Bastogne all that big that we can't knock out the 130s?
No, because it's just the one original thing.
God damn it, they ought to be in there anyway.
I mean, 52s, huh?
What is it?
Well, they've been hitting all through the area, sir.
But my question is, is how many of these?
And we put in the name of who the class are they in.
What is the name of the group?
Well, they've got that big boat.
The boat's out there.
Why can't you do something about it?
Isn't the man very brave as hell?
No, the man's not a man.