On May 3, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, Henry A. Kissinger, and Manolo Sanchez met in the Oval Office of the White House from 10:59 am to 12:11 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 718-009 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
I don't know, you know, you bring him in and maybe wind him up and...
Russia's going to be superb.
Without him, he'd be dead.
Does Laird know that we rely on Russia?
Yeah.
Russia's sort of so clever about it.
Well, it's an unbelievable situation.
I mean, this combination of Laird and Rogers, I mean, this briefing, and Rush is beside himself about this Rogers briefing on the plane.
Is it all unsolved?
Unsolved?
Oh, what did he say?
Well, he said it's an outrage he's had through all the meetings.
First of all, it puts out something which isn't true so that it puts a monkey on our back if we agreed to more submarines for them.
Secondly, if we had wanted to put out that much, we could have put it out.
We deliberately stayed away from the details.
So we were.
Yeah, his story indicated that they were going to freeze the number of submarines at their present levels.
Which is totally untrue.
Well, of course, we were able to do that.
I mean, that'd be nice, but it can't be done.
What's he trying to do, torpedo the whole thing?
He's trying to do one of two things.
He's trying to get credit himself for having thought it out.
Secondly, he's trying to stick you with anything less favorable than what he's put out.
And seriously, he's trying to torpedo it since he didn't do it.
But it's this whole atmosphere where the Camden people, when it's good news, they try to take it away from you.
When it's bad news, they try to shove it in you.
Defense is announcing that mission for resupply of South Vietnam at 11 today.
And while they're there, they're going to show some of those pictures of Soviet equipment.
I think we might as well put the heat on the Soviets a little bit.
Now, on the Paris talks, I've raised that we have three possibilities.
One is just to accept the meeting for next week.
The second is to walk out.
The third is to reserve and to say we left it north-northeast, not the edge north-northeast, and it will be there next week.
I think if they offer nothing at all tomorrow, we should walk out.
There is a good possibility, though.
They had a piece of paper there yesterday, and then they decided not to give it to me.
My impression is they're going to surface something on Thursday to keep us from just walking out.
And I think what they're going to surface is what they, in effect, told me, that you have to go, the others can stay, but have to adopt certain policies like releasing all the communists from prison, committing every newspaper, which would have the practical consequences of smashing the non-communists.
If he does that, then it's hard to walk out.
Then he should say he'll study it and he'll reserve.
Well, he can say that he'll study replacing tubes, if it's the point, in a public session.
But that's what I think they're going to do.
It's a pretty hard prediction, isn't it?
Well, that's what I would predict they're going to do.
It's a hard prediction.
Well, they have two choices.
One choice is they clearly want to deprive... One of their privileges, whenever they're trying to crank up pressure on you, is to deprive you of any impression, of creating any impression that progress is being made.
That's correct.
And on the other hand, another tactic they have is to come up with an unacceptable proposal but present it as if it were acceptable.
And of course, if we had announced that I was there yesterday and then they come in with their proposal tomorrow,
It might look as if it had happened as a result of the tribal meeting, I don't know.
Let me get back to that, but you and the actual priest would not announce the tribal meeting?
No, but I told them if they were playing games with us, we'd reserve the right to do what was necessary to defend our position.
Well, it's not in my interest to put off the private meetings.
It hasn't succeeded in anything.
It's not in my interest.
Let me run over with you so that we can make this decision.
uh we can decide this but what we do tomorrow is only here it's not nearly as important that's what we do in the long run tomorrow's only part of it much bigger puzzle exactly except that it that it gives away all that it you know it signals our attitude i mean that's thinking for sure about that true true except
Except this, if on that point, just to use it exponentially, our attitude was signaled by your private conversation, and Moscow will know that.
So I think that's how we look at it this way.
In terms of tomorrow, I think as far as the signal from Moscow is concerned, it isn't a hell of a lot.
I think you have done that through our private letter, and you have done that through your private conversation.
Well, continuing plenary sessions would be a weak move.
It would be very weak.
Porter won't understand it, but he'll do what he's told.
But... Well, let's look at it.
I don't understand it.
But you won't understand it.
He can take it, too, but... Well, he will understand it.
If you... Let me make the case for continuing on the reception on some basis.
Uh...
And this all, this all gets back to the assumption of when and how we want to do, uh, either, either the bombing or the other.
Which are our two options.
We have to do something.
That's the best we've got, I'm sure.
Laird, while in the crisis, he suggested we do this.
He had many great ideas.
What's he want to do?
Take two in the ass or what?
I don't know what to say.
Is he...
He doesn't say anything.
He transmits whatever we do.
So in Russia, since all then, did you race with him?
Russia, yes, with me.
What did he say?
He said when he sees these two cabinet guys after him, he's amazed how he ever survived.
Has he got rocket numbers all the way?
He went through the Berlin exercise with Rogers, where Rogers did exactly the same things he did with Sol.
Except that was already done by the time he got his answer.
He raised as many frivolous objections as he did to this one.
Just like the beginning case.
Exactly.
Not one of the poems that Rauch has objected to the communiqué in China has anyone else read?
I don't know, sir.
Not one?
Nor has the communiqué.
No, he was deliberately looking over to find something, which anybody could find.
He would build everything.
And after the first news stories, the communiqué out of China played very positively.
Sure, sure.
And we had a little bit.
We just had to write it through, and we had...
He could have been a big hero of the Chinese treason subject.
As a result of his not playing it right, he appeared to be a dog in the manger that was left out in the early building.
So he lost on that.
Rogers could have seen her.
On that salt thing, if he had told Smith, now you go out there and get us the best agreement you can, instead of leading the opposition, I mean, after all, I'm the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of Defense.
The director of the Central Intelligence Agency to report something has been unusually good.
And Roger, who doesn't know what our position is, suddenly totally reverses what he said two months ago.
You know he's just being nasty.
I mean, you've got a front-page story out of this in every paper in the country yesterday now.
I admit it isn't a great thing and it is going to change the course of events.
But it shows a few positive things are going on.
You deserve the whole credit for it because the whole thing was done here.
He has no reason to complain.
My name hasn't been mentioned in connection with this in any story.
Is that fine with me?
I don't want to be mentioned.
I don't think that's it.
I just really think it's his and Smith's fault.
It's the White House generally.
It's the President.
They are not in vanity wanting to get credit for stuff.
That's right.
But they don't want credit.
I mean, now, I don't hear them come rushing over here.
trying to see what they can do to help out on Vietnam, that they're glad enough to keep shoving over to us.
Let me analyze this thing some, and so forth, and particularly if you have a border thing.
You're absolutely right that anything less than walking out is a weak note.
What I would like to see is anything that you can say which does not indicate a total
breakdown and thereby lack of hope on the negotiating front.
Now, you and I know there's no hope at all at the moment.
On the other hand, we have a hell of a lot of people being used on this particular point.
You made this point often, and I will have to agree with you, that as a result of your hit from Moscow and as a result of our sending Porter back to the final recession,
something that was supported even by our conservative papers like the Star and others beforehand.
As a result of all that, they say, well, we support the mine, but we also are glad that the president is at least trying to see, trying, I'm putting the strongest case I can for this.
Now, so we have to weigh what we lose,
appearing to be, I mean, just breaking off the Potsdam, as we did before on the show, which is a message which is needed by the Russians, needed, not really by Hanoi, because, except if you told them that privately, that, oh, it might help some.
It might help some of the Jews.
But they've been saying that they're forcing it back to the Congress, isn't it?
All right, let's forget the debating point.
All right, what I mean is that is the debating point.
And the thing that we have to have in mind is that, let's look at it in terms of American public opinion.
The walkout would be greeted in the first instance by a surge of great enthusiasm by the Hawks.
The other hand, it would turn loose at this particular time.
The greatest and what I'm most concerned about, of course, at the moment is the breakdown of negotiations.
The problem with the Senate, you know, the Senate meets this morning and the Senate Democratic Caucus will overrun and make a group and sort of put the bug out.
And then Byrd will introduce a Mansfield-type resolution after that.
And there will be action around, so forth and so on.
In terms of being able to beat that,
We had a very, very good vote earlier this week.
Aiken raised it this morning.
First, Fulbright got only 15 votes for some of the ancillary things.
You know, one of the bug out things.
And which the ocean outfit has gotten only one Republican voted with Fulbright.
And if they can find out, he said, the reason for that is that the public understands that there is a massive debate in support of the Russians.
And at the same time, he said, another reason for it is they think that we're making every effort to negotiate.
He said, you've got them in a crack now.
There's old George.
So why is old Paul talking?
See my point?
Now, what we have to realize is that these terms of the domestic front that
This kind of a move, and I'm going to put it in the context of the bombing in some way, this kind of a move can have a good short-range effect to welcome.
Long-range, we have to consider it in the context of what our plans are.
I see the sun.
And of course, I'm at the strongest point of not making the sun a hostage.
The hostage should be a part of the sun.
Anyway.
The cancellation of the summer, summer, summer, or that is that it can't be any halfway.
We can say that we're going to postpone it, or we aren't going to go at this time, or we'll be glad to go at a later time, and let's do the stop, or this, that, or the other thing, and so forth.
I just, I try to think of all the language that we can work out.
First,
analyzing it from the foreign standpoint, it will have a beneficial effect, as you pointed out last time on the pew.
It will have a, certainly some shock effect on the enemy.
It will have some effect on the Russians.
And more on that in a moment.
The question arises, what effect does it have here?
The initial effect would be, in my opinion, extremely favorable.
Creates a president, puts everything on the line, stands up to the Russians, and so forth.
and getting the domestic thing out of the way first, because it does have some bearing.
We have to realize that once we have canceled the summit, but then we will unleash without any questions, not simply the calls, but we will unleash again, predict who they are,
the type of senators in Congress who are presently off balance, one, because someone is coming, and two, because they think something is going on, which you and I are close by on.
But, and you are correct, certainly in your suggestion, in the Soviet, if we cancel the summit, well,
None that we can turn right.
Their reaction could be one of two things.
It could be, it could present a problem.
Their reaction, however, might be to say, well, the God is good.
that had been thrown down, some of it was lost, and despite the fact that the President said we would negotiate all the bilateral issues and so forth, they had unleashed their rather massive propaganda efforts abroad and here in this country.
So what would happen is that over a period of time, the time that this action would have taken,
that the immediate, I'm speaking now of the affected home, the immediate affected home would very substantially erode.
It would be favorable, very favorable at the beginning.
And then it would erode.
And it would erode for a variety of reasons.
It would erode because of
But, of course, the attack of our enemies, which we must expect, which would be unleashed, would not be off balance no longer.
It would erode because the Holy Spirit, you know, peace and so forth, could not be found.
And it would erode also because they repeatedly had to anticipate a massive attack
in the meeting on the ground about an idea that so-called next to the foreign policy had collapsed.
Collapsed because of our insistence on seeing the Vietnam War through a non-negotiable conclusion.
That would be the argument that they would make.
And we, on our side,
But, of course, we argued strangely that what they were doing, as I pointed out last night, that the government put them right in the arms of the Soviet.
The Soviet was responsible for this war by raising the supply of arms.
Now, let's come to the other point.
At the heart of the matter is
what effect the cancellation of the summit would have on the Arctic War itself.
If the cancellation of the summit very substantially improves the chance for a favorable outcome in Vietnam, that is a decisive factor.
If only the cancellation of the summit
It has a marginal effect in that respect, and of course the bombing had a marginal effect.
I think we have to look at it another way, and that way would be along this line, that if we are looking at a situation here where
where over 33 years we have built in a magical way a new foreign host, the China game, the Soviet game.
It's a very big game.
You and I both know that it's a very difficult operation.
The Soviets have been liars and bastards and thugs and so forth and so on.
We also know that at the present time we've got some American public events developing along that line.
However, if we put it in perspective, I think we haven't realized that
If we're looking at the effect, the effect on the Democratic Convention coming up in July, really, the election coming up in November, at the effect on the election, I think, cold-bloodedly, we have to say this.
First, the heart of the matter is Vietnam when it comes up.
If Vietnam comes out badly, the election is very seriously jeopardized.
However, if Vietnam comes out badly, and we also cancel the summit, in other words, if we cancel the summit, it still comes out badly, badly, the election would certainly be down to something which
There's so much that needs to be done to hear this military briefing and to realize that our military has let us down.
That's just one thing.
Foreign policy, military policy, and so forth, it's not going to be done by any successor.
But so much for that.
Yet, on the other hand, canceling the summit is the only and critical factor which may save the situation in Vietnam, as you know.
Because the situation in Vietnam is safe, canceling the summit will look good.
I mean, it will arrive well, even though we will, after our first flip upward and then our erosion, we'll come back up again.
Now there's one other equation to throw into this.
If we see that the South Vietnamese, that the Vietnamese situation is, if our coal-leaded analysis is, and we cannot make that now, I realize that's my guess, I think it's half and half.
If we do it better than half, they'll survive.
Because I think they're suffering a hell of a lot more than we have any reason to believe.
But we shall see.
If the South Vietnamese survive, then, I mean, do not survive, then, having a son,
even under very difficult circumstances, but having, where we are, you say the at the top of the agenda, having that in mind, in fact.
It's not a possibility to put Vietnam at the top of the agenda, but those who consider that very many years.
All right.
They're there to travel.
All right.
All right, we're having some.
at least as a marginal, as a marginal plus, instead of being a very substantial negative in the long run.
That's what we have to face.
I'm speaking now as a domestic scientist.
So that brings me back to the other option.
The other option.
is to react as we had originally planned with our two-day strike and see whether the Russians go forward on their use, whether they face the risk that they may spoon to cancer, which they might.
The two-day strike thing certainly would have great support in this country.
So it would give some encouragement to the South Vietnamese, some pause to the Russians, and some pause to the panel.
The argument you made last night is very strong in the effect that, well, it would look like an act of desperation due to the fact that Gouet is being threatened and so forth and so on.
Well, maybe so.
Maybe the first track looked that way, too.
But we all know that in the present time, the public sector will support that kind of a strategy we want to look at.
So we have to weigh that in.
So it really comes down to this.
But it would be really honest to feel that the canceling of the summit could have, could be a decisive factor or even a substantial factor in resolving the situation.
On that point, I have great confidence.
And if that is true, then the case for it isn't strong as we thought it was last night.
As far as the strike in the north is concerned, I have serious doubts whether that will have a great effect on the situation in Vietnam.
We all know, we know this, it's a choice of one of two things.
Either we hit the north for two days, or we cancel the summit.
We have no other option.
And hitting the north for two days may cancel the summit.
Oh, I understand.
And they may cancel it.
I understand.
And then all the factors you mentioned may be even more telling against you.
I mean, every argument that you made on canceling the summit would apply then even more because it would tie Vietnam even more intricately to it, and you wouldn't be able to get your story out there as well.
And I think there'd be a slightly better than 50-50 chance that they would cancel the summit.
which is why I have moved to the point that we should postpone the summit.
Now, nobody can present any of these positions to you with the argument that they will save the situation in South Vietnam, because I can't say that they will.
Nothing may.
Canceling the summit may not.
This may not.
But if the situation I'm thinking of, the President is thinking of your position in history,
and of the position of the country in the long term.
If you go to Moscow without having done anything, it will be a total disaster.
We can make it look like we can put on an act, but all the things that will be needed to put on, the Russians will then despise us.
We will have lost all credibility.
I mean, without any... No, I know, I'm just going up the ladder.
I don't know.
So that's our question.
That I don't see how we can do.
And the cranking up all the machinery and the reading them, your dispatches.
But even without it, secondly, for the United States, I mean, what the Russians have done systematically since last October is put it to us.
And they've said, you can have your summit, and at the same time, we're going to screw you.
Now we go there and sign great principles of coexistence.
And I think the feeling of uneasiness, I mean, I'm very worried now about Vietnam.
The fact is, Russian arms have run us out of Vietnam.
And the president goes to Moscow and signs principles of coexistence, gives them credit, and agrees with Indra Skru, one of his allies in the Middle East.
Now,
You know that I'm in favor of helping up the principles of all negotiations, and the trade is all done in the Middle East, one we can do, and in fact, we're prepared to do that too.
So you do all these three things after India, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, and the fact that the fascists have not done one goddamn thing for us ever, then I must say it's objectively a sign of great weakness which will encourage them
Your great strength in foreign policy is your toughness, and your great standing abroad is due to the fact that you've gone your way.
Now you could say you could go to the summit, go through with it, don't sign these principles, don't give them credits, and don't make a deal on the Middle East.
Well, then you will have a pretty icy summit.
And to get out of the summit what you want, you have to come back and be able to talk about peace
about having made tremendous strides towards peace, and otherwise, words give the Soviets a certificate of good conduct.
Now, if we can win in South Vietnam by doing all of this, that would be great.
That'd be the best of all the worlds.
For that, we can't, unfortunately, no.
But if you are in Russia, what are you waiting for?
Everything that's in here, there's just no way of making it look good.
I just want to be sure you consider all this.
I, Mr. President, I, God be that we suffered and
anguish to get to this point.
So they may give us an answer that enables us to do it.
Do you want to give an answer?
Oh, yes, I'll give an answer.
But they may give us a very threatening answer, because in a way they echo in the tooth.
This letter is couched in terms that suggest we're going to attack North Vietnamism.
There's no threat to the Soviet summit advanced yet.
But they may figure that since that's what we may do, they may preempt us and cancel the summit.
Okay.
If we cancel the summit, it's then called a massive attraction to North Korea.
Yes.
That's my right.
That would be my view.
And we have to go right in this country, and we just have to put it with the past, sir.
I know.
Now, you realize that when you look to, you know, your political opponents to suppress the rest of the legally deceased and collapse the next foreign policy generation to be... Mr. President, next to you, I have more stake in it than anyone else.
I mean, next to you.
So, from my own point of view,
I would also, I'd like to get more friendly residents, columns, and that sort of stuff.
You know, that's nice to have.
Residents, sightings, residents.
I beg your pardon?
Residents, sightings, are all discovering you because they really don't like you.
They want to play me against you.
They want to isolate you.
They realize he's not going to sight us.
They're using you.
Oh, I started, the only problem is, what's so vicious?
I was talking to Bob about this this morning.
You go through my press briefings.
Never have I as much as hinted.
Never have I even expressed an opinion which said Henry Kissinger's thing says.
I always say to the president, these bastards are doing this in order to make you the villains.
So it's perfectly obvious what the game is.
And I mean, when you get Richard Dutman, Keith Lee,
All within a 48-hour period.
I think state is suing them, Mr. President, for the first time by attacking me cleverly.
Attacking me by making the impression that it's separating me from you.
in which case I'm no longer an authentic spokesman of the administration.
I know it came out of state.
There was all this ceasefire talk.
I mean, for example, I think Rogers himself has been talking to Gertzman not about this, but for example, last week there was a long article in the New York Times by Gertzman of what I allegedly did in Moscow.
Now, I don't even know Gertzman.
No one on my staff talked to Goodman, but that had a telling article.
It said, Kittinger came to Moscow because suddenly a letter arrived from Brezhnev asking that he be put on the next plane.
Now there's only one man in town who's ever been told this.
That's right.
We told him that as well.
Exactly.
So that was a dead-giver letter.
Haig spotted that, and I hadn't spotted that.
You see, any one of my staff that's done it, my staff doesn't leave, but assuming my staff, there are only two people that have done it, my staff or us.
My staff couldn't do it because they knew this wasn't historic.
So this had to come from Rogers.
So then you had all these cease-fires.
Then they suddenly said, Kissinger's May 31st plan is going to get accepted.
Murray Mathers came up with that.
Yeah, I saw that.
And so you had all...
I think Rogers had the muscle to set up.
When I told him Sunday morning, we were going to meet in the press, he said, I don't know what to say about the May 31st plan.
I don't know what the hell he was talking about.
What do you mean?
And you see, another music thing, because the May 31st plan, for a while he was accusing me also of selling out the country.
That was, was the first.
And he said that had too many discrepancies, and how was he going to explain it?
Well now, you see, nobody even remembers the May 31st plan.
I have never even mentioned it.
And it's a minor deal, it's a minor thing, so these guys are now, it's really,
It's a very interesting study for me to see how the expanse is answering.
Because I haven't been talking to anybody.
I saw that Saidi article.
I didn't talk to Saidi.
I talked to Schechter.
But Schechter apparently gave this stuff to Saidi.
I think that getting to time is much more important than life.
Getting to Roger, however, that whole bet on Doug and all that punch, that had to be breathing that space.
I don't know if you think Roger did it himself.
That he didn't do, but the Goodman stuff.
Who do you think did it himself?
I don't know.
But that did not happen, I don't know what Bob did, but this could not have happened by accident.
Because the only contact I had with the press last week was the briefing before your speech, which was totally innocuous and totally in line with your speech.
The United States is not giving credit to the U.N. How do you get him out of our hair?
Everything depends on how this comes out now.
He's not going to be in a safe environment after this.
But it's a tawdry performance.
I think it's a possibility to do the two-day straddle and go forward with the monster trip.
I don't exclude that as a possibility.
That's the other, the only thing I think we ought to consider.
I just want to consider it well, and frankly, if they cancel the summit, then we'll say, so be it.
We'll continue to try.
Well, that puts you into a weaker position.
A weaker, I agree, I agree.
It's better for you to postpone the summit and say that that's always approved.
I've been saying that all along now.
And, uh...
So, uh...
Well, we've got it all in mind.
Now, can I suggest that with regard to the thing tomorrow, I haven't had anyone present a speech yet because I wanted to make sure you didn't want to do it.
Well, I think it should be prepared in terms of the options.
So I can go either way.
And as you said, the situation is developing very fast.
And you know, with your two-conclusion idea,
Could you do that?
Yeah, but I don't think you should go on television and be abounding about it.
I mean, I designed to have the speech there in case, so that I can make that decision at the latest possible time.
Done.
I don't want to make it today.
No, you don't have to.
See?
But I have to have a speech during preparation on the way, and so you might say that I'm going to go on just to make up a speech in Russian perfectly, do you know what I mean?
And so forth and so on.
You see my point?
Done.
Some remarks.
Could you make it up so that it doesn't, yeah?
Lord, Lord.
You can trust my people.
They won't believe you haven't.
Lord, that's fine.
Oh, I'm not concerned about that.
As long as I'm good, it's all good.
Just let the Lord go on it.
Will you let the Lord go on it?
I get Lord, and the Son of God is good at this.
The Son of God, too.
I said, Lord, the Son of God.
Let them get up here after a bit.
Along the lines you talked about last night.
Fair enough.
And on view of this, you could just say that, and I would be, I'd say, look, one option that you're presenting to the president is canceling the Senate, and therefore you want a speech.
Just tell him.
Good?
Good.
Bye.
With regard to what we do tomorrow, what's tomorrow?
Oh, in that, yeah, yeah.
Putting that in this context, I would prefer if you could work it out.
I don't think that's a big enough deal, a big enough deal to, you know, rather to go for the walkout.
In other words, if we're going to borrow land trouble, I'd rather do it on a Monday or as a result of a strike.
And do it then, rather than tomorrow, twice.
You see what I mean?
Now, if you could find a way where he could, you, I think you were approaching here the other day, where he simply says, you haven't presented anything, and I'm not coming to another meeting until you do, or, you know what I mean, but where he does not.
There are three ways.
There will be three choices he has.
One is to accept the meeting for the following week.
The second is to say he cannot accept it.
He left it.
No, he has not accepted it.
He will reserve the decision.
He will let them know truly is not this.
And then come or not come.
And the third is to say, I will not come until you have something new to say.
Well, if I could suggest, I think the second, while it is a soft response, a softer response to Russian third, is nevertheless quite an honest response to the enemy.
I don't know if we can do it.
The basic strategic decision we have to make as a president is this, because we face it all along.
Well, what I meant is the walking out of the thing poses a negotiating track, period, with the Mainz people.
If our decisions, because we go ahead and bomb,
I think I would just as soon let them go to the negotiating track.
You see the point?
Well, what will happen is if they get a fix in the parish, once they catch on to the fact that you feel as you do, or if they think you feel as you do, that you're afraid to leave the table, then the next thing is going to be that they'll start operating on the party.
And then, before you know it, they will have walked out saying,
And they'll have you in the charging position saying they won't talk now until the time is set.
All right.
And how can you state the third position in a way that leaves the district correct?
That's what perhaps I see all those points.
Well, we may not have a real choice.
If they make a proposal tomorrow, as I'm inclined to believe, they will because they don't want to keep you from farming.
And I think they're going to make publicly the proposal tomorrow that they made to me privately, yes.
If they do, maybe we have to walk out.
Well... Or do you?
Maybe not.
You can't.
Then...
It's a hell of a thing to say we're studying the proposal to overthrow... No, no, no, no, no, no.
We reject this proposal.
But what we can say is we reject this proposal.
We will consider whether there are elements in it that reject the replacement of Pugh altogether.
And we will be in touch with you through the Israel office if there's any sense in another meeting.
Uh or what would you or how else would you handle?
You just say this is this is such a this post was so painfully unacceptable on the space that we rejected and we're not going to come to another meeting until we'll uh until uh our authority as an officers we find that you have something else to offer.
Maybe that's why you got something else to offer.
That's uh we're we're we'll be glad to have another meeting but not on these terms.
You might say we consider this proposal an ultimatum, you know what I mean, or a... Well, what he can do... Just get the language carefully done, that's all so that we can...
He can go through the whole ritual.
See, I think that, painful as it is, Mr. President, see, as far as the doves are concerned, you're down the tube anyway.
There is nothing you can do to point them happy, or even play with them.
And as you know, I have been desperately trying to keep the summit alive, even when you had more severe doubts than I did, for precisely the reasons you're advancing here.
Because I saw the great political and strategic advantage of keeping your opponents confused, of preventing a full-scale onslaught.
I was not dying to get this attack on Hanoi and Haiphong, as you know, and you sent me many cables on that subject and talked to him about it.
Again, for precisely...
That reason, and I tell you candidly, if they had come with anything at all yesterday, I would have urged you to play it through the summit.
Right.
But they haven't come.
And that would have been my recommendation to you.
So I'm not...
When will we get the message back?
Let me put it this way.
The immediate decision is now in the Thursday meeting.
So I think you'll get a message back within 48 hours.
Well, then...
You see, my point is... You won't get a message back in time for the Thursday meeting.
I just would like the right, the Thursday meeting, let me say, you go ahead and give me some instructions, except that I feel that I should be written in such a way that there's a tiny correction, you know, that we're ready to discuss or something like that, so that it doesn't appear that we're, you see my point, not discuss that proposal, but whenever they've got another... Well, we can make them go through the whole interview.
Are they prepared to discuss ending the offensives?
Are they prepared to discuss mutual de-escalation?
Are they prepared to discuss circumstances in which a ceasefire could, you know, we know they will be rejected.
Are they prepared to discuss Christmas and withdrawal issues?
And it will turn out they'll say no to all of them.
They say no to all of them.
Then we can say, well, I see no reason for another meeting next week until you're prepared to discuss some of these proposals.
And whenever you are, we'll get together again.
That's all right.
Can you do it that way?
Sure.
That's all that I had to say.
I would put it in a position where we're ready to have discussions if they come up with a totally unacceptable proposal.
Fair enough.
If indeed they come up with a proposal.
And if they don't come up with a proposal, then they should go through the ritual anyway.
And then say, well, under the circumstances, you have nothing to offer here.
You see, what they may well come up with, and what I think they will come up with, is that you have to go, that the concentration camps have to be open, that freedom of the press has to be allowed.
All of this sounds great to the New York Times.
Oh, it is.
The practical consequence of it, though, is that the Sargon thing will come apart.
That's right.
He rejects that totally.
And...
I'm asked between whether we postpone the summit or do the two-day strike.
Well, can we, I mean, just ask if we haven't got 24 hours to think about that.
Oh, yes, we have more than that.
No, not much.
Oh, yes, yes, we'll put the two-day strike off until Saturday.
I don't think, I have never had the sense of urgency about the two-day strike that others have had because Hanoi and Haiphong aren't going to go away.
You'll
In other words, we shouldn't do it over the weekend anyway.
Well, I think we should do it fairly soon if we're going to do it.
There's something to be said for not doing it on Saturday so that it doesn't catch the weekly news magazine.
Ah, but we can do it Sunday.
Sunday is Monday.
Why don't you analyze for me what you think of it so that I get to just take a minute as to what you think we've gone through in the summit and what the two-day strike thing does.
First, I don't need to go in.
I know the risks of the Soviet passing the summit.
Fine.
Let's get that out of the way.
What does it do in terms of the war?
It has some benefits.
Well, the two-day strike has a number of military benefits.
They're not in themselves decisive, but when a country is stretched as thin as they are now,
anything that impedes.
I mean, they have, for example, changed the whole pattern of unloading gasoline in Haiphong as a result of the other strikes.
Secondly, it tells Hanoi that you may just go crazy, press too hard.
Thirdly, it really puts it to the Russians in the sense that you are saying, all right, you can't do the summit if you want to, and leave the choice up to them.
Now, there's a certain
And so, in other words, you should think the decision of canceling the summit to them, which isn't easy for them.
We have an intercept of a passionate conversation with Gus Hall, which he praises to Hall and my visit very much, and in fact gives him a pretty objective account of, but repeats how eager they are for the summit, that they are under a lot of pressure from other communist parties to cancel it.
A little longer, closer to your arrival in Moscow, you do the two-day strike, the tougher it is for them.
And you see, the thing that worries me so much about the visit is for you to give them credits while they're trucks and guns.
But if you don't give them credit, they're going to be very cool.
And to sign these common principles.
God, you know, it's a tragedy.
We had a tremendous breakthrough all along the front.
We've worked three years to get it.
And next to you, I'm the one most reluctant to give it up.
And give us a month of relative peace and quiet.
But... Would you work?
Yeah.
No question.
I will compare, and for a week after, it's two weeks after the procedure.
And also, with common, you have to realize the end of the sun comes at a time, providing it's out at a time where others can be escalated, whether or not other factors.
Well, can we take our 24 hours now?
We can, but we don't have to make a decision.
I want you to go forward, though, if you will, on things.
Now, it is following up and seeing if we get more tanks and more guns.
Yes, and we're moving 72 more planes out there.
More planes, good.
It turns out it isn't too effective to put more B-52s out because...
But I repeat how eager they are for the summit, that they are under a lot of pressure from other communist parties to cancel it.
A little longer, closer to your drive in Moscow, you do the two-day strike, the tougher it is for them.
But you see, the thing that worries me so much about the visit is
for you to give them credits while they're trucks and guns.
But if you don't give them credits, they're going to do very good.
And to sign these common principles.
God, you know, it's a tragedy.
We had a tremendous breakthrough all along the front.
We've worked three years to get it.
And next to you, I'm the one most reluctant to give it up.
And to give us a month of relative peace and quiet.
But...
Which it worked.
Yeah, literally.
No question.
I will prepare, and for a week afterwards, two weeks afterwards.
And also, with calm, you have to realize the end of the sun comes at a time.
Providing it's out at a time where others could be escalating.
I mean, weather and a lot of other factors.
Well, can we take our 24 hours now?
But we can and we don't have to make a decision.
I want you to go forward, though, if you will, on things.
It is following up and seeing if we get more tanks and more guns.
Yes, and we're moving 72 more planes out there.
More planes, good.
It turns out it isn't too effective to put more B-52s out because two F-4s can carry as much as one of these B-52s.
So we're moving 72 more F-4s out there.
The other thing is that if you could, and you prepared the quarter message, I very kindly, just so the quarter message leaves,
I mean, they could tell, but if you have the options, but be sure it goes through the ritual.
Would you have even the thing you did there with that, but these aren't supposed to affect you.
If you think you're going to get those same answers, well, how come?
And have the speech begin, right?
Have them go forward with the speech.
I canceled it.
I totally canceled that Saturday and Sunday.
So I got today, Saturday and Sunday, for thinking purposes.
You do?
No, I have a job coming in in five minutes who wants to meet with me for going to Japan the weekend after this.
Fine.
I really don't see how I can help, help, help.
You just say that to the view of the situation here, you can't go.
And the other thing they have in mind is this, which we have here, perspective of this time.
The other side has some problems, which we hope to make worse.
And without being polyamorous, if we have to go right, we will go right.
And frankly, I will do it knowing that we'll probably lose the election.
But frankly, to hell with it.
The main thing is we've got to do,
See, the thing on the Ohio president can't go down with this kind of soap.
We have to balance it, though.
We have to listen to the lead.
We have to consider what we're doing.
But I think also, essentially, I'm going to bounce it off.
And you see, I hit it pretty coldly.
I think if there are ways we could do it both, we should.
And if there isn't, I hope that the best situation would be to some end, and some lead down.
That is why the bombings in the north may be a risk worth taking.
Unless they cancel the second time.
And then we get possibly they cancel them.
All right.
So they cancel them.
Maybe that's not too bad either.
So you expected that?
I sort of expect that now, yeah.
But let's see what happens if they come up with it.
We'll see.
And they call for a ceasefire.
Well, what do we say then?
No.
No, I forget the means.
You want to agree to that, don't we?
Yeah.
You see, these principles and trade in the Middle East from a strong president would be great.
China was great because no one questioned that you were tough and strong.
But you weren't getting around to be a man at that time.
And not by Chinese equipment.
Yeah.
The other thing I was going to say, look, I haven't argued this goal to be 1,000%.
I'm just trying to think of, I'm trying to think of this, I'm trying to think also, and really, really the argument that is made that falls and that the canceling of the sun in and of itself would be a good thing.
So basically, what we have to realize, if we can't run out of Vietnam, we're down to two spaces.
You understand?
A chance to save it if we have the summit.
A little bit of a margin, but it's so marginal it's making it.
But my point is, though, that with the summit,
the summit, if it has any effect on keeping us from getting rid of Vietnam, which I kind of don't think it really has.
But I think the main one you're really getting to is the summit in and of itself, and obviously that I am, in view of the situation in Vietnam.
That may be it.
That's the point.
That's the thing that's worried me.
Like I said, tipping the glasses and all that sort of thing.
At this point, Russian tanks are there.
That's right.
It's not a strong sign.
Tipping the glasses.
I look at this hall and all this.
A lot of Russian tanks are running around in Vietnam.
Well, let's say, let's say a minute before your job is turned around, just send this in.
So, if the scenario goes like this, we cancel a sign.
And then, in review, we do this on and on and on.
Oh, you said they do it anyway.
Right.
And then, two syllables, and what happens?
Well, just one of those things.
Well, then, you see, take it the other way.
Supposing you're Bolsonaro and I find they can't do this.
And then at least you've maintained your plan.
You just keep going anti-communist and accuse your opponents of first having screwed up the peace talks.
Yeah, I have said that in motion with the leader today.
I said that the responsibility... And saying they made it inevitable that the thing collapse.
And...
Now they want to sell out the direction.
Maybe you'd probably lose.
You may well lose the election then.
Why not?
But you might not.
Well, I just think we have to see what we're up to.
So you get back to Vietnam again, don't you?
Could I ask one other thing?
The situation in the South.
Generally speaking, there is not a very substantial opposition that you would all be under something.
Not yet.
Or is it something about big men?
Oh yes, big men is trying to organize, get itself into a reserved position.
And they'll all begin to do it as the situation gets worse.
Is that presented to us well?
Well, I consider, I tell you, if they had made any sort of proposition yesterday, I don't, I consider it too expendable.
Thank you.
That isn't the problem.
No, but I think the worst is to not just replace him and they want to impose conditions that would lead to a communist government.
That's right.
I don't know.
And that's, again, their plan.
That's right.
Can I ask this question on the timing of the cancellations?
Is it worth considering to have him do this, then have the bombing go forward?
Well, not have the bombing go forward.
I mean, have him discontinue to fight the battle in the South, or at the very best,
And that was some cancellation at the end of the next week rather than the beginning.
Just think about it.
What's the advantage of that?
The advantage of it gives us more time to assess whether Vietnam might survive.
Maybe we won't know any more then than now.
You see my point?
I am greatly affected by that if we have some feelings.
The other problem, though, is supposing the way has fallen by the end of next week.
Then it will look like a petulant reaction to a defeat.
I think it's going to look that way anyway.
I mean, they play the defeat part so heavily, and I don't think we can have any illusions about the petulant reaction to the defeat.
So the fall of Rey, I don't think it's going to make that much sense.
Would you not agree?
I think, you know, it doesn't have to be Monday.
It can be Tuesday.
I think if we're going to cancel it, we'd better do it early rather than late.
And we won't know how long.
Well, that's the answer.
We won't know how long.
We know we'll lose Kuntu.
See, supposing it gets all unstuck, I don't see how you can go to Russia then, in my view.
I couldn't agree more.
But, you know, the other argument is you could use it to divert attention from the disease.
If you go to Russia then, what the hell can you agree on at some point?
You can't agree to get your credits, you can't agree to... See, the whole idea, you see, of agreeing, of having you sign,
health agreements, science agreements, what do they want of the summit?
They want to show that you and Brezhnev are ordering the world.
And when you do it as equals, it's risky enough because it's going to hurt us enormously in Europe.
It's going to hurt us with the Chinese.
It's a risk worth taking on the assumption that you can recover from it in the next election, after the next election.
By turning hard.
By turning hard.
And that's how I've justified it.
But basically, Shakespeare isn't wrong in his assessment of what this detente is doing to our allies.
Now, if a strong president does it, somebody to whom you can say, look how you stood in all the crises, but it's somebody who's been humiliated or at least been challenged in South Asia by the Russians.
And then the most vital area where we have 50,000, I mean, vital from the point of view of our national center, it is not about strategic interest.
And he still does it.
That's something, I think, Mr. President, that's going to be hard to recover from.
And who is then going to be left to respect you?
I mean, I shouldn't talk this way, but I mean, the hogs, the doves,
uh a strong president the reason you've got a real real hard question that's good to talk about in this way real hard question is that what i'm getting at is really isn't about vietnam because of the word we have to realize it's about what you said at the end it's about the president that's right the real why here is that
is that the canceling of the summit or the buying, neither may prove to have too much of an effect on the outcome in Vietnam.
So scrub both of those things.
The real reason we have to cancel the summit, if we do cancel the summit, is that we cannot go to the summit while Russia and Jackson guns are kicking the shit out of us in Vietnam.
But we cannot make an agreement with people that are doing that.
So we don't meet with a bunch of outlaws.
It's like going to Rockefeller or going to the person you're going to ask to meet with those God-dead people.
Right?
That's my sense, Mr. President.
But great reluctance and knowing how we may get a turn in the situation and we may get an answer from President that we can live with.
I doubt it.
Well, our answer, our decision on the speech and so forth should be made, it seems to me.
You don't have to make it before Friday or Saturday.
Let's get the speech ready.
I'll get the speech done.
I need to get the speech ready, and I'll work on it.
And I should make a decision as to whether to give it or not Monday.
And it'll be either Monday night or Tuesday night.
And have in mind the fact that, and then we can have the stranglehold, in the case of don't make the speech, we can have the stranglehold Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday of next week.
That's it.
I think in any event that we should.
Tell Abrams to see this because it's just at the other point that he can have these assets.
Sir, don't worry about this.
Abrams, I'll talk to Morta.
We can wait with that until tomorrow morning.
He hasn't got his execute over there.
Okay.
What I'm getting at is this.
I don't think we should get over the weekend.
That's fine.
Let's make a final decision with regard to answering this on a brief Monday.
I want the speech, or I haven't prepared the speech, because getting the speech and writing it will help me get my own thinking in the right time of day.