Nixon & Haldeman on Vietnam War and Mining of North Vietnamese harbors

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I'm always up.

Yeah, but to have to go in and .

I've got to see .

I don't want to get into it.

I'm sure I'm going to keep my eyes clear about these next few days.

I'm almost a crab with the, you know, it's not important, but the message has got to do with making sure I can solve the major problems.

Needless to say, I'll see.

We've got everything rolling in good shape, grinding pretty well.

The only question is whether we want to push Rogers to do the foreign relations and foreign affairs committees.

They've asked him, and originally he was planning to go, and he's backing off.

He says there's nothing he can add to what the president's already said, and it may be better to wait a day anyway and see what happens.

They're going to cover the armed services committees, and there's a good letter going there.

Order.

Keep Rogers off today.

All right.

Henry's gone now today, so that's that.

And also Ryder, he doesn't have, you know, he'll be all right, but he doesn't really have either the understanding or the heart of the thing that we really need at this point.

We've got to be...

Okay.

We've got a fact sheet that... Can I do it?

I think you probably would want to do it.

Okay.

Well, Carol Eakison and Sapphire worked over it with him, and he has reviewed it.

Oh, I missed him.

That just came in.

There's still another one.

The point is, why I'm saying you've got to put in the fact that he invaded your place, and that we've exhausted all efforts on the diplomatic front.

See, they don't have that agency.

It says the Republicans, the communists have failed to respond to the Republican Party in any American peace proposal.

You've got to put that in the mark.

We have received, you know, we have put it, I mean, they have launched a massive invasion and I wouldn't go into it.

Okay.

The fact that we have, because I think it impresses people that we have just had it up to here.

There's no other choice.

They have left us no other choice.

And I think you also might add, if you go to the second page, it's not directed against any other nation.

No, we don't.

Well, maybe we're getting close.

No, I don't think, I don't think we've covered it.

That's not that much of a problem.

The main thing is to, this one is to,

fire, and so forth and so on.

We get out there as much as we possibly can with positive reactions.

And we've done all that, but what can I say that we're trying to do better?

I'm watching it all today.

Our troops are discouraged on only one point.

They can't get through on the telegram route because it's backed up.

We are going to be able to gin up the telegram stuff just because we're

They've tried, we've turned a lot on probably too fast.

And they've tried failing, now they're going to take another.

I don't think it's worth making a hell of a point.

I wouldn't try to get an all-around count.

I'd just get off the fact that there are massive numbers.

Massive number of letters, massive number of phone calls.

Could that be done?

And then a few hot shots would come out for us, exemplary leaders and so forth.

But what is generally, in the cold of the morning, what is the reaction of all your troops around here?

I mean, the troops as to what they have found around the country.

Very good.

You gave me the stuff last night.

Yeah, and it's all, that spreads across the board.

Is it more than you have on the upper money system?

Oh, much better.

Better?

Yeah.

Because of the action?

Yeah, and it's better in the sense that it's...

Yeah, it's stronger.

When you do something, you get more of a thing than when you just announce progress.

On April 26th, the whole thing was, it was a great speech.

He presented it well.

The delivery was forceful.

His attitude was good and all that.

On this one, you're getting a lot of that same thing.

But you're getting the thing where the president's doing the only thing he could do.

And then of course the Hawks, great Hawks style.

The Hawks were finally kicking it in the ass.

The POWs flipped over.

The POWs wanted us to get out from what their attitude was on Saturday.

Well they realize we've done everything we can.

What the hell do they want us to do?

Their discouragement was, and their resolutions over the weekend reflected

the view that it's clear now that the organization and that program has failed to get our POWs back.

And it's clear that the administration's route now is simply to continue to withdraw all of our troops and get out.

That leaves us no hope.

Now, what is he doing?

This changes the, well, the first thing, he didn't have to do anything to begin with.

That was a fantastic thing for them.

It's what's right on the nose.

Well, they came out on the first one.

first wave here with the League of POW AMI families expressed delights as UPI.

Obviously, it's a very significant development.

We're happy that POWs are of priority importance.

And we hope Richard makes his face all over his needs in accounting for the missing, which of course it does, and we'll be sure of that in the process of the ceasefire and all that.

Here, Don got in last night and is catching up with

And Scott Croft had been with them all weekend, you know, stuff they had done.

We got worse press over the weekend than the action as we always would.

But he's going to move on the individual leaders and then on the group, reverse their resolution because they passed a resolution.

We'll get them by phone or something to pass another resolution.

They've got a better idea.

We'll try to get some of them switched and all that kind of thing.

But they're in good shape because now what you said is that you're taking, you're not just withdrawing all the troops, you're doing something else.

And you're doing it with the POWs as a primary objective.

And for the purpose of getting leverage.

One of the purposes of this is to get leverage on the POWs.

We've got a good ride on the positive response.

We've got a certain amount of...

Predictable negative, and McGovern and Humphrey are taking the lead on the negative.

Both of them?

Yeah.

Humphrey said he cannot, will not support this, and he's canceling his campaign in Nebraska and returning immediately to Washington to consult with the Senate.

Well, they voted in Nebraska, so that's that.

I was surprised that Humphrey's being there now.

Yeah.

He's going to win.

Why?

Yes.

Well, I don't know if they've done that, whether that's a reason.

Yeah.

McGovern says it's near.

143.

Yeah.

Won't prevent a bloodbath, a starting bloodbath.

Most people don't think that's possible.

Then after saying all that, he called for quiet and firm action and urged Americans against reacting in blind, eerie, and damaging demonstrations.

There was a little campus action last night, not very much.

Blitz here and there.

Not too much.

Well, that probably takes a day to do that.

It may take some of those little action out here.

A few demonstrators came down from the White House and they arrested some.

all in the way of the thing.

There's no massive response that there may be today to Desmond and him.

That's the thing.

No, but I don't think it's good.

No, we don't have to.

No, it's good.

I don't say it.

I'm not concerned about it.

I think that's one of my risks.

You know that.

The Senate actions is predictable, but it's what we're doing.

Was McGregor able to get any of the Democratic caucus members to support him?

Not yet.

Not publicly.

Not yet.

No, they don't.

They've all kept quiet.

See, they've got this Democratic caucus that they had yesterday that adjourned, asking for the meeting, and then it's reconvening this morning.

I think they're probably all at the moment staying quiet until they get into that, but

But I don't know how some people could be.

You see, McGregor only had Republicans in his office afterwards, and I don't know.

Well, they were working on the Democrats.

That's right.

Oh, we'll see.

If they want to be partisan, well, they can be partisan.

That's why you need to get some of the country reaction and, yeah.

Well, I'm sure we're going to try.

One of the problems is that in the briefing, we had to rely on Rogers and Mark, and we didn't have Kissinger there anymore.

I mean, yeah, I was in the briefing.

I mean, I knew that was a mistake, and then I heard, well, that was not good.

And Kissinger didn't get into the hall, the hall, not needed, but he didn't get the other

So Rogers and Laird didn't come off pretty well.

Laird came off pretty well, apparently, and Laird interrupted Rogers when he was getting off on this isn't so bad kind of stuff.

He said, well, Rogers, the one really thing that concerned them, and they come back to this, was that Rogers said that not only are those mines armed

become active in 72 hours, but they can be turned off at any time.

And Fulbright got out his pad and wrote that down.

And that's one route the Democrats could decide to take today, is to demand that you disarm the mines you've already led.

And that's when Larry interrupted him and said, well, you know, if that isn't, we can't do that.

And there was no point getting into the shift of the conversation.

Rogers just can't help but take the damn lead line, doesn't he?

Well, I mean, he just doesn't have a meeting in here.

He was flying from one way to that and another every night.

What do you think?

That's what I thought.

Go ahead.

Go ahead with the Congress debate.

Get the hell out of there.

Well, he said he's taking, you know, he's firming up his line, and their departments are all moving to hit all their people this morning.

Well, this is exactly what we did with our maintenance.

I didn't say that it has a purpose or effect for Lockheed.

I said the point here is not to worry about what you call it.

The point is to say the president has said we are going to stop the delivery of supplies by sea to Vietnam.

And the way we're doing it is through mines and territorial waters and so forth.

But don't get into it.

Are people going to get in or whether we're going to stop ships at the high seas or not?

The point is not how he's going to do it.

He's one of the boys that said he was going to stay in the right.

I know.

You can see the point there.

Roger said the mines were going to be turned off.

Shit.

Where are we?

He just doesn't get the point.

See, he was walking around with this U.N. thing.

Bush has to notify the U.N. and say it's not a blockade and we're not going in the high seas and all that kind of stuff, which we shouldn't be using in our arguments here.

Well, Lee McGregor's got some of the horse land capacity.

Yep.

And he's trying to get the, he's got eight and he's got one out of him, I understand.

Yep.

Aitken had a bad first statement, because he said he didn't think mining was going to do any good on the current balance.

But then he moved and with a very strong thing about how he compared it to Bangladesh.

He said, we can't pull out of there and just leave it.

We have a slaughterhouse in Bangladesh.

How about her every month?

Yep.

On the early wires, Buckley, Ford, Griffin.

Good.

Chavis, Margaret Smith, very strong.

Good.

Wallace, he said, I don't want any action the President takes to bring peace into the war, but I've got to think it through before I assess these things.

They're all playing politics.

Kennedy had it as an ominous decision, folly, and evil military gesture taken in desperation.

Well, so Vietnam likes it.

How about getting somebody, maybe Edgar tonight, to tee off the partisanship?

That's what they're working on.

We may build the fort while we're going to get out the fort tonight.

We'll probably do it in remarks prepared for it.

put it out ahead of time so it makes the news tonight with the other.

Mm-hm.

When Governor Murray's going to buy television, tell him to end it soon.

Well, that's going to be a hell of a lot.

How to get his people and that's all.

Yeah.

Well, we know from experience.

He may not be able to buy it anyway, but he may not sell it to another winner.

It's, you know, we don't need, of course, to do anything to build it up, as you can see.

And there's... No, no, no.

Those are kind of...

It's a... Yeah, but it's scary.

There's the inevitable comparisons to the Cuban.

Sure.

But complete analysis of the difference is always...

Same time that Nixon's laid it on the line, played his whole thing on the line with...

So it was the drama of all that.

Yeah.

Well, Bob, it was the right thing to do.

I told Henry, you know, I constantly reassure him.

He goes through an agony of hell.

Poor guy.

The eager he feels.

This is his former policy.

I don't know if he knows it.

But basically, he's very honest about it.

He has contributed enormously to us.

transnistry, the Soviet nation, all these little pieces, and now we pull it down.

But on the other hand, to Henry's great credit, he was willing when he finally faced up to the fact to move.

And we had no choice.

We had to do something.

That situation, it wasn't certain that it would crumble, but there was enough of a risk that it would crumble that our failure to do something in the event that it crumbled would have been the worst thing that could have happened.

And if it doesn't crumble, you're having something that's going to not hurt you one bit.

It's going to help.

We'll say it's quite good.

Democratic caucus contends that there should be a most vicious attack upon that for partisanship, comparing how the Republicans supported Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

when there was a possibility of a confrontation with the Soviet Union.

That was, let me explain the difference.

That was the blockade that did involve the stopping of the Russian ships.

That did involve eyeball to eyeball.

That was the risk for it, you know.

This is not.

That's the difference.

This involves our interests.

It involves when it came to capturing the Russian interests.

I think you can make a hell of a speech on that.

They really only have two routes that matter.

They may very well decide to lay low, let you hang yourself, wait and see what happens, rather than get themselves stuck out hungry.

And the government will probably push hard to go out on a confirmation.

Even if the caucus does do it, we'd be sure to get Humphrey and McGovern.

You supported Kennedy on the Cuban front.

Did you go on to a thing?

Oh, I went on television.

Statewide.

Statewide television.

Statewide television in California.

Yeah.

And in prime time, I supported Kennedy.

And Kennedy totally, I think it was a surprise, wanted to hand it over to the governor.

I know you're a Republican, too.

Next month, I'll be on a paid broadcast.

I took the time in San Diego to record it.

Yeah?

Oh, I didn't know.

See, we can get them, even if the caucus doesn't go their way.

They're out there now.

Some of the labor leaders.

In fact, this is a good time to smoke Kennedy out.

We'll get Humphrey, McGovern, and Kennedy, the candidates.

Maybe you could get a copy of him.

It's going to be a bad good time for India.

The Democrats are going to be ashamed of these street people.

Not all orders are going to pass.

The next negative will of course be when the Russians go in there.

It's not a stop, it's something that they do.

If they cancel a body, I'm totally happy with the state of the country and so forth.

We just have to say, we expected that.

We expected that.

That's being pretty low.

We're paying close to that right now because the commentators have all said this is undoubtedly against us.

There's sacrifices.

We cannot sacrifice America.

They endanger American lives and sacrifice American interests for the purpose of some reason.

The Russians, the Soviet, were providing the arms to create the crisis.

The Chinese, the Americans.

I just don't agree with Henry from getting him involved.

He's a damn jittery about it.

He doesn't get involved.

He can shift.

I don't even do it, but I don't think he will.

We're getting a support story to all these people.

Oh yes, so that they know what kind of response we've gotten to get in.

How you do that.

Get it with the specific quotes, the names of some of the people that have, you know, unless they've got .

Then of course the wires to all calls and the reaction around the country, the spot checks, the editorial reaction.

That we've been surprised by the tremendous strength of the response.

Which, that kind of thing could make quite a difference with a guy like Rogers.

And he thinks that it makes a great difference.

And it makes a difference with everybody.

I mean, it does with, you know, even Mortimer, who has got to go up and testify.

He knows that people think we're doing a good thing.

He's going to be stronger.

And it sure as hell does with all our congressional types.

If they think they're on the right side of something, they get a little bolder.

Chips are on the way out of handling.

20 of them are lined up, one behind the other on the way out.

They're raising the point, the PR guys, that we ought to get pictures of the ships going up, pulling out of Hanoi, and move back.

Well, you mean with our aerial photographs?

Aerial photographs.

To our border.

Tell him we have aerial photographs of the ships.

We can.

We can get a line of 20 ships, you know, bumper to bumper, on the way out.

Just be safe.

I don't know.

It may not be safe.

Also, Peg said that he, when he was in the meeting there, he got the first wired thing on the Russian reaction.

He said it was very violent, which amazed him.

He said, that's the best question.

Go ahead.

The best sign we're looking for is a violent Russian reaction.

But it is, that's a hell of a good positive story.

You took action and the enemy turned around and pulled back.

We should get those pictures.

Yeah, right.

I think Larry is going to be good.

They've either gotten the pictures or we can't get them and put them on the line.

I think Larry is going to be good.

My tall man last night was very important.

He's a weatherman.

I think Rogers is just probably the shape of the not bad leader.

There's probably a mistake ahead of the meeting.

No, no, we had to have it for purposes of public appearance.

You can't look and stand in the lead.

And I said I did it.

I mean, I did everything I should have.

I talked for 15 minutes and left.

I shouldn't have stayed there.

In fact, there's no reason not to bring it down.

I wouldn't have stayed 15 minutes.

No, no, I needed to.

I see we've got a few of them.

But I wasn't treating them in a cavalier manner.

It's all right.

I don't think I'd use Henry on any, some of the other people.

I don't think really it's important enough for him.

If you could understand, I think it's important.

So if you could use on that later.

Well, the plan now is for Rogers to do it, and I'm a little concerned about that.

Well, that means Henry.

But Henry probably is willing to do it.

Anything he'll do is better.

He'll give me the best reason.

Well, in house speech he can get kind of, well, he is what he does in the press.

Oh, is he?

That's the one that counts.

What he does in the press.

What does he mention in the press now?

Oh, Henry.

Yeah.

Well, maybe Rogers is the best one for you.

You're right.

He is, but he's going to do it for you.

I'll make the point that the purpose here is that we're going to put a burden on each other.

We've got to not give these people that this isn't really a blockade and you can turn them off any time you want.

And the dark Vietnamese have been mining too.

We've got to take it to the other side.

If he doesn't want to take it, then we'll have... Maybe we need to offer to have Laird or Mortar do it instead.

Mortar?

Yeah, it's not Mortar.

Laird ought to do it.

Laird's the one.

When you tell people you have Laird to upset with him, maybe you ought to have Laird there anyway.

Laird more.

Why don't you use another challenge you can?

I think the congressional side, who's working that?

Is it McGregor?

Who's working the Democrats?

That's what I mean.

The Senate's the whole crew is, but maybe that's the best choice for Henry.

I don't see how you can let them dirty because Henry can work with those bad Democrats.

I'd like to get three or four of them, please.

Goddamn it, we should have gotten some House Democrats, Bob.

What about Hayter?

Man, Jesus Christ, we should have gotten Hayter.

I don't have a rundown on any of the Congress stuff except what's in the wire thing.

We should tell them to go all out and get the side Democrats, basically.

All of them.

I have a doubt and a doubt and all the doubts in the world.

reach a decision, but once you do something, I've never been understanding people going back and saying, well, I shouldn't have done that.

Well, that's it.

You're going back and saying, well, that's it afterwards.

You've got to do it.

There's also the intense, blunt, the effectiveness of your, how you handle it.

This is Roger's problem.

I'm worried about it.

If you didn't understand it so well, it's fine.

That's the course you go to.

Yeah.

Use such colorful phrases as an international audience.

Any other strong, colorful rhetoric that you can possibly work on?

I think you can emphasize the purity of the personal values of the coolness.

the dedication to peace, the fairness of our authors.

I mean, this might be in your PowerPoints, it might be in two pages.

The president put the country above all things.

You see what I mean?

These are the kinds of things that I want in the PowerPoints rather than just bold facts.

The facts would be much better.

You've got to write this in each one.

The country above all things.

Show courage, strength, and so forth.

He will follow through.

This action will raise facts of credibility in the United States with great honor.

I wish you the very best of honor and peace.

Okay.

So, let me say it again.

Nixon & Haldeman on Vietnam War and Mining of North Vietnamese harbors

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Also recorded on May 9, 1972

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