Nixon & Haldeman on Vietnam War and Naval blockade

Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

Download transcript (.txt) · JSON data

You know, I was thinking it probably isn't going to help much to try to get the pole out because I don't believe we can... You see, it wouldn't help much to get it out today because it wouldn't be there.

So it's still kind of there.

Thank you.

They'd have it Thursday morning, and they got a, that's, that's the release you're going to get in here.

I recognize you in there.

You look exactly like Eddie.

Yeah, that's a kid.

Like he does now.

All right.

God bless you.

Thank you.

Good thing I looked at it.

It's not funny.

Go ahead.

You should be in Colorado now, in Covina.

Christ, I didn't know we lived there.

Okay.

Thank you.

Well...

Thank you.

I think if you could get something out today or something.

I don't mean anything.

Get a lot of the support stuff.

There is a lot.

What I'm asking is they need to generate a few years' time to get a new brand in.

Overpowering support.

Tell him that he could say a poll is coming out tomorrow.

I think he should know.

Show him 65% support for the president.

Thank you.

And right away, raise all the crowd.

You know, it's coming out this week.

Why don't you just do that and tell Henry that he should get that.

That's what I was thinking.

You know, I think it's going to play pretty well.

Okay.

I'd be happy to wait, but I meet another fellow, Abzug, who's introducing an impeachment resolution.

Somebody, yeah, he never actually introduced a resolution.

He just called for impeachment.

He called for a lawsuit.

Yeah.

Wall time now thinks the UN should.

Yes, he's firing himself.

So he's going to work.

It's fine.

Mrs. Abbott, when she announced that she was introducing a resolution, she was booed and got a Bronx cheer.

Carl Hubbard issued a qualified statement.

Yeah.

the streets and take all the steps on the road to concentration.

Mayfair came out strong.

There's no other course of honor open to the president except the one he's chosen to take.

He's confident most Americans can support the president's actions.

Sam Stratton said these are great times in which we should suspend political criticism and not complicate the president's job.

Scott could have stuck with that and expect George Aitken

Senate president's action, but said he didn't believe the mining would have any effect immediately on the North Indian community.

No other claims, right?

No, that's right.

Dottie Hassell is on the Democratic floor.

I think this is trying to work out a, he's an intermediary between the Hawks and Doves, trying to work out the resolution in the House.

So we offer, you're going to get that and whether we like it or not, we don't want that, we don't care.

I think the State Drafting Group was scheduled to begin work later in the day on the close of service vehicle brief hearings before the full committee next week.

This is to end, to satisfy the Democratic caucus and the warden.

Well, if they say ceasefire prisoners and total withdrawal, that's what we've offered.

Total withdrawal in four months, conditioned on a ceasefire and return of prisoners.

That is specifically your executive.

And we've told our people not to push for that because we don't want to

But if the others push forward, we're not fighting.

If we end up with that, we've come out pretty well.

Jack Miller said your offer was both reasonable and realistic.

John Stennis called for the country to back the President.

This grave step has already been taken.

We must brace ourselves for the future and stand together to increase the chances of success for the President's initiative.

Strong firm, co-decision, courageous, the time has come for the leadership of the United States to unite behind our commander-in-chief.

We can owe nothing less to a man who has put the welfare of freedom-loving people above his own political fortunes.

I've unleashed the commander out of press conference.

Are we having, or any of our folks, they're waiting to attack the Democrats for a while to underscore, or are we, they're not taking on, I don't know, for the partnership or anything.

Did they have on the, on the positive thing?

So far, our guys will go with the idea.

Bill Comer says the president's taking a calculated risk.

I think his decision is the right one.

The only regret I have is that it was not taken years ago.

Bill Ryan, New York, joined in on this.

His episode is jerked.

He dropped his resolution in the hopper.

He runs against this exam, you know.

Margaret Smith has agreed.

She says, President Nixon has shown as much courage as any president in the history of the entire United States.

I support him most wholeheartedly.

In doing so, I accept as a basic issue between my opponents and me, both in the primary and in the general elections, the issue of supporting the president.

I am willing to accept defeat in either the primary or the general election if either of my opponents is now willing to repudiate the president in the United States.

Thanks for your vote.

Is she going to do it?

Is she going to get hit for it anyway?

She might as well go for it.

Ed Brook gets all confused and a big thing.

He disagrees with the president.

He's already introduced a resolution for cessation.

I don't know.

Cessation without doing anything for it.

I don't know.

Somebody should talk to him.

He's been on it all along.

Okay, fine.

But what he says now is that nowhere do you mention political conditions, no requirement for elections, international organization, and all that.

Oh, shit.

And he says, it's my understanding the President has offered withdrawal of all forces within four months of international surprise ceasefire return of our prisoners, and that the political settlement will be left to the Vietnamese themselves, not just the South Vietnamese, but all Vietnamese.

Without additional conditions, in my opinion, this is an acceptable offer.

The North Vietnamese would be a conger to agree tomorrow the United States be out of Indochina on the 15th of September.

I do not expect the outside world to accept this.

So he'll pray they will accept our offer.

So he's trying to walk, he's trying to hang up.

Well, the basic thing, Robert, we've got balls.

The peace offer has got us confused as hell.

Because what can they offer?

They're just going to offer to bug out.

That's it.

It's got us in a tough spot.

I would certainly crank up our people to attack the Democrats.

That was not planned for today.

The other was supposed to be, and there may have been some this afternoon.

We're going to pick them up.

Maybe a major...

I can't tell you how strong I feel.

They must be attacked or...

I think I dictated something on that, didn't I?

Attacking?

Yeah.

It's just absolutely essential for the lack of patriotism and comparing what the president did in 19, hitting the thing of what the Republicans did in the Cuban thing, but attacking them for their...

I think that should, I don't know, ask whether that is a good idea, but I'm inclined with it, but I think it is.

Don't you?

I think we've got to, you can't just let it fail.

You've got to start, what's there to suppose when there's people doing about this?

I mean, that's the point that I thought we were running at today.

Today, you've got to get those goddamn candidates on too.

Who's in charge of that?

Who can I push on that?

Yes sir.

We've got a meeting right now.

Well, I don't know if there's, there may be some other view, but my view is that it's not a case of strong support, but I think there should be some slashing attacks on the Democrats behind it.

Now, I talked to Condé today, and I said, well, he could have a press conference this week.

He said he could, but I think somebody's got to ask him to do it.

They've got to set it up and ask him to do it, and I believe it.

There are two of them in here.

Call him and if he can do it, you should talk to him and outrage him and say, you know, not tomorrow, but I think he's right by right now.

When he gets in trouble, outrage, he could say, I'm outraged, I called this today, I'm outraged by this attack.

If he could do that by Thursday, he could even go, I can't do it tomorrow, but he could do it by Thursday.

We've got milk going tomorrow night.

He's trying to get milk cranked up a little bit too.

I mean, yeah, he could do it.

Well, that's it.

Sorry.

He'd do a defense a little harder, but he should say they should have met.

But if Connolly still did what Bill took him on, if Connolly met the Democrat, he could say, God, with great sorrow, I can't understand these candidates very much.

Yeah.

Playing part of the politics of peace, you know, and energy, be the God in that list.

I think we're going to have to do that.

We're going to have to do that.

on this pool thing I checked over there, there's no place over there where you don't have the Auburn building looking down.

The one thing we might be able to do, not in the warehouse but in one of those other courts, is to put a pool and put a roof over it so that, not a building, just a roof, so that when you look down you couldn't see into the pool.

A roof that would be bigger than the pool and then the pool under your microcast.

All right, we'll get you some.

All in all, I think you're...

But it seems to me that they're...

I think a lot of this is spontaneous.

Sure it is.

We can't get them unless people are charged up and then we can only get so many.

We don't have... We can gin up enough to make it look like something.

We can't.

We've got...

We're currently about 20,000 now, which is more than we can gin up.

There's no way we can do that.

And, well, if you tell Henry about this, what are you going to do?

But he would listen to the people that were in that room.

Well, I want to pay the speech typewriter for me so that I can introduce them all.

Just give me a piece of, put that in the file, everybody at the dinner room or just go out and do it with your classmates.

No, no, no, no, no.

I don't need the people.

I meant that I wouldn't want to introduce them all.

Is that what you're saying?

I'll make sure at night I prepare them all.

Okay.

Good.

Nixon & Haldeman on Vietnam War and Naval blockade

AI Summary

Audio

Transcript (AI-generated)

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on May 9, 1972

Cite this conversation