Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 726 › Conversation 726-008

Nixon, Porter & Kissinger on Vietnam War and Paris Peace Talks

Friday, May 19, 1972 · 12:55 PM–1:04 PM ET · Oval Office · 9 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Porter, William J.; Kissinger, Henry A.Conversation726-008 on Tape 726 (tape position 02:17:11–02:26:25)StartFriday, May 19, 1972 at 12:55 PMEndFriday, May 19, 1972 at 1:04 PMRecording deviceOval OfficeSourceNixon Library record for 726-008 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon met with William J. Porter and Henry Kissinger to discuss the deteriorating state of the North Vietnamese offensive and the resulting strategic opportunities for the U.S. in Paris peace negotiations. Nixon expressed significant frustration with military leadership regarding air strike restrictions and ceiling limitations, demanding that bombing missions against North Vietnamese supply lines continue aggressively. The group ultimately agreed that the U.S. should maintain its current pressure and refuse a plenary session in Paris until private negotiations yield substantive progress.

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Position in tape: 02:17:11 – 02:26:25

part B, 16:11

726a.mp3
726b.mp3

NARA Description

On May 19, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, William J. Porter, and Henry A. Kissinger met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:55 pm to 1:04 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 726-008 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 726-8

Date: May 19, 1972
Time: 12:55 pm - 1:04 pm
Location: Oval Office

The President met with William J. Porter and Henry A. Kissinger.

Greetings

Porter's schedule
     -Travel
     -Children

Vietnam
     -Paris talks
     -North Vietnam Strategy
           -Le Duc Tho
                  -Stay in Paris
                  -Stops in Peking and Moscow
     -North Vietnam offensive
           -Losses
           -US and South Vietnam counter action
           -US bombing
           -Limitations
           -People’s Republic of China [PRC] trip
           -Ceasefire
           -South, North
           -Prisoners of war [POWs]
           -Purpose
     -Blockade
           -Harm to North Vietnam
           -President's peace terms
           -State Department response
                  -Foreign service
           -Pentagon response
                  -The President’s view
     -Air strikes
           -Adm. John S. McCain
                  -Talk with Spiro T. Agnew
           -McCain
                  -Restrictions
                        -Ceilings
                  -The President’s trip to the Soviet Union
                  -Talk with Henry A. Kissinger
Show the rest of the log (58 more lines)
                  -Future
                  -Orders from President
           -Damages
                  -Aerial photographs
           -PRC border

             -Restrictions
                   -Reason
             -Targets in Area
                   -Bridges
                   -Railroad marshalling yards
             -Railroad marshalling yards
                   -Damage
                         -Photographs
             -Restrictions
                   -Response
                         -Basis
      -Effect
             -Railroads
             -Trucks
                   -Limitations
             -Railroads
                   -Pontoon bridges
             -Trucks
                   -Usefulness in moving supplies
-Paris talks
      -Porter's role
-Plenary session
      -Timing
             -Private session
      -President's offers
             -North Vietnam responses
             -North Vietnam counter offers
             -Soviets
      -Possible North Vietnam offer
             -Likelihood
             -Return of POWs for US withdrawal
-North Vietnam offensive
      -Failure
             -Signs
                   -New York Times, Washington Post
             -Army of the Republic of South Vietnam [ARVN]
             -Nguyen Van Thieu's position
             -Commentaries
                   -New York Times
                   -Washington Post
                   -Time
                   -Newsweek
                   -Networks

                             -The President’s view
           -Paris talks
                 -Porter's work
                        -Foreign Service evaluated
                             -Bureaucrats
                             -Soviet Union

Porter and Kissinger left at 1:04 pm.

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.

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I'd like to say hello.
Nice to meet you.
Just once.
I haven't had a call.
I'm going to be here.
I was planning to see you this afternoon.
That's a mystery.
I like that.
Oh, no, no, no.
I like that.
Actually, I'm going to go to bed with my children.
Oh, you're going to have to do that?
That's just great.
It's great.
It's good that you can.
Well, I don't think you have to go to the parish.
I want you on the stage for a few more months.
Well, I'll state where we want to go, sir, but we'll have something to do.
This place is extremely interesting.
I can at least contribute something to the scene.
I think that they're trying to position themselves to
do something quickly, and that's why the Yacht-O is kept in Paris.
It's not an easy matter to move a man from Hanoi, especially a polar bear man, from Hanoi into Paris, because the protocol requires that he stop two days in Peking and stop in Moscow, also, to balance things up.
And there's at least two or three days' travel at Impala.
So I think they just made up their minds that he's going to have something to say sooner or later, and I don't think that what he will say eventually will perhaps resemble what they hoped he'd have to say.
Bill thinks that their offensive is way out of kilter now.
Oh, I have lost my own.
They're getting killed.
They're getting killed.
And when?
Well, next week.
Well, of course, because I was excited.
I mean, I mean, the biggest error we've made was...
They sound like they should try and get it.
Well, we didn't have the excuse then.
Well, I think they're going to get it now.
The die is cast, and we cannot have a situation having cast this die where we worry about somebody saying, well, maybe we shouldn't get this one or that one or the other.
It's certainly weird.
I think they're going for ceasefire sooner or later, but ceasefire not involving South Vietnam only.
I mean, the activity in the north.
They'll do it to create a diversion, if nothing else.
They haven't got there and reached their objectives in the south by any means, and that will not be the main motivation.
But if you keep up giving them this kind of punishment,
What we're doing in the north will become even more important than what they haven't achieved in the south.
I think there's no way we should get a ceasefire or return to our P.O.W.s unless you're doing something that lasts for years.
And they're going to get a little bored if we're not doing enough actions now.
Well, there's a lot of this activity.
I just gave Calvin McCain.
Yes.
Well, what did he say?
You know Agnew.
Agnew was a, you see, gospel in the church.
Agnew was a wonderful guy.
He was a super rock.
Very simple security.
You understand me.
Thanks.
So he goes out there and McCain says, well, if she lives, we can do a lot better.
But our order restricts us from the bombing of the army.
That's just bullshit.
Absolute bullshit.
They restricted themselves.
They won't bomb.
They haven't bombed for four days.
But they say that the ceiling isn't high enough.
5,000 feet, not for Christ's sakes.
How in the name of God?
I mean, we should be heading to Norway before this trip.
Every goddamn day, right?
Yes.
Do you know where he is?
Our parking?
No, sir.
Where is he?
He said he'd have to check in, too.
I said I've never seen the president so angry.
I said he's going to see it a lot more angry because he's supposed to be our guy.
I said he is, and he wants to stay on the job, and I want him to stay on the job.
taking his orders from here or else I'm not going to have this crime.
You know, I looked at the pictures.
I never look at found pictures.
The only restriction we put on them until tomorrow morning is a 20-mile zone near the Chinese border.
We should bomb near China because if they get over the Chinese border, it's an unnecessary irritant.
And of course, it's not necessary.
There are only three targets in that area.
One has two bridges.
One of those bridges is right on the border.
It connects China.
We cannot hit them.
We've taken out the other bridge and the third dock in our railroad marshalling yards, where they switch from one track to the other.
And we have, if that picture is halfway accurate, we've destroyed those marshalling yards 100%, which you'd never get.
I mean, they've got some lucky hits, and they seem to have leveled those completely.
So, I don't know what these guys are talking about.
There's no train moving right now between Hanoi and the border.
And no trucks.
Trucks they haven't ever used before.
They haven't started.
Well, it's not a doable proposition anyway to put 200,000 tons of supplies on trucks.
If I was Sir Eskimo, I would have to go back to Paris, and I know you've got to continue.
He agrees that we shouldn't have a plenary session until we've had a private session that had real progress.
Absolutely.
Otherwise, you have a plenary, you see.
You have a plenary session.
Then everybody here in this country will say, well, let's stop the bombing while we have the plenary session.
No, no.
They sold us that once.
They're not going to sell it again.
Well, I like the position
you've got them at a disadvantage right from the moment you put the offer through, regardless of which channel you use.
And that's the way to go at it.
And also, the last time, the public is quite convinced that they came and said nothing, and that we tried to follow through with a plenary, and they said more of nothing.
And we've now got them in a position where they're
It's their rule.
It's their rule.
And we can say we offered through the Russians to meet with them on the 21st.
They never even answered up to us.
Do you think they might offer that clear plan, which you criticized Kovacs in desperation?
They might now say POWs or withdrawal.
We will never accept it.
But they do.
No.
I don't think they're going to do it.
No.
Because?
They have to do it in other things.
They've said and are still saying that the turnover of that nature is very difficult.
I don't know what Bill thinks, but I think their actions prove that the New York Times and Washington Post isn't right that they have one in the South.
If they thought they had one in the South, they would offer this.
Because then they'd get us out and knock over the oven.
But what they're asking of us is that we should knock over too.
Because they still have to ask you.
They haven't achieved their objectives.
They can't knock you over and they're asking us to knock you over.
Don't you think that if they thought they could do it, they would get us out of here?
there, they'd be proceeding with us separately, figuring that it's just a question of getting down to both sides.
Most time networks all are doing wishful writing and wishful talking.
and all they ever wanted to stop.
And I won't.
Let me say no more.
Well, we appreciate what you're doing.
Mr. President, I'd like to ask you a question.
Well, there's a lot to do, a lot to do.
There's a lot of the foreign services, which is quite what I've mentioned out there.
I mean, it's bureaucrats.
That's the problem.
I mean, that's the trouble with the top-down Russians.
You've got too many bureaucrats.
But don't ever become a bureaucrat.
I haven't yet.
I've been in the general order.
I've been sent my way, sir.
I agree with that.
Right over there, this way.

Also recorded on May 19, 1972

  • 726-005 12:19 PM · 23 min — President Richard M. Nixon and George P. Shultz met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:19 pm to 12:49 pm.
  • 726-006 12:49 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 12:49 pm and 12:51 pm.
  • 726-007 12:51 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:51 pm to 12:55 pm.
  • 726-009 1:04 PM · 1 min — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 1:04 pm and 1:08 pm.
  • 726-010 1:04 PM · 4 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 1:04 pm and 1:08 pm.
  • 726-011 1:08 PM · 17 min — President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and Henry A. Kissinger met in the Oval Office of the White House from 1:08 pm to 1:27 pm.
  • 024-159 1:58 PM · 5 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 1:58 pm and 3:20 pm.
  • 339-021 1:58 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 1:58 pm and 3:20 pm.

All 47 conversations from May 19, 1972 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 726-008, May 19, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/726-008 (accessed November 2, 2026).