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

2:17:16Well, I'm not so sure that, you know, he was going down to hit the Clark Clifford thing.
2:17:20Yeah.
2:17:20Oh, yeah.
2:17:20He was going to, on the summit, what he said he was going to say, and I don't know whether he was or not, was, so if I'm asked about the summit, he said, I didn't realize the president was having this thing today.
2:17:30But I will, of course, say that the president will be.
2:17:38general point that this is an important meeting and that there's a lot of things at hand and none of them have been decided.
2:17:55What do you mean?
2:17:56He said that he had a picture clearly in the run and he played it exactly, so I mean, when did we hear, how in the hell was, for example, this call didn't get out to the effect, I mean, exactly, that, that the, that Buck Henry said?
2:18:11Well, to be perfectly frank, it got out to Henry, who said to Cal, at a dinner party,
2:18:19But both caps there.
2:18:20Did the summit thing look like it was very much a doubt?
2:18:22Well, it did at that point.
2:18:23That was way back.
2:18:23I'm trying to see.
2:18:24How are you?
2:18:24How are you?
2:18:24Nice to see you.
2:18:25Nice to see you.
2:18:25Just once, I've had a call.
2:18:26I'm going to be here.
2:18:27Well, I was planning to speak to you.
2:18:28I believe that's what you're.
2:18:48Well, I, uh... Actually, I wouldn't do it dead with my children, but... Oh, you're going to have to do that?
2:18:54No, no, no.
2:18:54It's just great.
2:18:55It's great.
2:18:56It's good that you can.
2:19:00And, uh... Well, I don't know if you have any of the parents that want you out to stay or if you're more lost.
2:19:05Well, I'll stay wherever you want me to, sir.
2:19:07But, uh, we'll have something to do.
2:19:09Uh, this place is extremely interesting.
2:19:11I can at least, uh, contribute something to the scene.
2:19:15I think that, uh, they're trying to position themselves to...
2:19:18Do something quickly.
2:19:20And that's why the Yacht-O is kept in Paris.
2:19:23It'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.
2:19:35And there's at least two or three days' travel involved.
2:19:39So I think they've 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.
2:19:53Bill thinks that their offensive is way out of Kildare now.
2:19:57Oh, I have my own.
2:19:59They're getting killed.
2:20:00They're getting killed.
2:20:02And when?
2:20:02Well, next week.
2:20:03I mean, I mean, the biggest error we've made was...
2:20:13Maybe some of the bridges are not together.
2:20:17Well, we didn't have the excuse then.
2:20:19Well, I think it's harder to get it out.
2:20:20The die is cast and we cannot have a situation, having cast this diver, we worry about somebody saying, well, maybe we shouldn't get this one or that one or the other.
2:20:34It's certainly weird.
2:20:38I think they're going for ceasefire sooner or later, but ceasefire not involving South Vietnam only.
2:20:43I think this is the activity in the North.
2:20:46They'll do it to create a diversion, if nothing else.
2:20:50They haven't got there and reached their objectives in the South by any means, and that will not be the main motivation.
2:20:55But if you keep up giving them this kind of punishment,
2:21:00uh what are we doing in the north will become even more important than what they haven't achieved in the south well there's no like i think there's no like we should get the ceasefire or return to our people about this unless you're doing something that lasts for years and uh they're going to get a little more we're not doing enough action now well there's a lot
2:21:25I just can't tell the McCain.
2:21:51Yes.
2:21:51Well, what the hell did he say?
2:21:53What the hell did he say?
2:22:17They won't bomb.
2:22:18They haven't bombed for four days because they say that the ceiling isn't high enough.
2:22:235,000 feet, after Christ's sakes.
2:22:25How in the name of God?
2:22:27I mean, we should be hitting the North before this trip every goddamn day, right?
2:22:33Yes.
2:22:33Do you know what I mean?
2:22:36Our parking?
2:22:37No, sir.
2:22:38Well, he said he'd have to check in, too.
2:22:41I said I've never seen the president so angry.
2:22:45I said, he's going to see it a lot more because he's supposed to be our guy.
2:22:49And he wants to stay on the job, and I want him to stay on.
2:22:53I like him.
2:22:54But then if not this way, he's going to start taking his orders from here or else I'm not going to have this crap anymore.
2:23:00You know, I looked at the pictures.
2:23:04I never look at Don pictures.
2:23:08The only restriction we put on them until tomorrow morning is a 20-mile zone near the Chinese border.
2:23:14We should volunteer China because they know that the Chinese border is an unnecessary irritant.
2:23:23And, of course, it's not necessary.
2:23:24There are only three targets in that area.
2:23:27One is two bridges.
2:23:29One of those bridges is right on the border that connects China.
2:23:32We cannot hit them.
2:23:35We've taken out the other bridge and the third dock in our railroad marshalling yards, where they switch from one track to the other.
2:23:42And we have equipped that picture halfway accurate.
2:23:47We've destroyed those marshalling yards 100%, which you'd never get.
2:23:51I mean, they got some lucky hits, and they seem to have leveled those completely.
2:23:55So I don't know what these guys are talking about.
2:23:59There's no train moving right now between Hanoi and the border.
2:24:07And no trucks.
2:24:09They haven't ever used the border.
2:24:13They haven't started it.
2:24:21well it's not a doable proposition anyway to put 200 200 000 tons of supplies on trucks
2:24:37But one day it may eventually come.
2:24:43And when it does, then you get to learn your money.
2:24:46He agrees that we shouldn't have a plenary session until we've had a private session that had real progress.
2:24:50Absolutely.
2:24:51Otherwise, you have a plenary.
2:24:52You see, you have a plenary session.
2:24:55Then everybody here in this country will say, well, let's stop the bonding while we have the plenary session.
2:25:02No, no.
2:25:02They sold us that once.
2:25:03They're not going to sell it again.
2:25:09You've got them at a disadvantage right from the moment you put the offer through, regardless of which channel you use.
2:25:15And that's the way to go at it.
2:25:17And also, the last term, the public is quite convinced that they came and said nothing.
2:25:26More than nothing.
2:25:28That's right.
2:25:29And we've now got them in a position where they're...
2:25:31It's their move.
2:25:32It's their move.
2:25:33And we can say this.
2:25:34We offered through the Russians to meet with them on the 21st in every match.
2:25:37Do you think they might offer that clear plan, which, of course, I suppose, in desperation, they might now say, POWs or withdrawal?
2:25:49We will never accept it.
2:25:52But they do.
2:25:52No.
2:25:52I don't think they're going to do it.
2:25:55They've got so many other things.
2:25:58The O.W.
2:25:58's withdrawal is so contrary to everything they've said and have a still saying that the turnover of that nature is very difficult.
2:26:07I 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.
2:26:14If they thought they had one in the South, they would offer this.
2:26:18Because then they'd get us out and knock over the oven.
2:26:21But what they're asking of us is that we should knock over too.
2:26:24Because they still have to ask if they haven't achieved their objectives.

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

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Also recorded on May 19, 1972

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