Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 726-008
Date: Friday, May 19, 1972 at 12:55 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Porter, William J.; Kissinger, Henry A.
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/726-008

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

[2:17:16] Well, I'm not so sure that, you know, he was going down to hit the Clark Clifford thing.
[2:17:20] Yeah.
[2:17:20] Oh, yeah.
[2:17:20] He 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.
[2:17:30] But I will, of course, say that the president will be.
[2:17:38] general point that this is an important meeting and that there's a lot of things at hand and none of them have been decided.
[2:17:55] What do you mean?
[2:17:56] He 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?
[2:18:11] Well, to be perfectly frank, it got out to Henry, who said to Cal, at a dinner party,
[2:18:19] But both caps there.
[2:18:20] Did the summit thing look like it was very much a doubt?
[2:18:22] Well, it did at that point.
[2:18:23] That was way back.
[2:18:23] I'm trying to see.
[2:18:24] How are you?
[2:18:24] How are you?
[2:18:24] Nice to see you.
[2:18:25] Nice to see you.
[2:18:25] Just once, I've had a call.
[2:18:26] I'm going to be here.
[2:18:27] Well, I was planning to speak to you.
[2:18:28] I believe that's what you're.
[2:18:48] Well, I, uh... Actually, I wouldn't do it dead with my children, but... Oh, you're going to have to do that?
[2:18:54] No, no, no.
[2:18:54] It's just great.
[2:18:55] It's great.
[2:18:56] It's good that you can.
[2:19:00] And, 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.
[2:19:05] Well, I'll stay wherever you want me to, sir.
[2:19:07] But, uh, we'll have something to do.
[2:19:09] Uh, this place is extremely interesting.
[2:19:11] I can at least, uh, contribute something to the scene.
[2:19:15] I think that, uh, they're trying to position themselves to...
[2:19:18] Do something quickly.
[2:19:20] And that's why the Yacht-O is kept in Paris.
[2:19:23] 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.
[2:19:35] And there's at least two or three days' travel involved.
[2:19:39] So 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.
[2:19:53] Bill thinks that their offensive is way out of Kildare now.
[2:19:57] Oh, I have my own.
[2:19:59] They're getting killed.
[2:20:00] They're getting killed.
[2:20:02] And when?
[2:20:02] Well, next week.
[2:20:03] I mean, I mean, the biggest error we've made was...
[2:20:13] Maybe some of the bridges are not together.
[2:20:17] Well, we didn't have the excuse then.
[2:20:19] Well, I think it's harder to get it out.
[2:20:20] The 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.
[2:20:34] It's certainly weird.
[2:20:38] I think they're going for ceasefire sooner or later, but ceasefire not involving South Vietnam only.
[2:20:43] I think this is the activity in the North.
[2:20:46] They'll do it to create a diversion, if nothing else.
[2:20:50] They haven't got there and reached their objectives in the South by any means, and that will not be the main motivation.
[2:20:55] But if you keep up giving them this kind of punishment,
[2:21:00] uh 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
[2:21:25] I just can't tell the McCain.
[2:21:51] Yes.
[2:21:51] Well, what the hell did he say?
[2:21:53] What the hell did he say?
[2:22:17] They won't bomb.
[2:22:18] They haven't bombed for four days because they say that the ceiling isn't high enough.
[2:22:23] 5,000 feet, after Christ's sakes.
[2:22:25] How in the name of God?
[2:22:27] I mean, we should be hitting the North before this trip every goddamn day, right?
[2:22:33] Yes.
[2:22:33] Do you know what I mean?
[2:22:36] Our parking?
[2:22:37] No, sir.
[2:22:38] Well, he said he'd have to check in, too.
[2:22:41] I said I've never seen the president so angry.
[2:22:45] I said, he's going to see it a lot more because he's supposed to be our guy.
[2:22:49] And he wants to stay on the job, and I want him to stay on.
[2:22:53] I like him.
[2:22:54] But 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.
[2:23:00] You know, I looked at the pictures.
[2:23:04] I never look at Don pictures.
[2:23:08] The only restriction we put on them until tomorrow morning is a 20-mile zone near the Chinese border.
[2:23:14] We should volunteer China because they know that the Chinese border is an unnecessary irritant.
[2:23:23] And, of course, it's not necessary.
[2:23:24] There are only three targets in that area.
[2:23:27] One is two bridges.
[2:23:29] One of those bridges is right on the border that connects China.
[2:23:32] We cannot hit them.
[2:23:35] 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.
[2:23:42] And we have equipped that picture halfway accurate.
[2:23:47] We've destroyed those marshalling yards 100%, which you'd never get.
[2:23:51] I mean, they got some lucky hits, and they seem to have leveled those completely.
[2:23:55] So I don't know what these guys are talking about.
[2:23:59] There's no train moving right now between Hanoi and the border.
[2:24:07] And no trucks.
[2:24:09] They haven't ever used the border.
[2:24:13] They haven't started it.
[2:24:21] well it's not a doable proposition anyway to put 200 200 000 tons of supplies on trucks
[2:24:37] But one day it may eventually come.
[2:24:43] And when it does, then you get to learn your money.
[2:24:46] He agrees that we shouldn't have a plenary session until we've had a private session that had real progress.
[2:24:50] Absolutely.
[2:24:51] Otherwise, you have a plenary.
[2:24:52] You see, you have a plenary session.
[2:24:55] Then everybody here in this country will say, well, let's stop the bonding while we have the plenary session.
[2:25:02] No, no.
[2:25:02] They sold us that once.
[2:25:03] They're not going to sell it again.
[2:25:09] You've got them at a disadvantage right from the moment you put the offer through, regardless of which channel you use.
[2:25:15] And that's the way to go at it.
[2:25:17] And also, the last term, the public is quite convinced that they came and said nothing.
[2:25:26] More than nothing.
[2:25:28] That's right.
[2:25:29] And we've now got them in a position where they're...
[2:25:31] It's their move.
[2:25:32] It's their move.
[2:25:33] And we can say this.
[2:25:34] We offered through the Russians to meet with them on the 21st in every match.
[2:25:37] Do you think they might offer that clear plan, which, of course, I suppose, in desperation, they might now say, POWs or withdrawal?
[2:25:49] We will never accept it.
[2:25:52] But they do.
[2:25:52] No.
[2:25:52] I don't think they're going to do it.
[2:25:55] They've got so many other things.
[2:25:58] The 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.
[2:26:07] 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.
[2:26:14] If they thought they had one in the South, they would offer this.
[2:26:18] Because then they'd get us out and knock over the oven.
[2:26:21] But what they're asking of us is that we should knock over too.
[2:26:24] Because they still have to ask if they haven't achieved their objectives.