Nixon, Kissinger & Haldeman on Vietnam War and Nguyen Van Thieu

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I think there's three of us.

I don't think we should have a close knowledge.

Do you agree?

Go ahead.

I just got this message.

It's a message from a special advisor he had told for... Is this the French?

No, they give it to... We have set up a special channel to our airports after J-1 because they give it to him and we have a special code that goes only here.

No one can read it.

It doesn't go through any network.

It doesn't go to the State Department?

No, nor to CIA.

Thank God.

We have a special connection.

It's through the joint efforts by the two parties during the private meeting from October 8th to October 12th, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the United States itself, almost all of the questions, with the view of bringing about a peaceful settlement of the Vietnam question.

The immediate and urgent task for both parties now is to make every possible effort to settle the remaining question, in which there is the question of returning the captured or detained military as well as civilian persons of both parties.

This is a question of great political significance

and also a matter concerning the deepest feelings of the Vietnamese people.

This is a business about the people you have in jail?

Yes.

Well, they may have given that.

How can you solve that?

Especially by the V.co and many of these ones, we want to believe that Dr. Kissinger will carry out a serious promise that the United States Party will exert the greatest effort to arrive at a most correct solution to this question.

On its part, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam will do its very utmost to rapidly bring the negotiations between the two sides to final resolve.

Thereby will offer it not just an armistice, but a new era in the relations between the two countries.

I agree with you.

They may have made a decision.

I hope they want to get along in the United States for a while.

That's fine.

We're willing.

That's our best guarantee.

My solution is going to be this.

I'm going to tell them, look, I plead for you.

I understand it.

What I will do is we will write into the agreement the same formula we have for the National Committee on Reconciliation.

It is a question that should be settled within three months.

I give you the word of the United States.

At first, a significant number will be released immediately.

Secondly, that at the end of the three months, we will have the remainder released.

Now, this has the advantage of the acceptance, that it gives a guarantee of their good behavior for those three months.

We can't get them all released.

If they don't accept that, we have to go back to the drawing board.

Well, how about you?

What's he going to say?

Significant number?

Oh, he'll let out about 5,000.

I can get him to release.

You know what he's doing now?

He's giving them all criminal sentences.

They're probably going to slaughter.

It's certainly the goddamnedest slaughter you've ever seen.

That you have to be ready for, Mr. President, after this announcement.

See, one reason I really ought to go to Hanoi is to make sure that between now, after we sign this, and the month after, everyone is really going to stand down

And they both will start a mass slaughter of civilians, which could easily happen.

That won't happen either way.

It could.

You have to be prepared.

And then to finish this agreement, Cambodia and Laos.

Paragraph A, the two sides recognize the independence and so forth of Laos, Cambodia and so forth.

Paragraph B, the government of the United States, the government of the Republic of Vietnam, the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and the PRC undertake to refrain from using the territory of Cambodia and the territory of Laos

to encroach on the sovereign insecurity of other countries, in other words, to still allegedly give up their base areas.

Paragraph C, foreign countries shall put an end to all military activities in Laos and Cambodia, totally withdrawing their paper, reintroducing into these countries troops, military advisors, military personnel.

And they've given us a side undertaking in Laos, saying that...

The Democratic Republic of Vietnam undertakes and will actively contribute toward rapidly bringing the negotiations in Laos to a successful conclusion so as to make possible the ceasefire in Laos within one month after agreement on ending the war and restoring the peace Vietnam comes into force.

After the ceasefire in Laos, the foreign countries in Laos will arrange the modalities of implementing Article 15B, which is the withdrawal of foreign troops.

All I can say is that I don't see how the Jews cannot agree with this, except for the fact that he probably thinks they're on the ropes and thinks we ought to stick it out.

But suppose you do stick it out and crush them.

What the hell good does unconditional surrender ever do in a war?

We can win his war for him.

We cannot win our war for him.

We can.

There's no doubt.

We can kill off an

There's no doubt that if this war continues, that by the end of next year, the regular North Vietnamese army in the South will be in dispatch, and it's the guerrillas who are after Cambodia.

But that doesn't end our war.

It still keeps our officials at North.

It still keeps us bombing.

You see, you would have to come in to take a concrete case.

just to keep the war going at this activity, at this level.

That you can't do.

Then you will have the alternative is to draw down.

Once the North Vietnamese recognize that you're drawing down, you're dead.

Because if they can endure what you're dishing out now, they should itself, if they find out, this is why we have to settle it if we possibly can.

The point about the children is that he's got to realize that with

that he has a hell of a friend in the president of the United States that we're going to support him economically with replacements and more of it.

But that he's got to make an asset out of that friendship and act, frankly, psychologically, as if he thinks this is a fine settlement.

That's what he's got to do.

Because the other part of it

If he doesn't take this and you get forced out of the war next year by Congress, relax.

He's through.

I want you to say that to him.

You can also say that, I don't know whether you want to say this or not, but the rules indicate that they don't want a communist government.

The ones they don't stand is for you.

He's got to know that there's, I mean, I don't know how hard to put it.

I guess Bunker just hasn't talked up to him strong enough.

But you see the trouble with Bunker is he reads in my table, so it's me against you.

What Bunker ought to do is come in as the fatherly figure and knock the table himself.

Well,

On this, you ought to say it's a good agreement for both sides, but its significance goes beyond it.

Then it opens up into, you know, commercial relations and closer ties.

They report everything you said to have made it back to Moscow.

So I'd give them some of the garbage.

You see, the problem is, and it's huge, I realize, even though we're going to win the election,

We are not going to have a mandate to continue the war.

That's what he's got to do.

As a matter of fact, we're going to have one hell of a time, even getting the economic and military assistance that's required in this damn thing.

I think if we bring this war on, we can get it.

But we will not get it if...

I think... You all will be able to report if you're still...

Well, they've been out there for eight months without leave.

Without being home, we've got troubles in Thailand on these bases.

You would be, we'd run a mass of a blood.

But when you've got your blood working, you better collect on it while it's working.

I'm just trying to think of any arguments that we can make to these people.

But I think it would be promising that you will see him within a month.

Sir?

Receive him as his.

In my home?

With his wife?

You might have to, let's leave it open.

You might prefer to go to Hawaii.

Well, it depends.

It's better than me.

Well, it may dissociate you a little bit, but it's better than San Clemente.

San Clemente, it's better from every point of view.

I think we ought to get it down to sea.

As long as we still have the glow of it.

The symbolism of it is coming to San Clemente.

Oh, thank you.

House of Peace and all that.

And we put her arm around him right there and treated him as a friend for us.

He's been at the Western White House.

The honors and all that stuff.

All right.

If you don't mind, I have so much of these preparations.

I have to see to the reading.

He's got a message for you right after.

Nixon, Kissinger & Haldeman on Vietnam War and Nguyen Van Thieu

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on October 14, 1972

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