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Conversation 800-002

TapeTape 800StartMonday, October 16, 1972 at 5:03 PMEndMonday, October 16, 1972 at 5:26 PMParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President);  Haig, Alexander M., Jr.;  Hearst, William R.;  White House operator;  [Unknown person(s)];  Galvin, Robert W.;  Hayden, Martin S.Recording deviceOval Office
AudioNARA Description

On October 16, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, Alexander M. Haig, Jr., William R. Hearst, White House operator, unknown person(s), Robert W. Galvin, and Martin S. Hayden met in the Oval Office of the White House from 5:03 pm to 5:26 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 800-002 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 800-2

Date: October 16, 1972
Time: 5:03 pm - 5:26 pm
Location: Oval Office

The President met with Alexander M. Haig, Jr.

        Vietnam negotiations
            -Henry A. Kissinger
                -Possible proposals
            -The President’s proposal
                -Nguyen Van Thieu
                    -Possible meeting with the President

                                        (rev. Nov-03)

                          -Midway Island
                              -Possible interpretation

The President talked with William R. Hearst between 5:04 pm and 5:08 pm.

[Conversation No. 800-2A]

[See Conversation No. 31-75]

[End of telephone conversation]

        Vietnam negotiations
            -Thieu
                -Possible meeting with the President
                    -1972 election
                    -San Clemente
                         -Western White House

The White House operator talked with the President at an unknown time between 5:08 pm and
5:14 pm.

[Conversation No. 800-2B]

[See Conversation No. 31-76]

The President conferred with Haig.

        Vietnam negotiations
            -Thieu

[End of conferral]

[End of telephone conversation]

        Vietnam negotiations
            -Gen. Creighton W. Abrams, Jr.
                -Haig’s view.
                -Role with Thieu
                    -Kissinger compared to Abrams
                -Thieu
                    -Kissinger
                -The President’s letter to Abrams

                                        (rev. Nov-03)

                -Haig’s previous conversation with Abrams
            -South Vietnam
                -US support
                    -Limitations
                         -Riots aboard US naval vessels

An unknown person entered and left at an unknown time between 5:08 pm and 5:14 pm.

        Refreshment

        Vietnam negotiations
            -Navy and Air Force
                -Length of deployments
            -Timing of possible settlement announcement
                -Haig’s view
                     -Kissinger’s schedule
                          -Meetings with Thieu
                               -Thieu’s possible modification of the agreement
                          -Return to Washington
                          Possible additional negotiations in Paris
                     -1972 election
                          -H.R. (“Bob”) Haldeman
                               -Possible collapse of settlement
            -Thieu's possible reaction to proposal
                -Haig’s view
                     -South Vietnamese bureaucracy
                -Possible modifications of the agreement
                     -North Vietnamese reaction
            -Possible settlement
                -Political aspects compared to security aspects
                -The President’s view
                     -Viability of South Vietnam

The President talked with Robert W. Galvin between 5:14 pm and 5:16 pm.

[Conversation No. 800-2C]

*****************************************************************

[Previous PRMPA Personal Returnable (G) withdrawal reviewed under deed of gift 11/29/2022.
Segment cleared for release.]

                                        (rev. Nov-03)

[Personal Returnable]
[800-002-w003]
[Duration: 1m 1s]

[See Conversation No. 031-077-w001]

*****************************************************************

[End of telephone conversation]

        Vietnam negotiations
            -Possible settlement
                -Thieu
                     -Prisoners of war [POWs] wives

The President talked with Martin S. Hayden between 5:16 pm and 5:21 pm.

[Conversation No. 800-2D]

[See Conversation No. 31-78]

[End of telephone conversation]

        Vietnam negotiations
            -Possible settlement
                -Thieu
                     -Possible meeting with the President
                          -Kissinger
                          -Haig’s view
                              -Thieu’s enthusiastic support of the settlement
                -The President’s possible meeting with Thieu
                     -Need for Thieu’s support of the settlement
                -Possible collapse of settlement
                     -1972 election
                          -Subsequent settlement
                              -Possible ultimatum to Thieu
                -The President's May 8, 1972 decision
                     -Bombing and mining
                          -Effect on North Vietnamese
            -POW wives

                                        (rev. Nov-03)

                 -The President's recent meeting with the National League of Families of
                 American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia
                      -The President’s pledge not to abandon the POW’s
                      -The President’s pledge to prevent imposition of communist government
                 on South Vietnam
                      -Betrayal of allies
                      -POW’s, missing in action [MIA’s]
                      -The President’s pledge not to rely on goodwill of North Vietnamese to
                 release POW’s
                          -George S. McGovern
             -Abrams
                 -Role as advocate
                      -The President’s previous meeting with Abrams
                      -Haig’s view
                 -Haig’s forthcoming meeting with Abrams
                      -Abrams’s key role in the settlement
                          -Kissinger
                               -Ellsworth F. Bunker
                 -Forthcoming meetings with Thieu
                      -Thieu’s possible acceptance of settlement
                          -The President as an ally of Thieu
                      -Thieu’s possible rejection of settlement
                          The President’s loss of confidence in Thieu

Haig left at 5:26 pm.
Transcript (AI-Generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.

Well, he's got the ship launched every now and then.
We'll see what happens.
He's certainly got plenty of, which is good.
He's got a bunch of different game plans.
As you know, I told him about this scheme that I had.
If it would be precise, but only if he agrees that he's gonna agree.
And I'm sure John will be a good way to see him.
That, to me, if I were you, I'd pick up in a minute.
But that might look like his U.S. time, too.
That's, that's, it really is going to look, it may look more like the time, though, if it doesn't for him.
Bill, with three weeks to go on this campaign, I just wanted to tell you that one of the reassuring things about my time in this House and also this campaign has been the support of your papers.
And, boy, particularly on that foreign policy and stuff, you've just been great, and I thank you very much.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You?
Yeah.
Right.
That's true.
That's true.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
Well, you've also
also in these great international things, which really is what matters.
Speaking at the Valley of Johnson, I bet you're interested to know, Saturday, Friday, John Connolly's on TV at 7.30.
I have seen the advance on it.
It is the best political telecast I have ever seen.
It's all on foreign policy, and I urge you to tune in.
7.30 Friday, John Connolly.
And, you know, it's a Democrat for Nixon deal, and it's terrific.
It sounds like a Hearst editorial.
I have a quail.
Yeah.
Well, he sympathizes with the project, and he can't stand telephone.
Good, good.
I'll dig it up.
Yeah, we are, in the end, going to do the right thing.
Yeah.
Well, when you stop on that, too, put yourself on the other side, read what these clowns are saying, what would you do?
Sit it out, huh?
Right?
I just spoke to the POW.
I said, boy, they're the most wonderful people.
Those people, they're, you know, they're the ones that ought to be saying bug out.
They don't.
They don't say that.
Motion.
Oh, I remember how I smelled it for that.
Right?
And give my best, best to lose it.
And to predict our end to it.
Got it.
Hello?
Hello?
worry about it now.
Hello?
It's all right.
You let me know.
I'll be ready any time.
The situation is such that he's got plenty of options.
But really, the key point is what we now do is reduce
It's not going to be tough, but it's going to take some doing.
Abrams has got the point now.
to be an advocate.
That's right.
He's not there to sit there and second-guess us.
He understands that.
He understands it, and he came about it on his own.
That's right.
But he's got to go arm-first this fall and put him to the mat.
That's all he's got.
I wanted him to understand it completely.
My judgment is to his own income.
Right.
And Henry's not going to sell it.
No.
But General Abrams can.
And he, at least, can go a long way because...
That's why it's good to have Abrams there.
Is there anything more we can tell him?
Make a letter.
I had a long talk with him.
Yes, sir.
I had a long talk with him.
He believes in doing this.
He's not just being loyal.
He believes that the time has come to break these guys loose and put them on their own two feet.
He's right, too.
We can't stand up there.
We're having problems because we've got our own.
We've had riots on the ships and this and that and the other thing.
Well, we've been lucky to hold that thing.
It's really been a credit to the discipline of the Navy and the Air Force because we've been hanging out with them for nine months now.
And that's tough going.
So I think we have to get it.
But I think Henry's first option is not going to flow.
He has to have his first day.
No, sir.
What about after the first option, he'll come back here?
I think he's going to have to spend it.
three, four days there with you, work them over, give you a shot at that document to tighten up a few screws for face-saving purpose, and then come back here and meet again in Paris.
And that doesn't hurt, because I'd like to see this settlement announced.
Even though it's probably not good from Bob's point of view, I'd like to see the settlement announced closer to
to November 7th, so that there's not a lot of...
Chance for it to fall apart?
That's right.
That's the other... That's my view, because I think there's going to be a period of about 30 days of the goddamnedest murder and... My view is that, having settled it, having settled it, not really a private truth, that Henry's got to reconcile himself.
Have you told Henry?
Does he know that he isn't going to be able to sell it to you, or he didn't want to give it to you?
No, I told him.
I told him, I said, my judgment is that this is too big enough for him to swallow in that short period, even from the standpoint of saving his own face and his own bureaucracy.
Because my judgment to you was that he was more flexible than the people around him, his nitpickers.
The bureaucrats are trying to preserve their goddamn positions.
And he sees, I think we'll be all right if he's
You see, if they change the other thing too much, I suppose, then you've got an argument.
They may want to do it.
They may want to do it.
They may want to do it.
This is a good proposition.
I feel the same.
I feel the same.
than it is in a security sense because the security we're accepting for granted on assurances that are private but you know i'm about as skeptical as anybody can be
and they've got to be flushed.
That's the way I feel about it.
I don't want it to come soon for us to get the
Well, it is in the best interest of the people, the best interest of the people.
How would you accept that his interests are really the interest of the economy, the only one that can lead it?
That's a good question.
And we've got that.
You can't, I think, not that you can do it on the basis of the people, but you just can't.
This agony that they're going through is going to stop.
That's only part of the agony.
The way they stick with this is unbelievable.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Hello?
I'm not calling to cancel my subscription.
Yeah.
I just called to tell you that I'm just enormously grateful for not only your endorsement, but for the, what I'm saying, some of our people here, the really tremendous editorials you've written on national security over these past four years.
uh, because, uh, every time I get a little discouraged and I read, uh, the Morning Washington paper, I read the editorials in the Dayton and Detroit news, and I think maybe the country's still got a little strength.
Go on, please.
That's what they want to say because they realize that everything they stood for is going to go down the two of them.
Sure.
Yeah.
One thing that really gets the point
did not have a positive reaction for him.
I understand.
I'm not referring to an editorial, but even among the pollsters agree that it didn't move in one way or another.
Yeah, I know.
Was that right?
That's a Minneapolis bull, I see.
Yeah, well that's pretty something.
Right at 10.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But in the numbers you're in, you're still very strong.
I think your bull shows about 12.
Well, we are, as you know, Mark, and I've got to sort of stick around here a bit, but after we get Congress out, I'll be around country a little.
Whether I will get into Michigan or not remains to be seen.
I will certainly be in the Midwest for regional meetings, like I did in Atlanta, but we're putting tremendous emphasis on Michigan, as you should know, in our advertising and our work and everything else.
Oh, is he?
Good.
And Bob is great, great.
More on the side than that one, I guess.
Yeah, right.
Well, turn up.
All right.
Well, there'll be more in the last three weeks, but you know, we've had a hell of a time trying to keep this Congress involved in the budget pieces.
And I've got a big deal of a tough bill tomorrow.
But it's for a good cause.
We're going to try to make it, but I do appreciate it.
I think you'll see enough activity.
Okay?
Bye.
Bye.
Anyway, what do you think?
I don't know.
Maybe the idea that I gave him is worth a damn because to see the thought.
It would only be in the event he felt that's what he needed, but maybe that was wrong to him.
I'd say you'd want two things from him, sir.
One is he was way out in front of you enthusiastically for the settlement.
Way out.
Yes, sir.
Let me say, I will not see him unless he is.
That's right.
I cannot go and then have him to bargain.
I cannot bargain with him.
You can't bargain with him and you can't have him carp about this thing being written down.
But at any event, we all appreciate
I think you've come, otherwise you'd be committing suicide and I don't think he's that kind of a man.
It is.
And, uh,
For that reason, I don't think we have to buy any pigs in a poke.
We ought to try the whole two with us and come out of the thing with that kind of a situation.
But I said, if you really want to get your face in the country, you should start going to talk to the UWI.
Well, I knew they were going to take me out.
I knew it.
Because you've been strong for them.
And even though you promised?
I said, what do I make of it?
conditions they're faithful
That's great.
That's right, and McGovern is just going to look like two cents after this.
And you just go on over there, and God damn it, that's the way it should be.
Well, he's an honest small man.
He's got this, but I want him to be an advocate.
That's what he said.
And I told him at the end there, I said, now, this is it.
It's just not going to be good enough.
He had his inclination normally to just sit there.
I know.
That's why.
He's now got to be an advocate of this position that I have decided.
And that's the way it's going to be.
Now, he came in strong.
I'm very comfortable with it.
I'm going to see him tonight and hear him say that the president feels that he is the man that will make or break this.
He doesn't want to say it.
He didn't ever say it to Henry.
He doesn't think Bunker can do it.
But the Abrams has got to tell you, look, you can trust the president.
You should take this deal.
You can come out with honor and put the name in his.
You've got a hell of an ally in the president.
If you don't take this deal, as I said, that he will lose the confidence of the man in this office.
That's what he's going to do.
He will lose the confidence of the man in this office.
He's got to know that.
And I sacrificed a lot for him.
And there ain't going to be any more.
Okay.
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