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Conversation 946-005

TapeTape 946StartFriday, June 22, 1973 at 9:20 AMEndFriday, June 22, 1973 at 9:43 AMParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President);  Kissinger, Henry A.Recording deviceOval Office
AI Summary

President Nixon and Henry Kissinger met to refine strategy regarding Leonid Brezhnev’s ongoing visit and the upcoming Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War. They discussed whether to seek a Congressional resolution for the agreement, ultimately deciding against it to avoid unnecessary legislative scrutiny. Additionally, the pair reviewed the President's foreign policy accomplishments, specifically noting the positive shifts in media coverage and public perception despite the ongoing Watergate scandal.

Leonid BrezhnevAgreement on the Prevention of Nuclear WarForeign PolicyWatergateCongressional RelationsStrategic Arms Limitation Talks
AudioNARA Description

On June 22, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:20 am to 9:43 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 946-005 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 946-5

Date: June 22, 1973
Time: 9:20 am - 9:43 am
Location: Oval Office

The President met with Henry A. Kissinger.

       Leonid I. Brezhnev’s visit
              -Talking point memorandum
              -President’s forthcoming briefing of Congressional leaders
                               -3-

    NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

                       (rev. August-2011)

                                                Conversation No. 946-5 (cont’d)

       -Preparation
-Kissinger’s forthcoming briefing
-President’s conversation with Brezhnev, June 21, 1973
-Forthcoming agreement [Prevention of nuclear war]
       -State department
               -[David] Kenneth Rush, William P. Rogers
                       -Review
                       -Legal language
       -Congressional resolution
       -Obligation
               -Use of force
       -Congressional resolution
       -War
               -Prevention
               -Conduct
       -Threat or use of force
       -Kissinger’s talking points
-President’s foreign policy goals
-President’s briefing of bipartisan Congressional leadership
       -Structure of peace
       -Strategic Arms Limitation Talks [SALT]
       -Basic Principles of Relations between the United States of America and
        the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
       -SALT
       -Basic Principles
               -Moscow
       -Specific agreement
               -Treaty on conduct of war
       -Media coverage
-Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War
       -Substance
       -Opponents
       -Obligation for Soviet Union
               -“Hard line”
-Kissinger’s talk with Andrei A. Gromyko
       -Gromyko’s plans
-Topics of discussion
                                      -4-

            NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

                               (rev. August-2011)

                                                        Conversation No. 946-5 (cont’d)

              -President’s meeting with Brezhnev
                       -Dobrynin’s conversation with Kissinger
              -Grain deal
              -People’s Republic of China [PRC]
              -Middle East
              -Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction [MBFR], Vietnam
                       -Steven [?] Prichard
       -President’s relations with Brezhnev
              -Brezhnev’s purpose
              -President’s leadership abroad
                       -Watergate
                              -France’s opinion
       -Soviet Union concessions
              -Prediction

J. William Fulbright
        -Invitation to White House
                -Haig
                -Support for President
        -Kissinger’s briefing of Foreign Relations Committee
        -Conversation with Kissinger
                -Cambodia
                -Watergate
                -Foreign policy
                -Brezhnev
                -Nguyen Van Thieu
                        -Peace agreement
                               -Signature
                               -President’s role
        -Foreign Relations Committee
                -Kissinger’s briefings

PRC
       -Madam Mao’s invitation to Dr. David K. E. Bruce
            -Mao Tse-Tung’s relationship with US

Fulbright
                                     -5-

           NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

                              (rev. August-2011)

                                                     Conversation No. 946-5 (cont’d)

       -Future relations
       -William E. Timmons

Brezhnev’s visit
      -Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War
              -Congressional action
                      -Rogers’s view
                              -Comprehension
                      -State Department
                              -Editing
                      -Prerogative
                              -Nuclear war
              -Gromyko’s conversation with President, 1973
                      -Brezhnev’s relations with President
                      -Politboro approval of policies
                      -Positive statements
                      -Brezhnev’s prestige
              -Significance
      -Media coverage
              -Kissinger’s statement
                      -SALT [?]
                              -1974
                      -Commitments
      -Kissinger’s forthcoming press briefing on agreements
              -“Structure of peace”
                      -Threat of war
                      -Crisis management
                      -Strength
                      -Agreements
                              -SALT
                      -Restraint
                      -Basic principles
                      -Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War
                              -President’s meeting with Brezhnev
                              -Gromyko
                              -Universality
                      -Post-World War II-era
                                        -6-

           NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

                                (rev. August-2011)

                                                          Conversation No. 946-5 (cont’d)

                              -Historical turning point
                              -Hostility
       -Allies
       -PRC
                 -Possible response
                        -US and Soviet relations
                 -President’s letter to Chou En-Lai
                        -Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War
                                 -Article 4
                        -US consultation with USSR

President’s foreign policy
       -Successor’s policy
               -Compared to Otto von Bismark
               -US Congress
               -Post-1976 election

Brezhnev’s visit
      -Public opinion
              -Compared to PRC trip
              -Watergate
                     -Public’s perspective

Nancy S. Maginnes
      -President’s assessment

Nelson A. Rockefeller and Ronald W. Reagan
       -Experience
       -Presidential aspirations

Rockefeller
      -Support for President
            -Conversations with Kissinger

Brezhnev’s visit
      -PRC
      -Forthcoming television speech
                                              -7-

                    NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

                                      (rev. August-2011)

                                                               Conversation No. 946-5 (cont’d)

                       -Timing
                       -Coverage
                       -New York Times, Washington Post

       White House staff
             -Meeting
             -Morale

Kissinger left at 9:43 am.
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.

Did they talk to you about it?
The only question is whether we'll ask for a congressional resolution to support it.
See, it isn't anything that forces us to do anything.
It's an obligation to refrain from the use of the letter for application consultation.
We don't need it very much.
Be a nice... Let us not... Let us not raise it.
I will simply say this isn't necessary.
The Congress will pass one.
Why don't you... Why don't we let them raise it?
That's not reasonable.
Right.
When it doesn't, it's a code of conduct, isn't it?
Right.
We have to play it as positively as we can.
Oh, if we can play it positively, Mr. President, as long as we play it on the beat.
That this is rules of conduct that prevent a war.
That it does not apply...
If it isn't, we'll already have faith.
And there's a threat that you support us.
You can stay away.
I think you should start that your biggest concern since you've become president has been to get a reliable structure of peace to move from the period of crisis that the war brought to a period where nations dealt with each other with a consciousness of
This requires many things.
They all know that you've always been in favor of an adequate and strong defense.
It requires also that specific agreements are made on the areas of tension.
It means, finally, and perhaps overarching at all, that in the basic conduct,
It preserves the peace.
And you have moved on all these fronts simultaneously.
And you have always gone from general principles to specific agreements.
Now, last year, when, for example, when you made salt, you first had some principles in 71 and 72, you had an agreement.
Now, this is the year again of salt prints.
Last year, on the Court of Conduct, we signed some general principles that must come.
You thought the time had come to go from these principles to a specific agreement, making more concrete what that code of conduct was.
So this is a natural evolution of your policy.
And it is therefore reinforcing the whole map of relations that you're building.
That is the theme I witnessed.
That's the theme I'll hit with the newsman.
Thank you.
has too much substance and those who think it has too little substance and I think the answer is from those who think it has too much substance it is if the Soviets decide to return to a hard line it is just one more piece of paper that they have to break I'll talk to him tonight
Depend on the plans.
Now, Dr. Regan said yesterday that they discussed four things with you.
The president, Francis, discussed four things with you.
Oh, well, yes.
That's the one.
$25 billion green deal over five years.
Oh, that you did in the morning.
$25 billion green deal over five years.
China.
Middle East.
Middle East.
No, it is.
He called me this next morning.
There's no way of making sure.
John, I'd be interested to see what he's got on any of these.
I don't know.
He didn't talk to me very well.
He said, well, maybe I'll go back to him.
But the relation, everybody comments on your relation to Gresham.
Well, when he called me, God Almighty.
Well, Mr. President, let's say 50% of it is phone calls.
He wants to pretend that he is a close person to the President of the United States only because abroad you are considered the leading figure.
Watergate or not, I mean, you should be in France, for example, in France, where I've been on these negotiations.
To them, Watergate doesn't mean a goddamn thing.
And that's his desire.
We had predicted five years ago when you came in, four and a half years ago, that in four years the Russian leaders would come over here and sell it.
And without making any concessions about it.
Why do they include Fulbright all the time?
This is Fulbright's son of a bitch.
He's never wrote this piece.
He gets all that, and I'm not going to.
I'm going to order it every day.
No, Bill, why can't it be in the White House?
Why should we do it?
Why did they include Fulbright?
I must say, Peter, Fulbright's behavior yesterday in the foreign relations committee, I broke my back.
Why?
To get there.
I really have more to do.
To hear that kind of warning, I could have come any time over the last three years.
And then he made some nasty crack to me at the dinner last night.
Well, I said to him, you know, I said, Mr. Chairman, the real reason I came up so urgently was to talk to you about our general foreign policy.
And I was astonished at the only questions you asked about Cambodia.
He said, why should I talk to you about general foreign policy?
I had gotten that from Krasner.
What I wanted to hear from you, I wanted to hear the spokesman of President Hugh.
Considering what Hugh had to do to Hugh to get him to sign it.
Well, that finishes it now.
You're not to go down there again.
Is that clear?
You're not to do the foreign relations committee ever again.
That's a legend.
That's great.
No more.
In China, Madame Mao invited Bruce to attend this morning event.
Do you understand?
I understand.
Well, I ran.
I ran.
I ran.
And we're just going to let things do how they want them.
Why are we doing it?
Because it doesn't help them.
We're looking at some lawyers that they don't like either.
And those are the ones that screw up.
He's got a bike.
He's got a bike.
Well, I'll do our best today.
He's got a bike.
He's got a bike.
No congressional action is required because no action is required on our part.
Well, on behalf of these congressional judges, no congressional action is required
I don't know what the hell Roger is going to say about you.
He's got to be...
He's got to be...
He's got to be...
He's got to be...
He's got to be...
Mr. President, we've got to do this.
So we're not sure we will say every bloody time we've done anything.
So he understands.
Well, sometimes we just send it down there.
It's hard to understand.
Let's put it into a thing.
And then the Congress just last minute, they find 20 reading reports.
Well, this one is a question of proposition, in a sense.
None of me understands it now, I think.
Mr. President, we've got to do that mistake every...
So, we're not sure if we even want to send it down there and have to cover it.
At the last, what if they find 25 things?
Well, this one is a question of authorities threatening nuclear war.
It wouldn't do a thing.
And then the Congress disapproves, and then it's not.
That's right.
This is still...
I mean, this... That puts them in a tougher position.
You want the Congress...
I don't think it's going to prove it.
So we're not sure if we want to send it down there.
We'll see.
We'll see.
We'll have the dam.
Let's put it into a state defense.
And what can they do out there?
We'll have a super bank.
And then if the Congress disapproves, then it's not a fact.
That wasn't a proposition.
I don't think they're going to do it.
We'll see if they do it then.
very unique and that's why this fleet is important and very close.
You know, you know, all of them.
Satan's name, I don't know that.
I don't know that.
I don't know that.
You and I should know what it all means, don't you?
But he's, he reveals it.
You know, they...
But he's, he reveals a, you know, they, since, well, maybe we're not going to have a war.
Rex has got, he reveals a, you know, that's an interesting thing.
You know, they, Rex has got his, his press TV's way out there in that line.
His press TV's way out there in that line.
And, uh, you know, I noticed with the president, the president, they began hitting on everything.
It is very significant.
And, uh, I love it.
Every day the articles have become more respected.
I think even the pitting articles were helpful because they weren't really pitting, but they sort of stated the nuances and the answers.
All right.
All right.
All right.
And then I noticed with the presence, and then I noticed with the presence, the networks, they all had flip-flops, and they began hitting on everything, and one began hitting on everything, on these, and on the commitments, and...
Every day the articles become more respectful.
I think even the hitting articles were helpful because they were really petty, but they sort of say that there's no answer to the question.
What do you think they're saying?
You see them all in a positive direction.
They had to get back to this.
They had to get back to this.
What do they think of this?
i mean that was
to build the structure of these commitments.
In fact, they're even more into it than the regiments.
What do you want to say to the press?
which is not constantly overshadowed by the world, a world which does not consider peace the management of crisis, but becomes... What do you think you're saying, excuse me, brief rundown of the process, all at the same time?
on many levels, but what we have, the presence of the structure, it requires a level of strength which we have discussed with you at least.
By this we mean a rule that requires a specific area of depth in which the, which the...
Those who have the greatest capacity.
This requires evidence at many levels.
It requires buildings, a level of strength, if we have to say, to destroy what we have, the presence of a kind of structure of peace.
By this we mean that it requires discipline and cleverness, exercise in their relations, to make agreements, to remove situations.
the restraints which are the best of our nation requires in its deepest sense.
Those who have the greatest capacity to which is uncomfortable to be overshadowed by the world which that's all.
I'm talking about the principles
that have the greatest capacity to destroy mankind, not consider the human and our ghosts, and not consider the judgment of crisis, but the consciousness that the nations, through these demons, can now say, here is how it was made, exercised in their relations to each other and to other nations.
Those who still have the same imagination, the same
I'll talk about the principles.
This is the meaning of this agreement.
I'll go through the agreement in the context of a more bilateral basis.
Then I'll say, here is how it works.
This is to make the agreement to remove the year-long
that we discussed it in correspondence with the United States.
the United States and the Soviet Union is not one that applies to all countries.
The exercise was that it had to be in agreement that it should fall in their relations to each other and it was not a step to establish other nations.
intervention of war and the conduct of wars.
Those restraints, once they have been achieved, which are the best of our days.
Secondly, that it should focus on the prevention of war and the conduct of wars.
and it was finally decided
Nuts knows my agreement.
But this agreement is a slightly different context.
Nuts knows my agreement, I think.
But this is the invitation.
They haven't been in the national elections.
They don't have a massive problem with the Chinese.
There's something to say.
It would be an agreement that would bring them.
Of course, I could not have said it's that.
Now it's a group of Chinese.
They're special.
They're special.
They're special.
They're special.
They're special.
They're special.
They're special.
They're special.
We would never consult with the Soviet Union on any dispute of its kind.
They figured that they usually send the class over there.
That's the monster.
I don't know who the hell can carry it out.
I don't know.
That's like Germany after Bismarck.
All right.
Now, seriously, this thing is.
But that letter is too intricate now.
And I just sent a letter to Joe and Lyle on your behalf.
They don't know how from 77 on this policy is going to be conducted.
But this is the...
I think this week has some of the same for sure.
In this sense, what did I think Fred said?
They come in on signing ceremonies on agreements and national relations.
And all this water gets crapped.
It's completely different.
Sure, it's effective.
Now seriously this thing is so intricate now.
So I would assume that they must stick to this popular thing to do.
I must say, when he talks to me, and I know period,
I think this is again.
This week.
Has some of the same effects that you're trying to recap?
I don't know.
That wasn't the word you wanted to talk about.
I tried not to.
I'm not going to do that.
In the sense of what did I just say?
The public is seeing you, but I don't.
Being dead at the end of it.
They comment on signing ceremonies on the Greek.
That letter we sent to him.
We sent a letter to him.
And all this Watergate crap is now being seen in a completely different light on your behalf.
Hold on, that's the deadline.
Interesting, you want to do a live sign-in?
We would never consult with the Soviet Union.
Wait till his last name.
He's not back?
No, I think.
We don't have any dispute.
It's Edward Brown who did this.
I have a page on every newspaper.
I'm finished.
Good to see you.
What's your brand?
Time Supply.
Love it.
everybody else you know.
So I would have just asked you, I don't know who the hell can carry it out.
That's life.
But they must say that it's a popular thing to do.
Germany after Bismarck got bored.
Now seriously, this thing by Rockefeller has really very great respect for you.
He's so intricate now.
His behavior is true.
No way.
Definitely.
I must say, when he talks to me,
I mean, I did it during your presidency, but I don't know how from 77 on this policy is going to be conducted.
But it wasn't changed when we supported you.
But I think now it is.
Oh, Mr. President, I think this is again.
I think this week has some of the same effects as we finally had in the Senate.
What did I say?
Comment on signing ceremonies on agreement.
Please.
And also this Watergate.
It's now been seen in a complete.
Maybe different perspective.
We should.
Yes.
Hold on.
I think that is highly desirable.
What's your friend?
Interesting one.
Last night.
Oh, yeah.
Last night.
No, I think.
One page on everything.
when it wasn't genuine when he supported you
And I think now he's, he's really very famous.
So the only thing I wish you could be sure of is that he wasn't the weird one to talk about.
Trying to be an, instead of the invitation that he was going to make in his speech, he went through that again with me.
He's, uh,
We should do it anyway.
Yes.
Hold on, that's the bed, wasn't it?
I think that is highly desirable.
Interesting you want to do it last night and then wait for his last day.
Isn't that bad?
No, I think.
And it's headed to the front page on every newspaper.
Times and Postal.
I've got the White House to have together for about 9.45.
Okay.
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