262. Conversation Between President Nixon and his Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger)1
Nixon: What I was going to say: let’s try to game plan this,2 Henry, to see how the hell we can. You’ve got two different problems: who gets the credit? Well, on that problem, we don’t have any—
Kissinger: They can’t get the credit in my view.
Nixon: Well—
[Page 951]Kissinger: Because even—
Nixon: Well, I think that I—that’s a matter of judgment. My guess—my own feeling is that they’re more likely to than you think due to the fact that the press will play their game, and that the press is going to make it—say, “Well, look, they’ve passed it.” But, that is not the main consideration. My main consideration is not who the hell gets the credit, but whether or not their goddamned initiative is going to screw up what little chance we have on the negotiating front. See my point—?
Kissinger: Well luckily, they’re a little bit passé, because I don’t think—one reason we have delayed every one of these concessions is because you and I have known that it would just lead to the next one. That the cease-fire, we knew, was going to open up the deadline issue, and the deadline issue is going to lead to the overthrow of Thieu issue.
Nixon: That’s right.
Kissinger: So—
Nixon: That fellow Scott3 brought it up today. He said, “What are we going to say next week after Thieu’s election?” I don’t think it’s going to be any worse after Thieu’s election than it is before his election. [unclear]
Haldeman: I don’t think it will be as bad.
Nixon: Huh?
Haldeman: I don’t think it will be as bad, because he—
Nixon: You think so?
Kissinger: That issue is—
Haldeman: They’ll bleat for one day about it was a lousy election; they’ve been bleating for months that it’s a lousy election.
Kissinger: And then the day after we have the China announcement.4
Haldeman: Then you announce China, and so what?
Kissinger: See, that China thing is, is—
Nixon: Hmm?
Kissinger: —going to help us.
[Page 952]Haldeman: It splits, Henry, from that viewpoint, too.
Nixon: It’s going to help us?
Kissinger: Well, it’s going to help us: A) it takes some of this steam, again, out of the North Vietnamese. They have not—I don’t exclude, Mr. President—
Nixon: [sighs]
Kissinger: I think there’s a 10 percent chance, but it isn’t impossible, that the Chinese may want to get the visit—cancel the visit, somehow or other, and that they’ll want me there to, you know, to have a pretext for doing it, saying we couldn’t agree. I think there’s a very—there’s almost no chance that they’re doing that. But, these are not, basically, our friends.
Nixon: Um-hmm.
Kissinger: And I don’t believe it.
Nixon: Well, if it happens, it happens.
Kissinger: But if that happens, that would be as true at the end of November.
Nixon: That’s true. Well, what the hell. I’d just be—we’d just be stoic about it. What the hell. Don’t borrow any trouble there. So, if it happens, it happens.
Kissinger: I don’t think that will happen—
[Omitted here is further discussion of the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union.]
Nixon: Well, on the negotiations, though, let’s look at that. I—I think you’ve got to recognize that, that from a political standpoint, they are probably right—probably—because [unclear] and in a sense, they’re saying, “Well, look, the Senate, finally, and the Congress, finally, forced the President to, and moved out in front of him.” You see? That’s my view. But, forgetting that, I still come back to the proposition that I think it could be extremely harmful to the, you know, to the—your message [unclear]—
Kissinger: Oh, extremely. Of course, it will be very, very harmful.
Nixon: Yeah.
Kissinger: Except that they are no longer prepared to trade a deadline for withdrawal. That’s the thing we’ve got going for us.
Nixon: Yeah. So, we’ve got a little something to give them that they—the Senate isn’t giving them. Well—
Kissinger: But, it would be a hell of a lot better, Mr. President, if it didn’t happen.
Nixon: Well, we’re going to try. We’re—I got everybody lined up; I read the riot act to the whole goddamn bunch.
Kissinger: And we also should keep our own people quiet now for a few months here. Laird will be a problem when he starts traveling.
[Page 953]Nixon: I’ll get him in before he goes.
Kissinger: But I—I think when all is said and done, Mr.—well, you have some, and I have no political instinct—if we should succeed in ending the war by negotiation, I don’t give a damn who passed what, you’re the one who did it, and—but especially if we go on the attack and accuse them of nearly killing it. They can’t say they made us do it. We offered it in May, already.
Haldeman: That’s the thing; you’ve got the record.
Kissinger: I’m beginning—I think the average person now thinks that you’re getting us out of the war. They don’t know whether you’re planning six months, nine months, or whatever. They think you’re getting us out, and that these guys should stop yelling at you.
Nixon: Well—
Kissinger: That is—
Nixon: —that’s something—
Kissinger: —that is my feeling of [unclear]
Nixon: —[unclear] but I must say that—and this doesn’t—I’m not—the only thing that really concerns me about this is the fact that the—this negotiating initiative. If we didn’t have that—
Kissinger: It will—
Nixon: —I wouldn’t give a goddamn what they passed.
Kissinger: No, it hurts—
Nixon: But, if it is—my point is: if it hurts, maybe it screws it totally. And we just might have to take another look, and see what will we even go on.
Kissinger: I think—
Nixon: Well, are we’re going to go?
Kissinger: I think we need it for the record, and I think we should go on it. And I think this one—now that we’ve got Thieu’s promise, I think, if they’re willing to settle for anything short of unconditional surrender, they’re going to take this, with some modifications. They won’t accept the first formulation.
[Omitted here is discussion related to Kissinger’s forthcoming trip to China.]
- Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, White House Tapes, Oval Office, Conversation 579–15. No classification marking. The editors transcribed the portions of the tape recording printed here specifically for this volume. The exchange is part of a larger conversation, 5:51–6:42 p.m.↩
- Nixon, Kissinger, and Haldeman were discussing the new version of the Mansfield amendment which Nixon signed into law that day. See footnote 7, Document 259.↩
- Probably a reference to Senator Hugh D. Scott (R–PA), Senate Minority Leader, who, along with other Republican leaders in Congress had met with Nixon and members of his staff from 4:23 to 5:21 p.m. to discuss pending legislation. (National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, White House Central Files, President’s Daily Diary)↩
- The announcement that Kissinger would visit China was made on October 5.↩