Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume IX, Vietnam, October 1972–January 1973

161. Conversation Between President Nixon and the President’s Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs (Haig)¹

Washington, December 12, 1972.

Haig: Dobrynin called.²

Nixon: Yeah.

Haig: And stated that he had had a report from Hanoi.

Nixon: Yeah.

Haig: That Hanoi claimed that it’s Kissinger who was intransigent.

Nixon: Yeah.

Haig: And that there were many issues unresolved, and that Kissinger had told them that there was so much to be done, that it may run ‘til the end of December if we don’t get moving. This seemed to bother the hell out of them.

Nixon: Out of—out of whom?

Haig: Out of the North Vietnamese, because Dobrynin made a special point of it. He said, of course, that I may have taken that out of context. He said, I don’t know how they’re quoting—

Nixon: What bothered them there?

Haig: That Henry gave them the impression that we didn’t give a damn whether it took between now and the end of December, or what, to get this thing finished.

Nixon: Oh, I see.

Haig: So they—I got the impression that they feel, at times, constrained.

Nixon: We’re not going to wait ‘til the end of Christmas and not—and not free us to do the bombing.

Haig: No. Well—

Nixon: That’s the whole point.

Haig: No, we can’t do that. And if the talks break off, or recess, I think we’ve got to pick it up. We’ve got to really put the heat on them. On the other hand, he—he also said that they not only disagreed on the DMZ, they disagreed on the political prisoners, that Henry had given them an assurance, which he was now not giving them. That’s pure baloney.

Nixon: That’s not true, is it?

Haig: No, it’s not true. And I went through this with Dobrynin. I said, “Look, to be very frank with you because I sat in there, I know what their tactics have been. They’d no sooner get a concession from us on an old issue like [unclear], or our civilians, and they pocket our concession, and then reopen the issue again to get another one.” I said, “On Saturday, we were on the verge of a settlement,³ and with only the issue that I told you, and that was reiterated categorically by Le Duc Tho.” And I said, “Quite frankly, now to have this kind of a report is indicative of some very fundamental mis—misstatements of how this thing is developing.” He said, “Well, we are using our good offices.” He said, “Mr. Brezhnev is very, very anxious to get this thing settled.” And he said he was “especially impressed that the President called me personally about it,”⁴ and he does intend to follow up, he has already exerted pressure, and he would hope that we would keep him specifically abreast now. So, I’ve sent a message to Henry telling him to⁵—

Nixon: Keep talking.

Haig: Keep talking. Give us something finite to give the Soviets, which would look responsive to Dobrynin’s request and constructive, from our point of view. See, I gather these things must have unraveled in Monday’s session, and Henry was so upset about it that he didn’t—he wasn’t very specific about the issues, just the atmosphere and the overall attitude. At least they’re working on it.

Nixon: You understand why he would feel that way, though.

Haig: Oh, yeah.

Nixon: He just gets his heart in it, and everybody’s getting tired and worn out.

Haig: That’s right.

Nixon: The goddamn Communists truly acting like they always do.

Haig: They’re always going to be that way.

Nixon: It’s going to be that kind of a world as long as we’re in it, and the only bright thing for us is the fact that the Chinese and Russians don’t like each other at the moment. We’ve got to keep that prod in there as long as we possibly can. It’s our only salvation. [unclear]

Haig: Chou En-lai made a remarkable statement, yesterday, in front of a group of press people in Peking. He said he expects a ceasefire in two or three days.⁶ And he—and then he added, he said, “You know, there’s so much concern about a few hundred Americans prisoners in North Vietnam.” He said, “There should be more concern about the thousands, tens of thousands of South Vietnamese prisoners in South Vietnam.” But that was a fairly optimistic thing for him to say. I think they’re playing it tough, and that they’re suddenly gonna—gonna give.

Nixon: They don’t suddenly give, do they, Al? Henry always has that theory that they play it tough, and they suddenly give. When have they ever suddenly given?

Haig: Well, I think they do in the context that we—we know each other’s positions.

Nixon: Did they give, for example, in Shanghai? Did they give on SALT? I guess they did.

Haig: Oh, I think they did. Yes, sir.

Nixon: They played it very tough, and then they gave—

Haig: Played it tough, and then they—well, by give, I mean—

Nixon: They’d agree?

Haig: —I don’t think they’ll collapse. They’re not going to collapse. They’ll agree to compromise, instead of being totally intransigent.

Nixon: Well, as far as I’m concerned, Thieu is—and, now, we don’t want to be letting him—he’ll cut off our nose to spite our face, but he has really destroyed his usefulness, and, frankly, his credibility as far as our dealing with him on an equal basis from now on, Al. I mean, he cannot—

Haig: No.

Nixon: I mean, this idea of saying to an ally, “We’re going to kick you around, and push you around, and hunker around this way,” we cannot allow that. The American people don’t like that worth one damn [unclear] and my view is that we shouldn’t—

Haig: And, with this, there can be no moral, or any other consideration, with respect to this guy from now on. We’ve got to play this on pure self-interest, totally.

Nixon: Well, the whole point is that his interests are different from ours.

Haig: That’s right.

Nixon: His interests are total, unconditional surrender of the enemy. Ours are an honorable withdrawal—

Haig: That’s right.

Nixon: —giving them an opportunity, over a period of time, to win politically. Right—?

Haig: Well, the fact is anything short of that is not going to have the seeds of stability. It’s going to have the seeds of more conflict, if he insists on total surrender. He’s not going to get it. He hasn’t earned it. He hasn’t won it on the battlefield.

Nixon: But he can’t, either, can he? Well, he could win, maybe, if we continue to bomb the shit out of them forever.

Haig: No.

Nixon: For three or four years? You mean, they would continue the way they’re fighting? Hell, no!

Haig: We just won’t do it.

Nixon: The Russians will send in more help; the Chinese will. You know that’s right?

Haig: Just [unclear]—

Nixon: Russia and China cannot allow North Vietnam to lose; we cannot allow South Vietnam to lose. That’s where this war is at the present time.

Haig: They’re stuck, sir—

Nixon: Isn’t that really it?

Haig: That’s exactly it.

Nixon: That under those circumstances, so you make peace.

Haig: That’s right.

Nixon: It’s as cold as that.

Haig: Well, you change the character of it, so that we can disengage the larger power interests from the way they’ve been thus far.

Nixon: I must say this, though, that I think we ought to withdraw even the idea of my meeting with him at all now. I mean, afterwards, even. I think that’s—I’m just not gonna—I’m just [unclear] just delay it on the basis of, well, I can’t now. We offered a time; he never responded. Of course, I’m sorry, but we can’t do that. It isn’t going to mean anything, anyway.

Haig: No.

Nixon: For me to go traipsing out to Midway, to put my arm around him, in the event that he does come, even reluctantly, along isn’t going to do any good.

Haig: No.

Nixon: Or, do you agree? Do you agree?

Haig: No, the only way I would even consider it is if it was absolutely essential to bring the bastard aboard.

Nixon: Well, yeah.

Haig: Only that way.

Nixon: Yeah.

Haig: But I don’t think it will be. If he decides to come aboard, it’s not going to be based on that issue.

Nixon: You are now leaning, though, I mean after we do get any kind of a damn settlement, to send Agnew? Incidentally, Al, there’s only one point. I am not so sure that I—I mean—I don’t mean—I don’t think we can cave too much, but I also mean that I don’t think we have to insist on too much, either. Let me say—

Haig: Yeah.

Nixon: —I frankly think at this point, the deal is so goddamn confused, and stitched up, and screwed up, that however it comes out isn’t going to make a lot of difference. Henry’s worried about, “Well, how can you brief that, and how can you brief that, and how can you brief that, didn’t we gain this or that a concession?” To be perfectly frank with you, if they went back to October 8th, I’d accept it. They won’t—

Haig: Well, I—

Nixon: They won’t go back to that?

Haig: They claim they would. No, I think Henry would do that. Sure, you know, we discussed this rather cold-bloodedly before I left. And it was a—if we can’t get this last DMZ thing, we’ll cave. They’re not even giving us that option, because they keep opening up new things. And it’s just, you know, more, more at the end, and the difficulty with ever showing them a willingness to compromise, is that they, the bastards, immediately exploit it. And then the next thing you know, you are in an untenable position.

Nixon: I know.

Haig: That’s—

Nixon: Well, your view at the present time is that he’s probably going to break off today and be back? Is that right—?

Haig: No, I don’t think so. I think he’ll—I think today will probably be another frustrating session, but softer than Monday’s. And, we will feel if we got some progress—

Nixon: Because they will have heard from the Russians?

Haig: And we will probably say that we have gotten some progress, or it may not be, and that he’ll want to stay on tomorrow, and have another round. And, then, I think there’s a good chance we’ll have a settlement tomorrow.

Nixon: Your—

Haig: I’m more optimistic—

Nixon: Your view of this is the first time you’re an optimist.

Haig: Yeah. More—more so—

Nixon: I know you’re not an optimist—

Haig: I think they want to settle.

Nixon: You think so?

Haig: I do. And I think—

Nixon: Let me tell you, I am totally relaxed when I figure about the thing, now. I know it’s going to be all hell today. The hopes are so high, and then you put it a pall on the inauguration. I know that. I do care, but my point is—my point is if they renege, if there’s a real provocation, we’re going to bomb the hell out of ’em. And that’s the thing I can’t get Moorer through his goddamn thick head. And he showed me some half-ass little thing. “What are you going to do?” There isn’t one goddamn thing that’s new. “Well, we’ve got this communications thing here.” I said, “But, you hit that before, haven’t you?” He just said, “We took it out in ’68.”

Haig: Huh. Radio highway [Hanoi]⁷—?

Nixon: I said, “What about the”—that’s the communications.

Haig: Oh, yes.

Nixon: “How are you going to hit them at the power plant?” “Well that—we took it out in ’68, too, I guess.” “All right, there’s the power plant. There’s the radio shack. And then what else do we do?” “Well, the other thing that we can do is go back, and take out the bridges that they’ve rebuilt.” And I said, “What about the civilian airport?” “Well there’s too much trouble with civilian casualties.” “All right, fine.” He said—he said, “Well, we could hit one side of it. They’re all military planes.” I said, “All right, we’ll hit those.” But, suppose they do bomb—

Haig: You should be crimping him down.

Nixon: Huh?

Haig: You shouldn’t be having to crimp him down. Not—not enervate him. [laughs]

Nixon: But my point is, what is the—what in the hell is their plan? What can we do, Al? See, that’s my point. What can we do in terms of stepping up bombing?

Haig: I think the ’52s, in that area, are a tremendous psychological blow, and very, very effective.

Nixon: Predictably, but what in the hell are they going to hit? Well, I mean, just the fact that they are dropping things in the boondocks, you think is going to scare the people?

Haig: No, no.

Nixon: What are they going to hit?

Haig: They’ve got to take out that—

Nixon: What are they going to hit—?

Haig: We’ve got to use some smart bombs on the dock facilities in Haiphong.

Nixon: Well, do ’52s have the smart bombs?

Haig: No, sir. No, that will have to be very pinpoint, careful delivery in good weather, with the smart bombs. That will impress them. We’ve got to take out the power plant in Hanoi, which we’ve never touched.

Nixon: Well, they’ve really never touched that, I know. I know—

Haig: And the transshipment point. The radio junction—

Nixon: They—he showed me that. He showed me that.

Haig: You’ve got to take that out.

Nixon: You do it with ’52s?

Haig: That’s right. That one we can just clean out. And there’ll be some slop-over casualties, but goddamnit—

Nixon: Right.

Haig: —so be it. So be it—

Nixon: Why, it doesn’t soften me a bit.

Haig: That gets their attention.

Nixon: That gets their attention.

Haig: We’ll have to take out Radio Hanoi, because that’s a—

Nixon: Yeah.

Haig: —real command and control problem for them—

Nixon: That’s right.

Haig: We’ve got some other targets on the outskirts of Hanoi: the rail rebuild shops, maintenance shops. We’ve just got to take them out, and there’ll be some slop-over there.

Nixon: I just want to be sure that those ’52s go every goddamn night.

Haig: That’s—

Nixon: That’s what we have to do—

Haig: And they can there hit the airfield—

Nixon: And, incidentally, I think, I feel we should go in, and take out every airfield in North Vietnam. They only have five, don’t they?

Haig: There’re five, and there are about three that you [unclear]—

Nixon: Why not just take ’em all out? Like the Israelis took out the Egyptians’ airfields? Why not? Are we afraid because there’s some Russian—

Haig: No, it’s not a—it’s just not a productive target, normally, because the airfields—

Nixon: Productive? The hell with it being productive! Just take ’em out.

Haig: We can take ’em out.

Nixon: Point out it has symbolism with their airfields out.

Haig: I think it’d be good to take the military side of that civilian field out.

Nixon: Just take it out—

Haig: It’d make a hell of an impression.

Nixon: That’s right. And just think: where the hell they going to land?

Haig: Then we’ve got some very good targets up in that buffer zone with China. And we’ve got to cut that down. I’d cut it down to five miles.

Nixon: I can’t see why you think, though, that there’s going to be any reason for optimism in this [unclear].

Haig: I—

Nixon: With the South—frankly, with the South making that silly statement, if you were in the North, why wouldn’t you say, “Christ, let’s just stick to it.” They’re—the South is not going to agree to anything anyway, so—how do you reason? How do you reason with them—?

Haig: Well, start out with the basic assumption that they’re hurting, and that they want to settle. That I believe.

Nixon: Even, despite the fact that we haven’t been bombing? You still think they’re hurting?

Haig: Yes, sir. That I do—

Nixon: I imagine it’s got to hurt ’em some. [unclear] That’s why we hit ’em.

Haig: Oh, I believe that. Secondly, I believe that they do know. I don’t think they read us the same way we read ourselves. We know we’ve got some pressures working on us. They can’t be sure of those pressures. They’ve misjudged you every time. And I think you had them on edge with respect to what you’ll do. At the same time, I think they do feel that they can work time to their advantage with us, up to a point. They get to a point now, in January, where they’ve got to commit themselves to a strategy in the South, which is conventional, and much the same as it’s been, not break their units up they way they’re doing, and getting ready for a cease-fire, where they become more vulnerable if the war continues. If the war continues, they have themselves all configured for a cease-fire. They’re quite vulnerable to Thieu’s counteraction. It could erode that whole structure. The very fact that they moved; they’ve instructed their cadres they’re going for a cease-fire; that’s the—the momentum is all in that direction. I think it’s going to be hard for them to pull away from the South. I don’t take any comfort from what they’re telling their people, because the bastards are going to conduct a pretty tough struggle.

Nixon: What’s Thieu doing now? What’s he doing—?

Haig: Thieu is countering this. He’s—

Nixon: What is he doing about this? Why does he make this kind of a speech?⁸

Haig: Of course, I think he’s just, in his Mandarin style, is deathly afraid of entering into a political contest.

Nixon: So, when we make a deal what’s he going to do?

Haig: I think, ultimately, he’ll come around, but he’s gonna be portrayed as being forced into it, so that he can always keep the sympathy of the people. And in the tough sequence of events that follow, he can say, “Well, this was the best that I could do. We’ve got to suffer through it together.” Rather than to have been accused of being naive, and gone into something which—

Nixon: I would not, however—the only thing I would say, I haven’t read his speech, because I make speeches, I mean, before Congress, is that there’s much less real meaning than others do, I think you’ve got to figure the speech is made to that audience, and that he was doing it for the record.

Haig: It was received with almost total silence in the House.

Nixon: It was?

Haig: He got no applause. He got no reaction. [unclear]—

Nixon: It may well be that he has a little problem on his hands, too.

Haig: Yes, sir. And there are plenty of guys standing in the wings that have already told us they’d be delighted to accept this, this settlement.

Nixon: Yeah. I imagine they’d accept that. Well, as soon as you get any word, let me know. You should have it by now—

Haig: It should be very soon.

[Omitted here are closing remarks.]

1. Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, White House Tapes, Oval Office, Conversation 820–16. No classification marking. According to the President’s Daily Diary, Haig met with the President in the Oval Office from 1:34 to 1:55 p.m. (Ibid, White House Central Files) The editors transcribed the portions of the conversation printed here specifically for this volume.
2. Haig spoke on the telephone at 10:12 a.m. with Dobrynin. That conversation generally followed the lines described in this conversation with the President, although there is no mention in the transcript of Brezhnev. (Ibid., Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Box 27, Dobrynin File)
3. December 9. See Document 152.
4. See Document 155.
5. Document 162.
6. See footnote 8, Document 158.
7. According to an official Air Force history, a USAF fighter-bomber on February 14, 1968, attempted but failed to take Radio Hanoi off the air. When told that Radio Hanoi continued to broadcast, President Johnson’s Assistant for National Security Affairs, Walt Rostow, observed that that “would indicate that our plane missed.” (Thompson, To Hanoi and Back, p. 129)
8. See Document 160.