230. Telephone Conversation Between President Nixon and the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger)1

[Omitted here is discussion of Kissinger’s vacation.]

Kissinger: We had another message from the North Vietnamese today.2

Nixon: Yeah?

Kissinger: You may have heard from Kennedy—

Nixon: No. No, I haven’t talked to him.

Kissinger: Well, the message said—

Nixon: Because I’ve been at the Truman funeral today.

Kissinger: Oh, I see. Well, they canceled the technical meeting today—

Nixon: Right. Right.

Kissinger: But they reaffirmed their offer of meeting on the 8th.

Nixon: Right.

Kissinger: And—

Nixon: This is all private, nothing public.

Kissinger: The message?

Nixon: Everything is pub—private on this, nothing public. Because if they go public, we go public.

Kissinger: Nothing public.

Nixon: Okay.

Kissinger: And they also reaffirmed that the technical meetings will resume as soon as we stop bombing. Now, I sent them a message yesterday after our talk in which I just said if they confirm all these things with specific dates, then we’ll stop the bombing within 36 hours.3

Nixon: Right.

[Page 850]

Kissinger: And that may give us an announcement as early as Saturday.4

Nixon: Yeah. That’s good. Because I told you if we could—it’s not imperative, but if we could get it before the 1st, it would be good.

Kissinger: Well, I think it’s certain by Sunday, and there’s a 50–50 chance of Saturday.

Nixon: Well, we hope so. And if it doesn’t—?

Kissinger: I thought Saturday had the advantage of making the news magazines.

Nixon: [laughs] Yeah. Oh, the hell with them. But, in any event, if it doesn’t come for them, that’s fine. The main thing is if we could get it by Sunday, even, so that it hits New Year’s Day, and all that sort of thing, that would be good. Because if we—I’d rather not have the New Year’s bombing halt just as just a bombing halt, you see my point?

Kissinger: Well, there’s almost no chance that we won’t hear by Saturday. I mean, all they’d have to do is—if we get the message by Saturday morning, then we’ll—

Nixon: Right?

Kissinger: —we’ll announce it on Sunday morning.

Nixon: Right.

Kissinger: And—but I think we’ll get the message on Friday, in which case, if you wanted to, we could announce it on Saturday.

Nixon: That’s all right, too.

Kissinger: And make the Sunday—

Nixon: Because we—we gave them a hell of a good bang, you know? And I’m glad we only lost two—two B–52s. That wasn’t too bad.

Kissinger: That’s right. Yeah. Yesterday?5

Nixon: Yeah.

Kissinger: Right. I think we lost another two today.

Nixon: Well, I know. That’s what we expect, don’t we?

Kissinger: That’s right.

Nixon: We’re hitting about the average.

Kissinger: That’s about right. That’s right.

Nixon: Two out of sixty today.

Kissinger: Two out of sixty, yes.

Nixon: Well, that’s—

Kissinger: That’s less than five percent.

[Page 851]

Nixon: Right. But, but, but, they’re—

Kissinger: It’s a little more than—a little more than three percent. That’s about—

Nixon: But we’re—but, on the other hand, we’re punishing the hell out of them, aren’t we?

Kissinger: Oh, there’s no question about it, absolutely no question. We had—the French Foreign Minister today showed us a report from his Consul General in Hanoi saying, “I’ve just lived through the most terrifying hour of my life. An unbelievable raid has just taken place.” And—oh, no, there’s no question about that.

Nixon: Well, we’ll shake them all up, and if we can hold those losses down to two or three a day, that’s about all we can hope.

Kissinger: And I think that we’ll—by this weekend, we’ll be over the worst of it.

Nixon: Well, we hope so. But we should hear from them by Sunday, I think, huh?

Kissinger: No question about it. I think we can, unless something new happens. The message is so—it’s written to give them the greatest possible incentive to answer fast, because they can control when the bombing stops. We no longer say we stop on Sunday. We say we stop within 36 hours of getting their reply.

Nixon: Good.

Kissinger: So we could stop Saturday already.

Nixon: Right.

Kissinger: And, frankly, one day’s bombing doesn’t make any difference.

Nixon: Oh, no. If we do it, we get—all—look, if we stop on Saturday, that gets the advantage. It’s just another advantage of having it out of the news, and we’ve done our damage to them. We—we’ve got our message across, Henry, that’s the important thing—

Kissinger: We’ve got our message across, Mr. President, and we’ve gotten it across before all hell broke loose here, and we’ve faced down the people again, and you have shown that you are not to be trifled with.

Nixon: [laughs] Hmm. I wouldn’t worry about the people here, I mean, their bitching around, and the news magazines. Don’t worry about it Henry, it’s not all that important. The public isn’t that much concerned about all this.

Kissinger: Oh, Mr. President—

Nixon: Do you think so?

Kissinger: I am certain you will go down in history as having—

[Page 852]

Nixon: Well, forget the history. But, I mean, you haven’t run into a hell of a lot of flak out there, have you? People are worrying about your bombing, are they?

Kissinger: Well, I don’t see many people out there.

Nixon: [laughs] I know.

Kissinger: I’m going to stay out of the social columns on this trip.

Nixon: Well, the point is that don’t let them needle you. That’s the point.

Kissinger: Oh, I don’t—

Nixon: Right now, the thing is that we’re doing the right thing, we just stick right to our guns, and if we get this—if we can get a response from them, why, that’s good. If we don’t, well then, we go option two. We’re all ready.

Kissinger: Exactly. Actually, it doesn’t really make any difference, because the news magazines close on Friday. I just forgot about that.

Nixon: Well, we don’t give a goddamn about them, anyway.

Kissinger: Exactly.

Nixon: Because if—if something happens before they close, then they’re terribly embarrassed.

Kissinger: Exactly. Exactly.

Nixon: [laughs] Okay?

Kissinger: [laughs] Right.

Nixon: Well, enjoy yourself. Bye.

Kissinger: Thank you. Bye.

  1. Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, White House Tapes, Oval Office, Conversation 35–19. No classification marking. According to the President’s Daily Diary, Nixon and Kissinger spoke from 8:39 to 8:45 p.m. (Ibid., White House Central Files) Nixon was in Washington; Kissinger was on vacation in Palm Springs, California. The editors transcribed the portions of the conversation printed here specifically for this volume.
  2. Document 226.
  3. The message was revised and resent on December 27 (Document 228).
  4. December 30.
  5. December 26.