280. Transcript of a Telephone Conversation Between President Nixon and the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger)1

K: Hello.

P: I am on, thank you.

K: Hello, Mr. President.

P: Hi.

K: I just wanted to tell you we got a report from Haig 2 and it went just as we expected. He [Thieu]was wailing around but not with the brutality of before. More telling us his troubles [2 lines not declassified] indicates that unless he has a change of mind that he is going to come along.

P: Uh-huh.

K: He presented the issue in terms of—that only can lead to the conclusion that he’s got to take it.

P: Yeah.

K: And he put it in terms—I’ve got two choices. I can be an immediate hero and ruin my country or I can be a statesman. I’m an immediate [hero], I’ll be very popular and the country will go down; if I’m a statesman I’ll do the difficult thing of accepting it. This is the right posture for him to say that he doesn’t like it.

P: As a matter of fact, I think that he is wrong on being an immediate hero though. I think the people of South Vietnam despite all the jumping around, I’m not there and everything, but I think the people of South Vietnam—I mean you look at their casualties—250 a week—killed every week—when you think of that they may be damn sick of this war, too. What do you think?

K: Well, I think the basic problem, Mr. President, is that this group that is now governing Vietnam cannot imagine peace time conditions. He is a great leader when he is a sort of a dictator.

P: Yeah, yeah.

K: But I have the distinct impression, of course, we have gone this route before of thinking at the first meeting he would do it.

P: Yeah.

[Page 1016]

K: Getting a feel for the mood in every previous one he raised objections which were really very big. This time he is sort of wailing and I have the impression that he is doing what Le Duc Tho did to me on Monday.3 One more day of toughness and then he is going to cave.

P: Well, we can only hope. That’s the point.

K: Mr. President, another indication is that their leakers—the people to whom they leak like Bradsher 4 from the Star are now writing that the ceasefire is getting acceptable. And their semi-official newspaper which is owned by the nephew of Thieu who is his chief aide, that young kid who has been giving us so much trouble, Nha, they are writing now that the ceasefire will come before the end of the month.

P: Yeah, yeah.

K: So, it now looks …

P: They are getting out on a hell of a limb.

K: That’s right. I mean they are preparing the public horror.

P: Well, we shall see. In any event we are going to have to—I don’t think there is any question of Haig just riding him like hell, is there.

K: No, no, I’ve read the record of that meeting, Mr. President, he couldn’t have been more tougher. He has done an outstanding job.

P: Just tell him that …

K: Well, he presents our case and then when he starts wailing he says well, that’s all very interesting but the President has made an irrevocable decision. Then he will say, well since Thieu will say something about his own political future he will say well, your actions in the last three months has forced the President to spend his entire political capital on Vietnam and the President had no more flexibility left and we have got to face that fact. So, he’s done a good job, Mr. President, and I am … Of course, the Vietnamese are specialists at breaking your heart. But I cannot see how this thing can screw up now. There is just too much momentum going.

P: Sometimes the war situation becomes—it’s almost like mobilization which leads to war.

K: That’s right.

P: Once it turns on—World War I even though they tried to stop it it was too late. As so it is in this case—the mobilization leading to peace may be just too great for them to resist.

K: Exactly.

P: But we just got to keep the damn pressure on them.

[Page 1017]

K: No question.

P: For all that it’s worth.

K: No question and we are doing that. We are still holding up that money.5

P: Well, if there is anything else, God-damn it, we’ve got to do it. Of course, the thing I’ve wondered about is whether or not people that he believes in here like I mean the Goldwaters and those if they could get …

K: Yeah but Goldwater made a good statement on television last night.6

P: To tell Thieu to shut up? He didn’t say that. I know he made a good statement about …

K: I think now it is too far gone for any outside pressures to work.

P: Yeah, but he always figures, Henry, if the Right Wing will rise up and help him, but God-damn it, it isn’t going to happen. It isn’t the Right Wing that ever saved him before.

K: That’s right. But I had the impression [less than 1 line not declassified] and also the way he talked that it’s going to work this time. And I think the press play on yesterday couldn’t be better. I saw Stennis on television this morning saying your bombing undoubtedly contributed to it and made it possible.

P: Oh, did he. Good.

K: Goldwater was terrific. I don’t know whether you …

  1. Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Box 17, Chronological File. No classification marking. Nixon was in Key Biscayne, Florida; Kissinger was in Washington.
  2. See Document 279.
  3. January 8, the first day of six days of meeting with Le Duc Tho.
  4. Henry Bradsher, a reporter for The Evening Star.
  5. As a way of applying pressure to Thieu to sign the Paris Agreement, the United States decided to stop, at least temporarily, putting money for South Vietnam into the commercial import program (CIP). As tentative implementation began, its impact was hardly noticed. Bunker wrote, in backchannel message 316, January 5, 1010Z: “By next week probably, and by January 20 certainly, GVN officials will recognize that there is a de facto hold up of the CIP program. So far as I know there is no awareness of the delay in releasing CIP funds outside of a small group of concerned GVN economic officials who are themselves growing increasingly alarmed and suspicious about this matter.” (National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 415, Backchannel Messages, From Amb. Bunker, Saigon thru April 1973)
  6. According to a program abstract of the ABC Evening News for January 15, Goldwater said: “if everybody will shut up and back President progress will be made.” (Vanderbilt University, Television News Archive)