185. Conversation Among President Nixon, his Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger), and the White House Chief of Staff (Haldeman)1
Nixon: That’s right, but they say, “Well, by God, we’re going to keep—” It—well, the main thing it does: it tells the enemy that in no uncertain terms that, by God, you’re going to do—we’re going to stay right there, and also, I’ve thrown out something there, as you noticed: that we’re going to bomb ‘em, which we damn well will. If we’ve withdrawn and they haven’t returned a thing, we’ll bomb the hell out of North Vietnam. Get my point? Just bomb the living bejeezus out of it, and everybody would approve of it. Well, I don’t know about that.
Haldeman: You made a good point last night2 that this—
Nixon: Did you see Kissinger?
Haldeman: [unclear] come through, at least, because I picked up that is the one we ought to get people to expand on, too—and we will—which is in all this babbling about the civilians and the refugees, which was the whole point you made of how many, how many the VC have killed.
Nixon: 50,000 men—
[unclear exchange]
Haldeman: And, what would happen if we weren’t there.
Nixon: A million refugees.
Haldeman: If we weren’t killing VCs, who are the aggressors in this, or North Vietnamese—
Nixon: The bloody aggressor.
Haldeman: —what would they be doing to the South Vietnamese, who are just sitting ducks? And now—
Nixon: [unclear] Jesus Christ [unclear].
Haldeman: That incident played back. We talked about that a couple of years ago. That doesn’t really come out. [unclear]
Nixon: They won’t use it. They won’t use that sort of thing because it’s just too true.
Haldeman: Yeah.
[Page 560]Nixon: But I was able to personalize it. I’ll say I was in Hanoi, and I was there in the, basically, refugee camps, when a million of ‘em came south. And what’s going to happen to these people?
[Omitted here is discussion of a statement by Department of State spokesman Robert McCloskey.]
Kissinger: I think the China story3 has driven Vietnam into a secondary rank.
Nixon: For what?
Haldeman: Although going into Laos has been—we’ve got to watch that, too. I think that’s been the view of—
Kissinger: Who’s going into Laos?
Haldeman: The South Vietnamese.
Kissinger: Oh, but that’s just in and out.
Nixon: I mean, these—these little—they’ve already done that.
Kissinger: Uh—
Nixon: Those raids? Is that what you mean?
Kissinger: Yeah, yeah.
Nixon: The raids?
Haldeman: Yeah.
Nixon: We’ve been in twice, and they didn’t make a blip.
Haldeman: Now they’re—now they’re talking about the buildup in Ashau, and all that stuff—
Kissinger: Yeah, but Ashau is in—on the Vietnamese side.
Nixon: But that is—
Haldeman: It still leads to Laos, doesn’t it?
Nixon: I know.
Kissinger: Yeah, but they clean that out once a year, in order to prevent an attack on Hue. They’re not going deep into there. They’ll—that won’t go.
Haldeman: That’s the only, only area where you’ve got any activity in Vietnam that’s gonna, you know, make a blip.
Kissinger: I know, but there isn’t much—
Nixon: I do not think that will be too big. I—my guess is that I don’t think it’ll make that big an operation. Does it, Henry?
Kissinger: No. And, they’re not—the South Vietnamese aren’t going anywhere where they’re going to suffer casualties right now. Doing that for their own [unclear].
[Page 561]Haldeman: They did good at Fire Base 6. They finally—even the media has finally got [laughs] has given us that.
Kissinger: That was a big victory.
Haldeman: Sure. But it took a long time before they admitted it. They didn’t call it that. They—
Kissinger: Oh yeah, they’re now give—
Haldeman: [unclear]
Kissinger: —1,500 enemy killed, three battalions—
Nixon: By the ARVN.
Kissinger: By the ARVN.
Nixon: And a little air power. The Ashau Valley, I don’t think it’s the same thing as Laos, Bob, for the reason that it doesn’t involve a tremendous exposed flank, and all the rest. I mean, they’re just going to—
Haldeman: It is the same thing, though—
Nixon: Incidentally—
Haldeman: [unclear] the media [unclear] I think you’re gonna—any chance they get, like they’re picking up Abrams’ statement that he wouldn’t rule out another invasion of Laos.4
Nixon: Yeah.
Haldeman: That’s—they’re, they’re going to look for any little thing—
Nixon: Yeah.
Haldeman: —like that to try and regenerate. I don’t think they’ll succeed. I think you’re right.
Nixon: Yeah. Well—
Kissinger: Besides, I told [John F.] Osborne, you know—
Nixon: Yeah.
Kissinger: You remember now, 6 weeks ago, everyone told us that we are bringing China into Southeast Asia.
Haldeman: Yeah. That’s the one that’s fun to throw at them.
Nixon: Yeah. What did he say?
Kissinger: And I said, “Now, look—”
Nixon: Because he wrote it, too—
Kissinger: Yeah. I said not—not a word that they haven’t mentioned Vietnam once on this whole trip of this ping pong team, and to the journalists. The Hanoi people put out a statement in Paris today [Page 562] saying that China stands unalterably behind them. I consider that a sign of weakness. They have to put out a statement—
Nixon: Yeah.
Haldeman: And they put it out, not China?
Kissinger: No, no. Hanoi put it out in Paris.
Nixon: We just know that means that they’re, they’re defensive—
Kissinger: That they’re defensive, and they announced in Hanoi a railway agreement between China and North Vietnam with big fanfare—the sort of thing they do once every 6 months.
Nixon: Hmm.
[Omitted here is discussion of arrangements for Congressional testimony on the Laos operation and Congressional reaction to the visit of the United States ping-pong team to the People’s Republic of China.]
Kissinger: You see, the way we are setting up the Hanoi thing, we’ll be in a position where we either get a settlement, or announce, together with Thieu, not a complete terminal date, but something in which, for a ceasefire and—and a prisoner exchange, we will give a terminal date.
Nixon: Um-hmm.
Kissinger: So, if we will either get Hanoi to agree, or we’ll announce it during the summit—
Nixon: Remember, at the same—at that time, too, we will then announce the end of the American combat role.
Kissinger: At the same time—
Nixon: At the very least.
Kissinger: Yeah.
Nixon: What I think we ought to do on that, if we—if it turns out that way, is not to put it all in one announcement. I’d have it—I’d make it a two-day meeting. Let’s let ‘em come one day, and then come the other. And we could get maximum bang out of it.
Kissinger: That’s right.
Nixon: Knock everything for what it’s worth.
[Omitted here is discussion of China and Germany.]
- Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, White House Tapes, Oval Office, Conversation 481-7. 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, 1-3:30 p.m. According to the Nixon tapes log, Butterfield was present during part of the conversation.↩
- See Document 174.↩
- Reference is to the Chinese invitation to the U.S. ping pong team.↩
- See footnote 3, Document 186.↩