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

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

December 1, 1972, 10:03 a.m.

P: I was just calling to get the morning report. Anything new on the—

K: No, I’m seeing the South Vietnamese at 10:30.

P: At ten, huh. That’s good.

K: We’ve had a cable from Bunker in which he thinks they are going to come along. But ungraciously.²

P: I don’t care how they come along.

K: They’ve been leaking in that direction. They’ve been saying you gave them an ultimatum. That’s been on NBC, that doesn’t do any damage in Paris, and that they were going to see how we did next week before they make their final decision.

P: Well, I think that’s what they are going to do. Let’s be sure that none of our people leak that I’m giving an ultimatum. Tell State, Sullivan and all the rest I don’t want that conversation because that was a son of a bitch and tough conversation, and that was really rough.

K: That was rough.

P: Be sure that Haig and everybody knows that I didn’t tell the Chiefs or anybody.

K: Right. I’ll make sure that nothing gets to State.

P: Or anybody. Just don’t let it out, because we don’t want to embarrass them publicly. Then we’ll build a backfire here on the Right Wing, you know, and we just can’t have that.

K: Right, right. Well, nobody—

P: Incidentally, I’ve been thinking a little about our meeting tomorrow just so that you can prepare, I think on the negotiating strategy this time that you ought to begin, not with the easy one but with the tough one. And I think that, for example, on the priority you’ve got to say, now, let’s get one thing settled once and for all, we say first they will have seen the picture of the Joint Chiefs, that will I assume be carried in The World—

K: Yes, it’s been in every paper.

P: Has it? Good. All right. Then I’d be cold as ice, the President is frankly very relaxed about it but he’s very disappointed in the progress of this, and this is it. This is, as far as you are concerned, the last meeting.

K: Right.

P: Then you go on to say, Now we’ve got to begin with one proposition and that is the President is very disappointed and cannot understand your backing off of your proposal with regard to the key point of the prisoners. If we back off—that’s important now. What are you going to do about that. You’ve got to get that settled right away because we can talk all we want and settle 12 points, if we don’t settle that we have no deal.

K: Exactly. I think, Mr. President, what we might consider, you might want to think about it until tomorrow, is that I ask for a private meeting with him first—

P: Oh, sure, sure.

K: With some of your stronger words that way so that there are not too many people in the room when I say it. It’s easier for them to take it that way.

P: That’s right. Well, I’ll go, I think I’ll write a very tough note too with what you have with your instructions. That may be helpful.

K: That would be very helpful.

P: What you can do is to have something prepared along that line. Let him, you know, spend some time, you’ve got things to do. When I get it, I’ll edit it, then I’ll send that with you. Now there a few other brief points here, Henry. At least the North Vietnamese have indicated in their message a willingness to discuss.³ Right.

K: Absolutely. Let me get you the exact wording.

P: Right, Okay.

K: I’ll—you know, there’s the usual palaver which isn’t worth repeating about the history of—

P: Oh yes. I ought to make a lot of palaver too, but now the damned thing is going to be settled.

K: Well, here is the operative paragraph. “If the U.S. is really determined to end the war rapidly and restore peace in Vietnam, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam will also resolutely advance in that direction. The DRV side will come to the private meeting on December 4th with good will and a very serious attitude. If the U.S. side also shows good will and makes great effort like the Democratic Republic of Vietnam is prepared to do, it is certain that the Vietnam question will be rapidly settled in the interest of both sides.” That’s pretty forthcoming by their standards.

P: Yeah, yeah.

K: Because that in effect—

P: I just trust they don’t think [we’re] coming there with more concessions.

K: Well, we have to come with something along the lines of—that we discussed, Mr. President, on restoring some of the original language on this committee.

P: Well the language on the committee is—you’re getting from Duc his priorities or not.

K: That’s right.

P: Or is he going to give you priorities.

K: My—

P: We know what his priorities are, what the hell, he just wants it to look good and frankly we can make it look good. Now the other thing that you’ve got to really hammer out with him is whether or not there is going to be a meeting between me and—here’s a way you can hurry their decision a bit, because I can’t—you can say the President can make, you know, you’re putting this first, but he admits to his budget preparations and so forth and he can’t just take off and go on 24 hours notice. Now if Thieu wants this meeting, we ought to do it. I think he should want it, and I think the time to do it is before.

K: Well, I think he should want it, I think the time to do it is—you ought not to consent to doing it before because you could make the commitments in a framework where it wouldn’t look provocative, and it could be done in the surge of peace and it would set up the subsequent trip to Hanoi in a much better framework. But we’ll get an answer to that in an hour, I hope, but I will press it on him immediately.

P: Well, in an hour he’s going to come in with his usual plaintive answer and say well that business about being—we are going to die six months from now, we’ll die now. That’s just nonsense, and they want to talk that way, well there’s just no deal.

K: Now, on the concessions, Mr. President, we cannot have—there are four outstanding issues, we can’t have our way on all four of them.

P: I understand that.

K: Because, say, for example, they want the PRG mentioned in the document once, they’ve agreed to delete it every place except in the preamble. Now, I have found a formula which I’ve now checked with the lawyers which will work which is that everybody except Saigon signs the preamble mentioning the PRG, and Saigon has a different preamble. That way the North Vietnamese gets three quarters of their way, and then we make a unilateral statement saying—

P: We recognize only one government.

K: Exactly. Then we have shown our good will towards—

P: Well, don’t tell him that tomorrow. Don’t tell him that today.

K: Oh, no, I won’t tell—

P: Don’t tell him that today. That’s something that you wangle out of them next week and then say we’ve made a great big deal here.

K: Exactly. I wanted to tell you that that’s the way this one has to go, we cannot get—

P: I understand that. Anyway that doesn’t make a damn bit of difference whether it’s mentioned or not. If we put out a unilateral statement that we don’t recognize them. That’s the point they’ve got to understand.

K: Now the second thing is I think of all the outstanding issues, the one we’ve got to get back is the prisoner one.

P: Well, that is why you’ve got to start with that.

K: But, on the other hand, on that three segment committee, it’s just insane for the South to make—

P: Well, how about putting in a phrase that this is not a coalition government or something of that sort.

K: Well, they won’t agree to that.

P: Well, then we’ll state it.

K: Oh, yeah, that’s easy. They have stated it. I have it in the protocol that they have stated it. And, we can put out what they said.

P: I know they’ve already made statements. I was just thinking of any way that you—well go ahead.

K: On the rest of the issues we can win.

P: On the withdrawals, like what.

K: Well, I think we can get them to withdraw some of their prisoners—some of their troops on a de facto basis. I think we can get a statement in there with respect for North Vietnamese terri—outside Vietnamese territory which is a sort of a code word for no troops.

P: Why don’t we say for the respect of the territory of both sides.

K: That’s how this would be done.

P: That’s right.

K: And you can get a clause in there that the demobilization should be done within a three month period so that that’s hooked to everything else so if there’s no demobilization, they don’t have to have a committee.

P: Well, I assume I wouldn’t expect anything when you see him today because he’s, I mean, they are obviously waiting—Bunker doesn’t know anything anyway does he.

K: No. It was just his instinct.

P: Well, from what we heard from that conversation yesterday, after what we had told them, that was—

K: No, that was—by that time it was pretty mild.

P: Well, I know toward the end he began to back off, but he doesn’t have any authority. You know, you could tell by looking at him and the Ambassador, I think that if he and the Ambassador were making a deal we would have it right now. Don’t you agree?

K: Oh yes, no question. Not a question about it. Well, what they are going to do, Mr. President, is to wait until he gets the deal in Paris and then they’ll accept it.

P: Yes, but then, you see, one of the reasons that I want this meeting even from my standpoint is that I want it to appear, I want to be sure the Right Wing hears, and all say that we sold out and all that crap. Of course, you can brief and you can convince the—

K: No, the meeting—

P: with our enemies, the two of them. You understand that both the Left and the Right would be disappointed with this. And because the less [Left] for the reason that will want to find what is wrong with it, in any event, they have a vested interested in defeat, and the Right because they will honestly believe what Thieu says.

K: Well, but I think it’s going to go like the SALT agreement. That once we got it, it’s going to be an overwhelming—

P: I think so too, but I meant the point is—the symbolism is though of his going along graciously is something. If he goes along ungraciously it’s all right, but I think we should tell Duc that, look just going along here but having statements leaked out that they are going along reluctantly will make it more difficult for me to keep my commitments to get the Congress on military aid and the rest because the Congress will look for excuses.

K: That’s right. I’m going to tell them that it must be a settlement that the American people feel proud of—

P: Oh, yes, it must be a settlement that the American—that particularly—their strong supporters in the Congress, the Right Wing, so that they will feel, will not be a let down. You see Henry, don’t worry about the Left. The hell with the Left and the Democrats and the rest. They don’t—we could have the most great settlement in the world. Our concern now is the Right here. It’s a real problem. The thing to do therefore is to get this across to this fellow that therefore that is why their going along has to be in some sort of a gracious manner or it will be very difficult for us to get this money from the Congress. And it really will. If the South Vietnam drags its feet.

K: Right. I will make these points.

P: There are a couple of other points. We will talk about it in the morning.

[Omitted here is discussion unrelated to Vietnam.]

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. In backchannel message 286 from Saigon, December 1, 1030Z, Bunker wrote to Kissinger: “My judgment is that he [Thieu] will decide to go with us when it is made clear to him and he realizes there is no viable alternative. While he has made this more difficult for himself than need be because of the uncompromising public stands he has taken on NVA troop withdrawal and the NCRC, he told the Director-General of the Police, General Binh, two days ago, that preparations for a ceasefire must be definitely completed by December 15.” (Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Kissinger Papers, Box TS 45, Geopolitical File, Vietnam, Cables, Dec. 1972–Apr. 1975)
3. Nixon was referring to a message from the North Vietnamese, sent via Guay and Haig on November 30, 1737Z. (National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 858, For the President’s Files (Winston Lord)—China Trip/Vietnam, Sensitive Camp David, Vol. XXII (1))