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

140. Telephone Conversation Between President Nixon and Richard T. Kennedy of the National Security Council Staff¹

Washington, December 4, 1972.

Nixon: Hello?

Kennedy: Mr. President?

Nixon: Yes.

Kennedy: This is Colonel Kennedy, sir.

Nixon: Yes. What is the report from Paris you have?

Kennedy: Oh, we have—it’s a very long one, sir.²

Nixon: Yeah.

Kennedy: And I was going to bring it over to you, or have it brought over to you right away. We’re just having it re-typed so you could read it easily.

Nixon: Oh, I see. Fine.

Kennedy: He—they were pretty tough.

Nixon: Well, I expected that.

Kennedy: And he feels that it just might be that we’re going to have to break off negotiations.

Nixon: Um-hmm.

Kennedy: That they’re just not going to move.

Nixon: Um-hmm.

Kennedy: Now he just doesn’t [unclear]—it’s possible that, in fact, that they’re playing a little chicken.

Nixon: Um-hmm.

Kennedy: Using us on the assumption that we have a problem here, vis-à-vis Saigon on the one hand, and domestically on the other—

Nixon: Um-hmm.

Kennedy: —that they can use to go back, really, beyond the understandings that we’d [unclear]—

Nixon: September [October] 8th. Right.

Kennedy: So, Henry believes that we ought to just go in and be tough and indicate that we’re—we want to insist on the changes of last week and boil the remaining two issues down to the correct Vietnamese translation on the administrative structure—³

Nixon: Um-hmm.

Kennedy: —and one of our formulations—that we had three of them, on the—establishing the principle that the North Vietnamese do not have any legal right to intervene indefinitely in South Vietnam.

Nixon: Um-hmm.

Kennedy: Then, we can drop all our other requests in exchange for their dropping their changes on civilian prisoners and U.S. civilian personnel.

Nixon: Um-hmm. Um-hmm.

Kennedy: Now, if they were to buy that, of course, then we would have had some significant gains—

Nixon: Um-hmm.

Kennedy: —which would still leave us with some problem with Saigon, but, at least, a wholly defensible position in respect to them.

Nixon: Um-hmm.

Kennedy: On the other hand, if they don’t, this, he believes, would give us a tenable position domestically. However difficult it will be, nonetheless, we could rightly say that we were tricked in the translation, and we’d always reserved on it, as we said at the beginning—

Nixon: Um-hmm.

Kennedy: —and that they’re trying to distort the phrase by describing it as a gover—the Council as a governmental institution.

Nixon: Um-hmm.

Kennedy: And, on the military side, they were in effect trying to produce an agreement, which ratified their continued presence—the presence of their forces in South Vietnam.

Nixon: Um-hmm. Um-hmm.

Kennedy: So, as I say he’s [unclear]—

Nixon: Well, I think what we’d better do is to—I really think I can sense from—without having to read the whole message—I mean, going into the details of it—that you’d better message him to the effect that we should stick firmly to our positions. What I—I mean, what you have described—

Kennedy: Right.

Nixon: —of course, is what we had agreed in advance—

Kennedy: Right.

Nixon: —that we cannot give—we cannot go back beyond what they’ve agreed to before. Is that—first.

Kennedy: Yes.

Nixon: And, second, that he must play the hard line with them, and, if necessary, we—we’ll have to break off.

Kennedy: Right.

Nixon: There’s really no other choice, because, basically, we can’t just go to Saigon with nothing.

Kennedy: Well, I think that’s exactly his point. If we go the other way, we’d wind up in a situation in which we’d be going back to Saigon, indeed, with having accomplished nothing of what they had been working with us for now for the past several weeks.

Nixon: Right.

Kennedy: And this would—and this would cause, perhaps, some domestic problems, too, because people would see that nothing had been accomplished.

Nixon: Um-hmm.

Kennedy: And Thieu, probably—in his view—if we were to do this and cave on it, Thieu would probably simply go down.

Nixon: Yes.

Kennedy: He couldn’t survive—

Nixon: Yeah.

Kennedy: —such a thing.

Nixon: Well, that’s really Henry’s point, isn’t it? That he—that his point being that we’ve got to have as a minimum what we’ve agreed to up to this point. And, uh—

Kennedy: Yes, sir. That’s right—

Nixon: Um-hmm. Well, you just send him a message that we must stick to the positions that we have previously insisted upon, and that they either have to take it or leave it.

Kennedy: Right.

Nixon: The choice is theirs, and that we have other choices that we can make, too.

Kennedy: Now on that—in that, Henry notes that he instructed me earlier today to call Dobrynin and—

Nixon: Right.

Kennedy: —just lay it out to him in the most categorical terms.⁴ That—

Nixon: Right.

Kennedy: —it’s the other side’s intransigence which is causing this problem and if—

Nixon: Right.

Kennedy: —they have any influence, they’d better bring to bear.

Nixon: That’s correct.

Kennedy: I did so.

Nixon: Right.

Kennedy: He also saw the Chinese Ambassador tonight—

Nixon: Yeah.

Kennedy: —and did the same—

Nixon: Right.

Kennedy: —in Paris.

Nixon: Right. Okay, well, I think the main thing is that before he meets in the morning, it’s now midnight there—

Kennedy: Yes, sir.

Nixon: —that you just send a message that he’s on the right course, to stick to it.

Kennedy: All right, sir.

Nixon: And that we—we’ll have to—but to make the record so that it’s their intransigence that breaks it off rather than—

Kennedy: Yes, sir.

Nixon: —our insistence on changes.

Kennedy: This is precisely the thrust—

Nixon: And that’s—

Kennedy: —of his approach.

Nixon: And that’s really what it is, too—

Kennedy: Right.

Nixon: —because—

Kennedy: He feels that if it, in fact, has to be broken off, that, in all

probability, that it would—you would have to step out and make a case to the people, again, rallying them again as you’ve done in the past, with your—with firm and clear, direct appeals. And he outlined some of the points that would be made, precisely along the lines that you’ve suggested. Making the point that it is their intransigence, and their clear trickery, that’s caused this breakdown.

Nixon: Um-hmm. Well, that’s a—somewhat of a weak reed at this point. I mean, I realize that Henry’s thinking of past circumstances, of course, where we were able to do so. The difficulty is that we’re—well, we may have to do that. That we have to realize that we, ourselves, are boxed somewhat into a corner, here, by reason of the, you know, the hopes that have been raised.

Kennedy: Oh, yes sir.

Nixon: You see?

Kennedy: Yes, sir.

Nixon: So, I think you should indicate that—in the message—that the idea of going to the people is a very—it’s a tenuous situation, I would say. I mean, it’s a—I don’t consider that as being a—as a very viable option. I think that we, probably, are better off to break it off and then just do what we have to do for a while.

Kennedy: Right. Yes, sir.

Nixon: I mean a—I think Henry must not rely on the fact that he thinks: “Well, we can just go to the people as we did on November 3d, in Cambodia, and May 8th, and so forth, and it will all come around again,”⁵ but the situation has changed quite drastically since then, you see, as a result—

Kennedy: Yes.

Nixon: —of what has happened. And so—but the main point is he has got to stay hard on the course, but don’t assume that we can go to the option of my, you know, making a big television speech calling for the bombing—

Kennedy: Oh, he feels that we’d have to—we’d have to step up the bombing, again as a [unclear]—

Nixon: Oh, I understand that.

Kennedy: Right.

Nixon: I understand that.

Kennedy: Sure.

Nixon: We may do that.

Kennedy: Yes.

Nixon: But I don’t think that—

Kennedy: But without going back—

Nixon: But going on television for the purpose of doing it, and so forth—

Kennedy: Right.

Nixon: —is not something that I think is too via—is really a viable option. I think we have to do it, and I think he has just got to indicate that, and then the other—the only other course, of course, is to keep the negotiations open any longer, and I guess he can’t do that either, can he?

Kennedy: Well of course, that’s what he’d be trying to do with this, with this option.

Nixon: Um-hmm.

Kennedy: Going back, again. Cutting down our proposals to those two—

Nixon: Um-hmm.

Kennedy: —and insisting that both sides stick with those things that had been agreed last week.

Nixon: That’s right. Well that’s the thing to say: we will agree—we will stick to those things we’ve agreed to last week, or else we have no choice but to break off the negotiations. But, be sure to put the message to Henry the fact that he must not assume that we should go on national television for the purpose of doing it. I think we’re just going to have to just—just do it this time.

Kennedy: Right.

Nixon: Because the going on television isn’t quite—probably too viable an option. When do they meet again?

Kennedy: Tomorrow afternoon, Paris time 1500. That’s 9 o’clock. No. Yes, 9 o’clock, our time.

Nixon: Nine o’clock our time.

Kennedy: Yes, sir.

Nixon: Um-hmm. Um-hmm. Now—well, I really think that that’s really all we have to pass on to him tonight, then.

Kennedy: All right, sir. I’ll get it off right away.

Nixon: I mean to—we’ve got to stick the course, we’ve got to insist on, as a minimum, the—what we have already agreed to, and if they are not going to go with that, then we will have to assume that they’ve engaged in deceit and trickery, and we will have to look to our other options, which we are really going to do. But, I don’t want him to be under any illusions to the effect—on the point that we’ll then go make a big speech, here, in this country. I mean, the domestic situation is one that will not really carry that at this point—

Kennedy: Yes, sir.

Nixon: —much as we would like to. It just isn’t there right now.

Kennedy: Well it’s—it—because of the tremendous pressure the press has put on all this—

Nixon: That’s right.

Kennedy: —it’s built up to a crescendo, and—

Nixon: That’s right.

Kennedy: And the disappointment is going to be there, but—

Nixon: That’s correct.

Kennedy: —on the other hand, I think that—

Nixon: On the other hand—we—understand, I have no question about doing it.

Kennedy: Right.

Nixon: I’m just questioning the idea of escalating it even further by—in terms of saying: “Well, the negotiations have broken down,” announcing it all, “and now we’re going back to unlimited bombing,” and all that sort of thing.

Kennedy: Yes, sir.

Nixon: I think the thing to do is just to go back to the bombing, and so forth. That is something that we—we’ll go back to what we do, but not—I don’t think we can assume that we can go back to simply making a big speech about it.

Kennedy: Yes, sir.

Nixon: And that he should think about that as he develops it. Okay?

Kennedy: All right, sir.

Nixon: All right, fine.

Kennedy: And I’ll get this [unclear] right away—

Nixon: Get something along—

Kennedy: —and the other is just now finished, and I’ll have it brought over.

[unclear exchange]

Kennedy: His message.

Nixon: You can send it over. I don’t think it’s going to change much. It’s just really a [chuckles]blow-by-blow, right?

Kennedy: Yes, sir. That’s right. But, it goes on and elaborates on what we’ve spoken about.

Nixon: Right, okay.

Kennedy: All right sir.

1. Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, White House Tapes, Conversation 34–11. No classification marking. According to the President’s Daily Diary, Nixon spoke with Kennedy from 7:51 to 8:02 p.m. (Ibid., White House Central Files) The editors transcribed the portions of the conversation printed here specifically for this volume.
2. Document 139.
3. National Council for National Reconciliation and Concord.
4. See footnote 5, Document 139.
5. See footnote 3, Document 123.