Foreign Relations, 1969-1976, Volume E-7, Documents on
Released by the Office of the
Historian
Telephone Conversation between President Nixon and his Assistant
for National Security Affairs (Kissinger), Washington, December 8, 1971,
8:03-8:12 p.m.
Nixon: What I was thinking of with regard to
the options, and I want you to know that I’m supposed to be working on
them now—
Kissinger: That’s right.
Nixon: Maybe we have to really put it to the
Russians and say that we feel that under the circumstances that we have to
cancel the summit.
Kissinger: No, I wouldn’t do that yet.
Nixon: No?
Kissinger: That’s too drastic.
Nixon: Well—
Kissinger: I think, Mr. President—
Nixon: I want you to know that I’m
prepared.
Kissinger: Well, I know—
Nixon: Because if these people
are—we’ve got to look at down the road. You got a minute now?
Kissinger: Yeah.
Nixon: The things that we’ve got to
consider are these: 1) the cost of
letting this go down the drain. All
right, that will be great. And then doing the other things. Then, on the other hand, we’ve got
to figure if we play this out the fact [is] that we may not be around after the
election. We have to just figure as
simply as that. And it’s a
tough goddamn decision. Yet on the
other hand, being around after the election, if everything is down the drain, [it]
doesn’t make any difference.
Kissinger: Exactly. Mr. President, if we play it out toughly
it’s my conviction—this may go down the drain, but if we play it
out toughly we will get some compensation somewhere, and you can go to
Nixon: We might say this, for example, and
I’m going to—I’ll do the note taking and refresh myself; my
thought is to say I was very pleased with Secretary Stans’
conversations. I was very pleased
with the conversations we’ve had with regard to the Mid-East; I’m
pleased with the progress on SALT.
It’s hard for me to understand that all of this could be
jeopardized by this area of the world, but it is being jeopardized. And that under the circumstances, I
think we have to take a look at it—we have to choose as to what we can do
here.
Kissinger: That’s what we’ve already
set reservations on.
Nixon: I know.
Kissinger: I don’t believe, Mr.
President—the major problem now is that the Russians retain their respect
for you. If they’re going to
play it into an absolute showdown then the summit wasn’t worth having
anyway.
Nixon: Yeah.
Kissinger: If they want a relaxation with us, we
can give them plenty of ways out.
Nixon: Now, with regard to the ways out,
though, the missing thing here is what we want as a way out. In other words, what do we say to
them—what is the method of settlement? We can’t say go back to the status
quo ante. We can say, "Well,
get the hell out of
Kissinger: At this stage we have to prevent an
Indian attack on
Nixon: That’s right.
Kissinger: That is the matrix.
Nixon: Right.
Kissinger: We have to maintain the position of
withdrawal from all of
Nixon: Right.
Kissinger: But we have to prevent
Nixon: We’ve got to say that that
is—we have a treaty, wouldn’t you say?
Kissinger: It’s a little premature yet to
make a move towards the Russians.
They still owe you an answer to your previous note.
Nixon: Right.
Kissinger: And therefore we have to hold it up a
bit. But I think—I believe,
Mr. President, we can come out of this with—if they maintain their
respect for us even if you lose, we still will come out all right.
Nixon: You mean, moving the carrier and letting
the few planes go in and that sort of thing. Well, maybe.
Kissinger: Well—
Nixon: That helps, I give you.
Kissinger: It’s not a good hand, Mr.
President. But doing absolutely
nothing—right now we’re in the position where we are telling allies
not to assist another ally that is in mortal danger and to which we have a
legal obligation.
Nixon: Right.
Kissinger: We’re in the position where a Soviet stooge,
supported with Soviet arms, is overrunning a country that is an American ally
of the
Nixon: Yeah.
Kissinger: Keep it to a minimum.
Nixon: Hmm, hmm.
Kissinger: And I think we will preserve a little
bit of our honor.
Nixon: Yeah. The Chinese thing I still think is a
card in the hole there. That,
goddamn, if they’d just move a little—I just think they might move
a little if they thought we were going to play.
Kissinger: But I think if we do absolutely nothing
it will trigger the Soviets into really a tough attitude.
Nixon: Yeah.
Kissinger: And if we can, if we can still scare
somebody else, which is not excluded, I give it less
than fifty-fifty, it may open the
Nixon: Hmm, hmm.
Kissinger: If this thing blows, the
Nixon: Right.
Kissinger: —be
able to talk to anybody.
Nixon: Well, don’t underestimate the fact
that if, by good chance, the Congress gets out this week and, if we smack
Kissinger: That’s right.
Nixon: Huh?
Kissinger: That’s right. Although, we ought to time it—if
we send a message to the Chinese to leave a little integral between the message and package it so that they don’t think we
used it as a pretext to get at
Nixon: Yeah. I think the message to the
Soviets—
Kissinger: Is more important now.
Nixon: At the moment isn’t it?
Kissinger: That’s right.
Nixon: It’s a little risky [unclear].
Kissinger: That’s right. Absolutely.
Nixon: We can’t assume [unclear]. Although, they must be
agonizing over this now.
Kissinger: But they’re so weak. Their trouble is that they’ve just
had a semi-revolt in the military.
Nixon: Have they really?
Kissinger: Yeah. And they’ve had a million
people—they have a million Russians on their border [unclear].
Nixon: Boy, I tell you a movement of even some
Chinese toward that border could scare those goddamn Indians to death.
Kissinger: No question about it. As soon as we have made the decision
here, we can then talk to the Chinese.
I would rather do that on Friday.
[unclear]
Nixon: Yeah. Well, if we could enlist them some way
that’d be something.
Source:
Doc 166, vol E7,