Transcript of Telephone
Conversation between President Nixon and His Assistant for National Security
Affairs (Kissinger)/1/
/1/ Source: Library of
Congress, Manuscript Division, Kissinger Papers, Box 397, Telephone
Conversations, Home File, Dec 1971. No classification marking. The President
was in Key Biscayne,
K: Mr. President.
P: Well, what's the news today
on our various adventures.
K: Right, Mr. President. Well,
that backgrounder of Sisco's which we finally beat
out of them.
P: Yeah.
K: Played very well. I don't
know whether you have seen it.
P: No, I didn't look at the
stuff; you see, I don't have a news summary down here.
K: It was one of the key items
on every television program.
P: Maybe Sisco
and Rogers-Rogers probably wished he had done it, didn't he?
K: Well-
P: Tell me this, are they
pleased now they did it?
K: Oh, yeah.
P: State is, good.
K: Oh, yes.
P: And how does it play, it
plays good?
K: On front page in the New
York Times and Washington Post.
P: And what line did they take
it?
K: That
P: Good.
K: And it's just what you
wanted.
P: It got across though that who's to blame?
K: Oh, yeah.
P: And heavily played?
K: And heavily played.
P: Ziegler got his statement
out too?
K: Well, Ziegler's statement
triggered this one because without-until Ziegler put out his statement-
P: They wouldn't say anything.
K: They refused to say
anything.
P: Yeah, yeah. That's great,
that's great.
K: Where we are now, Mr.
President, we had a Security Council meeting.
P: What happened there? I
heard something on the radio that the Russians want to blame the Pakistanis.
K: Well, we put in a
Resolution of ceasefire and withdrawal./2/
/2/ See
footnote 5, Document 224.
P: Right.
K: The Russians put in a
Resolution/3/ which blamed everything on
/3/ UN doc.
S/10418.
P: Yeah.
K: At any rate, it wound up
with an
P: Right.
K: Even
P: Huh.
K: The Chinese voted with us,
for our Resolution.
P: You know, that's pretty
good, Henry, to have the Russians get that few votes.
K: That's right. But so now,
of course, there is no Resolution.
P: Right.
K: So they are going back at
it again today.
P: To get a Resolution that
they can all approve.
K: Right, which
will be impossible unless it's anti-Pakistan because the Russians will veto it.
P: I see.
K: If it's anti-Pakistan, the
Chinese will veto it.
P: (Laughter) You know, this, Oh, Boy. But anyway, you feel a little
better about what our position is.
K: Right. Now, what the
Russians this morning have launched is a blistering attack on
P: Yeah, yeah.
K: I think we ought to have a
meeting of some of your key advisors tomorrow. I know you've got your day
pretty full with the television taping. The reason I mention it is because
P: Sacrificing what?
K: Well, our position to
P: What move would he make
then himself?
K: I asked exactly this
question. He says he is just raising questions, he's not giving answers; these
are questions he wants to have considered.
P: Okay, I'll consider them.
K: I think if we don't, there
will be leakages that we just acted impetuously.
P: Well, let's see we could do
something around-
K: You've got him on the
schedule at
P: We might move it to
K: I think that's right.
P: Who would you have?
K: Connally,
Rogers, Laird, if he is in town; Helms, and Mitchell if you want it.
P: I wouldn't have Mitchell on this one.
K: All right.
P: No, no. I think Connally because it involves some military-I mean economic
and so forth.
K: The basic problem, Mr.
President, is it's clear that we can't do anything directly to change the
situation but to set it up on the ground that we are sacrificing our friendship
to India; there is no friendship left. There is nothing operational we are
sacrificing in
P: The point is that I want to
see from State what their option is; if they've got a better one, I'd like to
know what it is. And you know, I have [not] seen any
suggestions of any different.
K: Their suggestion is always
to release Mujibur; that's in effect the Russian
position.
P: Yeah. Well, but
K: No. Well, now it's
outdated; it's too late for that anyway. But it would have been-the Indians
were determined, Mr. President, they attacked at the earliest possible moment
they could. There was a rainy season from May to the end of September. Then
they had to get their troops into position; then they had to train the Bengali.
All this talk about Russian restraint that we heard all summer was complete
poppycock.
P: Um-humm.
I don't know; in everything we've done, everything we've said to the Russians
and Indians had no effect, is that really what we're saying?
K: Our trouble was that we
have been caught-maybe if we had been much tougher but for that we had no
domestic position but certainly everything we have said has been without effect
and they have geared it towards a humiliation-towards a dismemberment of
P: Yeah.
K: And the effect of that will
be on all other countries watching it is that the friends of
P: Nope. Well, are they now
with the Mujib thing out of the way, what is State
suggesting that we do?
K: They're not; they are
refusing to make a suggestion.
P: What?
K: They are not making a
suggestion.
P: They are just saying we
ought to review our situation, huh?
K: Right. And that we
shouldn't act impetuously.
P: What the Christ are we impetuous about, I don't know of anything impetuous.
K: I asked the same question.
P: Like what, cutting off the
arms? A little prinking thing like that, why what about the cutting off of arms
to
K: I think it's a carefully
considered policy, Mr. President.
P: What we are doing?
K: If we collapse now, I admit
it's not a brilliant position but if we collapse now, the Soviets won't respect
us for it; the Chinese will despise us and the other countries will draw their
conclusions.
P: Well, what about the
British position and how they're playing it?
K: Well, they abstained./4/
/4/
P: They abstained on this?
K: Yeah.
P: That sort of figures
doesn't it?
K: Yeah.
P: French?
K: They abstained.
P: Humph. The French abstained
too, huh?
K: Yeah.
P: What do you think the real
game there on the British and the French-afraid to make
K: That's right; they are
trying to position themselves between us and the Russians.
P: Um-humm.
K: No, I am beginning to think
one of the worst mistakes we made was to push
P: Yeah, yeah.
K: I mean that wasn't our
Administration, we-
P: I know that. That decision
was made long before we got here but we continued to push it, that's for sure.
K: Well, we couldn't have
stopped it by then.
P: No.
K: We acquiesced in it.
P: Yeah, sure. Heath-And, of
course, and that was Heath's position long before . . . became . . .
K: No, no; the mistakes of
that were made in the Kennedy Administration.
P: It's done now.
K: That's where it could have
been stopped easily.
P: You got a little cold?
K: No, maybe I've been talking
a lot on the telephone.
P: You have, huh? (laughter)
K: Yeah.
P: Well, on this thing my view
is to play this-I'll get them in and have a little meeting. That's a pretty
good idea. But this idea of it's the same old story, Henry, that we have such
things as troop withdrawals,
K: And it's this-
P: Well, goddammit;
if they've got a better answer, fine but I don't see-They raise the questions
and that makes a good historical record, doesn't it?
K: That's right and it's this
phony wisdom; we ought to consider things carefully. Of course, we ought to
consider things carefully.
P: That's right, that's right.
K: What good does our action
do? On that basis, we just have to roll over every time a superior country
moves. What is the long-term effect? Of course, we have to consider the
long-term effect.
P: Yeah.
K: The proper [omission in the
source text].
Source: Document 228, volume XI,