"Telcon" between President Nixon and Henry Kissinger
4/15/1972
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President Richard Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger were each secretly recording their conversations. Kissinger's tapes were transcribed. The National Security Archive published these "telcons" in 2008, after legal proceedings and Freedom of Information Act requests made them public.
In this "telcon," Nixon and Kissinger revel in the destruction caused by the recent bombing campaign: "...we can bomb the bejesus out of them..." The United States had resumed bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong on April 16, 1972.
Henry Kissinger had begun backchannel negotiations with North Vietnam. Hoping to gain an edge in these deliberations, North Vietnam sent 122,000 main force units to attack South Vietnam in March 1972. Nixon was enraged by the "Spring Offensive." It threatened his reelection and his budding relationship with the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union, whom he hoped might abandon North Vietnam for the promise of improved American relations. In a recorded conversation, he told Kissinger he would retaliate by bombing "the bastards like [they'd] never been bombed before."
This primary source comes from the Collection RN-NSF: National Security Files (Nixon Administration).
Full Citation: 'Telcon' between President Nixon and Henry Kissinger; 4/15/1972; TELCON, the President and Henry Kissinger, April 15, 1972; Henry A. Kissinger Telephone Conversation Transcripts (Telcons), 1/21/1969 - 8/8/1974; Collection RN-NSF: National Security Files (Nixon Administration); Richard Nixon Library, Yorba Linda, CA. [Online Version, https://docsteach.org/documents/document/telcon-president-nixon-henry-kissinger, May 9, 2024]