Newly released tapes: Nixon threatened Vietnam leader, wanted GOP to find 'attractive women'

As President Nixon was negotiating an end to U.S. military involvement in Vietnam in January 1973, he faced a political obstacle: South Vietnam's president was reluctant to sign a proposed peace treaty that he feared would leave his government vulnerable to communist takeover and bring his downfall.

Nixon’s response was to threaten President Nguyen Van Thieu with a halt to the U.S. aid on which South Vietnam depended. The support of U.S. congressional leaders would hinge on Thieu initialing the agreement immediately, Nixon instructed diplomat Henry Kissinger to tell Thieu.

“Is that going too far?” Nixon asked Kissinger on Jan. 20, 1973. “In other words, I don’t know whether the threat goes too far or not, but I’d do any damn thing, that is, or to cut off his head if necessary.”

The conversation between Nixon and Kissinger is part of 154 hours of Nixon tapes released this morning by the National Archives and Records Administration, along with thousands of archival documents. Nixon’s voice in the tapes is often a mumble with an occasional burst of profanity breaking through.

The tapes hold secretly recorded conversations between Nixon and his associates during January and February 1973. During that period, Nixon was working to negotiate an end to the Vietnam War and contending with the aftermath of the Watergate break-in that would drive him from office the following year.

Nixon also discusses the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, Roe vs. Wade, and its effect on the America family.

Tuesday’s release marks the third release of Nixon tapes since the National Archives assumed control of the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda two years ago, and the 13th release since 1980. This brings the total log of publicly available tapes from the Nixon White House to 2,371 hours. There are still 700 hours of material that the National Archives is processing and expects to release in coming years.

Even as Nixon was contending with decisions of historic consequence in early 1973, the tapes reveal, he was seeking ways to shore up the Republican Party. On Feb. 23, 1973, he placed a call to George H.W. Bush, then the Republican National Committee chairman.

The call was “nothing of great importance,” Nixon said, but he wanted to inform Bush of what he witnessed during his recent visit to the South Carolina state Legislature.

“I noticed a couple of very attractive women, both of them Republicans, in the Legislature,” Nixon tells Bush. “I want you to be sure to emphasize to our people, God, let’s look for some ... . Understand, I don’t do it because I’m for women, but I’m doing it because I think maybe a woman might win someplace where a man might not ... . So have you got that in mind?”

“I’ll certainly keep it in mind,” Bush replies.

“Boy, they were good lookin’ and bright,” Nixon continues. And he had been informed, further, that “they’re two of the best members of the House.”

“Well, that’s terrific,” Bush says.

-- Christopher Goffard

Are you listening? Here is the link to the catalog of newly released tapes. Let us know in comments if you find anything newsworthy or interesting and tell us how to find it (eg tape 43, conversation 191).  

From our archives

Times obituary: Richard M. Nixon (April 23, 1994)

Nixon pledges 'Peace With Honor' (Jan. 24, 1973)

Full text of Nixon's speech (Jan. 24, 1973)

Photo: Newly appointed Secretary of State Henry Kissinger sits with President Richard Nixon in the Oval Office on Sept. 21, 1973. Credit: Associated Press

Comments

[Eric of Reseda]

"Understand, I don’t do it because I’m for women...". Any starry-eyed notion that our elected leaders are automatically decent, fair and good should be put to rest with this statement.

[Not Richard]

Tricky Dick has a point. If Barack Obama had been a short fat unattractive white male, Obama would not have been elected President.

[Ricky Newhouse]

"Understand, I don’t do it because I’m for women"

Witness the birth of the hot and sexy Sarah Palin.

[david c.]

in the running for the most completely insane president ever to hold the office...

[JIm]

To all the conservatives and revisionists who blame losing Vietnam on the Democrats and the protestors and the hippies, you must now see you are 100% wrong -- Vietnam was lost because Nixon and Kissinger abandoned it.

[POWMadeak47]

"Understand, I don’t do it because I’m for women"

Witness the birth of the hot and sexy Sarah Palin.

Posted by: Ricky Newhouse | June 23, 2009 at 12:45 PM

-----------------------

An idiot w/ 4 kids is "hot and sexy?"
ick

[Josh Fahrni]

How asinine. Chris Matthews school of journalism. I can't see a more worthless piece of news making it's way out here. Atleast Nixon wanted attractive women in the party as possible leadership, most likely to kill the leftist notion that Republicans are all Old fat white guys. It could have been worse, he could have wanted unattractive ones Hailing the Chief under the desk, like another, also impeached, President, that shall remain nameless.

And to the person above me. Democrats can take alot of the credit for the Vietnam failure, as can their constituents. Cheese smelling hippies. If you don't know who they are, go to your local University and find any Professor there.

[Dan of Sunset]

Yeah, let's compare Nixon with Barry Obama's willingness to negotiate with the dictator and murderer Ahmadinejad. Another stroke of genius!

[joe]

what is the point, it did not prevent another useless war(IRAQ)

[Ken Hughes]

To find out more about how Nixon forced the South Vietnam's president to accept a settlement term that both realized would lead to a Communist victory, and to read excerpts from the tapes that were released today, visit:
http://fatalpolitics.blogspot.com/

[Kim]

Please read a part of "Sleeping With the Enemy", by James Webb, a Demoncrat Senator to find out who to be blamed for Vietnam War failure:

"It is difficult to explain to my children that in my teens and early twenties the most frequently heard voices of my peers were trying to destroy the foundations of American society, so that it might be rebuilt according to their own narcissistic notions. In retrospect it’s hard even for some of us who went through those times to understand how highly educated people—most of them spawned from the comforts of the upper-middle class—could have seriously advanced the destructive ideas that were in the air during the late ’60s and early ’70s. Even Congress was influenced by the virus.

After President Nixon resigned in August of 1974, that fall’s congressional elections brought 76 new Democrats to the House, and eight to the Senate. A preponderance of these freshmen had run on McGovernesque platforms. Many had been viewed as weak candidates before Nixon’s resignation, and some were glaringly unqualified, such as then-26-year-old Tom Downey of New York, who had never really held a job in his life and was still living at home with his mother.

This so-called Watergate Congress rode into town with an overriding mission that had become the rallying point of the American Left: to end all American assistance in any form to the besieged government of South Vietnam. Make no mistake—this was not the cry of a few years earlier to stop young Americans from dying. It had been two years since the last American soldiers left Vietnam, and fully four years since the last serious American casualty calls there.

For reasons that escape historical justification, even after America’s military withdrawal the Left continued to try to bring down the incipient South Vietnamese democracy. Future White House aide Harold Ickes and others at "Project Pursestrings"—assisted at one point by an ambitious young Bill Clinton—worked to cut off all congressional funding intended to help the South Vietnamese defend themselves. The Indochina Peace Coalition, run by David Dellinger and headlined by Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden, coordinated closely with Hanoi throughout 1973 and 1974, and barnstormed across America’s campuses, rallying students to the supposed evils of the South Vietnamese government. Congressional allies repeatedly added amendments to spending bills to end U.S. support of Vietnamese anti-Communists, precluding even air strikes to help South Vietnamese soldiers under attack by North Vietnamese units that were assisted by Soviet-bloc forces.

Then in early 1975 the Watergate Congress dealt non-Communist Indochina the final blow. The new Congress icily resisted President Gerald Ford’s January request for additional military aid to South Vietnam and Cambodia. This appropriation would have provided the beleaguered Cambodian and South Vietnamese militaries with ammunition, spare parts, and tactical weapons needed to continue their own defense. Despite the fact that the 1973 Paris Peace Accords called specifically for "unlimited military replacement aid" for South Vietnam, by March the House Democratic Caucus voted overwhelmingly, 189-49, against any additional military assistance to Vietnam or Cambodia."

...

[Thomas]

The worst SCUM to inhabit the white house......Worse than bush...a worm with NO honor........ Peace with honor...What a laugh...What did he mean..honor??
One more trumped up war for NOTHING but KILLING..

At least the liar bush was after oil....What was nixon after??