Conversation No. 17-102
December 26, 1971
12:12 PM—12:16 PM

Participants: Richard M. Nixon & Admiral Thomas H. Moorer

NIXON:

Hello?

WHITE HOUSE OPERATOR:

Mr. President?

NIXON:

Yeah.

WHITE HOUSE OPERATOR:

Admiral Moorer's on the line. [Connection noises] Ready.

NIXON:

Hello?

MOORER:

Good morning, Mr. President. Merry Christmas.

NIXON:

[Laughs] Fine, merry Christmas to you! Did you have a good one?

MOORER:

Yes sir, thank you. I had my family here.

NIXON:

Hope you saw that game.

MOORER:

I did.

NIXON:

Wasn't that fantastic?

MOORER:

Terrific, yes sir.

NIXON:

That's probably the best one that, uh—I mean, well, they're always the best, but, uh, the only thing I'd do if I were havin' that playoff role, I think it's a mistake for them to have it on a sudden-death thing, 'cause it makes it, it makes it, basically, so unlike football and so conventional, everybody plays it so safe for fear of an error. They really ought to play a third quarter—a fifth quarter. And then they'd, you know, you'd have all the excitement of both teams goin' for broke again, you know.

MOORER:

That's right. That's [inaudible]—

NIXON:

I think it might be more interesting.

MOORER:

Well, we might have that again today.

NIXON:

Yeah. Oh, no, God, I hope to Washington—well, they got a chance. Hey, the strike got off all right, did it, uh, last night?

MOORER:

Yes sir, the strike got off, Mr. President, but, uh, the weather's bad.

NIXON:

It is?

MOORER:

Yes sir.

NIXON:

Well—

MOORER:

Matter of fact, we had a, a ship in the, uh, front there, and the weather is bad.

NIXON:

Did they, did they—you mean they had to make the strike in bad weather?

MOORER:

Yes sir. They, they did about half of it.

NIXON:

Oh, I see.

MOORER:

Just a small—oh, well, actually, they didn't do half of it.

NIXON:

Yeah.

MOORER:

They did, uh, just about the first wave. Now, we [are] standing by to go again.

NIXON:

Did it look pretty good? Did the first wave get something, though? We did some damage, I hope.

MOORER:

Yes sir, we got two good targets.

NIXON:

What were they, the, uh—what kind of targets, er—?

MOORER:

Well, they were, uh, first, a trans-shipment point, I think.

NIXON:

Good, good. Mm-hmm.

MOORER:

The other was, apparently a, uh, P-O-L. It was a big—

NIXON:

Right.

MOORER:

—explosion. But the weather, the weather turned bad on us. We had—

NIXON:

Damn, we really had a break on that, you know. We've been ready to go with this damn thing for two weeks now, and they just can't get it off.

MOORER:

That's right, sir. And we, we—now that other thing, that boat thing, is going. It will go—ah, probably right now.

NIXON:

No, by the South Vietnamese.

MOORER:

Yes sir.

NIXON:

You think, do you think that'll harass them a little, eh?

MOORER:

Yes sir, because they're going to use that as their weapon against 'em. As, you know, a captured weapon.

NIXON:

Oh, is that right?

MOORER:

Yes sir.

MOORER:

And that was what—that was the idea, to buy back someone that we captured from them.

NIXON:

Is that right? Good.

MOORER:

And uh, but uh, we are, we are just standing on standby here now, and I'll, I'll find out—

NIXON:

Well—

MOORER:

—again. And we're going to press ahead here as hard as we can. I know what your objectives are here.

NIXON:

Well, of course, the problem is that there's, uh, time's running out on us, you know, and uh, we get beyond a certain point as we get right into the China thing, where we can't, we can't—

MOORER:

Well, tomorrow, we're going to—which would be tonight, actually—

NIXON:

Yeah.

MOORER:

—and so, if the weather contains us like it is now, we're going to go [via] instruments on a lot of those targets.

NIXON:

Can you do that? Are they—

MOORER:

You can on some of them, yes sir, that are larger, uh, you know, like uh, P-O-L storages and things of that kind. But—

NIXON:

Yeah.

MOORER:

—this being a [inaudible two words], everybody's all primed and cocked. We're going to do our best.

NIXON:

[Laughs] Okay.

MOORER:

Right.

NIXON:

Okay! Fine! Well, I hope—

MOORER:

I-I'll keep, we're keeping the Situation Room fully up to date.

NIXON:

Oh, I know, I know that, fine. But uh—

MOORER:

Yes sir. But I just want to show you I'm watching it by the—

NIXON:

Sure. Sure. I know.

MOORER:

I know what you want.

NIXON:

Well, the main thing is, as I say, I just know it's our last opportunity and I just—we want to weaken them as much as we can before uh, we have to, you know, we'll be in a position that we're just gonna be there gettin' out. And that's not gonna be very good.

MOORER:

Yes sir. We did—well, we think we've lost one airplane. [Pause] But uh—

NIXON:

That's not bad.

MOORER:

—we don't have authentication yet, sir.

NIXON:

Well, one'd be, I would be—you'd expect that, wouldn't ya?

MOORER:

Oh, yes sir. That's—they, they—as you know, they have increased the [inaudible—devil?] air missile firing, missile batteries—

NIXON:

Right.

MOORER:

—from about twenty-two down in the area we had. In fact, about—I imagine thirty anti-aircraft regimens, too.

NIXON:

Right, right.

MOORER:

We're going to go after them just as hard as we can, I assure you.

NIXON:

Good. I know that. Okay, fine.

MOORER:

Thank you for calling.

NIXON:

Bye.