Nixon: See, the attack in the North that we have in mind…power plants, whatever’s left—pol [petroleum], the docks…And I still think we ought to take the dikes out now. Will that drown people?

Kissinger: About two hundred thousand people.

Nixon: No, no, no…I’d rather use the nuclear bomb. Have you got that, Henry?

Kissinger: That, I think, would just be too much.

Nixon: The nuclear bomb, does that bother you? I just want you to think big, Henry, for chrissakes. The only place where you and I disagree is with regard to the bombing. You’re so goddamned concerned about civilians, and I don’t give a damn. I don’t care.

Kissinger: I’m concerned about the civilians because I don’t want the world to be mobilized against you as a butcher.

Contributor

Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon

From the Nixon White House tapes, recorded on April 25, 1972, and made public by the National Archives on February 28, 2002.

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