The Kissinger Tapes

The Kissinger Tapes The Kissinger Tapes New Book by Tom Wells Features Kissinger ‘Telcons’ Obtained by Archive Secretly Recorded Phone Conversations Shed Light on Kissinger’s Foreign Policies, Strategies, Personality and Efforts to Deceive Colleagues and Journalists Transcripts Detail Nixon White House Abuses, Wiretapping and Watergate Published: Mar 19, 2026 Briefing Book # 919 Edited by Peter Kornbluh For more information, contact Peter Kornbluh: 202-994-7000 or peter.kornbluh@gmail.com Subjects Covert Action Human Rights and Genocide Policy Making and Diplomacy Political Crimes and Abuse of Power Secrecy and FOIA Soviet-U.S. Relations Regions South America Southeast Asia Events Argentine Dirty War, 1976-1983 Chile – Coup d’État, 1973 Operation Condor, 1975-1980 Vietnam War, 1954-1975 Project Chile Cold War Henry Kissinger Indonesia Southern Cone Vietnam Tom Wells Tom Wells William Burr Archive Senior Analyst William Burr led the project to obtain the Kissinger telcons The Kissinger transcripts book cover The Kissinger Transcripts: The Top-Secret Talks with Beijing and Moscow Feb 1, 1999 Washington, D.C., March 19, 2026 - On August 10, 1973, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger placed a call to Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird to complain about U.S. officials who were participating in congressional hearings to investigate the secret bombing of Cambodia. As the Nixon administration’s cover up was unraveling, Kissinger was angry that “these @*%&* over there are acting as if it happened on the moon”; he demanded that Secretary Laird defend the original Nixon/Kissinger decision to launch clandestine attacks on Cambodia. “I mean, we saved American life,” Kissinger argued in a phone conversation he was secretly tape recording. “There were North Vietnamese troops there. The government of the country we were bombing were asking us to do it. What the hell—one sometimes thinks we are in a madhouse.” The candid and revealing Kissinger-Laird conversation is one of hundreds included in The Kissinger Tapes: Inside His Secretly Recorded Phone Conversations, an edited selection of Kissinger telephone conversation transcripts—known as “telcons”—by historian Tom Wells. Published this month by Oxford University Press, the 620-page book provides an essential history—as told in Kissinger’s own words—of his tenure as national security advisor and secretary of state during the Nixon years—1969 to mid-1974. An early review of the book in Foreign Affairs said it offers “unparalleled insight into the premier diplomat of the twentieth century,” bolstering Kissinger’s “reputation for brilliance, wit, and strategic thinking” while also revealing “his proclivity to backstab and battle nonstop with senior colleagues; his manipulation of and lying to journalists; his mistrustful relationship with Nixon, an equally facile liar; [and] his self-described preference for ‘brutal’ behavior.” In Wells’ telcon selection, Kissinger literally speaks to those issues, providing hundreds of pages of revealing evidence into his policies, strategies, personality and the rampant abuses of power that defined his stewardship of U.S. foreign policy during the Nixon years. Among the key themes that emerge from the telcons: ** Kissinger and Nixon’s complete disregard and indifference to human rights and human suffering: The book includes numerous conversations, particularly between Kissinger and Nixon, on human rights abuses committed with U.S. support. In a March 1971 conversation, for example, Kissinger and Nixon discussed a cable sent by U.S. consul Archer Blood in East Pakistan detailing the massive slaughter of hundreds of thousands of civilians being committed by the U.S.-backed Pakistani military dictatorship in what is now called Bangladesh. “We’ve had a bleeding [bleating] cable from our consul in Dacca who wants us to put out a statement condemning what the West Pakistanis are doing. But of course, we won’t consider it,” Kissinger tells Nixon. “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” responds the President. “Well, he’s just one of those pansies,” Kissinger states disparaging his own diplomat. “And he says condemning them?” Nixon asks. “Yeah, for genocide,” Kissinger responds. “Well, now, remove him,” Nixon orders. “I want him out of the job.” March telcon ** Kissinger was a pathological liar and veteran manipulator: In his introduction, Wells cites a top Kissinger aide, Helmut Sonnenfeldt, as stating that “Henry does not lie because it is in his interest. He lies because it is in his nature.” The book contains dozens of examples of Kissinger’s efforts to deceive colleagues, friends and especially journalists to influence their coverage. “The man lied the way most people breath,” as Wells quotes Seymour Hersh who, as a New York Times reporter, was on the receiving end of Kissinger’s duplicity. In one July 1973 conversation where Hersh sought information on the falsified official reports designed to hide the secret Cambodia bombing, Kissinger repeatedly denied knowing anything about them. The telcon transcripts reveal that three hours later Kissinger called his deputy, Alexander Haig, to basically brief him on how he had attempted to deceive Hersh. ** Kissinger spent considerable time attempting to influence the press: The Kissinger Tapes record numerous conversations with the leading journalists of Kissinger’s era—CBS reporter Marvin Kalb, Time magazine’s Hugh Sidey, columnist Rowland Evans, and ABC News celebrity Barbara Walters. At one point Kissinger called Walters to seek public relations advice on a “nightmare” book by a French journalist who had become smitten with Kissinger. “I read it and I thought, you didn’t kiss her, you didn’t touch her. You were as nice to her as you are to me or any reporter,” Walters told him. “I am a hell of a lot nicer—I like you,” Kissinger responded. More than any other collection of documents, his recorded conversations with leading journalists reveal how the top tier of the U.S. media related to those in power. Walter-Kissinger “Henry Kissinger’s phone transcripts touch on every important issue of his day and provide a panoramic view of his tenure in power,” notes Wells, who sifted through thousands of pages of transcripts to compile the book. “They shed new light on the many controversies of Kissinger’s era while throwing his personality and character into sharp relief,” Wells added. “Kissinger never intended for his phone transcripts to be public, and it was only due to the prolonged legal efforts of the National Security Archive that he was forced to relinquish them.” Kissinger falsely designated the government-created telcons as his “private papers” and took them when he left office in late 1976; he subsequently used them extensively to write his three-volume memoirs. In January 2001, the National Security Archive presented a legal complaint to both the State Department and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) demanding that they recover the 20,000 pages of Kissinger telephone conversation transcripts. Facing a potentially successful lawsuit, lawyers from the State Department approached Kissinger and negotiated the return of those papers in mid 2001 and early 2002. Led by Kissinger project director Bill Burr, the Archive then filed a comprehensive set of FOIA petitions for the declassification of the records. Our FOIA requests resulted in the declassification of over 15,000 pages of transcripts in August 2004, generating headlines around the world when the Archive began posting them on our website. Dr. Burr subsequently edited a major digitalized, indexed, collection of the telcons, The Kissinger Transcripts: A Verbatim Record of U.S. Diplomacy, 1969-1977, that was published as part of the award-winning Digital National Security Archive series. “One of Bill’s many great legacies is the recovery of the Kissinger files,” Archive director Tom Blanton emphasized in a memorial to Dr. Burr who died on December 11, 2025. “Thousands of Kissinger memcons and over 15,000 of his telcons are now on the public record, all because of Bill Burr. A permanent scholarly tribute. A permanent accountability tribute.” Burr’s colleague Peter Kornbluh said The Kissinger Tapes book is proof that the telcons are an invaluable gift to history that keeps on giving. The book “provides an incomparable compilation of Henry Kissinger in his own words,” Kornbluh said, “and a verdict of history on his controversial foreign policies.” The Documents 1 919 Document 1 White House, Telcon, Kissinger and Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, 21 November 1969, 3:50 p.m. Nov 21, 1969 Source Nixon Presidential Materials Project, Henry A. Kissinger Telephone Conversations Transcripts, Chronological File, Box 3, File 3, 083-084 A week after investigative reporter Seymour Hersh broke the story of the My Lai massacre in the New York Times, Kissinger calls Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird to make sure they have a “unified line” to respond to the scandal. Laird has gruesome photographs that were appearing in the press; he and Kissinger agree the Pentagon will not distribute the photos in their possession to the press. Plainly appalled by the massacre but anxious to avoid having the Pentagon tarred by an atrocity, Laird was inclined to sweep it “under the rug.” Kissinger warns him that cannot be done. 2 919 Document 2 White House, Telcon, Kissinger-Nixon conversation on Archer Blood “Genocide” Cable, March 28, 1971 Mar 28, 1971 Source Tom Wells Collection In this conversation, Kissinger advises President Nixon that he has received a cable from the consul in Dacca, Archer Blood, reporting on the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of civilians in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), by the U.S.-backed Pakastani military regime. In a now famous dissent channel report known as “the Blood telegram,” the consul recommended that the Nixon administration condemn the repression which he suggested could be “genocide.” Referring to Blood’s message, Kissinger says, “We’ve had a bleeding [bleating] cable from our consul in Dacca who wants us to put out a statement condemning what the West Pakistanis are doing. But of course, we won’t consider it.” “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” responds the President. “Well, he’s just one of those pansies,” Kissinger states disparaging his own diplomat. Nixon then orders Kissinger to fire Blood. 3 919 Document 3 White House, Telcon, Kissinger Conversation with President Nixon about Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin, bombing North Vietnam, and Planned Summit in Moscow, April 15, 1972 Apr 15, 1972 Source The Kissinger Transcripts: A Verbatim Record of U.S. Diplomacy, 1969-1977 After a visit from Soviet Ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin, Kissinger calls Nixon to report on their conversation. He repeatedly disparages Dobrynin for “slobbering over me,” even as the U.S. is bombing North Vietnam. “He was slobbering so much,” Kissinger gloats to Nixon. “Here we are bombing the capital..of one of their close allies. According to the peacenik textbook, he should be yelling and screaming.” 4 919 Document 4 White House, Telcon, Kissinger Conversation with Barbara Walters, June 17, 1972 Jun 17, 1972 Source Tom Wells Collection Kissinger holds a lengthy conversation with high-profile ABC News journalist Barbara Walters. During their discussion he asks her for media advice on how to respond to a newly published “tell all” book, Dear Henry, by French reporter Danielle Hunebelle, who claims that Kissinger romantically told her “I am your slave.” Kissinger refers to Hunebelle as “a nightmarish girl,” and Walters calls the book “the worst piece of crap I have ever read.” “I read it and I thought, you didn’t kiss her, you didn’t touch her. You were as nice to her as you are to me or any reporter,” Walters tells him. “I am a hell of a lot nicer—I like you,” Kissinger replies. 5 919 Document 5 White House, Telcon, Kissinger conversation with Nixon advisor Leonard Garment about the unfolding scandal of Watergate, April 21, 1973 Apr 21, 1973 Source Tom Wells Collection As the Watergate scandal unfolds, Kissinger talks to White House advisor Leonard Garment about the cascading scandal. “This is without a doubt the most depressing period that I know in our history,” Kissinger tells him. “It was almost beyond my belief. It was beyond my emotional belief. Because another thing that is bound to come out now—one has to assume Watergate could not have been an isolated incident.” According to Garment, “it was part of a long, wide range of events,” some of which Kissinger is aware. 6 919 Document 6 White House, Telcon, “The President/Mr. Kissinger 7:00pm., June 1, 1973 [Discussing wiretap scandal] Jun 1, 1973 Source DNSA, Nixon Presidential Materials Project, Henry A. Kissinger Telephone Conversations After the FBI wiretap scandal breaks into the media, Nixon orders a report on wiretapping under previous administrations. He calls Kissinger in anger to tell him: “Let’s get away from the bullshit. Bobby Kennedy was the greatest tapper.” He accuses the former attorney general of tapping the phones of 300 people in 1963 and tells Kissinger that he is going to publish the names of the individuals Kennedy had placed under surveillance. “And let the[se] assholes know that they’re going to get this, Henry.” Kissinger responds: “I think you should.” “They started it,” Nixon reiterates. “They want to have a g[ood] fight; they’re going to get one, Henry, you understand.” 7 919 Document 7 White House, Telcons, Kissinger conversation with Seymour Hersh, July 17, 1973 Jul 17, 1973 Source Tom Wells Collection New York Times reporter Seymour Hersh calls Kissinger to find out if he has authorized a set of falsified military reports on the secret bombing of Cambodia. Despite Hersh’s efforts to cajole Kissinger into admitting his involvement, Kissinger repeatedly claims ignorance. “The first time I heard of false reporting was in a Monday newspaper,” Kissinger tells Hersh—mendaciously denying prior knowledge of an operation for which he was responsible. 8 919 Document 8 White House, Telcons, Kissinger conversation with Alexander Haig, July 17, 1973 Jul 17, 1973 Source Tom Wells Collection Three hours after attempting to deceive Seymour Hersh about his involvement in the falsified military reports on Cambodia, Kissinger calls his deputy, Alexander Haig, to brief him on the sham story he told Hersh. “Why should we even tell Seymour Hersh anything?” Haig declares. “Well, you can take that attitude, but I can’t,” Kissinger replies. “I knew about the [falsification] operation. Well, anyway, if he calls you, at least you know what he wants.” 9 919 Document 9 White House, telcon, Kissinger Conversation with William Safire and John Crewdson of the New York Times regarding the FBI wiretap on Safire, August 3, 1973 Aug 3, 1973 Source Tom Wells Collection New York Times columnist William Safire calls Kissinger as part of a Times investigation into the wiretapping of Safire. Safire’s colleague, John Crewdson, presses Kissinger to admit that he ordered a wiretap on Safire’s phone. Although Kissinger picked the 17 individuals he wanted the FBI to tap, he obfuscates throughout the conversation, claiming “I did not request any wiretaps at all.” Instead, he implies that “the authority was from [Attorney General John] Mitchell.” 10 919 Document 10 White House, Telcon, Kissinger Conversation with Secretary of Defense Laird on Cambodia Bombing, August 10, 1973 Aug 10, 1973 Source Tom Wells collection As the U.S. Congress holds hearings to investigate the secret bombing of Cambodia, Kissinger makes an effort to browbeat Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird into publicly defending the White House’s controversial decision to expand the war in Indochina. He calls Laird to complain about the lack of support from other U.S. officials who are testifying during the hearings. “I mean, we saved American life,” as Kissinger tries to convince Laird. “There were North Vietnamese troops there. The government of the country we were bombing were asking us to do it. What the hell—one sometimes thinks we are in a madhouse.” 11 919 Document 11 NSC, Telcon, Kissinger Discussion with Nixon on the coup in Chile, September 16, 1973 Sep 16, 1973 Source The Kissinger Transcripts: A Verbatim Record of U.S. Diplomacy, 1969-1977 In their first substantive conversation following the military coup in Chile, Kissinger and Nixon discuss the U.S. role in the overthrow of Allende and the adverse reaction in the news media. When Nixon asks if the U.S. “hand” will show in the coup, Kissinger admits “we helped them” and that “[deleted reference to U.S or CIA] created conditions as great as possible.” The two commiserate over what Kissinger calls the “bleating” liberal press. In the Eisenhower period, he states, “we would be heroes.” Nixon assures him that the people will appreciate what they did: “let me say they aren’t going to buy this crap from the liberals on this one.”