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May 3, 1972

Introduction

This almanac page for Wednesday, May 3, 1972, pulls together various records created by the federal government and links to additional resources which can provide context about the events of the day.

Previous Date: Tuesday, May 2, 1972

Next Date: Thursday, May 4, 1972

Schedule and Public Documents

  • The Daily Diary files represent a consolidated record of the President's activities. Visit the finding aid to learn more.

    The President's day began at The White House - Washington, D. C.

  • The Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents made available transcripts of the President's news conferences; messages to Congress; public speeches, remarks, and statements; and other Presidential materials released by the White House.

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  • Each Public Papers of the Presidents volume contains the papers and speeches of the President of the United States that were issued by the White House Office of the Press Secretary during the time period specified by the volume. The material is presented in chronological order, and the dates shown in the headings are the dates of the documents or events. In instances when the release date differs from the date of the document itself, that fact is shown in the text note.

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  • The Federal Register is the official daily publication for rules, proposed rules, and notices of federal agencies and organizations, as well as executive orders and other Presidential documents.

  • The Congressional Record is the official daily record of the debates and proceedings of the U.S. Congress.

Archival Holdings

Any selection of archival documents will necessarily be partial. You should use the documents and folders identified below as a starting place, but consult the linked collection finding aids and folder title lists and the collections themselves for context. Many documents to be found this way do not lend themselves to association with specific dates, but are essential to a complete understanding of the material.

  • Selective document listing

    President's Office Files

    The President's Office Files consists of materials drawn together by the Special Files Unit from several administrative subdivisions within the White House Office. It is the handwriting and sensitive papers sent to the Staff Secretary that now comprise much of the President's Office Files. Visit the finding aid to learn more.

  • The H. R. Haldeman Diaries consists of seven handwritten diaries, 36 dictated diaries recorded as sound recordings, and two handwritten audio cassette tape subject logs. The diaries and logs reflect H. R. Haldeman’s candid personal record and reflections on events, issues, and people encountered during his service in the Nixon White House. As administrative assistant to the President and Chief of Staff, Haldeman attended and participated in public events and private meetings covering the entire scope of issues in which the Nixon White House engaged in during the years 1969-1973. Visit the finding aid to learn more.

    • Transcript of diary entry (PDF)
      Wednesday, May 3.

      Principal discussion today was again on the Summit cancellation. The President was tied up all morning with leadership meeting, the briefing by Moorer, some other things of that sort. He had me over first thing in the morning to set those up, to make the point that he wanted to postpone Annapolis for a week, keep the weekend clear, because if he does cancel the Summit, he's going to do it Monday night on TV. Then he makes the point of whether there's a real question of what we get out of canceling the Summit, and whether that's the key to winning the war, and that's what he's got to weigh.

      Later in the morning he was going over the thing again. Made the point that the loss of the Summit would result in a massive Soviet propaganda war worldwide, the charges that we've crumbled Nixon foreign policy, and that the costs there are too high to pay for the short term gain that we get for taking the positive action.

      Then later in the afternoon I talked to Henry. He makes the point that there's no choice on the Summit, that we have to drop it, or else the Russians will, that we can't both bomb the North and have the Summit. That's Henry's strong feeling. And he feels it's essential that we bomb the North, now that we've told the Russians that we're going to take a hard line with them and with the Vietnamese, if we don't get any action in Paris, and we haven't gotten any action. We tried to develop the arguments, and the main thing is we have to get a message to the Soviets and to Hanoi, anything here will be marginal in its effect on the war, but still could be psychologically important. The real question is how can we have a Summit meeting and be drinking toasts to Brezhnev while Soviet tanks are crumbling Hue. How can you have the President signing agreements for trade, arms, toasting peace and friendship and all that? It would be a very bad picture, and will display a great weakness after the warning.

      My argument on the counter side is that canceling the Summit is going to shatter the Nixon foreign policy, people don't like to see the government helpless. President came up with the line that going to the Soviet Union in the cause of peace while they're waging war would not serve the cause of peace. Kissinger makes the point that we have too weak a hand to go to Russia now, but on the other side the people want hope, not just blood, sweat, and tears all the time. So President told me to make the strongest case for going ahead, and to talk to Henry about it, that he'll make no decision till Monday, and make the speech Monday night. My argument was that we should go ahead and bomb and see what happens. That we don't have to cancel the Summit, we can take the chance that they won't cancel it even if we do bomb, and then we have the best of both worlds. Henry's argument is, that creates a terrible problem for us, because the worst possible thing would be to have the Russians to cancel the Summit, blaming it on the Nixon bombing, which would make it look like we had really blown the chances for world peace.

      I had quite a long anguished talk with Henry, who is obviously deeply disturbed by this whole thing. He makes the point that we have done a number of things wrong in this thing and he feels that he handled the Moscow meeting and the Paris meeting wrong in the sense that he didn't leave any flexibility. He put the issue to them solidly as the President told him to, and they didn't back down, so now we're in the bad spot. He feels that because of that, we can't back down now, that it will leave the President in such a position of weakness that he wouldn't be able to govern even if he survived it. President feels on the other hand that he can very well lose the election by what comes out of this and that it therefore becomes of vital importance. In any event, he decided not to make any decision today and to continue to ponder the thing. It turns out that Henry has sent a very strong letter from the President to Brezhnev, and there should be a reply on that tomorrow or the next day, and that will show the Russian attitude, which would be another factor in deciding what we do.

      The other thing was our poll results last night showed that 60 percent of the people feel that the President should go ahead with the Summit in spite of the invasion of Vietnam. In other words, there's strong popular demand here for the Summit, and that makes it even harder to figure out how to cancel it.

      End of May 3.
    • Original audio recording (MP3)

  • The National Archives Catalog is the online portal to the records held at the National Archives, and information about those records. It is the main way of describing our holdings and also provides access to electronic records and digitized versions of our holdings. 

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    Nixon Library Holdings

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National Security Documents

  • The President's Daily Brief is the primary vehicle for summarizing the day-to-day sensitive intelligence and analysis, as well as late-breaking reports, for the White House on current and future national security issues. Read "The President's Daily Brief: Delivering Intelligence to Nixon and Ford" to learn more.

  • The Foreign Relations of the United States series presents the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity. Visit the State Department website for more information.

    Vol. V, United Nations, 1969-1972

    Committee of 24

    • 78. Airgram From the Embassy in Zambia to the Department of State, Lusaka, May 3, 1972

      Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Files 1970–73, POL 19 UN. Unclassified. Drafted by R. C. Reis and approved by Deputy Chief of Mission Arthur T. Tienken. Repeated to Addis Ababa, Dar es Salaam, Lisbon, Pretoria, Lourenco Marques, Luanda, and USUN.

    Vol. VIII, Vietnam, January-October 1972

    The Easter Offensive, March 30-May 7, 1972

    Vol. XIV, Soviet Union, October 1971-May 1972

    Summit in the Balance: U.S.-Soviet Relations and the Decision to Mine Haiphong, April 26-May 12, 1972

    • 187. Conversation Between President Nixon and his Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger), Washington, May 3, 1972

      Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, White House Tapes, Oval Office, Conversation No. 718–9. No classification marking. According to his Daily Diary, Nixon met with Kissinger in the Oval Office from 10:59 to 12:11 p.m. The editors transcribed the portion of the conversation printed here specifically for this volume.

    • 189. Conversation Between President Nixon and his Chief of Staff (Haldeman), Washington, May 3, 1972

      Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, White House Tapes, Oval Office, Conversation No. 718–4. No classification marking. According to his Daily Diary, Nixon met with Haldeman in the Oval Office from 10:02 to 10:50 a.m. The editors transcribed the portion of the conversation printed here specifically for this volume.

    • 190. Letter From President Nixon to Soviet General Secretary Brezhnev, Washington, May 3, 1972

      Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 494, President’s Trip Files, Dobrynin/Kissinger, 1972, Vol. 2. Top Secret. The letter is unsigned. An attached covering note, May 25, reads: “Peter—Did the attached letter to Brezhnev from the President go in the attached form (as a double-spaced draft with no signature)? HAK met with Dobrynin from 9:45 to 9:57 a.m. on May 3, in the White House Map Room. [No Memcon]—Wilma.” The word “yes” in an unknown hand is written on this covering note. An attached note at the top of the letter reads: “Handed to D. by K., 5–3–72, 9:45 a.m. Map Room.” No other record of this meeting has been found. In his memoirs Kissinger noted: “Our first move was to warn the Soviet leaders that grave decisions were impending. On May 3 a Presidential letter, drafted by Sonnenfeldt, Lord, and me, was sent to Brezhnev informing him of my fruitless meeting with Le Duc Tho. It seemed to us, the letter told Brezhnev, that Hanoi was attempting to force us to accept terms tantamount to surrender. We would not permit this.” (White House Years, p. 1176)

    • 191. Transcript of Telephone Conversation Between the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) and President Nixon, Washington, May 3, 1972, 6:25 p.m.

      Source: Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Kissinger Papers, Box 372, Telephone Conversations, Chronological File. No classification marking.

    Vol. XVII, China, 1969-1972

    China, March-December 1972

    • 225. Memorandum of Conversation, Washington, May 3, 1972, 3:15 p.m.

      Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 523, Country Files, Far East, China, Vol. X. Secret; Sensitive. According to the attached May 10 covering memorandum from Froebe to Kissinger through Holdridge, Kissinger approved this memorandum of conversation and wanted no further distribution of it. The meeting was held in the White House from 3:20 to 3:35 p.m. (Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Kissinger Papers, Box 438 Miscellany, 1968–1976, Record of Schedule)

    Vol. XIX, Part 1, Korea, 1969-1972

    Republic of Korea Troops in Vietnam and Force Modernization, April 1971-December 1972

    Vol. XL, Germany and Berlin, 1969-1972

    Germany and Berlin, 1969-1972

    Vol. E-1, Documents on Global Issues, 1969-1972

    U.S. Policy Towards International Production and Trafficking in Illegal Drugs

    Vol. E-5, Part 1, Documents on Sub-Saharan Africa, 1969-1972

    Burundi

    • 219. Memorandum From the Deputy Secretary of State (Irwin) to President Nixon, Washington, May 3, 1972

      Irwin informed the President that the Burundi Government had been attacked by insurgents, but President Micombero remained in command. No Americans or Europeans had been harmed, but the 125 Americans, mainly missionaries, had been asked to exercise prudence. Ambassador Melady had offered Catholic Relief Service supplies and would use disaster relief funds in response to Micomberoʼs request for international assistance.

      Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 41, Presidentʼs Daily Briefs. Confidential. The memorandum is stamped: “The President Has Seen.”

    Vol. E-10, Documents on American Republics, 1969-1972

    Colombia

    • 165. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon, Washington, May 3, 1972., Washington, May 3, 1972

      President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs Kissinger argued that assistance to Colombia was important, as it would stabilize the government and support its economic and social development. Kissinger noted that U.S. assistance to Colombia did not substitute for Colombia’s own efforts.

      Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 779, Country Files, Latin America, Colombia, Vol. 1. Confidential. Sent for action. Haig approved for Kissinger, who approved for the President. Attached but not published are Tabs A and B. Tab A is Secretary Rogers’ April 7 request and Tab B is an April 26 memorandum from Director Shultz of OMB to Nixon. Davis, in a May 12 memorandum, informed Eliot of the President’s approval.

    Nicaragua

    • 515. Telegram 966 From the Embassy in Nicaragua to the Department of State, May 3, 1972, 2305Z., May 3, 1972, 2305Z

      The Embassy reported that Somoza had officially resigned as President and had handed over authority to the 3 member National Governing Council, which was elected on February 6. Somoza was to remain as the Supreme Chief of the Armed Forces.

      Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Files 1970–73, POL 15–1 NIC. Confidential; Priority. Repeated to Guatemala, Tegucigalpa, San Salvador, San José, USCINCSO, and USCINCSO for POLAD.

  • The Kissinger telephone conversation transcripts consist of approximately 20,000 pages of transcripts of Kissinger’s telephone conversations during his tenure as Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (1969-1974) and Secretary of State (1973-1974) during the administration of President Richard Nixon. Visit the finding aid for more information.

    Digitized versions can be found in the National Archives Catalog.

Audiovisual Holdings

Context (External Sources)