Nixon, Kissinger & Bull on Lam Son 719 and Vietnam War

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And I didn't know you had already talked to Moore.

Yeah, he had told me he was going to have this meeting with these people.

No, no, I didn't.

But I got very, very clear that they are going to move out, and they're going to be by April 5th or 6th, he said.

Yeah, Mike had this view of it.

Yeah.

Well, whatever it is, my point is, like I say, Monday night.

So I believe that if you'll give your thought to that, I personally make an idea to just look at it this way.

I think the most important thing to bear in mind is what you said yesterday.

Looking at it right today, it has had a very great effect.

It is, my second point is that, therefore, as I said when we went in there, remember I said, whatever happens, whether it's a walk, or I said, remember you were saying, I said, if they even spent three weeks, we're going to claim that it was a success.

We can.

It has been.

They have done well.

Now, therefore, I think that's got to be the straight line.

I'm going to put it right out there.

I pray that it's true.

I don't let these press people force us to the other side.

You know, not at all.

You can't do something anywhere else at all.

It's unbelievable what they're trying to say, but nevertheless, that doesn't matter so much.

What I really want to happen is to tell the son of a bitch from town.

And I think your analysis, as you said, after struggling with that for two hours, is the most reassuring thing of all.

And I think Moore felt that way, too.

He thought better than he did yesterday.

But he was at that same meeting, Mr. President.

Of course, one had to be disappointed that it wasn't as decisive as it might have been.

But if we compare it with anything else we could have done, it is a tremendous advantage over that.

Secondly, after scrubbing down all the figures, I could spend now this week five hours on it.

the impact of the operation has been a major plus.

I'm going to have two memos for you.

One that gives you a suggestion of how you might explain the nature of the impact to the public without going into great figures.

That you can do a little of that on the Smith.

And a lot of it, on the 7th, just give a hint of it to the Smiths.

Secondly, some figures that would illustrate this.

So I think that we can justify the claim that it has been a considerable success and that it is better than anything else we could have done.

And...

The other side was badly shaken.

For example, there have been altogether 600 Arclight strikes at B-52s.

We've entered only 80 of those boxes.

In each one of them we had a high body count, and in almost all of them we uncovered large weapons casualties.

So undoubtedly the destruction of supplies is greater than we know.

Because even if not every box hit something, if even 50% of them hit something, it worries me.

Your view is that they will not go in on these raids that they referred to?

If you want my frank opinion, I do not believe that.

You think Chu now has got his fight and he wants to come back?

I believe that Chu's reasoning, I try to reconstruct it for myself.

What do you think?

I think Chu has decided that he needs the 1st Division and these other units to run the election for him.

They all live in the areas from which they were recruited.

He doesn't want them to come home and have a lot of casualties in the areas where he's going to run for re-election.

He wants the officers to have a high morale so that they can control the population for him.

I see.

And he doesn't want to run the risk of morale because to us one battalion isn't a hell of a lot.

To him one battalion is a district.

And I would say it is not like it was on those days.

Well, let's not say anything about it.

I would not say a thing about it.

Well, they say in their legal... Well, this is...

They're not...

They'll be in their legal...

They can't be out...

They can't be out in the next...

This is already...

The major problem now, Mr. President, is to conduct the withdrawal in such a way

that the enemy doesn't get a major victory out of it.

This is what warrants me.

Haig has a cable here in which he says that they've put in another division after Chappelle.

They could have broken the back of the North Vietnamese.

It's one of these battles where both of them were on the ropes.

But let's forget about that.

The danger is that they will, that of course,

The plan to retreat is very hard, and if the enemy...

It's a very small group.

In particular, you have to do it with helicopters.

So if the enemy locks on one or two regiments, we may get a few more Bloody Noses.

Well, we'll get a lot of Bloody Noses.

Oh, yes.

Oh, Mr. President, there's absolutely no doubt that we have inflicted the five regiments that were north of Route 9, have never attacked again after Hill 31, even though...

This would be a good time for them to attack.

We are now doing the same thing to the 5th Regiment south of Route 9.

So the other side isn't...

The only way they do a more effective job, well, I know they're trying, but the press won't carry it.

Just to tell you what is the truth, that the, as I said yesterday, the...

South Vietnamese are not withdrawing.

They've accomplished their purpose.

They, you know what I mean?

And that's that.

But we've got to do some tunnel briefing next week, and we've got to claim, I think your talk should kick it off, and then we all have to go out there and grind away at it.

I think maybe I ought to give the background.

I'm not eager to do it, but we have to tie it together so that we can

So it can look effective.

And it was effective.

It's a good victory.

It's a good achievement.

It isn't a decisive achievement.

That's my present reading of it.

But it has set back the possibility of their offensive.

There's not going to be an offensive in First and Second Corps by them this year.

There's no possibility of an offensive by them in Cambodia this year.

And so we've achieved 70% of what we set out to do.

And I think we've hurt them enough and shaken them up enough still to trigger the negotiation this summer.

Our critics are going to give us a hard time now.

And I'm afraid it's true.

And if Q had been a little more forthcoming, he had told us after he was in Japan what he was really up to, we could have played it into it.

From a public relations point of view, we could have trumpeted the withdrawal as being made possible by the victory.

But we can still do this.

But they're getting the hit that hard.

Well, actually, the Washington Post had a good story.

It had a good story for the first time.

It gave a rather balanced account.

It said there's a lot of confusion, but it stated a lot of pluses.

I must say, Mr. President, after scrubbing the figures myself and

If you talk to soldiers, people have been at these meetings with me.

I'm the devil's advocate.

I give everybody a hard time.

Right.

I had been very focused on the number of trucks that went through.

What I had not focused on before these meetings was that it mattered also what's on the trucks.

So that, for example, the fact that they had 50,000 troops in southern Laos where they had had 8,000 last year.

meant that a lot of the trucks had to carry rides and not ammunition.

Secondly, with the destruction of the pipeline, a lot of the trucks had to carry gasoline.

The pipeline, without question, was destroyed.

Oh, yes.

No question about that.

Well, they did rebuild it, but still it will take them a bit.

It has been out of operation for such a period.

That's right.

So one of the results of all of this has been that even at constant flows,

A lot of it was consumables and not ammunition.

Then if you add to it the expenditure of ammunition for 10 residents, all the anti-aircraft expenditure, the destruction of cashes, even if you don't count a single truck destroyed or interrupted, the throughput this year has got to be a lot less than it was last year.

Now, the DIA figures, the CIA disputes

show a ridiculously small amount of fake claims that only 2,000 tons had come through.

And while CIA argues with it and then... Well, they won't claim anything.

Well, that's the trouble.

They, uh, the CIA... Well, now the CIA is sulking because of Shearer's will.

And, uh...

Why?

Because they made a mistake on them?

Yeah, so now they won't give us any figures anymore.

But the fact is that even if the 2,000 pounds is wrong, and they tell us that so far only

an eighth of the amount has gone in, whatever that eighth is, whether it's 2,000 tons or 10,000 tons, as last year.

Now, that no one disputes.

And

Now, if they do these raves, that would put another trip into it.

That would be great.

Because it would completely disarm our force.

I mean, they just make a rave in there.

I think we will see, as we did after Cambodia, a dwindling of military activity, a drop in our casualties.

Yes, sir.

And you'll have the troop announcement.

I think what you should do with the troop announcement, Mr. President, just to give you my present thinking, is if

If you announce the withdrawal of 100,000 by December 1st, this would be then add a rate of above 14,000.

A little higher.

It would be a higher rate.

No one expects that.

100,000 is a good round number.

It's a good round number.

Everyone would write it's a higher rate.

the figure.

Increases the rate.

I think we've got to indicate an increase in the rate and then say, I'll take the money over there.

And Laird has no idea.

In fact, Laird is bellyaching that he can't make $12,500.

I personally feel that at this stage, we've got to look after what may help you.

But the thing, too, is this.

I know this is a new summary on this ridiculous stuff going on with Kissinger and Laird and all this fight about troop control.

You and I know it's true.

Well, only about tactics.

I think Laird is putting it out.

Laird is putting it out.

Nevertheless, Harry, like I like Laird, Laird is his enemy.

I'm sure Bill O'Gillen has plenty of talk to Bill about it, but I guess I haven't talked to him.

Bill is with us.

But I think Bill understands it because he was very good at his press conference.

If he called in, as a matter of fact, to show you that at least Bill can play it right on this issue,

He called me before the press conference.

He said, look, I'll say anything you want.

My intention is to say that the president is going to make an announcement, and I'm not going to say anything about it.

And he said that.

Well, my fight with Laird, such as it is, is to protect you.

I want you...

you to be in the position to make the announcement, not him.

Well, the whole point, so even if I...

Even if I waited until 1972, I think it was well to point out that I was very careful in my statement in the press conference.

I didn't promise that we...

I said the next troop announcement, I'll make the next troop announcement.

If you read the sentence, I said, first I will make the next troop announcement.

The rate of withdrawal will be at least at the present rate.

That's the present rate.

But you see, Mr. President, this stuff about Laird and I fighting,

It's going to be made look ridiculous because you put out a figure, right?

I thought we ought to come up with a number of 100,000.

I think it has to be a number that is dramatic.

And now the Joint Chiefs will die.

Well, God damn the Joint Chiefs.

But we've done Cambodia with them.

We've done Laos with them.

I might have stuck with them.

And I get a strike when the weather didn't clear up out there.

I'm going to get a strike on our people.

I don't think it would be a good time to get it off because it would be a signal to the North Vietnamese that we're still in there.

I talked to Moore a few minutes ago.

If it doesn't go Sunday morning, I think we've got to knock it off by Sunday morning.

I don't see how...

This is my scene with the party Congress coming up.

The Chinese really blasted Russia.

The Chinese did?

About what?

About those bourgeois, real all-out blasts just before their party conquered.

So a real fight?

Yeah.

On the Laird thing, we ought to go to 14,000.

I could say 100,000 by this number.

You know, some of them have, frankly, some important portions.

You know what I mean?

Well, but the way to handle that, Mr. President, now is just to tell nobody.

Let them talk the other way.

And then bring them in the day before.

Yeah, if then.

You mean not tell them before I make a deal?

No, no, but last time we told them an hour before.

Yeah.

But we can only... We've got to find a way to get it.

Let's do it.

They've got to know, and they've just got to say it.

And listen, they've got to realize, too, that our services...

Who the hell's going to be sitting in this chair, defending them?

They haven't got it.

They haven't got anybody.

Texas, you see my point?

They have to call a statement making us look a little good with their change, you know what I mean?

Well, I just can't believe it, Mr. Treasurer.

It's a one-month stipend.

Supposing if we set $100,000 by January 1st, which we could also do, that's at the rate of $12,500.

No.

You'd get them out anyway before Christmas.

You wouldn't pull out any... Then we'll say we'll have another announcement.

At the appropriate time.

Well, what I mean is, when we are asked, we'll say right there.

But that way, you are doing it in... You're not giving the whole program.

You're again doing something unexpected.

Laird has been talking himself blue in the face about a rate of $12,500, and you're upping the rate.

All this talk about the White House sitting on layers of nonsense.

Incidentally, I told this to Bob before this debate started.

This is not a reaction.

And I'm not fighting with Laird about only one thing.

About two things.

I want you to get the credit for it.

You take the heat, so you ought to get the credit.

And secondly...

I want us to not indicate what we'll do next year so that we have a bargaining chip left with the North Vietnamese.

That's after November, after October, I don't give a damn what we announce because by then it doesn't, we won't be able to negotiate it anymore.

So I wanted to get it managed.

That's really when the time runs out.

It seems to me that the time for negotiation runs out about the 1st of October, which is great.

Yeah, 1st October, 1st November, in that time frame.

But you're going in on the lockdown?

Yeah, that would be it.

I guess you're right.

But what is there then to negotiate about?

We don't have enough check left for ourselves, do we?

No.

I'm a prisoner with the residual force against prisoners.

But then I will do that next year.

Yeah.

And people will understand and support us on that.

And we'll...

But I think we've got the... We'll lose all the hate that will be beside themselves.

Why?

Well, what the military are talking about is about 80,000 by January 1st.

Well, they always have.

What we've got to do, we've got to go for a bigger play now.

That's my view.

Tell them we've got to go for a bigger play now so that we can make a lesser play later.

But I won't tell them anything until we get out of California.

I agree with you.

I think at the present time, we're going to start playing the game.

And I won't tell, I don't think we ought to tell Laird anything.

I don't think we ought to tell Laird or Rogers anybody a damn thing about this.

You, you didn't see that.

They called that you had talked to him on the phone this morning.

Laird?

Yes?

No.

He didn't.

The only person I talked to was Moore.

Who was Moore?

Moore.

I talked to Moore about this thing before he gave it to me.

Because, uh... And I never talked to Charles Moore either.

No, I haven't talked to him.

Larry didn't call me.

Maybe he told me he thought he would.

He didn't.

Oh, but he knows he got slapped down yesterday.

That will never end.

Yeah.

That's enough.

Uh, I think still that for the reasons of their own,

I'm gonna have a cold turkey talk with Dobrynin on Monday night.

Tell him now that he's going back.

Mm-hmm.

Because they are dying to get it through an agreement.

Yeah.

Frankly, Brunt has practically given the damn thing away.

This is the matter of this side, exactly.

I think now with their Chinese troubles, their Polish troubles.

Are they ready yet?

Yes, sir.

Mark, you just said that.

No, I don't.

I don't need any.

I don't want to talk about this.

Well, there is some leverage.

Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President,

Nixon, Kissinger & Bull on Lam Son 719 and Vietnam War

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on March 19, 1971

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