Conversation 050-007

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Mr. President, gentlemen, as a background to the briefing of the two key operations that are now underway, I think it would be helpful to give you the general overview of the situation in Southeast Asia, and to show you why these two operations are employed.

I'm very sure you recall last May, after the cross-border operations were ordered by the president, and still there was spoilers, but you can see that two very important things happened.

One, the North Vietnamese operating along these Tanksbury areas lost access to this port.

Two, they also lost a very large amount of supplies of various types.

This meant that an interdiction

All the supplies brought down for their actions in South Vietnam as well as in Cambodia, and all the supplies which would be required to replace those that were destroyed here must come down from the Haiphong area down through the North Vietnam, then cross the passes, the Gia, Bangkorai, and the Ravang, into Laos,

pass down through the Ho Chi Minh Trail, where they would then be distributed at intervals into South Vietnam.

The North Vietnamese recognized this decision.

As a matter of fact, last fall during the wet season, they immediately began to reinforce their transportation capability in this very critical area right here just south of the DMZ.

Now I think I might just take one second to explain to you the nature of what is called a Ho Chi Minh Trail.

In the first place, it's not a trail.

It's a series of interconnecting links and roads all the way through this particular area.

The key transportation group that manages all this transportation is called the 569th group.

This is because it was established in May of 1959.

That will give you some idea of how long the communists have been freely operating in this area without any interruption from any source.

In other words, they've had a complete sanctuary down through this very critical period.

These supplies are managed by what they call benchmarking.

And they assemble a series of little substations a few miles apart, distributed all the way north and south down the OGMN trail.

And each tent tram is responsible for moving from point A to point B.

The point I'm trying to make is that they do not load a truck in North Vietnam and drive it all the way down to Saigon.

The supplies are frequently offloaded, cached away, then picked up again by another group of trucks, and it's kind of shuttled down in that fashion.

They use trucks.

They use Russian trucks that carry about four tons of material.

They use just the A-frame.

They used bicycles, they stopped being able to catch hundreds of bicycles, and they used a pipeline.

They had a four-way pipeline running from North Vietnam down into this area to about this point, and they had spores off of it like that, which would go into the way stations where the trucks would stop and refuel.

Now, there's another interesting feature of the old G-Man trailer, mainly the weather.

Only about six months out of the year when it is usable.

This is from about 1 October to 1 May as a matter of fact.

The roads only become roadable for heavy trucks beginning in January and February.

So this means that the major health must be forced through in a matter of just a few months.

And this is what the North Vietnamese began to prepare for as soon as they realized what had happened down here and lost access to this port.

They sent in large numbers of road builders and truck repairmen and so on together with the personnel to protect them.

And they even went so far as to withdraw some of their combat forces from South Vietnam back into this area in order to provide security for the forces that they had in there to ensure, through this bottleneck right here, that they could keep the Ho Chi Minh Trail open.

Now we began in October a very heavy air interdiction program against this movement.

And we have been very successful in destroying trucks.

Well over 3,000 trucks have been destroyed.

Last night over about 120 were destroyed in this area from just about here all the way south and down here.

A very large number, over half of them,

right north of the Chupona area, which is in the ocean at this point.

So, faced with this situation and realizing that unless these supplies could be transported at a high rate, the South Asian meetings began to look at ways and means of doing something about this area, as well as this area down here, which contained the remnants of the forces that were left from the cross-border operations.

last year.

I think you've got to realize that at the same time that the Capitolian operations were conducted, another very important thing happened.

And that is that the South Asian media became amazed that this means that they now have the capability of planning and conducting their own operations.

And don't go away and look at it to the feasibility of conducting operations of this nature.

With that in mind, then they laid on tunes

Key operations.

One up here that we call Lansan, which is in the lounge from just south of the DMZ.

The other one down here in the vicinity of what is called the Juklanation, which is north-east of Mount Denton.

The president authorized the use of American air power to support this operation.

This air power includes B-22s, tactical air, as well as helo-lift, helo-gunships, and helo-metabank.

However, there are no American ground forces in either one of these operations, and anyone that says otherwise is just wrong.

Now I will brief each operation in turn.

This operation in Laos is called Lam Son 719.

It's named after a town where a very heavy battle was fought in 1432, I think, where the Vietnamese defeated the Chinese.

But you will note that all of these operations have South Vietnamese names.

Now, let me just show you in general what the scheme and the plan has been for this operation.

First, this is a very steep highway.

It's Highway 9.

It goes all the way across the northern part of South Vietnam, across Laos, and it actually goes into Thailand.

This, as you recognize, is the DMC.

This is the border between North Vietnam and Laos, and between South Vietnam and Laos.

And this general area here is known as Military Region 1.

Now, the plan was for U.S. forces to provide security in South Vietnam, particularly with respect to this road.

And you see these little symbols here indicate what we call blocking forces that are put up there simply as a precaution to any kind of action on the part of the North, East and East across the DNC.

At least I don't think that there's any...

Prospects of this, but nevertheless, the North Vietnamese have put forces in this general area, and they do, on occasion, make SAFA attacks and a few Barati mortar attacks in an effort to cut the transportation that goes along this highway.

About 600 trucks a day now giving support.

And in the supply situation, so far as the South Asian media is concerned, and the U.S. concerned, it's in good shape.

I just talked to a gentleman not less than 30 minutes ago.

He said they have 15 days of suppliers, and in fact, what they have to watch is that they don't get too much involved and put it in jeopardy.

But the supply situation is in good shape.

Now, with the use of the United States forces supporting the South Vietnamese and providing security for this role, a very large qualification was established at Khe Sanh.

You all have heard of that.

No way it is.

Which was permitted to bring in air supply as well as truck supply.

and also provide a jumping-off place, you might say, for the helicopters that then put the South Vietnamese into the area.

As you record, it was on 8 February that they actually crossed the border and then went again.

At that time, the North Vietnamese had about 14,000 or 15,000 troops,

In the area of the...

...next town of Schiphol, and the Schiphol River, which runs out here.

And I would like to say right now that Schiphol, per se, is not an objective.

It does not have any military significance.

It's just a tiny little deserted village.

What we understand is, of course, the area around Schiphol, where not only do we find very large caches, but also where the North Vietnamese run their trucks.

endeavour to go around this area, which in fact is the old Ho Chi Minh Trail, and we call it Highway 92.

What does that mean when they begin to establish what they call five support bases?

And here again, the idea was to provide on the flanks here security so that the penetration in through here could contain.

And I should say that there was never any intent of digging in and stinging in one place.

The idea here was to take full advantage of our mobility and our firepower from the airstrike artillery and so on, which would keep the North Vietnamese off balance, force them to more or less concentrate at one particular place, and thereby provide very innovative air targets, and this is exactly what has happened.

There have been over 7,000 now of these troops killed in this operation.

And we don't really know how many have been killed because as often we don't know what the effect of their operations are.

And I don't think we'll ever know exactly what their casualties have been.

But nevertheless, General Engels estimates that four regiments have been very badly hurt already.

The North Vietnamese react to this operation very strongly.

They have just about doubled the number of fragments they have in the area.

And they have, we estimate now, if they still have the caches, they could have about 30,000, which would be followed down to about 16,500 South Vietnamese that are in this area operating.

In general, I have color-coded the way the areas are colored.

The green is the responsibility of the very famous and best French Army Division, which during the entire war has operated here along the DMZ.

The yellow is manned by the Army Airborne Troops.

They were the ones that went in first and got so much publicity in what was called Minus Support Base 30 and Minus Support Base 31.

I point out again that these were simply forts that they had temporarily occupied.

They were high forts, listed in the MRE law, and although there was much to be told in the paper, the facts are that the northeast of these suffered about six to one casualties.

In that engagement, suddenly South-Eastern East joined up with the tank forces, which are represented by this orange color here.

This is where they are operating, and they regained the area, and they've been there ever since.

I would just like to say in this connection that we do not expect the South-Eastern East to win every battle, not by any means.

This is the first time they've ever been on their own, and they're doing very, very well indeed.

And thus was the military effect.

of this overall operation, so far as the characters and so on are concerned, must be viewed in the terms of the cumulative effect of a series of almost continuous, sharp clashes throughout this entire area.

In the blue area here, just around out the location of the Army forces, we have the Marines, the Army Marines.

During last night they had the most fighting.

You have to realize that the...

A force up into this area, south of the line, where they are doing their best to keep the one remaining road, which we call Highway 914, which comes down from the Chippewa area and gets back on the main avenue's transport down through here.

And you know that I might talk about these roads in a little bit.

Of course, the primary objective that the president set for this operation was disruption

of the flow of supplies during a period when the flow of supplies is at its peak.

And this has been accomplished to a very high degree already.

We've had all kinds of intelligence indicating that some of the units are out of ammunition.

One of them was told to fight with explosives only, despite the fact he didn't have any ammunition.

These mid-trams are moving out and having to reposition themselves

And so on.

And so the fact is, it might be very heavy, it will be long range, we will not know in total what's happened until we've had a chance to completely analyze the thing after it's all over.

Now let me just describe these roles a little bit, because as I said,

This highway 92, which comes down through here, and then continues on south, is the key avenue through which they pass their supplies.

In addition to that, they go over into the Chapone area, and can come down through here on highway 914, and continue on down, and then move into the way area of south Vietnam through this road we call 922.

As I said earlier, all of these roads have been under attack, and just last night, about 60 trucks were destroyed in this area.

They are still pressing ahead on their people to do better, and to do what you can to transport supplies,

But they have a very difficult time.

They have supplies backed up here in this northern area along where the taxes permit them to move from north Vietnam into south Vietnam.

So this is the general road complex that we are interested in in this destruction process.

We know that in this general area here, this is perhaps one of the largest base areas that exists along the entire Laotian, Cambodian, South Vietnamese border, and the South Vietnamese are working on that.

I heard this morning on the radio that they had resumed normal transportation style, but I can assure you that this is not the fact.

Now, as of this moment, we have, as you probably read the paper over the weekend, the great division is in the general vicinity of the Chippewa area, and there's nothing in Chippewa.

They've been through Chippewa.

It's not a matter of seeking and holding a point, anything of that kind.

There are no B2Bs in Chippewa now.

They've killed them all.

They've found very large caches, 2,000...

Rounds of 82 millimeters, several hundred rounds of 122 millimeters.

They found overall well over about 2,500,000 pounds of food.

They have 134,000 gallons of fuel, and they cut this pipeline, which I show here, coming down through this, and cut many, many places.

It extended all the way down to this point, and now they are being forced to transport the fuel by truck.

And this, of course, would consume space that otherwise would be occupied by ammunition and supplies.

So the operation continued last night, which was that daytime.

The weather was not too good, but nevertheless there were several operations in this general area, just contacts.

In addition to that, the South Vietnamese continued to find large numbers of bodies that were killed by air attack as they moved around in that general area.

The sharpest fight was conducted by the Marines here in this area where they managed to dispose of a couple hundred of the...

So the plans now are for these operations, these, which aim, as I said, primarily at the drugs and to contain.

Now that the South Vietnamese

pretty well situated in this very key area.

Now, there's been some talk about, there has been talk about bypassing the operation to the west.

This is highway 23, and I don't show you all of it.

I should have pointed it out on the other chart.

It turns around and comes back down here and goes on south.

But the point is that there's no road suitable for truss that will permit the north-eastern majors from coming down this road and then getting back on the main highway again.

And so that, although there has been some truck traffic observed here, very minor, 10 trucks a day or something like that, sometimes each with soldiers in it, we don't think that the transport that can be moved over Highway 23 will be too significant.

So, there's another aspect of this operation which I think is best noted, and that is that the North Vietnam have been firing missiles from North Vietnam into Laos, and from North Vietnam, on one occasion at least, they fired a couple across the DMZ.

In addition to that, in this general area of Chiffon River, they fired some unguided rockets one night, and caused quite a bit of discussion on the part of the pilots nationally, because a rocket at night is quite a spectacular event, particularly if it's hit towards you.

But we determined that...

These were not guided rockets.

They were simply unguided rockets, and they were just 140mm sawed, and I guess they were fired in desperation.

But of course, so far, fortunately, we've had no planes hit.

Right inside the Baskerville Pass, which is just here, they established for the first time a rocket site in the Lameb House, and...

This was possibly hit by a tactical aircraft and was made an inspection.

I should also point out another interesting feature, and that is the use of tanks.

The North Vietnamese have brought a large number of tanks down into this area.

They have three kinds of tanks.

They have what they call the PT-76, the T-34, and the T-54.

The PT-76 is nothing more than an armored amphibious vehicle.

The T-34 and the T-54 are heavily armed tanks.

However, the South Vietnamese have also put their...

N41 tanks in here, and the tactical aircraft have done a great job on these tanks.

So far, the North Vietnamese have lost 93 tanks, and tank operations have intention to thank them.

So I can certainly say that the operation is certainly going well, bearing in mind that the South Vietnamese are fighting in an area in which the enemy has been located for about 11 years.

They are out on their own for the very first time.

They have no American advisors, so they have to make their own decisions.

And they have it without exception, off-well and off-IUL.

Again, we don't expect them to win ever gravel, and you'll probably see a couple of crises and a headline for the big one.

But I want to point out to you that the way this terrain is formed, and I'll show you a topographical chart in just a minute, it's clear that there's not going to be any such thing as a dead man's food.

That really is ridiculous, because, again, it's just a series of strong points

They occupy it for a while until they serve their purpose, and then they move on to the next one, using this key load lift.

We expect continued harassment of this road.

This took place last night.

For instance, we have had trucks fired upon.

and normal type of ambushes, but we feel they can handle that.

We've spent rocket fire on Kinshaw.

There's already been a small amount.

Nevertheless, General Abrams and General Sullivan, who's in command of this area, are well aware of this.

They've been up there a long time, and they've taken, in my view, every precaution that a true military commander can take.

So, the idea here is to continue the operation.

The South Vietnamese will decide, as the president chooses that, the limit, the scope.

Of course, as a practical matter, he will be limited by wealth, because, something good to me, this area particularly here gets to be nothing more than a quagmire.

I know the area down in here remains dry longer than it does up here because the weather in this area is most peculiar in the sense that it makes a depth shift back and forth, and the South Vietnamese will probably withdraw back through this area, at least some of them will, in order to, again, contain and disrupt the supplies that might have been put here before this operation was conducted.

So much for the Lansan operation.

As I said last evening, the activity was widespread, but not too loud, except for this one place right here where the Marines are fighting.

If you would like some statistics, I'll be happy to list some, in the sense that recognizing that, of course, these are subject to confirmation and are continually updated, but...

By and large, as I said, there are 7,044 reported killed against 455 of the South African nations.

They have lost 2,443 weapons, 2,869,000 pounds of rice and food, 134,000 gallons of water.

They have lost some 95 tanks, and the South Vietnamese have lost 8.

Most of the tanks have been lost by the North Vietnamese have been due to tactical death threats.

There's been quite a bit in the papers about the loss of helos, because the helos have been operating in a very difficult environment from an AAS point of view.

But I just had some figures

and reached the proportions that one would, beyond which one would expect an operation of this kind, and beyond the experience we've had in the past, understanding the circumstances.

Fortunately, in most cases, the crews have been rescued.

And therefore, there's been a very little loss of life, relatively speaking.

So...

As I said before, this operation will continue on that vein with the objective of disrupting this flow of supplies, and we feel, and we are confident this will have a very serious impact on the capability of the Southeast and the East to conduct operations this year and next year, too.

And consequently, it should and will serve to facilitate our plan for reducing U.S. involvement and withdrawing U.S. forces from Southeast Vietnam as the visualization program, or that is, as the strength of the Southeast Vietnamese continues to grow.

And that's what this operation is all about, gentlemen.

And in my view, it is well aware of the evidence, and well conceived, and...

I think that history will show that this was a very useful operation.

Now I may turn down to Cambodia.

This operation hasn't been getting anything like the publicity that this one has, simply because all of the 150 or so reporters in South Vietnam dashed madly up to military Region 1.

When both of these operations started at the same time, they hadn't seen fit to sit down and take a look.

But here again, to orient you, this is the main front row.

Right here.

And this is the South Beach community Cambodian border.

This is the famous Parris Beach where we conducted the operation last May and June.

This is the fishhook that you heard quite a bit about about eight or nine months ago.

And this is what is known as Highway 7.

There are generally seven highways in Cambodia that revolve around South Bend.

And they go clockwise 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6 going to Thailand.

And you get around here to 7 coming over to the northern part of South Vietnam.

And this is a very active area for the North Vietnamese.

As a matter of fact, after we conducted the cross-border operations here in the Fisher area, three of their key divisions pulled back,

...into this general area, in and north each of what is called the Chuk plantation.

This is the biggest rubble plantation in Cambodia.

and the divisions of the 5th, 7th, and 9th.

And they have been there ever since the Cambodian operations were conducted last year.

They haven't been too inactive.

They have conducted some veronic mortifying, things like that, against the Phnom Penh airfield, for instance, and against Khong Phong Cham, a little city right here.

But by and large they've been inactive, I guess because they're waiting

for every spike to come down through the whole G-men trade.

And consequently, the South-East Namese decided to mount this operation to sweep out and clear out this area, so that they would then eliminate this threat of the North-East region coming across the South-East Namese waters, moving back, coming back, and making strikes against our forces and our facilities in this general area of what is called military region,

3.

This is Saigon right here.

This is Mount Penn.

Highway 1 is the key road that goes from Saigon to Mount Penn.

So the southeast main mountain operation, which is a consent of about 17,000 men.

They have been operating along Highway 7, and they have been all the way up to Geelong.

I think when this operation is over, it will probably extend several more weeks that these divisions will be...

...severely hurt, and their logistics posture will be severely hurt, and this again will contribute to the safety of our forces in South Vietnam.

So, ladies and gentlemen, that's what these operations are all about.

They're being conducted on the ground solely by the South Asian East.

The South Asian East have gotten the best of practically every fight that they've been in, in this operation and also in the Lamsan operation.

And I think that there's no question about the fact that the...

And that long-range effect will be to certainly improve the security of our forces, facilitate the withdrawal program, and contribute to the strength of the South Vietnamese so that they can stand on their own two feet.

And things are going...

Mr. President, should I ask a question?

Our old news media admiral keeps talking about the number of US helicopters lost,

I have heard it put in proper perspective relating to the number of sorties.

I mean, you said there were 47 lost and lost 54 overall.

How does that relate to the number?

I think it's .56 to 1,000 sorties.

I don't get those exact figures for it.

But as I point out here, if one looks at the numbers of sorties...

No loss, of course, in distress, but look at it from a point of view of what one might expect.

They're actually alone.

They made thousands and thousands of tortillas in this operation.

Mr. President, I have a further question about the rescue crews.

Could you give any ballpark percentage or anything like that of how many of the percentage of the crew were rescued?

Well, not only are the crews rescued, but also the aircraft themselves are frequently rescued.

As you know, we have these flying crane aircraft that recover the helos.

Now, so far, I'm running a show that we...

have lost 32 Americans and eco-crews in Laos.

Just yesterday we had seven missing.

They turned up in good shape and they were all repelled with no injuries.

So this is a fluid situation and we have to conduct these rescue operations.

By and large, I would say that something like

Well, I wasn't going to give you a double, but I'll get you one.

I was going to estimate 15% or something like that.

15% are lost.

Yeah.

If that was your question, 15%, I'd lay it to the total number of people.

But I don't think it's high.

You must remember that the North Indian media has been there a long time.

They have not only have their own anti-aircraft organization, but for this operation they've directed everyone to get a gun, so to speak.

And this is why I think it's the, because we went down the...

I'd like to pass this around, if you'd like to look at it, because...

You see, it shows how rough this country really is.

And it shows that, you see, the South Beach communities have established these fire support bases along these high points here.

Now this is the Chiffon area, right here.

This is the intersection of Highway 92, which is really the mainstream of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

This is the Highway 9 that I saw you coming out of South Beach now, and moving across Laos into Thailand.

And this juncture hill of Highway 9 and 92 is a very important point.

And so far, of course, the South Beach Bay has completely cut that.

There's no trucks.

Going down this way, there's no trucks on this road at all.

Now, the South Vietnamese are now moving down into this road, we call 914, and they're just gradually squeezing this whole thing off.

And this is the Highway 23 that I mentioned to you.

It goes out to the left, but as I mentioned, there's no access by vehicles from here over to here.

When they get down there, they get down there into the Saravane area, Boulderman Flat Coat,

And that's it.

That's as far as they go.

And then they have to hand over the material over to the distributors further south, into South Vietnam.

Mr. President, once this is done, if you chose to visit an audience, I mean, if it was ready to be, if it was going to increase their age, if it was going to be a first sectional, if it was going to be a second,

Teksting av Nicolai Winther

Black heavy furniture and a very small table.

And they were all sitting around on the outside.

So the president gave the table here first and now they give it to me.

They order another chair.

No, I can't.

I tell you how fabulous this city is.

I love this.

Oh, this is arriving.

Yes, this is what happens.

See, they have the

I want to entertain them, but this isn't an official state visit so they can have an official state dinner.

Most appreciative of what the government has done.

Family and the other people involved.

Half of us didn't get to talk to each other.

Mr. President, that connection I noticed was that somebody who showed us a story from a Boston paper criticizing what the president was saying, that we had decided to put the passengers on the plane, but it's absolutely false.

I don't think anything could have been handled more appropriately.

Mr. Young made the decision, but the plane is laid down, and the plane is laid back.

We got in touch with her right away.

We got Barbara Watson, the Bible notifier, saying about her death and that she was affected by it, so it was a nice shock.

But I think the third thing I've seen is that it will come on absolutely.

In fact, that's the reflection.

And I think any criticism we get about it will stop right away because it's true people think that.

Yes, we will.

I just thought it was a disaster.

I was just stood by a lost neighbor.

Just said that Nancy Clark was stupid about the way we handled it.

She did?

She did.

Sounds like we did well.

He was an honest reporter.

Yeah.

Well, that's it.

We're here at 30 minutes for Mr. Dolp on that subject.

That's right.

No, I did it.

All right.

Well, I do want to enjoy it.

Well, there's a great effort going on in this government, sir.

And if your case is about to recover that, you know.

This week, 119 different administration officials will be talking to different groups, one person to the other.

As you take a look at the basic situation, you have a majority of members of Congress still sitting on the fence.

You don't have many against, but you don't have a majority for.

A majority are still sitting on the fence in both houses.

I think the...

The basic problem is the number of minority groups, and I include the economic groups as well as the racial groups, are inclined to oppose and some of them in active opposition.

The problem is going to be to reduce their opposition as much as possible by the way in which these special revenue sharing bills are finally formulated.

And then to go out with a massive public campaign to develop public support, because as far as I can see, the one way to overcome the resistance of those who benefited from these categorical assistance programs in their national administration is to build up that massive public support to register with Congress.

Unfortunately, the National Governors Conference has taken the lead in helping to set up this National Citizens Committee, headed by Governor Strandman, former Governor Brewer of Alabama.

Unfortunately, this National Citizens Committee, which is a very represented group, including mayors like Stokes of Cleveland,

has received very little petty attention.

I didn't know about it until I went over here to talk with Morgan and the fellows that worked to help get this set up.

But the National Citizen Committee was set up at a meeting called by Governor Scott of North Carolina and then, you know, Fulton of Virginia.

And the purpose there is to get the governors through the

country and the mayors to set up citizens groups in each state to go to work, to develop public support, and to educate people with expected sums and programs.

Thus far, only two state citizens committees have been created, but other governments have indicated they're going to establish them.

They have created a staff, and the

The staff man who's here in Washington is the former Veterans Administration head under Eisenhower, a competent man.

And he and the governor's conference, the staff man, are following up with the governor.

They've provided them up to get these citizens committees organized.

I think we need to do everything we can to encourage mayors and other local officials to vote for these citizens committees and then to make them as effective as we can in getting public support.

Now, the congressional liaison people are undertaken to identify the position of each member of Congress so that there can be a determination of the states where the greatest effort needs to be put forth in order to influence the position of the congressional delegation.

And with the help of Deb Mori and his staff, the strategy is being developed both with respect to the general record-sharing program and achieving it, and also the special record-sharing program.

So I think at this stage, a good deal of effort is being put into it, but it's going to take a tremendous public selling card, in my opinion, and the expression of public support to overcome some of these resistances of the expression of selling today.

We don't see an alternative plan listed as impossible.

The alternative that they have is to spend the money like...

I wonder if there's enough steam behind the whole idea of general revenue sharing to resist having to go to other means?

No, at this point, that's not certain.

As a matter of fact, the indication is that Mills himself has made them out with a combination that would consist of family assistance, and a couple with some from the General Revenue Service.

That would be a two-fold approach.

But he's working on it.

And of course, there are odds that...

I think one of the most significant things that's happened is this shift in position on the part of Burns in Missouri.

as a result of your meeting in Des Moines.

He had previously been advocating support for the welfare approach of mills.

He talked to mills when it was done.

After hearing what mills had in mind, and after hearing of the programs in Des Moines, he came out publicly for revolution.

But if you take a look at these various alternatives, including the one that John Burns set out today, he talked about tax credits.

Well, the problem with tax credit is that a number of states can't tell you how bad the tax credit is, of course.

It would be some time before states or cities, in most cases, obtain any relief.

So, from a realistic standpoint, I think the revenue sharing approach is the sound approach, which is what I think is going to happen.

I'm going to ask George to be among any opposition anywhere in the country.

I've been in Atlanta, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Cleveland.

I've talked to...

Editorial boards, law papers, business groups.

I didn't find any one individual among all those I talked to who said they wouldn't support it after they heard it explained fully.

Well, you've got groups like this.

You've got the labor groups like this.

You've got some minority groups that are fighting aspects of the programs.

In the case of agriculture, you've got the extension service people still uncertain as to whether they're going to fight it or whether they're going to support it.

And this gets back to the way in which their programs are dealt with.

If they're left at the mercy of the states...

They're likely to fight it.

But if they can get assurance, such as we've given cities and minority groups, that they're going to be held harmless, then I think we'll have the extension service with us.

I think it's very important to have the extension service people with us, because they're really grassroots of the country.

I agree with Murray, that whenever you spell it out, you get support.

And I think public service support can be built up.

I think as far as members of Congress are concerned, there are a lot of members of Congress who are uncertain as to how this is going to get their particular area.

In the case of our program, for example, Shirley of Iowa, he became concerned because he thought that Council Bluffs in his district might get less money than they've been getting under

model cities for urban renewal and all these other programs they've benefited from.

We haven't yet perfected the formula for all these cities who've been getting special treatment, because there are a lot of cities getting special treatment.

Take a look at it.

All them harm us at the same time treat the other cities fairly.

Now we think we're just about home, but until we can do that, and until we can present the

At that appropriate to the cities and the mayors that makes it clear that they're going to be held harmless in the case where they've had urban and urban model cities and so on, and that the others are going to be treated better than they have been like, we're not going to be able to convince them that they are.

I think Mr. President would be very helpful if you could meet with some of these mayors in the very near future, because they're making a good deal out of the fact that they've been trying to see you, and haven't been able to see you in some months, and they're getting a good deal of publicity on that basis.

I know that a member I haven't gone in to, he was recommending that while they're here next week, the mayor's going to be here Monday and Tuesday next week.

Which group is this?

Well, it's both groups.

I met with the Congress of Mayors.

I met with Lugar and all that group.

The suggestion is that Lugar, who's chairman of the Cleveland Cities, and Dave, who's chairman of the Congress of Mayors, jointly asked to designate 560 to come in and visit with you during the course of their conference.

Because they need to be...

I agree with Morrison that the more we can get out and explain the program

I think the press of these state and citizen committees can be a vocal partner to develop that support.

The press is very important, and meeting with the editorial boards seems to be a very satisfying thing, because it's evident in every case that they didn't know what we were talking about until it was explained.

And then they're responding in favor of us.

I think furthermore...

Those of us who have special revenue sharing programs need to get up on the hill and meet with our committees as soon as possible and spell out how the programs are going to operate and make certain to get theirs.

I know John's been up there.

He spent five hours yesterday afternoon here at the White House with six different committees.

It's a very good assessment of public risk.

I think it's clear that we need to press forward to get action this year because

We're not as likely to get access to these licenses.

So we could get this here, or else it's classical.

I'm not sure what you're feeling.

Do you feel about this as you did about the way you came up with the captain, the government, the organization?

Yes, sir.

I think that's all there is to be lost present to you.

Unfortunately, we have both the leaders of the committee handling the legislation.

They're both good.

This is a tough combination.

It's a little smart.

It's a little knowledgeable.

And I don't know if it's hopeful.

We can achieve everything we want, but I don't have any choice.

In other words, I have no choice but to keep at it as long as we can.

I think beyond any question, they're going to come with some kind of a substitute plan.

But the amount of pressure that's put on them probably will determine the type of substitute they come with.

So I don't have a choice.

I don't have a choice.

The point is to ask them about Joe and Sonny taking that extra $3 billion in Social Security and saying, that's a big chunk of revenue sharing.

He's allowed to do precisely that.

Then the problem with what we're discussing here is that we send the signal out to the mayors and the other interest groups and have pound mills on that point.

There's a two or three percent of time for that.

We're going to start.

By the time you get the word out and get the word back, it'll be time to hit him.

It's not an instantaneous reaction.

Today it would be too early to hit him.

But by the time you talk to the mayor, by the time they kick it around and decide what they're going to do, and begin to apply pressure back up here, by the time it would be about right that you hit him.

But he's turned into very much of a political animal this year.

He's as bad as he's going to be next year.

So if you're Rex Bach, you probably know, or some of you know better than I, but I'd say Bill is acting very, very much like this was an election year this year.

I don't think there's any question about it.

Do you disagree with that?

No, I don't.

George Bush, I live with him.

I think he's playing far golf on the political course.

No question.

It's not going to change.

You put enough pressure, and he's going to have to come up with some kind of a substitute, George, just like you're talking about.

How good the substitute is, how acceptable it will be, will depend on how much pressure he has on it.

You disagree with that at all?

No, Mr. Secretary, I do not.

I think he's coming to us with the additional 3.7 billion dollars in the Social Security package tied to the debt ceiling increase, and he's going to come at us, not directly, but supporting the Democrats to maneuver on accelerated public works, and then he's going to come at us and take away the cost of the aged, blind, and disabled under Social Security.

He's going to spend all your money, Mr. President, on the law.

General Revenue Sheriff, he's going to spend that $5,000 that he's going to give you the choice of continuing to press for a General Revenue Sheriff by breaking the line on your bullet department button or cutting other things out of the place which he doesn't think you're in a position to do.

That's what you're trying to do.

For health, good.

For good.

For position, Mr. President, I think the groups I've talked to, and I've talked to a lot of them,

All those conservation groups and the cattle groups, land people.

I think as far as the natural resources area is, there's a big groundswell for it.

Rural America.

I can't tell you about the other areas because I haven't gotten any real exposure to them.

But there really is a feeling that this will improve.

I had planned, primarily, to visit Southeast Asia, where we have post-Federal Aviation Service people who are working in South Vietnam and Southeast Asia, as well as the United States Coast Guard.

I requested the President to convene over and lead the American delegation to the Oils Dose Conference at the NATO CCMS meeting,

This question, and the date was just about the time I was to leave for this trip.

The question was, I keep on going that way, or come back and go back the other way, and we decided to keep on going, and so went around the world.

I have a little better appreciation of some of my colleagues that have to do an awful lot more traveling than I do, because we touched down in 15 countries in 21 days.

We actually visited twice.

The...

The oil spill conference, which I keynoted, was a very successful meeting.

We proposed at that conference that by mid-decade, intentional oil spills would be stopped, as the oil spillage could get from the houses and so forth, and ships, and the success of that was measured by the fact that the resolution was passed.

At that point, I myself pretended to be the first of the day, and

and then we went on about other activities and led with Cook at Maine, and we did get a resolution passed along these lines, and the International Maritime Organization is working along these lines for the present time, so we got a very successful meeting.

In addition to this meeting, of course, as long as we were going to go around in one direction,

We decided that inasmuch as we were doing a great deal of cooperative research work with quite a few nations, that it would be desirable to stop in some of those nations, whose either ministers of transport, or in some cases as in India, the Speaker of the Parliament has visited with me, to stop in those nations and develop a better understanding.

We were able to share information and approaches both in the areas of aviation security, which was used primarily at that time, as well as automobile safety and social security, together with particularly public transportation, which we have been pressing and regional planning.

The visit really allowed us, in the field of automobile safety,

to actually nail down in a probably quicker period, and I think that any international agreement, even bilateral, hasn't been accomplished, and that is that we were able to sign on this trip, and all the fact that we have established a fine relationship with the Minister of Transport, particularly in Germany, would indicate that we need to try to get an agreement ready for me as a Christmas present.

I notified him in mid-October I was going to be there on the 2nd of October, but he advanced that Christmas present the 2nd or 3rd of November.

He said that was quite an honor, but he tried, and sure enough he did.

We did sign an agreement there, providing for the building of an experimental safety vehicle in the 2,000-pound class.

We already have an order for three contractors in this country for the construction of 14 experimental safety vehicles in the 4,000-pound class, which is the class that we use mostly here.

We also were able to sign an experimental safety agreement with Japan.

So both of those countries are now working on experimental safety vehicles.

I'm very hopeful that we can sign three additional contracts with three other countries, European countries, within approximately a couple of six weeks.

in which we will be then exchanging the safety information we develop, so that they won't feel that we're trying to ram something down their throats by way of developing safety standards which they can't possibly meet, and then be unable to compete in the market here, for the same token they could very easily turn around and say, OK, General Motors, get out of here.

We have a goal, and what we're shooting for, NEO has a goal, and that's

Yes, by 1975, we're hoping that we'll be able to have a car, or 76, we'll have a car that's 30 miles an hour, you can crash into anything you want to crash into, and walk out of that vehicle without having anything but a few crashes.

By the interchange of information,

We're not duplicating the research that Jim and Japan are doing with the same program.

They're not duplicating it.

Five years later is something we'll have on the Google.

Fifty miles an hour, five years later.

We have a very, very... And this is not just a rule of law report.

This is not just a relevant possibility.

This is a very, very common possibility.

And then to encourage drunk drivers.

Because we're spending a good deal of additional money this year on our combination program.

One of the other things that we did...

I had General Davis with me, and we visited, of course, many airports.

We visited twelve major airports in addition to the six we had already visited when we took our trip with you to Italy.

And spectacular results and exchange information on air security, on anti-hydration measures.

And it was as a result of that trip that we had such a very successful conference at the State Department, in which the State Department was very, very helpful

having 81 nations represented, and even the Soviet Union coming into the meeting, finally at the last moment, more delegates, and they have now joined the International Civil Aviation Organization, which up until this time, they had refused to do.

So, I think that was extremely helpful.

We were able to meet with the heads of state, both in Thailand and South Vietnam, Philippines and Japan.

And I'd like just to take a moment about our visit to South Vietnam, which I think was very important.

I might say first, however, that there is a regional planning survey being conducted by eight nations in Southeast Asia.

Some of these nations, and I'm sure Bill will say much better than I can, in the past of having talked to each other.

As a result of one million dollars from the South East Development Bank,

And a million dollars they put up themselves.

A three million dollar transportation, regional transportation service.

Those people have been talking to each other now.

They're developing a plan to work with each other.

And this is the kind of thing which I think we are encouraging as a Nixon doctrine.

And frankly, the do-it-yourself proposition is really catching on there.

Because they understand that we're not just going to continue to feed them to...

Direct the way and everything else.

We're going to try to get people to see money, give directions and so forth, but in the final analysis, they've got to do the job themselves.

And they buy it as long as they deal.

We're not just retiring and pulling on people.

Southeast Vietnam, just for a moment, by May, I had lunch with General Abrams in Hawaii, and I went out to see my old outfitted CVs, and I talked with 28 Massachusetts boys, enlisted men,

And there are good and many other people there, not just the brats.

And this was about six months, seven months after Cambodia started.

It was, what, three, four months after it ended.

And the general reaction of the boys, and the generals as well, particularly the boys, thought it was, well, we found out before Cambodia we were fighting with two hands tied behind our back.

At least now we're fighting with only one hand tied behind our back.

The morale that they claimed, as far as I saw, was just so much higher as a result of the fact that they knew that at least those sanctuaries were the hell out of the way, and confirmed what I had learned from one of the Democratic governors that I was asked to call on the day we invaded Kempoli, and that was that one of the generals, the last day he was there, indicated, going 38 miles from where we're standing right now, the governor,

There is a sanctuary, there are four more just like it along the border.

And until we wipe out those sanctuaries, we're going to continue to kill American boys.

And this war is just never going to end.

So that was certainly, if I needed any further confirmation, confirmation of the wiseness of your decision and the very courageous action which you took there.

So I came away from South Vietnam with a feeling that we were on the right track, that the

Laos operation is another one of those things I think took also some courage, but on the other hand, if we are stopping the offensive which they would have undertaken, and are able to prevent our boys from being attacked as they would have been had this not taken place, I think that would do the job.

I would only hope, Mr. President, that not only would we be able to meet the deadline of 284,000 by the 1st of May, but maybe even down to

I happened to be speaking with a dove today from the Senate on the way back from New York.

He hoped very much that if we get it down to 250,000, he might have some very kind words to say about us.

If we get it down to 250,000 instead of 284,000.

It was a very wonderful trip.

I can't say enough about the splendid cooperation we had.

Wherever we went, we were very, very proud of some of the impacts, particularly right there in Southeast Asia.

How long did you go?

I was gone 21 days, sir, 12 countries that we acted as visitors, so it was no vacation, Mr. Frederick.

You don't know.

You get home, you don't know how to go to bed.

For a week afterwards, I didn't know which night of the day I should go to the bathroom, or eat, or anything like that.

Mr. Frederick, can I say just one word after Pope John's last remarks?

Yesterday I spent about an hour in the Pentagon in Greece, and the thing that, I think this has been overlooked, but last...

in all the discussion, is that there is no fighting in South Vietnam now, to speak of.

There just isn't any.

And Cambodia hasn't been involved in combat at all since Laos.

All the Cambodian fighting has been done by the South Vietnamese.

So, whereas a month ago everyone was concerned about was the Cambodian government going to survive, and what about now, and so forth, there just hasn't been any fighting in Cambodia by the Cambodian forces.

And in South Vietnam,

This is the time of year the enemy would normally make attacks on armed forces and on something.

So in addition to the things that the president said in his press conference, this is a very substantial benefit.

And it's overlooked.

We'll talk about what trails that he disrupted and what the cash issue was.

It's been very good.

Well, I think that's right.

One thing, though, we've got to keep in mind, and that is that they are still maintaining their level of terrorism.

Assassinations and abductions in the cities and villages have not been very much as severe as last year.

So we'll talk about the military title and overlook that and keep that in mind as well.

That'll continue indefinitely, you know, long after we leave.

The point I want to express, and we have not made enough of, and that is that while I was there, the things I was given, 562 village and hamlet chiefs, teachers, nurses, nuns, social workers have been killed, and 6,000 abducted.

You never see this in the American press.

All we see is me lie, or, you know, some of the things that supposedly our boys had done.

But what the other side has done is just unbelievable, and yet we never see about it.

I had two trips in December.

One was your invitation to Nicaragua.

The interesting thing about that is it would have been successful without any effort because the main thing that came over the line was the display of someone from the United States in this country.

He was negotiating at the time with the political opposition for some kind of arrangement to modify the fact that he could no longer under the Constitution run for re-election.

Some of our discussion was on that.

Most of his actual business problems relate to the Central American Common Market.

which then was in a tenuous state and since then had gotten worse and worse because Honduras had withdrawn because of their fight with El Salvador.

I told him that there was no way in which we could take his side against any other country that could support the central company in our common market.

And he encouraged it, gave it technical help, but he had to fight his own battles with his neighboring country, and he understood them pretty well.

The basic...

conclusions I would get out of that is that Nicaragua is probably closer in its thinking and its relationship with the United States than any other country in Central America or Latin America.

Their investment policies are open, their trade policies are about liberal and open as they can be, and Somoza has an interesting approach to his economic development, which is somewhat different from what I saw in most of the other countries.

looking totally at industry and export trade, he's been trying to build a diversified agriculture and has introduced seven or eight very significant crops in substantial quantities for export.

So the idea that if we can develop a diversified agriculture first,

and then induce industry to come into the country, he will keep the masses of people from swarming on the cities, because there will be a good way of making a living on the farms.

And he seems to be making it work, because the cities have not grown, and the per capita income on the farms has gone up very materially.

Beyond that, the only point I want to mention is, I learned yesterday that he's going to be here in June, which is the 25th anniversary of West Point, for his graduation.

And, well, it doesn't work out for Washington.

His 25th.

The second trip I took was to Kenya over the Christmas holidays, with a stop in Spain, scheduled on the way back, which I was forced to cancel for personal reasons.

Bill was in Kenya last year, so he knows the current situation.

I think what I might say would be of interest only because I was there also 23 years ago and several times in between.

I have a feel of the change there.

I was obviously there before Mau Mau and before independence.

And I would say that in one generation it is an incredible thing to see how much a country can change because 23 years ago

Nairobi was a small town and hyenas came in at night to eat the garden.

Ten miles out of town there were wild animals all over.

And driving up the road north from Nairobi was a dirt road, only passable part of the year.

You could see animals on both sides of the road all the way.

Now Nairobi is a big modern city.

A beautiful, beautiful city with Hilton and all the other hotels there.

The peculiar huts have been exchanged for concrete houses of various types.

Buildings have become cities, and the economic development is very impressive.

North of Nairobi today, you go for 100 miles alongside tremendous wheat fields as far as the eye can see.

They have developed a very substantial agriculture, and are in a position where they'll soon be able to export agricultural products.

Five years ago, there was no United States capital in Kenya at all.

Today, there's $80 million, and much more coming in.

I was there to dedicate my mother to a firestone plant where they're putting in $50 million.

Education is... Well, that is owned by Kenyans, too.

As far as I know, they've done a very good job in providing stock options.

They've provided minority ownership where the local people can raise the capital.

Education is almost general now, except in the very remote areas.

I was in the most remote part of the country, around Lake Gruden, for a while.

And up there, it's still primitive, and there's no institutions.

The input mortality among the Turkanas is 70%, and it is just as primitive as it ever was in history.

But the rest of the country is getting education, is getting higher.

The road north of Nairobi is paved now for 150 miles.

The government's commercial policies are very open.

They want a great deal of trade.

We are a good customer of theirs, and they're buying more and more from us.

Their investment policies are very free.

They want capital on almost any terms, and they even give incentives for the capital to come in.

One of the impressions I had is that the caliber of the ministers is extremely high, and they're for it.

They are very high-quality people, and extremely able.

Most of them are Kukuyas.

Compared with the other East African countries, and I visited a lot of them in recent years, they're far ahead of any of the others.

Tanzania, of course, is communist.

Uganda just kicked out the communist government.

Ethiopia professes to believe in the same things that Kenya does, that their administration, their red tape, is so cumbersome that it takes a

two years to get a decision in Ethiopia that you could get in three months in Kenya.

The result is that American business is very slow in going to Ethiopia.

When I was in Ethiopia a year ago at Christmas, they were talking about a plan to set up an investment and trade center in the center of Nairobi as a joint venture between the Chamber of Commerce and the Ministry of Commerce so that foreign businessmen could come in on a one-stop basis

And the government officials would send people to meet with him right there.

A great idea.

But they're still debating it 15 months later, and they haven't been able to agree on where it should be, or who should run it, or how it should go.

There's one incident I'd like to tell about, because it indicates something more about the country, I think, than anything else I could say.

One of the stops I went to overnight to visit an American missionary that has a boy's town was Juryssen.

where they have 160 boys that are orphans of the Somali invasions.

And in the evening the district commissioner had a dinner for me at the Carissa Club.

About 95% of the people were blacks from the government agencies at one time and another.

And there were quite a number because it was the regional center for a very large region.

After the dinner I got into discussion with some of the local government people

These were local administrators, local agricultural people, local irrigation people and so forth.

The caliber of the questions and the world knowledge they had was unbelievable in a place where 20 years ago there was no education.

One of the questions that had interesting overtones that I was asked was, in view of the troubles which the United States is having with Libyan oil, is it going to affect its self-sufficiency in oil?

What are the priorities by which the United States achieves its economic development programs?

I told them they were still debating them here.

What are you doing in the United States to prevent the migration to the city?

Because this is one of our great problems as Kenyans.

How would you rationalize the differences between the parliamentary and the congressional system?

This is from clerks out in the country, which indicates they're not only well-educated, but they have very progressive attitudes and an outward look, and I think some of these fellows of the type that I met are probably going to be future leaders in the government.

As Bill knows, the great uncertainty that people talk about in Kenya is what's going to happen after Kenyatta.

My own judgment, and you may or may not agree, is that the level of the government officials is such, and the predominance of the Kikuyu tribe is so great, that they can surmount Kenya's departure, and still have good effective leadership under their one-party system over there.

Now, the last incident of my trip was with regard to Spain.

I found out that you could still get the old collywobbles in Africa.

I got them on the last day of my trip at Lake Google.

Flew to Nairobi and was so weak there that I had to send a cable to Bob Hill in Spain saying I can't take it.

I had these appointments scheduled for one day in Spain.

Bob sent a very pathetic cable back saying you've got to come no matter how weak you are.

The Spanish are very sensitive because of the trials.

The French minister canceled out.

The British canceled out some official visits.

And if you don't come, they'll think it's deliberate.

So I took a commercial plane to Athens.

The Air Force plane met me there and took me to Madrid.

I stayed in the Air Force hospital overnight.

I met the Minister of Commerce to let him know that I was really sick.

And then flew back to Lauderdale Hospital.

Mr. President, I wanted to say a word about politics.

You'll all be making, a lot of you will be making trips outside the country.

And I think it's very difficult politically to get credit for the various things that the Democrats have been saying, complimentary things about you and your ship.

I noticed Hale-Mogg and his press conference the other day, and he made a few.

We can't do anything to prevent the charge being made, except...

This is what I would like to suggest you to do.

It has to be done suddenly, otherwise you look like Jack Melendi.

But I think so.

The fact is that the president is considered the outstanding leader of the world.

Everybody you talk to will tell you that if you ask them.

And I think when we come back, if we can...

in our discussions with the public.

So we'll get that idea across.

Not that it's our idea, this is what we were told.

It's made quite an impression on us.

That sort of thing.

Because if we can develop it, it's a positive advantage.

If we can get it, now it's very difficult to go out and say it, because that's what my abortion was back when I was 10 weeks old.

I got kidded about that, about the sluggishness of it.

But I think in this case, if, on a return trip, we point that out, that that was vigorous, and it was understood by all of us, the president and the other giants, and Don, and all of us, that it's got to be done in a certain amount of subtlety, but if we can do it between now and the next election, I think it would be a great asset.

I think the tendency is, when you take a trip abroad, everybody gets a fancy view of the United States,

Rabin, the Israeli ambassador, made the strongest pitch for what we're doing in Laos, that I just wish it could have been public.

I got second hand, I wasn't there.

He was selling Arthur Sulzberger, Si Sulzberger, Woodwicker, Max Frankl, on our policy and what it meant to the Middle East.

Now, I would think that maybe that, without quoting Rabin, would be a useful thing for those who are talking...

I think that's a good point.

I do think we have to keep in mind that foreign policy is tough to sell.

An individual is not so tough.

And in this case, it's true.

Because, you know, oh, if six months from now things go bad, at least you can't be saying this down to somebody.

One thought to the President's outstanding world leaders.

It would be a great significance to the question.

Report on food structural packets.