Nixon, Agnew & Scott on Vietnam War and Vietnamization

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Very, very nice.

I thought it would be useful for all of you to interrupt me by submitting this form of paper, but I really did not.

I'll have some remarks at the conclusion of the briefing, but as the Commissioner has said, I was familiar with mine throughout the period.

I've ordered some rather intensive operations, and, well, when I started out with this briefing,

Let me first give you a brief summary of the situation as it stands based on the report from this morning.

that that's some discussion of what it means.

Now, we have known for months that the North Vietnamese were engaged in an unusually large logistics building.

As you remember, the president at the press conferences, Secretary Rogers, Secretary Lane,

All the senior officials of the administration pointed out that we expected a major offensive this spring.

Then when the offensive didn't count, some newspapers wrote articles, I remember, that said the test that was, and that said this had been a deliberate scare story so that we could claim credit for something that was never going to happen, and having been prevented by us.

It was our assessment that the first attack was supposed to come in the second FOIA infiltration.

The first massive FOIA infiltration went into what they called the B-3 truck.

And it was the 320th Division, which is one of the very best, and the second military division in it.

This was, this attack, which was supposed to happen in intercepted instructions,

to that effect, never had yet to get off the ground, but there were two major reasons for it.

One, the garbage output

The Air Force Division, which has usually been around Saigon, which has been a reserve division up there, and that division has fought extremely aggressively.

And secondly, the President ordered in February that rather than spread adjoining aircraft across the whole country by computers and be concentrated in the most remote areas,

And therefore these massive attacks had a substantial effect on disrupting the enemy time table and they had never yet gotten it off the ground.

But there is a tactical detail.

The major event of the last few weeks or so

For no reason, we were building up in the TAM handle, and we saw this build-up developing, and we had a real problem of whether we should attack by air in this area, or whether we should give negotiations every possible chance of succeed, whether we should be accused of having more than two peace efforts in Paris, or whether we should give them every possible chance.

to show their good faith, so we sent student warnings to them.

At the same time, we made every possible offer and every possible effort through private and public channels to try to get them to talk serious.

And when Ambassador Porter walked out, that it was one week before the offensive started.

And I can assure you that when the full record of these, of our efforts is known, the charge that we have not negotiated with the U.S. military is a total absurd.

We won't go into it in greater detail.

But they answered the residents January 25th proposal with the most magic build up since 1968.

And they've added every other initiative by an attack which has been planned for months.

This logistics build up started in December.

This isn't something that they improvised.

And then they violated the demilitarized zone to add these points.

The demilitarized zone that was established in 1954 by the Geneva Accords and the understandings with respect to the bombing halt in 1968 that was negotiated by the previous administration, we have some quotations which we can send you.

From Governor Harriman, from Secretary Clifford.

Could I have those?

And maybe any comments I called you about?

From Governor Harriman.

and Secretary Clifford, and President Johnson, but it was clear that we told the other side, the previous administration told the other side, that a part of the understanding with respect to the bombing halt was to recognize the demilitarized zone and not to cross it.

all spring long, all winter, and they were building roads across the CMC.

And then, on the Easter weekend, they dropped there with armoured and other units, launching a massive attack in violation of the 1954 Accords.

which established the demilitarized zone.

The demilitarized zone, which they had substantially preserved, which they had substantially recognized during this period, was a minor violation, a total violation of the understandings that led to the bombing homes in 1968.

The significance of these operations is that the entire North Vietnamese Army

is outside of its own country now.

The only division that they have left in North Vietnam is the 325th North Vietnamese Division, and that is on the way down.

It is one of the most unusual situations

in modern theory in which the country puts its entire army outside its own territory in aggression against its neighbors.

They had two divisions in Laos and they had all their other divisions in South Vietnam and or Cambodia.

Now, we can no longer speak of a civil war in South Vietnam.

This is no longer a war in which local people are fighting each other.

This is now an invasion of South Vietnam by the regular North Vietnamese army, which has received over the last year the most modern Soviet equipment.

And here it's important to understand a difference between the way we have equipped the army and the way the Soviets have equipped the North Vietnamese.

The equipment that we have given the army, recognizing that there are, that you cannot make absolute restrictions, the equipment that we have given the army is largely defensive.

For example, the South Vietnamese planes cannot really reach very far up into North Vietnam.

The South Street and East Artillery is on the whole of shorter range than the most modern artillery that Soviet had given them.

And as we make good some of the losses that have been suffered by the argument in this fighting,

One of the things we have to look at is whether we should not be more liberal in giving them heavier equipment than we have in the past.

This attack, the first amount of attack came across the DNC, for example, to be sending the North Vietnamese to have bigger tanks and longer range guns.

That's us.

Because we had had a delicate role with the Argon.

We wanted to give them enough so that they could defend themselves, but not so much that they could launch an attack against their neighbors.

And again, it's important to remember, the Argon has never gone anywhere where the North Vietnamese were not through.

And the Argon has never gone into North Vietnam.

Now, this twist.

attack hit the 3rd South Vietnamese Division.

3rd Division is the newest division.

It had never had any combat experience.

It was strung out along the DMC.

And it confronted a massive artillery bombardment, one of the most massive, the most massive of the Vietnamese war, that

that came from the sanctuary area and that destroyed most of the fire bases along the DNC.

The 2nd Division lost, in effect, two regiments.

The 2nd Regiment fell back and then established this defensive line near Dong Ha and around Quang Tri.

South India, South India, the North Vietnamese, all launched an attack in this area out of Cambodia into the third floor area.

after the first shock of the attack, the South Vietnamese had fought extremely well.

The enemy had advanced no further than about two miles into

The South Vietnamese had not had massive U.S. air support in this area because the weather has been so bad.

So that the fact that the Army has held a military nation fund is substantially due to their own efforts.

All of the ground fighting has been done by the South Vietnamese.

Much of the close air support has been done by the South Vietnamese in military region one.

In military region three, again, all of the ground fighting has, of course, been done by the South Vietnamese.

a substantial percentage.

In fact, in military regions, more than half of the air soldiers have been flown by the South Vietnamese Air Force.

And again, the attack has been, up to now, substantially stopped.

Now, we read blood curtsies.

Every morning, I listen to the television

And then I get my JCS briefing and I keep asking them about the encirclement of antelope and the relief column that is supposed to be coming up the road and can't get through.

And the JCS are not aware of an encirclement of antelope.

They do not know that there's a relief column trying to come up the road.

And therefore it's quite true that they haven't broken through because they haven't tried to come up the road.

The strategy here is

They think they can hold the ant-lock, but even if ant-lock should be taken, we do not believe that the enemy can hold it for any length of time.

The ARVN has moved up their 21st Division, which is their most aggressive division, from 4th Corps into the 3rd Corps area.

They are now deploying on the road here so that they can defend in this direction and in this direction simultaneously.

and their attitude is one of great confidence.

Yesterday, the South Vietnamese sent an armored squadron from Military Division 3

up into Military Region 1, to reinforce Military Region 1.

And since President Chu certainly needs no instruction about the importance of Saigon to him, I think you can assume that he would not have moved that squadron out of Military Region 3.

He did not feel that the situation could go bad.

We know in advance, in this area for the last five days,

And we believe that this cannot be the major effort anyway.

They cannot have enough supplies here to last more than three or four weeks.

And by that time, the rainy season will come so that, well, they didn't make it in their first effort unless some sub-vitamin unit collapses against all indications.

I'll be taking this in consensually content.

The Duping threats remain in Military Region 1 and in Military Region 2.

They have not yet launched their big attack in the Central Islands.

They still have substantial forces in Military Region 1.

For example, in this area, this division has not yet been really fully committed, but it's up against South Vietnamese Division.

And therefore, one can say the situation is as follows.

First, why did the North Vietnamese attack?

The North Vietnamese attacked precisely because Vietnamization, it is not believed that Vietnamization will succeed.

The wise course would have been to wait until even more of our troops were out of the country, and then to attack next year because they thought that this was their last opportunity to roll up.

They think that they have put themselves in a situation that is totally uncharacteristic for them.

They have put themselves in a situation where they have rolled their eyes

And where everything depends now on this role.

They have put their whole army outside their territory.

This is not a guerrilla war.

They can't just, by the way, they can't just say they'll fight another day.

They have to have a supply system that's back of them.

And the differences between this offensive and Tet are striking.

In 1968, they took many of the major cities simultaneously.

In 1968, 520,000 American soldiers were involved, and the casualties in the first week were 550 Americans, and they were as high as 800 Americans.

In 1968, all of the air force

80% of the ground fighting was done by Americans.

Even more importantly, in 1968, much of the fighting on the other side, on the enemy side, was done by South Vietnamese, by VC.

And the main forces of the other side were used to draw American units away from populated areas.

In 1972, there has up to now been no guerrilla uprising at all.

Secondly, 85% of the troops and all of the units are North Vietnamese.

They are now in no sense anymore an indigenous area.

Certainly, all the ground fighting is run by the South Vietnamese, without exception.

Close to 50% of the total air soldiers

43% of all the air sorties, and probably over 50% of the tactical air sorties, are flown by the South Vietnamese.

American casualties since May 30th have been 11, compared to the situation in 1972, in 1968.

And our estimate of enemy casualties is close to 7,000.

144 tanks destroyed, 831 individuals and 325 cruisers' weapons have been captured.

And while one shouldn't make too much of these body counts and so forth, and even if you assume that they are inflated, you also have to assume that there must be many casualties.

from air attacks that we don't see, and that we can't have an estimate of.

So the judgment is that these casualties, casualty figures, are pretty accurate.

In the report this morning, the enemy attacks in military region 1 in this area have slacked off substantially, and in fact many of the offensive actions are now taken by the South Asian region.

The weather has been so bad that there are very few American airstrikes.

Now, with respect to attacks on the North, there have been only two days when we could fly in the North at all.

And that has not been a major factor up to now.

What we are attempting to do is this.

We know we can plot this attack here.

We want to see that now that the enemy has put his whole force outside of his own country, whether it cannot be brought on to him.

that the offers we have made, which after all are, should not be so onerous for him, of the withdrawal of American forces within a fixed time period, the exchange of prisoners, three elections, an electoral commission under international supervision, the resignation of President Chu a month before these elections.

We're not asking for his capitulation.

What we are asking for

is a political process in South Vietnam that gives the people of South Vietnam an opportunity to express their choices by some method that is very strong.

It's only an issue with the negotiations.

No matter what you, what sophistry is used, there is only one issue with the negotiations.

It has nothing to do with the deadline.

It has nothing to do with fixed dates or withdrawal.

It has nothing to do with any of the gimmicks that are constantly being advanced.

There's only one issue.

And that issue is, will the United States put a communist government into power in Saigon?

Will we end the war?

There is

which has created so much anger.

Will we end the war by joining our enemies against our friends?

That is what the North Vietnamese have asked of us.

The North Vietnamese have, it isn't the issue of any personality.

What the North Vietnamese have asked of us is to create a political structure in which their takeover is guaranteed

And let me sum up their proposals.

Their proposals are as follows.

There are two stages.

First, we created a government of national comfort.

This government of national comfort is to be proposed with the following elements.

The species, the government.

And those elements of the Jew government stand for peace, freedom, and neutrality.

Now that you say, who stands for peace, freedom, and neutrality?

The D.C. are going to tell us who stands for peace, freedom, and neutrality.

And during the last year, we went to the list of the Saigon government that said that he stands for peace, freedom, and neutrality.

Because he has yet to discover one man who is familiar there, who they think stands for peace, freedom, and neutrality.

So what they want is a government of national concord, as they call it, in which they are the only organized force.

in which they had made a coalition with these non-organized, non-communists after having destroyed the organized non-communists.

But just in case that doesn't work, that government of national concord is then supposed to negotiate with the PRC for a coalition government.

So they first create a government in which they're bound to be predominant, and then they'll negotiate with themselves for yet another government.

Now, by this process, they are asking us to put a communist government in power.

They're asking us to do something for them that they cannot do for themselves.

Now then, what does it?

And this is the only hang-up they negotiate.

There is no other hang-up.

And we haven't asked them to guarantee the survival of Jews.

We have asked them to talk to us about a political process in which the existing forces in South Vietnam can express themselves.

Now, where do we stand?

What do they want?

They want, they have three objectives with this attack.

Objective one, to overthrow Tu, that is to, to overthrow the Saigon, Tu is not the issue, to overthrow the Saigon structure.

That is to inflict such a defeat on the South Vietnamese that they will collapse.

Now, it's perhaps too early to say that this cannot happen.

All we can say is that as of now, there is no indication, whatever, that this has happened.

Maybe the South Vietnamese cannot stand this constant attack, but all the evidence is in the opposite direction.

Objective number two.

is to create so much turmoil in this country that even if the south and the east don't collapse, we'll collapse them for them.

And that's probably their principal objective.

And objective number three is that if they cannot either collapse the Saigon government through their own efforts, and if they cannot panic us into collapsing for them,

then they will go to negotiations.

And precisely because, as I've explained to you, the only issue with negotiation is whether a non-communist structure can survive in South Vietnam.

And precisely because that is the toughest decision for them to make.

They have to prove to themselves that they have no other choice.

And this is why they are engaged in this tremendous fast now of putting their whole army, all of their equipment, if they have lost 144 tanks in military division one, they will have lost 30% of their tank force in two weeks.

Now maybe 144 is exaggerated, but it isn't very far off.

So we believe that if this can be held now, that we have a better chance of getting serious negotiations than has existed in a long time.

If the American people stay calm, if the South Vietnamese vote

And both of these conditions seem to be met.

I think they must be shocked by this failure to produce the uproar in this country that they did in 1968.

Now anybody who's worked with the president knows that these conditions will never succeed.

That we will not yield.

The military situation doesn't indicate that they can succeed in their military, and therefore we believe that there is a chance of heading this into the negotiations, which we will conduct generously and flexibly.

Now what are we, what is our role?

Our role continuously is to give support to the South Vietnamese who must make the ground race.

We are doing bombing in the day and since the other side has totally abrogated the bombing at this time.

Let me just read to you a few quotations.

President Johnson, announcing the bombing halt, said, we have made clear to the other side that talks cannot continue if they take military advantage of it.

We cannot have productive talks in an atmosphere where the demonstration act is abused.

And, yes, Secretary Clinton, Secretary Dunst,

No one clearly understands what is expected of them in this situation.

They know we shall take care of the security of our own and allied forces in the field.

There is no misunderstanding the people of Jerusalem.

It must be recognized.

Secretary Clinton.

Saigon must get fully imposed on what other regiments were to do working towards.

That is to say, we have an understanding about the DMC and an understanding about the demilitarized zone.

Then he said again, it was made very clear to the representatives of the other side that the demilitarized zone must be respected in the event any development takes place.

they increase the trepidation of our troops that we will have to take.

We have an infinite number of quotations about the understanding of their respective difficulties.

What we are doing in the bombing of the North is to try to

destroyed and built up in this area and to keep them from re-imposing the balance.

We are attempting to bring about a situation in which now that they have made this

tremendous effort.

We do not simply say the worst you can do is not succeed, but we want to bring about a situation where when they look down the road, they see no prospect of coming back.

In order to strengthen the negotiations, which we think we have a good chance of developing, no one believes that

that there can be a purely military solution to this war.

We have made every effort this spring to have a negotiated solution.

We have made, we asked the winged army this spring, but we didn't make an offer to them.

And they answered the President's formal proposal with an invitation, with a fill-down, and not all the troops were in the frame.

But in a funny way, this invasion proves

that the previous policies are of the verge of succeeding.

Because their whole strategy up to now has been based on the assumption that time is on their side.

They are now proving with this attack that they no longer believe that time is on their side.

What we are trying to do is to shrink the time that they think they have available even further.

And we have hope and trust that if

is how we in the MISO, if we retain the public support that we have had, and the understanding of everybody, that at long last we can end this war into a conclusion that is just for both sides.

And it's been a moment at all what we have done with regard to more air power, more sea power, and other things like that.

But also we have

The residents ordered the movement of six additional tactical air squadrons into the area and a substantial increase in T-52s.

And also, we have put naval ships along the coast.

We have 12 destroyers and one cruiser, and that is being commanded in order to restrict the route on which the radials of their supplies come down.

Again, the strategy is the one we have outlined.

now that they have committed everything, to see whether this can be totally blundered, and then they have gone through every phase of war that is possible, and then it wouldn't bring about negotiations.

Well, Mr. President, the critics point out that in the latter days of World War II, Germany still was far greater power than North Vietnam could command.

It was, according to the critics, brought to its knees by a lesser degree of bombing than this.

So the public is going to ask you, the housewife in the supermarket, the man in the corner drugstore, why can't we really plop all the daylights out of a good and an old once and forever?

And that is the overly simplistic question that every one of us will have to deal with at home.

Out of it.

Well, it may seem ridiculous to you, but it does seem a bit ridiculous to the person asking you this.

They will...

But we are not... We are going to continue bombing in the north.

And it will be substantial.

But... And...

Well, the difference, basically, is that, uh, the difference is that, first, uh, we are using our car, our parking lots, which was done by the previous administration, I'm sure you're familiar with these details, but, uh, they know it.

Second, uh, the difference is, however, there is one division we've got,

That is the, and that's one of the things that we did not have in World War II, and that's the massive bombing of civilian centers.

We're not doing any civilians, we're just hitting military targets.

But without going into any detail, I can assure you that insofar as air enables support in the south, and air strikes

An Oregon car might not be a problem, which could in any way affect the military outcome.

Everything is being done that our car will permit the acceptance of your weapons.

And everything will be done.

It won't affect any factor in the population in this miserable weather.

But if the weather gets a little better, I think it might be a good time.

Mr. President, how far in the north are we from any limit to

wherever the military targets are used at which support is the best and keep it up to date with the B-52s that's historic but I don't really like to say this I would rather put it this way that as far as bombing and the naval gunfire which is of course going up the coast and hitting that route all the way up as far as we can go I'd rather not say how far north we're going to go just let me say it'll be far enough

Will this restrict your plans to withdraw down to 69,000 by May 1st?

Let me, let me, let me get at it this way.

Let me, let me stop for, if I can, very briefly, what our position is, and I'm sure we've had questions generally to all this, so that we see what we are doing and what we aren't doing.

As Henry has so very effectively put it, the difference between now and 68, first, why are we running?

This is a massive invasion of South Vietnam.

by North Vietnam and nationally supported by the Soviet Union with the most modern technical equipment.

This is not a civil struggle such as it was in 1968 and up until last year.

There are very few ground workers, so this is a matter of debate of North Vietnam, South Vietnam, by North Vietnam, supported by the Soviet Union's technical assistance in every respect except air combat.

Second, as far as the resistance to the invasion is concerned, it should be conducted totally by the South Vietnamese on the ground.

There are no American ground forces.

Whatever their fault, there will be none involved.

Third, as far as air power is concerned, approximately half of the sorties that are being conducted in the battle are being conducted by the South Vietnamese, which shows up where we go today.

However, we are using our air power, and I ordered an additional air power and sea power, to put whatever is necessary to see the South Vietnamese do not succeed in this Soviet-supported attempt to impose a communist government on South Vietnam, which is exactly what we're talking about.

And we did not mention the fact that we have put everything on the line militarily.

It's exciting, of course, in terms of ground forces, which we will not do and do not need to do.

But he's also, as I mentioned, he's also put everything on the line diplomatically.

That's why I said the other day that it's quite easy to interpret.

that as much as we all like these nice little disarmament agreements and the non-proliferation treaty and the biological warfare treaty and we'll have a salt treaty and all the rest of it, that you can have all the arms sanitation agreements in the world and still plenty of arms to blow up to fight a much bigger war than we had in World War II.

What is going to bring peace is restraint as far as great powers, and particularly we cannot have peace in the world.

Power is allowed to encourage directly or indirectly another power to use aggression against its neighbors and by force overwhelm one of its neighbors.

The Soviet Union is doing not.

We have told them publicly.

They have told even more strongly privately that this we cannot tolerate.

So they've got on the line.

And we are still, incidentally, negotiating with the Senate.

So that may cause something, too.

The third point that it should be made

is that as far as how the battle is going, I wouldn't speculate about that.

I would simply say that the Soviet enemies, according to one of the reports, had fought very well.

Superior weaponry.

Which again, is not because we were stupid, but because we were using our strength.

We've got as good tanks as the Soviet has, we've got as big guns as the Soviet has, but we haven't given them the South Vietnamese because they're in a defensive position.

This was probably a mistake, such restraint, having in mind what they're doing.

But we are, you see, supplementing for that mistake.

by using and providing the South Vietnamese other artillery, which means airstrikes.

That's why we ordered in more carriers, we ordered in more squads, and we're using B-32's agency as artillery.

All that does is to balance the battle on the ground.

The other points that should be made is that diplomatically, not only did we make our offer in January the 25th, that was answered not by a negotiation.

But by an enormous increase in infiltration, we got back to the PRC.

Nothing happened in that period.

Some of these came back, and we will not go into details on this.

All that I can say is that I know some people who will generally will have to walk around and negotiate.

This is the place that some of this is a negotiating table.

Now, I've heard that even around this table sometimes over the past two and a half years.

You may remember January 25th, we revealed the record.

There were 12 triumphant trips to Paris.

We had offered everything, and our creation has said that we should offer ten more, and we demolished them on that day.

I can only say that the record says January 25th.

Often too, until this buildup started, and since it started, publicly and privately is just as devastating.

So let these little jackasses get out on a limb, saying, why didn't we do this?

We have a whole country, but we're not going to talk about this.

Because we still are seeking a negotiated solution, but we are not going to the conference table to negotiate a surrender.

That's the one thing.

Now, the final point is this, which I should make.

I noted with some amusement, and I think this may have been the major miscalculation, Henry, that your allusion to the fact that they are thinking of a political situation in the United States,

It's true, we have an election coming up.

And it is true that many, I noticed an argument in the New York Times and some people in the White House and my advisors were concerned, not enemies but others, because they thought this might jeopardize our generation of peace and our, we've just been to China and now we're going to the Soviet Union.

Why is it that we just don't,

you know, turn over this country to the North Vietnamese as they now have lost this offensive.

Let me tell you why.

If, after all of this struggle, if this offensive by the North Vietnamese, supported quite directly by the Soviet Union,

And so far as arms are concerned, if it is allowed to succeed and the United States backs off or goes to the conference table and surrenders, this will not be a more peaceful world.

This will be a much more dangerous world.

And if you have friends that are interested in the meetings, that's next.

Because if the United States does not stand here after what we've committed, are we going, is any American president going to risk New York to sell St. Talbot?

That's where it is.

And it may be Europe.

What I'm getting at is the principle involved here is much bigger than South Vietnam, North Vietnam, and all the rest of North America.

The principle involved is whether the United States can have a credible foreign policy in the event we went the way of some of our critics who say, why at this point do we just get out?

get our prisoners back, and get out.

I could have done that three years ago.

I could do it now.

It might win an election.

But whoever was next president couldn't be the president of a country that had incredible foreign policy.

It's a concern which I'm desperately interested in and all of us are desperately interested in.

It would be much more risky and the possibilities of war much greater due to the fact

In fact, the North Vietnamese, supported by the Soviets, were interested in this particular venture, in this way.

Now that's what is the positive side.

On the positive side, and I'm not going to predict how it's going to come out, except that it's sort of ground-polling.

on one side, the use of nuclear weapons on the other side, the United States, and I will take sole responsibility for it and have.

This doesn't fit down to the Secretary of State, not for the Secretary of Defense, not for the Chairman of the Treasury, because I didn't get him around here and ask for their opinions.

None of them would have gone this far.

But as far as this is concerned, I take sole responsibility.

My opinion, if at this point,

with all their forces in South Vietnam, with all their divisions in South Vietnam, if now they fail, they have no other choice but to negotiate.

If they negotiate, then this communist-supported invasion by one country or another will fail.

That will discourage that kind of activity in the future.

It will make peace

much, shall we say, more of a possibility in the future, and also it will make whatever discussions we have with the Soviet at the highest level

Now I know that the conventional wisdom here among the intellectuals are supposed to, we're all supposed to read and follow avidly from television and the Washington Post and perhaps the rest is that, well, the way really to have a very good time in the United States is to get out of Vietnam and give them what they want and whatever it is.

Then we can go to the Soviet Union and have a nice little song and we'll have peace in the world.

Let me tell you, if the United States at this point fails in Vietnam, no pressure.

When I say the one in this room is more aware of what the political stakes are, I know that all of your courts, those of you who are running, perhaps mine, that is the point of what matters.

What really does matter is that at this particular point, any man who is commander-in-chief has to look not just at his election.

The future of this country has no other choice

But we speak to it at this critical point.

When we have the means and when we believe the South Vietnamese also have the ability to stop this invasion and to blunt it, when all the checks are on the table and they're all out there and we put in everything we've got and we'll put in more if that's necessary.

If, at this particular point, the United States fails, the United States will not, from that time on, have a credible foreign policy.

That's what I'm saying.

That's what I'm saying, and it's not what I'm saying publicly.

Mr. President, my question may have some slight bloat, but what is the future?

And by the way, we soft peddled a probable fate of nearly two million Catholics.

I know I succeeded in taking over the South and the government in Saigon.

This was a slaughter of about 200,000 in the North that got us into this mess in the first place.

We moved about half the population of a million and a half to the South.

We had a responsibility for them.

And yet, much of the opposition is led by, so what you're doing is that black Catholic, don't they care anything about them?

What will they do next time?

Well, as a matter of fact, George, you put your finger on a very strange thing.

I can talk quite directly to Cardinal Cook about this.

He shares our view.

The Cardinal's role, he shares our view.

I asked about the Catholic bishops.

Most of them have probably not been there.

But speaking of this particular problem, the Catholic bishop denied to show you what would happen.

Now, of course, this cannot be the major reason for our decision, but it must bear on it from a humanitarian standpoint.

My God, people can get excited about what happens in the Akron.

What about them?

the group of people that we've gone out and seen as the main Catholics or Christians or whatever, I suppose Catholics or Christians, or whatever the names may be.

And here we are, to come to the point that the Catholic mission of the National, and I talked to a National Christian when I was there, who said that after the North Vietnamese took over North Vietnam,

They murdered 60,000 of what they considered to be the main men.

Murdered 60,000 and starved 500,000 by insurgent investment to death in North Vietnam.

You mentioned refugees.

Almost a million refugees.

I visited those camps.

I saw them.

They're nice.

They're people.

They're like us.

I mean, skin is different.

They're not quite as tolerant.

And it came out because they didn't want to get murdered and starved themselves.

Now, let's put it another way.

This has been a bloody war, and our casualties are down around 10 a week or something.

And the South Vietnamese are still running three, four, five hundred a week.

They're fighting, fighting hard.

Put yourself in the position of those in the front.

There's a million men in South Vietnam.

In the event that the United States now did withdraw,

turn the country over to the communists.

The only issue is whether the United States will accede to the North Vietnamese demand to impose a communist government in South Vietnam.

You can just drag it away.

That's it.

Now, if we did that,

What's going to happen to those people that fought?

What's going to happen to the village chiefs?

What's going to happen to all the rest?

They're going to be in it.

And it would be a bloodbath such as we haven't seen probably since the India-Pakistan partition.

Now that's talking trade.

Now let me put it all in context back again.

We in this country, because of our media, because of the decay of the intellectual establishment,

of which many of us, I'm sorry to say, haven't been called members because of the fact that the people that ought to be strong, the so-called leader class in the United States, say, what is the difference?

Haven't we fought enough?

Well, as a matter of fact, we probably have.

Never has so much American power been used so poorly as has been used in Vietnam.

What we should have done in 66 and 67, and I said this in 68, and I surely, what we should have done when we had the power was to use it effectively to bring the war to an end and not to piece it out little by little.

That way we would have got a negotiation then.

But we did it.

We fiddled around.

No more bombing.

We said we were understanding.

One of the understandings, you know, George, was, the only one they all agreed was an understanding.

There might have been no understanding about Gallup, the city director, but there was understanding about crossing the DMC.

But, not really.

So, when you look back at it, we twist the bombing of the North, something they wanted from us because it was hurting them.

What did we get for it?

Nothing.

They have talked for three years and have not once talked in a way which has this kind of design.

It goes big.

Fiddling around here and there.

That's all we're asking.

That's what Porter is going to say when he goes back Thursday.

or whenever he meets with them again.

My point is that if you look at these negotiations we've had for a long time, and if you look at where we are, you come down to those who look at this war and say, the United States has fought enough.

We ought to get out and let this country go.

We can't be saved or so forth.

Maybe.

If all that was involved was Vietnam,

put it in terms of the pragmatic foreign policy intellectuals who determine the policy of the foreign relations .

Which, of course, is supposed to be .

And the pragmatic view is that we shouldn't have gotten into the war in the first place.

All right, we didn't get in it.

And I shouldn't be quite this self-terrific, except for .

It's rather ironic that those who

the policies that got us into Vietnam are sabotaging our efforts to get us out.

Now, going on, we come to the point.

Here we look at Vietnam.

The loss of Vietnam in 17 million would be bad enough.

The slaughter of two million Catholics would be bad.

But after all, maybe the United States has done enough.

But I think there's something a lot bigger.

How can the United States of America, which is the only nation in the free world that has the power to have the Soviet Union agree to talk to a salesman, a British, a French, or a Russian, because they don't respect the power.

How can the United States of America be the guardian of peace?

I don't mean we're going to get into every war, but how can we ever have any credibility if at this point

and to face not a civil war, earlier that's what it appeared, it was very confused, of a blatant invasion of one country by another, supported by Soviet Union, by Soviet arms, if the United States gets out and loses, what would you do?

if you were sitting, if you laid off, or arms and neck, what would you do if you were sitting in the other place?

That's what you're being told.

This is not belligerent talk.

It simply means that for the United States to have a credible policy in any place in the world, it must not be dishonored, it must not be denigrated, it must not surrender in one place in the world.

That's what's involved.

We're not asking to conquer North Korea.

We're not asking anything unreasonable.

All we're asking is for a very reasonable settlement where our guy, so-called, the extent that he is to, says, I'll resign.

We'll have an independent electoral committee, which the communists have never made.

And that's the most reasonable offer ever made.

We've offered a total withdrawal to Vietnam, a total exchange to Philadelphia.

But as far as the peace talks are concerned, as Mike Mansfield George said when I made it after January 25th, we've probably gone as far as we can go.

He's right.

We've gone as far as we can go.

But I can assure you one other thing.

At this point, as long as I have the decisions to make, we aren't going to.

turn out of it, get out.

Not just because of the death, which I'm concerned about death, not just because of the Soviets, but because of the United States.

because of peace in the world, because we need a strong bargaining position to negotiate the meeting we are with the PRC and the Soviet Union.

I just close with this.

I had a talk with you yesterday, and Mike made a very important trip to China.

Jerry will be going later.

Do you think for one moment that our talks with the PRC and the Soviet Union

Without any chance for success, we're humiliated, you know what I mean?

Not at all.

And that's why we have to do this.

And that's why, well, it may cause me to use political pain and anguish, and I regret that it does, that my supporters believe it causes me a lot.

I can say that I couldn't be more calm about it, more determined about it, and the rest, we're going to see it through, and we are not going to lose.

I'm there.

Mr. President, I'd like to say that I haven't disclosed what you've been doing.

I never have been.

Mr. President, Dr. Kissinger said this during his remarks, that he listens to the news before he comes in and gets one thing.

Then he comes into the White House and gets the true picture.

I can't tell every 30 minutes.

You say that we must have, he says, and you say that we must have public support.

Those of us who have support are the very first realizers to will.

Is there some way, and I'm very special to make a great contribution in this direction,

but there are not enough people who are doing it.

Isn't there some way that we can get across each one, just the two of them, and force them to take part in the Noche Media, rather than let them go on like Radness goes on every morning?

But we're going to distribute after this meeting, and we also are going to distribute this to some of our Democratic friends as well.

So I'm talking about this for you, and I'm sure it's very significant to have those over here.

What I did, Margaret, I sat down and they made it in very short terms.

In other words, it wasn't just a massive invasion, but what they were doing.

what the negotiating record is, what we ought to think, what the state is saying.

And I'll send this, send that to all of you.

Now, how you get this across over through the media, I don't know.

And that is the real problem.

So it is a real problem, I know, all the time, but in order to get public support, then we have to add that we continue to support you and there are much to support you.

It seems to me we have to find a way, other than just an occasional speech, one that I'm speaking for.

Mr. President, as of now, it's my appraisal that you have public support.

I had when I was in Michigan over the weekend and in California part of the time last week.

I think as of the moment, you do have company support.

It's not anywhere comparable to the circumstances that prevailed in 68 or Cambodia or otherwise.

Now, whether that will stay or not,

As of now, I don't find this kind of public disintegration that we had on several other occasions.

Maybe others would have.

Mr. President, I think we all agree with Jerry, but it would help if we knew a little more about the probable dynamics of this thing.

What proportion of the 14 divisions have already been committed militarily, or can we expect an increasing commitment of North Vietnamese troops

Or are they already committed?

Pretty well committed.

I would say that I'm not suggesting that there are going to be some movement in battlefields.

I mean, who knows what's going to happen.

The North Vietnamese could lose, the South Vietnamese could lose this capital, or that one, or the rest.

The battles sway back and forth, but it's like I said, the U.S. countries recently, the important thing in battle as a trade game in football is your lines may bend, but they must not break.

And they have conviction to sell you if these lines will not break.

Let's put it this way.

On the plus side, what is really involved here is that the North Vietnamese have all their chips in the pocket.

That's why we are going to be sure that all our ships are in the fun, insofar as air can see the problem, short of the use of nuclear weapons being effective in this thing.

So I would say that you're going to see a pretty decisive reaction, one way or the other, pretty quickly.

But around the 1st of May,

to be given certain parts of the country in the rainy season.

And that generally is more powerful than the ones on either side.

The second point is that there's a problem of supplies in the south.

They don't have the supplies around Saigon because of what we did last year in Laos to sustain it for longer than three or four weeks.

And the third thing is, and this is the weather on the other side of the continent, as the weather clears over Iyengar, believe me,

they're going to get it.

And if you hear swearing about getting them across to the DMZ in the north, it's because I haven't intended it.

They have a lot of fish left in reserve.

That is all.

And the plant is coming south.

And that's coming south.

But the South Vietnamese, you understand, the South Vietnamese have a courage to get the carnage.

They're just as big as the carnage.

For example, they can...

It starts raining here, which will be about four weeks.

The North Vietnamese will have, if they're going to fight, which is unlikely, but if they will fight, they have to stay on the roads.

They can, because they've only had to stay here in a day or two.

At that point, the South Vietnamese can move some of the divisions that they have in here going into North.

But the North Vietnamese cannot move the divisions they have here into any other area.

because it takes them about six weeks to get up.

Well, it's impossible for them to move to the buildings that are here.

I'm not sure we can reinforce that.

The important thing we have to bear in mind is this.

I think Margaret's made a very good point.

I think Margaret's believed she will try every day to try to get something out.

It's just an iron curtain out there on the press.

Most of the press has suggested the interest in America could be there because they predicted...

Now, that doesn't mean they're disloyal, it just means that that's the way it is, and they're almost transiting.

They know what's going on.

They know that this is probably it.

They know that if the North and South Vietnamese hold, then maybe all of their predictions are gonna prove wrong.

That's how much is on the line.

Now, I'm not going to predict that the South Vietnamese will hold.

I'm not going to predict that the North Vietnamese will hold.

All that I can say is this.

What really matters in all of this are not the day-to-day stories, not the stories that we hear for the next two or three weeks, but how it all comes out.

What we are doing is to do everything possible to make sure that it comes out all right, and then those, morning after morning, say, ah, this town is surrounded.

These people are retreating.

The Americans shouldn't be bombing this and that and the other thing.

They're delivering.

If it comes out wrong,

All the nice stories that we got out now about how well we were doing aren't going to be in the evening.

So that's our problem.

So we're going to be sure of you.

Well, Mr. President, I just mean to indicate that you didn't have public support.

I think you had it.

I don't know if you heard it all, but it's not articulate.

And we hear these candidates for the first and then the other ones.

side, day after day, on television, and yet we don't have the true story, and they've been giving us some facts.

Well, as a matter of fact, it's not at the campaigns for president.

It's the figure that everyone, with the exception of Howard Hastings, every television commentator, everyone out there is

from an emotional standpoint, on the side of the other side, not because it has nothing to do with ideology, because they predicted it, and life can't hold you.

And now, they've panicked by it, to make it or not be proven wrong.

That's why they downplay the last couple of days, you couldn't find that on the TV, and you won't.

By the end, what matters is whether we have a negotiation, whether we get it to an end in the right way.

All of it, I'm not going to predict.

All that I can say is the only way we can have it is to proceed the way we are.

And second, I would say that we are now at the point, the watershed.

We're at the close point where we may come.

Mr. President, what chance is there of the insertion of some new ingredient?

For example, I don't know how much North Vietnamese air power there is, or some kind of stripe on North Vietnamese air, or a sea landing where it's unexpected, or something that could throw the

the existing projections of the battle out of Kilter in the south east.

Do the North Vietnamese have any capability of exploring some new ingredients in this situation?

That's what I'm trying to decide.

Not by the air.

That's decided.

You didn't have by the air?

We had command of the air.

We had about 200 planes sent out by the sea.

By the time we had 30 destroyers out there, four troopers had vanished.

No way.

None of them argued.

On the second day of this action, the press were asking me all these panicky stories.

And I said to them, on the second day at Bull Rock, how would you have estimated the chances that they'd give me?

Just about the same.

It didn't make just one sentence.

Well, you know, let's be quite candid with ourselves and honest.

If you look at the history of warfare,

I cannot judge the outcome by any one panel.

My favorite example is the one that I did with some of you before, which is the day of March 21, 1918, when the Germans launched their massive offensive against the British.

The British lost 400,000, actually 42,000.

And the Germans lost the war because the offensive base, the British lines, bent, but they did not break.

People look back and say, Churchill was pretty good.

And some things said, as we look back on that, even though they sacked the British general, he got a good general.

Because the British did not win the battle of St. Louis.

He said that was the turning point of the war in 1918.

Now, I'm not suggesting that what's happened in Iyengar and the rest has been negative.

All I'm saying is this.

We must keep it balanced.

But what are these day-to-day things?

Just be sure that we're doing everything that we can in terms of putting in the force that's necessary so that the South Vietnamese can defend themselves against the solely-supported Congress of Mexico.

We are doing that.

And...

It could work.

It could not.

But I am sure if it does not work, it will not be because we didn't try.

That's the real finding.

But you may look very good.

If you don't look very good, I'm not surprised.

If we, and I think we will be successful in staving off this attack, the North Vietnamese will have lost a lot of material.

They have the capability, I presume, of withdrawing and regrouping and being resupplied.

If we let them be resupplied, the Russians have shown that they, after the last two decades, they do resupply.

Won't this happen all over again if we let the Russians do this?

Well, that has to do, of course, with what the summit is all about.

But you see, there's your bargaining point.

If they secede now, put yourself in the position of the Russians.

They're going to ride down iron roads.

Well, of course, if they can resupply their troops, aren't they looking down iron roads anyway?

Well, my point is that

We can also move in that direction.

We can negotiate about such things, too.

And they can do that in the Mideast for a time.

I mean, if the Soviet government is going to embark on a course of purely smaller nations,

that will support their aggressive intentions.

And the same is true of the Chinese.

They personally are not on that course for reasons that we don't need to go into.

The Skokie Division is allowed to do that with impunity.

That's what the message is involved here.

You can say it'll not only happen here, John, it's going to happen to the UAR, and the Middle East will go up, and it can happen in Europe, and then other things will go up.

So that's why a summit is terribly important.

We've got to keep American public support behind what's happening and what we anticipate to happen.

It seems to me that all of us should be confident that Vietnamization has worked, is working, and will work.

and that your plans at the very outset have brought about this reduction of our commitment on the ground and it's not going to change because we are confident.

That's what the American people want us to say and want to take place.

And I believe that as long as we stand firmly behind those policies, including the commitments we've made for withdrawal, then they, the American people, are going to stand with us in this.

immediate service.

But when you look at it, too, if you want to say, why use American air power?

We're using it for three purposes.

We're using it first to prevent a communist takeover supported by the Soviet Union in South Vietnam.

I guess a little of the people of South Vietnam.

Second, we're using it to protect 70,000 Americans or some of the 9,000 who are still there, because if we

It's going to be a little bit difficult, because if we turn off in the South, it isn't easy enough.

Who's left to protect them?

Third, we're using it in order to guarantee the success of our continued withdrawal program.

That it also be shown that

Well, that's the, if you want to put it in political terms, that the opposition sent 549,000 people to Vietnam.

We've already brought up almost half a million.

Second, as far as casualties are concerned, they were 300 a week when we came in, or averaging as high as that, and they're now down around 10 deaths.

And they're gonna go slower this time.

Do you have any objection that we reverse the order on why we're using air power

but I was thinking you'd find it's a very good idea to start the order to say we have to protect American forces, we have to guarantee our continued control, and in order to do both, we have to start to help prevent the communists take over South Carolina in order to have credible border policies.

Mr. President, good morning, Admiral Morton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Supreme Court Committee.

almost two hours.

And he did a splendid job.

Our committee, you know, overwhelmingly support a position you've taken.

There are two who could not make political affiliation.

But the overriding question, if I were to sum it up,

You've answered this morning what's going to happen.

More of our fighters over there, our air power and our naval power.

That seemed to be the crux of the whole questioning collectively amongst the members of the sporting committee.

They wanted to know what was going to happen next.

Now you've answered it this morning, what's going to happen by saying they're going to get it.

Now how far are they from us?

I'm going to be privileged to say something about that.

I was going to say to you, not crediting you, but I would be, I think I get your question, I mean, before you go too far again.

I would simply say that you, speaking as a member of the Armed Services Committee, support the use of American air and sea power to stop this

this blamed invasion of an army of themselves.

Constantly use the word invasion and use the word confidence.

Those are good code words to use and they have to be true to.

Second point is that, as far as the RC power is concerned, in fact, as has been indicated, there are certain limitations on the one side of nuclear.

Not necessary.

We've always said that.

And on the other side, we've already indicated ground force.

But on the other hand, to the extent there is necessary to stop this invasion, we use where, wherever it's necessary.

But you say that's what you had to me.

Let me say that members of the Armed Services Committee go somewhat further than we have gone.

It wouldn't bother me a bit.

Could I ask one more question?

No, please don't say, Mom, he came.

No.

Could I ask one more question?

What motivated the Russians to raise them up, all their efforts at this particular time?

Was there any good reason for it, because of the determination to win?

Well, they raised them up.

They asked them to do it for the extra impression.

I mean, it's more accurate to put it in what they're doing now.

Look at it.

Russia's in a recording.

They don't know about this.

They haven't broken off the summit yet.

Our theory is that the major trouble we have with the Russians is that they're not so heterogeneous.

that these accounts are to various people and they may not always understand all the implications in long-range terms of what they're doing.

For example, they started the 67 Middle East war.

I don't think that was a master plan that there was going to be a war.

They just thought they could pick up some loose change and the thing blew up.

What probably happened then was this.

They could

a good score of interest by being the strength supplier of Hanoi's military equipment.

Now we've had enough experience ourselves with little countries that are playing this game.

And so they all signed an agreement.

They not only signed an agreement of their basic aid program, they have signed two supplementary agreements since last October giving them additional weapons.

The reason why we don't think that this is

an overall map of land, as it's obvious, just because it's uncharacteristic to put all their ships into an area 4,000 miles away and in which they have no independent intelligence.

They really have no way of knowing how good the South Vietnamese Army is and what can be done.

So they were playing a short science game, hoping that Hanoi would trap us before the D-Day Summit, which was the original plan.

screw up the peaking summit, and they still have three months to clean up the mess between peaking and Moscow.

Hanoi, on the other hand, isn't particularly interested in playing Moscow's game, so they put the offensive exactly between peaking and Moscow.

And what one has to touch the Russians with is total irresponsibility.

The President pointed out the other people, that what they really like is the defeat of the United States and the Sun.

It's a million dollars a day in Cuba.

I mean, we could start to get into the Russian aid situation.

I know that there's some people that have some intentions to say, well, why don't we have another, we've been to P.K.

and we've got a lot of cash.

You know what it's costing?

One million dollars a day.

Let it cost us.

And she said, yeah, as far as this place is concerned, they're trusting approximately three million dollars a day.

A million dollars a year, right?

But so what they have done is, it's totally their responsibility if we, if an American-supported country, attacked an ally of the Soviet Union with American equipment and with Soviet troops to a station,

Four weeks before the summit, we couldn't hide behind the fact that we only gave them the equipment, but they didn't know what they were doing.

So we're not even saying this was a master plan.

We are saying this is a brutal, short-sighted, for some reason, put themselves into this position.

And the consequences.

exactly as the veteran described it, if we collapse in Vietnam House, this summit is going to be a disaster.

There could be other ways to make this a stronger case.

Frankly, if Americans were deeply involved in the ground, we would lose 300 or 400 a week, that sort of thing, and maybe you just cut your losses and get out of that.

On the other hand, we are in it.

I think one thing I should make, I would hope that the leaders that we're going to meet, Democratic leaders today, too, that I think it's very important to bless some of the armed services, like John Sennas.

John was there, he was my commander.

He's the strongest horse around.

The point I'm going to make is this.

I think it's okay to do, if you believe this, one, that you support what the President is doing.

for the reasons that we had mentioned earlier in the talk, for example, sex, and if you are confident, if you are confident, don't say that I am, it's better to keep me one step removed than that, if you are confident that the attempt of the, of an arty and amazed, to oppose God and serve himself, that their attempt is not going to fail,

that there will be ups and downs and battles.

There always will be.

But we're confident that the United States is doing the right thing.

And the other point I think you should all make, don't, because I would never put you on the line.

If they ever raise negotiations, don't be apologetic.

I won't tell you what we've done.

I won't tell you what we've done privately or publicly, but just let me say, look at our track records.

And 80s clowns that get up and say, why, we should go and talk in Paris, but we talked.

And they know it.

And at the appropriate time, we'll put it up.

Right, Henry?

Mr. President, can I just ask one more question?

I think Johnny Rhodes' question is really important.

I think the American people would support

a really quite strong offensive action by the United States, and we'll buy some of the event.

I think, however, if they get the opinion that all we're gonna do is stop them temporarily while they regroup and get re-supplied and do it again next year, they're gonna say, forget it, friends, let's just get out of here.

I would say this, Peter, if the folks like you and John could say this publicly, it would be very helpful.

I can assure you that I have no fears.

We don't plan to do that.

We try to do what I have to do.

Yeah, on their part.

On their part.

I did not put it in those terms on the part of stuff that left you.

He has spoken out.

Our attitude is to be calm.

strong in any manner.

And don't come up and say, like what Jerry said, are we going to go to the 18th or the 19th parallel?

Look, Johnson and I have great respect for him.

I used to say, but he had to go through with it.

He used to sit night after night and pick out the targets.

We can't do this because that would be bad.

We can't do that.

I don't pick out any targets.

Let me say, we're not going to do this by the

Parallel line to the rest.

If it's a military target, we're hit.

It's going to be hit.

If the weather's good enough, I just leave it right there.

The whole ball game isn't going to be played on our side of the 50-yard line.

The real question was raised a moment ago.

I think Hugh was implying, in answer to Vice President's statement, could the South Vietnamese, and that's what I think Hugh was saying, could they launch a naval operation against the NARC or something?

The answer is no.

Maybe in some time.

Not now.

I mean, they've got enough of a place where they are.

But obviously, I would say this.

I would say this.

We still have the whole game that have been different.

500,000 Americans that are in the present time.

this would be just the place for a landing in the north, because North Vietnam is .

And you could walk in the Hanoi, right?

We fought for .

We went to South Vietnam to defend Saigon, so we don't have to defend it.

Is there any harm, Mr. President, in inferring or implying

that everything except nuclear weapons are a possibility.

And I have to just say this, that, like I said, we've already said, the president has always said, nuclear weapons are not necessary and not desirable in this part of the world, and in this kind of war.

That's why, as far as anything else is concerned, we are not telling the enemy what we are going to do or what we're not going to do.

And you can, but you can be sure we are not going to lose.

We shouldn't talk too big.

We should act rather than talk.

See, we want to act bigger, but I think if you do this, if you threaten, for example, if I just say, we're not going to end the day, we're going to do what is necessary, that's all.

I think that our actions are going to have, they already have had quite an impact on me.

And so the movement of troops, I mean, the movement of, for example, the fleet, the movement of the institutes, the movement of those squatters in there,

It's a road to change in Hanoi, and that's where they're going.

But I think our view should be that you support a strong posture, and that's that.

Senator Peter, the two attacks that we made on Sunday in North Vietnam, we frankly thought that they would raise country to hell.

The fact is they haven't even told their own people yet.

Their own people don't know that we have attacked the species.

They didn't want them to know that they were so long.

So what we are trying to avoid is to get into a big theoretical debate with them about what we will and will not do.

What has been impressive to them is that we didn't say a goddamn thing for a week.

We didn't have a big outcry here.

We just started moving forces.

What they watch is the forces we move.

And therefore, as the President pointed out, strong statements of support for us, but no big talk about whether the lid is off or whether we are unrestrained now.

They will see it.

If we didn't move these forces out of here, we will do what is necessary, no more than is necessary.

Mr. President, could I ask in view of the fact the invasion has taken place and assuming there's no decisive development over the next few weeks, is your hand going to be strengthened or weakened when you go to Moscow?

Thank you.

You know, I think what can sum up the situation in L.A., may I say, we're in constant touch with the Russians.

I think what can sum up the situation like this, not to know,

The North Vietnamese, especially in this space, when they were fighting a guerrilla war, and we were fighting a professional war, they were in the situation that if they didn't lose, they were going to win, because they had time on their side, and the guerrillas, in being, and they still had to make sure to do this.

They had now put themselves in the position.

Exactly the opposite is true.

If the South Vietnamese don't lose, they'll win.

If the South Vietnamese can hold,

then the North Vietnamese have shot their wad.

There's no reason to suppose that next year they'll be better off than this year.

In fact, the opposite is likely to be true.

And this is the tremendous change of the psychological situation, making them go for all their models.

If they don't pick them up now, the whole political and psychological groundwork there will change.

And that is the cause of this transition.

You've got to remember to answer earlier the question of Peter and John Rose.

In this fold, you see, we don't want to speculate too much in the future, but in this fold, put yourself in the position of the Chinese and Russians.

After all this time, after their huge, huge drain, and incidentally, all of the Chinese health is minuscule compared to the Russians.

Consider Air GNP as a terrific drain for them, and of course for the Russians, it's substantial.

But after all this, just say,

Are they going to want to risk their new initiatives with the United States about this place?

Or are they going to be thinking about the situation in Europe, in Germany, the new situation in Asia?

See, that's what's on the line for them.

They're going to have some things to think about too.

Well, we must get on with our other, get one other item we want to cover briefly and hand out some papers.

And I would urge that if any of our, unless you and Margaret would do your committee, George will recommend yours.

We don't want this in any partisan sense.

And there are some on the other side that are playing it totally partisan.

I would hope so, yes.

We're setting up, Mr. President, to be sure to include Sam Stratton.

Yes, we have him on the list as a private member.

If you get them down, we're not going to give them a competent chance.

We're awaiting a word from Henry Kissinger about his availability today.

Well, he's available.

That's good.

Let me say that the one thing that I'm disposed of this point without being too melodramatic, but at one point with the enemy, and I think the Soviet made a miscalculation on it,

It's on the political front.

You know, they are victims of their own propaganda and ours and our nice little boys in the press out here who say, well, this president can do anything for political reasons and it's necessary, but he won't let this go.

Let me tell you that.

I analyze this very carefully.

I'm aware of how much is going on.

I know how much is going on for all of you.

And of course, the Soviet son, the Chinese son, and the rest, we have created really a good situation.

But I also know that the key to both of those other situations is here in this miserable part of the world.

And as far as I'm concerned, I'll say to all of you now,

to do the right thing, politics be damned.

That's the way it's going to be.

Yeah, that may be the right thing to do, but that's the way we go.

Mr. President, your answer to Jerry was obvious, but you didn't say it.

You asked at one point whether you're going to do any withdrawals.

I knew you wanted to say that.

Yes, let me say it, let me say it.

There has been no change in our withdrawal schedule,

Our withdrawal schedule will be down to 69,000 on May 1st.

I think I have a tangible thing.

Now, what are we going to do after that?

Well, the purpose of what we're now doing

is to ensure that continued withdrawal.

But the president will make the decision depending upon the circumstances.

I want to keep it a little loose, you see.

But all I can say is we can go down to 69,000 members and it is going right on schedule.

Nothing's changed.

Which, of course, gives the lie to those who think that their American ground forces, well, they aren't.

They are here, of course.

They're coming off the carriers and they're coming off of the front lines.

Yeah.

They hit the two bases.

They're not in Vietnam.

The carriers are not in Vietnam.

and as far as the other SWAT units are concerned, they're only temporary there and they're not adding to the workforce.

Does that add to the play?

Yes.

That's great for public assumption because those of us already speaking, there's a good answer to that question.

Oh.

President's long schedule.

That's right.

First, you'll have another announcement.

You say, well, this is going to be another withdrawal.

Well, I'm not going to comment upon that.

The president always makes his base on the situation after the time.

But, I'll put it this way, it'll be down to 69,000 in the main version, and when they're no-stringers, that's it, they've got to go on.

How's that?

That's great.

All right.

Great.

So we're doing pretty well.

I'm sorry we've got so little time for John Ehrlichman, and I'm going to ask John to talk for maybe five minutes, and then to pass out to you three single sheets of paper on three issues.

One is Boston, where I think we have a very good case.

I was sitting down with John the other day, and I said, you know, the fellows have got to go out and ask you some questions.

Let's just give them the kind of money you have.

The fact is, on the issue of prices,

And the third is on the issue of drugs, where this administration has a really splendid record, which is not well known.

If I were making a speech on investigations, of course, there are many other investigations.

but all I have to say is that where busing is an issue, we've got a good case.

Drugs is an issue in every place.

We've got a very strong case.

And on the other point that we made, I think that we have a food crisis situation.

While it has been a negative issue for us over this time, it can now become a very positive issue.

If any of you have any doubts about it, listen to John Connolly sometimes.

He had a great speech in Chicago yesterday.

Okay, John.

Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, Senator Smith and gentlemen, we're going to take a couple minutes with these back seats.

If you'd pass those down, Senator Dinkley, you have them there.

I'm going to do this, Margaret, and Senator Sue Jelen, from now on.

I'm having to be in the stuff from time to time.

This will help you a few.

We're going to kind of develop very short black sheets into black sheets.

rather than giving you the whole speeches to read, because you don't have the time.

These are not examples of colors, but they give you the hard facts, and then you can put the other things in.

Good.

Now, any envelope is bad material on drugs and busking.

You don't even need to open that for now.

But the three one-pagers on top, I'd like to run through with you very quickly.

The first one on drugs.

In your envelope is an entire six-page backup package from which you can make 50 species of drugs.

But the important thing, I think, that you want to stress about drugs is that nothing happened in this country before 1969.

The federal government was virtually dormant with their narcotics.

And it's a little bit like this.

The DMV just moved in and occupied the territory, and we've been fighting to get it back.

And we're now fighting on three fronts.

We're fighting abroad to cut it off at the source of supply.

We're fighting the law enforcement friends in this country.

And that's like a mopping-up operation.

We're moving in on rehabilitation, education, and training.

on the third front.

We are beginning to win the rally.

And I think it is a prime example of presidential leadership that you can stress.

It is one of those kinds of issues that is so interconnected with every other issue.

On the domestic side, in the cities, crime is singularly connected to the narcotics problem.

If we can let narcotics in this country, we can bring our crime rate way, way, way down.

In the major cities, 50%.

That's all crimes committed by narcotics.

And that's one of the reasons we're on the go for putting this.

One of the reasons that we have a good crime record in the city of Washington now is that we have a good narcotics operation in the city of Washington, and the two are just length.

Urban housing problems.

If you go out here and look at these public housing projects with the windows out and vandalized and all the rest of it, why are they vandalized?

Well, again, you've got people that pay $30 to $60 a day to feed a heroin cabinet.

And they're going to strip cars, they're going to strip housing, they're going to steal any place they can steal to feed that habit.

So that this underlies a great many of our other problems, which can't really be solved until we solve this one.

Now, what's happening?

Remaining headway abroad.

I won't spend time on that.

That's been mentioned to you before, I think.

But the government is organized to do this job now.

Under Secretary Rogers and a cabinet committee.

Secondly, the President's program, as to our third Senate meeting in the House, which was such a great news item a while back, has been a booming success.

We have brought the incidence of narcotics use among our forces in the Far East down by two-thirds as a result of this program.

And many, many of these fellows who would have come home and gone into the stream in this country as users, as confirmed addicts, have been rehabilitated, and they're at work, and they're good citizens as a result of this successful program.

Finally, on domestic law enforcement, we're getting very good payout for a lot of increased evidence.

We have some new things coming out.

We have the so-called black ribbon juries.

A lot of our narcotics problems are in the black kennel areas.

And we're not getting at the pushers with conventional law enforcement methods.

And so we're going to convene grand juries in major cities of this country, and we're going to bring in the pushers, and we're going to bring in the users, and we're going to require them to testify as to their sources of supply.

We're going to knock over these pushers and these wholesalers through the device of these grand juries.

We're also moving on from a tax standpoint.

You may have read that we're making dozens and dozens and dozens

of non-user, wholesalers, and retailers of narcotics because of tax evasion.

And so we've got a very comprehensive and well-coordinated attack, and it's beginning to pay off.

The other thing we've been arguing is the heroin hotline, because nine-tenths of this battle is intelligence and finding out what's going on.

The first 72 hours of that telephone line being opened, we had about 1,000 replies and well over half of them

are reliable tips that are going to lead to making additional cases against retailers and wholesalers.

Uh, on the red, those on your figure, with your, uh, your little, uh, talking point, put down that telephone number.

Yes, sir.

That's, uh, I have a telephone number.

If you ever make a speech, let me see if you can render a public service on chosen.

Look, there's a Carolina hotline here.

Call this, this, and this.

The president was speaking to it, and that picture followed up, you know, get people to rattle on some of these funds.

Now, the important thing is, a year ago, we couldn't use them online like that.

We didn't have any way of following up and acting on these tips as we got them.

We now have the law enforcement machinery.

We've got the time to speak to local law enforcement agencies.

We've got their training up to the place where we can move on these things.

And as we say here, in education rehabilitation treatment, while we've done a lot of the education side, we've been half-strung on the rehabilitation side.

The bill just passed.

As you know, we've got the money now.

We're going to go into the rehabilitation business in a very big way.

Up to now, we've been doing it through VA hospitals and other sort of facilities.

But under the present, we have

nine-fold increased the money that's gone into this program, but that doesn't tell the whole story.

What really tells the story is the remobilization, not only of the federal record, but also of the state and local record, in literally a massive attack on Public Enemy No.

1.

Now, as I say, we are wishing total war against the drug traffic in the United States.

And that's something that everybody with an enemy that we all know is an enemy should be worked out.

A quick word about food prices, which is another key that you have.

You will see in the polls, and you'll get a lot of questions, you go around about why don't we have controls on food prices.

That was sort of the inference of the Life magazine piece yesterday.

Controls of food prices have never worked in this country.

Let me give you a little rundown of the history and the rationale of why you can't have controls on food prices.

At the same time, the President and Secretary of Treasury have done some effective things toward bringing food prices down.

We've had a flurry.

Now, food prices have their ups and downs historically, and they depend on a lot of things.

Corn blight affects them.

Supply, demand, all of these extrinsic factors will affect food prices, and food prices will go up again.

But there are certain things that we can do and certain things that we have been doing that have had a positive effect on food prices.

The President emphasized the subject when he met with the Cross-Columbian Council, the Secretary of the Treasury, and those changes, those changes, and interestingly enough, as a result of that meeting, I think one meeting with the Secretary of the Treasury, six major food chains imposed voluntary freezes or price reductions as a proximate result.

That's a good old job on you.

The fact that it was lit up in the newspapers, that there's been a lot of publicity about it, has helped to bring those prices down.

And in fact, blue prices, and particularly meat prices, are coming down.

Now that isn't the price of the farm, talk about that.

Now this is the price to the farm.

It is the price to the housewife.

And that, of course, is where we want to put the emphasis.

Actually, the farmer is getting, for me, what he got 20 years ago.

But, of course, costs have run away.

So you can't put the blame at the farmer end.

It's in the processing, the labor costs, and the handling, and on the retailing end.

The point that we make here, or point number four, I think is one that you can continually emphasize that

We are now paying the lowest percentage of our paycheck in this country for food ever in the history of not only this country but the world.

15.6% of after-tax income.

That's down from 20% in 1960 and 22% in 1950.

So we have a favorable trend with regard to the cost of food.

The farmer is more efficient.

Processing is more efficient.

Retailing is more efficient.

And we're getting better value for our food.

Food prices are not rising as fast as other prices.

And that statistic is giving you the bottom of the fact sheet.

But I think it's summing it all up.

It's important that we, for obvious political reasons, not permit anybody to make the argument that the farmer is the blame.

The focus has to be on labor costs, it has to be on processing efficiency, it has to be on retailing profits, and we have to emphasize that there isn't anything that we can do about it in the federal government in terms of controls.

You have to see that full-page ad that was posted this morning.

Good ad by the farmers this morning.

Very good ad.

Now that ad didn't just happen.

We have been encouraging food producers

And Secretary Butts has been very instrumental in this.

To get their story out, there was a good television stop by the producers the other day on NBC, where they had about four minutes.

Yes, sir.

Did you happen to see the 15 and a half pages by the food dealers in the post last Thursday, I think it was?

15 and a half pages.

And how do you say we got one by the food producers?

I have no question about that.

Let me quickly put now, we are backing up both of them.

It's all depends on your decisions.

I'm talking about their decisions.

Farm districts, of course, don't blame the farms.

If you're talking to a sophisticated audience, go into the fact that the food, the percentage of the school-price food is the lowest in history.

But if you're talking to an angry audience, remember that it doesn't, there's all the non-housewives who can't sit in.

There's three things, whether it's right or wrong.

The food prices have gone up and that they're too high.

So emphasize the point that we're fighting all out.

to get those prices, keep them going up, and get them down.

And we're going, the president is fighting, the council is fighting, we're going after the government and we're going after the regime.

Get it back and get it hard.

Don't be too responsible on that issue.

I was interested to hear the comment with relation to Vietnam about an iron curtain of communication.

If there has ever been such a thing,

As to which there has been an iron curtain on communication, it is this one on busing.

We have out there in the country 80-some percent of the people who oppose busing.

We have an administration that has made a number of very constructive proposals with regard to this.

But what comes out of the tube every evening at 6.30 and 7 o'clock on this subject, you would assume that 99.5% of the people in the United States favor busing to achieve racial balance, and that somehow or another, the president had lost his mind on this.

Let's get it right now to the fundamentals, and it gets back to the fight that Margaret Sharp did a moment ago.

80% of the people do oppose busing.

90% of the media favor busting, except for their own children.

The one thing that I think we're not getting across that is so theoretically important is that the President's proposal does not discriminate against the South in favor of the North.

That's the common criticism that we hear most particularly.

that the President's proposal somehow frees the South because of all the court orders down there that wouldn't be effective, and yet protect the North against the same kind of court orders.

Now, point of fact, that's absolutely wrong.

I cite to you in these notes Section 406, and here I hope you'll find the bill.

If you look at Section 406, what that says is that if the legislation is adopted,

that any school district, any section of the country, under any circumstances, whether under a court decree or a plan, has the right to come in and petition for a reopening so that their level of transportation can be brought into conformity with all of the other school districts in the country, under whatever national policy is legislated by the Congress.

And you see, the vice in the present situation is we don't have a national policy.

We have umpteen thousand district judges out there, each one developing his own policy with regard to busing.

And as a result, we've got a crazy quote,

We've got courts like the Richmond Court way out ahead of the Supreme Court, way out ahead of anything that the Congress has ever legislated.

And what the President simply has proposed is that we have a moratorium effective immediately to put a stop to that, and that the Congress be given a chance to deliberately and rationally adopt a national public policy on its subject.

Does it deal with three aspects of the problem?

The remedies aspect, what's that?

And the president proposes that that remedy be at the bottom of the list.

Still available, where needed, temporarily, but the bottom of the list is priorities among all the remedies that are available.

Uh, are any circumstances used for choosing the six grades below?

That's correct, and that's what the reference to K-6 is down in .4B3 here.

Secondly, that it deal with the problem of the fact that some kids do go to the interior schools, but nothing is going to help them because there's so many of them.

That we need to deal with the problem of the interior schools.

Now, we've got a lot of argument.

Well, will massive infusions of money really improve their education?

The interesting thing is, nobody knows.

Nobody knows whether it will, nobody knows whether it won't.

But there's sufficient evidence to lead the President and the experts in the field to think that it is worth the try.

Now, what the President's been saying since the day he got here is that we've got to know more about how to educate our kids.

Because we don't know.

The professional educators don't have the answers.

So we ought to be putting money into a program to find out about education and how to educate kids.

Now that's a separate story, but we've had a bill up there now for three years to try and do that.

That's a separate story.

This is an immediate proposal to begin to try and do something about it using the best available evidence that we have.

No guarantees, but the best available evidence that we have.

John, may I interrupt?

Every time we talk affirmatively about compensatory education,

the question is raised, well, what evidence do you have?

And then they come back and say, well, the Coleman report says that busing does show an increase in the educational capability.

Isn't there some evidence that we can say discredits Coleman or that's affirmative from our experience?

In fact, you will find at a press conference where Elliot Richardson and a number of experts, both on the education and the legal side, were asked questions for two hours over here in Houston.

You will find those questions put and answers to.

At the same time, we have charged ATW with going out and doing a survey of every experiment in the country on this subject.

Within about 10 days, we will be distributing to you the results of that survey.

And the 10-day findings are very encouraging in direction of supporting the President's proposal.

There's a man, Jerry, by the name of Dr. R., who was a sociologist and professor at Harvard, who has made, up to date, the only study of what the effect of forced busing has had in terms of educational improvement and in terms of racial relations.

And he's come up with a book that should be published on May 1st, I believe.

Now that has had an adverse effect on racial relations, or at least no approval, and that there has been no appreciable increase in educational quality by virtue of this.

Now we've tried to get him to testify, and he refuses to do it.

because he says he'd be a pariah in the educational world.

And until many want, when this book comes out, which will come out to gather his facts, he simply will not testify.

But by that time, we will have something in a non-governmental authorized study which he can use.

I got to again say this, John, and Mr. President, I do it again as I did before.

I think out of our committee, what you're going to get is an additional two and a half million dollars out of Title I for the recommendation to be concentrated within the Title I schools which have low-income people, and that you will not get the bill that you asked for.

Correct.

Let me come back at this another way.

For sure, there isn't money enough in this country, and there isn't time enough to put every disadvantaged kid on a bus and take it someplace.

Number one, we haven't got enough someplace to put a tank.

I know it's cold.

It's a very high-intensity column.

He believes that he goes back to 1954.

He believes that forced integration is the only answer to the problem.

But if you press hold, you wouldn't have.

that no more, that there's no any way, any way, that more than 20%, 20% of the black children, and that's what we're talking about, I mean, I don't know about Puerto Ricans and Mexicans and Indians and the rest, but it's the black, that 20% of the black children who live in the central cities of this country in the next 25 years could be affected by any busing program approval.

That's to mean we went all out.

No way.

What about those other 80%?

Are you going to allow 80% of the black children of New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Cleveland to grow up and live there in those cities going to inferior schools with inferior teachers and so forth in order to have this social experiment by some cuckold head that they call a trillion?

And the answer is no.

That's what we're saying in the past.

Through education, where most of the children are, first, I think we've got to get away from some of the actions.

Most people think very simply.

Oh, I know you do.

One, we're going to stop all new busing.

Everybody, start east, west, and south.

And the Congress ought to get off its tail and pass that plea.

Second, we're going to, we're asking the Congress to pass legislation

which will enable us to improve education quality for everybody, and particularly, not to leave a lost generation of black children in our central cities who are never going to be affected by these schemes of the social class, as well as the people who can't ride a bicycle.

Mr. President, I'm curious what you're up against.

Remember last night,

Prince George's County has a school called Northwestern High School.

There's about 11% black population bus in Northwestern High School, mostly bus.

They had a confrontation between black and white students in the park.

The whole school was disrupted.

The principal sent for the police.

The reporters went out, and the story that was written in last night's paper was that the...

— 1 min 9 s with no transcribed speech —

those cities going to inferior schools with inferior teachers, and so forth, in order to have this social experiment by some cuckold head that they call a trillion?

And the answer is no.

That's what we're saying in effect.

Improve education where most of the children are first.

I think we've gotta get away from some of the action.

Oh, I know you do.

Why?

We're going to stop all new busing.

Everybody, start east, west, and south.

And the Congress ought to get off its tail and pass that, pass that plea.

Second, we're going to, we're asking the Congress to pass legislation which will enable us to improve education quality for everybody, and particularly not to leave a lost generation of black children

in our central cities, who are never going to be affected by these schemes of the social plans, as well as the people who can't bike or the bicycles and trains.

Mr. President, to give you an idea of what you're up against, remember last night, Prince George's County has a school called Northwestern High School.

There's about 11% black population plus in the Northwestern High School, mostly blacks.

They had a confrontation between black and white students in the park.

The whole school was disrupted.

The principal sent for the police.

The reporters went out and the story that was written in last night's paper

was that the police were the instigators of the problem by coming and that it was the fault of the students of Ohio.

That's what you're saying.

Everybody has a footnote.

We have begun to intervene in any case

Involved in the proposed massive cross-county busing all over the country.

We will have a very comprehensive announcement by the Justice Department this week.

This is in aid of the President's policy.

The media response to that already has been that the credits are getting its short shrift.

If it really was that guy intervening in another Detroit case for that judge, thank God we didn't appoint one in the future.

This is a people response.

It is a surprise that the judge would resist this intervention.

No, thank you.

The whole scheme here is to put this in the hands of the Congress to announce public policy so that we don't any longer have this jerry-rigged judicial pattern of inconsistent results around the country.

And we have, obviously, some vested interests involved.

Do you need more of these fact sheets for any reason?

Why, we'd be very glad to thank you.

My view is that on the fact sheets, if you, well, of course, the leaders, but particularly

I guess all the congressmen or something like that would save you.

I'd like to refer a candidate or the candidates to run them off, if not.

And also the packet of materials, you know, some of those candidates who've got more time as congressmen, they might read the back of that material.

Thank you.

Mr. President, on this equal educational opportunity bill, which I introduced on the other hand, we haven't had one single witness until the committee is supported in terms of what they said in the press, or what the press picked up.

Some of them have supported compensatory education if you divorce them from the busing issue.

They've all been made to busing issues.

We have gotten together with HEW and they've given us a list of names that they think maybe we could get some help out of.

Every one of them are educators by and large.

Every one of them has been a weasel that they're on track.

The answer that you're going to get from the majority of the debate is going to be that if compensatory education, I'm sorry, if education is good,

then the way to do it is to put the additional amount in Title I and concentrate it in the schools which need it, and forget about the busing thing, because that's a step backward.

This is what in the ACB, everybody said courses.

It's getting a lot of publicity, and one of the reasons I'm paying it up is I've got to meet with those people again at the end of the day on the same subject.

I would like to be able to tell them that we have witnesses picked down that will come.

I can't quite say that yet.

And I'm going to try again and be a little bit negative.

I'm going to do it on purpose to try and get at least lots of people.

George, I believe in giving credit.

I think we should all give Scoop Jackson credit.

of being the only Democratic candidate for the presidency, either announced or in the wings, he says he's getting to another school.

The great-uncle Paul sent their children to the president's school.

But I agree that it's true.

Let me just say one other thing.

Let me say I admire anybody that sits on the Labor Committee of the Senate.

I was once on it for two years.

That was six years too long, but any of that.

They say, why do you run for vice president?

You know, that's the thing.

And I was on the Labor Committee of the House, which was a better time for you.

That's what we got to have heard.

What I'd like to say here is this.

Look, this piece is pretty cold turkey, but what kind of legislation you're going to get, God knows.

Thank you.

What are the women's going to be like?

They're all going to be for the fashionable thing, which is for busing for everybody except their own children.

That's the middle of the list.

And the school, of course, is going to be for busing.

So, he's just an honest man.

The point that I made is, put every Democratic candidate

put every Democratic candidate in the position to be for busing, and we're just making black and white.

And I don't mean a ton of that.

I just have to say that that's what you have to do.

That's what the issue is.

Our Democratic candidates are all for busing.

They have to be, because they've got that consistency there that they can't lose.

We're against it, not because we're anti-black, but because most blacks are against it.

We're against it.

Period.

And I think that's what we've got to hit and keep hammering over and over again.

And this is the responsible way to get out of the trouble.

Now you've got the constitutional amendment, then in the wings and so forth, we've already told.

The Constitutional Amendment is an unapproachable is and won't do anything about it now.

We want to do something about it now through the moratorium.

We think the legislation gives us a better way to get at the problem.

And it is, of course, the right way.

If you're doing the legislation, you shouldn't go to the Constitution.

The main point is there is a basic fundamental difference of opinion between decent people in this country.

And Coleman is a fine, decent, honorable man.

I've met him and talked to him.

There may be

who simply believe busing and forced integration of education and housing is a good thing.

I don't agree.

We don't agree.

I trust those of you who don't.

If you don't agree, say so, and we'll lay it right out there on the line, hard, clear.

Mr. President, something that I've been saying, and I think we all agree, and I don't stress it all, is that if others said it, maybe it would finally impact them.

Uh, they're getting a message in Michigan that, uh, they have this extended political circus order in the Judiciary Committee.

It's a way of taking into consideration your moratorium legislation and the constitutional amendment on Boston.

And maybe that's one of the main reasons they're doing that.

That's what it's doing.

I think it could be well for you to say that one of the problems today is that we're not, we can't get our legislation up.

That's right.

If you just say that, we drag it out.

We have a little problem in the House, however, because you're holding hearing in the Judiciary Committee this morning.

They've not been planning the first way to testify, so we've got to be a little careful on that.

I'll wait.

I'd like to say that

There's no action in Congress on the moratorium.

Congress will get it, Paul, but the administration will get the money.

There's not likely to be any action in the Judiciary Committee that happens, so we'll have to pick some other action.

There's not likely, the Rules Committee was not likely to take the bill away from the Judiciary Committee.

And it must have been the Conference Committee on the Higher Education Bill.

At this point, it's not likely.

to take the moratorium bill in its present form, and I have a suggestion to make that I believe might relieve that situation.

As I said, use some of the necessary mechanisms, when you will, to allow the conferees to stay in defense, those who don't want to rubber-stamp the administration's proposal.

We need some mechanism that will console the anxieties of the conservatives and the anxieties of the liberals.

And the mechanism I suggest is one which has a track record around here, a recent track record, and that is a quick court test of the constitutionality of the moratorium.

On the 18-year-old Rowland statue, we provided such a mechanism.

That mechanism allows the liberal to explain, give us some concern about the challenge of constitutionality by saying that the courts will have an early opportunity to decide whether this statute is constitutional or unconstitutional.

In this context, the liberal people will be accommodated in the same way.

And in this context, the conservative people will be engaged.

Because the conservative either thinks that the court's policy will uphold the constitutionality of the moratorium and that this will enable the Congress graciously

to act on the substitute legislation, or, in the alternative, if the courts won't find the military in front of the Constitution, in any case, they'll move out the constitutional amendment.

You don't need to put that in the legislation.

I mean that I would, and I've already drafted language.

And I've already drafted language that puts out all the votes to satisfy, well, wouldn't you, wouldn't you do that?

And if such language were offered by a country,

It would be a face-saving device for the Congress.

And I said, it would appease both these voices.

It would spring the thing.

There's no other possibility of moving that legislation in the House of Representatives.

But let me ask you this, Dick.

If you don't have the moratorium legislation on the section, what do you accomplish by getting a quick test through the conference and the education, higher education?

I was about to say that if the court finds the moratorium is unconstitutional,

The discharge petition on the constitutional amendment will be signed.

And this will be on the conservative nuclear.

How do you get it before the court?

You mean, what is the mechanism for a quick court test?

I don't understand.

Oh.

How do you, or what good does it do to get a quick court test if you don't have the moratorium legislation on the statute books?

Well, I'm saying that the quick court test is the thing that will put the moratorium on the statute books.

It would come out as clear as day.

Oh, you mean that it is a conference death penalty?

Yeah.

And plus a quick court test.

Oh, I understand that.

We'll have to adjourn the meeting.

Thank you all for coming.

Nixon, Agnew & Scott on Vietnam War and Vietnamization

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Also recorded on April 12, 1972

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Nixon, Agnew & Scott on Vietnam War and Vietnamization

AI Summary

Audio

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on April 12, 1972

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