Conversation 100-017

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Maybe he has good news or bad news, of course.

I don't know.

First you hear the good news, then you hear the bad news, and vice versa.

There's nothing wrong with the other one

All those.

Amen.

Thank you.

They had to finish that operation.

They were lost and shot down in three days.

Thank you.

You know why that was?

Because he attacked the new economic problem.

Yeah, that's right.

You know what I mean?

Of course, we had a huge situation there.

There's no us against them.

Yes, it comes.

It's all over the place.

Well, they were again at the end, so I mean, they had all the antiques out.

Sure they were.

...farmers are strong... Gentlemen of the president's office...

I suppose all of you are aware that we have a .

In the present situation,

While certainly not as critical as it is in the press, it is certainly one that we would have to say is in balance.

There is a serious question as to whether the South Vietnamese have both the will and frankly the love of my man to him.

They have done reasonably well in some places and very well in other places.

We have been frankly surprised by

The quantity, the quality of the Soviet arms, the army, means that the record has to show here that the United States gave its allies inferior equipment compared to what the Soviet gave its allies.

And we, of course, provided an equalizer with air support.

But you see in 13 new weapons systems in the Soviet, you see bigger guns, bigger guns.

I suppose even the most popular situation in South Vietnam would agree.

There is a substantial danger, not sure, but a substantial danger that the South Vietnamese may not be able to hold, by holding this particular way area.

We seem to be doing considerably better in the third quarter, which of course is where more of the population is, and the fourth quarter is where we have such symbolic importance.

an impact, of course, will come in a few weeks or days.

That will be, could be, have a great psychological effect.

So putting it, without putting it to the terms of those who want to see them loose, but that is inevitable, they're not going to lose, because they have decisions abroad and all that, but it's not true.

But also put it in realistic terms.

There's a real question as to what will happen in the summer.

That question is one that we have no answer to, but we have to, in making any decision, we have to take into consideration.

And what will we do and what could we do to change it?

Several courses of action are suggested.

What is suggested?

Just wait it out.

That's what I'm thinking of.

There's just quite enough to get society at a pace and do the job on the ground.

We can all do the job.

It's a great deal, right?

And we've done as much as we can.

It's also very effective.

because it's part of the opposition.

We could blame them for getting us into the war and sabotaging our efforts to get us out.

We could also blame them, therefore, for breaking our negotiations.

We made the record very clear that every time we even had a double negotiating process, then either a Senate resolution or some statement by a major opposition leader, which gave the enemy the courage to just win the South, they might get it in the Senate.

The Congress of the United States, we will not be able to negotiate with you.

And I would think what the staff, like most American people, are so tired of the work that they might as well say.

Well, it's a question that all this administration has done its best to give itself an honor.

It needs to save themselves.

It's attempting, frankly, a proposition.

And if it wasn't, it would be sold.

and certainly to our friends on the Democratic side who must innovate.

They might have a way to sell it, but that's what they're advocating.

And it could be sold to a great number of our public friends who are also tired of this long and desperate effort, where they think, actually, we should have done this long ago.

That makes its problems.

Perhaps you may think that

As we look to the future, if after all the effort we have made in South Vietnam, they basically, a Soviet-supported operation that succeeds over a U.S.-supported operation, the effect on

Our other allies around the world, of course, would be considerable.

In fact, in the United States, I think it would be considerable that the first flush of relief would get them done.

And also, I think we would have to agree that in terms of our ability to wage and conduct internal foreign policy and some of the meetings and the rest would be rather seriously in peril.

That leaves out the whole proposition of whether the dominoes and so forth, which is, I don't reject, but most of the experts, bureaucracies, and the national ones at least, when it comes to whether to talk to the dominoes, if you could talk to the Thais, or even the Asians, or for that matter, let alone Cambodians, the Oceans, and so forth and so on.

Effectively, that's basically an American failure.

And it would be called that even though we would pin it on the South Korean peace.

An American failure under its success would be rather considerable on our foreign policy.

So then what do we do?

What else could we do?

I'm trying to say it's a good idea.

There's, of course, the diplomatic track.

I think we have to realize the diplomatic track at the present time is totally blocking.

The public bill sessions we've had recently have been the most unproductive day that we've had.

Everyone in Paris last week, it was the

made every offer that we've made previously and a few more, including those that some of the senators have been advocating and some of the black reviews that we're discussing.

So basically,

are taking, are not only getting out, but are replacing you, not replacing you, but getting him out, but doing it in a way that the Greeks and all of the people who were imprisoned and so forth and so on, in a way that a communist takeover would be inevitable.

This situation, of course, this is a much harder position than they've ever taken Greece, and the race is quite obvious.

We all know that you can only negotiate what you win on a battlefield.

The communists know it from long experience.

They've fought for 20 years.

They know that they're winning.

They're getting tougher at the bargaining table, and they will continue to be tough.

I would say that at this time, if anybody would just say, well, can't we negotiate something?

Is there something more that we can offer that we haven't offered previously?

I do not think of anything that we can offer to negotiate at this time.

That would provide any chance for any reasonable sum of other things.

And the one that they call the first force is the Canadian police campaign.

And the South Asian police campaign, we've done all that we should.

We've done straight out.

So, probably that comes to the military side.

There is a considerable body of opinion, I'm afraid, the belief that it is not a majority of opinion, but there is a considerable body of opinion.

there could be more, more airstrikes in supply areas in North Vietnam in particular than I know I can carry.

I didn't know either, but I think there's two or three that I might mention.

One, what's expected, and two, this is by the North Vietnamese, so we better prepare to have three to go in that way.

Two,

General Abrams feels that he needs those assets, when I speak of those assets, the major part of those assets in terms of the use and the rest for the battle of the South.

That's a very, very common argument.

And a tree, a very serious function of the school of law.

how effective it would be.

Obviously, the second reason would be the bombing.

It's not something that we're starting to stop doing on a regular basis, which is what this school is going to be advocating.

We haven't realized the great problems of the bombing, the great situation.

And the question is what we're going to accomplish.

The final question.

course of action, and I mean, I mean, there are other great nations that I've mentioned.

It's what we need to pray about.

We'll pray to God.

That is, to the program that is connected to this muscle, to cut off the flow of supplies in North Vietnam, by sea, and of course, by rail.

Uh, just looking at this, we'll have a brief lag for getting home since we're all very late.

There's still a high point, as everyone said.

Uh, the, uh, uh, the, the FIC is...

practically inconclusive.

The effect by rail is doubt.

There's always doubt in all of these matters because then that's based on what was done during the bombing in 1965 and 1968 when people in the rail lines were rather regularly and apparently rather intentionally.

The question is whether we got this line,

I think we have to realize that if we were to take this course of action and make objections and raise what would not affect the family of the son, even as, of course, it would affect the psychological, it would affect it in terms of what happens three or four months from now, that's for sure.

Well, I think.

to be laid to rest right at the outset is, and you talk about the sun, people say, well, you must, I know I hide from them.

They might jeopardize the sun.

You must do anything in terms of, let's say, mining harbors means it might jeopardize the sun.

I think we have to realize that the situation, militarily in Vietnam, is the day that we need the sun.

The President of the United States cannot go to the summit with Soviet tanks and guns running through the streets of Hawaii.

So the summit is jeopardized, we have to realize, by all these courses of action.

It's jeopardized by just not doing anything.

It is jeopardized, certainly, by going to the bombing group.

It would be very seriously jeopardized by the other, the Mayan group.

So that consideration is one that we have to just assume.

I would just include the opening remarks by saying, from a political standpoint, well, first from a subsidy standpoint, there isn't any good choice and no sure choice.

The only sure one is the bug out choice, where I say, which could be good politically, but I'm not sure.

what the office would be worth and what the country would stand for if we were to go that route.

The others, the increase of the use of air power against targets in North Vietnam, or the use of CN air power to cut off supplies in North Vietnam, both of those

They have very great consequences on our foreign policy abroad, and they've had great consequences politically at home.

The majority of the American people are very much retired from the war.

So there's nothing we can say is sure.

There's nothing that we can say also is, this does not have serious risks, risks as far as public opinion, risks as far as what the Congress will do, cutting off funds or this or that or the other.

we have to weigh as we reach a decision of this kind of work.

However, as these various questions are raised, and I'm not talking for some of the work in this, but as these questions are raised, when anybody raises a question about a risk, he's got to look at what the risks are of choice.

And as I say,

So we began all of our discussions today with the proposition to face a situation where there's nothing sure, there are no good choices.

Every course of action we have, well, it's very, very great risks, and risks politically, and more importantly, risks to the country and the world.

We tried all these policies, and it fails.

And of course, getting one of them to the table.

I, as you can get one of my remarks, believe the first course of action, just let it go down the road and continue to provide as much money as we can.

Let the South be in the means of all of us.

Let it appear to be pushing.

Let it appear to be helping the best we could and making the best we could to get our prisoners out.

I have the belief that that is one that is perhaps the least viable.

I mean, the best politically, perhaps.

But, however, the least attractive from other standpoints because of its long-range capacity.

On the other hand, I would have to very frankly admit that desolation in terms of bombing more in the north, so desolation in terms of what you would call, in terms of trying to enable a terror cutoff of supplies in the north,

have a questionable value in terms of what they will accomplish.

They are not neither assuring if the balance in the side of success is long or we have found nothing assuring if the side of balance is successful.

It's only a question of degrees whether there is a better chance of proceeding on either the mean response or

The step of going further and flying may just enable an aircraft that also flies so far.

Whether going further provides a degree of greater chance of success for the South Vietnamese boat than if we just proceed from the present course.

It's all these factors that we have to weigh, and it's a necessary one.

I'm going to share with you a list of readings.

Admiral Moore is my idea, so that you might be able to hear what we could expect from actions that we take.

Admiral Moore will read on the military aspects of our mining operations, and I understand also on the air operations that we've evolved against railways.

I think you were off first, but I thought the animal would show up.

I think he tried to see what we were going to do and analyze what was going to happen if he doesn't.

Mr. President, first I'll address the mining plan.

It's proposed in this plan to use two kinds of mines.

First, the large mines, which are designed to be used against ocean-going ships.

Second, the Mark 36, Mark 40 destructive, which is a device which screws into the tail-fused well of the regular bomb and maintains

a small mine for in addition of a small craft.

The area, of course, of prime interest and concern is the channel into Highmont.

This channel is very narrow, very shallow, and it tends to silt up from a technical point of view is ideal for mining.

I have shown here the

minefields that were being laid in the High Park area.

In the green area, we proposed to lay the big mines here and here.

Any ship that would hit one of those mines and was stuck in that channel would in fact block the channel until the ship was moved.

The red areas here in the High Park area

shows that the area in which we would place the destructions.

There have been occasions where some ships have all floated up against campfire upon gates and come down from this highway into Haiphong.

The height of the shipping in this area compared to what it is here is very light.

There have been an average of about 42 ships going into Haiphong a month.

Today,

a large number of ships in the harbor and some waiting in the river to go alongside the pier.

I think the pier will accommodate about 60 to 70 ships, so they have to wait that time to go in and they have a separate P.O.L.

also in the pier, right in Kitten.

The free-flying is General Hill.

This is a three-mile event that has been put together by the lawyers, the international lawyers.

And so they sent me the people to be inside the three-mile event.

Now the... May I add just an interruption?

Yes.

So that we can have the... We've been working on this.

It's working with the State Department and the State of the People.

That's the part of the question.

That's been going on for the last few days.

All of you, of course, know what's been going on.

That's the idea of national players.

There are lawyers.

That's the idea of national players.

Some of the lawyers think that the three-mile limit is significant in the sense that the, for instance, the Norwegians, the Chinese and the Japanese used the three-mile limit.

And some of them say that if we mined outside, this would set a custom.

On the other hand, since the nation involved, you know,

I would think that San Diego, the fact that this water is mine, well, if they do attempt to make any use of this water in this outside free market for the purpose of attempting to offload or buy light or otherwise, then we should give consideration to mining this area.

Mr. President, Alex Johnson came up with a formulation yesterday that when

In other words, the point is we shouldn't say what we're not going to do.

And we have done so often in the past.

To get down to the specifics, to get down to the technical details, it's proposed to lay signs at 9 o'clock tonight, Washington time, if the plan is carried out as currently set up.

There will be about 30 to 45 minutes of preliminary suppressive action

And the mines would actually go down in just four or five minutes.

It wouldn't take very long to put them down.

Yeah, we wanted to ask a question.

You mean this is all done by air, not by air, by boats?

No, sir, all by air.

All by air.

But each aircraft will drop four mines.

These mines have a parachute on them to retard the impact on water.

How many planes would you lose in such a operation to have pretty heavily sand up there?

I would like to know what kind of pipes are used for such A7 and A6s and I think A6s would go in there for sure and that is what I would like to know because they would want to be able to say that they were and if you know the A6s

In other words, regardless of the weather, you see it's 9 o'clock in the morning, so you will lose quite a bit of water.

I don't find it more a risk than cargo bombing.

It's not as much risk as a bomber pack bomb as we did before.

It's not as much risk.

And we've associated this, we've proposed also to have a gunfire, a diversionary effort against this area, right here.

Now these mines that work in this area will be on the way at high speeds.

She'll be there, she'll be there.

She'll be there.

She'll be there at night, which is tomorrow at that time.

We've proposed to set these mines so that they become active instead of two hours.

In other words, that would give them the chance to then tomorrow receive the warning 72 hours to leave board.

We do not have that kind of flexibility, and that kind of flexibility means a 72-hour option on the destructors.

We only have a 24-hour option for them.

Therefore, we wait 48 hours, then drop the destructors, and then all of them would become active at the same time, which would be 72 hours after the first drop.

In addition to that, we...

has what they call sterilizers, which will make the mine inactive at a selected time.

In this case, these mines are set at about 120 days.

This is not an absolute precise figure.

Of course, the time starts from the time the mine hits the water, and so it's inactive for 72 hours, so it's active at about 116 to 117 days.

We did not propose initially

to put the destructors in Detention Center because of the fact that they have a life of about 180 days.

Their life is determined simply by the length of the battery.

And it's not as precise as the sterilization feature on the big bicycle in the green areas.

This is simply an alternative plan.

We might be able to put the mines in this area right here.

Now, these mines are mass-bandaged, actuated by these magnetic fields around the ship, and we have other mines that are much more difficult to sweep as a matter of fact, mines that we don't think can do so.

We're not putting these mines to end in this initial effort.

However, if, again,

leaving out the option we immediately put those mines in if any concerted sweeping ever takes place.

There's another feature of the mines which I think is

The importance of that is that you can set on the mine what they call ship looks.

This means that the device is very similar to a dial telephone.

And you can set it so the line will get the fifth ship or the third ship or the seventh ship or the other one that happens to pass over.

So this means that when the sweeping efforts are made,

If they are made, you're not, you're never sure that you've got the mine, because you may have swept it up, but you may be set for five foot, and you've swept it four times, and the next time it's just ready to go.

That's all it is.

All right, thank you.

Dr. Kennedy yesterday talked about the fact that mine people could simply go in advance of the ship and sweep it away.

That's not the way this would work.

These mines are on the ground.

They're not mullet.

They're an old conventional sample of anger.

and sitting up like the World War I there, actually laying on the ground, due to the fact that as much silt can drop down by the head of it, it will actually be embedded in this salt mud so that

The situation then will be, if this operation is executed, that 72 hours after the first drop, which would be 0-900 at that time, 9-5-9 at the Washington time, the landfill would be laid.

Now, if I show you the remainder of the area, and hold on, especially here is...

on a larger scale as we propose to lay these disruptors inside these rivers further south.

You see again, the black line is the Free Mile, and the red line is the 12-highway reclaimed by the OPG's.

Coming further south, all the way down to the 14-minute road down to CMC,

There are three more places where we went down.

And these are rivers that are used to buy these little craft that hush the coast as they move up and down and come up in these rivers to try to get to points where they didn't put the material they trust.

And they come down through the Van Ryn Pass and the Geo Pass and so on.

we would receive these minefields as necessary depending on how the situation goes.

That's one feature that the mine has, that you can continue to go back and replenish the field if for any reason you think that the field has been degraded for one reason or another.

So that, in essence, is a mining plant.

As I said, associated with it would be certain suppressive actions simply to provide defense for the mining aircraft in this particular operation.

Now, so far as the associated operations, that is the

In addition, the rail and road lines, as you know, sir, and I think Mr. Helton may talk about this more, there are actually three railroads leading all up from Hanoi in the chapter.

And the proposal here would be to attack the bargaining yards, attack the places where these two railroads come together, and take out all the railroad bridges and the highway bridges leading from the NOAA.

to the north as well as to the south.

As a matter of fact, we've already done some very good work on the LOCs to the south in terms of destroying bridges and ferries and bridges of both railroad and highway.

Now, so far as the effort is concerned, I am

Estimate that, as you know, that we've been putting about 200 sorties in what we call a three-frame operation, that is, a style of 20 degrees, 25 minutes.

And so we would augment that to the extent of about 100 sorties to contain this operation, and that kind of would leave, I think, ample room.

resources for general aid to carry on the land battle in the field of fire that we have.

As you know, you've directed the four additional squadrons to go out there from the Type 49 type of fire squadron.

And the Saratoga will be arriving, so my estimate would be that

Uh, we could, uh, last fall, maybe the, uh, we were currently putting north of the DMZ to go ahead and work on, uh, bridge, uh, some pressure in the air defenses and then work on these, uh, rails as well as, uh, making supply points.

Now, when the ships, the ships could either withdraw during this time, you know, they wouldn't get them, they'd send them to Iowa, they could stay there.

Honestly, if they stay there, they're not configuring any of you, bringing in additional, uh,

So by accident, furthermore, they would be blocking, you might say, the dock area, and it wouldn't be very useful in that regard.

And so then we would carry out the container attacks similar to the ones we did the first time against the warehouse and supplies.

If they just leave, the very first move we would make would be to totally destroy those docks so that they could never be used again in the immediate future.

And that has nothing to do with plants.

And so far as the laying of the minefield is concerned, that is a relatively simple operation.

And to answer your question, I do not think there will be any significant loss.

I understand.

In terms of that cutting, it seems more attractive.

that uh that mining is enough i mean you don't have to uh stop ships and all that sort of thing destroyers up there too but what's the purpose of that well we proposed our initiative to uh conduct our lives that something else supposedly that we did was watching all the ships coming in and it's just coming up two ways and they come uh a few of them come and they're all planning out most of them come

from south, particularly Soviet ships which actually come from the Black Sea.

Very, about 75% of the ships that come in out of the Soviet ships come from the Black Sea rather than from Petropavlovsk or the Pacific coast of Soviet Russia.

And they come right up this way.

The first, the intention of the attack rather than the destroyers was simply to warn all ships that the general had been mined.

And that present one, depending upon the statement you would make, that we will take necessary measures to ensure that the cargo is not destroyed on the beach.

That would be the initial purpose of the destroyer, just to make certain that the ship did get to work.

and that they noticed the mariners or other information had been passed along, which none of them can go in here without a pot.

So they were actually bound together.

There's not a chance in the world of one going up the channel without having been informed that the channel was mined.

That didn't happen anyway, but we would put these destroyers out there just to use.

Notify them and call for their attention to the tanker.

Initially, at least, we were aware of their presence and we wanted to make sure that they knew that the area was actually mine and that they knew that we were not going to commit the offloading of material.

A little later on, Mr. President, I'll give you the names.

I have the names of the ships that are on their way and what their cargoes are.

I have each of the names of the ships and when they're tentatively arriving in the area and what their cargo is.

All right.

I think the most, because I think Mr. Hale is going to talk about the general logistics stockpiles and what it means in terms of months of fuel rate.

Could you do this one point?

How, if at all, would your interdiction of the rail lines be more effective than it was when you were trying to do it from 65 to 65?

Yes, sir.

No, I really, Mark, thank you.

In my view, the wood, this is probably 52, something that there, I suppose it was.

Well, it was used to be 52 on the major, on the major marshaling yards, isn't it?

To answer your question, sir, about the effect of this competitive safety, this is my personal view.

At that time, since so many supplies were coming in by sea,

It was not necessary in any sense for them to even come close to using the capacity of the railroad.

I believe the railroad tank was operating about 10-15% capacity.

Now they had to take the entire input.

and place it on the railroads, then you get a different story in terms of many more trains and many more targets.

And they need to operate, for instance, in daytime.

They won't have an opportunity to hide in tunnels at night.

And so to put the entire load on the railroad will make the interdiction program, in my view, much more effective than it was in 68, because in 68 the railroads were...

I'm not doing too much, although they were, in fact, and they do, I believe, bring in a large part of the weapons.

How about numbers of planes?

Would you have more available now than then or less?

We would have less available than we had at that time.

So we were getting, in that time, as I recall, about 30,000.

Come on, that suits everything.

How are we doing about that now?

A little more than that, but we, of course, are working down here on the land level, too.

The only advantage you would have in terms of planes that would be the use of people to do is not have a plane.

That's one advantage, yes, sir.

They were flying 500 sorties.

They were going to interdict the rail lines in those areas.

They were flying 500 sorties.

um day that we're doing about 15 000 a month in a general area but uh couldn't lock out the room well we had to see i i think how was i supposed to do a study the 68 report and 67 report but uh we get into that later but i don't want to get into

But the whole point, Mr. President, is that the railroads in those days would not use anything like that capacity.

If they had denied any use to the board, they would have to press the railroads.

And when you get into something like P.O.L., P.O.,

where I believe there are about an estimated 100,000 tons available now, although we have destroyed quite a bit.

I don't know how high that figure is, but that could last them as much as three months.

It would be quite a bit of a proposition to bring in the fuel oil and the lowest percentage of food that they're bringing in by ship, and then also impose that on the railroads, might be it.

So that's the big difference between, you can't go after a renovation system one category at a time.

And that's essentially what we tried to do in 68, whereas this time we're going at both categories, sea and land.

In my view, that would be more effective than the campaign we conducted in 1968.

Are you satisfied that the mining will

adequately block the channel in the pipeline?

Yeah, it'll block that channel.

So you have no doubt about that?

Yeah.

What about offshore unloading?

Could they do that before, and can we prevent it this time?

They will try some of that, and they will try, they could even say, well, they're going to unload in China, and then load on the trains and try to bring it down that way.

That's why I say that it's necessary to take both types of transportation or supply.

I don't know why at one time they made the attempt to fly it, but I think that we can...

using the gun of the ships as well as the aircraft, but I certainly cut that down to a trickle or we can just tell them that it's not going to be committed to the accident.

It's not committed.

We have that option.

And that's why I think this is why I support it.

You're going to send it out to attack the ship that's unloading?

You're doing a good job.

Yes.

But they'll land and you might as well just

except the fact that they will later.

How many lighters do they have?

Thousands of lighters.

When they were offloading the Russian ship down off the demilitarized zone, they had about 500 of them.

They were taking POL and just dragging it across so that you could use all sorts of... Well, in effect, that would be a blockade if we said, in effect, if you unload, we will attack your ship.

That's what you would do, of course.

Sure.

In other words, you can't.

It would be useless to just drop two mines and then do it in another way.

But you've got a capability, in other words, if the order is given to stop that kind of activity.

You can't go blockade and mining.

Blockade and mining, as I understand it.

Blockade comes and has to stay.

Well, as I understand it, I have to be ready to do it.

As I understand it, the law isn't going to test me.

If you do it inside the territorial waters and call it an addiction, it's a somewhat different process.

The blockade, as I understood Alex Johnson's presentation yesterday,

applies to stopping ships on the high seas bound for student ports.

This is an exercise of whatever war-making activities are going on inside the territory of either the three island countries.

The difference would be that this would not be stopping ships on the high seas.

Exactly.

Whatever we do, we will be hiding in the very middle of the high seas.

and seems to make a legal difference.

I really don't think they're legal.

I really was thinking about the practical implications.

The practical implications are if they attempt to unload, we'd attack the ship that was doing the unloading.

Yeah, I think that's a good question.

Whether we're going to do that.

If we're going to attack any ship unloading on the coast,

by lighters, why wouldn't we be willing to attack the ship?

Attack it at the top and tie it up?

Oh, we will have to.

Let's understand that if the order is given, first in mind, 72 hours, then the Docks and Ipons will be taken out, together with the warehouses.

That would be an obvious target.

And any ships that attempt to unload will be attacked.

Any ship that has a three-mile window is barricaded?

Or 12.

because we are the only attacking alliance.

If you're going for the docks, you've got to be willing to get the checks.

Now, this idea that you can just take the lighters out and not take the docks out and so forth, I think that position has to be faced up to a certain limit.

Well, they have 72 hours before the clients come back.

I understood you were going to give them the option to stay in there, but you've got to give them 72 hours to get out if you notice that they were vulnerable.

Sir, could you explain that now?

Why can't you go after the fighters if they offload, offload?

Well, because you're going to go after the docks, Henry, and I am sure that the Soviets will keep ships at the docks.

They're not going to pull their ships out.

I think the British ships and the other ships will come out of the port, but I believe the Soviets will have ships at the docks.

Of course, if you have the channel mine, there's no hurry about taking out the docks because nobody's going to use the docks.

The immediate operational question is if they're going to light it.

Was he going to dock the lighters or the sheds?

I don't see any point in docking the ships if the dock didn't light it.

Well, I'd like to, I think you want to take the docks out sooner or later, maybe not.

Because of what's around them.

Yeah, because of the warehouses and so forth.

You see the problem here is that as far as the military significance of this operation,

It'll have its effect four or five months from now, not now.

Because the stuff that's coming in through the ports, and I have lists of it right here, there is largely in the area of some economic military assistance material, foodstuffs, largely foodstuffs.

All of the military equipment has it all.

We've never been able to get any military equipment except for trucks.

How about POL?

POL comes in through that particular part of the truck.

And the port facility, they have about four months of POL in the country.

So the POL supply, if you shut that off, you will get an effect within a period of time.

How do they bring in their tanks there?

The tanks that all come in through the ring and they come down to the two rail rods.

The missiles have come in that way and we have never seen any aircraft.

We have gone through all the pictures we have.

Aircraft does not come in the same manner either.

The same missiles almost all of them.

That's one idea.

We don't know whether the missiles came in by ship or whether the missiles came in by rail.

We have pictures of them coming in by rail, but we don't have pictures of them coming in by ship.

A military object comes in by ship, and of course the oil.

Well, because that's the...

And they have four months now, and the intelligence community estimates that if they go on rations in Hanoi, and I follow the domestic area where they use about 25% of the fuel right now, they could stretch that one more month.

Total how many months?

They could possibly go to five months, because that takes into account what airstrikes we continue to make, supplies in the country.

That is, those are just the airstrikes we've made up to the present time.

Good, so many.

Most of them are airstrikes.

Okay.

Now, this plan, this is additional strikes against DOL, warehouses.

Oh, yes.

Well, we're doing that now, about 200 sorties, and that's mostly what we're trying to take out right now.

But no, we've been, except for one time, you see, we've been landing that to south of 20 degrees in 25 minutes.

It would not make sense to take all the risks, the pain, the money, unless we went all out on every three of the friends first.

There has to be a much better effort on the rail lines in May 1968.

That means using planes in a more effective way, and of course,

And also, there has to be that the business is sputtering to start a business of bombing Hanoi Haiphong for two days and stopping, which is all we've done so far.

And then one other day, that stops the Hanoi Haiphong area, and particularly in terms of its oil, the power plants.

Everything is industrialized, working, investing.

The attacks on that, in other words, but this is kind of a plan with a visage.

Basically this is, there isn't any easy way to design anything.

Well, now mining is a nice easy way to do this because it puts the ships on, notes and so forth and so on.

But in order to be effective,

You must have money to cut off the supplies by sea.

You must hit the rails and containers so that they cannot divert the 85%.

The president comes in by sea, 85% of their traffic, they can divert that into the rails.

So you've got to get that because it's very effective.

And third, you must combine that with hitting what they got in the way of their stockpiles.

That means a substantial increase in the strikes on

north of the truck in parallel.

Now, unless you look at the flight in that way, it makes no sense at all.

So it's either that or nothing.

I think that when you're comparing the 68 to the current time, the current operating unit, it's terrifying that the number of motorized vehicles operated by the lower big leagues and south big leagues, now including tanks,

as well as the volume of fire that they put involved, and they took in the large artillery pieces like the 122 and 130-millimeter guns.

It was much harder.

Different kind of a war.

It's a different kind of a war.

The main portion of the scenario.

Yes.

And consumption rate and tonnage is much higher this time than it was in 1968.

How much does Abrams think that you're going to pay

Well, I think that the plan you have will lead you to a way to improve that.

The attitude to answer for it and about what he's been getting in the past is we get to give you access to the right.

That was a question I was going to ask.

How much have you augmented your forces in the last 30 days?

Well, we've augmented them in the same way that I was planning to get answered directly after.

What did we have when this began?

When this began, how many carriers did we have?

Six.

When we began, how many carriers did we have?

We had about 17.

We're going to have 36.

And how many squads did we have?

We had 10 more F-4 squadrons.

Three Marines, seven F-4 squadrons.

So you see what I mean?

So in a real sense, we're not taking anything away.

That is an enormous resource.

Of course, we have to realize that the enemy is coming.

They're very substantial actors, but as far as General Aitken is concerned, he has double the assets he's had previously.

We're almost where we were in 16.

Double the defense of two institutions.

We've doubled the B-52 since this thing began.

May I ask you a question, Mr. President?

Is there any doubt in your mind that for the aircraft that you have, including the B-52s, that you can't substantially knock out those rail lines in a country of this size with free railroads and bridges where you have no Indian aircraft to contend with?

We can talk about it.

I haven't talked about it.

If there is, it's national value, and I really think we ought to reassess the need for them.

How about the sand out there around the railings?

Is it heavy sand?

Yes, sir.

As a matter of fact, they fired there in the radio and iPhone, and on the way there's 250 feet of sand.

And they achieved one hit.

since April the 1st, March the 30th when they started this operation.

Now they've fired hundreds of SAMs, somewhere around 700, an excessive 700.

This is on the count.

Sometimes you get two files reporting the same mission.

But, for instance, we were up just west of Illinois last night with a tanker

some truck parks and barracks, and only three SAMs fired.

But the main activity was high, and they shot down three bigs.

But the SAM, obviously the SAM evidence being attenuated and is being produced.

They have, well, we can get in figures on the numbers, they have 80,000, we expect that they fired about 7,000 since this war started.

Tom, it seems to me the most important question is how effective is this going to be?

It's effective, obviously, it's a good move.

Do you think that this is the most effective action that the United States can take?

Is there anything else that the military thinks we should do other than this?

Well, other than that, this is the most effective military action, in my view.

Other than that, other than making a napkin in his hand, you know,

That is the other option that's presented, and that is that we could take the Marine Division in Okinawa, land it around Venn or something like that, have it run around Venn and solve it.

I, of course, felt that that is an option that you guys were to present to this group because that's one thing we have said that we're not going to introduce ground troops, and I just don't think you can do it.

The Marines should have a hell of a ball

And Mel has also been checking on whether we could get the South Vietnamese to do a little commando stuff, and I guess they may have a little fun.

But in terms of, let's come back to Mark, there is another operation leading the mining out.

That's what you can, of course, just step up the bombing of North Vietnam in the Hanoi-Hai Pong area.

Now, why don't you discuss that?

Because that's an option that you've also considered.

Yes, it is, but the presence of that depends upon the restraints placed on the selection of parts.

As you know, for instance, there's a big ointment yard right here in Illinois.

There's a considerable number of boils and docks along the river, the Red River that goes into Illinois.

There again, we have...

refrained from striking those warehouses that were right on the dock.

Your problem, as I understand it, was the bombing option.

It could be effective if we didn't have the restraints of...

involved in indiscriminate order.

But you get a lot of time over the border.

So if you get a lot of time over the border, you can finish it off in a matter of a few weeks.

The difficulty is that you don't have the other problem.

So in a sense, it's really, there's nothing in war that is humane.

But as I understand it, what the military say that the most humane thing to do is this kind of thing, rather than just knocking the hell out of them.

Oh, the other would be quicker.

In one sense, we're doing all three of the things.

First, we're letting Abrams continue with maximum support in the south, at least maximum that he's going to need to melt.

The last two, we're going to hold our options open, so we want to bomb other drilling depots and have an annoying type bomb.

Maybe we can do that, so we're not saying we're not going to do that.

That may be something we want to add to this, and we're going to find an effective lockheed.

So what I really wanted to be talking about is the POS.

Yeah, that's fine.

Thank you.

Could I also suggest one other thing?

Before we go to big homes and from now, because of, you know, so that we...

I know that we've got, I think you should know, we have 2 o'clock to make this decision final.

We've got it all ready to go.

We've got 2 o'clock to close on.

That's what I mean, 2 o'clock.

No, sir, excuse me.

We should stop right at that last minute.

We have to give an answer.

But we've got to.

We've got to.

In terms of our own situation, you should know that's what I've got to decide.

They won't do it.

Whatever we do here.

Whatever we do here, I would urge that we always avoid, and I have fallen into this trap from time to time, you know, because I'm trying to, you know, reassure people.

Say, at this point, what we're not going to do.

Like, for example, like the introduction, like nuclear weapons.

Well, obviously, I just refer, and Ziegler's handled that.

He said, well, the President's covered that before.

It's considered unnecessary in this particular area.

Unnecessary.

But he'll do what is necessary.

Now, obviously, no, we're not going to use your weapons, but it's just as well to leave it hanging over there for other reasons.

The other thing is, like the Marines, I think it's very important, whatever we decide here, to leave it hanging over the enemy, the threat.

that the Marines might be being produced for the purpose of protecting the 60,000 Americans who are there.

I think we have to realize, and I'll address this Sunday, that people say, well, why should they be in danger?

Because, you know, go in and air them out.

Let's make no mistake that if you had a collapse of the South Vietnamese, they are the shield at the present time.

I mean, if you had a collapse of the South Vietnamese,

that the 12 or 15, or I guess it's 18,000 Marines in the Manhattan area would be in deadly peril.

And a lot of the U.S. forces and very few Marines, you do not know how many they have.

They have Americans, I guess, that would be in peril.

And you might have to use the Marines to go in and protect them because the South Vietnam needs to be running for the hills.

So what I meant is, I think that in terms of keeping the thing out, Mellis and all the districts are going to have to do too.

It's very important to say, well, now, that we, what about U.S. ground forces?

If you're talking about offensive actions, that's one thing.

If you're talking about actions for defense that represent something else, then the enemy will at least become somewhat off balance, although they just function an option.

I just feel that at this point, at this point,

Indicating and getting any reassurances to an enemy that is going balls out is probably a mistake.

We, of course, have to acknowledge that with the necessity of not getting our American public opinion all screwed up.

But it's, the more we can play a game of, as Bill said a moment ago, we're going to have all three options open.

If you go, I'd leave it that way.

That's why I like to set us to a three and twelve mile limit thing.

What do you do about ships and so forth and so on?

Well, that depends.

Rather than say, well, we won't hit ships, we'll hit laggards.

Yes, I think so.

Also, as well as a psychological aspect of this operation.

And of course, I also think we must realize that

I think there's enough supply in the country to permit them to continue now, but the question always arises of what's going to happen next August or what's going to happen next year if we do withdraw our passport and leave the situation at the end.

But the question is, and she raised it here, I think we should invest ourselves to leave

We actually look at the situation at the present time.

At the present time, I must admit, it's sorely tempting to do nothing.

Nothing more than just, you know, we're going to help a lot.

We've doubled the vehicles.

We've doubled the carriers.

We've increased the air by .

uh we i mean we're we are doing quite a bit and also we are shipping a lot more material out there aren't we now we're upgrading that damn army surviving all the time and if i could just address that a little later and give you what we are but we really thought i want you to just but i do think we have to we have to realize

Where are we going to be?

I mean, as I just put it in terms of, which I want Bill to address himself in this subject after Mel finishes, but putting it in terms of summitry, foreign policy and the rest, there's no way, believe me, there's no way that we could go to Moscow with the situation currently as it is in Vietnam.

We couldn't do it.

So now that's about it.

That's no great problem.

You can just go on and say we're not gonna go.

until these people quit supporting him down there.

And everybody says, well, so be it.

But let's look a little further down the road.

When we get to September and October, even assuming that the South Vietnamese hold now, assuming we don't do these things in September and October, they will have an enormous, enormous incentive

to give us one last punch, because they will see the November elections coming.

And they also feel that at that point, the political effect in this country could be very effective.

Obviously, just speaking in terms of personalities, the choice of the Democratic side, John is our leading Democrat from Tulsa, is between McGovern, Humphrey, Kennedy, and of course,

We have to realize there are Russians, and the Russians would like nothing better than that, any one of them in this position.

So you can see the incentive they would have.

So we're looking in terms of the long term, not only in terms of that period of meeting before the election, but in the period when we're out, which we're going to be.

We'll be out this year.

I mean, if we get our fee, we're out.

as far as the conference is concerned, but there's no thin line there at all.

And also, the Congress would have restricted this on the air, which it inevitably will now, as we know.

We're out.

Then the question is, can South Vietnam survive?

And the question then would be, they'd probably go down to next year.

Well, people say, well, that's all right.

these little people, I don't think, and it used to get into the humane arguments and so forth, nobody seems to get an Amazon anymore.

But looking at it in terms of the effect on American foreign policy then, in fact in this country, I think we have a responsibility to say, should we not do those things now?

And I have foreclosed this, but I don't hear you.

Should we do those now?

that might seriously impair the ability of the North, the enemies, and them, you know, to rock in.

I don't know.

And having said that, let me say, you can't be sure.

There's only one thing I'm convinced of, and I don't get comments that deal so strongly at this point.

There's one truth to that.

The problems have made it big in other things.

One thing I'm sure of.

And that is that you can't be sure that anything's going to work, because this is not an American operation.

It's an operation that depends upon what the South Vietnamese do for British men.

The question is, do we take great risks for ourselves, having in mind the fact that the whole house will collapse, regardless of what we do with the South Vietnamese flock?

And that's the tough part of the decision.

So I don't want anybody to be under any illusions that I think there's any true thing.

The bombing, if I could just leave one other thing before we go to the big help.

The bombing option is perhaps, is still open to us.

I mean, increased bombing in the Haifa, the Hamas area, is still open to us.

The difficulty with it is that unless

We take off the wraps in terms of targets.

It's not too damn effective.

But that was the problem with the boys.

Well, that was the problem.

Yes.

We had to leave the head in the same thing.

There it is.

Fine.

Let's go to Dick Collins now.

We're just going to try to use the same wraps.

He's got his law on this thing.

I'm going to try to get this to him now.

Mr. President, the enemy covered most of the financial poise you are talking through very carefully.

Let me just run through some of the pluses and minuses we've seen in the intelligence community.

Mr. President, this briefing is premised on the assumption that North Vietnam seaborne imports are shut off by an effective interdiction program.

Taking that assumption is a given.

I shall attempt to check this out, how the impact such an interdiction of seaport imports would be likely to have on what might be termed both sides of the ledger.

In other words, in the modern vernacular, bad news, good news story.

This kind of interdiction, as you use it, means total closing.

As other people use it, it means interfering, or as the testers above use the word interdiction, which really means interfering.

Interrupt.

I would like the Anglo-Saxon word which says we're going to shut off the tap.

You're going to close the trap so trips can't use the pool.

You'll be closing rather than...

There's no sense in not talking about anything.

We're not going to be here because of the public that was present because of the interdiction and the ocean and trail, isn't it?

Our goal is to stop it, period.

We're talking about closing the port so they can't use the port.

That's one thing.

We're talking about interfering with the big tub.

That's something else again.

We've been interfering with those human trails for a hell of a long time.

Interdicted into the CIA.

Let's use the word closing off C1 imports.

Over 90% of North Vietnam's 3.5 million tons of 1971 imports came by sea.

and about 90% of North Vietnam's seaboard imports came from the port of Haiphong.

But those figures mask another logistic equation, at least equally germane.

North Vietnam's total overland and seaboard imports for the past year averaged about 6,800 tons per day.

The confirmed capacity of the overland, that is, railroad, road, and river routes from China, totaled 16,000 tons per day during the October through May dry season.

and 13,000 tons per day during the June through September wet season.

I realize the program to be discussed this morning envisages a sustained aerial interdiction against the overland route of China, along with a total interdiction of seaboard imports, and we're closing off the seaboard imports.

But three sets of facts mark consideration in this context.

The 9,000 tons per day capacity of the rail net in China is 30% greater

than the 68 tons of sailing of North Vietnam's total 1971 imports, and even the 13,000 ton wet season daily capacity of the total overland roof structure.

This is almost 100% greater than the 30 level of 1971 imports.

Interdiction consequently would have to shrink the throughput capacity of the overland net by more than 50%.

Before that, that was rendered physically incapable of carrying North Vietnam's current level of total imports.

and military supplies at most make up well under one-third of that total.

North Vietnam has an estimated 180 locomotives and 2,500 to 3,000 freight cars.

Chinese standard-gauge freight cars can operate on the double-gauge down-and-on line, which extends to within seven miles of Hanoi, and Chinese cars can operate on the alternate double-gauge route to Hanoi by a cab at Tai Duyan.

There's a little loop up in here.

The current North Vietnamese truck inventory of an estimated 18,000 to 23,000 vehicles is the largest it has ever been.

The Vietnamese communists have an impressive performance record of logistic resourcefulness and hand-like tenacity in the face of formidable obstacles.

They moved heavy artillery and ammunition over a roadless mountain jungle to assault the NJFU, and we know that despite sustained aerial interdiction, they have moved tanks, POL, and heavy artillery and ammunition down the whole length of the Ho Chi Minh Trail for use in South Vietnam's Military Region 3.

The effective denial of seaport imports would purely confront Hanoi with major and urgent logistical problems.

The most pressing and serious one would be the need to establish alternate ways of importing P.O.L., virtually all of which now comes by sea.

Hanoi's entire requirement, 390,000 tons in 1971, could be met from China's production of transportation resources.

If Soviet stocks were used,

They would have to be shipped by rail across 2,500 odd miles of Chinese territory.

Such a P.O.L.

movement would require about 350 to 400 tank cars in regular operation.

This figure represents about 1% of China's 38,000 tank car inventory.

The burden on China's rail system would be even less if Hanoi's new POL shipments were to originate at least in part from the major Chinese refineries at Shanghai and or Lanzhou.

On POL, a time factor would clearly come into play.

Hanoi now has about 90 days' POL supply, 120,000 odd tons, and current consumption levels.

And consumption would be obviously rise if trucks started shuffling to the railheads.

Given full Chinese cooperation, however, an interim alternate land flow sufficient to meet critical North Vietnamese needs could almost certainly be set up within this time frame.

On the larger question of general stockpiles, the evidence is spongy, but at the minimum, current military supply stocks represent about 12 months resupply requirements.

whatever be the absolute accurate figures.

The essential point here is that Hanoi has several months of breathing room in which to take political stock, weigh the impact of the new U.S. move, and test the efficacy of alternate arrangements.

And if these alternate arrangements proved out in practice the logistical equations I cited earlier,

A denial of seaboard imports would not necessarily render North Vietnam bereft of essential supplies over the medium to longer term.

In any event, the total denial of seaboard imports would be unlikely to have any short-run logistical impact on the battlefields in South Vietnam.

The supplies earmarked to support the Communist current military offensive are already deployed in Laos, Cambodia, or in caches in South Vietnam.

Indeed, one of Hanoi's most likely and immediate responses to the New U.S. interdiction effort would be to step up the short-run level of communist military activity in South Vietnam.

In another sphere, domestic reaction with the United States is a factor that would be very large in Hanoi's calculations.

It is also a factor that would be carefully considered in Moscow as the key.

As for the Soviets, Moscow would almost certainly move to cancel a summit, the President pointed out.

perhaps not immediately, but probably within a week or so, if we persisted in our new course of action.

We do not believe that the Kremlin's leaders consider Soviet states and Indochina worth the risk of a direct Russian military confrontation with United States forces, but this restraint, if operative, would not be due to the Soviet Union exerting itself vigorously to help North Vietnam, even to the point of probing the limits of our tolerance with respect to Soviet linesmen.

Whatever be their real private intentions, Soviet leaders would make propaganda noises, intimating that many things certain segments of U.S. and foreign opinions consider far more important than any other time have been placed in jeopardy, such as salt, waste, prospects, and detente in Europe.

Even if they took private care to minimize the risk of military confrontation, the world affords many potential pressure points, such as Berlin or Cuba,

where Moscow can remind Washington the great power of muscle flexing is a game two can play.

Though the Chinese would probably see the U.S. move as more directly challenging to the USSR than to themselves, Beijing would feel compelled to demonstrate to Hanoi and the world its continued devotion to the North Vietnamese cause and its outrage at the U.S. actions.

During the pre-1968 bombing, China sent up to 90,000 engineers

anti-aircraft artillery, and support troops in North Vietnam to help Hanoi cope with its problems.

In the new environment here postulated, some measures of similar support would probably be dispatched across the China border.

Some degree of chill would unquestionably arrest the burgeoning thaw inside our U.S. relations.

Given the uncertain internal state of China's leadership,

the U.S. action might cause severe problems for Zhou Enlai and those who supported his policy changes, symbolized by your Peking visit.

The predominant reaction of the non-communist world would be that the U.S. move was an escalation of the struggle, which has ceased to be worth additional costs and risks.

Hanoi would be counting on such a reaction, and with active help from Moscow and Peking, would do everything possible to fan it.

That, obviously, Mr. President, is the bad news side.

Now let us look at the factors on the other side.

The logistic equations on which one should the negative argument rests are fairly simple.

In concrete practice, they could prove unrealistically simplistic.

Whatever be the throughput capacity of the overland routes in China, and even granting the often demonstrated logistic resourcefulness and tenacity of the North Vietnamese, the fact remains that to overcome the sudden loss of seaboard imports,

Hanoi would have to make quick arrangements for the alternate servicing by land of 90% of its current imports, over 2 million tons per year.

Despite any carefully drawn contingency plans, and even with full Soviet and Chinese support, this would be an enormous administrative undertaking.

We run relatively little risk in assuming that Hanoi can cope successfully with the logistic problem of these dimensions.

the political forces, and possibly the very lives of Hanoi's leaders, to be riding on the accuracy of their estimates of their capabilities.

Their fanaticism and dedication have been amply demonstrated over the years, and so too has been their hard-headed prudence.

What might look to us like an acceptable risk might look very difficult to those who would have to pay the price of failure.

Hanoi could not possibly cope with the loss of seaport imports without prompt, extensive cooperation to help China and the Soviet Union.

We assumed such assistance in reckless quantities would be quickly forthcoming, so too, probably, to the North Vietnamese.

But the new winds blowing in our relations with Peking and Moscow have been profoundly disquieting to Hanoi.

North Vietnam's leaders are acutely aware of the fact that once before, in 1954, Moscow, without any opposition from Peking, induced them into accepting a settlement they did not want and did not like.

Also, Hanoi cannot be blind in the fact that if the Soviets or Chinese ever wanted to exert leverage, a time when Hanoi urgently needed major new forms of assistance would be an optimal moment to do so.

If the stoppage of seaboard imports is anywhere near total, and if simultaneously Hanoi's overland routes to China and its internal depots are under continuing attack, Northern Vietnam is clearly faced with logistics problems of a magnitude and dimension greater than any problems it has had to cope with before.

If it persists in its hardline policy and fails to solve these problems, Hanoi runs the risk of total collapse and defeat.

Our equations tell us these logistic problems are soluble, but they are certainly not soluble without enormous effort involving major reallocations, hence these temporary dislocation of resources, especially manpower.

The North Vietnamese people are well disciplined and resilient.

They have already endured more than a decade of grinding war.

The added new burdens they would have to quickly assume if their leaders are to cope with the postulated new situation would be burdens falling heavily on already tired shoulders.

The actions would force Hanoi's leaders to accept the incalculable fact that any illusions they may have had about your name as being tied by domestic political pressures were exactly that, illusions.

However much they might hope or even calculate that such actions would assure your defeat in November, they would potentially have to anticipate that at least for the next six months, the lid was off.

This would have several important psychological and political repercussions.

Furthermore, the sobering recognition of your discretionary latitude would come at a time when Hanoi already has its military resources extended, deployed, and committed to a major offensive.

The postulated actions would unquestionably give a major lift to South Vietnamese morale and lay on arguably to rest any debilitating worry about our arranging private deals behind the GBM's back.

The morale of the South Vietnamese army and people would certainly enhance their performance and be profoundly depressing to many of their communist opponents in the field.

The ultimate outcome of the Indo-China struggle will be more influenced by what happens on the battlefields in South Vietnam over the next six months than what happens in Haiphong Harbor.

But the course of U.S. action could play an important role in either of two extreme battlefield outcomes.

One,

If in response to this action, Pham Hoai intensifies its short-run military pressure in South Vietnam, collapses the arm and unravels the GBN, we still have a bargaining chip in the minefields and associated activity that we do not now have for negotiation on such bilateral tasks as our prisoners of war.

Whatever may be their casual connection, if in conjunction with our new action,

The South Vietnamese forces stand off their communist opponents and keep them from making any appreciable improvement in their present position.

You have a political ballgame quite different from any that has been played before.

The claim that this is a drive inevitably paving the way to final victory, with which Hanoi has exerted its followers, will fall resoundingly and embarrassingly flat in such a situation.

This would give Hanoi major problems, but it would have other stresses even more profound.

North Vietnam's last foray into major military campaigns, the 1968 Tet Offensive, with a follow-on surges in May, August, and February 1969, produced in Vietnam itself a death defeat from which it took the communists four years to recover.

They balanced their ledger then by arguing privately and publicly that the 1968-69 offensives produced more than compensating political-military gains abroad.

major shift in U.S. policy toward progressive withdrawal, the suspension of the bombing, and the defeat of Lyndon Johnson.

If the offensive of 1972 produces a defeat in South Vietnam, and in the process provokes not only a reintroduction of bombing, but a closure of high fog, those who advocated this policy will be in a virtually untenable position vis-a-vis their peers and punitive rivals on the Central Committee of the Politburo in North Vietnam.

In conclusion, Mr. President, the decisions on North Vietnam's military and political policy in Indochina will be made by the nine current members of the Lao Dong Politburo in Hanoi.

To date, the Politburo has always seemed to act as if it were convinced that its political staying power was greater than that of any given U.S. administration.

Closing off North Vietnam's seaboard imports would clearly be a major act the Politburo would have to ponder carefully, weigh the act's material consequences and its import as a political signal.

that would unquestionably be impressed and discomfited, the Politburo's track record of past performance and adversity does not suggest that this act of itself would make Hanoi change course in any short timeframe.

Instead, particularly to view events on southern battlefields as moving in an encouraging direction, the Politburo would almost certainly wait to see if it could weather the new situation.

It would have to be convinced that the U.S. government in an election year could persist in such a course

You would want to see what fiscal support it would receive from the USSR and China, what counterpressures the Soviets and Chinese could be induced to bring to bear on Washington, and how effective these pressures might prove to be.

And I would want to see how the fiscal steps taking account of the interdiction's impact were likely to work out.

Above all, and I would want to see if you could not press on the battlefield and political successes in South Vietnam.

The subsequent course of policy action in the strategy and negotiating sphere will be determined by how the Politburo, not we or other outsiders, assess such factors as those we have here discussed.

Thank you.

the idea of some consideration to the circumstances which exist if we just continue doing what we're doing?

What are your alternatives?

Suppose we don't do that.

Let's just assume we do what we're doing.

Suppose the North Vietnamese continue to succeed militarily.

Suppose we get 69,000 Americans trapped in South Vietnam.

Where are you?

Where are you with respect to those men?

Where are you with respect to South Vietnam?

Where are you with respect to American political opinion?

Where are you with respect to world opinion?

It seems to me that you very eloquently outlined the pros and cons of this particular move, but at no point have you addressed yourself to what happens if we just continue what we're doing.

It seems to me that if we do just continue what we're doing, the risks of doing that are greater than even those that you outlined in terms of the actions that are proposed.

No, no, no.

I have some questions on the way to statement.

Why, and I'm not being critical of you, but I mean, do you have any evaluation of what happens if we continue as we are?

Is that a part of the reason or not?

Or is that a way?

I suppose that, I suppose that you said that we have some CIA evaluation and we're asked to evaluate this possible course of action.

But why don't you just, why don't you talk to that point?

How do you see the situation?

You have a good study that I think, you know, I can get to the Secretary of the House and get an assessment between the North and the South right now.

I think that's what you want.

Well, it just goes beyond that.

It's just not, I mean, that's part of it.

But what is the effect of...

which I understand you're going to address the current military situation.

But then there's the bigger question of the effect on the American vision, the world vision, on the USSR, on the PRC of continuing to do what we do and faith.

In other words, we

I think we have to pay away that against doing what is contemplated here in payment, which also is a real great possibility.

To get it in a proper balance, just looking at it in terms of a way to balance the various risks, you could say, well, the best of both worlds, the best of all possible worlds, is just to continue to do what we're doing in our city.

And we take no risks.

The ones which Dick pointed out, I mean, that he's not overestimated at all and taking other risks that are involved there.

And, well, and we come out to bring the sun up the rose.

On the other hand, the only reason that we are even considering

this course of action, or a bombing course of action, the bombing, the increased bombing of the Hanoi Hive Mocks, is that we feel the current situation is one that carries very grave risks of failure.

And how much this will change that is the real question.

We don't know.

Let's put it this way.

No.

I have to say that we're confronted here with a better than even chance that if we do nothing, we will fail.

And a slightly better than even chance, not much more than that, that if we do this, we might succeed.

It's that close.

Well, this proposition means the greatest risk you can run

It's failure by doing nothing more than we're doing.

That seems to be completely unacceptable for me to stand for.

You just say that.

Well, we've been there.

We've been there 20 years.

If we now fail with American troops where we have an aerial Dunkirk, and you say we carry that gun out,

We've suffered, this nation has suffered, not suffered, this nation has suffered a military defeat of enormous proportions by a little country up here that is not big enough to water shotguns.

This means to destroy any viable foreign policy that this nation has now or can have in the next decade.

I just think the risk that you run of a defeat under present circumstances is completely unacceptable.

I think your political risk, and we can

And just to look at that, I think it would absolutely infuriate political people.

I don't think you can defend it by any stretch of the imagination.

And even though you now, while you're under pressure, even though you airlift your troops out, if anything happens under existing circumstances, your opposition here and around the world is simply going to say that if you had gotten out last year when they told you to get out, none of this would have happened.

You can't win with the doves.

You can't win with this type of action.

You have to do more than you do.

Now, it may well be that during a period of the next several months, if you undertake this operation, that you may evacuate your people, but you cannot sacrifice 69,000 people and run the risk of them getting trapped, because you have no defense to that, it seems to me.

Not at all.

Now, if you want to get it out, if you want to get it completely out, which obviously we have to do, then you get it out under controlled conditions.

You're not forcing it out.

Your point is that this action or some action similar to it, like the bombing, at least would provide some leverage for doing what is necessary.

It's very great leverage.

No South Vietnamese collapse.

Sure.

Very great leverage.

Well, I disagree with that, Mr. President.

I'd like to point that out in connection with the metal situation in the South.

I disagree with that.

First and present, it might be well to review the situation that existed when we chose the course of action.

We did.

We wanted two years.

We felt we had to have two years.

most that we had in 1969.

At that particular time, we came in and there was no support for continuing appropriations to any thing in South Vietnam.

It's most important that we take that into consideration because the election was decided to a large extent on that particular issue.

And the war was an issue, whether we like it or not, in 1968.

Now,

The problem that is existing in the south at the present time militarily in military regions 1, 2, and 3 is not a problem that is caused by military equipment.

Let me just give you some examples of the military equipment in military region 1.

We have not had a single 48 tank knocked out by a T-54.

The 48 is superior in all clashes with the 54 in every engagement that it's had.

How many 54s do they have and how many 48s does South Beach have?

The total amount, the total number of the 48 is 500.

Not a 54.

That's what it was, yeah.

The problem here is, Mr. President, the tank problem is not a major problem that is faced in Military Region 1, and the 54 was no match for the 48.

The 54s are being knocked out.

The problem that is facing the South Vietnamese at the present time is a problem of whether they're willing to stand and fight and search out artillery.

The Marines have done a good job in searching out artillery and in looking for it and pinpointing it.

But the other South Vietnamese military forces in that military region have been unwilling to go out and take on and find the artillery.

We have guns that will fire farther than the 130.

We have guns in that particular area.

We have plenty of air power that can be placed in on those artillery pieces.

You have to locate them.

They don't have the spiders, and these people have refused to go out and look for them.

But I don't refer to it in terms of tanks.

I think we have to bear in mind that of the four teams that we had, all but nine have been knocked out.

The fight is that it's the small tanks, which we did provide for the South Vietnamese, are certainly no match for the 54th.

The South and the North Vietnamese have interrigged in a factor of 10 to 1, more large tanks than we had.

And if you recall, the Defense Department opposed my sending the large tanks there.

So let's keep the record straight.

Well, we did not oppose them.

That was not opposed, as a matter of fact, to putting them in there.

The problem is that the tanks, the first few days, did cause some problems with the South Vietnamese.

But I have met with some military advisors that have come back in the last few days, talked this whole matter over with them, and the tanks caused them no problem.

Now, they know they can kill them, and they are killing them.

The county boat has a problem there, our 7th Air Force commander, in getting information on the artillery.

The present artillery being spotted by the North Vietnamese is being spotted right within the South Vietnamese camp.

And the South Vietnamese spotters are operating with the South Vietnamese and giving the North Vietnamese actually very good fixes on all of the

uh, spotting.

They have, uh, we picked up North Vietnamese, things of Vietnamese uniforms actually doing spotting, and that's if you don't have it the other way around.

If you don't have it the other way around.

If we, if we've got plenty of power to knock their artillery pieces out, but they accurately

pinpoint the South Vietnamese.

The South Vietnamese are not getting the information on the ground.

It's needed to necessarily knock that artillery out.

Now, we're trying to do something about it.

We have the C-130 gunships out there using infrared techniques, and they stop their artillery as soon as we get them in the area, because we're trying to spy in that way their artillery pieces, because the South Vietnamese aren't moving out except for the Marines in fighting this stuff.

When I planted 4,600 rounds at Palm Creek in the last day, and they were averaging for five days before that about 3,000 rounds, this caused almost panic on the part of the South to meet its military forces.

General Lam did not handle the situation as well as he should.

He's had some disagreements with the General Edwards.

General Edwards is an advisor, of course, to the South Vietnamese.

He has stated these facts as hard as he can to the South Vietnamese General Staff, also in the last two weeks, the President, too, on several occasions.

And they are making certain changes and have been making these changes up in that area.

The point that I think is important to make here

is that the battle in South Vietnam is going to be decided on the ground.

And the efforts that we make in giving them naval gunfire and giving them all of the air support that is necessary are important.

But they will not be decided in a favorable manner unless the military leadership of South Vietnam

doesn't stand up and gives the kind of leadership that is needed and necessary.

Now in a military region, you've got General Min, who is more interested in talking to his wife right now about getting back out of country than he is in really standing up and fighting in that area.

I think he should be changed.

I think you have to change and move up some of these military leaders in the country that have been doing a good job.

And there is progress being made on that, Mr. President.

The point I wish to make is that the ground battle in South Vietnam is the important thing.

If we go forward and do this other operation, it will have an effect in four to six months.

But I am convinced it's an argument that means it will stay in force during those four to six months, particularly with an election coming forth here in the United States during that period of time.

The point that we have to be willing to understand, I think, is

that we've got to win that battle in the South.

We've got to see that the South Vietnamese have the same power in that particular area.

And do these particular actions, and the minds of many people in the United States will get the impression for a period of about four weeks that somehow or other South Vietnam will be safe because of it.

And that will be popular for four or five weeks.

It will not be popular, however, in about three months.

The only thing that's popular is how it works.

Right.

And this will not work as far as influencing the conditions in the South, which are so important during this particular period right now.

It might have some effect over next year.

Next year.

I agree.

Next year it will have some effect.

But I think it's most important now

the situation itself.

I'd like to bring up one other point.

I think that this is an important one.

We are already extended to the point of $1 billion, $500 billion, which is, this has to do with assets, which we can't get from the Congress.

We are going forward with another, I don't believe we can, Mr. President.

I agree.

get the money from the Congress.

And what we're doing is having to draw down everything all over the world in order to finance this particular operation.

Now, I've seen two administrations place everything on Southeast Asia.

And the important thing as far as foreign policy and domestic policy has been Southeast Asia.

This administration has done a remarkable job

in being able to go this far in Southeast Asia, but also build, as far as our military strength in Europe is concerned, also has been able to move towards some understandings with the Soviet Union in the field of strategic arms orientation, and also with China.

And I think from the overall political effect,

that this administration should make a plus in the foreign policy area and not a minus.

And this will go into the campaign as it will be on the defensive.

I think we should be turning these so-called things that have gone on, the reduction of American forces, the progress that's been made in Europe, into major pluses in the campaigns.

rather than being on the defensive all the way as far as Southeast Asia is concerned.

The financing of this is important, and you know I'm just assigning this to the service.

They're taking it out of their hive.

Okay.

Let me ask this, though.

You wouldn't say, Melvin, you'd say you disagree with John, and I don't think you're as far apart as you would be, but...

You mentioned that just looking at, we always have to look, particularly the military have to look, the worst rather than the best.

We've got to plan for the worst to hope for the best.

So you would say that if the South Vietnamese can't make it, that we should just resign ourselves to that fact and make a plus out of our other policies?

Well, I think they can't make it, Mr. President.

I think they can make it.

I believe the South Vietnamese can make it.

I believe they've come over 37, about 37, 38 miles into that particular area.

And they've done well.

But as you know, they put three main force divisions over there.

They may, way may, may go, but it won't be as bad as it was in 1968.

The problem that we have to look at is get it in the proper perspective.

As you know, in 1968, after two weeks, there were 600,000 refugees in military region 1 and 68.

We've got a lot of them now.

We've got 300,000 now.

But it's been going for five weeks instead of two weeks.

And this is... Do you believe that the South Vietnamese have made it?

without any, without any, either the expanded strikes on the Hanoi-Hai Kong air area by Kongs, or by, don't use the word interdiction, by sea.

In other words, you do not see that this

This is from a psychological standpoint, not only now, but looking ahead to even past the election.

Would that have a substantial bearing on the outcome of the battle?

No, it would not have a bearing on the outcome of the battle now.

Well, the battle now, but I mean the survival of South Vietnam in the future.

That's really, I mean, if Bill Nash would agree, it would probably happen.

I think it would have had some effect.

I think it would have to be made up rather rapidly.

This idea that I've gone over every one of the reports when they're going 500 stories up their day.

And when the construction on those bridges and the construction on those railroads with those large Chinese work crews in there and the kind of labor that they had, we went in there with B-52s up in Bend and we broke the railroad in three places.

So we're out there and it's very sharp, yeah.

Suppose we don't, suppose we are wrong now, suppose...

How would you handle it?

As I understand, because what John was talking about was the risks in the case we didn't make it.

You don't evaluate the risks of the effect, the detrimental effect on...

our foreign policy position and others as great as he does.

Is that right?

No, I don't.

Why not?

Because I try to make up, there's one thing you have to be sure of, and that is that we don't hedge on any equipment in the South.

We've got to give them everything that they've asked for.

We have given them more than they've asked for.

We have given them, and we will continue to give them more.

We have the best logistics people over there right now.

And we have to assure them that we will continue to give them this all-out support.

But, Mr. President, if they are unable to handle their own insult in country security, if they do not have enough desire to go the route against the North, we're not going to be able to give them that, ever.

We can give them all the equipment in the world, and I'm for pouring it in there.

We're putting C-5As in there now with equipment.

We couldn't even get tank drivers to take some of the stuff off C-5As.

So we're putting equipment in there.

I think we've got to do that, even though we take it out of the eyes of every military.

Why don't you use the argument then against my position that the cost is too great?

If you wouldn't commit all this, your cost is going to be enormous the longer you prolong it.

Well, you don't have to save any money to take you away.

Oh, yes, you save a lot of money.

The military equipment route is a cheap route.

A cheap route compared to this kind of an operation.

You know, uh... Well, explain that to me.

All right.

You've got seven carriers out there.

Whether we go through with this operation or not, you've doubled your B-52 force, you've doubled your other Air Force assets.

You've doubled everything there.

We're not up to 68, but we are, of course, underground.

We're near 68.

We had 548,000 there on the ground in 1968.

Today we have about 54,000, 55,000, something like that on the ground.

It's an entirely different situation.

The massive continuation of a massive air campaign in the north as well as the south over a period of time runs up into tremendous amounts of money.

Each B-50, if I can give you the figures on it, but these particular operations

just one B-52 strike is equal to, well, over $40,000, just the ammunition.

I don't even want any of those figures.

So that's an argument not only against the operation, but against the presence of air.

That's correct.

Well, I think if you could use the South, it would cost you any good.

Well, as far as the battle is concerned, it's more effective in the South to influence the battle than it is in the North.

More of a cost effectiveness.

Well, I've got a couple of points that I'd just like to bring up that have been raised to some extent, but maybe not in the same context as I'm going to raise them.

First of all, I don't think that there's any way that if we just let things go, based on what I've seen, that we can avoid South Vietnam continuing to slide down the scale.

I don't agree with you on that.

I don't think they're just going to slide down gradually and keep contracting their sphere of influence.

I think when it goes, it'll just be an utter internal collapse of all the pacification effort

And I don't see that as possibly too far away if something isn't done now.

I think what we really face here is the complete loss of American diplomatic credibility all over the world.

In some way, the Soviets have to be moved off-center.

The only way I see that we can move them off-center is to do, and I emphasize this as the President,

We groaned about the gradualism of other administrations, and we probably have been, to some extent, guilty of the same kind of gradualism.

I think we should do anything militarily, sir.

That will not affect presidential credibility.

In other words, I don't think we can do what you said we weren't going to do, although I think we should stop saying what we're not going to do from now on.

I agree with the position previously taken on that.

Now, what are the drawbacks on that?

We are not in a confrontation situation with the USSR, my gentlemen, for this reason, that there is a reasonable face-saving solution that remains on the table in Paris.

It's still on the table.

It looks like the United States resolve is of the quality that's going to

make it necessary to find a solution.

The Soviets, before they're going to get into any kind of confrontation with us, are going to go to the North Vietnamese and say, let's find a good solution maybe that helps us all get out of this.

The other thing is, what will happen if we let South Vietnam slide into the deep?

There isn't any doubt that

I mean, these are all questions we just don't know.

We're all trying to give our best judgment on them.

Your feeling is that once it starts to move, it could collapse.

I think it will.

That's the danger.

If it does collapse, there will be no more credibility for us.

I think our position is all over the world.

World trade, the Middle East, the Indian Ocean.

I think the Soviets will feel they have a free hand, is what I'm assuming.

to move without any worry.

Moreover, I think that any war, the so-called war of national liberation, will be a green flag for any war of national liberation, any war of national liberation.

It will be a bit surprising to see how that really expanded and running down the peninsula, because I haven't been personally a believer in that dominant theory.

So I think that Roger, the Secretary of State, has said that consideration.

If we could do this, we'd still fail.

And so that's a fact we haven't bear in mind.

Mel is aware of that.

He's made the point very strongly.

Because the South Vietnamese, in spite of this, can still bug out on the ground.

If they do, then all we have is a bargain for our little heavies.

It's true, but by not doing anything, we're sort of changing anything.

We're doing a lot.

Well, by not changing what we're doing, I'm giving notice to the world, assuming that the military battle in the south continues to go back to the Chinese nation.

We're giving testimony to the fact that we will resist no further attacks.

aggression beyond a certain point.

It's got to affect our relations with Japan.

It's got to affect us all over the world.

As far as Europe is concerned, I feel this way about it.

Those people over there have let us

be out in the front of every damn fight, economical, political, military, anywhere in the world where they have positions.

And if something took place where the Soviets made them very nervous over there, I think our position might well be to just sit back and say, what are you fellas going to do about this?

I can't see worrying too much about that side of it.

I don't think it makes a darn bit of difference whether our credibility is at the world power.

It's the way that Southeast Asia is destroyed and any place else in the world.

Once it's down the drain, it's down the drain.

And I believe that

This is politically, domestically, I think this will be one of the most vicious things for this administration to happen.

For two or three months, we are really not attempting anything to do with this so-called escalation, which is what it's been called.

If I were sitting where the president is right now and seeing how you can come to the conclusion that based on what we see at the present time, we can do nothing.

We've got to do something at least to take up these people to the fact that they have us totally tackled and unable to move in any direction.

And we're the greatest people in the world for handcuffing ourselves, it seems to me.

The media urges us to just say what we're not going to do, and we talk too much.

We're compulsive talkers to the media.

I wish we hadn't gotten into some of the constraints that we had because of this, but it seems to be the American weakness.

That's my feeling, Mr. President.

I don't think you have any option here.

I think it's disastrous politically.

It probably is going to cost a great amount of hardship if you have to do it with it.

I feel that the effects of it could turn out to be a lot different than the non-effect that's generally been assigned to it.

The psychological effect would be tremendous on the South Vietnamese in a positive sense.

It could stop this erosion of the internal structure there, and it could be very disastrous on the North Vietnamese morale, because those fellows fighting in South Vietnam aren't staying far away today if they don't know what's happening back home.

General Ayer, would you like to say something?

Yes, Mr. President.

First, I'll comment that I happen to believe there's a good deal in the South Texas area.

The South Texas area?

I think we all agree on the situation.

I agree.

I think the difference is that we really come to the point, General, I think we have to realize that

The real question is whether many Americans give a damn anymore.

And that's why this is what I'm going to tell you.

I also write in my study to cover the point most people don't give a damn when it comes to Thailand or Cambodia or Laos.

Or maybe a little about the Philippines.

Japan, they figure, is a loser anyway.

And there's some about the Mideast, but when you put it pretty coldly, there's no American president that's going to risk New York to save Tel Aviv.

And when you put it to Europe, I know no American president would risk New York or Washington to save the land or bond.

Now that's the cold turkey proposition at the moment in view of the American political situation.

So what we're talking about here is what is right rather than what is wrong.

But as far as the American people are concerned, I don't give a damn about what happens.

We have to say it because it is our responsibility to lead people rather than follow them.

But it is true that as a result of the massive media campaign that there is a strong feeling that America should not be the great power.

that we should not be involved in the world, that we should put our money in the problems at home rather than in these armistice military build-ups.

A lot of us seem to recognize the fact that, as I usually say, we can't get a 1968 design to balance this just a bit.

But that would be all very well and good if there were a couple of other

potentially predatory powers, but we're the same.

One currently powerful and one potentially so.

So he did it in communist channels.

And we stopped the video for just one second to interrupt your train of thought.

He just stopped the video, but he did it in the present time.

And you follow the line, and the point goes, New York Times, Time, Newsweek, three networks, all of them, respective columns,

If the United States said, we've done enough.

First, we should have gotten Vietnam in the first place.

Second, we've done enough.

Third, let's get out of the arms of the consequences.

Fourth, let's make a deal with the Russians and the others and then pull in our arms so that we can make a response.

That's really sort of the line.

If we do that, the United States would be a great power from a military standpoint.

At a diplomatic standpoint, it would be respected and trusted in the world.

No question about that.

If that happens, it really has the effect of, in effect, I think I can describe it most abstractly, that when people talk about the United States just look to itself and come out to itself, and that's what the argument here goes, is to do isolationist.

If you were just to take the world today and pick the United States out of it,

Every non-communist thing in the world is an absolute terror.

Because whether we like it or not, the U.S. is strong enough not only to defend ourselves, but to help our allies around the world when they come under attack.

In other words, to deter them.

And the United States is not only strong enough, but with the will to use its strength.

It's indispensable if the world is left to its end.

hat-free and hat-communist rather than all-communist.

That's what we're saying, Mr. Hemsworth.

I think this is quite true.

And Heather had a pretty fashionable body, and we go that far.

And I think we have to recognize that.

Sir, you have a thankless job as a leadership of trying to preserve what we will.

Oh, sir, sir, sir.

We've been together.

We've preserved the present until the country comes to its senses, maybe five or ten years from now on this subject.

But I did want to make just a couple of other points.

I think one of them is the same point that Senator, Secretary Trump made, that really it seems that we have to hedge

against Federer and South Vietnam, even though the chances of Federer were only 10%.

And that if we do have Federer, we do have a debacle.

In hindsight, these people that are criticizing the administration now will ask why we didn't do more.

Or why we didn't get out sooner.

We're in between the crack, aren't we?

This is an action that engages against that failure, be the probability of that failure high or the probability low, there always is some chance.

And that, as I understand the appraisal, it's agreed that four or five months from now, it's likely to be some help in...

in effect it's a military strategic action.

Another comment is that it's less explanatory to our critics than the actual bombing.

After all, it's not going in and allegedly blowing up people.

That final comment, which is a really tactical one for the judgment of the operational people, my concern is that this question, could this air power in the short run, this critical battle around way, better be used in support of what is really Abrams' mission, pushing along?

South Vietnamese in that battle, then he had this interdiction.

And I just raised that question.

Well, I understand that I, before, I raised this point with, uh, with, uh... Well, you can raise it all the time, as I understand it.

Because I have raised the point, I said, look, if the way it is, it's like we're done, basically.

which the Franks should have thought about.

The Germans made a mistake in attacking it.

And the branch made a mistake defending him.

But it had to be done.

And so 3 million members killed as a result.

But it was a hell of a symbol.

And the way, in this miserable little part of the world, is such a symbol at this point.

But we've raised the fire in this Mellonos.

Abrams is using massive strikes.

He's using as much of the way that he can use now.

I think, oh, yes, he does need more planes there.

They're dividing the planes up between military regions 2, 3, and 1.

And we put 52s in on military region 4 yesterday, which were very, they got some forces out of the Gulf to make them 52s in on them.

We got A-35B-52s, which he does not target.

And then wherever the battle becomes,

Well, where good targets show themselves, or where the battle becomes, we're critical where he can just help.

They always fly every day.

Oh, yeah, well, they fly every day, but my point is he isn't just doing it by the numbers now.

And if I say, well, he has so many sorges in one, two, three, and four, if the way they strap him to 35 going to there, 35 carries on the wall.

Not all of that, Mr. President.

He has...

Of course, a call on resources.

As I said last week, when the temple got beat up, he asked for the resources that were at the moment operating north of the DMC, and they were beating it to very down.

He has got to take care of it.

Let me say on that score, this is one advantage.

Assuming that we do anything more.

One great advantage of this operation, as established on this bomb, is if you just bomb, more its credibility is very seriously jeopardized if you just, if you have to pull it off just in the battleground.

If you do this operation, it will leave with the understanding in the next two or three weeks when this battle is critical, that Abrams has all air power that he needs for the battle area.

Because after all, this is a long-range proposition anyway, and if the 200s are flying up there, and he didn't, at a certain time, he put them down there.

I mean, that is the end.

He doesn't, however, at this time, he really can't use them down there, isn't that right?

After all, my God, they're flying, so most of them can't get directly, wake them to wake them.

But he had, but you see, he had access to these resources.

Which, in other words, Bell's point is very well taken, that the main battle is being fought in the south.

the resources of our aircraft will be used in the South.

That's one of the reasons, incidentally, that we did not have another strike on Hanoi high long after the first one.

There were other reasons too, diplomatic reasons.

One of the reasons was that

He wrote a very strong memorandum here that he said, here's where the battle is, don't divert anything from there.

And when the field commander says it's where I need the planes, you can't say, oh, get out of the high pump, right pump.

Well, unless you want to do it for some other purpose.

I'm more like an overruled military commander.

I'd like to say that I am very much persuaded by the military commander says that if he faces a crisis, he's going to come first.

That's what we understand.

Mr. President, one thing that I very strongly feel is that whatever we want to do, that we do it all.

In other words, do it all at once.

That has two practical objects.

Number one, to free up the air in case you have to use it, as you just indicated.

And number two, to the element of surprise.

And I'm going to have a third thing, of course, is the domestic impact.

There won't be a separate action to doing something else later.

And it seems to me that the docks are part of this thing and that the shipping

I couldn't agree more with the Vice President.

It seems to me, and I don't want to be argumentative, I've said too much, but you not only have Vietnam, you have Laos, you have Cambodia, you have all of Southeast Asia.

One of the reasons, everybody said, well, listen, and you've said it, and I don't think you really need it, but you've said that the American people are sick of it, and they've done this, they've done that.

Well, one of the reasons the American people are sick of it is that they do want the war over.

But you told them you're going to withdraw the troops and end the war, but you're going to do it, well, they didn't do it.

You're going to do it preserving a foreign policy for this nation, and they've assumed you're going to do that now.

If we get defeated, it isn't the South end of East Hall.

You're not going to preserve anything.

You're going to destroy your ability to have a foreign policy in this country.

Sure, I agree with Mel.

It's not going to help the next two weeks or three weeks.

I agree with him in terms of the ground action in South Vietnam.

I agree with him that if South Vietnamese are going to survive, they're going to have to water survive hard enough to stand there and take it and dig it out.

But we also have to look at what we're doing there.

And we made a grave mistake back in the mid-'60s by saying, we're not going to do this and we're not going to do that.

We tied the hands of the American power and the American men who were there.

This is one of the reasons why the American people don't want to support it, because we started it on a no-win basis.

Now, if we don't do something to get out

with some dignity and some assurance that it's not going to be a message of weakness to the rest of the world, then I think we've committed irreparable damage to this country.

Now, if we move, we ought to move, we ought to block the harbor, we ought to bomb Hanoi, we ought to bomb Haiphong, all of the military targets that you can find.

It seems unusual to me that we'll fight a two-year war

uh, without inflicting some damage on the aggressor.

Some substantial damage on the aggressor.

Why?

I may stop getting, I may fall, and I won't blame them for it.

Here we go in China, they don't really know what was agreed to in China.

They may think we sold them out.

I don't know what they think.

But we need a man.

We're, we're talking to the S. But, uh,

They think they're suffering all the damage.

They see nothing being done to North Vietnam.

They see North Vietnam invading Laos, Cambodia, invading them.

No damage to North Vietnam.

The aggressor nation becomes a sanctuary.

Now, this has been true in the last several years.

Now, the next move, if Russia gets away with it here, it didn't Pakistan, it didn't Bangladesh, it's now going to do it in South Vietnam.

It'll mean all of Southeast Asia, in my judgment.

Now, where it would be next?

The Middle East.

Well, who could then?

The rest don't think they can move with impunity against Israel.

And I think that's the telegraph that we're sending out to the world.

And I think these are the things that we have to look at, especially the part of the military victory.

I think there's some serious question about the ability to stop Vietnam to survive, but that's one problem.

It's another problem.

to deal with our forces and the utilization of our forces in such a manner that would draw our troops in such a way as to preserve some semblance of strength to deal with nations in the future and the world.

And that's what concerns me.

In other words, are you ready, are you suggesting you would approve this even though you recognize the substantial risks itself being not so redundant?

Sure.

I might even be from, Mr. President, I might even be from air lifting our troops out of there right now.

They just say, fellas, we're through with you.

But make a conscious, deliberate decision.

Don't let it erode away.

Don't let them mention it.

And like a bunch of piranhas, just nibble you to death.

I just think you might as well let the whale swallow you.

I'd make a conscious, deliberate decision.

That reflects some degree of leadership.

What this country needs is, and what it's looking for is leadership.

This is why people are from a government.

For one, it's because they're saying something.

They don't even agree with what they're saying.

Government says get out.

Law says get in.

That's right.

But they're from one or the other, and they don't even care simply because they're saying something.

They say they believe in something.

This is John Van Halen.

I would like to say this, and I appreciate it if you're all speaking.

I could make every argument.

I made this one, and I made this one, and this one, and this one.

I think we've confronted more of those things, and I haven't talked to them since he's come back.

We've confronted a situation where there is no choice.

None.

There's no choice.

And we confront a situation where it's usually the case that I'll have to make the decision I'm going to make before 2 o'clock.

And therefore, I want all of you to know that whatever you've stated, we'll be taking into consideration.

And we wait.

And that's what we made.

But before we go into that, I didn't know it would be an addition to covering this thing that would give your evaluation of the world.

Also, you might give your evaluation on one other point, which I don't think has been mentioned.

It was, I think, implied by Dick in his thinking.

When we evaluate what happens here, we can see all the rifts and confrontations.

We also have to recognize that while we cannot count on it and must assume, therefore, that it must not make this decision based upon it, we also have to have, certainly in mind, the fact that the major powers, the Soviet Union, with that recommendation, with as much as on the plate, the German treaty and other things,

might move within a reasonable time to attempt to cool it, rather than attempt to heat it up.

You see, they have in reverse the problem that we've got.

We've got to be tied down in this little corner of the world, and we've got China, Russia, Latin America, and the Middle East, and all the rest, and Europe.

But here's the petroleum.

Now, whether or not they will look at it this way remains to be seen.

Certainly, the Chinese won't look at it this way.

The Chinese have to support the wars for liberation of Korea, and they will.

That might be the question about the Soviets there.

But I don't, I think we have to bear in mind that after Henry's four days in Moscow, that they expressed concern about the problem.

They expressed an interest in solving the problem.

They apparently had talked to him only in terms of returning to the conference table.

Whether they have enough say to do something about it

Other than procedurally, it's the real question.

That we're not sure whether they can, whether they can cut off supplies.

They can cut off supplies.

They're sure of cutting off supplies, but in terms of people wanting to do something, that is something which is very good.

Now, as far as this action is concerned, we'll put it this way.

As far as the Soviet Union is concerned,

Proceeding on the present course, they have damn little incentive to do more than they've done.

Proceeding on a more dramatic course, a drastic course, may give them incentive to do more, or it may be a disincentive.

That's what we have to balance.

So there's William.

I don't want to be greedy, because I know you probably thought of all these factors, and I don't serve any purpose to argue with this.

The first time he said, there's no doubt about it, in my opinion, that if there's a failure in South Vietnam, and by a failure, I mean a total takeover of South Vietnam by the North, that that's what I would say, just as I can, I would want to promise him.

And he's any doubt about that.

Even if we try.

Now,

On the question of doing something compared to not doing something, I think we shouldn't be carried away with that.

I think that certainly in other parts of the world, and I think the American people think that you've done a great deal, and they think you're doing a lot now.

I don't quite agree that the American people don't think you've tried hard and don't think you've done all you should do.

I rather think that they think you've done very well and very effectively, and many of you have given the South Vietnamese the chance they needed.

If they can't make it now, they may never be able to make it.

The question that seems to be your face with is, is there something more that you can do that would be effective?

Is there some decision you could make that will make it possible

We used to survive this year, certainly, maybe next year.

So I think next February was a good one.

I think the one that Carter created is a very good one.

What will be the effect?

Now we assume the effect of doing more is going to be a good effect.

History shows that most of the time we thought we were going to do something worse.

It's just the absolute fact that President Johnson thought that every time they had a question, he'd send another 100,000 troops.

He said, send them.

I mean, we're going to do everything.

We're not going to show the rest of the world we're weak.

But it didn't work.

So really the question seems to me we're faced with is do we think it's going to work?

In looking at this paper that the CIA prepared, it's quite clear that certainly

for some time to come, it's not going to have any effect militarily, and it may not at all.

I mean, I think we've got to be sure when we talk about closing down here, that that may be just an illusion.

But certainly we can cause us some trouble.

Now, it would undoubtedly have, it's going to have a psychological impact, and it may well affect the enemy psychologically.

And if it does do that, if it helps them in their will to fight and survive, then I think it's worth a laugh.

I don't know, you've got to weigh the other possibility.

It may have the opposite effect.

Instead of having a beneficial effect, it could be quite harmful.

Because every time we talk about this war, we have to think about it being fought in two places.

One, the battlefields in South Vietnam, and one domestically in the rest of the world.

Now, it's tough to decide what the effect will be here.

I think it's going to be a very tough one.

I think it's going to be tougher than the bombing in Hyde Park.

I think it's going to be the toughest one we've ever faced.

It causes a good deal of trouble with our allies because they don't like the concept of a blockade.

I think we'll have some support, I think, probably in Britain and maybe Germany, possibly Belgium, but I think most of the other countries probably will take a pretty good view of it.

My questions and talking to them, I don't think it's going to make a lot of difference.

It doesn't make any difference.

But if we assume that public opinion here at home is going to be important for the next three or four months, and congressional opinion is, then it seems to me we have to wait.

I think it's going to be charged that this doesn't have any military facts of what we're really talking for some time to come.

And if you read this paper, you'll see that, for example, John, most of the supplies that come into the port are food, things of that kind, and petroleum.

But it looks as if, in the paper, probably most of the military equipment comes by rail.

And it also indicates in here that probably they can readjust their petroleum supplies and bring them down either by rail or by road or by river.

Now, maybe they can't, and if they can't, over a period of time, it will hurt them.

But, I mean, assuming that the CIA is assessing this track, then they can argue this may not have any immediate military impact.

It may not for some time.

Now, if we do this and fail, then I don't agree.

I think that would be worse.

I think then we're really going to have a national prestige on the line in a way that hasn't happened up to this point because we're going to take on...

a good deal of opposition in the rest of the world.

But the real question seems to me is, is it going to be effective?

And I don't know how you can judge that except relying on the military.

Are you going to be better off militarily after this is over than you were before?

And I'm speaking about militarily and do public opinion here at home in Congress and the rest of the world.

Certainly, if this looks as if it'll strengthen your hand in the Falcon piece, I don't want anybody to oppose it.

I'm all for it.

I have some doubts about that conclusion.

I'm not sure what we're doing.

It's just sort of out of frustration.

But in fact, the conclusion, and I think we all should support the person who decides to do this, we all should support it strongly and hope it turns out well.

I don't know whether there's a time factor now or do we have to decide it today.

Could we wait for another week and see what happens on the battlefield and maybe we'll clarify ourselves a little bit.

Certainly one of the things I learned in talking about European trends is that the North Vietnamese, in their discussions with us, point out that one of the things they're really trying to do desperately is destroy the summit.

They don't want the summit to take place, probably because the Soviet Union has been urging them, I suppose, to some extent to be reasonable.

And the North Vietnamese, in discussing this with some of our allies, have said that if they could take some action to destroy the prospects of the summit, that would help them.

And I think this will, I think we all agree this will destroy the cross-bases.

I don't agree with that.

I think it pushes it backwards.

I don't think it's going to destroy the cross-bases.

That's an answer to the question.

Well, it could work either way.

How do you feel about that?

I think the chances are better than even that it will, that the Soviets will cancel the center.

In fact, I think we should do this if we do it

I'm not sure it will.

It's going to be tough.

We're loving it.

The thing that makes me, I mean, you couldn't go to the... No, the bombing, we were bombing, and they allowed us to go, I mean, and they killed others.

But I mean, where you couldn't go to the sun is in the conditions of being South Vietnam, were it as they are today or worse.

Is there that?

No way, they got to cancel it between the two.

I mean, it's infinitely better for the Soviets to cancel the sun than for you to have to cancel it.

They take the blame.

People would say, you know, 100%.

probability of not going under current circumstances, and if you do this, you're confused, or maybe 50%.

You're not down for the proposition.

You're not down for the proposition, and it's usually a military question.

Well, I have a question.

I don't think cancellation is so necessary.

Curtis, you know, Curtis is a liberal class, but I'm not sure of Curtis politically.

I mean, Elvis, as a matter of fact, he generated sort of an antagonist, so you need to build on that.

But I think

Like Mrs. Ann Ward's had them so long, the question is, is it going to work?

And it doesn't work.

If we go through all of this, painful as it will be, and it doesn't help us any more, it hurts us.

Sub-file analysis, we can say three months of crisis.

We shouldn't have done it.

We're worse off than we would have been.

We haven't done it.

If we just sped off, which we would be, it's way false.

We haven't done it.

We see how the trouble with it is I hope everybody doesn't make so much out of Quay.

Quay may fall anyway.

And this idea that Quay is the difference.

Quay has fallen before in 68, Mr. Vice President.

I just hate to make that such a big...

Because if we do this and then wait, well, I'm telling you, we're in worse shape.

I don't want to get Whitey to build up his position.

That's down very close to the DMC, and I just don't want to get that built into the... We don't want to, but we're going to have it built.

I think it's a mistake for us to do this, particularly if we do this to make Whitey into a big DMC.

Not us, but the media are going to make William a big deal, and if William is made into a big enough deal and there's nothing else happening, what's going to happen to this empty and new piece of resolve?

That's why I say this slide could become an apple.

My problem on this is a simple question of assets, and I believe that in order for this to work and to stop, suppliers will need it.

probably the same level of sortie activity which was not successful in 1967.

But I have trouble with all of these pictures.

I don't know how to analyze them.

For example, if you say it was not successful, if it was not successful, it's stopping 10% of what we are talking about now.

And then you have to analyze how much percent of that 10% did stop.

What they would have to do is to

to redirect 2.2 million tons of supplies on railways that last year carried 300,000.

Now, I've heard...

But they don't answer that question.

No, but I have to say, these figures, when you throw systems analysis figures around, all you can say is in 1965 to 68, it didn't stop all of the 10%.

I don't know whether...

But there are other differences, 65 and 68, which we should bear in mind in the intelligence community.

As you know, Dick was way off on this.

There was a hell of a lot coming in through that stuff.

There was a hell of a lot coming in by seeing that old stuff.

So what we're looking at here is a very different situation there.

So it's very easy to argue.

I can make all these arguments the same way.

You can cut off the middle.

You cut off this thing, you're putting the whole weight on the railroads and, of course, on the roads.

And it does a little different situation.

And you say it has a theoretical capacity of 13,000 tons.

They need 6,800 tons.

Therefore, it's easily within its capability.

Well, these things are governed by credit lines.

First of all, if they can use trains during the day, that cuts it down already by 50%.

So you're already at the limit of its capacity if it has to operate at night.

If you could stop the music railway during the day, then you'd have really to analyze it.

You did it by the numbers in every segment of that railway in China to see whether they have the capacity to feed it to, I know that's possible, but I see here in your report it says there's one segment of the China railway that is out to get overloaded.

That's in fact where I got the idea from.

On the other side.

All I'm saying is when you throw gross figures around without knowing whether the railway cars are the right size, so what you're moving, what time of day they're going to do, what the additional, they're bound to do sun damage, even if it isn't perfect.

where you would then be, this is the analysis that you'd have to make rather than showing gross figures.

Here's, let me pick up where Phil's point is.

Did you want to add something?

Yeah.

And another point I'm making, Mr. President, it's easy to say they have a four-month capacity, therefore they're going to go all out for four months, and then wind up at zero.

It'd be

Interesting to see what a prudent man would do knowing he's running out in four months.

One thing he could do is to try to get it all done in the next month.

That's one problem more likely, as Mel says, I think you'd likely see it.

Well, but another thing you could see is to try to stretch it out, in which case you'd get a slowdown.

Yeah.

I don't think that'll happen.

I'm not saying that.

That's it.

Hold on a second.

The one thing they will not do is go down to zero.

Yeah.

Let me come to a key point that Bill has raised, which is there's got to be one in zero.

Bill, as I understand, believes that it's militarily effective.

I think we all agree with this.

Even though it's militarily effective, it doesn't change anything.

I mean, I think we all have this.

I have this.

I mean, it's very easy to say, well, get this out of war.

Pass the election.

Once we're past the election, let this country go.

Well,

whoever sits in this chair after the election has got to deal with what happens to Vietnam.

So if this decision is made, I have to take into consideration not only its short-term advantages, which are minimal from a military standpoint, but its long-term advantages that might be critical.

I think we could all agree that it could be critical.

And that second point, though, is more perhaps timely.

Bill's belief, as I understand it, is that if South Vietnam goes, and we have done this, we are in a worse position than if South Vietnam goes and we haven't done it.

John's position and Ted's position, as I understand it, is that if South Vietnam goes and we have not done this, we're in a worse position than if we haven't done it.

In my view, who knows?

In my view, it really comes down to this point, that either way, if this is done and Safia not goes, or if this is not done and Safia not goes, that as far as the political situation is concerned, you're done.

I feel like many would not agree with that.

My own view is that what is on the line here in this decision, frankly, is naturally an election.

And thinking of the election only, the only effective way to handle it from a purely political standpoint is to do what John Playa moment ago

And that is to decide now, before there is a coup, that the South Vietnamese aren't going to make it.

To point out that the Senate critics and the Democratic candidates have torpilled our negotiations and put the blame on them for the failure of negotiations, that they've also destroyed, they've encouraged the enemy to launch this offensive, put the blame on them.

And under the circumstances, we get out and put the blame on them, campaign on them as the one that got us in the war and sabotaged the efforts of this administration to get us out.

I can make the God-natured speech you ever saw.

I think it would be.

However, I don't think I can bring myself to do that because I know too much about what the hell is going to happen if that is done.

We win an election and lose the country.

And if you choose.

What I had is this.

I am not sure that South Vietnam can be saved.

I am not sure that, frankly, American-style training, with all its permissiveness and letting row beers and all that crap, I am not sure that it's equal to communist-style training with its brutality and its discipline and threats.

And that's another thing to be honest about.

That's not just credit to our military, it's the way we are.

We believe in volunteers and we believe in freedom.

We believe in permissiveness and all that sort of thing, or at least some do.

That's a much greater service, I guess.

We certainly got that belief across to the South Vietnamese states.

Because when you really come down to it, the North Vietnamese,

not because they believe in communism, but because they're so goddamn afraid of what's going to happen if they don't get their ass out there and fight, just fight better than ours.

And Americans are not good at training others.

We train them our way, which may work for an American, but it doesn't work for the damn for an Asian, at least not a South Indian organization.

If I may, as a digression, the main point I come to is this, that I cannot, I will consider to make this a possibility, if we could go, of simply cutting it now, cutting it before the South Vietnam is fatal, flanking the doves, which they deserve my, for sabotaging the negotiating track,

and encouraging, I mean, discouraging our friends, bringing our men home, and then saying, effectively, early at night, look, fellas, we'll stop all activities in Southeast Asia, which would be the price you get on our BOWs.

See, there's one factor I know that we should always look at, and that's the mandatory thing.

We should submit that to the U.N. and the National Red Cross, and do like that.

We have to have in mind that the price for getting back the POWs, despite all this talk that we've heard, just a deadline, deadline for POWs, we tried that.

And we tried that just last week.

They won't pay.

Their price for the POWs, and it's a very, very strong move in their point, the right thing that you do, is we will give you your POWs not just when you get out, but when you stop all military assistance

when you stop all airstrikes all over Southeast Asia, and they will hold those guys and those filthy persons until we get out totally.

Because, and we have nothing to bargain with.

Now, there is something to be said, incidentally, in this connection.

It cannot be the deciding factor, because 400 men, even though they have suffered a lot, cannot be the deciding factor here.

But at least with this kind of an operation,

We have something to bargain for for our POWs.

We have nothing to bargain for now.

This would be, we would be hurting them in a way that they would want to be rid of.

And that is one factor that we have to consider.

I don't know whether anybody else has any other suggestions, because we certainly could pay the price to get our POWs, and they have raised.

If we pay that price, then it's Cambodia, it's Laos, it's Thailand, it's the whole box.

President, since you've said you have to consider those factors that you just mentioned about the possibility of doing whatever political opinion I'm planning on that does, I feel, and it's strange to say, I have to respectfully disagree that this is a viable political alternative.

I think we could get absolutely murdered and try to do that.

I think we just left the Australian DMO.

It's true.

I don't think we can sell them.

I think we just say, well, they tried to do it, and they couldn't do it.

Now they're trying to say that because they waited so long, they didn't give it away.

I just don't think they'll watch.

Well, we really got that, and you have the choice to fuck out, but you don't think we'll watch?

Sure, I think we might.

That's another matter.

We aren't going to do it for, I mean, I think I've talked to myself all about it.

The second part is we have the choice to continue to do what we're doing.

It's a very viable alternative.

The risk is that it will fail.

And then the question is, have you failed to continue to do what we've done?

On all options that I'm considering, some of them sound too, we've got to assume that we just continue to do what we're doing.

If there's any questions, we can ask them.

I think that must be clearly understood.

We can't go there and make the position where Russian tanks and guns are getting the hell out of our allies.

That's all there is to it.

And we're there not helping.

And also, when before the summit, they will not agree that they will help, because everybody will come back.

After we got back from China, you will all remember, everybody asked, did you discuss Vietnam?

What did you get out of Vietnam?

And we were able to say, well, we won't say what we discussed.

First, we discussed Vietnam.

We didn't get a damn thing from the Chinese.

And with the Russians, it would be the same damn thing.

So, you see what I mean?

It's the summit.

We can go there.

It's an instant planter.

And you, let me just tell you what the summit's like.

It will continue as it is.

I mean, you're going to get this out of the way right away.

The summit.

We have a solar grid.

And we sit there in the Great Hall of St. Peter, and we sign the goddamn solar grid.

We give them credits, export-import bank credits, for a billion dollars' worth of this and a billion dollars' worth of this, and on the other hand,

Then we have an agreement to explore space theater and a whole hell of a lot of other things people are talking about.

And then we have an agreement on principles of mutual co-existence, you know, where each agrees that he will use his strengths in relations with the others.

And then we, I'm telling you, these days, black, black guns, the President of the United States of Russia, at a time that Soviet tanks and guns are taking the hell out of our allies.

Can you imagine that?

It's not possible.

Now, if on the other hand, looking at the sum possible, I think it would be sum if you act.

I think it would be sum if you act.

But just so we get this out of the way, if we have acted, and you still have a sum, then you at least are in a position to act.

But that's not a likely thing.

It's possible that it's not quite enough, but it's probably less than 50-50.

So the sum is out of the way.

But you really come down to the proposition, which is the hard one.

as to whether we are better off than basically letting the dust down, or whether there is enough, even though it isn't decisive, enough of a chance that taking more drastic action might get the balance, psychologically and otherwise, so as to avoid fate.

That's really what it gets down to.

Now, making the decision then, we'll have to weigh those two things.

And, of course, the difficulty is that you're met with, there's Al, John, you know, equal ability each comes up with on various days and things.

But it really comes down to not to a difference in terms of what we'd like to see happen, not in terms of how important it is not to lose to Vietnam.

But it really comes down to our discussion as to, one, what we can do to prevent losing.

And second, what we should do, if we do lose, to make the losses, shall we say, palatable, is hostile.

And so, this is a, it has to be put into the corners of that kind of reason.

That's the reason why it's rather difficult.

May I make one other point?

Sure.

Hustle, until very recently, it seems to me,

That's the best thing.

That's right.

Secondly, though, during all last fall and most of this spring, there has been some really viable hope

I know it might come some peace terms through negotiation.

That option is now gone, as I understand the situation.

The last meeting, they were not only arrogant, but they were in trouble.

And the further we go down this road of attrition, the stronger they become.

So you've lost that option.

That's the one you're available to.

So the only point I want to make is this one.

That's your future.

And when I say yours, I mean this country's future.

And it's foreign policy.

And just to extend it, it represents the hope of the free world.

It's really in the hands of the South Vietnamese and whether or not they're going to stand and fight.

And that's a posture at which we just can't leave it.

And that's a posture at which we can't have foreign policy of this country jeopardized.

How do you change that, Coach?

Well, how do you change that posture?

I still think that that's a fact.

They do.

But, Mel, my point is that... Yeah, let me just say it.

You know, I'm under a limitation for the press, as we all are, of $2.4 billion worth of equipment and support we give them here.

Now, because of actions which the President took, which were actions that I was directed to take and his decisions made, I had put in this year $2.9 billion, and I'm hiding this underneath the table.

Look at this.

Our program was 2.4, and I hide under the table.

The other 500 million dollars is headed to people, but I got it boarded up.

The services and actions are boarded over here.

Got it all over.

Here's your license.

Let's not worry about it.

Now if I thought I could go up and get support for this, that'd be fine.

But the problem here is, Jenna, is where you are next year as far as your foreign policy.

In order to have a strong, viable foreign policy,

In order to be something and be able to be strong, you can't just break down everything as far as your military posture in this country is concerned.

And the damn problem with it is that we're 1,100,000 people less.

Our Air Force is down 200,000.

Our Navy is down 300,000.

But we still got these things that we've got to finance.

And you've got to have the support of the people in the Congress to do this.

It's a certain thing.

If you ain't nowhere this year, you ain't got to be nowhere next year.

We've got to be out before they roll your second plan.

Well, I just think you can't make a decision that's made to you based on the doctor's cost.

And I don't think it's going to be that much different.

You're pouring it in there now.

It's just about as fast as you can pour it.

The question is, what are you doing with it?

How can you get it there?

You're connecting resources.

The question is, how do you use them?

Well, it's how they use it, though, that's the point.

When I see them leave the 48 tanks up there, not even get into a battle, because they couldn't get into a battle.

All right, here's the thing.

Please convince me of this.

You can't convince me that you can go in and mine the harbor of Haiphong and blockade it and bomb the docks and bomb the POLs and the railroads and not impact it.

I think we could save a hell of a lot of money by just doing away with the Air Force, and that's part of the Navy.

Right.

Well, I thought you that right here in this room under another administration.

We were all over here.

I mean, this plan is nothing new.

The first time I don't care what happens.

My point is that you psychologically do something to the North Vietnamese.

Psychologically, you can do something to the South yet, to me.

So the one hand is favorable, the other hand is unfavorable.

The psychological impact, the political impact may be great.

That's what we're talking about in South Vietnam.

You say we've got to have a will.

How do you give them the will?

Maybe you give them the will by saying, well, we're going to at least inflict some damage on the aggression.

We've tried everything yet, tried everything with the South Vietnamese, and you can't fault the equipment, you can't fault the training of the president, perhaps.

But I think it's quite a success.

I guess that's all I know.

Perhaps the American way is not the way it'll work.

It's the top of the brand.

It's the police.

But that's not to do with me.

Those little guys from North Vietnam, L.A.,

Well, you know, the way you get people to fight, some of these young officers and presidents have come back to take this one of those guys from Anlock.

He was telling me about the situation going up to those Soviet tanks.

The only guy that wasn't chained in was the tank commander-in-chief.

I mean, they do it a little bit.

I know, but I don't see it.

They do it a little bit.

I think that, uh, I think that, uh, here's the problem the president has decided to be, or decided.

Is it going to work?

I'm not worried about money or anything like that.

Is it going to work in terms of Saudi Arabia now?

Is it going to work in terms of our public opinion?

Obviously, if we have a further deterioration

support, which could happen.

Fortunately, up to this point, the support has been excellent.

We've done a hell of a good job.

The President's support for his policies increased recently.

Now, it may be it will further, and I think that's a point I'm pressing.

On the other hand, it could be that people say, oh, Bill, I think the nature of the area is however it is.

And we all have to realize, and John is here, and Mel and the rest of us have to realize,

The answer to that is we aren't sure.

And so therefore, you come down to the critical point is you have to balance all these things and say, well, there are risks of doing what we're presently doing and continue to do that.

There are risks of doing more.

And I think we've got to assume that either way we fail.

And the question is, where are you in a stronger posture?

I don't know.

That's a topic.

The analysis of the military situation to Mel Gibbs, of course, is somewhat reassuring.

On the other hand, when I read Mel Abrams' long cable of May 2nd, it was very reassuring.

You know, that was very rough.

Remember, he'd written one on May 2nd.

Then he sent his one on May 2nd.

And that was when I had to send it.

People said, it's your suggestion, too.

They said, look, boy, we're still behind you.

So I think you would agree, too, that you would not be surprised to see the South Vietnamese move.

You don't think it's going to happen, but it's something- Well, I think that they will take perhaps four or five provincial capitals.

I mean, I don't talk about that.

Sure.

But I think that that's possible.

Out of the 44 provincial capitals, they may take four or five.

But I think that they can hold the rest.

Well, I don't think they'll break down just on that.

Let me say something.

We'll, uh, I'll, uh, contact you again until 2 o'clock, as it's got to landing early after this, the second half.

Uh, I can do it.

Obviously, I have worked on this problem in terms of a possible statement.

I will, uh, I will, uh, see that, uh, the great parts of the view and, uh,

You know, because we've got to say, if we're going to do this, we've got to put it in the most conciliatory language possible and the strongest language possible, and neither is easy.

When I say conciliatory, I meant in terms of what we want us to, we're doing this for the purpose of accomplishing certain things.

I would say that in the meantime, and I would strongly urge, this has been a meeting only of the secretary members of the NFC, and most of John is here because he's been sitting in these meetings from the beginning.

I think that this decision is such great importance that we should all respect the confidence that we've talked frankly, and if the decision is made, we'll all support it.

Do you have any columns out that start with this and press it over and so on and so on?

Each of you sitting in this spot, go either way as you could if you realize that.

And if I have to make a decision, I should expect support.

If the decision is to live with the present situation, I'm going to have to support that.

If the decision is to do this,

Let me say, it will not work unless we are in a position of all out ferocity.

All out ferocity.

And that means everybody has got to take that line.

I don't know what it does to, we'll have to talk about this next year trip or not, I guess not.

I think that his situation will be affected too.

On the other hand, I think I have this in mind too.

It will be affected by these considerations.

We would not want to have it still in advance.

Some of them are going to be cancelled otherwise.

My guess is that if we do it, I think we need the big guns here, and I think we need you here, and we need Val here, and all the rest of you.

I'm sorry, Vice President.

I think at present, the week after next, it would be a mistake for us to cancel out the defense ministries of NATO and there's plenty of them.

I think they all look like they have no narrative decisions.

I think that that is minor.

I think we want to look like this is something that we're breaking away from.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

As a matter of fact, well, we, as you know, as all of you know, you're literally out at the border.

I'll forget about it.

I'll think about it and just say,

I want to consider the option that's now raised.

I'm going to look over a little bit.

Could you give me a little analysis of your cold-blooded analysis of the situation?

I'll weigh that.

I think the bombing option is, to me, not a viable one due to the fact that it would commit more, but very frankly, it would

For it to be viable, we would have to take too much from Abrams.

This, of course, does not require taking that much from Abrams.

My point is, if you're going to do bombing alone, you've got to do a hell of a lot of bombing.

If you're going to do this plus bombing, you don't have to do that much.

And I think that Mellon's right.

You've got to keep that pressure on in that area.

If we do do this, the main thing is to have the operating parts

I'm fairly understood by everybody.

I'll try to work on the rhetoric if I have a little time on this.

Thanks for your time.

Thank you, Mr. President.

We'll be right back.