Conversation 111-003

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Okay, circle.

Okay, uh, bring those boots to this side of the station, please.

We're getting a special variety.

All right.

Sir?

How do you mean, you want to rephrase that?

I thought we had a ceasefire.

Can I suggest for others to look across this way because you've got, you see your staff over here.

Gentlemen, come and photograph across.

She went on.

Okay, next slide.

There it goes man.

There has to be that one.

What did they say about that?

I don't know.

All right.

All of us are going to the, uh, to the, uh... That's the day we'll focus on.

Thank you.

The reason he could not have you for the day is a design by John.

I thought that was a big bad sign.

uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh...

We were going to have this last month, but then they insisted that they want the agreement a day later.

But we didn't.

We were wondering if it was going to be a good deal.

Everybody agreed that the agreement would be put out a day later.

It was better for everyone.

And so, because they wanted to have it, we thought we'd do well and have just the first announcement of the agreement.

I will not take your time by going further on that.

I will only say that the agreement meets the conditions we laid out in our mediation proposal in January, but there are different proposals.

An international supervisor has filed a return on POWs in the next 60 days for the Senate.

The withdrawal of all Americans within the next 60 days period, that, of course, will be a parallel operation and a process by which the Soviet Union will retain

uh... uh... uh... or uh...

As you all know, all pieces are hard to disagree, to choose from.

All of us, you see.

All of us, you will.

Are hard to choose from.

You take Korea.

Many of you have their next Korean line.

Many of you know.

We'll talk about this today, but let's get clear.

And 20 years after Korea, we still have incidents.

Not so many as we used to.

Here the Americans are on one side and the others on the other side, and there they are, and there's still incidents.

And Korea, however, is really a big one compared to the guerrilla war situation in Korea.

It's all technical issues.

There you have a line.

Here you've got units of the North Vietnamese and the VC throughout the country.

And so in enforcing this thing by a supervisor, having it work, it's going to be more difficult.

And that is one of the reasons why the Commission's

and how they operate are enormously important.

I would say also this.

There was one line in my talk last night, or a couple of lines, that I will not go into any further detail.

I know that it's going to be picked up a lot.

Perhaps we do not specifically mention, for example, the Soviet Union.

We do not mention the PRC in the Supreme Court.

And we're not going to talk about it either.

To talk about it either.

would completely or probably inevitably lead to forcing them into a position where restraint would not be possible.

On the other hand, let me say, we are totally aware of the fact that restraint by all the major powers, including the United States, including the U.S. and the U.S.

is incredibly important in order to make this work.

And to the extent restraint is shown on their side, restraint will be shown on ours.

Let's go beyond that and accept that that base is being covered.

It hasn't been covered in the past.

It will be covered in the future.

Is that fair statement?

That is.

Is that to examine us too closely on that and to say, what are we doing?

Why don't we make a public statement?

Why don't we do this and that?

Let me say, momentarily,

I mean, look, with the competition between those collars, either of them on a public spot, you are going to force them to step.

They are not going to do anything.

They're going to compete with each other to continue to support this revolution.

So that's the situation there.

Now, the only point that I will cover, because I know that all of you are interested, both from a personal and emotional standpoint, as I am, and you're all going to have letters in place from constituents of the POW issue.

Henry will elaborate on the details.

But I want to cover briefly what Mike and Jerry, which I covered last night with you, as to how that is going to work and how we can now reveal it.

Within 60 days, on Saturday, all will be released.

And at the same time, all of our own troops will be withdrawn.

Now, the first will be released within 15 days.

And about a fourth will be released at that time.

People say, why do we wait 60 days?

The point is that you have to make arrangements to do it.

And also, we have to get our horses out at the same time.

You see, it's a parallel deal.

That's a straight treatment.

But it's arranged 60 days.

arrangements for their meeting, and this is one of the intricate things that we did work out very early on, are now just what we asked for.

In October, they were not.

I'm not sure if they were conditions, but the arrangements are.

They will be released.

For example, those held in North Vietnam cannot come off.

American planes will be allowed, of course, to go in.

Medical, what they call medical, medevac planes will go in to pick them up.

They will be flown from Hanoi to Vietnam, and that will be allowed to come.

Now, for those held in South Vietnam, there are some in South Vietnam.

will be made within the next week to ten days as to the points at which they will be released.

They will be released in South Vietnam.

They will be released to the government of the United States and not to peace troops.

And it will be flown, of course, just as expeditiously as possible.

Back here, probably, in terms of places, I guess, we haven't thought all this through totally, but I would imagine Guam, Hawaii, and then to the Air Base up in Northern California.

I think it's the third shuttle.

Those are details that we will work out next time.

So, John, I'll meet you together.

Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,

I'll supervise, but we'll check the situation with regard to this and get as active a report as we possibly can on that point.

The last year, certainly, I think it's as clear as it can possibly be.

The protocol is very good on this.

because we knew that the field of his honesty and wise and that sort of thing and so forth and the message felt very strongly that this should be nailed down.

It is nailed down as well as it possibly can be.

That's the field of consideration at this point.

Now what I would suggest would be a good procedure this morning would be for Henry to run over the highlights of the agreement.

The agreement itself will be

made public and be available to those involved and, of course, to the leaders.

He got all of the details of the agreement.

And if you would like to give a little background on how we got to where we are, it might be of some interest to the leaders.

But I think they're also interested primarily in details that may not have already been out.

And then as we go along, if questions arise, of course, you're welcome to ask them.

We'll try to respond.

I'm going to ask Henry to respond to most of the details because his information is more, shall we say, current than mine.

I have been completely and naturally in touch with all the business people.

And, of course, the statement that was signed was true of the Washington State.

But Bill Sullivan is still over there.

And the statement that was signed was true of Bill.

We'll go through that.

But these details...

I think it's best for Henry to cover it because he was in the meetings.

He knows exactly what the nuances of every word and phrase is over the top.

Now, before we go into that, why don't we just, are there any questions on the POWs you'd like to ask?

And let's get that out of the way too.

First thing we'll all begin with, when will the list come out?

And other details regarding the supervision and the investigation.

of all prisoners and their names were just going to be judged on that one point, I would think.

These provisions for supervision are being published today together with the other supervisory details.

These lists of prisoners will be handed over on the day of signing, which is the same Saturday.

And then they should be made public Saturday or Sunday.

The investigation of the missing in action and the visit to Griggs, a procedure has been established for exchanging information and for investigating teams to look into disputed cases.

So all of this information should be available within a week.

The supervisory information is available today.

The names, according to the terms of the agreement, should be made available on Saturday.

That's throughout Indochina.

I mean, all of Laos.

They have made a formal statement to us that there are no prisoners held in Cambodia.

It involves Laos, North Vietnam, and South Vietnam.

There are prisoners on all the three, but one of the questions should be made is, did we get next to the leaders last night?

There were only perhaps three of them.

There are three over the Chinese.

We can only say that when I was there talking to Joe and Lyle, when Mike and Hugh were there, and when Jerry and Hale were there, assurances, well, to the extent that assurances can't be given because at that point, who could know what was going to happen, that they would consider releasing those

As soon as the war or the ceasefire, whatever we have, was achieved, we're given.

We have no information on that, and that, of course, is not covered in this agreement.

But we have every reason to believe that those insurers didn't get it.

The Downey case is a different one, I should point out.

The Downey case involves the CIA agents.

We have discussed this case with the joint line.

I have did personally.

The others did as well.

We're still hoping for the best there.

At this point, it's having him serve.

It's a pretty long time to get action on it.

These all, these are just, we're talking about one person, thousands, but I know that lots of people see it coming so better than we do.

All right, let's go again.

At the end of the meeting, I'd like to give you a close-up of today's meeting and the summary of the main provisions

of the agreements and of the protocols as well as the math, which gives you the location of the various teams.

Would you agree, Mr. President, if I could take that five minutes just on the evolution of how we got to where we are today?

As I go into these things, it settles.

the December 4th leases, which we can discuss right now, to negotiate and reach an eventual step.

There was a very little speculation at the time that this government had been produced by this or that American demand, which could not be met, which they had used to meet.

But this was actually not the case, because if it had been produced by anybody, we couldn't yield it.

What produced the stereotype, if we had wanted to, what produced the stereotype in the middle of December, as of this moment, as of that moment, was the fact that they, for whatever reason, had decided to stall for time.

And we could know, soon as they had one issue, that they had another.

And the issues became more and more

For example, there's one provision in this agreement that says that parties shall respect the neutrality of laws and campos and never respect the 954 agreements and so on.

On the last day of the meeting, they took out the word shall.

So I said, why do you take out the Rochelle?

They said, well, Rochelle is in the future.

We don't know when it starts.

So I said, well, let's put it in the early news.

They said, well, we're respecting it.

We respect it in the past.

We're respecting it in the present.

We respect it in the future.

I said, can you explain to me why we would make an agreement that applies to you to do what you're already doing?

And when you have troops at Laos and Cambodia, you say you're already respecting it.

That's highly unresuring to us.

Well, this, I don't want to bore you with all the details.

This was a two-hour discussion.

and never was resolved on that day.

There were 15 issues like this, the Jackson unit, from which the only conclusion to be drawn was not that we were in a such big deadlock, because these were not serious issues, and they disappeared in January.

Nothing that ever we heard from them again.

Well, they raised them, and they were filed in an hour.

They raised them because they were on the table, but once they started moving,

I think it would be fair to say that when you went back in December, you expected, back when you talked about it, that there were two outstanding things that you could settle up to two days at the most.

After the second day, you cabled.

After the third day, after the fourth, after the fifth, after the sixth, after the seventh, after the eighth day.

And for the end of the 10 days, there was an absolute hopeless deadlock, a filibuster.

And that was why there was, in terms of your being able to make or our being able to make incentives on their demands of our dollars, we couldn't make them fast enough.

There were two categories of problems.

There were substantive ones in which

They formed as major concessions.

For example, they were beginning to work themselves into a position where they were sending out prisoners to the release of civilians.

Prisoners in South Vietnam.

And since even the classification of prisoners in South Vietnam is among the most hopeless undertaking as to see who is in prison for criminal activities, who is in prison for political activities,

uh, as the, as, as they have been leading provisions in the agreement separating these categories, this would have been a major change.

Well, if we had laid, if we had, for example, and that was, that was laid down as a, as a national condition, uh, as far as, I mean, as far as we could do, but if we had laid, uh, the release of our prisoners, the release of civilian prisoners held by the government,

Vietnam, or the Republic of Vietnam.

we should, under no circumstances, have been able to deliver the South Vietnam peace on that part of the market.

Because they're not going to turn loose all their civilian prisoners in return for that.

So that meant that our POWs, whatever deal we made for ceasefire or anything else, would have been stuck there for months on end.

That's why I said at the leaders' meeting the other day that they regret that when they attacked the conditions in the POW issue, we could not accept it.

And now there are no deductions, whatever the deal is.

It's a flat-out deal.

So there were major issues, and then all these privilege issues that they kept raising, which, as I said, they kept raising bad for the people to settle with.

And so there was a substantial deadline.

The major issues were how would we sign the agreement, which I'll explain in a minute.

It's a matter of great importance to the South Indian people.

What is the status of the people that derive themselves, and how do we handle the existence of two political entities in a country that's recognized basically as one?

Now, that was the situation in the middle of December.

And finally, there was a total, absolute deadlock of the international machinery.

On the last day of our meetings in December, they gave us their version of the protocols.

The protocols are the implementing instruments of the facing agreement that spell out in detail the technical provisions

of the Supervisory Machinery in Central Christmas in the United States of America.

What they proposed for the International Machinery was a course of 250 of which half had to be located in Saigon, which had no organic communications to ask for the ability to conduct an investigation without the concurrence of the Atlantic Party

at which was designed, even for its necessity, even for its use case, on the party in whose area it was functioning, at which did not have a budget of its own.

Now, we could not have asked a self-expected country to serve on that, nor could this have proposed any function.

Moreover, they wanted to place them in the headquarters of their military legions, as they defined them, as they defined the military legions.

And I could go into more detail.

It was a totally objectionable, indeed, insulting sort of policy.

We could never have had an international machinery on that basis.

Secondly, they proposed, and we had agreed to, a two-party commission, if we please, two South Vietnamese parties to...

take care of the day-to-day combat.

But the way they defined it, a communist team would have been put into every district of South Vietnam with complete freedom of movement and with a complete ability to interfere in every aspect of life, and it would have been a way of spreading the communist presence throughout South Vietnam.

That, again, could not be accepted.

So we were in a total disaster.

with respect to the protocols.

But before we resume talks, in fact, we've been told, one, that all political elements had to be removed from protocols, that the protocols could only be technical instruments.

Secondly, that nothing should be in the protocols that was in the system for the Beijing Agreement.

Thirdly, that we want a serious talk to not be frivolous and shrewd.

of December.

And we have to say that they assume, we say assume, the technical draw from January 1st.

And those went very slowly into it, but it is not insulting.

And we would do the main talk on January 8th.

And I've had more enjoyable days in my life than that first day.

It's good to know it's been to me.

It's after we've been to... After we've been to... Oh, there was one day we didn't get to see each other.

It was...

It was a total death.

That was January 8th.

That evening, the police told them that this was not our mechanism to see if it was going to be edited.

And I'm going to have to say this about the North Street meetings.

In fact, they were as fast as I've ever dealt with it, but they don't want to settle.

And they are the most efficient, but they do want to settle.

But they want to move.

They have to really move.

So, on January 9th in the morning, they proposed a procedure which was very good.

They proposed that Li Dazhou and I concentrate on the agreements and on the major principles of the protocol.

Let me create a working group to work out the technical details of the protocol.

For example, Li Dazhou and I will decide there will be 46 votes throughout the country.

That's it.

Until then, these posts will be covered by the power of prison.

Then, a captain of Sullivan from the State Department headed the working group on our side, and the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs headed the working group on their side.

He placed these posts around the country.

They had this agreement.

They brought it back to us.

So we had two groups working.

In fact, January 9th, which happened to be the President's birthday, I sent a table to the President in which I said the following.

We celebrated your birthday today by making a major breakthrough in the negotiation.

In sum, we settled all the outstanding questions on the text of decrement, made major progress on the method of signing decrement, and made a constructive beginning to the protocol.

Then I gave the president the details of what was done, which I don't want to bore you with.

And because they're not allowed to stand at the end, I said that these and these had broken our hearts several times before, and we cannot assume success until everything is done.

But the mood and the business-like approach was as close to Oktober as anything we had seen since Oktober.

Oktober was the first big stretch of our career.

And the president and the YF back that evening,

I greatly appreciate it.

You put stickers and you recorded them and gave detailed instructions.

And now that I've taken the other side straight on this track, it doesn't go down until tomorrow.

What was done today is the best birthday dress I've had in 60 years.

Well, that, that January 9th was really the breakthrough in the association.

That was the point.

Which we knew if they kept going like this, we were going to have to sell it.

The next two days we settled the issue of the demilitarized cells, the issue of signing, the issue of how you take account of the fact that there are these two political entities, two countries within Vietnam, and we made spectacular progress on the protocols.

They began to talk about these protocols as really

Can I ask a question at that point?

When you talk about these two political entities, are you talking about North and South?

South Vietnam.

We're talking about the revolutionary liberation.

We're talking about North and South Vietnam.

And I will explain.

The problem is that the 1954 Accords say that Vietnam is one country, temporarily divided into two zones.

Now, there was a great deal of speculation in the press here that we were insisting on sovereignty and a lot of other things, and indirectly they're talking to us, but the very problem was that the North Vietnamese wanted to abolish the demilitarized zone, in effect.

It would have meant that we made an agreement about South Vietnam which did not define where South Vietnam began and where its provisions with respect to South Vietnam apply.

For example, there is a provision in the agreement that prohibits the infiltration of men into South Vietnam unconditionally.

Now, if you don't say where South Vietnam begins, this is a meaningless phrase.

And if you don't establish a demarcation line where the international community can operate, you are killing with one hand and taking away with the other.

So we wanted to establish a demilitarized zone, not so much as a permanent political frontier, but as a dividing line.

which separated the entity South Vietnam from the entity North Vietnam for as long as these two countries were not unified by the processes which we... Well, the dividing line, if I may add, as you already implied, the dividing line was the important, not from the standpoint of sovereign Korea, but important from the standpoint of having the infiltration

which, of course, would lead to a resumption of the war, beliefs in some way.

You don't have any dividing line.

You've got nothing to cross.

But that was the key point.

Our concern is not the sovereignty.

Our concern, basically, was to have some way to do whereby you provide your commissions and so forth.

They could say, no, you don't go across this line into here, or otherwise the war just erupts again.

If the demilitarized zone had been abolished, which is more or less what the North Vietnamese proposed,

then the provisions of the agreement would have applied only to Iranians and they would have given the latter restrictions on the south, on the Saryan government and on us, but they could not even apply the practice to the communists themselves, we found those in the North Vietnamese.

So this was a matter of great practical importance, not a matter of theoretical importance.

And

Now, that is an issue that has not been settled, that has not been settled satisfactorily.

Now, perhaps, Mr. President, I should go briefly to the agreement and explain what it would entail.

I should go through those dates.

I don't think we did.

And then I'll go through this, the agreement, and then I'll explain very briefly the protocols and that's any question which you have.

And I'll make examples of the agreement.

The first one is to see an assertion that the 1954 agreement with respect to the territorial integrity of sovereignty and unity of freedom are reaffirmed by the United States and all other countries.

Before I get into this, I have to expect one, before I get into this, I have to expect one procedure, which has to do with science.

As you know, the Saigon people do not recognize the Communists as a government in South Vietnam.

Therefore, we had the problem of not getting this document signed by all four parties without implying recognition by Saigon of the NLA as a governmental entity.

And we finally get on a solution of trade, as you said,

may produce confusion and say, we produced two documents.

One document doesn't refer to anybody.

It simply says the parties of the conference in Paris, the parties of the Paris conference.

It doesn't mention the U.S., Philadelphia, PRC, and Saigon.

It just says the parties of the conference.

And that will be signed on Saturday morning by the four foreign ministers.

We at Saigon are going to sign on one page

The two Communist parties are going to sign on another page, which preserves the character of the parish conference as a two-sided conference, so they don't have to sign on the same page, and nobody mentions anybody else.

It's as simple as it was about three days ago.

In the afternoon, Phil Rogers and the Foreign Minister of North Carolina are going to sign another document,

in which Saigon, neither Saigon nor the Communists are different, in which it says the United States will be concurrent of the Saigon government.

The DRV will be concurrent of the DRG.

Makes a following agreement.

And that's only signed by the Secretary of State and the Foreign Minister of the DRV.

That document doesn't find the South Vietnamese politics.

It's word for word the same thing.

Same document.

It's exactly the same thing, word for word, except that the preamble is different.

The practical consequences, it is a compromise.

What the Saigon people and the DRC are legally obligated to carry out is the document which doesn't mention anybody.

I...

The communists, on the other hand, got the signature on a document which lists the title, although Bradley has no particular legal for it, because we can sign a document saying, we can write a document saying the United States with a concurrence of out of Mongolia, and they don't find out of Mongolia.

But...

So if you read about the fact, or if you've noticed that two documents are going to be signed, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, that is the compromise between the position of the two South Vietnamese parties that didn't want to recognize each other and the insistence of the DRV that some reference be made.

And the only difference between the two documents is the three acts and the signature of the

The principal obligation in here, in the truth document, is I mention those things because you will see that there are two documents floating around.

But they are words for words and they are operative paragraphs the same.

And here the operative paragraphs, none of the parties are mentioned.

It just says the parties are obligated to do the following.

Now, as to the substance of the evidence, their line gets distracted.

to establish, to approve, to finally approve the 1954, to approve the territorial sovereignty and unity of Vietnam as recognized by the 1954 Agreements.

The 1954 Agreements, however, divided the country into two zones, and therefore it is simply a way of saying that the basic structure which was established in 1954 is maintained.

The second chapter is a detailed chapter of the ceasefire, which was brought into being at midnight Greenwich Mean Time, January 27th, which is termed DM Washington, January 27th.

And it defines what the parties may or may not do during the ceasefire, provisions which are spelled out in even greater detail in a protocol.

It also provides that with the 60 days of the ceasefire coming into effect, the United States forces will be withdrawn.

The climate provides for the fact that both sides can sound Vietnam.

Communists, as well as we, can receive replacement military aid.

They cannot augment their military forces, but they can replace the existing forces on a one-to-one basis with weapons of similar characteristics and qualities under international supervision.

And since the South Vietnamese have a very high level of arms, this provides an opportunity to maintain a level

It maintains a level, but it gives us all an opportunity to maintain a sense on the augmentation.

And, of course, how the provisions will be carried out depends on what will work out with the Soviet Union coming to China with respect to the general influence of military intervention.

The third chapter is, as I indicated, you just must trust in the fact that you're totally aware of the problem and also have very good communication with both governments.

But then it sounds to me that the election provision is the same as that because the mental abominations of the communist side is much lower than their own.

And because...

to introduce new equipment when asked to show the equipment that is being replaced.

Can I ask a question on that one?

What about the withdrawal of North Vietnamese forces?

I'll get into that.

I'll talk to you later.

I have no specific provisions.

For the replacement of North Asian resources, there is a provision requiring the demobilization and reduction of forces.

Secondly, there is a provision that prohibits the introduction of new personnel, of new military personnel.

There is a prohibition against the use of Cambodian and Laotian main areas.

There is a prohibition against the use of infiltration routes through Cambodia and Laos.

And there is a prohibition

And there is a prohibition against the movement of military units across the demilitarized zone.

If all of these provisions are carried out, then it is everybody's judgment.

But first of all, no new North Vietnamese forces can then be introduced insofar as the agreement cannot be legally introduced.

And they come around, you said, across the DMZ, but can they introduce forces?

Twice.

They cannot.

There is a total prohibition against Buddhists going into Cambodian clubs.

They have to be withdrawn from Cambodian clubs.

They cannot come across the GFC.

And in addition, there is a prohibition against the introduction to Kusunel by any other means that we may not have covered.

Is it agreed?

It's a breach of the existing order.

It's going to be put under...

Secondly, there is a prohibition that they are required to demobilize existing forces without verifying them as North Vietnamese as soon as possible, which is linked to other political provisions.

And therefore, there is no possibility, if they cannot augment their forces as everybody says, that they will have to be, at the minimum, be a substantial official of the North Vietnamese forces.

How many forces are in?

What's your estimate now?

Because this will become a central question.

How many North Vietnamese within the borders of South Vietnam now?

What's our estimate?

Our air cement has been about 140,000 of 45,000, which the vast majority, not the vast majority, but which about 40%, 35% are in northern military region 1, within about 30 miles of the north-east frontiers.

And what about Zone 3 adjacent to Saigon?

Zone 3 adjacent to Saigon, our estimate is that they have about 15 to 20,000.

And it's the idea that they will not be augmented or supplied, and therefore this is kind of a face-saving thing that they will, they cannot like leave, they cannot be augmented, they cannot have replacements down there, they cannot replace men that are sick, wounded, and just...

Can they supply them?

They can supply them only if they, if they replace equipment.

Now, what I'm talking about, food, basic logistics, are needed.

Well, is the idea that, the idea is that this agreement, if it's observed, should produce an increase of resources in the South.

Well, if they're cut off, they'd have to withdraw them.

If this is a face-saving device for them, is it, which they quietly hold?

They have got it.

They're there.

They have never admitted that they were there.

For them to admit that they have gorgeous tales, it would be a bit of a joy.

Would it be amazing?

Let us understand on this point.

that this question has been raised, but I am quite confident that the government of Saudi Arabia would not have come along unless they had, having asked the same question, included that

If the agreement were observed, the Christians and so forth would say that it's evil.

In other words, all of these things are wrong.

What are you going to do?

Send new men in so people can say the whole business is a lie.

All of this is so intricately tied in there together that it at least gives reassurance.

It's soundly enough.

It's not necessary.

The closest thing I can now out of low morale, who is with me?

has really broken down into very small units as a result of the trip.

Therefore, if they cannot be resupplied in Cambodian places, and if they cannot get resupplied in the place of the trip, and if they cannot insuffer additional personnel, and if the Cambodian and Laotian base areas are closed, then it is

It's possible to conceive that the present strength can be maintained in addition to the morality of how you can maintain such a substantial force, such a force now and then.

I say that's fair enough.

But this has been, so that this has been, if you go on too through this, I think it will become apparent that, assuming that the various provisions of this agreement are carried out, that in the non-military areas, studies may develop

uh, for the North to have the latest people back.

Uh, that country is denuded at the present time.

Thus, if I could spend one word of cash, it's ours this week, word two.

uh last week with two and so we say the war must be over the nara vietnamese and the south vietnamese are losing a thousand every week right now and we'll in the practical over a thousand in the next couple of days over and at the rate of a thousand weeks because he's starting to step up and they're trying to grab character the war is on now when you look at what the nara vietnamese have lost

They need these people.

And the question is whether or not their intent, and that's the key point here, whether their intent is to build up for another pocket, or whether their intent now for a period of time is to regroup in the north, reestablish itself.

And I think that will come to a later point in time, David.

We were considering for a while, and we might even have obtained it, getting a written commitment for the withdrawal of some force.

But when you do that, then you're implying that the remaining forces have a right to do that.

And as it is now, there is nothing in the agreement that gives the North Vietnamese a right to be in South Vietnam.

And we thought it is for our legal position better not to have any provision in there that implies that there are any North Vietnamese forces in the South, that you get a sort of a half-baked

The loose missiles have passed now because the basic issue is precisely the one that the president wants.

Even if they had a key to withdraw, if they want to re-infiltrate and break the agreement, they can do it.

It would only have about three months to their readiness now.

Everything then will depend on whether they can induce them, through the pressure of their allies, through piloted programs that they're developing, and through other means, whether we can induce them to observe the agreement.

If they assert these reasons to provisions about the DNC, about laws in California, and against infiltration, maybe the copy will put them to maintain a successful incident.

That is why I chose the term that we will make major reference.

for reconciliation with the North.

That term was quite deliberately worked out, and we're not going to spell out specifically at this point what it means, but basically it's not even one direction, and of course there's not even another direction.

But if you look at all the stories and all the various observations we have to bear on it,

I'm trying to get down to the key point as to whether the NARM, and frankly, this stuff, I'd like the district agency to know, whether the NARM wants, at this point, to return to a meantime activity after 25 years of the NARM situation.

If I can ask you to give me any detail on the school disabilities,

to give a feel for what their attention may be.

First of all, these are the best possible partners, partners that I can see.

So, we are not talking here about wild horses, but I think for their own reasons of suffering, it's very disheartening for most of them.

Being born in the morning, being exhausted off the Uber,

They believe that they may want to insert this agreement for a while, and there's some collateral evidence for that.

For example, if we examine this, there are three legal crossing points.

It should be enough for each side, and it's three points that this military equipment can be introduced.

Now everybody in this room knows that if they want to, at that long frontier, they can see equipment is there, and it's going to be very tough to find it.

because they have put two seaports and one crossing point that is immilitarized down, which indicates that they really do not want to come through Laos and Cambodia.

And secondly, they ask that for a 60-day period, they could use one crossing point from Laos and Cambodia because they have fixed stockpiles of equipment in Laos and Cambodia, which is all the way up

into North Vietnam.

And this will only use up in that 60-day period.

Under that, there's a question of getting that base, isn't there?

That has the effect of getting their bases out of Laos and Cambodia.

And it is a great way of dying a good base because if they had wanted to sneak it into South Vietnam, it wouldn't have been all that hard to do, particularly in the confusion of the immediate post-war period before the machinery of supervision.

What the provision says, they can replace equipment that is damaged, destroyed, used up, or blown out.

There is a plan to prohibit military forces from not being displaced.

There's no new military forces to be introduced into Zazie, not from the outside.

That is not because there's a new plan.

And there are no exceptions whatsoever.

That's all infiltration.

That is totally unequivocal.

There's no exceptions there.

Not everything goes through there.

Let me just say you understand the misrestrictions on the South.

But as far as their military is concerned.

No, no equipment.

They cannot command their equipment.

But in terms of personnel, the South can increase its army as long as it recruits people from South Vietnam.

But no forces from the outside can be introduced.

We don't expect it to happen.

We expect the South to increase its army.

But the restrictions on infiltrating the flight only deposes coming in from the outside of South Vietnam.

Now Chapter 3 dealing with the deterrent of captured military personnel and foreign civilians.

That has three clauses.

The President has covered two of them.

One is that all U.S. military personnel and civilians will be returned within 60 days.

It will be in rather evil draughts every 15 days.

There will be detergent and anointing for those prisoners that are in the southernmost parts and be in full accountability for their actions.

And there will be teams established in Amsterdam to investigate grave sites and so forth.

There is a third part of this that separates the issue of civilians, how many civilians that are held in prison by both sides.

and in which provides that the two South Indian parties will negotiate a very hopeful one in an atmosphere of reconciliation and concord.

The disease of each other's significant prisoners, I would like to explain prisoner, and that they go through their utmost to accomplish this agreement.

The practical consequence of this is that

Madame Bain was not one of the winners of this negotiation, because it means that the hackers of the Antelope, the Dutch government, is driven to pay them, and that they have to have a subsequent negotiation with the Saudi police, the government, and the two must agree about their fees, and the two must agree that this

Here's another important letter that the South Vietnamese have as a defector to North Vietnamese troops because they are not doubted in their position that they cannot release me and come to a prison and augment hostile forces unless there is some practice towards the people that I thank for this.

Oh, I know what you're saying.

It's much better if they have those $240,000 or whatever there are and let the prisoner sell them to the South Vietnamese government.

That's exactly right.

Our concern was not to treat those prisoners unnecessarily.

Our concern was not to get involved in the negotiations about the disease to end the zombies from these prisoners in front of detectives and prisoners.

was that we should have separated those two issues.

If we had not, we would have been involved in an endless discussion.

We were in the military for the civilian prisoners.

That's the critical point that we had to insist on.

Exactly.

The point is, how you plan to fight these prisoners.

Incidentally, that was something that had been agreed upon in October.

That's the point.

Now then there is a, the next chapter deals with the exercise of the South Vietnamese people's rights for 32 days.

And it states so incredibly which the United States and the North Vietnam jointly maintain, which is of great significance because they speak of the South, of South Vietnam as an entity.

States say that the South Vietnamese people's right to self-determination is sacred in any middle and shall be respected by all countries.

And the DRV subscribes to that.

It speaks of the South Vietnamese right to self-determination and it says that a foreign country shall not impose any political tendency.

But I don't want to go through every provision.

The biggest provision is that in at least three elections,

at a time to be mutually agreed upon between the two South Vietnamese parties.

For all of this to be mutually agreed upon by the two South Vietnamese parties.

And that these elections, once they are agreed upon by the two South Vietnamese parties, will be under international supervision.

It will be set out, and that must be a, that's the role of Unite America for Mars.

Now this, this means in effect that these are the, these parties have to agree to it.

It means that's agreed.

They have to admit it.

But then, there is another, there is an institution set up called the National Council of Reconciliation and Control.

Let me just say, I was not trying to just have a play on words.

The important thing to remember there is, and this is true throughout the political session, is Henry is directly involved in this investigation.

That, uh, the decisions that are made in regards to the issue of the sovereignty of the South Vietnam Republic are decisions that are not imposed.

They are decisions that the government, the Republic of Vietnam, must make.

And as for its fundamental function as the government of the Republic of Vietnam, it does not make sense to go ahead and use this particular reason for that action.

Oh, that's a very important point, of course, with the South Vietnamese.

I've got to say one other thing.

It's an agreement that we worked out.

The way from the north of the sun, when we referred to the South Vietnamese in the recent week of science, so then the South Vietnamese means two of them.

are, to us, we only recognize, I think that was a deliberate phrase last time, are, we only recognize in South Vietnam as a legitimate government, the Republic of Vietnam.

You see, the South Vietnamese, the recent and many, the skillful way of getting that phrase used, it's now got it used in South Vietnam.

To us, it means the Republic of Vietnam, but in our case, it means nothing else, correct?

Yes.

Yes, but they aren't recognizing the government as such.

They're recognizing the area as such.

No, they're recognizing the government as such.

We recognize only one government.

They recognize two governments.

I don't mean they recognize two.

That's what I mean.

But do you mention the NLS specifically in this particular document?

No, no, no.

The NLS is never mentioned in the whole document.

In either document, it does say that to serve the enemy's power, it never mentions the enemy.

Throughout the document, throughout either document in the operative clause, in the preamble, in the two-part in which the document, in the NLF, it mentions the preamble.

But that's not something that deserves to be in any of the documents.

And even where it's mentioned in the preamble, it is not mentioned as a body, just as it was during the war.

And so that's around the intricate form of the three A's.

Now, in addition, there is another institution called the National Council of Reconciliation.

It's important that you understand this, but in terms of a lot of misunderstanding that it's not deliberately this decree, but after they accredited the hierarchy of the meetings in October, there was a thought that the National Council of Reconciliation was actually a coalition government.

It is not.

It isn't even a government at all.

It's a non-governmental

It's another thing that took us some time to negotiate.

In the original COVID draft, we had put in the phrase, it is an administrative structure because we thought that making cigarettes was a non-governmental thing.

The North Vietnamese and the Vietnamese text of this was one of their nice little ploys because there are three words that Vietnamese were administrative, one of which is the same as governmental.

So, if Vietnamese is read like a governmental structure of power, we had meant it to imply that it was something less than a government.

Well, once we realized that they had pulled this maneuver on us and the Vietnamese tax,

we insisted that this be deleted or conformed to our notion of administrative.

And that's what we're going to do today.

Is there another word that you have to read?

Well, actually, we've not drafted all three.

We just said they'll be created as National Council of Reconciliation.

And we won't use the word administrative structure.

First of all, that has to be negotiated in an atmosphere of reconciliation between the two Southeast Asian parties.

who will do their utmost to bring it into being in a three-month period.

They're not obligated to bring it into being at all.

They're just obligated to do their utmost.

Who is on it is appointed equally by both sides.

From each side nominates four people

which they call their own.

The 12 members each side nominate four people which they call their own.

And then they each nominate two people they call neutralists.

But at any rate, each side nominates six people.

The council operates on the principle of unanimity.

And the only thing it has to do is to supervise elections.

This really has to be agreed upon.

between the two parties.

So, Dr. Dean said the political scientist is just, it is not going to come into being in the first week of this agreement.

I said it will not exhaust itself in activity, but it will be never in all the history of so many fictions put together in one document.

I mean, one area, but frankly, gentlemen,

a big lead to enable them to get off their demands for a coalition government.

And this is why Mr. Vince Tepper has been so extremely foul in his speech, and why he refused to come to the airport when he got no return to Paris, because in effect this means that the demands for a coalition government have been dropped, that he essentially insists

about the political future of South Vietnam will be made by the existing South Vietnamese authorities, which means that we have achieved what the President has always said, that we would not impose a political solution on South Vietnam.

It is another allow.

You see, it does provide for a device where all people in South Vietnam, we have always said,

to participate in the process.

On the other hand, if the two South Vietnamese parties do want to get together, and if they do want to have elections, this provides a mechanism for them to have it.

It doesn't block it.

It just doesn't impose it.

Finally, there is a provision in this chapter about the political future of South Vietnam, calling for the reduction and sterilization of existing

military, of the deduction of existing military forces, and then demobilization, which is, and this is not done in terms of UNHCRs, this is done in terms of, these are the major provisions of the political chapter.

Then, the next chapter, 5, deals with the relation of law that does need to be judged.

It states,

that the unification of Vietnam shall be carried out by peaceful means on the basis of discussions and agreements between North and South Vietnam without coercion and annexation, without military pressure.

And the time for reunification will be agreed upon between North and South Vietnam.

Second, ending reunification.

It reoccurs in the military demarcation line as long as there is deep courage.

It says this is provisional, but it exists until reunification.

Second, it says North and South Vietnam shall respect the demilitarized zone on either side of the provisional military demarcation line.

There is, in other words, an unprovisional recognition of the demilitarized zone.

And then to a note that South Vietnam is promptly stopping negotiations with the U.S. was reestablishing normal relations.

It's very clear.

And another thought that they would say is they may discuss significant movements across the demilitarized zone.

I agree upon every one question.

By the way, please, the military movement is strictly prohibited.

It's too close.

Or I would make a relaxable situation to see the President.

in terms of South Vietnam, and this is why the government of South Vietnam, the DRV, is talking to some of the government of South Vietnam, or just the two governments?

The President, we have two separate problems.

One is with who governs in South Vietnam.

The second is, does South Vietnam exist?

No.

We cannot make any attempt to get the DRV to get into this beat into the question of which is the victory of the government of South Vietnam, because that they could not do.

But through our BG, and I'm sure the number is going to get through, we have an explicit recognition by North Vietnam that South Vietnam exists, and that certain acts by North Vietnam against South Vietnam are prohibited.

That's for the purposes of the international situation, that is to say, for the purposes of integration, recognition of aggression, and of course, the mere fact that

that there is a legal recognition of an entity called South Vietnam whose right of self-determination has to be respected against which it is impermissible to use force.

There are three different references to the sovereignty of South Vietnam with respect to the International Control Commission and with respect to the conduct of foreign policy.

and with respect to the relationship between Laos and Cambodia and Vietnam in each case, which is that these provisions have to be kept out with regard to the sovereignty of South Vietnam.

the question of the existence of South Vietnam for the purposes of this agreement has been fully covered.

And that was even more important at that stage than to settle the question of this agreement.

Because whichever is the legitimate government, if there is a South Vietnam and if it has attributes of sovereignty, then the North Vietnamese have no business being there.

Whoever the legitimate government is,

government, that is.

Well, Terry, this is really established by the establishment of the demarcation.

Exactly.

These issues are already left to be laid.

But on top of this, we have these explicit references to the agreement.

Could I ask, as I understand it, the DMC is now occupied fully by the DMC.

Are there any provisions for them to withdraw from there so that the DMC needs anything more than this statement?

but there's an international control team that would have to give the responsibility of implementing the program of the risk-inspecting team in the Terrasse Zone.

And it will be located right at the team in the Terrasse Zone.

While we're on that, I'd like to...

Big question.

Where will the rest of the line be?

Is the stand still in place?

Yes, sir.

It will be determined by the military commanders in the field.

It will be determined, in other words, by the existing military situation in South Vietnam on January 27th.

On January 27th, which in fact will mean

But right now, from the standpoint of the

current military situation, how much of South Vietnam, land-wise, will it enhance the North Vietnam?

Assuming it remains reasonably stable between now and Saturday.

If it remains reasonably stable between now and Saturday, at least 90% of the South Vietnam will line up in the GDS.

Yes, sir.

There's land.

There's a good amount of land.

What will happen is that there will be many areas of the land which genocide has caused.

In the Central Islands, for example, it's going to be very difficult to establish a clear line of demarcation.

But even there, our judgment is

that, almost by definition, since the South Vietnamese have an army of over a million, and since they are spreading it out, and since the communists have an army of less than 200,000 or 200-plus, they cannot possibly cover as much territory as, so people think, 70% of the territory.

70%.

Yeah, do you have control of how much the old man's land, so to speak?

Well, there will be areas such as in the central island in which it is going to be extremely difficult to establish a clear land, but there's no population there.

There's nobody there.

Well, what about in Zone 3?

In Zone 3, in the military region 3S, we would expect

that about 90 plus percent of military resources will be in the hands of the government.

Geographically and geographically.

There'll be end flags near the Cambodian border, and there will be that Saigon River corridor where there's some base areas.

And let's do brackets on this, especially about Zone 3 in this group.

On August 15th,

the President sent me to Saigon to present the state of the negotiations.

And he said, if there's a ceasefire offered, we will accept it.

They will clear out as much of the territory as we possibly can.

There are four South Vietnamese divisions in the military, three of which only one has been consistently used.

Two have never been used.

So if it is impossible for us in a negotiation,

to achieve in a negotiation.

What he has not been able to do is combat.

There are only about 18,000 North Vietnamese forces against those who are 100,000 South Vietnamese forces in the military recently.

Like all ceasefires, you cannot achieve in a negotiation what isn't achieved on the battlefield.

Basically, the vast majority of

of military agency territory will be under our control, or will be under the control of the Saigon government.

There is the difficulty that the Saigon army refuses to go into communist-made areas, so that there are few entrance there, which they have refused to enter for six months,

And there's absolutely nothing we can do about those, except to seal them off.

But it's not large territory.

We would prefer to have them cleared out.

But that, it's not a question of .

That is, just on Military Region 3, we have gone to enormous lengths.

They have the generals in charge.

If we can be honest with each other, it's the truth.

One person.

Right, that's right.

If there is one person.

of the troubles is that the Saigon government has always been torn between having units there that can clear out military issues and having units there that are not capable of marching into Saigon.

Now, any unit that's good enough to clear out military issues may also be good enough to make a coup.

And ever since General Three was killed, General Three was a good combat commander, but he was so corrupt

that there was no chance of his ever failing over the government.

He's put in charge of Military Region 3, let's face it, his most un-enterprising commandment.

And it's been our biggest heartache here that the conduct of operations in Military Region 3 within 20 miles of the capital simply hasn't had the energy that they have shown in Military Region 1.

And if they had used the forces,

there would be, you wouldn't have to ask this question.

And it isn't a balance of voices, it isn't a conflict of strength, it is simply

the unwillingness to use the forces there in such a way that their idols suffer so many losses that they'll become a moral problem, or that they'll get so proficient that they may get into their head and march into Saigon.

That's the problem in military release.

That's it.

Military release.

War is an excellent thing.

One is the reason we could say that military release, at least with that limitation, is also a good thing.

Or do I ask a question?

Because then it's not a real concern.

I'd rather be juggled.

Do you anticipate there'll be a lot of fighting between now and Saturday?

Every week on Saturday, the Communists have been given instructions to seize as much territory as they can.

But our judgment is that they don't.

They can't seize a lot of territory.

They more have to lose territory than to seize it.

So then there's a long section of Chapter 6 that is within the national control, which I will deal with in discussing the protocol.

which is repeated in the protocols and which I won't cover.

Then there's the next chapter, deals with laws in Canberra, and we consider that extremely important.

It says, the parties participating in the Paris Conference stress strictly to expect the 1954 agreements in Canberra against the 1962 agreement on laws.

In other words, those two agreements are reimbursed.

and again, and they shall strictly respect the neutrality of Cambodia and Laos.

Then it says, the parties participating in the Paris conference undertake to refrain from using the territory of Cambodia and the territory of Laos in a group in sovereignty and security of one another and of other countries.

So you have in that sense, A, a recognition of sovereignty, and B, a flandering against the use of

unconditional prohibition against the use of paid air.

The next provision is for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Laos and Cambodia and for the reaffirmation of democracy.

So you have in there a reaffirmation of the 54 to 62 accord.

a policy of base areas and a flat agreement to the withdrawal of our forces.

Now, let me say one other thing.

With the agreement, we could only put those provisions which the parties to the agreement are in a position to start with.

As all of you gentlemen know, there's a civil war on Towers that's going on in both Laos and Campo.

Now for all these reasons we cannot go into the detail of what we believe will happen.

But we have every reason to believe that this is a matter of a few weeks.

There will be a formal ceasefire in Laos.

And we have every reason to believe that in a somewhat messier way,

they will be making back-to-seats flyers over a slightly longer period of time in Cap-Odeon.

Now this could not be referred to the agreement because the Maori and Cap-Odeon parties are not subject to this agreement, and because in the Cap-Odeon case, one of the parties is headquartered in Egypt,

As you all know, Prince Theodore can display the extraordinary phenomenon of a royal prince conducting a civil war from a communist campus.

And this, and Theodore is being used by the Chinese against Hanoi.

And I have these friends from my talks with the North Vietnamese, and they dislike him more than we do.

So here we have to set up a three-quarter negotiation to get that situation formally quieted down, but the parties to this agreement have undertaken applications to quiet it down.

On our side, you will see

some definite physical action to stop the war in Cambodia, and we have reason to believe that a de facto ceasefire will occur in Cambodia.

We have every reason to believe that a formal ceasefire will emerge in Laos, so that when the President recurs with inter-China ceasefires,

uh he was expected to be out of the situation we can speak more categorically about it because it doesn't involve

It doesn't involve a third party.

Well, it involves a third party.

I would say, Henry, would you not, that at the time that our first VOWs go out to VFDN, it's possible that that might be very close to that period.

We probably can't be sure.

I want to just follow, not to interrupt the briefing, but we showed the leaders last night a historical document of some interest.

People wondered what does that mean, and of course it means it.

At that point, after consultation and so forth and so on, and there was a time yesterday where I sent a message to Henry, I said, go ahead and it's a result.

And that was the deal.

The deal was made.

The formal documents could be signed.

I'm telling you, by all means.

And the initial document is here, so if you'd like to see it, I will pass it around.

But each of you look at the initial page, what it says.

It's going to add to your knowledge, and it'll show you whether this is in the right or not.

Okay, go ahead.

That is a chapter that deals with the post-coordination between the United States and North Vietnam.

The United States wants to end these, and North Vietnam has established, will begin a new year of reconciliation.

And without going into detail, what we have in mind here is, through a combination of the provisions of this agreement, the endorsement of the rule and over a period of time, of moving our relations with the Northeastern East Coast, Northeastern States, and some degree of economic reconstruction.

we can give them a sufficient incentive not to resume the movement in South Vietnam and Indochina.

However, it's clearly understood that that aspect of the agreement depends on their performance in Indochina.

Of course, it depends on congressional approval and that it will be implemented over a time span so that action does not have to be taken while American prisoners are still being held in North Vietnam.

The details of this

Let me just say something there.

This is a very good vision for you, Mr. Congress.

This is a very long, difficult war.

and there's going to be much public sense for what we call to participate in a regional reconstruction thing and frankly some reconstruction in the north as well as in the south now.

There might be a point that I think is, we have nothing to present to you today that is tangible to say, because we don't plan for that, because that will come out over a period of time by negotiations and so on.

But in my view, one of the most, one of the best investments we have made in terms of feeding the beast that attacks

having a dark Vietnamese turn to their own problems, rather than to go rather to the other leaders and so forth, is to the fact that there's something they want from us.

Now, on this point, let me say I know that you wonder about all those things, but let us remember that it has been a tradition of the United States when we have these, not three of them, since they're, you all know, not yet, but whether it was Germany or Japan or the rest, we helped in a rehabilitation program after a war.

And it's evident in both of those countries, history paid off.

Because they have become the two of our best and most reliable allies and strong free-world people.

I'm not suggesting in this instance that if you're about to find that North Vietnam becomes a strong free-world nation, I have suggested that it is.

It is strange that the Soviet and the Chinese may or may not be able to do it.

But another very positive incentive for North Vietnam could be, in the event we are able to work on an ongoing program of reconciliation, etc., could be that they desire good relations with the United States because of what we've done.

I don't want, in other words, I wouldn't be very, it would not be useful if the leaders heard it.

Now that the thing is over, we will not even listen to the idea of, when I spoke of efforts or reconciliation for the idea, but instead of any economic program, cooperation or assistance would not be enough.

What do you say?

But it will be, in my opinion, the best thing.

They last in peace, which we need, because it will be a restraint on them, and it's necessary for them to keep the peace.

Is that a fair statement?

Absolutely.

And as you know, incidentally, if this was known, there should be no news to any of you, and there was no news to them.

I had it in my speech in 1969, and I put it in the January 20th speech, that we would help with the reconstruction, and so forth and so on.

Mr. President, will the Russians and the Chinese also be willing to help, and will there be incentives for them to keep the peace?

We have reason to think so.

Up to this point, the Russians are trying to keep watching each other, and he wanted to get caught not supporting a great revolutionary.

Now at this point, with this thing ended, we don't know what they're thinking right now, and the Kremlin are indeed king.

But obviously, our diplomatic efforts will be directed toward getting them to assist in this kind of a program as well, whether it will actually remain to be seen.

Is that very clear?

I think that the President, when he was in China and in Moscow, had a vision for the States to make us believe that the worries of the

that they would be receptive to proposals of this kind.

That's right.

Let me say, before you go under, on this point, Jimmy, you have to remember that the Russians don't want the Chinese to dominate in China.

The Chinese don't want the Russians to dominate in China.

And, of course, we don't want us to, and we don't want, so the question there is, what was the best language for everybody concerned?

I imagine if there was any concern, it would seem, is to have military restraint and so that the NARC will look into its own thing and not extend its domination over the balance of the enemy.

But the other thing the Chinese have to be concerned about, knowing the NARC Vietnamese, how strong, tough, vigorous they are,

They have not only nominated 80,000 educated people into China, but 30 or 40 million that are in Thailand as well.

It could be something on their southern plane that they wouldn't want to call.

These are factors that I think are entering into their minds.

I'm not indicating them.

I'm not going to give an impression to Joe or Maya or Tom.

But I think we could read between the lines a bit.

But that's good.

That's interesting.

and suggest that one is the Russians have continued to recognize and although they have continued to maintain the government at age, at age, and the fact that there was charge in those ten who are deported, seconded,

When Madame Lin was received by Mao a few weeks ago, she received an honor that has never been shown to regard forward to any other member of the North Korean public bureau, as in through teaching which suggests that whatever the Chinese might want, they should further pour into Chinese countries to one monolith.

Uh, and, uh, Southern, uh, Frontier has said, well, as he's just been doing, the project is, well, two bonuses, uh, required out of the situation.

So, because of, uh, uh, this question having been raised, though, let me be, uh, as I've read the report, it's very candid.

This is going to be, uh, it may be, uh,

on those sides.

and also the Russians and the Chinese are not a huge issue with it, and neither are we.

So what I'd like to say is what I'm just – I think we're more reasonable than they can be.

The point is – the point I'm going to say is we're not going to indicate that it's all going to be just Ukraine.

There aren't going to be any violations against these fires.

The Russians and the Chinese are going to go along.

And the actual main statement today is very conciliatory and so forth and so on.

After what you said last night, you've got to come out and say something.

You know, I was talking about victory.

You know, I was talking about victory last night.

And I just wanted to reference the time.

At least their public statements may say one thing and they may do something else.

What I'm saying is that the United States, your government, the Washington administration,

I concur with you, which is every disc loan we have to bear to get the Russians and the Chinese, these two loans want something from us, and we want something from them, to cooperate with us and see that this part of the world, which for 25 years has been corrupt by the war, Japanese, civil war, and so forth, finally has a period of peace.

And that's what it's really all about.

I just raised a very pertinent question.

We're not going in there and saying, well, the big U.S. is going to do the whole job.

Uh-huh.

That's never responsible.

That's never responsible to the whole area.

Well, Mr. President, I just think we've already faced up to how our taxes apply.

The American people are hoping that this mess in South Vietnam is over, and that the cost of the war will be over, and that the defense budget can't be drastically cut.

And the bitter message of this whole thing, and I think it's inevitable, I'm not saying that, the bitter message is that we've got to come out with billions of dollars to support the South Vietnam, with billions of dollars to support North Vietnam.

I've been meeting with L.C.J.

earlier, and I think he, on a previous occasion, had said, we've got this.

But he did not want to read it to the people, you know.

And then, this is going to present all the manner of trouble in the middle of the fiscal situation in the country.

And the American people are going to be upset at the end of the war to have people keeping

millions of dollars over a long period in South Vietnam and in the 80s in North Vietnam.

And that's a bitter situation.

And when we put that in defense, but it's going to be bad.

I think we put it in foreign aid bill.

Foreign aid bill is supposed to be a popular bill.

But defense is in such trouble that I don't think we better put it in defense.

And the uprising among the rank and file men on Main Street against

uh, rebuilding all of Vietnam and Illinois is going to be bad.

It's going to be a hell of a situation.

Now, they are happy today, but they're going to get it going to hell, and please go back and find out the facts of why.

Well, I, I remember, George, when you were in Iowa around the, uh, Earth Committee, uh, we knew it was going to be damn unpopular to ask for that war to pour those basic dollars into Europe, but we had to come back and sell it because it was the best, the best piece.

Let me also say, out of our biggest question, docks.

The question is here in Paris, yes, there will be some expenditures for economic and other purposes in this part of the world, but it's going to be one hell of a lot less than the expenditures of continuing this war.

That's the point.

So you're going to have something out of your, out of your budget.

But it's going to be, but I inquire,

If we give this aid so long as there are North Vietnam troops in South Vietnam, if we can give them this aid before they withdraw,

The situation, uh, this is a matter of course that, uh, this is a matter that I haven't been able to answer.

But the point, the point that should be made, uh, is this.

It's a anti-ethnistical rule in our office.

It's the vision of keeping the peace.

That's to keep on going.

Sometimes the vision is broken.

But their robustness is gone.

Of course.

Yeah, but the most evident and good case is if it coops up.

And the point is, I think the very fact that the TechNet, which is a supreme computer, which we're not going to go over and talk about yet, but when that time comes, I will present the facts.

And I think that you will see, and I knew you would too,

Uh, that as far as what the troops are doing there, uh, that will be a major factor in having a vote.

I've got a question, Mr.

Senator.

Mr. President, we have made some commitments of any kind to the...

There's no commitment to this one.

All we have agreed with to do up to now is to discuss it.

witness through some mechanism.

After it's discussed, we've got to agree on something.

After it's agreed, it's got to go to the countries.

Right.

So that there's no secret deal on this one.

So that it's not just that they tell you how it is, that I'm just urging that you do it.

That's it.

I can put it this way, George.

In terms of just having another elite program, close your minds off on it and say no.

But in terms...

whether, when we examine the situation, it is something that we could possibly recommend as a way, in the coolest part of the world, to avoid another outbreak of war and so forth and so on, which would be dangerous in other respects, in part, in other communities as well.

Let's look at it from those angles.

Mr. President, if, at the same time, we're considering economic aid to the North, the Russians and the Chinese are providing further military aid to the North and replacing and building up sophisticated weapons and so forth to the North, which I understand does not come under the one-for-one replacement.

Place us in an absolutely untenable position.

Yeah, the time where we're fighting military is in the event they do end up, you say they don't have one.

That's why I do this, because I'm going to do it because it's a great place to create a columnist.

There's a great persistence with these, and another very important thing is that you can't even fight these people who have been in the conflict, the Russians and Chinese people in order for them to leave the South.

and we can get all sides restrained to see what could happen.

That was very much in line.

Mr. President, what George said about making realistic the problems of the Congress, we have to face the fact that some of these people have been so critical of what the President is doing in Vietnam.

Mr. President, I think

We can all think of ways that the agreement could satisfy us better.

Given the rigidity of the situation and the length of the exacerbation between the parties, I think that what's been achieved is just a monumental accomplishment.

I think that another amount of credit goes to...

to you for your patience and perseverance and certainly a lot of memory for this, what he's done for their parents.

I hope right now that we all may feel that way.

Thank you.

Well, the war had to be brought to an end, right?

You know, there was no way money could have satisfied me.

And I think that there's a lot of business to be done.

Well, I think that there's a lot of business to be done.

I think that I can't read that title and so forth.

Do you want to cover a couple more?

That's a good one.

I want to say something at the end before we have to take off.

What's your situation on that?

Well, it's not the one I'm talking about.

We could make it 12 for U of G. Oh, we've got a little more time.

Well, then, we will go on for 10 more minutes.

I can cover that in five minutes.

I told you we're going to do everything you proposed about international machines.

Let me tell you what we have agreed upon.

There are two types of supervisory funds.

There is a commission from the four parties to the agreement.

That is, the United States, North Vietnam, and the two South Vietnamese parties, which create teams of four each for a period of two months.

And after I withdraw, it will occur into two party teams of the North and South Vietnamese.

which investigates certain types of activities.

Secondly, there's an international commission.

The international commission is composed of Canada, Hungary, Indonesia, and Poland.

It is spread all over the country.

It has a headquarters team in Saigon.

There are seven regional teams.

There are three teams for the immediate Saigon area in addition to the headquarters.

There are 26 teams stationed in localities throughout South Vietnam.

And I may say one of our achievements is that we stationed these teams not in the centers of population, but where there is military activity.

We will hand out maps so that you can see.

There are 12 teams at border and coastal points.

There are 17 for the return of prisoners, which after the prisoners are returned, will be available for the assignment to others to do this.

And there are 17 for legal points of entry for the replacement of arms, which makes it a total of 138, 45, 52, 55, 63, 63.

peace throughout the country.

It's a total force of 1160, the vast majority of which are inspectors, with the idea being that the support personnel will be locally recruited from the Vietnamese, that is, you know, cooks, guards, and so forth.

But they have freedom of, essentially they have freedom of

They theoretically operate on the basis of unanimity, but minority reports can be submitted so that if Canada or Indonesia spots a violation, it can record it, even though it won't be a commission report, but it will be then the report of one of the commissioners.

They can obtain their own equipment and their own communication.

Yes, they can make their own budget.

It was a bloody fraud.

And we finally adopted a formula which was drawn from the Truman Constitution of 1871, if I may say so, which is that if the Truman's budget is established and has already been established between us, as it was recently, after the Truman's budget, the

The International Commission must submit its budget to the parties of the agreement.

Yes, I have.

It's approved the agreement.

The old budget continues until the new budget is approved.

So, in other words, unless there is a draft and a slate, there is no way that the International Commission can be abolished by the refusal of the parties to give them the funds.

Finally, there is an international conference which will meet on February 26 at a place which has not yet been decided, which will establish the relationship between this international machinery and international parties such as the U.S.,

or the International Conference itself.

Now I say if you compare what the original North Vietnamese proposal is and what we are for, it's 12 border teams and all the significant crossing points are permanently emplaced with seven mobile teams that can move around to expand

crossing points, and with 26 local teams scattered all over the country, flushed at the creaking of teeth.

We have the fullest coverage that any international machinery has ever had.

Now, we have no illusions.

Each one side is hell-bent on violating this agreement.

No international machinery is going to prevent, or be able to prevent this alarming tactic.

The other international commission was based in Saigon.

It had to get permission to get out into the countryside.

It had no fixed locations.

It had a total force for all of Indochina of 390.

This one has 1160 in South Vietnam alone, most of whom are inspection personnel.

Is that the total number of troops left? 1160.

plus Vietnamese guards and other people who we're not counting in that total.

The international permissible leave for the first time at 8 o'clock Sunday morning, Monday morning in Saigon, within 24 hours of deceased fire, within 48 hours, the seven regional teams will be in place.

Within 15 days, the 26 local teams will be in place.

What military forces?

of the U.S. and Ukraine and Vietnam.

I'm not talking about uniform personnel.

What about technical and military advisors and people of that type?

What is the agreement?

The agreement provides for the control of all combat personnel, of all advisors to combat units, of all advisors to military police.

It is technical military personnel, people who are servicing air defense radar,

and so forth, are not included in this.

But we expect to withdraw those gradually over a period of a year to a year and a half.

We have this with both our military people and their military people.

So our intention is to withdraw them.

all American personnel that are serving in these armed forces, but all military personnel will be destroyed for whatever they do.

There will be some civilians remaining in technical service capacities, but these are civilians, not military.

Hundreds of thousands, how?

Don't hold me to the precise figure.

I believe there are 1,100 government personnel in all of these categories.

None of them associated with any combat activity.

All of them, most of them are either personnel administered U.S. Army contracts and accountants.

And they will be paid charges to do this.

We can strain some if you need the accountants for the contracts we have right there.

And if you're lenient with us, we'll do it faster, etc.

That's really a big obstacle here.

The second is personnel that are servicing complex equipment such as radar, and they will be replaced as soon as these personnel is transferred.

We're not talking of, I think the total number is about 1,100.

We are reducing it immediately from, I think, about 1,800 to 1,100.

And we will face it out gradually as South Vietnamese personnel is trained.

With the bulk of current men facing North Vietnamese, there's not any of the deep-stepping and of the fancy setting that occurred in Laos in the 60s.

What is happening is known to the North Vietnamese and is fully understood by the police.

The parties to the agreement have to pick up, I think, 23% and the supervisory people pick up 2%.

and the international conference has the right to make other financial arrangements, but we don't anticipate that they can...

But that is the first item on the agenda.

There is one thing to set aside that is not permanent.

This thing is not permanent.

During all the Christmas disease,

will be handled, uh, uh, will be handled under international provisions.

It will be a direct cross, you know, between the support countries.

And for this purpose, the support countries have a mission there.

And in addition, there is one team set aside for periodic visits to North Vietnam.

Do we plan to have an ongoing mission in Hanoi?

Not at this stage, but as the relations develop, this could occur.

But there is no plan at this moment.

Okay, as it relates to the prisoners of war now?

As it relates to the prisoners of war, we will have... We have to have a service in many ways.

I didn't want to go into all the specifics.

There's a four-party commission, of which we are a part, that is going to be there.

And then there is an international commission, which is also going to be there.

And the international commission supervising internal prisoners has the right to extract their last weight of defense, plus the place from which they are released.

President, I want to highly commend you for the main thing, too, for the way you cut this thing out.

And a lot of other people deserve credit for what you've done for them all.

You know, early in the 50s, too.

I know a little about the cut-off.

You know, I've had it tonight.

I used to sit in the Oval Office and discuss it.

Well, you had money in your hands.

I want to say one thing about this.

I believe in one of the most troublesome things now, money.

In addition to this, the money we're spending in Laos and Cambodia, especially in the military, we owe it to them.

but if we get that thing moving along we had a better look at that one right henry send it back to me mr chairman i could be honest with you

Some months without bringing pressure on that ridiculous toy, and we won't need it, I don't think.

The provisions of the agreement and the associated discussions will take care of it completely.

And that's our goal.

Let me tell you, if we want to be bogged down in clouds in Cambodia, anywhere we want to be bogged down, we announce.

If we announce another disease by a potential infection in clouds, because we have very recent disease within a matter of weeks, if then the foreign troops are withdrawn from all sides, if you know what I'm talking about, then the expenses which concern you will, in effect, disappear.

almost frozen.

But that will clear the atmosphere more than it was the day before.

But you know, John, to all of you who know, our air activity is a lot of success.

And as the Army said, it's part of what the CIA is supposed to do.

But we think we have, as Owen said, we have fell on the road to a formal solution.

And the Cambodian one is messier because of the Chinese factor, and we have to do it more subtly.

But that's not where we have our biggest messages anyway.

All that I think we can solve.

And this is the force level.

And our naval force is offshore.

It affects those.

That's our decision.

That is our decision.

As I understand it, in the immediate future, until the thing settles down, we will substantially maintain our position in Thailand.

I would expect that our carrier forces will be enough because we are heavily overloaded.

We have had about six carriers there.

So people that are going to be there when he comes and says, totally outside of these reasons, this is not required, I've got to save this money.

As you know, some of the troubles we've had on the carriers have been due to the fact that they've had to be on station for so long that all the tensions have been exacerbated, so we will expect to go back to a more normal rotation.

which leads to some of the smaller areas.

Do we have any concerns at all that the North Vietnamese will diminish their strength, and Laos and Cambodia?

They will totally withdraw from the house and come.

That's a great issue, right?

The agreement says they will withdraw their horses from the house.

The difference between Laos and Cambodia, the withdrawal they mean is something there, foreign forces, because North Vietnam does not claim and does not deny that they have forces from Laos and Cambodia.

It's only South Vietnam that you have this to the effect that they have no forces.

It is not in our interest to nail down the proposition that they have forces in South Vietnam.

My point is that they maintain

and this war may start all over again.

But according to the agreement, they are obliged to withdraw all their forces from Laos.

uh, with the 90 days of disease, but, uh, it's, uh, it's kind of close to that.

Um, and I want to say I'm very, like, I'm a little bit, I congratulate you.

It's been a little longer than I hoped, but I'm very, very happy.

Thank you.

Mr. President, we gotta help you handle this deal as smoothly as possible.

There is a fly in the ointment.

We have to have a foreign aid continuing resolution, or a foreign aid authorization and appropriation bill.

And this would be the vehicle for taking up a lot of trouble.

I see McClellan, and I see Walker, and I see Young, and I see Fulbright over there, and if we can pull us together, or somebody will pull us together, and we can get that thing behind us without a lot of

Let me, uh, let me just close the meeting.

We are planning to set up a procedure whereby other members of the House and Senate will be free.

That cannot be done today because we're pretty full today.

Henry, incidentally, I think that's a brilliant job.

He's learning again.

In about three hours.

know that this is simply is you're sort of a taxi flyer today or whatever you go now you've got to go out and face the press and take their questions but I can assure you Henry the press won't be nearly as intelligent.

They won't be as tough as a tough friend.

The point is that the conclusion is this that the

that we, that I have, of course, appreciated the support of those who have been here, and there are many of you who have been here.

It's very strong support.

It's very, very precious.

I respected the fact that there are others here, some who have taken a different view.

I want to be very candid about it.

the Korean seaside, and I was in this room.

We talked about it.

President Eisenhower had the orders.

I mean, he ordered a devastating bombing of the Liberty in the case of civilian areas in North Korea, and it hurt the boy home so much.

But we still haven't got peace in Korea, you know.

That's how we deal with it.

As far as this is concerned, we would have to agree there are problems.

You have raised some of the problems.

But I would say that it would be extremely helpful if the members of the Congress, Democrat and Republican, to the extent of the leaders that you can, that instead of consulting our peers on this, don't be, of course, going out and saying, well, everything is done, this, that, and all that.

Be quite honest, and you've got to be honest.

But also, don't.

I think it's very important for us not to, after getting this agreement, to send messages to Hanoi and messages to Saigon, and, well, we don't think it's going to last and all that sort of thing.

If you talk that way, the way you thought it was a thought, it's going to happen.

Now, we've got to talk, and we're, I would like to, and you can essentially say what I said last night, this is a good agreement.

It is peace with honor.

It's not against the war, but us, which, of course, the prisoners were withdrawn from the deal, which many members of the House and Senate just a week after we announced that we were voted for.

If prisoners were withdrawn, some of the other types would have given it.

I know some.

It would have ended the war for us, and the war would have continued with a thousand casualties a week for 50 million people, and some could be challenged and be adopted.

So what we have here is we've got our prisoners.

We have more than that.

We've got peace, not only for America, but peace, at least, as miraculous as it may be, for all of the people of Indochina, and certainly for Vietnam for a while.

There will be episodes, and you will reach it, and see on the TV every week that something's going to happen here and there.

And we also have, and this is very important, at least a chance

the chance for the South Vietnamese to determine their own future, and thanks to the atomization program, their ability to defend that chance, by themselves, without our help.

Now, that to me is much better than to have taken another world.

It would have been much easier, believe me.

And I was not tempted, but many of my advisors were not interested.

to say, throw up our hands, particularly after the election, and say, take anything, get out, the American people be relieved, get our prisoners, and let the whole thing down the drain.

We couldn't.

But whenever I might have been tempted by that, I, the opposite of my mind, saw a picture of a POW wife.

I met her first in 1969.

I've seen her at every one of these gatherings since.

She's a Tysa.

I think she's from Colorado.

She had four children.

One was born after her husband stayed in the POW.

Been in the POW for five years.

She kept saying, hundreds of thousands marching around.

There were resolutions being passed and so forth saying, get out.

She said, we didn't fight this war for our prisoners.

Don't let our people die.

And we're willing to wait until we get the right kind of a peace.

I'm not suggesting this peace is perfect.

There's no peace that is negotiated as perfect.

The only one that is perhaps perfect in many things is unconditional surrender.

And I may say that has serious, certain times, too, that we get silenced in some instances.

But I do say this gives a peace that can work and gives the people of Southeast Asia a chance to determine their own history.

And I can only say thank God for

for those who stood by me.

With great respect, as I say, for those who had their forgiveness.

Thank God for, also, a lot of brave men who went out there and didn't want to go to war anymore.

They didn't want to go to war anymore.

They were as brave as we all thought they were.

They gave their lives.

Some of them became prisoners.

And we ought to be mad proud of them.

All right.

Thank you.

Some kind of a resolution or a prayer, somebody thanking the people of the United States and grateful for the war.

let me say i i think it would be very good but i uh i am the last one that can suggest if it's going to look like this is all serving that's right but did that come from your policy in a bipartisan basis and sort of pour everybody together i mean there are people that disagree on this

As a matter of fact, as we looked around the room the day after Matt's, you know, every one of the taps that run around here is part of what we've been doing virtually all the time.

Jack suggested it.

We don't want part of us, Congress, to do it and the other part not to do it.

So, Bill and Bob, we'll let you two have the appreciation of our people and our men for our service and our appreciation for the American people.

Whatever comes to your stuff, we'll work with you.

But let me say, the idea is there is a self-serving thing.

You could put the best one to do that is Ray Price.

Ray Price is the man who's going to work with me on both the inaugural and this thing.

It ought to be that we asked for it, not that they promoted it.

It doesn't take care at all.

Why don't you do another?

You've got other writers.

Are there people outside?

Rice could do it.

I would like Rice.

Now there's an idea.

Good.

Thank you.

Let's see if we can get somebody to try it.

Try it, just throw that in.

Don't tear it.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Here we are.