Conversation 233-021

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Hello?

Why do you keep getting me to sleep these days?

That's right.

It's most likely that's the problem with their meeting.

I understand that we have one more day tomorrow again, huh?

3 o'clock, rather than 10.

I met today at 10.

No, I don't have it here, but give me a summary of it, will you?

I'll probably get it in front of you tomorrow.

After all that, why do you have another one tomorrow?

or parade, or worship.

Yeah, it might mean something.

It might mean nothing, of course.

So those changes, those are the ones they agreed to.

Yeah, the ones they agreed to.

Thank you.

Yeah.

However, he contains basically substantial partners in that, on those lines.

Yes, we have put the options to whether a resumption of military activities of your scale is going to change their attitude, and how so.

And my guess is that it's not a very strong possibility either.

You see, that's a problem that we're facing, which we have to face too.

Now, we'll have to do it.

We'll have to do it if they remain entrenched in this being.

We'll have no choice but to go on.

And we're going to do it, but we'll end up talking about it

The question is whether it's acceptable to us.

Of course, his view is that the October 8 agreement is acceptable to us, right?

Well, the answer to his question is that the... You see what he says?

Should he stale it?

Or... Go ahead.

In other words, should he, should he... Yeah.

Well, you see...

It's that bottom line that is a damn poor line.

That's what I think he has to have in mind.

If our option, basically, is to get the best possible agreement, we can.

I mean, let's even go back to October 8th.

The best possible agreement, we can.

Saigon, the children belong.

We get the agreement.

Or...

to not, but then failing to do that, that we just break off and then resume bombing and then get our prisoners back.

Well, what the hell is that?

My point is, what's the game?

In other words, the best possible agreement we can get even if Sidon doesn't go along.

Or it is certainly no worse than

getting our prisoners back for withdrawal, because either one flushes Saigon.

Let's just put it in cold blood.

Any difference?

See, that's the reason I think the choice he presents is, and he's thinking in rather melodramatic terms here, that in terms of, well, if they don't give us this, then what we'll have to do is to break off the agreement, resume heavier bombing, although I have determined I will not go along.

I'm not going to do it.

in a big, charismatic way that we just do it.

And then with the hope that after a reasonable time of military action, they will then say, well, we'll now give you prisoners for withdrawal.

And so all of this will have been done for them.

If that is the choice of breaking it off as against

getting an agreement that is unsatisfactory.

It's better to get the agreement that is unsatisfactory because the agreement that is unsatisfactory also gives us our prisoners.

That's my point.

Exactly.

But my point is, the point that I make is that at least the first course

not to push it over the brink.

In other words, they are committed, Harry Carey, the second course means that we would, in effect, and the first course does not entail the continued escalation.

Let me put it this way.

His second course of action, in which he has an influence, and which you break off, and of course I've already messaged him,

that he should not think in those terms.

He's going to do the same thing he did at the time of Russia.

He says, we should cancel the summit and start bombing the mines.

That was not the way to do it.

What we did was the right thing.

We bombed the mines.

They canceled.

Now, it's not exactly the same, but it's relevant.

Here, what he's thinking of is in terms of these people are so bad, so difficult to deal with.

So he's both sides.

But he's saying,

They are so difficult that he's throwing up his hands and saying, all right, we break off the talks and come back.

And then he wants an announcement made that we are going to, because we failed to negotiate an agreement because they were named, we are therefore going to step up our military actions and we will continue it until they return our prisoners.

And as soon as they return our prisoners, as they agree to return our prisoners, we then

draw our forces about to bomb into the line.

Period.

Yes.

The point is, what he fails to bear in mind is that if that happens, if that happens, then you have dragging into the summer the sword atomically is

of congressional bulletin rug operatives from under us and driving us out that way all that period of time.

You understand?

You see?

Well, we need funds.

We need funds to bomb.

That can cost us one.

That can cost us one hell of a lot of money.

Now, that's one line.

Now, the other one,

the other line would be to make a settlement now.

I mean, there's October 8th and as much possible better as we can get.

You see, if his second course of action, I know what's going through his mind.

He's terribly frustrated and disappointed that

The North Vietnamese, after he talked to the Russians, after he talked to the Chinese, and after he'd gone back to them, after they had told us just before the election they were going to talk again, after they'd made all the changes, he's so disappointed that they now have said, no, we're not going to do a thing.

I think, very candidly, he's not thinking too rationally in terms of what the choice is.

Now, of course, he can say to the North Vietnamese, now you bastards,

We'll teach you.

You didn't want to do this, so now we're going to bomb, and we're going to take you to bomb until we get our prisoners back.

And next summer, about next summer, we'll get them back.

All right.

What happens between now and next summer?

It would well be that we could get congressional action, which could drive us out.

The one thing that could avoid that

is that this thing could be postured in such a way that the north vietnamese were totally blamed for but on the other hand that's probably another but on the other hand we've got to remember that if the only goal for which we continue our bombing and our life is a return for prisoners look what that does to the south vietnam

uh it leaves them with uh very little all right let's look at another course i think we're going to get both i think i think actually that if it rolls on that long and when he talks about the summer and the rest

that it's just not realistic to think that we can fight those battles and all the other things we've got to fight in the Congress.

See, we've got a lot of other things in place in Congress.

But having said that, when he talks about rallying the American people now for the purpose of bombing and so forth, we don't need to.

I mean, there'll be some heat and so forth, but the American people, they think we're bombing already.

So if we just do it, it'll be a couple of three-day stories that we've found.

Talks are broken off and this and that, but that isn't the effect.

Where he is, what we have to realize is that running the course that long until next summer, and who knows whether he'll even work by next summer, there are several other things that can happen.

It exacerbates our relationship.

continues to exacerbate it with the Russians and the Chinese for that six months period, right through the Russian side, right?

It continues to pose an enormous problem in the Congress in terms of getting what we need on the military budget for South Vietnam, as well as for the budget to continue the bombing of the mine.

At the end, we don't know what the hell we're gonna get.

And incidentally, we're trying to have POWs

And that emotional subject hanging over us for another six months with all of that.

The other course of action is also not a good choice, but it would be to make an agreement, do the very best we can to make an agreement now, which would give our prisoners.

I mean, at least that's in it, right?

Let's put it this way.

You can get prisoners for withdrawal right now, can't you?

I mean, prisoners were withdrawal and cut off the bay.

Yeah, but I mean, you could probably get prisoners, you could probably get those sections of the stuff even without the cut off the bay, you know, and so forth.

I don't know all that stuff, but we'll see what we can.

But if the only goal you're going to continue the bombing and the mining for is to get our prisoners back sometime next summer, it's not something that's gonna wash, in my opinion, for that period of time.

It's not something we can really

we can really handle for that length of time.

So it seems to me that the better choice at this point is to continue the discussion and not for him to take the initiative to break off the talks.

or to break off negotiations on the ground that they have been entrenched in.

In other words, I think his going in in the morning and giving an ultimatum, saying, this is our minimum position, take it or leave it, or we go back to running the mine.

I think that's what I think he says, what I think is the preferable position, is that he'd go in and say, now, all right, we've got to have these things,

or we cannot make an agreement.

And they will say, we can't give you those things, and so I guess that's the end of this meeting.

And then he says, well, under these circumstances, we'll have to consult our superiors on these things.

He comes back, and then we do bump.

But you don't tell him you don't need to.

I mean, you don't need to make a big thing out of it where you're going to break off arrangements, go on national TV and announce you're going to bomb because, again, you're not announcing a hell of a lot in the minds of most people.

So you're going to increase the level of bombing in North Vietnam.

That basically is something that is not a winner unless it's going to accomplish a goal of very great significance and a goal that could not be accomplished in another way

And the North Vietnamese, if they're as clever as I think, they're not going to come right back and say, no, we offered you the prisoners.

Right?

We offered them.

We offered a ceasefire.

And, of course, the answer there would be to say, well, yes, they offered the POWs and they offered a ceasefire, but they were insisting on a political formulation which provided for a coalition government.

My point is,

Breaking off the agreement and going back to, and just saying, now we're just going to bomb and mine until we get our prisoners back, which is what he was recommending in his long message yesterday, is totally unacceptable.

Because I just don't think the Congress is a buy-in as a goal worth doing for that length of time.

But I think, on the other hand,

I know that what he can get from the North Vietnamese at this point is not likely to be acceptable to Saigon.

Then, I think however we may be in a position that if it is acceptable to us, if we believe it, then we may have no other course but to go it alone.

There, of course, I'm sure that the reaction of the heartbeat

be that they will never agree to prisoners who withdraw.

And in other words, they won't give us our prisoners back for withdrawals and stop using the money.

But they will insist on the extra court, which is to stop all military use and stop using the money.

It's never even the solution is.

They've said that in the past.

The question is, will they say it now?

Yeah.

Now that to me, that to me, if you would like to do that, that's a viable deal.

to sign up a deal, a deal that I had never understood that that's something they would accept.

In other words, if...

The idea that they began to monkey around and talk to us here, that we make a separate military deal, and that they'll go ahead and take us to the war, I shouldn't have said that,

without our military and economic assistance.

Oh, no, we need that.

That's the problem, to see whether or not you can continue the military and economic assistance.

So the separate deal with the North does not bother me one damn bit, if we can get, I mean, provided we can continue to take to South Vietnam.

Yeah, for a chance to survive.

That's right, that's right.

Let me say this, I think this is too important for Henry to decide on an emotional basis, you know,

Now we'll lay down a little bit tomorrow and break it off and this and that.

It's just not that kind of thing.

I have an uneasy feeling about Mr. Trudeau, about his balance in this whole issue.

What I think is needed is that in terms of guidance, in other words, what he's asking is whether we want him to create

or whether we want him to try to make a deal, right?

That's what he's asking.

Right.

That even he should do in the background.

It's true, but you know what I mean?

It's something we can't solve.

I know on the Berlin thing and the rest, but on the other hand, it is something that only the physicists understand.

It is something that people want to fight a war for two or three years over.

That's the point, that's what I wanted to make.

No, I think here, that's right, that's the point.

No, the only way you'd have to make it is say they're insisting on a coalition government in the south, and we're insisting on an administrative structure to run the elections.

Well, he's basically then, I'm trying to really understand what he's saying.

In other words, he wants to know whether he should propose an unacceptable proposition and force the talks to break down.

Come back and...

and go back and bomb for six months, is that right?

The other way isn't quite as confident, but he thinks it will be.

Well, except he doesn't make it a very good, it may be a pretty close choice, except that he's the only difference ever.

totally bearish on the possibility of getting them to accept on the one case, and he's almost totally bearish on the possibility as far as the minimum requirement cases.

So, really, it's a... Maybe he doesn't think he's got a chance.

He ain't hanging.

He's going through the motions.

Oh.

My feeling is this.

I think he should lay off what he honestly believes is an agreement.

They can

and should accept, and that we can and should live with, and that the South Vietnamese can and should live with.

You got that?

Now, I would put in only the, with regard to the drawl thing, just put it in enough that it's there, but not as frontally as to make it

a an absolute certainty that they have to say if that's it we don't even talk you see what i mean so that we can just talk about it in other words we can say as a political issue we can say well they insisted on that they wouldn't even discuss the matter in other words get that uh don't let uh you can get them to so that so at a later time you can say that's one of the reasons that

we were unable to go to prison.

But I think going on what he knows is a course will lead to a breakdown, means that we break off the talks with knowledge that what we are proposing is something that they cannot and will fix up.

And that I do not want him to do.

What I want him to do is to, at this point, is to pursue basically the limited option.

but with modified just enough to have the thought of a principle in some way of a withdrawal.

You get what I mean?

He couldn't do the work in some language, I don't know if that catches it.

Just far away from it, but you know, but not as friendly as it presently is.

Or you think he can't.

You've tried.

Well, if you can't, then you can't.

I understand.

But he can discuss it.

He doesn't have to lay that down as one of the conditions.

He can just raise it and they turn it down.

And then he goes from there to the minimum conditions.

All right, then there's what we've got to have.

He won't give up on anything we've got to have.

You see what I mean?

So that he has made the record that we have asked for that.

In other words, he can have his, we can have our cake and eat it too in that respect, because he can make the record that they will not accept that.

He should make it tomorrow.

He says, now let me understand.

This is what we need.

What is your answer?

They say, no, all right, here's the thing.

And they say, no, we won't accept that.

Then we make the record both ways.

Try to negotiate a deal across the table.

That is what they should try to do.

Then we will have to take our chances.

We'll be prepared to do it.

And if the South Vietnamese decline, then we will have to go basically the second line of settlement with them or something like that.

hoping that we can still get the Congress to support Zavia, which will be tough today, but which might happen.

It's obvious that he prefers just to break it off and come back and go hard.

I understand that, and I understand why, because he's frustrated and tired, and really thinks it's a hopeless business, and he's probably, he could be very right in his judgment of what the situation is.

However, it's wrong for him to do this,

The option, once we have done that, for us, is no better than if we try to get an agreement and get something.

All it means is that we bomb for six months longer with all ifs and buts.

We try to get the money, not just for Asia, South Vietnam, but

for the military, it would cost a continuum of war.

See, that's the point.

That's the weakness of the second thing, breaking it off.

It's your feeling, that's your message, despite the soft talk he gave to you, that probably he hasn't got you to decide on whether or not you're going to decide on it.

Yeah.

Of course.

Now, you see, my feeling is that I want him to continue the talk to make the most reasonable proposal we can.

And then, after May, try to keep it open.

Yeah.

Try to keep, well, but also get into the conversation a flat turn down on the other point so that we can go back and talk about this.

uh, you know, he's already had a flat turn on, but get it in again tomorrow.

But then he says, now let's see what the fuck reading you are.

I think you're not going to give on that.

And try to get the reading.

And, uh, if you can't get it, Henry shouldn't be so obsessed with this idea that, and I think he's concerned about his press a little bit too much.

And he said, well, there'll be just one more meeting.

So don't worry about that.

There'll be 10 more meetings if necessary.

You know,

It's to our interest to keep this going at this point.

Keep this going.

But he can also have the card in mind that if they don't play, if at the conclusion of tomorrow's meeting he sees a totally intransigent attitude, then he says, well, we'll have to go back.

You'll have to go back.

We just tersely say that we were unable to reach agreement on space advice, and we're ready to talk seriously about this whenever they are, and then we'll resume our military activities at a highly intensified rate, but we're not going to announce it.

We're just going to do it.

We don't have to announce it.

See, it isn't like my bombing for the first time in Cambodia.

You just step up something you're already doing.

It doesn't make a goddamn bit of difference anyway.

That's the point to the PR side there.

I'm not concerned about that.

We'll just take a little slack around here, but we're prepared to do that tomorrow if necessary.

You see, he feels that the reason he's pressing so hard is I have to go into college

I've got to explain to the American people why we have to step up bombing and why the negotiations failed.

That's exactly the wrong approach.

The thing to do is to indicate that we're talking and that there have been intransigence so we're going to continue our bombing.

But we're willing to talk.

In other words, keep the action going.

Keep the dialogue going.

And to the extent that we can.

And we can explore this situation

separate deal i don't i don't know any formula by which we can do it which does not involve stopping not only the mining of the bomb in which we can easily do a trip directly we could be glad to do that tomorrow but which would not involve also stopping that that we cannot that we well it would be it would be the collapse so that's my point

So you see, when you look at the collapse, Ben, you're looking at it in a variety of ways here.

I mean, Henry's line, which in a melodramatic way, of course, is much more exciting and so forth.

They have broken their word.

I mean, because you're breaking off the negotiations.

I'm returning, of course, to the president.

The president goes on national television.

He announces.

to the world that we are going to step up bombing and we are going to continue until we get our prisoners back.

It won't wash. That's not a sale of appeal because first the goal is the great money.

That is just what I'm trying to say.

In the meantime, you have to have in mind that doing that and financing it over the next six months

I agree it'll take six months before they're going to change their minds.

They have to believe it.

I mean, the Air Force works so slowly.

What's going to happen is that the South Vietnamese may go down the tube because of lack of support from the Congress of the United States.

That's the point.

But the word will get out.

It can't help it that the reason this thing went down is the South Vietnamese wouldn't go along with what we thought on October 8 was a good deal.

There's been too much written and said about them, right?

Whether it was or not is irrelevant.

It's been written and said.

So the other line is that it also risks South Vietnamese conduct.

South Vietnamese do think that they signed the kind of agreement that we've made that this will bring about.

Do also believe that, but, and all sorts of possibility won't sign it all.

And then you make a separate deal.

that the Congress may bring them down.

But at least on that course of action, if we can get our BOWs back now, which is the only goal that Stan Henry's got in this whole play, get the BOWs back, right?

If we get them back now, and as a result of all of these, at least we will not have to go through six months of hell

and the problems with the Chinese, with the Russians, with the Congress and everything else, in order to do something that's going to happen anyway.

So my view is to try to make the very best possible things we can.

Now, be sure to get in to the early discuss the fact they've turned down, definitely, any idea of ruling, but don't make that a condition for the settlement.

You must not make that a condition.

You must not think that an absolute condition

and then if possible, keep the talks open for another round.

I think that would be useful for another round.

And then we can come back and have what we really need is a thorough discussion of what our options really are rather than all this dramatic stuff.

rally the people and so forth and so on.

That's fine when you've got something you're going to do that is different.

And when you've got a great goal, it will not work if you're just going to do a little more of what you're already doing.

And when your goal is one that you could have gotten through negotiation, you're not even doing it.

See, that's the weakness of, I think, the position that you're now stating.

In other words, the hard-line position.

Don't you think there's something to that?

I have a lot of other things we're trying to achieve.

We can't just continue to allow the war, this war, to poison everything we're doing.

We're going to go the extra mile.

We're going to try to save them.

But if we have people that can't be saved, we will try to

And it isn't going to happen that fast either.

That's another thing.

I don't think that his collapse theory is going to work that fast.

What's that?

Yes.

Oh, yes.

Yes.

But that's why he doesn't need judgment at all.

I think a long time before he says, go on, I'll go on.

That's what it gets down to.

So, if he does now the signal, when you call me back, do you want to send it up or what?

because I can read his message anytime.

So it comes up, it's gonna come in very shortly.

Well, why don't you do this?

Why don't you work on your message now?

And shall we say that by 6.30, if you make it by then, and have the message as you see it, and we'll have it together over the phone, okay?

In the meantime, I want to read the message.

I'm very certain as to the direction that we want.

I don't want to break off the loop.

Okay.