On April 26, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 7:10 pm and 7:37 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 333-039 of the White House Tapes.
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This offer was a refusal even to discuss our proposal, and at the same time, a massive escalation of their military activities in the battlefield.
Last October.
Last October.
The same month when we made this peace over to Hanoi in secret, our intelligence reports began to indicate that the enemy was building up for a major attack.
Yet we deliberately refrain from responding militarily.
Instead, we patiently continue with the periscope, because we want to give the enemy every chance to reach a negotiated settlement with the firing people rather than to seek a military victory in a battle with a victory they cannot be allowed to win.
Finding privilege to go on Easter weekend, they mounted their invasion of South Vietnam.
Three North Vietnamese divisions swept across the military-military zone in South Vietnam,
Three South Vietnamese swept across the military zone to South Vietnam.
In violation of the treaties they had signed in 1954 and in violation of the understanding we had reached with President Johnson in 1968, when he stopped the bombing in North Vietnam in return for arrangements which included their pledge not to violate the military zone.
Shortly after the invasion across the DMC, another three North Vietnamese divisions invaded South Vietnam for a result.
As the South offensive progressed, the enemy indiscriminately shelled civilian population centers in clear violation of the 1968 bombing of Ho Chi Minh.
The facts are clear.
More than 120,000 North Vietnamese are now fighting in South Vietnam.
There are no South Vietnamese anywhere in North Vietnam.
Twelve South, North Vietnam, South 13 regular combat divisions have now left their own soil
in order to carry a pressing war onto the territory of their neighbors.
Whatever pretext there was of civil war in South Vietnam has now been stripped away.
What we are witnessing here, and what is being brutally infected among the people of South Vietnam, will make an unprovoked aggression across international borders.
The only word for it is invasion.
This massive attack
assisted on the ground entirely by South Vietnamese forces.
No United States ground troops have been involved.
None will be involved.
To support this defensive effort for the South Vietnamese, I ordered attacks on enemy military targets in both North and South Vietnam by the air and naval forces of the United States.
I have before me the report which I received this morning from General Edwards.
He gives the following evaluation of the situation.
The South Vietnamese are fighting courageously and well in their self-defense.
They are inflicting very heavy casualties on the invading forces, which has not gained the easy victory which some predicted four or three weeks ago.
Our air strengths have been essential in protecting our own remaining forces and in assisting the South Vietnamese in their efforts to protect their country from a conflict.
General Abrams predicts that there will be several more weeks of very hard fighting in which some battles will be lost and others will be won by the South Vietnamese.
but he is convinced that if we continue to provide air and sea support, the enemy will fail in its desperate gamble to oppose a communist regime in South Vietnam, and the South Vietnamese will then have demonstrated their ability to defend themselves on the ground against future enemy attacks.
Based on this realistic assessment from John Lavers, and a consultation with President Chu, Ambassador Bunker, Ambassador Gorder, and our senior advisors in Washington, I have three decisions to pronounce tonight.
First, I have decided to be in the position
proved itself sufficiently that we can continue our program of withdrawing American forces without detriment to our overall goal of ensuring South Vietnam's survival as an independent country.
Consequently, I am announcing tonight that over the next two months, 20,000 more Americans will be brought home from Vietnam.
This decision has the full approval of President Chu and his generation.
It will bring our approved ceiling down to 49,000 on July 1, a reduction of half a million men since this administration came into office.
Second, I have directed Ambassador Porter to return to the negotiating table in Paris tomorrow, but with one very specific purpose in mind.
We are not resuming the Paris talk simply in order to hear more empty, hear more propaganda and bombast, hear more empty propaganda and bombast from the North, the East, and the econ-governments, but to get on with the constructive dissonance.
We are not resuming the Paris talk simply in order to hear more empty propaganda and bombast
the North Vietnamese and Vietnam governments, but to get on with the constructive business abilities.
We are resuming the Paris talks with the firm expectation that productive talks leading to rapid progress will follow through all available channels.
As far as we are concerned, the first order of business will be to get the enemy to halt this invasion of South Vietnam and to return the American prisoners of war.
Finally, I order that our air and naval attacks on military installations in North Vietnam be continued
until the North Vietnamese stopped their offensive in South Vietnam.
I have flatly rejected the proposal that we stop the bombing of North Vietnam as an addition to return to New Bark and Cape Horn.
They sold that package to the United States months before in 1968, and we are not going to buy it again in 1972.
Now this with a correction.
On July 1, we will have drawn over 90% of our forces from Vietnam in 1969.
Before the enemy's invasion began, we had cut our air service
We have offered exceedingly generous terms for peace.
The only thing we have refused to do is to accede to the enemy's demand to overthrow the lawfully constituted government of South Vietnam and to oppose a communist dictatorship in its place.
As you will recall, I have warned on a number of occasions over the past three years that if the enemy responded to our efforts to bring peace by stepping up the war, I would act to meet that attack for three reasons.
To protect our remaining American forces.
to permit the continuation of our withdrawal program, and to prevent the imposition of a communist regime on the people of South Vietnam against their will, with the inevitable bloodbath that would follow for hundreds of thousands who have dared to oppose the Trump administration.
The air and naval strikes of recent weeks have been carried out to achieve those objectives.
They have been directed only against military targets supporting the invasion of South Vietnam, and they will not stop until that invasion
The communists have failed in their efforts to win over the people of South Vietnam.
General Abrams believes they will fail in their efforts to conquer South Vietnam.
Their one remaining hope is to win in the Congress of the United States and among the people of the United States the victory they cannot win among the people of South Vietnam and on the battlefield of South Vietnam.
The great question then is how we, the American people, will respond to this final challenge.
Let us look at what the states are, not just for South Vietnam, but for the United States and the cause of peace in the world.
If one country, armed with the most modern weapons by major power, can invade another nation and succeed in conquering it, other countries will be encouraged to do exactly the same thing.
We'll be encouraged to do exactly the same thing in the meetings in Europe,
and other international control centers.
If the communists win militarily in Vietnam, we risk a war in other parts of the world with Vietnam's leaders.
We are not trying to conquer North Vietnam or any other country.
We want no territory.
We seek no basis.
We have all the most generous peace terms.
Peace will go on for both sides, South Vietnam and North Vietnam, each respecting the others in Vietnam.
But we will not be defeated.
We will never surrender to our friends.
We have come a long way in this conflict.
South Vietnamese have made great progress and are now bearing the brunt of the battle.
We can now see the day when no barra burn will be involved there at all.
But as we come to the end of this long and difficult struggle, we must be steadfast and then we must move forward.
All that we have risked and all that we have gained over the years now hangs in the balance during the coming weeks and months.
If we let down our friends,
we shall surely be letting down ourselves and our future as well.
If we now resist, future generations will thank America for her courage and her vision and this test we have.
That is why I say, let us bring our men home to Vietnam.
Let us end the war in Vietnam.
But let us end it in such a way that the younger brothers and sons of the brave men who have followed Vietnam will not have to fight again in some other Vietnam at some time in the future.
Any man who sits here in this office feels a solemn and heavy weight of obligation to future generations.
No man who sits here has the right to take any action which would advocate America's great tradition of revolution.
Earlier this year, I traveled to Kenya on the start of the Journey for Peace.
Next month, I shall travel to Moscow on what I hope will also be the Journey for Peace.
The 18 countries I live in, Mr. President, I have found great respect for the offices present in the United States
I wish you would expect that if Dr. Fischer is reported, I shall find that same respect for the presidency, which I and what I believe in possible.
I do not know who will be in his office in the years ahead, but I do know that future presidents will travel the nations abroad on journeys through peace, as I have.
If the United States betrays the agents of people who rely on us to be a god, the President of the United States, whoever he is, will not be served or received.
respect which is essential if the United States is to play the great role we are destined to play in helping to build a new structure of peace in the world.
It would amount to a renunciation of our morality, an application of our leadership among nations, and an invitation for the mighty to pray and to believe all around the world.
It would be to deny peace the chance peace deserves to have.
This we must never do.
My fellow Americans,
Let us unite as a nation in a firm and wise policy of peace.
Not the peace of surrender, but peace with honor.
Not only peace in our time, but peace for generations to come.