Conversation 338-001

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It would take a little time.

They should have a rehearsal, in other words, so they know what bull they get into and so on.

But something of that kind, I think, would be...

I think there's got to be something that's, as I said, an offensive measure.

They just can't sit there and let these people amass their artillery and then throw it in in great quantities and then back off and then let them fall down to the next point.

and go through that again.

That's, in essence, what's happened is that the artillery, I don't think there's been a single instance when the North Vietnamese ground forces have overrun the South Vietnamese.

What's happened is that the South Vietnamese have collected any strong points, then these people have disposed their artillery around it, left by about a thousand rounds, and these South Vietnamese take so long, and then they quit and back up again.

So the Vietnamese don't have active artillery in response to that?

Well, sir, I think that they have artillery, but here again, they've lost the large quantities of artillery because they haven't served their guns during the time that they were getting shelled, in many cases.

And I just think that to continue on the defenses of the loser.

Well, let me tell you, the blockade will be a very important one.

Oh, I guess so.

My hat channel will be there at some point.

There will be one or two posts where we're going to go put time and money in there in such a way as to drive the ship in half, give them the rest, and drive the ship in half.

And then we'll go home right on time.

It takes a lot of time.

That's the plan.

Well, if you don't want to talk to me first, with our team in the shell, we should have tips.

Yes, if you want to talk to me, we will.

Right.

I was with the ships that are in the port.

I'm 72 hours in, but I'm so long .

Well, I'll ask the plan.

I just said yes to you.

In terms of the South Vietnamese landing thing, I'm not going to discuss it with you.

Well, I've had the two of them together some.

When you take this to the second one, that's set up.

Maybe 2,000.

I don't know.

I don't know what it is.

I don't know.

Two weeks, two months.

Well, no, sir, no, sir.

I think we can do it in two weeks.

At least we're good.

You know, like what I'm saying is right.

We need it now.

It's a bottleneck for the control to be based on this speed with which they can make the troops available to go through the earth.

Well, let's get that off right away.

Let's wait an hour.

Now, when we're in the process of working up this base,

It's a blockade.

We could do it.

I think it depends on when, which I'll have to wait to get down.

But we could do it within the next three or four days, if you like.

Because that would kind of set the stage for the next thing.

We don't want to have the ships involved up there, although they don't have a few hours away, when we want to be involved with these others.

But I will do that if we want them to be involved.

In that case, I don't know if I want them to be involved with us.

Yes, sir.

I think that would be, in that sense, be helpful.

Well, the information, Mr. President, I would go ahead with it unless you feel that we have to delay it.

But think aggressively.

Yes, sir.

Very aggressively.

Because now the whole thing has changed.

We're not going to lose.

We're going to win.

Yes, sir.

All the time.

It's been a week now.

The air, the air, the air, the air.

The air, the air, the air.

Well, of course, the further south we get, the more difficult it becomes.

Oh, yes, sir.

I think some of the reports, for instance, have indicated, for instance, that there was heavy traffic on Highway 1 that's coming down from here to the M.C.

Huffman General Boatman, I have to report, he has been working that overnight today.

He says that he has taken severe damage on him.

The convoys, they had them, they had locked them and put them down Highway 1 as it was reported otherwise.

And he said the same thing to Highway 137, which comes through the back of the right pass, and to Highway 1032, which is that new road that comes across the end of the road towards the west end.

And so there's no question about it that they have suffered a stack of losses.

The problem with that, really,

As I say, the fact is that we haven't been able to get the Southeast Indies to stand long enough to generate the right kinds of targets.

That's been one of the problems.

But I assure you that the other side has had various to do with that.

For your information, I'm sending a takeout on Monday, Tuesday.

We're going to go out there for a definite period and see what we can do to follow up.

Good.

It's got to be done.

That's about what we're doing.

We're going to have direct communication.

We're going to go in the night.

We've got to go all out.

We've got to have some chance for military air.

We've got to do a safe design.

More importantly, it's a chance we all have to save this country.

Okay.

Very close.

When we start, first of all, this is a good time of year in the sense that bombing and the weather's going to be good.

And I would recommend that when we commence bombing, I know I bombed.

that we do not do it on a two-day basis, but we keep it up.

The order is that you are to bomb, unmercifully, not 50 times a day, but whatever you have got that you can spare and knock out everything you can.

Don't aim at civilian targets.

But if you're trying to hit a military target, you will not be held responsible if you haven't hit a civilian target.

And it's going to be all out.

No more two-day strikes.

Thank you very much.

Well,

As I always say, that's what they pay you this big salary for.

Look, the fight is not a rough call if you look at the situation and recognize the same fact that the United States cannot lose this war.

If you cannot lose this war, then you determine

With all of our power, how do you win it?

Or at least keep the other side from winning it.

That's what we're really all about.

It's a draw.

We're fighting for it.

Fight it out.

If we can't get a draw with these bastards, the United States is finished.

But at least have the devastating idea now.

the point where they're going to have to look to the restoration of their own soil and their own resources so that they can't move in and just take over South Vietnam.

And Laos.

You know, even if you couldn't tell.

Look at Romania.

Of course I'd tell.

That's what you have to do.

At least you have to give them a few years of homework.

We can do it.

And if you can't do it, you shouldn't do it.

I like that.

Or, uh, I don't want too big a stretch.

I don't want too big a stretch.

But I don't want to do it in a half-assed way here.

I don't want to take away the wham, wham, wham.

Just bomb them.

I don't want to heat them up.

Now we will take, realize, take a hell of a lot of heat.

Particularly on the, uh, well, the blockade that is the bombing.

The bombing.

Today, the person says, stop the bombing.

Stop the bombing.

I think you have to be very cold about it and explain it to the American people and let others do it.

Let others do it.

Let them say it before it's gone on for 10 years.

They know it's the anomalous behavior of the operations.

They're a big sanctuary.

They're basically a land sanctuary.

There's no damage that's been done to them.

There's nothing wrong with the water outage.

There's certainly nothing wrong with the ocean.

And if you have ever reasoned that all those pieces would have gone further than we should have gone, we've got to bring about a ceasefire to at least bring the restoration of the tranquility in that area.

And that's what we did.

So it's an hour of military invasion.

And now the time has come.

And we can't, we can't commit this anymore.

If they persist, and if they give, then they have to pay the price in the paper.

And I think the American people understand that.

I think the world understands that.

I think the problem that we have is that all of us are constantly

And as the time goes on,

and so forth, it gets more and more of a cynical spiel.

That's right.

They've been talking about that for three years.

They've been talking about that for a very long time.

They show a picture in a hotel room.

It keeps getting worse and worse.

They can't, at least our cameras, they can't get it all the way down and take the picture.

Something else he said, maybe at least he forgot he had it five weeks ago or about something he showed him.

but i'm not sure i'm not sure how much good even that does for us because i'm a dead

Very good at writing, man.

Good old days.

The one the other night was not too difficult.

This is chromatic, sapphire, a little bit of a whore.

I'm trying to figure out a thing for the canvas now.

I guess you can't go, you can't write.

Well, you really can't because you don't have the ability.

The other fellow is my teacher to work with in Sapphire.

He's a teacher.

I don't have a lot of knowledge myself.

I'm just going to put it first.

And we hired him, as you see.

In fact, he goes through his training and he wants to speak about the impact on North America.

I don't agree with that.

You don't agree with that?

No.

I don't need to go over and say, I've withdrawn $500,000.

I've done this and that and that.

I'm just going to say, stuff that an individual person can take is going to take.

Everybody knows that.

It's the other one.

What's the advantage, is it an advantage, of blockade versus denial?

Is the psycho-ideal?

I don't think.

The sophisticates here would be a little shocking, but to the folks, a blockade is an overt act of war.

A blockade doesn't kill anybody.

The purpose of a blockade is not to kill, but to prevent killing.

The purpose of it is to prevent lethal weapons from coming into the hands of these murderous outlaws.

Weapons of destruction must be denied to these murderous international outlaws.

Normal people get excited about that.

But then, for one day, a hell of a lot less excited about it than the person getting the bomb.

The bomb has to go to the doctor.

I'm not going to count that.

I'll just...

You've got to say something like that you're going to continue to take all necessary actions.

You're going to continue to strike military targets with our air defense.

This is definitely what you're doing.

You've got to let it happen.

I was just debating, and I don't mind, which way you go on.

You could argue in both ways if you want to build it up and make it a big thing.

Well, Bob, you don't need to build it up if you do something like that.

It's supposed to take over.

It is a big logistics .

There's a lot of shapes and a lot of planes.

This is very small.

See that?

It's a narrow channel.

Well, you know, to me, it's okay.

Cancel it, will you?

War materials past this line.

All right, Rose, you tied up tonight?

Yeah.

Why don't we go over and have a dinner with Pat, okay?

You free?

All right.

Yeah, I thought we'd go over early.

Are you going to do a huge tie-up now?

Fine.

I'll take her up.

I can't see her.

All right.

I just carried my reading copy when I went down, went out of the room, and I don't know whether I gave it to somebody to file or not, but would you check with Alex and be sure that it's found, let me know whether you find it or not.

Is it because it should be kept in one of the historical records?

Yeah, my reading copy, I carried it out of the drug test room, headed my hand around and down to the other room.

I think I gave it to him.

I'll just find out how you called that.