Conversation 701-002

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but there's no reason why they can't be cleared.

Does anybody know?

and they've got Laird and Skowcroft on.

Is the purpose to have a meeting about the Secretary of the Navy or is the purpose to have the Tommy's gonna leave to go around for the Senate?

Which is, well for Christ's sakes, is there a reason for Skowcroft and Laird and 18 others?

I'm just asking, you know, is that, do they want a general meeting or what is the purpose?

If it's for his own purpose then I shouldn't have the other, should I?

I think I should have a little talk with him about his campaign

Or do you, I mean, I certainly don't want any of our people, but is... All right, then, fine.

I have no reason why Larry can't come.

Larry can't come.

If Larry comes, Mr. Stone, you must.

He's willing to have a press conference any time, he said.

And I'm not sure he ought to do it here.

Why not do it at the Pentagon?

He's willing to do it all.

There's no difference in the level here.

I mean, it's going to be the same way.

But his feelings, Tucker, he feels you were criticizing him to the chief, to Maury yesterday.

And I told him, well, there are two problems.

One is on the authorities.

On those, he's clean, at least on paper.

The second is on the reporting.

And that has been lousy.

And I think we ought to keep him happy and enthusiastic during this operation.

And if you could have 15 minutes with him, telling him we've got to get good reporting and instantaneous reporting.

But on the authorities, you understand that he

that he recommended them, and that he was taking the heat for you on them, so that you weren't criticizing the authorities.

Because that is true.

I'm the guy who .

That's right.

And I, because I'm the guy, if any single person is to blame on the authorities, I did not think we should do a one-day strike before we had provocation, or a series of one-day strikes before we had provocation while we were .

I wasn't criticizing more of that.

whether or not they had asked for it.

That's right.

We don't care about that.

That's right.

I very much appreciate that.

Now, on the operations, the weather's so bad, they still flew only 132 sorties yesterday.

And we just had the wrong Air Force, but it's too late to do anything about that now.

for this operation.

When they do get in, they now claim to have blown up the bridge across the DM, across that river.

And when they were down there, they hit a convoy that was coming across the bridge and had an enormous number of secondary explosions at once, keep setting up the other.

So it's probable that...

I know, I know.

I'm just telling you...

They're knocking out tanks, and they're doing a lot of P-52 bombing.

They're moving 20 more P-52s out there.

From where?

From the United States.

I thought you said they couldn't be refitted.

I mean, I ordered that three months ago, and what happened to that?

They found they can be refitted, and they're coming out now.

We are moving more naval ships in.

Now, that hasn't gone far enough, because I think what we have to do, Henry,

uh i've been thinking about this and uh i think i think the uh i don't think that uh we all realize that anybody really realizes how far we have i'm prepared to go here to save this situation

that naturally we have this enormous interest, you know, in our Chinese game and our Russian game.

No, no, not at all.

And we have our great interest in not, you know, doing something that's going to affect the election and get a piece of it in there and so forth.

But when you really look at the whole card, we have no option but to win this.

So therefore, get the goddamn Navy ready for the blockade.

Now, you get it ready and don't crap around anymore with it, is that clear?

Because if we have to, that's what we're going to have to do.

And we'll take whatever risks are necessary, results and loyalties.

But whatever is necessary to stop this thing has to be done.

And under certain circumstances, we've got to move these things.

The mining thing, I think, is too slow.

The kind of blockade I have in mind is one in which all food and all medical supplies are allowed through and no munitions.

You see what I mean?

So it's selective.

But what you can do, of course, there's a hell of a lot that they go through there.

And the basis for it would be, I mean, this would be provided we do not, are not able to

Well, it shouldn't be, but it's...

But it makes one think, when one thinks that September, October, November, December, February, and March, and now until there's seven months in which we've ordered them to strike and none of them...

people in the administration.

I mean, you take a state player, et cetera, and you try to call them over and they will just say this, what do you say, and when in the name of Christ are they ever going to suggest anything they're going to do?

Exactly, Mr. President.

When?

What did you decide on the PR this morning?

I've got several ideas.

We were going to have a meeting in 10 minutes, but not today.

No, they won't have any ideas.

Let's get down to a few right now.

The ideas are very simple.

In the first place,

The, uh, the, uh, the crossing of the DMZ.

And it's really shameful to read the, and shocking to read the Times this morning.

I noticed how they put the word invasion in quotes.

Okay, the crossing of the DMZ.

The attack, that must be hit again.

That is the invasion from the north, the mass invasion.

Fair enough.

All right.

The other, the other points must be made is that the, that the, for the purpose of any action that we take will be threefold.

One, two, to protect

of course, our American forces to assure our continued withdrawal program and safety.

And, of course, related to the third is a second, which is absolutely tied to it, linked to it, the helping

The South Vietnamese resist the invasion.

In other words, if the South Vietnamese are unable to resist it, we don't have enough Americans there to protect the Americans.

And the idea that we could just get them out would be the goddamned most rubbish you ever saw.

So that is going to happen.

Now, they've got to point out, but get very, very high up to the average person who's supposed to come and say bullshit.

That doesn't mean anything.

I haven't seen any one of the statements that came out of this goddamned White House, or the men, or the state,

that we would have the point that I was making, the protection of American forces, assuring our withdrawal program, and so on, as well as, obviously, to assure the steps.

Now, what the hell has been done about that?

Has anybody been told to say any of these things?

Yes.

Well, I think they have.

I'll have to check on it.

But the trouble is to get this goddamn press to print it.

For example, you made a very good statement yesterday detailing all the violations

You have to go to page 40 of the Times even to find out that he made a statement.

Who did?

Who made it?

You.

I mean, it isn't the same as our making it, but silly if the other side had made a statement.

Right.

I know he said it's all right at the front.

Well, let me say it.

The press, though, I watched the church when they were in the circuit this morning.

It's not all that bad.

No.

It's not all that bad because they're a little gingerly about the goddamn thing.

They're not sure what's going to happen.

The other thing is, I don't know what the hell we're doing.

What is it in the two core?

That is, where they, I mean, where they expect the, you know, you call it B3, but it's obviously in the two core.

Yeah, that's right.

All right.

What is it there?

I have asked exactly that question.

Yeah.

And I've been waiting for an answer for an hour.

I need the answer.

Who's the son of a bitch who's going to have that?

Who is it?

Well, Moore would have it.

General Moore.

How can it be?

You call Moore.

I've got the president wants an answer.

I need it by 9.30.

Okay.

Now, what is the problem in two-core?

Okay.

Here's what we've got to do.

They've got to get it someplace, Henry.

What in the name of Christ are they doing?

Can't they, they can bomb there.

They do not, they don't have sands there.

All right.

Put the whole effort into there for a change.

Would that be enough?

Because I noticed this morning, the papers, all I know, I think I know, were two people sent.

But reading the papers, there's no more.

But reading the papers, I do know, great interest that they, they say that the two corps were the next attack likely to come.

Oh, that you get to be from us, but that's...

I know.

No, you and I, the papers are ahead of us.

Is there anything else in the PR area that we can have?

You see, we've got to prepare the way for the bomb.

We're not going to make the massive mistake we made in Laos.

We said here, we thought, you know, we said, well, let's keep a low profile.

That's why I'm not sure that when Larry didn't come in here, I let him walk out there and tell the press I'm just met with the president.

And we're going to respond to this and that in the other way.

The trouble with that is we take the heat now before we do anything.

I think the minute we hit, he ought to have a press conference over there and really raise hell.

Well, in the meantime, then do what I told Sengred to do yesterday.

I said, don't tell him about a damn thing.

That is right.

You read the paper this morning, and you say, I've had an atmosphere of crisis at the White House, CBS.

I don't know where they got it from.

No one talked to me.

That's what they say.

I saw it.

And the other one is, that was CBS.

Well, there are little guys around here, not ours, but you know.

They probably fucked the secretaries, I guess, but not with us.

But I guess we can't control that.

But you see what I mean?

When you look at our whole part, Henry, you talked about the fact, you know, when I asked you yesterday, what would we do?

There is nothing we can do.

I mean,

Sure, we go ahead and have the Soviet nation.

The Soviet would do it because they're Chinese and so forth.

But as far as a viable foreign policy is concerned, there isn't going to be any left.

Believe me, that's how much is riding on this thing.

And also, we've forgotten the point that we've made over and over again in November 3rd, Cambodia and the rest, what this is going to do in terms of the internal feeling in this country, the sense of relief,

would then say, we have won.

The military is wrong.

And they would turn on those who are responsible.

That's what they're setting us up for right now.

There are 50,000 dead per walk.

Goddammit, this has got to be won.

Now, we can win it, and we're going to do it.

We're not going to lose nuclear weapons.

We don't need to.

But we can blockade.

And a blockade will shake those fucking Russians right down to the point that I'm, there's not going to be any farting around with the Brennan anymore.

He's a slippery son of a bitch.

The whole thing is on.

No, it's on.

We got a message from them.

He called me last night.

He did.

And they expressed a special gratitude to you for personal message from President.

I think, Mr. President, we got the Soviets' attention.

The major obstacle right now, not only for our country, it's our goddamn military.

They are the obstacle to this.

With 500 phantoms sitting there, they don't fly.

And, uh, that's the drum roll.

And no more.

Get him out of whatever meeting he's in.

Immediately.

Well, I know, but what is the situation?

The, uh, so the weather's bad today.

And now the old, the other thing I want, do you understand what I mean?

I want to get that goddamn fleet over there.

And I went out, and they started to shell them 40 miles to the north.

And I said, tell me the truth.

Have we ordered it yet?

We have ordered it, Mr. President.

I assure you, we ordered it last month.

The order went out.

I saw it myself.

It's 40 miles.

It's to the north.

And they reached the road from the sea.

Oh, yeah.

Why haven't they been doing it before?

They didn't have an order.

Well, before they weren't, it wasn't part of the farming hall.

Well, now, they, the naval ships do not need good weather fire.

God damn it, they blow in bad weather all the time.

Absolutely.

They can hit that road, can't they?

I believe so.

I would stop sort of ordering them to fly, Mr. Bell.

I'm not ordering them to fly.

I'm just asking about the weather.

Yeah.

Hello.

Hi, Harvey.

I noticed that you only dug up 126 mission yesterday, which I understand because of weather.

Now I ask, well, you've got six more, 132, is that right?

Yeah, let me ask you a question.

I don't want them to lie in bad weather, but where is that report that I was supposed to have here at 915 with regard to whether or not you could not, with Adirondack having those planes just sit on the deck, get into the D3 area where they have that advanced concentrating?

What about that?

Well, how about taking everything that flies while this weather is bad and socking it in there for a while and giving them a massive bunch?

You see, you've got the plane sitting on the deck now.

solid understand i don't want anybody to fly in bad weather just to drop it out of the boondocks but my point is if you can't get there then get

I'm reading the morning report, and you say that you expect that the next blow is going to come.

And the B-3, is that not correct?

All right.

Are we working out as hard as we can?

There's nothing more we can do?

Yeah.

Now, point two.

Have you carried out the order that I gave last night, 12 hours ago, with regard to using naval gunfire on the road above the DMZ in North Vietnam?

And now, can the naval gunfire reach that road?

It can.

All right.

And that will be done.

Now, what about what additional ships are available to get out there?

I mean, do you have a few that you could send from Singapore or other places?

Well, if you've got any, how long would it take anything to get from Pearl?

How long so far?

How many, how many did you get there?

How many, I mean, could you get a, get a significant number?

Because I have a more important assignment that I'll have Henry get to you early.

Eight.

Eight days.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, and that, that includes what, cruisers, destroyers.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

And they do.

But you can't get, could you get more than that?

Can you get any?

Well, order everything that's used incidentally.

Forget the SIOP and all that crap.

It doesn't mean anything anyway.

And get all the cruisers and destroyers in the 7th Fleet in that area.

We have another purpose for them.

And get in there as fast as you can.

And give me, give Henry a report by 10 o'clock so I can see everything.

What we have in mind here, you see, is that... Let us go... First of all, you see, the poor old man saw what we had to be saying, and we stopped him on all that bullshit.

Of course, they didn't stop him, have they?

No.

What is happening?

What is happening, Mr. President, is that after their first punch, they have to regroup, resupply.

They've already started the attack again.

In my judgment, one of the things that worries me is that the Saudis may fiddle away their reserve, trying to defend Qantri and Donbass.

Can I suggest this?

The better line for them to take, Henry, is to have a further retreat.

I want to have them retreat to a line way down, an orderly retreat to a line way down, sucking the enemy out from under the cover of its sands, of its artillery, et cetera.

In other words, get it away from there and stretch it out, stretch out their supply lines.

Don't try to hold every goddamn thing down.

Now, the thing to do is to have an orderly retreat.

More battles are going to be ordered, retreats are going to be ordered, defenses.

They must, however, try to hold the way, Mr. President.

That would be...

I understand the way, but I want to treat it.

Exactly.

Treat it.

Form a line back in the way area if they can.

But an orderly retreat to a line further back.

The purpose of this is not to hold territory, but to defeat the enemy.

Except for the way, which has a symbolic relationship to that, because I'm aware of the way.

All right.

Since that is the case...

We have an orderly retreat.

Give up all the territory they can.

Let the enemy come in there.

And then knock the hell out of them.

Now, they did that to us, the moms, if you may recall.

They didn't fight all the way up there until they got pretty well extended, and then they couldn't come out.

Because our air force was not there at the right time.

But an orderly retreat.

Has anybody thought of this strategy?

It's simple.

Rather than having them fight for every station outpost and lose, we try to attack them.

or whatever they've lost in the way of .

The third division, though, I think is finished, in my judgment.

That's all right.

They've got the first division.

They've moved up a marine division.

If they concentrate them, and after all the weather, it's a question of days.

It's a tragedy, but it's a question of days.

And they are going to get a blow that they're not going to forget.

I know, but do you see if they were treated further?

It'd be better.

If they were treated further, they'd be, you know, they'd be out from under, and they'd be up to the Jesus.

Well, what they have done up to now is, as long as they don't feed him too many desserts, they're trying to hold on that river.

Now, it's not fair to make the other side.

cross the river under fire.

That's a difficult operation and it takes time.

But once they ever cross, then they ought to fall back.

If anybody doesn't sense, can that drunken Abrams at least decide about how they fall back?

Because can't that be done?

He knows about retreating.

Well, if this thing doesn't get better within 48 hours, I think we ought to send Hague out there and just keep him there while this damn thing is going on.

for another week.

I'm not going to listen to Laird's bitches.

I'm not going to listen to him.

We know Laird has played this funny game here.

He sends himself on both sides of this goddamn thing.

On the one side, he says one thing, and the other side, he doesn't.

The funny thing about Laird is he's basically a patriot, but he's also a crooked little boy.

And I think you shook him so much yesterday, he's been good as gold all day yesterday.

And I think we can keep him now working.

We'll try.

But, uh, but I... You want to have it said from here today that, in other words, just wait until we hit them.

Now, the point, there is some advantage to that.

Running it up, there's some advantage.

And to tell us they were in Scali at the present time, we put an absolute shroud on everything.

Don't say a God-named word at me.

Can I say this now that I, because I, I try to get serious setting this, and you get very involved.

We didn't, we're not doing, considering the press, I think the press played a... What I mean is today, today, I want Ziegler and Scalise to shut up.

All right, is that clear?

Absolutely.

Shut up totally today on the thing, except for, except for...

The massive evasion.

That's right, flagrant violation of the agreement.

All right, later on, what are we going to do?

I don't know.

Well, as the President has said, he has a responsibility for protecting American lives, for assuring our continued withdrawals of diversity.

They had it.

I knew they'd be stuck into that, that we were going to continue to withdraw, because we didn't have anything.

We couldn't have anything.

We didn't say it, but the President of the CIA.

And helping South Vietnam to resist the invasion.

Well, maybe he didn't say that.

I don't think it's bad.

I have the instinct that, in a funny way, that people do not like these refugees running south.

And I don't think the American people want the communists to overrun countries.

Well, put out the communists.

Use the term communists on this.

The communist invasion.

Use the term communists.

Don't get away from the other side.

Border scouting, they're never to use the other side out of anything out here.

It's the enemy.

Further and further, the invasion by the enemy.

It's an invasion.

This is no civil war or something of that sort.

Can we get some of this out?

I think, Mr. President, if we can keep this thing from collapsing in the next week in the north, I think the Russian switch time has some second thoughts.

I don't think it takes that many ships, Mr. President, because after all, no one is going to challenge it.

How do we handle it in terms of legalities?

We've done this already.

What we also ought to look at, the mining doesn't take all that long.

It takes a day to lay the mines.

What worries me is for us, remember during the Cuban crisis, every time we stopped the Russian ship, it was a bloody headline.

And how are you going to do it?

Well, in mining, what we would do is to put the mines in, tell them, set the fuses, that they go up in 48 hours.

Then they have 48 hours to clear out.

And after that, they go in at their own risk.

It's a little neater way of...

I think so.

The difficulty of the mining is it's not selective in terms of food and medical supplies.

Well, we can get them...

They can get them through China.

On the ground?

Yes.

Now, incidentally, the other thing, too, of course, is at stake here is some P.O.W.s.

Do you understand?

What was shocking then, reading the news this morning, were statements by Muskie and McGovern to the effect that we hope we don't escalate.

But, Mr. President, I beg your answer.

That's what it is.

I think Muskie's downhill slide started with his Vietnam comments.

Yeah, that was a different conversation.

Then he was attacked in the peace fight, and now he's in the war.

But be that as it may, my mind is he's wrong.

He's wrong.

But the horrible thing is our own goddamn press.

Mr. President, in cold-blooded terms, we'll either win this or lose it.

If we lose it, we won't get any credit for having shown restraint.

If we win it, it will be like Cambodia.

By October, they'll all be claiming part credit for it.

uh the main thing the main thing is this though i'm not thinking in terms of what i really i know i have determined i have determined that i don't give a goddamn about what happens in the election as i measured in terms of what's going to happen on this thing let me put it this way i do not think i do not think

that there can be a viable American foreign policy, these would be the communist powers, if we are run out of Vietnam.

I have reached that conclusion.

I do not believe.

I don't believe the American people will support what is necessary to have it, that's one.

And second, I don't believe in Asia and in Europe there will be enough people that are not communist.

Now, that's what it gets down to.

Now, we talk about it.

Now, you remember, you said yesterday, well, we got out.

We said we did our best and all that.

I don't believe that accepting the seven points of the Congress will make a viable waterfall.

No, Mr. President, I agree 100% with you.

And I want to say I'm proud that we have a president who talks as well.

I agree with you.

I agree.

If we've got to do it, we've got to do it fast when it happens.

It will be a success.

It's awful, then.

Well, we... We look bad when we resign from office, then.

Well... That's all.

I mean, you get... No, no, you should be... Not in terms of the election.

Because if you want the election, you know, why don't you career to run this country at this point?

You know, this is more serious than you realize.

No, no, I realize...

I realize what this president... Mr. President, we haven't suffered this agony.

It's really the two of us.

For the last four years, for any other reason.

You could have been a great hero three years ago by just bugging out.

Always understood it.

You've been absolutely right.

You are right now.

And therefore, there's no question in my mind that what you have determined is the right thing.

One thing we might consider is to order, I just want to wait until Mora gets here, the B-52 attacks north of the DMZ.

into that belt well i'm for that right now right now now that's got to go i want peter to do the action if if they can be made safely that's the argument here

The average American doesn't know the difference between a P-54 and a... No, we're only saying we're hitting the area available.

We're only hitting those things that are violating the DMC.

In fact, we...

I'm thinking now it's premature.

We can wait a bit.

Now, whether we shouldn't give up the 48-hour strike north of the 18th parallel and just keep hitting every day in the 18th parallel and south, because that way we can say...

We're just supporting the combat zone.

It's only 40 miles.

If we get 40 miles of it, if we get 40 miles of it, I'm inclined to give it up nowhere.

At this point, have that in reserve.

That's what I think.

Because I think the 40 miles will be a hell of a signal.

And that we can keep up, and no one can criticize that.

That's right.

If we let them go to the 18th parallel, they're now 17 and a half.

But scrub the rest of it, and just...

But let's wait.

They won't do it for three days anyway.

We can see what is needed.

We shouldn't put the authority back so fast.

They will do it.

They will say it because you didn't have it, because you didn't get it done.

Well, look, you have to come in with this ambassador problem.

Is he behaving all right?

Not to know yet, but he's not gone out yet.

The major thing to tell him is that you consider him to be a man.

I've told him he can back-channel us, and I'll be in direct contact with him.

And you'll see when he's there.

But we'll have to get him out of there, don't you know?

Oh, yes.

Somebody said he was to have an hour and a half.

We can't give any investment.

He can come in.

Let's talk.

You'll see when you're out there.

I have another question.

I must say, Mr. President, if this is passed, in case you decide to hang out in Tokyo for four days, we may just have to put off the trip, but we don't have to make that decision until next week.

Let me tell you that I would put it all on.

Any questions?

I should just say that you're going to be delayed.

I don't want to do it yet, but if we cancel it, it's just as easy to cancel it next Monday.

Yeah, that's right.

But I can cancel it.

No, I can just delay it for a couple weeks.

Got it.

They'll all understand.

Of course.

And then I'm here when it gets out.

Can you tell me the figure of the word?

Immediately.