Nixon, Kissinger & Chafee on Vietnam War and North Vietnamese Offensive

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Did we get some letters?

Well, we're getting some letters, but they are really pouring in naval ships now.

Did he get the point?

Did you talk about it?

Is he ready for a mining exercise?

He'll have a plan for a thing in the morning.

He said, thank you.

Tell the president...

Not since 64.

No, we're doing it even better.

I've told him to start loading mines in the Philippines.

Good.

On ships.

That will be it.

How about having Helms tell him?

Yeah, that stuff.

Would you mind giving Helms the word that I... Helms, of course, he's a bit of a whore, but he's thrilled.

Now, Russia asked to see me yesterday.

I asked him to see me after the meeting.

He said he reviewed the whole record.

And he said whatever you said yesterday was an understatement.

Leopold has been playing games with us.

And above, you mean the reports of both sides?

And also the request for authorities.

You see, one reason I was so leery is they wanted to hit logistics and sands.

Laird didn't approve it.

He just wanted to hit sands.

And to me, the price just was too high for that.

Well, I just want you to know that the thing...

But they got a little charge out of it then.

Oh, God.

Now, we have one question.

I don't really know what I need to bother you with it.

I think we ought to put in some more aircraft.

Well, where the hell is it?

Well, the choice is to move 36 marine planes out of Japan or 54 from the United States Air Force.

The marines would have to bring in 500 more people with them because they don't have that amount of...

They don't have to be stationed in this country?

No, no.

I think it's better to move the Air Force out.

The Air Force then is not considered to be an increase in our complement there.

Maybe 100 people, but that would be absorbed by the withdrawal.

The Marines are better.

The Marines will do a better job.

Let's do what was a better job, what do you think?

Where is it going to raise Marines?

Oh, the Air Force isn't that bad, but it's not.

We shouldn't blame those pilots.

They're great.

Of course, suspicions are all POWs and this and that.

You know, they thought, well, it's this goddamn airplanes are no good.

Well, they're both using the same plan.

Let me check with Hank who he thinks will do the better job.

Give me a quick, quick thing.

You say, you say first that Mars is charged up now.

Absolutely.

And the whole atmosphere.

I said, I repeated what you had said this morning.

I said, the president said he doesn't want to be told about political campaigns or anything else.

He has the responsibility for the security of this country.

He has concluded that for us to be run out of Vietnam would undermine our foreign policy.

And he has an obligation to do the right thing.

So all you people are obliged to do is to tell him what the right thing is.

And he's set for it.

except for anything short of ground combat we want to do.

You are responsible for telling all your subordinate commanders that they should think of things to do.

He said, God, I haven't heard more of that.

I haven't heard this in 63.

Well, yes.

Well, now they're moving 20 B-52s out there.

They've already moved 18 F-4s.

they are moving... Well, the other carrier they think would take too long.

And they'd have to move... Four will be enough.

How about the fleet?

Can they get some more than four destroyers?

No, no, they've already got ten destroyers there.

They're moving eight more down, plus three cruisers.

And... That is...

Remember, these have five-inch guns.

And...

I told him to start hitting logistics installations in Dong Hoi, to start hitting the airfield in Dong Hoi.

He said, you mean it?

I said, of course we mean it.

Right.

The Dong Hoi airfield can't be reached by a virus.

Had we done it before?

Never.

We haven't, why?

Because of the bombing understanding.

Oh, you mean we haven't, but it was done by Johnson, I presume.

But never by naval gunfire.

But by naval gunfire, it seems to me to be better than bombing.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

We should really pour it in there now.

They'll scream like crazy, but I think, as my view is it, Mr. President, this is not a great open divorce.

Your view also is, I think, correct that we ought to delay a 48-hour strike because the weapons...

I've talked to Mora, incidentally.

He thinks if we give him unlimited authority to hit up to the 18th parallel...

In other words, just extend it five more miles.

He'd refer that to the 48-hour strike all over South Vietnam.

And it gives us a better position because we can then say we're just supporting the immediate combat zone.

That's right.

We're supporting the combat zone, and that's all.

And we can then, as we... Then we can do more in a smaller place.

That's right.

And then also, it's a signal to them, we might do more later.

Now, you see, the mining, though, will really be the thing that will take them off.

We've got to, I think that one has got to come.

Well, we should wait and wait.

Quite soon.

I'm not so sure we have to leave and wait.

I'm not so sure.

It wouldn't take the effect, Mr. President, for a month or two.

I know, but you know we're in a position now where bold play is going to make the difference.

I think, Mr. President, they've given us a chance.

They threw down the gauntlet.

And if we now break, if the South Vietnamese can form a line, this is the uncontactable.

Could you tell more about my theory about retreating?

Right.

You see, I read again last night.

I went back to deliver it again.

I read Churchill's chapter on March 1st.

And as you know, God, the great British known as Commander of the Year of 16, was cashiered as a result of the damn thing.

And Churchill finally said it.

And then he pointed out why it was determined to defeat the British in an allied victory.

This was for the first time in the war since the Eichmanns.

He said that the Germans lost two to one of the offensive statues to the British, and three to two in terms of officers.

But look what it looked like in terms of the battle.

The Germans captured Henry in the first four days of that battle.

They captured 60,000 British.

Captured 60,000.

Captured over 1,000 heavy guns.

They killed more than 200,000 British in the course of the day.

And everybody said, great German victory.

Lose the Darbys, whine, toast it over.

And it was a hell of a time.

And as Churchill said, it was a defeat.

And we've got it, Mr. President.

But let me tell you the other point that I particularly loved.

Churchill made a retreat.

And he said, they kept going back.

They kept going back.

And they gave up ground.

But they won the war.

The hell with the ground.

Unless it's Kuwait, or you know what I mean?

Did you tell him?

Have they been figuring about a strategic retreat here?

I've told him, and of course, choose interests.

He doesn't want to lose any cities.

But I believe, Mr. President, we can hold the line.

As long as it doesn't meet the laws of Kuwait and Danang.

We can hold the line.

Then we've got them out in the open where they are concentrated.

There's no jungle there.

And we are going to grind them down.

And if they then have to withdraw north of the DMZ, Mr. President, we will be able to do to them politically what they did to us and to love.

They invaded and retreated.

No one will care how many casualties.

The South Vietnamese have got an attack to drive them out.

And if we get that done, then we must offer a negotiation fairly quickly after that.

And then we may be out of the war before the end of the year.

That's your offer.

I have a question.

Henry, getting out of the war before the end of the year doesn't make any difference.

about before the election that I was going to go on for years to try to do the right thing.

We've got to, in terms of the election, the only thing that's going to do us any good is a little June before the Democratic Convention.

That's where we have to have a great announcement.

That's what I say.

That's what we're talking about here.

The war is not the problem.

It's the issue that is the problem.

See what I mean?

And the main thing is to have this battle.

We kicked the scuffles out of the bastards

So that they can come back before the end of the year.

I think that in terms of the negotiation, if this battle moves very fast, if there's any chance for the weather to break, my guess is that you'll have your negotiation much sooner.

That's what I think.

Before Russia.

That's what I think.

That's exactly my view.

When will the Warsaw thing be announced?

Oh, that will take us a week to announce.

Five days.

We've notified them today.

We've notified the state to notify Warsaw.

Because it came in through Warsaw Channel.

At two states, I mean.

But the major thing is not to tell him... Tell a client that he's in here to tell Wilson that the Warsaw thing...

It is, though, will not be a much of a week, and it has to be held in effect.

It's under, it's just being handled through the diplomatic channels at the moment.

Okay, fine.

I don't think it's out.

This is an invitation.

No, I don't think it is out.

That's going to be a good one.

And they accepted it with grace, huh?

Yeah.

Oh, but it's a special note to you, Professor.

Now, what you're going to do there is you're going to pass the

We hate to lose him, but we want to get him back in another capacity.

Well, I think it's more important to have him.

I think it's good that you will be more than one in your board, won't you?

Sit down.

No.

Sit down.

Well, the thing I want you to show us again is

but it's mellows off and says, you follow this, the super secretary, the members of the board, you manage the whole damn thing.

And about all you get is a handshake when you leave.

And maybe a professional medal of honor.

No, I really mean that.

But I think we're grateful to you, John, for what you've done.

I'm, of course, extremely aware of what you may be planning.

And you've got to meet that problem.

I mean, not because he isn't on his phone, but he has no brains.

You know what I mean?

Just to stand up here.

And I think I agree with all the reports I've had.

I get into politics too much these days.

But you'll swoop through that space like everything.

I mean, I understand when I say it's not easy.

But of the various senators who were there,

who could make a mark, he hasn't made much of a mark since he's been here.

Nice guy, the way that's wise.

But you've got him, he hasn't.

You agree now?

Those bulls up there in the round, surprised me though, they're shaking me up, I think he can't be over here.

Oh, never, never remember that, I'll talk you out of that.

Go in there and be telling them.

Well, I'll certainly give it everything I've got.

And I just want to thank you so much for this opportunity to serve in this administration with you and Mel.

And the Navy.

And you know, of all the jobs in the federal government that could help me in Rhode Island, this is the best.

You know, let me say another thing.

I would think that you would

I think, John, you should take a very, I mean, well, naturally, you've got the police forces and everything in every state.

But I think the strong national defense and the strong Navy line there ought to go over like gangbusters.

And that Judge Pell has voted wrong again for everything.

Right, John Pell?

You're never going to count on his vote, right?

We've gone down that list, and I never see him on the list of how, you know what I mean?

I'm very confident that you're going to speak up.

And another thing you can do, which is very important, is Mel knows that Jimmy knows.

I haven't worked with him, Mel and I.

We're all the same here.

I'm a big Navy man.

And as we move into the new day of, you know, arms control aggressive,

We've got to realize that for the United States to continue to be a world of power, it must have, it must be superior on the sea.

We're not talking about parity on the sea.

We're talking about parity of land-based missiles right now.

But on the sea, the United States is a sea power.

The Russians are not a sea power.

And we damn well are not going to allow a situation to develop where we are.

You see what I mean?

For example, the Russians are superior to us in ground forces.

They need to be, because they're a ground front.

But we talk about sufficiency.

Navy superiority is essential for the United States to have sufficient to maintain the peacekeeping roadmap.

And I would be a bit apologetic on that.

Don't you agree, Henry?

HENRY M. Absolutely.

I think, too, that that should go over like gangbusters from around the other side.

Boy, I think you're absolutely right, Mr. President.

I just spoke of the recent report of the Knights of Columbus, and I'm sure that's back in a liberal groove.

Oh, I hope it is.

Everybody's getting liberal these days.

But I'm telling you, it's not going to work.

Well, that development is rather unusual.

Because you've got all those other people.

Well, look, you know, you've got all that many candidates.

You know in Wisconsin there's a strong liberal isolationist group.

And they're all going to govern because he is the cutting edge.

Well, and Hubert, what do you think?

Would Hubert mean to be Hubert?

Well, I think he can, but he wouldn't have been Hubert unless he would have been a threat to us.

because McGovern got all these organization Democrats in there because they thought they wanted to knock off Muskie.

And at the back in the time when we got these people committed in that organization, they thought the race was against Muskie.

And they were trying to knock him off.

Now, they would have been comfortable, some of those people that are in that McGovern group right now would have been comfortable with Hubert, but they thought Hubert wasn't in the ballgame when they signed us on this thing.

Well, if they want to get stuff, they must

No, I don't think that was necessarily it.

But I mean, here, Lucy is our governor, and he is for Teddy.

But he wanted to stop Muskie and his people, the people that worked with him.

And he said that he's neutral.

But if you look at the people in their form of government and see who they are, you see that a lot of them are.

Oh, I saw Muskie on television this morning.

He could be that.

Did you know, I just saw a list of the California primaries together with the politics.

It's everybody.

Yorty is on the list.

Yorty.

Muskie.

Governor.

McCarthy, who's in California.

Chisholm.

Wallace.

What a race that's.

Well, there are 11 on the ballot, on the Democratic ballot in Wisconsin.

11?

Yeah, you've got more.

You can put them all.

The 12th place is none of the above.

It's a real protest, wasn't it?

But many people said that the reason that we knocked off, that we had some sort of a television up there in Alabama.

The reason we knocked it off is that we weren't trying to encourage Republicans to cross over and vote for Wallace, which is a little way out.

But the reason we knocked it off is that the people got out of the race and finally just spent $150,000 boxing a television in Wisconsin making characters.

Huh?

Well, I just think it's a great opportunity to build up the bankroll.

Yes, save it for the beginning of the end.

All right.

Coming back to your situation, John, I think the...

This is one seat we can win.

You can win.

And you like the Senate.

Don't you agree, John?

And they need a vigorous young guy there.

And also it'll help that area, the Wisman area, and the whole thing back.

I was just thinking, in New Hampshire, our old friend, Wes Powell, the steward out of the Jaffa.

Now, when you take McIntyre to New Hampshire this year, you've got Powell on it.

He's so brilliant and so honest.

If he only had his wife's sanity in his brain, that would really be a combination.

It's very seldom, usually, that a wife is insane and no brains either, but she's just insane.

He said a lot of it does even exist.

West, old, Winston.

He used cars, he used everything.

Not anybody else.

Well, you're, uh... John?

No, we won't have a primary yet.

I can't believe it.

If we would, it wouldn't be a minute's talk.

Everybody expects John to run out of their job.

Tell me about the others.

Well, you run this as a governor at the same time.

Yes.

You've got a good candidate.

You don't want to drag.

Oh, yeah.

He's a good man.

He's got a lot of monarchy.

He won't hurt you.

And also, he's Italian.

That's right.

And he'll be a big helper.

It would have been better if the incumbent governor would seek re-election, who's detested.

Well, he just pulled that off.

Yeah.

you know, that you respect people in this, but he and that fellow from Pennsylvania, Shep, are the two strangest men I've seen in politics.

I just couldn't believe it.

I said, don't.

Excuse me.

That's how he used it.

What about here?

It was the 68th, which is unbelievable.

Yeah, well, he ran, he promised no income to that person.

And you had to be honest, I don't know.

And responsible.

I know.

I don't know anymore.

And this is the new one.

Then the next one.

It was off the close-up.

The next one, the beginning one, was the New England attacks.

And the day after the election, which he beat these people by 1,800 votes, he said there had been such a turn down in the national economy that he had to put in the New England attacks.

Two days after the election, because he runs

Because of the income tax?

Because of going back to this commitment.

He promised the campaign in 70 that there'd be no income tax.

And then two days after the election, he said, we just got an October figure.

But hey, you won't win.

I mean, you're going to win.

But I think you're going to win.

And also, pulling on the governor would be good.

The governor's race will be closer than here.

Oh.

Oh, gee.

You know, Bill, I never want to say that, you know, .

I'm glad he's talking about it.

We've got to worry about it.

Oh, worry right to the last.

They haven't elected a senator since 1930.

So it's a struggle.

Whereas Powell is a lightweight.

You know what you might say?

What I say to you is just a thought.

A voice that will be heard from Roy Allen.

A voice that will be heard in Washington from Roy Allen.

Now, that story is absurd.

Whatever you say about John, he's an evil thought, and people pay attention to him.

How is there some education scheme, pre-college education for everybody?

This must be just the authorization, I guess.

Good God.

Well, of course he is.

He's a little bit irresponsible.

You've got to be very, maybe, I don't think it's very well known.

It may very well be that you'll just run a very positive campaign and ignore it.

Even in that small state, I bet you did.

You're very humble.

Well, because I was, you know.

Yeah, you've been around.

And you've been going back, they told me.

He's been going back.

I've been here, and I've been taking up the Sequoia.

No, we haven't taken Sequoia up yet.

I haven't been that abrasive.

I wish we had one.

I wish we had Nell at the right time for politics and these things.

Because Nell is just a, we can get about half a dozen fellows like John and Senator.

God, by what you do in our life, you've got to live with it.

It has to be different.

People will understand nationally.

That's all.

Everything's a struggle over there.

Struggle?

You don't know the answer.

Jesus Christ.

Why?

A romance, why do we spend it every night?

We never get it.

Well, we didn't come here.

Well, we did.

Mark it on the desk if you got people here.

But I had it out for the first all night.

She's going to have a tough time, though.

That isn't as easy as many people think.

He's an attractive dog.

This guy's a Hathaway.

Hathaway is a good campaigner.

She'll do all right in the primary, I think, this president.

Hathaway.

And, of course, Margaret's over 70.

God, you never know.

Margaret says that that's a complaint.

They say, well, you're too old.

She says, well, I can't help it.

That's a very good one.

But also, though,

Margaret does have a stroke, and after all, she is a powerful person in science.

And what's the name of the shipyard?

I won't do her any harm.

Oh, Christ.

As I said the other day, I mean, Mel and I here, we've had our hopes, see, and that's been real nice.

And now that I think of the things we've done, I'd like to figure out the most useless

You know, that's one of the problems, is the only primary commitment I made was to that damn porcelain.

And Mel said, that came out of your round about 18 times, and I swear to you, this is a terrible yard.

It's the only one we should have got.

So finally, I guess cotton prevailed on you.

I had to keep my promise.

What are you doing with the damn thing?

We're repairing some of it.

And we'll all repair it.

Oh, we need some more, you know.

We may have, as you know.

We may get this SLPM, but we don't.

Even if we do, I was going to say an SLPM, as I understand it, if we get it, it will not mean that Holmes and all the rest of them are out of the way.

No, but we'll have a tougher time.

This is an area we've got to be ahead of.

I don't want to give away that summary.

I mean, I think now we're going to get at the end, but how to phase in the keel laying with the replacement is going to be a tough problem because it's a technical issue because they can lay keels for quite a while longer and not have to take anything out of them.

We could do that, yes.

John, I've got to get you out of here.

Go ahead and wait.

That's the money for campaign contributions.

The ones in cash that you don't report.

Thank you very much, Mr. President.

I support them all.

I appreciate your generosity.

Mel is your advocate.

He's been here.

Strong supporter.

We appreciate your strong support.

Well, Jakey's come along pretty well.

I think that probably Jakey on the platform is another place to be.

Yeah.

From New England.

He has to be liberal.

He's going to be all right.

He'll be all right.

Well, he'll be all right as far as foreign policy issues are concerned.

Joel Allen's never written, even voted for an amendment in that area.

Incidentally, before we talk about the Vietnam thing, Henry,

What position could Mel take on this?

Well, I think we've got to be in a position where we don't get screwed on the SLBM deal.

I think we're in good shape now to stick with our present position until there's a switch in Helsinki.

I have the sense that there will be.

And then I have to work out with Mel some system by which we can continue to lay keel for Alms.

We must have an agreement that preserves the Alms.

Don't you agree?

Yes.

Preserve the Alms, but at least the first hand, as the player said.

Well, you see, the thing we have to be able to do, Mel, when you talk about the SLV limitation,

It's very appealing on the one side.

I know the Chiefs favor state papers.

The rest are very strong, more than I could follow.

I wear four.

We didn't have three before.

But looking at it from the standpoint of what we can present to the country, people want to nitpick that and bring everything else back.

And on SLPN, if they see that the Russians are, because of the gold,

The one area where we're ahead that they've been closing at, we're in a real, real problem.

In other words, in terms of, we gotta be sure that the submarine agreement is not one that will subject ourselves to the charge that we got took.

See?

Well, that's one of the problems that we have.

It's a political problem there because of the facilities that they've developed and the facilities we haven't developed in this area.

Now, the new pictures that just came in

that new big missile on their submarines.

And they have one up against the dock there with the big missiles on it.

And this has a 3,000, over 3,000 mile range.

We've watched those tests.

And now we have a first submarine with those missiles.

And it's afloat with those missiles aboard.

How many, 16?

12.

What they did, Henry, was they took

They extended the midsection.

They extended the midsection and put in more living compartments there.

We thought that they were going to put in missiles there.

They did not.

The picture shows now they have 12 holes in a new living compartment there.

And this is a big submarine.

And there are much bigger holes there because these are bigger missiles.

And they go all the way down through the much deeper draft.

But you have to give credit to them for the kind of facilities they've developed.

We're making the effort to try to get the thing in, and we'll have to see what happens.

But let's be very sure.

We have to see what specific proposals.

Some of these private enterprise facilities that we've developed here, I'm all for private enterprise, but they haven't

I'm going to ask you to do something, not now, but do something later, which I think you're the man to do it at this point.

I will probably have to do it at a later point.

But let me begin with this proposition that we cannot be in a position in Vietnam at this point of

We've done everything we can to help these folks.

And if they don't make it, it's too bad.

And we'll just make the best of it and plug out.

I do not say that I'm a political standpoint.

You could probably watch.

But in my view, at this point, or at any point for that matter, after being in the struggle that we had done in five years, never in the last three years,

When you came in, you could have done it, but you can't do it now.

It might have done it when we come in.

It would have been a mistake, but we could have done it.

Yeah, but we could have gone away with it.

But I'm thinking not in this election, but what I'm thinking of now, Mel, in terms of whoever sits in this chair, whether it's me or somebody else in January of next year, we will not have a viable foreign policy if we are driven out of Vietnam, of course.

Now, with that in mind,

I've got to say something here.

I really don't, I can't say it in a CED meeting.

And I can't say it in, well, I would say it privately in a bill, but I just wouldn't want it to get into the State Department.

Here's what I feel.

I feel that we have to, the United States, to risk everything, including the election.

And I think that's what I want you to know, because as a politician, I'm prepared to risk everything, including the election, to try to save the situation.

And that means pouring in all the air we can.

It means pouring in all the ships we can.

And it means having the option of even going further, not further, but moving to what I'm talking about.

and their number, quarantine, etc.

Now, what I feel, what I would like for you to do, because when Moore came over in the Russian, or the Western region, I asked that, but I don't mind, because I think it's, they did reports on this thing, so what was going on, and also to know,

Because I have the responsibility and I'm sure they realize that we're not going to do this for the numbers.

We're not going to do this in terms of the fact that we tried our best to fail and all that.

Nobody's going to get any rewards for failure here.

And so nobody's going to get any blame for success.

But we will while we're doing it.

It'll squeal like stuck pigs.

Now, I think your recommendation

that we should concentrate our mind on the belt in North Vietnam, which directly relates to the battle in Elizabethan, and that we will do that at this point.

Rather than taking out supplies and so forth and so on in North Vietnam and other cities, I think that has to remain as an option.

An option which we

that we want to use in the event that we feel that there are other reasons to do it.

The recommendation is to go up to the 18th parallel.

This was the recommendation that Mel made last week.

The authorities that now exist, Mr. President, are to go up to 1735 until May 2.

with no restrictions, that is, they can go every day and to do a 48-hour strike up to the 90s.

The thing that we discussed informally this morning was not to do the 48-hour strike, but to extend the authority from the 1735 to the 80s.

Why did you approach that?

I think a 48-hour strike up to the 19th isn't a bad idea.

It isn't?

OK.

If you go up to 18, you're going to get just as much energy.

No, if you've got the resources, go to the 19th.

What's the argument about that?

I think there's a lot to be said for having the daily bombing established in the public mind as going on in support of the combat energy.

Is the 19th not in support of the combat energy?

It goes further than that, but I thought for 48 hours it wouldn't hurt to go up that car.

It doesn't make any difference, but I agree that it's the most important area to engage the enemy.

No, we can go 48 hours.

We can go 48 hours to the 90s.

Well, you're not going anyplace now.

We'll go as soon as the weather clears.

Yeah, that's right.

Next month?

No, next 48 hours.

Well, we hope the weather...

I know, Mr. President, that weather thing drives you up.

Well, it does all of us, but I mean, I know it's a problem, but we just don't have the aircraft that can fly in weather.

We would have lost the Battle of the Bulge if the President of the Air Force would have done it.

Well, if weather was serious about Battle of the Bulge, we would have had a mistake.

I got it.

We don't want our guys to be that kind of risk.

But the point is, well, anyway, we've got to use the planes we've got.

I understand that they can't fly.

Well, we put in...

I don't want to take any risk.

I don't want to drop them.

Well, they're taking risks, Mr. President.

Oh, I know, but I don't want them to drop them in spoon drops and so forth.

Just to prove anything.

My problem is we've got those discards up there, but as you know, as a Navy man,

We've got 5-inch 38s on them.

They go, they're accurate up to 7 miles.

And we've got the 5-inch 54s, which will go into 9 miles.

If you look at that, that goes along there.

You don't hit a hell of a lot of stuff.

We've got a bomb in there to be, I mean, you know, we use the shotgun.

We've got to use the shotgun.

That roll here that comes down here,

That's about seven kilometers right there.

That's about how far you can go on that road, putting your destroyer right up there.

And we're hitting them.

We've got four right there.

I know the destroyers.

have done would be a good sign.

Oh, yeah.

Well, they're putting it in.

But this tack air here would be tremendous, because it's out in the open.

And you can get those people there.

And they can take a damn bad look.

Well, they've got in there.

They've masked people in that area.

So Robert Thompson, when he was here this last time, he said, this will be the greatest thing when they come across there.

Because you can really give them a lesson.

I think we can't give them a lesson if we haven't had this.

But I can say that I think so.

It is important to me to see, except for Wade, that the military, and this will be hard to recognize, that in the history of warfare, a hell of a lot more battles have been won by giving up territory

trying to hold territory and losing that.

Now, here I think that the idea that Jews said very bravely, not another inch anyplace, sure you had to say that about Verdun, although there might be a question as to whether or not the French should have given up Verdun as a friend of your God.

But nevertheless, at this point, I just want to be sure that we are doing everything we can to remember that our

I had not been giving you all the information, and not been forwarding to you all the requests, and that somehow somebody in my office was holding up these requests.

Now, I have- You've got requests, as far as I can see, as getting the latest information, where it was.

I never thought- On this, Mr. President, I have instructed five people over there that are in my immediate office to tell everybody that those requests were turned out by me.

the request to bomb up north on the 8th, on the 14th, and on the 16th, because it was my understanding, and we had that mutual credit, that I could be the fall guy.

And also, we couldn't do it then, because we had to have a provocation.

Sure, well, and the idea, though, over in my building, and as far as the chairman is concerned, as far as the third staff, they think that got that Secretary of Defense is holding everything back.

Now, I have never held back a single thing.

as far as Henry is concerned.

I understand him over everything, but sometimes it's the advantage of you, and my job is to protect the President.

And when there is a chance to protect him on this, I just took the heat for it.

Now, even some of our cabinet people have heard through military channels that the damn Secretary of Defense was not forwarding these things over.

When I got your letter on the 18th of March,

turning down these things and telling me not to submit them again until the attack began, I waited and sent them over on Friday again, because I felt the attack had started Friday.

And then they were approved.

And they were approved then.

But I have not in any way, I just don't ever want you to question my loyalty.

I don't.

sure I want you to know that I want you to be the activist.

Now let me come to what I want you to say.

Not now.

Are you going to have a press conference sometime this week, or are you just going to wait?

Well, I'm ready to go, but we called up today.

I'm still going tomorrow, so I thought I should...

He is going tomorrow.

Yes, and he is going

Bill has got to get the violation of the EMC.

He's also got to get the- Are you sure he's coming tomorrow?

He told me yesterday.

I thought we heard that he canceled.

Well, it was canceled today.

He was set to go today.

He was going to announce his annual recognition and some other things.

So we called, and I talked to you last night.

I had our people call up Kosky, and he said, no, it's canceled today.

It's going to be tomorrow.

It is.

to bring everything to the defense.

And they were just saying, we used to talk about your people and simply saying, well, we are watching the situation.

And we just read what we said previously and all that.

Now, when you come down to those two, when we started bombing, when it started, then I didn't know the points that had to be driven home hard.

First, that we are doing exactly

Second, its purposes are three, and then to get hard, even though the Dan Press will not, the country will get it.

The purpose is to protect those Americans that are there, the American lives.

The second purpose is to assure the, is to, that our program of withdrawal and replacement of the organization can continue.

In other words, they're all interested in that.

The third, of course, the third is linked, actually, to the second, is to aid the South Vietnamese in their efforts to defend their country.

Because at the present time, American lives can't be protected by Americans.

You don't have enough.

As far as the withdrawal program is concerned, it can't.

It is only made possible if the South Vietnamese can defend their country.

Also, if you can get an elect, wherever you can, whenever you can, about POWs, that as long as it's got

want to say.

Now, what are we doing with the airplane?

All we are doing with it, Terry, in terms of our bombing of the air, there are no American ground troops involved in this operation, but we are using our air power as effectively as we can in that area which supports this great invasion in violation of international law and violation of treaties by the North Vietnamese.

line on those planes could be very helpful.

Well, he could be very strong.

What is your...

I think that's exactly right.

I think Mel... What I mean is he can get out and say some things that Bill can't say.

I think when the bombing starts, there's no sense doing it now.

Once the weather clears and the bombing starts, I think Mel will step out there the way he did on Cambodia and every other crisis.

and say that, first of all, this is no longer guerrilla war.

This has now changed its character.

This is an invasion by main force units.

This is not a civil war, and it's not a guerrilla war.

This is conventional warfare by the North Vietnamese Army against the South Vietnamese.

It's like Korea.

And that it's in violation of the 54 agreements of the 68 bombing understandings.

are the diplomatic things.

And we are bombing in the area, immediately supporting the combat, ready to supply.

Now, in terms of the situation, too, I think it's beautiful.

But take in the fact that we've still got 70,000 Americans there, or 75,000, or whatever.

There's 75,000 Americans there.

We still have our program to go forward.

We're trying to do that.

And that we are not, and then I use the term that, for example, I notice that must each have gone some way.

Maybe you've got to take on this sort of thing.

Well, he hopes that we will not use this as a pretext for escalation of the war.

Now, who the hell is escalating it?

Let's understand, they are escalating the war, and we're simply responding.

We're responding to an invasion.

It's interesting that Humphrey, who has a better radar of the two, he said, we should give more military aid to this army than we need.

Now, the other thing now is that I think you could go on and then come off and actually say, well, now, how do you think this is going to affect the organization?

You say, and I hear you've got a problem in all credit.

We think they can move.

But I think what we have to do is frankly, without talking polyamory,

Only historians 25 years later finally found out over the Germans.

And so it is here.

But we have to really...

I don't think you want to create an impression of overconfidence or anything, which of course you won't.

But I think just... Do you have any further thoughts, Henry?

Are you malice now as a lion?

We'll know more about the situation by then, but that's the major line.

And right now, everybody is tracking very well.

We've now set up a good communication system.

And of the authorities, I want to say in the presence of many, it has for every authority.

I agree with you.

You never had a question about my loyalty.

And the reason that I took the hard line downstairs with the chiefs and the joint staff, and the joint staff was, and, you know, some of my boys are accused of holding it back.

Well, it wasn't held back.

I just took the heat.

Now, there are two questions.

One is the authorities.

The other is the information.

No question on the authorities.

Well, we've extended even the wrong information.

Well, now we've got to say something.

And that wrong information doesn't mean anything.

Well, I don't want to read it.

I read it, but I just have to know before I see it in the papers so we'll know how to answer the damn questions.

We don't want it glossed over.

And also, I don't want an alarmist either.

I think we've got to keep our...

if the weather doesn't clear within the next 48 hours.

But if it does?

If it does, we'll give them good luck.

And if you do, you realize that you'll finish it?

Well, we'll still have the D3 front, though.

Oh, I don't know.

I've not discussed that.

You concentrate on that.

But if we can push them back beyond the DMZ, that would be a good psychological blow.

Mr. President, there are some openings, and they're going to get some.

They'll probably get to fly all the tour teams.

Every tour team will be flown, but we won't be flying necessarily in that area.

There'll be over 200 or so probably in there.

The D3 funds get the rest, and what about the 52s?

The 52s, they'll all fly.

The problem with the D3s,

Well, Barry, you can't eat the same as active by attacking them at this time because you know you haven't seen them.

They have a lot of condiments on the wheel.

That's the speech.

As I say, I'm not concerned.

This business is about not using D-52 to cross the border.

help to us in this area.

Well, in the 40-mile, most of the stuff that's up in that 40-mile area are sands, and they're not much good against anti-aircraft.

Where could 52 be about?

Any area right along the DMZ.

And if we can put them into that particular area, right now we're having trouble getting them in because we cannot put the electronic equipment in there.

We cannot buy those sands.

But we are putting them in

We lost one in Florida the other day, so we lose one here now.

We may lose one.

That's right.

Well, anyway, the main thing is on this one.

There's no option, and I can see now, for not winning.

But I mean, by avoiding the loss, I don't see the option.

But we can.

And so, under the circumstances, after all this time, we do.

Let me tell you what we've done.

We have the China Initiative, we have the Russian Initiative, and so forth.

But the communists in both China and Russia and all over the world will get a lift out of this, and it will be unbelievable.

And our friends all over Asia and Europe and the Americas will get a letdown.

I want to tell you first to say that the Secretary of Defense and second point, just say, what are they talking about financially?

Second point is that he is going to go on

friday uh but i want you uh if he does go friday to uh you know see that that gets the proper uh you know build from here in his comments because we want those bastards out there

That's what you should go.

Rather than a threatening posture.

This is what we're doing.

This is why.

Fair enough.

We're trying to keep everybody out of this thing.

Sure.

Well, it's not a problem.

All right.

Anything else?

No, we're fine.

What's that?

We're still trying to get a breakthrough to those clouds, and whenever it clears, we're going to cover those clouds.

That's what you said you do.

People don't understand it, too.

I think Muskies is in the wrong line of this.

The idea that, well, they're starting to escalate.

Who the hell's escalating?

They are.

Who's invading?

They are.

McCloskey did that the other day.

He's doing quite well.

You're taking the same.

I'm taking the same.

Just play it cool.

Just announce the situation.

I was just talking to Al.

Our public information strategy is to allow defense.

Our strategy here is to be confident, firm, and not be cute.

and tricky on the questions that don't matter.

This is a mistake we've made before.

We tend to get bogged down and fuzzy around, you know, because our general platform is no comment.

Well, then they ask an obvious question, no comment, and we try to talk around it, and it's meaningless.

No, I agree.

But we make ourselves... You can't say an easy question.

Tell them everything you can and say, well, I'm not going to comment on that question for all these other reasons.

This question I'll answer.

That's right.

It makes it easier for us

to bring us off of it.

Peer to me is not confident about the outcome or any of that sort of thing.

Just say we're watching it.

It's quite about them.

I agree.

But I'd like to say that you'll have your friends like PeerPoint and so forth.

I call them the peer of the crisis.

And I said, God damn, why are you supposed to say there isn't

There was an air crisis in Rutgers yesterday.

What?

I don't know.

They made a point.

Well, Christ may be three times a week.

Oh, God.

Obviously.

Pulling together the information to assess...

Nixon, Kissinger & Chafee on Vietnam War and North Vietnamese Offensive

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on April 4, 1972

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