Conversation 706-001

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There are problems there.

Not a word out of Moscow yet.

Okay.

Did you, uh, did you give Lydia a smack of a shot today?

Yeah.

I gave her a shot.

Give it now.

It's been run off this morning.

Well, I took your outline and just put in an occasional explanatory paragraph.

The polls, Mr. President, would prefer not to announce it this week, what they want.

No, no, not because of this.

They want to do it very formally.

They would like their ambassador to call on you and bring you the invitation.

And then they could announce it next Monday or Tuesday.

Right, right.

Do you see any reason not to do that?

Of course.

It's the way to go about it.

If the Goals do this at this time, what the hell?

They had to do this after we hit, well, I know it wasn't until yesterday.

Yes, sir.

After the D-52.

Mr. President, what is so fascinating is

Hanoi has not yet told its people that these will be 52s.

They've sent waves of Navy planes.

Why do you think they haven't?

Because they don't want to admit that they can't shoot down B-52s, and because of the terror this raises.

That's why we've got to do another one Wednesday.

Wednesday is the day.

Tomorrow, it's done.

I mean,

It's planned, and it's larger than the other one.

Can I ask a couple of questions?

Yes, I'm all right.

I took the liberty of coming in because .

I'm waiting in time.

I've been waiting for you.

Oh, I'm sorry.

No, no, no.

I know you've got your stuff.

You're in this period between 930 and January.

I asked a couple of things looking at the

Canadian thing.

It may be just as well since we played the Russian thing, as long as we do it, not to hit it again there.

I don't know why I'd hit it again.

Well, I'm asking, Mr. Shannon, being the devil's advocate, I'd like to.

I'd like to hit him every day.

Mr. President, not every day, but we now must keep, we've got all the chips riding on this, and those sons of bitches must have known

If not the details, they must have known that the masses of offensive weapons that were going in there had to be used for something.

And I think they all miscalculated, because right now the armaments on the attack in Military Region 1...

In what?

Are we convinced of that?

Yeah.

Every report we've had of enemy-initiated activity

of activity has been initiated by our side in military units.

Now they are pouring in more supplies, but that's good.

And the confidence of Chu is shown by the fact that he's moving a tank battalion or a tank regiment out of the Saigon area up north.

And since we have to assume that you know what he's got riding on it inside, and the 21st Division at the same time has come up from the south.

Now, in handlock yesterday, a P-52 strike hit right on top of the troop concentration that we had spotted, and since then there hasn't been any attack.

There are no attacks at all anymore.

That kind of thing has to happen.

It's enormous.

I told Haig last night, he probably should report it to you, and I know this is not the way that our people do things, but it's the way I found none of these.

I believe in the concentration of power.

I believe in the breakthrough theory.

I don't believe in the jackass way that Haig's people are taught in all of our military, hold the whole front and attack the whole front.

That was the mistake of all the bad generals in World War I.

At this point, if we have them, for example, in two-core, if they've got a good banging there, or in a bi-core, if they've got a banging where on they'd have to, then I would warrant a B-3 type strike on them as they're moving back.

What do you think?

Don't you agree with that?

He says, he agrees with it, and he thinks.

I said, look, I said, mind reading the military history of this creature, because I said,

I said, how could, why wouldn't Abrams this way?

Because he's a Patton man.

That was Patton's difference with Bradley, you know.

That was his difference with Montgomery.

They wanted to look at the numbers, and Patton says, hell no.

He had to go around.

Mr. President, if they should start tracking in MR1 and Vistro, I'm not sure we shouldn't go across the PMG.

Ah, now you're talking.

Now you're talking, go right across, follow them up.

I think, uh...

Certainly, I was going to say, shouldn't we attack them with our air interests and not just, uh... Oh, massively.

But you know, when troops are retreating, retreating is a pretty frightening thing.

It was for the argument they gave, you know, the mouse.

But if you have bombs falling when they're retreating, it's horrible.

Well, another thing they all agree now is that it's a naval compartment.

It's a defensive moment.

Generations.

I don't even know about that.

I already thought of it, but I just didn't dream or ever do anything that way to get that many out.

I'll tell you, leaving as many out, if a little is a good thing, let's have a lot.

Yesterday, the cruiser knocked out two tanks.

The cruiser's there now.

Yeah, the cruiser's there that can shoot 15 miles inland.

Then there's another cruiser coming out that has 8-inch guns on it.

Those are big cruisers.

This is a light cruiser.

That's a light cruiser.

That's six inches.

I know that.

But they have a cruiser.

But they have one that has eight inches.

Well, that'll go by 20 miles more.

That's right.

And that's... And you said they're pretty comfortable.

Oh, yes.

Oh, no, they had visual observation of that and six secondary explosions.

And this is just a tremendous human success.

Yes.

I mean, if you just run through this, well, they claim to have knocked out another 30 tanks yesterday, which eventually now makes it 131 altogether.

Yeah, let's figure half of it.

All right, let's figure half of it.

And in military region three,

There's little ground probing now after this air attack.

We have had a setback that guerrillas got into an ammunition dump eight miles east of Saigon yesterday and destroyed 25% of the ammunition that was stored in that dump.

But I figured we can always replace.

Oh, well, it's a minute.

They're going a lot farther.

Yeah.

For example, they went across the river near Dongha and they found in an area which had been hit by B-52s, they found 100 bodies, six artillery pieces.

So if you figure this, if even one out of four of these B-52 boxes hit something, the demoralizing effect must be enormous.

Yes, I have a question regarding the B-52s.

I understand our standard number is 60, and we will now have 100.

Is that it?

No, no, we have 134.

Our standard number is 50, and we'll have 134.

That's all we can have with her.

That's about as many as they can get.

Okay.

Regarding the Navy and the rest, we will now have six carriers, huh?

The last five and the sixth one is another two.

One thing that's showing, and stirring up the media, the Sun's pages are really disturbed.

I know about Al-Ain, God looks, everybody's believing and so forth.

And I would bring him in and look brilliantly when he said, look, he says the only ground forces, movement of ground forces in Vietnam is out of Vietnam.

But actually, your summary, Mr. President, that's proper.

It's a little bit shaded on the unfavorable side.

In the 90s, the New York Times, the New York Times,

When I read the Times and the Post...

I saw the Newsweek.

The news magazines didn't seem to get much of our story across.

How do you feel?

No, I think Time did very well.

Did they?

Oh, yes.

Time got our story almost as we gave it.

Newsweek I didn't have a chance to talk to.

Yeah.

And they're ideological sons of bitches anyway.

You only saw Elton on Saturday.

And I saw Elton too late.

That's all right.

But Time is getting it across pretty well.

Are they?

Do you feel they are?

Yeah.

I noticed the New Republic says that the only thing to do is to make the best of your leave and you can get out.

That's a little clunky.

I don't think, I must say, I don't think that the American people at this time want to do that.

Now, I've ordered Baltimore not to have any polls taken.

Goddamn, where everybody's poll comments are on here.

Sure, you ask the guy the question, do you think we should get out and get 90%?

Say yes.

Mr. President, if you can go on television, the first week of May, and say the attack has been defeated and all fronts, Vietnamization is a success, we took determined and decisive action, as I promised I would, and the heroic South Vietnamese army has repelled the invaders, I think you will make people feel proud of themselves again.

A good percentage of those who want to get out are those who've given up on winning.

But you may have done long ago.

And, uh... You feel, uh, how did you get the, how did the staff...

Very well, very well.

Good.

The POW thing went well?

POW went spectacularly well.

That went really very well, and I told these ladies... What's the end now?

Well, I said, first of all, secondly, I said, what is it that this president has not done?

The only thing he hasn't done

is to install a communist government in Saigon, and it would mark the sacrifices of your loved ones.

And none of you will want that.

If any of you want that, at least with you, I understand it.

But all these politicians who were telling you last year that a simple deadline could get us out, we knew it wasn't true.

Well, you indicated that that, in fact, has already been rejected.

Oh, yes.

I said they rejected it in every conceivable form.

They don't mention that anymore.

Oh, they gave me a, they just kissed me and gave me a good applause.

What is the situation, Henry, with regard to the, who do you think now, you're indicating to, are you going to have a meeting with any congressional group or anything?

I'll set that up now.

I'll get it set up for later today.

You feel that's a pretty good idea?

Oh, yeah.

Because now we can be confident, or maybe get it done through.

No, I don't know.

If I decide to have a leaders' meeting tomorrow,

We'll let you give that a little crack, too.

They're a sad lot.

They've got to be on the right side.

Republican leaders, yeah.

But in addition, you might get a few Democratic caucuses.

And I mean, like when he finished his arrest, it's good for them to be known.

I don't see the politicians sort of jumping quite on hard on this.

What do you think?

No, Mr. President.

What is the new summary?

I agree.

It's enough to do it because...

The new summary does lean a little too much toward the negative, it's true.

It's okay, but...

But we mustn't, we mustn't.

That's their job.

They don't want to keep anything from us, and basically they have our name.

Well, one is more conscious of the negative anyway, Mr. President, as one reads it, because it creates a... We all are, we all are.

The Chinese made a statement yesterday, which is a riot.

They saw that Goodwill...

I've had somebody, I'm sending you a memo, compare what the Hanoi Statement says and what Peking says.

Hanoi attacks next.

Peking never mentions your name.

They just criticize you.

But where Hanoi, and in effect, Hanoi says, what Peking says is, they congratulate the North Vietnamese on their magnificent victories.

And they say if the Vietnamese fight heroically, they're bound to win.

They did not say they would support them.

They did not say that we are behind you fully.

It's just as if last week when you had made a statement saying, justice is on your side, President, you, and if you fight heroically, you're bound to prevail.

Everyone would have concluded from that that we were bugging out.

When you read it at first, it sounds like an attack.

But when you analyze it, for example, the Hanoi Statement refers to the Nixon administration.

Peking never mentioned anything other than the U.S. government.

The North Vietnamese deny that they have their own troops in South Vietnam.

The Chinese say they are theirs.

And my people think, and I agree, that this is an absolutely minimal response, the absolute least that the Chinese could get away with.

And the Chinese people support only the DRV statement and not the government.

And since the Chinese view the military situation as fine, no concrete action from them is called for,

It is significant that the Chinese statement neither pledges resolute support, which is their normal grace for Hanoi's war effort, nor does it demand that the United States accept Hanoi's terms.

It is also interesting that the Chinese are making note that the Chinese are saying nothing

that our attacks on Hanoi will in any way affect U.S.-Chinese relations.

But I'm going to see the Chinese ambassador tomorrow, primarily to tell him about the Manchurian visit.

It's already over.

We will just follow up on the PR thing this week and in a few weeks.

Let that load be carried, not by state, not by defense, I mean, not by Laird or Robbins, both, to keep both of them out of the play.

You will not do anything.

Right.

But to let it be played by Congress.

Well, let them talk it out with the newsmen.

But the Congressmen...

But you see, this... You can unleash scallion paper on this.

Oh, yeah.

But we are in rather good shape, for example, for democratic reasons.

has a column today saying the Russians are culpable and the White House may be a little soft on the Russians.

And maybe we should delay the summit.

Now, that helps us.

He knows Mike Hale.

He wants us to delay the summit.

Of course.

But it's a good shot across the bow for the Russians.

And above all, when Kraft says the Russians are culpable, the liberals are locked in a position that something bad is going on.

I mean, it's awfully hard to attack us for reacting.

I mean, he didn't say this is the natural root of the Nixon policy.

So he sent me a copy of the 40.3 on the same one.

Let me tell you what I think.

Grant, first of all, he realizes that the Russian summit, any way it comes out, will be a help to us.

Second point is that he is really too, however he's basically emotional about it, he's really getting the Democrats in the spotlight.

Exactly.

All I'm saying is, Roland Evans had a comment yesterday about Russian culpability.

Kraft has a colorful...

They all want to make it possible for us to go to Moscow.

Well, not everyone so much, but Kraft, yes.

But my point is, Mr. President, the reader has to assume that if they're culpable, that there's something bad going on in Vietnam.

The Russians want this summit more than we do.

The Russians cannot afford this summit to be knocked off because their German policy will be dead.

That's very important to me.

That cannot happen.

Also, there are China's problems, policies and problems.

So I think we are in very good shape with the Russians.

I told you after the India thing that they would come back stronger, and I'm even more confident now.

Tell me about your conversation briefly with Buck.

He's a very thoughtful man.

Well, on Vietnam he doesn't know enough, but he said that as an Englishman he finds it distasteful, but he thinks we have no choice.

He said that if we got run out of Vietnam, shockwaves would run through our allies and through the whole world, and he therefore can only pray that we succeed.

And he gave a series of lectures at the Council of Foreign Relations.

You know, the new intellectual instinct is to attack you for being a balance of power man.

Oh, yes, I saw that.

And now...

Does that bother you?

Not at all.

But the point is, he gave a series of three lectures in which he defended your policy at the Council of Foreign Relations.

And that's very helpful because he has great prestige.

Well, he's smart.

But there's the people who criticize the balance of power thing.

First, it's superficial.

We're not saying that that is all the policy.

We're simply saying those are certain facts of life for the moment, and you've got to balance them off.

But you see, these idiots who don't go for balance of power, what is their policy?

Well, it's a melange of these things.

One, first, that there's some way or other the solution of all problems.

is to have a United Nations in which we'll all get together and then therefore we won't have any problems.

And second, is that we'll have a, through NATO or something or other, this will happen.

Well, that's bullshit.

You don't understand it, do you?

To get back to Vietnam for half a second, I have a comment about this.

McNamara came in this morning on IDA replenishment.

I've talked to Conley.

If you don't mind, I'd like to call out a passment.

Conley agrees to get him to

to do something.

But McNamara said this attacking Vietnam has convinced him that NATO remains absolutely essential because it shows you can't trust the Russians, that they always like to use military power.

So I think they all miscalculated.

This is an invasion.

This is us going into Cambodia and Laos.

This is the North Vietnamese army marching into South Vietnam.

Maybe Kelly spoke too fast.

Too fast.

I don't see the evening news, but I see the morning news on the Today Show and CBS News, and comparing it to Lowe's where they were smearing it.

It's very factual now.

And actually, it's an enemy offensive.

It's the enemy.

But to get back to this theoretical point, these people can't face this fact.

They're against superiority.

They were attacking you when you said you were for superiority.

But there are only two choices.

You can either be superior and have hegemony, which they're against.

Or you must have a balance of power.

If you're not superior, then somebody else is going to be superior.

Unless you have a balance.

Unless you have a balance, exactly.

The second point where they're totally wrong at is, they say the balance of power probably undermines alliances.

Nonsense.

In the 19th century, you had balance of power and alliances.

A life is not a way you get power.

Well, how the hell do you build a balance of power if you don't have an alliance?

So it's a very superficial way to look at the...

There you go.

You know what?

I think they have...

They, Henry, your former friends here, the Council for Foreign Relations and the public intellectual establishment, their problem is that they don't have a policy.

They have totally failed.

All of their ideas and ideals and so forth are shattered.

All of their heroes have proven to be wrong.

The Kennedys are great.

Isn't that great?

And therefore, they're just knocking the hell out of anybody else.

They don't have any.

Do you think they have any?

No.

They're intellectually bankrupt.

That's a better word.

Intellectually void bankrupt.

Now, the annoyed press is now calling this fighting an all-out offensive and a decisive battle.

It's good, because if they don't win it, what are they going to say?

And I have a feeling that we are going to break in this time.

I never thought that in love.

That never looked right to me.

No, and everything wasn't committed there either.

But here everything is committed.

That's the point.

everything is committed and fortunately we i think one of their they have two miscalculations one i think they had the usual miscalculation at the moment they attacked that they needed this all again the people would rise up but neither of those things has happened the second thing i think they think they miscalculated on

They thought that we would just go on business as usual.

Give them just enough help.

As much as was expected to them, not quite enough.

I think this pouring in of portion has got to have a hell of a psychological effect on these passengers.

The only thing we are having bad luck on is the weather.

If the weather were good, and now it won't break for 48 hours.

But if the weather were good, they'd be dead.

Well, we're still hitting, but we are still bombing through instruments in that area.

Yeah, but we are not bombing north of the DMC except for the B-52 strike.

We'll put one more 52 strike in tomorrow.

And that is, again, not going to be one that they feel unnecessarily risks because of the B-52s.

No.

Because there are not as many SAMs there as there are.

Yes.

heavy sand concentration is around Hanoi.

And then again in the south, there is a belt in there where there isn't much.

That's what that means.

I'll report to you right after this.

Well, we're right about the speech.

Not this week.

Oh, it really, you'll be creating a crisis that doesn't exist.

Well, also, we didn't say nothing important thing.

Nothing that would...

nothing that would help us enough on the domestic side that would be worth what it would potentially damage on the foreign policy side.

What really matters now is to take all we need domestically, we need to, if in some way it helps us foreign policy-wise.

With regard to the Canadian speech, can I ask you one thing?

Have you told somebody to work on that paragraph?

Yes, I've written an outline of it, and you'll have it by noon.

Fine.

I don't need it until 2 o'clock.

You'll have it by noon.

I might, uh, I thought I might go to camp tonight.

We're free to do so, in other words, until tomorrow.