Conversation 714-014

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I think it's vitally important for him to know, to trust General Henry, we have to face the fact

He wanted to take the scripturality of the song, and would have taken the creative of the song if we hadn't read it.

That wouldn't have worked.

Now, Henry, of course, would have liked it.

On the other hand, he would consider it a success if he just comes back and says, well, we worked out the anatomy of the song.

It will not be.

Did you read the matter?

I did, and it's precisely what I told him when I saw him last night.

I said, my greatest fear, and I think it will be the president's, is that we've done this now, and it cannot appear to be a backing away.

And I said, that was huge concern.

And somehow we've got to be sure that Vietnam was the purpose of this trip and portrayed it as that.

What did he say?

He said he agreed completely, and he said that what we have to do is hopefully, if they agree, he could come out on Tuesday.

Announce that, announce the plenary, and we will defuse these bastards totally.

Well, if, for example, on Tuesday, you saw a very little central line, I don't think they could agree with that.

I don't either.

So you'd agree that they would work toward a negotiated settlement of the conflict.

Now, that is the help of the nation saying that.

That's right.

What worried me was that we would announce the plenary, you say, without having referred to Moscow.

And that'll look like we've backed down.

I thought we turned that down today.

Yes, sir, but in order to meet secretly, you see, now we're going to have to announce the 27th.

Yeah, when's the secret meeting?

May 2nd.

And it'd be ideal if we could hit the Soviets.

But on the other hand, does this mean that the moment we make the announcement, we have to de-escalate the bombing?

No, sir.

He's not going to do that.

Now, of course, we might drop down from the Hanoi area and keep it down low as a sign of goodwill until we have our meeting.

But we're going to bang tonight that in the strike zone, it's going to be 24 B-52s, 190 fighter bombers, and another 50 support aircraft.

They're going to put the B-52s at the end of the strike this time.

How do they do it?

Well, they're going to hit the supply complex of warehouses, POL, ammunition storage.

Do you think that's all there?

Are you sure?

Or is that just guessing?

Well, the photographs look like it's pretty well shut full.

And they've had this target as the best one for some time, and one of the best.

And it'll start tonight and be finished tomorrow morning our time.

And then they're going to continue hitting from 19th along down every day.

They put a lot in there yesterday.

How's the weather?

The weather's been good in the north.

And the offensive is...

They must be dark.

What is the situation?

I was reading a story in the paper this morning about town halls and all that bullshit.

What is that out there?

That's an idea.

I might not expect it, et cetera, et cetera.

This is the area in southern I-Corps and northern II-Corps in Vientiane.

It's an area that we know.

It's always been pacified the least.

the toughest area.

Now, that outpost, it's a little... Oh, yes, there's a close air support in there.

A hell of a lot of them.

And that thing is not overrun.

As of this morning, they're still fighting, but they're badly outnumbered.

It's going to be a tough one.

It's not a severe one.

How many northerners are there?

I'd say about 120,000 or something.

Oh, we will.

We will.

We have to.

We've got to.

With all the air and the rest of it, for these men's under our arms, for Christ's sakes, you can stop 120,000.

Yes, sir.

Now, we have that fighting there.

The Koreans who were trying to open up the road on Route 19 got a bloody nose at Dion K Pass.

They failed.

Well, they have to reinforce.

They're in a tough fight there.

And that's not bad.

I went to see the Koreans.

Uh-huh.

They had intentions at all before?

Well, yes, they did in the early days.

They had quite a few.

Now they just stopped fighting.

Now they're into it, and they've got the reinforcements.

The other place where it's very active today is in Three Corps again, the area of the soldiers.

And Locke was fighting in the town again.

An Army battalion, an airborne battalion south of the town got badly hit

and they've come back into the town.

And also the enemy's attacking Daltiani, and I indicated they would.

They slipped by and they hit it this morning.

And that's a tough fight going on right now.

We can expect this for a couple of weeks, sir.

Yeah, but I mean, I just want to know whether or not the South Vietnamese are fighting well.

They're fighting, yes, sir.

They're fighting well, and the 21st Division's fighting well.

It's the men, it's the...

The court commander was just a sorry son of a bitch.

And he's developed a group.

But basically, and Locker and the rest, they are, you say they're, you say at the time they got a bloody nose, which he thought that they were just, was it, put out of action?

No, no, sir.

But it got mauled.

They had a lot of casualties and had to come back in.

Were there any other casualties?

Pardon me?

Oh, yes.

We had 190 air soldiers in there last night, one in that one area.

So they'd just been banging the hell out of it, and there were 18 B-52 strikes in support of that action.

So we just got to be cooperative.

But they fell back and used those four days to regroup, and now they're trying to take it again.

The morale goes down.

The equipment is down.

They're still knocking out tanks there.

They knocked down, I think, 13 last night.

But this is the only tough fight, and it's going to stay tough.

But I think we're going to do it.

That's an incredible number of sorties to put in there, 18 B-52 sorties.

On top of the 190 fighter bombers and gunships that are always on the station.

Yes, sir.

Well, it's 42%.

They're flying very well, and their support has been better than theirs because they've been able to come in lower.

Now, they've had some planes shut down because of it.

They're going in and the army troops are very high on them.

Any of the commanders I talk to, very high on them.

Got to get them a little tired.

That's why it was quickly reinforced.

Because they've been going in full bore.

like where everything's, except for that sudden promise there, which we knew was going to be tough.

That's a guerrilla song, and it always has been, and it'll stay tough.

And all the press and all that bad action.

No, it isn't.

It's safe.

It's not too bad.

I went over the, not a star last night, we had two very positive editorials, a journalist, Hempstone.

Beautiful.

I just went over the vice president's speech.

Yeah.

And I added this paragraph to it when he talks about the press.

You don't use the word bastard, do you?

No, no, no.

No, I just said that the young lieutenant colonel used some colorful language.

Yeah.

He's already been notified of your commendation and has come back saying that first he was stunned, and he said, and the more he thought about it, he said he's never been so proud and so conscious of the kind of support that you've given.

But I've certainly been really shocked

Discussing the other thing.

Oh, God.

This war was shocking.

Just bad.

The Vice President's got a two-fisted speech.

It's a good speech.

It's the point he takes them all.

He takes Fulbright, quoting Fulbright's references to Ho Chi Minh, much like our American revolutionaries, and he goes into the murder of the people that he murdered.

And he takes on that.

Some of the Congress takes on the presidential candidates right down the line, quotes their statements of 66, 67, and their statements of the past week.

Does that for Muskie, Kennedy, Humphrey?

Humphrey referred to it as the great adventure.

It's a good speech.

It's a good piece of speech.

Does he get this in the business of the Nelson Barriot that sat up and condemned the enemy?

You've got to constantly keep hammering that.

I noticed that even the House caucus, Democratic caucus, they had a half-assed phrase to the effect of condemning anarchy of committees.

What a great response you've got.

If they condemn the bombing, then condemn them for the aggression.

What the hell are they going to do to stop it?

Well, pass a resolution.

This is what the Vice President's speech says.

He said, all these people claim this, but what do they do to stop it?

I hope his speech gets played.

Well, I can't tell him.

All right, sir.

But in the meantime, what does that mean?

See, they're coming at us.

Well, we're going to have this back and forth.

I don't believe in getting us disturbed on the day you got a report.

No, I don't.

I mean, you pick up the paper and say, oh, Jesus, we lost the town.

So you lose the town.

No.

It's hard not to, but these are all infinitesimal things.

Those fire bases that were overrun in the first days that they reported, they weren't fire bases.

They were goddamn OTs that were put up there to watch infiltration and to keep the eyes and ears open and see this.

They just weren't intended to be held.

They were not defensive positions.

When you talk about Tom, it's probably not worth saying

Not that thorough.

I actually believe in the strategy.

Do you think they should try to keep that on?

I wonder if it makes sense to back out of the town and bomb the smithereens.

In a military sense, it doesn't make sense.

Psychologically, it's like we're gone.

For Chew, he can.

He's just Chew is the man that's put out these orders, and for him it's psychologically essential that he hold them.

We could give up some stuff in Tupor.

Hell, that place is...

If they lost Khantoum or Dato City, it would be a very minor incident.

The other guy, I suppose, kind of holds...

It has its points of one sense in that you're certainly punishing him if he's willing to take the heat.

The only thing is that what I was thinking about...

Our purpose here is not to hold territory and to destroy the enemy.

If you could retreat and get the enemy in Mark Skoll's position for bombing, I would retreat and then destroy it and go back in.

Does that make sense?

That's the way the book says to do it.

And that's the way I would do it.

They won't because of the psychology of it.

And on the other hand, it's not so bad because you still have to concentrate around these.

And 82, there are 82.

It takes a good disciplined army to be able to withdraw and fight.

Once you start moving back, and I think that's no problem to be confronted with, these little guys are good in defense if they have good strong positions and they dig in and hold.

You need a very sophisticated army to be able to withdraw and fight well.

But beyond that, the Germans did it fantastically well against the Russians in World War I.

They were so professional, that's right.

Jesus Christ, I mean, they would roll back, you know.

And then this glockenspiel, the Russians are going to march in and just kill them.

Just kill them.

The Russian armies would go...

They're fighting that way in Angkor.

This division commander in the first division, he's crazy.

He said, I don't care about these fire bases.

As long as I can kill them, which they are concentrating on, then I'll keep it up.

When it gets too hairy, I'll pull back and we'll hold it the next.

He hadn't pulled back the one yet.

And they've killed about 2,500 in that zone.

And they said they opened the road to them yesterday and completely resupplied and put reinforcements in.

So it's a good, strong position still.

Haybridge has got it all sort of charted out, fight, lose some, win some.

What good do you think this strike does tonight?

It's more psychological than anything else, isn't it?

Do you consider it psychological at all?

Yes, but I think...

Psychology is important.

Psychology is important, especially now, where Henry is, and maybe we'll get to then while Henry's there, and that's good.

The other thing is, this thing's going to get more

of a logistics exercise.

And what's going to happen is, and I think they're in there to hold.

That's their strategy.

This isn't a high point.

Hell yes.

I mean, to hold, to stay in Saudi or not.

To stay there this time and to get their infrastructure built back and to destroy pacification and de-indemnization.

And that's why their logistics are going to become the more... What the hell?

Well, here's what I would hope, sir.

If we could get them to agree that the Vietnamese would go back, North Vietnamese.

Go back?

Where?

Just to my country?

No, status quo.

Plante, before the attack started.

Which would mean 3 Corps and I Corps.

2 Corps, they were in there.

Now that's a worthless country in there.

And it's going to be mucked down in the rain here very shortly.

And we would stop bombing.

And everyone would negotiate.

Hopefully get some prisoners back and a token exchange.

And hold us for a year with a Soviet firm guarantee in writing.

God, I think you would.

Then they would have had the course because you would get

Absolutely swept into office on the head or something like that.

And the doves would be licked.

And then they'd be faced with a four-year president who they know goddamn well won't put up with a second roundup.

Well, there's one other course of action we may have to do.

And that is that we can get this to this point.

that you're afraid of the blockade problem.

My own feeling is that a blockade at public support would not probably be higher than the later time.

But on the other hand, it may be the best time to throw a blockade is about three weeks before the election.

That would be all right.

I don't think blockade would

what Saul was saying in the short run, in a military sense or in a political sense.

In a military sense, we've had several studies made now, an awful lot of this stuff can come through China, even Soviet stuff.

And Bayer.

So we shouldn't fool ourselves about that.

It's great now to get the Soviets' attention.

Yeah, we got their attention.

And the thing in the long run that's going to discourage everyone is to kill those guys sitting down there, just like the man.

When you hear these prisoners, there's nothing left in the villages but wounded veterans.

The wounded veterans are telling the few kids that are left to go and hide.

Yes, the young girls have no men, so they have a social problem.

The young girls are consorting with older married men and have illegitimate children.

The society is very disrupted by that.

It's a D.C. country.

It's North Vietnam.

Oh.

Do you know it?

One prisoner just said it's an incredible situation.

Men are gone.

No, no young men.

And they claimed that when they came down, they all knew they were going to die.

They do have deserters up there in the training centers.

They're deserting.

They're in short training, not ready for it.

They get down on the battlefield, some of them are wandering around.

That's how these RFPF would kill them.

They don't know what to do.

What is the situation with regard to...

I think it has that effect in the short term.

But this country's been through it before.

They've had it, I think, at this point in time, not so much so.

They're just sick of it, too.

And when the 1968 bombing halt came, we had run it through so long, initially it did in the open, and made them fight harder.

But by 1968, when we stopped bombing, they were on their knees.

Well, it happened that, too.

The type of bombing that we intended that we're doing now was really more effective than the 1968 bombing.

Oh, yeah.

But I mean, isn't this true, you know, in 1968, when you were picking out targets and all that sort of thing?

It's entirely different.

Is this strike, is it an enormously effective strike compared to most of those, or was it?

No, it wasn't.

In the first place, our techniques are better.

Secondly, instead of Robert McNamara, as he used to do, sitting at the desk picking the targets, you've allowed the field commanders to do this, and they're doing it more effectively.

without, what I call, debilitating the strengths, and that's what they had all during the 60th period.

They just constantly shifted the targets, and they were all run from here, where people didn't know what the hell they were doing in a close, and were oriented on restraint.

I think we've done an awful lot in these few strikes that we've put in there.

Especially when you put B-52s in, that's just... Never done.

Yes, sir.

It's just a frightening weapon.

It's a frightening weapon when you're on the ground.

I've used it close into our troops, and I'll tell you, it's... You just see these shockwaves all ground, come moving.

You get no warning because they're up higher than you.

You can't see them when they're coming.

You just hear all of a sudden this whistling, eerie whistle.

It does get your attention.

House Democrats for that.

Call for a resolution.

We condemn the bombings, and we condemn the .

What are you going to do with this?

We'll kill you with the resolution.

OK, fine.

I will not, uh, I'll give you a call.

I'll give you a call.

I spoke to Secretary Rogers this morning on the secure line.

He incidentally took the spread.

I heard about it, and I think you have.

He questioned you closely, and you gave exactly the right answers.

He said, well, why don't we, he said, I can do credibility for this if I work.

He can't do it.

He's got his announcer acting.

We've got our husband and home and Henry.

He goes up there and puts too much.

Puts too much heat into it, that's all.

All right.

Hi.

How are you doing?

Good.

How are you doing?

She now thinks you're gone.

Why don't you ask her?

See if you can put you there right now.

Just pick it up and see.

Would you ring Teresa, please?

Thank you.

Yes.