Conversation 716-003

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Okay.

If you want to put all this in, it's going to take a long time just going over that record and feeling active.

Don't, there's any other way to go over it with this.

Just hand it over and here's the record.

High five.

I think the stronger they get, the more quickly to the point.

Okay.

It's been a record of when you talk by his seat, et cetera, et cetera.

It's not going to go down.

On page seven is where you get to it.

Yes.

See, I have here, you said I have in my possession, I actually have a record.

It is a shocking record.

And then put in here.

It's a shocking record.

I said, since we don't have enough time.

It's not a waste of time, but you know it.

What I will do here, Mr. President, is where it says would be restored, I will put wherever it says would, must.

Oh, this is the announcement.

Now, this is still history.

The U.S. in 72 is about to fall from France in 54.

I said, I put there, I put the goal, and I say, the president is prepared to do what it's told me to do, whatever is necessary to stop this invasion.

He will stop at nothing, I warn you.

You say that, he will stop at nothing.

And I can assure

P.O.

What are the effects of what you're telling us is on our city?

They have to go back across the D.C.

They have to go back all over the city.

They must release prisoners.

We then will reduce some of the additional forces we brought into the area and stop bombing the north.

That's the first step that we would consider progress.

And the second is, we can say that we started covering our January 27th proposal.

And, frankly, what we have to stay away from now is the idea of a withdrawal for prisoners in the ceasefire.

That's what worries me, is that they're going to come up with our matrix.

Do they accept our matrix?

Yeah.

Due to the spigot leaks, you mean that, sir?

Yeah, and because it might be favorable to them.

Well, you can say it.

that's fine to go back to the lines.

That's good.

Provided they go back to the lines, yes.

Yes, you go back to the lines or we take you immediately, but we're not going to take you now.

You cannot be rewarded for your aggression.

What I will do, Mr. President, is first I'll make this stuff open and say that we shouldn't say anything, except show covenant.

Then I'll say now I want to hear what you have to say.

If he gives me a long recital, and this is where it's, you're right, if I'm not presenting the whole thing, if he's going to start a long recital, I've done, I've already heard that.

And I'll be brutal.

I know you will.

If I be as brief as possible, come to the talk, take a look on the final, and say, well, we can't go without a balance, but we're going

I just want you to know that the president will stop at nothing.

And I just leave that as damn clear.

Because it's absolutely true.

We're prepared to sink the whole ship of this thing.

These people are not going to get away with this.

I agree completely.

I'll say it.

Maybe it's not as pessimistic as it is.

Well, the truth is, Mr. President, we've taken our head over the NFC record.

You remember Laird sitting in there in February telling you you needed no reinforcements?

The Vietnamization is succeeding.

These guys can do it without American air power.

And the Vietnamization was always a gamble.

We knew it was a gamble, and if it holds, it will be because of the additional stuff you've got out there, because of the heavy tanks you've got out there.

We are sending new heavy tanks now to replace them out of Japan and Okinawa.

Are they using the present heavy tanks at all?

Well, they're using them, but they don't have enough people trained.

Even the ones we got out there?

Well, not those they're using, but we've suffered enormous casualties of them.

We had 60 to start with, and they're down to 21 now.

They have lost 40 tanks?

Yeah.

mostly in military reasons.

Why have they lost the sanctions?

That artillery is just .

That Russian artillery is just .

Russians have always been good with artillery.

Russians have always been good with artillery, these guys.

I like these guys.

Not French artillery, but the Russians have had massive artillery.

Oh, it's another intelligence failure, too.

I mean, when they shoot 1,400, about 4,400 into Quantree, about 1,400 into Amlok day after day, that's 150 tons of ammunition, 100 tons of ammunition a day.

We had no idea.

And that's just ammunition.

You have to add food, and you have to add weapons.

No.

I thought of it last night.

I opened my mind, read this thing, got us into these difficulties.

Mistaken, for which I blame myself last year, we had sat on top of the Cambodians at Laotian Operation last year, the way they're sitting on top of this.

We would have won.

But basically, they wasted the Cambodian Operation tree set, nearly.

That was a disaster.

Yeah, because they just fooled around with that.

They just didn't pick up the stockpile, I'd say.

So that gave us this capability.

Oh, yes.

Oh, without a doubt.

Well, in 1972, we didn't have an offensive action.

And every year, we had an offensive action.

There was no offensive.

So, uh...

They're not good on the offensive.

They must be pretty good on the defensive.

But we've been full-fledged about their capabilities.

They're pretty good on the defense.

They're useless on the offense.

And do you remember when they were telling you the Vietnamese could have done Cambodia alone, how they wouldn't be five, they'd still be five miles from the border?

But the other side must be hurting very fast.

We can't berate ourselves too much.

We've done more than almost the human spirit can bear as it is.

But the point is, right now, if we're prepared enough, I want this goddamn military to come up with some ideas.

I mean, I'm only going to do everything.

No, I remember only too well that you came in and you pleaded with Abrams to come up with some new ideas.

No, we've done superhuman things in keeping this thing alive.

Right now, there would be a hell of a depression for the American people.

If after this offensive began so late, it is like losing earlier.

The South Vietnamese were defeated.

We got run out of there.

Now, by God, don't ever underestimate what's happening at any point.

There would be a hell of a depression if we got run out of business.

The American people don't want to lose.

The American people got confused there for a year or two because we were trying to win and the opponents were shouting from the rooftops.

That's what screwed them up.

It's – I don't think the American people – I had dinner last night with a number of people, but Roland Evans and Tom Braden were there.

Evans is hawkish as hell.

He said the president has the power in North Carolina.

He said we can't take this.

Braden is beating around, but – He would.

He would.

You'd expect that.

He's savage.

Yeah.

Not as much.

Evidence, evidence is...

I just want to be sure that pilots and stuff are well selected.

I mean, I don't want to select them, but I just want to be sure that it's worth doing.

I'll get myself a full briefing from Abrams.

I think on almost any conceivable...

I've got to say it through this time.

All right, we'll get you a briefing.

On almost any conceivable...

I've got to see some options, too.

Right.

I want to see about the Dykes, too.

The only point, I'll be careful about, Mr. President, is if you order them to use the B-52s and they'll do it, they're apt to get the Korov.

If one of these clusters of B-52s hits a populated area, you're going to have 5,000 dead.

My man, that could be...

They'd have every camera crew in the world.

They'd have a new atrocity.

They'd beat your brain.

I'm aware of that.

That's why I asked the question.

I know there's a difference.

Yet that's the gamble we always trade.

Well, within rational limits, we should take the gamble.

But I think these...

I think... We had the intelligence report last week that Haiphong had still not recovered from our last strike.

I think this next weekend we have to lay a tremendous strike on them.

and get as close to the pier as we can and burn out the rest of the P.O.L.

This time we're going to lose some planes because there's some that did that.

Why would you lose B-52s?

Well, they found a loose one somewhere there.

Oh, so we lose.

Yeah.

It's war.

But we can't wait much longer.

We can't wait longer than that.

You know, the thing that concerns me about all this is Russians.

This raises a great question about all that good texture crap over there in England.

Doesn't it to you?

Don't you think so, Mr. President?

I think we get the shit kicked out of us in a conventional operation.

We have to redo our military establishment as soon as the election is over.

Because by 77, it won't be worth being president of this country anymore.

You know, really, that's the thing.

If he'd do it.

In defense.

If he would do it.

That's what he ought to do.

I don't know if he'd do it.

He'd be superb as Secretary of Defense.

He'd be outstanding.

Well, I've looked at some of those pictures, and we are, you know, with TANWA and so forth, we are getting to them, but of course it takes a while.

I mean, we've dropped the bridge, and now they're moving a lot of stuff through the Bunker Eye Pass, and they've been really shooting that up.

It takes a hell of a long time.

Do you remember when this offensive started in military region one, you and the AAC said we should wait until the weather clears.

It's not as clear.

Now the Carthaginians are not fighting, unfortunately.

That's really the problem.

They couldn't have fought much.

They've got to keep their spirits up.

The spirit is going to determine this thing in the final analysis.

Even lousy, lousy armies that are still defending can survive.

When you look at those boxes of B-52, if they were anywhere near the front lines, they just must inflict some enormous casualties on them.

Because then, after they hit, it's obvious the nation would advance.

That's war.

They don't advance.

After they stopped them, they should have moved up.

And they had this great scheme of an offensive.

And they showed us the plans.

And if they had actually done it, they wouldn't have lost our power, to speak of quantity.

I don't mind your telling the staff.

I think we've got to call our own.

We've lost now only one provincial capital.

I think that's what we've got to say.

And so forth and so on.

But we still have to bear in mind, I can honestly say that this is a hell of a message supported by the most sophisticated weapons.

And we're going to suffer some losses.

But in the end, the enemy will not be allowed to succeed.

Now, that's the line to take.

Don't you agree?

And tell them and say, sure, we're going to suffer losses.

As I say, the only problem with pressurizing an enemy is not... ...is the effect on us, but it's the effect of his general positive power becoming discouraged.

If night after night they get the impression that we're going to lose, see, on the other hand, we just keep going.

It is difficult to blouse.

We got that pounded in and pounded down, and we did lose, at least the polygon.

Yeah, but because when it was all over, it looked as if we had lost.

I don't think this was handled that way.

It was by the end of May.

We had lost only one more political capital, or two.

Uh, I just want to get to three times, see if I can handle that.

First of all, I don't even know what he had when he did it.

I'm excited to find out.