Conversation 721-011

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I just wanted to have on the record these figures.

Robert supported it.

We ordered it.

It was good to have him here to hear it all.

He supported it better than Larry did when we ordered it.

I'll tell you one thing that was very important to have in common here.

Oh, essential.

He was good, and I know that he was quite good too.

We've had a message that Waldheim is approaching all permanent members of the Security Council to bring Vietnam before the Council.

What would that do?

Well, that means what you're doing is one of the things to be proud of before the security council you're acting.

But I think people who put him up to death, if it isn't status, it doesn't.

That's one result of this trip back, of this high profile of the trip back.

Well, the security council didn't have a right to have him up here, did they?

Yes, sir.

No, not that it keeps you from doing something.

It gives the North Vietnamese another... With Russian and Chinese vetoes?

Well, they wouldn't veto the sort of resolution they'd be pushing.

Oh, I think we can just stall until tomorrow.

The decision you'll have to make is whether A, you want to do it at all, or B, whether you want to do it tonight.

We'll wait 24 hours.

I can't wait 24 hours.

Unfortunately, I'm tied up.

Our decision is whether basically we do it tonight or $48.

I have to wait until Wednesday night because tomorrow night I'm tied up.

You didn't miss much when you were out?

No, I just was out doing the part of the precincts, hounds, which I'd heard already which had to do with logistics.

You don't see anything to be gained by delaying 48 hours?

I think 48 hours is too long because you'll get leaks.

Well, the only thing you gained in 24 hours is an impression of deliberation that you made this morning.

You thought about it overnight.

I'm thinking of you, your position.

48 hours, I don't think you've got.

You kind of like the idea of a 24-hour election.

It's simply a question of how it looks if you have the National Security Council and you rush on tap, meaning for three hours, and then you rush on television nine hours later.

I'm just thinking of your public position, Mr. President.

I think it looks better if you sort of get the energy in again in the morning at 10 o'clock, say,

Just a half hour.

Tell them I've decided to do it.

I want your support.

I'm going on television tonight.

Anyone who can't support it should leave.

You know, something like that.

You'd have to be brutal.

It looks a little better.

We can put it off before I can listen.

Why are there people who are coming to this interview?

Just put it off one night.

On the other hand, you get maximum Soviet presence now.

That Volkhov move is a clear Soviet ploy.

I'd ask how he got back through the city or...

He was standing out front at the government, yes.

But if they may not, he may not know.

He may have left the phone.

But I mean, he was standing in front of my window arguing with Leia.

Yeah, Leia did really have a skunk.

Yeah.

Yeah, you come here now, please.

Yeah.

The money thing, as Connolly pointed out, that was so good on us about that, is that money is not going to be more one way or the other because the money thing, in fact, argues against it.

I wonder if we haven't had enough deliberation.

I wonder sometimes with delays and just... You have actually talked to everybody.

I mean, you've talked to layers.

You've had me talk to you.

You've talked to Conway.

Here he is.

Yes, sir.

He was just talking about you.

Yes.

He was just waiting.

I thought you were one of the more troublesome.

I think that's what I mean.

Do you have to run along?

That's quite a meeting.

Well, I'm sorry.

I thought you were talking about that U.N. thing.

It doesn't affect me at all.

The Secretary General of the U.N. is approaching all members of the Security Council that are in Vietnam

before the Security Council.

Now, there are two possibilities that could have generated this.

One is the State Department, you know, and the other is the Russians.

I tend to lean towards the Russians.

And the Russians would have done it because when Bill's return trip was announced the way it was, this played it very high, and they're getting very nervous.

Now, we can still install it through this day.

On the other hand, once the debate starts, if we move, we move in the middle of a U.N. debate.

But you mean you can solve it in 24 hours?

Oh, yeah.

We wouldn't agree today.

We'll just come in.

We'll just install this.

We won't give them an answer.

Yes, yes.

John, I hear the argument you were making for going tomorrow night rather than one night.

I said there's a cosmetic argument to be made for saying that the President met for three hours with the Security Council, thought the discussions up overnight, called it in again at 10 o'clock next morning, and said, I've decided after weighing all your arguments to go tonight rather than have a meeting at 12, have the principals notified at 2 that he's made his decision to go on television at 9,

I'm putting it on strictly cosmetic grounds that Hill-Richards could say, you know, he had his mind all made up before the meeting.

The counter-argument is that obviously the Russians now know something is up.

So this wall-time move either comes from somebody insane, weeping to him informally, or the Russians all follow.

The Russians want to keep you from acting clearly.

put the maximum obstacles against, you know.

We can easily handle it at this Security Council today.

Well, getting to the deficit, whether we go tonight or tomorrow, do you mean you think it gives more of an impression of deliberation than if we go tomorrow night?

Obviously, there's more debate and speculation for the...

Very much so.

already a hell of a lot of great speculation.

I wonder if, frankly, even if we do it tomorrow night, if you're going to run for the same distance, for Christ's sakes, he had his mind made up all the time.

I know you're presenting these things, and it's your job always to present these things, but the point that I've made to you, Henry, is that, as I've often said, I could give a sermon on the mountain.

As far as our critics are concerned, they would say, what a tired old rhetoric.

Yes, sir.

Let's face it.

All it gives, the only marginal utility of delaying 24 hours is to pull the teeth of your cabinet members who, when going, have claims.

You know, the way you're positioned now is that Rogers is saying he was for it if it succeeds and he was against it if it fails.

I mean, that's basically his position.

And Blair is against it.

And now this briefing, as John correctly pointed out, was really loaded against it.

So the only one who really is clearly for it is Conley.

It's John.

And who?

And I. Yeah.

That's right.

I mean, but that's the line.

You will have the operating cabinet members

One of them, you know, is not a statutory member, so the only statutory members that are for Lincoln, people don't consider to be important.

And then, people, they could have to be more excited for it.

Well, I'm more concerned with what these guys will do when the shooting starts.

The last position is certainly going to get out.

And Rogers will sit on the fence.

I mean, this is...

Until the issue becomes clear, this is how I interpret this.

So, no, it's just the fact that people... Really, it gets down to this.

How do you maneuver it better at work?

Well, I don't think you maneuver it better.

If you don't go today, he said, he told him he was going to make a decision at 2 o'clock.

I'm certainly not trying to rush him.

But on the other hand, if you don't make it today, you won't think about it now.

is that they have made some real headway that they've gotten shaky, and he hasn't made his decision.

He hasn't made his decision to rubbish it.

He's weakening, and then they really move.

They may start firing all over the same town.

That's the other thing here.

That's true.

I don't feel – I really just felt I had to put it to you, Mr. President.

I'm not – Well, I think we can do it.

I mean, I think the decision is to either do it today or not do it at all.

Well – Or at least not do it this week.

Thank you.

And that probably means nothing at all.

But let's get your evaluation, John, after listening to the whole thing.

Just be as cold and deliberate as you can.

Tell me what you think.

About the advisability of doing it and the overall situation?

Well, you heard me.

I heard Roger's argument as well.

Well, first, we know what we owe.

So Roger and I all seem to agree with the other night.

the other day.

And now the question is, how do you feel at this point after having heard the better end of what...

The safest thing is always to basically let the status quo remain the status quo, whatever the ultimate result.

That's the safest thing.

That's the basic bureaucratic approach that you never want to stir things.

That somewhat is reflected in both Mel and Bill's attitude.

Secondly,

I think you have to assume that Bill really would not like to see the summit come off, the Russian summit.

He would like to see it postponed for whatever reason, but he would like to see it go on the bulge.

Third, I think there's some argument that can be made in behalf of the males argument that, well, you know, it costs them a lot that they've got.

This doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

That is the argument.

That has nothing to do with the operation, because if you follow that argument, you have to stop the air.

Sure.

We have to get out completely.

Well, the purpose of this, basically, is to sharpen down the war anyway.

In the end, it's going to cost us less.

That's correct.

Now, there may be certain assumptions that I keep by, and I didn't want to argue with them, but I'm delighted you spoke up because you did.

According to their figures, 90% of what comes into North Vietnam

or even 90% of the war material like this is what they said came in through that port.

If you blockade that port, it has to have an impact.

Now, the idea that they're going to maintain the former supplier, I think they have presupposed that you're not going to do any damage with any of your bombings at all.

Could they do that with the existing supplies?

Nothing to the railways.

What are they going to do with the existing supplies?

Yeah, I don't understand this.

Well, they...

those figures were crooked as hell, because they made no allowance for the fact that they had to change the different railway gauge in Vietnam as compared to China.

So they had to change the POL colors at the border into European gauge railways.

Now maybe they can do all of this, but they just made no allowance for it.

If you redirect

600,000 tons of P.O.L.

which had come in by sea and put it on tanker cars and ship it across the Trans-Siberian Railway from the Caucasus and then down through China, that's not a minor operation.

No matter what... Let me tell you two things.

Mel and Bill and I walked out, brought them together, and I said to them,

And I said, well, I'm not either.

I'd just rather they cancel it rather than us cancel it.

And I didn't make any great progress with that.

So it was probably a good thing in which you heard the president say that, well, all we were going to get was talk.

And Henry went over there and said, you didn't get a damn thing.

He said, just got a lot of conversations.

And they just wanted to give him credit.

And they just get tougher and tougher.

And I said, well, I said, in any event, I couldn't care less.

That's why he doesn't want it.

That's right.

He wants to be able to prove that not a guy has faith.

That's right.

So you have to weigh some of his advice and that thing.

Then Mel was on this about that time.

Mel said, now, there's a real problem on this finances.

And I said, Mel, I know that.

But I said, hell, if you're going to take that argument, you ought to pull out all your air forces and all your Navy ships.

Save some money.

Or you've got to go to the pro and get it over with.

And then Bill said, well, he said, as a matter of fact, I will probably go over just complete devastation and all that.

I thought, you're bombing tonight.

I just think we ought to raise them.

He said, I'd probably support the option of raising them to the ground.

And Mel then said, he said, well, the thing that kills us are these pinpointed, these damn targets.

He said, if we didn't have these restricted targets placed on us, he said, that's why we have to make so many sorties trying to get pinpointed.

particular targets.

And he said, well, I said, I might support, strongly support, to raise the high farm in Hanoi.

And just devastating.

I said, I might do that one there.

I said, I might well support a move by the president right now to go on and undertake this action.

And at the same time, withdraw the 69,000 troops.

But I said, the thing I cannot support,

It's just a continual degradation of our position, the position of the South Vietnamese, and leaving, in the hands of the South Vietnamese, the power to the whole foreign policy of the United States.

I said, that I just can't, I can't go.

So they said, well, we'll support it.

I'm sorry.

They said, well, we'll, we'll support whatever procedure is made.

And I said, well, that's the important thing, that we all support it.

I said, I don't care.

strong beating for what the first decision is.

I'm a rebar, and that's why you broke up.

Now, I'd like to hear how you balance that credit question that was raised, and I'd like to hear your discussion on that, too.

I mean, let us assume that South Vietnam is going to

I think South Vietnam goes down.

We all go down.

The US and our foreign policy suffers a shattering bill in any event.

But is our foreign policy, is our position better if we have done this, or worse?

Roger says it's worse if we've done this, and it goes down.

Do you think maybe it's better if we've done this?

Well, the argument is that at least

We sent a message to other aggressor nations that they're going to suffer some damage, and this is one of the great weaknesses that we've had as an American position always, that we have constantly turned on the defense.

We've bombed North Vietnam, yes, but it's been targets of the highest selective targets, and so we've had no devastation.

The people in North Vietnam have been relatively free.

Now, this is air.

a recognition and fear of recognition is a powerful motivating force and we let them go 10 years without it and at the same time these poor bastards are the south yet at least everybody says that they stay there and they have to stay so many rounds they get forced around and they break the sheer fear that they're going to get killed and i don't know how

But at least you would accomplish that much by sending a message to other countries around the world that you just can't be an aggressor with complete impunity.

That you're going to suffer some damage.

Also, I think I'd like to get Henry's view on that critical question alone.

Let's assume it goes.

Let's assume.

Are we better off having done this or worse off?

What's your view on that?

My view is that we're fed up.

Why?

Because if this thing goes without our having done something, we'll have 60,000 Americans in their hands without any car to play at all.

You really think there's a chance they could be captured?

I think when this thing goes, if it goes...

There'll be a massive disintegration.

Do you agree with Laird's evaluation of the military situation?

No.

I remember, Mr. President, when I came back from the Soviet Union, I told you the whole thing is misconceived in terms of the North Vietnamese objective.

I did not believe they were after provincial capital.

I believed they were after the disintegration of Ireland and that they're going to chew up one division at a time

until the remaining divisions are so demoralized that you get a massive collapse of all of our people in Saigon.

And then you can get all kinds of situations.

You could get some of these Arabian commanders turning on Americans in order to prove to the communists that they are really national.

What you can then get is quite unpredictable.

You might get a guy in Saigon forming a coalition government.

Well, not to mention, I still get back to the point that if I may, I still, I do think that this POW issue is a terribly moving emotional issue among the Americans.

At the present time, we've got no card to get the POWs.

You'll be in the position then if the thing disintegrates in the South.

of having Americans that you have to go practically on your knees to this bastardly little country, and if you then do a blockade, it looks like total peevishness, and then they might really stick a blockade because they don't have any drain on their supplies anymore.

Well, let's wait.

the Arvin still collapses and where are we?

That's what I'm getting at.

Well, Mr. President, if you do the blockade and the Arvin still collapses, then you'll trade the blockade for the prisoners.

And at least you've got a halfway reasonable negotiation.

What you also have to consider is the degree to which this reduces the possibility that Arvin collapses.

Because what will happen, at least in the short term, as a result of the blockade, is Sargon

is that the opponents of Pew will be discredited, because after all, Pew did deliver the American.

I'm just looking at it cold-bloodedly.

And for a month or so at least, they're going to get a big shot in the eye.

Now, I also believe that the fact that all these measures will do nothing is absurd.

That is just in my mind.

Mel's right.

Mel's right is that they don't accomplish anything.

That just isn't rational.

Now, whether they'll do as much as Motors says is questionable.

But if you were a prudent leader in Hanoi and you have four months of P.O.L.

supplies and for you to get them over land from the Soviet Union or China, you'd have to get an agreement between those two countries.

You'd have to see how this thing works.

You'd have to know how your railway system can handle the bombing attack that's going on

You don't just go balls out for four months and wait till you get to zero.

That just is insane.

You'd have to be irrational to do this.

Now, what decision they make, whether they'll say we go balls out for a month and then settle, that's a conceivable strategy, that they'll just shoot the works for a month and then settle.

But it will have an impact.

It's got to have an impact.

My expert thinks...

that they were pretty closely divided before they went into this operation.

Now, you also have to look at that leadership problem.

They've got 15 divisions in the south.

They've got to keep that southern front supply.

That's a major undertaking all by itself.

Now, you close the port tonight or whenever, that means 90% of their supplies have to be redirected.

Their whole logistics system has to be changed.

New depots have to be created.

New...

storage facilities, even assuming that it's possible to do all of this.

That's a massive undertaking.

Have they got the manpower?

Have they got the command and control facilities?

Can they do all of that and still plan an unlimited operation in the South?

It's hard to believe.

It's going to take some very long time.

They may have a spasm

and go right after Hue right away.

But on the other hand, the South Vietnamese may be able to hold them at this point.

But, Mr. President, why, if they could take, if they were confident that they could take Hue right away, they would have done it.

So the spares may not be against our interests.

What they do well is a careful, methodical campaign in which every vote, not in bold, is in place.

When you force them to improvise over a long line of communications,

They have thrown off their preferred pattern of operation.

I think they're doing about the maximum of which they're capable now.

Pretty much, yeah.

They may do one spasm.

That's quite conceivable.

As a result of this?

Yeah.

I think they would.

But, well, yeah.

I'm not sure.

You see, John, usually, A, I don't think it's bad, but usually they're very deliberate.

And they may just have to analyze where they stand for a week.

They have to see how the Soviet Union reacts, how China reacts.

What it really comes down to is whether the erosion of your domestic support here, in their view, outbalances what they lose physically.

There's another advantage.

This way, if Russia wants to help, and I really believe they want to help, I just believe that, this is an argument to say to the Lord, and we told you,

We knew you, we just say you got to the front of the group to go through this.

And it seems to me it gives them a powerful opportunity to use that.

Now, let me put it this way.

As far as the Russians helping, we know that given the course, present course of events they are going on.

Now, our doing this may make it more difficult

But that's almost impossible for them to be much more difficult.

They're at least a chance, but it doesn't seem to be the new time.

Would you agree with that?

That's right.

They will cancel the Senate, in my judgment, although it's not totally excluded.

It's a 40-section, 30-section.

I'd rate it 80-20.

But they may then say that now they've done their duty, that that's the only thing they're going to do to us.

and, uh, and continue bilateral relations and dreams and all that.

You should have the contingency plan ready for what we say when they cancel the sanctions.

I've got a statement on it.

You should have the statement ready and so forth.

I should not have to make... No, the Ziegler release has said that I can grieve on it.

Exactly.

Because I think John, the smell of the rat, pretty clearly knew that he had been not interested in that Soviet summit.

Well, because he knows we've got it all settled and he doesn't want to be in the position of speaking.

Because actually, the fact is, we've got... We've got a hell of a summit.

We've got... We can announce two agreements every night and we've got...

I'm going to make the prediction, because I don't mind being long, but we've got a hell of a summit.

It's not impossible.

I don't think... Well, let me say this.

In deciding this, I have to accept it by the works of mine.

Sure.

I think you have to assume that...

The second point I would make is this.

What really, what really impresses me is, and I have to take the advice of the experts here,

is my great with regard to the present military situation in san diego uh i i think that mel has always been wrong on this particular issue uh he didn't realize the necessity of cambodia yet it was it was it was indispensable or the necessity allows

Incidentally, the CIA gave you the same analysis as Cambodia.

They told you there are not reserves inside the country to continue fighting for 12 months.

That Trianonville is a minor part of the operation.

That's right.

So, I mean, they have this... We don't know whether they have 12 months to fly to the South.

That's all I'm telling you.

I think that I just, on the military side, I think that now I would, I don't know how much, I think there's a 40 to 50% chance that the South Vietnamese will go down the tube.

Do you believe it or not?

On the military side, I believe that doing something, this is a bargaining position for the POWs, a bargaining position for the balance of the Americans there, where we would have none if they went down the tube, the other would be.

also the military side, that's the diplomatic side.

But on the military side, I believe there is a chance that it will discourage the North Vietnamese, hamper their military operations.

I said in there that they're going to take four or five months, could hamper them in a month or two if they start thinking.

And that from the military side, it will give some immediate encouragement to the South Vietnamese.

I would think if it hampers them at all, it will begin

within two months.

They are not going to the end of their P.O.L.

supplies.

They'd be insane to do that.

Not only that, but if our bombings are all affecting, if we start knocking out their utilities, it begins to affect them within 24 hours.

Because if you knock out the utilities and knock out the communications, it has to affect them adversely.

I don't care how they fight over the war.

You just have to affect them.

If we can get to that...

It's not affecting without striking, you know.

It wasn't, you know, it only had 70 frames on it.

We haven't got the damage assessment yet.

That really was mostly a smokescreen to get people of our back to the... That wasn't, we didn't... You don't know whether we got any trucks there?

We haven't got the photographs.

You never... Well, anyway, you come down into this proposition and faced with the possibility...

Suppose it's only 40% of South Vietnam that needs tobacco.

I could not be in a position of having had before me an option which, though not sure, at least provided some chance of avoiding the tobacco.

That's argument one.

Second point is that, faced with the proposition of a tobacco,

And either way, I believe that we're slightly and maybe considerably better off for having tried more rather than for just letting it go down the tube.

So, see, in other words, I come up with your side of the argument rather than Roger's on that point.

I don't know, we'll have the domestic uproar, we'll have the Senate uproar, we'll have the UN, the Chinese, and I suppose you've got to figure the Soviet and all the rest.

You'll be accused of blowing your China and Soviet politics, no question of that.

What do you think of that, John, when they say we've blown our China and Soviet policies?

I think you'd be accused of it, but I don't think it's true that

I certainly don't think it's true.

Now, whether or not you can convince the press that it's not true, I don't know.

I think you can convince the American people that it's not true.

The thing that's troubling the American people is that the United States has, for a number of years, been leading from weakness.

And the American people don't understand that.

I don't think there's been a complete decay of the American spirit.

I think it's been seriously eroded with these young people.

The vast majority of the American people still react, I think, and will react in support of you.

But they want to feel like they can win.

They want to feel like that you're not entering in any engagement on a proposition that you're going to lose.

American people are highly competitive.

They don't want to lose.

They don't even have a draw.

They admire Coates.

goes by two points instead of one if he can win with two.

Even if he loses, they admire his bets.

Now, and that's where we are in America.

The American people today, frankly, are troubled.

No question about it.

I do think you have to take one brother's step.

I think you have to think in terms of getting out of there before November.

I think you have to get out.

But I think you say to the American people, you say to the world, I've done everything.

I've humiliated this nation.

and asking the Hanoi for peace and for negotiations.

I've almost humiliated this nation.

I've gone further than I should have gone in trying to seek a peaceful solution.

And even those advanced steps which we've taken have been met with arrogance and insults.

And we can no longer look toward, at this point, a peaceful

resolution of the problem through negotiations.

So I have to frankly put this nation in a position where we can expect to return back first to the war, where we can get our remaining troops out.

And I'm saying that it's ineffective.

The only way I know is through the devastation, you know, it's quite that strong, but through actions and through military oppression.

To convince an audience of leaders

that they consider some of the devastation that they have delivered to Vietnam and Laos and Cambodia and so forth.

And I have no other choice.

But I have said to the American people repeatedly, you're not going to be run out, you're not going to suffer defeat.

We've not sought military victory, but I'm not going to permit the humiliation and the defeat of this nation.

And I think it makes sense.

I think the American people will understand it.

Well, assuming that we can get them to understand it for a while, then, of course, the test is how long they can run the course.

Well, in the meantime, I'm not sure in the next 90 days.

You probably all think about this.

I'm not sure I'm going to get all 69,000 out.

It's rather possible, isn't it?

I don't know about it.

Well, the point will be, you will know one of the things that's going to happen within...

I was just going to say, by August 1st, you're going to know...

Well, I'm just giving an outset.

By August 1st, you'll know whether this offensive still has any momentum left.

They sure as hell, if they haven't made a big push by August 1st, I doubt whether they can then make one after August 1st with this blockade on.

Because by August 1st, up in the Hue area, the ranks will start.

And the rest of it, it's just going to become very tough for them to launch a big offensive.

Well, as a matter of fact, the rains are starting out in the south sooner than that.

No, the rains are starting in the south now, but I think what their strategy is, Mr. President, their strategy is to have a big offensive going in the north through June, through the Democratic Convention, or right up to the Democratic Convention.

Through July.

Well, July 1st, I think, will serve their purpose.

Then they're going to move troops from the B3 front, which will then be reined in, down into Cambodia, which will also still be reined in, but they'll keep them there so that as soon as it starts drying up there in October, they start a big offensive in October using those supplies.

That's what I think their strategy is, and head for Saigon in October.

On the other hand, this operation certainly has something to do with that.

I would think that with this operation, if it works at all, they cannot start a major offensive after September.

They must be on the verge.

They have to be on the verge.

Well, anyway, it's now one o'clock.

All I can say is that everything's on the line.

You can do it.

As far as the context of the text of the speech is concerned, I will give to Grouchy's Affair, not much before, but only the operating part.

You know, there's that page that says... What you've ordered.

What we've ordered, because as far as...

I have to finish the rhetoric.

That's not in zero.

Also, they don't know your peace offer.

No one even knows your offer.

I didn't even notice they didn't tell them.

No, no.

I pushed my eyes.

Because they leaked it out.

We're going to make a call to a peace offer.

See, the proposal the President is making, that he'll stop the blockade in return for our prisoners, a ceasefire, and then we'll pull our troops out.

And pull all our troops in four months.

Just a while after, I was going to suggest that you say tonight that here's what you do in return.

You see, the four months of duty, that's what the Senate's talking about, and I'll say, we will lift the blockade when we get all our prisoners of war, when an international supervised ceasefire is in place, and when we get those two things, we will then immediately pull out all our troops within four months.

So all they have to do is give us our prisoners and stop the war?

Yes.

And we'll get up to the question of, I don't want to conquer anybody.

In other words, we trade.

We, in effect, trade the block.

We've got something to trade with, though.

We say, in a ceasefire, we don't save any.

We save the ancient super-rights.

That means that they, frankly, get to keep what they got, let's face it.

Of course.

So they get to keep what they got, but at least half the South Vietnam keeps what it's got.

So it's going to be a great peace offer.

I don't know as we put that to...

Are you going to give that to them yet?

No.

No, I wouldn't give that.

They claim they make you do it.

Yeah, that's right.

I'm just going to announce that at the speech, so I'm not going to, that's just, I wouldn't give that to them.

Well, they don't do that.

It's an awkward response.

Let me say one thing about the use of the word blockade.

I apologize here.

It leaves us a great deal of

domestically not to be able to use the word blockade.

And yet, on the other hand, we think it works the other way.

We don't have to use it.

The Russians have to do something when they use it.

The word blockade is used to high C, to stop it at the high C. Well, what we use, basically, and everybody understands, is to cut off posts and blocks by C and by air.

And the press will use blockade no matter what you say.

And the press has every right to use it.

We've got to change your speech a little bit to get to the right term in there, where you cut off the C. Could you use the expression that you, and I assume you're going to detail the fact that you're mining the harbor?

Oh, yes.

And that you, the Navy will intercept all ships.

That coming to an end, that'll be interesting.

within North Vietnam.

We won't take it to a writer specifically as that, but that will be done in the following morning.

But it will say the mining of the harbor and ships do enter and leave at their own risk.

What you'll say is all North Vietnamese harbors will be mined and the United States will have been directed to prevent any ships from delivering supplies to North Vietnam.

But we'll have to say it a little differently.

That's the sentence.

All U.S. forces have been ordered, have been directed

to interdict the discharge of cargoes, of supplies, something like that.

That's just... Well, we have to get it this right away.

I think you and I should work on the speech now and get it finished.

You agree?

I'll tell Paul.

How do we inform on it?

Well, I'm going to do it before it's too late.

I'm not going to call it.

No, no, I'll call it.

Can't you call it?

I don't think you want to call it.

Oh, screw it.

Really?

He didn't say that we had to accomplish nothing, but we may not have accomplished anything.

Well, he knows it.

I don't think it's better.

Well, just that you should know that the Senate Democrats have their caucus today and voted to see the immediate leadership being in the process.

The action on the Senate's motion to defer the research amendment and Mansfield is under orders to call you and see the immediate.

This is in view of the NSC meeting today.

Do you

to determine what we plan to do with reference to the current progress in Vietnam so that individual senators may act accordingly in line with their convictions.

Well, we'll know tonight.

That's a good sign.

As soon as we invite him down, Manseil will be invited down, and I'll tell him that he can inform the Senate tomorrow.

Okay, that's good.

All right.

Are we ready to set up tonight's discussion?

Yeah.

But you can't ask for television time until we've notified the captain.

That's right.

And I do.

We've got to notify the NSC members.

And I told them that I would notify them at 2 o'clock so you can ask for the time around 2 o'clock.

Okay.

Well, notify them promptly at 2.

If you think so, I'm going to try that too.

So as soon as we're through, notify them at 2 o'clock.

That's the way I want to handle it.

There's no other way to handle it.

I mean, that's the way I want to do it.

If he wants to see the meeting, he'll be invited to the meeting at 8 o'clock.

Do you think that makes a difference?

Well, he'll say it doesn't because their discussion is a meeting with the Joint Senate leadership as well as the chairman of the Foreign Relations and Armed Services Appropriations.

And we're both going to be on the conference.

For Chair, President Corley is the Chairman Rankin for the Mariners Armistice Board of Regents.

That's what the wire story said.

Their pitch is members including long-time supporters of the present war policy said that they had no idea what Nixon was planning in his meeting with the NSC today, but they said it was urgent that they find out before the Senate proceeds to a vote on anti-war legislation.

Fulbright and Sennis said the consensus still seemed to be that votes should be deferred till after President Nixon's summit meeting in Moscow.

Stennis and Jackson, both of whom vacated military-exclusive conflicts in the past, indicated growing restlessness among the Hawks with the war.

Jackson charged Nixon and failed to anticipate Russia to have a mess in the army.

He said he opposed the reintroduction of ground troops, including landing marines.

He was also against the continued strategic bombing of the northern end of Hanoi.

I thought the administration miscalculated the nature of the strategy.

We don't have to have a meeting.

We can show this at our meeting.

Why do you have to do what the Senate Democratic caucus asks you to do?

My point is that I will inform the leaders when they come down.

I'll do it at 8 o'clock, and they will know when we're going.

They have to take that into account.

See, they don't realize you're planning to do anything tonight, of course, at this point.

I think when Mansfield calls, we'll simply say, well, any chance you want a meeting?

And we'll call you back.

Because we can't set the meeting until after you set the television time and notify your NSC.

That's correct.

We could do it right.

There's no reason not to go ahead and announce the TV time at 2.30 or something, is it?

Why do you want it for some reason?

Well, as soon as we call people.

If we call the Senate leaders down at 8 o'clock tonight, it would be a stark rumor about television time.

I think Ron's got to stay at 3 to do television.

Well, that'd be good, about 3.30.

Okay.

What will the leaders need to do the big five?

Well, Henry seems to feel strongly about that.

I think he's right.

He's a volunteer, you know, and full-branch.

I think he was correct.

Mansfield at least should be a gentleman about the goddamn thing.

The difficulty is we don't have very strong balls to do the breathing for the committees.

Well, I'll determine that.

Rogers didn't name the time yet.

He says it'll work on the floor.

If it doesn't work, tell him we should do it.

He came in, saw me before he went into the meeting, and he said,

But he said, I'll support what the president says.

He said, should I support the president, or is this a discussion meeting to review things?

And I said, Bill, you better support the president.

He said, well, as a matter of fact, I'm for it.

He said that I don't trust the military.

I've been wrong on everything else.

Yeah, that's the point.

What's your other option?

I don't want to work.

I'm rather sure that the prison course won't work.

And Laird, of course, goes to the South and so forth.

Do you think, can you buy that idea that the South Vietnamese are going to...

I think they're just generally just deteriorating.

If they can, and if they are, then what you're doing now is good, because that means we're going to win in South Vietnam, and you're actually going to be part of having won, so that's good.

So Blair's argument, to me, is totally out of the question.

Roger's argument has some real merit, but the counter to that is that there isn't any alternative.

If it doesn't work, what the hell will?

Does he have something that he thinks will work?

The way we might have cut it down was calmly on the one hand.

I said, all right, let us look at the proposition in terms that South Vietnam cannot play a game.

It's not a problem in any of that.

Are we better off with doing this, or not doing it?

Conda says, you're better off with trying, having tried.

I said, well, let's understand that if Peltier now goes, we're all down the tube.

I didn't know he used to do it.

But he said, you're better off with having tried.

But I said, at least I do confide in the prisoners.

You've done something with honor, and so forth, and so on.

Well, he'd done more on the other hand.

On the other hand, Rogers disagreed with that.

He said, no, he didn't think of it.

all the heat we would take domestically and internationally for doing this would be that it would be better all of a sudden if we were going to fail anyway, not to try anything.

Well, his fight is that it's going to be a lot of international heat, you know, for nothing.

The Russians and the Chinese and our whole policy for a few, and so forth and so on.

On the other hand, I said to him, I said, there's one thing you've all got to understand, that I can, under no circumstances, go to the summit.

The situation is as impressive as it is now.

I said, so as far as torpedoing and foreign policy is concerned, doing nothing else than torpedoes.

So, we were left with that.

When you're held a lot better to end up in a stronger position than a weaker position, and this is the only, you're sure, not going to end up in a strong position.

I've got to figure, Bob, that, uh, it may not work.

You've got to figure, okay, I'll cry.

You've got to figure it out.

So, Connolly has no love for Rodgers.

He's got to do the same to me.

Rodgers' whole position is he wants to see the Soviet summit collapse now because he thinks Henry's got no credit for it.

Right.

He was clear as a bug.

He really is a very small man, a small man.

And yet at times, he can be very loyal.

He's totally capable of it.

And when we get him in here, he realizes that we're all, you know, that he's a cornered rat, and basically he'll fight.

He talks to the police all the time.

Oh, well, he just makes a case against him.

So what the hell?

He's a winner.

He's been against it and failed.

If it succeeds, he says he's for it, like he was against everything else.

But I haven't.

I've had to decide to do it because I see the situation.

I don't see it succeeding.

The only thing that bothers me is the doing this almost certainly since the summit.

I don't think totally certainly.

Maybe 80, 20, every so it's maybe 50, 40, 60, 40 every second.

The other hand, if we do this, if we don't do this, and the South Vietnamese were able to sort of hold the line

The summit could be held.

But you see, Henry's point when he came back was that I had to cancel the summit.

Do you remember where we came in?

He said, you've got to cancel the summit because you cannot go to the summit at a time when the Soviet-supported offensive has been taking place in South Vietnam.

Do you agree with that?

I think that's a real problem.

I don't think it's a problem for a lot of American people.

I think, well, why do we let that bother us?

We ought to go and talk about it anyway.

Of course, they would expect us to come back with some result.

That goes back to that point that the Vietnam is separable from everything else.

My point is though, my point is, let's come to the point, my point is that you could have the sign.

You could have the sign.

You could be on the other side if the... You don't know whether South Vietnam is going to hold by then.

You might know that they've fallen.

But you won't know that they've held.

Because there won't be a decisive end to the Northern invasion.

And we'll just go ahead and settle the rest of this in motion now.

With one thing I wonder, I think we ought to get, in order to get our own government locked up tight, we ought to get the cabinet together tonight.