Conversation 806-002

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We talked to Rogers.

But, but Hayes, I know has kept you informed of the essence of the negotiating situation.

Since I left, what was, I think, a good agreement then has become immeasurably better.

Oh, I hope so.

They've agreed to all they need in the national conference within 30 days.

The establishment, the guarantees have been established within many numbers.

names of the countries, they've improved the whole international machinery.

They've accepted our prisoners, keeping their prisoners in South Vietnamese jails, which is a terrible setback for them.

They've accepted, we're paying them our replacement provision, which means in effect, under military aid.

They've accepted a provision for Cambodia, which when I read it,

conditions.

They've withdrawn their demand that you had to promise to resign sometime before the election.

In other words, if we compare the agreement with what you said you would do on May 8th, we have almost exceeded it.

We've certainly reached.

We've got more guarantees.

And these guys, after having stoned on us for 10 years, have caved on every single issue.

For example, the replacement provision, they said, for offensive, for purposes of peace and not for offensive purposes, the following replacements are permitted.

So I had, what I had to say is the insolence of knocking out the phrase for purposes of peace and not for offensive purposes by saying it wasn't victim.

Even though it doesn't mean anything, it's in every agreement.

And we just said the following weapons can be replaced.

And it can be.

Now,

The agreement, I think, we can be proud of.

It's the very best we could have gotten.

Now we have a massacre with Jew, and I'm afraid that the fellow is off his head.

He has a real problem.

It is a real problem for him to keep even the vestiges of the...

He wants us to... Yeah, but I want to find his own problem.

Is that a problem?

I see...

Coldly embarrassed.

Who else?

We can't do anything.

I know.

If we overthrow him now, first of all, he's so insane that he'll take everything with him.

And I think...

He's cracking up.

Because I'm afraid if we make him...

The reason we need him now is to stay in after we leave.

is so that we don't make a mockery of all the suffering.

We can't lose $35,000.

Because if we send him down the chute, the way he treats Bunker, Mr. President, is so unbelievable.

I don't know what the Hague has told you.

We had a meeting scheduled for two in the afternoon.

We got a message that's put off until five.

Then we got a message that's canceled at five.

Then Bunker said he wanted to see him to discuss my schedule for ten minutes.

He gets a call back, stay near the phone, you'll be told.

He stays near the phone an hour, and some little jerk calls him up and says, the president will call you, stay near the phone.

Stays near the phone another 45 minutes, and then he calls him and says, I'm going to a cabinet meeting, stay near the phone, I'll call you.

Well, this maneuver goes on for three and a half hours.

He sits near his phone at 7.

The president cannot see you until 8 in the morning.

By that time, it's 9.30 at night.

Can't see you until 8 in the morning.

He says, can't I come by for 10 minutes?

Because it means 24 hours in Washington to wait for the lockdowns.

The little fellow says, this is final.

Half an hour later, the Jew himself goes, screaming like a man, saying,

Kistler's people are inciting a revolution in Saigon.

They're all over town, just as Haig's people had been before, inciting my people against me.

My people didn't even speak to anybody in the least.

And, of course, Haig's people didn't speak to anybody.

They don't know people.

No, but my staff, my traveling staff, he planned was a lot of time.

But my point is, we know your traveling staff and Haig didn't do a goddamn thing because they're carrying the re-education.

The only rational explanation I have for what he did, which he didn't make, but which I would have to make on his behalf, is if he has three weeks, he can get his army deployed, he can get his promise sheets lined up, and he can have a good, a better chance to survive the six-five.

Secondly, if he doesn't yield to me when

in a shitty way, we can swallow our pride and can do it.

That's the rational explanation.

But I don't exclude the irrational explanation that I'm with the election to be trusted, miserable, and paranoid as he is, and so will we, and what do we do?

All the sacrifices are made.

So then, I think what we should do is

And I'm having it done already.

We should go through this agreement and see which could be implemented bilaterally, which part of it could be implemented bilaterally.

And just let him fight his own war and let him lose his own war.

And the tragedy is that it won't be as good.

Well, see, one reason, Mr. President, I'm glad that

Did we now have to do it after the election?

Unless you absolutely had to have it before the election.

We don't.

As a matter of fact, I did promise Nelson I had a little talk with him.

And he's been for it all day.

I've got a log made from my terrorist and trying to hold my way with my arms for four hours.

And I got that other day to have a billion people speak.

20,000 or 19,000 in the hall, 15,000 in the airport, and so forth.

And Nelson's great.

I said, you can call him tomorrow and get us getting a briefing and a video.

And I said, what do you think, Nelson?

And he said, I said, on the election day.

He said, if you can do it.

He says, don't do it now.

He said, it's going to be, look, he said, it's too close to the election.

The nice election trick sounds like Johnson.

This is Nelson.

He's all for it.

But New York made a new version of Coles.

And then he was the actor in his famous role.

He has the advance, the first one, that will come out in the next two or three days.

In New York, it's 58-32.

New York City, it's just New York State.

It isn't that big.

The new Coles, it's 52 in New York State.

It's like one in the state.

It's like assuming all the other side goes to the other side.

The other side goes to the state.

And Nelson says, you know, there's been quite a bit to this asshole.

I hope I haven't bothered you with it, but he has been the most irresponsible son of a bitch.

On the one hand, he says, we're going to dump you.

We're going to have an election.

On the other hand, he says, you're blocking it.

We're

It's horrible.

You just jumped from one to the other.

So the thing is, I feel that if you can follow us here.

No, I am interested because this other guy is going to blow on us.

Yeah.

If we move to... No, the point is, you talk to the brain.

I just was talking to him on the phone.

I don't know who you're talking to.

And I gave him this message.

I said, if the president has to choose between a blow up with Hanoi and a blow up with Saigon this time,

if unhesitatingly true to the law of economics already added before Easter.

Therefore, don't threaten us.

On the other hand, if they stay quiet, you can explain to them, as we can, as they will not believe us, that we cannot take on Saigon before November 7th.

But if they go through one more negotiating round with us,

of getting it implemented is up to us.

And I think that's how we should proceed.

They even gave us 23 changes.

Of those, 16 are just crap.

I won't even bother you with it.

One is cosmetic.

I mean, they're so paranoid.

This committee, which has no power, whatever they say, is a coalition government.

Not even in his interview

Mr. Borgreft said it's pure cosmetics now.

You remember?

He said eventually it's going to be a coalition.

Well, eventually, but they had to agree to it.

The thing I'd like to see you do, if you could, in terms, right now, Henry, you've got a Russian government.

It's a bad man.

It's going to be Russian bad.

Now, well, that's point one.

And in terms of this point, second,

if you could keep the thing confused for a while.

I'd like to see if you could, this is now a Monday, if you could put your next meeting with them about Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.

That's assuming everything to come.

I hear not.

They may vote.

If they vote, we're going to take them off.

Mr. President, my view is this.

Make it to be screwed, because we...

take us months.

The idea to keep their prisoners there, on which they yielded in one night, that would take us months ordinarily, if ever.

They have no really good choices.

If they go public, we can service the agreement and say, yes, that was the basic agreement.

But there are always problems at the end of any agreement.

You come to fine points.

They have to be worked out.

There is the issue of their troops in the South, which we have not listed in the agreement on which we wanted a separate understanding of them.

And thirdly, we have some other.

But I think what we really ought to, if you could, is a better decision.

Well, I don't know.

I can't say that because we cannot get better terms than we've got.

Well, I know you're not going to get better terms, but if they blow it, there will be a problem at the end of the night.

Yeah, but we have to go in a position where we can go back to the agreement.

But when I go back...

But you see, I think, Mr. President, you will look very good having what is already a very good agreement.

Being in a position to score a spectacular, but for principle, you want to wait a few more weeks to see whether you can tidy it up.

Let me ask you this.

With regard to Bill Rogers, the reporter, you see, I've asked him to fill you in.

He's handled himself damn well.

That's what he's done.

says, look, he said, Henry's had a hell of a time out there.

He said, it's tough and true.

And I said, Bill, I said, I don't want any people in the State Department leaking and pissing on this thing and saying that Q's blocking and so forth.

He said, don't worry.

Alex

I told him his whole career in the next administration would depend on him.

He's such an ambitious bastard.

So you can trust him.

Well, see, what I was thinking, the other thing I was thinking, I think that with all the things that are in the picture, I think you have to consider doing the background work on them.

So I think that's enough.

I just, because, like, you know, when I speak today, I just, I didn't even,

All I talked is peace with honor.

I was going to say another damn word about it.

And I didn't even say we'd make progress.

I said, because of the negotiations, because of the progress we've made in ending the war with honor.

Not negotiations, but over the past four years.

So I'd stay totally away from it.

Say we're staying totally away from it.

Nobody out here said a goddamn thing.

I can't get away with the background.

I have to go on there because it would blow.

When I speak of a black background, I meant it.

It's that sort of paper.

You go in and you know how to bamboozle the bastards anyway and say that.

And I think in terms of the election, you've got to say the most important thing now is not to do this as an election.

We want the right settlement.

right settlement.

The President has said all along, this is your instructions, the election date, we have no election deadline on this.

The deadline only is to do the right thing at the right time, and we are going to end it.

I hope you use that word when you say progress.

How long can you do this for me?

I'd like to wait for the headache out.

You can put it off.

We'll see if the reaction center doesn't go.

Now with Bill, shall I just...

He doesn't know, does he?

No.

What with Bill, the thing to do is for you to just go on and be perfectly...

I'll try to tell you the truth.

And now he's totally, totally committed to this bill.

Because he said, he's coming around the way you and I do and all that.

He says, well, now when you really come down, he knows he's not going to be around.

And he says, you know, the most important thing is to do the right thing.

And so we all got to do the right thing.

Now, the right thing really is for you to take this agreement.

But if you won't take it, we've got to go the extra mile to get him to take it.

I asked after the election.

We ought to use the big gun.

I ought to talk to him and tell him.

Mr. President, I've seen this man in action now.

I'm afraid to throw you together with him.

We should use a meeting with you as a reward after he agrees to it.

He'll need it more than that.

After the agreement is signed, we ought to put ourselves behind him as the legitimate president of Vietnam.

Before, for three years under this spring, we have no obligation to recognize that we are the EC.

Okay.

On the contrary, we have addressed... That will occur very effectively.

No.

You see, when I give the press conference, they will say, it's the issue of coalition government.

I can say no.

that is not a problem, an issue that the President has said that it would be a problem.

But you agree to say that what we have here, what we are insisting upon, is that the people of South Vietnam, we have always said that in terms of their own interests, we worked out with them, and that the other side can participate in the election procedures, and in the election itself, and that they will be represented in the government to the extent that they succeed in the election.

But the agreement, no, the agreement is that the two South Vietnamese parties will negotiate among each other what sort of elections to hold for what offices at what time.

We didn't prescribe anything.

Jesus Christ.

Isn't all that doing?

Mr. President, he doesn't want to cease fire control.

He doesn't want to want us in jail.

I have come to the reluctant conclusion, Mr. President, and it breaks my heart to say that that system in South Vietnam is geared to a war

which we sustain, and that these guys cannot imagine what peace would be like, and that they're terrified not so much of the communists, they're terrified of peace.

I told him, with us gone, and you know, and he'll jar me, and I won't tell you who I see.

I don't know, Abrams makes his money.

It's an Abrams behavior.

I know in four years they've made one mistake after another.

Have you seen it in the military field?

Why should they be so much better in the political field?

He was very good.

And put himself solidly in an agreement.

100% behind the agreement.

I discussed the agreement with Ryan.

The first thing I would say, I got Ryan and Bunker together, and I said, now you two gentlemen have the responsibility out here.

to kick it over.

Bunker said, do it immediately, but he's been getting a little shaky.

But Wyman says it won't be any better six weeks from now, or four months from now.

And he thinks it's a good agreement.

And I have yet to see the person, when I showed the text to Sullivan, of course that's not the best example, but he

They are smarter than you.

Suvarnabhumi said, they're defeated.

They are totally wiped out.

He put his cigar up in air.

Then he picked up an intelligence report from Bangkok, where he told the Thai, the North Vietnamese are defeated.

They're finished for years to come.

The Thai said, I went to Long Nol and read in the telegram which I had sent him of the recent North Vietnamese concessions on Cambodia.

And said, thank the president for saving Southeast Asia.

I mean, it is heartbreaking.

And then I come back from and that son of a bitch says, you have been plotting with China and Russia to do him in for China and Russia.

Christ's sakes, they've been our great allies at this point.

They haven't been screwing.

They've been helping us to the extent for reasons of their own, or not at least.

And I saw that, too.

That was only the tip of the iceberg.

It was unbelievable.

My people were around inciting revolution.

Haynes had been around inciting revolution.

And we were inciting the American press.

We were inciting the American press.

And we were exacting a pledge of secrecy from him so that he couldn't answer them and that they could destroy him.

It was sick.

But on the other hand, I have to say, Mr.

I think after the election.

And since I think now that these hysterical bastards in Saigon may collapse on us, it is better that you've done it after the election than that you've done it as an expedient before.

Well, everything's been in vain.

Well, I think our honor is...

In fact, they won't collapse that fast.

That's my opinion.

Because, for example, take the area around Saigon.

People are very worried that that was going to pieces.

Well, they tried a high point.

And now even that general Min has found out that they haven't got any forces.

He now estimates they have only 8,000 men.

This is North Vietnam.

He's the asshole.

And he's killing them off 150 to 200 a day.

That's why they are so...

why it's so urgent in Hanoi.

What are you doing about bombing?

We're bombing.

We're not bombing by the 20th.

No.

It is a hell of a thing to ask Hanoi to let itself be bombed because Saigon doesn't accept their terms.

But just so we keep the bombing thing in there as a card to give up.

That's all.

No, up to the 20th is enough.

Yeah, we should go beyond the 20th.

I see what you're talking about.

Anybody ask anybody.

or what negotiations the powers that they make will.

We are continuing in the battle area.

That's right, sir.

That's right.

In the battle area.

That's the way forward.

Well, anyway, you know what?

Well, I think, Mr. President, by the end of November, we're going to have to disagree.

Most of the changes that these guys make on, well, they're either crazy or do, they aren't any difficult ones.

They have either changes that are insane

And that North Vietnam will never accept or admit to it, that we can get it.

Well, I would suggest this flight would do it.

I thought I did it wrong.

It's not 9.30.

It's not 11.30.

It was active at night.

It's active at night, or 4 or 1 o'clock.

12 o'clock.

Well, at all o'clock, that's the beginning of one day, the 24th, 23rd, 25th.

Well, it's a very good time for you to go to bed.

And is it 10 o'clock?

Would you rather have it at 11?

No, no, I'll be in.

Don't come in.

You think you should go to bed at 11?

I have nothing else.

I'm signing.

I have a rather busy time.

I'm signing bills.

I mean, there are 11 signs.

I'll be in by 10.

You want to have a meeting here?

Should we allow a picture?

I feel like you're going to go on.

So, yeah, I agree.

I had thought we were living in a picture because I didn't want to give hopes.

I think you can afford to have hopes, Mr. Benson, because the agreement is done.

Okay, well, you've got a fine job to do.

But I'm going to pray.

I know as a bitch, as a son of a bitch, it's really hard to do all these things.

I don't know.

You think maybe we should have...

Then you come up against the hot place and you say, and you focus on whether you get the word that you, that there is anyone you can talk to or that he knows you can talk to.

Do you want to leave me there?

Yes, I think I'll be, uh, all right.

But we may have to put this piece into, uh, I have no, after this, let me say it.

The problem that we have, the heavy burden that we bear is when we screw you.

You've got to be alive to recognize that he's irrational, and he goes down the tube.

And the whole thing comes to pieces.

It's that loud, right?

I've had a lot of people who've asked the interest, this we should do only if everything happens fast.

I think we have a 50-50 chance that the next time we go at it, we shouldn't send an MSA out.

He has given it to his own people and he pushes you against the deadline.

We should send Funker in there and give him five or six days to agree to it.

And then somebody should go out and clinch it.

What are you going to do tonight?

I can't think of anything tonight.

I won't go into action until tomorrow.

Yes, what do you expect?

But I had a message through to Freda tonight.

And I'm putting them into a stalling pattern.

I told them, since you were away and I just had five minutes, I think we'll have to decline it.

The more time we get, the better it is.

But I told Freda, the next time I meet with her, what we'd be doing is fine.

I won't sign it.