Conversation 806-007

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No, I understand.

It's not worth what to do.

Listen, don't listen.

No, we were talking about that.

He had said,

We can't write 67 days into a document.

It takes 60 days.

But as a gentleman, can we have this understanding that if there's some technical fallout, that if there's one or two days delay of a very last intention, you won't raise that immediately?

You're cheating me again.

You're cheating with typical examples.

We'd like to say, well, it's really

And I have no reason to say 62.

I just didn't.

You know how it is when we pull out.

But we've got that under perfect control now that we can easily get out at 60 days.

Not easily, but we can get out at 60 days.

But nothing compares to the behavior of the South Wing.

I talked to President last night.

Just the behavior towards Plunkett and

Because me, as a presidential representative, was there for four days, not one official function was given, not one protocol kind of came to pick me up and take me anywhere.

No, yeah, it's not a gift, you know, a book, anything at all to show the appreciation.

We first had a meeting scheduled for the 2 and his advisors for the 2.

And finally requested an NIT for 10 minutes and a half afterwards to discuss my schedule for the rest of the time.

At 2, they called and said a meeting is put up until 5.

At 5, he called and said he needed his cast.

You have no explanation, no question about my schedule.

And then, Bunker said, could you come over for just 10 minutes to discuss this case?

Call back 15 minutes later and say, stay at the telephone.

You'll be told.

Stay at the telephone.

Here's my 777.

It's way down there.

See?

An hour later, he says, stay at the telephone.

Fred will call you.

45 minutes later, you call us and say, I'm going to the cabin.

I'll call you as soon as I come out of the cabin.

Hours later,

By this time, three hours, he stayed near the phone.

He gets a call from Yav, a little faster, assistant of Chu's, saying, it is impossible to leave with a treadmill tonight.

Banker said, I hope.

The only reason I'm asking for 10 minutes, you know how high Banker is.

I'm asking for 10 minutes so that I can

for the schedule, and by pulling it out till tomorrow, we're losing 24 hours of watching because of the time changes.

Yeah, I said, this is fine.

Back, Hector.

So we go back to the residence, half an hour later, two corps are screeching, it's so loud later, you could hear what he's saying, all over the room.

St. Clinton's men are running around the city inciting a revolution against labor.

I want you to stop that.

They're making a revolution three weeks ago.

Egg men were running around the country inciting the new one.

And I can't be responsible for the government if the Americans behave this way.

You know, you'd really wonder about the Senate.

What are we going to say in this project?

Because we can't afford it publicly, we've got to support him because he, unless it's broadcast.

But that we have passed it, it's too much to say.

I talked to Duncan this morning.

He called in, he said the Foreign Ministry has sent out a surgery to dispatch rejecting the imposition of a coalition government.

I see what, unless he's gone completely crazy,

What he's doing is setting up a strong man.

And they're holding, today they're holding rallies all out, hoping he's not rejecting a coalition government.

What the real son of a bitch may be doing is to say that he beat us out of a coalition government.

Which we were never trying to oppose, on the other hand.

He's going to put himself in our press and public opinion and position where he's the only absolute defeat.

And where what we are doing, which we were so proud was not a coalition government, will begin to look like one.

Mr. Speaker, what we have started to do is to avoid either the South Vietnamese or North Vietnamese getting

I still think it's quite possible we can salvage it.

But if they go public, as they do, then it is difficult.

Yesterday they sent this one saying they... See, we had told them, which was probably a mistake.

I don't know whether you...

Can I bring Bill up today in detail?

Yes.

Al has already done it in general, of what happened during the week, or have you talked to him?

No, no, no.

I got stolen a little bit, but why don't you go ahead.

Cruz, we had a meeting on the 17th, if it's not great.

Now, there already they made major concessions.

At that meeting they agreed, for example, to insert a phrase into the political provision that the institutions for which the elections were to be held were to be negotiated between the parties.

so that they couldn't say it was for constituent assembly or whatever.

They agreed to hold the international conference within 30 days, which was not in the original draft.

And they agreed to our composition of the conference, which is not a brilliant composition, but it does include the Secretary General of the U.N. for the first time.

And it excludes India, which is tough for them.

They did that at the meeting.

Then, there were two clauses I told them.

One in which they have to leave their cabinets in South Vietnam East Jail, and the other in which we have an underwitted right to replace South Vietnam East Jail, those they had not agreed to.

I told them that we couldn't consider, they said, well, there's a time schedule in which you could sign this agreement, and we said,

Well, if everything falls into place, maybe October 31st, somewhere around there.

But that's unrealistic until we have an agreement.

So within 24 hours of leaving, they sent us their concurrence to our text of the two.

They gave it to Bill Sullivan and said to me, you know, let's throw in that phrase on the prisoners.

They'll never agree to it, but it gives us some time.

They accepted our text of the fall through.

the replacement provisions of it.

So then we gave some more time.

We sent them a series of understandings.

They had, for example, on the replacement of prisoners of weapons, they had an introductory phrase saying, for purposes of peace, replacements are permitted.

I said, for purposes of peace, I'm going to use this kind of code.

It's really noisy.

Crappy language in every agreement they've made with their dad.

Stanley said to me, he said, we have to have a written statement from them of the following.

The first was respect for U.S. prisoners.

He said, fine, next, but respect for U.S. military men and civilians held in the Chinese countries outside of Vietnam.

The L.B.

undertakes to make corrections for their identification of the return of the United States Authority in accordance with the same schedule established for the abuse of Jews and military men and civilians detained in Vietnam.

The L.B.

will also assure that the provisions in the agreement for verification of those Jews and military men and civilians considered inaction, considered missing inaction, will be applied as well as other capabilities.

They accepted that as a formal answer to that.

They accepted the formal undertaking that the NPCs fight in the lives of its early dead.

They presented the following message on Cambodia.

May I take what happened earlier?

Sure.

Because it's important to give a claim.

Right.

It says, with respect to Cambodia, the United States operates on the basis of the following statements, made by special advisors in October in private meetings with Dr. Kinshasa.

on September 26th and 27th, and on October 8th, 1971, 1972.

And all the rest is now what I'm going to read out as statements with the data.

The question of the war in Vietnam and Cambodia doesn't reflect that the war is settled in Vietnam.

There's no reason for the war to continue in Cambodia.

Two, once the Vietnam War has been settled, the question of Cambodia's future will be settled.

At the end of the Vietnam War, there will be a very great impact that will end the war in Cambodia immediately.

There is an understanding between us that the DRP will abide by the principles that all foreign forces, including its own, must put an end to the humanitarian cooperation Cambodia has been withdrawn from Cambodia and not be reintroduced.

4.

The DRP will follow the same principles in Cambodia that Britain will follow in South Vietnam as well.

That is to say, it will refrain from introducing troops on and at war materials into Cambodia. 5.

As Article 18 states, the obligations of disagreement come into force on the day of its fact.

The United States reiterates its view that if offensive actions are taken there pending a political settlement which would jeopardize the existing situation, such an operation would be contrary to Article 15 of the agreement and to the assumptions on which disagreement is faced, to which the state implies its promise.

I'm going to attempt all the attacks on our presence.

So in the understanding of the part of the Democratic, with respect to the message of the U.S. side, concerning the understanding of the part of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, as mentioned during the private meeting in September of the current year, as mentioned in the United States note, the DRP side will carry out without any change what it has declared to the U.S. side.

And they say, uh,

The D.L.B.

side will actively contribute to restoring peace in Cambodia.

The D.L.B.

side is still informed that there is no American captive in Cambodia.

The D.L.B.

side is ready to agree with the other side on ceasefire in Laos within one month of October 31, 1972, or within a shorter period of time.

And then the Americans captured it, and I was really educated immediately before the 1950s and 1970s.

I don't know what more we could have done than these commitments.

When Bill Sullivan briefed Savannah, who was a sophisticated guy, Savannah said, they're totally defeated.

They're wiped out.

When Sullivan briefed,

And he said, thank the president for having saved Southeast Asia.

But in Vietnam, we just had a nightmare of a time.

The first day I was there, I first saw Jewel Olin drawing up a letter to the president.

It was very useful.

He said, I want you to present all this to the National Security Council.

I presented the plan to the National Security Council.

And they, about seven members, the Prime Minister, the Chief of Staff, Foreign Minister, seven people.

He went around the table, nobody raised any objections, and found that it was totally different from the hate with which they were going to come along.

I asked for a private meeting.

I gave him the schedule.

I said, we're thinking of agreeing to this on October 31st and the foreigners to sign it in Paris.

Is there any problem with the schedule?

There is a problem.

Tell us now so that we can turn off it.

I said, we've got to start putting in equipment so that you have a bigger base against which to replace.

He said, no, there's no problem.

I want you to do the following.

I want you to meet again with the National Security Council tomorrow.

And I want you and General Abrams and me to meet on the military missions tomorrow afternoon.

And I said, Sullivan is going to leave tomorrow to brief other countries.

Do you have any objections to that?

He said, no, go ahead.

He said, of course, we have still to agree on the thing, but you go ahead.

So I had every reason to suppose that, in principle, he was going to be there the next morning at a meeting with the National Security Council.

And data expressions, but really very low-key, the sort of thing you'd expect, the sort of thing Alex raised, which I thought we could easily take care of.

how does reinforcement work, how does the replacement provision work, and so forth.

That's what we've got to explore.

Then Abrams met with me, and we started task forces, how to move things out in 60 days.

And at the end of the NSC meeting, Tew proposed that we have a meeting of the task force to go to the text of the agreement the next morning, headed by the foreign minister.

That meant there were 23 hit-picking suggestions and two fundamental ones.

One of them was that wherever they mentioned the withdrawal of U.S. forces, they wanted to have mentioned the withdrawal of the North Vietnamese forces.

And wherever we speak of dismantling U.S. bases, they wanted to have mentioned the dismantling of the North Vietnamese bases.

Now, you know that's impossible.

Secondly, they considered the committee of national affiliation, the coalition government, which is insanity.

And they wanted to drop that out.

That's the minimum face-saber we've got, not even flat-backed on.

Flat-backed on to progress, that is, cosmetics.

It's an election commission.

So I told them we could get, of the 23 changes they proposed, I was certain we could get 60.

We had a chance at the others, but those two I didn't think we could get.

It was a meeting scheduled for 2 o'clock that afternoon, and I started that episode.

By then, so I made a box on the morning.

And the president had written me another very strong letter.

He said to me very strongly, he said to me, I have read him all the new concessions they have made.

I told him again what our schedule was.

Then he said, I'm not going to care for you.

What do we do?

He said, well, I divided this new letter by the president, this new concession cycle called by the security council immediately.

And that was a new line in the situation.

And he said, that's what you said.

And then he said, because he said, now how do I institute the ceasefire?

That's a serious question to me.

Whether I institute it unilaterally and ask the National Assembly to ratify it, or whether I go to the National Assembly first and get them to declare it.

And I said, well, he said, do you have any preference?

So he said, well, we'll meet the minute you get back from North Bend.

Old Ellsworth and I thought we had it right.

I go to North Bend and have a very good and emotional meeting with one of those who's done a great improvement, who couldn't have been more thrilled.

That's what breaks your heart.

Can't I get back into Jew and I as such, which I can only describe as insane.

I told him that, you know, I began by saying, look, before we finalize this agreement, I'd like one more round of it.

The North Vietnamese had proposed modifications in Article 9G, which is the one about the military.

And I'll see whether I can get the de facto pullout of some troops from Northern Military Region 1, and then that will be taken care of by the infiltration.

He said, that doesn't make any difference.

He said, we will not accept this plan.

We will not accept the modifications of this plan.

We will not make peace.

And as I said, I was not with him.

He said, like this country, you have betrayed us.

For a year, you and the president have been plotting to, you have made a plot with China and Russia.

And he said, sure, you kept me informed of the private meetings.

This was all lies because you've been drafting this agreement all along.

And the information you've been giving me

giving me a few lies and a paranoid outburst.

And this law organizing a press campaign against me in the United States is destroying me, he said.

And he was fletching me.

It was weird because he'd be sitting there crying.

His interpreter was crying.

He refused to speak English.

His interpreter was crying.

So you figured now he's going to send 17 million people up here and sacrifice the county.

His interpretation was, if it weren't for you, I could destroy the foreign press here and the U.S. if it keeps me from destroying the foreign press.

And oh, this is a plot against me.

And this went on and on and on for two months, beyond any national.

Where's all the health and beauty in this?

Oh yeah, I was about to go sit in there now.

Totally shaking.

I never went anywhere.

When I was alone, I had Ellsworth with me.

And every large meeting, Sutherland was there.

So this wasn't just a face-to-face confrontation.

And I said, how can you say this?

He is a bastard, a monkey of mine.

I was 77 years.

It was best five years here.

He said, you broke your faith with me when you asked me to sit down last year.

And then your Secretary of State said,

We can extend it for two months.

You are not comrades in arms.

You negotiate about life.

I said, I said, now, on the ceasefire, you say all North Vietnamese forces have to be withdrawn.

I said, we proposed it on October 1970, George.

In January 1972, in May 1972, the withdrawal of North Vietnamese forces was never mentioned in any of our proposals.

How can we now go to the American people

and tell them now that we had an interview.

I said, this has been so encouraging.

He said, when you spoke, he put out a similar plan.

So it wasn't the case.

He said, that's when you started betraying me, when you talked about my resignation prior to the election.

I know.

Well, I'm just...

because we cannot take him on, at least not before the election.

At the end, just as I was leaving, he said to me, you know, by that time I had had it, he said, now you're a, he said, I'm a soldier, you're a politician, but you're also a professor.

He said, I won't take seriously what you say as a politician, what you say as a professor.

I say I'll tell you what I said to the professor.

In 1956, they were 2,000 for Eastern Europe.

And an article was written about both of them.

In which the man said, Karl Vizetti is of Mr. Martyrs' Army.

Karl Vizinski is of Mr. Karl's Army.

That's what I think of what he said.

And so when I came back the next morning, he said, I'd like to assassinate him.

And then we were going to put a code like DM.

I said, if you find one American official who's anywhere under our control, who's dealing with any member, you notify us and he will leave this country within 24 hours.

Well, this is a tragedy, so we had to notify the North Vietnamese that we're not ready to sign this agreement, even though we had told them.

I mean, it's a total breach of faith with the North Vietnam Police, because we had told them that they met us on Article 7 and 8.

And if they gave us these understandings, which I think you will agree, no one will agree.

Would you agree if this was possible?

No.

No one.

So now our state claims it's a trickery to, and it has to look that way.

Now, what we have asked,

From the law of ignorance, there's one more need in which we can present the South Vietnamese case.

Most of the changes are so crappy.

In the Greek, it says, you know, cease fire, go into effect into China time.

Now they want that to be either Saigon time, or they want it in Hanoi and Saigon time.

It's the sort of stuff which at the end always comes out.

We can do that in two or three hours.

I think Sutherland and I figured out a way to take care, cosmetically, of their concerns with Article 9G.

We cannot do anything about their forces.

It cannot be done.

It's been adapted for seven years.

They cannot sign a document in which they, A, admit they have forces in the South, and, B, admit that they have pulled them out.

On the other hand, I've talked to wives.

every intelligence representative from the military to get a briefing about the situation.

Certainly, by the time Phil is up here, it sounds very alarmist.

For example, before I left, CIA told me the situation at Derry Beach Street was very bad.

Before you left Washington?

Before I left Washington, it was very bad that a ceasefire under these conditions would surround the synagogue.

I could not find one intelligent person of either CIA or of the military who confirmed that judgment.

General Min, who God knows is not one of the great heroes of military, Region 3, says there are exactly 8,000 communists in the whole region.

There are two hamlets that they know are under communist control.

In the whole goddamn military, Region 3, I asked why...

And I ask the local commanders whether they'd be better off in the months from now that the situation will not significantly change in any foreseeable time period.

Now, given the fact that this provides that infiltration of men must stop, I think we are a hell of a better off making it now

Then six months from now, after that, our infiltration point puts another 100,000 men down there.

So what we have done is we've asked for another meeting with the doctor.

I think we have to give them an undertaking that whatever document is agreed to in that meeting will then not be changed no matter what anybody says.

I mean, that we make ourselves responsible either to get its acceptance or to proceed with it bilaterally in implementing those provisions which we can bilaterally implement.

Because otherwise, I don't think they find themselves in a process where we are just continuing to find that the Jesus out of them knock off their forces themselves and never settles.

As it is, it's 50-50 whether they'll knock them through or not.

And there were a lot of other things.

They told us, for example, they want a new relationship with us.

They want a five-year economic agreement between us.

They want to create an economic commission between the U.S. and the D.W. Now, they may be kidding us, but if they created an economic commission, if they really meant it to reconstruction, they couldn't simultaneously fly the board in December.

And it's at least conceivable to me that they figure they have had it in themselves for a while.

They are disillusioned with Soviet Union in China.

And that they've given the world with us for a couple of, three years, maybe with the intention of then coming back.

But that is no longer so much our problem.

In the meantime, we could have kept our forces in Thailand and exercised some restraint.

on this situation through this transition period.

And after all, Sivadana, who is negative love, and Lungo, none of them said this is the Lhasa you believe in.

All of them said this is beyond anything considered Lhasa.

And now what is the situation you see in regard to Jew?

Well, I suppose we're talking about

I talked to Pankaj this morning.

I just wanted to check.

I figured I'd let them listen then.

Pankaj tells me there are rallies being held all over South Vietnam attacking the idea of a coalition government.

Also, they sent out a circular dispatch to all foreign countries attacking coalition government.

They're too positive.

It's why they're sending out a straw man.

so that since this is clearly not a coalition government, he can then claim he resisted us and achieved something much better than what we wanted.

That's if he's rational and in the meantime uses the time to get his promise tree flied up, to get his forces disposed, and carry himself a week or two for deductions.

and for this he's fired and can't pretend that he did it on his own rather than have to ride down his throat by presidential officer.

That's if he's rational.

If he's not rational, he thinks he can face us now and just figures to hell with it, that he's going to get destroyed anyway.

They really might say that we have dragged down the Americans and we were quite alone.

It's almost insane.

He's made up his mind that he's got to go along, because they're continuing to plan for a ceasefire, even now.

But he wants to have them the best possible environment.

He doesn't like the face-saving device that we've worked out for the North.

He's trying to destroy their face-saving device.

One of the problems we have is that

That's what it is, and they recognize it.

But if he insists on saying that's got to be wiped out, then they don't have a place they can come out and meet.

As far as the North Vietnamese are concerned, it seems to me they've made up their minds to end the war because they must be taking help of meeting, and they've made concessions that we wouldn't have expected them to make.

So I think that although they're going to do what they can to continue to get the maximum position in the negotiations, I think they still will.

maintain the attitude that they've had for the last couple of weeks.

So I think that it seems to me that our strategy should be to try to get both of them not to get their heels dug in too much, nor should we, it seems to me, if we could just keep it reasonably fluid and let everybody say, yes, we understand why everybody's bad, we understand this, we understand this, but God dang, we're pretty close to a settlement, not let's settle.

Well, let's keep talking about it.

We're pretty...

In the last phases, you always kind of avoid us with the nuances that seem terribly important.

But the most important issues have been settled.

Once he gets over his temper tantrum, I'm going to help you enjoy.

I'm going to commit suicide.

That's right.

Now, you gave him that message, right?

Well, I gave it to you earlier.

I could have done it.

No, you gave it to him.

I'm trying to tell him.

that I gave to a band, which I said, I don't care, we disagree, but he's seriously jeopardizes, frankly, the support and the support.

That's all there is to it.

He's got millions, he gets unlimited economic aid.

All the American economic advisors can't stay.

Fifty military addressers can't stay.

And he defected out of his military aid.

God, if we had put out this plan as our own proposal, we would have been now out of town and being in a trance.

It's one of the most... Should you imagine what Murray Martin would have done to us if we had said this?

Well, coming to the point, though, of what we do, what time, again, does he want to make his wife speak to him?

I guess tomorrow morning, second on time, which would mean what time it is evening.

If he goes too far, of course that puts us in a hell of a way from two standpoints.

One, that we will then have, we cannot let him face us now.

That's what I hear.

The second part is that

by not letting him base us down, then it means that we strike him down.

But as we strike him down, everything is lost in the sun, and our foreign policy receives an enormous shock.

Right.

Well, Mr. President, you don't see that happening.

I don't see it.

This is a good and open question.

This is the coalition government.

So if he says he won't accept the coalition government, we can say there's no discussion of the coalition government right now.

And therefore, everybody can.

Thanks to the future of South Vietnam, it's going to be worked out by the South Vietnamese people, not opposed to them.

And those sides, that's all.

So we can.

I'm going to say very categorically that we have not insisted on a coalition government.

That's a code word.

A code word is a code word.

That we can do.

In this country, too, it's a code word.

We are not in trouble if he opposes a coalition government.

We would be in trouble if he said, I oppose a coalition government, and what the Americans have proposed is a coalition government.

Which is what he said.

I hope not.

I don't think.

That would be then beyond a contest.

It's not a coalition government.

He doesn't understand.

You know, what we should say, if we're getting that kind of a spotlight, what we're doing, but what we propose to disagree with is not a coalition government's machinery to work out elections.

What we propose is an election.

And he stays in power until the election.

I mean, he has said, I'll leave it to the government.

It's just important.

No, no, no.

What I'm saying is it provides that the present government will stay in being until the election.

We have always said in all of our proposals that the B.C.

can participate in the election machinery.

That's right.

Good God, that's what the B.C.

is.

The electoral commission, which will rather supervise the election.

That's right.

So since May 69, we can say that the ceasefire provisions implement May 8, that the political provisions implement January 25, and even if the South Vietnamese greater control over it because they don't specify what sort of elections they are, whether they're presidential or national assembly or referendum, that's up to the South Vietnamese.

And in addition, so

In a sense, though, we're cause chasing our own tail because if we say it, if this really is an acceptance of the mayor's proposal, then the other side says, well, why don't you make sure you accept it?

If we argue too convincingly.

Well, because I think we can say, Bill, I think we can say that the essential, I don't think we should say anything unless we actually push it against the wall.

We should say anything.

But if we absolutely, supposing the other side goes public,

the agreement.

I think you can say that when you conclude an agreement, you always come up against nuances that still require working out.

I second that there are some phrases in there, like the word administrative structure, which arguably means something else in the English language.

That has to be worked out.

Thirdly, there are practical provisions about the disposition of forces with respect to the C-5.

All of these are so minor compared to what's already been achieved.

that we have asked for one more meeting to make sure to work out the details.

And that we did not want to rush an achievement just because of an election.

I say on it that until we go through every detail, and this is consistent with the first statement, that he wasn't going to have the election and fight his decision on the end of the war.

That's fine.

Oh, there's one other thing which they accepted, a bill which you might be interested in.

We sent them all these

saying all these things on Cambodia.

I referred to the January 25th speech of Q's resignation, I said, with respect to internal development with SRP now.

The matter referred to in the DRP statement, which is Q's resignation, was being discussed in the context of the first proposal of January 25th.

These proposals are soon proceeded by decree to now be completed.

The United States adverts that the question of internal development of the South Vietnam is sufficient to cover by article 19 of the draft agreement, and that no additional understandings of any kind exist.

They accepted that.

So, he's being committed to resign before the election.

He has no right to move the election.

That's right.

And we've been referred to Pat Van Damme.

That's right.

The problem I see is, assuming the North Vietnamese make the impact, which apparently, of course, the radio they're doing and beginning to do is sort of saying, well, after all, we agree that the United States is in every way.

And she was blocking it.

Why the hell don't they bring him along?

That's really, it seems to me, the political problem in present places.

I think we should say that, first of all, we can't have him in a position where he said, oh, I'm blocking it.

We can't say that it was always understood that it was necessary to work out some of the fine details, that those details are in those categories which I've just mentioned.

the North Vietnamese about the future of South Vietnam without Jews, I mean, without the government of South Vietnam participating.

And that's what we're doing, getting that participation in.

Does Jew have a go to South Vietnam?

South Vietnam.

And we said, can Jew veto the agreement?

I think we should say no.

But I don't know.

There are a number of things we can do.

In the sense you can.

And because it says, the group says, with a concurrence.

That's right.

So to that extent,

But I suppose if we include their deterrence, you can block it.

We can go ahead.

I think you can.

He said, of course, not those parts of the agreement that deal solely between the United States and our Vietnamese.

The other time I said to them, if they press too hard on the fact that we've already agreed, they'll be forced to publish the agreement.

If they publish the agreement, we'll defend the hell out of it.

And say that just some of you gentlemen can see yourself, it's 95% down.

But we want to do it right, and we're not affected by the election.

And of course it will be settled, but we will go through all the detail.

I think that's

We have to take a position where they have to reach a settlement.

We don't want to make a bad one in the final stages.

We want to be sure that everything's worked out, the whole thing's worked out.

We're working out the details and so forth.

Well, of course, we're here sitting here as a lot of prisoners, two maniacs.

That's one that's certainly a maniac at the moment.

The question is...

We've got to hear from the North Vietnamese.

We've got to hear from Pugh.

We may hear from both tonight.

But we'll hear from the North Vietnamese tonight.

Yeah.

You're going to hear from Pugh earlier than that.

Is there anything we can do?

Bunker can't go see Pugh and calm him down.

Nobody can see him.

It's Bunker's view that I agree with him.

And at this point, because Pugh, there are only two possibilities that Pugh understands completely.

And he's setting it up for his acceptance in such a way that he can claim victory over the North Vietnamese and over us.

Or that he's flipped his lip.

If he's flipped his lip, arguably it won't do us good.

That's just the former.

So he's talking about what serious he wrote, his image of doing it alone.

By the way, in one way, I suppose we...

We have to support the idea of his appealing to his own people at our expense, because if he, in that way, solidifies himself with his people, his chances of survival are better.

And really, we're in survival crisis.

Sure.

If we had this down his throat, I mean in a visible, brutal way, we'd be accused that just for an electoral ploy, we rushed it through.

I think our position...

In a way, if we stay cool, we can get the best of everything.

We can get all the benefits of the agreement, plus the benefit of defending the national interest in making the ridiculous...

I mean, let me just say a couple of points.

One, under no circumstances now, of course, I can move anyway.

Do we want any settlement before the election?

That must be a border at all.

Second point, having got out of the mess, and that's good to have, let me just say that we can't work out

President, we've got to leave the impression that serious progress has been made.

We finally have to say that we have not yet said that, but it has to be said.

Can we say what you said it is today?

I had a chance to say it.

Okay, all right, fine.

It's a little bit different from having it.

If it hadn't been said here, it would have been said here.

All right, I've just got to get going.

It may put us on a little limb if you saw us off today.

The third one is that

The third point is that he won't sell it.

Well, unless he's gone to Haiti.

And you really think, you see now, your judgment on the personal, did Bunker think he was nuts?

Or does Bunker think he's going through a ploy?

You know, these guys, these guys have... Bunker's a con with Asians and communists.

They're great actors.

No, Bunker thinks he's paranoid, but that he's playing...

I don't think he's done so.

I think he just played a tough, hard game, too.

And I think he probably is a little annoyed that he wasn't faced in the whole summit.

But he was faced into it, really.

He's had him every document they gave him.

Well, perhaps that's why they sent him out there.

He was really...

But I think the point is that at the present time, we're in a position where...

We're in a position where he, I'll tell you what, it isn't just an excuse, but it gives to a great extent a reason for the problems here.

The Northern Vietnamese by blowing that damn thing and making the statement, you know, saying they're going to have

Why did you do that?

I mean, uh, it did.

No doubt about that.

Before you would agree to wait till after the agreement and then claim whatever you want to.

You left the idea.

We're not pressing to get this done.

Oh, no, on the contrary.

I told him that Franco was going to resume capitalization, that I was coming back to report to you with Bill, and that we were not threatening this for an urgent decision.

But I also left him with the idea that we would inexorably move towards that point.

I didn't want him to think he could.

I said, I don't want to leave you any impression.

We are maintaining our position.

But you have to admit that I...

participate in making your peace.

And that would be more pressing.

But we have to keep the pressure on.

Absolutely.

I don't think we should let on that we don't think it's possible.

I think, among ourselves, we have to say it's not possible to work this out before election.

I don't think we should say that publicly.

But I'll let the... We're going to work it out as quickly as we can.

We don't have an election deadline.

There's no deadline for the right kind of agreement.

First comes first is the right kind of agreement.

And if we have to change the thing, we're not going to have an election deadline.

Secondly, it seems to me that we ought not to say anything more about progress at the moment.

We've made progress.

We've had talks with Jews.

That's what they've had.

Yeah.

But we couldn't say anything less.

But I don't think we'll say any more until we see.

I think they're saying something.

We've just confirmed what they said.

Okay.

We'll say it was very good.

We'll be honest.

Because if we say too much, then the Jews will say we've never gotten any progress at all.

Exactly.

They can't tell us.

They didn't.

The thing, as you pointed out, Bill, that speaks for the fact that he is getting ready to cave is that he's holding meetings all over the country about implementing a ceasefire.

They still have working groups.

They have working groups with our people about expediting the withdrawal in 60 days.

And every working group, for example, the head of our CIA, the head of our CIA,

It wasn't so...

It was weird.

It was acrimonious that he was weeping then.

That he felt pathetic at then.

After these weeping, they said he was whistling and saying, I had what I wanted.

Which sounds, which sounds like he's not crazy.

So, look at Fox.

So the, uh, uh, but for example, this head of the CIA, of the Vietnamese CIA, talked to our station chief there about that, about the report I had, to find out how they could get communications equipment after we were out.

So all of this shows that they're seriously addressing, it wasn't going to be so heavy, flags made so they could put on all the handlers so they could play with their flags, but

The South Vietnamese have prohibited the purchase of blue materials and anyone purchasing blue materials being arrested as a traitor.

And they're asking for Viet Cong, for South Vietnamese flags to be painted on the roofs of all houses and they're bombing all the ones they don't paint.

From our point of view, there's going to be a goddamn disaster after this thing is out.

It's just as bad as it happens after the infection.

Yeah.

But, you know, the pilot else is, we've got to get him to move a foot and pat him on the back of the other hand.

That's the first we need him.

Afterwards, I mean, if he goes down today, within the next six months, we're all going to look silly and say, oh, why aren't we going to get him?

Well, I mean,

And, of course, it isn't just this.

It's true that it affects such people as the psychopathic Japanese.

The Indians.

You know what the hell it is?

The Filipinos, Jesus, they're all nuts.

The Koreans.

You know, they'll tell you the only complaint that they always had about Dickens.

They said, you did everything for us.

We could possibly have had it.

But why didn't you get rid of the Indians from the international control from which you were a country too?

We got rid of them in Vietnam.

The crisis in those days, what it helps them affect the Indians would be, would be pro-Russian, not pro-Chinese.

And as far as the law gets in, the Chinese are more of a threat than the Russians.

But some of them said Suvarna was absolutely the idiot.

Well, you'll see.

Well, he is such an intelligent freaky son of a bitch, and it must be

Well, he survived all these years.

Well, he got around a little more.

But imagine him leaving now, and he's going to be away for one, two, three weeks, and nothing can really happen unless he gets back.

So the North Vietnamese had promised they would settle his war immediately, as soon as they could start a negotiation.

He says, I've got my vacation plan.

He'll tell them he had to interrupt his bridge game.

I should have talked to you later.

Everybody's a long-handed man.

They were all having a great time.

He didn't stop it.

He just went into another room and said he felt as if he was in pain.

Well, it's people who, you know, the most important thing

And they have to realize that he's able to find any of these images necessary.

I'm looking at its parents, at its parents.

Although I must say, if he had told me the first time, uh, look, look, he had said, if he had said to me, I cannot, it's not a bad deal.

That's forward, but I can't have all Americans leave in 60 days, plus a ceasefire.

All of this ran down my throat as a weak by presidential adversary.

I need four weeks to turn around it.

If we had done that, we would not have told the North American base that we were ready to, could have visited signing on October 30th.

We could have given them a much more realistic deadline, and we would have gotten a strong impact on them.

Instead, everyone present

It seems to me, Mr. President, we're all going to, in the next couple of weeks, we're all going to be bombarded with leaks and stories and arguments and statements.

It seems to me our best posture is not to get involved with Ann Rangel, but to say, well, yes,

We think it can be worked out.

There's a lot of problems there, tough ones, but we think we've made great progress.

We're going to continue, as far as the United States is concerned, to use every effort we can to work out a settlement and just stay in that posture.

Not to say anything in other kinds of terms.

We're going to continue to seek a peace, seek an honorable peace.

We think we're pretty close to one.

Yeah.

Well, if it's too bad...

I think in the long term, my view is, would it be a spectacular polygraph by the end of this week?

But if the thing had come about, it would always have been refused, which I think that the job is thrown in the box.

The main problems we have, of course, is that the first week ahead, it would be good to have it done.

It must be done.

This thing has come to me.

Pulled off our groin.

But the other thing, on the other hand,

The other hand, we now are faced with the problem that we have two unpredictable people in our back on the line.

That's our problem.

The question about that, whether the events are really out of our control, that's our problem.

You know, I think one thing that's good to keep in mind is that McGovern will, if he thinks there's no chance for something before elections,

He's been uncertain about it.

He's afraid.

He's saying, well, if you have a settlement, you have a lot of credit, so we don't want to go too far.

We've got to keep all of us, otherwise he can make a hell of a lot of money.

I just get the impression that it could happen.

We're not geared to it.

We're doing an unconscionable thing.

We're going to send forward just a few in order to win and do something for the election.

On the other hand, there are strivers saying today, yesterday, that what we're doing, that the peace forces finally have succeeded in forcing the president to do what he should have done four years ago.

And that if we have a settlement before the election, they should get the credit for it.

They forced us to do it.

So they're in a hell of a box.

They don't know.

I'll call you as soon as we get there, okay?

to deliver their message.

But I want to make sure I want our message to be delivered simultaneously so that our citizens