Conversation 807-007

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What is the, what is the, what is Rahm's comment on the New York Times story?

Did they get that out of Paris?

Oh yeah, but we've had another very major development which we haven't had a chance to preview at all, which completely supersedes it.

Uh, the ERV has come to live.

Well, that's what I meant.

Well, now, the story of the parish was leaked by the French.

Yeah.

Uh, and was not completely accurate.

Well, I meant to say, you know, I wasn't referring to the story, but the French were destroying the parish.

No, in the box.

The box, yeah.

I thought maybe that came out of state or something.

That came either out of state or out of parish.

Let's see.

Well, it was just wrong enough, but what has happened is that Hanoi has now publicly released the text, not the text, but enough of it, and they demand that we sign it by October 31st, as we have promised.

But what I thought I'd have to do is read this one.

Well, let's just think where we're going.

What's the purpose of the reading?

All things were not interested in that.

No, we wouldn't know it.

They published their whole version of the agreement.

So it's essential that we can...

I thought we'd give a very moderate account.

What they say is essentially...

I thought it was a bit... Let me talk about this at three levels.

First, procedure.

What they say is essentially, first, I thought of it this way, let me talk about this at three levels.

First, procedurally, where are we?

Secondly, substance, what is the agreement all about?

Thirdly, where do we go from here?

Procedurally, we have made very major progress during the month of October.

The difficulties arose by the fact that Hanoi

was determined to get us to sign an agreement before the election, or let's say before November 1st.

They kept saying they were determined, and therefore they always insisted on some deadlines.

We gave them a series of deadlines, hoping that everything would be worked out.

95% of it is worked out.

Or 90% of it is worked out.

And the major shape of the agreement is done.

However, there are a number of problems that still remain to be solved.

First, and I'll just mention them, I'll say first, we would like to bring the international machinery into being on the day the ceasefire is signed because we have overwhelming intelligence that the other side is planning major activities for two days afterwards and it's conceivable even that the

Saigon sideward?

Or that it may result in a bloodbath.

Can that be a bloodbath?

We're trying to avoid that.

We're trying to avoid the bloodbath.

So the first is a question not of principle, but of timing.

How can we get the international machinery into things?

Second issue has been that

In the Pham Van Dong interview, which he gave in violation of our agreement to secrecy, he mentioned that there's an agreement to have elections within six months.

There is no such agreement.

And therefore, we felt that this had to be clarified to make sure that there were no misunderstandings.

Thirdly, there were some cases where the Vietnamese language seems to produce a different translation than the English.

We want to get those straightened out.

And then there are a whole lot of subsidiary issues, such as rewriting the documents so that four parties can sign it, rather than two, as Hanoi proposed.

Now, our view has been that this could all be done in one session.

The President has made several appeals to Prime Minister Van Bantam, in which he assured her that it would be worth it, no matter the communication.

to the Prime Minister, so I said, therefore, let us get this thing into perspective.

We have, the President has consistently said that he is not governed by any arbitrary deadlines.

The only consideration for the President is the ZI agreement.

What would you, if I can say there, get that...

right agreement and setting an arbitrary deadline would not jeopardize the right agreement.

We're going to get a right agreement just as soon as we can.

That's right.

Then I will say, now let me review the essential elements of this agreement so that you can see that it's absolutely consistent with what the President said on May 8th.

And

You aren't able to say, are you, that you want additional reassurances in regard to NIAs and laws and .

That's not .

All right.

Nancy, I think you'll go ahead.

And then I will say that

Thank you.

All right, go ahead.

What time do you agree?

I mean, they're short-handed in one sense.

You naturally should cover all this procedural revenue and so forth and so on.

And that will be of great interest to the necessary people who are being confused.

The things that need to come home to the American people are these.

One, that disagreement is one that assures

the return of all of our P.O.W.s and the accountants of the M.I.A.s, whatever they are.

Make that point.

The second disagreement is one, and I'm sure you've done, is that that does not, that keeps the president, is true to the president's commitment, that we shall never agree to impose any communist government on the people of South Vietnam.

This is not a coalition government.

They didn't admit that.

They said since the C-5 was being effect until the formation of a government to be elected through free and democratic elections, the present administration will be maintained along with the internal and external relations.

But I think if you could say that, they admit that the issue is clear.

You say the president, that the president's condition has always been that we will not agree to a coalition government with the communists.

And this agreement is one that rejects that principle.

Third, this is an agreement in which the United States is

making a deal with the R.C.S.M.E.s without the full participation of and consultation with the Federal Reserve.

And they have a veto.

We're talking about participation and participation, gentlemen.

And that is, and we have been in that experience before.

What I'm going to add is this, if you only want three sentences to knock down the criticisms.

And then, finally, the thing that the President has emphasized, message after message to me, is make the right agreement without regard to when it comes.

It can come before the election.

The important thing is not whether it comes before or after the election, but it be the right agreement, and make it as the right agreement.

We want the right agreement at the right time.

It's the earliest times, but the most important thing is not when, but that it be right.

This has been a long war, and we do not want this.

We are not going to have the sacrifices.

American people to prevent the imposition of a communist government in South Vietnam would be not offensive to a benefit.

I'd just get a little of that triple rhetoric if you could.

That would be extremely helpful with the great danger we have here is with them flowing.

Hold on.

Who knows?

The great danger is the neighbors that we're getting stuck in.

I don't know how to do that.

Now, the great entry is that by the end of next week, McGovern will go around and say, you blew the bed transfer piece that has ever existed.

Yes.

Oh, you mean they don't come back to the table?

Well, they may not come back now until after the election in order to make sure you...

I don't think they'll come now next week.

I think we have to be realistic, I think, now.

They're playing for all the marbles.

They're going to try to knock you out.

Well, what are we going to do about that?

I mean, I'm not talking about politics.

We're going to play that kind of a game.

There ends up being no agreement after the election.

Well, I think we should give them one week after the election to come back.

And if they don't, we'll just blitz them again.

Now, should I say... How are you going to say...

But I think what I can say, I can kill completely the argument that we could have had this deal four years ago.

Because the Hanoi statement says,

that on October 8th, for the first time, they made a very important new initiative, which accepted our proposal.

So I'll just play off that one.

You better put the bombing back on.

I wouldn't do it yet.

Because they may have had the following contract, Mr. President.

They may have told their cadres to be ready for a ceasefire by this weekend.

They may have no opportunity.

That's the option.

We can't just sit here and be in a foxhole, begging to Breanna, begging to the North Vietnamese to come back to the table and offer them a carrot and a lime.

I mean, I'd love to hear, you know, an 88 certainty check today.

Yeah, but we can step up the certainty up to the 20th.

I would do that.

Actually, but the problem I see is our marketing position, maybe surgery, they're not going to lose.

Whatever McGarrett says about blowing the chance for peace is going to be down the tube.

That isn't going to work.

Mr. President, I'm aware that you're going to kill some individual at that point.

On November 8th, if we haven't heard from them, we go north of the 20th again until they go back to the conference table.

Sure.

But I will do it now before November 8th.

I think that's true.

What I'm getting at is when you say that they are now going to say that McGarrett is going to say we blew the chance for peace...

That's a very goddamn dangerous thing for him to say.

He doesn't know whether they're going to come back or not.

No, he won't be able to say it until the weekend after that.

He will.

And, uh, see, I thought my reading should be very conciliatory to us on all of it.

We should say that, uh... No, not at all.

Not at all.

That would kill us here.

No, I mean, conciliatory in the sense we have 90% of the agreement done.

We will not... Why don't you just say that in terms of the election... See, that's what they're going to do.

We don't know how it's going to be before or after the election.

The election is not a consideration.

The main thing is the right agreement.

That's right.

What I'm getting at is that I don't want us to get in the position...

I mean, I would try to anticipate the government doing something before the election.

Of course, another thing they could do is come back next week and demand that we sign that.

Well, I think it's really amazing.

Both Vietnamese are not...

I got in touch with Hugh during the night.

Now that the others have flown, he's perfectly rational again.

And he says we can say that they were just a few points that he was in agreement with us.

It's just a minor point of clarification.

Is that right?

Henry, it's going to be settled, in my opinion.

It's the President's idea.

It's going to be settled.

The point is that the ERP people, they may be a little out of control.

They may not have the control that we thought.

I think they have

the cartridge strung out into the, in exposed positions with no means of communications with them.

On the bombing, would you simply say, what happened to the bombing?

Well, the President has always said that when substantial progress was made with the, with the bombing, he will know, gentlemen, we are continually waning.

I could tell you that.

Now the next question, what I wanted to ask you, Mr. President, should I say that we ought to have

One more meeting with them to clean up the tanks and then we would reduce the bombings.

Oh, no, no, no.

Don't do that.

That's reducing the bombings.

Total dynamite for us here.

You've said that privately.

But if you say it here publicly, it kills us.

It utterly kills us.

the reduction of the bombing and the bombing whole thing, even the very funny, I mean, the funny parallel thing was harmful.

I just don't say it on the bombing.

I would not say any more on that.

You've said that privately.

Don't say it publicly.

It'll kill us, utterly kill us.

It's very, very bad.

All the other things, though, just get up there.

I'd be confident.

I mean, you can be confident.

You can try as hard as you can.

I will treat my government and its people with utter contention.

You've got to.

They've got to be slow.

They have made the task of negotiating much more difficult.

Can you say something like that?

I can certainly say it.

That we couldn't have gotten it four years ago.

We don't make it too complicated.

No, I can say this is a disagreement.

We couldn't have gotten it four years ago.

We couldn't have gotten it four months ago.

And you could point out a lesson there, sir.

This is the government's plan, my chairman.

First, it has an absolute guarantee with regard to a ceasefire.

With regard to getting back to our prisoners.

Second, it provides for a ceasefire.

Third, it provides for continued help to the government of South Vietnam.

Fourth, it provides for withdrawal from the Cambodian mountains.

Next question.

This is peace with honor rather than peace with serenity.

Do you use that term?

Absolutely.

It's the honorable peace of the president.

That's right.

But I thought what I should do is... No, no, I agree.

I just wanted to get your attention.

But what do you think of my giving a very positive account of the terms?

Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely.

And why have we signed it?

Is it so good?

Because there are a number of problems.

Right, because we want, because the important thing about an agreement is not that it's made, but it is one that can be enforced.

And here, there were a lot of technical points, a number of which President Hsu raised, but which were only technical, which we had to work out in another meeting.

We're prepared to do that.

Come to the conference table with that same.

What do you think?

Well, your guess is that it probably will take a couple of weeks.

I'd have to say perhaps a couple of weeks.

Well, the battle's never changed.

It's all right.

We expect it to do something.

Well, what I think it does, Mr. President, has the great advantage of enabling us to get the plan out.

So we get the benefit of the plan out.

After all, they are saying there is an agreement.

We are affirming, yes, there is an agreement on these points.

But at the end of any agreement, you get into questions of nuance.

You get the question.

Well, you could say, why don't you piss on the laws agreement a little, on the State Department, and say, look, we made an agreement, for example, in 1962 on laws.

It wasn't buttoned down enough, and the president has insisted

This agreement was made with the best of intention.

This agreement, we've buttoned down in every respect.

We're insisting on the details.

Why don't you put it that way?

Absolutely.

That's good.

It wasn't buttoned down enough, and we've been in a long war, and that was ever since.

And I can say the Secretary of State yesterday started consultation with the Canadians and others who were going to be on this commission in order to be able to move rapidly.

The important thing is not making degrees.

the agreement so that this war doesn't break out again.

We do not want just a temporary peace.

We want a permanent peace in Southeast Asia for the long-suffering people of North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.

The piss on the Laos agreement would say this was made with the best of intentions, but it wasn't buttoned down enough.

And as a result, there's been a war in Laos ever since.

And the President, his instructions have been all along, this must be a button-down agreement.

That's why it's taking more time.

But what I thought it would be best to take a position with Hanoi to give them a chance to climb off is to say, obviously, the end of the war is a terribly traumatic experience for people of both sides who have been fighting for ten years.

We are certain that when Hanoi looks at this thing in the proper perspective, they'll recognize that most of the road has been traversed.

And you can also say, sir, that the government is not giving up, too, once you show that.

That's right.

Both sides have problems with this.

That's it.

You say an agreement, this is an agreement, which is not going to be totally satisfactory to either side.

Because it's one where both must live and let live.

I wouldn't say the president has asked me to say this.

The president will not be stampeded into an agreement until all the provisions are right.

He will not be deflected from an agreement when all of its provisions are done.

So this slaps both sides down.

Great, great, great.

Then if you could get in, if you could, the common suggestion that I have been constantly in touch with this and on top of it.

But I'll mention your manager to him.

You might even go to that line.

You know this pretty good.

You don't know when the president is getting his sleep.

You know what I mean?

Because at least it's coming in the middle of the night.

Now this is quite true because they don't always, they're not always called.

But my point is it's a very nice little touch so that they'll know that we're on top of the thing.

Right.

And I'll be very confident.

Right.

Take great credit for you for the agreement.

Right.

Defend the agreement.

But, say, there are some points that have to be clarified.

What are they not?

What are you going to say?

What did the peace group, in fact, is that the thing that really brought a disagreement about?

I will say, gentlemen, compare what the peace group recommended and what disagreement is all about.

All right.

Well, you can also say, you know what I'm talking about.

You see, you're in a distraught position morally.

In fact, what I think I will do is I'll call Hedley Donovan this morning because he...

Well, all over me a few weeks ago saying don't make the agreement before the election against public morality.

Sure, he's afraid of us.

Yes, if you put it on the ground then we'll tarnish the agreement and we'll carry it out with you.

Good, that's right.

You did, you have done, but you haven't reached anybody else.

On the right, well, make your reading, but remember, there's a couple of right-wingers.

I'll get Elsa today.

Joe?

Dick Wilson.

Bill White.

Bill White, perhaps.

Bill White and Wilson.

I think we can turn this into a tremendous plus.

Well, I do, too.

I do, too.

And it's definitely been run through the mouth through the election office.

That's all right.

Everybody knows what the God's hand is going to be saying.

OK. Well, we got an agreement, but it's totally different.

Yeah, I picked up the cards, and I saw the thing.

I don't think it came out of the state.

I think it came out of Paris.

I think the French probably picked it.

Yeah.

Because there are nothing accurate just in there.

There are two, yes.

Good luck.

Unfortunately, that's fair.

One thing about this game, Henry, as we all know, you never can predict how it's going to come to you, but it's to be or to be done nuts on both sides.

So it's... You know, the... Have you ever read the account of the Battle of Annenberg, the first one?

Yeah.

You know, the... Or, the Battle of Leper.

Leper.

How do you pronounce it?

Leper.

Battle of Lemberg was one really where, and Lemberg too, where it was more of a question of neither side really knowing what the other was doing.

The other had more fortunes than he had.

And it all came out because, not because they planned it that way, but because they took advantage of opportunities when they came.

It really was true.

And the Big E of Eurocannaburton didn't happen to be in a bird food, or it hadn't been in a plant.

Brown Swamp, you know, and of course Hawthorn.

Hawthorn was a plant that ran transplug.

But this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day, this day

Don't worry about it.

Now, don't let anybody bother you.

This is an important briefing.

And at the end of the day, you know, let television cover you.

That would be the thing.

That would.

Where are you going to do it?

I don't know.

Let's take one minute on that.

I think that doesn't bother you, doesn't bother you.

No.

You prefer not.

Well, I'll take the other part.

Television's back here.

Thank you.

I can't figure it out.

You see, if you hit it in this room, there's no problem.

It doesn't .

Buchanan says McGovern has picked his two best issues for the time of release, Vietnam and corruption.

On both of them, I mean.

I'm supporting you as an employer.

You need to be announced to the jury.

Now, we're not going to make it worse, because we've got an agreement.

Now, what is he going to say?

We should sign, not satisfy an agreement, without getting all the fine points?

But, uh...

They didn't play our game without us, but another two weeks we would have had it all done.

Well, I think it's best if you can.

The second point that I was trying to make.

Well, the beauty of the restroom is that you're not given the knowledge to read.

Absolutely not.

All right, fine.

Do it in the restroom, but then have cameras.

and then I'll be standing and of course with tape and all and so forth it's much the better place because your cameras are so much better than the east run and I want him to be on camera today yes sir okay

Ah, yes.

11.30.

Fair enough.

You want it 11 or 11.30?

11.50.

No, I can do it.

11.50.

Right.

This should be low-key.

It's sort of delayed about 11.50.

Okay, okay.