Conversation 810-002

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It's a really sensitive interpretation.

You're not going to read all that?

No, no, no.

Now what I've done is I was so pleased with what I had that I've given them text and I've cut it by almost 20, I've cut it almost to 25%.

Maybe 30% of the text.

So I read 30% and I give them the full text.

Of course, of course.

Absolutely not good for me to write in there.

I didn't think I could do it.

Well, I traced the whole thing, and don't get to Vietnam until I've got the full context, and then at the end, and then I'm going to quote Henry Spangler's novel that whenever we stand together, I'm going to say, every American can be proud of this book.

the name of the peace agreements that have proved that the 16th Amendment is a hell of an example of, at this time, we're going to have an agreement.

Well, if I have that 16th Amendment, it doesn't need to happen.

No, I'm very...

The reason we're being meticulous, and I will say that if they ask about deadlines, there's no deadline.

The most important thing is the right time to peace, not the deadline.

You have just blasted, I did not know that.

Yeah.

I think the way... Well, they're not saying that they won't negotiate.

All they're saying, well, it's crooked that we are looking for one pretext after another to avoid signing.

Actually, they weakened their case.

They said we'd change the deadline for signing three times, which is true, which proves that none of these deadlines had anything more than theoretical significance.

Well, you said we were going to try to get that day.

And so they quote the messages from you.

We may just have to put out the record.

But I don't think we ought to get into a debate with them.

No, I wouldn't put out the record.

I think, Mr. President...

I know that would last, but I would... Because you start getting into the record and who shot John and all that sort of thing.

That's what I would say.

And it makes debating points and so forth.

What are they going to say about it?

Well, they say, well, they don't make a point.

They say, uh...

They just say sign for him.

Yeah.

They do not say, well, at the end of it, the Nixon administration must not choose between these two alternatives.

Either carry out what it has agreed to at the Paris conference...

End the secretive war or continue this costly, unjust and pointless war and finally sustain more serious setbacks until total defeat.

Isn't it true, Henry, that they gave from Hanoi in their League interpretations, which were not the interpretations of the League?

That's what they were trying to modify by the interpretive factors.

There are three major factors.

One is, and I have a long compilation of this.

When we were in Saigon, we found that they had given instructions to their captors to ignore receipt files for three days and seize as much territory as possible.

This is, on behalf of that, this is why we want the international machinery in place.

Secondly,

interpretation of the administrative structure.

And thirdly, we had told them innumerable times, not that we were going to put the troops into the agreement, their troops, but that they had to withdraw some of the troops from the North.

And once they were withdrawn, the no reinforcement provisions would see to it that they wouldn't get back.

We were watching for those troops to get out.

They didn't get out.

So for all these three reasons, we didn't sign them.

what is your evaluation for this man?

Well, it just came in.

My evaluation is that they want to put the heat on you before the election.

I think that the factors that led to a to a settlement to the settlement are still valid.

I think that they're going to wait now until the election.

And I think we should step up the bombing

I think that it's good for Nelson to make this point, I think, but I think in terms, Henry, of our just putting everything out, that would tend to leave an impression that there was a total stalemate.

I think it's better to, and also you get into the debating point with them about, well, who said what, and so forth and so on.

I think your idea of the background for about Friday would be a little earlier now.

Thursday now.

What would you think?

Well, it's just because of your speech on Thursday.

Oh, that's right.

You should do it Friday.

That's right.

But I could do it Friday morning.

I could say, this is where we stand.

You know, they say the issue is whether the changes are major or minor.

They won't make any changes.

But...

Mr. Croson, that information about his, uh, instructions to the, uh, the account is not public yet, is it?

No.

So I want, I want to, uh, use that.

What are you, uh, I wouldn't use it yet.

I don't think so.

I think it's better, I think it's better that we, I don't think it works.

There'd be differences, if you think there'd be differences.

It'd be worked out, but we're not going to be in a hurry to make a hate speech that won't last.

We want one that will last.

At that point, what happened in 1968, that just didn't happen.

We had understandings, and that's what we want to bring in the most.

There will be no misunderstanding.

I think it's breaking the secrecy and going out of the interview

also is saying that if this was done in the world, I'd be the one in Washington.

Politically, you know, this is going to suffer.

They've said that music will always be the one in Washington.

Well, I think you can be extremely helpful on this.

But remember that the lion is, the harder the lion can be, the firmer, the better.

The idea that we're just trying to, we're not going to have these people in real peace.

I think it's great.

And Eric Sivaraj, who signed last night, Mr. President, and he was an ally of the government.

He said that if this had come three or four weeks ago, that this was what would affect the underlying election.

If it had come three or four weeks ago, that perhaps the American people would have said, well, the tough line on negotiating now is no longer needed.

Therefore, we can go to this vote.

But, seeing it came late,

They want to back the election.

I think it's good to have them drag this the way you've done it.

I personally think politically it's the best part.

Well, it depends on how they push the press.

But even if they echo it, the worst that they can do is, I think we should take the position they are trying to force us into something.

that we don't consider right.

That will only enhance.

That's right.

It will help you with the right.

Our line.

That's right.

It will help you more than you can say it.

You can say you're wrong.

Say, that's the line.

Me?

We're going to have the right kind of a piece here.

We're not going to be stampeded in the wrong kind.

I mean, you can't be accused by the right of selling out and annoying screaming that you won't sign an agreement.

On the native side, I

They're not indicating that they'd always lost.

They're just simply saying, aren't they, as I understand it, that they're conning or signing.

Is that right?

That's more or less right.

They are, in effect, saying, this is your choice.

But hell, they were saying they'd never make a piece that kept you in office.

They are now going to play it for what it's worth until November 7th.

So the interest came for them?

That's right.

But they figure they've been tricked.

And they also have this problem, Mr. President.

They have a lot of their catfish hanging out there that are getting chewed up now.

And they've got to explain to their catfish why it is that they made them go out in these territories among prematureness.

See, they're going to take a terrific shellac.

And if there is a ceasefire, well, it's certainly a military good thing.

If they lose too many, they may not be able to make a ceasefire.

But I think we ought to start moving the P-52s up to the 9th or 11th.

That's the only thing those bastards understand.

And that's a restriction.

There is an internal one.

We've never told them where the P-52s would go.

we can't go beyond the 20th before the election, but we can go up to the 19th, the B-52, etc., or there's a flight after that.

Seems to me, Mr. President, this is...

I understand that.

That's the only thing.

I'm just thinking of questions that they may ask.

You have questions.

That's right, a question, and I suppose the one is, well, now,

They'll ask you what you'll say.

I think you should not be too...

I don't think you should be at all... You'll say it's obvious that there's been major progress in the Senate, but there's still some sticky things to work out.

I've got no problem, Mr. President.

I'm 100% with you on that.

I don't feel offensive.

I think that land politics

The last day's the election.

I want to try and get back into the election.

I think you should be aggressive.

You should say they're doing two separate things.

On the one hand, they say...

Except I don't want to.

I don't want to.

I mean, we believe we should be aggressive.

On the other hand, we don't want to leave our people here with the assumption that, remember you said, we move with that.

I think, Mr. President, first of all, we can have an overwhelming case to prove that we didn't blow it.

Whenever we want to go public, we can prove that we didn't blow it.

Secondly, we shouldn't do it from the negative position of why we didn't blow it, but from the position

90% of the road to peace has been destroyed.

If they're trying to stamp us, stamp Peter into an agreement, which by their own actions is so ambiguous, then they're trying to take a unilateral advantage.

And what we want to do is to get a good agreement, if it's as much in their interest as ours, and if they don't want to go the rest of the 10% and the whole thing was a fraud to begin with.

I agree.

That's what I agree.

Paul would never let us down and dismiss him.

That's right.

I wonder, what do you think, Nelson, that maybe we ought to not leave Shepard tomorrow rather than Friday?

You can tell how the papers react to this.

You know what I mean?

Your background.

Well, I think if we can keep this as just one other fleet from Hanoi, without my escalating it, I think it would be better if it

If there's banner headlines in every newspaper, then I may have to go on again and laugh.

You prefer the latter.

You may prefer the former.

But if it can be wrote or written out, you can't go to other places.

Well, they haven't said that they won't talk.

That's the one thing they haven't really quite said.

If they really want peace, all you're saying is let's sit down and clarify a number of points which you've already said a week ago or six days ago that could be done in two or three days.

If they were sincere, why not sit down and clarify?

Good point.

That's too late in my vision.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

And I'll say, I'll just say we told them they had to put some truth out from the North before the signing.

That wasn't in the agreement, but it was going to become part of the agreement because of the infiltration provision.

They never did it.

On the contrary, they gave instructions to their troops to seize the maximum amount of territory.

And certainly they put out a misleading interview before this thing would ever die.

Indicating it was a coalition.

Fine, but it wasn't.

And I just want to say... Yeah, I think it's good, Mr. President.

Frankly, I, you know, I've always been worried a little bit that if you sell it...

of poor old Mr. Churchill.

You know, I mean seriously, that was always in the back of my mind when John Mitchell asked me to make this speech and promised there'd be no news on that day.

I love that.

Now we get the news.

That's right.

That's all right.

Oh, yes.

I'm delighted to be here and I think I can have a quieting effect a little bit.

Damn right.

I think Henry's point, though, we have nothing to be fessing about.

I don't feel the fessing.

Let me tell you the real problem, of course, is that it was moving a little too fast.

And if you, if you don't, and under the circumstances, it was inevitable that it would come off.

But you knew that before you went out to see it, you knew it was tough.

We decided...

That if you wouldn't come along, we'd delay.

Now, they are trying to stampede us.

If we sign into that, then...

Which we cannot do.

Now, I've told them I have the written record.

If we are forced to it, we have the written record, which I've told them.

We have to consult there.

It can't be considered final.

Henry sent with Abe Rosenthal, the new foreign editor of the Times, the whole Times structure packing last Friday night.

The new foreign editor, I forgot his name, said that he thought Henry's, I'm so stupid today, he can predict all that, that this was the finest expose of the situation.

They published the whole thing.

And they thought what he said was 100%.

And then they wrote a good editorial.

Now this was all

when he said, we won't sign until we get these little things straightened out so that you're on that position.

And it's clear, and the president's avoided it.

Yes, as a matter of fact, we have the amusing thing that you have a few in the far right, but particularly on the far left now, who are saying, well, we're being too hard on the world to... Schlesinger.

Schlesinger.

Oh, Christ.

Saying it's on and down the river.

So this is not an unused situation.

I think there's a lot of blessing in it.

So basically, the fact that they're revising us puts us in a position of defending?

You're still the strong man we've got to have.

That's right.

We have leaned over backwards.

We're conciliatory in our press briefings.

We have attacked Hanoi.

We've sent them a lot of very conciliatory messages.

If it's business of publishing messages, we can't.

So we can, it's true on the 20th we told them that we weren't going to raise any more, that we considered the tax as it then was complete.

On the 23rd, in other words, 48 hours later, less than 48 hours later, we told them we needed another set so they can complain that for 48 hours they were misled.

Since then, they've been trying to defend their word against ours.

And I think that you are defending.

I'm seeing lots of those this afternoon.

I think on this basis, I'll explain to them exactly what the game is.

We'll get meaning.

And what's McGovern going to say?

We should sign the agreement.

I think he has said that.

And he says, but he will advocate that for business.

That's right.

Providing for the arms for South Vietnam, the defendants.

And even any.

Everything.

Unbelievable.

Total destruction.

You might say that you're sure that hasn't been particularly helpful.

If the question arises.

I mean, after all that, I don't know what it is that they ask, but you could say, I don't know what motivates

I forget it.

It might as well wait.

I can't believe it.

supporting both of those groups.

Very interesting.

And I think both of those groups, the Jewish community likes its strength here, thinking always that we stand over there.

The Catholics have been for this from the time Cardinal Stalman really got us into it in the beginning.

Cardinal Stalman was much responsible for getting into it.

Yeah, Cardinal Stalman.

That's right.

Jesus' destruction.

It was something.

So I think this posture, Mr. President, is great.

It shows your guts and your strength.

In a sense, Nelson is right there.

I think you're better off... And if they say we've blown the beach, we'll say...

They can't say you've blown the beach.

How can they say you've blown the beach when a noise screaming that you should sign a peace treaty?

And when we are saying we want to

Can you clarify the issues?

Then they say you were tricky.

Well, I think whenever you say so, I should go out there and explain exactly what the three issues are.

Maybe this time your thought, though, of going out and doing a background, a basic semi-background, would be better, or you should go out and do a bit of the spectacular.

Well, it depends on how much I ask for it.

That's exactly right.

You always let us see what their game is.

That's a lie.

But I'll be very conciliatory.

I think we should wait and see what they do at the Paris Peace Talks.

Thursday.

That's why you've got to go to the press.

On Thursday.

Yes.

Well, I could go on Thursday.

We'll know by noon what they'll do at the Paris Peace Talks.

If they walk out, then I think we'll just turn the other cheek, but very roughly.

We are ready to talk, but we are not going to be stampede.

Right.

and explain exactly what the issues are.

They are in a hell of a spot claiming, on the one hand, there's a peace settlement, and on the other hand, that there isn't an imminent peace.

So, uh... Well, I think they're so used to propaganda that they're caught up in problems.

And I think you are in good shape, actually, defending the national interest.

I think you're in a much better shape.

Well, uneasiness about whether this agreement was going to let Vietnam down in the South.

We're fighting for a stronger agreement, Henry.

It's a good thing.

That's what I think.

It makes me feel better.

I'll be frank.

And also it makes it clear that it isn't a political ploy.

And we can say that it's obvious that I've used this political period.

And we're sure that after November 7th, they'll...

Well, uh, I told you after the election one day, we'll sit down.

We'll get you up at the cafe.

You haven't been there since you were there, Matthew Johnson.

That's right.

I'm very interested in talking to you about this, your plan and stuff.

Yeah, I know.

I saw.

I've got your rough notes.

Oh, I've got to spend your science bills.

Fine.

I'll be available later.

Good.

I agree.

Thanks a lot.