Years of Upheaval

by Henry Kissinger

  Now to your specific questions: — In what cases was photography used prior to target adoption? Ans. In the case of B-52 operations it was used in all cases. Tac Air which was under FAC control (forward air controllers) did not require such pre-strike recon but the combat areas were photographed each day for precise location of enemy and friendly positions and was available to the FACs.

  — How often was it used? Ans. Answered in the first question.

  — Is there evidence that in those where photography was not used accidents occurred or the risk of accidents was significantly greater? Ans. As I indicated above photography on the precise target was not required in the case of Tactical aircraft only. The precise nature of FAC control virtually precluded accidents. I can recall no accidents occurring with TAC air all during 1973.

  — Were your photo surveillance assets adequate to your needs or were you constrained? Ans. Fully adequate. I retained within 7th Air Force following the Vietnam settlement RF-4 assets which gave me proportionately far better coverage than I had when we were operating throughout all of S.E. Asia.

  — What is your view of the adequacy of available mapping? Could up-to-date maps have been prepared? How long would it have taken? Ans. As I indicated above, we were relying far more on up-to-the-minute photography, LORAN precision coordinates gained from that photography or, in the case of F-111 operations, highly precise off-set radar beacon techniques than on the maps themselves. The B-52S bombed without the need for maps at all. In the case of TAC air good maps are an asset to help the FAC find the target quickly, but from that point on, the pilot’s eyeballs plus the photography available to him fixed the actual target. All FACs had strict orders to avoid villages and did so with remarkable professionalism. So while up-to-date maps would have helped the FACs find the target more quickly they were not a factor in the actual bomb delivery. The Defense Mapping Agency was fully responsive to my mapping needs and sent us the latest available to them. They were constantly updating from our photography. Nevertheless there was a lag in some areas like Cambodia, but I doubt very much the involved process of map making could have been speeded up much more than it was.

  A few general comments: I suspect Shawcross had determined his theme before he gathered the evidence and wrote the book. For example, much of what I have said above I told to Shawcross when I discussed the bombing campaign with him in February of 1977. He chose to use none of this information. Even if he didn’t believe what I said an objective presentation would have required that he include it. After all I was the commander running the bombing operations and had access to far more hard data than his hear-say reporters.

  There is ample documentary evidence of the 1972 Cambodian air operations. My own oral report to the Air Force Historical Research Center at Air University at Maxwell AFB, Alabama, for example, contains a full statement of the 10 village incident I mentioned above. Unfortunately the report is classified secret but parts of it I am sure could be declassified if the effort were made.

  Shawcross does quote my statement to him that the 1973 bombing “saved Phnom Penh by killing 16,000 enemy”. There is an interesting sidelight to this. After the Washington announcement to stop all bombing by August 15, 1973 the enemy launched a series of all-out attacks to capture the city even though they knew the job would be much easier after 15 August. Why? We found out later. Captured intelligence revealed the Khmer Rouge had issued direct orders to their forward commanders to take the city before August 1973 so they could prove to the world that they could humble the U.S. In callous disregard for human life they threw in their troops in repeated attacks and since they were no longer able to use jungle cover, they suffered huge losses to air attack. This should have given us some clue as to how this regime would treat its own people after they seized control. They so decimated their elite forces that after the bombing stopped they took until April 1975 to finally take the city. Had we remained steadfast in support of the Cambodian government and provided air support as needed the country would be in non-communist hands today instead of North Vietnam’s. I am not proud of my country’s bug-out in either Vietnam or Cambodia. After losing more than 50,000 American lives we quit even though we had turned back the Easter offensive in Vietnam. Air power had applied great pressure on Hanoi itself causing them to accept terms which would have kept South Vietnam free if enforced by a meaningful threat of the resumption of that bombing. We turned our backs on our friends when they called on us to back up our promises made in January 1973. Likewise in Cambodia we had broken the back of the Khmer Rouge forces in 1973 and then let them regain their strength to reattack a year and a half later while denying our friends ammunition. The pervasive effects of Watergate had set in.

  One final comment: Shawcross has gone to great lengths to disparage the leadership in Cambodia. I knew all the key Cambodian generals through close personal contact. Having worked with the military in South Vietnam and Laos, I think I had a valid basis for comparison. Considering their limited means and experience (because of Sihanouk’s policy of making them no more than a palace guard) they displayed remarkable qualities. They had to go from the role of company commanders to that of division and larger in just a few months. They had the ability to defeat the enemy and would have done so if we had not pulled the rug out from under them.

  In Lon Nol, whom I met and talked to on a number of occasions, I found a man truly dedicated to preventing his country from falling to the communists. I hope future historians will present the case of Cambodian leaders’ ability and patriotism in a better light than Shawcross has done.

  Please feel free to use any or all of the above as you find necessary to set the record straight. The distortion of the true state of events in Cambodia which has occurred in the liberal press, of which Shawcross is obviously a part, needs to be set straight.

  With all best wishes

  [signed] John

  John W. Vogt, General USAF (Ret.)

  Chapter Notes

  Henry Kissinger, White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1979), is referred to throughout the notes as White House Years. Public statements by the President, the Secretary of State, and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs can, unless otherwise indicated, be found in the Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, and/or the Department of State Bulletin.

  I

  A MOMENT OF HOPE

  1. See H. R. Haldeman with Joseph DiMona, The Ends of Power (New York: New York Times Books, 1978), pp. 175–180. See also Chapter X below.

  2. See White House Years, pp. 917–918, 1185–1186, 1455–1456. William Safire has subtly described the way the White House dealt with its “Kissinger problem” in Before the Fall: An Inside View of the Pre-Watergate White House (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1975), Part III, Chapter 5.

  3. Safire, Before the Fall, p. 170.

  II

  A VISIT TO HANOI

  1. In a message of October 20, 1972, I recited back to Le Duc Tho several of the assurances he had given me in our secret meetings:

  — “The questions of the war in Vietnam and Cambodia are closely linked; when the war is settled in Vietnam, there is no reason for the war to continue in Cambodia” (September 27);

  — “Once the Vietnam problem is settled, the question of Cambodia certainly will be settled; and the end of the Vietnamese war will create a very great impact that will end the war in Cambodia perhaps immediately” (October 8);

  — “It is an understanding between us that the DRV [Democratic Republic of Vietnam] will abide by the principle that all foreign forces, including its own, must put an end to their military activities in Cambodia and be withdrawn from Cambodia and not be reintroduced” (September 26);

  — “The DRV will follow the same principles in Cambodia that it will follow in South Vietnam and Laos, that is, it will refrain from introducing troops, armament, and war material into Cambodia” (October 11); and

  — �
��As Article 18 [later 23] states, the obligations of this agreement come into force on the day of its signing” (October 11).

  2. See White House Years, pp. 1432–1435.

  3. The relevant portion of Article 20 of the Paris Agreement reads as follows:

  (a) The parties participating in the Paris Conference on Vietnam shall strictly respect the 1954 Geneva Agreements on Cambodia and the 1962 Geneva Agreements on Laos, which recognized the Cambodian and the Lao peoples’ fundamental national rights, i.e., the independence, sovereignty, unity, and territorial integrity of these countries. The parties shall respect the neutrality of Cambodia and Laos. The parties participating in the Paris Conference on Vietnam undertake to refrain from using the territory of Cambodia and the territory of Laos to encroach on the sovereignty and security of one another and of other countries.

  (b) Foreign countries shall put an end to all military activities in Cambodia and Laos, totally withdraw from and refrain from reintroducing into these two countries troops, military advisers and military personnel, armaments, munitions and war material.

  4. In early 1973 the North Vietnamese were providing the Khmer Rouge with military advisers, some combat help (particularly the manning of heavy artillery and rocket launchers), rear-service administrative support, transport and other logistical assistance, and military equipment and supplies. Testimony of Dennis J. Doolin, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, June 6, 1973, in US Congress, House, Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. Policy and Programs in Cambodia, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, 93d Cong., 1st sess., 1973, p. 85. This Defense Department testimony was ridiculed by other witnesses who doubted the degree of North Vietnamese assistance to the Khmer Rouge. Prince Sihanouk’s recent memoirs confirm beyond doubt that the Defense Department assessment was correct. See Prince Norodom Sihanouk, War and Hope: The Case for Cambodia (New York: Pantheon Books, 1980), pp. 14–15, 20, 24–27, 71–72.

  5. See White House Years, pp. 1414–1415.

  6. Ibid., pp. 1169–1174.

  7. See the sources collected in Martin F. Herz, The Prestige Press and the Christmas Bombing, 1972: Images and Reality in Vietnam (Washington: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1980), pp. 54–60; and in Guenter Lewy, America in Vietnam (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), pp. 413–414. See also White House Years, pp. 1454–1455.

  8. Harrison E. Salisbury, “Hanoi Premier Tells View; Some in U.S. Detect a Shift,” New York Times, January 4, 1967. See also Harrison E. Salisbury, Behind the Lines: Hanoi (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), Chapter XVIII.

  9. See White House Years, pp. 1109, 1381.

  10. See note 3 above.

  11. Sihanouk, War and Hope, pp. 21–23, 64–65. It is confirmed also by a Khmer Rouge document of 1978, Democratic Kampuchea, The Black Book: Facts and Proofs of Vietnam’s Acts of Aggression and Annexation against Kampuchea (Phnom Penh: September 1978), Chapter V, section 2 (b).

  III

  CHINA: ANOTHER STEP FORWARD

  1. White House Years, pp. 750, 1089–1090.

  2. Ross Terrill, Mao: A Biography (New York: Harper & Row, 1980), p. 372.

  IV

  THE GATHERING IMPACT OF WATERGATE

  1. Henry A. Kissinger, “The Viet Nam Negotiations,” Foreign Affairs 47, no. 2 (January 1969): 211–234.

  2. See White House Years, pp. 254–256.

  3. See, e.g., William Safire, Before the Fall: An Inside View of the Pre-Watergate White House (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1975), Part III, Chapter 5.

  4. On President Johnson’s taping system, see Bill Gulley with Mary Ellen Reese, Breaking Cover (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1980), pp. 77–85. On President Kennedy’s, see William F. Buckley, Jr., “Observations on Presidential Tapes,” Washington Star-News, July 26, 1973; Richard Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978), p. 501; Victor Lasky, It Didn’t Start with Watergate (New York: Dial Press, 1977), p. 357.

  5. H. R. Haldeman with Joseph DiMona, The Ends of Power (New York: New York Times Books, 1978), Book VI.

  6. See, e.g., the planning of the Laos operation of 1971. White House Years, pp. 994–1001.

  7. Ibid., pp. 1185–1186.

  8. Ibid., pp. 252–253.

  9. See Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 224–226, 289–290, 313, 334–336; Safire, Before the Fall, p. i66n; Lasky, It Didn’t Start with Watergate, pp. 161–172, 195–221, and sources listed in backnotes; US Congress, Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Final Report, Book III: Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, 94th Cong., 2d sess., April 23, 1976, “Warrantless FBI Electronic Surveillance,” pp. 271–351.

  10. See the testimony of Attorney General William B. Saxbe before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, July 10, 1974, in US Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Hearings on the Role of Dr. Henry A. Kissinger in the Wiretapping of Certain Government Officials and Newsmen, 93d Cong., 2d sess., September 1974, pp. 58–59.

  11. See especially the testimony of former Secretary of State Dean Rusk before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on July 23, 1974, ibid., pp. 224–241.

  12. See White House Years, p. 253.

  13. Safire, Before the Fall, p. 364.

  14. Chalmers M. Roberts, “Foreign Policy under a Paralyzed Presidency,” Foreign Affairs 52, no. 4 (July 1974): 675.

  V

  THE YEAR OF EUROPE

  1. James Reston, “Pompidou Favors U.S.-Europe Talks,” New York Times, December 14, 1972.

  2. White House Years, pp. 938–949.

  3. See, e.g., “Dr. Kissinger and Europe,” editorial in the Washington Post, April 25, 1973.

  4. Ibid. Compare the editorials in the New York Times, April 25, 1973; Christian Science Monitor, April 26, 1973; and Washington Star-News, April 27, 1973.

  5. White House Years, pp. 949–962.

  VI

  THE MIDDLE EAST IN FERMENT

  1. Nixon interview with Garnett D. Horner, November 5, 1972, Washington Star, November 9, 1972; Rogers interview with Henry Trewhitt, November 5, 1972.

  2. Evans and Novak in the Washington Post, February 1, 1973; New York Times editorial, February 3, 1973; Baltimore Sun editorial, February 6, 1973; Washington Post editorial, February 8, 1973.

  3. See White House Years, Chapter XXX.

  4. See William Safire, Before the Fall: An Inside View of the Pre-Watergate White House (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1975), Part VIII, Chapter 3, “Nixon and the Jews,” for a thoughtful treatment of the subject.

  5. See Anwar el-Sadat, In Search of Identity: An Autobiography (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), pp. 220 ff.

  6. See White House Years, pp. 1246–1248, and notes 3 and 4 on pp. 1493–1494.

  7. See Sadat, In Search of Identity, pp. 228–231; White House Years, pp. 1295–1297.

  8. See New York Times, January 29, 30, and February 1, 1973.

  9. I had tried this notion on the Israelis in 1972. See White House Years, p. 1290.

  10. See William Beecher, “Israelis Will Buy More Jets in U.S., Total Put at 48,” New York Times, March 14, 1973.

  11.“The Battle is Now Inevitable,” Sadat interview with Arnaud de Borchgrave, Newsweek, April 9, 1973, pp. 44–46.

  VII

  DÉTENTE: ZAVIDOVO TO SAN CLEMENTE

  1. See Maurice J. Goldbloom, “Nixon So Far,” Commentary (March 1970): 30–31; Norman Podhoretz, “A Note on Vietnamization,” Commentary (May 1971): 9.

  2. See, e.g., Norman Podhoretz, “The Present Danger,” Commentary (March 1980): 31–32.

  3. See Norman Podhoretz, “The Future Danger,” Commentary (April 1981): 32.

  4. See White House Years, e.g., pp. 59–70, 128–130, 1252–1257.

  5. See, e.g., James Burnham, The Struggle for the World (Cornwall, N.Y.: John D
ay Co., 1947); Daniel P. Moynihan, “The Politics of Human Rights,” Commentary (August 1977); Podhoretz, “The Future Danger.”

  6. For a brilliant analysis see Raymond Aron, In Defense of Decadent Europe (South Bend, Ind.: Regnery/Gateway, 1979); originally published as “My Defence of Our Decadent Europe” in Encounter 49, nos. 3 and 4, September and October 1977.

  7. See White House Years, pp. 150–155.

  8. Ibid., pp. 1269–1271.

  9. US Congress, House, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Tension and Detente: Congressional Perspectives on Soviet-American Relations: Report of a Study Mission to the Soviet Union, 93d Cong., 1st sess., April 1973, p. 11.

  10. The Soviet statement on the exit tax, as approved by Dobrynin on April 16, 1973, was as follows:

  OFFICIAL COMMUNICATION OF THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT

  Applications of Soviet citizens who wish to leave the USSR for permanent residence in other countries are considered, and decisions concerning such applications are made on an individual basis, taking account of concrete circumstances. As a rule these requests are granted. For example, with regard to persons who in 1972 expressed the desire to go to Israel permission was received by 95.5% of those who applied. A similar approach will be maintained in the future. (It may be noted that more than 2000 persons who received permission to leave for Israel in 1972 did not in fact make use of that permission.)

  As regards the refunding of state educational expenses by Soviet citizens leaving for permanent residence abroad, the decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet of August 3, 1972, and a decision taken in accordance with it by the USSR Council of Ministers, provide that Soviet citizens who receive permission to emigrate can be exempted fully from refunding the expenses mentioned above. Accordingly, Soviet authorities, in considering the applications of Soviet citizens wishing to emigrate, have the right to decide that only state duties normal in such cases be collected from such persons. The authorities are now being guided by this right. Consequently, only such normal and insignificant duties — which were also collected before the decree of August 3, 1972 — are being collected, and will be collected, from those persons who are leaving the Soviet Union for permanent residence in other countries.