RN

by Richard Nixon

  On November 29 Kissinger ushered Nguyen Phu Duc, President Thieu’s personal representative at the Paris talks, into the Oval Office. We thought that if I made a brutally tough presentation to Duc, that would succeed in bringing home to Thieu the precariousness of his position and the danger of being left on his own. I said that it was not a question of lacking sympathy for Saigon’s predicament; but we had to face the reality of the situation. If we did not end the war by concluding a settlement at the next Paris session, then when Congress returned in January it would end the war by cutting off the appropriations. I had already informed Thieu that I had canvassed the staunchest congressional supporters of my Vietnam policy regarding the October terms, and they had unanimously avowed that if Thieu alone were standing in the way of accepting such terms, they would personally lead the fight against him when Congress reconvened.

  On November 30 I met with Kissinger, Haig, Laird, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to discuss our military plans in the event that the talks were broken off or that the agreement reached was subsequently violated by the Communists. In the former case there were contingency plans for three-day and six-day bombing strikes against North Vietnam. In the latter case I was adamant that our response be swift and strong. “If Hanoi violates an agreement, our response must be all out,” I said. “We must maintain enough force in the area to do the job, and it can’t be a weak response. Above all, B-52s are to be targeted on Hanoi. We must have our own unilateral capability to prevent violations.”

  Kissinger’s next meeting with the North Vietnamese was scheduled for Monday, December 4. If no settlement emerged from this meeting, it would be very difficult to predict how or when the war would end. Kissinger would need all his formidable skills not only to convince the North Vietnamese that we would stay in and continue fighting unless they agreed to a settlement, but to convince the South Vietnamese that we would stop fighting and get out unless they agreed to one. Kissinger himself was optimistic that it would take only a few days to conclude an agreement; in fact, he said, there was a 70-30 chance that he could have the whole thing “wrapped up” by Tuesday night. He blamed his “peace is at hand” statement for having caused many of our present troubles, and he talked about resigning if he was unable to conclude an agreement. I told him that he should not even be thinking in such terms.

  On Sunday night I noted: “We enter a very tough week and a very crucial one, but some way I think it’s got to come out because the great forces of history—what is really right—are moving us in those directions. Only insanity and irrationality of some leaders may move us in other directions.”

  All our hopes were dashed on Monday. Le Duc Tho not only categorically rejected every change we had requested, but also withdrew some that had already been agreed upon during the last round and introduced several new and unacceptable demands of his own. Now, even if we decided to conclude an agreement without Thieu, the terms were no longer acceptable to us. Kissinger cabled: “We are at a point where a break-off of the talks looks almost certain.” In a long report analyzing the meeting he stated:

  It is not impossible that Tho is playing chicken and is waiting for us to cave tomorrow. But I do not think so. There is almost no doubt that Hanoi is prepared now to break off the negotiations and go another military round. Their own needs for a settlement are now outweighed by the attractive vision they see of our having to choose between a complete split with Saigon or an unmanageable domestic situation. . . .

  The central issue is that Hanoi has apparently decided to mount a frontal challenge to us such as we faced last May. If so, they are gambling on our unwillingness to do what is necessary; they are playing for a clear-cut victory through our split with Saigon or our domestic collapse rather than run the risk of a negotiated settlement.

  This is the basic question; the rest is tactics. If they were willing to settle now, I could come up with acceptable formulas and would not need to bother you. Assuming they are going the other route, we are faced with the same kind of hard decisions as last spring.

  Kissinger felt that Le Duc Tho’s conduct once again left us with only two options: either we must agree to go back and accept the terms of the October agreement without any changes, or we must run the risk that the talks would break off. He pointed out that the first option was unacceptable. It would be tantamount to overthrowing Thieu; as Kissinger put it, “He could not survive such a demonstration of his and our impotence.” It would leave us with no way of explaining our actions since October, and it would provide Hanoi with an enormous propaganda victory. Most important, agreeing to return to the October terms would deprive us of any credibility in policing the agreement, because the Communists would know that if we were willing to swallow this backdown, we would also lack the capability to react to any violations. Kissinger concluded that while the October agreement had been a good one, intervening events had made it impossible to accept now.

  Kissinger continued: “Therefore I believe we must be prepared to break off the negotiations. The question is how we do it.” He felt that we now had two tactical choices in this regard. The first was to propose settling on the basis of where we had stood in the previous week’s round; that would at least enable us to keep the changes and improvements Le Duc Tho had agreed to. The problem with this option was that neither Hanoi nor Saigon was likely to accept it.

  The second tactical choice, and the one Kissinger recommended, was to insist on retaining those changes to which the North Vietnamese had already agreed while boiling down our remaining requirements to only the most basic ones involving the clear delineation of the non-governmental nature and functions of the National Council of Reconciliation and Concord and the necessity of having in the agreement some formulation of the principle that North Vietnamese troops did not have the right to remain indefinitely in the South. The Communists were unlikely to accept these requirements, but if for some reason they did, we could use the improvements they represented over the October terms as a lever to bring Thieu along. None of these points was sufficiently critical that the North Vietnamese, if they had genuinely wanted an agreement, could not have accepted them.

  If the Communists refused and the talks broke off, we would have no choice but to step up our bombing as a means of making them agree to a redefined negotiating position. Kissinger recommended that I go on television to enlist the support of the American people for the stern measures that would be required. “I believe that you can make a stirring and convincing case to rally them as you have so often in the past with your direct appeals,” he wrote.

  I disagreed with Kissinger in this regard. Instead of a frantic and probably foredoomed attempt on my part to rally American public opinion behind a major escalation of the war, I preferred an unannounced stepping up of the bombing. This would be coupled with a press conference by Kissinger to explain where we stood in terms of the new attempts at reaching a settlement, and why the negotiations had broken down. In my opinion, however, this was still only the option of last resort.

  Diary

  What Henry does not understand is what I tried to get across to him yesterday before he left, and that is that rallying the people as we did November 3 on Cambodia, and then May 8 has now reached the point of no return.

  Expectations were raised so high prior to the election and since the election that to go before the American people on television and say that we have been tricked again by the Communists, that we were misled by them, and that now we have to order resumption of the war with no end in sight and no hope, is simply going to be a loser.

  In his cable Kissinger raised the idea of his resigning. “I have no illusions about what a break-off in the talks will do to us domestically,” he wrote. “If this happens, I will talk to you upon my return about my own responsibility and role.”

  Diary

  I told Col. [Richard] Kennedy [of the NSC staff] that Henry simply has to get out of his head this idea of resigning and all that sort of thing. This is not personal. This is just one
of those things where we are in a box and we have to do the very best we can to do what is right and work our way out of it. It will be tough but in the end we are going to win.

  On Tuesday morning, December 5, I received a cable from Kissinger. In the event the negotiations broke off, he saw no alternative to stepping up the bombing drastically, and seizing the public relations initiative by using a presidential speech to rally the American people. He suggested in another cable that he insist upon Thieu’s demand for the withdrawal of all North Vietnamese troops from South Vietnam as a way of causing Tho to break off the talks. Then he would return to Washington, and I would deliver the television address, in which I would set forward clear and achievable objectives that would essentially add up to a complete American withdrawal in exchange for the return of our POWs. We would then continue bombing until the North Vietnamese agreed to return all our prisoners; he estimated that this would take between six and eight months. “These are issues that the American people can understand. . . . And I am confident that you can rally them once again,” he concluded.

  I remained unconvinced of the wisdom and the feasibility of this course of action. It was my firm conviction that we must not be responsible—or be portrayed as being responsible—for the breakdown of the talks.

  Diary

  We must cast this if we possibly can in the light that the North Vietnamese rather than we were responsible for the breakdown in negotiations; and then we should talk in as low-key a manner as possible, and act as strongly as possible without making a big to-do about the fact that we were stepping up the bombing, etc., and in effect resuming the war with no end in sight after raising the expectations of the people primarily as a result of Henry’s now-famous “peace is at hand” statement.

  As far as the people are concerned, they assume that we have been bombing all along which, of course, is a fact, although the level of bombing has been lower than the high level immediately after May 8. Time will tell us tomorrow as to whether or not we have a way out, but I must say that four weeks after the election the situation is certainly not a very happy prospect.

  There was clearly a difference of opinion between Kissinger and me regarding the best strategy to pursue. Once again he felt that we had reached a point where the only thing we could do was break off the talks and step up the bombing to make the North Vietnamese agree to a settlement. And once again I believed it was important to keep the talks going for as long as there was even a remote chance that they might yield a settlement.

  Lest there be any misunderstanding about the way I wanted to proceed at what was likely to be the most critical and delicate stage of the entire negotiations, I gave Haldeman detailed instructions for a message to be sent to Kissinger outlining the course he should follow in his next meeting with Le Duc Tho:

  We should avoid any appearance of a dramatic break-off by our side. Instead we should treat the situation as a case where the talks have reached an impasse at this time and each side is returning home for consultation. If there is any such dramatic break-off, it should come from their side, not ours. In any event, our side should not appear to be taking the initiative in ending the talks. We should ask for a recess for the purpose of further consultation.

  Then when you return to U.S. you should conduct a low-key, non-dramatic briefing to explain the current situation very briefly and to indicate our continuing plan to maintain military operations until a satisfactory settlement is reached. You would indicate that we are ready to resume negotiations at any time when it will be productive to do so.

  I have talked to a very few of the hard-liners here in total confidence, and it is their strongly unanimous view that it would be totally wrong for the President to go on TV and explain the details of why the talks have failed.

  Kissinger sent his reply through Haldeman. “We had better face the facts of life,” he said. “If there is no agreement in the next forty-eight hours, we may be able to pretend that the talks are in recess long enough to permit me to give a briefing after my return. But soon after there will be no way to keep either of the Vietnamese parties from making the stalemate evident. Furthermore, if we resume all-out bombing this will be even more true. Thus in the event of a stalemate we have only two choices: to yield, or to rally American support for one more effort which I do not believe the North Vietnamese can withstand. If we are to attempt to rally the American people only the President can adequately do that eventually.”

  On Wednesday, December 6, Kissinger and Le Duc Tho met for six hours. The North Vietnamese position remained essentially unchanged. After the meeting Kissinger sent a cable stating that we had reached a crossroads and must decide what we wanted to do. Again, he refined the choices to two options. Option One involved making one last attempt at reaching a settlement: we would scale down our requirements to the absolute minimum and then present them as our rock-bottom position. There was no reason to think that the North Vietnamese would respond to this approach, and there was a risk involved even if they did, because Thieu was almost certain to reject it and break with us. As Kissinger pointed out, “You must therefore realize that if you authorize me to proceed along the above lines and we succeed, you will face a major confrontation with the G.V.N. Unless you are prepared to undertake such a confrontation you should not instruct me to follow this course.”

  Option Two involved provoking a break-off of the talks by making some unacceptable demand and resuming massive bombing until the North Vietnamese agreed to return our POWs in exchange for our military withdrawal from Vietnam. Kissinger still felt that if we could keep up the bombing for six months—through the summer of 1973—the North Vietnamese would be forced to accept this straight prisoners-for-withdrawal trade as the basis of a settlement. It was to be presumed that Congress would not cut off funds if it could be shown that the North Vietnamese were not willing to return our POWs. Kissinger said: “If we are willing to pay the domestic and international price, rally the American people, and stay on our course, this option has fewer risks than the other one, given the G.V.N. attitude.”

  After giving Kissinger’s cable the most serious consideration, I responded with a long message containing my step-by-step instructions for the next morning’s session:

  After reading all your messages, I am again enormously impressed by the skillful and dedicated way that you’re handling a terribly difficult situation.

  Before a decision of this importance is made, it is imperative that I talk with you personally. To accomplish this goal, I suggest that you start tomorrow’s session by saying that the President has read all of your messages and a full transcript of the conversations to date. He is, frankly, shocked by the total intransigence of the North Vietnamese and particularly by the fact that they have backed off of the commitments they made in October. Then, I want you to go down a list of specific questions on all of the proposals that are contained in your minimum position contained in your last message, adding to it the specific question about whether they will agree to any language covering the withdrawal of North Vietnamese forces from South Vietnam. I assume that their answers to virtually all of these questions will be negative, but the purpose is to make the record clear once and for all. I then want you to ask them what is their final offer. You will then tell them that you will report the answers they have given to the President directly and then you will contact them as to the time and the conditions for further meetings.

  If the negotiations are to be broken off, it must be absolutely clear that they were responsible for breaking off the negotiations rather than me.

  I also am firmly convinced that we should not paint ourselves into a corner by saying like “This is our last offer” or “This is our final meeting.” Leave a crack of the door open for further discussion.

  I realize that you think that if I go on television that I can rally the American people to support an indefinite continuation of the war simply for the purpose of getting our prisoners back. I would agree that this is a possibility at this t
ime. But, that can wear very thin within a matter of weeks, particularly as the propaganda organs—not only from North Vietnam but in this country—begin to hammer away at the fact that we had a much better deal in hand, and then because of Saigon’s intransigence, we were unable to complete it.

  However your meeting comes out today, if it does not end in a settlement, and of course I know and agree with you that there is a very remote possibility that you will make a breakthrough on the settlement side, we will embark on a very heavy bombing in the North. But we are going to do it without a dramatic television announcement of it. The thing to do here is to take the heat from the Washington establishment, who know the difference, for stepping up the bombing which will occur for a few days, and simply act strongly without escalating publicity about our actions by what we say about them.

  On December 6 we gave Dobrynin an urgent message that we would be presenting our rock-bottom position at the next meeting and that failure to make progress would result in termination of the talks. He seemed to be very disturbed, and reiterated that the Soviets had been working continuously on North Vietnam to get them to accept an agreement. A few days later I stepped up the pressure by calling him and telling him that it was definitely in Moscow’s interest that the negotiations wind up now because both Moscow and Washington had bigger fish to fry and it was in our mutual interest to eliminate this irritant in order to enable our mutual relations to continue to improve. We also informed the Chinese ambassador in Paris that the situation had become critical, and that before taking “grave steps” we wanted to bring the issues before Chou En-lai, because such action would obviously affect our ability to develop Sino-American relations in the ways that both our governments wanted.

  When Kissinger and Le Duc Tho met on December 7, very little was accomplished. There was some progress the next day, however, and by the morning of December 9 there remained only one major unresolved issue, the DMZ. In fact, the North Vietnamese had already agreed to it during the November negotiations. But now Le Duc Tho was insisting on a new and vague clause about both sides “assessing regulations” for movement across the DMZ, which had the effect of calling its integrity into question. I sent a cable to the North Vietnamese, saying that I felt the inclusion of their new clause would make rapid conclusion of the agreement difficult and suggesting that the language they had agreed to at the November 23 session be restored.