Reckless: Henry Kissinger and the Tragedy of Vietnam

by Robert K. Brigham

  Kissinger did not understand Nixon’s obsession with negative press over his speech, so he focused instead on getting the president and Hanoi to agree on yet another secret meeting in Paris: to occur just after he and the president had returned from their February 21 trip to China. He thought that the idea of the first US president in history to visit Communist China would move Hanoi to make some concessions in Paris. Several weeks after this invitation, Hanoi accepted, suggesting a meeting for mid-March. Kissinger agreed, but then received a series of postponements from Hanoi. When North Vietnam finally did accept a date, it was only after the Politburo and Central Committee had already committed the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) to launch a major military attack against South Vietnam, now known as the Easter Offensive of 1972.

  Kissinger understood that Hanoi had been marshaling its resources in order to launch an offensive since Operation Lam Son 719 ended. He also understood that a major attack during a US election year served several of Hanoi’s main goals. It would nullify the election results in South Vietnam, take the sting out of Nixon’s trips to China and the Soviet Union, and highlight the weaknesses of Vietnamization once again. Hanoi also understood that it would be difficult for Nixon to reverse the American troop withdrawals in an election year, so in the summer and early fall of 1971 it made plans for the offensive. Historian Lien-Hang Nguyen argues convincingly that Le Duan and Le Duc Tho were the thought leaders behind Hanoi’s offensive strategy.23 She suggests that the two party officials triumphed over more cautionary People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) generals by advocating an all-out military offensive designed to “thwart big power collusion to force Hanoi’s hand.”24 At the party’s Twelfth Plenum, held in late January and early February 1972, Hanoi’s leadership therefore decided to abandon its strategy of stockpiling forces and saving its resources for an offensive designed to topple the Saigon government. Le Duc Tho carefully orchestrated the diplomatic cables from Kissinger while he and Le Duan planned the military offensive that both thought would force the Americans to sign a favorable agreement. Like Kissinger, Tho held military and diplomatic matters in the palm of his hand. And like Kissinger, he thought military escalation was the best way to force concessions in the secret talks in Paris.

  The North Vietnamese offensive began midday on March 30 as several PAVN divisions opened fire from positions near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and from just inside Military Region I, the five most northern provinces of South Vietnam. Utilizing newly acquired Soviet machinery, especially T-54 tanks and 130-mm howitzers, the North Vietnamese launched an impressive artillery attack against the Third ARVN Division, positioned along the DMZ. No one in the United States or Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) command had prepared for the North Vietnamese to cross the DMZ because it was thought Hanoi’s army was simply not up to the task.25 There had also been a de facto agreement dating back to the Johnson years that neither side would breach the DMZ. When the offensive began, there were relatively few US combat troops in Vietnam, and many ARVN units were without their American advisers. When Nixon heard that eight ARVN firebases had come under extreme attack, he ordered Kissinger to prepare a plan for bombing missions. Kissinger, however, was unusually reluctant to respond to the North Vietnamese attacks. He saw no need for panic and no need for a massive response. Kissinger even called the offensive a “major enemy probe,” dismissing its significance and importance.26 In retrospect, it appears that his reaction was in part fueled by the “soothing” accounts coming from the Pentagon. Defense Secretary Melvin Laird and his associates did not endorse immediate retaliatory action. Laird was always worried about Nixon’s desire to launch reprisals, but he was especially worried in an election year.27 He thought that any major American military action threatened the president’s chances with the moderates and those were the votes that were going to swing this election. The result was rather anemic reporting from the Pentagon.

  General Creighton Abrams, however, was extremely concerned over the North Vietnamese offensive, telling an anxious Nixon that the situation was “very serious.”28 Over the next several days, thirty thousand PAVN troops connected with the 304th and 308th PAVN divisions and regular infantry regiments from the B-5 Front drove south toward the Cua Viet River, capturing Camp Carroll on Route 9. The same ARVN general, Hoang Xuan Lam, who had been in charge of Military Region I during Operation Lam Som 719 remained in charge of South Vietnamese forces during Hanoi’s offensive. General Lam ignored intelligence warnings about the North Vietnamese pending attacks and he had engaged in some rather dubious practices that left the ARVN unprepared. On April 2, Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker cabled Nixon and Kissinger that the ARVN was in dire straits and that the entire Military Region I might collapse.29 Almost overnight, Kissinger went from mildly interested in the North Vietnamese offensive to deeply concerned that it might spell the end of South Vietnam. He urged the president to respond with the toughest measures possible. It was clear to Kissinger that Moscow was behind the offensive. Indeed, the Soviets supplied the bulk of the PAVN’s heavy artillery and tanks. If the United States did not respond to Soviet-inspired aggression in Vietnam, he warned, American credibility around the globe would be “irreparably” damaged.30 He urged Nixon to take the toughest possible stance against Hanoi’s offensive. “If we were run out of Vietnam,” Kissinger later said, “our entire foreign policy would be in jeopardy.”31

  Nixon agreed. He was in no mood for Laird’s caution, and he did not trust his field commander, General Abrams, who he thought had stale ideas and was unimaginative. He warned Republican congressional leaders: “If this offensive succeeds… you will have a more dangerous world.… If the United States fails at this… no President can go to Moscow, except crawling. If we fail, we won’t have a credible foreign policy.”32 Kissinger counseled Nixon to “blast the living bejeezus out of North Vietnam.”33 The president took the offensive personally, as a direct attack on his reelection chances and as Soviet provocation so near his trip to Moscow. He blamed Hanoi, however, for moving forward with this rash mission. “We are not going to let this country be defeated by this little shit-ass country,” he yelled at Kissinger.34

  In early April, Kissinger and Nixon concluded that they had to “carry the war to North Vietnam.”35 The only viable military option, they agreed, was direct US air attacks against North Vietnam. State and Defense both objected to the president’s plans to lift the 1968 bombing restrictions against attacks inside North Vietnam. Nixon refused to listen and instead ordered one of his air force generals to recklessly “use whatever air you need to turn this thing around.”36 He told one of his aides that “the bastards have never been bombed like they’re going to be bombed this time.”37

  But Nixon had problems in his command. Laird remained cautious, telling him that he should not be using air power against the DRV but should be protecting ARVN forces in Military Region I instead.38 The Defense secretary also worried that renewed air attacks against North Vietnam would undo the domestic political advantage the president had created with his January 25 speech. The bombing raids might also create a negative international reaction. Nixon thought Laird was too cautious, but he was almost apoplectic when the air attacks were continually delayed. Admiral Moorer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), blamed the weather, but Nixon insisted that the weather “isn’t bad” and that “the Air Force isn’t worth a—I mean they won’t fly.”39 Kissinger, too, was pushing Laird to get the air attacks going. During a phone conversation on April 3 with Laird, he complained that “they only flew 132 sorties.”40 Laird responded that the “weather report… was not good,” annoying Kissinger even further.41

  Kissinger had always thought Laird was too cautious, but the Pentagon’s response to the Easter Offensive was more than he could stand. He told friends that what the United States needed most was “a new Secretary of Defense” and a reorganization of “our military establishment.” He believed that the Pentagon’s lack of response to the crisis in Vietnam was a disgrace. He
could counter their pitiful performance, however, by insisting that they act now against Hanoi or face the president’s wrath. Kissinger often invoked Nixon’s temper when he wanted to get things done at the Pentagon. Kissinger did not limit his sharp remarks to Laird. He sarcastically told his old friend Nelson Rockefeller that the United States possessed “a great Air Force. They can only fly over a desert in July.”42

  As the North Vietnamese offensive continued, Nixon kept pressuring Kissinger to push Laird and the JCS to do something. He complained to Kissinger that the military “has been screaming that they have been hamstrung for a number of years.” Now was their chance to hit Hanoi without restraint and they were nowhere to be found. The president was especially irritated with Abrams, who was fond of saying that he was the field commander and knew what would work best militarily in Vietnam. Kissinger screamed at Laird that “somebody better get it into Abrams’ head” that the president wanted swift retaliatory attacks against the PAVN “or he may not be Field Commander much longer.”43 Laird pushed back, claiming that Nixon’s bombing plans might produce “massive casualties,” and this fact created some unease in the command.44 Kissinger wanted the air assaults to begin immediately, but he also assured Laird that the president would not tolerate “civilian casualties.”45 Such was the dilemma in Vietnam.

  Kissinger also called Moorer during the first days of the PAVN offensive, complaining that not enough was being done to punish North Vietnam. Incredulous that General Abrams was in Bangkok during the Communist attacks, he asked Moorer to make sure the general got back to Saigon quickly. He wanted Moorer to understand that he did not think Abrams was taking enough direct action and responsibility to stop the North Vietnamese offensive. “He is not going to run this with a computer,” Kissinger warned. He explained to Moorer that Nixon wanted him to know that “we are not going to lose this no matter what this costs… We want every commander to give us the maximum they can do without restraint.” He included the mining of all North Vietnamese ports in the plan.46 But again Kissinger chastised the military command: “For years they have been screaming about lack of restraint. Now we take the reins off and to get them to fly up north is like pulling teeth.”47 Now, he griped, the JCS could not seem to develop a target list that did not include massive civilian casualties.48 Kissinger thought it was a way for the military command not to take the action the president had ordered. “They have lost us the war,” he said of Abrams and Admiral John S. McCain, the commander of the US Pacific Command.49 He was so angry with Abrams for dragging his feet on the air attacks that he told Laird, “I want two names to replace Abrams—who should replace Abrams?”50

  Another of Kissinger’s major concerns was that the Communists would launch a peace offensive before the United States could launch its military counteroffensive. “If they come in now with a peace offer before we hit them we’ll look awful,” he told Moorer, explaining, “We have to give the North Vietnamese a big clout” before there could be any agreement.51 Kissinger wanted the military attacks against North Vietnam to condition the peace negotiations. He confided in Laird, one of the few times he did, that if South Vietnam did not collapse within thirty days, Hanoi “will be negotiating with us.” It was imperative, therefore, that Laird pour steel on Hanoi to force its hand. “I don’t know who is going to give up,” Kissinger told him, “but it will not be the White House.”52 Stressing again how important it was for Laird to get the military moving, Kissinger added that Hanoi was not going to talk “until we get the back of this attack broken.”53

  On April 10, the military finally started that process. US aircraft began to bomb North Vietnam above the nineteenth parallel for the first time since the October–November 1968 bombing halt. American B-52 bombers hit North Vietnam for the first time since November 1967, targeting well-entrenched SAM-2 missile sites and other strategic assets. Within days, the US air attacks also included flying support and direct attacks against North Vietnamese troops inside South Vietnam, especially near An Loc. On April 16, eighteen B-52s and nearly one hundred fighter-bombers hit military supply dumps near Haiphong along the North Vietnamese coast. Nixon told several reporters that the United States would continue its attacks against military targets in North Vietnam until the offensive in South Vietnam stopped. Hanoi countered with a press conference of its own, claiming that over fifty civilians had been killed in the bombings.54 Massive protests broke out in most major US cities and on college campuses across the country following press reports of the renewed bombing of North Vietnam.

  But Kissinger justified the air attacks in bold terms. “We are trying to compress the amount of time the North Vietnamese have to decide whether the offensive is worth continuing and whether they have the means to continue it.”55 Like the old formulation of Johnson’s limited war theory in action, he explained, Hanoi controlled the rate and force of the American response and it could end the air attacks at any time by halting its offensive. Furthermore, the White House was not trying to force Hanoi to capitulate, he said; it was merely asking North Vietnam to stop its attacks on South Vietnam so that the United States could finish its timely withdrawal and then Hanoi would have to take its chances in a political struggle with Saigon. At least this is the rationale Kissinger frequently used when explaining why the United States resumed its air war over North Vietnam.

  The bombing of North Vietnam was not without its political dimensions. Kissinger warned William F. Buckley, a longtime conservative who was often critical of détente and Nixon’s efforts in Vietnam, that if fellow conservatives did not back the president and begin to sharpen their attacks against those who “are 100 percent off” they would surely get a McGovern presidency. “The more support we get,” Kissinger pleaded with him, “the more violent we can be.” By launching a fierce air war over North Vietnam, the national security adviser insisted, “We are saving American honor.”56 Kissinger asked Buckley to make sure that other conservatives knew just what was at stake in Vietnam and that the president had to reach out to Moscow and Beijing to achieve his foreign policy agenda.

  Meeting with Brezhnev

  With North Vietnamese forces continuing to march southward, Kissinger went to Moscow in mid-April for a pre–May summit meeting with Leonid Brezhnev, secretary-general of the Soviet Communist Party. Just before he left for Moscow, however, the national security adviser asked his aides to get as many military supplies into South Vietnam as possible.57 Perhaps a confident Kissinger thought that he would make progress in his talks with Brezhnev? During their meetings, he made clear to Brezhnev that the United States was not pleased with Hanoi’s provocative action and that Moscow stood to lose much that it had hoped to gain by supporting North Vietnam. Brezhnev hinted that he had little control over events in Vietnam, but Kissinger had already heard from Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin that Moscow would try to get Hanoi more interested in negotiations. During the April meeting, Kissinger warned Brezhnev that Hanoi would face the “most serious consequences” if it continued with the offensive. Kissinger later told reporters that “I do not believe that there could have been any doubt in the minds of the Soviet leaders of the gravity with which we would view an unchecked continuation of a major North Vietnamese offensive and of attempts by the North Vietnamese to put everything on the military scales.”58 He had also threatened that if no progress was made on Vietnam, Nixon would be forced to cancel his May summit meeting with Brezhnev. This was an idle threat. The president needed to visit Moscow to make progress on his larger foreign policy goals, and the Soviets were well aware of this. They refused to take Kissinger’s bait.

  Brezhnev did, however, offer a new standstill cease-fire proposal for Vietnam and suggested that he could get Hanoi’s assurances to support this new move. Kissinger flatly rejected Brezhnev’s plan because it would give North Vietnam control over territory in Military Region I that the PAVN now occupied because of the Easter Offensive. Nixon was also in no mood to compromise. He had ordered Kissinger to talk about nothing else in Mo
scow “but progress on Vietnam.” He needed Soviet help in pushing Hanoi toward negotiations and was convinced that Moscow backed the North Vietnamese push south. Kissinger reported back that he had made clear to Brezhnev that the United States would continue its punishing military operations against North Vietnam until Hanoi stopped its military offensive and withdrew its troops from South Vietnam. Nixon had suspended the bombing during Kissinger’s trip to Moscow as a sign of his seriousness to improve relations with the Soviets, but also to signal his belief that the USSR had considerable sway over its allies in Hanoi. He was not pleased when Kissinger extended his stay in Moscow and spoke with Brezhnev about non-Vietnam topics, such as the upcoming summit and arms control. Nixon thought that his security adviser was playing into Moscow’s hands, giving the Kremlin everything it wanted while the United States got no progress on Vietnam, and he angrily told Kissinger that he was about to renew the bombing to teach Hanoi a lesson. Kissinger begged Secretary of State Alexander Haig to help keep everyone “calm” until he returned because he believed that the Kremlin was doing everything it could to help Nixon in Vietnam.59 Meanwhile, Nixon told Haig that Kissinger was “breastfeeding” the Soviets.60 The president always worried that Kissinger overestimated his importance in negotiations. The trip to Moscow was a prime example of Kissinger’s ability to put his own negotiations ahead of Nixon’s office.

  Still, Kissinger cabled Haig shortly before leaving Moscow with a rather rosy summary of his meetings. “It is my firm conviction that without my trip to Moscow the Summit would have collapsed and the delicate balance of our Vietnam policy would have disintegrated beyond repair.”61 Hanoi did not help Kissinger, however, when it announced that it was going to cancel his April 24 meeting in Paris with Le Duc Tho. It is probably just as well, because the president was in no mood to have Kissinger return from Moscow only to fly to Paris to meet secretly with Hanoi’s negotiating team when North Vietnamese troops were still on the offensive.