91. FRUS, 1969–1976, Volume VII, Vietnam, July 1970–January 1972, “Transcript of a Telephone Conversation Between the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) and the US Army Chief of Staff (Westmoreland), April 12, 1971,” document number 178.
92. Robert D. Sander, Invasion of Laos: Lam Son 719 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2015).
93. FRUS, 1969–1976, Volume VII, Vietnam, July 1970–January 1972, “Transcript of a Telephone Conversation Between the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) and the US Army Chief of Staff (Westmoreland), April 12, 1971,” document number 178.
94. Richard Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), 499. See also Willbanks, A Raid Too Far, 159.
95. Richard Nixon, “Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia, April 7, 1971, at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=2972.
96. Prados, Vietnam, 418.
97. For an excellent description of these events, see Willbanks, A Raid Too Far, p. 175.
98. FRUS, 1969–1976, Volume VII, Vietnam, July 1970–January 1972, “Conversation Between President Nixon and His Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger), June 7, 1971,” document number 211.
99. Kissinger, White House Years, 992.
100. Ibid., 992–994.
101. Willbanks, A Raid Too Far, 30.
102. As quoted in George C. Herring, America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975, 2nd ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), 244.
103. Ibid.
104. Asselin, A Bitter Peace, 28.
105. FRUS, 1969–1976, Volume VII, Vietnam, July 1970–January 1972, “Memorandum from the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon, April 17, 1971,” document number 183.
106. Kissinger, Ending the Vietnam War, 209.
107. FRUS, 1969–1976, Volume VII, Vietnam, July 1970–January 1972, “Memorandum of Conversation, May 31, 1971, 10:00am–1:30pm,” document number 207.
108. Kimball, Nixon’s Vietnam War, 266; see also Kissinger, White House Years, 1018.
109. FRUS, 1969–1976, Volume VII, Vietnam, July 1970–January 1972, “Memorandum of Conversation, May 31, 1971, 10:00am–1:30pm,” document number 207. Kissinger explained the concession this way: “The proposal sought to get away from the treadmill of demanding mutual withdrawal while in fact carrying out a unilateral withdrawal; it would, in effect, trade the residual force (PAVN troops) for an end of infiltration into South Vietnam,” Ending the Vietnam War, 210.
110. Asselin, A Bitter Peace, 28.
111. Brinkley and Nichter, Nixon Tapes, 87.
112. Ibid., 50.
113. Memorandum, For the President’s Files, March 26, 1971, box 84, National Security Council Files: Presidential Office Files, RNPLM; see also Haldeman Diaries, March 26 and April 26, 1971, 260–261, 279–281.
114. Ibid.
115. See especially Larry Berman, No Peace, No Honor: Nixon, Kissinger, and Betrayal in Vietnam (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001).
116. Memorandum of Conversation, Kissinger and Zhou, July 10, 1971, box 90, China Visit: Record of Previous Meetings, National Security Council Files: Henry A. Kissinger Office Files, RNPLM.
117. Ibid.
118. Brinkley and Nichter, eds., Nixon Tapes, 87.
119. Haldeman Diaries, June 2, 1971, 295.
120. Ibid., June 3, 1971, 295–296.
121. As quoted in Marvin L. Kalb, The Road to War: Presidential Commitments Honored and Betrayed (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2013), 144.
122. Haldeman Diaries, June 2, 1971, 295.
123. Memorandum, For the President’s File, box 853, National Security Council Files: Vietnam Negotiations, Winston Lord—China Trip, Vietnam Sensitive, Camp David, vol. 7, April 1971–June 1971, folder 3, RNPLM.
124. Ibid.
125. FRUS, 1969–1976, Volume VII, Vietnam, July 1970–January 1972, 1971, “Minutes of a Meeting of the Senior Review Group, October 1,” document number 266.
126. Memorandum, From Kissinger to President Nixon, June 27, 1971—My June 26 Meeting with North Vietnamese, box 4, National Security Council Files: Camp David—Sensitive, vol. 8, RNPLM.
127. Memorandum of Conversation, June 26, 1971, box 4, National Security Council Files: Camp David—Sensitive, vol. 8, RNPLM.
128. Memorandum, From Kissinger to President Nixon, June 27, 1971—My June 26 Meeting with North Vietnamese.
129. Ibid.
130. Ibid.
131. Ibid.
132. For a good summary of Big Minh’s life, see his obituary in the Los Angeles Times, August 8, 2001.
133. Kissinger, White House Years, 1029.
134. Memorandum, From Kissinger to President Nixon, June 27, 1971—My June 26 Meeting with North Vietnamese.
135. Ibid.
136. Quoted in Bernard Kalb and Marvin Kalb, Kissinger (Boston: Little and Brown, 1974), 180.
137. Memorandum, From Kissinger to President Nixon, August 16, 1971, box 4, National Security Council Files: Camp David—Sensitive, vol. 11, RNPLM.
138. Kissinger, White House Years, 1035.
139. Haldeman Diaries, September 8, 1971, 351.
140. Ibid., June 22, 1971, 304.
141. As quoted in Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger, 313.
142. David Rudenstine, The Day the Presses Stopped: A History of the Pentagon Papers Case (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 2.
143. Memorandum, From Kissinger to President Nixon, My Talks with Chou En-lai, July 14, 1971, box 1033, National Security Council Files: Miscellaneous Memoranda Relating to HAK Trip to PRC, July 1971, RNPLM.
144. Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, Hanoi’s War: An International History of the War for Peace in Vietnam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012), 214.
145. FRUS, 1969–1976, Volume VII, Vietnam, July 1970–January 1972, “Message from the United States to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, October 11, 1971,” document number 269.
146. FRUS, 1969–1976, Volume VII, Vietnam, July 1970–January 1972, “Message from the United States to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, October 11, 1971,” document number 269; see also “Memorandum from the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to the President, September 18, 1971,” document number 257.
147. Berman, No Peace, No Honor, 97–100.
CHAPTER FIVE: A WAR FOR PEACE
1. Haldeman Diaries, January 1, 1972, 391.
2. CQ Almanac, 1971, at: https://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/document.php?id=cqal72-1249975.
3. New York Times, January 14, 1972.
4. Gary J. Bass, The Blood Telegram (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013), 341.
5. Robert Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 350.
6. Washington Post, December 12, 1971.
7. Ibid.
8. Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger, 351.
9. Conversation, Kissinger and President Nixon, December 23, 1971, box 12, HAK Telecons: White House Tapes, Chronological Files, RNPLM.
10. Ibid.
11. Haldeman Diaries, December 30, 1971, 388.
12. On February 7, 1972, Time and Newsweek featured Kissinger on their covers under the title “Nixon’s Secret Agent.”
13. Conversation, Kissinger and Hugh Sidey, January 27, 1972, 6:10 p.m., box 13, HAK Telecons: White House Tapes, Chronological Files, RNPLM.
14. Conversation, President Nixon and Kissinger, January 12, 1972, 12:20 p.m., HAK Telecons: White House Tapes, Chronological Files, RNPLM.
15. Henry Kissinger, Ending the Vietnam War: A History of America’s Involvement in and Extrication from the Vietnam War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003), 229.
16. Richard Nixon, “Address to the Nation Making Public a Plan for Peace in Vietnam, January 25, 1972,” at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3475
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
<
br /> 19. New York Times, January 27, 1972.
20. All quotes from New York Times, January 26, 1972.
21. Washington Post, January 26, 1972.
22. Haldeman Diaries, January 27, 1972, 403.
23. Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, Hanoi’s War: An International History of the War for Peace in Vietnam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012), 235.
24. Ibid.
25. Dale Andradé, America’s Last Vietnam Battle: Halting Hanoi’s 1972 Easter Offensive (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995), 51.
26. Conversation, Moorer and Kissinger, April 3, 1972, box 13, HAK Telecons: White House Tapes, Chronological Files, RNPLM.
27. James H. Willbanks, Abandoning Vietnam: How America Left and South Vietnam Lost Its War (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004), 133.
28. Richard A. Hunt, Melvin Laird and the Foundation of the Post-Vietnam Military, 1969–1973, Secretary of Defense Historical Series (Washington, DC: Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2015), 224.
29. As quoted in Willbanks, Abandoning Vietnam, 133.
30. Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger, 371.
31. As quoted in Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger, 371.
32. Ibid.
33. FRUS, 1969–1976, Volume XIV, Soviet Union, October 1971–May 1972, “Conversation between President Nixon and his Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger), April 3, 1972,” document number 79 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2006).
34. Conversation, President Nixon and Kissinger, April 19, 1972, 713-1, White House Tapes, Oval Office, RNPLM; see also FRUS, 1969–1976, Volume XIV, Soviet Union, October 1971–May 1972, “Conversation Between President Nixon and his Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger), April 19, 1972,” document number 126.
35. Henry Kissinger, White House Years (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979), 1113.
36. As quoted in Willbanks, Abandoning Vietnam, 134.
37. As quoted in Jeffrey Kimball, Nixon’s Vietnam War (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998), 303.
38. Hunt, Melvin Laird, 229–230.
39. Kimball, Nixon’s Vietnam War, 303.
40. Conversation, Laird and Kissinger, April 3, 1972, 9:01 a.m., box 13, HAK Telecons: White House Tapes, Chronological Files, RNPLM.
41. Ibid.
42. Conversation, Kissinger and Rockefeller, April 4, 1972, 2:28 p.m., box 13, HAK Telecons: White House Tapes, Chronological Files, RNPLM.
43. Conversation, Kissinger and Laird, April 5, 1972, 7:45 p.m., box 13, HAK Telecons: White House Tapes, Chronological Files, RNPLM.
44. Ibid.
45. Ibid.
46. Conversation, Kissinger and Moorer, April 4, 1972, 9:58 a.m., box 13, HAK Telecons: White House Tapes, Chronological Files, RNPLM. See also Conversation, Kissinger and Moorer, April 5, 1972, 7:20 p.m., box 13, HAK Telecons: White House Tapes, Chronological Files, RNPLM.
47. Conversation, Kissinger and Laird, April 11, 1972, 8:18 p.m., box 13, HAK Telecons: White House Tapes, Chronological Files, RNPLM.
48. Conversation, Kissinger and Moorer, April 5, 1972, 7:20 p.m., box 13, HAK Telecons: White House Tapes, Chronological Files, RNPLM.
49. Conversation, Kissinger and Laird, April 11, 1972, 8:18 p.m., box 13, HAK Telecons: White House Tapes, Chronological Files, RNPLM.
50. Conversation, Kissinger and Laird, April 15, 1972, 11:50 a.m., box 13, HAK Telecons: White House Tapes, Chronological Files, RNPLM.
51. Conversation, Kissinger and Moorer, April 5, 1972, after 4:00 p.m., box 13, HAK Telecons: White House Tapes, Chronological Files, RNPLM.
52. Conversation, Kissinger and Laird, April 8, 1972, 12:55 p.m., box 13. HAK Telecons: White House Tapes, Chronological Files, RNPLM.
53. Ibid.
54. Nhan Dan, April 18, 1972.
55. Allan E. Goodman, The Search for a Negotiated Settlement of the Vietnam War, Indochina Monograph Series, Institute of East Asian Studies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 70.
56. Conversation, Kissinger and Buckley, April 9, 1972, 11:55 a.m., box 13, HAK Telecons: White House Tapes, Chronological Files, RNPLM.
57. Conversation, Kissinger to Rush, April 19, 1972, 12:30 p.m., box 13, HAK Telecons: White House Tapes, Chronological Files, RNPLM.
58. Goodman, Search for a Negotiated Settlement, 72.
59. Memorandum, Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs (Haig), April 24, 1972, box 21, National Security Council Files: Henry A. Kissinger Office Files, RNPLM.
60. Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger, 378.
61. Memorandum, Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs (Haig), April 24, 1972.
62. Memorandum, Message from General Abrams, US Force Posture in the RVN, April 21, 1972, box 113, National Security Council Files: Vietnam Subject Files, Ceasefire Vietnam, 1972, RNPLM.
63. Ibid.
64. Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger, 380.
65. Conversation, President Nixon and Kissinger, May 1, 1972, 7:00 p.m., box 14, HAK Telecons: White House Tapes, Chronological Files, RNPLM.
66. Conversation, President Nixon and Kissinger, May 1, 1972, 9:55 a.m., box 14, HAK Telecons: White House Tapes, Chronological Files, RNPLM.
67. Conversation, Kissinger and Laird, May 2, 1972, 10:10 p.m., box 14, HAK Telecons: White House Tapes, Chronological Files, RNPLM.
68. Conversation, Kissinger and Laird, May 2, 1972, 9:45 p.m., box 14, HAK Telecons: White House Tapes, Chronological Files, RNPLM.
69. Conversation, President Nixon and Kissinger, May 3, 1972, 6:25 p.m., box 14, HAK Telecons: White House Tapes, Chronological Files, RNPLM.
70. Luu van Loi, Le Duc Tho–Kissinger Negotiations in Paris, 227.
71. Ibid., 228.
72. Ibid., 229.
73. Kissinger, Ending the Vietnam War, 267.
74. FRUS, 1969–1976, Volume XIV, Soviet Union, October 1971–May 1972, “Letter from President Nixon to Soviet General Secretary Brezhnev, May 3, 1972,” document number 190 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2006).
75. Conversation, President Nixon and Kissinger, May 1, 1972, 7:00 p.m., box 14, HAK Telecons: White House Tapes, Chronological Files, RNPLM.
76. Kimball, Nixon’s Vietnam War, 315.
77. Conversation, President Nixon and Kissinger, May 6, 1972, 3:30 p.m., box 14, HAK Telecons: White House Tapes, Chronological Files, RNPLM.
78. Willbanks, Abandoning Vietnam, 145.
79. Richard Nixon, “Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia, May 8, 1972,” at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3404.
80. As quoted in Richard Reeves, President Nixon: Alone in the White House (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002), 476.
81. Ibid.
82. Ibid.
83. As quoted in Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Vietnam War: An Intimate History (New York: Knopf, 2017), 501.
84. Ibid.
85. As reported in Nguyen Phu Duc, The Viet Nam Peace Negotiations: Saigon’s Side of the Story (Christiansburg, VA: Dalley Book Service, 2005), 277.
86. Willbanks, Abandoning Vietnam, 145.
87. As quoted in Ilya V. Gaiduk, The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1996), 239.
88. Kimball, Nixon’s War, 317.
89. Kissinger, Ending the Vietnam War, 283–284.
90. Ibid., 285.
91. Ibid., 284.
92. Pierre Asselin, A Bitter Peace: Washington, Hanoi, and the Making of the Paris Agreement (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 51.
93. CIA Intelligence Memorandum, “The Overall Impact of the US Bombing and Mining Program on North Vietnam, August 1972.”
94. Ibid.
95. Asselin, A Bitter Peace, 52–53.
96. Andradé, America’s Last Vietnam Battle, 492.
97. Hunt, Melvin Laird, 246.
98. Conversation, Kissinger and Aslop, June 2, 1972, 4:02 p.m
., box 14, HAK Telecons: White House Tapes, Chronological Files, RNPLM.
99. The argument is summarized quite ironically by Melvin Laird, “Iraq: Learning the Lessons of Vietnam,” Foreign Affairs (November/December 2005), at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/vietnam/2005-10-01/iraq-learning-lessons-vietnam.
100. Conversation, Kissinger to Mansfield, June 27, 1972, 10:10 a.m., box 14, HAK Telecons: White House Tapes, Chronological Files, RNPLM.
101. Ibid.
102. Goodman, Search for a Negotiated Settlement, 75.
103. Washington Post, June 19, 1972.
104. FRUS, 1969–1976, Volume VIII, Vietnam, January–October 1972, “Memorandum from the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon, July 20, 1972,” document number 211 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2010).
105. FRUS, 1969–1976, Volume VIII, Vietnam, January–October 1972, “Memorandum of a Conversation, July 19, 1972, Paris, 9:52 a.m.–4:25 p.m.,” document number 207.
106. Ibid.
107. Ibid.
108. Ibid.
109. The DRV Chronology on the Diplomatic Struggle, entry for July 19, 1972 (Hanoi: Gioi, 1987).
110. Memorandum, Kissinger to President Nixon, August 3, 1972, My August 1 Meeting with the North Vietnamese, box 4, National Security Council Files: Camp David 1972, POW/MIA, RNPLM.
111. Luu van Loi, Le Duc Tho–Kissinger Negotiations in Paris, 255.
112. Ibid.
113. Ibid., 256.
114. Memorandum, Peace Proposal of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, August 1, 1972, box 121, National Security Council Files: Henry A. Kissinger Office Files, Country Files, Far East—Vietnam, RNPLM.
115. As quoted in Asselin, A Bitter Peace, 56.
116. Kissinger, Ending the Vietnam War, 306.
117. Ibid., 306–307.
118. Memorandum, Peace Proposal of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, August 1, 1972, box 121, National Security Council Files: Henry A. Kissinger Office Files, Country Files, Far East—Vietnam, RNPLM.
119. Ibid.
120. Kissinger, Ending the Vietnam War, 307.
121. Ibid., 309.
122. Ibid.
123. Ibid., 311.
Reckless: Henry Kissinger and the Tragedy of Vietnam Page 30