US Presidency
1972

They said we should deal with their nine-point secret plan, because it covered all of Indochina including Laos and Cambodia, while the Vietcong seven-point proposal was limited to Vietnam. So that is what we did. But we went even beyond that, dealing with some of the points in the public plan that were not covered in the secret plan. On August 16, at another private meeting, we went further. We offered the complete withdrawal of in 1881. and allied forces within 9 months after an agreement on an overall settlement. On September 13, the North Vietnamese rejected that proposal. They continued to insist that we overthrow the South Vietnamese Government. Now, what has been the result of these private efforts? For months, the North Vietnamese have been berating us at the public sessions for not responding to their side's publicly presented seven-point plan. The truth is that we did respond to the enemy's plan, in the manner they wanted us to respond, secretly.