MEMORANDUM

THE WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON

MEMORANDUM OF CONVERSATION

PLACE: Luncheon at the Star
The Evening Star Building
225 Virginia Avenue, S. E.

TIME AND DATE: 1:00 p. m. July 27, 1972

ATTENDEES: Newbold Noyes, Editor
Randolph Kauffmann II, Associate Editor
Smith Hempstone, Editorial Page Editor
Charles Seib, Manager Editor
David Kraslow, Assisting Managing Editor
Bob Woodward, World Editor
Bob Cassidy, National Editor
George Sherman, Foreign Affairs Reporter
James J. Kilpatrick, Columnist
Orr Kelly, Military Reporter

[The luncheon began with Newbold Noyes, the Editor of the Evening Star stating what he understood the ground rule to be--that everything was off-the-record and the luncheon was to be regarded as a backgrounder. Mr. Kissinger replied that yes, it was true, he did not want to be quoted, but he was obviously having the luncheon to pass on information and he did not want to preclude the use of that information.]

**Question:** Why not release the dike report. Everyone now knows of its existence--why not release it and clear the air?

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) This dike report thing has turned into a bureaucratic nightmare. Everytime the brief is scheduled, it is cancelled. The fight is between State and Defense. Some argue that if we release the pictures, we will be required to run the photo reconnaissance for the press--that is if we release these pictures, to be consistent we would have to release all pictures. [Some unorganized discussion of whether this was true.] I'm just telling you the issues. These are not necessarily my opinions. To speak of bombing the dikes you must understand the dike system in North Vietnam. There are a

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few very large dams which are the hearts of the system. From these lead canals and ditches which are controlled by tertiary dams down to just mounds of earth. Now if we were going to target the dike system we certainly wouldn't fool around with the smaller mounds and earthen dams--we would go straight for the heart of the system, that is, the seven or eight large dams. If we were targeting the dikes, we would have breached one of the big ones and there would be extensive flooding. I have seen no evidence of massive flooding. Keep in mind some of the damage has been caused by the lack of repairs and maintenance on the dikes after the heavy flooding last season. We have, however, probably hit dikes. I am aware of one sluice gate we have hit, thinking it was a bridge.

**Question:** Is there a specific order not to bomb dikes?

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) There is a specific order not to hit the dikes. Since roads many times parallel the dikes, some may have been hit, but the dikes were not the target. They may even try dynamiting the dike to make us look bad.

**Question:** Someone said they are putting military targets near the dikes.

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) There is some evidence that a SAM site has been put next to a tertiary dike.

**Question:** Will it be hit then?

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) No.

**Question:** I'm sorry to express ignorance this far down the road, but I am not familiar with this report. Whose report is this?

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) This is a bureaucratic report which we are trying to declassify.

**Question:** How large is it?

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) I don't know for sure, probably about 10 pages or so.

**Question:** What about the weather war?

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**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) [some discussion about the definition of "weather war"]. I don't really want to talk about this, but I haven't heard of any significant effect on North Vietnam.

**Question:** What about the argument that floods occur in late October and that the dikes will not be beached until the load on them is heavy?

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) Obviously I am no dike expert. The description I have is that there are earthen dikes that are not very extravagant. The story about weakening the foundation is baloney. These earthen dikes have no foundation.

**Question:** I understand the problem may be that they are not repairing and maintaining the dikes.

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) That's right. They are using all of their manpower in the south and have not been able to maintain the dikes for at least a year. As you know, they had a very heavy monsoon last season and the resulting damage to the dikes was extensive. Much of the damage has not been repaired.

**Question:** Any evidence that the NVA are mining their own waters?

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) What for?

**Question:** I am referring to the serious explosion aboard the destroyer.

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) We are not yet sure what caused the explosion aboard the destroyer. That may have been our own mine that broke loose.

**Question:** Shift to Paris. What about the story that a settlement has already been made?

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) Oh, I've heard these stories that we have a settlement and elaborate schedule for announcements, and the whole thing is tied up with the Soviets and the Chinese and Hanoi. If we ever get all these people to agree, we will sign right now.

**Question:** Is there any evidence of any movement in the Hanoi position or any signs that we can expect any movement in the future?

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**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) Not before October. I think they want to watch the polls and our election for a while. They are leaving the door open.

**Question:** What has caused the latest move? Do we have reason to believe there has been a movement?

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) We said we were prepared to negotiate, ie., if they would consider our proposal side by side with theirs. They didn't have to accept our position, just study the alternatives.

**Question:** Have you been disappointed?

**Question:** In the six and half hours that you met with Le Duc Tho you must have been talking about the May 8 proposal.

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) I don't want to talk about substance. I am not saying that there has been any movement.

**Question:** Using as background what you said earlier, if they are ready to talk about the President's May 8 proposal, you agreed to talk with them in Paris. If on the other hand they are not willing to hold meaningful discussion, you would not return.

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) That's not what I am saying. So far they have gone as far as I expected. If by the end of September, we are no further than we are today, I am not optimistic about settlement before November.

**Question:** Henry, what the hell did you and Le Duc Tho talk about for six and one-half hours?

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) We agreed to keep the private talks private so we could work things out, so therefore, I really don't want to go into it. Obviously, we didn't sit and make small talk for 6-1/2 hours.

**Question:** Are these talks held in French?

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**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) At first we had someone to translate English into French into North Vietnamese. Now we are trying to go straight from North Vietnamese to English which is a terrible strain on the interpreter. We are now looking for someone Kraslow doesn't know to go from English into North Vietnamese. [Laughter]

**Question:** I'd like to throw in a very wild, far out question. I can't remember where I heard it--I think it was on the radio about 10 days ago, but the story was that you were really being used as a decoy and that Tran Van Dong was meeting with Rogers at Camp David.

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) Well, there are two theories. First of all, no North Vietnamese has been in the U.S. The only reason we make my meetings public now is that it is quickly determined when I am out of the office. The only reason we keep it secret is to avoid a massive press following in Paris. Now there are two theories on Tran Van Dong--one is that he has throat cancer, and the second is that he is having domestic difficulties. This is supported by the fact that treaties are now being signed by his deputy. Now even if the decisions were being made by someone else, the least they could do is to have him sign the treaties. It is our opinion that Le Duc Tho is the real leader and it is very difficult to get around him.

**Question:** Was there any understanding between you about when you would meet again?

**Answer:** I can't really answer--but if there is another meeting, it will be announced.

**Question:** After the May 8 announcement, have you noticed any change in Hanoi's position?

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) It is really too early to tell. Too much time is being spent on the techniques of negotiation. Everyone is looking for that key or trick which will put it all together. There is none. The only reason there is not now a settlement is that we have refused to replace the Saigon government with a communist one--that is we will not do for them what they cannot do for themselves. Now let's look at their seven points. Point one is that within three months all U.S. troops and equipment must leave Southeast Asia and I'll bet you

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dollars to donuts that this will ultimately mean turning over all
the equipment we have the South Vietnamese to the North Vietnamese.
We must stop all economic and military aid. The police force must
be dissolved--the second point is that a new government must be
formed. All this goes on while the war rages on. Prisons must
be opened and all political prisoners must be released. Finally
the army is to be disbanded. This government now without police,
troops or American aid is to negotiate with the communists and
only after the negotiations are complete does the fighting stop.
No government in the world can negotiate from that position. Who
would be so foolish as to take on those negotiations. We agree that
there are going to be political problems, but once they give up the
position that we must essentially surrender, a settlement will
follow quickly. Assuming they want to settle in October, they must
do something soon.

Question: By soon, are you talking about before the election?

Answer: (Dr. Kissinger) They'll make one big push in MR 1
I would say in the next week or so--they definitely have one good
punch left in them.

Question: What about the Firestone thing?

Answer: (Dr. Kissinger) I found out about that when I read it in
the newspaper. This war has developed into two sides battling
for credibility.

Question: Could you say more on timing?

Answer: (Dr. Kissinger) I'm saying that on October 15, they will
have to decide whether they want to settle before the election.

Question: What is the latest date they can decide?

Answer: (Dr. Kissinger) 1 October.

Question: Do you mean the actual decision can be made on 1 October?

Answer: (Dr. Kissinger) No, the decision will have to be made
by 15th September.

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**Question:** Why should they negotiate before the election.

**Answer:** They will not wait if McGovern is too far behind. It also depends on where they will be on January 15. They may be so weak that even if McGovern is elected, they wouldn't be able to take advantage of it.

**Question:** Is there anything they could do, that would make us stop the bombing?

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) One thing we will not do is to make any more concessions to show goodwill. In 1968 we agreed to stop if they would talk to the South Vietnamese government. They have not. If we pulled out 100,000 men, they would do this. If we did this, they would do that. If this, then that, except none of the "thats" ever took place. What we will not do is pay in advance. We want to settle everything all at one time.

**Question:** But don't the troops keep coming out anyway?

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) Well, people keep talking about these average numbers of troops coming out per month. This obviously has to go down as the number of troops in country goes down. At one time there were as many as 20,000 that came out in a month--that obviously cannot continue forever. As you get down into the lower figures, you get a higher percentage of those troops in country leaving.

**Question:** Henry, if you look back to Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger the first month following the inauguration, it was very evident that there was a high expectation that the war would long since be behind you. Where was the basic miscalculation? What went wrong?

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) I don't fully agree with your question, but I must confess that we had hoped things would move faster. We thought we could set up the political framework with the Soviets and the Chinese faster than we did. With the Chinese, for instance, it took a good deal of time to find a third party agreeable to both sides to act as an intermediary.

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But also I thought the other side would recognize that U.S. vested interests were such that they could not demand an unconditional surrender. They are asking us to do what they cannot do for themselves. I never thought that they could be quite that arrogant. I used to think they were fairly clever, but now I find them rather mediocre.

For instance, if you look back over our proposals for the last few years, I think any fair analysis would show that they would be better off from their point of view to have taken our offer. [Kissinger goes over the last three proposals to demonstrate how they would have been better off.]

We have tried to create an atmosphere where we could gracefully bow out. They never left this alternative open to us. Furthermore, if you look at the "dove" platform of the Democratic Party in 1968 you will find that there is not a plank in there that we have not far exceeded. It is forgotten today that it was Gene McCarthy, Teddy Kennedy, and I don't know where George McGovern stood, but I have seen that the "doves" of the Democratic Party were not advocating the bombing of the North so that their greater energy could produce constructive negotiations. These negotiations would result in the unconditional withdrawal of all American troops, plus the imposition of a Communist government in South Vietnam. This would accomplish an end to the war by allying ourselves with our enemy. This in fact is the totally rigid condition which the Communists now demand of us. If we want to play politics with the war and make a show of it we could have rigged things so that our hand would not be seen until after the election. So the President is accused on the one hand of just being a practical politician while on the other side they are accusing him of being a war monger. But he isn't a war monger. The only thing we will not do is to rig the thing in such a way that it results in a Communist government in South Vietnam. If they can propose anything that resembles a political solution, we will agree not to do what we did in 1963--that is go back in. That they have a right to ask.

Another thing is that we overestimated the possibility of serious talks. Look at the paper I wrote in 1968 which at that time was praised by every current dove. It set out a two-part proposal. Let's get out militarily and let the political problems evolve.

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What does that mean? If they had been willing to accept that, the war would have been settled in 1969, 70 or 71. We were even willing to accept political deals which would shape the political regime in Saigon. If you look at point two of the two-part elaboration, I can't believe that even those of you who thought the war would end would respect me very much if I came here to explain to you the great deal we had accepted from Le Duc Tho by signing the demand that the head of the Army, the police force and the head of government were all shedded by the United States while the war was still going on without a ceasefire just as an entrance card into negotiations.

**Question:** So you miscalculated the North Vietnamese willingness to negotiate.

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) We assumed that there would be some element of rationality. Another thing that we miscalculated was that there is no floor to be domestic political dissent. After it was demonstrated that we had done everything any rational person could ask, we expected we could rally the American people and say this is it, we have done everything we could. But once we reached an impasse the American people would ask us three or four months later to make another proposal giving more. But I am not giving up, I am going to continue to try to reach an agreement.

**Question:** The other factors that you mentioned were that it took longer to set up the relationships with the Chinese and the Russians. You said it took longer to enlist their acquiescence than you had thought. Why was this?

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) Well it is just a damn tough problem. Nobody has any idea just technically how difficult it is to set up channels of communications with a country like China that we have not talked to in 25 years. We were dancing around in such a way that every message that was passed, every word had a double meaning. We had to develop a third party that read both our mail. That just takes a long time. By any other criteria, on the other hand, the advances we have made in our relationships with the Soviets and the Chinese has been enormously rapid.

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It took us awhile to turn the approach of our relationships around to
realize that serious people have different interest from the approach
that one side are a bunch of lying murderer and the other paragons
of virtue.

**Question:** More about dikes. Has it always been totally clear that it was not our policy to bomb the dikes. I listened intently while you told us that it was not in our interest and that we have no reason to bomb the dikes. I find myself wondering though, I can see why now, today, but it always puzzled me somehow that in a long war like this one, a terribly dirty and terribly tough one, why has this never been considered? Haven't we ever gone to these guys and said that if you don't start making sense we are going to hit the dikes.

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) We have not been bombing for the first three and two-thirds years of this Administration. We only bombed sporadically as a warning that things may be getting out of hand. We only started bombing when it became absolutely clear that we exhausted all other channels. We had set up great private channels. This brings up one of the more curious parts of the political/domestic debate. Think of how difficult it would be to execute an idea like having Thieu resign one month before elections. We sent a delegation to South Vietnam to look into it. We then presented the idea to the North Vietnamese and they immediately started a government of national concord in South Vietnam. Now if we can set up a relationship with the Chinese, why can't we do it with the North? If Chou had greeted me the first time I came to Peking with a set of demands that said you must, must, must do the following, you must take your troops out of here, you must remove this man from government, what could I have done. The problem may be that we have a total unwillingness to face the fact that maybe we are dealing here with a bunch of fanatics who think that little Southeast Asia is the center of the universe.

In regard to the dikes it has never been a moot issue in this Administration.

**Question:** Was there ever a time when it was thought of possibly . . .

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) I don't know what went on in the Johnson
Administration.

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**Question:** You mentioned that there was no floor to the domestic debate. What about the present Congressional move?

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) I asked myself this. What can a Congressman think he could achieve, what is the purpose of all this. There is after all a Presidential candidate whose policies make all these resolutions irrelevant, if he is elected. McGovern already has the cross to bear of a national debate which he started after we stopped negotiating by coming up with a proposal which runs counter to the fact the four month withdrawal proposal is something we have already offered. In regard to the legislation, how can North Vietnam refuse the idea of stopping everything for four months and then going back in. We want a long period to stabilize the area.

**Question:** How do you see a ceasefire? I mean, how will it come about? What will it look like?

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) We have made many studies on this. I think we have to get areas of domestic control.

**Question:** How do you draw the line?

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) Now with the offensive of course it is much easier.

**Question:** Would they be allowed corridors down to their areas of dominant control?

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) That would have to be worked out. You must allow them the capability to resupply. I do feel however that these problems can be worked out, but it will take some time.

**Question:** How do you deal with the North Vietnamese Government? Is there a question in the politburo whether there is a unwillingness to accept responsibility for the negotiations?

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) It is clear that no one man has control. There are twelve men, now old, who have trouble agreeing. The power is probably centered in three or four of which Le Duc Tho has to be one.

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I do have to say that no matter what happens they would have been off had they taken any of our proposals. At any point along the negotiation they would have been better off. They have lost a million men and for what, they are worse off now than they were before.

**Question:** Is that figure of one million accurate?

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) Well, it has to be close. The estimates two years ago were 600,000. About two-thirds of the troops in the last offensive became casualties, that is either killed or wounded. If their upcoming offensive is successful, it may have an unravelling effect on the South Vietnamese. But even if they win, they may not be strong enough to take advantage of it.

**Question:** You said once in China that the next trip would be made by a senior State Department official. But then on the next trip you showed up.

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) I like Chinese food [laughter]. Why does the send me? These are questions of perogative. The President knows that I better than anyone else have an understanding of his foreign policy. Therefore, on trips that require this basic understanding, he obviously feels more comfortable with me.

**Question:** What are your plans after the election?

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) I have none.

**Question:** How are you taking the beating?

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) Well, I just had two weeks off in San Clemente where I was able to relax.

**Question:** What about the Middle East?

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) One problem here is that when you try to analyze a government's moves you always must assume that there is a long-term plan. I am not sure that premise holds up here. But I see three

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possibilities. First, that the Egyptians are scaring the Russians into
giving them more. Second, they may be getting rid of the Russians
to turn to us for political support. Third, they may be doing this just
to make it easier to start a war and then the Soviets would have to come
back. I would say it is somewhere between one and two. Outsiders as
a general rule are not welcome in underdeveloped countries and the
Russians are not noted for their tact. What they have done to Russia
itself they may not thoroughly understand.

**Question:** Is there any evidence that they are really getting to the heart of the Egyptian defense force?

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) I don't know. It seems to me that they are getting rid of the Russian forces that parallel their own, but not those which have no Egyptian substitute.

**Question:** Are the Soviets cool about the situation?

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) They are smart but not cool. They have impressed me over the last three months with their reaction to the mining in Vietnam and to the Mid-East crisis.

**Question:** Have you ever found who stole the Anderson papers?

**Answer:** (Dr. Kissinger) I have removed myself from the investigation.

This concluded the luncheon.

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