Letters to the Editor

The Betrayal of South Vietnam

Henry Kissinger did not like television's recent portrayal of his efforts to negotiate an end to the Vietnam War (Letters to the Editor, Dec. 22). He was at emotional pain to portray himself as completely in step with the Vietnam policy of President Nixon. Yet the serious accusation made by the TV program about Mr. Kissinger's negotiation of the 1973 Paris Peace Accords was not his up-staging Nixon, but his betrayal of South Vietnam and the 58,000 American soldiers who had died to keep that small country free.

The peace agreement negotiated and fully accepted by Mr. Kissinger in October 1972 allowed North Vietnam to keep its army in the South. This provision, not agreed to in advance by Saigon's President Thieu, provided the U.S. with a decent interval before Hanoi's conquest of South Vietnam, but no peace with honor.

Mr. Kissinger's letter overlooked this criticism of his negotiating skills. He got off lightly in television's history of his ending of the Vietnam War. The truth is more condemning of his machinations. Once, as a colleague of the late Ellsworth Bunker, American ambassador in Saigon from 1967 to 1973, I had occasion to read all of Mr. Kissinger's secret correspondence to Bunker detailing Mr. Kissinger's negotiations with Hanoi. I had a proper security clearance and the documents were given to me by the State Department. A draft manuscript of Bunker's role in Vietnam was written, including the negotiations, and given clearance for publication by the State Department.

The still secret communications prove that Mr. Kissinger decided to let Hanoi leave its divisions inside South Vietnam in early May 1971, long before the climactic October 1972 negotiating sessions that produced the basic shape of the peace accords. Mr. Kissinger took his decision just after the May Day protests when Washington was inundated with demonstrators (many of whom were unconstitutionally arrested), the White House was surrounded by school buses as a barricade against the mob and Nixon's senior staff had lost its cool.

Previously, Mr. Kissinger's secret negotiations with Hanoi had achieved only impasse. Hanoi would not budge under his blandishments. He therefore asked Ambassador Bunker to propose a new approach to the negotiations. He wanted to try out ideas with Hanoi before discussing them with South Vietnam's President Thieu. One such proposal "modified" Bunker's requirement that North Vietnamese forces leave South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia to prescribe only that the Indochinese countries discuss this topic among themselves. The U.S. would no longer insist on North Vietnamese withdrawal.

In his memoirs of 1979, Mr. Kissinger proudly wrote of his "modification" that: "We gave up the demand for mutual withdrawal ..." Misled by Mr. Kissinger's vagueness, Bunker then told President Thieu that, under Mr. Kissinger's new proposals, all foreign troops would be out of South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia after U.S. troops had withdrawn. Bunker reported to Mr. Kissinger that he had so advised Thieu, but Bunker's misunderstanding of the proposal was not corrected by Mr. Kissinger. Not until October 1972 would Bunker learn that Mr. Kissinger would not insist on North Vietnam's withdrawal from the South as part of a final peace agreement.

In 1972 Hanoi sent its entire army to invade South Vietnam. The invasion was defeated by South Vietnamese ground forces with much help from American airpower, but then all Hanoi's units stayed on in the South as permitted by Mr. Kissinger's "modification" of Bunker's plan.

On May 31, 1971, Mr. Kissinger presented his plan to the North Vietnamese. His new proposal brought movement in the negotiations for the first time. Hanoi now agreed to accept the continued presence of the Saigon government in South Vietnam. Having secured the means to kill off its Vietnamese rival after the Americans had gone home, Hanoi was willing to give Mr. Kissinger his "decent interval" before the killing would occur.

In his memoirs Mr. Kissinger claims great credit for this May 31 proposal. He claims that it put forth the essential shape of the final peace agreement. Indeed it had. Hanoi recognized it for the sell-out of South Vietnam that it was and pocketed Mr. Kissinger's concession on troops while seeking even more concessions on the political side.

Several years ago, I asked President Nixon if he had ever discussed Bunker's two-step approach to ending the war with Mr. Kissinger and did he know of Mr. Kissinger's modification of Bunker's proposal. Nixon looked puzzled and said, "No." I asked if he remembered such a proposal from Bunker. He said, "No. What difference would it have made?" When I explained, he withdrew into himself and changed the subject of our conversation.

From May 1971 until he had finalized a peace agreement with Hanoi, Mr. Kissinger never disclosed to Thieu the implications of the May 1971 "modification" of Bunker's proposal. Not until he read Mr. Kissinger's peace agreement in October 1972 did Thieu know that the U.S. had aborted South Vietnam's chances of long-term survival. The origin of Mr. Kissinger's disdain for Thieu and the South Vietnamese lay in his understanding of the Hanoi Communists as the more authentic and important Vietnamese leaders. Mr. Kissinger had not believed in Nixon's policy of Vietnamization, which assumed that South Vietnam was viable and valuable. Also, Mr. Kissinger, far more than Nixon, wanted to negotiate a deal with Hanoi.

Mr. Kissinger went so far as to argue that the issue of separate legal statuses for North and South Vietnam was "a theological issue," which would be a red flag for Hanoi and disrupt progress toward an agreement. This disrespect for our allies had been engendered by Mr. Kissinger's mentor on Vietnamese affairs, Jean Sainteny. Sainteny, oddly enough, had been the operative sent to Vietnam in 1945 by De Gaulle to reimpose French colonial rule on the Vietnamese after the Japanese had overthrown the French administration earlier that year. Sainteny accomplished his mission through an alliance with Ho Chi Minh, supporting him against all other Vietnamese leaders. Ho was the only Vietnamese leader who would negotiate with the French for their return to Vietnam.

Sainteny and his Free French associates, therefore, created the image of Ho Chi Minh as the quintessential Vietnamese patriot and the sole Vietnamese leader worthy of respect in order to further French colonial interests.

Mr. Kissinger, blinded by this ploy of colonial intrigue, never had faith in the non-Communist Vietnamese and consigned them to a harsh destiny, one he hammered out in Paris behind their backs in October 1972.

STEPHEN B. YOUNG

Minneapolis

WALL ST. JOURNAL 1/23/96

Letters to the Editor

WALL ST. JOURNAL 1/23/96

# The Betrayal of South Vietnam

In his memoirs of 1979, Mr. Kissinger proudly wrote of his "modification" that: "We gave up the demand for mutual withdrawal... Misled by Mr. Kissinger's vagueness, Bunker then told President Thieu that, under Mr. Kissinger's new proposals, all foreign troops would be out of South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia after U.S. troops had withdrawn. Bunker reported to Mr. Kissinger that he had so advised Thieu, but Bunker's misunderstanding of the proposal was not corrected by Mr. Kissinger. Not until October 1972 would Bunker learn that Mr. Kissinger would not insist on North Vietnam's withdrawal from the South as part of a final peace agreement.

Sainteny and his Free French associates, therefore, created the image of Ho Chi Minh as the quintessential Vietnamese patriot and the sole Vietnamese' leader worthy of respect in order to further French colonial interests.

STEPHEN B. YOUNG

Minneapolis

JAN-24-1996 13:12

KISSINGER ASSOC.

212 759 0042

P.01/07

1/24/96

12:30pm

The Letters to the Editor page is of course designed to
let readers express their personal, and not the newspaper's,
opinion. But when the Wall Street Journal publishes a two-
column letter accusing a former Secretary of State of
betraying an ally and 58,000 American dead under the
headline "The Betrayal of South Vietnam", it cannot escape-
in Taking on debate a new low
its responsibilities quite so cavalierly. One wonders why a
minimum of checking was not done regarding the accuracy of
the allegations or, better yet, why I was not given an
opportunity to reply on the same page Either course would
have revealed the lies, half-truths and hallucinations of
this late hit, twenty-five years after the events in
question.

1

R-99%

212 759 0042

01-24-96 01:23PM P001 #17

JAN-24-1996 13:13

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the South Vietnamese could handle Hanoi's residual forces -

as indeed they had - and that we would assist them if Hanoi

broke its commitment against infiltration.

A Congressional

prohibition prevented this course of action. All this is

explained in detail in "White House Years" in a passage from

which Mr. Young quotes half a sentence while suppressing the

rest.

As for Mr. Young's other charges, they are too
contemptible for an extended reply.

-- A minimum of research would show that I was a strong
supporter of Vietnamization and indeed, next to Nixon, the
principal person to hold it together.

-- Jean Sainteny was known to President Nixon and me
separately. We used him to set up the first meeting with
North Vietnamese negotiators in August 1969. He had no

5

R-99%

212 759 0042

01-24-96 01:23PM P005 #17

1/24/96 12:30pm

The Letters to the Editor page is of course designed to
let readers express their personal, and not the newspaper's,
opinion. But when the Wall Street Journal publishes a two-
column letter accusing a former Secretary of State of
betraying an ally and 58,000 American dead under the
headline "The Betrayal of South Vietnam", it cannot escape
its responsibilities quite so cavalierly. One wonders why a
minimum of checking was not done regarding the accuracy of
the allegations or, better yet, why I was not given an
opportunity to reply on the same page. Either course would
have revealed the lies, half-truths and hallucinations of
this late hit, twenty-five years after the events in
question.

Failure of the Wall Street Journal to adhere to elementary standards of fairness obliges me to recycle the charge a second time. Mr. Young alleges that because I had lost my nerve and was opposed to Vietnamization, and under the influence of a Frenchman, Jean Sainteny, I agreed to the continued presence of North Vietnamese troops in the South in May 1971, that neither Ambassador Bunker nor President Thieu were aware of this until October 1972, and that I consigned South Vietnam to defeat because I considered Hanoi a more authentic government. Almost every word is a lie in this sick inversion of history.

The final set of American proposals was drafted in the fall of 1971. It was submitted to President Thieu by both Ambassador Bunker and General Haig. It was approved by President Thieu. It was made public by President Nixon on

January 25, 1972, labeled as a joint South Vietnam-U.S.
peace proposal; President Nixon explicitly stated that the
proposal had President Thieu's approval, and he was not
contradicted from Saigon. Articles 5 and 6 of the proposal
deal explicitly with the withdrawal obligations in the
language substantially adopted in the final agreement. The
proposal, either when first made secretly on May 31, 1971 or
when repeated publicly in January 1972, did not bring
movement in the negotiations but was rejected by Hanoi,
which launched an offensive. The break in the negotiations
came only after the defeat of that offensive when we
______ North Vietnamese ______ in addition to
other measures.

The reasons for the change in our position were as
follows:

3

a. The policy of Vietnamization obliged us to draw down our troops, which we did at the rate of 150,000 a year. By 1971 it was obvious that a point would soon be reached where their value as a bargaining chip had disappeared.

b. Congress was passing literally scores of resolutions seeking to speed up the withdrawal and legislating a prohibition against any terms other than the release of prisoners.

c. Unanimous media pressure in that direction was even greater.

For all these reasons, Nixon approved a modification of our previous proposal for mutual withdrawal to a prohibition against new infiltration. This we thought would cause the forces remaining in the South to atrophy. We believed that

impact on the negotiations afterwards and was never at any
point consulted with the rest of this.

-- Mr. Young tells a weird story of some unanswered
cable from Ambassador Bunker. I do not know what he is
talking about, but I do know that there is no public servant
I respected, indeed revered, more than Ambassador Bunker.
He and I worked in the closest harmony and trust at all
times. Mr. Young writes that he told this tale to Nixon who
"withdrew into himself" on learning it. I wish I could have
avoided Mr. Young this easily.

The Nixon administration had the agonizing task of
extricating half a million Americans from Vietnam while
giving the people who had relied on our predecessor's
promises an opportunity to determine their fate. It was a
tough challenge which I will believe to my dying day we had

6

managed, but for the collapse of our ________ position
due to Watergate. South Vietnam fell not to the battered
remnants of Hanoi's force which had been left behind in
1972, but because of the massive new infiltrations which we
were prohibited by Congress from resisting.

JAN-24-96 16:31 FROM: ARNOLD & PORTER 9 FLR

ID:

BY TELECOPY

To: Henry A. Kissinger

From: William D. Rogers

Re: Wall Street Journal letter

Date: January 24, 1996

I have read the Stephen B. Young letter. Beyond
the name calling -- "betrayal", "disrespect for our
allies", "consigned them to a harsh destiny, one he
hammered out in Paris behind their backs" -- it doesn't
say very much that I found terribly startling. Once
again, you are attacked for going too far in your effort
to bring peace to Vietnam and stop the killing. A
low-key response would be in order.

1. It would be helpful to explain the provisions of the accord with respect to the North Vietnamese forces, particularly the commitment that they would remain in place and that there would be no replacements.

2. Likewise, I would try to put in proper context Young's assertion -- in effect -- that Bunker was mislead in 1971, cabled you that he had told Thieu that the North Vietnamese forces would be out "after" -- after? when? -- US forces "had been withdrawn" and -- implied by Young -- was allowed to continue putting forth that position right up to October of 1972.

3. Young refers to "Bunker's two-step approach to ending the war." Was there a real blueprint from Bunker for a solution?

4. Interestingly, Young says nothing about Bunker's reaction when, he says, Bunker "learned" in October of 1972 of the terms of the Paris agreement. Can something be said about this?

5. I think you should correct the record with respect to Young's assertion that you disagreed with Nixon on Vietnamization and your respective desires to negotiate a solution.

6. And, of course, it would certainly be appropriate to say once again that the agreements did indeed reflect a belief that "South Vietnam was viable and valuable" -- Young's language -- if the United

JAN-24-1996 16:28

P.02

JAN-24-1996 18:16

KISSINGER ASSOC.

212 759 0042

January 24, 1996

The Editor
Wall Street Journal
200 Liberty Street
New York, NY 10281

To the editor:

As a participant in the U.S. negotiations on Vietnam during the
Nixon Administration, I am completely befuddled by the version of events
in Stephen B. Young's letter published January 23.

In particular, the idea that the Nixon-Kissinger policy on Vietnam
over four years was foisted on an absent-minded President by his devious
national security advisor is one of the wackier ideas in recent circulation --
even more a cartoon version of history than the Turner Television
broadcast that Mr. Young was commenting upon. Nixon's reputation does
not gain by having defenders like this.

Every negotiating trip by Kissinger to Paris followed the same
procedure -- intensive private conversations with the President
beforehand in the Oval Office and by phone; strategy memoranda
submitted to the President, which came back peppered with detailed
Nixon marginal comments and instructions; detailed reports to the
President afterwards. This procedure was most emphatically followed in

JAN-24-1996 18:16

KISSINGER ASSOC.

212 759 0042 P.02/04 (Y)

the case of the May 31, 1971, Paris meeting that Mr. Young writes about.

On the issue of whether North Vietnamese troops could remain in
the South, U.S. policy evolved in a manner that is no longer any secret.
Nixon formally proposed a ceasefire-in-place in a televised speech of
October 7, 1970 -- with President Nguyen Van Thieu's concurrence. A
more elaborated U.S. proposal was presented to the North Vietnamese in
the secret talks on May 31, 1971, including a cease-fire-in-place, U.S.
withdrawal, and return of prisoners, leaving the political issues to be
negotiated subsequently by the North and South Vietnamese. It was, as
Nixon stressed to Kissinger beforehand, our "final offer" -- and indeed it is
essentially the formula that Hanoi accepted a year and a half later. Amb.
Ellsworth Bunker in Saigon knew all the details of the proposal; he briefed
Thieu in general terms (and correctly) that it was along the lines of the
October 7, 1970, ceasefire proposal.
The proposal was made
public by President Nixon in January 25, 1972

When in October 1972 Hanoi dropped all its political demands for
dismantling the South Vietnamese government, the joint U.S.-South
Vietnamese proposals on the table became the basis of the Paris
Agreement. Thieu's painful problem at that point was not so much in the
terms or in the negotiating tactics but in the stark fact that paper

JAN-24-1996 18:17

KISSINGER ASSOC.

212 759 0042

proposals (which he may well have thought would never be accepted)
were about to become reality.

The Paris Agreement essentially froze the status quo on the ground — a military balance that had been much improved during 1972 by U.S. mining and bombing of North Vietnam and by the South Vietnamese army's performance. The Agreement included a ban on infiltration of arms or personnel to reinforce North Vietnamese forces in the South, as well as a ban on use of Laotian or Cambodian territory for such purposes. The U.S. calculation was that North Vietnamese infiltration after the Paris Agreement could be blocked or deterred by U.S. bombing if necessary, while the U.S. was permitted to continue to arm and train the South Vietnamese. (It was a calculation, by the way, much more plausible than in the case of the Dayton Accords on Bosnia.) But soon, Watergate and the Democratic Congress removed these instruments from our hands, and the balance of forces then tilted inexorably against South Vietnamese.

When Mr. Young accosted President Nixon in retirement 20 years later with his mysterious question about "Bunker's two-step approach to ending the war," no wonder he was met by a glassy stare. The reference and the description would have been unrecognizable to any of us.

1/25/96 10:30am

The Letters to the Editor page is of course designed to
let readers express their personal, and not the newspaper's,
opinion. But when the Wall Street Journal publishes a
letter extending for two columns accusing a former Secretary
of State of betraying an ally and 58,000 American dead under
the headline "The Betrayal of South Vietnam", it cooperates
in taking debate to a new low.

A minimum of checking regarding the accuracy of the
name-calling or, better yet, an opportunity for me to reply
on the same page would have revealed the misinterpretations,
half-truths and hallucinations permeating this late hit,
twenty-five years after the events in question.

Mr. Young alleges that because I had lost my nerve, was
opposed to Vietnamization, considered Hanoi a more authentic
government, and was under the influence of a French
acquaintance, Jean Sainteny, I agreed to the continued
presence of North Vietnamese troops in the South in May
1971. According to Mr. Young, neither Ambassador Bunker nor
President Thieu were aware of this modification of our
previous position until October 1972. Every assertion in
this sick inversion of history is untrue.

The final set of American proposals was drafted in the
fall of 1971. It was submitted to President Thieu by both
Ambassador Bunker and General Haig. It was approved by
President Thieu. It was made public by President Nixon on
January 25, 1972, in a document headed Joint South Vietnam-
U.S. Peace Proposal. President Nixon explicitly stated that

(Y)

the proposal had President Thieu's approval, and he was not
contradicted from Saigon. Articles 5 and 6 of that proposal
deal explicitly with the withdrawal obligations in the
language substantially adopted in the final agreement.

Neither Bunker nor Thieu could possibly have been surprised.

The proposal, misrepresented by Young, finessed the question
of North Vietnamese presence in South Vietnam by prohibiting
any further infiltration of men and equipment after a cease-
fire. Contrary to Young's assertion, it did not, either when
first made secretly on May 31, 1971 or repeated publicly in
January 1972, bring movement in the negotiations. On the
contrary, it was rejected by Hanoi, which launched an
offensive in April 1972. The break in the negotiations came
only after the defeat of that offensive when we mined North
Vietnamese ports and resumed bombing North Vietnam.

3

The reasons for the new American position were as
follows:

a. Nixon had announced the policy of Vietnamization which obliged us to draw down our troops. We did so at the rate of 150,000 a year. By 1971 it was obvious that a point would soon be reached where the value of our residual force as a bargaining chip for the negotiations had disappeared.

b. Congress was passing literally scores of resolutions seeking to speed up the withdrawal even further and legislating a prohibition against any terms other than the release of prisoners. By 1972 the Democratic Presidential candidate ran on the platform of unilateral withdrawal.

For all these reasons, Nixon actively participated in changing our previous proposal for mutual withdrawal to a prohibition against new infiltration of men and equipment. We believed that the South Vietnamese could handle Hanoi's residual forces - as indeed they had - and that we would assist them if Hanoi broke its commitment against infiltration and reinforcement. Over time the North Vietnamese forces remaining in the South [would] atrophy. As it turned out, Congress passed a law preventing enforcement of the agreement. All this is explained in detail in "White House Years" on p. 1018. Mr. Young quotes *half* a sentence from that passage while suppressing the rest.

[Y]

[Y]

-- A minimum of research would show that I was a strong
supporter of Vietnamization and indeed, next to Nixon, the
principal person holding it together.

-- Jean Sainteny was known to President Nixon and me
separately. We used him to set up the first meeting with
North Vietnamese negotiators in August 1969. He had no
impact on the negotiations and was never at any point
consulted about substance.

6

times. Mr. Bunker knew my thinking in detail.

Significantly, Mr. Young waited until Bunker was dead before
making these charges. Mr. Young writes that he told his
tale to Nixon who "withdrew into himself" on learning it. I
can only say that I wish I could have avoided Mr. Young so
easily.

The Nixon administration inherited the agonizing task
of extricating half a million Americans from Vietnam while
seeking to give the people who had relied on our
predecessor's promises an opportunity to determine their
fate. It was a heartbreaking challenge which I will believe
to my dying day we had met until the collapse of our
domestic position due to Watergate deprived us of both
economic aid for South Vietnam and military reprisals
against Saigon. South Vietnam fell not to the battered

7

01/25/96 THU 12:13 FAX 202 887 5222

NIXON CENTER

A FORUM FOR
AMERICAN INTERESTS

January 25, 1996

To the editor:

In particular, the idea that the Nixon-Kissinger policy on Vietnam over four years was foisted on an absent-minded President by his devious national security advisor is one of the wackier ideas in recent circulation -- even more cartoonish a version of history than the Turner Television broadcast that Mr. Young was commenting upon. Nixon's reputation does not gain by having defenders like this.

Every negotiating trip by Kissinger to Paris followed the same procedure -- intensive private conversations with the President beforehand in the Oval Office and by phone; strategy memoranda submitted to the President, which came back peppered with detailed Nixon marginal comments and instructions; detailed reports to the President afterwards. This procedure was most emphatically followed in the case of the May 31, 1971, Paris meeting that Mr. Young is so exercised about.

On the issue of whether North Vietnamese troops could remain in the South, U.S. policy evolved in a manner that is no secret now and was not a secret to the South Vietnamese. Nixon formally proposed a ceasefire-in-place in a televised speech of October 7, 1970 -- with South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu's concurrence. A more elaborated U.S. proposal was presented to the North Vietnamese in the secret talks on May 31, 1971, including a ceasefire-in-place, U.S. withdrawal, and return of prisoners, leaving the political issues to be negotiated subsequently by the North and South Vietnamese. Amb. Ellsworth Bunker in Saigon, who knew all the details, briefed Thieu in general terms (and correctly) that it was along the lines of the October 7, 1970, proposal. On January 25, 1972, President Nixon made the May 31

NIXON CENTER FOR PEACE AND FREEDOM

1620 EYE STREET, N.W., SUITE 900 ★ WASHINGTON, D.C. 20006
(202) 887-1000 ★ (202) 887-5222 FAX

HONORARY CHAIRMAN
WALTER H. ANNENBERG

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

FOUNDING CHAIRMAN
GEORGE L. ARGYROS

VICE CHAIRS
TRICIA NIXON COX
JULIE NIXON EISENHOWER

DWAYNE O. ANDREAS
ROBERT F. ELLSWORTH
MAURICE R. GREENBERG
HENRY A. KISSINGER
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JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN
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ADVISORY COUNCIL

CHAIRMAN
HENRY A. KISSINGER

JONATHAN AITKEN
GRAHAM ALLISON
ROBERT W. BLACKWILL
EDWARD F. COX
ROBERT W. DEAN
ALTON FRYE
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN
LEE H. HAMILTON
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON
JOSEF JOFFE
CHALMERS JOHNSON
NANCY A. LIEBERMAN
ROBERT C. McFARLANE
PETER R. ROSENBLATT
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BRENT SCOWCROFT

PRESIDENT
DIMITRI K. SIMES

SENIOR STAFF
GEOFFREY KEMP
PETER W. RODMAN
PAUL J. SAUNDERS

JAN-25-1996 12:14

202 887 5222

97%

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NIAUN CENTER

UUJ

2

proposal public in another televised speech, and made a revised offer based on it -- all with Thieu's explicit concurrence.

When in October 1972 Hanoi dropped all its political demands for dismantling the South Vietnamese government, the joint U.S.-South Vietnamese proposals on the table became the basis of the Paris Agreement. Thieu's fundamental unease at that point lay not so much in the terms or the negotiating tactics as in the stark fact that paper proposals for compromise which he had endorsed (which he may well have thought would never be accepted) were about to become reality.

The Paris Agreement of January 1973 essentially froze the status quo on the ground -- a military balance that had been much improved during 1972 by U.S. mining and bombing of North Vietnam and by the South Vietnamese army's performance. The Agreement included a ban on infiltration of arms or personnel to reinforce North Vietnamese troops in the South, as well as a ban on the use of Laotian or Cambodian territory for that purpose. The U.S. calculation was that illegal North Vietnamese resupply in the South after the Paris Agreement could be blocked or deterred by U.S. bombing if necessary, while the U.S. was permitted to continue to arm and train the South Vietnamese. But soon, Watergate and the Democratic Congress removed these instruments from our hands, and the balance of forces then tilted inexorably against the South Vietnamese.

The final outcome of 1975 was never foreordained -- least of all in the negotiating positions that the U.S. (and South Vietnam) had been putting forward themselves in 1970-72.

Peter W. Rodman
Washington, D.C.

JAN-25-1996 12:14

202 887 5222

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P.03

Letters to the Editor

In Defense of Henry Kissinger

I was greatly shocked at the portrayal of Dr. Henry Kissinger as a devious man ready to sell out the South Vietnamese to the Communist North Vietnamese in a Jan. 23 Letter to the Editor by Stephen Young.

At that time I was the U.S. military attache in Paris, having recently come from service in Vietnam. I was with Dr. Kissinger when he made the first contact with the North Vietnamese in Paris. I subsequently smuggled Dr. Kissinger into Paris 15 times to meet with the North Vietnamese. I myself met with them some 50 times at his instruction over two years.

From all of my conversations with Dr. Kissinger and from all of the instructions I received from him during that period, it was clear to me that he was seeking an honorable solution that would guarantee the continued existence of a free and independent South Vietnam. Many times he said to me, "We must find an honorable solution before the Congress gives the farm away." Eventually Congress did do that when it refused further aid to South Vietnam. Then the South Vietnamese army that had held An Loc for 72 days, despite 10,000 incoming rounds of artillery a day, collapsed. (No U.S. troops have ever been subjected to that kind of bombardment in any war we have fought.)

One day during the secret talks in Paris one of the North Vietnamese negotiators said, "I don't know why we are negotiating anything with you. I have just spent five hours with Senator McGovern. Your political opposition will force you to give us what we want." Dr. Kissinger replied sharply: "You are the most repressive and the most tyrannical nation on the face of this planet. You know nothing about an opposition, because you have always brutally crushed any that raised its head in your own country. Leave the discussion of an opposition to us who tolerate one. You know nothing about this matter."

The North Vietnamese giggled with embarrassment and never made any similar reference again.

At no time did I ever have any sign that Dr. Kissinger was preparing to sell out President Thieu or South Vietnam. If I had I would have resigned and retired from the Army.

I am outraged by this attempt to portray Dr. Kissinger as a devious defeatist.

VERNON A. WALTERS
Ambassador

Lt. General, U.S. Army (Ret.)
Palm Beach, Fla.

I am disturbed by Mr. Young's polemic against Dr. Kissinger. As John Paul Vann's successor in Military Region III in 1969 and 1970 and later as deputy chief of mission under Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker in 1972-1973, I was deeply involved in U.S./Vietnamese relations during the period to which Mr. Young alludes. I worked closely with Dr. Kissinger and Gen. Haig during their frequent visits and was privy to—indeed drafted some of—the "secret correspondence" between Ambassador Bunker and the White House.

Relations between Dr. Kissinger and Bunker were close and friendly; I never heard Bunker say that he had been lured by Dr. Kissinger into misleading Thieu regarding the very important issue of U.S. policy on the withdrawal of North Vietnamese forces from South Vietnam. All of us in Saigon, including the South Vietnamese leadership, knew that leaving the issue of the North Vietnamese presence to the Indo-Chinese countries meant that South Vietnam would have to cope with dangerous North Vietnamese "leopard spots"; but we Americans agreed with the pungent statement of either Bunker or Kissinger that one could not do with a pencil what we had failed to do with more than a million armed men.

It is very misleading for Mr. Young to state that Dr. Kissinger did not believe in "Nixon's policy of Vietnamization." None of us in Saigon—Bunker, Abrams, Weyand or I ever saw any sign of that, and we agreed with the White House that this policy was rational, moral and appropriate and did our damnedest to make it work.

It is absurd to affirm that it was Dr. Kissinger's deviousness that brought about the "betrayal of South Vietnam." It was North Vietnamese non-compliance with the Paris Agreement and the refusal of the U.S. Congress to permit retaliatory action or to provide the promised support that led to the defeat of our ally.

CHARLES S. WHITEHOUSE
Marshall, Va.

* * *

DRAFT LETTER FROM GENERAL WALTERS

To The Editor of <u>The Wall Street Journal</u>:

Dear Sir:

I was greatly shocked at the portrayal of Dr. Kissinger
as a devious man ready to sell out South Vietnam to the
Vietnamese Communists in a recent letter to you by Mr.

Stephen Young. I was with Dr. Kissinger when he made the
initial contact with the North Vietnamese in Paris. I was
at that time the US Military Attaché there, having recently
come from Vietnam myself. I subsequently smuggled Dr.

Kissinger into Paris fifteen times to meet with the North
Vietnamese, and I myself must have met with them some fifty
times in all. In all my conversations with Dr. Kissinger
and in all the instructions which he sent to me, it was
clear that he was seeking an honorable solution that would
guarantee the continued existence of a free and non-
Communist South Vietnam.

Many times when he arrived in Paris he would say to me,

"We must reach an honorable solution before Congress gives
the farm away." Eventually Congress did, by voting no more
aid to South Vietnam. At that point the South Vietnamese
army, that had held the city of An Loc for 72 days against
10,000 rounds of artillery incoming a day, (no American
units have ever been subject to such a shelling in any war)
collapsed. One day a North Vietnamese negotiator said to
Dr. Kissinger, "I do not know why I am negotiating anything
with you. I spent five hours yesterday with Senator
McGovern in Paris, and your political opposition will force
you to give us what we want." Dr. Kissinger replied, "You
are the representative of one of the most tyrannical regimes
on this planet. You have always crushed any sign of
opposition in your own country. Do not speak of
opposition, about which you know nothing. Leave that to

those of us who do tolerate an opposition." The Vietnamese
giggled with embarrassment.

At no time did I have any sign - either spoken or
written - from Dr. Kissinger that he was preparing to sell
out President Thieu and the Vietnamese government. If I had
ever noticed that, I would have resigned. I am outraged by
this attempt to portray Dr. Kissinger as a devious defeatist
when he was trying desperately to save South Vietnam.

Faithfully,

Vernon Walters

01/26/1996 17:29

15403641277

CHARLES WHITEHOUSE

CHARLES S. WHITEHOUSE
RT. 2, BOX 176
MARSHALL, VA 22115

I am disturbed by Stephen Young's polemic against Dr. Kissinger which appeared in the Journal on January 23rd. As John Paul Vann's successor in Military Region III in 1969 and 1970 and later as Deputy Chief of Mission under Ambassador Bunker in 1972 - 1973 I was deeply involved in US/Vietnamese relations during the period to which Stephen Young alludes. I worked closely with Dr. Kissinger and General Haig during their frequent visits and was privy to, indeed drafted some of, the "secret correspondence" between Ambassador Bunker and the White House.

I believe that there are two points which I should clarify.

1) Relations Between Kissinger and Bunker were close and friendly and I never heard Bunker say that he had been lured by Kissinger into misleading Thieu with regard to the very important issue of U.S. policy on the withdrawal of North Vietnamese forces from South Vietnam. All of us in Saigon, including the South Vietnamese leadership, knew that leaving the issue of the North Vietnamese presence to the Indo Chinese countries meant that South Vietnam would have to cope with dangerous North Vietnamese "leopard spots", but we Americans, agreed with the pungent statement of either Bunker or Kissinger that one could not do with a pencil what we had failed to do with over a million armed men.

2) It is very misleading for Mr. Young to state that Kissinger did not believe in "Nixon's policy of Vietnamization". None of us in Saigon; Bunker, Abrams, Weyand or I ever saw any sign of that and we agreed with the White House that this policy was rational, moral and appropriate and did our damndest to make it work.

It is absurd to affirm that it was Dr. Kissinger's deviousness that brought about the "betrayal of South Vietnam". It was North Vietnamese non-compliance with the Paris Agreement and the refusal of the U.S. Congress to permit retaliatory action or to provide the promised support which led to the defeat of our ally.

Charles S. Whitehouse

JAN-26-1996 17:26

15403641277

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