Richard Nixon, 1972

May 8 [147]

147 Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia. May 8, 1972

Good evening:

Five weeks ago, on Easter weekend, the Communist armies of North Vietnam launched a massive invasion of South Vietnam, an invasion that was made possible by tanks, artillery, and other advanced offensive weapons supplied to Hanoi by the Soviet Union and other Communist nations.

The South Vietnamese have fought bravely to repel this brutal assault. Casualties on both sides have been very high. Most tragically, there have been over 20,000 civilian casualties, including women and children, in the cities which the North Vietnamese have shelled in wanton disregard of human life.

As I announced in my report to the Nation 12 days ago, the role of the United States in resisting this invasion has been limited to air and naval strikes on military targets in North and South Vietnam. As I also pointed out in that report, we have responded to North Vietnam's massive military offensive by undertaking wide-ranging new peace efforts aimed at ending the war through negotiation.

On April 20, I sent Dr. Kissinger to Moscow for 4 days of meetings with General Secretary Brezhnev and other Soviet leaders. I instructed him to emphasize our desire for a rapid solution to the war and our willingness to look at all possible approaches. At that time, the Soviet leaders showed an interest in bringing the war to an end on a basis just to both sides. They urged resumption of negotiations in Paris, and they indicated they would use their constructive influence.

I authorized Dr. Kissinger to meet privately with the top North Vietnamese

negotiator, Le Duc Tho, on Tuesday, May 2, in Paris. Ambassador Porter, as you know, resumed the public peace negotiations in Paris on April 27 and again on May 4. At those meetings, both public and private, all we heard from the enemy was bombastic rhetoric and a replaying of their demands for surrender. For example, at the May 2 secret meeting, I authorized Dr. Kissinger to talk about every conceivable avenue toward peace. The North Vietnamese flatly refused to consider any of these approaches. They refused to offer any new approach of their own. Instead, they simply read verbatim their previous public demands.

Here is what over 3 years of public and private negotiations with Hanoi has come down to: The United States, with the full concurrence of our South Vietnamese allies, has offered the maximum of what any President of the United States could offer.

We have offered a deescalation of the fighting. We have offered a cease-fire with a deadline for withdrawal of all American forces. We have offered new elections which would be internationally supervised with the Communists participating both in the supervisory body and in the elections themselves.

President Thieu has offered to resign one month before the elections. We have offered an exchange of prisoners of war in a ratio of 10 North Vietnamese prisoners for every one American prisoner that they release. And North Vietnam has met each of these offers with insolence and insult. They have flatly and arrogantly refused to negotiate an end to the war and

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Public Papers of the Presidents

bring peace. Their answer to every peace
offer we have made has been to escalate
the war.

In the 2 weeks alone since I offered to resume negotiations, Hanoi has launched three new military offensives in South Vietnam. In those 2 weeks the risk that a Communist government may be imposed on the 17 million people of South Vietnam has increased, and the Communist offensive has now reached the point that it gravely threatens the lives of 60,000 American troops who are still in Vietnam.

There are only two issues left for us in
this war. First, in the face of a massive
invasion, do we stand by, jeopardize the
lives of 60,000 Americans, and leave the
South Vietnamese to a long night of ter-
ror? This will not happen. We shall do
whatever is required to safeguard Ameri-
can lives and American honor.

Second, in the face of complete intransigence at the conference table do we join with our enemy to install a Communist government in South Vietnam? This, too, will not happen. We will not cross the line from generosity to treachery.

We now have a clear, hard choice
among three courses of action: Immedi-
ate withdrawal of all American forces,
continued attempts at negotiation, or de-
cisive military action to end the war.

I know that many Americans favor the first course of action, immediate withdrawal. They believe the way to end the war is for the United States to get out, and to remove the threat to our remaining forces by simply withdrawing them.

From a political standpoint, this would
be a very easy choice for me to accept.
After all, I did not send over one-half
million Americans to Vietnam. I have
brought 500,000 men home from Viet-

nam since I took office. But, abandoning
our commitment in Vietnam here and
now would mean turning 17 million South
Vietnamese over to Communist tyranny
and terror. It would mean leaving hun-
dreds of American prisoners in Com-
munist hands with no bargaining leverage
to get them released.

An American defeat in Vietnam would
encourage this kind of aggression all over
the world, aggression in which smaller
nations armed by their major allies, could
be tempted to attack neighboring nations
at will in the Mideast, in Europe, and
other areas. World peace would be in
grave jeopardy.

The second course of action is to keep
on trying to negotiate a settlement. Now
this is the course we have preferred from
the beginning and we shall continue to
pursue it. We want to negotiate, but we
have made every reasonable offer and
tried every possible path for ending this
war at the conference table.

The problem is, as you all know, it
takes two to negotiate and now, as
throughout the past 4 years, the North
Vietnamese arrogantly refuse to negotiate
anything but an imposition, an ultimatum
that the United States impose a Commu-
nist regime on 17 million people in South
Vietnam who do not want a Communist
government.

It is plain then that what appears to be
a choice among three courses of action for
the United States is really no choice at all.
The killing in this tragic war must stop.
By simply getting out, we would only
worsen the bloodshed. By relying solely on
negotiations, we would give an intrans-
igent enemy the time he needs to press his
aggression on the battlefield.

There is only one way to stop the killing.

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Richard Nixon, 1972

May 8 [147]

That is to keep the weapons of war out of
the hands of the international outlaws of
North Vietnam.

Throughout the war in Vietnam, the United States has exercised a degree of restraint unprecedented in the annals of war. That was our responsibility as a great Nation, a Nation which is interested— and we can be proud of this as Americans—as America has always been, in peace not conquest.

However, when the enemy abandons all restraint, throws its whole army into battle in the territory of its neighbor, refuses to negotiate, we simply face a new situation.

In these circumstances, with 60,000 Americans threatened, any President who failed to act decisively would have betrayed the trust of his country and betrayed the cause of world peace.

I therefore concluded that Hanoi must be denied the weapons and supplies it needs to continue the aggression. In full coordination with the Republic of Vietnam, I have ordered the following measures which are being implemented as I am speaking to you.

All entrances to North Vietnamese ports will be mined to prevent access to these ports and North Vietnamese naval operations from these ports. United States forces have been directed to take appropriate measures within the internal and claimed territorial waters of North Vietnam to interdict the delivery of any supplies. Rail and all other communications will be cut off to the maximum extent possible. Air and naval strikes against military targets in North Vietnam will continue.

These actions are not directed against any other nation. Countries with ships

presently in North Vietnamese ports have already been notified that their ships will have three daylight periods to leave in safety. After that time, the mines will become active and any ships attempting to leave or enter these ports will do so at their own risk.

These actions I have ordered will cease when the following conditions are met:

First, all American prisoners of war must be returned.

Second, there must be an internationally supervised cease-fire throughout Indochina.

Once prisoners of war are released, once the internationally supervised cease-fire has begun, we will stop all acts of force throughout Indochina, and at that time we will proceed with a complete withdrawal of all American forces from Vietnam within 4 months.

Now, these terms are generous terms. They are terms which would not require surrender and humiliation on the part of anybody. They would permit the United States to withdraw with honor. They would end the killing. They would bring our POW's home. They would allow negotiations on a political settlement between the Vietnamese themselves. They would permit all the nations which have suffered in this long war—Cambodia, Laos, North Vietnam, South Vietnam—to turn at last to the urgent works of healing and of peace. They deserve immediate acceptance by North Vietnam.

It is appropriate to conclude my remarks tonight with some comments directed individually to each of the major parties involved in the continuing tragedy of the Vietnam war.

First, to the leaders of Hanoi, your people have already suffered too much in

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your pursuit of conquest. Do not com-
pound their agony with continued ar-
rogance; choose instead the path of a
peace that redeems your sacrifices, guar-
antees true independence for your coun-
try, and ushers in an era of reconciliation.

To the people of South Vietnam, you
shall continue to have our firm support in
your resistance against aggression. It is
your spirit that will determine the out-
come of the battle. It is your will that will
shape the future of your country.

To other nations, especially those which
are allied with North Vietnam, the ac-
tions I have announced tonight are not
directed against you. Their sole purpose is
to protect the lives of 60,000 Americans,
who would be gravely endangered in the
event that the Communist offensive con-
tinues to roll forward, and to prevent the
imposition of a Communist government
by brutal aggression upon 17 million
people.

I particularly direct my comments to-
night to the Soviet Union. We respect the
Soviet Union as a great power. We recog-
nize the right of the Soviet Union to de-
fend its interests when they are threat-
ened. The Soviet Union in turn must
recognize our right to defend our
interests.

No Soviet soldiers are threatened in
Vietnam. Sixty thousand Americans are
threatened. We expect you to help your
allies, and you cannot expect us to do
other than to continue to help our allies,
but let us, and let all great powers, help
our allies only for the purpose of their de-
fense, not for the purpose of launching
invasions against their neighbors.

Otherwise the cause of peace, the cause
in which we both have so great a stake,
will be seriously jeopardized.

Our two nations have made significant
progress in our negotiations in recent
months. We are near major agreements
on nuclear arms limitation, on trade, on a
host of other issues.

Let us not slide back toward the dark
shadows of a previous age. We do not ask
you to sacrifice your principles, or your
friends, but neither should you permit
Hanoi's intransigence to blot out the
prospects we together have so patiently
prepared.

We, the United States and the Soviet
Union, are on the threshold of a new rela-
tionship that can serve not only the inter-
ests of our two countries, but the cause of
world peace. We are prepared to continue
to build this relationship. The responsibil-
ity is yours if we fail to do so.

And finally, may I say to the American
people, I ask you for the same strong sup-
port you have always given your Presi-
dent in difficult moments. It is you most of
all that the world will be watching.

I know how much you want to end this
war. I know how much you want to bring
our men home. And I think you know
from all that I have said and done these
past 3½ years how much I, too, want to
end the war to bring our men home.

You want peace. I want peace. But, you
also want honor and not defeat. You want
a genuine peace, not a peace that is
merely a prelude to another war.

At this moment, we must stand to-
gether in purpose and resolve. As so often
in the past, we Americans did not choose
to resort to war. It has been forced upon
us by an enemy that has shown utter con-
tempt toward every overture we have
made for peace. And that is why, my fel-
low Americans, tonight I ask for your
support of this decision, a decision which

586

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MAY 9, 1972

OFFICE OF THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY

THE WHITE HOUSE

PRESS CONFERENCE
OF
DR. HENRY A. KISSINGER
ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS

THE EAST ROOM

AT 11:20 A.M. EDT

MR. ZIEGLER: Dr. Kissinger will have brief remarks and then will take your questions. What he says to you today is on the record for direct quotation.

DR. KISSINGER: Ladies and gentlemen: In order to put these decisions into context, I wanted to put before you the efforts the Administration has made in recent months to begin serious and constructive negotiations with the other side. I also wanted to put before you the considerations that led to the President's decision and to his speech and the reasoning and then I will answer your questions.

I need hardly emphasize that this was a very painful and difficult decision to make, which was taken only because it was believed that no other honorable alternative was available. This Administration has invested an enormous amount of effort and conviction in our relations with the major Communist countries.

We have attempted, since coming into office, to open a new era in international relations and we are determined insofar as it depends on us to continue these efforts. But we have also had the problem that one small country has resisted all efforts to find an honorable way out of the situation of Southeast Asia.

It has been supported with equipment and offensive weapons by some major powers and this is what has produced the situation we face today.

Now, in order to put into perspective where we are in the peace negotiations, I would like to go through with you the exchanges that have taken place between us and Hanoi since the end of last year, that is to say, since the North Vietnamese cancelled the private meeting that was scheduled for November 20th, when they cancelled it three days before.

As you remember, the President in his speech on January 25th pointed out that after Le Duc Tho had been suddenly taken ill, we offered to resume negotiations any time that he recovered, either with him or any other representative of Hanoi's political leadership, in order to bring about a rapid end of the war.

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We insisted on a representative of Hanoi's political leadership because our experience had been that the delegation in Paris simply did not have sufficient authority to make these private talks useful. We never received a reply to this message of November 19th.

On January 26th, or the day after the President's speech revealing the secret talks, we sent a message to Hanoi indicating our readiness to resume private negotiations. On February 14th, there was a reply in which Hanoi indicated its willingness to meet any time from March 15th on.

On February 17th, that is to say, three days after we received the message, we accepted this proposal and suggested the date of March 20th. The reason we suggested March 20th is because it is easier to travel on a weekend and we picked the first weekend after March 15th.

In this message we said the following, which has characterized our attitude. We said, "The United States believes that (at this meeting) the proposals of both sides should be considered." In other words, we indicated our readiness to discuss their points, "It expects to negotiate on this basis with an attitude of justice and generosity and with a view to bringing about a rapid end of the war."

On February 29th, Hanoi accepted the date of March 20th. On March 6th, Hanoi postponed the March 20th meeting until April 15th. We accepted this on March 13th, only pointing out that there were other commitments on April 15th and proposing instead April 24th. The other commitment was the trip to Japan that had been planned and which we did not wish to cancel.

We did not hear from Hanoi to our acceptance of their own proposal. So after 10 days, Porter interrupted the plenaries on March 27th. Four days after Porter had interrupted the plenaries, Hanoi accepted the date of April 24th, provided the United States returned to the plenary.

We called Ambassador Porter back and we sent a message which was delivered on April 2nd, but which was in fact drafted on March 31st, in which we agreed to resume the plenary sessions on April 13th and confirmed the meeting of April 24th.

When that message was drafted we were not aware of the fact that a major offensive had in fact started at the Demilitarized Zone, and therefore, some of the press reports that we were tying the resumption of the plenaries to the end of the offensive are totally wrong, in fact, I will read you from our message to the North Vietnamese which will confirm this. It said as follows:

"In order to demonstrate its positive attitude and explore every possible opportunity for progress in negotiation, Ambassador Porder will propose a plenary session of the Paris Conference on Thursday, April 13th, 1972.

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"On this basis the United States reaffirms its agreement to a meeting between Dr. Kissinger and Special Advisor Le Duc Tho and Minister Xuan Thuy on April 24th at the usual location."

"The U.S. side points out that the military operations launched by the North Vietnamese in recent days near the Demilitarize Zone and elsewhere and the firing of missiles from North Vietnamese territory into South Vietnamese air space are inconsistent with the purpose of this meeting. The U.S. side has been showing great restraint in its response in order to give the negotiations every chance to succeed."

At that time, some of you who called me will know we were not sure that this was a full scale offensive until Easter Sunday. Maybe we should have. But we were not certain that this was an offensive across the Demilitarized Zone.

The purpose of this message was to prevent military pressure from being put by either side.

I would also like to point out that during March, while we knew that a military build up was going on, we nevertheless, showed very great restraint. In fact, we did not authorize attacks into North Vietnam except the normal protective reaction, but nothing against supply installations or missile sites, because of our concern for our relationships that had been established in Peking and that we were trying to develop in Moscow.

I have mentioned all of this to stress that what has happened was not done lightly, whatever judgments people may make.

Then during April there was an exchange of many messages which revolved around the question of whether there should be a private meeting before a plenary session or a plenary session before a private meeting which did not however add a great deal to the substance that I have already pointed out to you.

There were a total of six messages that were going back and forth in April. This was the situation when I went to Moscow.

As has been reported, the problem of Vietnam was discussed at considerable length. We pointed out to the Soviet leaders the extraordinary complexity that was posed for us by a massive invasion of the entire North Vietnamese field army against South Vietnam, an invasion that if it achieved its objective was bound to jeopardize the security of 60,000 Americans, and the impact that such developments had to have on our attempts to move forward on a broad front.

While I do not want to go into the details of the discussion, the Soviet leaders felt that every effort should be made to resume negotiations, and on this basis, and in order not to be hung up on a procedural point, we proposed that we would return to the plenary s, if we received a firm assurance that a private meeting would follow rapidly.

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We left no doubt that we were not concerned only or primarily with the fact of a private meeting, but with the results of a private meeting. We made it very clear that we were prepared to consider any reasonable approach that would lead either to a reduction in the violence, to an end of military operations, to a discussion of the military issues alone or to a discussion of the entire complex of issues with only one proviso. We would not impose a Communist Government on Saigon, we wanted a genuine political solution. With that one proviso we indicated a readiness to discuss any possible approach.

The meetings took place, as you know. There were two plenary sessions and a private session. We again went through every conceivable approach for ending the military situation and we indicated a readiness to examine any political proposal other than the imposition of a Communist Government.

We were confronted by the reading to us of the published Communist statement. It had taken us six months to set up the meeting and innumerable exchanges and when we got there, what we heard could have been clipped from a newspaper and sent to us in the mail. This was the situation we confronted last week.

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What is it that the other side is asking of us that we have rejected? The other side has asked of us, prior to a cease-fire, that the following steps must be taken:

The President of South Vietnam must resign. What is called by the other side "the machinery of oppression of the government" must be disbanded. Pacification must be stopped. Vietnamization must be stopped, which means the end of American military and economic aid. All persons who have been arrested on political grounds should be set free. Then a government should be formed which is composed of all those who favor peace, independence, neutrality and democracy, presumably, by definition, including the Communists.

In that government, in other words, the Communists would be the only organized force, since all the organized non-Communist forces would have been disbanded by definition.

All of this is prior to a cease-fire. Then this government is supposed to negotiate with the Communists a final solution. In other words, this is only the thinnest veneer; this government, which already contains the Communists, is then supposed to negotiate with the Provincial Revolutionary Government, which at that moment will be the only force in the country which has an army, which is backed by the North Vietnamese army. It will be the only force in the country that has any physical strength, and it is supposed to negotiate with them a final settlement. And all of this, ladies and gentlemen, is before a cease-fire.

That is what we have rejected. That is what we call the imposition, under the thinnest veneer, of a Communist government. That is the ending of American economic and military aid, the disbanding of the government that exists in South Vietnam, as a prelude to negotiation. That is the only issue on which negotiations have broken down.

On the whole complex of military issues, we have indicated total readiness for discussion and our proposals have not been rejected; there has been a total refusal even to discuss them. We have not been told what is wrong with our proposals. There has been an absolute unwillingness to discuss any one of them, or to give us any reason why it was unacceptable so that we could continue the discussions.

This was the background against which the Presidential decision had to be seen. No one can believe that two weeks before a summit meeting that it has taken us two years to set up that the President would lightly engage in the sort of decisions he had taken.

We were confronted with the fact that an opponent was insisting on continuing an all-out military offensive which he would stop only on terms that no American President can be asked to accept, and this is why, with enormous pain and great reluctance, this Administration was forced into those decisions.

For two years we have been engaged in negotiations on a broad range of issues with the Soviet Union. We are on the verge not just of success in this or that negotiation, but of what could be a new relationship of benefit to all of mankind, a new relationship in which, on both sides, whenever there is a danger

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of crisis, there will be enough people who have a commitment
to constructive programs so that they could exercise a restrain-
ing influence. But in order for such a policy to succeed, it
cannot be accepted that one country can be oblivious to the impact
on another of the actions of its friends, particularly when those
friends are armed with the weapons of this country.

I ask you to consider what you would think, in the
months before a summit meeting, if an American ally, armed with
American weapons, attacked a Soviet ally and put into jeopardy
the tens of thousands of Soviet troops, whether you would not
ask yourself whether we should have exercised some restraint.

I am not saying that at the point when I was in
Moscow the Soviet ability to exercise restraint was very great.
I am saying that the decision was very difficult, but it had to
be taken for these reasons:

First, you must not conclude from this decision that we
are assuming that the battle in the South cannot be stabilized.
What we are trying to prevent by this decision is an endless
continuation of this process by which one attack after another
takes place over a period of months without serious negotiation,
and without any prospect for a settlement. But we also want to
be in a position that if our assessment is incorrect, and things
should turn out not as well as we hope, that we have some bargain-
ing position left on behalf of the Americans who will then be
threatened, and of the Americans who are now prisoners.

What we have done must be seen not in the context of a
country which is trying to impose its will. It has to be seen
in the context of the proposals which the President made in his
speech.

What is it that we are asking of the North Vietnamese?
What is it in those proposals that a country cannot honorably
accept? We are saying that if our prisoners are returned, and if
there is an end to the fighting, that we will withdraw all our
forces from South Vietnam in four months, and that we will stop
all acts of force throughout Indochina. Why is it that these
proposals should not be accepted?

They would leave the determination of the political
future to the Vietnamese. They would enable us to withdraw with
honor and they would at least put an end to the fighting. So it
is incorrect to say that we have embarked on a course designed
to impose our solution. We have embarked on a course to try to
bring an end to this agony, and, in a way, to this deception, where
there is the constant delusion that there is just one formula
that has somehow eluded us, where for months we have attempted
in good faith to set up a serious negotiation, where our pro-
posals are not even discussed, and where everything is staked
by the other side on a pure military move. So both we and
other major powers are at this moment at a critical decision.

It is this decision that is compared by some to the
Cuban missile crisis, but there are very important differences.

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We do not view this as a confrontation between us and the Soviet Union. We are not attempting by these actions to impose a one-sided solution. We are trying to work out some principles of international conduct and an end to a conflict which threatens, alike, our interests as well as the interest of other countries that have a stake in the preservation of peace.

Those were the reasons, in summary, that led to the President's speech last night, and now I will be delighted to answer questions.

Q Would a cease-fire have to be established along the present line of military forces or would the North Vietnamese have to withdraw to North Vietnam?

DR. KISSINGER: We will be delighted to spell out the details of our proposal as soon as a serious negotiation starts, but I can only repeat that we would approach negotiations in a generous spirit and with the attitude of bringing about a rapid end to the war.

Q Dr. Kissinger, do you expect the summit meeting with the Soviet Union to go forward, and have you had any indication either way?

DR. KISSINGER: To take the second question first, we have had no indication from the Soviet Union, and it will probably be a day or so before we receive one.

With respect to the first question, we are proceeding
with the summit preparations, and we see at this moment no reason
from our side to postpone the summit meeting. We recognize that
the decisions we have taken present some short-term difficulties
to the Soviet leaders, but we also believe that the situation
that they permitted to evolve presented massive difficulties
for us, and both sides have faced the problem throughout of
making some real choices; that is to say, if one wants a genuine
improvement in relations, as we do, one cannot also at the same
time maximize the pressures all around the periphery, so I am not,
of course, able to predict what the Soviet reaction will be.
Whatever it will be, I can only affirm that as far as we
are concerned, we still believe that a new era in
East-West relations is possible, and as far as we are
concerned, we will place no obstacles in its way, but,
rather, we will pursue it with the same intensity as
before.

Q Dr. Kissinger, when you were in Moscow, did you
inform the Soviet leaders of the possibility of the military
action which you have now taken?

DR. KISSINGER: I cannot go into the details of the
discussion. I do not believe that there could be 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 an attempt by the North Vietnamese to put
everything on the military scales.

The precise actions we would take had obviously not
been decided upon at the time, and, therefore, could not be dis-
cussed. But I do not believe that the Soviet leaders could be
under any misapprehension of how seriously it would be viewed if
this offensive continued.

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Now, let me point out, in addition, that after my
visit to Moscow, and after we had agreed to resume talks, the
North Vietnamese launched three major onslaughts. They launched
an attack on Kontum the day we informed them privately that we
would return to the plenaries. They launched an attack on
Dongha four days later on the eve of the plenary session, and
they launched their attack on Quang Tri on the eve of the private
session. Now, these are facts.

Q Dr. Kissinger, did anyone in the inner councils dissent from this decision, and did anyone point out that Senator Goldwater offered this solution in 1964 when it was rejected by the country?

DR. KISSINGER: I never discuss the internal deliberations of the Government.

Q Dr. Kissinger, could you spell out for us, with
some more degree of clarity--the President, I believe, did not
use the word "blockade." What have we said that we would do
should Soviet vessels bearing war materiels, bear down and enter
into one of the ports? Will we stop that ship, and how?

DR. KISSINGER: No, I will not go into the precise rules of engagement. At this point, the instructions are to warn all foreign ships of the existence of these minefields, but not to interfere with them if they decide to proceed into the minefields at their own risk.

Q Doctor, is it now fairly safe to conclude that
Vietnamization has been pretty much of a failure?

DR. KISSINGER: No. What it is safe to conclude is that
when there is a massive attack by the entire North Vietnamese
field army, every last division equipped with the most modern
weapons, that a very precarious situation will develop, the out-
come of which is uncertain. That is the only thing that it is
safe to conclude at this moment.

Q Dr. Kissinger, could you give us an estimate of
the amount of supplies, in terms of days, that are actually in
the pipeline now, that have already been unloaded off of Soviet
ships, and based on that, how long do you think it will take
before the blockade, or whatever you want to call it, takes effect?

DR. KISSINGER: These assessments, of course, would
differ in relation to critical items, and it has happened before
that our estimates had a certain margin of latitutde, so I do not
want to tie myself to any specific figures. But it has to be
analyzed, whatever the figure is, in two ways: There is a
tendency to say that there are X months of supplies, and, there-
fore, they can go for this many months before there is any
effect. That is probably a wrong way of looking at it, because
if there are only so many months of supplies, it must effect
decisions before they run out.

It is unlikely that anybody would run down his sup-
plies to the zero level before he made another decision. Now,
at what point that decision has to be made, it is difficult to
predict. We do not believe that anything that was done will
affect the battle that may now be taking place in the next three
weeks. It could affect and should affect the next round, and I

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repeat: What decision Hanoi makes depends on two factors, one, on the constraints that are placed on it, but secondly, what it is that we are asking of it, and after all, it is not the most onerous condition to ask that we withdraw within four months in return for a cease-fire and a return of prisoners.

This modification of our peace proposal, a modification which corresponds with what was the accepted wisdom everywhere only a little while ago, has to be seen in the context of the cut-off of supplies. So we think that in this next round, the effect would only be indirect. In the round after that, the effect should make itself felt.

Q Dr. Kissinger, will the U.S. Navy attempt to prevent the offloading of supplies outside the minefields?

DR. KISSINGER: Obviously, it wouldn't serve any useful purpose if I went into every detail of what will or will not be done in given circumstances. What I was trying to convey is that every country now has an important decision to make of what interest it may have to keep this war going at all cost when we are trying to bring it to a conclusion on a basis which seems to us is just to all the parties.

Now, in reply to your specific question, there is only so much you can offload across the beaches, and if you remember that a large percentage of the imports concern petroleum, I think there are certain physical limitations, but we would interfere with it to the maximum degree possible.

Q Dr. Kissinger, to follow that other question, in your first National Security Council memorandum, which has been given some publicity lately, the CIA estimated bombing Haiphong harbor would have only a temporary effect, for two or three months and the North Vietnamese will quickly find alternative routes of supply. Why do you think it would work, in view of that?

DR. KISSINGER: These assessments of what can be shaped by alternative routes were, of course, carefully considered and much more detailed studies were made before this decision was reached. One always has to distinguish, in these systems analyses, between theoretical capacity and practical capacity, and between general availability and specific availability of specific items.

All I can say is that these memoranda were made available to all the principles who reached the decisions, and they were fully discussed.

Q This concerns the President's speech and something you said before about the Vietnamese can negotiate a settlement between themselves after a cease-fire and withdrawal. Does this mean we would totally withdraw from the negotiating table?

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DR. KISSINGER: We have always indicated that we are prepared to pursue two courses: We are either prepared to negotiate a comprehensive settlement, or we are prepared to negotiate the military issues alone.

Now, the difficulty has been that the only comprehensive settlement that the other side has ever proposed to us is the one I described to you earlier, the one that begins with a de facto imposition of a Communist government after which they settle all other issues. After that, there are no other issues left to settle, because after that, we won't have any negotiating power.

If the other side is prepared to discuss with us a political process which gives the real political forces an opportunity to express themselves, we are prepared to discuss it.

We recognize it is a difficult problem. We know that some of our Western forms have another connotation in Vietnam. Maybe we don't have enough imagination. We are prepared to listen to another proposal. We have never had one except this particular formulation, despite repeated attempts on our part to suggest our best judgment or to invite them to make an alternative proposal.

If the political route is closed, we are prepared to discuss the military issues alone and on that hypothesis, we would negotiate our disengagement from the war on the terms I have indicated, and leave the political negotiations to the Vietnamese.

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Q Dr. Kissinger, may we infer from the President's third numbered point that rail and all other communications would be cut off to the maximum extent possible, that the restrictions on Air Force strikes of rail lines close to the Chinese border have now been lifted?

DR. KISSINGER: I obviously cannot go into the details of operations, but we will take great care that the People's Republic will not misunderstand our actions.

Q Dr. Kissinger, in the light of the long history of misassessments about the Vietnam war, on what does the President base his confidence that this present move will work or might work?

DR. KISSINGER: Peter, these decisions have to be seen in the context of the choices that are available. No action is also a decision and no action is subject to exactly the same question which you have just raised and therefore, this was the decision reached prayerfully and on the best belief that it will work, but only events will prove whether it will.

Q Dr. Kissinger, the proposal of the concept of mining the harbors and seeking the cut-off of supplies into North Vietnam has been kicking around ever since we became involved in that conflict nearly 10 years ago and it has always been rejected by this Administration and the previous Administration up until now on the grounds, as far as we were able to learn, that it imposed an unacceptable risk of conflict with the Soviet Union or confrontation with the Soviet Union.

Can you tell us what has changed to make that risk
now acceptable? Is the risk less than it has been in the
past or are the circumstances such as to warrant greater risks
than we have been willing to undertake in the past?

DR. KISSINGER: Of course you ladies and gentlemen
have access to sources that are sometimes closed to me. So you
may know the reason why things were rejected that didn't totally
percolate to us.

But the question is do we believe it involves unacceptable
risks with the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of
China.

As I pointed out, it, of course, involves some risks.
The judgment was that it did not involve an unacceptable risk,
especially compared to the risks of the situation where for
the second time since the summit meeting was arranged Soviet
arms fueled a military upheaval, and no one has pretended tha
this decision was lightly arrived at. The judgment has been
obviously, that the risks were not unacceptable.

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