THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON

June 19, 1969

MEMORANDUM FOR MR. KISSINGER

FROM: Al Haig

You held off on this the first time
around. Did you get a chance to
mention it to Paul Doty when he
was here? If not, I think it best
that you send him a brief note
delaying it until sometime this
fall.

MARCH OCT. 4!

U.S. OUT OF VIETNAM NOW! NO NEGOTIATIONS

STOP UNIVERSITY ATTACKS ON THE PEOPLE!

ALLY WITH CAMPUS WORKERS AGAINST UNIVERSITY BOSSES!

Saturday, October 4, at 12:00 noon, there will be a city-wide SDS march for these demands. It will bring together people from all over the Eastern Massachusetts area in a common effort to build a movement which can help force the U.S. out of Vietnam.

The U.S. government has always seen control of Vietnam as a vital strategic goal:

> "That empire in Southeast Asia is the last major resource area outside the control of any of the major powers on the globe...I believe that the condition of the Vietnamese people, and direction in which their future may be going, are at this stage secondary, not primary." (Senator Gale McGee, 2/17/65)

The Vietnamese people are fighting to drive the U.S. out of their country, and to overthrow the landlords and bureaucrats who are the main support for the U.S. there. Before this struggle began, most people in South Vietnam lived in conditions of abject poverty. In the countryside, peasants were forced to pay 50-60% of their crop as rent to absentee landlords. There were 4 million unemployed - out of a population of 14 million - in 1960 (Bernard Fall, *The Two Vietnams*, p. 308). Workers in Saigon make a maximum daily wage of $1.40.

U.S. Businessmen profit from these conditions. Bosses need this cheap foreign labor to keep American workers' wages down and this results in even bigger profits for U.S. businessmen. The cost of the war falls on the backs of American workers. They must pay higher taxes and put up with the skyrocketing inflation caused by the war. And who fights and dies in this war - the sons of the Rockefellers, Kennedys and Nixons? Not a chance! Young *workers* and *students* are forced to fight for the same bosses who exploit them at home.

The Vietnamese struggle has forced the U.S. to try winning at the conference table what it cannot win on the battlefield. But there is nothing to negotiate!! Thieves have no right to negotiate with their victims. Vietnamese liberation can come *only* through the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. forces. Negotiations are an attempt by the U.S. government to win the war "peacefully", and to continue their exploitation of the Vietnamese.

All American working people and students should support the Vietnamese people in their just fight to kick the U.S. completely out of their country. The Vietnamese are fighting the hardest against the same big businessmen who hurt workers and students in America. We should not be fooled by Nixon's phoney troop "withdrawals". We should not rely on the phoney liberal "doves" in Congress - like Kennedy, McGovern or Muskie - none of whom are for getting the U.S. out of Vietnam now. Workers and students should support the Vietnamese by fighting even harder against the ways that the bosses hurt us.

## THE OCT. 15TH MORATORIUM - DEATH TO THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT

The nation-wide Moratorium on October 15, claims to be a broad coalition against the war. It puts forward demands only for "a firm commitment to American withdrawal or a negotiated settlement". The Moratorium is bringing a large number of people together but will preserve a fuzzy understanding of the war. The earlier anti-war movement, which was led by liberals and pacifists, made people see negotiations as a victory, when, in fact, they were a defeat - Negotiations have allowed the U.S. government to confuse people and to quiet down anti-war opposition for a full year.

There is another bad feature of the Moratorium. University administrators are supporting it, since it helps them build the idea that universities are neutral, benevolent and critical institutions which are really against the war (while they fight to keep ROTC and military recruiters on their campuses!) Thus, Rutgers Univ. president, Mason Gross, stated "I hereby ask that on Oct. 15 we at Rutgers positively and dramatically demonstrate the role of the university as teacher and guardian of civilized values, and as the critical and moral intelligence which compels this country to ponder its courses of action." (N.Y.T., 9/18/69). (Gross also happens to be chairman of the American Council on Education, an organization which is carefully studying the student movement, in order to smash it.) In fact, the universities are deeply involved in the war and an imperialist foreign policy. For all of the above reasons, SDS does not think that students should support the Moratorium.

## UNIVERSITIES ATTACK THE PEOPLE

Universities help the bosses and government at home and around the world, and in doing so, attack working people in many ways:

**Expansion** - Harvard, MIT and BU are pushing working people, especially Black working people, out of their homes. In many cases the peoples' homes are replaced by counter-insurgency institutions and corporations, which are used against them.

**Counter-Insurgency** - Universities provide not only the ideology, but also the techniques used to smash people's liberation movements, black rebellions, and workers' strikes.

**ROTC** - The Universities train 80% of all military officers. These officers serve the interests of rich, powerful businessmen whose profits depend on suppressing popular revolutions abroad like in Vietnam, Laos, the Dominican Republic, and Black rebellions at home.

**Police Institutes** - Police institutes at Boston State and Northeastern are an attempt by U.S. rulers to implement new techniques for putting down domestic struggles for a better life, by training 'sensitive', 'cultured' police.

Not only do universities help the bosses run the country and the war, they are bosses themselves. Campus workers - especially Black and Puerto Rican workers - are paid low wages (on the average $80 per week take home). It is impossible to support a family on these terrible wages, so many campus workers have to work two jobs to survive. They have very little job security and, if they are lucky, measly pensions (like $25 a month). Student part-time workers are paid less than the full-timers, thus keeping the full-timers' wages down. Universities also have blatantly racist pay differentials and employment practices. And working conditions are terrible. Kitchens are hot and muggy and many accidents occur. One worker was electrocuted on the job at Harvard Law School this summer. This was hushed up by Harvard - so no one knows how many other deaths or serious injuries have occurred.

## ALLY WITH CAMPUS WORKERS AGAINST UNIVERSITY BOSSES

The struggle against university attacks on the people and for getting the U.S. government out of Vietnam now should be increased far beyond this demonstration. The fact is, that only U.S. workers have the power to force the government out of Vietnam and to effect other basic changes in this society. Most students have an interest in allying with workers, since most students will become some kind of exploited mental worker - like a teacher, or social worker - and students as well as workers get drafted for the war. Students should build a movement on campus that allies with working people. The most natural alliance that can be built is between students and the employees at each campus. When lasting alliances are forged between campus workers and students, then the anti-war movement and the movement against University attacks on the people will be much more powerful.

Students for a Democratic Society 267-6152

March from B.U. -- Harvard -- Boston State 12:00 Noon

Rally at J.F.K. Federal Building in Boston 3:00 P.M.

Speakers: John Pennington, National Secretary SDS
Cindy Kline, Cambridge Peace & Freedom Party
Candidate for City Council
Jay Sargeant, Boston State SDS

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY

12 Oxford Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
U.S.A.

December 8, 1969

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger
The White House
Washington D.C.

Dear Henry:

1) Last Friday Bob Klieman read to me over the telephone the long article he has written on MIRV and the SAM upgrading problem. I made no substantive comments (nor did Jack, to whom he also read it). He has most of the story as I know it, including some highly classified fragments. I do not believe the latter are known as such to him and I did not point them out. His sources are mainly two hours with Foster, three with Herbst and talks with both Ladder brothers. Since it will probably be appearing any day in the Times, Jack and I thought we ought to make sure you knew that none of his material came from us. Actually he found quite a bit in Foster's August 5th testimony that has been missed by nearly everyone. Clearly Foster et al. believe it is time to ventilate this and Klieman thinks it is better for him to be the conveyor than someone else. So here we go.

2) The Swedish resolution will almost certainly be put to a vote in the General Assembly this week. I know our position is to vote against it. But I do hope you will give thought once more to the advantages of abstaining. It can be on the basis of not wanting to endorse this method of the General Assembly making International Law or on other grounds. I am not pressing for the Administration to move any further than it has, but I would like to see us retain the ground that we have gained and not lose a part of it by locking ourselves in a controversial position that will make it more difficult to move away from a year or two hence.

3) As you know, I try not to press you on Vietnam, where I have no pretense at expertise. But the commentary on the President's November 3rd speech by George Kahin seems to me so cogent on both the origins of our involvement and weighing of North Vietnamese

George McT. Kahin

Cornell University

November 9, 1969

A Commentary on the President's November 3rd Address

On November 3 the President undertook to tell us in which direction he would move in Vietnam. This was a speech addressed primarily to securing public support in this country and not to a solution in Vietnam. He began by telling us that one of the reasons for the deep division in this nation about Vietnam is that many Americans have lost confidence in what their government has told them about our policy. They cannot and should not, he said, be asked to support a policy involving war and peace unless they know the truth about that policy. If this was his major concern, his speech was clearly a failure, for it served to increase rather than decrease the misunderstanding. Indeed, he has embraced the same historical myths that served to rationalize his predecessor's policies and has in fact added a number of his own.

Let us then turn to his speech: beginning with what he describes as the fundamental issue: why and how did the U.S. become involved in Vietnam in the first place? He immediately answers his question with the statement: "Fifteen years ago North Vietnam, with the logistical support of Communist China and the Soviet Union, launched a campaign to impose a Communist government on South Vietnam by instigating and supporting a revolution." Fifteen years ago Ho Chi Minh's government was in fact in the process of withdrawing its troops from the South in accordance with Geneva and not instigating a revolution there.

2.

Ho Chi Minh's government confidently expected to win the elections two years later promised under Geneva and had no reason to intervene. What it did not expect was that as soon as it had withdrawn its troops, we would, contrary to the Geneva agreements, begin direct intervention in the southern half of the Vietnamese nation.

In fact, fifteen years ago in 1954, American intervention was not new. We had already been intervening heavily by four years of unstinting support to the French. Then, after failing in this effort and acquiescing in a Geneva settlement which we did not sign but promised not to overturn, we prepared to intervene more directly by building up a separate state in the South. Even so, Hanoi did not in fact begin to intervene in the South until some five years later when heavy repression by this American supported southern regime drove thousands of Vietnamese -- noncommunist as well as procommunist -- into rebellion.

A precipitate withdrawal now by the United States, President Nixon continues, would inevitably allow the communists to repeat the massacres which he charges followed their takeover in the North fifteen years ago -- when, he alleges, they "murdered more than 50,000 people and hundreds of thousands more died in slave labor camps." This is an unconscionable misrepresentation likely to deter Americans from moving towards a compromise settlement. If President Nixon had taken the trouble to look at the records of the International Control Commission he would know that during the entire three year period following the armistice, they indicate

3.

allegations of only 55 incidents of political reprisal -- whether murder, arrest, or confiscation of property -- made by the French and Diem against Ho Chi Minh's regime. During the same period, the International Control Commission cited allegations involving a total of 1,404 incidents of political reprisal in the South involving murder, arrest, confiscation of property and in some cases massacres of several families or whole villages.

The significant violence that did occur in the North more than two years after the Geneva armistice did not involve reprisals against Vietnamese who had previously supported the French against the Vietminh. It had nothing to do with the civil war that had ended two years before. This violence in the North in which the Vietnamese historian Joseph Buttinger estimates that 10 - 15 thousand were killed, was the consequence of a clumsy and unrealistic attempt to impose a Chinese communist model of agrarian reorganization. Peasant resentment against the government's program in at least one province ended in a rebellion that troops were required to suppress. As a consequence, these agrarian policies were discredited and dropped and Hanoi's minister of agriculture sacked.

President Nixon then turns to reports of atrocities during the Tet offensive at Hue. During the terribly intense fighting at Hue there certainly were atrocities -- perpetrated by both sides -- though the number quoted by the President is much

4.

higher than any previous estimate. (One also wonders why in his text the President nearly doubled the figure for Catholic refugees from the North with which previous administrations were content.) It is disturbing to see him equate the situation of battlefield reprisals against civilians that existed at Hue with a post-armistice situation which would obtain after a settlement between us and our adversaries. In heat-of-battle conditions both sides have in the past, and probably will in the future, carry out reprisals against those who have been identified as working for the enemy, particularly if they occupy positions in intelligence, the police, or are believed to be informers. So long as the battle in question is simply one episode in a series which is destined to go on, both sides are likely to take punitive measures that will ensure that in the next round of battle they will not be disadvantaged by the work of such enemy civilians. This kind of reprisal will probably continue in conjunction with the fighting until an armistice is achieved, and must be distinguished from the central question as to prospects of political reprisal after such an armistice, which is what we will be concerned with in working for a negotiated settlement.

Now what of the President's view of the present? This is, I am afraid, as unbalanced and inaccurate as his view of the past. It is an amazing example of double-think to find that nowhere, not once in his speech, does he make mention of the

5.

major adversary which both we and Saigon face in Vietnam, the National Liberation Front. By reading his speech one would assume that there are only three parties to the conflict: ourselves, Saigon and Hanoi. He is so rigorous in his insistence upon avoiding any reference to the NLF that in reading from his *own* letter of July 15 to Ho Chi Minh he even excises his own mention of the NLF and its 10 points. Why? I certainly don't understand the President's reasoning, but the consequence is to lay before the American public a picture of a situation in Vietnam which is grotesquely artificial.

Thus, as with President Johnson in 1965, there is presented for Americans a simplistic diagram of a battle between two states, North and South Vietnam. He avoids the central fact that the problem confronting us is a revolution in the South wherein Saigon has a local adversary which commands wide popular support and is militarily capable of defeating Saigon's armies on its own if American and North Vietnamese troops were withdrawn. Hanoi at least knows that it cannot negotiate over the NLF's head, and as we know from the past, no amount of American bombing could induce it to do so. If our President is serious about negotiations, it is unrealistic to bypass the NLF and pretend it does not exist.

The President then asks who is at fault for the lack of progress in negotiations, answering categorically that it is *not* the President of the United States and *not* the South

6.

Vietnamese government. The obstacle, he says, is "the other side's absolute refusal to show the least willingness to join us in seeking a just peace."

Let me first observe that it is difficult to read the exchange of letters between President Nixon and Ho Chi Minh and conclude with Nixon that Ho "flatly rejected" his initiative. Ho's letter constitutes no such rejection, and in emphasizing the NLF's 10 point program, which Nixon in his own letter had stated the U.S. was prepared to discuss; Ho was referring to matters which it is very much to our interest to discuss if we are serious and realistic about reaching a negotiated settlement.

If the enemy has refused to show the least willingness to join us in seeking a just peace, it is incomprehensible why the President later on in his speech in referring to what he describes as "significant developments which have occurred since this administration took office" points out that enemy infiltration during the last three months is less than 20% of what it was over the similar period last year," and that American casualties "have declined during the last two months to the lowest point in three years." If the President acknowledges this, but is unwilling to interpret these actions as showing "the least willingness" of the enemy "to join us in seeking a just peace", an enemy decision to step up military activity following the President's speech would not seem illogical. This is particularly serious in view of his statement that one of the factors which will govern the rate of withdrawal

7.

of American forces will be "the level of enemy activity."

Let me turn to another condition which the President says
will determine our schedule of troop withdrawal -- namely, the
rate of Vietnamization -- the rate at which Saigon's forces
take over the burden of fighting from our troops. If we
really intend to shift responsibility from American to Saigon
forces, we are certain to discover what our own army officers
have known for a long time, that modern military equipment
is no substitute for the will to fight and a Vietnamese regime
worth fighting for. With the desertion rate of Saigon's
military forces still running between 20 and 25% per year it
is senseless to assume that somehow miraculously the attitude
of its reluctant soldiers is going to change. And here I am
in full agreement with Senator McGovern that to turn"the war
over to the South Vietnamese army only if we are certain that
it is able to carry the load ... is the same as proposing
that we stay in Vietnam indefinitely."

And that, I am afraid, is apparently what this Administration
proposes to do, -- assuming somehow that it can manage to have
it both ways -- withdrawing enough American troops to placate
public opinion in this country, but leaving enough behind
(presumably some 200,000) to provide the necessary shield to
protect at least Saigon and its immediate hinterland until
our Presidential campaign of 1972.

Thereby, the Administration apparently hopes to follow
what it believes is a middle course which will cut the ground

8.

from beneath both the opponents of the war and from the
Wallacites and potential Wallacites who would be quick to
accuse it of surrendering Asian territory to communist control
if the NLF came to power. A President who first sat in the
White House in 1952 with an administration that had used the
loss of China issue as a means to win the election, can be
presumably expected to remain sensitive to such an attack from
the right.

But in the position he has now taken, President Nixon has
really lost the power of initiative. By tying himself so closely
to Saigon and so uncritically embracing General Thieu's position,
he has robbed himself of almost all possibility of finding any
common ground with our enemy -- and without some common ground
you simply cannot have a negotiated settlement. He has in
fact made himself and the lives of Americans a prisoner of
decision made in Saigon and Hanoi. In addition to being
conditional upon the growing strength and self-sufficiency of
Saigon's army, our willingness to withdraw is made dependent
upon the utopian expectation that the NLF and Hanoi will meekly
resign themselves to a major reduction in military activity --
a reduction sufficient not only to keep American casualties
low but also sufficient to sustain the myth that the Saigon
military forces are increasingly effective, and that Nixon's
policy of Vietnamization is really working. In effect, then,
we will not withdraw, until our enemy cooperates with us to
save our face by maintaining the credibility of Saigon's
military forces and permitting the Thieu government to remain
in power.

9.

There is nothing, then, in the President's speech which eases the way for negotiations at Paris. His plan is not addressed to the NLF or Hanoi, but to the American public, and it centers about the major objective of strengthening and sustaining General Thieu's government. He has altered President Johnson's tactics, but he has embraced both his premises and his objectives. To buy himself a little time in managing the American public, he has been as guilty as his predecessor in denying it the truth.

The greatest part of the tragedy, I think, is that in order to head off the pressure of anti-war sentiment he has resorted to seizing the national flag and waving it defiantly at those who oppose him. He has taken the tragic decision to shift the debate from consideration of the actual factual conditions that govern the present and future in Vietnam to a justification in terms of patriotism and what he alleges is our national honor. Once he tells Americans that their national honor is dependent upon maintaining a position which excludes the compromise ultimately necessary to end the fighting -- then movement towards peace cannot be made without appearing to repudiate the very patriotism which he has called upon to justify his bankrupt policy. Once a President resorts to flag-waving in order to silence reasoned argument he reduces his own ability to move back to the course of reason.

Cambridge, Mass.
September 23, 1970

GENERAL

ND20

KISSINGER, HENRY A.

Dr. Henry Kissinger
The White House
Washington, D. C.

Dear Henry:

Two points: a summary of our talks with Arbatov and Milschchikov and a list of items that we could work up for our next meeting with the request that you indicate your priorities so that we can work accordingly.

The Soviets had three messages:

1. Let's make a separate ABM agreement since that is all that can be done quickly.

2. Since we see no way to stop MIRV, any simple offensive weapons agreement risks putting us at a disadvantage.

3. The Kremlin views of U.S. sincerity in reaching an agreement has diminished substantially during the summer.

While we argued against these in many ways we were counting on your administering the major blow. Without this I am urging Arbatov to see Smith on September 29-30 and I may go to New York to see him October 1-2 before his return to Moscow.

On ABM they insist that the time is ripe for an agreement. They would, of course, prefer a freeze of the present situation. But, if we need something, Phase I (perhaps without Spartans) or a small NCA (actual Moscow equivalent) would probably do. They see the advantages (long term) of zero but feel it politically unsalable unless connected with the destruction of something on our side.

On MIRV they report their reluctance to talk has been because (1) they had no reasonable deal to propose, (2) a display of eagerness may have led to misinterpretation as they believe their original expression of interest in SALT was (linkage and all that), (3) they believed the priority and haste we were putting on it suggested that any price would be too high. However, they admit that testing restrictions or sharp annual reductions of aggregate number could hold it in check and if they were allowed R & D this might be a way out. But this would take a long time to work out. The only quick action would be a moratorium on all offensive weapons deployment (2 years ?) so that an agreement could be worked out and presumably they could continue their R & D.

EXECUTIVE

January 28, 1971

MEMORANDUM FOR MR. KISSINGER

FROM: Dave Halperin

SUBJECT: Professor Doty Meeting

Professor Doty called this afternoon to say that he and the other four members of the group (Panofsky, Drell, Garwin and Ruina) are arriving in town over the weekend prior to their Monday afternoon meeting with you. Professor Doty is coming down on Sunday and will stay at the Hay-Adams. The other members will come down Saturday afternoon and will probably stay at the Park Central Hotel.

Professor Doty said that in his conversation with you last week, he indicated that the group would discuss with you general SALT problems and indicators for ABM systems, among other topics. They are tentatively scheduled to meet with you at 5:30 Monday afternoon.

MEMORANDUM

THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON

EXECUTIVE

KISSINGER, HENRY A. 1/2

March 18, 1971

MEMORANDUM FOR: HENRY A. KISSINGER

FROM: DAVE HALPERIN

SUBJECT: Doty Group

Professor Doty indicated to me on March 17 that as a follow-up to a previous conversation with you he would like to plan on bringing the complete Doty group down to Washington to meet with you in two separate sessions.

Professor Doty suggested the evening of Thursday, April 8, followed by a breakfast meeting on April 9th. He indicated the group would provide you in advance with two papers: The first on ULMS, and Accuracy would be discussed on Thursday; the second on Drell, David and Smith's impressions of Omaha would be discussed with you on Friday morning.

RECEIVED

CONFIDENTIAL FILES

FROM THE OFFICE OF THE AMBASSADOR

To Dr. Kissinger

September 14, 1972

Telephone message from Professor Doty to say he is at the Savoy, Room 255 (836-4343), and that Dorothy Zinberg is also in town.

Professor Doty asks that you telephone him if you have time.

A. Mitchell