# Factual Errors and Selective Quotations in Christopher Hitchens' "The Trial of Henry Kissinger": A Substantive Analysis

## { LATEST DRAFT AS OF FRIDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 17, 2003 }

## TABLE OF CONTENTS

### Indochina

<table><tr><td>1. The Paris Talks, the October Bombing Halt, and the 1968 Election</td><td>Pg. 1</td></tr><tr><td>2. The "Pennsylvania" Initiative / Air Strikes Against the Paul Doumer Bridge</td><td>7</td></tr><tr><td>3. Operation Speedy Express</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td>4. Planning for a Hypothetical "Operation Duck Hook"</td><td>12</td></tr><tr><td>5. US Bombing of North Vietnamese Troops and Supply Routes in Laos</td><td>14</td></tr><tr><td>6. US Operations Against North Vietnamese Military Installations in Cambodia</td><td>17</td></tr><tr><td>7. Operation Linebacker II (the "Christmas Bombing")</td><td>26</td></tr><tr><td>8. The Writings and Statements of Military Jurist Telford Taylor</td><td>29</td></tr><tr><td>9. The Seizure of the Mayaguez</td><td>32</td></tr></table>

### Other Regions

<table><tr><td>10. Pakistan, the India-Pakistan War, and Bangladesh</td><td>37</td></tr><tr><td>11. Chile: The Rise and Fall of Salvador Allende</td><td>----</td></tr><tr><td>12. Cyprus</td><td>45</td></tr><tr><td>13. Conflict in Portuguese Timor/East Timor</td><td>47</td></tr><tr><td>14. Bibliography</td><td>50</td></tr></table>

# The Paris Talks, the October Bombing Halt, and the 1968 Election

## Background

In 1946, following the breakdown of negotiations over Vietnamese independence, Ho Chi Minh's communist forces battled the French for control of Vietnam. The war divided Vietnam into two *de facto* states: a communist North Vietnam with its capital in Hanoi, and a non-communist South Vietnam with its capital in Saigon.

Beginning with President Harry Truman in 1950, successive American administrations committed the United States to assisting in, and eventually assuming full responsibility for, the defense of South Vietnam. The main threat to South Vietnam's existence was a campaign of guerilla warfare carried out by Hanoi its front organization in South Vietnam, the National Liberation Front (also known as the NLF or the "Vietcong"). This campaign began in earnest in 1957 and continued throughout the 1960s.

In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson received congressional authority for a military campaign against Hanoi's forces. President Johnson eventually deployed 500,000 American troops to Indochina, and ordered a sustained bombing campaign against North Vietnam, including North Vietnamese troops in Laos and South Vietnam.

Throughout 1967 and 1968, President Johnson offered a unilateral American bombing halt on the condition that Hanoi agree to enter negotiations on ending the war. Confident in its military position, Hanoi initially refused. After repeated American entreaties, the North Vietnamese agreed in the summer of 1968 to enter into a series of preliminary "conversations" about the nature of the bombing halt and the format of the proposed talks.

On November 5, 1968, Richard Nixon was elected president. He appointed as his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, then a professor of international relations at Harvard. The Nixon administration took office on January 20, 1969.

1. <u>Progress of negotiations through October 1968</u>

1

a. **Hitchens** asserts that, by virtue of the "terms and conditions... on the table in the fall of 1968,"¹ the Vietnam War "had been settled politically and diplomatically, for all intents and purposes, before [Kissinger] became National Security Advisor."²

**Fact:** At the time Hitchens is referring to, Washington and Hanoi had not yet engaged in any substantive negotiations. Hanoi's consistent position, in both private and public talks, was that the precondition for substantive peace negotiations was a total US withdrawal from Indochina and the overthrow of the South Vietnamese government.

Hanoi reiterated these terms throughout the summer and fall of 1968, culminating in the National Liberation Front's declaration of a "10 Point Peace Plan" along these lines on November 3, 1968. These demands would remain the communist position until the failure of Hanoi's spring 1972 offensive.

## 2. Saigon's position

a. **Hitchens** asserts that in the fall of 1968, "every time the North Vietnamese came closer to an agreement, the South increased their own demands."³

**Fact:** What Hitchens refers to throughout his book as an "agreement" on ending the war was in fact an "agreement" to open *negotiations* on ending the war. At the time, Saigon objected to the proposed format for negotiations because it afforded the South Vietnamese government the same protocol status as the guerilla front trying to overthrow it. As the American Ambassador to South Vietnam, Ellsworth Bunker, reported:

> The idea of sitting down [in Paris] with the NLF in international negotiations has all along been very troublesome to Thieu and his colleagues. To their mind it gives a degree of recognition and respectability to a tool of Hanoi, and raises the specter of its inclusion in a future government...⁴

Under pressure from Washington, President Thieu agreed to send a delegation to Paris in December 1968. Yet Saigon remained wary of any measure that appeared to legitimize the guerillas. A debate over one such issue – Hanoi's

¹ Hitchens, p 15.

² Hitchens, p 30.

³ Hitchens, p 12.

⁴ Bunker, cable to Washington, January 1969, as quoted in Bundy, *A Tangled Web*, p 46.

2

insistence in Paris that the Vietcong were "the sole legitimate representatives of
the South Vietnamese people" and should thus receive a place at the negotiating
table at least equal to Saigon's - further delayed the opening of Paris talks.

b. **Hitchens** further asserts that "Thieu pulled out of the negotiations anyway, ruining them just two days before the [American presidential] election."⁵

**Fact:** Under strong bipartisan pressure from Washington, President Nguyen Van Thieu did send a delegation to Paris. It arrived in December, six weeks before the start of formal negotiations.

The Paris sessions opened on January 25, 1969. They deadlocked immediately. With the two communist delegations insisting that actual negotiations could not "start" until the United States overthrew Thieu and withdrew from Indochina, there was little for the plenipotentiaries to do but read set speeches and adjourn to their separate press conferences. 174 such meetings over four years "produced no substantive results."⁶

c. **Hitchens** asserts that President Thieu's November 3, 1968 announcement that Saigon was not ready to attend the Paris talks destroyed the prospect of an American bombing halt. Hitchens laments, "a bombing halt might be announced as soon as 23 October. *And so it might have been.*"⁷ [Italics Hitchens'.]

**Fact:** President Johnson announced a total unilateral bombing halt over North Vietnam on October 31, 1968. The bombing halt was implemented the following morning. It remained in place for 41 months, in the face of numerous communist offensives.

3. **Nixon's overtures to Saigon**

a. **Hitchens** attributes the alleged "increases" in Saigon's "demands" to contacts between presidential candidate Richard Nixon and the South Vietnamese Ambassador in Washington, Bui Diem. Hitchens cites as evidence Ambassador

⁵ Hitchens, p 12.

⁶ Pierre Asselin, *A Bitter Peace: Washington, Hanoi, and the Making of the Paris Agreement*, p 15.

⁷ Hitchens, p 12.

3

Diem's October 27 cable to Saigon, "Many Republican friends have contacted me and encouraged us to stand firm. They were alarmed by press reports to the effect that you had already softened your position,"⁸ and vice presidential candidate Spiro Agnew's November 2 message to Ambassador Diem, "Hold on, we are gonna win."⁹

**Fact:** Anthony Summers, the author furnishing Hitchens' so-called "'smoking gun' on the 1968 conspiracy,"¹⁰ condemns the Nixon campaign team's overtures to Ambassador Diem as "indefensible," but nonetheless concludes:

> Nixon cannot be held responsible for the collapse of the Johnson peace initiative. President Thieu would very probably have balked at attending the talks anyway, even without the Republican pressure.¹¹

According to the South Vietnamese Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky, "we had little desire to sit down with the communists at all, and no intention of sitting down with, and thereby recognizing, the National Liberation Front."¹²

In his 1987 memoir, *In the Jaws of History*, Ambassador Diem elaborates:

> As I understood him at the time, Thieu believed the North Vietnamese offer [to attend an expanded round of negotiations in Paris] was nothing but a ploy to influence the presidential race in favor of Humphrey, whom they much preferred to Nixon, with his cold war background. By accepting the American offer, the North Vietnamese were achieving both a bombing halt and this potentially vital ability to affect the election. In return, they were agreeing merely to begin another round of talks, which would be only as substantial as they themselves desired. In other words, it was costing them nothing. Thieu was furious....

> I shared Thieu's concerns fully. I wanted the strictest assurances that the inclusion of the NLF in these talks would not lead eventually to some form of American recognition. I also wanted assurances that the North Vietnamese would enter into direct, substantive talks with us.

4. Kissinger's speculation on the likelihood of a bombing halt

a. **Hitchens** charges that Kissinger acted as "an informant inside the incumbent administration's camp – a source of hints and tips and early warnings of official intentions."¹³ Hitchens argues that Kissinger thus bears full legal responsibility

⁸ Hitchens, p 12.

⁹ Hitchens, p 13.

¹⁰ Hitchens, p 13.

¹¹ Summers, *The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon*, p 306.

¹² Ky, *Twenty Years and Twenty Days*.

¹³ Hitchens, p 11.

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for "every additional casualty, on either side"¹⁴ in Indochina from 1969 to 1973, because these deaths would have been "avoidable"¹⁵ if Kissinger had not expressed to Nixon's campaign manager his belief that a bombing halt was likely. **Fact:** In 1968, Kissinger was a Harvard professor. He had no operational role in the Johnson administration. Kissinger had participated once, in 1967, in an unsuccessful peace overture to Hanoi; but even during this time, he had not had any access to classified information or any contact with either of the Vietnamese parties.

In September 1968, Kissinger told Nixon's campaign manager John Mitchell that he believed "there is [a] better than even chance that Johnson will order a bombing halt at mid-October."¹⁶ Nixon found this information "uncomfortably vague."¹⁷ On October 31, Kissinger called one of Nixon's foreign policy advisors several hours in advance of President Johnson's bombing halt announcement and said that American negotiators in Paris had "broken open the champagne." Nixon had already been apprised of developments in Paris during a phone conversation with President Johnson several days earlier.

The most rigorous analysis of this episode is that undertaken by William Bundy, President Johnson's Assistant Secretary of State in charge of the Paris negotiations. In his generally critical volume *A Tangled Web: The Making of Foreign Policy During the Nixon Presidency* (one of Hitchens' cited sources), Bundy writes:

> Did Kissinger learn something more concrete about the prospects and convey this to the Nixon people? In 1983 the investigative reporter Seymour Hersh made headlines by leading off his important book *The Price of Power*, which is sharply critical of Kissinger throughout, with the charge that Kissinger got inside information in Paris, conveyed it to the Nixon camp, and followed up repeatedly during October, ingratiating himself with Nixon to secure a high appointment. On a great many other points in his book, I have found Hersh reliable and often original, showing a solid grasp of problems and issues. But in this case, I believe his charge does not stand up under careful examination. There is of course nothing wrong in offering advice and judgment to a candidate in the hope of preferment. In any presidential campaign, many individuals do so. Such action is open to harsh criticism only if it involves the use of inside government information. Yet that is where the charge collapses.

¹⁴ Hitchens, p. 30.

¹⁵ Ibid.

¹⁶ H.R. Haldeman, relating Kissinger's observations in a memorandum to candidate Nixon. As quoted in Isaacson, *Kissinger*, p. 132.

¹⁷ Nixon, *RN*, pp. 324.

5

As of September 18, and until at least the end of the month, not only was the American position unchanged on the terms for a bombing halt and start of negotiations (as it remained throughout), but there was no sign that the North Vietnamese were wavering in their rejection of that position. The most that Kissinger could have picked up was a sense of increased activity and possibly that an effort was being made to engage the Soviet Union. Even if one or more members of a disciplined delegation was ready to confide in a former, there simply was no useful "inside information" at that point.¹⁸

### 5. The Paris peace agreement

a. **Hitchens** asserts that the Vietnam War "was to end on the same terms and conditions as had been on the table in the fall of 1968."¹⁹

**Fact:** Under the "terms and conditions... on the table in the fall of 1968" and articulated by the NLF in its "ten-point peace plan" of November 3, 1968, Washington was required to complete the following tasks as a precondition for substantive negotiations:

* Overthrow the South Vietnamese government;

* Dismantle all American military installations in South Vietnam;

* Withdraw immediately, unilaterally, and unconditionally from Indochina;

* Pay war reparations to Hanoi.

Once these tasks were complete, Hanoi indicated that negotiations over the release of American prisoners of war "may start."

In contrast, the January 1973 "Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Viet-Nam" included for the first time the following terms:

* The release of all American prisoners of war;

* The continued existence of the allied South Vietnamese government, army, and police force;

* Prohibition of North Vietnamese infiltration into South Vietnam;

* Continued American military and economic aid to Saigon;

* Recognition of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Vietnam;

* Withdrawal of North Vietnamese troops from Laos and Cambodia. While not indicative of a clear-cut American victory, these terms were distinct from the total collapse that had been "on offer" in 1968.

¹⁸ Bundy, *A Tangled Web*, p 40.

¹⁹ Hitchens, p 15.

6

# The "Pennsylvania" Initiative / Air Strikes on the Paul Doumer Bridge

## Background

In 1967 the United States government made several overtures to Hanoi through private channels. The aim of these overtures was to persuade North Vietnam to enter into substantive peace negotiations by holding out the prospect of a cessation of American bombing.

In January, a US government representative approached North Vietnam's representative in Moscow to present these terms. In February and April, President Johnson sent personal letters to North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh. In July, the United States government enlisted the help of two French private citizens to convey the offer personally to high officials in Hanoi. Hanoi responded negatively to each of these overtures.

## 1. The nature of Kissinger's involvement in the Pennsylvania Initiative

a. **Hitchens** asserts that Kissinger "went so far as to involve himself in an initiative that extended to direct personal contact with Hanoi."²⁰ Hitchens calls this development "surreal"²¹ and implies that it was illegal.

**Fact:** In June 1967, Kissinger attended an academic conference in Paris. There he met Herbert Marcovich, a French biochemist working for the World Health Organization. Marcovich mentioned that Ho Chi Minh had during the 1940s lived in the Paris home of Marcovich's friend Raymond Aubrac. Marcovich now suggested that, since he and Aubrac were on good terms with the North Vietnamese leadership, they would be willing to serve as intermediaries between Washington and Hanoi.

Upon his return to the United States, Kissinger reported this development to Secretary of State Dean Rusk. Rusk approved a plan, code-named "Pennsylvania," to make a peace overture to Hanoi through Aubrac and Marcovich. Kissinger was retained as Washington's contact with the two French intermediaries.

²⁰ Hitchens, p 19.

²¹ Ibid.

## 2. The purpose of the Pennsylvania Initiative

a. **Hitchens** asserts that Aubrac and Marcovich “briefed Kissinger in Paris,” and that Kissinger then “parlayed their information into high-level conversations in Washington, relaying the actual or potential negotiating positions of [Prime Minister] Pham Van Dong and other Communist statesmen to Robert McNamara.”²² According to Hitchens, this “relaying” of “negotiating positions” resulted in the “relentless bombing of the North.”²³

**Fact:** On July 24, 1967, Aubrac and Marcovich traveled to Hanoi to meet with Ho Chi Minh and Prime Minister Pham Van Dong, to whom they presented the American proposal for negotiations. Prime Minister Pham replied that if the United States ordered “an unconditional end of bombing,” then there would be “no further obstacle to negotiations.”²⁴ Aubrac and Marcovich related Prime Minister Pham’s position to Kissinger, who in turn notified the White House.

President Johnson authorized a reply to be sent through Aubrac and Marcovich. Washington sought Hanoi's assurance that it “would not take [military] advantage” of a bombing halt. Kissinger was enlisted to travel to Paris and work Johnson's terms into a formula acceptable to Hanoi.

On September 10, 1967 Prime Minister Pham replied with a letter denouncing Johnson's message as an “ultimatum.” “The Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam,” Prime Minister Pham wrote, “energetically rejects the American propositions.”²⁵ When the United States responded by proposing a direct meeting between Kissinger and a North Vietnamese representative, Hanoi replied that such a meeting “cannot take place.”²⁶

Sensing that the channel had ceased to be productive, Secretary of State Rusk told Kissinger to inform Aubrac and Marcovich that “we don’t see any desire on [Hanoi’s] part to engage in serious discussions.”

In late October, 1967, Aubrac and Marcovich made a final attempt to relate Washington's offer to Hanoi. They were rebuffed. "There is nothing new

²² Ibid.

²³ Ibid.

²⁴ Lyndon B. Johnson, *The Vantage Point: Perspectives on the Presidency*, p 266.

²⁵ Johnson, p 267.

²⁶ Ibid.

8

to say," Hanoi's trade representative in Paris told them. "There is no reason to talk again."²⁷

In late January 1968, during a truce for the Tet holiday (the Vietnamese New Year celebration), Hanoi launched its largest offensive of the war.

### 3. The Long Bien/Paul Doumer Bridge

a. **Hitchens** asserts that the "result" of the "parlayed" "negotiating positions" was the "American destruction of the Paul Doumer bridge." Hitchens further asserts that the "destruction" of the bridge "outraged the [North] Vietnamese side," and implies that it should be considered a war crime.²⁸

**Fact:** American air strikes against the Long Bien/Paul Doumer Bridge were a separate development from the "Pennsylvania" negotiating initiative. The Long Bien/Paul Doumer Bridge over the Red River was a crucial military supply link between Hanoi, mainland China, and the port of Haiphong. It was used throughout the war to transport military personnel and equipment, and was defended by extensive anti-aircraft installations.²⁹ According to Harrison Salisbury of the *New York Times*, the bridge was

in all probability the single most important military objective in North Vietnam. Without this bridge the movement of traffic from north to south [Vietnam] would be radically impeded. Loss of the bridge would not knock North Vietnam out of the war. But it would make Hanoi's war effort infinitely more difficult.³⁰

Prior to August 1967, the United States had mounted 13 unsuccessful attacks against the Paul Doumer Bridge. Now, on August 11, the United States Air Force inflicted considerable damage to 3 of the bridge's 19 spans.³¹ North Vietnamese "army engineers and citizens quickly repaired the structure in order to maintain the transportation of personnel and equipment,"³² and traffic along the bridge soon resumed.

²⁷ Johnson, p 268.

²⁸ Hitchens, p 19.

²⁹ Guenter Lewy, *America in Vietnam*, p 398. See also John L. Frisbee, "A Bridge Downtown," *Air Force Magazine* (January 1992).

³⁰ Salisbury, *Behind the Lines: Hanoi*, New York: Harper & Row, 1967, p 207.

³¹ John L Frisbee, "A Place Called the Doumer Bridge," *Air Force Magazine* (February 1988).

³² Vu Kim Chung, "Hanoi's Century-Old Long Bien Bridge Still Open to Traffic," 9 March 2001.

9

# Operation Speedy Express

## Background

Throughout the war, Hanoi sought to subvert the South Vietnamese government by orchestrating a campaign of political assassinations. The chief agents of this campaign were the guerilla forces of the National Liberation Front (the NLF, or "Vietcong"). By the end of 1968, communist forces were estimated to have assassinated 16,594 South Vietnamese government officials and abducted 27,213.33

In December 1968, regional commander General Creighton Abrams authorized "Operation Speedy Express," a campaign against NLF strongholds in the Mekong Delta provinces of Kien Hoa and Dinh Tuong.

## 1. Legal Authority for Operation Speedy Express

a. **Hitchens** asserts that Operation Speedy Express violated "the international laws and charters governing the sovereign rights of self-defense"34 because "no regular North Vietnamese units' were deployed in the Mekong Delta"35 at the time of the operation.

**Fact:** From 1957 through 1968, Hanoi relied primarily on a strategy of guerilla warfare in South Vietnam. To this end, Hanoi trained, equipped, and commanded the National Liberation Front and infiltrated its cadres into South Vietnam. Under the customary laws of war, non-uniformed guerillas are classified as enemy combatants, and may lawfully be pursued by a defending government and its allies.

## 2. Authority for Implementation of Operation Speedy Express

a. **Hitchens** asserts that the Nixon administration implemented Operation Speedy Express to help bolster President Nixon's domestic political position. Hitchens further asserts that, while there is no direct evidence that Kissinger participated in the planning or implementation of Operation Speedy Express, nonetheless the "degree of micro-management revealed in Kissinger's memoirs" means "we can

33 Lewy, *America in Vietnam*, p 454.

34 Hitchens, p 22.

35 Hitchens, p 31.

10

be sure" that Kissinger "was not unaware." Therefore, Hitchens argues, Kissinger should go "straight to the dock at Nuremberg or The Hague."

**Fact:** Operation Speedy Express was designed and implemented during the Johnson administration, under the authority of President Lyndon Johnson, Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford, and regional commander General Creighton Abrams. Kissinger had no operational role in this administration, nor any position in its military chain of command.

When the Nixon administration took office on January 20, 1969, the pacification campaign in Kien Hoa and Dinh Tuong provinces was ongoing. There is no evidence to suggest that the White House was made specifically aware of Operation Speedy Express, nor of its termination on June 1, 1969.

# Planning for a Hypothetical "Operation Duck Hook"

## Background

As National Security Advisor, Kissinger was charged with preparing special studies and options papers for President Nixon. Such documents compiled the views of various government agencies concerning the viability of potential American policies.

In October 1969, President Nixon ordered a study exploring the implications of "Duck Hook" - a hypothetical operation designed to overwhelm Hanoi's military infrastructure and end the war in one decisive stroke.

"Duck Hook" was modeled in part on the operations with which the United States ended the Korean War. In May 1953, President Eisenhower ordered aerial strikes against five major North Korean dams, thereby destroying the year's rice crop and diverting thousands of man-hours into flood control; at the same time, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles threatened the use of nuclear weapons against China. The Communist side relented, and within weeks an armistice was signed at Panmunjom.³⁶

## 1. Context and content of the hypothetical "Operation Duck Hook"

a. **Hitchens** asserts that "Kissinger at one point contemplated using thermonuclear weapons to obliterate the pass through which ran the railway link from North Vietnam to China, and at another stage considered bombing the dikes that prevented North Vietnam's irrigation system from flooding the country."³⁷
Hitchens labels these actions "potential war crimes [on] our bill of indictment."³⁸
Hitchens cites, but does not quote, the accounts of Tad Szulc and Roger Morris to support his assertions.

**Fact:** In October 1969, Kissinger instructed the Duck Hook task force to "consider the options of bombing the Red River dikes to flood the vital farm land of North Vietnam and closing the rail supply lines at the Chinese border."³⁹
The task force's conclusion was that this option was militarily possible, but politically infeasible. They emphasized this conclusion in their report.

³⁶ William Stueck, *The Korean War: An International History*, pp 328-330. See also "Dam Raids of 1953," in Spencer C. Tucker et al., *Encyclopedia of the Korean War: A Political, Social, and Military History*, Vol. I, pp 179-180.
³⁷ Hitchens, p 33.
³⁸ Hitchens, p 34.
³⁹ Morris, *Uncertain Greatness: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy*, pp 163-4.

Soon after Kissinger assigned the Duck Hook study,

as one of the men remembered it, "someone raised the question of nuclear weapons." Kissinger said, "It is the policy of this administration not to use nuclear weapons, and we shall not [use them], so this option excludes that one thing." But "you are not to exclude the possibility of a nuclear device being used for the purposes of a blockage in the pass to China, if that seems to be the only way to close the pass."

Several participants assumed Kissinger meant using a tactical
nuclear weapon to close the mountain pass over which the railroad line runs
from China to North Vietnam. This railway was one of the most important
routes for deliveries of Chinese war materiel, fuel, and food to Hanoi, and
railroad bridges and tracks in Vietnamese territory were often hit by
American aircraft throughout the war. But the special group never
considered in its study the possibility of using a nuclear device as part of the
proposed blockade of North Vietnam, and Kissinger is not known to have
alluded to it again.⁴⁰

2. <u>Outcome and Purported Significance</u>

a. **Hitchens** acknowledges that "Neither of these measures... was taken."⁴¹

Nonetheless, Hitchens asserts that the fact that Kissinger “contemplated” such operations demonstrates Kissinger’s “regnant mentality” of criminality.⁴²

**Fact:** Kissinger instructed the task force to prepare a report on whether an operation such as Duck Hook would be feasible under current military and political conditions. Their conclusion was that it would not. Accordingly, they included in the report an "Analysis" section advising the president to reject "Duck Hook." In November 1969, Kissinger presented the study to President Nixon. The president rejected the "Duck Hook" option, and it was never implemented.

⁴⁰ Szulc, *The Illusion of Peace*, pp 151-152.

⁴¹ Hitchens, pp 33-34.

⁴² Hitchens, p 34.

13

# US Bombing of North Vietnamese Troops and Supply Routes in Laos

## Background

Following the establishment in 1954 of the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Vietnam, North Vietnam began infiltrating supplies and cadres into South Vietnam overland through Laos, a technically neutral state. In concert with these efforts, North Vietnam trained and armed a subordinate organization of Laotian communists known as the Pathet Lao.⁴³

Beginning in 1964, North Vietnam expanded its Laotian infiltration routes into a network of roads, oil pipelines, supply depots, and military staging posts. This network, known informally as the “Ho Chi Minh Trail,” served as North Vietnam’s main infiltration route into South Vietnam.⁴⁴

In order to strengthen its hold on the provinces through which the Ho Chi Minh Trail passed, North Vietnam had by 1965 stationed an estimated 40,000 troops in Laos.⁴⁵ North Vietnamese troops also directed and participated in annual Pathet Lao offensives against non-communist Laotian forces stationed in territory adjacent to the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

The United States, which was committed to the defense of South Vietnam, sought to prevent a Pathet Lao victory in Laos, as well as to interdict North Vietnamese troops and supplies along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. To this end, in 1962 President Kennedy ordered a program of covert military assistance to the government of Laos.⁴⁶ In 1965, President Johnson ordered a systematic bombing campaign against the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Both of these policies continued into the Nixon administration.

## 1. North Vietnamese Military Presence in Laos

a. **Hitchens** asserts that Laos “allegedly” and “supposedly concealed or protected North Vietnamese supply lines.” Hitchens suggests that the Ho Chi Minh Trail was an American “propaganda fantas[y].”⁴⁷

⁴³ Kirk, *Wider War*, pp 200-203.

⁴⁴ See, for instance, John Prados, *The Blood Road: The Ho Chi Minh Trail and the Vietnam War*.

⁴⁵ Kirk, p 215.

⁴⁶ At the agreement of the US and Laotian governments, this program was not publicly acknowledged, so as to avoid giving Hanoi a pretext for further expanding its encroachments in eastern Laos.

⁴⁷ Hitchens, p 34.

14

**Fact:** Bui Tin, a former colonel in the People's Army of [North] Vietnam, offers a straightforward account of North Vietnamese infiltration through Laos in his memoir, *Following Ho Chi Minh*:

> The reason why we had to undertake this difficult journey was the establishment under the Geneva Agreements in 1954 of the demilitarized zone along the Ben Hai river which marked the division between North and South....[T]he fence prevented us from moving directly down Highway One [to South Vietnam]. We had to circumvent it by crossing into the mountains of Laos.... [T]f we were to pursue the war in the South, we had to look into the question of communications and how the Ho Chi Minh Trail could or should be expanded.... [B]y the early 1970s we had constructed a network of oil pipelines along the trails. It was a tremendous logistical achievement with engineering units supported by volunteer youth groups not only building but also having to repair the roads and bridges destroyed by the enemy. There were also signals and medical units as well as, of course, defense forces deployed all the way along the trails to ward off ambushes and surprise attacks. In fact the Truong Son operation, as we called it, needed the equivalent of two entire army corps to maintain the trails as the strategic artery between North and South.⁴⁸

b. **Hitchens** asserts that Kissinger “urg[ed] the expansion of the war into neutral Laos” for his own personal political benefit. On this basis, Hitchens charges Kissinger with “the crime of aggressive war.”⁴⁹

**Fact:** Systematic American air strikes against North Vietnamese forces and military installations in Laos began in 1965. In 1968, when President Johnson ordered a halt to air strikes against North Vietnam, he ordered a simultaneous increase in air strikes against North Vietnamese infiltration routes through Laos.⁵⁰ President Nixon maintained this policy, while at the same time increasing United States military aid to the government of Laos. In 1970, when Hanoi sent 13,000 reinforcement troops to the Plain of Jars in northern Laos, President Nixon also approved a Laotian government request for B-52 strikes in support of defending Laotian forces.

## 2. Civilian Casualties in Laos

a. **Hitchens** asserts that “As a result of the expanded and intensified bombing campaigns” undertaken during the Nixon administration, “as many as 350,000

⁴⁸ Bui Tin, *Following Ho Chi Minh*, pp 48-50.

⁴⁹ Hitchens, p 34.

⁵⁰ Kirk, p 238. See also Bundy, p 69.

15

civilians in Laos...lost their lives." Hitchens further asserts that "these are not the highest estimates."⁵¹

**Fact:** Few reliable statistics exist on the war in Laos. In his comprehensive *Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War*, historian Stanley Kutler (in general, a strong critic of the Nixon administration) places the total number of "Laotian civilian losses to US bombs and anti-guerilla operations" from 1965 to 1973⁵² in the "tens of thousands."⁵³ In his authoritative *History of Laos*, the historian Martin Stuart-Fox estimates at 200,000 the total number of Laotian casualties, both civilian and military, incurred during fighting in Laos between 1959 and 1973. Stuart-Fox attributes these casualties to clashes between rival Laotian forces, successive North Vietnamese invasions, and the American bombing campaign of 1965-1973.

⁵¹ Hitchens, p 35.

⁵² That is, during the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations. Hitchens' estimate covers only the Nixon administration.

⁵³ Kutler, p 103.

16

# US Operations Against North Vietnamese Military Installations in Cambodia

## Background

In 1965 North Vietnam established a series of 15 military staging posts and supply depots in eastern Cambodia along the border with South Vietnam. Around this time, North Vietnam also armed and trained an assemblage of militant Cambodian communists known as the Khmer Rouge. Fearing communist reprisal, and lacking sufficient military means to dislodge the Vietnamese invaders, the government of Cambodia refrained from publicly protesting these infringements on its sovereignty.

The United States government was barred by domestic political constraints – though not by international law⁵⁴ – from undertaking major military operations against the North Vietnamese sanctuaries in Cambodia. However, throughout the Johnson administration American and South Vietnamese troops had returned fire against Vietnamese communists attacking from the sanctuaries, and had occasionally bombed Vietnamese military positions on Cambodian territory.⁵⁵

In February 1968, Vietnamese communists utilized the Cambodian sanctuaries as a staging post for their surprise Tet offensive against South Vietnam. That fall, Cambodian troops sought to dislodge the Vietnamese forces from Cambodian territory, but were beaten back after a series of clashes.⁵⁶

In March 1969, in the midst of a major North Vietnamese offensive, President Nixon lifted prior restrictions on US aerial operations against the Cambodian sanctuaries. The United States then undertook Operation "Menu," a campaign of air strikes against six of the Cambodian sanctuaries.

In March 1970, Cambodian Chief of State Prince Norodom Sihanouk was deposed by his own government ministers on charges of corruption and leniency towards North Vietnam. The Cambodian legislative assembly transferred Sihanouk's duties to Prime Minister Lon Nol, a Cambodian general with a record of public opposition to the Vietnamese military presence in Cambodia.

⁵⁴ See Section 5 below, "Cambodia and International Law."

⁵⁵ The first such air strike occurred in January 1962. See also US Department of Defense, *Cross-border Operations, Southeast Asia; 1964-1968 - Section 2: Cambodia*, August 7, 1973.

⁵⁶ Wilfred P. Deac, *Road to the Killing Fields*, p 52.

On March 12, 1970, the government of Cambodian formally demanded the withdrawal of all Vietnamese communist troops from Cambodian territory. North Vietnam refused, and instead launched a full-scale invasion of Cambodia on March 29, 1970. At the request of the Cambodian government, the United States undertook a series of air strikes in support of defending Cambodian forces. In addition, in April 1970 the United States undertook an "incursion" 22 miles into Cambodian territory to neutralize the North Vietnamese border sanctuaries.

# 1. North Vietnamese Sanctuaries and Supply Depots in Cambodia

a. **Hitchens** asserts that Cambodia “allegedly” and “supposedly concealed or protected North Vietnamese supply lines.” Hitchens suggests that the North Vietnamese military presence in Cambodia was an American “propaganda fantas[y].”⁵⁷

**Fact:** Hoping to preserve at least the semblance of Cambodian neutrality, Prince Norodom Sihanouk at first publicly denied the existence of the North Vietnamese sanctuaries. Yet by late 1967 – as the North Vietnamese amassed supplies in Cambodia for their 1968 Tet Offensive against South Vietnam – “the Vietnamese Communist presence in Cambodia had grown too large for the prince to hide.”⁵⁸

On January 19, 1968 Prince Norodom Sihanouk privately informed a US government envoy:

> We don't want any Vietnamese in Cambodia.... We will be very glad if you solve our problem. We are not opposed to hot pursuit in uninhabited areas. You would be liberating us from the Viet Cong. For me only Cambodia counts. I want you to force the Viet Cong to leave Cambodia. In unpopulated areas, where there are not Cambodians,– such precise cases I would shut my eyes.⁵⁹

Prince Norodom Sihanouk offered regional commander General Creighton Abrams similar counsel:

⁵⁷ Hitchens, p. 34.

⁵⁸ Donald Kirk, *Wider War: The Struggle for Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos*, p. 106. Kirk himself accidentally encountered a North Vietnamese military encampment in Cambodia in April 1970. He recounts this episode on pp. 113-116 of *Wider War*.

⁵⁹ Prince Norodom Sihanouk to Ambassador Chester Bowles, January 19, 1967. As quoted in Kissinger, *Ending the Vietnam War*, p. 67. See also Bowles, *Promises to Keep*.

18

If the Americans bomb where the VC are, that's none of my business... I can't imagine the Hanoi representative coming to my Minister of Foreign Affairs and saying, "I have the honor to inform you that the Americans have bombed my forces who are in your country without authority."⁶⁰

In the fall of 1968, Prince Norodom Sihanouk ordered the Cambodian army to mount an offensive against Vietnamese communist troops encamped along a highway in eastern Cambodia. The Vietnamese "vigorously resisted," and "violent clashes resulted."⁶¹

Beginning in June 1969, General Lon Nol of Cambodia made public a series of reports detailing the North Vietnamese military positions in Cambodia. General Lon Nol estimated the foreign communist presence at between 35,000 and 40,000 men, and described the North Vietnamese as "masters of the occupied regions."⁶²

## 2. <u>Cambodian Civilians Inhabiting the Border Regions</u>

a. **Hitchens** refers to a Joint Chiefs of Staff memorandum noting the possibility that "some Cambodian casualties would be sustained in the operation" against North Vietnamese military encampments in Cambodia. Hitchens paraphrases the memorandum as follows: "The target district for Breakfast (Base Area 35) was inhabited, said the memo, by about 1,640 Cambodian civilians. Lunch (Base Area 609) was inhabited by 198 of them, Snack (Base Area 351) by 383, Dinner (Base Area 352) by 770, and Dessert (Base Area 350) by about 120 Cambodian peasants." On the basis of these figures, Hitchens asserts that the United States undertook Operation Menu "with full knowledge of its effect on civilians." Hitchens further asserts that "Kissinger was lying when he later [in 1973] told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that areas of Cambodia selected for bombing were 'unpopulated.'"

**Fact:** In preparation for military efforts to neutralize the Cambodian sanctuaries, the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff compiled a report in April 1969 concerning communist positions in fifteen "base areas" along the Cambodia-South Vietnam border. Each "base area" was a space of 10 to 20

⁶⁰ As quoted in Lewis Sorley, *A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam*, p. 119.

⁶¹ Deac, *Road to the Killing Fields*, p. 52.

⁶² Kirk, *Wider War*, pp. 109-111.

19

square miles, *within which space* intelligence operations had identified both
Cambodian villages and North Vietnamese military positions.

One issue addressed by the JCS report was the minimization of risk to
Cambodian peoples and structures within these areas. The JCS analyzed the
number and location of Cambodian civilians believed to reside inside each base
area; on this basis, the 9 most populated base areas were omitted from
consideration for military strikes. In the remaining 6 base areas, the JCS reached
the following conclusions:

a. There is very little mixing of the VC/NVA Forces with the Cambodian populace. Conversely, Cambodians rarely go into areas under de facto control of the VC/NVA.

b. Cambodian villages and populated areas are readily identifiable and can be essentially avoided in conducting preplanned operations into the base areas.

c. Very few permanent structures exist in the base areas outside the Cambodian villages. Virtually all those that do exist are enemy-occupied.⁶³

"Extreme care would be taken to attack only known enemy bases in Cambodia, thus minimizing the risk of engagement with Cambodian forces or of causing Cambodian casualties."⁶⁴

b. **Hitchens** notes with approval that Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird sent "a memo to the Joint Chiefs of Staff" during Operation Menu inquiring whether "steps [were] being taken, on a continuing basis, to minimize the risk of striking Cambodian peoples and structures." Hitchens asserts that "There is no evidence of Henry Kissinger... ever seeking even such modest assurances."⁶⁵

**Fact:** In keeping with the policy outlined in the aforementioned memorandum, the United States sought to minimize damage to Cambodian peoples and structures in the North Vietnamese base areas. During the execution of Operation Menu, Secretary of Defense Laird sought to confirm with the Joint Chiefs of Staff that these precautionary measures were still being observed. As National Security Advisor, Kissinger made similar requests, one of which Hitchens describes on pages 38-39 of *The Trial of Henry Kissinger*:

⁶³ JCSM-207-69, April 9, 1969, Appendix E, p. 27.

⁶⁴ JCSM-207-69, April 9, 1969, Appendix B, p. 8.

⁶⁵ Hitchens, p. 29.

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[Joint Chiefs of Staff B-52 specialist] Colonel [Ray] Sitton does recall, it must be admitted, that Kissinger requested that bombing avoid civilian casualties. His explicit motive in making this request was to avoid or forestall complaints from the government of Prince Sihanouk.⁶⁶

c. **Hitchens** asserts, on the basis of the figures cited in the aforementioned Joint Chiefs of Staff memorandum, that Kissinger "slaughter[ed] large numbers of [Cambodian] civilians"⁶⁷ during Operation Menu.

**Fact:** Nearly two months into the American bombing campaign, Cambodian Chief of State Prince Norodom Sihanouk addressed a press conference:

> Here it is – the first report about several B-52 bombings. Yet I have not been informed about that at all, because I have not lost any houses, any countrymen, nothing, nothing. Nobody was caught in those barrages – nobody, no Cambodians.

> I have not protested the bombings of Viet Cong camps because I have not heard of the bombings. I was not in the know, because in certain areas of Cambodia there are no Cambodians.

> That is what I want to tell you, gentlemen. If there is a buffalo or any Cambodians killed, I will be informed immediately. But this is an affair between the Americans and the Viet Cong – Viet Minh without any Khmer witnesses. There have been no Khmer witnesses, so how can I protest?⁶⁸

### 3. Domestic Legal Authority for US Military Operations in Cambodia

a. **Hitchens** asserts that Kissinger "usurped the customary chain of command" during planning for Operation Menu. Hitchens cites as evidence a passage from Kissinger's memoirs in which Kissinger describes "work[ing] out the guidelines for the bombing of the enemy's sanctuaries."⁶⁹

**Fact:** On February 21, 1969, North Vietnam launched a nationwide offensive against South Vietnam. The next day, President Nixon embarked on a previously planned series of state visits to allied European capitals. President Nixon sought immediately to begin preparations for the bombing of selected North Vietnamese military installations in Cambodia. Yet the president could not, in his capacity as a visiting Head of State, attend all the meetings necessary for planning this course of action. Therefore, he designated as his representative

⁶⁶ Hitchens, pp 38-39.

⁶⁷ Hitchens, p 37.

⁶⁸ Prince Norodom Sihanouk, press conference in Phnom Penh, May 13, 1969. As quoted in Kissinger, *Ending the Vietnam War*, p 68.

⁶⁹ Hitchens, p 37.

21

White House Chief of Staff Robert Haldeman. President Nixon directed Haldeman, National Security Advisor Kissinger, General Alexander Haig, and Colonel Ray Sitton, a B-52 expert at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to meet in Brussels on February 24, 1969, to begin the first round of preparations. At the end of the day, Haig and Sitton returned to Washington, D.C. to brief Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird. When President Nixon returned to the United States, deliberations continued. The first B-52 strike took place on March 18, 1969.

b. **Hitchens** charges that American air strikes against North Vietnamese installations in Cambodia "violate[d] the United States Constitution."

**Fact:** John Norton Moore, a renowned expert on national security law at the University of Virginia, furnishes the following legal analysis:

"[The] decision to intercede against the border base areas seems most appropriately characterized as a command decision incident to the conduct of the Viet-Nam War. As such, there is little doubt that President Nixon was acting within his Constitutional authority as Commander-in-chief....

"[Furthermore], the Southeast Asia Resolution [of 1964] lends substantial support to Presidential authority. The Southeast Asia Resolution, which is the principal Constitutional authorization for the Viet-Nam War, provides that:

[Sec. 1....] Congress approves and supports the determination of the President, as Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression....

Sec. 2.... the United States is, therefore, prepared, as the President determines, to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force, to assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty requesting assistance in defense of its freedom.

"In view of the continued use of Cambodian border sanctuaries in support of armed attacks launched against South Vietnamese and United States forces, the President would seem to have Congressional authorization under Section 1 of the Southeast Asia Resolution for limited actions directed against the sanctuaries.... Since Cambodia, like Viet-Nam, is a protocol state of SEATO, the language of Section 2 of the resolution would, in the event of a request for assistance from Cambodia, also seem to authorize a Presidential decision to take military action necessary to the defense of Cambodia."⁷⁰

⁷⁰ John Norton Moore, "Legal Dimensions of the Decision to Intercede in Cambodia," in Falk, ed., *The Vietnam War and International Law*, Volume 4, pp 83-84.

22

4. War in Cambodia, 1970-1975

a. **Hitchens** faults the United States for "the actual territorial invasion of Cambodia," and asserts that Kissinger "urged the expansion of the war into... neutral Cambodia" for his own personal political benefit.

**Fact:** On March 12, 1970, the Foreign Minister of Cambodia demanded the withdrawal of all Vietnamese communist troops from Cambodian territory within three days. When this deadline passed without any discernible change in the Vietnamese presence, the Foreign Minister requested a meeting with the Ambassador of North Vietnam and the Ambassador of the National Liberation Front. The day before this scheduled meeting, the two communist ambassadors left Cambodia. Two days later, on March 29, 1970, four divisions of the People's Army of [North] Vietnam (roughly 50,000 soldiers) invaded Cambodia and occupied the eastern third of the country. Within days the invasion force was 10 miles from the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh.⁷¹

One month after the North Vietnamese invasion, President Nixon ordered an "incursion" 22 miles across the Cambodian border into North Vietnamese-held territory. Participants in this incursion included American, South Vietnamese, and Cambodian government forces.⁷² These forces commandeered the following communist supplies, all evidence of a prior North Vietnamese "expansion of the war" into Cambodia:

* A total of 9,300 tons of weapons (both individual and crew-served), ammunition, and supplies;

* 32 cases of cryptographic equipment;

* Over 1 million pages of documents, including detailed plans for the overthrow of the Cambodian government.⁷³

b. **Hitchens** asserts that at least "600,000" Cambodian "civilians" died "[a]s a result of the expanded and intensified bombing campaign" undertaken by the United States. Hitchens claims that "these are not the highest estimates."⁷⁴

71 Deac, p 72.

72 Deac, p 77.

73 Sorley, p 204; and Deac, p 79.

23

**Fact:** 600,000 to 700,000 is the generally accepted estimate of *total* Cambodian casualties, both military *and* civilian, incurred during the North Vietnamese invasion of March 1970, forced deportations of ethnic Vietnamese citizens, early Khmer Rouge massacres of "bourgeois" Cambodians, and the Cambodian general war of 1970-1975.⁷⁵ One aspect of the war during these years was an expanded American bombing campaign in support of Cambodian government forces fighting North Vietnamese troops and their Khmer Rouge allies.

**5. Cambodia and International Law**

a. **Hitchens** charges that American "hot pursuit" of Vietnamese communists retreating to the Cambodian sanctuaries violated "all... law and precedent." On this basis, Hitchens charges Kissinger with "the crime of aggressive war."⁷⁶

**Fact:** The Fifth Hague Convention of 1907 concerning the "Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers and Persons in Case of War on Land" stipulates:

*Article 2.* Belligerents are forbidden to move troops or convoys of either munitions of war or supplies across the territory of a neutral Power....

*Article 4.* Corps of combatants cannot be formed nor recruiting agencies opened on the territory of a neutral Power to assist the belligerents.

*Article 5.* A neutral Power must not allow any of the acts referred to in Articles 2 to 4 to occur on its territory.

If a neutral state is unwilling or unable to expel foreign military forces making use of its territory – as in the case of Cambodia and the Vietnamese communists – the customary law of war is as follows:

> Should a violation of neutral territory occur through the complaisance of the neutral state, or because of its inability, through weakness or otherwise to resist such violation, then a belligerent which is prejudiced by the violation is entitled to take measures to redress the situation, including, if necessary, attack on enemy forces in the neutral territory.⁷⁷

b. **Hitchens** asserts that subsequent US operations in Cambodia "violat[ed] international law."⁷⁸ Hitchens cites as alleged "crimes" the 1970 US incursion

⁷⁴ Hitchens, p 35.

⁷⁵ See, for instance, Lomperis, *From People's War to People's Rule*, Clodfelter, *Vietnam in Military Statistics*, and Tucker, ed., *Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War*, "Cambodia."

⁷⁶ Hitchens, p 34.

⁷⁷ Greenspan, *The Modern Law of Land Warfare*, p 538.

⁷⁸ Hitchens, p 30.

24

into North Vietnamese-held Cambodian territory, as well as the "expanded bombing campaign"⁷⁹ undertaken by the United States.

**Fact:** Following the North Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia on March 29, 1970, the Government of Cambodia appealed to the United Nations Security Council for assistance against the "invading Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces."⁸⁰ President Nixon subsequently ordered US aerial strikes in support of besieged Cambodian government forces, as well as limited ground operations to neutralize the communist sanctuaries along the Cambodia-South Vietnam border.

The day after President Nixon's televised address on these operations, the government of Cambodia issued a formal statement "express[ing] its gratitude for" the "aid of the United States of America in the defense of the neutrality of Cambodia, violated by the North Vietnamese." The Cambodian statement further emphasized that Cambodia would "accept all unconditional help from friendly countries in all forms (military, economic, and diplomatic)."⁸¹ As American troops crossed over into Cambodia, the High Command of the Cambodian Armed Forces issued a communiqué calling the American operations "indispensable" in "driv[ing] these Vietcong and North Vietnamese aggressors from our territory."⁸²

⁷⁹ Hitchens, p 35.

⁸⁰ *New York Times*, April 23, 1970, p 4, column 5.

⁸¹ *New York Times*, May 5, 1970, p 16, column 8.

⁸² *New York Times*, May 6, 1970, p 18, column 2.

25

# Operation Linebacker II (the "Christmas Bombing")

## Background

By November 1972, Washington and Hanoi had negotiated the bulk of what was to become the "Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Viet-Nam." At this point, Saigon presented Washington with a list of 69 desired modifications in the agreement's provisional text.

When Kissinger presented Saigon's points at a November 18 session with Le Duc Tho, Hanoi began to retreat from its earlier, more flexible negotiating position. Over the next three weeks, the North Vietnamese delegation inserted into the provisional text a series of changes which, taken together, vitiated the substance of the entire agreement.⁸³ By December, the negotiations had reached a total deadlock.

President Nixon moved to break this deadlock by authorizing one final, overwhelming application of American airpower in North Vietnam. The operation, code-named Linebacker II, targeted every site of military significance in Hanoi and Haiphong. After 11 days of pitched battle⁸⁴, Hanoi conceded to reopen negotiations. On January 8, talks resumed in Paris. On January 27, representatives of the four concerned parties ratified the "Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Viet-Nam."

## 1. Timeframe of Operation Linebacker II

a. **Hitchens** asserts that Operation Linebacker II was "begun during" the presidential election campaign "and continued after that election had been won.**

**Fact:** Operation Linebacker II began on December 19, 1972 and ended on December 30, 1972. The American presidential election was held on November 5, 1972.

## 2. Legality of Operation Linebacker II

a. **Hitchens** asserts that Operation Linebacker II was illegal because "the bombing was not conducted for anything that could be described as 'military reasons.'"

⁸³ For instance, on December 7 and 12, Hanoi sought provisions that would have permitted Communist military transit across the Demilitarized Zone into South Vietnam; and on December 11, Hanoi deleted a clause requiring North Vietnamese forces to withdraw from Laos and Cambodia.

⁸⁴ See, for instance, Marshall Michel's detailed military history of Linebacker II, *The 11 Days of Christmas*.

Hitchens asserts that the real “reason” for Linebacker II was President Nixon’s desire to “make a show of strength” to the United States Congress and President Nguyen Van Thieu of South Vietnam.⁸⁵

**Fact:** The primary purpose of Operation Linebacker II was to shock the North Vietnamese leadership into returning to negotiations and concluding a peace agreement with the United States. In a comprehensive examination of the Paris negotiations using declassified North Vietnamese documents, the historian Pierre Asselin concludes that the bombing was, in this sense, “cruel necessity”:

> When Hanoi stalemated and indefinitely suspended the talks in December, it suggested an unwillingness to resume them in the near future. Only a change of circumstances serious enough to threaten its ability to sustain the Resistance⁸⁶ and the Revolution⁸⁷ could cause...an about-face. The VWP politburo agreed to the White House request on 26 December to resume the talks because the bombing had crippled the DRVN’s vital organs and thereby jeopardized the Revolution.... The bombing broke the pattern of negotiation in which the DRVN backed away from settlement at the last moment by reopening one or more issues already settled, sometimes with no more justification than an unwillingness to settle.... In retrospect, it is fair to say that the December bombing was a “cruel necessity.” The agreement it produced dramatically reduced the violence in Vietnam.⁸⁸

b. **Hitchens** further asserts that “the Christmas bombing of North Vietnam… must be considered a war crime by any standard.”

**Fact:** The “Christmas bombing” sparked a firestorm of criticism both at home and abroad. Yet most of this criticism drew on false or exaggerated reports of supposedly “deliberate” civilian casualties. In an authoritative study of the war based on classified Pentagon documents, the historian Guenter Lewy recounts how, during the bombing campaign, North Vietnamese propaganda was routinely taken at face value:

> The incidental civilian damage and the overall extremely destructive impact of LINEBACKER II gave rise to predictable outcries of terror-bombing. The December bombing, Hanoi charged, surpassed the atrocities committed by the Hitlerite fascists and represented an “escalation of genocide to an all-time high.” In only 12 days “the Nixon administration wrought innumerable Oradours, Lycides, Guernicas, Coventrys....” Antiwar groups in America and many others who should have known better joined in the worldwide chorus of

⁸⁵ Hitchens, p. 23.

⁸⁶ Hanoi's term for its efforts to overthrow the South Vietnamese government.

⁸⁷ Hanoi's term for its domestic drive to build a socialist society.

⁸⁸ Pierre Asselin, *A Bitter Peace: Washington, Hanoi, and the Making of the Paris Agreement*, pp. 164-165.

27

denunciation. One scholar speaks of "unabashed terror tactics" and a "flaunting of established norms of civilized conduct."

These charges are disproven by evidence available then and by later reports from the scene. The North Vietnamese themselves at the time claimed between 1,300 and 1,600 fatalities, and even though both Hanoi and Haiphong were partially evacuated, such a number of victims – regrettable as any civilian casualties always are – is surely not indicative of terror-bombing. Attacks explicitly aimed at the morale of the population took place against Germany and Japan during World War II and killed tens of thousands. According to an East German estimate, 35,000 died in the triple raid on Dresden in February 1945; the official casualty toll of the bombing of Tokyo with incendiaries on 9-10 March 1945, stands at 83,793 dead and 40,918 wounded. The Hanoi death toll, wrote the London *Economist*, "is smaller than the number of civilians killed by the North Vietnamese in their artillery bombardment of An Loc in April or the toll of refugees ambushed when trying to escape from Quang Tri at the beginning of May. That is what makes the denunciation of Mr. Nixon as another Hitler sound so unreal." Part of the death toll was undoubtedly caused by the North Vietnamese themselves, for they launched about 1000 SAMs [surface to air missiles], many of which impacted in the cities of Hanoi and Haiphong, and took their toll on their own people....Malcolm W. Browne of the *New York Times* was greatly surprised by the condition in which he found Hanoi and wrote that "the damage caused by American bombing was grossly overstated by North Vietnamese propaganda...." "Hanoi has certainly been damaged," noted Peter Ward of the *Baltimore Sun* on 25 March 1973 after a visit, "but evidence on the ground disproves charges of indiscriminate bombing. Several bomb loads obviously went astray into civilian residential areas, but damage there is minor, compared to the total destruction of selected targets."⁸⁹

⁸⁹ Lewy, *America in Vietnam*, p 414. For a further discussion of this phenomenon, see Herz et al., *The Prestige Press and the Christmas Bombing: Images and Reality in Vietnam*.

[LCS]

28

# The Writings and Statements of Military Jurist Telford Taylor

## Background

In 1945, Colonel Telford Taylor was retained as an assistant to the Chief Counsel for the Prosecution at the Nuremberg trials. When the chief prosecutor resigned his post in 1946, Taylor was selected as his replacement and promoted to the rank of Brigadier General. In 1962 Taylor was appointed a professor of law at Columbia University in New York. In this capacity Taylor became an outspoken critic of American policy in Indochina. In 1971, Taylor published *Nuremberg and Vietnam: An American Tragedy*, in which he lamented the inconsistency of permitting Washington and Hanoi to pursue military policies elements of which had been considered "war crimes" during the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals.

## 1. General Taylor's opinions on international law and the Vietnam War

a. **Hitchens** asserts that "In January 1971," General Taylor "deliver[ed] the opinion that a large portion of his country's political class should probably be hooded and blindfolded and dropped through a trapdoor on the end of a rope."⁹⁰ Hitchens describes this view as General Taylor's "legal and moral conclusion."⁹¹

**Fact:** During a January 1971 appearance on "The Dick Cavett Show," General Telford Taylor commented that if "the American people... face the principles that they laid down and applied to Germans and Japanese... [and if] they're willing to have the principles work the other way too," then President Johnson's top military commander in Vietnam, General William Westmoreland, could be tried for war crimes and "could be found guilty...That's for some court to decide if you have the evidence there and look at it."⁹² The next day, a *New York Times* reporter asked Taylor whether he meant to implicate other American officials in his remarks. "The only civilian leader to whom the Yamashita precedent might conceivably be applied, [Taylor] said, would be Lyndon B. Johnson as Commander in Chief."⁹³

⁹⁰ Hitchens, p 25.

⁹¹ Ibid.

⁹² Neil Sheehan, "Taylor Says by Yamashita Ruling Westmoreland May Be Guilty," *New York Times*, January 9, 1971. This is the "considered statement" Hitchens cites in his account.

⁹³ Ibid.

29

b. **Hitchens** cites Taylor's book *Nuremberg and Vietnam* as evidence that "Taylor anticipated the Kissinger case in many ways when he recalled the trial of the Japanese statesman Koki Hirota," who was convicted of criminal responsibility for Japanese atrocities in the 1937-1938 "Rape of Nanking" in China.⁹⁴ Hitchens asserts that according to Taylor's interpretation of international law, Kissinger should be tried for "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity" just as leading Nazis and Japanese militarists were.

**Fact:** General Taylor did not advocate trying American government officials as war criminals. Nor did he make any reference to Henry Kissinger in his 1971 book *Nuremberg and Vietnam: An American Tragedy*, or in the public remarks to which Hitchens refers. The extent of Hitchens' obfuscation is made clear in this letter⁹⁵ from Jonathan Bush, General Taylor's authorized biographer:

[To the Editor:]

Christopher Hitchens's originality and his use of evidence and international law are open to debate. But his reliance on the late General Telford Taylor's writings to argue that criminous heads of state must be tried, and that aerial bombardment constitutes a triable offense, is in error. As his biographer, my impression is that Taylor, though a passionate Vietnam dove, had too nuanced and forthright a view of international law to provide the ammunition Hitchens needs.

True, Taylor did say that Generals Westmoreland and Abrams, and even Presidents Johnson and Nixon, might be guilty of war crimes based on the *Yamashita* decision (in which the Supreme Court let stand a military conviction of a Japanese commander for atrocities in the Philippines that he neither ordered nor condoned nor knew of). But, like most civil libertarians, Taylor also thought that Yamashita was a procedural disgrace. He argued that the law was more accurately stated in Nuremberg's "Hostage Case" (*U.S. v. List*), which held commanders responsible for war crimes only when they "knew or should have known" of the atrocities, a more restrictive standard.

Similarly, Taylor wrote repeatedly against the aerial bombing campaigns over both North and South Vietnam. But he knew that, except where it was demonstrably unnecessary, indiscriminate, and disproportionate, strategic bombing had not been criminal during World War II and that international law in this area had not evolved in the intervening twenty years. Taylor's view of bombing is illustrated in his December 1972 trip to Hanoi with Joan Baez and others who opposed the war. The delegation not only saw devastation but was itself bombed -- Nixon's Christmas surprise. Taylor, nonetheless, told the press and his North

⁹⁴ Hitchens, p. 29.

⁹⁵ Featured in the "Letters" section of the May 2001 issue of *Harper's* magazine (pp. 4-5), in response to the initial publication of Hitchens' two-part essay "The Trial of Henry Kissinger" (*Harper's*, February & March, 2001). The passages under discussion were published verbatim in the book version of *The Trial of Henry Kissinger*.

[LC]

30

Vietnamese hosts that the bombing was cruel, destructive, but not a violation of the laws of war. (The clear violation, he added, was North Vietnam's failure to evacuate American POWs to shelter as soon as bombing began.)

Taylor opposed stretching the rhetoric of international law to challenge even dreadful policy, as Hitchens could have discovered. In misconstruing Taylor's arguments, what Hitchens has managed to do is convince this long-time opponent of Nixon and Kissinger's foreign-policy disasters that even Kissinger deserves better than to be tried before the kind of international tribunal recently endorsed by the contrite Robert McNamara.

Jonathan A. Bush
Center for Scholars and Writers
New York Public Library
New York City

# The Seizure of the *Mayaguez*

## Background

In April 1975 a group of extreme communists known as the Khmer Rouge overthrew the government of Cambodia and assumed control over the Cambodian state. On May 12, 1975 Khmer Rouge cadres commandeered an American merchant vessel, the *Mayaguez*, in international waters in the Gulf of Thailand. After the Khmer Rouge failed to respond to American demands for the release of the *Mayaguez*, President Ford ordered a military operation to seize the *Mayaguez* and rescue its crew. A battle ensued between US Marines and Khmer Rouge troops on the island of Koh Tang.

## 1. Sequence of Events Surrounding the Rescue of the Mayaguez

a. **Hitchens** asserts that "Kissinger pressed for" a military operation to retake the *Mayaguez* "[i]n spite of reports that the crew had been released."⁹⁶

**Fact:** On May 12th, 1975, 7:40am, President Ford received word that members of the Khmer Rouge had "fired upon and boarded" an unarmed American merchant ship in international waters, and that the ship and its crew were "being towed to [an] unknown Cambodian port."⁹⁷

At noon, President Ford convened the National Security Council. There, the administration resolved to declare the seizure of the *Mayaguez* "an act of piracy" and demand the immediate release of the ship and its crew.⁹⁸

At 1:50pm, the White House released a statement outlining the American position. This was followed by a diplomatic demarche sent to the Cambodian Embassy in Beijing. The Khmer Rouge did not respond to the first message, and returned the second message unopened.⁹⁹

The next day, the United States government sent a letter outlining its position to the Secretary General of the United Nations. The United States government also attempted to enlist the assistance of China, which was allied to

⁹⁶ Hitchens, p 24.
⁹⁷ *Mayaguez* distress signal, received 12May 1975 by US Embassy in Jakarta, as reported in the *New York Times*, 16 May 1975, "A Chronology of the Mayaguez Episode."
⁹⁸ Ralph Wetterhahn, *The Last Battle: The Mayaguez Incident and the End of the Vietnam War*, p 34.
⁹⁹ General Accounting Office of the United States Congress, "The Seizure of the *Mayaguez*. A Case Study of Crisis Management," 11 May 1976.

the new government of Cambodia. None of these efforts elicited a response
from the Khmer Rouge.

Meanwhile, the crew of the *Mayaguez* were transferred to a separate vessel
under Khmer Rouge guard and towed toward the Cambodian mainland.
Unwilling to risk the potential torture or execution of the crew¹⁰⁰, President Ford
ordered a military operation to rescue the *Mayaguez* and its crew.

b. **Hitchens** asserts that American military operations to retake the *Mayaguez* represented "a display of bravado and deceit"¹⁰¹ on the part of the United States. Hitchens asserts that these military operations and the ensuing casualties were "pointless because the ship's company of the *Mayaguez* were nowhere on Koh Tang, having been released some hours earlier." Hitchens further asserts that "Kissinger could have known of this by listening to Cambodian Broadcasting."¹⁰²

**Fact:** Three and a half hours after President Ford issued his orders for a rescue operation, and with American military operations already underway, the White House received an ambiguous signal from the Khmer Rouge. In a speech broadcast on Cambodian domestic radio, Minister of Information and Propaganda Hu Nim had announced that "[r]egarding the *Mayaguez* ship, we have no intention of detaining it permanently," and that "adhering to the stand of peace and neutrality, we will release this ship."¹⁰³ Hu Nim made no mention of the *Mayaguez*'s crew, who had been removed from the ship the previous day and placed under Cambodian guard.

Washington responded with the following message, sent – for lack of a more
direct diplomatic channel – through the Associated Press wire service:

> We have heard a radio broadcast that you are prepared to release the SS *Mayaguez*. We welcome this development, if true. As you know, we have seized the ship. As soon as you issue a statement that you are prepared to release the

¹⁰⁰ Intelligence reports indicated that the Khmer Rouge had adopted a policy of summarily executing all Cambodians suspected of "bourgeois" or Western ties. This development appeared to place the *Mayaguez* crew in grave danger.

¹⁰¹ Hitchens, p 23.

¹⁰² Hitchens, p 24.

¹⁰³ Hu Nim's speech was broadcast on Cambodian radio at 7:07-7:36pm (Washington time); the operative clause was contained in the final two minutes. Within 40 minutes, a flash Khmer-to-English translation had arrived at the White House. A full copy of this translation is available in the *New York Times*, 15 May 1975.

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crew members you hold unconditionally and immediately, we will promptly cease military operations.¹⁰⁴

At 10:53pm, the Pentagon received word that Marines had sighted the *Mayaguez* crew on a separate Thai fishing vessel previously seized by the Khmer Rouge. The ship was intercepted, and the crew delivered to American custody. At 11:14pm, Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger relayed this information to the President. At 11:16pm, Ford issued an order "to cease all offensive operations and to begin to withdraw from Tang Island."¹⁰⁵

c. **Hitchens** asserts that recourse to military action would not have been necessary had Kissinger been "paying attention to a third-party government which had been negotiating a deal for the restitution of the crew and the ship."¹⁰⁶

**Fact:** Absent any Cambodian response, the United States had on May 13 attempted to enlist China's assistance in forcing the Khmer Rouge's hand. The State Department sent two messages – one through the Chinese Liaison Office in Washington, and the other through the US Liaison Office in Beijing – demanding that Cambodia release the *Mayaguez* and its crew. The Chinese government refused to accept the first note, and sent the second back to Washington.

On the morning of May 14, the United States government received a report that an unnamed Chinese diplomat in Iran had told a junior Pakistani diplomat that he believed the *Mayaguez* would be released "soon." The Chinese diplomat had, according to this report, said that the government of China was "embarrassed" by the incident, and would pressure the Khmer Rouge to release the *Mayaguez* and its crew. Later in the day, however, the Chinese Foreign Ministry returned the US State Department's second note and said it was not in a position to pass it on to the Khmer Rouge.

While the notion of Chinese diplomatic assistance was appealing in the abstract, there was no concrete sign that it would actually take place. By now, the United States' first priority was to rescue the *Mayaguez* crew before their

¹⁰⁴ As quoted in Wetterhahn, p 191.

¹⁰⁵ "Chronology," *New York Times*, 16 May 1975.

¹⁰⁶ Hitchens, p 24.

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Khmer Rouge captors could harm them. On May 14, 4:45pm, President Ford ordered military operations to recover the *Mayaguez* and its crew.

d. **Hitchens** cites, but does not quote, "a subsequent congressional inquiry"¹⁰⁷ to support his accusations.

**Fact:** Beginning in May 1975, the US House of Representatives Committee on International Relations held a series of hearings on the *Mayaguez* incident. At the end of these hearings, the Committee commissioned a series of reports on the incident from the US Comptroller General. These reports included a minute-by-minute reconstruction of the events surrounding the seizure of the *Mayaguez*, as well as recommendations for US government conduct during future crises. Regarding the necessity of US military efforts to rescue the *Mayaguez* and its crew, the Comptroller General concluded:

> Finally, assembling under severe time constraints the various military assets scattered throughout the Pacific area was generally accomplished in an efficient and effective manner. Command and control of, and communications between, multiservice assets was established expeditiously. The performance of U.S. Forces was inspiring.... In retrospect, the final Marine assault and the bombing of the Cambodian mainland did not influence the Cambodian decision to release the crew. This was not known and probably could not have been known at the time. However, certain U.S. actions, for example, the sinking of [Khmer Rouge] gunboats and U.S. air activity in the area, probably did influence that decision.... We do not question the purpose of either the assault or the mainland bombing.¹⁰⁸

## 2. **Cambodian Casualties during the Mayaguez Incident**

a. **Hitchens** asserts that "The United States used a 15,000-pound bomb on the island [Koh Tang], the most powerful non-nuclear device that it possessed. Nobody has the figures for Cambodian deaths."¹⁰⁹

**Fact:** The historian Wilfred P. Deac, an authority on Cambodia, estimates Khmer Rouge casualties in the Battle of Koh Tang at "[p]erhaps fifty."¹¹⁰ One day after the *Mayaguez* incident, the *New York Times* reported that Koh Tang had

¹⁰⁷ Hitchens, p 24.

¹⁰⁸ 94th Congress, 2d Session, October 4, 1976, "Seizure of the *Mayaguez*, Part IV: Reports of the Comptroller General of the United States," pp 100-101.

¹⁰⁹ Hitchens, p 24.

¹¹⁰ Deac, *Road to the Killing Fields*, p 232.

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(LC)

# Pakistan, the India-Pakistan War, and Bangladesh

## Background

The state of Pakistan was created in 1947 as two geographically separate parts: West Pakistan, site of the capital Islamabad, and, on the other side of the subcontinent, East Pakistan. In 1971 an East Pakistan independence movement led by the Awami League caused Islamabad to react militarily and a bloody civil war broke out. India's intervention opened an India-Pakistan War, which became the focus of a world crisis involving the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China (PRC), and the United States. At the end of 1971, East Pakistan became the independent state of Bangladesh.

Unrelated to these events, but in the same timeframe, the Government of Pakistan was serving as a diplomatic intermediary between the US and China, who were seeking to end two decades of hostile estrangement.

## 1. Pakistan as the intermediary between the US and China

a. **Hitchens** asserts that Washington's use of Pakistan to facilitate an opening to China amounted to "deliberate collusion in mass murder, and later in assassination, in Bangladesh" and that there was "complicity, on Nixon and Kissinger's part, in the massacres" of the civil war because the US did not denounce the conduct of Pakistani forces as they attempted to suppress the independence movement. According to Hitchens, "In late 1971, at the very height of the mass murder, Kissinger sent a message to [Pakistani president] General Yahya Khan, thanking him for his 'delicacy and tact.'"

**Fact:** The Pakistan civil war and the opening of contacts between the US and China were separate developments. On April 27, 1971 the Pakistani ambassador in Washington delivered a letter from the Chinese Premier inviting President Nixon to China "for a direct meeting and consultations." The next day, President Nixon sent a letter to President Yahya Khan thanking him for the "helpful role" he had played as an intermediary. "I particularly appreciate," President Nixon wrote, "the delicacy and tact with which you have handled these important exchanges."

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b. **Hitchens** asserts that the U.S. should have used Romania's President Nicolae Ceausescu as its intermediary with China rather than President Yahya Khan, because (according to Hitchens) Yahya was "a blood-soaked... despot" and Ceausescu was not. Hitchens denounces Kissinger for using "authoritarian" and "totalitarian" regimes as channels for America's approaches to China.

**Fact:** Because the US and China lacked any diplomatic means of approaching each other, the cooperation of a third-party government which had normal diplomatic relations with both the US and China was required.

In addition, the intermediary would need to be capable of keeping information about the US-China contacts from reaching the Soviet Union. Soviet troops had recently exchanged fire with Chinese forces, and Moscow had deployed over 40 divisions along the Chinese border. Should Moscow learn that a new US-China relationship was taking shape, the already dangerous tensions could worsen.

The US and China attempted to communicate through France, Norway, the Netherlands, and Poland. These channels did not flourish due to concerns about Soviet intelligence penetration. In the summer of 1969, President Nixon had approached the leaders of both Romania and Pakistan. China reacted coolly to the idea of a Romanian channel, perhaps fearing Soviet penetration of the Ceausescu government.

Pakistan appeared best placed for the third-party role because of its geographic proximity to China and because it had no ties to the Soviet Union. In November 1970, a Chinese message to President Nixon via President Yahya Khan noted that this was the first communication "from a Head (Mao Zedong) through a Head (Yahya Khan) to a Head (Richard Nixon). The United States knows that Pakistan is a great friend of China and therefore we attach importance to the message." Thereafter, the US and China used Pakistan as their intermediary, including during the arrangements for Nixon's 1972 trip to China.

## 2. The US Position on the Pakistan Civil War

a. **Hitchens** further asserts that President Yahya Khan's role as the US-China intermediary "freed the Pakistani general of such restraints as might have

38

inhibited him." According to Hitchens, President Khan told his minister of information, G.W. Choudhury, that Khan's "private understanding with Washington and Beijing would protect him." Hitchens claims that Choudhury later wrote, "If Nixon and Kissinger had not given him that false hope, he'd have been more realistic." Hitchens then asserts that "the collusion" of the US with President Yahya Khan regarding the US-China opening "increases the direct complicity of Nixon and Kissinger in the massacres."

**Fact:** G.W. Choudhury's statements were exactly the opposite of Hitchens' assertions. In the book that Hitchens cites, Choudhury actually states:

"Nixon never condoned the Pakistan Army's action in East Bengal; indeed he put the strongest Nixon never condoned the Pakistan Army's action in East Bengal; indeed he put the strongest pressure on Yahya to make a political settlement of the crisis and to give up the path of repression and suppression.... [Yahya] showed me the contents of Nixon's letters to him, and I can say without fear of contradiction that Nixon did his best for a political solution of the crisis. Most probably the Nixon-sponsored efforts would have averted the Indo-Pakistani war on Bangladesh, which destroyed not only the economic infrastructure of Bangladesh but also its social fabric."¹¹²

Choudhury elaborated in a subsequent volume:

"[N]either the American government in general nor Richard Nixon in particular condoned Pakistan's military atrocities in East Bengal [or] opposed the aspirations of the Bengali nationalists. It was Nixon's intervention that saved the life of Mujib, whom the hawkish Pakistani generals, backed by Bhutto, were planning in August and September 1971 to execute; Bhutto told me in September that Yahya should execute Mujib before departing the following month for Tehran, where President Nixon would also be in attendance at the two thousandth anniversary of the Iranian monarchy. Yahya withstood the severe pressure to do away with the Awami League leader only because of Nixon's strong pleas to refrain from such a course. Similarly, President Nixon pressed Yahya to make a political settlement with the Awami League leaders exiled in India, and Yahya agreed. It is not certain that even if all parties had fully cooperated Nixon's efforts for a political settlement would have been successful, but those who know the inside story, as I do as a result of my private visit to [the Pakistani Military's General Headquarters at] Rawalpindi in September 1971, realize that the Nixon administration was doing its best both to avert Indo-Pakistani war and to achieve in the shortest possible time the goal of the Bengali nationalists.¹¹³

b. **Hitchens** asserts that on March 6, 1971 Kissinger convened a National Security Council meeting "and - in advance of the crisis in East-West Pakistan relations

¹¹² Choudhury, *The Last Days of United Pakistan*, pp 219-220.

¹¹³ Choudhury, *India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Major Powers: Politics of a Divided Subcontinent*.

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that was then palpable and predictable to those attending – insisted that no preemptive action be taken" and opposed those present who suggested that a warning to Yahya Khan be issued.

**Fact:** The meeting in question was of the Interdepartmental Senior Review Group, convened by Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs U. Alexis Johnson. The consensus was that the US should not become involved in the Pakistan civil war and political crisis. Kissinger was present, and asked whether the US might "as a friend" tell President Yahya Khan that "the use of force would be unwise." The response in the meeting to this suggestion was negative.

c. **Hitchens** asserts that Kissinger tried "to divide the electorally victorious Awami League and to dilute its demand for independence." Hitchens claims that as a "favor" to President Yahya Khan, Kissinger authorized a covert approach to the leader of a minority faction of the Awami League who were willing to compromise on the issue of Bengali statehood. Hitchens refers to a meeting on August 11, 1971 at the White House at which Under Secretary of State John Irwin reported on the possibility that some Awami League leaders wanted to negotiate with Yahya Khan about giving up their goal of independence. According to Hitchens, this demonstrates that Kissinger made a "clumsy approach" to "circumvent" the leadership of the Awami League.

**Fact:** After Islamabad's crack-down on the Awami League, the acting Foreign Minister of the Bangladesh government-in-exile sent a message to the US requesting American help in arranging an agreement under which formal independence for Bangladesh would be given up in return for a prisoner release and Islamabad's acceptance of an Awami League plan for self-rule in East Pakistan. Undersecretary Irwin reported this approach to the August 11, 1971 meeting of the Interdepartmental Senior Review Group. Irwin raised the question of whether the American Ambassador to Pakistan might "just suggest" to President Yahya Khan that, "if the Awami League is serious about withdrawing its claim to independence, Yahya might consider talking with them." Kissinger argued against Under Secretary Irwin's proposal, stating that to ask Yahya Khan to deal with the Awami League would be "like asking Abraham

40

Lincoln to deal with Jefferson Davis." President Nixon did authorize the American Ambassador to make such a suggestion to President Khan, whose reaction was "surprisingly favorable."¹¹⁴ The initiative soon collapsed, however. India placed the Awami League representatives under house arrest and warned against any further contact with the US government. Within weeks, India and Pakistan were at war.

### 3. The India-Pakistan War and the wider global crisis

a. **Hitchens** asserts that after returning from China in July 1971, Kissinger "began to speak in almost Maoist phrases about a Soviet-Indian plot to dismember and even annex part of Pakistan, which would compel China to intervene on Pakistan's side." Hitchens derides this "bizarre prediction" as evidence of Kissinger's alleged "fantasy of confrontation."

**Fact:** Since the mid-1960s the Soviet Union had been India's major military supplier. Now, in the summer of 1971, it assured India that Soviet arms shipments would continue in the event of an India-Pakistan war. This was provocative, as Pakistan was already barred from receiving further American military aid. Moscow further assured India that if an Indian attack on East Pakistan triggered Chinese intervention, the Soviets would launch a diversionary strike against China on its northwest border. Moscow also promised to use its veto in the UN Security Council should India be condemned for aggression against Pakistan. The Soviet Union and India codified these assurances in their August 9, 1971 "Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation." At this point, the possibility that India might seek to annex part of Pakistan could not be discounted.

b. **Hitchens** asserts that "in pursuit of this fantasy of confrontation, [Kissinger] annoyed Admiral Elmo Zumwalt by ordering him to dispatch the aircraft carrier USS *Enterprise* from the coast of Vietnam to the Bay of Bengal, while giving it no stated mission."

¹¹⁴ Kissinger, *White House Years*, p 870.

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**Fact:** In the autumn of 1971 high Soviet officials visited New Delhi and an airlift of Soviet military equipment for India began. On November 22, India's military launched a major attack on Pakistani forces in East Pakistan, inflicting a swift defeat. Soviet warships were now in the Bay of Bengal and appeared to be assisting India's military operations. At this point the US sought to deter India from attacking West Pakistan. President Nixon ordered a US Navy carrier task force to the Bay Bengal. The USS *Enterprise's* formal mission was to evacuate American citizens from the war zone, but its presence was also a signal to Moscow and New Delhi that the US would not permit the total destruction of Pakistan as a state. On December 16, 1971 India offered an unconditional ceasefire in West Pakistan. On that same day Bangladesh became an independent state.

4. American policy toward Bangladesh

a. **Hitchens** asserts that later, as Secretary of State, Kissinger displayed "unremitting hostility and contempt" toward Bangladesh and, in 1974 "inflicted a series of snubs on [Sheik Mujibur Rahman], then on his first visit to the United States as a head of state." Hitchens claims that Kissinger "boycotted" Prime Minister Mujibur Rahman's meeting with President Gerald Ford and opposed his requests for food aid and debt relief.

**Fact:** When Prime Minister Mujibur Rahman visited the United States in September 1974 he met with President Ford in the White House. President Ford approved $60 million in emergency grain shipments to Bangladesh. This was in addition to nearly $500 million in humanitarian aid provided by the US to Bangladesh since independence, and $250 million in refugee relief funds during the 1971 crisis.

During the visit, the Bangladeshi Prime Minister met separately with Secretary Kissinger in New York where, as is the practice of all American Secretaries of State, Kissinger had temporarily set up his office for bilateral consultations during the opening week of the UN General Assembly.

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b. **Hitchens** asserts that in November 1974, "on a brief face-saving tour of the region, Kissinger made an eight-hour stop in Bangladesh and gave a three-minute press conference in which he refused to say why he had sent the USS *Enterprise* into the Bay of Bengal three years before."

**Fact:** Kissinger visited Bangladesh in October, not November, 1974. He was there not for "eight hours" but for nearly two days. Kissinger discussed US aid to Bangladesh in his meeting with Prime Minister Mujibur Rahman and, in the press conference that followed, Kissinger expressed his longstanding admiration for the prime minister, saying "It isn't often that one has the privilege of meeting someone who has been the father to his country and who has created a nation out of his convictions." During the press conference journalists asked Kissinger for his assessment of the Bangladesh economy and of relations between Pakistan and Bangladesh. No question was asked about the USS *Enterprise* or the 1971 India-Pakistan War. Later in his visit Kissinger expressed his "great pleasure at being the first Secretary of State to visit Bangladesh" and stated, in his toast at a dinner hosted by the Foreign Minister of Bangladesh, that "above all, I am moved to be here because it is not often that one can visit a country whose courage and suffering earned its independence in a so-recent past and which symbolizes so much the necessities of our period."

c. **Hitchens** asserts that a few weeks after Kissinger's departure from Bangladesh on October 31, 1974, "a faction at the US Embassy in Dacca began covertly meeting with a group of Bangladeshi officers who were planning a coup against Mujib[ur Rahman]. On 14 August 1975, Mujib and forty members of his family were murdered in a military takeover." Hitchens asserts that Kissinger's "[d]eliberate collusion in" the August 1975 coup is self-evident, and that "[t]he task of disproving such a connection, meanwhile, would appear to rest on those who believe that everything is an accident."

**Fact:** There is no factual basis for linking the United States to the overthrow of Mujibur Rahman. The 1971 war had ravaged the economy and exacerbated ethnic tensions in Bangladesh. After independence, armed anti-government movements arose across the country. In December 1974, the central

43

government in Dacca declared a state of national emergency. Soon thereafter
civil rights were suspended and political activity banned, leaving Bangladesh
under the control of a one-party regime headed by President Mujibur Rahman.
On August 15, 1975 a group of young army majors assassinated Mujibur Rahman
and declared a new government. Political and economic disarray persisted, and
the majors were themselves overthrown on November 3, 1975.

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# Greece, Turkey, and the 1974 Cyprus Crisis

## Background:

Cyprus is an island state in the eastern Mediterranean with a population that is roughly 82% ethnic Greek and 18% ethnic Turkish. In 1960 Cyprus gained its independence from Britain through a set of treaties known as the London-Zurich Agreements. The London-Zurich Agreements stipulated that the government of Cyprus would consist of a Greek-Cypriot President, a Turkish-Cypriot Vice President, and a legislative assembly and cabinet divided proportionally along ethnic lines. The Agreements also permitted the governments of Greece, Turkey, and Britain to station military units on Cyprus, and to intervene in Cypriot politics to defend the terms of the constitution.

In its first 15 years as an independent nation, Cyprus experienced successive waves of political and ethnic turmoil. In 1961, the government of Greece and the government of Turkey began to arm and train underground paramilitary organizations to advance the interests of their respective Cypriot ethnic groups. In 1963, a constitutional crisis provoked open hostilities between these groups, and in early 1964, Turkey threatened Greece with war over Cyprus. In 1967, after a Greek-Cypriot attack on Turkish-Cypriot villages, Turkey again threatened to invade Cyprus.

Throughout this time, the ethnic Greek community in Cyprus was itself divided. The majority supported the President of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios III, and favored an independent Cyprus. A militant minority (clandestinely armed by Greek rightists) favored *enosis*, or “union,” with Greece. In 1970, members of this minority tried and failed to assassinate President Makarios.

In July 1974, President Makarios wrote the military government of Greece to demand the withdrawal of a number of their forces from Cyprus. The government of Greece refused, and instead sponsored an attempt to assassinate President Makarios on July 15. Makarios escaped to London, but was temporarily replaced as President of Cyprus by an extreme proponent of *enosis* with Greece. This prompted the government of Turkey to intervene militarily and to declare a territorial division of Cyprus along ethnic lines.¹

¹ Bunge et al., *Cyprus: A Country Study*, Chapters 1, 4, and 5, 1980. [I will fill in specific footnotes when I return to Boston and have access to the revised 1995 edition of this book.]

In the United States, this crisis happened to coincide with the denouement of the Watergate scandal. Impeachment hearings against President Nixon began on May 9, 1974 and gathered momentum through the summer. On August 8, 1974 Richard Nixon announced his decision to resign the office of President of the United States. His successor, Gerald Ford, was inaugurated the next day.

# 1. Context – Hitchens' Analysis of Kissinger's Memoirs

a. **Hitchens** cites a passage from Kissinger's memoirs, "[Nixon] was consumed by Watergate. The last thing he or I needed was to encourage a crisis in the eastern Mediterranean between two NATO allies."² Hitchens dismisses this statement as "disingenuous,"³ and presents it as evidence that Kissinger *did* seek to encourage a crisis in the eastern Mediterranean.

**Fact:** There is no logical basis for this argument. The longstanding policy of the United States government was to work to prevent military and ethnic tension in Cyprus between Greece and Turkey, both crucial members of the NATO alliance. No member of the United States government had any reason to instigate a coup in Cyprus and thereby *bring about* a military confrontation between Greece and Turkey.

b. **Hitchens** presents the following argument as “evidence” of Kissinger’s alleged desire “to murder the head of state in the democratic nation of Cyprus”⁴:

[O]n page 199 of [the third volume of Kissinger's memoirs] *Years of Renewal...* President Makarios is described without adornment as 'the proximate cause of most of Cyprus's tensions'... To describe his [sic] person as 'the proximate cause' of most of the tensions is to make a wildly aberrant moral judgment. The same aberrant judgment, however, supplies the key that unlocks the lie at the heart of Kissinger's presentation. If the elected civilian authority (and spiritual leader of the Greek Orthodox community) is the "proximate cause" of the tensions, then his removal from the scene is self-evidently the cure for them.⁵

² Kissinger, *Years of Renewal*, pp 204-05.

³ Hitchens, p 79.

⁴ Hitchens, Preface, "Proper Bill of Indictment," p x.

⁵ Hitchens, p 80.

2

On the basis of this "syllogism,"⁶ Hitchens asserts that "it follows logically and naturally" that Kissinger conspired in a "plan to depose and kill Makarios."⁷

**Fact:** The correct quotation from *Years of Renewal* is as follows:

When all was said and done, **Makarios, the proximate cause of most of Cyprus's tensions, was also the best hope for a long-term peaceful solution.** For once he had exhausted all possible maneuvers, he could be eminently practical about his necessities.⁸

This is followed by a tribute to the late archbishop:

Once Makarios returned to Cyprus [on December 7, 1974], he played his usual complicated [political] games, gradually edging, however, toward a settlement on terms he would have rejected indignantly two years earlier. When he died of a heart attack in 1977, I felt that with the by then somewhat chastened archbishop had also died the best hope for a rapid negotiated settlement of Cyprus... I can imagine the sardonic gleam in the archbishop's eyes were he aware how many of his erstwhile critics missed him and his complicated, occasionally devious maneuvers. Makarios was, after all, a big man in a world not blessed with an excess of them.⁹

## 2. US Diplomatic Efforts to Prevent a Cyprus Coup

a. **Hitchens** asserts that "In May of 1974, two months before the coup in Nicosia," Kissinger "received a memorandum from the head of his State Department Cyprus desk," in which the author predicted a Greek effort to unseat President Makarios. Hitchens asserts that, because Kissinger "saw this document in real time, while engaged in his [diplomatic] shuttle between Syria and Israel (both of them within half an hour's flying time of Cyprus)," and yet did not personally intervene, Kissinger is therefore "guilty of collusion in an assassination attempt on a foreign head of state, [and] in a fascist military coup."¹⁰

**Fact:** On May 7, in the context of the Israel-Syria negotiations, President Makarios hosted a meeting between Kissinger and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. There President Makarios commented:

⁶ Ibid.

⁷ Ibid.

⁸ Kissinger, *Years of Renewal*, p 199.

⁹ Kissinger, *Years of Renewal*, p 238.

¹⁰ Hitchens, p 79.

3

The problem of Cyprus is one of patience. We have not had many incidents between the two communities. Often we have intra-Greek and intra-Turk incidents.... We hope to resume the intercommunal talks.... In my view, if no formula can be agreed on in a short while, the Secretary General of the U.N. is coming here soon, and perhaps he can get the sides together.¹¹

Later that month, Kissinger's office received a memorandum from Thomas Boyatt, the State Department's desk officer for Cyprus, predicting an effort by Athens to overthrow President Makarios. Boyatt recommended that the United States government warn the government of Greece against such a course of action (as the United States government had successfully done in 1972). Although Kissinger was absent from Washington at the time, the Acting Secretary of State approved Boyatt's recommendation, and the US Ambassador to Greece, Henry Tasca, informed the Greek president and foreign minister that the United States did not support the use of force in Cyprus.

b. **Hitchens** acknowledges that Ambassador Tasca did deliver an American warning against the use of force in Cyprus to the Greek president and foreign minister. Hitchens asserts that this was insufficient, and that Ambassador Tasca should have also delivered the message to the head of the Greek secret police, Dimitrios Ioannides, who was at the time the *de facto* head of the military government of Greece. Hitchens interprets Ambassador Tasca's failure to contact Brigadier Ioannides as evidence of Kissinger's purported "collusion in" an attempt to assassinate President Makarios.

**Fact:** At Ambassador Tasca's advice, the decision of the State Department was that a direct American approach to Ioannides would provoke the notoriously volatile junta leader, and thereby work *against* the American goal of decreasing tension in Cyprus. Instead, Ambassador Tasca delivered the American message to the Greek president and the Greek foreign minister, as well as Archbishop Seraphim, who was believed to be a close friend of Ioannides.

For several weeks this initiative appeared to have succeeded. On
[DATE – I called Rogers about getting Boyatt's post-mortem memorandum on Cyprus],

¹¹ Makarios to Gromyko and Kissinger in Nicosia, 7 May 1974, as quoted in Kissinger, *Years of Renewal*, p 203.

4

the CIA reported that the government of Greece had abandoned its efforts to unseat Makarios. On July 12, Makarios told the US Ambassador to Cyprus, Rodger Davies, that the situation was "delicate" but not "critical." Ambassador Davies reported to Washington: "[Makarios] gave no indication he was seeking any US intervention with Athens."

3. <u>Turkish Military Action in Cyprus</u>

a. **Hitchens** asserts that, because Kissinger failed to prevent Turkish military intervention in Cyprus after the July 15 coup, Kissinger is therefore "guilty of collusion in... two [Turkish] invasions [of Cyprus] which flouted international law, and in the murder and dispossession of many thousands of noncombatant civilians."¹²

**Fact:** Following the Greek coup on Cyprus, the United States government received reports of the mobilization of Turkish forces in the region. This prompted Kissinger to cable the State Department a series of urgent instructions for the US special envoy for the Cyprus crisis Under Secretary of State Joseph Sisco:

> I want a telegram to Sisco that as soon as he arrives [in Turkey] he is to tell [Turkish Prime Minister Bulent] Ecevit that we are extremely concerned about unconfirmed reports we have about Turkish military moves. He is instructed to point out to the Turkish government that the US would take the gravest view of Turkish military moves before all diplomatic processes are exhausted. That is point one. That he must do immediately because I think we have been waffling and weeping around the place and we have not made clear that we are opposed to military intervention. Secondly, he is to say we are doing this in the Turkish interests, that Turkish intervention will not be the last move, it will be the first of a whole sequence of moves.... Any government in Cyprus which would emerge at the end of this process would not better serve the Turkish interests because in order to attempt a counterbalance of Turkish dominance... [that] government would inevitably look for support both internally and externally to Communism. You should give Ecevit an assurance that we are totally opposed to enosis whether direct or creeping.... Finally, you should tell Ecevit that as his friend and admirer, I must make clear my convictions that if he follows the course of military intervention, he will have started a process which will not only have serious adverse effects for Turkey in the long run, but will be extremely dangerous for the West as a whole.¹³

¹² Hitchens, p. 79.

¹³ As quoted in Kissinger, *Years of Renewal*, pp. 217-218.

5

b. **Hitchens** asserts that Kissinger's subsequent opposition to the decision of the United States Congress to cut off military aid to Turkey constitutes "evidence" that Kissinger "colluded in" the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, and that Kissinger bears personal "responsibility for [the] outrages" committed by Turkish troops during the Cyprus action, which, Hitchens asserts, included "unpunished acts of rape, torture, and looting."¹⁴

**Fact:** Following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, Kissinger instructed Under Secretary of State Sisco to call on Prime Minister Ecevit of Turkey and press for an immediate ceasefire. Under Secretary Sisco was instructed to inform Prime Minister Ecevit:

> I [Kissinger] take an extremely grave view of the Turkish military intervention in Cyprus which will have the most serious consequences, chief of which is the position it will place on free world security. We [the United States government] are deeply disappointed that the Turkish government did not heed our pleas to exercise restraint.

> Now that the step has been taken, however, the most urgent means must be found to restore peace and stability to the area....

> The United States, for its part, is prepared to support a constitutional solution and a level of forces which existed before the coup. The only way, in our view, to restore constitutional government is through the legitimate succession of [the speaker of the Cypriot parliament, Glafkos] Clerides [as interim President of Cyprus]....

> We are proposing urgently to the UK that it call for immediate negotiations with the guarantor powers in London to seek the constitutional solution which will open the way for the restoration of stability in Cyprus and in the area.

> We urgently appeal to the Turkish government to weigh most carefully the proposals we are making, for we are convinced that to do otherwise would be self-defeating in terms of Turkey's own self-interests.¹⁵

As Secretary of State, Kissinger also announced at a July 20 press conference that, if hostilities in the region continued, "a war between Greece and Turkey will not be fought with American weapons. It may be fought with those weapons they have, but it will not be fought with an open supply line."¹⁶ On July 30, the two sides agreed on a ceasefire brokered by Britain and the United States. Two weeks later Turkey broke this ceasefire and seized more Cypriot territory. Turkey declared another ceasefire on August 16. This

¹⁴ Hitchens, p 88.

¹⁵ As quoted in Kissinger, pp 219-220.

¹⁶ Background briefing to reporters in San Clemente, July 20, 1974 (White House press release).

6

ceasefire held, with Cyprus now divided into two contiguous zones along
ethnic lines.

On October 17, 1974 the US Congress voted to cut off all US military aid to Turkey to "punish" the government of Turkey for its military action in Cyprus. Both President Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger harbored reservations about this policy because they believed it would damage the NATO alliance, of which both Greece and Turkey are key members.

The government of Turkey responded to the US aid cutoff by closing all US military installations in Turkey except one base. This posed a significant problem for the US military presence in the eastern Mediterranean. Congress voted to repeal the military embargo against Turkey in 1978, during the Carter administration.

4. The Greek Dissident Journalist Elias P. Demetracopoulos

a. **Hitchens** asserts that if Elias P. Demetracopoulos, a US-based Greek "guerilla journalist and one man band"¹⁷ who was a close acquaintance of President Makarios, had returned to Greece during the time of the Greek junta, he would have been imprisoned or possibly killed for his dissident views. Mr. Demetracopoulos did not return to Greece, and he was not harmed; he is still alive as of this writing. Nonetheless, Hitchens asserts that there is "a *prima facie* case that Henry Kissinger was at least aware of a plan [for the Greek junta] to abduct and interrogate, and almost certainly kill, a civilian journalist [Demetracoupolos]."¹⁸ Because Kissinger may have been "aware of" what was possibly an aborted attempt to capture and interrogate Demetracoupolos, Hitchens charges Kissinger with "personal involvement in a plan to kidnap and murder a journalist living in Washington, DC."¹⁹

**Fact:** There is no factual basis for this charge.

¹⁷ Hitchens, p 86.

¹⁸ Hitchens, p 119.

¹⁹ Hitchens, Preface, x, "Proper Bill of Indictment."

7

# Conflict in Portuguese Timor/East Timor

## Background:

Timor is an island in the southern part of the Indonesian archipelago, 430 km northwest of Australia. During the first half of the 18th century the Netherlands controlled the western half of Timor, and Portugal controlled the eastern half. West Timor was incorporated into the adjoining territories known as the Dutch East Indies, and East Timor was a Portuguese colony.

In 1949, all of the territories comprising the Dutch East Indies were reconstituted as the independent Republic of Indonesia. Included in these territories was the western half of the island of Timor; the eastern half remained under Portuguese administration. In 1974, the government of Portugal was overthrown, and the new government of Portugal declared a program of rapid decolonization.

Three main local political parties now contended for control of East Timor. APODETI (Timorese Democratic People's Union) advocated integration with Indonesia. FRETILIN (Revolutionary Front of Independent East Timor) advocated immediate independence. UDT (Democratic Union of East Timor) advocated eventual independence after a period of association with Portugal.¹¹⁹

In June 1975, representatives of the government of Portugal, APODETI, and UDT held a series of talks in Macao to determine the political future of East Timor. FRETILIN boycotted these talks. In August a civil war broke out between the Timorese factions, and the Portuguese colonial administration withdrew to the offshore enclave of Atauro.¹²⁰ On December 7, Indonesia deployed combat troops to East Timor and asserted sovereignty over the territory.

In a separate series of events, on April 30, 1975 Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, fell to a North Vietnamese invasion force. On December 1, 1975 President Ford embarked on a series of official visits to China, the Philippines, and Indonesia.

## 1. President Ford's December 1975 Visit to Indonesia

a. **Hitchens** asserts that Kissinger "told newsmen in Jakarta that the United States would not recognize the FRETILIN-declared republic and that 'the United

¹¹⁹ Krieger, ed., *East Timor and the International Community: Basic Documents*, Introduction, p xix.

¹²⁰ Ibid., Section 2.4, "The Outbreak of Civil War in East Timor."

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States understands Indonesia's position on the question."¹²¹ On this basis, Hitchens accuses Kissinger of "[t]he incitement and enabling of genocide in East Timor."¹²²

**Fact:** On November 28, FRETILIN issued a unilateral declaration of independence.¹²³ On November 30, UDT, APODETI, and two smaller parties issued a countervailing declaration of independence and simultaneous integration with Indonesia.¹²⁴ Neither side was able to enforce its mandate entirely. Clashes between the rival parties continued, and thousands of refugees crossed over into Indonesian-administered West Timor. At this point, the government of Indonesia began preparations for a military occupation of East Timor.

On December 5, President Ford departed China and traveled to Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. There he met with Indonesia's President Suharto. Talks between the two heads of state concerned bilateral aid, Indonesian economic policy, and South East Asian political and military affairs. At one point, President Suharto raised the topic of the civil war in East Timor and the possibility of Indonesian intervention. In keeping with the US government's policy of "eschew[ing] involvement in the Timor situation and leav[ing] its resolution to the Indonesians, Portuguese, Australians, and Timorese,"¹²⁵ President Ford told President Suharto that the United States "will not press [Indonesia] on the issue."¹²⁶

## 2. US Military Aid to Indonesia

a. **Hitchens** asserts that since the United States government did not cut off military aid to Indonesia after the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, Kissinger is guilty of "involvement in the extirpation of the Timorese." Hitchens further asserts that the continuation of military aid to Indonesia "bent American laws"¹²⁷

¹²¹ Hitchens, pp 91-92.

¹²² Hitchens, p x, "Proper Bill of Indictment."

¹²³ Krieger, ed., p 39, Document 21.

¹²⁴ Krieger, ed., p 40, Document 23.

¹²⁵ Department of State Briefing Paper: "Indonesia and Portuguese Timor," November 21, 1975. Declassified 10/31/01.

¹²⁶ Department of State, Memorandum of Conversation between President Ford and President Suharto, December 6, 1975. Declassified 6/26/01.

¹²⁷ Hitchens, p 100.

48

because the Indonesian army may have used some of this military equipment in
East Timor. He cites as evidence a memorandum showing Kissinger arguing
with his staff about this question.

**Fact:** Throughout the 1960s, '70s, and '80s the United States maintained a partnership with Indonesia based on Indonesia's status as a bulwark against communist expansion and as the site of some of the world's key shipping lanes. In September 1975, the government of Indonesia and the government of the United States concluded an agreement on the continuation of US military aid to Indonesia. The projected American aid package consisted of helicopters, ships, and communications and radar equipment.¹²⁸

Following the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, several members of the US Department of State wondered whether the United States would be obliged to cut off the military aid package to Indonesia on the grounds that Indonesia was in the midst of conducting an offensive operation in East Timor. At the time, the government of Indonesia maintained that since the government of China (a traditional rival of Indonesia) had backed FRETILIN in the East Timor civil war, Indonesia's annexation of the territory was in fact a matter of self-defense. The United States government accepted this argument, and, after a brief cut-off, military aid to Indonesia was reinstated. This was also the policy of President Ford's successor President Carter, during whose administration the violence in East Timor reached its peak.

¹²⁸ Kissinger, talking points memorandum for President Ford, "Your Trip to Indonesia," November 1975, declassified 10/31/01.

49

Selected Bibliography

Memoirs and General Histories

1. Bundy, William. *A Tangled Web: The Making of Foreign Policy in the Nixon Presidency*. New York: Hill & Wang, 1998.

2. Clifford, Clark (with Richard Holbrooke). *Counsel to the President*. New York: Random House, 1991.

3. Dobrynin, Anatoly. *In Confidence: Moscow's Ambassador to America's Six Cold War Presidents*. New York: Times Books, 1995.

4. Haldeman, H.R. *The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House*. New York: Putnam, 1994.

5. Hitchens, Christopher. *The Trial of Henry Kissinger*. New York: Verso/New Left Books, 2000.

6. Johnson, Lyndon B. *The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963-1969*. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971.

7. Isaacson, Walter. *Kissinger: A Biography*. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.

8. Kissinger, Henry A. *Years of Renewal*. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999.

9. Kissinger, Henry A. *Years of Upheaval*. Boston: Little, Brown, 1982.

10. Kissinger, Henry A. *White House Years*. Boston: Little, Brown, 1979.

11. Morris, Roger. *Uncertain Greatness: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy*. New York: Harper & Row, 1977.

12. Nixon, Richard. RN: *The Memoirs of Richard Nixon*. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1975.

13. Summers, Anthony. *The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon*. New York: Viking Penguin, 2000.

14. Szulc, Tad. *The Illusion of Peace: Foreign Policy in the Nixon Years*. New York: Viking Press, 1978.

15. Witcover, Jules. *The Year the Dream Died: Revisiting 1968 in America*. New York: 1997, Warner Books.

Chile

16. Debray, Regis. *The Chilean Revolution: Conversations with Allende*. New York: Vintage Books, 1971.

17. Falcoff, Mark. *Modern Chile, 1970-1989: A Critical History*. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1989.

18. Horne, Alistair. *Small Earthquake in Chile*. First published 1972, revised 1990. New York: Papermac, 1990.

19. Kornbluh, Peter. *The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability*. Washington, D.C.: New Press, 2003.

20. Sigmund, Paul E. *The United States and Democracy in Chile*. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.

21. Sigmund, Paul E. *The Overthrow of Allende and the Politics of Chile, 1964-1976*. Pittsburgh: The University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977.

50

## China

22. Burr, William, Ed. *Sino-American Rapprochement and the Cold War, 1969-1972: Declassified U.S. Documents.* 2 Volumes. Washington, D.C.: George Washington University Cold War Group, 2002.

23. Chen Jian. *Mao's China and the Cold War*. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.

24. Dreyer, June Teufel. *China's Political System*. New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 2000.

25. Han Suyin. *Eldest Son: Zhou Enlai and the Making of Modern China*. New York: Hill and Wang, 1994.

## Cyprus

26. Bunge, Frederica M., et al. *Cyprus: A Country Study*. Washington, D.C., America University Foreign Area Studies, 1980.

## Indonesia and East Timor

27. Department of State Briefing Paper: "Indonesia and Portuguese Timor," November 21, 1975. Declassified 10/31/01.

28. Department of State, Memorandum of Conversation between President Ford and President Suharto, December 6, 1975. Declassified 6/26/01.

29. Friend, Theodore. *Indonesian Destinies*. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003.

30. Kissinger, Henry A. Talking points memorandum for President Ford, "Your Trip to Indonesia," November 1975, declassified 10/31/01.

31. Krieger, Heike. *East Timor and the International Community: Basic Documents*. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

## India, Pakistan & Bangladesh

32. Choudhury, G.W. *The Last Days of United Pakistan*. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1974.

33. Choudhury, G.W. *India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Major Powers*. New York: MacMillan/Free Press, 1975.

34. Jones, Owen Bennett. *Pakistan: Eye of the Storm*. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.

35. Kissinger, Henry A. "The Visit to Bangladesh, October 30-31: Remarks by Secretary Kissinger." *Department of State Bulletin*. Washington, D.C.: November 25, 1974.

36. Sisson and Rose, *War and Secession: Pakistan, India, and the Creation of Bangladesh*. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.

37. Talbot, Ian. *Pakistan: A Modern History*. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998.

38. Zaheer, Hasan. *The Separation of East Pakistan: The Rise and Realization of Bengali Muslim Nationalism*. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

39. Ziring, Lawrence. *Pakistan in the Twentieth Century: A Political History*. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

## Indochina & the Paris Negotiations

40. Asselin, Pierre. *A Bitter Peace: Washington, Hanoi, and the Making of the Paris Agreement*. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.

51

41. Bush, Jonathan A. Correspondence regarding the publication of Christopher Hitchens' "The Trial of Henry Kissinger." *Harper's*, May 2001, pp 4-5. See also Hitchens response in same issue.

42. Deac, Wilfred P. *Road to the Killing Fields: The Cambodian War of 1970-1975*. College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press, 1997.

43. Diem, Bui (with David Chanoff). *In the Jaws of History*. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.

44. Frisbee, John L. "A Bridge Downtown," *Air Force Magazine* (January 1992).

45. Frisbee, John L. "A Place Called the Doumer Bridge," *Air Force Magazine* (February 1988).

46. Gardner, Lloyd C. *Pay Any Price: Lyndon Johnson and the Wars for Vietnam*. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1995.

47. Herz, Martin. *The Prestige Press and the Christmas Bombing: Images and Reality in Vietnam*. Washington, D.C.: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1980.

48. Kaplan, Morton et al. *Vietnam Settlement: Why 1973, Not 1969?* Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute Rational Debate Series, 1973.

49. Kimball, Jeffrey. *Nixon's Vietnam War*. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1998.

50. Kirk, Donald. *Wider War: The Struggle for Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos*

51. Kissinger, Henry A. *Ending the Vietnam War*. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003.

52. Kraslow, David & Loory, Stuart H. *The Secret Search for Peace in Vietnam*. New York: Random House, 1968.

53. Lewy, Guenter. *America in Vietnam*. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.

54. Mann, Robert. *A Grand Delusion: America's Descent Into Vietnam*. New York: Basic Books, 2001.

55. Michel, Marshall L., III. *The 11 Days of Christmas: America's Last Vietnam Battle*. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002.

56. Moore, John Norton. "Legal Dimensions of the Decision to Intercede in Cambodia," in Falk, ed., *The Vietnam War and International Law*, Volume 4. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976.

57. *New York Times* editorial staff. "A Chronology of the Mayaguez Episode." May 16, 1975.

58. Nguyen Cao Ky, *Twenty Years and Twenty Days*. New York: Stein and Day, 1976.

59. Prados, John. *The Blood Road: The Ho Chi Minh Trail and the Vietnam War*. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1999.

60. Sheehan, Neil. "Taylor Says by Yamashita Ruling Westmoreland May Be Guilty," *New York Times*, January 9, 1971.

61. Sorley, Lewis. *A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam*. New York: Harcourt, 1999.

62. Stueck, William. *The Korean War: An International History*. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.

63. Taylor, Telford. *Nuremberg and Vietnam: An American Tragedy*. New York: Quadrangle Books, 1970.

64. Tin, Bui. *Following Ho Chi Minh: Memoirs of a North Vietnamese Colonel*. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1995.

65. Tucker, Spencer C., et al., *Encyclopedia of the Korean War: A Political, Social, and Military History*. 3 Volumes. Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 2000.

66. Tucker, Spencer C., et al., *Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History*. 3 Volumes. Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 1998.

52