CBS

CBS Inc., 51 West 52 Street
New York, New York 10019
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Thomas H. Wyman
Chairman of the Board
and Chief Executive Officer

Dear Henry:

April 25, 1985

We at CBS were again deeply appreciative of your appearance on FACE THE NATION April 21, 1985. As was the case in your earlier appearances on this program, we will not have precise estimates of the size of the audience for a week or more. But the indications are that more than four million people watched or listened as you discussed the ghosts of Vietnam.

We have again prepared a tape recording of your interview for you to keep in your library. It can be played on any tape cassette player. We hope you will accept it as a small reminder of our gratitude for your appearance, and that you will enjoy listening to it.

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MS. STAHL: Welcome to FACE THE NATION. I'm Lesley Stahl.

Vietnam, America's longest war, ended in a nightmare ten
years ago.

NARRATOR OF NEWS CLIP: As soon as the rear stairway was lowered, the stampede of terrorized people tried to storm the plane. As men clammered over one another, pushing aside women and children, in their panic stricken fury --

MS. STAHL: The memories of the last days there still haunt us. Fifty-eight thousand Americans died in the war. Hundreds of thousands still bear the scars of their sacrifice in the first war America lost.

PRESIDENT REAGAN (August 1980): But it's time that we recognized ours was in truth a noble cause.

MS. STAHL: That's not what most of the country thought in the 1960s as the war became increasingly unpopular.

PRESIDENT JOHNSON (October 1966): I believe there is a light at the end of what has been a long and lonely tunnel.

MS. STAHL: Top officials added to the problem with promises that never materialized.

HENRY KISSINGER (October 1972): We believe that peace is at hand.

MS. STAHL: Where did we go wrong in Vietnam? We'll ask a man who shaped U.S. policy then, Former Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger.

The country is just now beginning to debate the lessons of that painful era, particularly in light of the President's request for aid to the rebels in Nicaragua. Are we creating another Vietnam in

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our own hemisphere? We'll ask Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, a decorated Vietnam veteran and antiwar protestor, and Congressman John McCain of Arizona, a former prisoner of war, and we'll talk to CBS Correspondent Bob Simon, just back from Vietnam.

The ghosts of Vietnam, an issue facing the nation.

ANNOUNCER: From CBS News, Washington, FACE THE NATION, with White House Correspondent Lesley Stahl.

(Announcements.)

MS. STAHL: With us now, Henry Kissinger, who was national security advisor to President Nixon, negotiated a settlement of the war with the North Vietnamese.

Dr. Kissinger, both you and Richard Nixon are now saying that we really didn't lose the war, we won the war, but we lost the peace, and you're blaming Congress, you're blaming Kennedy and Johnson, you're blaming the press. Aren't you and Richard Nixon responsible at all for the disaster in Vietnam?

DR. KISSINGER: First of all, before I answer your question, I'd like to make a comment about what was in the introduction, in which your statement of mine, "Peace is at hand," was taken as an example of misrepresentation. That statement was made on October 30th. The breakthrough in the negotiations occurred on January 8th, and the peace agreement was signed on January 23rd. In other words, eight weeks later. I don't consider that such a severe misstatement, and it's an example of the systematic distortion that's been going on / what went on in Vietnam. Now, secondly, I didn't --

MS. STAHL: Doctor, let me just interrupt for one second.

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DR. KISSINGER: -- blame Kennedy and Johnson. I said mistakes were made in every administration, including the Nixon Administration. There were mistakes in the Kennedy Administration, there were mistakes in the Johnson Administration, and there were mistakes in the Nixon Administration. I think, however, that the fundamental commitment was valid, and that the fundamental cause of the collapse of South Vietnam was to be found in the divisions in our country, and the ruthlessness in which the domestic debate was pursued.

MS. STAHL: Well, would you concede that one of the mistakes was that in the peace treaty that you did sign you left the North Vietnamese Army in place, and I'm wondering how you -- you can say if you won the war if you --

DR. KISSINGER: I -- I never -- no, no. Mr. Nixon said we won the war. I said --

MS. STAHL: Oh, you don't agree with that?

DR. KISSINGER: I said we achieved an honorable peace. That's different from saying we won the war. Now, in the agreement -- in place, leaving the North Vietnamese Army in / first of all, one has to look at the state of our public opinion. The Congress had already passed non-binding resolutions which were certainly going to be made binding for a unilateral withdrawal of American forces. We had been offering for three years a cease fire in place. Finally, the specific provisions of the agreement were that the North Vietnamese Army that was in South Vietnam could stay in place; that it could not be reinforced; that no additional supplies could be sent there. We thought that it would, under those conditions, if they maintained the agreement, it would, whether.

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In Laos, they agreed to withdraw their army and didn't withdraw it. In South Vietnam they agreed not to reinforce their forces, and reinforced them, and in both cases the agreement collapsed because we were deprived of the means of enforcing it. That is the problem.

MS. STAHL: Let's get back to your contention then. You do say -- let me ask you. Do you say that Congress is the reason that Vietnam collapsed?

DR. KISSINGER: There isn't any one reason. There are many reasons. I think originally the administrations, the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, took on a task that was greater than they estimated. I think Nixon, as I've said clearly publicly made the mistake of carrying on his shoulders alone a war which had become so contentious and not making the Congress an adequate partner. I think that our domestic divisions had reached a point, however, I -- that -- so that towards the -- from the seventies on, I place a heavy responsibility on Congress and on the recklessness with which the critics used every weakness in an ambiguous position to undermine the credibility of their government. We would never have been able to fight World War II if -- if there had been a systematic assault on the administrations that are in office. That is my point. I'm not saying that the administrations made no mistakes.

MS. STAHL: Okay. One of the problems everybody says is that -- and you, I think, say this too, that it's virtually impossible to fight a war when public opinion is against you. Do you and Richard Nixon not take any responsibility for making the war even more

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unpopular by concealing such things as the bombing of Cambodia?

DR. KISSINGER: But, you know -- you know, there are certain slogans where -- where it's like -- it's like ringing a bell and the horse goes to the water. The bombing of Cambodia, what happened in the bombing of Cambodia? The North Vietnamese had four divisions in Cambodia in which they were killing Americans -- which were killing Americans. Three weeks after President came into office, they started an offensive in South Vietnam in part from these Cambodian bases in which 500 Americans were killed each week. President Johnson had made a bombing halt of North Vietnam which President Nixon was reluctant to break. So he bombed not Cambodia, he bombed the North Vietnamese concentrations at the border of Cambodia to a distance of about three to five miles. Our original expectations was that there would be a protest, that we would then ask for a U.N. investigation that would reveal the presence of these forces. Then the Government of Cambodia didn't protest, and this put us into the crazy situation that -- that the government didn't protest, we didn't want to announce it because we were doing damage to the North Vietnamese, and we were -- we were trying to save American lives. We briefed the Congressional committees that were dealing with covert operations, and we dealt with it as a covert operation. But to say concealing bombing of Cambodia, that's one of those myths that has been foisted upon the public which is a disgrace.

MS. STAHL: Okay. Let me try to bring this up to the present and get at what happened in Vietnam and what it means for what's happening in Central America today. The charges had been made then

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that there were things being done that the public wasn't being fully
informed about. Your explanation wasn't made at the time. There were
statements and exaggerations being made. There are critics who say
that that's what's going on right now with the Reagan Administration,
that they are exaggerating the threat in Nicaragua, and that every now
and then secret documents revealed -- for example, a recent one saying
that the real aim is to expand the number of Contras fighting the --
fighting the Nicaraguan government.

Are you warning this administration, or do you feel that you
should, that the misleading statements are only making the unpopularity
of the Reagan Administration worse? Don't -- do you feel that that
was a big mistake of yours and Nixon's?

DR. KISSINGER: First of all, I have -- I have a basic
principle, that I don't volunteer advice to the administration unless
they ask me for it, and they haven't asked my opinion.

MS. STAHL: Well, would you like to warn them about that?

DR. KISSINGER: My -- first of all, you say misleading statements. Some misleading -- some things that journalists call misleading statements reflect honest confusion. Some things that they call misleading are honest differences of opinion. The fundamental problem in Central America is whether a Communist Nicaragua is a threat to our vital interest, 500 miles from our border, and the thing that I would warn the American people about is that we're in danger of repeating the same sort of debate that took place on Vietnam, in which critics use every stick they can find to beat the administration over the head. The administration then, in order to protect what it considers to be

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the vital American interest, presents only its best case, and then some document is found among the thousands of documents that float around that are used -- then it's used to undermine the administration's position. The fundamental issue we have to decide is whether a Communist Nicaragua, with up to 10,000 foreign advisors, represents a threat to our security.

MS. STAHL: All right. Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts will be on this broadcast in about two minutes, has come back with some concessions from the Sandinistas. They say they'll have a cease fire. They say they'll restore civil liberties. They say they'll get rid of the Soviet and Cuban military advisors if the United States stops giving aid to the Contras, and if we resume our peace talks with them. Do you think the Reagan Administration should go along or just dismiss this out of hand?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, with all due respect to Congressman Kerry, he's a Congressman, he's not Secretary of State, and if the Nicaraguans want to make an offer, they ought to make it in diplomatic channels. We can't be negotiating with our own Congressmen and the Nicaraguans simultaneously. My own view is that what we want from the Nicaraguans is the removal of foreign military and intelligence advisors.

MS. STAHL: They've agreed to that apparently. Wait a minute.

DR. KISSINGER: A reduction of armed forces, a low ceiling on the introduction of foreign advisors, and the participation of all groups, including what are now called the Contras, in the political process. If these objectives are achieved, then, obviously, there is

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no need for a guerrilla war, and then serious negotiations can take
place. I cannot judge whether Congressman Kerry's proposals meet
those conditions or not because a lot depends on the -- on the fine
print. If those conditions are met that I've outlined, I think then
we have a basis for negotiation.

MS. STAHL: Okay. Thank you very much, Dr. Henry Kissinger.

We'll be back with Senator Kerry and Congressman McCain in a
minute.

(Announcements.)

MS. STAHL: Joining us are Arizona Congressman John McCain,
a Vietnam prisoner of war, who recently made a return trip to Hanoi,
and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, former head of Vietnam Veterans
Against the War, who had just returned from Nicaragua.

Senator Kerry, you have these concessions, an offer from
Daniel Ortega, the head of the Sandinistas. The Reagan Administration
seems to think that it's just an eleventh hour PR campaign. Why isn't
it that?

SENATOR KERRY: Well, it isn't that because it's substantive,
because it extends way beyond the issue of the vote, whether the vote
is on Tuesday or whether it's postponed. This is an offer which I
believe is a substantive one, that is a real opportunity, and it is
not a quid pro quo, or even linked specifically to Tuesday. It's
linked to the larger issue of whether or not the United States is
willing to really try and engage in a peace process, or whether or not
we're going to continue to fund the Contras. The second point I think
I ought to make is, that in all the discussions that Senator Harkin

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and I had with President Ortega, and with other members of their
government, and opposition, these are not concessions. These are not
viewed as concessions. They are not put forward as concessions. They
are a reiteration of some things that have been agreed on within the
framework of the Contadora process, number one, and, number two, they
are an additional set of proposals for a framework of discussions. I
would not characterize them as concessions.

MS. STAHL: Okay. The public should know that Senator Kerry is a Democrat, who generally opposes the administration's policy in Central America, but Congressman McCain supports the President, and you are a Republican, but why shouldn't President Reagan take this offer seriously?

CONGRESSMAN MCCAIN: I think the President should look very seriously at this proposal, as any proposal. I do think that Mr. Kissinger's comment concerning the normal rules of diplomacy should apply, but put that aside. One of the key elements must be a negotiation between the government and the so-called Contras, just as we required a dialogue in El Salvador between the Salvadoran government and those guerrillas. I think that's a key element to it. If we are going to allow free participation, all of the promises that I understand Mr. Ortega made to Senator Kerry and Senator Harkin, a key and integral part of that must be a dialogue and rapprochement with the rebels or with the freedom fighters.

MS. STAHL: Would he agree to that?

SENATOR KERRY: Could I -- let me just comment on one thing quickly, if I can, because Dr. Kissinger has said it, and it's come

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out of the White House, and it seems to be a subject.

Senator Harkin and I did not go down there to negotiate. We did not negotiate. We were not trying to take over any role from the Secretary of State. We went as United States Senators, as countless of Senators and Congressmen and other people who have to make an important vote have gone before us. It happens that, I think, we had extremely fruitful discussions, and we've now come back with something, and we offer it to the Secretary of State, but it's ironic that we've talked to President Ortega more than our Secretary of State.

MS. STAHL: Okay. Let me ask you if they would agree to talk to the Contras and negotiate a settlement with them?

SENATOR KERRY: What they have put forward is a framework for the discussion with us of all of those issues. They have pledged to open up their political process. They have pledged to have freedom of the press in entirety at the moment -- at the moment of the acceptance of the talks, and at the moment of implementation of the cease fire.

MS. STAHL: But talks with us, what about talks with the Contras?

CONGRESSMAN McCAIN: It seems to me if they're opening up the political process, implicit in that would be negotiations with the Contras, particularly if a cease fire, which is part of both Mr. Ortega and the President's proposals, takes place. It seems to me that there should be a commitment then as part of this package to negotiate with the freedom fighters.

SENATOR KERRY: You know, it's fascinating. I don't have it

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here, I guess, but the White House itself yesterday released, in
response to Senator Harkin's and my carrying this missive back, they
said, "Well, we think that the Sandinista Government ought to really
deal with its own internal problems and the issues of the politics of
the country." That's their response to this proposal, that they don't
want to get in between that. So there's a whole duplicity here in
suddenly saying it's an administration position, that they are going to
control the political process to the degree that they bring the Contras
into it.

Now, that will happen, I believe, through the opening up of
the institutional pluralistic process, which comes out of these nego-
tiations. I think it can happen.

MS. STAHL: President Reagan yesterday in his radio address
said that there were Russian military advisors in the battle zone. One
of the things I understand Ortega said to you was that he would ask the
Soviet military advisors to leave, and the Cubans. Is he more or less
confirming what the President said?

SENATOR KERRY: There are Soviet advisors. There are Cuban
advisors in NICaragua. We know that. Everyone knows that. He admits
that, and they are -- will probably be more if we don't wake up to what
the results of our aid to the Contras are. Now, here's an opportunity.
He has said they will agree to the elimination of all foreign advisors,
but they want that to be part of the discussion process at Manzanillo
and through the Contadora enforcement process.

MS. STAHL: Let me ask Congressman McCain why you think it is
that President Reagan has been trying to persuade the public for almost

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five years now of his policy in Central America, and the public
doesn't buy it? The polls show very strongly against him on this.

CONGRESSMAN MCCAIN: The public doesn't buy -- I agree with you, what the -- particularly how the questions are shaped, are we seeking the overthrow of a government? I don't think the American people want to do that. I would submit to you that the polls were running against our policy in El Salvador a year-and-a-half to two years ago. Our policies in El Salvador, I think, in the opinion of almost everyone, have been successful. They've had four free elections in the last three years.

Senator Kerry a year ago said that it was the most blood
drenched group of people in -- on the planet, some -- words to that
effect. I think that that has surely been rejected by the pluralistic
with our help, both economic and military aid, which I believe Senator
Kerry opposed the military aid to El Salvador. I believe that our
policies there have been proven correct. I believe that they can be
in Nicaragua, but I agree with your desire for a national consensus.

MS. STAHL: Okay. We have very little time, and I want to ask you both what the lessons you learned from Vietnam were, and I know, Congressman McCain, you've just been back. You were a prisoner of war. What was the big lesson and what did you learn when you went back this time?

CONGRESSMAN MCCAIN: Oh, I -- I think that the lessons are
many. Primarily, we must understand the limitations as well as the
capability of U.S. military power. We've got to have -- and this
directly relates to Central America -- we've got to have it in --

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clearly in the United States' vital national interest, it must be
readily explainable to the man in the street in two or three sentences,
and it must
which is our problem in Central America / ... be of short duration.

MS. STAHL: And the Vietnamese, I understand, want us to give
them aid now; right?

CONGRESSMAN MCCAIN: Very much so. I think it's clear to
say that they won the war but lost the peace. Their economy is
suffering very badly, and they need our help, western economic aid and
technology. Whether they're willing to take the measures necessary,
like getting out of Cambodia, to achieve that rapprochement is not
clear to me.

MS. STAHL: Senator Kerry, the big lesson?

SENATOR KERRY: Let me say very quickly, I did not oppose
categorically aid. I wanted it linked to the kind of reforms that I
think have produced what's happened in El Salvador, and it's my belief
that we can come together in doing the same kind of thing with respect
to Nicaragua, and I hope this opportunity will be taken to do it.

CONGRESSMAN MCCAIN: And I hope so, too.

SENATOR KERRY: The lessons that John says I agree with.
The lessons are enormous. They are different for lots of people, but
I think the broadest lesson has got to be that we have to learn how to
define our interests, define achievable goals, understand that there
are limits to what we can achieve in some areas, bring the American
people into the process, and do it honestly, do it in a way that allows
people to give it support and, hopefully, define a sane policy.

MS. STAHL: Thank you both very, very much.

We'll be right back.

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MS. STAHL: CBS's Bob Simon has just returned from a trip to Vietnam. He's joining us from our studios in New York. Welcome home, Bob.

MR. SIMON: Thanks.

MS. STAHL: What was your overriding impression as you traveled through both North and South Vietnam?

MR. SIMON: A sense of strangeness and a sense of sadness, Lesley. It's virtually unrecognizable. It's the -- the scenery is the same. The props are the same. It's almost like walking into a Broadway theater the night after a play has closed. It's recognizable, but it's not the same. We knew Vietnam not as the poor, underdeveloped Asian country that it is that you're looking at it today. We knew it as a stage for -- for an American tragedy of vast proportions, and now when you go back there and you're looking at the paddles and the -- you showed the -- the scenes in Da Nang, the days at the end of the war, the panic, the furor. Now you go to Da Nang and it's a quiet city with a lot of bicycles and a nice beach, and you sit there and you wonder -- you wonder what the Americans were ever doing there, what they hoped to accomplish, what they could possibly have accomplished. Looking at these scenes, looking at -- at a Vietnamese rice paddy where the methods of farming haven't changed for thousands of years, and recalling the policy pronouncements of the time, including peace with honor and making the world safe for democracy, makes you feel that you somehow entered the world of the absurd.

MS. STAHL: Well, you know, there are more or less two impressions we get in all the things that have been written lately. One is

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that it's very poor, but, two, it's also a brutal regime. Did you
see evidence of that?

MR. SIMON: Not in Hanoi. It was very interesting. Hanoi
has been living under this regime since 1954. If the suit was ever
tight, if it ever pinched, people have gotten used to it. Hanoi is a
very smiling city. People seemed to be having not a very bad time.
In Saigon, Saigon is sullen. They are wearing a straight jacket there,
and they are not used to it. When you ride around Saigon late at night,
the pretty images of Saigon disappear. You see thousands of people
asleep on the streets. The -- the sidewalks are virtual dormitories.
People are poor. There are secret police everywhere. People come up
to you who think they might recognize you from -- from the days you
were there during the war and say they'd like to talk, but they can't
talk, and there's an atmosphere there of -- of severe repression. You
don't get that from the pictures there. It looks like a very pleasant
city. It looks a like nicer than it did when the Americans were there.
Again, it's quieter. It's charming. The boulevards are broad, and
it's -- it's a lot cleaner than it was, but the atmosphere is quite --
is quite sullen.

MS. STAHL: What did you feel the attitude toward America was:

MR. SIMON: In Hanoi, lovely. It was the most difficult
thing to adjust to, was the extent to which the people in Hanoi were
delightfully friendly towards Americans. They want us back. The North
Vietnamese want us back to help them out. They need help, and they
know that the Russians cannot give them the kind of capital, the kind
of expertise that we can.

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MS. STAHL: Bob, on that note, thank you and glad to have
you back.

We close with a look at a current controversy. Cartoonist
Jeff MacNelly of the _Chicago Tribune_ shows President Reagan visiting
a German military cemetery, and laying a wreath on the grave of the
unknown advance man.

I'm Lesley Stahl. Have a good week.

ANNOUNCER: FACE THE NATION has been sponsored by IBM.

FACE THE NATION, with White House Correspondent Lesley Stahl, was produced by CBS News, which is solely responsible for the selection of today's guests and topic.

This broadcast originated from Washington, D.C.