This Copy For

BACKGROUND BRIEFING
(President's Vietnam Speech)

AT THE WHITE HOUSE

WITH DR. HENRY A. KISSINGER,
ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT
FOR NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS

AT 8:20 P.M. EST

NOVEMBER 3, 1969

MONDAY

MR. ZIEGLER: Ladies and Gentlemen, you have the text of the President's address for this evening, also the exchange of correspondence attached to that between President Nixon and President Ho Chi Minh.

Dr. Kissinger will discuss the President's address with you and take your questions. What Dr. Kissinger says will be for BACKGROUND, not directly attributable to Dr. Kissinger and not for direct quotations. You can attribute Dr. Kissinger's remarks to White House sources.

DR. KISSINGER: Ladies and Gentlemen, I don't think there is any purpose served in my summarizing the speech. Let me just make one or two very brief observations.

The first is that probably nothing that we have done since we came into office has been done with as much seriousness, I may say with as much anguish, as this speech. We did not lack for advice. The temptation to try for some spectacular initiative was very great. But we believed that our responsibility was to do what was right, not what was new.

We believe that we have a plan that can work. We believe it is the right plan. And the President wanted to put before the American people why he believes that the plan should be carried out.

He has written most of the speech -- in fact, he has written all of the speech -- himself. He presented the major ideas to the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General and myself, on Thursday. All present unanimously agreed that this was the correct course to pursue.

Then the President wrote the final draft at Camp David over the weekend.

I think this is all that I care to say at this moment. I will be delighted to answer your questions.

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Q At the bottom of Page 6, you speak of a plan we have worked out to withdraw all U. S. ground combat forces. Can you tell me, sir, what is the number you are talking about there? How many men?

DR. KISSINGER: Frankly, I don't have the exact number, but whatever it is, they will be withdrawn under this plan.

Q On that same general point, on Page 8, and I don't know whether this is a contradiction or not, you say you have a plan for withdrawing all forces. Does the withdrawal of combat forces become a part of the plan to withdraw all of the forces or is there some explanation?

DR. KISSINGER: The plan that we have is that the first increment, the big package, is withdrawal of ground combat forces over the period of time that the plan calls for, and the objective will be to withdraw all forces as I stated.

So what is on Page 6 is the first basic installment of the overall plan.

Q In the course of the speech, the President has disclosed private peace initiatives that he took during the course of 1969.

DR. KISSINGER: That is right.

Q Was there any fear in his mind or in the minds of any of his advisors when he decided to do so that in revealing any of these initiatives it would make Hanoi any less cooperative in the future?

DR. KISSINGER: As a logistician it would be interesting to observe an escalation uncooperatively. Secondly, we have released only those initiatives which we believe are clearly shut off and which offer no further prospect of success. We have deliberately not released anything else that might still have the slightest possibility of success.

I might, in this connection, also point out that during February we were often criticized for not having taken dramatic moves during the early days of the Administration. I think the reason is obvious now.

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Q In that case, could you identify the gentleman who has known Ho Chi Minh for 25 years since he is no longer useful as a conduit?

DR. KISSINGER: This is not our judgment and therefore we cannot release his name.

Q Can you release his nationality?

DR. KISSINGER: No.

Q Dr. Kissinger, can you tell us whether you personally expect the combat troops all to be out by the end of 1970 or 1971 or some other date?

DR. KISSINGER: The President carefully explained why he would not give a time schedule. He has a schedule in his mind. We know what we intend to do, but we will not give any public time schedule.

Q Dr. Kissinger, is there any element in here which you regard as particularly significant in terms of the negotiating situation in Paris?

DR. KISSINGER: We are repeating as we have on innumerable occasions, our openness to compromise and our willingness to talk, including the propositions of all parties.

I believe also it is important for Hanoi to understand that if they are waiting in order to elicit more and more concessions, if this is the only reason why they are waiting, then this hope will be disappointed. Insofar as Hanoi may be counting on our not being willing, on our following the experiences of the French, we believe too that after this speech that they will be disappointed.

Q You speak of the plan being the first increment of the package to withdraw combat forces. What about the rest of the package. What should we look forward to in terms of non-combat forces in Vietnam? Have you plans for that?

DR. KISSINGER: As I pointed out, the objective is to withdraw ultimately all forces in relation to the criteria that has previously been stated. I cannot be more specific than I have been.

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Q Doctor, are the 60,000 already announced a part of your timetable, a gradual timetable?

DR. KISSINGER: The answer is yes.

Q Dr. Kissinger, how can there be an orderly, scheduled timetable for withdrawal when, as the President says on page 6, the withdrawal decisions still depend on the three criteria, and he must retain a flexibility, to base each withdrawal decision on the situation as it is at the time? Maybe it is a question of semantics. What is an orderly, scheduled timetable?

DR. KISSINGER: There is obviously a problem about rigidly following a timetable, regardless of what the other side does. We have made it clear that we are holding the other side to the present levels of infiltration and to the present level of combat. If that should change significantly, then the level of violence in Vietnam will be directly traceable to them and we will have to take appropriate measures.

Q Dr. Kissinger, the President says on page 7 that our withdrawal timetable is now more optimistic because of the reduction in enemy activity and progress in Vietnamization. Can one draw as a logical conclusion from that that we intend, if these factors remain like that, to accelerate the pace of the withdrawals and perhaps announce a new one sometime in December.

DR. KISSINGER: I don't want to speculate about any troop withdrawals, about any dates or any numbers. We will announce these withdrawals as soon as we possibly can, the numbers we can conscientiously make.

I would like to stress this, ladies and gentlemen: We will not be justified before the American people by the numbers we withdraw and the date we withdraw them, but by how it will come out a year from now. We will withdraw the number of forces we responsibly can over as short a period of time as we responsibly can. But we are not going to engage in a numbers game or in a competition in escalation of estimates. We will not estimate on numbers or dates.

Q I am interested in the statement on page 6 about our air operations have been reduced over 20 percent.

DR. KISSINGER: That is right.

Q First of all, was there an order to reduce those by 20 percent? Second, does this refer only to B-52 operations or does it refer to all the operations?

DR. KISSINGER: The answer is that there was an order to reduce air operations by 20 percent; that the order applies to B-52s as well as to tactical air, and it has been in effect since August.

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Q Dr. Kissinger, the President said repeatedly that we will withdraw all of our forces, stressing only that it will not be done precipitiously. He no longer says that the North Vietnamese have to withdraw as he did in his May 14 speech, when he said he would rule out an unilateral withdrawal. Is this not a major change in our position?

DR. KISSINGER: First of all, you have to distinguish two separate problems with relation to withdrawal; one, a negotiated withdrawal, in which case we are assuming that it must be mutual. The other is a withdrawal by the United States as South Vietnamese forces become able to assume their responsibilities initially with American support.

The second process is, of course, going to be slower than the first. The May 14 speech spoke entirely of a negotiated settlement. This speech addresses itself to both a negotiated settlement and an end to the war that will come about without negotiation.

I must again reiterate, Ladies and gentlemen, that we are also insisting on the levels of combat and infiltration that have been characteristic over the last three months.

Q On that very point that you were just addressing yourself to, can you give us a word of guidance of what the President has in mind on Page 7, when he says, "I shall not hesitate to take strong, effective measures to deal with that situation"?

Is the implication there that the timetable would be delayed or is the implication of escalation?

DR. KISSINGER: The question is, what is meant by the reference on Page 7 to the measures that the President may take if the levels of infiltration increase significantly or if the casualties of American forces and the level of violence rise.

I would not want to speculate on the specific measures that could be taken, but as the President said, we hope that they will be adequate to the situation.

Q Dr. Kissinger, after the American combat forces have been withdrawn, will the United States rely on Vietnamese forces to protect American support troops that remain in Vietnam?

DR. KISSINGER: The policy is to rely to the greatest extent possible on Vietnamese forces. You understand, of course, that the process will be gradual and that there will not be any sharp cutoff points. Ultimately, that is the direction in which we are headed.

Q Dr. Kissinger, could you tell us anything about the President's timing in deciding to make this very important speech which occurs midway between these two public demonstrations and on the very eve of elections in a number of States?

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DR. KISSINGER: I can answer this one very precisely. The President had always intended that he would give an account to the American people on November 1, the anniversary of the bombing halt, about the progress of the negotiations and the state of the war.

He had always felt that this was an important watershed for assessing various points. As it turned out, November 1 was a Saturday, and we had been committed for a long time to give a speech on October 31. So the prosaic explanation is that we picked the first week day after November 1, which happened to be November 3.

Q Can you relate in a clarifying way what is said here tonight as against the instructions given to Ambassador Lodge in Paris and what has transpired there in the last two weeks?

DR. KISSINGER: The instructions to Ambassador Lodge in the last two weeks in Paris were intended to underline that we believe that the plenary sessions in Paris had reached a total stalemate. If you look over the record of these plenary sessions, you will find that every proposal except the presentation of the ten-points by the other side, has come from us; that most of the sessions are now devoted on the other side to invective and vituperation. We attempted to underline that we are serious about the process of negotiations, but that we thought that the people in Vietnam deserved the more serious treatment than they had received at the plenary sessions in Paris.

Therefore, two weeks ago, Ambassador Lodge chose not to reply to another recital of the essentially same speech that we had heard for many previous weeks, and at the last session, Ambassador Lodge proposed a different procedure: Less public, more restrictive, which, hopefully, would give both sides an opportunity to state their real concerns and, therefore, to get a serious negotiation started.

We do believe that what has been going on in Paris is not likely to lead to a solution; that the time for serious negotiations has long since arrived, and that it cannot go on indefinitely simply as a repetition of the old sterile positions without any response to any proposal.

Q Dr. Kissinger, you met with Soviet representatives who, you say, are supplying the majority of the arms to the North Vietnamese. Did you urge them to stop this kind of shipment of military equipment?

If you did make that urgent, what response did you get?

DR. KISSINGER: We put before the Soviet representatives our conviction that the time for a settlement of the Vietnamese issue had arrived in the interest of all the parties. We left it to them to choose the method. They have in the past proved, when basic Soviet interests were at stake, they knew how to find the proper method.

It would be presumptuous for us to tell them how to make their views effective. As we point out in the text, we have not had a response. We have not had a response from Hanoi.

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Q Dr. Kissinger, I presume that while the
President was deliberating for this speech, that he considered
and talked with many different groups. I wonder if he
talked with any group that dissented very much from this
speech?

DR. KISSINGER: The President has had the benefit
of a great deal of advice in preparing the speech. He
has spoken personally to leading Senators of the opposition
whose views are not fully reflected in this speech but which
were fully presented to the President.

He has had the advice and he has had summaries of
all of the presentations that were made to other staff
members.

He has had the fullest spectrum of different
opinions. He has reflected about this problem with great
care. He has concluded that within his responsibilities for
the future of America, he had to make the choice that he made
here.

I can assure you he did not make it frivolously.

Q Dr. Kissinger, is there anything in the Nixon
plan for winding down the American military role in Vietnam
and withdrawing American troops which is seriously incon-
sistent with the language in the next-to-the-last paragraph
of Ho Chi Minh's letter?

DR. KISSINGER: In the context of the Ho Chi Minh
letter which spoke of American governing circles instead of
the President of the United States, which accused us of
intensifying B-52 operations at a time when the North
Vietnamese knew, and I repeat knew, that the B-52 operations
were being reduced by 20 percent -- in the context of this
letter this was another repetition of the demands for an
immediate unconditional withdrawal of American forces -- a
demand which has been repeated since then innumerable times
in Paris, in which Hanoi's representatives pointed out that
they did not care about a withdrawal that might be
spaced over a period of -- I am quoting them now and not us --
over a period of two or three years, but only a period of
months would be adequate.

So in this particular context, as it has been
stated publicly by Radio Hanoi, it is inconsistent. If it
should turn out that Hanoi is willing to cooperate with
this definition of our plan, we could only be delighted.
We have no interest in depriving Hanoi of enjoying credit for
our plan if they wish to.

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Q On page 7, the section in which the President says that if the level of infiltration is increased -- and so on -- does that refer to American or all Allied casualties?

DR. KISSINGER: Ours refers mainly to our casualties. But there is another sentence in which we point out that Hanoi would make no greater mistake than to assume that an increase in violence would be to its own advantage, which is stated in general terms.

Q The President is on the record as stating that he believes the war will be over in three years. Is it safe to presume, therefore, that the timetable as currently constructed envisions the withdrawal of all American forces by then?

DR. KISSINGER: Ladies and gentlemen, I think I can save us a great deal of trouble. I am not going to give any times. I am not going to speculate on any tables. I am not going to be moved into doing it. I therefore can't answer that question.

Q Dr. Kissinger, in the May 14th definition of our terms, we had mutual withdrawal in 12 months and the remainder over some indefinite period, and there were to be cease fires, supervised, in the plural. In this you have a singular cease fire. Is there any significance?

DR. KISSINGER: Let me explain the May 14th speech and the difference, such as it is, between the two speeches. The reasoning in the May 14th speech was that Hanoi might find it difficult to move all its forces out of South Vietnam and leave the NLF without any possibility of support if there was any violation of the agreement.

Therefore, we provided for some minimum residual forces which either side could use to police the agreement. As it has turned out, this particular provision which we did not consider essential to our program, has been violently attacked by Hanoi, and we saw no great reason to insist on this. If Hanoi would prefer that there be no residual forces left in Vietnam in case of an agreed mutual withdrawal, we are willing to go along with this.

The second is we are flexible on the issue of cease fire whether it is a general or a series of local ones. Obviously, if there is to be a mutual withdrawal, there has to be a prior cease fire since obviously troops cannot be withdrawn while combat continues.

Again, we remain flexible on whether this should be done locally or whether it should be done on a general basis. Again, this was put into the May 14th speech in order to make possible local arrangements; not to preclude a general arrangement. We have stated the general version here. Conversely, we are prepared to consider local arrangements.

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Q Dr. Kissinger, you said in answering a previous question that you thought the Vietnamese Government knew we had ordered a reduction in the B-52 raids. Did we communicate this to them by some private channel and have we communicated other military orders like that?

DR. KISSINGER: I had pointed out the North Vietnamese knew that we had reduced the operations by 20 percent. I don't want to go beyond what I said, except to reiterate it. We have tried to make sure throughout that Hanoi has understood what we are doing. We have tried to give Hanoi a maximum incentive for a reasonable solution. If our orders or our actions have been misunderstood, it has not been by accident.

Q Dr. Kissinger, the President refers on page 6 to his general orders to General Abrams in July. Could you tell us in practical terms what the change in orders means?

DR. KISSINGER: I think it has been characterized in the speech about as well as it can be, that the primary emphasis of our strategy now is less on the previous objective of the destruction of enemy influences than it is the protection of the Vietnamese forces and strengthening their capability to defend their country.

Q The three criteria were laid down with the proviso that if the enemy responded to any one or all three of them, there would be a response from our side.

Now, you said tonight that you were holding the enemy to the low level of infiltration and to the lower level of combat. Yet there is no announcement in this speech of any specific response on our part. Does that mean that you are now focusing attention solely on Paris, that you are in a sense changing that criteria and unless there is progress in Paris from the other side that we will not announce a specific action?

DR. KISSINGER: I am not saying that. I am saying that we will choose the time of any future troop withdrawals and we will choose the size of any future troop withdrawals for the moment that it is most consistent with our best judgment on how to bring peace.

We will make these announcements when our best judgment convinces us that it is the right response in those circumstances. We will have to see, now that the rainy season is over, if there may not be another offensive. What the right timing is has to be left to judgment. But the three criteria remain in force and we will act accordingly.

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MR. ZIEGLER: This will be the last question.

Q Dr. Kissinger, you mentioned the Soviet Union among the sources that have been tried and proved futile in arranging peace. Do you still consider this channel a live one, or is it not possible to make headway through the Soviet channel? And what about Laos?

DR. KISSINGER: The answer is that we are always delighted to hear from the Soviet Union, to hear the Soviet Union's view, on Vietnamese developments; that if we have any views that we think would be particularly appropriate to put before the Soviet Union, we still will feel free to do so.

We recognize that the Soviet Union does not have unlimited influence in Hanoi, and that for the Soviet Union there may also be a problem of choosing the right moment to make its influence effective.

Therefore, we are not closing off any channel.

MR. ZIEGLER: Thank you, gentlemen.

THE PRESS: Thank you.

END

(AT 8:56 P.M. EST.)

This Copy For

BACKGROUND BRIEFING

AT THE WHITE HOUSE

AT 4:05 P.M. EST

NOVEMBER 20, 1969

THURSDAY

MR. ZIEGLER: This morning I was asked a question about Dr. Starobin and I relayed my conversation with Dr. Kissinger. I thought it would be helpful to have Dr. Kissinger here this afternoon to discuss that with you briefly.

He only has five minutes or so to discuss this with you. What Dr. Kissinger says will be for BACKGROUND and not for quotation. I think it will add to what we discussed this morning. It can be attributed to "White House sources."

DR. KISSINGER: Very briefly, I have not actually read in detail what Ron said, but I saw Starobin because I make it a policy to see anybody who has had contact with the North Vietnamese negotiators. I do not tell them when they talk to me whether what they have said is new or significant or anything else.

Starobin was introduced to me, I believe, by Senator Goodell, or Senator Goodell wrote me a note about him. I saw him and listened to what he had to say. Then he went back to Paris, not at my request or instigation or with my encouragement, nor with any message.

Then he came back again after his conversation with Xuan Thuy and gave me his impressions.

Again, I did not indicate one way or the other, because obviously, I am not in the business of telling everybody who comes in what may be new. I can tell you now, though, that there was nothing in any of the communications that is not in the public record or the implications of which we had not fully looked into. I regret that the matter, something that really was in a very low order of importance, has assumed these proportions.

Of course, I don't want to get into the question of whether our judgment of what we had already learned is necessarily correct. We believe it is correct, but the main point I wanted to make is that Starobin added nothing to what we already knew, that he brought no new message, that we gave him no new message to deliver and that while his acquaintance of some 16 years ago of Xuan Thuy is of some marginal biographical interest, that is about it.

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We have other channels of getting communications back and forth and there was nothing new to this. This is not meant as a criticism of Professor Starobin, who has acted in good faith, but I believe it is not fair to anybody to blow it up into a major event.

The analysis of whatever it is that he brought really is part of the general debate of whether our judgment is correct or not, and that we can discuss some other time.

For present purposes, all we can say is that there was nothing new.

Q Is there any way you can explain to us why the story seemed to quote him as saying that he interpreted them as being flexible and you had the same facts and interpreted them as not having changed?

Can you help us with that in any way?

DR. KISSINGER: Certainly. You see, unless you know the background of the negotiations, you have absolutely no way of telling whether somebody is being flexible or not. Let me give you one example. I don't want to embarrass Starobin, but I can make it concrete.

One of the arguments that Starobin made was that if we agreed to the principle of withdrawal, they would agree to private talks. Well, you know from the President's speech that private talks had already taken place at the time, so what he brought to us as a great, new concession, namely that they were willing to have private talks, we had already had eleven, as the President said in his speech.

So I was not in a position to tell Starobin at the time, before the President had revealed that private talks had already taken place, that he was not bringing us anything new. So he could, in perfectly good faith, have believed that he was bringing us a flexible new position, whereas this was not the case.

Similarly, on the composition of the coalition government as they see it, they have said this publicly. Those of you who followed the Paris negotiations know that there is almost nothing that they said -- I am tempted to say nothing, but I don't want to have a direct quote checked and find one sentence which may not have been said publicly -- but I cannot think of anything very easily now that they said to Starobin that they have not said in various forums publicly.

But unless you follow this demonology in great detail, which all of you cannot do, you don't know whether or not somebody is really flexible or not.

If you have in mind what they mean by coalition government as one thing, and they define it in a certain way, it may look flexible until you look into it a little more.

Q One thing that Starobin reports is that they would be willing in these private talks to discuss both proposals and they would take part of the American proposal and parts of their's. President Nixon, in his speech, said that we would discuss this with them.

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DR. KISSINGER: We have never heard from anybody else. It gets into a question of credibility. You also have to ask yourself why would they pick, for something monumental, what would really be very important if it were true, an emissary with whom they had no contact for 16 years, whose standing with us they had no way of testing, when there are many other channels available they have had the opportunity to test, and they have never said it in any other forum; and when, after all, Starobin says, and Xuan Thuy allegedly said, that if we agree to the principle of total withdrawal certain things would happen, and if we made, in fact, a significant withdrawal, certain things would happen.

Well, just to make absolutely sure that we were not missing anything, we said it publicly at the U.N. If you look at the time that Starobin reported to us and the U.N. speech, it was about a two-week interval. At the U.N., we said we agreed to the principle of the total withdrawal of our troops. We have made a significant withdrawal; therefore, it is time to move or something, it is up to Hanoi.

I can get all of you Hanoi's radio reply to this, which was extremely virulent. From that, we assume that there had been a misunderstanding.

So we just don't see that there was anything in these communications.

Q I am an outsider and I don't mean to pursue this too much, but Starobin has an explanation as to why they chose him, as follows: That you saw someone in Paris early in August and told them you would be interested to hear what they have to say, and then Starobin appears on the scene and says he had seen you and what have they got to say.

This is his explanation.

DR. KISSINGER: They have been in the revolutionary business for 25 years. Do you think they would take anybody who said he had seen me, without any authentication and said "Have you got a message for Kissinger?"

If this were true, a lot of people would be walking in there all the time, a lot of you would be.

Q Are you really saying that you doubt the credibility of Starobin as an emissary?

DR. KISSINGER: No, I didn't know Starobin. I have seen Starobin only twice in my life. He struck me as a very intelligent fellow, but he is not up on the details of the Vietnam situation. He acted in perfectly good faith. He was trying to be helpful.

I was trying to see whether he had any information that was useful. It is no fault of his that it was not useful, because after all, other people who have worked in this field have also not come back with useful information. It is no reflection whatsoever on Starobin, and if it had not been used as an example -- I just felt it had to be put into context lest it look like some cloak and dagger ploy, and I don't mean to make any reflections on Starobin.

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Q What is the message to the other side in Paris by our permitting the two chief negotiators to resign without immediately naming someone to succeed them, letting the number three man take the ball?

DR. KISSINGER: As a matter of fact, Walsh has not been there for several months, so what it is in fact is to have the de facto number two man. Walsh has not been there at least since August.

The fact is that Lodge has wanted to resign. As the President has pointed out, we have not had any very meaningful communications at Paris. But we will appoint, of course, a senior replacement in a reasonable time.

Q Is there any urgency about that in the Administration?

DR. KISSINGER: We are looking at it. We are looking over names. It will not be done this week or next.

Q There is some feeling that the Paris talks are dead, or that the United States so views it.

DR. KISSINGER: It is not a question of how we view it. It is a question that we are more than willing, we would be very happy and eager for these talks to succeed. The channels are open and we are willing to take care of any opportunity that exists, but at this particular moment, there tends to be a rather sterile repetition of the standard speech.

Q Why can't this negotiation be conducted simply by a career diplomat like Mr. Habib, rather than a political appointment?

DR. KISSINGER: I didn't say what kind of appointment we would like.

Q I mean an experienced, professional diplomat?

DR. KISSINGER: I don't want to go into a dissertation of the replacement for Ambassador Lodge, or conclude that he might not be a foreign service officer.

Q I didn't mean it that way; if he serves on an interim basis and a temporary number one man?

DR. KISSINGER: Under the present circumstances, we believe that Phil Habib, who was been with the negotiations for over two years now, or a year and a half, and who previously served in Vietnam as a political counsellor, is an extraordinarily qualified man to conduct our affairs, and we don't consider him as in any way an unqualified person to carry on the negotiations.

Q May I ask it another way? Would the Administration have preferred that Ambassador Lodge had remained somewhat longer or are you just as happy to shake them up a little bit by having a change of representation?

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This Copy For

BACKGROUND BRIEFING

(Chemical and Biological Warfare)

AT THE WHITE HOUSE

WITH DR. HENRY A. KISSINGER, ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS; AND RON ZIEGLER, PRESS SECRETARY TO THE PRESIDENT.

10:38 A.M. EST

NOVEMBER 25, 1969

TUESDAY

MR. ZIEGLER: Ladies and gentlemen:

Dr. Kissinger will be happy to take your questions on this. What Dr. Kissinger states to you should be attributed to White House sources. You can directly quote Dr. Kissinger.

The transmission of the text will be held until after Dr. Kissinger completes.

Q Dr. Kissinger directly or White House sources?

MR. ZIEGLER: Let me say it again slowly for you. As to Dr. Kissinger, you should attribute his remarks to White House sources. You can use his quotes directly.

Dr. Kissinger.

This is without television.

Q Ron, does the President stand by these remarks even though he didn't make them all? Is this the White House statement?

MR. ZIEGLER: The remarks that you were given, that you have in your hand, is a statement by the President, which is a statement being issued by the President at this time.

In addition to that, he made the other remarks which he made to this group assembled.

Q May that be filed now?

MR. ZIEGLER: Filing can take place as soon as Dr. Kissinger is completed.

Q Dr. Kissinger, in your view does the Geneva Protocol cover the gases we have been using in Vietnam?

DR. KISSINGER: Some countries that have ratified the Geneva Protocol, such as Australia, have held that it does not cover teargas or, that is, riot control agents and herbicides, and when we submit the treaty for ratification, we will explain our understanding which is similar to the Australian one.

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Q Could you define for us the incapacitating chemicals, because isn't teargas an incapacitating chemical?

DR. KISSINGER: Technically, incapacitating chemicals are those that leave some residue. The dividing line between these various agents is, of course, not absolute. But, technically, teargas has not been considered an incapacitating agent because its effects are very much limited in time and are very immediate.

Of course, the dividing line between incapacitating agents and lethal agents is somewhat diffused, because some chemicals or bacteriological agents that incapacitate healthy persons would kill others.

This is why we have extended the no-first-use prohibition to incapacitating agents, also. The United States, until today, has not taken a stand on incapacitating chemical agents. We had only said we would not be the first to use lethal chemical weapons.

Q Can you give us an example of what an incapacitating agent would be?

DR. KISSINGER: I haven't spent my formative years studying this problem.

An example of an incapacitating agent would be some chemical that produces a temporary disorientation, and that produces an inability -- we are talking now about chemicals -- to respond to a situation but which does not, when used on healthy people in normal circumstances, produce lethal effects.

But, I repeat, the distinction is not absolute. And this is why we have also declared that we would not be the first to use incapacitating agents.

But the effect of incapacitating agents would be more prolonged, would be more -- you cannot avoid the consequences simply by getting out of the area once you have been exposed to it. There will be an effect, lasting a stated period, which can have very severe consequences.

Some of the incapacitating agents about which we have been briefed have very severe consequences, even though they are not lethal.

Q What you have just done is to define very precisely and clearly teargas which the Americans are now using in Vietnam and at home. Is teargas an incapacitating agent and will it be banned by the future agreements?

DR. KISSINGER: No. As I have made clear, we make a distinction. There is a distinction in the technical terminology between incapacitating agents and riot control agents.

And, as I understand it, the effect of the riot control agents is much more limited, can be avoided by escaping the area, have no lasting effects after this.

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Q But you were defining, sir, an incapacitating agent, which is what the President's statement is about.

DR. KISSINGER: No, I made a distinction between incapacitating agents and riot control agents.

Q Dr. Kissinger, do we have these incapacitating agents stockpiled, and what are the names of them?

DR. KISSINGER: Let me make clear, I am not an expert on chemical warfare. My role in connection with this was to assemble the alternatives. So I don't know the technical names of the incapacitating agents. We do have incapacitating agents, though not in very large quantities.

Q Dr. Kissinger, this being from the President's language, and he calls on DOD to make recommendations, does this mean that we are going to destroy all existing stocks of bacteriological weapons?

DR. KISSINGER: That is correct. We do plan to destroy all existing stocks of bacteriological weapons.

Q Dr. Kissinger, the President speaks here of biological weapons and they may produce global epidemics. Did the National Security Council consider who might have caused the Asian flu epidemic?

DR. KISSINGER: No. We did not assert that a global epidemic had, in fact, been caused by bacteriological weapons. We concluded that bacteriological weapons, if used, might well produce global epidemics similar to the world-wide flu epidemic with which we are familiar.

For this reason, we have concluded that the use of bacteriological weapons, either lethal or incapacitating bacteriological agents, will not be American policy and we are renouncing their use, either in a first use capacity or in retaliation.

We will not use bacteriological weapons even if they are used against us. And we are destroying existing stocks of bacteriological weapons.

Q You make no conclusion as to who might have caused the past ones?

DR. KISSINGER: We came to no conclusion or, indeed, we are not asserting that anyone caused -- we have no reason to suppose that it was caused by anything other than natural causes.

Q Dr. Kissinger, in the Senate debate over the ABM, the opponents of the ABM argued that one of the alternative retaliatory weapons we have, which makes less necessary the ABM, was bacteriological warfare. Are we not then, therefore, giving away an alternative weapon for retaliation?

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DR. KISSINGER: Ron has asked me to repeat the question, which is that some of the opponents of the ABM asserted during the hearings that we had means of retaliation in bacteriological warfare that made the ABM unnecessary. Are we not in fact giving up an extra means of retaliation?

I confess I haven't heard that argument made with
respect to the ABM. But, yes, we are giving up a
means of retaliation. But when we considered the long-term
effect of bacteriological warfare, what would be involved
in using it, we concluded that only the bacteriological weapons
were really primarily useful for first use; that the effect
in retaliation would be long delayed, the consequences would
be too uncontrollable, and we have deliberately decided to
renounce bacteriological warfare, either for first use or
for retaliation. We have simply not concluded that this is
an effective or proper instrument of warfare.

Q Dr. Kissinger, can you explain to us in general
terms the difference between chemical warfare and biological
warfare?

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DR. KISSINGER: I tell you, I am going to be
insufferable when I leave this job.

The question is the difference between bacteriological
warfare and chemical warfare and biological warfare.

Q Is biological an interchangeable term?

DR. KISSINGER: Bacteriological is a form of biological
warfare. In effect, biological or bacteriological warfare
is what is commonly referred to as "germ warfare"; that is, it
operates by producing communicable diseases and chemical
warfare produces an effect on the individual that is exposed
to it, but it does not have an organic component, and, therefore,
it does not have the epidemic aspects to it.

It is a weapon that can be used on particular
individuals, but biological warfare operates by producing a sequence
of events that is really quite unpredictable.

Mary?

Q Dr. Kissinger, why and when did the Administration
suddenly take up this matter, which has been pending for
about 25 years?

DR. KISSINGER: The question is why did the Administration
suddenly take up a matter that has been pending for 25 years?

The matter was not suddenly taken up. The matter
was taken up in line with the systematic review of major issues
confronting us. It was taken up in March. And we put it through
the regular National Security Council process; that is, we
started an interagency study of the pros and cons of
bacteriological and chemical warfare. We were constantly getting
proposals on this or that aspect of it.

We wanted to look at it as an integrated whole.
The study was started at the end of March. It was conducted
during the summer.

After the interagency group had completed its
study, it was put before the National Security Council review
group, in which then the alternatives were refined.

It was then put before the National Security Council
two weeks ago. The pros and cons of the various approaches of
bacteriological warfare, of biological warfare, chemical
warfare, the Geneva Protocol, and the UK draft on
biological warfare were all looked at as an integrated whole.

On the basis of that, then the President made his
decision. But this is not a rapid technical move. This is
something that has been going on for six months and is part
of our general review of major premises of American foreign
policy.

Q On chemical warfare, the Geneva Protocol,
and the President's statement deal with first-use. Has there
been any change in the policy of the United States
with respect, or the actions of the United States with
respect to chemical warfare agents already in use by the
United States?

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**DR. KISSINGER:** The question is whether there has been any change of policy by the United States with respect to any chemical agents already in use?

There are no chemical weapons in use, as such, except for the riot control agents, which I have mentioned. But the categories to which the no-first-use restriction applies are not being employed anywhere.

There will be an attempt made to change the composition of the stockpile of these weapons to get more stable and safer ones. But I don't think I want to go into that.

**Q** Dr. Kissinger, will we be closing down any installations as a result of this move, such as the proving grounds or any of the arsenals?

**DR. KISSINGER:** With respect to biological warfare, where in effect now we are confining our program now to a biological research program, we are going to try to have as much of this done under the auspices of HEW as possible, and not have it carried out primarily as a Defense Department program.

We will not maintain significant production facilities for biological warfare, except what is needed for research.

**Q** Doctor, as to the timing of this announcement, even though it may not have been a sudden decision, as an example the President referred to, is this related at all to the atmosphere of the SALT talks? Are we hopeful that this gesture might produce other results in other fields?

**DR. KISSINGER:** The question is, is the timing explicitly related to the SALT talks?

The answer to this is no. This issue came up in the normal procedure in the National Security Council considerations.

We would make this decision about this time in any event. At the same time, we hope that this demonstrates our interest in the control of arms, and our intention to do what can be done to act humanely and with responsibility with respect to weapons of mass destruction, and in that intangible way we hope it will set an example.

**MR. ZIEGLER:** We have time for just two more questions.

**Q** Dr. Kissinger, could you tell us or give us some idea of the numbers and/or quantities of biological weapons and agents that are involved and maybe the number of people that have been working on them so we get some idea of the scope of the decision?

**MR. ZIEGLER:** The question is whether I can give you some idea on the numbers of weapons actually, and the numbers of people, involved and quantities.

You will have to get that from the Department of Defense. I frankly do not know the precise number.

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Q What other nations have not signed the Geneva Protocol of 1925 besides the United States?

DR. KISSINGER: As far as I know, the only major nation that has not ratified the Geneva Protocol is Japan.

Q How about China?

DR. KISSINGER: Communist China has joined.

Q And the Soviet Union?

DR. KISSINGER: The Soviet Union joined it in April, 1928.

Q Dr. Kissinger, you said that we will not use bacteriological weapons as a retaliatory measure. How about chemical weapons?

DR. KISSINGER: With chemical weapons we reserve the right to use them, if they are used against us, but not bacteriological weapons.

MR. ZIEGLER: Thank you very much.

THE PRESS: Thank you.

END

(AT 10:55 A.M. EST)