This Copy For

NEWS CONFERENCE

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AT THE WHITE HOUSE

WITH DR. HENRY A. KISSINGER,
ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR
NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS: AND
RONALD L. ZIEGLER, PRESS SECRETARY
TO THE PRESIDENT

11:42 A.M. EST

APRIL 25, 1972

TUESDAY

MR. ZIEGLER: Gentlemen, very quickly here, because this is an announcement that is being made jointly with Moscow at 12:00 Noon our time -- and I want to make sure that the wires are on the wire with it before 12:00 Noon -- Henry Kissinger is standing by to make a brief comment after I read the announcement. So we would ask you to hold your filing until he is finished, but if we move close to 12:00 Noon, we will break the briefing and allow you to file.

I will read the text of the joint announcement:

"Between April 20 and April 24, Dr. Henry A. Kissinger, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, was in Moscow to confer with the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Brezhnev, and Foreign Minister Gromyko. The discussions dealt with important international problems, as well as bilateral matters, preparatory to the talks between President Nixon and Soviet leaders in May."

DR. KISSINGER: I will take your questions. I thought I would make two very brief comments: One, how the meetings came into being; and two, a word about the conversations.

As you know, the President has been directly in touch with General Secretary Brezhnev on important international questions for several years. In the course of these exchanges, it was felt in the last few weeks that a more direct exchange might be desirable.

Therefore, by mutual agreement, it was decided after full discussions here between the President, Secretary Rogers and myself that I should go for these discussions, which extended from Thursday evening, Moscow time, until Monday noon, Moscow time.

The reception I received was extremely courteous. The talks were frank and useful.

Now I will be glad to answer your questions.

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Q Did you talk about Vietnam, Dr. Kissinger?

DR. KISSINGER: We agreed that neither side would reveal the subject of the talks, but I think you can draw your conclusions from an announcement which says that important international problems were discussed.

Q Dr. Kissinger, was Vietnam the principal reason for your going?

DR. KISSINGER: I cannot go beyond the text of the announcement; but the whole range of Soviet-American relationships was discussed, as well, of course, as particular emphasis to those issues that most immediately affect Soviet-American relationships at this moment.

Q What do you think happens to your credibility when the White House says you are at Camp David, and why the secrecy?

DR. KISSINGER: First, I spent yesterday afternoon and evening at Camp David with the President, indeed, returning with him to Washington around 10:30 last night.

Secondly, we are, at the moment, in a very delicate phase of international relations. It was felt by both sides to be desirable that there should be a minimum of speculation and a minimum of prior discussion until there was an opportunity to explore each other's views.

The announcement is being made less than 24 hours after my return to Washington. Therefore, there is a full disclosure of where I spent my time, and what was done.

Q Dr. Kissinger, was there any possibility before you went to Moscow that the President's trip would not take place?

DR. KISSINGER: None.

Q Dr. Kissinger, did Ambassador Dobrynin go back with you?

DR. KISSINGER: Ambassador Dobrynin was in Moscow at the same time I was.

Q Dr. Kissinger, looking back so soon and apprais-
ing whatever you did over there, was it satisfactory?

DR. KISSINGER: I think that the talks were useful.
They were frank and they were satisfactory, yes.

Q How did you go and how did you return?

MR. KISSINGER: I went by military plane in both directions.

Q Dr. Kissinger, did you inform the Soviets of any decision that the President had made for the future?

DR. KISSINGER: I know this is not too satisfactory to you, but we have agreed that neither side would go into the details of the talks. Obviously, one purpose of my going was to put before the Soviet leaders the considerations of the President on major international problems, as well as his thinking on the upcoming talks in Moscow.

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Q Dr. Kissinger, then these subjects were not strictly related to the visit to the Soviet Union, is that right?

DR. KISSINGER: They dealt with all international problems, including those that will be raised on the visit.

Q When did the President first consider sending you and when was the decision made to send you?

DR. KISSINGER: The decision was made early in the week of my going. I don't have the exact date. It was based on a long meeting between the President, the Secretary of State, and myself, based on the exchanges that the President has been conducting with General Secretary Brezhnev.

Q Were you in communication with the President while you were there?

DR. KISSINGER: Yes, I was in very frequent communication.

Q Is the agenda and timing set and everything is still as has been previously announced, the arrival and so forth?

DR. KISSINGER: On the summit there have been no changes.

Q Is there any change in the advice that you are now giving the President as a result of your trip to Moscow?

DR. KISSINGER: I never discuss the advice that I am giving the President. You people might find out how uninfluential I am.

Q Can you tell us a little more about the nature of the exchanges between the President and Mr. Brezhnev, how they have been conducted, by correspondence, by Hot Line, or what?

DR. KISSINGER: They have been conducted on the whole by correspondence.

Q Are you optimistic that the Russians might stop supplying the North Vietnamese with equipment?

DR. KISSINGER: I don't want to make any judgment about what Soviet policy will be in the future.

THE PRESS: Thank you, gentlemen.

MR. ZIEGLER: Dr. Kissinger's remarks are on the record. We will brief at 3:00 o'clock.

END

(AT 11:52 A.M. EST)

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BRIEFING BY DR. HENRY KISSINGER TO
MEMBERS OF WHITE HOUSE STAFF

ROOSEVELT ROOM

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 1972

AT 7:37 P.M.

DR. KISSINGER: Let me make an observation about
the general posture that the White House ought to take.

First about the general posture we should take
over the next few weeks, we do not want the White House
to protest our undying devotion to peace. We do not
want the White House to proclaim that we are really in
league with the peace marchers but have just a minor
tactical disagreement with them and if they only under-
stood what we are doing they would be marching for us
rather than against us.

We cannot afford any <u>beating</u> or any
flinching. We are now engaged on a course in which the
other side has put all the chips into the pot and in which
we have put our chips into the pot and the only way we
are going to make it and the only reason we have made it
go up to now is that we have convinced our opponents
that this time, for once, against all probability, we
mean business and therefore, we are not interesting in
giving the impression that we are just on the verge of
backing off, that really all we want is to surrender
with grace or any of these points.

We have the possibility now, better than at
any time in the Administration, and that doesn't make
it brilliant, of getting perhaps some serious talks
started. We got to this point because against all odds
the President did not panic when the general offensive
started, because the President added to our capabilities
there, because the President made them believe that this
time they might lose everything and because they have
adopted a strategy that if they do not win, they will
lose everything.

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They could never have believed that we would risk
the summit in the light of much of the discussion that had
gone before, but that is exactly what he has done.

So nobody is going to help our strategy by trying
to impress the New York Times and Washington Post writers
how our heart is bled and how we are eager to back
off this. We don't have to sound truculent, but we have to
sound absolutely determined.

When you talk about the President say that you know
he has set his course, you know he is going this course,
that he is not going to be deflected from it because this is
what has brought us to this point. This is the general
tone we should take. We are not apologizing for what we
are doing.

Now, I think with respect to the speech, you
have all read it, I take it. Have you all had a copy?

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Q No. There are no copies. You might tell us what the subject is to start with.

DR. KISSINGER: Busing. (Laughter.)

The speech briefly summarizes what we have done along the familiar lines, the peace offers we have made, the withdrawals we have made, the Communist reaction to it; the fact that the entire North Vietnamese field army is in the neighboring countries of Indochina; that we are not dealing with a civil war but with a naked case of aggression, and no South Vietnamese forces are in North Vietnam while the entire Vietnamese Army is either in Laos or North Vietnam.

It makes the judgment that the South Vietnamese are fighting well, that every battle has its ups and downs and we can expect to have ups and downs. But that on the whole the assessment of General Abrams is that we are reasonably effective and have a reasonable chance; that we are conducting air strikes against military objectives to deal with this invasion.

Q Is that what it is, to deal with the invasion?

DR. KISSINGER: To defeat the invasion. We do not use the word "the other side." We use the word "enemy." And the word we use is, as I mentioned, invasion.

He then announces basic propositions. One, he believes that despite the military operations Vietnamization has proved itself sufficiently so that we can continue our withdrawal policy and that we are going to withdraw 20,000 more troops by July 1, which will mean that we will have withdrawn 500,000 of the 549,000 that we found when we came into office.

Incidentally, I checked this out carefully with General Abrams and with President Thieu, and this is not something we imposed on them. We offered both of them the opportunity of not doing it and both of them felt that we could afford to do it, and if it would help with our domestic opinion that they wanted us to do it.

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In fact, Thieu is especially strong on that.

Secondly, he explains that he has directed Ambassador Porter to return to the negotiating table as was announced yesterday. But let me read you what he says about this.

"We are not resuming the Paris talks simply in order to hear more empty propaganda and bombast from the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong delegates, but to get on with the constructive business of making peace. We are resuming the Paris talks with the firm expectation that productive talks leading to rapid progress will follow through all available channels. As far as we are concerned, the first order of business will be to get the enemy to halt his invasion."

The first point he makes is that the air attacks on military installations on North Vietnam will continue while these negotiations are going on and that we are not going to stop military operations in return for the talks. In order to stop military operations, they will have to end the invasion of South Vietnam.

Then he points out that the only hope the Communists now have is of dividing this country and of getting this country domestically to do for them what they can't do for themselves with a general participation.

Now that is the substance of the speech. And his major purpose is to explain to the American people briefly where we stand, to explain to the other side that we will not be deflected, to maintain the posture we have adopted, and we will not panic the Moscow Summit under the present circumstances, and we will take whatever actions are necessary to prevent a Communist victory in Vietnam at whatever risk to whatever other policy we are pursuing. It is a tough, strong, but not truculent speech.

Now, you have all seen the newspapers today or the news tickers in which the North Vietnamese have announced that Le Duc Tho is coming back to Paris and in which the Russians have announced what we did not announce, that my trip to Moscow was at their invitation. We only talked here yesterday about mutual agreement, in which

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they confirmed Vietnam was one of the topics and in which
they claimed credit for having helped arrange some of
these activities that are going on and that will unfold
in the next weeks. But in order to do this, we have
to hold our course. And one of the tasks of the White
House is not to lament, not to cry about the Summit,
to indicate absolute readiness to give up anything;
that a basic American national interest is involved here.

The President winds up at the end by saying
what is involved here is the ability of the United States
to conduct a world policy and the ability of a President --
not of this President, but of anyone in the Oval Office
to be a respected world leader.

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I will read you the last paragraph, "I do not know who will be in this office in the years ahead, but I do know that future Presidents will travel to nations abroad on journeys for peace as I have. If the United States betrays the millions of people who have relied on us in Vietnam, the President of the United States, whoever he is, will not deserve nor receive the respect which is essential if the United States is to play the great role we are destined to play of helping to build a new structure of peace in the world. It would amount to a renunciation of our morality, an abdication of our leadership among nations, and an invitation for the mighty to prey upon the weak all around the world. It would be to deny peace the chance peace deserves to have. This we shall never do."

That is the last paragraph and there is just another sentence or two. This is the mood of the speech. The most important thing you can do is to keep reflecting that mood when you talk to people and when you don't know something, say you don't know it, because there are a lot of intricate, I mean about particular moves, I don't speculate about diplomatic moves that may be made because there is a rather delicate set of moves going on and it is better, for two or three weeks, it would be extremely good if you all did not speculate about anything you surmise may or may not be going on.

What will be most helpful in pursuit of this in terms of what is said by Congressmen, Senators, and other public opinion?

DR. KISSINGER: The most helpful thing Senators can do is to support, to say that the United States -- there is only one issue left in the negotiations, we can go through all the folderol, all of the clever moves. There is only one issue: Will the United States impose a Communist Government on Saigon or to put it another way, will we join our enemies to defeat our allies. That is the only issue in Vietnam.

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The Communist proposals have retractable consequences of getting us to impose a Communist Government in Saigon, joining them in doing something which up to now they have not been able to do for themselves. That is the only answer to the negotiations.

All the other baloney about withdrawals, deadlines and all these finessing maneuvers had been rejected by them a dozen times before they were ever printed in a newspaper and in fact they have been rejected in newspapers. It is, of course, true that when they rejected it to the New York Times they would not print it until we ducked them on it and then they put it on page 20. But the fact is, these proposals have been rejected, there is only one issue left and that issue is do we impose a Communist Government in Saigon and that is what the President is structuring also in this speech.

Q. Is that a point you want built up? Do you want to put the focus on that?

Q. How do you avoid the Communist take-over?

DR. KISSINGER: By cutting off economic aid while the North Vietnamese are receiving a billion dollars in economic and military aid by their allies. We offered in talks with Le Duc Tho that we would scale down our military and economic aid in proportion to theirs and they flatly rejected it.

Q. But you don't want people to get into the nuances of negotiations?

DR. KISSINGER: No.

Q. If you had two choices of people phrasing this as to doing something to continue (inaudible) withdrawls, you would opt for the latter?

DR. KISSINGER: Yes, the withdrawal is the price we are paying. In fact, I would not point to the withdrawals. Do not play up the withdrawal part except to point out we have withdrawn 500,000 troops.

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Q You have some people who can play that as a sign of strength, the fact that we are continuing with the withdrawals.

DR. KISSINGER: But we do not want to give the other side the impression that we are under so much domestic pressure that we are going to go down to zero no matter what happens.

Q We are not saying that.

DR. KISSINGER: But that is the danger in the withdrawals thing.

Q You have another danger which is that Nixon is backed against the wall by South Vietnamese reverses on the battlefield and cuts the withdrawal rate 30 percent.

DR. KISSINGER: I think that is easy to answer. The percentage of the troops is rising with almost every announcement you are making. When you withdraw 20,000 out of 69,000, if you withdraw at the rate of 22,000 a month we would be out of there totally by the end of July. So by the time we got down to 69,000 you have to be a total demagogue to be talking about withdrawal rates of 22,000. 20,000 represents 33 percent of the force we have there.

Q Henry, you are not mentioning the issue of the POWs.

DR. KISSINGER: It is mentioned. This will be the first item on the agenda.

Q Are we also to continue to emphasize the fact that we will not leave there until they are out, as opposite the McGovern thing of leave and hope they are out?

DR. KISSINGER: Right; absolutely.

Q Did you imply there is trouble with the Summit?

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DR. KISSINGER: No, just don't say, "Jesus Christ, what what he's doing there may blow the Summit."

Q What is the reason for indicating the rate of withdrawal?

DR. KISSINGER: We should not be talking about rate of withdrawal here anyway.

Q This is what is going to be discussed.

DR. KISSINGER: At the rate of 22,000 a month, if we say, having once started 22,000 a month, if we have to keep this up, any idiot will know we will be out by August 1, which we have always said. When we are down to a certain number, we will stay there until the prisoners of war are released.

Q I am just suggesting, Henry, that realistically one of the leads in the stories as it is covered will be rate of withdrawal cut.

DR. KISSINGER: That actually would not hurt our diplomacy.

Q It will be the lead that the President slowed down the withdrawal rate but promised to continue the bombing until the other side makes peace.

DR. KISSINGER: If we can't handle that,-- it was always predictable that when we get down to a certain number we cannot simply continue.

Q I am not saying we cannot handle it, I am just giving you what the lead will be to the stories so you can do with it what you want.

Q Just to follow up, what you are not suggesting is that the cut in the rate of withdrawal would have happened whether or not there was an offensive.

DR. KISSINGER: That is correct.

Q That is the big question. That is hard to believe.

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Q What would be the rate of withdrawal announced today if there had not been this offensive?

DR. KISSINGER: Exactly the same.

Q It is not hard to believe, because there was no intention of going down to zero in office.

Q We always had a residual force in mind. If you stayed with this rate you would be at zero in August. So we have to stop talking about that residual force.

Q At the rate we are at now you have only three more months to go to zero.

Q When we left the talks we said they used it as a propaganda forum and we would not return until there was substantive evidence that they were willing to negotiate seriously. The question will be, do we have such evidence?

DR. KISSINGER: The President is saying we are going with the firm expectation that there will be productive talks through all available channels. If this should not happen, the talks will not continue very long.

Q Do you have a deadline?

DR. KISSINGER: I don't want to go into that.

Q How do we answer Pat's question.

DR. KISSINGER: We don't go into it. I wouldn't go into it if anyone asks me, so there is no reason for anybody else to go into it.

Q Henry, when you use all available channels as a phrase ---

DR. KISSINGER: We don't explain that.

Q Other people will take that as a broad indication that we are prepared or expecting secret talks.

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DR. KISSINGER: We are not confirming it or denying it. Our attitude is that we do not comment on private talks. We are better off with an air of mystery than we are by spelling everything out.

Q The arithmetic is 25,000 more by July 1st of the 500,000.

DR. KISSINGER: Right. We will be down to 49,000.

Q What do we say about the present military situation?

DR. KISSINGER: Again, let me say in general, I will give you our assessment but I wouldn't feel a compulsion to answer everything in excruciating detail. What I would say first of all is to look at the overall military situation and not at every individual battle.

The overall military situation is that the offensive has been going on for four weeks. At the end of four weeks they have not yet taken one provincial capital. What they have occupied is mostly uninhabited jungle. They have risked a whole field Army and up to now this is all they have achieved.

Now, secondly, our opponents are using this against us to say bombing is ineffective. If this is true, then the South Vietnamese are doing the fighting. They can't have it both ways. They can't maintain that Vietnamization is not succeeding because our bombing is making the difference and secondly maintain that bombing is ineffective.

But in addition to this debating point, General Abrams today wrote us a cable in which he said, sure, bombing is important, but bombing won't do any good at all if the South Vietnamese didn't stand and fight and force the North Vietnamese to concentrate.

An Loc has been surrounded for three weeks and it has not fallen.

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Now, about the military situation in II Corps, there will be many press people who will remember that when I talked to them in March and in the early stages of this campaign about the impending attacks, I always said that several provincial capitals are likely to fall and that the first one that I would expect to fall is the city of Kontum. Kontum has not yet fallen. It is the city that is now threatened by these North Vietnamese attacks.

Now the typical patterns of these attacks up to now have been that they amass a lot of artillery, and two things usually happen, the South Vietnamese are usually strung out too thinly because they cannot bring themselves to give up any territory short of being physically pushed out of it. This is failure in their deployment.

The second thing is that when they get hit by that first onslaught they pull back. In every Corps area up to now, after that first onslaught has taken some territory, they formed a new defensive line which is more compact, the North Vietnamese have to concentrate in order to attack this defensive line and in no case have they up to now been able to break through this defensive line.

That has been the case in Military Region I and Military Region III. in Military Region II the situation right now still follows the same pattern. They have overrun all the outlying outposts. A new defensive line has now been formed along two rivers. Therefore, what has happened up there is true to the pattern of all the other action.

Now, I can't tell you in all honesty whether this 22nd Division that is up there when it gets hit the second time wouldn't break and run. You never can tell with a South Vietnamese Division how they will fight until they have done it.

Therefore, I would not overlook the fact that they wouldn't take Kontum. Suppose they take Kontum. They have one capital out of 43 in the northern most region of the country.

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From Kontum the only place you can go is Pleiku. Maybe they will get Pleiku. I am making the absolutely worst case of what that II Corps offensive could do. It is almost impossible that they can get further than Pleiku before the rains come. In that case, they have used 11 divisions to capture the two western most provincial towns in South Vietnam, towns moreover which they will not be able to hold in another dry season, once the offensive in the other parts of the country are defeated.

Now, of course, this can be written into a setback and into a defeat, but they had three objectives with this attack. One to disintegrate ARVN, not to take Pleiku or Kontum, second to get so much commotion started in this country that we would disintegrate the South Vietnamese and thirdly, failing that, to put themselves into the best possible position for a negotiation.

Now the way the rainy season pattern works, the way their supply situation works, our expectation is that the military operations in the An Loc area, that is in the Saigon area, if they don't score a spectacular success by May 10, they are going to be in trouble. Already each succeeding attack has been less intense than the previous one. Maybe they are getting everything together for one more Sunday punch.

So far they have not yet torn up our domestic situation and so far they have done what some of us predicted when the offensive started, namely, I predicted when the offensive started that we would be back in serious negotiations well before May 15 and this is what is happening now.

So, I would not overdo that military Region II offensive. You can explain it and say we may well lose Kontum, but the major problem is not how much time we can make inways and how many casualties we can inflict on them before they take it and they are going to get a tremendous working over there before they make any major headway.

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Q To go back to your earlier point about the Moscow Summit, about being tough in every way, do you want to continue the attitude that we are confident that the Summit will take place, is that correct?

DR. KISSINGER: From our side, we have no indication that the meeting will not take place. We are confident that it will take place, but we are not going to be deflected by the Moscow Summit from doing what needs to be done in Vietnam. That is the position. We are confident it will take place. We think it can make a major contribution, but we will not be deflected by it from anything we need to do.

Q That is a point you want people to make. Are there other points?

Q Do the Russians realize that?

Q Let's get to some points we want to get across, because Henry has to go. If there are any other points you think would be helpful.

DR. KISSINGER: That is a point, and the general confidence that I have indicated both with respect to the military prospects without being too cocky and the impression that the President knows what he is doing and without making too many predictions and that the President is dead set on his course.

I saw a number of good quotes in some magazine where somebody said he has that glint in his eye. I don't know where I read that.

Q That was Connally in Time and Newsweek.

DR. KISSINGER: Those are the major points.

On the withdrawal, I think the fact that we can withdraw a third of our force while this offensive is going on is a sign of great confidence. We have always said that we would withdraw -- for your information, incidentally -- and this is not just for newsmen, we are exactly on schedule. This is exactly the schedule we have had all along.

Q Can we say that?

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Q I think that is good.

Q The fact that you are not affecting it either way.

DR. KISSINGER: Say this is exactly the schedule we have had all along which happens to be the precise truth. We have not slowed it down. Obviously, we have not speeded it up.

Q What is our position? Does the President take this position after generally getting all his advice from his advisers or the general chicken-hearted reaction from people around him? There have been leads both ways and a lot of people have been having some fun with that.

DR. KISSINGER: We ought to stay off both of them.

Q Neither one of them serves any purpose.

DR. KISSINGER: Actually, the bureaucracy has been more united on this one than in any crisis that we have had, and it has been better run from that point of view than any crisis we have had. As to

Q You don't have to go to the comparisons if you stay with the absolutes rather than the relatives.

Q The point has been made by various reporters and it is an inevitable question.

DR. KISSINGER: The point is that the President set the course and there was no debate.

Q Then that is the point we want to make.

Q Does the President characterize the withdrawal number in any way or explain it as being on schedule?

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DR. KISSINGER: No, and we should not push the withdrawal as the greatest thing in this speech, because that is not what we need in the next two months. What we need in the next two months is to show that we are determined to go our way. If we are going to break this through a negotiation, we are going to be able to withdraw everything. We are going to be fighting for the next four months whether we withdraw 15,000, 20,000 or 25,000. So what we are playing for is much bigger than the withdrawal there.

Q The other thing we really need is a super-strong constant attack on our attackers.

DR. KISSINGER: Absolutely.

Q This is the thing we have a problem maintaining and have a problem getting heard when it happens which means we have to double up. Anybody who hits the President on any of the points on this, and obviously the opposition is going to have to, and you can see the obvious points they can hit on, we have to have the answers ready on those and the answers are all obvious. It is nothing complex in any of this. Especially on the Hill, we have to get our squad really primed to hit back on everything the Democratic candidates particularly will start with.

Q We have every day one of our tigers reserving 15 minutes every morning no matter what, on general principle.

Q You can use that as a clean-up time on the crap that has been dumped up to that point.

DR. KISSINGER: What we do not need at this time is to get an impression that withdrawal is our principal aim. We should use the withdrawal rate to show that our program is on course, but we should not use it to leave the impression that that is the only objective we have in Vietnam. So it is terribly important that we stress the determination which the President expresses that we will not tolerate defeat there and that we will pursue this course and that the 20,000 we can afford to withdraw because the South Vietnamese are so effective.

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Q There is nothing wrong with our taking the attack on the basis that the President is doing a lot of things and there is obviously a lot going on and the people who don't know what they are talking about should keep quiet for awhile and let it develop.

DR. KISSINGER: That would be very important.

Q There will be advance copies now?

DR. KISSINGER: After all, two weeks ago our opponents were criticizing us for having blown the Russian Summit. That week I was in Moscow. Our opponents were accusing us of having forever ruined the chance of negotiating because the North Vietnamese would never negotiate while we were bombing them. They are negotiating while we are bombing them and they are sending their top man back to Paris. All the things which, according to the dove philosophy, could never happen.

Q Is there any reason not to hit that? Why not hit the doves on all the crap that they said would happen?

DR. KISSINGER: Nothing on the record. You can say Joe Kraft was saying last Wednesday in a pontificating column that for two weeks we have been trying to engage the Russians and have failed utterly because they have cleverly sidestepped us. I think the record on this also speaks for itself. I would not say these things for quotation, but when you talk backgrounds to newsmen, and particularly go easy on the Russians. With the Russians, just stick to what has been published and don't give your own interpretation.

END

8:13 P.M. EST

ROOSEVELT ROOM

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 1972

AT 7:37 P.M.

We cannot afford any *beating* or any
flinching. We are now engaged on a course in which the
other side has put all the chips into the pot and in which
we have put our chips into the pot and the only way we
are going to make it and the only reason we have made it
go up to now is that we have convinced our opponents
that this time, for once, against all probability, we
mean business and therefore, we are not interested in
giving the impression that we are just on the verge of
backing off, that really all we want is to surrender
with grace or any of these points.

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The speech briefly summarizes what we have done along the familiar lines, the peace offers we have made, the withdrawals we have made, the Communist reaction to it; the fact that the entire North Vietnamese field army is in the neighboring countries of Indochina; that we are not dealing with a civil war but with a naked case of aggression, and no South Vietnamese forces are in North Vietnam while the entire South Vietnamese Army is either in Laos or North Vietnam.

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Q What will be most helpful in pursuit of this in terms of what is said by Congressmen, Senators, and other public opinion?

DR. KISSINGER: The most helpful thing Senators can do is to support, to say that the United States -- there is only one issue left in the negotiations, we can go through all the folderol, all of the clever moves. There is only one issue: Will the United States impose a Communist Government on Saigon or to put it another way, will we join our enemies to defeat our allies? That is the only issue in Vietnam.

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DR. KISSINGER: No.

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Q We are not saying that.

Q - Henry, you are not mentioning the issue of
the POWs.

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Q Do you have a deadline?

Q Henry, when you use "all available channels" as a phrase ---

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Q Can we say that?

· k2

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Q I think that is good.

K#3

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DR. KISSINGER: Absolutely.

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END

8:13 P.M. EST

This Copy For

NEWS CONFERENCE

NOT FOR DIRECT QUOTATION

AT THE WHITE HOUSE

AT 8:25 P.M. EST

APRIL 26, 1972

WEDNESDAY

MR. ZIEGLER: We are going to have a briefing at nine o'clock in the East Room which will be on the record. What Henry says here is really on the record. I would prefer, however, that where possible you can say the White House pointed out or Dr. Kissinger has made the point, without going into direct quotes from this session. But just more attitude reference and so forth. I think it would solve any problem of cross-quoting from the nine o'clock session.

So if you would agree to that, we will proceed
with your questions.

Q I am not sure I understand.

MR. ZIEGLER: In other words, you can say that the White House or Dr. Kissinger pointed out tonight at the White House and then make the point.

Q You don't want direct quotes?

MR. ZIEGLER: That is right, without direct quotation.

Q Dr. Kissinger, how close are the Communists to
having South Vietnam cut in two at the moment on the basis
of your own intelligence?

DR. KISSINGER: The situation seems to be as follows. There are really two kinds of military operations going on. One is in the Central Highlands in the Kontum Plateau area. The other one is along the coast. I must say when I heard this morning the television accounts of South Vietnam being cut in two, I thought that maybe some of these units that were in the Kontum area spilled over to the coast. There was no other way for them to get there with the equipment that the North Vietnamese Army now has, because there are no roads and with the artillery and tanks which they now use, they can't travel across county the way they could six years ago.

Now, the military operations along the coast are
conducted by the Third North Vietnamese Division, which is
always stationed along the coast. It has always been there.
It has always been stationed in the mountains north of
Qui Nhon. It did not penetrate to the coast as a result of these
military operations. It erupted out of its base area and has
been pouring into some of the district towns along the coast.

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And it erupted into areas in which there are no regular South Vietnamese forces, but only regional and popular forces and the regional and popular forces are useful in conjunction with organized forces, but they cannot themselves withstand a regular force.

As they get further toward Qui Nhon, which is the key port town, they will be running into South Koreans and that is the test whether they are really going to get into major populated areas.

Now, as far as the operations in the Central Highlands are concerned, it is always dangerous to make a final judgment with the South Vietnamese Divisions until they have been in combat for some period of time. All I can do is to give you the best judgment we now have as it looks from Washington.

What they have followed, the pattern of all previous actions, the South Vietnamese were very loath to give up territory. Usually as a result they deploy themselves in a series of extended fire bases. These fire bases were an effective means of defense when the other side did not have massive artillery and tanks. But when the other side can concentrate all of its fire on one fire base at a time, they can overwhelm them.

This is what happened at the Demilitarized Zone and that is what happened to some extent in the Central Highlands.

Then the South Vietnamese pulled back and formed a more regular defensive line which is not so much based on individual fire bases, but on a more continued line which they have now done, about 15 miles north and west of Kontum and the North Vietnamese are attempting to follow them. They have not yet assaulted this defensive position, so I cannot give you a fair judgment of how that battle will go.

The experience in the other areas has been that once they reach the defensive position and when they were forced to concentrate and be under intensive artillery and air bombardment, then their attacks gradually lost steam.

But, even if they should take Kontum, we have always said -- and there must be people here who talked to me before these attacks started -- that it was quite possible that one or two provincial towns would fall. I know I pointed out Kontum as a likely case, even before they were attacked there. I don't know whether I have ever talked to you about this, Marvin, but I have certainly talked to people in this town about it whom you can consult.

After they have Kontum, if they take Kontum, they are on the road to Pleiku. Now, Pleiku happens to be south of Kontum.

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In other words, it is strategically the least significant area. If anything they take along Route 13 heads them toward Saigon and into the most heavily populated area of South Vietnam, the Central Highlands are, on the whole, very sparsely populated and, therefore, we don't think that that will be the decisive area. Nor can you deduct from what has happened up to now that they are going to score these gains of taking Kontum.

As far as cutting the country in half is concerned, their movement up to now has been North-South in the Western Highlands and it has been also North-South on the part of the one division that has always been along the coast, but they are not linked up together and, therefore, there is no corridor that links up the coast to the inland.

Therefore, it is incorrect to say that they have cut South Vietnam into two. What they have done is to cut a number of roads and, therefore, there are significant impediments to movement of the South Vietnamese along those.

Q On page 2, Henry, the President says we will resume talks with the firm expectation that productive talks will lead to rapid progress.

Can you elaborate on that? Why do we have this firm expectation?

Q And the available channels.

DR. KISSINGER: This is the basis on which we are resuming talks. The resumption of these talks follows a period of intense diplomatic activity. We are not saying that this must happen inevitably, whether it will happen. We are saying two things: We are not going to the plenary sessions simply to exchange propaganda blasts for another number of months or years. Secondly, that there have been a number of preliminary exchanges to give us some belief that there may be a possibility for productive talks. There may be, but we are not saying there will be.

Q You are saying outside of the plenary sessions? In other words, through the secret channels?

DR. KISSINGER: We never comment on the private channels. They wouldn't remain private very long if we did.

Q Can you say what the casualty figures will be this week? Normally they are out on Thursday. But it would be very relevant.

DR. KISSINGER: They will be slightly lower than last week. They are in the same range, but slightly lower.

I don't think I have the right to give out the exact figures. I suppose if you express it when the figures are so low, you can make a significant percentage out of very small figures. But they will be slightly down in numbers.

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Q On top of page 3, when the President says we will order air and naval attacks, et cetera, does that include targets such as Hanoi and Haiphong, or is there now, as a result of your trip to Moscow, some kind of understanding, tacit or otherwise, with the Russians that we will not go after Haiphong?

DR. KISSINGER: We have made no long-term understanding.

Q Is there a short-term understanding?

DR. KISSINGER: We have made no -- no. I have said we have no understanding with the Russians.

Q And, therefore, is it proper to assume that the targets could again include Hanoi and Haiphong?

DR. KISSINGER: I don't want to speculate on what the targets will be. But we have not accepted any formal restrictions.

Q Were you told by the Russians rather summarily about a week and a half ago or in the recent past that any repetition of the bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong would cancel the President's chance for a Summit in Moscow?

DR. KISSINGER: Absolutely not.

Q By any channel, Henry?

DR. KISSINGER: By no channel and in no communication have we received the Soviet threat that the Summit might be cancelled. That does not mean that there could not be actions which might lead to it. I am speaking about the past. We have not received such a threat and the purpose of my trip was not to save the Summit. That was not the issue, although I hope that my trip helped the success of the Summit.

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Q Was there any relation between your trip and the decision to go back to the Paris peace talks?

DR. KISSINGER: I don't want to go into the substance of the discussions in Moscow.

Q Did you see the North Vietnamese in Moscow?

DR. KISSINGER: No, I didn't.

Q Dr. Kissinger, to follow up on Bill Gill's ---

DR. KISSINGER: Incidentally, I don't think the North Vietnamese would like to talk in any of the capitals of the allies, but that you will have to ask them.

Q As a follow up on Bill Gill's and Marvin Kalb's earlier questions, before you went to Moscow, the Secretary of Defense said on the record publicly, in Congress, that no targets were ruled out in North Vietnam and as a matter of fact, blockade and mining of Haiphong were not ruled out as possibilities. Has there been any change in that?

DR. KISSINGER: The measures we will take will be dictated by our own decisions and not by any agreements we have made with anybody else.

Q Are we still insisting on a total withdrawal of North Vietnamese forces for any substantive agreement in Paris?

DR. KISSINGER: When we start negotiating with the North Vietnamese, we will make very specific proposals to them and I think I should leave those proposals for the negotiations rather than for a public statement here.

Q Since that point was made repetitiously by the Secretary of State and Defense, is it still something to be made?

DR. KISSINGER: We will insist on the 1968 understanding.

Q The other side has never conceded that there ever were any understandings and the President repeatedly refers to them here. Can you tell us how those understandings came about and what evidence we have other than the words of certain high officials that they actually existed?

DR. KISSINGER: Let me give you my understanding of why the word "understanding" was used. The negotiators in Paris in 1968--and I must say I was in close touch with them at the time, too, so I have some personal knowledge of it, in addition to reading all the cables they wrote -- the negotiators in Paris at the time faced a problem that we had certain requirements for ending the bombing and that the other side had insisted that the bombing had to be ended unconditionally before they would start talking.

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So the problem was how you could relate the demand
for an unconditional end to the bombing to obtain our requirement.

Therefore, the formula was developed according to
which we actually dropped the word "unconditionally" but we
maintained that it did not matter what they promised to do,
it mattered what they understood we required of them.

This saved their position in their not having to say,
"We agreed to do the following." All they had to say is, "We
understand what you require."

This is why it was expressed as a series of under-
standings. I happen to have today, to make absolutely sure,
I reviewed all the cables that Harriman and Vance sent back
to Washington at the time. There is no question that, first
of all, the North Vietnamese on a number of occasions said
to them, if you do so and so, we understand what is required
of us.

They avoided the word "We will promise not to do it,"
but they said, "We understand what is required of us."

And when this issue became very acute, the useful
role that the Soviet Union played in helping bring about the
bombing halt was to assure our negotiators that they were sure
that the North Vietnamese understood what was required of
them and the fact that the North Vietnamese understood what
was required of them is proved by the fact by and large they
obeyed, that they carried out the understanding with respect
to the Demilitarized Zone, that they chose the very circuitous
route of going around the Demilitarized Zone for most of their
infiltration, until this year, when they started building
roads across the Demilitarized Zone.

They never challenged our assertions with respect
to the DMZ. The one soft area was with respect to the
American reconnaissance flights. That is something we declared
unilaterally and which we handled by saying they wanted us
to end all acts of war and we said no, we will only end all
acts of force.

This we interpreted that we had the right to continue
reconnaissance flights. That is a genuine area of ambiguity.
That developed more through practice, but the non-shelling
of cities, the respect for the Demilitarized Zone, I think
nobody who reads those cables can doubt that on the part
of our negotiators they were clear in their minds that under-
standing existed, that this was confirmed by the Soviets
in the last stages of the negotiations and was never challenged
by the other side.

Q Are the Russians playing a similarly useful
role now?

DR. KISSINGER: I don't want to talk about the Soviet
role, if any, in connection with Vietnam.

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Q Is it because of these understandings and the violations that Secretary Laird said on the Hill the other day that it would be the height of irresponsibility for the United States to return to negotiations while this was going on, what has intervened in this last seven days to make this possible, Henry?

DR. KISSINGER: As you gentlemen know, we here in this building have always maintained that negotiation was our preferred route and therefore, we have always had the view that this Communist offensive was not just a military act, but also a political act.

So, our big problem was to see whether there was a reasonable possibility that the negotiations might succeed and in any event to see why it was that the North Vietnamese were so insistent about getting back to negotiations.

Those of you who have followed the Vietnam negotiations know that Le Duc Tho, who is apparently on his way back to Paris, does not travel lightly. That does not mean that he travels with acceptable baggage and we are not saying that. We are not saying it is going to be settled. We are saying that we want to give a possibility to see what they have to say. Not an endless possibility, not simply a sparring match, but enough has happened to make us want to hear what they have to say and to test some of our ideas. But as the President has made clear, we are not going there for rhetoric. We are not going there for idle talk and we are not satisfied with the fact of talks. We are going there because we want rapid progress.

Q Are you ready to go there?

DR. KISSINGER: I never talk about my travels.

Q If we don't get progress, will we leave the talks again, will we suspend them again?

DR. KISSINGER: Again, I don't want to speculate about that. I would not expect us simply to conduct empty conversations.

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Q Henry, I am a bit confused on that first
paragraph on page 3, when you talk about going back,
and you mentioned going back to the understanding of 1968
and respecting them. Are we saying now that we will continue
choosing targets at will or as needed in the North until such
time until all those forces from the North who violated the
DMZ have been completely recalled? Is that one of our
demands in consideration for any renewal of a non-bombing
of the North?

DR. KISSINGER: That is the demand that has been
stated, but the details of our position we would like to leave
to the process of negotiation. But that is our position.

Q This is something, then, that is on the table
to talk about as opposed to being something that is set in
concrete as a pre-condition?

DR. KISSINGER: The DMZ must be respected and those
forces across the DMZ must be returned. I don't want to go
into all the details of what may be negotiated.

Q When you talk about a two-month period for
withdrawals in the past, this is rather short in view of the
past withdrawal announcements. Was it held down because of
the prospects of what happens in Paris and what they do?

DR. KISSINGER: Actually, gentlemen, we are almost
exactly -- in fact, not almost, we are exactly on the
schedule that we had worked out last year. As the numbers
go down, of course, every withdrawal becomes a relatively
greater percentage of the preceding one.

For example, 20,000 over two months still represents
33 percent of the total force that will be left there. The
reason the period is relatively shorter is to give us a
better opportunity to look at the situation at more frequent
intervals, because the margin for error is narrowed.

Q Are you talking about militarily or politically?

DR. KISSINGER: Obviously both, but from some points
of view militarily. We think this offensive will have
substantially run its course by July 1, one way or the other.

Q In connection with talking about it being
political as well as military, there have been stories saying
that if the offensive fails, and you are predicting it will
fail, then the North Vietnamese will come in and negotiate.

DR. KISSINGER: They are coming in to negotiate now.
I am not saying necessarily that this proves that they already
concede that they have failed. If you look at the pattern
of North Vietnamese actions over the years, you will find
that they have never moved in a purely military sense. They
have always coupled military moves with political moves.
Therefore, it was predictable when this offensive started --
and I may not have talked to any of you here, but I am sure
you can find colleagues in this town whom I did say it to --
that I expected some sort of negotiation before the middle
of May. That has been the normal pattern.

MOLE

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I believe, we believe here, that they had three objectives with this attack: One, to destroy the ARVN and therewith the Saigon administration; second, create so much division in this country that we would destroy the Saigon administration by withdrawing our military and economic support; and if those two things failed, at least to put themselves into the maximum possible position for a negotiation that would follow.

Now, obviously, if they succeed either militarily or politically in the sense that support for what has been done is evaporating, then their negotiating position will improve or negotiations will prove unnecessary, in which case they will then conduct very formal sessions.

They have a very tough decision to make with respect to negotiations. There is only one issue left in these negotiations. All the fancy discussions about this or that gimmick really boils down to just one issue: Will they make a settlement? At least that leaves the CVN as a significant political structure. That, up to now, they have totally refused.

The gist of their proposals has been that the United States must dismantle the Government of South Vietnam and replace it with something which has the practical consequence of insuring a Communist take-over.

I can explain that if anyone is interested, but that is the practical consequence of their proposal.

Once they get off this particular proposal we will be in a realistic negotiation. How they will go out, how they will come out and in what terms, that I would not be prepared to say before this group. But that is the issue.

And precisely because it is so difficult, they must make one colossal effort to make sure that they really have no other choice.

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Q Henry, in January of 1969 the American troops still in Vietnam was 549,000. By May 1 what will be the total number of all American forces related to the Vietnam, South Vietnam, Thailand, et cetera?

DR. KISSINGER: I, frankly, don't know. I don't have those figures, but the Pentagon must have. I know what the ceiling will be in South Vietnam, but I, frankly, do not know what the total figures are. But the figures must be available. I always get into trouble when I give out figures of that kind, because I don't know them precisely.

Q There is a statement in the next to the last paragraph on the first page that puzzles me. It is the sentence: "We deliberately refrained from responding militarily."

Although we understood they were getting ready for an attack. What were our options in that? What kind of military options did we turn down?

DR. KISSINGER. I can explain what we have in mind. During February--and especially during March--during February their major military buildup was in the Central Highlands. But from the end of February onward and throughout March there was an increasing buildup in the area just North of the Demilitarized Zone. They put an enormous number of SAMs in and they located close to the frontier, close to the Demilitarized Zone, and within a reasonably easy distance of the Demilitarized Zone large amounts of supplies and significant concentrations of troops.

We have received at the White House several requests from the military for permission to attack these installations. We turned down these requests because we wanted to make sure it was not just a bluff, that the negotiations still had a chance and, therefore, when the attack started we were in a position of not having taken some of the measures that might have delayed it.

Q Are you talking about air attacks, or did they want to go in with ground troops?

DR. KISSINGER: The proposals mostly concerned air attacks.

Q I don't quite understand why it was necessary for you to go to Moscow. Would you explain that?

DR. KISSINGER: First of all, let us not talk about why it was necessary.

Q Why you chose to.

DR. KISSINGER: Why it was thought mutually desirable to go to Moscow. It was felt that this was an opportune moment to review the international situation between the leaders of the Soviet Union and somebody on the American side who could speak authoritatively from personal and detailed knowledge of the President's thinking; also, to help prepare any details of the Summit agenda that needed attention, and the fact that Brezhnev spent such a large amount of his time at these meetings would indicate that these meetings were taken very seriously - by the Soviet leaders.

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But they were not conducted in any spirit of
acrimony. On the contrary. They were conducted with great
seriousness and courtesy on both sides, and it would be wrong
to speculate that I went to Russia to save the Summit. This
was not the spirit of the discussion.

Q Was it your idea to go or theirs?

DR. KISSINGER: What we said yesterday was by mutual
agreement. I had seen stories today in the newspapers that
came from Moscow in which diplomatic observers were quoted as
having said that the invitation came from Brezhnev. But,
obviously, these things were done by mutual agreement.

Q Other than the seasonal change, what leads you to the conclusion this offensive will be over one way or the other by July 1?

DR. KISSINGER: It is not only the seasonal change. When I say by July 1 I don't mean you can't have a spasm after July 1. This war now is closer to a normal conventional war than any battles that have gone on in the war in Vietnam. Therefore, they have to follow traditional patterns. In other words, you can calculate with some degree of precision how many supplies they could have gotten into areas and how many reinforcements they can get in. Also, you can calculate the losses or the reductions in losses they are suffering.

It is our judgment that the military operations in Military Region III will be impeded by a combination of lack of supplies, and where starting, give or take a week, around the middle of May, you can give about six weeks to any one of these offensives. You can give a longer time to the offensive in Military Region I where the supply lines are more direct and more immediate.

We are not calculating that in Military Region I
there is any built-in limitation from a logistics point of view
to their capability of carrying on the offensive. But since
they have their twelve divisions outside the country, in a way
all their losses are irreplacable. They have no significant
replacements left.

Therefore, it is our judgment that there is some sort
of a time limit. We may be wrong by three or four weeks,
but this is our judgment.

Q Do you feel you have been successful in cutting off all supplies?

DR. KISSINGER: We have made it much more difficult.

Q You said earlier that enough has happened for
you to return to Paris to see what they have to say. Would
you elaborate on "enough has happened"?

DR. KISSINGER: I would rather not elaborate on that.

Q On page 4, the third sentence, could you --
explain the reference to "all that we have gained over the years"?
The implication is if we just hang on for a few more weeks some-
thing will happen.

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DR. KISSINGER: When this attack started, practically every road in Vietnam was open. The civil administration was substantially unimpeded in the major parts of the country. Those of us who cut our teeth on the Vietnam problem in the middle of the 1960s are bound to remember that the overwhelming concern at that time was the Viet Cong infrastructure throughout the country.

So far that has not surfaced, probably because it has been substantially eroded. Maybe it will surface and then another massive problem exists.

But if you compare this situation to the situation of 1968 during the Tet Offensive, the major brunt of the battle was borne by the Viet Cong infrastructure. In this case with the main forces of North Vietnamese being used as a way of drawing Americans away from the countryside, in this case the brunt of the battle is borne by the North Vietnamese main force units.

Now, the reason why this offensive should tell the outcome of the war in some sense is that with the North Vietnamese having committed almost their entire regular army to this offensive, if it does not succeed they would now face the problem of not being able to protect what is left of their infrastructure in South Vietnam, nor being able to launch another major attack for probably two years.

This is a very significant time lag in which the government there will consolidate itself even more. It is from this point of view we believe this is a very decisive juncture in the war in Vietnam.

It must be so considered by the North Vietnamese, A, because they have committed so much of their force, and, secondly, this is what they are telling their own people.

If you read the North Vietnamese propaganda at home they are saying this is the decisive year, this is the year of liberation. And they are claiming things that have not yet happened.

MR. ZIEGLER: Gentlemen, we have to wrap this up.

Obviously, nothing offered here is to be used until after the President's address, not before; for example, on the introductions of the President's speech.

END

9:00 P.M. EST

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

APRIL 26, 1972

OFFICE OF THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY

THE WHITE HOUSE

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

THE EAST ROOM

AT 9:05 P.M. EST

MR. ZIEGLER: You have had an opportunity to look over the President's speech. Henry will take your questions on the record. We will go to your questions.

Q Dr. Kissinger, at the bottom of page two, last night when the announcement that we were resuming the negotiations came out, it was said that the first order of business as far as the United States was concerned was the halting of the invasion.

Tonight you add, "And to return the American prisoners of war." Is there anything significant to the addition?

DR. KISSINGER: No. This represents our position.

Q What is the rock bottom residual force beyond which we will not go? It has been mentioned variously as 25,000 to 35,000 before the prisoners of war return.

DR. KISSINGER: We will make our announcements about troop ceilings as we go along and we will not speculate on that now.

Q On page two, the President makes the point that General Abrams had made. The second one of these is that our air strikes have been essential, he said, in protecting our remaining forces and assisting the South Vietnamese.

My question is, could you elaborate for us as to just how our air strikes, especially in Hanoi and Haiphong have been essential to protecting our forces in South Vietnam?

DR. KISSINGER: There are two military problems and also political problems in South Vietnam. The first is to defeat the invasion. Defeat the invasion does not mean that no military gains can be made, because, obviously, some military gains will be made.

The definition of defeating the invasion would be if it stopped without having captured a very significant number of provincial capitals, or without having so opened up the country side that the Viet Cong or the North Vietnamese can operate unimpededly through the country side. Neither of these conditions have up to now happened. This is with respect to the first phase of the operation.

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The second problem is to compress as much as
possible the time available for military operations by
drying up the supplies and to extend as much as possible the
time before which a new offensive could be launched.

The significance, or at least partial significance
of the attacks on the Hanoi-Haiphong area are with respect
to the problem of what will happen after June 1, rather than
what is happening after May 1.

Q There is no specific mention in the speech of
Soviet arms aid to North Vietnam. Do you have any reason to
believe from your recent trip that there is any interest at
all in the Soviet Union in helping end the war?

DR. KISSINGER: I think I prefer to let the Soviet
leaders speak for themselves on issues like this. In any
event, we are more concerned with the actions than with any
speculation I might make.

Q Dr. Kissinger, on page two you quote General Abrams as predicting that there will be several more weeks of very hard fighting. At the top of page three, it says, "Finally, I have ordered that our air and naval attacks on military installations in North Vietnam be continued until the North Vietnamese stop their offensive..."

Putting those two things together, does that suggest
that our bombing of North Vietnam can stop after this several
weeks that General Abrams refers to?

DR. KISSINGER: We are not bombing North Vietnam
just for the sake of bombing North Vietnam. We will, of
course, stop it when the objectives we seek have been achieved.
I do not think that I would like to put a particular time
limit on when these objectives will be achieved, but our
objectives are quite clear and will be abundantly clear to
the other side if they are not now.

Q Dr. Kissinger, also at the bottom of page two,
there is a sentence saying, "We are resuming the Paris talks
with the firm expectation that productive talks leading
to rapid progress will follow through all available channels."

On what grounds do you have firm expectations that
the talks will be leading to progress and what are all these
available channels?

DR. KISSINGER: As many of you and most of you know
in this room, we have always been dedicated to the proposition
that the war should, if at all possible, be ended by
negotiation. And in all phases of the war we have maintained
the proposition that a negotiated outcome was the most probable
outcome, despite all appearances to the contrary at various
phases and indeed, we have always maintained the proposition
even when this offensive started that it was probably the
prelude to a negotiation.

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So we have this expectation, partly as a result of
surrounding circumstances in the military field, partly as
a result of the rather noticeable diplomatic activity that has
been going on.

I have seen press reports today according to which
Le Duc Tho is returning to Paris. He does not generally
return for trivial reasons, though he has not returned with
an acceptable proposition.

So from the general circumstances, you can deduce
some of the phases on which we have formed this judgment.

On the other hand, I must make clear that we are
not prepared to give an indefinite time period to see whether
this expectation was well founded. We believed that enough
has been said now on both sides so that the gut issues are
clearly understood and one should be able to find out relatively
quicly not whether there is in fact a settlement, but whether
we are talking in terms of propositions which make a settlement
possible.

Q Do you expect to know before you go to Moscow
whether the Paris negotiations are serious?

DR. KISSINGER: I wouldn't give any particular
time period, but our expectation is that we should know
earlier than that whether we have a serious negotiation or not.

Q Is the American position that the North
Vietnamese must withdraw those forces that crossed the DMZ
and came in in other ways or is it simply that they must
halt this offensive? There is a distinction.

DR. KISSINGER: That is right. There is a distinction.
I will answer this question, but I also ask you to understand
that we obviously do not want to conduct our negotiations
in a press conference and it is not an attempt to hide things
from the public if we do not want to put down all of our
positions piecemeal as a result of the questions, but you
are quite correct, it is our position that the forces across
the DMZ should be withdrawn across the DMA and that the under-
standing of 1968 should be respected.

Considering that those forces have not really
advanced very far, this is not too onerous a demand.

Q Dr. Kissinger, there has been speculation that
you met with Le Duc Tho in Moscow. Could you clear this
up, please?

DR. KISSINGER: I did not meet with any North
Vietnamese in Moscow and if I understand the North Vietnamese
position, it is that they do not choose to involve their
allies in their negotiations. This is all right with us.

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Q. Is the rate of withdrawal being slowed down now as a result of the Communist offensive?

DR. KISSINGER: It is obvious that if the rate of withdrawal on which we have been proceeding over the last six months were projected, we would be out of Vietnam by August 1 and, therefore, we would have unilaterally done what the negotiations are about.

It was obvious that once we got down to current levels that the rate of withdrawal of recent months could not be maintained, with or without the Communist offensive. As it happens, the rate on which we now are proceeding is exactly the rate which we projected last November, and the figure we will reach on July 1 is exactly the figure on which we had been planning.

So the correct answer is that it has not been affected. The apparent slowdown of the rate is a result of the fact that as you get to low numbers every soldier you withdraw represents a larger percentage of the total force. After all, the withdrawal of 20,000 is, nevertheless, 30 percent of the total force. Actually, the withdrawal percentage is greater than of many earlier withdrawals.

Q. To continue on the numbers for a moment, the requirements of the bombing affects the naval offensive and it means greater numbers of Air Force and Navy personnel having to be over there. Could you give us any guidance on just how much quantatively we have boosted our air and naval forces, where they are and how long they are going to be there?

DR. KISSINGER: I was asked that question earlier. I, frankly, do not know the exact number. I would prefer that you would ask that question at the Pentagon where they can give you precise answers. But we do not envisage them to be out there : longer than is needed for current military operations.

Q. You said it is our position that the forces that crossed the DMZ must withdraw across the DMZ.

Q. Is it also our position that the forces referred to by the President as having invaded South Vietnam further south, say, through the Central Highlands, also must withdraw?

DR. KISSINGER: As I pointed out, I do not think it is appropriate for me to go into the details of what will, obviously, be the first item of business in these negotiations. In addition to that fact that what you have just said is so, we are not proposing that these forces go into Laos. That might not be appreciated by the Laotian Government. Therefore, what precise position we will take on the terms which we would consider acceptable for ending the invasion, we would prefer to leave to the negotiations, but we will have a very precise proposition to make.

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Q Dr. Kissinger, this should be obvious, but are there any circumstances at all under which any American ground troops will be sent into South Vietnam?

DR. KISSINGER: I cannot foresee circumstances in which American ground forces will be returned to South Vietnam.

Q Dr. Kissinger, the text says, "Before the enemy's invasion began," page 3, paragraph 3, "we had cut our air sorties in half."

What air sorties did that refer to, protective reaction strikes or what?

DR. KISSINGER: That is the total number of sorties in the whole Indochina area. Now, in some areas such as in South Vietnam, if you break it down by countries, you will get different figures for each country, because within South Vietnam they were cut by something like 90 percent because there was very little military action going on. In Cambodia, where there was no military action in 1968, you would have had an increase.

So I was giving the total number of air sorties for all of Vietnam.

But even if you include the protective reaction strikes, the reduction over North Vietnam would have been very large indeed as compared to 1968.

Q Dr. Kissinger, could you possibly clarify these two points? First, for the record, whether you are in a position at all to discuss your trip to Moscow, apart from the Vietnam issue, at all? Are you free to go into that in any way?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, ask me and I will tell you whether I can answer it.

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Q Well, we have, as you know, any number of questions concerning the general trend of negotiations, of the state of SALT, your expectations for reaching the expected agreements at the Summit, whether these are all entrained, whether there are any particular obstacles encountered.

DR. KISSINGER: I will answer that question in a general way.

Q Then I have another one when you finish.

DR. KISSINGER: I don't know why I answer any questions from the Post at all.

Q We are printing all of your NSSMs, Henry.

DR. KISSINGER: That is true. I wanted to save them for my book. (Laughter.)

Q We will be happy to return them.

DR. KISSINGER: All the negotiations that have been in progress with the Soviet Union are on course and I think it is safe to say that they may have received an additional impetus as a result of the meetings in Moscow.

Our expectation with respect to SALT had always been that we would either have an agreement prior to Moscow, with just a few details to be left to be settled at Moscow, or that at Moscow we would make the decisive breakthrough after which an agreement would simply be a question of drafting.

Those expectations have been reinforced by the visit to Moscow.

Q I did want to finish my other points. Could you possibly clarify your reference to the fact that the North Vietnamese do not choose to have other parties engaged in their negotiations? I wanted to see whether you intend that to mean that you did not get any encouragement in Moscow about their readiness to engage in substantive negotiations or not.

DR. KISSINGER: I did not mean this. I meant that the North Vietnamese had always said that they want to conduct their negotiations directly with us and at Paris. I am not making any comment about what any other party may say to the North Vietnamese.

Q Dr. Kissinger, are you saying tonight that you are basing these resumptions of the Paris peace talks on new developments and new information, and is this related to your Moscow trip?

DR. KISSINGER: As I have said on many occasions now since I came back from Moscow, we will not comment specifically on the discussions in Moscow. We are entering these negotiations in Paris with the expectation that we will be able to see fairly rapidly whether serious negotiations are possible, and that we have some evidence not as to the substance but at least in the general circumstances that made us want to test the situation.

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Q Can you say where that evidence came from?

DR. KISSINGER: No. But I have given you as much as I can give you.

Q You said you didn't meet with any North Vietnamese in Moscow. Did you meet with them anywhere else?

DR. KISSINGER: No. I have not met recently with any North Vietnamese.

Q Can you clarify where the idea for your Moscow trip originated and exactly when it originated?

DR. KISSINGER: I saw a report from Moscow today on UPI which was ascribed to diplomatic observers. I would refer you to that. We have said that it originated by mutual agreement. That is a fair enough statement.

Q Would that report be authentic, basically?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, I don't know who is a qualified diplomatic source in Moscow. But to answer the question seriously, obviously when you go to the capital of a country with which we have so many negotiations, it must be because there exists a mutual interest and also because there must be a serious desire on the part of both sides to try to deal with outstanding issues in a constructive way. Otherwise, there would be no point in having a meeting which, in the nature of things, has to be compressed in time, which involves the top personality on the Soviet side and on our side somebody who can speak with the knowledge of what the President's thoughts on key issues were.

I think this is a more significant point, this is more important than who actually made the first move, which involves delicacies into which I am not going to go.

Q Whose idea was it to take along the Soviet Ambassador?

Q And what did you say to him? What was the conversation about?

DR. KISSINGER: That also was achieved by mutual agreement.

Q You mean on both sides of town, both of you just came at once to this decision?

DR. KISSINGER: We wanted to have a first. I don't think a Soviet Ambassador has ever flown to Moscow in an American plane.

END

9:30 P.M. EST