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larger than at the same period last year. A good percentage of those troops stayed in southern Laos to protect the supply route and to prepare for the greatly increased logistics push that was necessary this year.

That greatly increased logistics push in turn was made necessary by two factors: by the discovery of the huge caches which we made last year during the sanctuary operation, and by the closing of the port of Sihanoukville which acted for 85 percent of the materiel which came into southern Vietnam. So they had to replace the caches plus the 85 percent of the supplies that came in through Sihanoukville.

We believe that then around January 10 they started the biggest supply push of the whole Vietnamese war. They have pushed more supplies through the Ho Chi Minh Trail or they are trying to push more supplies through the Ho Chi Minh Trail than in any period in the six years of the war, even if you include the Sihanoukville operation.

This is the biggest supply push they have ever had.

Q What was that operating date?

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DR. KISSINGER: January 10, give or take five days. I have to give you the date that we became aware of it and there is some lag in between. But it is roughly correct.

We believe that their strategy was to pre-position their supplies as far south as they could and then to move the troops that were guarding the supply lanes into I and II Corps for their offensive prior to the election in Vietnam in October, then, to pick up the supplies again in October and November, December, and start another big offensive next February and March at a period when our own withdrawals would be really reaching the most critical point.

The longer we can keep their supplies north of the Route 9, and you have to remember it takes them about three months to get supplies down, the later they can start an offensive this year, if they could ever start an offensive this year.

If we can stop their supplies or keep their supplies north of Route 9 throughout the dry season, they have to stay up there throughout the rainy season, which means that even if they get their whole supply system fixed

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again without interference, which would be a rash assumption
to make, it would take them until about this time next year
before they could even start moving the supplies again before
these supplies would start reaching the South, or even before
they could start moving them, because they would have to
re-provision the whole system again before they could start
operating it.

So what we are hoping is to push the possibility
of an offensive as far into the next dry season as we possibly
can. And if we are very successful, maybe throughout the
next dry season, which would in effect mean through the end
of 1972.

In that period, the South Vietnamese should gain
so much in strength that a military victory of the North
Vietnamese would be a rather formidable undertaking.

I think we vastly underestimated the North
Vietnamese in '64, and '65. We compounded this under-
estimation by fighting a war which was not particularly
attuned to the realities of the situation.

But we are so shell-shocked now that we are
vastly overestimating the North Vietnamese. You hear,
for example, the argument that the South Vietnamese are

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being spread dangerously thin by this operation. Well, the one thing that would spread the South Vietnamese dangerously thin is not to undertake these operations because if we didn't undertake these operations, then the South Vietnamese would have to defend 800 miles of frontier against sanctuary base areas from which the North Vietnamese could sally forth at moments of their own choosing after carefully preparing the battlefields and to conduct the sort of battles with the South Vietnamese that they conducted with us between '64 and '68.

We couldn't win that sort of battle because of the handicap which we imposed on ourselves was much too great. The distance from Khesanh to this area is 25 miles, from Khesanh, from the border to Tchepone. I can just give you a rough example. It is 25 miles. If we can get across there, then that is all that has to be defended.

If that isn't defended and the supplies get spread all along the border, the whole border has to be defended.

Similarly here in the South there is now an operation to put a barrier across here, in effect to keep them from opening up supply lines into the South and

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repositioning. So, actually, the South Vietnamese forces
are being concentrated. They are not being spread thin.

The second problem of reality to consider is
that once the base areas are destroyed and the North
Vietnamese have to fight like a normal army which has to
carry its supplies with it, it is a considerable disadvantage,
vis-a-vis, the South Vietnamese, because when they come
all the way down here, they are at the end of a 600-mile
supply line. They have to commit themselves three months
before the South Vietnamese do.

And the South Vietnamese will be constantly
sitting on their flanks as they are moving South;
especially, if the Cambodian Army can get strength.

So that if we can gain a year of grace out of
these operations, should not be all that brilliant for
the North Vietnamese.

I just wanted to give you the strategic concept
of what it is that we are trying to do. The South Vietnamese
with our support are not just running wild. This is not
just a desperate lashing out.

These are carefully thought-out operations that
have the objective of drying up the Communist supply

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system, the gaining of time, the strengthening of the
South Vietnamese forces, and not to be in a position where
the North Vietnamese can apply their favorite tactic of
building up at their pace, of preparing the battlefield,
pre-positioning their supplies and then making us die the
death of a thousand cuts.

It is trying to learn the lessons of the previous
five years.

Q How many of these points do you have to hold
in that 25-mile area?

DR. KISSINGER: It is very dangerous to fight with
the North Vietnamese from static positions. What we are
trying to do is to cut the main trails and the main routes.
Of course, the thing that everyone has on one's mind is as
one goes in there, will they move in behind us and create
a Dienbienphu?

Believe me, this is a question that we have asked every day in our planning. That doesn't guarantee the answer will turn out to be correct. But we look every day at every conceivable North Vietnamese unit that could be brought into this area.

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The judgment of our intelligence is that since
the South Vietnamese move by helicopter and since the
North Vietnamese move by foot, since the South Vietnamese
have artillery and gunships with our support and tactical
air, the North Vietnamese have only mortars as their
heaviest weapon.

The Dienbienphu is almost out of the question.
That doesn't mean that we won't lose outposts. It is
almost certain that the North Vietnamese will start
pecking away at various firing, some of these firing points
that are established along the route.

They may even be able to knock one or two of
them off.

But that doesn't solve their strategic problem.
We do not believe that they are capable of encircling a
large South Vietnamese force, if the South Vietnamese fight
well at all. So far they have fought well. These are
supposed to be their best units that are being employed
there.

In fact, so far the North Vietnamese have done
what they did in the sanctuaries in Cambodia. They have
not done much fighting at all. They have done only harassing.
They have been fighting back.

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Q Do you still expect them to stand in the way?

DR. KISSINGER: I will tell you exactly what I told my colleagues before this operation started. The consensus here was that they would fight very hard and there would be a very bitter battle. My own assessment was that there was a higher probability that they wouldn't fight at all than that they would fight very fiercely. I said maybe a 30 percent possibility that they wouldn't fight at all, maybe a 25 percent possibility that they fight very fiercely and the strongest possibility is for something in between, that they will fight and harass the outposts.

If they fight fiercely, they will lose a great many men. They will keep their roads open a few days longer, maybe a week or two longer, but at the cost of directing all of the supplies into the defense of the area so that they don't have really a net gain in their supply.

Q They would be giving up men for a temporary gain, too?

DR. KISSINGER: They would be giving up men for only a temporary gain. The reason why they may have to fight, whether they want to or not, is if these were combat units, if this was in the sanctuaries, I felt they

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wouldn't fight because they were mostly manned by combat units and those combat units were under fairly good discipline.

In the panhandle, most of the units are supply units. They have about 9,000 combat units in there. But most of them are supply troops. And I don't know whether their supply troops are as disciplined as the combat troops and whether they can move them around so easily and keep them together as cohesive units.

If they can, in my judgment, they will try to get out of the way. If they can't, they will suffer very heavy casualties.

Q Where do you think they will go if they disperse?

DR. KISSINGER: They will go north.

Q What is the likelihood of the South Vietnamese, if they do well and have success, they might like to cross into North Vietnam?

DR. KISSINGER: That thought might occur to them, but it is a war being fought under very curious conditions. There is no law of nature that says that the North Vietnamese can cross into South Vietnam, but the South Vietnamese have no right to cross into North Vietnam.

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h-3

But this is not part of the current scheme of things and this will not be an extension of the present operations.

Q: They would have to do it without American air support, then?

DR. KISSINGER: It will not be part of this current operation, because we would be much more interested in cleaning out this whole supply system than we would be in scoring some tactical point.

One other interesting thing is that as of this evening, the North Vietnamese have not yet moved any units into the Tchepone area, any additional units into or towards the Tchepone area.

Q: Can you tell us where their main forces are located?

DR. KISSINGER: They have fairly large concentration north of the DMZ to protect themselves against the fairly large concentration being put south of the DMZ.

But they obviously think a move across the DMZ is not impossible for a variety of reasons which I can't explain to you. They believe that a major attack is likely to come in the plateau area, or down the Ashau Valley. And they have kept, in fact if you remember the

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Soviet radio, and Prime Minister Kosygin last week accused the United States of already having started the operation and conducting these operations in the Bolovens Plateau. This doesn't happen to be true. At least there is nothing going on in the Bolovens Plateau other than obviously what has been going on there.

But as long as they have this belief, they are going to keep their units protecting those areas. They have a tough problem, because if they start pulling out of southern Laos towards Route 9, then they are opening up the southern Laos supply system to incursion.

Q Doctor, are most of the main trails between the border and Tchepone?

DR. KISSINGER: Most of them, yes.

Q How many, roughly?

DR. KISSINGER: You would be mistaken if you thought we were aiming for a city. We are not aiming for any particular city. We may never go into any particular city. We are interested in cutting the trails. And you see, anything that is in the supply system now is really committed because they can't just shift it around from road to road, because a road for them that doesn't have these, what they call, Binh Tram or way stations along the road is really useless since they can make only 50 to 75

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miles a night. A road that doesn't go through jungle is useless, because if we can see the way stations in the day time, we can destroy them.

So, their requirements are that the road must have Binh Trams along it, and secondly, that the road go through jungle covered territory. They cannot move it through the open country. But most of the Ho Chi Minh Trial, to answer your question, crosses Route 9 to the east of Tchepone, and converges on Route 9 and then spreads out from there again.

Q What does one of these way stations consist of?

DR. KISSINGER: It is often caves, places where a truck parks, a different place in which they put the equipment, and rice. It is not a building that you can necessarily see. And they often put matting across the jungle in order so that you can't get aerial photography.

Q That raises a question of the enormous bombing of the Ho Chi Minh Trail in recent months. Would you say it obviously didn't do much good? Would you say that?

DR. KISSINGER: No, you can't say it doesn't do much good. What the bombing of the Ho Chi Minh Trail does is raise the price to them of operating the supply system. It does two things.

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We try to cut the trail at a choke point through massive bombardment, through usually B-52's, try to get landslides and often they put their Binh Trams at these choke points, because then they reload it on trucks on the other side of the choke point.

Secondly, we now have a pretty good system by which we can line up our gunships with the electronic things.

So, we do get quite a few trucks a night and the impact of the bombing is that it forces them to keep a large number of men repairing the road and operating the system. It does not completely interdict the system. It may take a total of 25 percent, which is considerable, but not decisive and probably allowed for in the operation of the system.

Q Are the Chinese still helping the North Vietnamese with their repair work in the northern part of North Vietnam?

DR. KISSINGER: No, because there is no repair work needed.

Q No bombing in that area?

DR. KISSINGER: But the Chinese helped the North Vietnamese with the repair of bomb damage. They did not ever help them with the long-term reconstruction of their country. Since there is no bomb damage in the north,

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h-7

there are no Chinese units in the north and there are, of course, no Chinese units.

Q You mentioned that the time of the withdrawal might be speeded up with respect to this.

DR. KISSINGER: I don't want to speculate on that. I think it is much too early. If we can keep to our present timetable with an increased assurance of safety and an increased assurance of ultimate success, the operation will be well worthwhile. We are not running any races with ourselves. We are not going to get any prizes for getting out three months earlier or later.

This is political speculation, which will be forgotten a year from now. What is important is that we get out in an honorable way, in a way that does not hazard the security of our forces and does not turn over the country to the Communists.

If we can achieve those two objectives, we will consider our policy successful.

Q Can you make an estimate on the duration of this particular operation?

DR. KISSINGER: No. But I have given you some rough estimates in terms of the weather conditions. In the past, the North Vietnamese used to pull their units out

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hT-83

of the Ho Chi Minh Trail area during the rainy season. And,
of course, if their infiltration down the Ho Chi Minh
Trail stops, our incentive to stay there or the South
Vietnamese incentive would diminish. But again, let me
repeat you cannot measure the success of this operation
either by the length of time we stay. Any week delay in
the operation of the system is worth something.

And, therefore, any additional week is worth
something.

We don't want to put out official time limits on
ourselves at either end of this operation. Of course, it
is reasonable to assume that if the costs are not excessive
and the longer we can stay, the longer we will inhibit
the operation of their supply system.

Q Do you anticipate that the South Vietnamese
might turn south once they get a deeper penetration?

DR. KISSINGER: I don't want to speculate on the
operations that might be conducted. But our objective
is to destroy as many of the base areas as we can find.

There is one base area which the South Vietnamese
have begin to enter which is called base area 611, which
is very large, which extends on both sides of the South
Vietnamese-Laotion border and in which the South Vietnamese

-22-

last year found the largest cache of the entire Vietnamese
war on the South Vietnamese side of the frontier.

And it may be that the South Vietnamese will
enter that base area more deeply than they have in recent
days.

Q Dr. Kissinger, quite apart from this current
operation, might there be a day when the South Vietnamese
would go into North Vietnam? I would like to phrase my
previous question.

MR. KLEIN: Have you got a column already
written that way. (Laughter).

DR. KISSINGER: Some of our critics right now
are having nervous breakdowns over the possibility that
the North Vietnamese will defeat the South Vietnamese.
While we are there or immediately afterwards. So, I
don't want to speculate on what might happen. If the
balance should shift so that the South Vietnamese should
think they are strong enough to attack the North Vietnamese,
I would say I hope to be here when this problem exists.
(Laughter).

It is a much more restful one than the one that
we have had.

-23-

Q As to the capabilities to take counter
measures either to relieve the pressure we are putting on
them or to do something to regain some kind of initiative
of their own, either immediate or longer term, what can
they do?

DR. KISSINGER: You know, they could try to
turn Tchepone into a solid ground. I just pick this Route
9 operation. They could put that into starting ground and
pour units in from all over the area. First of all, this
is practically excluded by the fact that they have to
move overland, that their movement would be very slow,
that it would be almost impossible to time their arrival
so that they will all get their simultaneously and
that they would not leave large areas uncovered, all the
more so as we might decide not to fight.

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Our interest is not to win a battle; our interest
is to stop their supplies. If they want to spend all of
their supplies supplying units along Route 9, that is almost
as good for us. All we want is that the supplies not cross
Route 9. How they get expended is a secondary consideration.

So that we don't really expect it and theoretically
they could launch an attack across the DMZ and with the
understandings on the bombing halt they would be enormously
reluctant to do that.

Q Just because if they do that we could go
ahead with the bombing again?

DR. KISSINGER: That is what Secretary Laird said
at the beginning of the Cambodian operation.

Q That still stands, then?

DR. KISSINGER: It hasn't been ---

Q What is this?

DR. KISSINGER: Crossing the DMZ in force.

Q The bombing halt was sort of conditioned
on no crossing by them.

DR. KISSINGER: If you write about it, just refer
to Secretary Laird's statement and don't refer to
Administration spokesmen. The most likely action on their
part is one that they plan to take anyway, which is an
attack from the Plaine Des Jarres towards Long Thieng
against the Mec tribesmen who represent the only effective
fighting force on the side of the Laotian Government under
the General Vang Pao and whose headquarters is at Long Thieng.
If they can panic them, they fight; however, only to protect
their families. If they can panic their families to move
out of Long Thieng, there is a good chance that the tribesmen
will follow them.

Q What would the effect of that be?

- 25 -

DR. KISSINGER: The effect of that would be to make even clearer what is already obvious, that the North Vietnamese can take Northern Laos any time that they want to pay the political price for taking it and the political price for taking Northern Laos is the risk of Thai intervention or at least of enormous Thai hostility as well as the risk of forcing the whole issue into an international forum for the violation of the '62 agreement which, for some reason, the North Vietnamese have been very reluctant to take.

But that is an option. They have attacked in this area across or Southwest of the Plaine Des Jarres every year for the last four years.

When these attacks start, as we expected them to within the next week or two, it will not be in response to what we and the South Vietnamese are doing down here. They started moving the 312th Division into Northern Laos two months ago. The lead time for offenses in the South is from three to four months. The lead time for offenses into the Plaine Des Jarres area is about six weeks to two months. So whatever will happen in the next two or three weeks in the Plaine Des Jarres area or Southwest of the Plaine Des Jars has nothing to do with what we are doing or what has been done along Route 9.

Q I am trying to understand how that dissuades the South Vietnamese.

DR. KISSINGER: No, it would give them a victory. A number of things could be done. They could try a general uprising throughout South Vietnam if they have the capability. Frankly, we don't think they have the capability to do that. We expected them to launch a general offensive in the South after the Cambodian incursions and it never happened.

Q What about sabotage in Saigon?

DR. KISSINGER: They might try a step-up. But their capabilities are just not what they used to be. Part of the problem is this: they upgraded their guerrilla units. If you look at the evolution of the war since the Tet offensive in 1968, in 1968 they upgraded their guerrilla units into main forces and they suffered. They gambled a great deal on that throw of the dice. They suffered very heavily casualties in their main forces and, therefore, very heavy casualties with their guerrillas. It is true, the South Vietnamese Government

- 26 -

denuded the countryside in order to protect themselves
against the Tet onslaught in 1968, but so did the guerrillas.

Then in 1969 this Administration came in. They
launched another big Tet offensive, not quite as big as
the year before, but still, if you remember, when we came in
our casualties were about 350 to 400 a week in that first
offensive. Now, when we have casualties of more than 30 a
week, we think that there was something wrong.

In the first Tet offensive, our casualties were
700 a week. In the second Tet offensive, they were about 400,
sometimes 500 a week, usually around 400. And this went
on until about September 1969.

Then starting around November, 1969 we made a
deliberate effort. We adopted a deliberate strategy of
ignorning their main force units as much as we could and
going after their guerrilla units. This is when we made
these spectacular gains in the pacification program. Those
were very precarious. I had had a study made by the Vietnam
Special Studies Group that I set up. I had had a study
made in February and March 1970 which indicated that our
pacification gains were very real, but also very vulnerable
to main force pressure; that is, any area in which they
could operate their main forces might lose the gains that we
have made very quickly.

The sanctuary operations made it next to impossible
for them to operate with substantial main forces in III and
IV Corps and, therefore, you find the situation that all of
you who have been in Vietnam must have encountered, that most
of the roads are now open and the pacification has been
consolidated. So last year they lost the ability to conduct
substantial main force operations. This year we have
consolidated the situation in III and IV Corps.

Now, if this strategy of this year succeeds, which
has two prongs, of keeping their supplies north of Route 9
and of using up whatever supplies they have left through the
operation that is now being conducted in what you call the
Chup Plantation, which the South Vietnamese force is entering
here, and destroying those caches that were outside the 30
kilometer limit that we had established for ourselves last
year, and also to force the North Vietnamese combat units here
to expend as many supplies as we possibly can in combat and
to make them fight on South Vietnamese terms and to push them

- 27 -

back as far as possible in this dry season, so that in the
next dry season if they want to start an offensive they
have to start as far as possible.

If all of these operations succeed and we are not
claiming yet that they have succeeded -- but this one has
certainly succeeded down here -- but if these operations
succeed then we will have done for First and Second Corps
this year what we did for Third and Fourth Corps last year
and we will have assured the Third and Fourth Corps throughout
most of next year that the condition can be maintained,
because they would then have to spend most of their time
bringing supplies down here. And we will have created
a much better base of safety for First and Second Corps.
This is the situation. This is the strategic concept
on which we are operating.

Q A minor point: Is that area in Laos populated?

DR. KISSINGER: No. It is not populated by friendly
population. There are civilians there. All the local
Laotians were moved out.

Q You said earlier on that today the South
Vietnamese had crossed Highway 92. Where does that stand in
relation to the bulk of the paths that make up the Ho
Chi Minh Trail? In

DR. KISSINGER: I just don't want to speculate.
Our information isn't that good that we can tell what
percentage goes in any one group. We can tell what goes
from one station to another station. But since they all
converge on the Route 9 area and fan out again from the
Route 9 area, our information is less good in this area
of where it came from.

Q But Highway 92 is part of this Ho Chi Minh
Trail network?

DR. KISSINGER: Absolutely. It goes through the
DMZ, comes out here and cuts South.

Q That is where it converges on 92?

- 28 -

DR. KISSINGER: Yes.

Q Doctor, do you know what has actually been
happening on the Trail since this operation was first
threatened and then started to happen?

DR. KISSINGER: I thought at first that as soon as the
operation threatened they would stop moving things down
the Trail. I was wrong. You had better write that down.
It may happen more frequently than you will find me
admitting it. (Laughter.)

Q Kissinger wrong again. (Laughter.)

DR. KISSINGER: I was wrong for two reasons: One
is that I thought it would become obvious about ten days ago
that we were going to come down Route 9. The fact of the
matter is it didn't become obvious to them and I am not sure
it is obvious to them today, because they are remaining
in position to block other operations. Therefore, they
have no particular incentive to stop at any one point along
the route.

Secondly, I should have thought about the fact
that once they are on the Trail there is literally nothing
they can do with it. Because if they stop, the whole system
gets clogged up and where are they going to go? So once
the system is committed, they might as well push it through
as fast as they can. If they get caught somewhere in the
system, they are no worse off to be caught on Route 9
than they would be being stuck north of Route 9.

Therefore, what they have done is to push like crazy
in the last ten days to get as much stuff through as they
possibly can. But there may be some indications that they
are now slowing it up. It is a little premature. But I
know if we get clear indications of that by tomorrow night
I will let Pat know and he knows how to get in touch with you.

It isn't clear yet whether they are slowing it
down. But we are getting some indications that they may be.

Q Do you have an estimate on how many of their
troops are being pinned down on this DMZ alert?

[L]

- 29 -

DR. KISSINGER: Quite a few; we have a pretty
good idea.

Q You can't tell us in numbers, though?

DR. KISSINGER: No. I am not particularly eager
for you gentlemen to write a great deal about this, pinning
down and so forth, because we want them there.

Q Just leave them there and let them guess.

DR. KISSINGER: We would appreciate it, really,
if you would keep that under restraint.

Q Doctor, you said earlier and you talked about
the supply movement and so forth down the Trail which started
in January, the biggest of the war. Yesterday, the figure
of 10,000 tons of supplies was used.

DR. KISSINGER: That is an estimate; but it is fairly
close.

Q This movement was largely supplies that you
were referring to?

DR. KISSINGER: I am talking about supplies, yes.
Before they moved a lot of stuff into position along the trails.

Q Do we have any idea how much of that has gotten
past the point to where we are now trying to break?

DR. KISSINGER: We estimate the vast bulk of it
was north of Route 9; two-thirds, three-quarters, it is hard
to say. But we think the vast bulk of it is still north
of Route 9.

Q How about the infiltration of personnel?

DR. KISSINGER: The infiltration of personnel has
slowed down considerably. We think the reason for that is that
the personnel without supplies isn't any good to them, that
the reason they poured in personnel at first was two-fold:
One, to replace the losses they suffered in the sanctuary
operations and to give their people in Cambodia, where about
half of them went, a capability of clearing these new sanctuary
areas; and, secondly, to put them into Southern Laos to rebuild
and protect the infiltration. And those units that were in

- 30 -

Southern Laos, we think, after the infiltration season was over, after the infiltration of supply season was over, would have moved over into First and Second Corps and have launched an offensive there closer to the South Vietnamese election.

Q Is there any diminishment in the contribution the Chinese make in supplies to North Vietnam?

DR. KISSINGER: What percent of their supplies is Chinese?

Q I mean reduction?

DR. KISSINGER: No.

Q What does the supplies consist of?

DR. KISSINGER: Rice, mortar arms, mortars. Most of the heavy equipment and most of the OPL comes from the Soviet Union.

But, frankly, the extent of Chinese supplies is irrelevant to this operation, because we don't care what they have up here. Our concern is what they can get down through the panhandle. They cannot solve the problem of what is now being done by getting greater supplies from the Soviet Union and Communist China.

Q What kind of lead time do they have? If they make a decision to slow up the supplies or men, have they committed, say, five days work on the trail?

DR. KISSINGER: If they wanted to throw away their dry season and say the heck with this one, they could reverse the process and still get back into North Vietnam before the rainy season begins. I am not saying they are going to do that. That would really be a phenomenal decision for them to make. That would be a stupendous victory for us. No one is expecting that because it would mean that they would be starting, that they in effect would have lost a year. But this we don't expect. So I am not trying to steer you in this direction.

- 31 -

There problem is that it takes them two and a half
months to get the stuff down. If they don't start moving,
say, by whatever time it takes, it is going to get stuck
somewhere down the road in the rainy season.

Q By saying down, two and a half months, you
mean down to the Cambodian plantation?

DR. KISSINGER: From, say, Mu Gia Pass into the
Chup Plantation area, it takes about three months.

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Q How was this operation initiated? Who took the initiative?

DR. KISSINGER: We tried last fall to look ahead to what the prospects were over the next two years. We had no doubt that we could get through 1971 without major difficulty. And we have no doubt that even without this we had a chance to get through 1972, a good chance, with difficulty, but we would have been able to defeat the offensive or the South Vietnamese would have been able to defeat the offensive.

But if we wanted to insure the withdrawal program and if we wanted to make it more likely for the South Vietnamese to be able to survive after our withdrawal program had reached a level where we were no longer a combat force, then we decided we had to do the sort of thing we are not doing.

We first set the objective of trying to disrupt the enemy supply system and trying to use up as much of the dry season as possible by forcing him into a supply effort during that dry season and using up as many of his supplies as we could.

Out of that then we put this problem to the South Vietnamese and jointly they and our people came up with these various ideas and they were implemented on the schedule that was established.

All of these stories about the President had cancelled the order and that there was a tremendous goofup and that there was a three-day delay, that it was on and it was off and on again is total nonsense.

If you remember, the American brigade moved down Route 9, starting last Sunday, and they built 33 bridges and two airfields. You will see that that enterprise was not unusually long. And that then two South Vietnamese divisions moved first up here and down Route 9. It so happens we are exactly on schedule.

Q Henry, was this basic background explained to Senator Fulbright, Senator Mansfield or to anybody on the Hill? Would they have been told about the basic

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idea?

DR. KISSINGER: Yes.

Q It sounds very persuasive. Were there
questions that they asked?

DR. KISSINGER: You have seen their public statements. There is a belief -- I have given you the argument -- that this widens the war, that it spreads the South Vietnamese thing, that it gets us involved in other countries, that we are assuming responsibilities for these other countries.

Since they don't have any responsibility for
giving us an alternative, I think the overwhelming desire
of many of our critics is just to get out of Vietnam
regardless of the consequences. We want to get out of
Vietnam, but we want to leave it in a manner that it is
consistent with international stability and in the long-
term domestic stability in this country.

Q What is your reading on the present public
opinion? Does it side with the Administration in that
type of withdrawal?

DR. KISSINGER: Yes.

Q By how much?

DR. KISSINGER: The President felt last week,
and he said, that there were 18 reasons for doing this and
one reason for not doing it. He felt that there was a
good chance that he would make some wrong decisions for
the right reason. He didn't want to make a wrong decision
for the wrong reason. So he did it.

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Q What was the one reason for not doing it?

DR. KISSINGER: The reason for not doing it was the argument that this would again produce the same public outcry that we had faced in Cambodia. Look, if Perry will forgive me, in 1938 Chamberlain could have won an election in Britain with 90 percent, first of all. No one would have contested it. He had 90 percent of the British people with him.

Eighteen months later when the consequences of his decision became apparent, he had very few of the British people with him. The people do not forgive their leaders for the consequences of their decisions, even if the decisions were made with public approval at the time.

We have a responsibility for what we believe is in the best interest. The President was elected because it was thought that his judgment encumbers some understanding of the national interest as he saw it. And nobody who went through the Cambodian experience can like to see the anguish repeated. On the other hand, to even further division in the country and even greater international instability wouldn't be worth it.

One can make a very strong case for the proposition that if we had not done what we did in Cambodia last May there would have been a war in the Middle East in September.

Q Is this because the other side would have miscalculated our resolve?

DR. KISSINGER: In September, the situation in the Middle East hung by a razor's edge. If any of the chief adversaries had acted more precipitously, there would have been an explosion.

And when one sees all the commotion last year, the greatest danger of war was not Cambodia, which produced all of this turmoil.

The greatest danger of war last year was for six days in the Middle East after the Syrians invaded Jordan.

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Nobody paid any extraordinary attention to that
because, if you look at the sequence of events, if Syria
had broken through, if Jordan had collapsed, if Israel had
attacked and if the Egyptians had responded and then the
Israelis, and if Nasser had had a heart attack in the middle
of all of this turmoil -- and you would have to assume that
his heart condition would not have improved under those
conditions ---

Q You would have had the Egyptians and Israelis
fighting again.

DR. KISSINGER: There was a great risk. But at
any rate, there might have been a Middle East war and we
avoided a Middle East war also by being both informed
and restrained.

Neither our firmness nor our restraint would have
meant a thing in September if we had not established
the degree of credibility by our actions earlier.

Q Does this move in Laos reflect the
Administration's view or optimism in the Paris talks?

DR. KISSINGER: We are not very optimistic about
the Paris talks.

Q Doctor, could I ask you before we break
up what you are hearing from Souvanna Phouma other than
what he is saying publicly, any indication?

DR. KISSINGER: Nothing. But I said he said all
that needs to be said. He said that his territory is controlled
by the North Vietnamese; that he deplores the South
Vietnamese incursions into his country, but that the
North Vietnamese are principally to blame and he called
on all foreign troops to leave his country.

We agree with all of these statements except
perhaps deploring the South Vietnamese incursions into
his country.

Q Have you heard the suggestion, Dr. Kissinger,
that as 1972 approaches, the elections in 1972, that Nixon
changes his policies so as to get out of Vietnam regardless
of the consequences?

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DR. KISSINGER: Nixon went into Cambodia in May of an election year in the face of warnings by senior advisers that this would lead to a thousand casualties a week, and in the face of the near certainty that it would lead to an explosion and he did this because he believed that he couldn't face the American people a year later if he didn't do it.

And I am sure the President doesn't tell me everything that he thinks. But having worked closely with him for over three years I would be absolutely astonished that the President in 1972 would act on the basis of electoral considerations.

But besides, our program is such that we believe that in 1972 we will be able to go before the American public and to compare what we have done with what our critics said at various stages, that I believe it will be our critics who will be on the defensive at that point and not we.

Q Do you feel these incursions should have occurred several years ago?

DR. KISSINGER: I have trouble enough thinking about the policies of this Administration.

Q It was possible for them to.

DR. KISSINGER: Let me say in defense of the previous Administration that at that time most of the men came through the Ho Chi Minh Trail, but most of the supplies came through Sihanoukville. But I think one could argue that if the war had been directed against the vitals of the enemy rather than proliferously, it might have helped. I don't really want to speculate on that.

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Q Doctor, you said the President decided a year hence that he couldn't have faced the American people if he had not gone ---

DR. KISSINGER: Faced them not for electoral reasons. The issue the President faced in May or in April of 1970 was as follows: Before the overthrow of Sihanouk, we faced isolated base areas which Sihanouk was attempting to squeeze into a narrower and narrower compass. After the overthrow of Sihanouk, when the North Vietnamese in the sanctuaries began to turn westward against the Cambodians, we faced the problem that allof Cambodia would turn into a base area; that the President felt that the only real choices he had at that moment was to get out immediately or to go into Cambodia. The advice which most people gave him was to say, "Things are going along so well, why do you ask for both?" That is the one chance he felt we couldn't take because that would have meant being faced just about at this time of this year at the height of the dry season with a Communist offensive coming out of these sanctuaries and he would have had to explain to himself why he had sacrificed more American lives for a year's effort when he knew very well that when this 150,000 withdrawal program continued he would confront this situation. That was the situation.

Q If this was considered as a possibility several months ago, presumably before the Congressional prohibitions were put on the use of American forces ---

DR. KISSINGER: We never considered using American forces. Incidentally, there has been a prohibition on the use of American forces in Laos already in last year's budget. So it was never considered, nor have we used American forces in Cambodia before the prohibition.

THE PRESS: Thank you, Doctor.

END

6:42 P.M. EST

Air Force One Pool Report -- Homestead to Andrews 2-15-71

Wheels up 5:51. Uneventful flight. Wheels down 7:41 p.m.

Along on flight were the Shultzs, Weinbergers, who were vacationing on a private island off Nassau. Also the Rogers, Kissinger, Haldeman family.

Kissinger came back to chat. ON BACKGROUND he said the ARVN has cut about half the trails in the Ho Chih Minh complex. The reason why the ARVN has been moving more slowly than expected is that as they go, they have to set up fire bases to cover their advance and to hit the still-uncut trails ahead. The North Viets are being forced to turn west with their supplies to do an end-run of the ARVN. We're trying to hit them with our air. He doubted Red China would come in "unless we go north." If ARVN were to go north across the DMZ, Red China's reaction would depend on how far ARVN went. He doubted the North Viets would invade south across the DMZ because that would mean tearing up the bombing halt agreement and because they only have two uncommitted divisions in all of North Vietnam. In Cambodia, the enemy's extended to the limit of its capability.

Pierson/Kaplow/Tully

[c]

This Copy For ____

BACKGROUND BRIEFING

AT THE WHITE HOUSE

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

11:35 A.M. EST

FEBRUARY 23, 1971

TUESDAY

DR. KISSINGER: Let me make my rules. This is BACKGROUND, not for attribution and I am only to answer questions. Therefore, I will be glad to answer questions.

Q How is the operation in Laos going?

DR. KISSINGER: I am just recovering from the shock of reading the morning papers and comparing it with what I know. But what we are trying to do in Laos is primarily to interrupt the opposing lines of communication. We are not trying to gain territory. We are not stalled in terms of the objectives that we are trying to achieve. And, as of now, we are moving in the direction of substantially disrupting the enemy line of communications.

If you look at the map here, what used to be called the Ho Chi Minh Trail -- you have to make a distinction here between about 25 trails on which porters can move on bicycles and three or four main motorable roads. The bulk of the supplies have to move by truck. They can't haul it down on the backs of porters all the way from the north to the south.

So, obviously, we cannot physically interdict every foottrail. But, equally obviously, anyone planning the logistics effort in the north has a massive problem trying to figure out which trails are interdicted and which are not interdicted, what he can put on the backs of people and so forth.

Let me talk about only motor roads. The major

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one is Route 9, which then connects with Route 92 going south and it splits off into the route into the Ashau Valley and then it goes to the I Corps, II Corps and so forth. This used to be the main route.

That was interdicted on about the fourth day of the operation, here and here; that is, they put a blocking force across Route 9 and another one across 92.

Since then they have strengthened their forces along Route 92. For all practical purposes, Route 92 is cut.

We thought there was one pipeline going parallel to Route 92. It has turned out that there are two, one for, I think, gasoline and the other one for other POL products. Both of these pipelines have been cut. They were burning for five days last week. Somebody must have forgotten to shut it off. In fact, substantial sections of the pipe have been removed. The removal of the pipe is not all that important, because they have interchangeable sections which they can put in there. But the pipeline has been cut from north of Route 9 south.

Then when Route 92 and 9 were cut, the North Vietnamese forced the traffic that was on Route 9 back north and down Route 914, which is the next one over. 914 was harassed last week. There were South Vietnamese companies on it and off it last week, but it was not permanently interdicted.

However, at the latest report on February 20, a South Vietnamese force was put across Route 914 and there is another one on Route 92 south of the intersection between 914 and 92. So we can say that 914 has been interdicted.

The next route, talking about motorable routes, is Route 234. It has just been built, is in very bad shape, and is under visual observation and within mortar range and easy artillery range. While we cannot say it is being cut, it is also not a recommended route. And the South Vietnamese have forces operating close to the intersection of 234 and 92 and again it is just a question of time until there is something physically across that route.

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So the next route over is 23. Route 23, as you can see on this map, goes through open country. It has no jungle canopy at all. It does not have these Binh trams or way stations. It does not have the supply system. The convoys going down Route 23 must carry the supplies as well as the POL for the convoy with it. Therefore, every convoy has a much smaller capacity.

Up to now they have not yet put a major effort on Route 23. During the first two weeks of the operation, what was backed up on Route 92 they tried to push around 914. And 23, they have not yet used very effectively. Part of the problem is that 23 doesn't go anywhere. 23 comes down the center of Laos through open country. Then they have to get across through the Bolevens Plateau into II or III Corps, or go into the center of Cambodia. To get across there they will come awfully close to the operation that is going on in Cambodia.

So all in all, the strategic objective of the operation is being achieved. It is very difficult territory, very mountainous, and except for the complex that is going north and south much of it has to be done by airborne operations. Therefore, it is a complicated business.

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So if you ask how is the operation going
in terms of the strategic objective, one has to say
as of now it is achieving its objectives.

The next question is how about the battle
that is developing as a result of the operation?

First, when the operation was planned, the
thought was that the North Vietnamese could do two
things: One, they could try to block the attack by
stemming it frontally. The other was that they might
try to slip around it and attack it from the flank.

What they have done is not really oppose it very
much from the front, and, therefore, to say it is
stalled frontally is a misconception. What they have
done is put about three divisions on the flank of the
advance and, therefore, General Abrams has decided
that until that situation is cleared up, there isn't
much sense in his advancing much further, because, you
see, here is Tchepone and there isn't any road going
through Tchepone that he isn't cutting south of Tchepone.

And to advance further would just expose the
access of the flank which is being attacked anyway and
might create a situation analogous to the one in which
the Germans found themselves in Stalingrad where they went
dashing in and then found themselves cut off at the base.

So what he has done is to stick in the fire
bases north of Route 9 while systematically attempting
to disrupt the roads going through Tchepone south of
Tchepone. We are not talking about huge distances
here. These are eight or ten miles we are talking about.

There was a violent attack on a ranger
battalion that was in a fire base. One of the three
companies of the ranger battalion was substantially lost.
Helicopter pilots flying over the battle area claimed
that they have seen 640 dead and 500 weapons of the
enemy force. They didn't tell me how they go about

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counting them. Our side lost about 150.

I frankly don't know how they established the precise number of people while they were whirling around there in helicopters. Besides, you should get those figures from the Defense Department which can explain them better than I can.

It doesn't seem to us unreasonable, given the fact that this was within range of our artillery on the South Vietnamese side of the border, and of South Vietnamese artillery, and of heavy air concentration -- it doesn't seem unreasonable that the North Vietnamese would have suffered much greater casualties than the casualties that they inflicted.

The problem is not whether the South Vietnamese will lose a fire base here and there. They lost this and are apt to lose others. The problem is if they can maintain their positions or a position north of Route 9 as a protecting line to the interruption of the enemy lines of communication at Route 9 and south of Route 9, then they are achieving their objective. Of course, if they can't do that, then we have a problem.

But so far there is absolutely nothing to indicate that they can't. They gave up that one fire base. They withdrew to the next one. The next one was also under attack and the attack has at least been interrupted for 48 hours and has not yet resumed. Part of the reason may be that the casualties suffered in attacking that first fire base were so great that the other side has had to regroup.

But I do not want to give the impression that there are no dangers. Everything will depend on how well the South Vietnamese fight north of Route 9 with our support.

General Abrams has not committed most of his reserves. He still has substantial reserves available. He certainly gives the impression of being very confident.

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Of course, one has to say that sometimes one General is at least wrong. Therefore, I don't want to make excessive claims. I am trying to put before you in the best way I know how, how the situation looks to us here.

We don't consider the attacking of one battalion as a setback. It was the sort of loss that one has to expect in this type of operation. It is at this moment of no major strategic significance. But the battle is still developing. The next two or three weeks are going to be difficult fighting. That is how the situation looks to us.

If I had the other side's logistics problem of trying to push supplies through this network, it certainly would be difficult because these roads are either interdicted or in the process of being interdicted.

Q Doctor, could you tell us why we had these recent air attacks on the North Vietnamese installations?

DR. KISSINGER: These were attacks on SAM sites that had fired at planes. They had been authorized about three or four weeks ago -- they are not really connected to this, and the weather has been so bad on the North Vietnamese side that they couldn't be conducted beforehand.

Q Do you have any further word about any possible move against the DMZ from their side?

DR. KISSINGER: No, there is no indication that that is going to take place.

Q What is General Abrams' report on the fighting capabilities of these troops?

DR. KISSINGER: Of the South Vietnamese or the North Vietnamese?

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Q The South Vietnamese.

DR. KISSINGER: The reports we get from General Abrams and from Ambassador Bunker are that the troops have fought well and that when they have retreated, as in that one case, they have done so in good order, and that on the whole they have conducted themselves very well. That is also what the outcome indicates.

After all, the major line north of Route 9 hasn't been touched. That one fire base was the most advanced base. We have lost fire bases.

Q What is the characteristic of the enemy of those three divisions? Are they crack troops, reserve shock forces?

DR. KISSINGER: No, they are regular North Vietnamese troops. The one thing is that these troops are more concentrated than perhaps one would have thought originally. We have always believed that our assessment of the enemy strategy was a part -- you remember when I met with you about three or two weeks ago, I think I said that two-thirds of the infiltration of men stayed in the panhandle while most of the supplies went south and that the men that were in the panhandle -- that were put there to protect the supply routes during the Laotian dry season -- would, in our judgment, have moved into I and II Corps during the panhandle rainy season which happens to be the dry season on the other side of the mountain range. They were planning an attack in I and II Corps in the period between July and October prior to the Presidential elections in Vietnam in October.

One of the by-products of this campaign is going to be--both in terms of caches, of what we are picking up, and in terms of disrupting enemy units -- that the probability of their being able to launch an offensive in I and II Corps this year is substantially reduced.

Q How much are you picking up?

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DR. KISSINGER: We are picking up quite a bit. We are not making a lot out of it, because the major purpose of this operation is not to pick up caches. This is not an area in which you expect major caches, actually, although we have picked up somewhat more than we thought. We picked up close to 700,000 pounds of rice, about 1,300 individual weapons, 235 crew-served weapons. I can get some of you a list of these things that we have picked up. About 135,000 gallons of POL. We are picking up much more POL here than we did in Cambodia, obviously, because Cambodia was the end of the line; they didn't need it.

We have picked up a fair amount of assorted ammunition. But I repeat, we have not made a big thing out of the caches we have picked up.

Again, this is all material they will have to move south again after the operation ends. For example, yesterday, they found one of these way stations along the road which had facilities to repair 23 trucks simultaneously. I am just giving this to you to give you a fill. It isn't that one of these things is crucial. It is just after they withdraw this whole system will have to be reconstructed. Take the caches of rice. In one respect it is different from Cambodia, that is, the caches are smaller but more numerous, because they have a dual purpose of servicing combat units that fight in I and II Corps, and servicing the supply units that are moving things through the trail system.

Q Dr. Kissinger, we read about the schedule and the falling behind schedule. How important is the schedule and how far behind are they?

DR. KISSINGER: You know, if they had interviewed my company during the Battle of the Bulge on television, I think we probably would have surrendered. The view of the low-level officers -- I don't think of myself as a lower ranking officer (Laughter) -- of technically low-level officers is always that everything is totally screwed up.

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6

I saw that some network yesterday had a program which said that they were supposed to be in Tchepone in three days. I don't know what this regimental commander told the battalion commander. But we never had any thought that anyone could be in Tchepone in three days. We are not all that interested in Tchepone. We are interested in getting these roads cut.

As you see, Tchepone is here. Route 914 which goes through Tchepone we are cutting here, and Route 92 we are cutting here. So we don't see any particular magic in going right parallel to the access of the enemy's strength smack into Tchepone while he is building up on our side.

If we were not cutting roads, then I think this would worry us. And, therefore, I don't know what this tank commander's instructions were, whether we are behind schedule or not. These ARVN battalions are moving carefully so that they are always in range of each other's artillery, because we don't want to lose these battalions unnecessarily.

And because we believe whether a road is cut a week earlier or later, we would like to cut them all simultaneously, but basically even if they force things through a road, one week's supply is not going to determine the outcome of the next dry season campaign in Cambodia. So they are moving deliberately.

But it doesn't look to General Abrams, on whom I have to rely for information, or Admiral Moorer or to any of the people, Ambassador Bunker, that they are stalled. From what I have given to you, they are not stalled in terms of the basic objective. They are not rushing down Route 9 towards Tchepone. And there is no particular reason to do that. Maybe they will go to Tchepone and maybe they won't go to Tchepone. But the primary thing right now in Tchepone, if they go there, is not caches. It is not needed to interrupt the LOC systems and the caches aren't going to go away. That isn't the purpose of the operation.

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We have never said that we were going for Tchepone. We have always said we are going to operate in base areas to interrupt the lines of supplies. That is exactly what we are doing.

Q Would it be possible for the North Vietnamese to move their operations in any significant degree farther to the west?

DR. KISSINGER: No. I said no, but 23 is about as far west as it is safe for them to go. 23 is already in the open country. You see, the way they have operated the system, as I explained to you previously, is that they operate it through a series of way stations in which trucks travel back and forth at night between these various Binh Trams.

These Binh Trams had POL supplies and truck parts and they unloaded the trucks and so forth. Route 23 is out in the open. Many of these roads -- you have seen these pictures of jungle canopies so that they were very difficult, if not impossible, to observe from the air.

23 is going through open country. It does not have the truck parts, it does not have the Binh Trams. So the same truck has to go all the way down which is a much less efficient way of operating and at least each truck or convoy has to carry its spare parts, food, its POL. Of course, it can be done and they have used 23 in the past for the overflow. If they had a very heavy infiltration push, they would use it for the overflow of the other roads.

But it is not their preferred route.

The next one over is Route 13, which is parallel. They all parallel the Thai frontier, but this is within visual observation of the Thai frontier. It is territory which is now friendly laotian territory and which the North Vietnamese don't even control yet. So they would first have to occupy it.

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It is totally in the open country. There is no way of hiding it at all. Then they would have to reorient their whole supply system to get over to Route 13. Then, once they are down Route 13, there is no way you can get from Route 13 easily into Vietnam until you get into Cambodia. Then you have a long distance to go.

As you see, they are under considerable pressure in Cambodia, too.

Q What is your comment on some of the home front reaction? I notice that Ramsey Clark and Eugene McCarthy and Cyrus Vance have had remarks and last week Congressman McCloskey made a suggestion.

DR. KISSINGER: My personal jurisdiction starts outside the three-mile limit. I have got troubles enough there. But we will have to stand on our record in '72. We are, after all, the ones who will be getting out of Vietnam. We aren't the ones who got into Vietnam. We are the ones who will be getting out. We have kept every promise we have made. We will stand on our record.

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Q How do you explain the fact that the media -- you said that you were shocked at reading the morning papers.

DR. KISSINGER: I meant that as a joke.

Q It may be a joke, but it is true. I think most of us in the room are a little alarmed at reading the papers and watching the tube yesterday. But how do you explain this getting the wrong impression about what is going on?

DR. KISSINGER: It may be our fault in not explaining it properly, and it is also the case that these correspondents sit at the airfields and ask the helicopter pilots who have just come back. He says it is a mess. That is what I used to say when I was in the Army.

It always looks chaotic when you are in a low level. But I don't want to speculate on what else is involved. Then, of course, Vietnam has been a traumatic experience. People just don't want to believe.

We went through that in Cambodia. No matter what we said, they would be out by July 1, every time I met the press I would have to spend a third of my time making sure that I wasn't being some shyster lawyer with an escape clause that really would keep us in Cambodia after July 1.

We achieved essentially what we wanted in Cambodia. There are no Americans involved directly. It is much closer to the source of the North Vietnamese strength in Laos, in a way. If it works, it will be much harder for them to come back from this than from Cambodia.

MR. KLEIN: You might want to touch on the other lower Cambodian situation, too.

DR. KISSINGER: There isn't a great deal to say, except they are pushing back to this area, to the river, and they have now reached roughly this area up here. They are going to try to clear out this area and push the North Vietnamese forces as far north as they can, as far away from their base areas as they can. The strategic objective is so that next year when they start their dry season

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campaign they will be as far away from the South Vietnamese centers of populations with as difficult a supply problem as we can arrange for them.

In this case, 75 percent of the air operations are conducted by the South Vietnamese. Of course, all of the ground operations are. So far, this has been enormously successful.

A month ago, Phnom Penh was falling every day. The North Vietnamese have been now very busily absorbed in defending themselves, which doesn't mean they cannot do harassment. It only takes a small group to harass.

But the major objective is not the defense of Cambodia. The major objective is to prevent them from pushing south and reopening the secure corridors to the sea and to prevent them from establishing secure base areas near the main centers of population.

So far, that has gone really almost in a text-book way. This is the sort of thing where we can compare a plan to what is being done. The North Vietnamese casualties are very heavy. They are not actually picking up as many caches.

They are picking up many more caches here, which indicates that it had been pretty well cleaned out in last year's operation and that they are fighting from existing supplies.

But in every encounter between the South Vietnamese and the North Vietnamese, the North Vietnamese have been badly defeated because the South Vietnamese firepower is so much greater and because the North Vietnamese in this area have to fight in the open.

They can't fight in the countryside, guerrilla fashion.

Of course, General Tri was probably the ablest commander of the South Vietnamese.

Q What do you think that is going to mean?

DR. KISSINGER: We don't know. But he has fought this in a brilliant, aggressive way. You never can tell whether his replacement will do as well.

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Q What about Lon Nol's departure?

DR. KISSINGER: That doesn't seem to have made a great deal of difference. That was a collective leadership to begin with. Matak, who is now running the country, really substantially ran it when Lon Nol was there. He seems to be improving, incidentally, and will be going back sometime in the not-too-distant future.

The stability of the Cambodian situation has really been remarkable. Here the North Vietnamese have been in force in the country for nearly a year now. No one has been able to pretend that there is the slightest thing indigenous about the North Vietnamese effort.

They have absolutely been unable to create even the pretense of an indigenous movement in their support and similarly, the Phnom Penh government has been able to mobilize its population and for them, it is clearly a national war.

Q Is the estimate now that the South Vietnamese will be able to keep the Ho Chi Minh Trail cut for the next three months?

DR. KISSINGER: We have never set a limit on the operation.

Another thing that is happening is that the supplies that they are consuming in fighting us here also have to be deducted from the supplies that are moving south. They are depleting the stocks they have. General Abrams thinks that a day's fighting like the recent one is worth a week's supplies.

But I don't want to make an argument like this. It is certainly a significant factor.

The operation is successful, even if they do not stay until May, but only stay some period of time long enough so that they can't restock the whole supply system again and get it cranking before the rainy season starts.

Q Doctor, did I understand you correctly to say that the only main routes that are left open are 234 and 23?

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DR. KISSINGER: Yes. I can't tell you that there are no trails in between these main routes. They could, for example, unload trucks up here, carry it with porters down here and pick it up by trucks further down. But on the other hand, that is the hard way of doing it.

This would degrade what they are pushing through considerably.

So we are not saying that we are reducing the supplies by 100 percent. All we are saying is we are disrupting their supply plans. As the situation develops, we will be able to be either more or less confident, depending on how much we infest this area.

Q And 234 ---

DR. KISSINGER: 234 is not a good road. We are showing it as a good road on the map, but it is not a good road.

Q They are not using 23 to any degree?

DR. KISSINGER: They will probably use it increasingly. But this is being substantially harassed.

Q There is another one, 13?

DR. KISSINGER: No; 13 can't be. They have never used 13. They can't push convoys through friendly territory within sight of the Thai frontier. That is out of the question.

Q Is there any indication from the North Vietnamese at all that they are extremely alarmed at the operations that are going on now?

DR. KISSINGER: They are fighting more bitterly and more intensely than they have at any time since the Tet offensive.

Q Aren't there any captured documents or intelligence of any sort?

Q Do we have any defectors?

DR. KISSINGER: Not that I am aware of.

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[10]

Q Dr. Kissinger, what is your present reading about these hints about action by Red China, if this goes much farther?

DR. KISSINGER: What do they mean "goes much farther"?

Q The hints. I was just wondering what your assessment was.

DR. KISSINGER: We don't believe that Communist China will intervene militarily.

Q Could you tell us what you base that on?

DR. KISSINGER: The Communist Chinese statements so far have been very guarded. Also, the shortage of the North Vietnamese is what they can put into the supply system. They are neither short of men nor of supplies. They have not been able to get it through. That isn't necessarily improved by the Chinese. The Chinese couldn't maintain any more troops down here than the North Vietnamese are.

MR. KLEIN: Gentlemen, I want to be real sure we are clear on the ground rules again. In this case, with Dr. Kissinger, it is entirely not attributable to any kind of source here. So what you need to do is to write it on your own.

Thank you.

THE PRESS: Thank you.

END (AT 12:05 P.M. EST)

FOR RELEASE AT 12 NOON, EST, FEBRUARY 25, 1971. FEBRUARY 23, 1971

OFFICE OF THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY

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

AT 4:22 P.M. EST

MR. ZIEGLER: You have been given the Foreign Policy Message. I thought it might be helpful before you have had a chance to read it for Dr. Kissinger very briefly to give you a brief rundown on how it was put together and some of the overall thinking regarding the message.

Later tomorrow afternoon after you have had
a chance to read through the report, Dr. Kissinger
will be available to take your questions regarding
the details of the report.

So today's session is for the purpose of Dr. Kissinger covering with you briefly the development and tomorrow we will take questions you may have regarding some of the content.

Q Could you restate the embargo rules at this point, Ron?

MR. ZIEGLER: They are clearly stated on the cover.

Q What about the briefing material?

MR. ZIEGLER: Let me indicate to you the obvious.
I should state it that anything that Dr. Kissinger says
today is embargoed on the same basis that the content
of the material which you have before you.

Q The groundrules on Dr. Kissinger?

MR. ZIEGLER: I think you can quote Dr. Kissinger
direct on this, if you don't mind, Doctor.

DR. KISSINGER: I seem to be involved with
embargoes all the time lately.

Actually, this meeting will be very brief. I
thought I would do two things: Explain to you what the
report attempts to do; and then to say something about
how it was developed.

The content is really quite self-explanatory --
I was going to say especially for those of you who have
no trouble with three-syllable words.

MORE

The purpose of the report is to put forward the
basic rationale of our foreign and national security
policy for the public, for foreign governments and for
our own Government.

The primary thrust here is to attempt to explain
why we have acted as we have and to use events as an
illustration of our general purpose. There will be, in
addition, detailed reports from the Department of State
and from the Department of Defense which will go into the
individual events or, as in the case of the Defense
report, the details in the defense posture.

Q When will they be available, do you know?

DR. KISSINGER: I think the Defense report will
come out when Secretary Laird testifies, which will be
around March 9. And I think the State report is a week
or two after that. That is my present understanding. I may
be off by a week. But that is my understanding of the
rough time sequence that will be followed.

With respect to foreign governments or anyone
else, we hope this report will indicate that there is
some intellectual structure to what we are attempting
to do and to show a degree of continuity in our actions.

In last year's report, we listed at the end of
each chapter the issues for the future, and we have
attempted to list those at the beginning of each chapter
or in each chapter in order to give a checklist of what
progress or lack of progress there has been.

We also hope that, while, of course, not everybody
will agree with every decision that has been taken, that
there will be a greater agreement on the objectives
perhaps than on the tactics and that even those who
disagree will do so within a framework of a sense that
serious people are attempting to work on these problems
on both sides of the debate.

This is the general objective that we have set.
Because we realize that not everybody is going to read
every word of this report, to their loss, and because
various experts in Government are just going to read the
sections directly applicable to them, you will find that
there is a certain amount of repetition of basic principles
in the various sections.

Let me tell you how the report was put together.
Early in October we sent out a request to the Department
of State, the Department of Defense, and the Central Intelligence
Agency to tell us what they thought the President should
say in a statement that attempted to achieve the objectives
that I have described. And we received from each of the
Departments their views as to the content.

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- 3 -

This then was the subject of several conversations with the President in San Clemente in January early, and under his guidance and based on his guidance a rough draft was put together by some members of my staff, some of the ones with maniacal expressions on their faces -- they are standing here to the right -- who have been up every night for the last week and all night long over the weekend. Indeed, they reached a point where they excluded me from their deliberations.

When a draft had been put together, it was sent to each of the Departments that had been originally solicited and we received very extensive comments from all of the Departments and, of course, because so much of it has to do with foreign policy, particularly extensive comments from the Department of State. There was then a National Security Council meeting based on these comments and on the draft.

Then the President, the Secretary of State, and I, went over this in Key Biscayne. My colleagues, when they permitted me to participate, and I then amalgamated these into another draft which was again sent to the agencies. We again received their comments and these were reviewed by the President. The final version emerged.

So what we have here is a cooperative effort of the agencies concerned with national security policy in providing the material and the general philosophic direction of the President.

This is really all that I need to say about the report. I think the table of contents is self-explanatory.

But I will be delighted to answer questions about how the report was put together; what it attempts to do.

Q How up-to-date is it, Doctor? Does it take in the Laos thing?

DR. KISSINGER: No. It goes through December 31, 1970. I think that the rationale that led to the Laos operation can be deduced from the section. We have a section in there on Laos and Cambodia. But it does not address, obviously, an operation which will be in the next year's report.

Q Did you see some merit in length?

DR. KISSINGER: No. But at Harvard, length is often confused with profundity.

Q Is there any one section in this report that best illustrates the evolution of policy from the previous report?

DR. KISSINGER: As we went through it, we analyzed the various chapters to see whether there were any significant changes from the previous report. Except for the fact that almost every section lists the issues for the future that were stated in the previous report, there is no particular attempt made to illustrate the evolution.

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- 4 -

I think you will find, to answer your question seriously, Peter, that -- last year's report was somewhat more declaratory than this one -- in this report we attempted to supply some of the detail for the judgments which we stated, and because some of the philosophy was expressed last year, the emphasis in this report is on the expansion of the philosophy and on its application to particular areas.

And this explains why it is longer than last year's report.

Q There is a report in print this morning that there have been substantial differences between you and the Secretary of State over the content of the SALT section, is that correct?

DR. KISSINGER: It is malicious nonsense. I think if you read the SALT section, you will find that it contains the explanation of our position. Every section as it evolved, needless to say, involved some discussion of the amount of detail that should be covered in any particular section.

But there was no disagreement on any major substantive point or for that matter on any minor substantive point. I will repeat what I said, it is malicious nonsense.

Q To amplify that, to request an amplification of that answer, Dr. Kissinger, are you suggesting that the malice lay with the source or with the reporter? (Laughter.)

DR. KISSINGER: With the source. (Laughter.)

Q Dr. Kissinger, is there anything substantively new in this report that you might point out to us?

DR. KISSINGER: Why don't we wait until you have read it and then we will answer questions on substance.

Q Doctor, although you haven't included the Laotian operation in this because of calendar reasons, you would be prepared tomorrow to take questions on it in the perspective of the policy you have outlined here, wouldn't you?

DR. KISSINGER: Yes.

Q Is there a rationale for any future engagements? (Laughter.)

DR. KISSINGER: Wait until next February. (Laughter.)

THE PRESS: Thank you, Doctor.

END

4:37 P.M. EST

This Copy for [L]

BACKGROUND BRIEFING

AT THE WHITE HOUSE

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

2:35 P.M. EST

FEBRUARY 24, 1971

WEDNESDAY

MR. ZIEGLER: The groundrules are the same as they always are, no direct quotations, Administration officials, White House officials.

Q How many words did you say, Henry?

DR. KISSINGER: I guess 65,000, give or take a few thousand.

Bob?

Q I confess I have not read the whole document, but I was very interested in the China part of it and I would like to ask a question on that.

DR. KISSINGER: Please, yes, anytime.

Q Or maybe I will ask a couple.

It appears from this that we are moving toward a two-China policy as we have been reluctantly in the past couple of years, but now at a greater speed. I would like to know what, in effect, this is doing to our relations with Formosa? Are they aware of what we are going to say in this and where we are going and what are we going to do about the specific vote in the UN this year?

- 2 -

[lc]

DR. KISSINGER: What we have stated here is a more comprehensive expression of the position that we have been attempting to say in bits and pieces throughout the year. And our statement on China here is a deliberate attempt to have a comprehensive conceptual statement of where we want to go in our relations with China and what the future evolution is likely to be. And this approach is what we are going to pursue.

What particular tactics we will follow in any one UN session is really a subordinate question and it is one that we are now addressing in the Government. We have a crew in the NSC system that is making recommendations to the President. In fact, they are in the process of meeting.

We have committed ourselves to looking for ways of easing existing restrictions and we will have specific recommendations for the President within the next few weeks. And we have indicated our general approach of readiness to have the Peoples Republic of China a member of the national community.

How this will apply in any one UN session I don't think I want to state at this time, but the main thrust is I think very evident from what we said.

Q Have you apprised Formosa of what perhaps doesn't amount to a change of policy, but at least it indicates a strong direction?

DR. KISSINGER: We did not, as a matter of policy, inform any Government of the contents of this report ahead of time, because it was not easy to get all agencies of the Government to agree to every last formulation and it would have made it too complicated. This is a statement of U. S. policy. It is a statement of the policy we intend to follow and we didn't submit this to other Governments for approval.

- 3 -

[lc]

h-1

Q Henry, you talked about the SALT negotiations and there have been a number of articles since that time which would indicate internal government problems, certain things to be in this report which are not, et cetera. Can you tell us what it is?

DR. KISSINGER: I read these stories with great interest and astonishment.

Let me state what the general philosophy of the President and of this office was in writing the report. Our philosophy was that one of the major uses of this report was to put before the American people a thoughtful explanation of what we were attempting to do. We couldn't expect everybody to agree with everything we were doing, nor could we expect that everyone would be equally interested in everything we are doing.

But that one contribution we could make to healing some of the divisions that foreign policy has caused us, to give even people who disagree with us the sense that some thought is given to these problems and serious attempts at issues were concerned here.

Therefore, I have to say as a general proposition our pressure was in the direct of maximum disclosure.

On the other hand, we work in the closest cooperation with the bureaucracy on these reports. And therefore, we have to take very seriously the views of the negotiators as to what will help or not help negotiations, which we did. The reports that I read indicated that there was some violent fight about the amount of detail.

I think if you read the chapter on Arms Control, if you see that the chapter on Arms Control is longer than the chapter on Strategic Forces, I think it has an adequate amount of detail.

And I don't want to get into the business of whether this or that paragraph was modified in the writing of it. I dare say that if I showed you gentlemen the final draft that you have to have a theological bend to be able to tell major differences in the original draft and the final draft.

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-4-

[Lc]

-2

First of all, I will say flatly, there were no substantive differences of any kind. There was some question as to the degree of detail that should be revealed as to who said what at what meeting. And we handled this by, instead of listing who said what at each meeting, to group all the arguments together. But I will say that all the essential information that we thought was important for people to have, namely, what the basic issues were, are, in our view, in the report and many of the suggestions that were made helped improve the document.

Until I read the newspapers, I was not conscious of the fact that there was a big fight going on.

But if those are the only victories and defeats that I have suffered here during our term in office, the scars will not be very long lasting.

Q In specific terms, then, there were, as you put it, no substantive differences between the ACDA and the White House and the ACDA champion, the Secretary of State?

ACDA

DR. KISSINGER: Let me explain. What I said is exactly true. There are no substantive differences whatever about the substance of our position and there has been no difference whatever as to what the substantive opposition ought to be.

And, therefore, insofar as this document is supposed to reflect substantive differences, it is totally untrue.

Secondly, the only difference of opinion that existed was whether we should say in Helsinki we said the following and the other said the following; in Vienna we said the following and the other said the following. In Helsinki, A said this and B said this. An original draft had it. In the existing draft, rather than have it described this way, if you read the document, you will see that the arguments are categorized on both sides, but we do not go through the details of the deliberation and ACDA made the very valid point which we accepted, that the privacy agreement required that we not go into detailing who said what at what meeting, but did not preclude us from stating what the general positions are.

ACDA

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-5-

[c]

Actually, the total amount that is at issue here is about three paragraphs. It is really an absurd argument. I think it belongs in a book on middle level bureaucratic fighting rather than on any serious government policy.

Q The discussion pretty well seems to move out acceptance of limited or an agreement on defensive weapons only. Is that a fair assumption?

DR. KISSINGER: The section on SALT indicates that we believe that there has to be or should be some linkage -- linkage is a dirty work -- some connection between offensive and defensive weapons. Our reasoning has been that the immediate threat is posed by the offensive weapons, that what concerns one when one thinks of first strike is that the build up of offensive forces by another side might create a situation which either side might feel that it is in a position to knock out the other side's first strike.

The defensive forces are about eight to ten years away before they can, in a major way, affect the strategic balance.

Therefore, our view has been that to have an agreement only on defensive weapons, without some relationship to offensive weapons, is not our position of what that relationship ought to be, how to establish it. This is what is going to be discussed at the Vienna meeting.

As I indicated in December, when I backgrounded, we hope to bring the SALT talks to a positive conclusion.

This is strongly behind the SALT talks which is another reason why these implications were off.

Q When you talk about connections, when you reach agreement on defensive weapons as a pre-condition of the agreement ---

DR. KISSINGER: I can only talk about the position we now have. And our present position is that that is a package including offensive and defensive weapons. What give and take might take place during the course of negotiations I don't want to speculate on at this moment.

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[10]

Q The implication there, Henry, is that you have in reaching the position which you now occupy, you have rejected the validity, if any, of the argument that it isn't a question so much of defensive weapons or offensive weapons, but the defensive weapon thing, the ABM thing, seems to be the only area in which the Soviet Union has indicated any willingness to negotiate.

DR. KISSINGER: This is a little exaggerated. As a general proposition, if we take the view that we must always negotiate on what the Soviet Union has said it is willing to negotiate, then it will be very difficult for us to ever get our requirements included in the agreement.

If you look at the history of the negotiations with the Soviet Union, they have often been protracted and they have almost inevitably wound up in the position in which the first Soviet proposal was not necessarily the final one.

This Soviet proposal has been put forward at one session. We have stated our view. And we just think it would be highly premature for us. The Soviets are now presumably back in Moscow studying our explanation to them of why we think some relationship between these two positions ought to be established.

For us to now give this up before we have even seen the results of the Soviet deliberations seems to be highly premature.

And, therefore, for the time being, we want to continue the sort of business-like, serious, thoughtful deliberations in which neither side so far as made an attempt to drive the other against the wall.

Let me state our general philosophy on any negotiations, but particularly on the negotiations with the super powers, and especially on a negotiation which involves strategic arms.

When you deal with sovereign states, the only agreements that last are those that the countries want to maintain. You cannot drive a sharp bargain with another country that puts it at a permanent disadvantage and expect the country to maintain that.

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-7-

[lc]

I would say also in our Vietnam negotiations, it isn't in our interest to have an agreement that the North Vietnamese do not want to maintain. Conversely, it is good to have one that they do want to maintain, if that is negotiable.

This is particularly true when you deal with a super power. It is especially true when you deal with strategic weapons. In the field of strategic weapons where the survival of states is involved by definition, it is imperative that you make an agreement which both sides conceive to be in their interest. This is how we have approached the design of our proposals.

It is quite conceivable that what we conceive to be in the mutual interest, the Soviet Union has a different conception about it.

But we have approached the discussions in a very business like and serious manner. We have not attempted to put them at a psychological or political disadvantage.

And I have to say in fairness to them, they have not done it to us. Any of you who are familiar with the discussions within our government or within our academic community about arms control, strategy, know that serious people, even within a country, differ about the requirements of security.

That is the process in which we are now engaged with the Soviet Union. And we believe that when we reassemble in Vienna, if they follow the practice of previous meetings, they will have studied our proposals at Helsinki and we would like to see what assessment they have made of them. Because this is truly a case we are trying to get a unilateral advantage; it is the stupidest, the most self-defeating, the most shortsighted approach. This is the attitude which we have towards SALT on which, I must say, we have spent, in many ways, more time and certainly more thought than on almost any other topic since this Administration came into office.

I don't know whether that answers your question.

Q It does in part. Has it be your feeling that the other side of the coin is also true, that the Soviet Union has not been trying to get an advantage?

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-8-

[c]

DR. KISSINGER: Let me go OFF THE RECORD for one minute and give you my assessment. I think the Soviet Union -- we approach these problems more analytically. They approach them more politically. They put them into a general, geopolitical context. And, therefore, where we would explicitly face the problem the way I have described, they will tend to start with a maximum or bargaining position and go back from the bargaining position to A, which is frankly the way we handled our negotiations until 1968.

So, it is not a criticism. Given this difference in perspective, or a difference in approach, I would have to say that within that framework that they will tend to state their maximum demand. Their maximum demands have not been to push us against the wall. They have been more sober and more serious in these negotiations than in any negotiations that I can recall and the issues they have raised with us, even when we disagreed, have not been frivolous issues. They are issues with serious people you would expect to raise.

Q One point ---

DR. KISSINGER: You can use any of this except my characterization of the Soviet approaches, political and ours as analytical. I just want to explain precisely what leads me to this.

Q You mentioned this geopolitical idea. Is it acceptable to this Administration for the Soviet Union to give the United States something in an area that is not within the field of offensive weapons, Middle East, Vietnam, et cetera, some other kind of linkage and still hope that you will provide them with ABM or must it be in terms of offensive and defensive weapons?

DR. KISSINGER: We started this Administration by using the word linkage.

I think if you will watch what is going on, there are nevertheless talks going on in Berlin, some contacts on the Middle East, and SALT, more or less simultaneously.

One reason we are interested in SALT is that we believe progress in one area helps progress in other areas.

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-9-

On the other hand, I think it would be a mistake to
try to get a quid pro quo for a strategic arms agreement in
some other area. I think that would be a mistake, because
that would say that you are willing to give up some physical
security for some political concessions that way. I think
that would set a bad example for other countries.

I think it is safe to say that whatever the ultimate
position is, that we will take in SALT, we will not take it
on the basis of trading a SALT agreement for a settlement
in Berlin or the Middle East or any other area.

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- 10 -

[1c]

On the other hand, I would not be surprised if without establishing a form of condition, if it transpires and if we make progress on SALT, that it would cast at least some of the other negotiations. We think that an agreement on strategic weapons, if it came to pass, would be such a major decision by both countries in which for the first time they have agreed to put some limit on the elements that affect their very survival through cooperation rather than unilateral decision that in many intangible ways, and perhaps even in some tangible ways, it is bound to affect their position on other issues.

Q What other issues? Berlin?

DR. KISSINGER: In a minimum. Let me put it negatively. If it would be found to affect the countries' decision of how close to a crisis they want to go on issues, because they would have to calculate in each case whether the crisis might jeopardize the restraints they have put on themselves in the field of strategic arms. So as a minimum, you could say that it probably would have a tendency to dampen down the willingness to have confrontation.

What help it will be on other issues, I don't really want to speculate on because we are not establishing a formal condition out of it. This is just a judgment that if one has been able to establish enough trust to make progress in that area, that some of the other areas ought to be more attractive. I don't want to predict.

Q Henry, on another matter relating to Russian military power, on page 40, you say that the Russians have attempted to expand their influence and military presence in the Caribbean. In light of the past statements here about this being under study and being viewed and being watched, this seems to be a conclusion, an assessment.

DR. KISSINGER: We are talking about 1970. This is a report about events that happened in 1970. This refers to the events of last summer when there was some concern about the Soviet bases in Cienfuegos or the potential of the Soviet bases in Cienfuegos. You will see

- 11 -

[lc]

some further reference to it in the chapter on the
Soviet Union further on in the document. There we
say that the understandings with respect to weapons
would seem to be in question were established with
the Soviet Union. Here there was just a cryptic reference.
You mentioned a cryptic reference in the Western
Hemisphere chapter, the one in the Soviet Union chapter
is a fuller statement of our view at the bottom of page 124.

Q Are you suggesting that the statement on
page 40 is not or was not a valid conclusion?

DR. KISSINGER: No, it was a valid conclusion.
It was just an incomplete statement of the case
with respect to where we stand now.

Q Are you saying there is not as much fear
now as there was about what kind of presence they
are going to establish there?

DR. KISSINGER: We believe that we have an
understanding with the Soviet Union about the limit
of their naval activities in the Caribbean. And we,
of course, believe that such an understanding would be
maintained, especially in the year in which we are
trying to push forward other major negotiations
with them.

Q Why do you say that the Soviet actions
in Cuba are not encouraging, page 126? It is the
third paragraph from the bottom.

DR. KISSINGER: This is the summary of the
chapter and of events of the year. By no stretch of
the imagination can you construe what the Soviet
Union did in Cuba in August and September of 1970
as a development that a country would have done if good
relations with the United States had been established
only
objective. And you would have among the total lists
of events of 1970 to say that the Cienfuegos episode
was on the negative side; that even though the understanding
was reestablished, and the fact that an understanding
had to be reestablished, was on the negative side of the
ledger.

-12-

[10]

K 3

Here on 126 we are simply summing up the
events of the year and we are stating the pluses and
the minuses that occurred.

Q You are not ready to say then, that the
Soviet Union, you are convinced, are being good boys?

DR. KISSINGER: No, we are saying that there are
factors of encouragement and factors that give concern,
that it is our policy to attempt to strengthen the positive
forces in our relationship and that we will work with
energy and goodwill to try to establish this relationship,
but not stupidly and not overlooking the factors that are
of profound concern to us and to our allies.

Q Henry, couldn't you say it is an encouraging
development when the Soviet Union tries probes, which
it is obviously going to do for the foreseeable future,
and when one is met with firmness make some kind of
a fairly explicit agreement not to continue that?

DR. KISSINGER: Yes, but you don't want to
say it is an encouragement. You don't want to establish
the principle that your progress is made by keeping
the Soviets from doing something they perhaps should
never have done to begin with.

We prefer to have a relationship in which the
frequency of the probes diminishes and in which both
sides respect the sensitivities of each other. It
is certainly more encouraging to have reestablished
the understanding than to have pushed towards whatever
conclusions would have been at the end of the road
of an operating naval base in Cienfuegos.

But you gentlemen can see what my colleagues
in the other Departments and I went through in trying
to write this report.

- 13 -

[c]

Q Henry, I believe I recall in a backgrounder that you gave us in San Clemente last year, turning to this hope for a negotiated peace in Southeast Asia, what seemed to be rather firm that any negotiating for a political settlement had to or must include Cambodia, Thailand, Laos as well as South Vietnam. The way I read your chapter on the subject here ending on page 71, it seems softer than a demand for an overall Indochina settlement and negotiation. Has there been a change about our feeling about our willingness to negotiate only South Vietnam.

DR. KISSINGER: Nothing is more boring than somebody who, when he is challenged, looks for a sentence that says, "If you had read that carefully, you would have considered now what I am practically engaged in."

So there has been no change in our policy that settlement in Vietnam has to include at least some element of a settlement in Laos and Cambodia.

What we said last year was that a cease-fire in Vietnam was hard to visualize unless it also included a cease-fire in Laos and Cambodia, because if you had a cease-fire in Vietnam and not a cease-fire in Cambodia and Laos, then the North Vietnamese forces would leave Vietnam, knock over the Governments in Laos and Cambodia and having accomplished that, establish their bases and come back into Vietnam.

On the other hand, we are in Paris negotiating with the North Vietnamese and negotiating with only them basically about Vietnam. So the degree of political future of Vietnam is obviously subject to negotiation in greater detail because of our greater involvement.

You have to keep in mind that when you talk about the military provisions of the settlement they would have to apply to Cambodia and Laos also.

In Cambodia you don't really have a challenge to the existing Government. You have Sihanouk sitting in Peking. But there is no real demonstration of any alternative political structure so that the North

Vietnamese have really totally failed in enlisting any
significant indigenous support in Cambodia.

[c]

So if you had a military settlement in Cambodia,
I think that would be almost the only settlement that
is needed.

In Laos, we have the existing 1962 agreement
which concerns the framework for a political settlement,
and therefore you have different conditions in those
two countries.

What we meant in the fall last year was really
that the October 7 speech, that the military provisions,
especially the cease-fire provisions, and the prisoner
of war provisions, had to apply to Cambodia and Laos also.

Q If I can go back to Soviet attitudes for
a minute. On Page 105 on the Middle East, you point out,
if I recall right, that the Soviets have insisted on
drawing up the borders on the Middle East and imposing
them upon the parties. Can you bring us up to date? Are
they still insisting on that or are they showing signs
of conciliatory attitudes that the President referred
to in his news conference?

DR. KISSINGER: The President, in his news
conference, as I understand it, was not referring to
the Soviet Union. He was referring to the Egyptian
reply to Jarring ---

Q Excuse me. I meant the one before where
he said you couldn't have peace unless the Soviet Union
showed conciliatory attitudes in the Middle East.

DR. KISSINGER: This section deals with the U. S.
Soviet negotiations. And the U. S.-Soviet negotiations,
as this section points out, more or less, the direct
two-power ones, stopped last June and were superseded
by the direct American overture which attempted to
substitute for it the negotiations of Jarring of Israel
and the United Arab Republic.

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[d]

Up to this moment, the Soviet Union has not had an opportunity really to express itself on any new position they may have taken on new frontiers. They have shown some willingness in the four powers to talk about guarantees. But I cannot really give you a fair reading of what the Soviet position will be on how one should proceed, because events have really a little bit outstretched. These two powers talks were designed to see whether a framework could be established which would in time permit Jarring to start his mission again.

Since Jarring is again on his mission, the original premises for this negotiation are no longer so valid and, therefore, if they were to be resumed they would have to be a slightly different context and one would have to test Soviet conciliatory attitudes.

Q Why is it so important for the big four now to be engaged in supplementary guarantees when the parties themselves do not know the details of the agreement and perhaps are not even close to it?

DR. KISSINGER: Because whatever security Israel believes it gains through its continued presence in the occupied territory would obviously be diminished, if you look only in security terms, by a withdrawal to whatever will finally be agreed upon. And it has been believed that to some extent this sense of security could be enhanced by establishing and making clear in advance what guarantees the four powers or whatever other grouping of powers might be prepared to give.

It is an effort to ease the Israeli problem of withdrawal and thereby to push that element of negotiations forward.

Q Couldn't it be seen more as just the other side, that it just eases Egypt's major problem about getting the Israelis to withdraw? It is not so much an Israeli problem as it is an Egyptian problem if the Israelis occupy their territory.

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[LC]

1

DR. KISSINGER: Yes, but the Israelis are the ones that will have to do the withdrawing, if there is to be withdrawing, and, therefore, they will be the beneficiaries of the guarantees, if the guarantees, indeed, turn out to be useful.

Q Aren't they actually engaged in the specifics of guarantees at this point?

DR. KISSINGER: The four power forum has not in the past been noted for the rapidity of its deliberations. So, they have not reached that precise point yet. But they are moving in that direction.

Q Henry, I would like to ask you a general question that is not necessarily based on the report, but it has been bothering me for a year now.

This goes back to the rather unique optimism that you showed in San Clemente over a year ago and repeated it at various times in the 1969-70 percent and even into, and including some of the early months of this past year, that the North Vietnamese were on the verge of making some kind of concession.

I am not trying to quote your words. But the impression that you conveyed to me was that you believed at several times in the past two years that we were ready for a breakthrough, and you were quite enthusiastic about that at one particular briefing I recall in San Clemente when a number of us were quite skeptical about it. That breakthrough has not come.

DR. KISSINGER: Within the limits of my temperament.

Q All right, granted that your temperament may have changed.

DR. KISSINGER: No, I mean enthusiasm is not the most ---

It is a fair statement.

Q You gave me the impression that you really thought we were about to get some kind of a deal or movement toward a deal in Paris. That has never materialized.

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[lc]

Sihanouk's overthrow created an enormous fluidity in the situation, and indeed, Le Doc Tao left Paris fairly shortly afterwards, again well before the American move into Cambodia.

Then our moves into Cambodia were, as we explained in this report, essential, but then later on in that year, maybe the situation that exists now is that the North Vietnamese -- I am really just speculating -- are so weak on the ground in Vietnam that they cannot accept a settlement that in the past would have given them at least a reasonable crack at political power, such as a cease fire, because they might just control enough to give them a good operating base.

And, therefore, they are not asking for something we absolutely cannot give them, namely, that we hand over the government to them.

If they are too weak to get it in a fair political contest, and if they demand that we hand it over to them, then we are in a hell of a negotiating spot and I am just trying to explain why it is.

This can lead in two directions. It can lead to an endless stalemate in the negotiations or it might lead to a more limited negotiation which doesn't attempt to achieve a comprehensive settlement. But I just want to be responsive to your question of why at some point I seem more optimistic than later events bore out.

Of course, the third possibility is that I was just plain wrong. But we won't entertain that. (Laughter).

Q Do you think there is a possibility that the Nixon Administration is somewhat like the past one, has under-estimated the enemy?

DR. KISSINGER: No. Well, you know, the trouble you people have when you interview Administration officials, and I know this is going to be the case with our successors, too, obviously the decisions you make seem to you like the best possible decisions or you wouldn't have made them.

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Obviously you are consciously critical. So you ask a critical question and you get some tired bureaucrat explaining to you why what we did was the best possible thing. It is in the nature of the confrontation between officials and newsmen, it is an insoluble problem.

We obviously don't believe we have underestimated them, but that doesn't prove that we are right.

They have a number of problems. For example, Ho Chi Minh's death, the fact that they now have a collective leadership, the fact that this collective leadership has no experience with the West, the fact that it becomes tougher for them to settle things, the fact that they cannot go to an international conference where they would have more trouble navigating between their allies than they would have coming to grips with us.

In 1954 they could go to an international conference. They can't broaden the base of the negotiations, which would be one good way of getting out of the stalemate in Paris, but in a broader negotiation, Hanoi would have the nightmare of how to position themselves between Moscow and Peking and not be undercut by both, which would be an unbelievable challenge for them.

So, all of these factors combine to produce the deadlock which we now confront. In all of these issues, again, let me speak personally, if we make it in Vietnam, everyone is going to say we were great geniuses. If the thing collapses everybody is going to say they were total idiots and they had known it all along.

The fact of the matter is that 90 percent of the decisions we have to make on this are 52-48 type of decisions in which the margin is fairly close and we prayerfully make the best decision which we think we can make, but once it is made, whether it is done with 52 percent certainty or whatever, it is a 100 percent decision. That is what you are up against.

Q. How would you measure the Laos operation, 52-48 also?

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DR. KISSINGER: The decision to go into it or the way it is going to come out?

Q The decision to go into it.

DR. KISSINGER: It was a close decision, 52-48, 55-45. You know, don't cite that. It was a close, tough decision, which was very hard to make.

Q Is that operation going to significantly shape our policy in that area, one way or the other?

DR. KISSINGER: Could I do this about Laos? I assumed that some of you might want to ask questions about Laos. Could we do all the questions about the report, first, and then have 10 minutes on Laos afterwards or five minutes on Laos afterwards?

To answer your question, yes. It depends on how it comes out. But you can conceive how it will significantly affect our policy one way or the other.

Q Henry, this is about the document, but it is a little bit peripheral.

Could you give us an inkling of what your assumptions are in terms of how the party on the 31st of March is going to affect the Moscow-Washington relations in general and how it may affect SALT in particular?

DR. KISSINGER: We have had the bureaucracy look at this question. I have had groups of scholars come in and ask almost the very question you have put to me. You can really get too diametrically opposite schools of thought. You can get one school of thought that says nothing of any significance is going to happen before March 31 and all that is for two reasons: One, they are so busy positioning themselves for March 31 that they just don't have the time to address it; and secondly, that only the new leadership, even if it is the old leadership reconfirmed, but the new leadership that emerges out of this Congress will have sufficient authority to make a major decision. That is one school of thought.

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[10]

You have another school of thought that equally convincingly argues that whoever is maneuvering, if indeed anyone is maneuvering, will want to have some progress to put forward at the party Congress and therefore, we will want to show something for their foreign policy.

So, you can really choose. We are acting as if the second possibility were open.

That is, if the second theory is indeed valid, we will be prepared for it. But it is inconclusive. The timing would seem to indicate that since the SALT negotiations don't resume until March 16, since the party Congress follows shortly thereafter, it would not be probable that there would be a great breakthrough before the beginning of the party Congress.

Again, this is purely speculation. On that sort of a question, incidentally, the information available to the government is to all practical purposes not one bit better than the information available to you.

Q Dr. Kissinger, has the league leader having retired the cup of laziness, I wonder if I might ask you what is new in this document. What are we likely to overlook in the way of a news story? I understand it is basically a reference manual and therefore it has considerable value.

I know from past experience, basically last year, that there is the danger of overlooking something that is new in this.

DR. KISSINGER: Dan, the thing we really attempted to do, the people who spend really much of their last two months on this report who are scattered around the corners of this room making sure that I am not betraying their handiwork, if you see some of these characters sitting in the rear of the room who were up all night for several weeks, the reason they all worked so hard on it and believed that what they did was important wasn't because they wanted to get a great news story out of this, but because they really believe, as we all believe, that to put before the American people why their government is doing what it is doing and the general philosophy that it was acting and hopefully eliciting the sense that there is some coherence and some mission in what they are doing, was in itself a worthwhile enterprise.

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[lc]

No government has done this before we attempted it last year, of putting its whole conceptual approach to policy before its public.

So, I wouldn't really justify what is in here on the ground that there are 10 great new departures. It isn't that sort of a document. This isn't the vehicle for it.

Some of the questions, some of the things you have to get in tone. I think that Bart's first question about China got to the heart of an issue. I think our tone towards the Soviet Union attempts to be *both* hopeful and realistic. Our whole approach in which we are really calling on other nations to build with us on a structural piece so that the important thing isn't that we are handing out the design, but that any piece, to be lasting, they have to feel it is partly their own.

I know you won't lead for 10 minutes on your program with that sort of thing, because that isn't what it attempts to be. And frankly, this was a question which I knew I was going to be asked and I know I could have gotten ten points written down towards which I could have steered you.

I have deliberately -- I am sure there is in every chapter an emphasis point that would be useful.

So, it is not a very satisfactory answer. I think the significance of this is not that there is one hot, overwhelming news story.

Q You have got contradiction here, Henry, if I may label it a little bit just for clarification purposes. I think I understand your motive of putting out a document that delineates Administration policy and Administration analysis about the world, but the fact is unfortunately that you have got to depend on yokels like us to get it to the public. We can't do it in 10 minutes or sometimes 90 second capsules.

My only question is, given that, the need for a platform to stand on, why did you have to make it so damned long? Who outside of the present company, who is going to read it?

Q What is the purpose?

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[lc]

DR. KISSINGER: It is a damned good question. On the other hand, maybe we should have made a summary of it. The President, of course, is going to present it and his speech is going to hit the highlights as he sees it.

And, therefore, we made it as long as we thought -- we didn't set out to make it any particular length. In fact, we set out to make it as short as possible. There is a certain minimum amount of repetition which is imposed by the nature of a Presidential document; that is to say, we have a pretty sure idea that the Latin American Ambassadors or the Ambassador in any one area of the world are just going to read their section.

Therefore, if we put something theoretically in one section, and if it isn't in the other, then somebody holes it and says, "Why didn't you have it in mine?" And you say, "You should have read the chapter on Europe." They say that just proves what we have always said to begin with, you have stuck it all in the other fellow's region.

So, there is a repetition made necessary by the fact of each geographical area.

But from your point of view, I think it is a fair point. We were torn between comprehensiveness.

MR. KLEIN: Let me add one point to it. I think you are underestimating who reads it. Actually last year, we got a major demand for copies of it and Norman Brooks published it on the news stand. I think Harper and Row is going to do it this year. So, it does form a document of record. I think that is a key thing.

Q I would like to follow up, if I may. Did I understand that basically it is a document in which you try to put across the concept, your tone, your philosophy. Is there any area in which you have a feeling maybe we have overlooked a change in tone, concept, philosophy or breaking new ground in that same context. You mentioned China.

DR. KISSINGER: I know none of you overlooked the Arms Control section, because I haven't been able to open a paper for the last few days without getting my attention called ot it. We think what we say, obviously, you will all read the Indochina section which will become part of the general debate.

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[LC]

The Nixon Doctrine we attempt to spell out in the most comprehensive way it has up to now been done, how we see that.

I would hate to single out any -- of course, we attach considerable importance to the Europe chapter.

Q. You talked earlier about the tone that is supposed to eminate from the document. Last year, you treated this phrase the era of negotiations much more extensively than you do this year. Does that signal that you have a less attitude about the inception of this era?

DR. KISSINGER: No. I think if you compare last year's report with this year's report, you will find that last year's report was somewhat more oratory and somewhat more declaratory, while this year's report tries -- we have another year of experience behind us.

I think in terms of the amount of space that is actually devoted to negotiations, you will find that in the Vietnam chapter, the Soviet Union chapter, the things we actually say about Communist China, we spend a lot more time on it; a lot more space on it.

On the other hand, last year it was enough for a new President accounting for the first year of his term just to indicate where he was going to go. This year we had to explain how this had to be applied in complex circumstances.

So, I think you would probably find, if you read it, that we call less for negotiations in the abstract and describe much more how they should be conducted. Last year, I think we had three pages on arms control. This year, we have 12 or 13.

And you will find that throughout, two or three pages on the Soviet Union. This year we have been much more explicit about Communist China. We give much more space even in the Vietnam section on the negotiations. We don't think an Administration that has been in office for two years has the right to tell the American public we believe in negotiations. It must do that. But it also must explain how it is going to conduct its negotiations and to what purpose.

This is the difference between last year.

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Q Henry, on the matter of news value and tone, do you think it is fair to infer that this document has more harshness towards the Soviet Union than last year's.

DR. KISSINGER: I think to the contrary.

Q Running throughout there are the references to the Caribbean, Middle East, Berlin.

DR. KISSINGER: Wait a minute. Berlin we put in the context of a negotiation that we are pushing. I think if you look at -- when you say throughout, I say Caribbean and so forth, the Middle East -- we list things almost inevitably as qualifying to a positive statement of where we want to go. And my view would be, I haven't read last year's now, well, I glanced through it as we were doing this just to make sure.

I don't doubt that you can find a sentence here that is harsh towards the Soviet Union. But I think the overall impression, at least the intention is, we may have missed it, to say we have now been at it for two years. We have got pluses and minuses. Now, let's be serious in a number of areas.

Q On the Berlin situation, are the four power talks getting anywhere?

DR. KISSINGER: The four power talks, it is an extraordinarily complex topic with legalistic, historical and political aspects in which the Soviet Union is constrained by its relationship with the East Germans and we constantly have certain problems produced by the West German domestic situation.

I think the four power talks will require patience, but they are moving forward, not in any spectacular way, but in a way that gives us some hope.

MR. ZIEGLER: Henry, I think we are running out of time.

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[d]

Q There is an intriguing speculation, I think, as far as I am concerned, the most clearly put out by Stewart Alsop's column in last week's Newsweek: to the effect that no matter what happens in Laos we are almost obligated to quicken our withdrawal, the theory being that if the South Vietnamese are successful, this proves that they can handle Vietnamization and therefore, we can withdraw more quickly; if they don't, we are just going to have to cut losses and get out anyway.

Would you respond?

DR. KISSINGER: The question is more quickly than what? The only withdrawals we have announced are until May 1. While we have a schedule, we haven't for many reasons announced the schedule.

I would say this: That if the operation succeeds, as we believe it will, then it will certainly ease the decisions one wants to make with respect to withdrawal.

If it should fail very badly, that is important also. But I don't want to speculate about this particular rate of withdrawal, because our success will be whether we can achieve what we set out to do, which is to withdraw within a reasonable time period without turning the country over to the communists in the process.

The possibility for that will, in our view, be enhanced by what is now going on in Laos.

Q Can you say how much the enemy is getting his supplies now and when we are going to have to sift?

Q Since this is separate, is it necessary to have this embargoed?

MR. ZIEGLER: You can put this Laotian thing in, with the same ground rules. You can use this now.

Q The question was what is the enemy getting through now and when would that have to be cut off, whatever it is, in order to deprive them of the next year?

DR. KISSINGER: What the enemy is getting through - incidentally, I understand that Secretary Laird had a very extensive press conference today in which he went into many of these aspects. I frankly haven't seen the text of it yet.

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[lc]

Q. I haven't either.

DR. KISSINGER: But our source of information for what gets through varies and we obviously can detail them. But almost all of them are several days behind what goes on at any one moment. So it is quite possible, for example, that a MACV report will speak of a road being cut and then an intelligence report will speak of trucks passing on that road and both could be true. They could both be true for two reasons: One, that the intelligence reports are several days old; and, secondly, that the trucks may be on that road north or south of the roadblock but are not part of the true traffic.

So for all of these reasons, it is very hard to give you an absolute. I don't believe we will ever be able to say with confidence that all the through traffic has been stopped.

On the other hand, if you look at the roads they have been using and the roads that have been cut and the greater concentration, it permits the air effort on whatever is still open, and on the fact that a great deal of the ammunitions and supplies in the pipeline have had to be diverted to sustain the battle north of Route 9, and the fact that caches of supplies have been picked up in the battle area which are not insignificant. They are not of Cambodian dimensions, but they were there to sustain the logistics effort, but still something like 700,000 pounds of rice, I don't know the exact figure, I think it is about 670,000, large quantities of petroleum and the pipeline cut. So we can say already that there has been a significant interruption of the traffic.

But whether we can ever express it in tonnage, that I would find very hard to say. But we do know from aerial photography that a lot of stuff is stacked up north in the passes and, therefore, all we can say is that there is a significant disruption of their supply system.

I don't want to get into the game of saying how much it has been, when we will be able to shut it all off.

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[L]

Q The whole strategy is predicated on the idea of depriving them of the ability to hit later?

DR. KISSINGER: Supposing we cut this road in half, supposing only half of the stuff gets through, then what conclusion do you draw from that?

Q Don't you have a conclusion, an assessment as to whether that would be enough?

DR. KISSINGER: It is too early for us to tell you how much is getting through, because the way we pick up what actually gets through, this we won't be able to tell for several weeks whether it gets to the other end of the line.

Q Henry, has your original objective for this mission changed; from the very beginning, that the South Vietnamese would go into Laos about 50 miles?

DR. KISSINGER: I saw that figure of 50 miles.

Q We got that at the Pentagon. It was not just invented. Has that changed or were they talking one way without White House permission?

DR. KISSINGER: You know that couldn't happen in this Government.

Q Of course. (Laughter.) What then happened?

DR. KISSINGER: Frankly, the first time I have ever heard of the 30 mile limit was on the John Chancellor Show yesterday. When I got a call from some of my colleagues who said, "Goddamn it, where is 50 miles?" I looked where 50 miles would take us. It would take us practically to the Thai border. In fact, it would take us to the Thai border. It is a very ambitious plan. I can't say that some Colonel in the Pentagon didn't have it, or maybe somebody higher, but we never saw that. The plan that was presented to us and that we think we are acting on calls for the disruption of the enemy lines of communication. I don't know whether I talked to any of you the day the operation started. Did I talk to you, Dan?

Q Yes.

DR. KISSINGER: I don't think I ever said anything else. There is a lot of talk, for example, about Tchepone. If you look at a map, you will see that every road that goes through Tchepone can be cut and some of them are being cut south of Tchepone. So there is no particular magic in being in Tchepone. Tchepone isn't anything. There is no population there. It is a ghost town. Its only significance is a road junction. So that the test of this thing is not where you are 50 miles -- 50 miles, I have never heard the 50-mile one until today. So the test is not how deep it is. The test is whether there is a significant interruption or disruption of the southward flow of supplies.

You will see if you look at a map that all of the motorable roads lie between Route 23 and the South Vietnamese frontier. Route 23 is something like 30 miles in and it is one that has not been used very much. It only goes through open country. It doesn't have east-west roads leading into Vietnam until you get deep into Cambodia. So it isn't a good road for them.

The others are either being disrupted or jeopardized by this advance. Whether it gets to one particular place along Route 9 or whether they go around from the south, and certainly the tactics have to be adjusted to where the enemy resistance is. But in terms of the fundamental strategic objective, there has been no change in the objectives since the operation started.

Q Is it the intention to have South Vietnamese ground troops go to 23?

DR. KISSINGER: All of these things have to be seen in relation of how important it is to interrupt traffic on 23, what price you are paying for it. 23 is the relatively least important route because it is the one going through open country. It is the easiest to interdict from the air. It is the one that has the least use, has no real way stations on it. Whether they eventually will go there or not, the plan was not that specific.

If it were, I wouldn't tell you anyway.
(Laughter.)

As of this moment, it is an area in which the enemy resistance is more intense than it has been anywhere else that the South Vietnamese have fallen. But that illustrates the importance of the area.

It has not stopped the interruption of the road traffic, but it is a very complex logistics system. Some of it was in the pipeline, some of the traffic is either north or south, no doubt they are moving some stuff on bicycles and on the backs of people around checkpoints. No doubt there are some bypasses in these jungles. But it is also unrealistic.

I remember at the end of the Cambodian operation some newsmen were telling me they had information that only 30 percent of the supplies were picked up. It is always hard to answer that sort of question because you never can prove what didn't happen.

That didn't turn out to be true. I don't know if 100 percent was picked up, but it is obvious that it was significant.

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[L]

Q I am really taking you out of the
Laos-Cambodia thing, but the growing apprehension among
the Asian nations on the technological advances and
exploitations with Japan, does this herald good
or bad with the Nixon Doctrine, has it affected it one
way or another so far?

DR. KISSINGER: That is a very important question.

Q I wanted to ask you three weeks ago, but I
couldn't get to you. (Laughter).

DR. KISSINGER: It is an important question.
Ideally what we would hope is that the Asian nations,
including Japan, will substitute to some extent
for our own efforts. On the other hand, of course, to the
extent that other countries are particularly afraid of
Japan, this is not going to look like it is one reason
why we have to keep a role in Asia.

I would say it is a complicated factor, but it is
one of the reasons why we want to stay close with Japan so that
Japan doesn't operate in the area on a strictly nationalistic
basis, nor do they want to operate on strictly a nationalistic
basis.

Also, of course, the other nations.

It is an important question.

THE PRESS: Thank you very much.

END

(AT 3:55 P.M. EST)

[10]

This Copy For

BACKGROUND BRIEFING

## CONTENT OF THIS BRIEFING IS STRICTLY EMBARGOED UNTIL 11:00 A.M., EST FEBRUARY 25, 1971. IT MAY BE ATTRIBUTED TO ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS. DIRECT QUOTATION IS NOT PERMITTED.

AT THE WHITE HOUSE

AT 4:25 P.M. EST

FEBRUARY 24, 1971

WEDNESDAY

MR. ZIEGLER: I am sorry we are a little late. The President has just completed work on his radio address for tomorrow. That is why Dr. Kissinger was detained.

The ground rules for this backgrounder are you can attribute what Dr. Kissinger says to White House officials and no direct quotation.

The material contained in today's backgrounder, of course, is embargoed until the Foreign Policy Message is released tomorrow. We have a new time on that. This is the third new time and the final time. The embargo for the release of the Foreign Policy Message tomorrow is 11 a.m. Eastern time. So, we have moved it from 12 until 11 a.m.

That is the only change in the embargo.

With that, I give you Dr. Kissinger.

DR. KISSINGER: I will take questions.

Q Dr. Kissinger, in the report you place troop strength in Laos at 90,000 and the strength in the panhandle at 60,000. I think at the time of the incursion two weeks ago they placed total strength at 70,000 and the panhandle strength at 45,000, troop strength in Laos.

DR. KISSINGER: All I can say is that these are figures we received from the Departments and that were checked in the Departments. There is no independent White House facility for determining the size of the forces.

Q Are these supposed to be as of now or as of December 31?

DR. KISSINGER: To tell you the truth, I can't answer that satisfactorily. These were the figures we were given as reflecting, I suppose, the forces now. If you use them other than quoting from the document, and if you have any question about it, I think you should check in the Defense Department. I will check again from the sources and make sure as of what date the figures were given.

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Q Doctor, if you were in our position and had to deal with this report, how would you handle it? Would you tick off the six most important things in it so far as you are concerned?

DR. KISSINGER: What I would do is I would print the whole thing. (Laughter).

Q What would be your lead? (Laughter).

Q Are you finished answering that question? I have got one, Doctor.

DR. KISSINGER: If you get us out of Vietnam, I will write your lead. (Laughter).

What the report attempts to do is to put before the public and before other governments the basis for the actions of this Administration, why it does what it is doing, how it views the changes in the world, what it believes to be America's role in the world under present circumstances, what it takes to be the essential elements of how to build a peaceful world, and then to relate these philosophical views to a number of concrete areas and to show where we have gotten in the last three years and where we tend to go. This is a brief summary of what it intends to do.

We can give you specific points about individual areas. But if you want to have the main theme of the report, this is it.

In addition, one of the reasons why the President has taken such an intense interest in this document, and why so many people have spent so much time on it is because we believe that to the extent that foreign policy has been a divisive issue in our society, it is important for the people to understand where their government is going so that even if they don't agree with everything that is being done, as they obviously will not and cannot be expected to, they at least have the assurance that the decisions are taken seriously and hopefully in a direction with which they can agree, even if they don't agree with all the tactics.

Q Doctor, some of the critics of the Indochina policy are saying that the Administration has no plan for total unilateral withdrawal from Vietnam, that its only plan is partial unilateral withdrawal and a residual force kept there indefinitely.

Can you tell us whether these critics are right in what the end goal of the policy is?

DR. KISSINGER: The goal of the Administration is to enable the South Vietnamese to stand on their own feet and to withdraw American forces from Vietnam without turning the country over to the other side.

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I know, and we are aware of the fact, that the ability
to do this is being questioned by many serious individuals.

We also recognize that we will be judged by our
performance and not by anything that we said. We believe that
we can achieve these objectives.

The President has repeatedly stated, however, that
as long as there are American prisoners in North Vietnam,
regardless of the ability of the South Vietnamese to defend
themselves, we will not abandon these prisoners.

But our objective is the withdrawal of American forces.

Q Doctor, would it be wrong to characterize these
sections on the Soviet Union as being somewhat pessimistic
as well as a warning to the Soviet Union?

DR. KISSINGER: No. I think that would be wrong.
What we did in last year's report was simply to affirm in
general the desirability of negotiations. We believe that at
the end of the second year of an Administration it isn't
proper anymore simply to talk about the desirability of
negotiations in the abstract, and, therefore, we try to draw
up as fair a balance, Pete, as we could. We tried to list the
factors that make for negotiations and the factors that have
in the past represented obstacles to negotiations.

We attempted, and, of course, one can't judge how
successful one has been, but our intention was to convey that
we will approach negotiations with the Soviet Union with great
seriousness, with the profound conviction that on our ability
to regulate our relationships will depend the future peace
of the world, compared to which many of the tactical disputes
are really in historical perspective relatively trivial.

But we wanted to do this in a serious way and not
simply in an abstract sentimental way and therefore, we felt
that any fair statement to the American people and to the Soviet
Union had to lay out also the obstacles that have in the
past, and especially in the past year, been an obstacle.

In addition, though, if you look at the specific
subjects of negotiation that we are listing in other chapters,
such as the SALT discussion in the Arms Control section, and
such as the Berlin section in the Europe section, we are
optimistic with respect to both of those in the realistic way.
But we are trying to convey to the Soviet Union that we are
prepared to make a serious effort to have serious settlements
and we do not believe that it is necessary to issue warnings.

But when we drew up the balance sheet, we had to
give the negatives as well as the positives.

Q Dr. Kissinger, you are saying, in other words,
it is not a warning, but a bridge perhaps for renewed
negotiations. Can it be interpreted that way?

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DR. KISSINGER: I think it is an invitation to the
Soviet Union to seek to look with us at the problems of the
future and among those, the problem, the overwhelming
problem, of assuring a stable and just peace.

Q Doctor, I notice in the section on China that
it is stated that the United States is prepared to see the
People's Republic of China play a constructive role in the
family of nations. I gather that means the United Nations.
And the development of relations with Peking is the big
challenge of this decade.

What is the government doing organizationally and
procedurally to bring this about?

DR. KISSINGER: As we indicated some weeks ago,
we are now engaged in a review of one existing restrictions with
respect to trade and travel towards Communist China to see what
further steps can be taken to indicate our willingness to
move in the direction indicated in this report.

And we will have recommendations for the President
on this within the next few weeks. Also, we are reviewing
within the government, as has been also pointed out, the position
to be taken at the United Nation session coming up.

But the particular tactics at any one U.N. session
are not as important as the general direction that is being
indicated here which represents the agreed policy of the
United States Government.

Q Does that represent a new Red China policy?

DR. KISSINGER: It represents our China policy. I
don't want to give it any particular adjective.

Q With regard to the Soviets, you say "Events
in Cuba are not encouraging." What specifically do you mean?

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DR. KISSINGER: One of the problems with writing a report like this is that different events are covered in different contexts and receive elliptical references in different contexts.

This particular sentence to which you refer is in a balance sheet of good things and bad things that happened last year. And in that connection, the attempt by the Soviet Union, or whatever it was, the activities of the Soviet Union in Cienfuegos were not considered to be constructive contributions to the easing of relationships.

On the other hand, we have also pointed out in another section of the report, on page 125, that after some period of discussion with the Soviet Union these understandings with respect to the deployment of offensive weapons were applied also to sea-based systems and that, therefore, we listed this as, in that context, one of the mitigating factors; in fact, as a way by which this particular period of difficulty could be overcome.

Q Dr. Kissinger, to get back on this China section dealing with the United Nations, you are saying in there, on page 84, third paragraph, you say, we will continue to oppose efforts to deprive the Republic of China of its place as a member of the UN and its Specialized Agencies. You are not in that section, then, ruling out the possibility of the seating of the Peoples Republic of China, you are making clear that we are resisting any effort to expel Nationalist China. Is that it?

DR. KISSINGER: That is how I would read those sentences.

Q Isn't that inconsistent, though? You lay down a general philosophy, you say you want to end the insulation of China from outside realities, and at the same time you keep the position of keeping them out of the UN.

DR. KISSINGER: That isn't how I would have interpreted this particular sequence of sentences. But I think the meaning of the sentences is fairly clear, and I don't think I need to elaborate on them very explicitly.

Q Dr. Kissinger, you mentioned the guarantees for investments in Romania and Yugoslavia. I wonder if you could elaborate a little bit on that, what kind of guarantees you would give American businessmen going into those countries?

DR. KISSINGER: This referred to making them eligible for the OPIC guarantees, which is, I believe, now being done.

Q Dr. Kissinger, on page 70, you say even if Hanoi were to negotiate genuinely about Vietnam difficult issues remain concerning its neighbors. You talk about the removal of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops. Is this saying that the withdrawal of North Vietnamese from South Vietnam is not only negotiable, but there must be mutual withdrawal of North Vietnamese troops from Cambodia and Laos as well?

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DR. KISSINGER: This statement explicitly reaffirms
the President's October 7 speech which calls for the withdrawal
of North Vietnamese forces also Laos and Cambodia.

But it would be difficult to see how one can
have a permanent peace in Indochina without the removal
of North Vietnamese forces from Cambodia, at least from
the areas adjoining South Vietnam.

Q Is that now going to be a negotiable issue
in Paris?

DR. KISSINGER: This states one of the problems.
In Paris we have not up to now negotiated the issues
of Cambodia and Laos. But it is one of the problems
that any realistic assessment of peace in Indochina
will have to face.

Q Dr. Kissinger, on page 27 you speak of
Soviet policy being directed at offering relaxation of
tensions selectively with some allies. On page 28, you
caution against individual approaches to the east in the
absence of, I gather, a consensus of allies; and yet on
page 27 you also apparently approve of the treaties the
West German Government has reached with the eastern
countries. Could you tell us what you are concerned
about in this area?

DR. KISSINGER: One of the characteristics of
the diplomacy of the year 1970 was that many of the
European allies, including many of the NATO countries,
including ourselves, were engaged in bilateral conversations
with the Soviet Union. This involves a delicate problem.

On the one hand, we attempted to convey in this
document our readiness and our belief that these negotiations
can contribute to a genuine relaxation of tensions.

On the other hand, they can do so only if each of
the allies engaged in it is aware of the fact that allied
unity is also an important factor, that indeed made
it possible to reach a point where these negotiations could
safely be conducted.

So each ally has to find the line between
emphasizing purely national concerns and,
at the same time, to balance its national concerns
with the interests of the unity of the West.

One cannot lay down hard and fast rules. And
we specifically said we are not referring to anything that
has as yet happened. We are pointing out that it is
inherent in this diplomacy that it could happen. We are
also pointing out that we are applying that restriction
to oursel. We have been meticulous in our SALT
negotiations, for example, to keep our European allies
carefully informed of every move, both before and during
the negotiations, and to have had fuller consultations
on that issue than has ever been the case on any other
disarmament issue.

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And we have also found that our German allies, for example, have been very meticulous in consulting with us. We were expressing here a general philosophy of how to conduct bilateral diplomacy and allied diplomacy simultaneously without having one used to stifle the other or one used to wreck the other.

Q On page 70 of this report, you say, referring to Laos and Cambodia, that enemy intentions and capabilities in Indochina will pose some hard choices about the deployment of allied troops as we pursue our own withdrawals. Taking that statement and comparing it with a statement on page 61 in which you say that despite heavy losses the North Vietnamese have the capability to continue fighting and pose a considerable threat, are you hinting that it might be necessary to use American troops either in Laos or in Cambodia?

DR. KISSINGER: No. No American troops will be used in Laos or Cambodia.

Q What hard choices are you referring to?

DR. KISSINGER: The problem will be partly for the South Vietnamese and partly for what the North Vietnamese will be able to do in these countries that will affect South Vietnam. But we are not considering using American ground forces in Cambodia or Laos.

Q Dr. Kissinger, I would like to follow up on this same general area that is talked about on page 70. In contrast to last year's message, I believe this year's message places far greater emphasis on the problems in Laos and Cambodia as it concerns the U. S. withdrawal effort and also this year's report does make notice of the fact that it leaves open the possibility that the enemy may eventually be able to regain the initiative in the fighting in South Vietnam.

Is this to say that we are no closer and perhaps farther away from our disengagement effort than we were a year ago?

DR. KISSINGER: I don't know how you drew this conclusion from this chapter. We are convinced, since we have withdrawn about 200,000 troops since the last report was made, we are by definition closer to our disengagement than we were before.

We believe that we have made enormous strides in the last year.

On the other hand, we have tried to prepare this document in such a way that we took account of some of the problems that continue to exist and some of the things that could conceivably go wrong.

But the conviction of this Administration is that we have made enormous strides in the last year, that if this progress can be continued and accelerated, we will make even greater strides during the next year.

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Q Let me phrase it this way, then: Concerning the goal of total disengagement, are the obstacles now greater, as far as total disengagement goes, than they were a year ago, now that we have talked about Laos and Cambodia in this country?

DR. KISSINGER: The military situation, even including Laos and Cambodia, is considerably improved over the military situation that existed last year.

So last year, Cambodia was a neutral country. Prince Sihanouk was still in office and, therefore, the need to address Cambodia as a separate problem did not exist. This is the reason why obviously much more emphasis had to be given to Cambodia this year, since it involved so much of our effort.

But our total assessment is that very great progress has been made in the last year. The statistics of the casualties, the statistics of population control, and the independent assessment of the situation that cannot be reflected in statistics all indicate this.

Our general policy is to try to do more than we claim and not to make wildly optimistic assessments that we will not be able to back up. This may account for some of the qualifications.

Q Dr. Kissinger, on page 57, you list the positive results of the Cambodian operations of last May. Do you not consider that there were any negative results of these operations and are they covered in here anywhere?

DR. KISSINGER: Obviously, for every action you take in foreign policy you pay a certain price. We do not believe that within Indochina there were any negative results; that is, we cannot find anything that would be better in Indochina if we had not done the action than is the case if we did the action.

Obviously, anyone who went through the experience of last May and June has to consider the domestic uneasiness that was triggered by these actions as a very painful experience.

The choice that we confronted was whether -- first, this would not have occurred in any event if the foreseeable consequences of inaction had taken place; namely, a consolidation of Cambodia into one vast sanctuary from which then the enemy would have dispersed into Vietnam and our casualties had continued at the pre-Cambodia level of above 100 a week -- that is what it was in the two months before -- with the predictable consequences.

So no one is pretending that there were not painful costs. But the conviction of the Administration is that the costs were necessary, that the costs were largely domestic, and that they were made necessary by the situation we confronted.

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Q Dr. Kissinger, assuming there is no settlement in Paris, is the decision to keep a residual number of troops in South Vietnam conditioned wholly to release of the prisoners of war or are there other considerations which will still remain a political settlement, a mutual withdrawal?

DR. KISSINGER: We would prefer to let our actions on the withdrawal speak for themselves. And the President has stated in the press conference last week some general principles with respect to our withdrawal policy. We have made this clear. We are continuing our withdrawals even while there are operations going on in Laos. We have made clear that we will make other withdrawal announcements towards the end of the period that is now provided for, and we will make announcements from time to time as we reach certain points.

But certainly one of the factors that affects the residual forces is the fate of the prisoners.

Q Dr. Kissinger, does this statement deal with the apparent Laotian incursion?

DR. KISSINGER: No, it does not cover it explicitly, because this is a report for events in the calendar year 1970.

Q Dr. Kissinger, the warning on the bottom of page 29 on Berlin that access procedures will not necessarily prevent administrative harassment might create the impression that you are viewing agreement on Berlin with a grain of salt. Would that be a correct conclusion or what is the true value of the Berlin statement?

DR. KISSINGER: Incidentally, I am assuming that when you ladies and gentlemen are saying "you" you mean the whole Administration. Because this is a document that was jointly worked at and, as I read in the papers, actively contested by all of the Departments.

This statement simply refers to a fact of life. The fact of life is that no matter what the agreement, the future of Berlin will be affected by the general state of political relations in Central Europe. It is not to indicate that we look at an agreement with a grain of salt. It is to indicate one of the facts of life that has to be taken into account and that a fair assessment of the situation in Berlin has to be put before the American public. But it does not affect our desire in these negotiations to improve those procedures that can be improved.

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Q Dr. Kissinger, how does the United States help the prisoners in North Vietnam by keeping American forces in South Vietnam?

DR. KISSINGER: It helps the prisoners in North Vietnam by keeping American forces in South Vietnam by giving the North Vietnamese an incentive to negotiate about the release of American prisoners in North Vietnam in return for the withdrawal of American forces from South Vietnam.

Q Dr. Kissinger, if you retreated from our original goals of going into Vietnam in the first place, all of Indochina, the Domino theory and so forth, would we still have the same purposes we went in for, self-determination of the people?

DR. KISSINGER: Helen, it is not always self-evident, but this Administration did not go into South Vietnam.

Q I am talking about the United States. I understand President Nixon supported it.

DR. KISSINGER: The report makes clear that the one irreducible objective we have in the negotiations is to preserve the right of self-determination of the South Vietnamese. But we will not, as an American decision, turn over the government against the wishes of the people in South Vietnam to the other side.

So, we have not retreated from that objective. But I would prefer to talk about the objectives that we have stated, fully stated, in this report rather than go into an analysis of the various reasons that may have been put forth five or six years ago, which I have not studied in all of that detail.

Q Dr. Kissinger, how does the President view the resolution proposed by a majority of the Democratic Senators for a definite date for cut-off or removal of all American troops from Vietnam?

DR. KISSINGER: I have stated, which is not covered in this report of in this briefing, that the subject matter is confined to this report.

Q How critical, sir, is the condition on our withdrawal from Vietnam is the presence of North Vietnamese troops in Laos and Cambodia? Can you discuss that. Can we withdraw while they are there, would we?

DR. KISSINGER: There are two different circumstances in which we might withdraw. One is a negotiated settlement, and the other one is as part of our Vietnamization program.

As part of our Vietnamization program, it is by definition related to the ability of the South Vietnamese to defend themselves. Under the conditions that the withdrawal takes place unilaterally, it would assume that the South Vietnamese are able to defend themselves even with the presence of North Vietnamese troops in Cambodia and Laos reserving, of course, the right for themselves to act against these North Vietnamese forces in Cambodia and Laos insofar as their strength permits.

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So, our Vietnamization program takes into account
that if the withdrawals are unilateral the South Vietnamese
will have to be in a position to defend themselves as well
against the movements that may come at them through Cambodia
or Laos.

Q Is it safe then to say that even if North
Vietnamese troops were to remove themselves from South
Vietnam, we still might find it necessary to stay in South
Vietnam as long as the Vietnamization had not reached the
point where they could deal with the enemy in Laos and Cambodia?

DR. KISSINGER: I can assure you we are not looking
for excuses to stay in South Vietnam, even though that is not
always obvious when I read some of the public commentaries.

I would have to say that the removal of North
Vietnamese troops from South Vietnam would be a matter that
we would have to take very seriously in assessing the necessity
of our own troops and the ability of the South Vietnamese
to control their own territory.

Q Dr. Kissinger, may I ask one question on the
Middle East, please? Would you describe what differences
there are in the President's views, if any, between the
matter in this report and the views, say, of a year ago at
the time of Secretary Rogers' proposals in December of 1969?

DR. KISSINGER: I don't want to get into a discussion.
Obviously, when the Secretary of State speaks, he represents
Administration policy and he does not represent a personal
idiosyncrasy.

Secondly, this report attempts to account for the
general approach that we have taken towards the negotiations
and towards a settlement in the Middle East, both in terms
of the Arab-Israeli negotiations in the Jarring forum, and
secondly, in the discussions we have had with the Soviet
Union bilaterally and in four-power forums with the other
countries.

This is what this report discusses and it does not
go into the details of what particular views we would have
about particular aspects of a settlement, which we have
always stated should be principally negotiated among the
parties concerned.

Q Dr. Kissinger, on page 150 in the SALT
section, you referred to the necessity for agreement on both
the defensive and offensive weapons systems. Do you mean to
say that this must be written into a single agreement, and
are you ruling out an agreement on limited ABM's and some kind
of tacit understanding on freezing deployment?

DR. KISSINGER: This document on SALT explains the
American position as it has been taken in the existing
negotiations, in the negotiations as they have gone up to this
point.

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We do not want to get into a position where we spend
most of our time negotiating with ourselves. So far, we are
in the process within this government now of analyzing what
occurred at the last session.

We have not yet issued instructions to Ambassador
Smith for the next session of SALT. We are assuming that the
Soviet Union will also review our considerations as we have
put them forth at the last session and that they will put
forward certain views at the next session in Vienna.

And until that happens, it would be premature for me
to speculate what particular relationship between offensive
and defensive forces we will consider the ultimate shape of
an agreement should take.

Q This is not a question of speculation. In this
speech, sir, you have used the language "agreement". What I am
asking is whether or not you mean by that agreement that
includes the limitations on ---

DR. KISSINGER: Where are you?

Q Page 150, last paragraph, last sentence.

DR. KISSINGER: We have explained here what differences
exist and we are stating what the difference is. We are making
an inventory of the existing differences of the views each side
has taken. This is a correct expression of the views which
both sides have taken. And I do not want to speculate in
detail about the evolution of the various positions.

Q Will the President's speech tomorrow be
a digest or an interpretation of this document?

DR. KISSINGER: I suppose it will be both.

MR. ZIEGLER: We are going to have to wrap up here
because of time. We will take this as a final question.

Q On page 39, the report talks about the United
States' willingness to maintain cooperation with neighbors
in the Western Hemisphere regardless of their diversity.

Is this a suggestion that we might try to normalize
relations with Cuba?

DR. KISSINGER: We have stated that the general view
of this Administration is that we judge governments by their
actions in the international field and that this has
characterized our relations with Chile. The general judgment
of the Administration heretofore has been that Cuba continues
to be dedicated to the violent export of revolution, so that
its actions in the international field have been an obstacle
up to now, but the general principle has been expressed in
this document and would be applied equally.

THE PRESS: Thank you.

END

(AT 5:06 P.M. EST)